Chapter 12--Maricossa

Maricossa wanted to scream. He wanted to hit someone. He wanted to shoot himself.

If one more person kindly told him they didn’t need his help, if he heard one more suggestion of “why don’t you just go rest and read a book,” if one more person offered to help him with some paltry task, if his new prosthetic seized up on him one more time, he was seriously considering throwing himself off the Defoe.

As footsteps of varying rhythms and weights thumped across the deck above his head, Maricossa paced in the hold between the rows of bunks, trying to follow orders and stay out of everyone’s way. It seemed staying out of the way was the only thing left to him, at least until he finished healing and learned to use this blasted prosthetic hand.

If he learned to use it.

Groaning through clenched teeth, Maricossa dropped into the bunk Mrs. Monday had assigned him when he moved out of the upstairs cabin, and stared up at the metal parts and pieces now attached to his wrist.

His thumb was still his, normal flesh and bone he could move and feel. His palm and fingers, though, were gone—replaced by machinery. It looked something like an archer’s gauntlet, only made of metal. The professor called it his “new hand,” and assured him that in time he would be learn to use it as well as he’d used his natural one.

Maricossa wasn’t so sure. So far, none of his attempts to use it had ended well.

Skylar had told him to imagine that the metal part was just a glove, that his real fingers were still inside and all he had to do was move them to make the glove move too. He’d tried, over and over. Half the time it wouldn’t move at all. The other half, it jerked into a tight fist and seized up, refusing to relax, literally locking him in the grip of crippling pain. After a very few recurrences of that incident Maricossa had lost all interest in continuing his efforts, despite Skylar’s and the professor’s assurances that he would get the hang of it. Instead, he’d been making do with his left hand.

He was off the pain killers now, not because the pain was gone but because it was easier to cope with than the side effects of the meds. Dizziness and the inability to keep food down simply weren’t worth it. Of course, the pain had its own side effects: he knew he’d been irritable and short with everyone, and he was probably driving them as insane as he felt. He hadn’t slept well in days, and he was unable to do anything but wander around the Defoe, get in people’s way, and think.

Thinking wasn’t a good thing for him to be doing right now. All his thoughts seemed to lead back to Connie, to the realization that he’d been nothing but a tool to her, to the nightmares about her that continued to plague him. Cooped up on board the Defoe and unable to do anything physical, he had no way of escaping the chaos inside his own head.

The creak of a hatch and a pattering set of footsteps pulled him out of his bog of self-pity. What was that phrase he’d read just recently—the Slough of Despond?

Mia peeked around the end of the middle row of bunks.

“Mister Maricossa?” she whispered.

“Yeah, Mia?”

“Are you asleep?”

Maricossa smiled. “No, sweet girl.”

She slipped around the corner and tiptoed towards him. “Hamlet says to tell you supper is ready if you’re not asleep.” She was still whispering.

Maricossa sat up, swung his feet to the floor, and waited a moment. He still had occasional dizzy spells if he stood up too quickly.

Mia approached from the right and started to reach for his hand, but stopped when she realized it was the new mechanical one. Instead, she crossed to his left side and took that hand. Maricossa suspected that the prosthetic hand scared her. It would explain why she’d always been nervous around Skylar.

He let her lead him by the hand to the dining room—a narrow room just off the galley, at the other end of the ship. Small portholes along one wall usually let in some light, but the day was fading fast and the portholes were now on the Defoe’s shaded side. Instead, half a dozen oil lanterns provided dim, sooty light.

Mrs. Monday stood in one corner watching and offering instructions as Dash and Leelee moved along the narrow space between the table and the wall, arranging silverware and napkins.

“No, no, turn the knives the other way, Leelee. There’s a girl. Now, Dashielle, I watched you refold Hezekiah’s map perfectly just this afternoon, so I’m certain you can make that napkin a little neater, wot?”

Mia tugged Maricossa towards the table. “You can sit by me,” she said.

The door at the far end of the room opened and Libby breezed in. “Oh—hey, Maricossa!” she said. “How’s the hand?”

Maricossa wasn’t sure how to answer, so it left it at a half-hearted “Alright.”

“Looked out the window lately?” Libby asked, her eyes wide and a slight smile on her face.

Maricossa shook his head. “Not for a few hours. Why?”

Libby came around the table, turned sideways to slide past him, and pecked a finger on the glass of one of the portholes. “Have a look at that!”

Maricossa leaned down to look out, Mia’s head under his chin as she stood on tiptoe to see too. Dark blue waves spread out hundreds of feet below, marked by only the occasional white breaker. Miles away, a jagged strip of green and tan coastline was visible.

“That’s the Mediterranean Sea!” Libby said. “Can you believe it? That’s the Mediterranean Sea! I’ve read about it in like a gazillion books and now I’m actually looking down at it from my brother’s airship! It’s awesome!”

“If we’re over the Mediterranean already, we must be making fairly good time,” Maricossa said.

“I guess,” Libby said with a shrug, still staring out at the view.

“Hez says the winds are favorable,” Dash spoke up from the other side of the table. “If they keep up like this he thinks we might even make Tianzhu a few days early.”

“Good,” Maricossa said, straightening and turning back to the table.

Hamlet came in just then with a huge platter of something that steamed and smelled delicious. Scarf followed right on his heels, nose in the air and tail waving wildly, licking his chops.

“Eat up, me hearties!” Hamlet said, lowering the platter to the table.

Skylar, Coll, the rest of the kids, and the professor all came into the room. After a few minutes of bumping, jostling, and crowding, everyone managed to get seated. They tucked into the delicious fare and ate while they watched evening shadows settle over the Mediterranean.

By now Maricossa was beginning to get used to using a fork with his left hand, so this meal was a little easier than previous ones had been. The professor admonished him about using his left hand instead of his prosthetic, but he ignored it.

Dash and all the other kids but Mia left as soon as they had finished eating. Hamlet left just long enough to bring a pot of tea in, much to the delight of the professor and Mrs. Monday. As tea cups, sugar, and cream made their way around the table, Mia crawled into Maricossa’s lap and curled up, gazing sleepily out the porthole. Under the table, Scarf flopped down on Maricossa’s feet and heaved a contented sigh.

