SYLO

TWENTY-FOUR

The first shot was fired by the Navy.

A missile was launched from one of the ships. Followed by another and then another… all aimed at the incoming swarm of planes.

As the dark spots in the sky grew close enough for us to make out their stingray shape, they quickly scattered to evade the missiles. There were far more of them than we had seen in the earlier battle. It was an invasion-level force with multiple waves of planes. Several missiles found their mark, hitting the dark crafts and turning them into spectacular fireballs in the sky. The fiery wrecks plummeted to earth, splashing down in the ocean on the far side of the line of Navy vessels.

Kent joined me at the control console, his eyes fixed on the mayhem in the sky.

“What are they?” he asked numbly. “Stealth bombers?”

“I don’t know. They’re not like any planes I ever heard of. According to Feit, they belong to SYLO.”

“So that would make the Navy the good guys,” Kent said. “But SYLO is part of the Navy, so why would they be shooting at their own planes?”

My mind raced, calculating the possibilities.

“It doesn’t make sense. Unless…”

“Unless what?” he pressed.

“Unless Feit was lying.”

We shared sober looks. That possibility turned everything on its ear, once again.

“So who do we root for?” Kent asked.

“I wish I knew.”

The clatter of a machine gun added to the mayhem. I whipped around to see that the attack boat had drawn closer and had opened fire on us. I’d almost forgotten about it. Almost. I took another quick turn, nearly throwing Kent off of his feet.

“Stop that!” he complained.

“Do you want to get shot?” I yelled.

Kent started to argue, but held back and said, “Do what you gotta do.”

The Navy kept launching an intense barrage of missiles, creating a daytime fireworks display in the sky. Some hit, most didn’t. The black fighters were amazingly agile as they quickly veered to avoid being hit. I had the fleeting hope that the Navy’s attention would be so focused on the aerial attack we would be able to slip past them unnoticed.

Behind us, the attack boat was still closing but had stopped firing again. All I could do was keep pushing ahead.

From the south, four new fighters entered the fight. They were traditional military jets that had probably come from an aircraft carrier. With their arrival the sea-to-air battle turned into a dogfight. The streaking military jets broke formation and made runs at the black crafts, launching their missiles, then pulling out to set up for another pass. Several more shadow planes exploded and dropped from the sky.

“This is horrible,” Olivia said with a gasp. “We’re watching people die.”

“Why aren’t they fighting back?” Tori called.

Her answer came seconds later, when the black planes went on the attack. I expected them to unleash the laser-like weapons we had witnessed before. Instead, what we saw were explosions on the Navy ships without any sign of the missiles that caused them. There were no flashes of light, no smoke trails, no clatter of guns. But the black planes were definitely firing, for they would swoop down low for an attack run and then seconds later an explosion would erupt on one of the ships. The only thing I can say for sure was that they were not using the weapon that made the Patricia evaporate.

The four fighter planes were given the same treatment. A black plane would chase one down, and then seconds later it would be blown out of the sky without warning.

Tori struggled to join us at the console. She was in pain and needed to hold on to the control panel for support but she fought through it to be with us.

“I don’t get it,” she said. “Why aren’t they using the weapons they used before?”

Nobody had the answer. Instead of the ships lighting up and disappearing, the results were much more conventional. Fires burned everywhere. The ships finally started to take evasive maneuvers as the long line that had blockaded Pemberwick Island went ragged. Within minutes most every ship had been hit and was damaged to one degree or another. Some fatally. A few listed and started to sink. Smoke billowed from the ships and settled over the ocean like a dense, dark fog. The smell of burning oil hit us quickly.

“This is our chance,” I exclaimed. “We can try and make our way through.”

“You want to drive us through that mess?” Kent said.

I glanced back at the attack boat that was still on our tail.

“It’s either that,” I said, “or face off with them. I’d rather take my chances picking our way through.”

I had seen movies of battles at sea, but nothing compared to the reality of what we were barreling toward. The Navy was taking heavy losses. We were still maybe a half mile from the first ship but we could already see lifeboats in the water. The jet fighters weren’t doing much better. Several more rocketed in and took down their share of the black planes, but every last one of them paid the price and was blown out of the sky. Still, there was no sign of the deadly laser weapons.

“It’s daylight,” Tori said.

“Yeah, so?” Kent said.

