SYLO (THE SYLO CHRONICLES) (40 page)

“We’re headed north,” Tori pointed out. “We want to go west.”

“We’re still on the outside of the blockade,” I said. “The ship we just hit is between us and the mainland. We have to get around it. As soon as we clear it, I’ll make the turn west.”

The big ship seemed to be still in the water. As we moved alongside, I could hear the thrum of its engines and the occasional shudder as it launched another missile. This appeared to be one of the ships that had not yet been hit. Yet. I hoped its luck would hold out—at least until we got by.

The thick smoke was burning my eyes and making it hard to breathe. Both Olivia and I kept coughing. Tori did too and it was clear that the pain caused by each cough was excruciating. Olivia saw how much trouble she was having. “I’ll see if I can find you some water,” she said.

She never got the chance.

A shrill, screaming sound grew quickly.

“Hang on,” I yelled. “Something’s coming in.”

A moment later one of the black planes fell out of the sky and crashed into the water not twenty yards from our starboard side.
The force from the crash created a wave that rushed at us and drove us into the big ship again. The violent impact threw Olivia onto the deck and nearly flipped us. I managed to hang on to the wheel since I already had a death grip on it.

Kent was sent sprawling to the deck and lay flat on his stomach.

“Are you hurt?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

“Kent?” I called, more insistent.

“I…I’m not moving,” he replied.

Kent sounded shaky, as if the last near-miss had finally blown away whatever courage he had managed to find up to that point.

“You gotta get up, man,” I said. “I can’t see where we’re going.”

“I—I can’t. I won’t. We’re going to die here.”

“We’re not going to die,” I yelled angrily. “But if you don’t get your act together, we might!”

It wasn’t the most diplomatic way of handling somebody who had a legitimate excuse to panic, but I was tired of dealing with Kent. And I didn’t want to die. But my tirade didn’t get through to him. He lay on the deck, his face down, shivering.

It was Olivia who once again saved the situation. She crawled forward and sat on the deck next to him. She stroked his head gently and spoke in the sweet voice of a little girl. “I need you, Kent. Now more than ever. I’m so scared. Please don’t let me down.”

Kent slowly raised his head and looked up at her with frightened eyes.

“Please?” Olivia added sweetly.

Kent nodded. He wiped his eyes then managed to pull himself up and get back to his post in the bow.

Olivia came back to the console and gave me a smile and a knowing wink. She had totally played Kent.

“Now let’s get the hell out of here,” she commanded with confidence.

“I think I see the bow of the ship,” Kent called back. “Maybe another twenty yards to go.”

The smoke had momentarily thinned enough for us to see more than just a few feet ahead. Of course that meant we could be seen as well.

“Ten yards,” Kent called out. “Get ready to turn.”

I didn’t want to cut it too tight in case the ship started moving.

Kent called, “And…we…are…clear!”

I continued on for another two seconds for safety and was about to turn to port when the gunboat came charging from the direction we were about to turn toward. It was under full power with its dark bow riding high, appearing out of the smoke like some vengeful demon.

“Turn hard!” Tori screamed.

I spun the wheel, missing the speeding boat by only a few feet as it flew by. We must have surprised them as much as they surprised us, for as they sped by I saw a guy on its deck spot us, start with surprise, and then scream at his men to change course.

It was Granger.

In that one fleeting moment, the hope that we no longer mattered to him was shattered. From the very start he had proved that he was ready and willing to do his own dirty work and this was no different.

He wanted to be there for the kill.

Granger stood behind the wheelhouse with the mounted machine
gun and the soldier who manned it. The soldier looked just as surprised to see us as Granger did. He quickly swung the machine gun toward us and began firing, but there was little chance of them hitting us as we were flying in opposite directions. They were traveling at a dangerous rate of speed, considering the bad visibility. I hoped they’d hit some debris and bye-bye Granger.

“They’re turning,” Kent called out. “And coming after us.”

They had been going so fast that making the one-eighty would take some time…time we desperately needed.

“Throttle up, Tucker,” Tori said calmly.