For a while they all sipped their tea in silence. Professor was the first to speak.

“Well, Maricossa, aside from your apprehension about your new hand, how are you faring?”

Maricossa set his teacup down and stared at it for a moment, trying to decide how he should phrase his answer. “I’ll be better once I can stop being so useless,” he said.

“I suppose you think being able to work around the ship and give orders again will resolve everything that’s bothering you,” Mrs. Monday said.

Maricossa stared at her. It was that obvious?

An awkward silence filled the room, stretching out as Maricossa tried to think of an answer and failed. He didn’t think getting back to work would resolve all of his problems, but at least it would allow him to bury them, push them from the forefront of his mind.

Libby cleared her throat. “So, uh...” The silence was obviously making her uncomfortable, but she seemed to be having trouble finding anything to say. “So, why does that... Connie... always call you Galvin instead of Maricossa like everyone else? Which one is your real name?”

Maricossa clumsily picked up a spoon and stirred his tea. It wasn’t exactly a change of subject, but at least it was something to talk about. And anyway, these people were his family now, so he supposed they had a right to know.

He cleared his throat. “They’re both my real name,” he said. “Galvin is my first name, Maricossa is my last name. Or at least, the only last name I knew until just a few weeks ago. It was my mother’s maiden name, but she went back to it after my father disappeared, when the Bug Wars started. She said it was to protect me. Apparently my real, legal last name is O’Shannon.”

“Aha! I knew you had to be Dominic’s boy!” the professor declared, giving the table a satisfied thump with his hand. “Didn’t I tell you he had to be Dominic’s boy?” he asked, looking around the table at the others.

“Professor!” Mrs. Monday scolded.

“It’s alright, Mrs. Monday,” Maricossa said, in spite of the way his heart was pounding. “Dominic O’Shannon... was my father. I just never knew it until Professor here figured it out.”

“So you never knew your dad?” Skylar asked.

Maricossa shook his head, hoping that would be the end of the topic. He’d never discussed his past with anyone—ever. Having it dragged out onto the dining table like this was beyond uncomfortable.

“So...” Libby twisted one of her braids around her finger. “What should we call you? I mean, if your first name is Galvin and your real last name is O’Shannon...”

Maricossa took a deep breath. “I don’t know what to call myself anymore, Libby. Since... since Mom died... the only people who’ve ever called me ‘Galvin’ are Connie and Sergei. So that’s not exactly something I’m eager to answer to. Now that I know who my father was I’d like to take his name, but O’Shannon feels so foreign, I don’t know if I could answer to it.”

“We could call you ‘Wesley,’” Libby said.

Everyone at the table turned to stare at her.

“What? He always quotes The Princess Bride, so Wesley would be a good name,” Libby said. “It—it was just an idea. Geez.”

“You’ve always been ‘Maricossa’ to us,” Skylar said. “I say just stick with that. Or maybe you could change your name and be ‘Maricossa O’Shannon’ if you want to take your dad’s name but don’t want the ‘Galvin’ part anymore.”

That actually wasn’t a bad idea, Maricossa realized. He was about to say so when Mia, who he’d thought had gone to sleep, sat up and looked at him.

“Or we could call you ‘Daddy,’” she said.

Maricossa’s heart stopped.

Libby clapped a hand over her mouth, snickering. Skylar turned red, the professor looked amused, and Coll and Hamlet exchanged a look.

Maricossa didn’t have the first idea of what to say or do. He looked to Mrs. Monday hoping for some help, but she only gave him a matronly smile, set her teacup down, and pushed her chair back.

“Well, I’m not going to call him ‘Daddy,’ Mia,” she said, “but I think it’s just lovely that you want to.” She stood up and looked at the others. “Why don’t we all go get a start on those dishes, then?”

Coll gestured at the table. “But Mom, all the dishes are still here.”

“Nonsense, Driscoll,” Mrs. Monday said, giving Coll a look that was pure ice. “There are pots and pans to wash. Now come along.” Her tone left no room for argument, and everyone—even the professor—rose and followed her out of the room, shutting the door behind them.

Maricossa looked back at Mia, who stared at him with a puzzled look.

“How come they all left so fast?” she asked.

“Mia,” Maricossa said, his voice thick, “I don’t know what to say. Did you mean that, about... about calling me Daddy?”

She nodded. “’Cause you are.”

“Because I am... what?”

“My daddy.”

“Um—okay, uh...” Maricossa tried to clear his throat, but all he could do was rasp. “Mia, I don’t think you quite understand—”

She nodded rapidly, her pigtails bouncing. “Uh-huh I do, because the daddy I had before explained it to me.”

Maricossa frowned. “What?” His voice was shaking now.

Mia looked down at her lap. “The daddy I had before died,” she said quietly. Then she looked back up at him. “But he said I might get another one someday, ’cause a daddy is the person who loves you and takes care of you and keeps you safe, so I could be sad when he died if I wanted, but I didn’t need to be sad forever. And now you keep me safe.”

Maricossa tried to blink away the tears in his eyes, but they ran down his face instead.

Mia’s forehead furrowed. “Is it gonna make you sad if I call you Daddy?”

Maricossa shook his head, contradicting the additional tears that came. “No, Mia,” he said when he found his voice again. He took a deep breath to steady himself before continuing: “I would be very, very happy if you called me Daddy, sweet girl.”

“Then don’t cry.” Mia reached up and wiped the tears off of his face with her hand, then curled back up on his lap like she had been before.

Maricossa wrapped his arms around her, careful not to bump his new hand, and kissed the top of her head. He’d thought his dreams of having a family of his own were gone when he’d lost Connie. Now he had a family.

He had a daughter.

“I love you, Mia,” he whispered. Only once he said it did he realize that he’d never told her before. He’d loved her like his own child for months, and he’d never told her.

She yawned and leaned her head against him, her eyelids drooping.

