Vault of Shadows (15 page)

“Do it!”

Smoke was getting so thick that it was hard to breathe. Milo saw Shark stagger across the jolting deck and crawl into his chair. Killer, barking furiously, leaped into his lap. Milo tried not to think about what was happening to the wounded in the hold. What all the jolting and jouncing was doing to the spike in Barnaby's chest.

If Barnaby was even still alive.

“Hold on,” ordered Milo. “I'm going to try something.”

“What are you going to do?” begged Shark.

Milo closed his fist and began pushing it forward. The engine noise changed from a troubled cough to a roar and then to a scream as the red ship shot forward.

“Milo—the engines can't handle this,” cried Shark, but he ignored him.

He raised his hand. Slowly, slowly bringing the ship up, aiming it away from the trees, driving it toward the sky at increasing speeds.

On the screen the blue ships fell immediately behind, and then, one by one, they flared brighter as they kicked their own engines up to full. The red ship was probably faster when it was first built—maybe twice as fast—but in its present condition the barrel-fighters were closing the distance with terrifying rapidity.

Smoke poured from the coolant system and Milo had
to use his free hand to pull his shirt up over his nose and mouth. The smoke burned his eyes and blurred his vision. He heard Shark and Evangelyne screaming his name, begging him to stop, to slow down.

But Milo clenched his teeth in fear and fury as the ship soared toward the edge of space.

The blue ships shot upward, trying to catch the red ship inside the atmosphere while there was still oxygen for their engines to burn.

And then, with a roar of rage, Milo jerked his hand backward, his fist still clenched inside the holographic drive.

There was a scream of protesting metal as momentum and gravity tried to turn the red ship inside out. Milo prayed that the Huntsman's ship was built to withstand those forces. It was the beast's command ship, capable of flight in atmosphere and space. Fast, powerful.

The barrel-ships were directly behind the red ship, all of them traveling at more than twice the speed of sound.

There was absolutely no way for the pursuit fighters to veer away. No chance, no time.

One by one they slammed into the Huntsman's craft and exploded.

And then the red ship was falling.

Falling.

Falling back to the hard, unforgiving surface of the planet below.

E
verybody screamed.

The Huntsman's red ship dropped like a rock from the sky and fell with an escort of flaming wreckage from the three barrel-fighters.

It fell, fell, fell.

The steering hologram winked out as circuit after circuit exploded, melted, or burned. Milo clung to the armrests of the pilot's seat, choking on the thick, oily smoke that now filled the cabin completely. Tears streamed from his irritated eyes, and his lungs felt hot and singed.

Most of the viewscreen holograms had also winked out. Only one was left—and it showed the waters of Lake Pontchartrain rushing up toward them.

“Hold on!” he bellowed. “This is going to be baaaaaad!”

The ship hit the water.

It was bad.

FROM MILO'S DREAM DIARY

I remember a conversation I had with the Witch of the World. Not sure if it was in a dream or when I was awake. Maybe it doesn't matter.

Anyway, I said, “Everything's getting so complicated. I can't keep it all straight.”

And she said, “The world has always been complicated, Milo. What's changed is that now you're able to notice.”

T
here are worse ways to wake up than in a burning spaceship that is filling with cold, brackish water.

However, Milo could not think of any.

He didn't know how long he was unconscious. Maybe an hour, maybe only a handful of seconds. His mind was numb and every single molecule of his body hurt. He was sure he was dead and that instead of going to heaven he'd been taken to a world where pain was the only experience. He was certain of it.

He could hear terrible screams.

Screams in voices he recognized.

And overlaying that sound was the gurgling of water. Milo knew he should move, should get up, get out, save himself, save everyone . . . but his body would not respond. His legs felt like they were made of ice, and his hands seemed to hang limp at the ends of dead arms.

“H-help . . .”

He heard the voice through the gurgling. Faint, weak, fading.

Female.

Milo stirred in his seat and tried to make his brain
function so he could attach a name to the voice. He turned with infinite slowness, aware that he was hurt, aware of wet warmth on his face. Blood or oil? He wasn't sure. Probably both.