“Maybe that’s why those laser-light weapons don’t work. They might not function when it’s light out.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Kent said. “They don’t need any laser guns. The Navy’s getting their ass kicked.”

“Are they?” Tori argued. “They’re knocking a lot of those planes out of the sky.”

“But the planes keep coming,” Kent shot back. “There could be thousands of ’em.”

“And that’s as far as they’re getting,” Tori said thoughtfully. “The Navy’s targeting the lead planes like they’re trying to prevent them from getting any further. None of them have made it past the ships.”

“Why would the Navy care?” I asked. “If they’re protecting the mainland, it’s back the other way.”

Tori looked me dead in the eye and said, “But Pemberwick Island is this way.”

The idea rocked me.

Was it possible that the Navy was here not just to quarantine Pemberwick Island, but to protect it?

The sound of machine gun fire brought us back to our immediate trouble. The attack boat had closed considerably and was firing at us again.

“Doesn’t that guy ever give up?” Kent asked angrily.

“We gotta go for it,” I said. “I’m driving us through the battle. It’s our only chance of losing him.”

I changed direction slightly to take us on a more direct path to the turmoil on the sea. Thick smoke from the burning vessels was growing. It would make perfect cover.

“When we hit the smoke, I’ll change direction,” I said.

“You gotta be careful, Tucker,” Tori cautioned. “There’s a lot of debris in the water.”

Debris was a nice word for the mess we were speeding toward. Huge chunks of steel that had been torn from the warships were floating everywhere…and then there were the warships themselves. Most were still under power and taking evasive action but many were foundering. Several were dead in the water or sinking fast. We didn’t want to collide with a ship fifty times our size or run down a life raft full of sailors. It was a dangerous, moving minefield but navigating through it was our best hope for escape—and survival.

“I don’t like this one bit,” Olivia said the instant before we hit the leading edge of the smoke.

It was like driving into a fog—a dense black fog that smelled of death.

“Slow down, Tucker,” Tori wisely suggested.

I eased back on the throttles and it was a good thing I did because no sooner did we drop our speed than our bow was crossed by a frigate that had no idea we were there. We were buffeted by its wake and Tori was thrown to the deck. She hit hard and yelped with pain.

Olivia instantly ran to her and helped get her into the copilot’s seat.

“I’m okay,” Tori said through gritted teeth.

“You should buckle in,” I said.

Before Tori could respond, Olivia snapped the belt around her waist.

“That feel okay?” she asked.

Tori nodded, though she wasn’t feeling close to okay.

Olivia gave her a comforting rub on her good arm. I was beginning to like Olivia, and it had nothing to do with memories of her bikini. She may have been totally out of her comfort zone, as we all were, but she showed a caring side that made me realize she was more than just a pretty, spoiled rich girl. I guess conflict brings out the best in people. Or in some cases, the worst. I won’t mention any names.

It was no longer about speed. We had entered into a game of cat and mouse with an attack boat on our tail that was hunting for us.

“Relax Tucker,” Tori said. “If you grip the wheel any tighter, you’ll snap it.”

“I’m fine,” I said, lying.

“I know you are,” she replied. “You’re doing great.”

From her, that was a huge compliment. It helped my confidence. A little. My entire concentration was focused on the few feet ahead of our bow.

“I’m changing course,” I announced. “Or it’ll be too easy to track us.”

Visibility was near zero but not being able to see the action didn’t mean that it didn’t exist. The steady whoosh sound of missiles being fired and tearing through the sky, exploding planes, and watery crashes meant that the fierce battle was still raging. Being in the center of the conflict, blind, was beyond nerve-wracking. There was no way to know if we were on a collision course with a ship, beneath a burning plane that was tumbling out of the sky, or about to be strafed by Granger.

“Keep headed west,” Tori said, tapping the compass.

I listened for the engine of the gun boat, but there was too much else going on for me to pick it out. For all I knew it was only a few feet back, ready to blow us out of the water.

“Look out!” Kent called.

Too late. We smashed into a chunk of floating debris that looked to be a hull section the size of a VW. We hit it hard and our boat rocked so violently that I thought we would capsize. I spun the wheel to my left and managed to regain control—in time to run head on into a massive gray wall. The impact sent us all tumbling forward. Kent and Olivia fell to the deck. I was thrust onto the steering wheel so hard it knocked the wind out of me. The only one who didn’t move was Tori because she was buckled in, but the sudden jolt was painful for her just the same.