“I know.”

*

After she’d gone to sleep, Maricossa carried her to her bunk in the hold and tucked her in, then headed up to the main deck of the Daniel Defoe.

Hezekiah lounged in the pilot’s seat, one hand on the wheel, staring out at the dark Mediterranean. He turned at Maricossa’s approach, but only long enough to see who was behind him.

“Hey Ti-borg,” he said. “How’re you getting along with the new brass knuckles?”

Maricossa ignored the remarks and sank into the co-pilot’s seat, joining Hez in staring out at the sea. “Dash says we’re making good time,” he said.

Hez nodded. “Cute kid, Dash. Smart too. Picked up map reading just like that. She’d make a good navigator with a little training—”

“Forget it, Hez,” Maricossa said. “How long ‘til we make Tianzhu?”

Hez shrugged. “Another couple weeks, at least. The winds are helping right now, but we’ll have to stop off in Turkey to renew the food and water supply. That’ll take a day at most.”

Maricossa gave him a skeptical look. “Only a day?”

Hez grinned. “It’s pretty easy to get things done fast when you know the right places to stop.”

“I’m not letting you take us anywhere where the kids and books aren’t safe.”

“Don’t worry.” Hez yawned and stretched. “You turning in, Ti-borg?”

Maricossa shook his head. “I’ve done nothing but roam around and sit and sleep since we left the bunker. I’m not really tired.”

“Best news I’ve had all day,” Hez said, standing up and stretching again. “Keep her at this altitude, on that compass heading. I’m hitting the sack.”

He swaggered off towards his cabin, and Maricossa moved into the pilot’s seat.

He held the wheel with his left hand, letting his right rest on his leg. Brass knuckles, Hez had called his prosthetic hand. Not a bad thought, really. Once Maricossa learned to use it, it could be devastating as a weapon. That was actually kind of exciting to think about.

So, as the Defoe sailed through the velvet darkness towards Tianzhu, and his family—his daughter—slept safely in the hold, Maricossa clenched his teeth against the pain and started practicing, moving his mechanical fingers one by one.

Chapter Nine -- Maricossa

Maricossa could feel himself sliding in and out of consciousness, and it infuriated him. The White Tiger would be on them, and they needed to get out—completely away from Shandor Rei, for good.

Hamlet. Brick. He’d promised Libby he’d go back for them. He had to go back.

He looked around, trying to figure out where he was and how he’d gotten here. It looked like he was in one of the cabins on the airship. He knew how to get to the deck from here, but suddenly the Professor was there, forcing him to sit down, and Maricossa seemed to have lost his ability to resist.

How did Professor get here? Then he remembered: they’d already made it back to the bunker. The bunker! They had to get out. They needed his help.

 He looked up at where the Professor had been, but saw Skylar instead. He blinked, but the image stayed the same  and he suddenly wondered how much blood he’d actually lost. Was Skylar even real? Was Skylar even real?

“Skylar, we have to get the books and the kids out of here,” he said. “We have to…” A swell of dizziness almost made him fall from wherever it was he was sitting. He fought through it, but when he looked up again Skylar was gone.

Then the Professor was back, talking in gibberish and trying to force him to lie down.

“I have to get us out of here,” Maricossa growled. He struggled back up to a sitting position.

“Hezekiah will do that, don’t you worry.”

“Hezekiah is exactly why I’m worried!”

“He has Skylar and Libretto to help him,” the Professor said, resting a hand on Maricossa’s shoulder.

And none of them have any idea the kind of firepower a White Tiger gunship carries.

“You’re not making me feel any better.” Maricossa shoved the old man’s hand away and started to stand up, until the room listed to one side.

Maricossa’s stomach turned, and he sat back down heavily. He thought it was just dizziness coming back, until an open book slid across the top of the bedside table in the cabin and thunked onto the floor. His brain told him to go pick it up, even as he was struggling to stay upright, and he found himself trying to see the title on the spine.

At a time like this.

Keep it together, Maricossa, he told himself.

Mia appeared and threw her arms around his leg, looking up at him with wide eyes. Remnants of tears still clung to her eyelashes. He wondered for a second if she was real, but he could feel her so she must be.

The ship lurched to the other side, and through the walls Maricossa heard the blast of a cannon. In another second Mia was on the bed next to him, clinging to his left arm, her face pressed against his shoulder.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Hey, sweet girl, it’s okay.” He pulled his arm out of her grip and put it around her. She climbed into his lap and curled into a ball against him, hiding her face.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he whispered against the top of her head.

He hoped she didn’t feel him flinch when the sound of another cannon shot shook the Defoe.

He couldn’t hear any return fire from the Defoe. What in the world was Hez doing?

“Listen, Mia, I’ve got to go for a minute,” he said, starting to get up.

She curled into a tighter ball, clenching handfuls of his shirt in her fists.

“You’ll do no such thing.” The Professor was back again. “Now Maricossa, I don’t believe in drugging a man against his will. But if you are going to persist in—” He stopped for a moment, frowning at Maricossa’s bandaged hand. “Oh, bother!”

He turned away, rummaging in a bag, and Maricossa slowly raised his injured hand to look at it. The already-stained bandages had become darker, now shiny with fresh blood. Maricossa’s fingers stuck stiffly out of the bandaging, turning a sickly gray. He discovered that he could move his thumb like normal, and his forefinger a little, but the rest refused to respond at all.

The Professor turned back to him with rolls of fresh bandages. “I’m afraid this hand of yours isn’t willing to wait for a calm, safe moment to receive attention. For the last time, Maricossa, lie down.”

Maricossa heard the words, but they sounded far away, echoey. Black spots swarmed the edges of his vision, crowding closer and closer, more and more of them, until his field of vision narrowed to a circle the size of a watch face.

Black.

*

A map. Filling his vision. He blinked.

The Professor’s face in front of the map. Oh—the map is on the ceiling. Captain’s cabin. Hez…

His hand — the pain was worse than before. He could feel Professor working on it—fiery agony that moved and shifted without ever going away.