“Help . . .”

The voice seemed so far away. Not just somewhere on the other side of all that water and smoke, but in another place.

“M-Milo . . . please . . .”

He saw something move. No, some
one.

A pale figure with long, flowing pale hair and eyes the color of winter ice. It confused him, because those eyes and that hair belonged to the voice, and that voice was off to his right, behind the swirling smoke.

“Milo,” said the figure, and even with that one word, he knew it wasn't the same voice that had cried for help. This was a younger, thinner, higher voice. Much more familiar, and yet . . . it was as strange as the sound of wind blowing through the charred rafters of a burned-out building.

He tried to find her name. Found something, worked to fit it into his mouth.

“L-Lizzie?”

She came closer, emerging from the smoke. Her hair was wild and her eyes were so strange. Lizabeth's eyes, but also
not
hers.

“Milo,” she said urgently, “you need to wake up.”

“I—I am awake,” he protested. He could see her
clearly now. The same young face and huge eyes, the blouse with the flower pattern and the cut mark.

There was something not right about it all, though, but he couldn't think what it was.

“Milo, you have to wake up.”

Lizabeth took him by the shoulders and shook him. Her hands were surprisingly strong, but so cold. Ice cold.

“Lizzie . . . stop . . . I'm awake!”

At least that's what he thought he said.

To his own ears, though, it all sounded jumbled. Gurgled. Wet. As if he was . . .

. . . speaking . . .

. . . . . . . under . . .

. . . . . . . . . . water. . . .

And suddenly Milo snapped awake.

Actually awake.

There was no smoke.

There was only darkness.

Darkness and water.

Because the entire ship had sunk to the bottom of the lake and filled with water.

And he was drowning.

M
ilo thrashed in his chair, but he was still belted in. He punched the release, kicked free of the chair, and felt himself rising through the utter blackness. From his angle, all he could tell was that the ship had landed with the bridge tilted forward and to the right. That meant he was moving up and left toward the damaged coolant panels. There was no hatch on that side of the bridge, though. The two exits were the ones that led to the hold—that is, directly behind where he'd been sitting—and the main exit, which was next to where Evangelyne and Shark were seated.

He heard sounds all around him, muffled and distorted by the water. Screams. There were definitely screams, which meant that some parts of the ship might not be fully flooded. And there was a massive pounding sound as if someone were hammering on the walls with a sledgehammer.

And something else.

A sharp sound above him. Small and strange, filled with panic.

Was it . . . barking?

Yes.

Above him somewhere, Killer was barking.

Barking was impossible underwater. Milo kicked upward, fighting the drag of his soaked clothes, his pouch of slingshot stones, and the scavenging pack he always wore. His lungs burned and his head pounded. He wondered if seeing Lizabeth had been a dream of his dying, drowning mind.

The barking continued, and it bounced with distorted frenzy through the cold water as Milo kicked and kicked to try to find it.

Then something struck him hard across the mouth.

Milo recoiled in pain and confusion. It had been something that moved. His face felt mashed, and he pawed the water to try to find the object and fend it off before it hit him again.

It hit him again.

And again.

Finally, Milo managed to get his hands in front of his face and catch the thing. He felt something solid. A shape that instantly made sense.

A shin. An ankle. A shoe.

No, a sneaker with the same familiar tread as his own.

Milo began climbing up the leg to the thigh, the hip. He felt bare skin and a broad stomach. Then a hand reached down into the water, slapped at his head, took a fistful of his hair, and pulled him upward until Milo broke the surface of the water into an air pocket. Killer's bark changed from blind panic to something else, something that was
still frenzied but now included a note of happy excitement.

“Milo?” gasped Shark.

“Yeah! Ow, let go.”

Shark didn't immediately let go. Instead he pulled Milo until he hit the wall. “Grab onto something.”

Milo had to flap around, slapping the walls until he found a section of the panel. Most of the machinery was smooth, but he found the section Shark had opened and he hooked his fingers around that. Then he simply held on as he gulped in lungfuls of air. It was still smoky, but it was air.

