Chapter 11--Skylar

Dark, wild lines, scrawled in thick strokes, careened across the floor of the lookout nest, surrounding Skylar. Snarling vines choked scenes of city crowds and structures exploding into flames. His hands—shaking, just slightly—were black with the burnt smudges of charcoal, snatched from the galley ash-bin, that now lay in broken, snubbed scraps around his knees.

He swiped a hand across his damp forehead, leaving a broad smear of black.

He was angry. No—too mild a word. He was furious—livid.

How dare Libby pull a stunt like this? He picked up a chunk of charcoal and hurled it over the side of the lookout nest, watching it sail through the air and into the foliage below. The Defoe was moored between two low hills at the foot of the Vuori Mountains, where—in theory—they could keep a lookout for Libby’s return.

Why in the world did she think this was a good idea? If she had only said something—Skylar would have gone with her, or they could have gone back…but no. Impulsive as always, Libby had gone off on her own, put herself in danger—and maybe the rest of them too. If the White Tiger caught her, they could make her tell them everything.

He’d seen that firsthand. His blood boiled to think of Libby in the hands of Sergai’s agents, intent on “extracting” whatever they could.

He tugged at the rag tied around his mechanical left arm, straightening it. It caught on a protruding screw, and he gritted his teeth in frustration. The outer casing that had protected the intricate inner workings of his arm was gone and now protected the tiny gears and springs clicking and whirring in Maricossa’s clumsy new prosthetic.

Cannibalized.

Not that Skylar minded—not too badly. His mechanical bits had been in place for years. He could stand to be a bit unprotected. Maricossa’s new, raw prosthetic, with its delicate marriage of tendons and bones and metal, needed shielding. Skylar would just have to be more careful for a while, until they reached Tianzhu. The Professor promised to replace everything once they regained civilization.

Though, if Skylar had to work one more bit of dust out of a tiny gear with one of Hez’s compass points…

He huffed a heavy breath out his nose and stared up at the clear blue sky of early evening over his head. He’d been up here almost all day. He didn’t trust himself around the kids—his temper was too foul, and there was nowhere to go cool off. He had to sit. Stare at the sky and the unending sea of green limbs and the great grey heaps of the mountains rising behind him. And try not to worry.

Because, under all of his anger, he was worried—desperately worried. Libby was alone, possibly in danger, and he had no way of knowing, let alone doing anything about it.

Hez was in almost as foul a mood as Skylar. The moment he saw Libby’s note, he started for the wheel, determined to head back and track her down. But the Professor—even as he started toward the cabin to deal with Maricossa’s injuries—intervened.

“We cannot go back,” he said, his calm voice rising above the confused chatter of the kids. The ship’s deck fell silent, and Hez gripped the wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white, but he listened.

“Libretto has taken a risk,” the Professor continued. “Possibly a foolish one—possibly not. However, we cannot risk the lives and freedom of everyone else on this ship. Better to find a place where we can await her return, and, if she doesn’t reappear soon, venture after her from a safe location.”

The Professor didn’t wait to hear Hez agree or argue, but disappeared below to tend the wounded Maricossa.

Skylar hadn’t liked the dark look on Hez’s face. The pirate silently obeyed the Professor’s suggestion, but as soon as the ship was moored, he retreated to the galley to spread his maps and charts on the table, planning a half-dozen rescue routes. And he hadn’t said a word to the Professor about any of them.

With a sigh, Skylar swept up the bits of charcoal he’d been drawing with and tossed them out into the waves of foliage, where they silently vanished. The sky was turning periwinkle with the coming of sunset, and the light wisps of clouds in the west—toward Shandor Rei—were tinged with orange and bright pink. Squinting into the golden light of the setting sun, Skylar wondered—

Wait.

He lifted his hand to shield his eyes, manipulating the mechanical one to zoom in on a dark shape appearing out of the light. He sucked in a sharp hiss through his teeth.

“Ship,” he breathed. Then, louder— “Ship!” Leaning over the edge of the lookout nest, he yelled below:

“Ship!”

Hez burst out of the galley, his pistol already drawn. “Get everyone below,” he shouted. “Skylar, get down here and man a cannon!”

Skylar swung over the side of the lookout nest and clambered down as quickly as he could without his foot slipping from the wooden pegs that made a ladder down the mast.

“It could be Libby,” he said, landing on the deck with a thunk.

Hez was holding a spyglass to his eye. He brought it down with a muttered curse. “It could be,” he growled, “or it could be the White Tiger, or it could be a merchant ship on its way to Zazibay, or it could be another pirate craft. I can’t see with that blasted sun…” he clapped his hand on Skylar’s shoulder. “Battle station, boy. One way or another, we’ll deal with this.”

“What’s going on?” The Professor stepped out of the main cabin and peered quizzically at Hez through his spectacles. “Is there a problem?”

Hez pointed his spyglass at the Professor. “Get back in the cabin, old man—make sure tiger boy stays down. I can’t deal with an invalid on my deck right now.”

“It’s a ship, Professor,” Skylar said, ducking down behind one of the shard cannons and flipping open the lid of the ammunition box. “We don’t know if it’s a problem or not.”

Please be Libby, he prayed, while Hez dashed around unfastening the ship’s moorings. If anyone up there is listening, please let it be Libby.

He had no idea if anyone out there would pay any attention to a scruffy cyborg boy on a small airship in the middle of nowhere, but Mrs. Monday prayed sometimes, so he thought…Maybe.