He tried to speak, tried to unclench his teeth — no. Too much. A scream gritted against his teeth, but he couldn’t move, his muscles locked into place.

The Professor’s head turned and their eyes met.

“Maricossa! You’re awake!” he said. He turned away for a moment, and when he turned back he had a needle in his hand. “Good heavens, you’re not supposed to be awake yet. Here: I’m going to give you an injection to put you back under so I can finish working on you, alright?”

Maricossa was completely incapable of responding—he couldn’t even breathe. But either the Professor hadn’t really been asking for his consent, or else he assumed it was granted, because Maricossa felt the cold needle slide into his arm, and seconds later the room went black again.

*

He was lying on the cobblestone surface of what appeared to be an alley in the forgotten sector. The walls and rubble seemed to blur and warp around him as he struggled to his feet and looked down at his injured right hand. The bandages were gone, and blood dripped slowly from his fingers.

Connie stood in front of him, staring in horror at his hand as tears poured down her face.

“Galvin, I am so, so sorry,” she said. Her eyes darted from his hand to his face and back again. “I never meant for this to happen. I had no choice in what I did. The Green Dragon has my father. They said they would kill him!”

Maricossa took a slow breath to calm his racing pulse. His heart ached at the sorrow, the fear, in Connie’s beautiful eyes. Who was he to judge her, as if she were the only person the Cardinal Point Alliance had thrust into circumstances she hated? It was a wonder the two of them hadn’t been forced to turn against each other long before now.

“Believe me, Galvin,” Connie continued, “I would never, ever hurt you.”

Maricossa forced a smile, though the pain in his hand made it difficult. “I know.” It was true. All along, some part of him had always known that Connie was loyal to him.

She came towards him, fresh tears still pouring down her cheeks. “I am so sorry,” she said again. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to be with you. I love you.”

She was close enough now that Maricossa put his good arm around her and pulled her to him. “I’ve loved you since the moment I met you,” he whispered.

She looked up at him and smiled through her tears. He closed his eyes and kissed her.

And she slid a knife between his ribs.

*

Maricossa jumped awake, his heart hammering and roaring in his ears. The first thing he realized was that Connie hadn’t really stabbed him. Which was a relief, but a sick feeling of horror still hung on in the back of his mind, and he shoved all thoughts of the dream away.

It wasn’t real. He didn’t need to think about it.

The next thing he realized was that the Professor had to have given him something while he was out. The pain in his hand was still there, but it was much milder than it had been before, and a strange sensation he could only describe as a cloud of cold dizziness wafted around inside his head. He recognized the feeling from when he’d broken two ribs in a sparring session a few years back, and the doctor had given him an injection for the pain. It had had the same side effect.

Once his pulse and breathing calmed down enough, he could feel the gentle motions that meant the Defoe was still in the air. But there were no shots being fired, no voices shouting, no running footsteps.

He turned his head to where he could feel his right arm and hand lying beside him. His hand appeared to be propped up on a pillow or something—he couldn’t tell for sure because it was covered with a cloth.

Taking great care not to move his right hand from its position, he reached over with his left hand to move the cloth and get a look at it. There had been too much blood to really see the extent of the injury before.

A touch on his left arm made him jerk back. He turned his head and saw Mia perched in a chair on her knees, leaning over his bed.

“Mia! You scared me.”

“Sorry, Mister Maricossa.”

Maricossa let out a breath and dropped his head back to the pillows. “No, it's okay, sweet girl, I just didn’t know you were there.” He took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“Professor says he’ll be right back, and don’t touch your hand ’cause it’s not ready yet. And Mister Hez says don’t bleed on the floorboards.”

Maricossa couldn’t help a smile at that. “Gotta love the compassion of a pirate,” he muttered.

“Mister Hez is a pirate?!” Mia blurted. “Like in Peter Pan?”

Maricossa groaned, wishing he hadn’t said anything. “No, it’s not like that, Mia, it’s—just forget I said anything.”

Mia scowled and crossed her arms. “Well, I’m not gonna join his crew. He uses words that Libby says aren’t nice, and his cat scratched me and growled at Scarf.”

Maricossa was still trying to keep from laughing when the cabin door opened and the Professor came in.

“Ah, Maricossa! Glad to see you awake.”

“Do I get to stay awake this time?”

“Indeed you do, my boy. Well—for now, at least. I didn’t have everything I needed, and Skylar can only spare so many parts and still be functional—which, without you up and about, we need him to be—so I may need to put you out later on to make a few adjustments, but—”

“Professor, wait,” Maricossa said, slowly raising himself from the pillows again. Skylar can only spare so many parts? He tried to swallow, but his mouth and throat had suddenly gone completely dry. His voice came out as a raspy croak. “What are you talking about?”

The Professor hesitated and dropped his eyes, as if regretting his words. “I’m—I’m very sorry, Maricossa.”

Maricossa looked down at the pillow beside him, and the cloth that covered it. The outline of a complete hand underneath the fabric reassured him at first, but as he thought about Professor’s words again a horrible feeling settled into the pit of his stomach.

With his left hand, he reached over and pulled the cloth away to look at his hand.

It was made of metal.

 

Chapter Six--Maricossa

“Put her down right there,” Maricossa said, pointing out past the front of the longboat.

“Are you insane?” Hez demanded.

“We need to land there, whether I am or not,” Maricossa replied.

“It’s too dark!” Hez protested, flinging his hand towards the shadowy expanse between the dim, hulking outlines of decrepit warehouses. “I can’t see to get any idea of the terrain or what might be down there.”

“It’s a stretch of old loading docks with paved surfaces that run from the river up to the backs of all these old warehouses. There might be a few bushes around, but nothing worse than that.”

“And you know this how?”

“Hey!”

Maricossa turned as Skylar stepped up from the rear and squinted out into the dusk.

“Isn’t that the warehouse?” He pointed down at the ramshackle building in front of them. “The one where Professor and Coll and me used to live?”

Maricossa nodded. “Good eye.” He grimaced as soon as he’d said it. Idiot. But Skylar didn’t appear to have caught it. Instead, his face lit up.