“Where's . . . Evangelyne?” he gasped.

He heard Shark make a noise that was fear and anger. “Down there. Hold on, I'm going to try again.”

“Again—?” Milo began, but Shark was gone, leaving behind the sound of a splash and the hysterical Jack Russell. He could also hear the pounding sound. It was so powerful that it shook the whole ship, and suddenly Milo understood what it was.

Mook.

The stone boy was in the hold with the wounded and was trying to smash his way out. But he was made of stone and the ship was built of metals and alloys that had been designed to withstand the artillery of Earth Alliance weapons, midair collisions, and the stresses of interplanetary travel. Milo did not believe that Mook was going to be able to smash his way out, not even with all the crushing force of a rock spirit.

Milo bent low to the surface of the water to try to find some clean air beneath the roiling cloud of smoke. He took a small breath, didn't choke, took a longer breath, held it, let it go, took a bigger one, and then dove beneath the surface.

He saw Iskiel there, swimming sluggishly as if dazed, his fiery glow diminished by the dark water. At least he could survive underwater, though not forever if they remained trapped.

Milo kicked toward the back of the bridge, drawn by the sound of Mook's furious hammering. In the dark there was no way to know how close he was to the wall, and he found it by crashing into it. Then he crawled up to the surface, found that the pocket of air was even smaller there, took another breath, and sank down, searching for handholds on the wall, finding only a few, but enough to keep him moving in the right direction. The ship's power was out, but all vessels have a manual release for escapes following accidents, and the alien ships were no different.

It seemed to take a million years to find the lever, which was built into an inset slot beside the hatch door. He gripped it with both hands, braced his feet against the wall, and pulled.

The lever did not want to move. Or maybe it was designed for beings more powerful than a skinny eleven-year-old boy.

Even so, he put everything he had into it, pushing with the big muscles in his thighs, using his core strength.
Using everything he had, until the darkness seemed to be filled with exploding red fireworks.

Just when he thought his lungs would burst and his bones break, the lever moved. First grudgingly, and then all at once. Milo was hurled upward by the sudden release of tension and he shot into the air pocket, hit the ceiling, and dropped again. Then he kicked up, took a couple of quick breaths, and swam back down.

And was amazed that he could see.

Down there in the swirling water was a light. It poured out from the open hatch and he saw bodies moving. Refugees from the camp, some of them swimming with energy, some floating limply as they were pulled by others. He saw the slim form of Lizabeth, moving with the grace of a mermaid. She had an arm hooked around Barnaby and, despite her tiny size, was pulling him quickly through the hatch. Two of the survivors had waterproof flashlights, and it was by their light that they all crowded out of the hold. There was no way for Milo to know how many of them had survived. It was too confusing.

Mook turned and looked up at him and said, “Mook!” But it came out as a watery gurgle.

Then the stone boy turned toward the main hatch. Milo swam down to him and guided Mook's rocky fingers toward the manual release that would allow them to escape the drowned ship. Mook grabbed the lever and pulled. The design may have been nearly beyond Milo's strength, but it was no match for the rock spirit. The
lever jerked upward and then snapped off, but the door opened with a
whoosh.

The water swirled and bubbled, and then something moved
into
the alien ship instead of out of it. A brute of scales and claws and teeth.

Everyone screamed the last of the air out of their lungs.

M
ilo shoved people away as the alligator rushed forward, and its whipping tail struck Mook on the side of the head. But the stone boy spun in the water and swung a mighty punch at the beast, catching it with a glancing blow.

The gator instantly jerked around toward the source of the blow, and the very tip of its tail caught Milo in the chest with the force of a boxer's punch. Milo felt himself flying upward once more, and he used the momentum to get up to the air pocket for one last gulp. Killer's barks were filled with wild panic now, and as soon as Milo reached him he knew why. The air pocket was only a narrow slit above the thrashing surface, and the dog was barely able to keep his mouth above the water.