Then again, Mrs. Monday prayed, and Coll had still died.

He shoved that thought away violently, and squinted into the sunlight. The ship was still quite far out, flying low over the dark green waves of the forest. Skylar fingered a glass shard missile, rubbing his thumb along its jagged edge.

Please be Libby…

Hez, beside him on the gunwales, let out a soft grunt.

“What?” Skylar asked.

“It’s my longboat,” the pirate said in a low tone.

Skylar’s heart leaped.

“Don’t get your hopes up yet,” Hez cautioned. He sighted down the length of his shard cannon. “Just ’cause it’s mine doesn’t mean it’s friendly.”

The sun was dropping lower, a fiery ball of vibrant red skimming the horizon. Black and silhouetted against it came the longboat. Closing his natural eye, Skylar strained, pushing his mechanical eye’s magnification abilities to the max. The gears behind the glass lens whirred in complaint, and he felt the heat build in his eye-socket. Pushing the discomfort aside, he struggled to focus on the longboat, until he thought he could make out—

“Libby!”

He bolted to his feet—and staggered, vertigo at the change in perspective painting golden swirls around the corners of his vision. Searing pain stabbed the left side of his head.

“How can you—”

Skylar steadied himself against the railing. “It’s her,” he managed. “I could see her waving.”

“And anyone else on board?” Hez looked up, something akin to concern creasing his brow. “Skylar—you alright?”

“I need to sit.” Following words with action, Skylar folded onto a crate full of shard ammunition. He closed both his eyes, and the pain diminished. “I’ve got to shut this thing off for a while,” he admitted. “Think I overheated it.”

Hez turned back to the approaching longboat. “You’d better be right.”

“Listen.”

“No, I mean—I believe you think you saw Libby, but you don’t—”

“No,” Skylar waved a hand. “I mean actually listen.”

Hez fell silent, brushing away a strand of dark hair that had escaped his queue.

“Ahoy!”

The voice was tiny, but Hez heard it too.

“Ahoy there, Defoe!”

The pirate let his shoulders sag with relief, and released the lever on the shard cannon.

“It’s her.”

Skylar spread his cybronic hand magnanimously. “Told you.” He didn’t let Hez see his other hand, which curled into a fist. “I told you.”

Libby came about to the port side of the Defoe and—with much bumping and at least one shout of “Watch my ship!” from Hez—got the longboat tied down. Swiping loose hair out of her damp face with a grimy hand, she stepped up and over the railing.

“I’m home,” she announced, just as the younger children tackled her. “Oomph,” she exclaimed, going down in a flurry of arms and legs.

“Libby, Libby, we had a fight!”

“Mr. Maricossa is asleep and I got to see his knifes.”

“There was pirates and we was pirates and stuff was going ever-where!”

“I got a splinter!”

Skylar stood back, relief and anger warring in him. Libby looked up over Mia’s tussled head and met his eyes. Pride and defiance and regret shone in her gaze, and he looked away—just in time to see Hamlet, with Brick close behind, step over the railing.

“Hamlet!” Skylar called, relieved at the distraction. He stepped forward. “Good to see you a—”

He froze.

A third figure climbed over the ship’s rail, wincing, and favoring his left side. His thick blonde hair was slightly too long, and his clothes hung loosely on a frame that had been bulkier the last time Skylar saw him. But there was no mistaking who it was.

“Coll?” Skylar’s voice rasped, and he felt tears sting his eye.

“My boy!” Mrs. Monday shoved past him and gathered Coll into her arms, tears running down her face. “Oh, Coll, oh my boy—you’re alive, you’re alive…”

“He’s alive.” For the second time, Skylar felt like he needed to sit, but there was no handy crate this time. “He’s…he’s alive…”

“Hamlet found him.” Libby extricated herself from the pile of children and stood, taking him gently by the arm. “One of the dockworkers saved his life—Connie’s shot was just barely too high. Missed his heart by inches. Hamlet’s been taking care of him and Brick both.”

Skylar squeezed her wrist. “Libby, I—”

“Please don’t be angry with me, Skylar,” she pleaded. “I had to—I had to go back for them.”

He looked down into her eyes, and lifted his hand to touch the freckles on her cheek. “You could have been captured,” he said. “Or killed.”

“But I wasn’t.” She straightened. “I nearly crashed, and I climbed around on that stupid longboat in the middle of the night without a single speck of light and I found a knife and I saved my boat, and I found Hamlet and Brick and Coll and I got us all the way here because I just knew Hez would hide somewhere like this, and this is the fourth place we looked, and I really think you should be saying how proud you are of me instead of being angry with—”

Skylar laughed. He couldn’t help it. All of the anger and fear he had been struggling to keep down was washed away by a flood of relief and joy. Libby was safe. Coll was alive.

“I’m proud of you,” he said. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a swift hug, noting the evil eye Hamlet cast his way. He winked at Hamlet—an easy task, considering he only had one eye operational right now—and stepped back.

Libby stared up at him, her mouth ever-so-slightly agape.

“Well,” she said. “Well.”

“This calls for a celebration!” shouted Mrs. Monday, her face reddened from crying, but beaming with such joy that it felt as though all the shadows of night suddenly fled.

Coll, one arm around his mother, and a damp patch on the front of his shirt where she had wept, grinned at Skylar.

“I am a bit hungry,” he said.

Skylar had never heard more beautiful words. He stepped forward, and clapped Coll on the arm.