“So that’s why we followed the river into the city!”

Maricossa nodded again. “I didn’t think we stood much chance of getting in at any of the airship docks without getting caught.”

“So instead we can land in a run-down shipyard in the dark and crash and drown,” Hez said, his voice and body language dripping sarcasm. “Obviously a better course of action.”

“Oh, we’re well away from the edge of the river, and I’m sure with your expertise as a pilot we’ll be just fine.” Maricossa didn’t put much effort into hiding the patronizing tone in his voice.

“Shut up and give me some breathing room,” Hez said, his eyes fixed straight ahead. “I need to concentrate.”

Maricossa motioned for Skylar to move towards the tail end. Libby, who had been standing right behind Skylar, followed them.

“Landing here was a good idea, Maricossa,” Libby said quietly.

“I’m just glad I can grab some of my stuff,” Skylar grimaced. “Mrs. Monday left a lot behind. Not to mention the tools and food and things still in the Professors lab.” He narrowed his eye at Maricossa. “… but you already thought of all that, didn’t you?”

Maricossa shrugged. “More or less. I saw the loading area one of the times I was here, and it seemed like the best spot to land without being noticed—”

A jolt shuddered through the longboat’s deck, and they all spread their feet for balance. Hez directed a rather cliché assortment of derogatory names at Maricossa, as more bumps and shakes followed.

“Hezekiah!” Libby yelled, turning as if to storm Hez’s position.

“Shh.” Maricossa caught her arm and shook his head. “Let it go. Better to let him get it off his chest by questioning my lineage than to let it build up to another fight, eh? We don’t need that right now, and I’ve been called worse before anyway. Just keep quiet. We don’t want to draw attention if we can avoid it.”

Libby stayed put and lowered her voice, but crossed her arms and glared at Hez’s back. “I don’t know how he turned out to be such a punk,” she muttered, “like nothing Needle taught us matters anymore. He knows good and well what she’d do if she heard him talking like that—”

Another shake made them all take a step or two as the longboat came to a complete stop. A few moments later, the engine stopped. The darkness seemed to thicken as a deep quiet settled in. Behind them, they could barely hear the sound of the river lapping and sucking at the docks. A few insects sang to each other. There was no other sound.

Maricossa felt a subtle thrum of energy building in his chest—the feeling he always had right before a mission. Whether he liked it or not, this was his element.

He stepped closer to Libby and Skylar and spoke in a low voice, barely above a whisper. “Here’s the plan: we go in and get whatever we can from the warehouse—only the absolute necessities. We can’t afford to waste time on anything else. Skylar, I’m putting you in charge here, since you know where everything is kept. Libby and I will follow your lead.”

“Right.” Skylar nodded, and his eye widened with excitement.

“But what about the library?” Libby hissed.

“We’ll get there,” Maricossa assured her. “But if we get spotted on the streets somewhere and have to run for it, I don’t want us to have to fly out with nothing to show for the trip. Just try to trust me, okay?”

Libby hesitated for a moment, her lips pressed together and her forehead furrowed, but she finally nodded. “Okay.”

“Let’s go.” Maricossa looked past Skylar to where Hez stood with arms crossed next to the pilot’s seat. “I assume you’re not coming with us.”

“There is no way on this green earth I’m leaving my longboat here to get stolen or vandalized.”

Maricossa nodded. “That’s what I thought. It won’t take us long to clear what we need out of the warehouse, then we’ll be back here to load it.”

Hez said nothing. Maricossa stepped out onto the pavement. The surface was riddled with cracks, weeds and grass crowding every crevice.

With Skylar and Libby behind him, he made his way into the dark, looming interior of the warehouse where Professor had made his headquarters. Fortunately, vast though the place was, there were few rooms, so it was easy to check for potential threats.

Once he was satisfied that no one lurked inside, Maricossa sent Skylar and Libby together to gather supplies from the rooms at one end of the building, while he made for the far end.

A couple of trips between the building and the longboat were all it took to clear the most vital supplies from the warehouse: some non-perishable food, a precious few medical supplies, as many papers, drawings, plans, and blueprints as they could find in Professor’s work room, and an armful of tools and pieces of mechanical gear. Skylar, who’d had to trust the packing of his belongings to Mrs. Monday, made a quick sweep of his old room and grabbed a few overlooked items, and then they left, shutting the door after themselves and walking away for the last time.

*

They left Hez grousing in the longboat, and made their way through the dark streets to the library. Maricossa had to remind Libby several times to slow down and stay alert; she kept speeding up her pace and getting ahead of them. He knew how anxious she was to get to the library, and they did need to get out of the city as quickly as possible, but they couldn’t afford to let themselves rush and make a mistake that would get them caught.

When they reached the tunnel leading through the rubble to the library entrance, Libby cast a quick glance at Maricossa, as though daring him to stop her now.

“Libby…” he started, but she ignored him and ducked inside, charging ahead into the darkness.

Maricossa growled in frustration under his breath as he and Skylar followed. “I don’t know how you put up with her like you do, Skylar.”

“It’s the freckles,” Skylar said.

Maricossa shot him a look and, in the light of his torch, saw a flush of red cover the boy’s face. Maricossa grinned, but realized that he probably shouldn’t tease Skylar—after all, who was he to talk about relationships?

They reached the hallway outside the kitchen just as Libby was coming out of the kitchen door. Maricossa was about to say something to her about running ahead of them, but she spoke first.

“Don’t know why I looked in the kitchen first,” she said, brushing past him and Skylar on her way towards the Hub. “It’s the middle of the night. They’ll be asleep.”

Maricossa decided the lecture could wait—it was probably pointless anyway—and followed her.

A search of the entire library—every room and every tunnel—turned up nothing. There was evidence that someone had been there recently—half a loaf of mold-free bread in the cupboard, an armload of firewood stacked next to the hearth in the Hub—but no one was around now.

