by Daniel Young
Lana grimaced at the side of her sister’s head. “You really need to take a vacation from all this thinking, Liri. You’re stupid if you think he’ll actually let us fly away in this ship after he gets where he wants to go. He’d be out of his head not to keep the ship for himself. Anyone would be nuts to just give away a ship like this.”
Liri took another slurp of her soup. She hardly breathed, murmuring into her spoon. “He wouldn’t need the Blackout. He’d have every ship in the whole Zenith Militia at his disposal.”
Lana smashed her fist on the table and kicked over the bench, standing up fast. “That’s enough, Liri! We’re going downstairs and extending the Skeeter’s buffer guard around the discharge ramp. No more questions!”
She grabbed her sister and hauled Liri out of the commissary with their soup still piping in the bowls. Their footsteps faded the way they’d come. Roy’s heart pounded in his ears as he listened to the last bang. That rotten traitor was going to try to take the ship!
He waited only long enough to make sure they didn’t come back and see him. He would stop them. He would make sure Captain Keogh didn’t go anywhere near the discharge ramp until he was good and ready. If anyone was going to get jettisoned into space, it would be those two foul bitches. They were the source of every problem since he and Captain Keogh had crashed on Keter. Just wait until the captain found out!
He hustled out of the infirmary and raced to the cockpit. He discovered Quort and the captain bent over the pilot’s station. “Captain!” Roy blurted out.
“Hold up a sec.” The captain turned back to Woolzi. “You said there’s another—”
“Captain!” Roy thundered. “Those filthy witches are taking the ship!”
Jackson straightened up and his eyes widened. “Who is? What witches are you talking about?”
“The twins! They’re waiting to ambush us down in the discharge ramp—whatever the hell that is.”
Jackson blinked at him. Then he relaxed. “If they’re waiting to ambush us down there, they can stay there.” He turned back to Woolzi. “How many did you say were inside the…?”
“Captain!” Roy thundered. “You can’t let a bunch of cutthroat mutineers just sit there! They’re hiding in the Skeeter. They’re using the buffer guard to hide their location and they mean to ambush you and me when we go down there to find them.”
“But you just told me their location,” Jackson pointed out. “If we know where they are and what they’re doing, we don’t need to go looking for them and we won’t get ambushed.”
He started to turn back to Woolzi. This wasn’t the response Roy was expecting. “The Skeeter is armed! Don’t you know that? They could blow the whole ship.”
“And blow themselves up in the process? I doubt that.”
Jackson started to turn back to what he was doing. Quort and Woolzi regarded Roy with disdain—at least, Quort regarded him with disdain. Roy couldn’t tell what Woolzi was regarding him with. “You mean you’re…” Roy struggled to put his feelings into words. “You mean you’re just going to leave them down there when they plan to ambush us and jettison us into space?”
Jackson straightened up again—slower this time. “Let me get this straight. There are six people on this ship, and four of them are in this room right now. You’re telling me this in front of the other two, so I guess that means you don’t consider Quort and Woolzi mutineers. Am I following you so far?”
Roy looked back and forth from Quort to Woolzi, and then to the captain. “Uh...yeah.”
“So that leaves Liri and Lana. You say they’re planning to ambush us on the discharge ramp, but since you told me what they’re doing, they won’t be able to get the jump on us.”
Roy shuffled his feet. He didn’t like where this was going.
“What did you hear? How did you find out what they were doing?”
“I was in the commissary…well, actually, I was in the infirmary and they went into the commissary. They were eating, and Lana said they could throw us and Quort off the ship and run off with Woolzi to Keter.”
“So tell me something I don’t know. What happened then?”
“Liri said we were better off working together, and with only one pilot and two gunners, they wouldn’t be able to get back to Keter to refuel.”
Jackson’s eyebrows shot up. “So it was only Lana who wanted to take the ship—not Liri?”
“Don’t tell me you actually trust her. They’re working together! They went off to the discharge ramp together and I didn’t hear Liri arguing then. Don’t you see? They would never work against each other. They’re twins. Of course they’re working together.”