I jammed the throttles forward and the four mighty engines roared. It was still too dangerous to be traveling so fast, but at least the smoke had cleared enough for me to see several feet ahead. It was a chance we had to take because once Granger made the turn, he wouldn’t be moving cautiously.

Though the military ships were in disarray, they still made a formidable gauntlet that blocked us from an easy run to the mainland. We were trapped on the outside of a dozen foundering ships with Granger about to close in.

“Up there!” Kent screamed, pointing skyward.

I looked up to see a flaming black plane falling from the sky directly in our path. I turned the wheel to the right and banked the agile boat hard before the doomed shadow splashed down only a few yards to our left. This time we were gone before the surge of water could hit us.

“Where’s Granger, Olivia?” I called.

Grasping the back of my chair, Olivia looked back for our pursuers.

“I can’t see them. I think they had to make a really wide turn
so that big ship is blocking them now and—no, oh no, here they come. They’re moving past that ship now.”

“We can’t outrun them forever, Tucker,” Tori said, still calm.

“I’m open to suggestions.”

Tori scanned the watery battlefield and the endless line of ships while I did my best to dodge obstacles. We were traveling so fast that I nearly ran down a life raft carrying a dozen sailors. They screamed at me angrily as we flew by but I wasn’t about to stop and apologize. Besides, they were the bad guys. I think. We kept getting bounced and thumped as we flew over pieces of junk. It would only be a matter of time before we ran into something more substantial, and at that speed it would mean catastrophe.

“Kent, come here,” Tori called.

“No, I’m the lookout!”

“Come here,” Tori said more insistently.

He reluctantly joined us.

Tori was oddly calm. I feared she may have been in shock from the injury, but her eyes were clear and she seemed focused.

“We could die out here,” she said to all of us.

“Gee, you think?” Kent shot back sarcastically.

Tori gave him a withering glare and he shut up.

“Granger isn’t going to give up. Even if we get past this line of ships, he could follow us all the way to the mainland and shoot us down on shore.”

Nobody said a word because she was saying what we all had been thinking.

“If we don’t do something drastic,” Tori said. “We’re dead.”

“Drastic like what?” I asked. “It’s not like we can turn and fight.”

Tori looked forward. We were still traveling north along the line of foundering ships that stood between us and the mainland. Far ahead was a destroyer in flames. It was perpendicular to the mainland and listing to its side, away from us. Beyond it was a battleship that was dead in the water, parallel to the destroyer.

“Drastic like we could die,” she said. “But we’re going to die anyway.”

I looked at Kent and Olivia. Both looked sick.

“Do you have an idea, Tori?” Olivia asked with surprising calm.

Tori said, “I do. But it has to be now—and you have to trust me.”

Kent looked back and announced, “That damn black boat is right on our tail. They’re going to start shooting any second.”

“Do it,” I said to Tori.

“Hurry,” Olivia added.

Tori glared at Kent.

Kent said, “Go.”

Tori instantly unbuckled her seat belt and said, “I’ll take the wheel.”

“You sure?” I asked.

Her answer was to push me out of the captain’s chair and grab the wheel with her right hand. Her injury was to her left shoulder, making that arm useless, but I trusted Tori with one hand on the wheel more than any of us with both.

“Take the throttle,” she commanded.

Tori gently nudged us to port, getting us closer to the line of ships. She had to make two quick course adjustments to dodge
floating debris, and with each movement of the wheel, I saw her wince with pain. Yet even with the handicap, she could maneuver the speeding craft with an expertise that I couldn’t match.

“Olivia! Tell me what’s happening back there,” she commanded.

“They’re getting closer,” Olivia cried.

“Maybe fifty yards back,” Kent added. “And closing.”

I looked ahead at the destroyer that was perpendicular to the mainland. Its entire superstructure was ablaze and it was listing hard to starboard, away from us. It would roll onto its side at any second—and probably hit the battleship that was lying next to it.

That’s when I knew.

“You can’t be serious,” I said to Tori.

“Everybody hold on to something,” was her response. She was locked in, calculating the physics of what she was about to attempt. I hoped she was working with something more solid than guesswork.

