Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic

CHAPTER FIVE

Serpents and Soldiers

“Diego!”

Diego was surprised to see a young man standing on the dock, waving in his direction. As he stepped down, he tentatively waved back.

The man smiled and put out his hand. “I’m George Emerson Jr., but you can call me Georgie. It’s great to finally meet you!”

Diego shook his hand, wondering if Georgie was going to be anything like his sister. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“Splendid that our fathers get to join forces, wouldn’t you agree?” Georgie said as they crossed the busy platform.

“Pretty cool,” Diego said.

“I’m looking forward to seeing this retrofit completed,” Georgie said. “It’s been painstaking work out here, that’s for sure. But more interesting than hitting the books back in London. I hear they brought you in to drive the bot. You must be an ace operator.”

“I’m okay,” Diego said. This Georgie wasn’t half bad.

“I appreciate your modesty,” Georgie said. He lowered his voice. “But if you want my advice, don’t sell yourself short to my father. He can be tough to take, especially when he smells uncertainty.”

“Thanks,” Diego said. “Actually, I’m really good.”

Georgie patted him on the back. “That’s the spirit.”

They reached the center of the open area, where George Emerson Sr. stood beside Santiago near a neat stack of eight large mechanical steam converters. Diego recognized his father’s work, now being replaced with the single Goliath converter that Emerson had designed.

“Careful with those pressure regulators,” George said curtly to two of Santiago’s workers. “And you there,” he barked, pointing at another man who was preparing the housing. “Do you even speak English? I said to scour that piping, not give it a massage.”

Diego was surprised to hear Emerson speaking to his father’s men that way. He watched Dad for a reaction, but Santiago only glanced up, then back at his clipboard.

“Hi, Dad,” Diego said.

“Oh hey, son.” Santiago rubbed his head. “George, this is Diego, our driver for today.”

George glanced over. “The prodigy, huh?” He gave Diego only a passing glance before returning to the clipboard. “You sure he’s up to this? It’s not a toy we’re installing.” His eyes flashed to the massive orange steam locomotive retrofitted with pistons and gears. “I would have preferred someone a bit more . . . qualified.”

Diego was about to stick up for himself when Santiago’s hand fell on his shoulder.

“Diego can handle it.”

Emerson lowered the clipboard, still frowning. “Only my top drivers in the Royal Engineering Corps are rated for a class-three loader. Has your boy completed any formal training?”

Diego glanced at his dad. Santiago’s lips pursed, but he breathed deep and spoke diplomatically. “I can assure you that your steam converter is in the best of hands.”

Come on, Dad, Diego thought. He wished Santiago would give this arrogant man a piece of his mind.

“Well . . . ,” George scoffed. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Your drivers wouldn’t have the first clue how to pilot that Centauri loader bot,” Diego blurted. “My father designed it specifically for this station. You have to know what you’re doing, handle it right. Tear the wrong thing out and you could blast us all to pieces.”

“How dare you speak to me like that, you insolent whelp!” George bellowed. “Mr. Ribera, if you can’t control your crew, I can pull my team and take my converter back home with me.”

Santiago’s hand closed around Diego’s arm. “My apologies, Mr. Emerson.” Santiago yanked Diego away, guiding him across the platform toward the foreman’s office.

Once the door had closed, Santiago threw up his hands. “Diego! What has gotten into you? Do you realize who you were talking to?”

“Yeah,” Diego said, “a real blowhard.”

“George Emerson is the chief technical officer of the—”

“I know who he is, Dad! But that doesn’t mean he can talk to you like he did! Why are you defending him? You’ve done more for New Chicago than he’s ever done for his home. Why do you let someone like him push you around? Why do we even have to use someone else’s stupid converter when yours are twice as good?”

“That may or may not be true,” Santiago said. “There is always something to be learned from cooperation and sharing ideas.”

“Not with him!” Diego said. “If I were chief engineer, there is no way I would accept being treated like that.”

“What else would you do if you were chief engineer?”

“After I sent Emerson home? I’d make machines that would prove how strong we are, a city to be respected.”