“All right, Roy. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll split up and take different routes to the discharge ramp. We’ll ambush them instead of letting them ambush us.”
Roy punched his palm. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
“Go get yourself armed, and I’ll meet you downstairs in five minutes. You better come with us, Quort. Woolzi, you stay here.”
“Sure—Woolzi flies the ship.”
Roy raced off to the lower deck. The compartments clicked open when he arrived, and he grabbed every weapon he could lay his hands on. He would show those treacherous fiends what happened to people who mutinied on his ship.
The captain showed up a minute later. He took only two weapons in addition to the one he already had. Roy frowned at him. “What are you doing? That won’t go very far.”
Jackson made a face. “There are only two of them and three of us. You took the element of surprise away from them.”
“What if they use the Skeeter’s weapons against us?”
“They’d blow a hole in the ship if they did that. They won’t do anything to put themselves at risk.”
“They’re inside the Skeeter with the buffer guard extended. What makes you think they won’t blow a hole in the ship and sail away in the Skeeter?”
Jackson turned one of his weapons over in his hand. He examined the fuel port on the underside and checked the power level. “They won’t do that, either. The Skeeter’s fuel feed track is inoperable.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I made it inoperable.”
Roy furrowed his brow. “When did you do that?”
“Just now. I told Woolzi to remotely deactivate the Skeeter’s feed track. The twins won’t be able to launch the Skeeter or use its weapons.”
Jackson ducked behind the stairs, where another door led to the discharge ramp. He took hold of the handle, cracked it open, and peeked through. Then he came back, passed Roy, and opened what looked like any harmless weapons storage cabinet.
Instead, it revealed a conduit packed with shiny coiled tubes interconnected and knotted in complicated patterns. “Climb through here to the exhaust manifold. From there, you can crawl under the discharge ramp and come up through the fueling portal directly underneath the Skeeter. Quort is going through the duct vent along the fuel feed track. It might take him a few minutes to get to the discharge ramp, but as soon as he does, I’ll enter from here. You wait until you see me on the ramp, engaging with the twins. Then you can come up behind them. Understand?”
Roy nodded. Jackson pointed his chin toward the conduit. “In you go.”
Roy had to pocket all his weapons to squeeze himself into the conduit. It turned out to be a lot more cramped than he liked, but with the captain’s plan unfolding so brilliantly, Roy didn’t complain.
Roy tried to get in feet first, but once he got in, he couldn’t see where he was going. Jackson stood aside and waited while Roy hauled himself out of that position and then dove in head and shoulders first.
This proved challenging on its own, but at least he could see. With his arms in front of him, he could even hold a weapon to face anything he might meet in here.
Jackson stuck his head inside. “Take this. You’ll need it.”
He pressed a flashlight into Roy’s hand. Jackson clicked the button to turn it on
. Then, after retreating out of the hole, Jackson closed the cabinet.
Roy’s flashlight illuminated the path ahead, and he was armed and ready for anything. He was on his way to do righteous battle against a vindictive enemy. He didn’t need to know anything else.
He scrambled on knees and elbows, wedging himself through the conduit. He only hoped he reached the discharge ramp before Quort arrived from the other side. If Quort and Jackson got all the glory of fighting the twins, Roy would never forgive himself.
His body heat and the effort of crawling suffocated him. Sweat ran into his eyes, but he didn’t stop pushing until he reached a T-intersection. A sign on the conduit wall read Main Exhaust Manifold, with an arrow pointing to the left. This must be it.
He slithered into the manifold. It was much bigger—well, a little bit bigger, but at least it didn’t have bundles of wires and coils getting in his way. It was just an empty, open tube. Roy made better progress here. In a few seconds, the manifold curved upward to another sign. Skeeter Fueling Portal. Perfect.