Maricossa felt Skylar’s metal hand on his arm, and stepped closer as Skylar leaned in to whisper to him. “Where are they? You don’t think the White Tiger…”

Maricossa shook his head, chewing on the inside of his mouth. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think the White Tiger’s been here, but Hamlet and Brick aren’t either and that worries me.”

They stepped apart as Libby came across the room, her face pale and her eyes wide. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Where are they?” She threw the question out, leaning forward and staring at Maricossa as if he knew the answer and was playing a prank on her by keeping it secret.

Maricossa braced himself. He didn’t know where Hamlet and Brick were, but he knew what had to be done now, and that he was going to have to tell Libby.

“Libby,” he said slowly, “I don’t know where they are. But what I do know is that we cannot afford to spend all night searching the forgotten sector for them. We’ve been here too long as it is, and morning isn’t that far off—”

Libby stiffened and stepped back from him as if he’d pulled a gun on her. “I’m not leaving them behind again!” she said. “I’m not going to Tianzhu without Hamlet, and Brick is my responsibility too. I let you leave them behind once, Maricossa, and it’s not happening again!”

That hurt more than Maricossa cared to admit, and that fact gave him pause. This wasn’t just a mission to get as many books and kids as possible to safety, he realized. Hamlet and Brick and Coll weren’t just collateral damage. This was his family now, and families didn’t leave each other behind.

He supposed that settled what he had to do, then.

“You’re right, Libby,” he said, giving a resigned sigh. “I’m sorry.”

She blinked once, but said nothing.

“We need to get out of here, get back to the longboat, and back to the bunker,” Maricossa said, holding up a hand to cut off Libby’s interruption, “but I will come back alone and look for Hamlet and Brick until I find them or get caught by the White Tiger, whichever comes first. Even if the rest of you have to leave for Tianzhu without me. Will that work?”

Libby stared at him distrustfully for a moment. “You would do that? You’re not just saying that to get me to leave?”

“I promise,” Maricossa said. “I will come back for them.”

She hesitated a moment more, twisting her hips and looking at everything but him.

“Okay,” she said, finally looking up at him, “but—but we’re not leaving for Tianzhu without you, either.”

Maricossa turned and started back towards the exit. “You will if I tell you to,” he said.

As Skylar and Libby followed him, he heard Libby mutter: “I’d like to know who died and left you king.”

Maricossa suspected she was only partially teasing.

*

They had made it back to the warehouse district and were approaching the alley that would let them into the docking yard when Maricossa heard voices. He sidestepped into the shadows against the wall, and Skylar and Libby did the same.

“What is it?” Libby whispered, but Maricossa held up a hand to silence her.

From the docking yard, in the direction of the longboat, came a line of a song bellowed in a slurred voice. It sounded like Hez.

“Get a hold of yourself, man!” another voice ordered. “I asked you a question: what are you doing here, and who are you waiting for?”

“I toooold you,” Hez said, “I’m waiting for my crew to get back from their leave, so we can… load up! And… head out!”

“How in the world did Hez get drunk so fast?” Skylar whispered from behind Maricossa. “We’ve only been gone for an hour!”

“He’s faking it to cover for being there,” Maricossa whispered back. I hope. “And so he can make enough noise to warn us without arousing too much suspicion.”

“But who’s that questioning him?” Libby asked.

Maricossa crept closer to the corner of the building to hear better. “My guess would be…”

“He has cargo in there already. Search it, just to be sure.”

Maricossa’s stomach twisted at the sound of that voice.

Connie.

He’d figured it was White Tiger agents patrolling the river, but why on earth was Connie one of them? River patrol was a menial assignment… had Connie been demoted or punished after Maricossa and the others escaped Shandor Rei? Not that it mattered at the moment. Things were about to go south in a hurry, and he had to do something about it.

He backed away from the warehouse’s corner and turned to Libby and Skylar. “Alright,” he said, “we’ve got to move fast. Those are White Tiger agents, and I’m going to go in and try to take them out.”

“Not by yourself!” Libby hissed.

Maricossa ignored her and began rattling off instructions as quickly as he could. “I want you two to stay here, out of sight. If I get the drop on them and signal you, run for the longboat and get in. But if I don’t, get out of here fast, as far away as you can, and don’t let them find you. Find a way to get back to the bunker as soon as you can.”

He didn’t wait for either of them to reply. He pulled his revolver from its holster on his ankle, levered the hammer back, and carefully moved forward enough to peek around the corner.

The agents were at a disadvantage. While the man pawed through crates on board the longboat, Connie was left to keep watch alone, and most of her attention was rightfully focused on staggering, ranting Hez.

Maricossa quickly moved out of the alley and across the docking yard in a half-crouching run, angling himself to have both agents in his sights with minimal movement required. He only hoped that Hez wasn’t really as loaded as he sounded. If he was, they were all in deep trouble.

Connie turned to scan the area just as Maricossa raised his revolver and aimed it at her.

Her eyes shot wide open, and she gasped.

“Don’t either one of you make a move,” Maricossa said, loud enough for the agent searching the longboat to hear him. “Both of you put your hands on your heads.”

By now Connie had recovered her poise, and her expression had returned to a cool stare. She made no move to obey his command.

“Galvin, really,” she said, “I won’t deny that we parted badly, but you’re a fool if you want me to believe you’re capable of shooting me.”

Maricossa clenched his teeth. She was right, no sense denying it. She knew him too well. Connie took a step closer to him and began easing the barrel of the revolver away from herself with the palm of her hand, and he let her… until the sound of another hammer clicking back froze her.

Hez stood with his own revolver leveled at the back of her head. “Yeah, well, thankfully I don’t have the emotional hangup-thing for you that Tiger boy here has,” he said. “I’ll shoot a hole in your head and call it fair for the hole you shot in my ship. How’s that?”

Maricossa gave an inward sigh of relief at Hez’s sobriety and timing.

Outrage blazed in Connie’s eyes, but she said nothing as Maricossa stepped away and ordered the other agent out of the longboat. He disarmed both of them and was about to signal Skylar and Libby to come out.

Then a cannon shot roared from the river, and the gun in Maricossa’s hand exploded.