The gray wall was the hull of a ship that was so monstrous I couldn’t see up to the deck. Gasping to fill my lungs with air, I spun the wheel hard to the right and we quickly came around until we were traveling parallel to the ship. But we were still so close that we scraped against the steel hull, creating a shrieking sound that made it seem as if our boat was being ripped apart.

“Pull away, Tucker,” Tori said coolly.

Her calm voice helped me get my head back together enough to steer away from the behemoth and end the torturous noise. It took another minute for my heart to stop thumping.

“Anybody hurt?” I called out.

Nobody answered, so I took that as a good sign. Tori gave me a smile. I looked at her bandage and was grateful to see that no blood was seeping through. Maybe Olivia had earned a gunshot-wound merit badge after all.

“I’m fine!” Tori yelled, as if annoyed by the fact that I had been looking at her for too long.

“Kent, go to the bow,” I commanded. “Check for damage.”

I expected him to complain and refuse but he immediately crawled forward, knelt on the seat, and leaned over to inspect the bow.

“The fiberglass buckled,” he called back. “There are some cracks but I don’t think it’s fatal.”

“Stay there,” I called. “You gotta be my eyes.”

Kent didn’t question and stayed where he was, his attention focused ahead.

Olivia crawled back to us and stood behind Tori’s chair, holding the back for support.

“Let’s not do that again, okay?” she asked sweetly.

“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.

The superstructure erupted like an angry volcano, shooting massive spikes of flame high into the sky. A powerful wave of heat hit us in the back as the two ships collapsed into each other to create a single massive floating inferno.

“Granger?” Tori asked while keeping her eyes straight ahead.

I focused on the flames at sea level, expecting to see the attack boat come charging out of the fire.

A second passed. Then another. The destroyer was nearly on its side, its burning superstructure having hit the battleship and crumbled into the space between the ships. Kent had called it. It was hell.

Olivia said, “Do you think they—”

An explosion erupted in the space that had once been the corridor between the ships. A cloud of debris blew from the impact point, creating a fiery bloom of burning metal. For a fleeting instant I saw the dark silhouette of a machine gun spinning out of control. The one thing I didn’t see bursting out of that explosion…was the attack boat.

Olivia, Kent, and I kept staring back, not daring to believe what we had seen. Seconds passed as the two massive ships burned as one.

“There’s no way they turned around in time,” I finally said.

“And they sure as hell didn’t make it through,” Kent added.

We all shared stunned looks.

“Is it possible?” Olivia asked.

“I think it is,” I said, hardly believing it myself. “They’re done. Granger’s dead.”

The four of us let out a spontaneous cry of triumph. Kent threw his arms around me and lifted me off my feet.

“We did it, Rook,” he said with tears in his eyes. “We beat him. We won.”

Olivia wrapped her arms around the both of us. She was sobbing.

I think she said, “We’re not going to die,” but it was hard to tell because she was such an emotional mess.

Tori stayed focused ahead.

I leaned down to her and whispered, “You know something? You are crazy.”

Tori gave me a quick look—and a smile.

“I told you we’d make it.”

Olivia gently put a hand on each of her cheeks and kissed her on top of the head.

“Sister, you are my new hero,” she said. “But I will not go on a boat with you ever again.”

“Take a break, Sleeper,” Kent said as he put one hand on the wheel. “You earned it.”

That’s as big a compliment as Kent was capable of giving.

Tori hesitated, as if not wanting to give up control. Or maybe her hand was frozen to the wheel after having gripped it tightly for so long. She leaned forward, winced with a twinge of pain in her shoulder, and eased back on the throttle.

“She’s all yours,” she said to Kent. “Get us the hell out of here.”

We had done it. We’d escaped. And as a bonus, we had cut off the dragon’s head. SYLO’s leader was on his way to whatever level of hell he belonged in.

It was a moment filled with relief and joy. I walked to the stern of the boat, alone, to look back on the miles of floating devastation that had once been a fleet of ships spread across the horizon. Several were still intact and under power, though just as many were foundering. The sky had grown dark with the smoke of a hundred floating fires.

Pemberwick Island was completely blocked from view. I wondered if I would ever see it again.

“We did it, Quinn,” I whispered. “We made the Pemberwick Run.”

Against all odds we had survived. But the feeling of triumph was soon replaced by another nagging thought.

Was this the end of our journey, or just the beginning?