Roy rotated onto his knees. The portal was a curved manhole in the discharge ramp floor. Two steel grips jutted from it. Roy laid down his weapon and his flashlight and took hold. He turned them slowly to avoid unnecessary noise, but the smoothly oiled threads didn’t squeak once.
Roy eased himself up. He rested the manhole cover on his head while he raised his eyes above the rim. He was directly under the Skeeter, with the landing gear and anchors at the points of the compass. The whole expanse of the discharge ramp spread around him. The door through which Jackson had just looked was less than twenty yards away. Jackson himself waited right behind it.
Roy scanned the discharge ramp. What he wouldn’t give to be able to see inside the Skeeter itself. He could just imagine the twins’ reaction when they discovered they couldn’t power it up.
Where would Quort come out? Jackson had seemed to indicate that Quort would reach the discharge ramp first, but that made no sense. Why would Jackson send Quort through the fuel feed track if they were going to assault the Skeeter from the same place? Jackson could have just taken Quort to the entrance straight from the cockpit.
Something thumped inside the Skeeter. Were those voices Roy heard? Nice and easy, he slid the manhole cover aside. He switched off the flashlight and picked up two weapons, one in each hand—one for each twin. Ha! He couldn’t wait to shut Lana’s acid mouth. Who did she think she was, calling him a nob anyway?
He straightened his knees and stood all the way up through the manhole. His feet still rested in the exhaust manifold, and his head almost touched the Skeeter’s underside. From here, he would be able to see the instant Quort and Jackson appeared. Roy would be able to get out of the manifold quickly and attack the twins from behind.
The moment he got into position, the door opened at the top of the ramp. Jackson sauntered out. He held his weapon down next to his thigh, not out. His gaze found Roy, but Jackson didn’t acknowledge him. He didn’t even nod.
Roy’s pulse quickened. He tightened his grip on his weapons. He propped his arms against the floor and started to pull himself out of the manifold.
He got his knees on the floor when he saw something moving behind a grate on the other side of the ramp. Quort hunched his ungainly body behind the grate, holding two weapons of his own.
Jackson stayed near the wall. He opened a speaker pad and spoke into it. “Come on out, Lana. You can’t get out of here, and we know you’re lying in wait to ambush us. The game’s over. You aren’t taking the Blackout.”
The speaker broadcast his voice all over the ship. It must have broadcast inside the Skeeter, too, because another speaker blared Lana’s cruel laugh. “I think you’ll find it’s you that can’t take the Blackout, Captain.” She jeered the last word with an extra dose of contempt that made Roy’s blood boil. “You and your pathetic little friends can get on board the Skeeter. We’ll do you a favor by deactivating the bombardment stack, and then you can sail this tub back to Zenith or wherever it is you want to go. Liri and I will take Woolzi back to Keter, and you can live the rest of your lives in undying gratitude to us for leaving you alive instead of blowing you to pieces.”
Jackson kept his voice steady. “I can’t let you do that, Lana. Besides, you have no weapons to fight us with. Come out and we’ll disarm you until Quort and Roy and I get home.”
In place of her voice answering him, a subtle vibration went through the Skeeter’s hull. It hummed to a tense pitch as the bombardment stack cycled up to fire. Both ejection blocks rotated downward and aimed: one at Jackson, and one at the grate where Quort was hiding. So much for the element of surprise.
Roy froze. Jackson froze. Quort froze. The awful truth struck all three at the same time. Roy stared at Jackson, and Jackson stared back at him with huge eyes. The Skeeter’s weapons were active. Did Woolzi betray them, too? Was he working with the twins all along?
“Put your guns on the floor,” Lana ordered. “Come on out of there, Quort, and don’t even think of trying anything.”
Jackson pursed his lips and shivered. He lowered himself and rested his weapons on the ground at his feet. Quort climbed out of his hiding place and raised his now weaponless hands to show them to the Skeeter.
“Kick your weapon away, Captain—that’s right,” Lana boomed. “Put your hands in the air. Turn around so I can see you aren’t carrying anything else.”