“You sound like you mean feared.”

“Well, what would be wrong with fearing us? If you showed Emerson what you could really do, he wouldn’t come in here acting like he does.”

“You would have us be mighty and strong,” Santiago said, shaking his head, “but the mightiest are also often the loneliest. We need each other to survive in this world, even the more . . . difficult people. I can’t believe that is all you have learned from me. You have a lot of growing up to do before you’ll be ready to be chief engineer. Maybe you’re not ready for the Maker’s Sight.”

“Maybe I’ll never be good enough to be chief engineer. I mean, have you ever asked me what I wanted?” Diego shouted. “And the Maker’s Sight—I didn’t ask for that either! Why would anyone want to have an ability that they’d have to hide from the world? I’m not you, and I don’t want to be!”

A silence passed between them.

Suddenly, the floor shook violently.

“What was that?” Diego asked as he regained his balance.

“Trouble,” Santiago said, peering out the window. He pushed Diego toward the door. “Back outside. Hurry!”

The two emerged from the foreman’s shack into the deafening wail of warning sirens.

Workers darted in all directions. The wind had kicked up, the sky to the west darkening with the approaching storm.

“What’s wrong with your plant now?” George thundered over the din.

“There’s nothing wrong with the plant!” Santiago replied.

Another explosion tore through the station from below, shaking the floors. Diego stumbled and fell to his knees.

Something shrieked above them.

“Look out!” Santiago called.

George threw himself backward as part of a venting tower crashed to the deck. “Ahh!”

Diego scrambled to his feet to see Georgie pinned beneath the wreckage, screaming in pain.

“Diego!” Santiago shouted as he raced to Georgie. “Get the Centauri bot!”

Diego sprinted across the deck, dodging fiery debris as it crashed around him. A giant piece of the cooling tank knifed into the deck just feet in front of him, forcing Diego to dive out of the way. He stumbled to get up, regaining his balance as another steel girder slammed into the deck.

Diego reached the Centauri bot, clambered up the side, and slung himself into the cockpit. He powered it on, and the diesel motor revved to life. Diego jammed the throttle, and the Centauri lurched forward. The robot took one huge step but stalled as Diego fumbled with the controls. He could operate this robot with his eyes closed usually, but nothing about this moment was usual. Diego watched Georgie struggling. No time to think. He eased the robot forward and moved quickly.

The Centauri reached Georgie after several thundering strides. George waved his hands in the air, pleading with Diego to hurry. But the robot’s pneumatic claws could crush Georgie like a gnat if Diego wasn’t precise. He maneuvered the claws like they were an extension of his own hands and clamped down on the beam, lifting it free and flinging the beam out of the way. As he spun the robot back around, Diego looked to the horizon.

“Dad!” Diego shouted. “Three warships! Headed this way!”

He pointed toward the horizon, and Santiago raced to a maintenance ladder, scrambling up until he could see.

Blinding flashes of light . . . whistling. Three more explosions shook the platform to its core.

A section of the scaffolding exploded. Diego heard a terrified scream and saw a worker throw himself off the side into the sea to escape the flames.

“It’s the Aeternum!” Santiago shouted, dropping back to the deck. He waved to Diego. “Get to the command center!”

Santiago and George bent to help raise Georgie to his feet. Getting his arms around their shoulders, they lurched across the damaged deck, making their way around flaming piles of debris.

Diego powered off the robot and risked a glimpse back to the sea before climbing down. The ships were closing fast, but their cannons had stopped. The water all around them roiled. Shining backs broke the surface, surging ahead of the ships. Flicking tails, whitecaps and wakes forming as if behind invisible vessels. Diego wondered if they were machines, but as they neared the platform he saw something much worse. Pointed snouts, the glint of massive jaws. Mosasaurs, the most fearsome predators of the Vastlantic.

The station shuddered, swaying to one side, then back in the other direction with the next hit. Violent plumes of ocean spray exploded into the sky. Diego struggled to hang on to the railing and Georgie as they stumbled to the command center.