“Good to have you back,” he said, his voice catching a bit in his throat.

Coll threw his arm around Skylar’s shoulders. “It’s good to be back,” he agreed.

Skylar cleared his throat, and gestured toward the galley. “We’ll let Hamlet have run of the kitchen,” he said. “Maybe we’ll get some good food for a change.” Taking Libby’s hand, he grinned down at her.

Coll, his best friend, whom he had seen shot down in front of him, had returned from the dead. Libby was safe. They had escaped Shandor Rei and the White Tiger.

It was most certainly time to celebrate.

Late that night, long after Mrs. Monday had put the children to bed, Skylar, Hez, the Professor, Libby, Hamlet and Coll sat around the fire that they had built in a clearing beneath the Defoe. It had dwindled to ashes, and the darkness of the woods seemed a safe blanket of protection, hiding them from the eyes of the White Tiger.

Skylar sat on a log with Libby’s head on his shoulder. Her eyes drooped, and he looked down at his right hand. Libby’s fingers fit perfectly, threaded through his own.

“…So Maricossa is laid up for at least another day or two,” the Professor was explaining to Hamlet and Coll. “You saw him at dinner—he couldn’t fight a kitten, let alone a tiger.” He grinned. “See what I said—a tiger? Like the White Tiger—”

“We caught it, Prof,” Coll said with a smile.

“How far is it to Tianzhu?” Hamlet asked, looking up at the Defoe. “I always thought it was sort of on the other side of the world—can we make it in a ship this small?”

Hez picked up a long stick and poked at the fire, sending smoke and tiny sparks into the air. “Oh, the Defoe can make it—she’s sturdier than she looks. It’s a crew I’m worried about. Can these kids handle the voyage? I can’t sail this ship alone. Plus, Tianzhu is at least a month’s voyage from here, and that’s assuming we make no stops. We have enough food and water on board to last us about a week—maybe ten days if we stretch it.”

Libby sleepily raised her free hand. “They can do it,” she said. “They’re hard workers.”

Hez looked at her, and his face softened. He raised his face to the hovering underbelly of his ship, hanging above their heads.

“I believe you,” he said at last. He stood, and extended his hand for Libby to take.

“Get some sleep,” he said, nodding at Skylar and the others. “We sail at dawn.”

Chapter 8--Skylar

It was a tense ride. Hez was correct—their longboat was far lighter than the White Tiger’s craft, but the larger boat stayed in sight the whole way back to the bunker.

“They won’t catch us,” Skylar muttered to Libby, glancing over his shoulder at the looming menace behind them. “But this’ll be a squeak.”

She looked up from where she was kneeling in the gunwales beside the injured Maricossa, and bit her lip. Skylar put his hand—the flesh-and-bone one, not the metal one—on her shoulder and squeezed gently. “Mrs. Monday and the Professor will take care of him,” he assured her, hoping it was true. He cast a look back at the pursuing craft. “He’ll be fine.”

Hez, at the tiller, shouted through the wind to Skylar. “Hey, ’borg! Get him—” he jabbed his chin at the semi-conscious Maricossa “—ready. We’re going to have to make this fast.”

Skylar gritted his teeth at the pirate’s epithet and started helping Maricossa into a sitting position on one of the benches. “Wake up, Maricossa,” he grunted, heaving the larger man’s arm over his shoulder. “You’re going to have to help me a bit here.”

Maricossa groaned and opened his eyes. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said, breathing heavily. He let Skylar hoist him onto the bench, and then hunched over his wound, which had bled through the bandages in places. “…I don’t think.”

Over the prow of the longboat, Skylar could see where the long silver line of the Shandor plunged over into an abyss of spray and mist. The bunker waited, and he clenched his metal fist with a clack, hoping everyone was ready.

They had to be ready.

Hez swept over the top of the waterfall and dropped the longboat down, using the currents of air off the water to spin the boat until the prow faced the large gap in the wall of water. Through the spray, Skylar could see the Defoe waiting, and small figures milling about.

With what seemed like painful slowness, Hez brought the longboat into the cavern and set her down—none too gently—on the stone floor. “Mrs. Monday!” he shouted, throwing a rope over the side and leaping after it. “Professor!”

Skylar grabbed Maricossa’s arm around his shoulder and stood, heaving the injured man to his feet. “Lib,” he grunted. “Go get the kids. I’ll take care of—”

“Right.” She leaped over the edge of the longboat and started calling the children together, shepherding them onto the Defoe and forming the older ones into an assembly line to load the supplies from the longboat into the larger ship.

“Hezekiah?” The Professor was shrugging into a sweater as he came, and his eyes opened wide behind his spectacles, taking in Maricossa’s condition. “Oh, my,” he tutted. “We should treat that immed—”

“No time.” Maricossa stood upright, and released Skylar’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Get those kids aboard.”

Skylar nodded and dropped over the side of the longboat, reaching back to grab and armful of goods to carry. “The Professor will take care of you,” he said to Maricossa, casting a worried eye on the older man’s blood-soaked bandages. If they lost Maricossa now, after finally coming to trust him… And that wound was worse than he was letting on.

Maricossa cradled his injured hand and gritted his teeth. “Go on, Sky,” he said. “We don’t have time.”

True. The blue sky was still bare of enemy ships, but they couldn’t have gained more than a thirty minute lead on the White Tiger. They’d be here soon.

Skylar started to turn away, but Maricossa added, “And Skylar—find Mia. Please.”

“I will,” Skylar promised.