Chapter 3--Maricossa

Maricossa stared at the book in his hands: The Return of Sherlock Holmes. He’d been aimlessly turning pages for the better part of an hour, but had yet to read more than disconnected words here and there. Instead, he kept hearing words Sergei had told him long ago. “Even the best plan is worthless if you don’t have a contingency plan to fall back on when it fails.”

A contingency plan… they needed one desperately. If one of the kids got sick, or the supplies ran out, or the White Tiger caught up with them, they had to have a backup plan already lined out.

Maricossa had one option in mind, an option that had been part of his personal ‘doomsday plan’ for years. Most of the pieces were already in place. The trouble was, he’d been planning for himself and Connie, not himself, a dozen other people, and several thousand books. The added load made it less ideal. But it was still a plan—the only one they had, and the best they could hope for under the circumstances.

WOOF!

Maricossa jumped, dropping the book on the floor and knocking a computer keyboard off of the ledge where he’d propped his feet. The dog’s bark echoed amazingly well in the cavernous control room.

“Scarf!” Maricossa said, letting out a breath of relief as the dog trotted up to his chair. “You scared me to death!”

As Maricossa reached for the keyboard now dangling from the ledge by its cord, Scarf whined and swished his tail much like Libby swished her skirt when she was nervous.

“Sorry, boy,” Maricossa said, replacing the keyboard and getting up to retrieve the book, “I guess I startled you too, didn’t I? Come here.” He extended a hand, but Scarf wasn’t looking at him. The dog’s eyes and ears were both pointed towards the passage Libby and Skylar had taken to go exploring.

Maricossa listened, but didn’t hear anything. He glanced at his watch. They’d been gone for a while. They were probably fine, but it couldn’t hurt to check.

He pulled his torch from his belt and clicked it on as he entered the passage they had taken. Scarf started to follow him.

“No, stay,” he ordered. The dog hesitated but finally sat down, and Maricossa continued into the passage.

He passed several doors that looked like they had recently been opened, and in a few places he could see footprints, but he didn’t see Libby, Skylar, or the beam of their light.

“Libby? Skylar? You alright?”

There was no answer.

A few minutes into the passage, a flapping blur swooped around a corner and careened in wild loops, disoriented by the light. Maricossa turned the torch off and waited several seconds until the bat regained its bearings and flitted away.

He found a spot where Libby and Skylar had apparently crawled through a partially blocked doorway, but when he shined the light inside, he saw nothing. "Libby? Skylar?"

He waited a few minutes, but there was no answer, so he moved on.

He was glad Skylar had Libby—in general, as well as here in the tunnels. Maricossa knew well what went on inside a boy Skylar’s age when he lost someone he loved. Until Skylar learned to get what was inside him under control and live with it, he wouldn’t want to have much to do with anyone else. If they tried to violate that distance, his instinct would be to lash out.

Libby was the one exception, the one person who might be able to stay close to him while he healed, who could gradually coax him out of the emotional tunnel he was digging for himself. For Skylar’s sake, Maricossa hoped so. He wished he’d had someone like Libby, someone whose nearness didn’t feel like trespassing, when he had lost his mother. It had happened long before he met Connie…

Connie. Maricossa shook his head. She was the last thing he needed to be thinking about now—from this angle, anyway. She belonged on the other side of the coin, and was a danger he needed to avoid. If only he could come to terms with that and stop thinking of her as the lost love of his life.

The passage turned again, this time to the left. Maricossa wondered if Skylar and Libby had lost their torch somehow. Their footprints were close together and scuffed and frequently bumped into things, as though they were shuffling along blindly.

“Skylar? Libby? Can you hear me?” Still no answer. If they had lost their light, why on earth hadn’t they gone back towards the control room? Unless of course they had gotten turned around in the dark and thought they were heading back towards the control room while they were actually getting more and more lost.

Maricossa was beginning to wonder how far they would actually go before realizing they were heading the wrong way, when he saw light ahead. He followed the tunnel around a bend and found a metal ladder built into the wall, leading up to a door. The door was only open a crack, but daylight blazed through the gap.

Maricossa turned off his torch and climbed up to the door. Just as he reached it and pushed it open, he heard a peal of laughter. Libby’s voice was the one he recognized first, but Skylar was laughing too. That, at least, was a good sign.

The door led out onto a wide stone ledge that jutted out from a bramble-covered hillside so steep it was almost a cliff. Libby and Skylar sat with their backs to the door, looking across a deep gorge towards the waterfall. They both had handfuls of blackberries, and looked so happy that if Maricossa hadn’t known they were lost, he would have turned and left without saying anything.

As he stepped outside the door swung on its hinges, squealing loudly. Libby and Skylar turned to look at him.

“Oh, Maricossa! Thank goodness. We hoped you’d come looking for us eventually,” Libby said through berry-stained lips. “This is just like that scene in The Two Towers, isn’t it?” She waved her arm at the vista beyond the cliff. “Welcome, my lord, to Isengard! My name is Meriadoc, son of Saradoc, and this—”

“No, Libby,” Skylar interrupted, popping another berry into his mouth, “I’m Merry, remember? I’ve got too much good sense to be Pippin.”

“Says the boy who got us lost in the first place.”

“You got us lost running from the bats.”

“I only broke the torch, I didn’t get us lost.”

Maricossa smiled. “Skylar, I didn’t realize your ‘Strider’ reference meant having to look after a couple of adolescent Halflings. But regardless of who got you lost, would you like me to get you found?”

Libby’s smile faded. She glanced at Skylar, the ground, and the sky before answering. “I guess so,” she said softly. “It just… I just feel so much better out here in the open. I know it sounds dumb, but…”

Skylar stood and brushed himself off. "Don't worry. I don't like it much either, but…" he shrugged. "I'll try to be better company. Sorry. We can be miserable together. It won't be so bad."

Libby looked doubtful. “Maybe.”