Jackson raised his hands and rotated in a complete circle. Roy could see he wasn’t carrying any other weapon. He’d only brought two, the fool.
When Quort and Jackson faced the Skeeter one more time, Lana told them, “Back against the wall. Don’t move.”
Quort and Jackson inched backward. They took their places against the opposite wall and waited.
Roy’s chest hurt from holding his breath. He stood right under the Skeeter, holding both weapons in his sweaty palms. What kind of scanners did this craft have? The twins must not realize another person was on the ramp waiting to pounce the instant they showed themselves.
A clang startled him out of his skin as something detached from the Skeeter’s underside. A small hatch opened and descended to the floor right in front of Roy’s nose. He crouched low, ready to spring back into the exhaust manifold, but the hatch’s solid floor hid him from view.
Liri and Lana trooped to the ground. They left the hatch open and strode out to confront Jackson. Roy peeked at them from behind. They both held weapons, and pointed them at Quort and Jackson.
Quort fumed in rage. He glared shot daggers at the twins, but he didn’t speak. Jackson stayed calm throughout. He bestowed an indulgent smile on the twins. “You won’t get away with this. You’ll live to regret it.”
Lana snorted. “You’re in no position to threaten us.”
While Jackson, Roy, and Quort watched, she took something out of her pocket. It looked remarkably similar to the device she’d used to free Jackson and Roy from their invisible restraints at the jail. She pointed it at the Skeeter, and the weapons powered down. They rotated upward and the energy died.
Lana faced Jackson curling her lips in a sadistic grin. “You see? You’ll be perfectly safe. You just won’t be able to harm us, so you can keep your threats to yourself.
“I’m not threatening. I’m only pointing out the fact. The minute you encounter any kind of resistance, you’ll wish you had us along to man your guns. Believe me.”
“Shut up.” Lana extended her hand. She aimed her weapon at Jackson’s chest. “Get inside and don’t even think of trying anything, or I’ll blow you away.”
Jackson rounded on Liri. “Don’t tell me you’re going along with this, Liri. Don’t tell me you could be stupid enough to think this is a good idea. You’re better than this.”
She had her back to Roy so he couldn’t see her face. “You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know who or what I am. You should know better than to jump to conclusions about strangers you just met.”
Jackson shrugged. “
You’re right. I should. Maybe I just wanted to trust you. I still don’t think I was wrong to do that.”
“Quit stalling,” Lana barked. “Get in and buckle up. You’re going for a ride.” She looked around. “Where’s that big ape of yours?”
Roy tiptoed around the hatch. He inched across the floor, ready to blast the twins in the back. One thing he wasn’t going to do. He wasn’t going to let these villainous women lock Quort and Captain Keogh in the Skeeter. No way.
He slid his thumbs onto the firing mechanisms of both his weapons. He raised his arms and took aim, at Liri with one hand and at Lana with the other. He was gonna enjoy this.
“Well?” Lana snapped. “What are you waiting for? Do it!”
Roy wedged his thumb against his weapon to fire when, with no warning at all, Liri pivoted her arm sideways. She locked her elbow at a right angle to her shoulder and fired directly into the side of her sister’s head.
14
Jackson leaned over Lana, pried back her eyelid, and shone a flashlight into her eye. Her pupil dilated before returning to normal. “She’ll be fine. She’s got a concussion. That’s all.”
Roy ran his fingers through his hair and puffed out his cheeks. “Holy flamin’ shit. I never saw anything like that! She did not just do that! She did not just shoot her own sister!”
Liri scrutinized her weapon. She sat on the infirmary counter while she unscrewed the fuel cell chamber on its back side. “It doesn’t take a genius to reprogram one of these to a lower setting. Anyone can do it.”
Jackson straightened up and turned around to face her. Now that the surprise of her turning on Lana had worn off, he found himself entertaining an even greater respect for Liri. “Thank you. I realize you took a massive risk for us. I’m grateful.”
She shrugged, and her clear eyes lifted to his face. “You were right. It would be stupid to try to run the ship ourselves.”