 “Skylar?” Mrs. Monday appeared from the makeshift kitchen at the back of the cavern, wiping her hands on a towel. “What’s going on?”

“We have to get everyone onto the ship,” Skylar answered, hefting his load of supplies over his shoulder. “The White Tiger are on their way.”

She threw the towel over her shoulder. “Everything is loaded—we just need what you brought, and the children.”

Skylar nodded.

The next ten minutes were a flurry of action as sacks were unloaded from the longboat and stashed away as quickly as possible. Skylar saw the Professor help Maricossa up the gangplank and into the captain’s cabin, but he had no time to worry about the injured man. Some of the smaller children were crying—Mia, in particular, had curled into a ball in a corner of the cavern and was sobbing inconsolably. She refused to board the Defoe, and no one could quite reach her.

Looking around in vain for Libby, Skylar knelt next to the tiny girl, his metal parts clanking in protest. “Mia,” he said, trying to sound gentle even as his mind screamed that the other ship was going to be here in seconds! “Mia, come out, please?”

Sobbing, she refused, shaking her head vehemently.

Any second!

“Mia—I’ll take you to Maricossa,” Skylar pleaded.

Her little eyes, brimming with tears in a reddened face, looked up at him. “Maricossa?”

Heartened, Skylar nodded and extended his hand. “Yeah—Maricossa. Come on, I’ll take you to him.”

She looked at his hand doubtfully for a second, and then—to Skylar’s relieved sigh—she took it and allowed him to pull her from her hiding place. He hoisted her onto his hip and jogged back to the Defoe.

“That’s everyone!” he shouted up to Hez, stumbling onto the deck. “Let’s go!”

Hez slashed a rope with his dagger and the gangplank clattered to the ground. “Strap yourselves in, kiddos!” he roared. “Below deck!”

Skylar carried Mia to the captain’s cabin and pushed the door open. Inside, Maricossa was sitting hunched on the edge of the bunk, grimacing at the balding top of the Professor’s head. The Professor examined Maricossa’s bandaging, and shook his head.

“I can’t take off the bandages right now,” he said. “As soon as we’re off and safe, I’ll take care of it, but for now you just need to lie down and—”

“I can’t lie down,” Maricossa protested, trying to push himself to his feet. The Professor grabbed his shoulders and shoved him back onto the bunk.

“Boy,” he said in a firm voice, “You have lost far too much blood to be waltzing around in the middle of a daring escape—not to mention the fact that you’re going into shock. Now lie down.”

Skylar let Mia slide off his hip and onto the floor. “Stay in here,” he told her. “Don’t come outside, no matter what, ok?”

She nodded up at him, tear tracks still marking her cheeks.

“Skylar,” Maricossa said, “We have to get the books—the kids out of here. We have to…” He swayed woozily, shaking his head in frustration.

Skylar, unnerved to see Maricossa—usually the strongest of them all—so shaken, stepped back. “We’ve got it covered,” he lied. “Just…” Just get better, he wanted to say. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

He left before Maricossa could say another word, taking a deep breath as he stepped back into the chaos on the deck. The Defoe was lifting, moving toward the entrance of the bunker, her balloons straining at the ropes and the sails starting to flutter in the updraft of air from the waterfall.

“Skylar!” Hez shouted at him from the wheel. “Get up here!”

Skylar hurried up the deck, joining Hez, the older children, and Mrs. Monday.

“We have maybe ten minutes before they’re on us,” Hez said, throwing levers and spinning the wheel. Above their heads, various ropes and connecting pulleys clicked and shifted. Hez jerked his chin toward six small cannons lining either side of the Defoe’s deck—three on each side. “It’s going to be a fight. We’re lighter and smaller, but they’ve got heavier artillery. That’s good and bad—good, because it makes them even heavier and slower. Bad, because we don’t have the firepower for a fair fight.” He grinned darkly, and a maniacal gleam shone in his eyes. “So it’s a good thing I don’t fight fair.”

Skylar laid his hand on the nearest cannon. It was oddly small, and rather than being made of iron it was… “Leather?”

Hez nodded, fastened the wheel in place, and leaped down to the main deck. “Watch and learn, lubbers,” he said. He flung the lid off a small trunk that sat fastened to the deck beneath the leather cannon.

“Leather—again, it’s lighter. Also, you’ll see here—” he grabbed a handle that protruded from the side “—no firepower. This is all in your arm. You crank this lever, the belt inside moves—reciprocating gears make it fast enough to work—and it shoots these.” He reached into the trunk and pulled out a small, shining shard. Skylar and the others leaned closer.

“Is that glass?” Mrs. Monday exclaimed.

Hez nodded proudly. “My own invention. The shards slice up the balloons—that’s what we’re aiming for. Slash those gas-bags, and their ship goes down.” He looked around at the ragtag bunch, and sighed.

“What I wouldn’t give,” he bemoaned, “for my own crew back again. Instead, all I’ve got are you bunch of wet-behind-the-ears kids.”

Mrs. Monday raised her eyebrow at him, and crossed her arms over her chest.

Hez shrugged. “No offense, lady,” he said, “but I’m a pirate. Not a babysitter.”

They didn’t have time for this, and after weeks of complaining, Skylar didn’t have the patience to deal with Hez’s attitude. He stood and came nose-to-nose with the pirate, grabbing Hez’s shirtfront in his metal fist.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” he said, his voice as cool as he could make it, “We have a battle to fight. This is not the time to be complaining about what you don’t have.”