“In here! Hurry!” A marine sergeant waved to them from the doorway.

Diego lunged through as a terrible shriek sounded. The walkway they’d just been standing on twisted and collapsed out of sight. The command center teetered, and, for a moment, it seemed like the whole thing would fall into the sea. But the support towers groaned and the room stopped, frozen at a steep angle.

Diego fell against the wall, catching his breath. A medic grabbed Georgie and laid him on the floor to assess his condition.

“What’s the situation, Captain?” Santiago called.

Captain Halsey stood over the control banks, gazing through binoculars at the attacking ships. “Not good, Ribera. We’ve lost most of the stabilizers. If the station takes much more of a beating, we’ll be swimming with those monsters!”

“What about our defenses?”

“Their initial cannon attack effectively crippled us. Security bots were knocked out, and we’ve lost our submersibles. Even the ferry’s been taken out. I sent a distress call to the air corps—”

“No one’s coming,” Santiago said. “They’re all grounded, so we’re on our own.” He gazed at the looming ships.

“There must be something you can do!” George shouted over the deafening sound of vibrating, twisting metal.

Then all at once, the battering ended. The platform stopped swaying.

The cannon fire ceased . . . replaced by the much closer sound of rifle fire.

Captain Halsey looked through the security scopes. “They’re boarding us.”

“How many men?” Santiago asked.

“At least fifty,” Captain Halsey said. “And an assault robot.”

Diego could barely breathe. Outside he heard shouting, frantic footsteps, the crackle of gunfire.

“Seal the door,” Santiago said.

“You heard him,” Captain Halsey said to the two marines by the door.

“We’re just going to hide in here?” George said.

Santiago whirled, and, though his voice remained low, he sounded as angry as Diego had ever heard him. “It’s not hiding when the enemy knows where you are. We’re buying time.”

“Buying time for what?” George said.

Santiago didn’t answer.

A blowtorch burst to life. The marines began to melt the edge of the door to the frame.

“Sir!” one of the workers shouted from the back of the room. “This air vent could lead down to the lifeboats.”

“What good are lifeboats against those Aeternum ships?” George said.

“They might be small enough to escape unnoticed,” Santiago said. “And since they’re sail powered, they shouldn’t attract those mosasaurs.” He motioned to the workers. “Go!”

They dropped to their knees and began unscrewing the air vent grate in the wall.

A burly hand fell on Diego’s shoulder. “Come on, kid,” Stan Angelino, Dad’s foreman, said. He pulled Diego toward the vent.

“Wait, no!” Diego shouted.

“We’ve got it!” one of the workers shouted, tearing away the grating while the other began to slide his feet down into the airshaft.

“Let go!” Diego said.

“Can’t do it,” Stan said. “Your father ordered me to get you to safety.”

“I want to stay here!” Diego said. He turned and found Santiago across the room. Dad nodded at him, his face stern.

“Go. That’s an order.”

“I—”

Small-caliber bullets smashed against the armor of the command center door. The door shuddered under the pounding. The gunfire ceased, and there was a moment of silence, and then the sound of groaning metal as the assault robot tore the bulkhead door out.

“Come on,” Stan whispered. Diego didn’t protest. He dropped to his knees beside Stan, grabbed the edge of the vent, and pushed himself in, feetfirst.

“Here.” Stan handed him the grate for the vent. “I’m going to help hold them off,” he whispered, and darted away into the smoke.

Diego slid until his shoulders were through, then twisted back around and replaced the grate. He couldn’t screw it into place, but he leaned it as flush with the wall as he could just before—

Gunfire cracked. Shouts echoed. Cries of pain. The smoke began to dissipate, and Diego saw shadows darting back and forth.

He spied his father standing beside Captain Halsey, a handgun raised. They were flanked by two marines, with the other engineers and George behind them, all using the station’s control console as cover.

Diego began to shimmy backward. His feet left metal over the vertical shaft that he would need to climb down.

And yet he didn’t move. He couldn’t.