I buckled into the copilot’s seat. Kent and Olivia each grabbed safety rails.

“What are you going to do?” Olivia asked nervously.

Tori ignored the question and called out, “How far back are they?”

“Forty yards,” Kent replied. “The guy’s standing at the machine gun. He’s lining us up.”

Tori said, “Tucker, when I tell you, power down by half but keep your hand on the throttles.”

“Got it,” I replied though my mouth had gone dry.

The doomed destroyer loomed over us as we came up quickly on its stern. I saw sailors jumping for their lives off the port side.

“Thirty yards!” Kent called out.

The machine gun behind us opened fire.

We were about to cross the stern of the flaming destroyer when—

“Now!” Tori called.

I pulled back on the throttles as Tori spun us into a sharp left turn. We had been traveling so fast that I feared we would flip, but with an expert touch she kept us righted as we side-slipped forward, passing the stern of the doomed ship…

…with our bow now pointed toward the mainland.

“Throttle up!” Tori yelled. “Go, go, go!”

I thrust the throttles forward and the monstrous engines roared back to full power. The jolt of acceleration was so sudden that Olivia and Kent were nearly thrown over.

“You’re crazy!” Olivia shrieked in terror.

I couldn’t argue with her. The listing, burning destroyer was now to our left. To our right was the battleship. Between them was a narrow corridor of water. The battleship was doomed. Even if it had power, it wouldn’t be able to clear in time. The burning superstructure of the destroyer was seconds away from toppling onto the deck of its neighbor—with us sandwiched in between.

“My God,” Kent screamed. “We’re in hell.”

The heat was quickly becoming unbearable as the listing ship tilted toward us. The flaming superstructure loomed directly over our heads, creating a ceiling of fire.

Tori didn’t show a hint of fear or concern.

“Are they coming?” she asked.

I twisted to look back and was shocked to see Granger’s gunship
sliding into the same maneuver we had just made. It was about to follow us into the suicide corridor.

“Yeah, they’re coming,” I called out. “They fell back a little making the turn. I don’t think they expected us to do that.”

“Neither did I,” Kent wailed. “We’re gonna be incinerated.”

Tori stayed focused. I kept my hands on the throttles, pressing down hard as if that might help us go faster, but the engines were already wide open.

We made it to the mid-ship point—and Olivia screamed.

A chunk of flaming metal fell off the superstructure and dropped toward us. It would have landed directly on the deck if Tori hadn’t made a subtle but lifesaving shift toward the battleship. The flaming mass hit the water to our port side, the hot metal sizzling as it slammed into the water.

“The whole thing’s coming down on our heads!” Kent screamed.

The destroyer had reached the tipping point and was on its way over. Our engines roared and dug into the water that was being churned up by the massive ships on either side of us. Bits of molten metal fell like sparkling rain all around, each drop as dangerous as acid. Some hit our front deck and quickly melted holes in the fiberglass. We huddled under the canopy to avoid the burning shower, but the thin top would do nothing to protect us from the tons of flaming metal that was seconds away from hitting us.

Above the pounding of our engines and the white noise of the inferno, I could hear the panicked shouts of sailors from both sides who were abandoning ship.

I reached out and held on to Tori’s shoulder. I wanted her to know that in spite of what was about to happen, she had made the
right move. The only move. Besides, I wanted the last moment of my life spent making human contact with someone.

She looked at me and I gave her a smile. “It’s okay,” I said with surprising calm.

“I know,” she said with a cocky shrug. “We’re gonna make it.”

She gave me a wink…

…as the superstructure came down.

It hit the battleship and we were instantly enveloped in a cave of fire. The heat was so intense I feared it would melt the fiberglass boat. The screaming sound of a thousand tons of wrenching, burning metal cut through the roar of our engines. Above it all I could hear the panicked cries of sailors from both doomed ships who were desperate to escape the death trap.

I braced myself, ready to be crushed or burned alive…as we cleared the destroyer’s bow and charged into open water.

Safe.

“Yahhh!” Kent screamed in triumph as we flew on, leaving the carnage behind.

Olivia screamed too, out of pure joy.