Hez narrowed his eyes. “Let go of me, ’borg,” he ordered.

Skylar tightened his grip. “The name’s Skylar.”

There was tense silence for a second, and then a slow grin spread across Hez’s features. “Let go of me, Skylar.”

Skylar released him, and the pirate stepped back, tugging his shirt straight.

“Alright,” he said. “You’re my crew now. Here’s the plan: don’t hurt my ship, do as much damage to their ship as you can, and don’t die. Everyone take a cannon, familiarize yourself with how it works. You have—” he checked his watch. “Five minutes.”

~*~

The White Tiger ship was faster than they had anticipated. Skylar, looking anxiously off the port stern, shouted as the Defoe broke over the top of the mountain.

“They’re here!”

Hez cursed and threw several levers at once. “We’ve got to stay above them,” he shouted. “Get your cannons ready!”

The enemy fired first.

She was a large ship, equipped with four large balloons painted black with a white claw arching over their curved surface.

“It’s the Ares,” Hez shouted. “I’ve seen her before.” Skylar was just close enough to hear him add, more quietly, “Never had to fight her before.”

Skylar swallowed and adjusted his grip on the wooden handle of his cannon, waiting for the moment when he could line his muzzle up with the Ares’ black balloons.

“Mrs. Monday!” Hez shouted. “Get up here!”

The matronly woman scurried up the stairs to the wheel, and Hez shoved it into her hands. “Hold it just like this,” he ordered. “Do not let her turn an inch to the right or the left.” Then he sprang away, leaping to grab hold of a rope that hung from the balloons above. He scurried up to the golden roof of the silk-covered balloons and began to unfurl some extra canvas that hadn’t been loosed yet. Task completed, he dropped with a thump to the deck beside Skylar.

“That eye help with your aim any?” he asked, gesturing at Skylar’s glass-and-brass eye.

Skylar tapped it. “I can hit a starling with a rock from three rooftops away.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Hez said. “But I’m going to hope it was a yes. Let’s see how good you are at hitting an airship that’s coming at you. I want you to aim for the balloons—go for the center. I’m depending on you—make it through this, and I’ll make you my gunner. Capisce?”

“Got it.” Skylar sighted down the length of his cannon. “Um, Hez?”

“What?”

“They’re coming around.”

The Ares had swung out wide, and was now heading directly for the Defoe, every inch of canvas unfurled and catching a westerly wind that brought them rocketing toward the smaller craft.

On the deck of the Ares, men scuttled about, and a boom! exploded in a poof of grey smoke.

Then another. A cannonball whistled past just under the Defoe’s keel, a clear warning.

“They’re firing!” shouted Dash.

Hez cursed, spinning to rush back up to the forecastle and take the wheel from Mrs. Monday. “Man the cannons, troops!” he roared. “And hold on to your hats!”

The Defoe, with Hez at the wheel and the controls, began to rise, her lighter weight outracing the bulk of the Ares. The larger ship raced closer, but couldn’t get enough wind under her to meet the Defoe, and instead passed underneath.

“Fire!” shouted Hez from the controls. Skylar and the children cranked their cannons, sending a rain of shining glass shards raining down on the larger ship. Several of the shards pierced the taut surface of the balloon, and Skylar heard shouts and curses coming from the other crew, who couldn’t bring their ordinary cannons to bear on a ship so much higher than them.

He shouted, exultant, and reloaded his cannon. The first time he had shot, it had been willy-nilly at the general direction of the oncoming hulk. This time, he took a deep breath to steady his hand—which was shaking with adrenaline—and closed his right eye.

Viewing the world in green and gold highlights through his mechanical eye, he blinked twice, the metal eyelid clacking together. Focus… Zooming in, he made out a place where three of their previous shots had ripped a loose triangle on the surface of the balloon. Not enough to rip a hole, but a single shot to the center ought to finish the job.

He aimed his cannon, tracking the massive balloon as it traveled under the keel of the Defoe, judging his distance. Zing! The shard fired off straight and true, zipping through the sky with the sun glinting off its jagged surface to pierce directly through the target.

With an audible woosh, the Ares began losing altitude. The hole—probably only a handbreadth wide when Skylar first shot—ripped open with the force of released pressure until it gaped six feet long.

Hez leaped from the captain’s wheel and landed next to Skylar, slapping him on the back with a whoop. “You’re hired, mate!” he shouted. “There she goes!”

Sure enough, the Ares was sinking down through the layer of clouds below, taking the enraged crew of White Tiger agents with them.

The children cheered and immediately started telling each other their own versions of what had just happened, elaborating as they went. Skylar, a grin splitting his face, turned to look for Libby.

“Lib?” he called.

Hez glanced around. “Is she in the cabin?”

“She wasn’t when I took Mia in.” Unease tickled Skylar’s belly, nibbling away at his jubilation.

“Libby!” shouted Hez, his voice roaring out over the deck like an order to reef sails or drop anchor. “Libretto con Brio!”

No answer. The children looked at each other, falling silent.

“Skylar?” Dash said, hesitant. “She didn’t come.”

The words hit Skylar like a punch in the gut. “What?”

“She stayed behind. She said to give you this.” He/she stepped forward and drew a scrap of paper from his/her pocket, holding it out to Skylar.

He took it, and read aloud, “We're fine. Don't worry. Let us know the plan. Check in at the grocery, we spend most of our days there. It’s signed ‘Hamlet.’” At the bottom, Libby had added in a hurried scrawl, I’m going back for them. We’ll find you.