“Come on, then. And no questions about second breakfast!” Maricossa turned to head back into the tunnel, but stopped first to look around. The view stretched for miles, maybe half way back to Shandor Rei—

A tiny sparkle of light caught his attention. Mariccosa froze, his blood running cold as his eyes focused on the hazy, yet distinct, shape of an airship hovering in the distance. The spark must have come from a spyglass. It was too far away to see markings and know whether it was a White Tiger vessel or not, but it hardly mattered. Any vessel could report back to the White Tiger.

“Back inside,” he said, “Hurry!” He held the door open while Libby and Skylar scrambled inside and down the ladder, then followed them and pulled it shut.

“What is it?” Libby asked as Maricossa turned his torch on once again and made his way down the ladder.

“Airship. We have to get back and make sure no one’s outside.”

They raced back through the passages and rooms, following their own tracks back to the control room. Scarf was ecstatic to see them but Maricossa brushed past him and hurried straight into the hangar.

The Daniel Defoe was still moored to the scaffolding, which meant Hez wouldn’t be far away.

“Professor!” Maricossa shouted when he saw the older man walking across the far end of the hangar, “where are the kids?”

“They’re in the kitchen,” Professor called back. “Mrs. Monday is just serving tea.”

“All of them?”

The Professor chuckled. “You don’t think they’d miss her sugar cookies, do you?” He suddenly frowned. "What's wrong?"

Maricossa let out a quick breath of relief. That, at least, was one less worry. "I saw an airship when I found these two. It's far away, but I caught the glint of a spyglass."

“What now?” Libby asked. “We just wait for the airship to go away?”

Maricossa walked to the edge of the walkway they stood on and braced his arms against the railing. “Libby,” he said, “we need to talk. I didn’t want to this soon, but I don’t think it can wait.”

“What do you mean?” Libby said. “Talk about what?”

“Maricossa, Skylar, there you are!” Hez sauntered out of the ship’s hull and down the ramp to join them on the walkway. “Glad to see things are sorted out so we can get back to unloading these books, eh?”

“We’re not unloading any more,” Maricossa said. “Not now, anyway.”

Hez stopped, smile gone, and stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“Wait,” Libby said, “why aren’t we?”

“That’s exactly what I’d like to know,” Hez said, putting his hands on his hips. “I have a crew and clients waiting for me in Shandor Rei—”

“And I’ll tell you when you’re free to rejoin them,” Maricossa said.

“Free?” Hez repeated. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe I take my orders from you. I’m fairly certain that ‘Captain’ outranks ‘Dishonorably Discharged Deserter.’ ”

“Hezekiah Honor Needle!” Libby snapped.

Maricossa left the railing and walked towards Hez. “You make all the cheap jabs you want,” he said, “but I’m in charge of protecting the kids, the Professor, and the books, and if I have to tie you down and gag you to do that, I will.”

Hez raised his eyebrows and kept coming forward. “That might be a bit tough to do, tiger boy.”

Maricossa saw Hez’s hands flexing, the subtle shifting of his shoulders, the slight forward thrust of his head, heard the challenge in his voice. Hez wanted a fight, a chance at the Alpha position. Why not give it to him, if it shut him up?

Maricossa made a point of looking Hez up and down as they both stopped, less than a step apart. He could see the feral energy in Hez’s eyes, the look of a man who had been in fights and liked them. He smiled condescendingly. “Not too tough, I expect,” he said, “a boy whose voice is barely done changing.”

“You take your best shot, if that’s what you think,” Hez said.

As you wish. Maricossa jerked his elbow up into Hez’s chest, sending him stumbling backwards.

The surprised pain on Hez’s face only lasted for a second, gone by the time he regained his balance. “So that’s how it’s gonna be, huh?” he said, coming forward again and throwing a straight punch at Maricossa’s face.

Maricossa deflected the punch and used its momentum to turn Hez aside, leaving the back of his arm exposed for the stun maneuver that followed the block.

Hez shouted and spun around to face Maricossa again, pain beginning to blend with the anger on his face. He went into a roundhouse kick, once again aiming for Maricossa’s face.

Maricossa ducked, and Hez’s boot passed harmlessly over his head. The kick’s momentum carried him around to face away from Maricossa, and Maricossa used the chance to kick his thigh, dropping him to one knee. Before he could get up again Maricossa stepped up behind him and hit the side of his neck with a knife-hand strike.

Hez fell face-first onto the walkway, moaning, and didn’t move.

Maricossa knelt next to him and rolled him over. His eyes were wide, blinking every second or so, but he said nothing. Maricossa almost laughed. He’d been where Hez was a fair share of times and knew exactly how it felt.

“Now,” he said, leaning over where he was sure Hez could see him, “I. Will tell you. When you. Are free. To go. Capisci?”

Hez only moaned again.

Maricossa stood up, raked his hair back from his face, and turned around to see Libby tiptoeing towards him, her eyes on Hez and a worried look on her face.

“Is he--okay?” she whispered.

“Oh yes." Maricossa tried to repress a smile. "He’s probably seeing three or four of everything right now, but his faculties will regroup in a minute or so.”

Libby didn’t look convinced.

“I promise,” Maricossa said, “a brachial stun just hurts, it doesn’t harm.”

Libby covered her face with her hands and let out a breath, but it didn’t sound like one of relief. “I cannot believe you did that,” she said, raising her face again. Her eyes were narrowed. "When we’re all stuck here in this lousy bunker together and it’s bad enough without people fighting and you and Hez of all people, I mean, I know he can be a flaming nuisance and sometimes I’d like to clock him myself, but you can’t just—”

“Libby, Libby!” Maricossa said. "Trust me, he needed to get that out of his system and we’ll all be better off now that he has.”

Libby crossed her arms and walked back to where Skylar stood.

“Come on, you two,” Maricossa said, starting for the kitchen at the far end of the hangar. Skylar fell in beside him, and Libby walked on Skylar’s other side, looking none-too happy. “We still need to talk.”

“About why we’re not unloading the books?” Libby asked.

“About why we can’t stay here,” Maricossa corrected, “and why somebody’s going to have to make a trip back to Shandor Rei.”