He kept peering out the grate. A marine lay on the floor nearby, unmoving. There was a flash: the gleam of the Aeternum warrior’s sword. He wanted to call out to his dad, but he couldn’t risk it.

Shouts. More gunshots. Fists colliding, the thumps of bodies hitting the floor. The smoke was almost gone now, and Diego saw another man step through the doorway, making no effort to defend himself.

“Santi, my boy,” the man called, “we can kill everyone in here, or you can show yourself. One of those two options sounds much easier.”

Don’t do it, Dad, Diego thought, but he heard footsteps, and his father stepped out from behind the control consoles.

“Hello, Balthus,” Santiago said. “I wish this were a surprise.”

Balthus Tintoretto smiled at Santiago and raised a gun toward him. “Oh come on. No hug for an old friend?”

Santiago lowered his gun. “If it’s me you want, then take me. But leave the rest of these innocents alone.”

Diego glimpsed a shadow, a figure slipping up behind Santiago. He wanted to call out—but the man had a sword against Santiago’s throat in less than a second.

“No one is innocent,” the man said.

Diego recognized the Roman battle armor from the news reports, and he saw the Aeternum symbol etched in gold on the man’s uniform: a Roman sword facing up, with a bow facing down.

“Hello, Magnus,” Santiago said tightly against the blade.

“Still the compassionate fool,” Magnus said. “Some things never change.”

“No, Magnus,” Santiago grunted. “I can see that they don’t.”

It was all Diego could do not to scream. Why was his father speaking to the leaders of the Aeternum, the vilest enemies known to this world, like they knew each other?

“The time has finally come,” Magnus said, lowering the blade but only to place the point against the small of Santiago’s back, “to complete the great work that we started together so long ago, back when you had purpose!”

More Aeternum soldiers swept into the room.

“It’s me you want,” Santiago said. “Leave my people be.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” Balthus said. “We’ll be needing all your engineers for our cause.”

The soldiers rounded up George Sr., Georgie, and about a dozen of Santiago’s engineers, and marched them toward the door.

A soldier appeared before Santiago, holding a set of chained cuffs.

“Hold out your hands, brother,” Magnus said. “Just need to be sure you don’t have any heroics left in you.”

Diego watched his father raise his arms, heard the cuffs click around his wrists. He held his breath, fighting the urge to leap out, but it would be pointless. He’d only be captured as well.

And suddenly he realized: Dad knew they were coming for him.

Balthus turned to leave. Magnus gave Santiago a shove, and he moved to the door.

The room shuddered, and Diego heard a distant whine of metal. This place was still in danger of collapsing into the sea.

The shaking loosened dust in the vent. Diego tried to hold his nose, but a cough slipped out of him.

Magnus froze. He turned and peered around the room. His cold, ruthless stare fell on the grating, studying it. . . .

He stepped toward the vent, tapping his sword against the floor.

Diego couldn’t move, couldn’t think—

“Magnus.” Balthus was back at the door. “We need to depart.”

Magnus nodded. “Of course.” He glanced again at the grating and then strode out of the room.

It was some time before Diego could bring himself to move. When he finally did, he carefully lifted the grate aside, crawled out of the vent, and then collapsed against the wall and began to cry. His body shivered, all his fear pouring out of him, his face in his hands.

A horn sounded from out on the water. Diego dragged himself to his feet and hurried onto the deck. The three Aeternum ships were sweeping back out to sea.

He pictured his father on board, maybe in a cell, in chains.

He had to find a way to help him. But first he had to get out of here and tell the world what had happened.

And I have to tell Mom.

Diego stepped back into the control center. He found the radio. It had been blasted to pieces. Dad would have known how to fix it.

But maybe Diego did, too. He placed his hands over the broken pieces and tried to calm his thoughts. It wasn’t easy, with images of the firefight, of the mosasaurs, of Magnus with his sword to Santiago’s throat . . . but finally he pushed the thoughts away and felt the tingling sensation of the Maker’s Sight. It ignited like a match in his mind, illuminating the connections between the radio parts, only to be snuffed out as flashes of the battle and his father bulled their way into his mind.