His hand dropped to his side, and he desperately scanned the cloud-draped horizon with his mechanical eye, as if Libby might be coming as he looked. It was in vain.

She was gone.

Chapter Five--Skylar

Maricossa was bent over a map of some kind in his little make-shift office when Skylar found him.

Skylar stood for a few minutes, just watching the older man. The bunker was in darkness, and only a few oil lamps illuminated Maricossa’s rugged, unshaven face. The metal snaps and clips on his dark clothing glinted in the dim light, and deep shadows hung around the man’s eyes. He looked tired.

Skylar still wasn’t sure what to think of Maricossa—he never had been, really. Even when they knew that the ex-agent was on their side, there was a measure of distrust that refused to go away. Maricossa was strong, and able, and the sort of capable man that Skylar wanted to be—but that didn’t mean he really trusted him yet.

As if sensing Skylar’s gaze, Maricossa looked up. “Skylar,” he said, straightening. “I thought you went to bed already.”

Skylar stepped into the light and kicked a crate closer. Sitting down, he shrugged. “Everyone else did, I think,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Maricossa rolled his shoulders, and sighed as his back popped. “Are you worried?”

“About what?” Skylar shook his head. “About Tianzhu? About Hez being an idiot? About getting caught by your old girlfriend?”

Maricossa didn’t wince, exactly, but Skylar caught the minute reaction, and stopped himself. “Sorry,” he sighed. “That was low. Yeah—I guess I am worried. A bit.”

Maricossa pulled over another crate and sat down, picking up a thermos from the floor. “Coffee?” he asked, holding it out.

Skylar would rather have drunk tar. “Eh…no thanks.” Coffee was, he thought, one of the most disgusting substances known to man—bitter and biting and dark.

Maricossa popped the lid from the thermos and took a swig. Swallowing it slowly, he looked at Skylar with an intent gaze.

“I’m sorry about Coll,” he said. “And…that it was mostly my fault.”

Skylar tensed, willing himself to stay still in spite of the sudden anger that welled up in him. “Me too,” he said, his voice flat.

This time, Maricossa did wince. “It’s tough,” he admitted, “Losing a friend like that. Losing a friend in any way is hard, but violently…” he shook his head and set the thermos down between his feet, resting his elbows on his knees. “You don’t get over that soon. You won’t. And you shouldn’t.”

That was a bit of a surprise. “I…I shouldn’t?” He’d thought he needed to—there was so much going on, so much at stake. “But we don’t have the time—”

“There’s always time.” Maricossa clasped his hands and looked down at the floor. “Always time to remember. Maybe not in the way we’d like, but you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen or that you’re fine with it all.”

Unbidden, tears sprang to Skylar’s eye, and he blinked them away, his mechanical eye clicking rapidly. He pretended to busy himself with a knob on his arm. “I am fine,” he insisted.

Maricossa reached out and tapped Skylar’s metal arm. Skylar pulled back, but Maricossa just said, in a low voice, “No, you’re not.”

Skylar looked up to meet the other man’s gaze, and saw there an understanding—a layer of something behind the usual man-in-charge air that Maricossa carried. He was right: Skylar wasn’t fine. His best friend, the only friend he had known since the Professor had taken him in after the dog attack that had left Skylar maimed for life, the one person who knew him as well as he knew himself—the brother he had never had—was dead. Gunned down before Skylar’s very eyes, mere inches from safety.

His shoulders sagged.

“What should I do?” he whispered, hearing how young his voice sounded and—for once, for just a moment—not caring.

Maricossa leaned back. “That’s up to you,” he said. “Some people get angry, some cry, some go off and write a book or something. I usually punch a sandbag until my knuckles bleed.” He gave a wry grin. “Just don’t hold it in. You’ll explode.”

Skylar huffed a small laugh. “That’s the last thing we need right now. Everyone else is busy exploding—I can’t add to the mess.”

“Tell you what,” Maricossa said, picking up the thermos and taking another drink. “When we get to Tianzhu, we’ll have a proper service for Coll. His mum deserves it at any rate, and it’ll do us all some good.”

“She’s worse off than me,” Skylar said, glancing back over his shoulder at the darkened hallway, down which Mrs. Monday was sleeping with the smaller children. “She hasn’t cried, hasn’t done anything.” It was a bit frightening, actually.

“She’s a strong woman,” Maricossa assured him. “She’ll manage.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Maricossa sipping at his coffee, and Skylar absently rubbing at the base of his metal thumb as he stared into the flame of the oil lamp.

“Take me with you,” he said suddenly, surprising even himself. “Back to Shandor Rei, I mean.”

Maricossa narrowed his eyes, and lowered the thermos. “Why?”

Skylar wasn’t exactly sure himself. “I need to get out of this cave, for one thing,” he said. “Besides, it’ll be easier and faster to find Hamlet—and Brick if he’s still missing—and get supplies and everything with more than one person. And I can help you manage Hez.”

“He does need managing, doesn’t he.” Maricossa frowned. “There probably more trouble coming there.”

“As soon as he’s back in the port, he’ll want to find his crew,” Skylar said. “He may even try to mutiny…except,” he frowned, thinking. “Is it mutiny if it’s your own ship?”

Maricossa chuckled. “If it’s Hez, it’s mutiny no matter whose ship he’s on. The man’s a pirate born.” He looked thoughtful. “But if I took you and Libby—and maybe the Professor…We could handle Hez well enough.”

“I doubt he’d do anything to put Libby in danger.” Pirate or not, Hez treated Libby like a little sister. “We could just leave him here—”

Maricossa shook his head. “No. I won’t risk him alerting the White Tiger to our presence—not if Mrs. Monday and the kids were here alone.”

“Not to mention the books.”

“Exactly.”

“Then it’ll have to be us—you, me, Libby, and Hez.”

“You don’t think we should take the Professor with us?”

Skylar grinned. “Prof’s great, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “But if we took him with us, it would be like herding cats to get him back on board. He’d want to stop in every shop we passed.”

Maricossa laughed, his warm baritone echoing around the high-ceilinged room. “I can picture that,” he said. “Fine, we’ll leave him here with Mrs. Monday.”

“We need to be ready to leave as soon as we get back, though,” Skylar said, his mind working at the situation like a rat with a bone. “We can’t load all the books back on to the ship, can we? And sail right back into Shandor Rei with them? But we can’t unload them, because we might have to hurry and go…”

“There’s a longboat aboard,” Maricossa explained. “It will hold eight men—that should be enough for us and whatever supplies we need. We’ll get the Defoe ready to sail before we leave, and if we have to make a run for it, she’ll be ready as soon as we get back. Or, if worse comes to worst, Mrs. Monday and the Professor could probably launch her and get someplace if something happens to us.”

Skylar didn’t want to think about that. It was all fine for him, and he had no doubt that Maricossa could fend for himself—but if anything happened to Libby…

“That’s settled, then,” he said. A warm glow filled him as he sat there, almost knee-to-knee with Maricossa, making plans for the future of their little band. He wondered if this was what it was like to be an adult.

“It’s settled,” Maricossa agreed. He stood, and pushed back his crate with a booted foot. “And we’d better get some shut eye. Tomorrow, we’ll reload the Defoe, and after that—”

Skylar stood as well. “After that,” he said, “Shandor Rei.”

Two days later, dawn was breaking in the east as they set sail, lavender and red over a landscape draped with golden fog. Hez was sulking at the wheel, occasionally calling out irritated instructions to check a line or trim a sail. Skylar swung down from checking the netting that held their balloon to the ship and landed—with an ungraceful thump—beside Libby.

“Scared?” he asked her, his voice quiet. She glanced over her shoulder at Hez’s scowling face and Maricossa standing nearby with one hand on a weapon in his belt.

“It’s like being in a cage with a cat and a hawk,” she whispered. “I just don’t know which one’s going to attack first.”

He patted her arm, and they leaned on the ship’s rail, watching the apparently-innocent waterfall fall away below them as the longboat rose above the cliff-top, breaching the crest just as the sun broke over the horizon. Skylar squinted into the light, feeling the fresh morning breeze on his face, with a nip of the fast-approaching winter in the air. Over their heads, the lines that tied the longboat to the parchment-colored balloon hummed and sang, creaking as the ship swayed and Hez set the rudder east-northeast. By nightfall, they would be docking in Shandor Rei, and hopefully would find Hamlet and Brick waiting for them at the Library.

“We’ll be there by nightfall,” Skylar told Libby, “And we’ll find Hamlet and Brick, and get the supplies—and then we’ll be off for Tianzhu.”

That was, of course, assuming that Hez didn’t decide to try and take over once he had his crew nearby, and that the White Tiger didn’t have lookouts watching for them, and that Hamlet had actually found Brick by now, and that a million-and-one other things that could go wrong didn’t.

But Skylar didn’t say any of that. Instead, he stood still as Libby leaned her head against his shoulder, and together they watched the sun rise over the bow of the ship.

“We’ll be fine.”

Chapter Two--Skylar

Skylar ran up the tunnel, pulling Libby after him, both of them ducking low to avoid the rush of leather wings above their heads. His hand, which had been trailing along the wall to keep his balance in the darkness, suddenly felt metal rather than stone.

“This way!” he shouted over the surprisingly loud noise of the bats. He shoved open the side door, and they ducked inside, panting.

Skylar slammed the door shut on the bats. “You okay?” he asked Libby.

It was pitch black, but he could hear that she was breathing harder than him—not from exertion, but from fright.

“I hate bats,” she said in a low, low voice, each word as distinct and sharp-edged as a blade. “Hate them. Hate, hate, hate, hate—”

“Right, I get the idea.” He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, resting his chin atop her head. “I’m not too crazy about them myself.” Skylar didn’t have much practice comforting girls, but to his relief, she didn’t try to pull away, allowing him to soothe her for a long moment. Outside the door, the noise of the bats faded, until there was complete silence in the tunnel. “Better?” he asked.

She stepped back. “Better,” she agreed. “Thank you.”

He gave a half-smile in the darkness, and reached for the door, pulling it open just a bit. “They’re gone,” he said, listening to the darkness. “Wonder where they go?” They hadn’t seen any bats—or at least, not many—until just now. There must be an opening of some kind that led to the outside, something he and Libby hadn’t seen on their way down.

Opening the door fully, he squinted the way they had come, hoping to see the reflection of Libby’s torch on the walls.

Nothing. No light of any kind met his eyes. He jumped when Libby took his hand. “I think you broke the torch,” he whispered.

“Prof’s going to kill me,” she whispered back. “Can you get us out of here?”

Skylar thought back, over all the rooms they’d come through, the turns they’d taken, the places where there was more than one door out of a place, more than one hallway…

“Sure,” he lied, suddenly aware of how far they were from anyone who might help—Maricossa, the Professor, even Hez. But Libby must have heard the slight tremor in his voice, because she squeezed his hand.

“Don’t lie, Skylar.”

He grimaced. “We’re pretty deep, Lib,” he admitted. They should at least make their way back to the cave in, and make sure that the torch hadn’t just rolled to where they couldn’t see it. “Let’s double check the torch, ok?”

Still holding each other’s hands, more for balance and a sense of space than anything else, they retraced their footsteps. Skylar used his metallic arm to feel along the rough wall, the raspy clanging of metal against rock a harsh sound in the otherwise silent tunnel. Suddenly, he bumped up against something.

“The cave-in,” he whispered.

“I don’t see a light…”

Skylar lifted Libby’s hand and placed it against the wall. “Stay here,” he said. “I’m going to see if I can find it. Maybe it just…switched off.” As if, he scoffed mentally. But at this point, it was their only hope. It could take days to find their way back in the dark—if they didn’t get hopelessly lost and end up falling down an open shaft or something.

Carefully edging around the pile of fallen rubble, Skylar found the edge of the doorway on his third try. “I’m going in,” he said.

“Careful, Sky.”

If we get back, he thought to himself as he wedged himself through the narrow gap, No—when we get back, I’m going to make the Professor install some sort of light in this eye of mine. What’s the point of having something like this attached to your head if it’s not useful all the time? “Oomph,” he muttered, falling through the other side with a considerable lack of grace. “Alright, I’m through. Where did you drop the light?”

Muffled through the layer of stone and other fallen rubble, Libby called, “I don’t know.” Her voice was high and slightly breathless. “I was swinging at the bats and it sort of rolled away anyhow but I’m not sure where it went because I was kind of distracted by the little monsters swooping at my head like they were going to rip all the hair out of my scalp like those savages you read about in books like The Travails of Edward Beckett where he gets captured by cannibals and—”

“Libby.” She only did the motor mouth thing when she was really nervous. He wanted to go back and hug her again, but the torch was priority right now.

“Sorry.”

Skylar crouched down, sweeping his arms slowly across the floor on either side. He found pebbles and splinters a-plenty—and a disgustingly crumbly substance he knew to be bat guano—but no torch. “Do you think it could have rolled under a shelf?”

“I don’t know.” Libby’s voice became clearer as she moved to the doorway. “I don’t remember if they went all the way to the floor or not.”

“Hey—stay out there.”

“I’m not coming in.” She was silent for a second, and Skylar moved over a few feet, still sweeping the floor with his hands. “What do we do if you can’t—”

“Ah-ha!” Skylar’s fingers lit on something cool, round, and metal. “Got it.” Please work, please work, please work…He jabbed the switch with his thumb.

Nothing.

“Turn it on,” Libby pleaded.

Skylar felt as though every inch of the earth over his head was suddenly weighing down on him, intent on crushing out his breath. “It’s broke, Lib,” he said. “I can’t turn it on.”

She said nothing, and Skylar stood. It took every ounce of self-control in him to not burst out in anger, cursing everyone and everything and every blasted reason he was lost in a labyrinth of long-forgotten passages in a long-abandoned bunker miles under the earth. All the angry thoughts that he had been shoving back into the corners of his mind sprung forth, and he gritted his teeth in the darkness.

A week ago, he had been enjoying life. He lived with the Professor, Mrs. Monday, and her son Coll in a warehouse by the banks of the Shandor River, and was learning to read in a hidden library deep in the Forgotten Sector, where he had met Libby. Coll was his best friend, Galvin Maricossa was a mysterious but fascinating presence in his life, and his relationship with Libby was moving someplace he didn’t really understand, but was pretty sure he liked.

Now, Maricossa was a double-agent that Skylar still couldn’t wholly trust, the Professor had no time for him, and Coll was dead. Libby was the only thing that hadn’t changed.

“Skylar?” Libby’s voice came through the darkness of the room and the thicker darkness of Skylar’s frustration and brought him back to reality. “What do we do now?”

Skylar shook his head, sweeping away his anger to deal with later. He fingered the useless torch in his hand and thought. Why hadn’t he carried a package of matches with them? If only there was something that could lead them out—a rope, or a groove in the floor or…It hit him with sudden clarity. “We need to follow the bats.”

“What?”

“We need to follow the bats.” Certainty and relief combined in a heady rush, and Skylar felt along the wall until he found the door again. Squeezing back out into the main hall, he explained, “We haven’t seen them going out the main hanger, so they must have some other exit. We’ve just got to find it. That many bats—it ought to be big enough for us to get out.” The last bit was pure bluff—he had no idea how big a bat’s egress had to be. But he couldn’t bear to think that they might find it and be unable to escape, or worse, not be able to find it at all.

“Come on, Lib,” he said, managing to fake a cheerful, brave tone. “Keep your nose peeled—we should be able to smell fresh air. Or…or feel a breeze or something. And they can only go through open doors, so we don’t have to worry about any of the closed ones.”

“Except that we opened most of them on the way here,” Libby pointed out, her tone getting high and breathy again. Skylar groped in the darkness until he found her arm, and took hold of her hand.

“Hey,” he said. “Hey. We’ll get out of here.”

“Promise?”

Skylar swallowed. Then he squeezed Libby’s hand, and tugged her away from the caved-in doorway and back toward home—he hoped.

“Yeah. Promise.”