Driftmetal (18 page)

“Scofield, listen to me. I’m not the one you need to
worry about. Give me a minute to explain.”

“Sable warned you about what would happen if you
lied again,” Dennel said, threatening to grab me.

“I’m not lying. Dangit, I’m not lying.”

Dennel lunged at me. The medallion surged, my body
harnessing its power. Before he’d gotten halfway to me, I’d slipped
out of his reach and he was grabbing at empty air. Taking the
quarterdeck stairs in one leap, I drew the knife from Scofield’s
belt and pulled the old man against me, holding the blade to his
throat.

“Listen, all of you,” I yelled. “I’m not going to
hurt anybody. I just need a second to explain what’s going on.
Clinton Vilaris is not who he says he is. He isn’t a primitive.
He’s a techsoul named Lafe Yingler who infiltrated the city of
Pyras years ago and has been planning its downfall ever since.
Yingler is a dangerous man. Whatever you just heard over the
bluewave, Mr. Scofield, it was a lie. There’s a streamboat armed
with a big pulser cannon headed this way. Now, I know this is a lot
to take in, but I’m not the bad guy. The man you know as Vilaris
has orchestrated this entire ruse. He’s the one we need to worry
about. I’m going to let you go, Mr. Scofield. I apologize that I
had to hold you hostage, but please… I’m on your side. They’re
not.”

The second I released my hold on Mr. Scofield, there
was a deafening crash behind me. I whirled to see the barn doors on
Gilfoyle’s processing facility blow open and crumple like tinfoil.
A filthy black hovertruck careened through the opening, yawing
sideways and skidding through the air like a bear on a frozen lake.
In the driver’s seat, young Neale Glynton was wide-eyed and
struggling. A melee was breaking out in the truck bed as Sable
attempted to hold her own against a pair of thugs with
pulserods.

“You sent the Captain and the cabin boy in?” I said,
shoveling a hand toward the lumbering hovertruck. “I specifically
remember putting you and Thorley in charge of the breaking-in
part.”

Dennel shrugged. “Cap’n’s orders.”

I took aim with my arm, then cursed at the useless
grapplewire port.
If only Chaz were here to give me a quick
fix
, I thought, before remembering that Chaz was a dirty
traitor.
Screw Chaz
, I corrected myself. I darted forward,
leapt down the stairs, and ran along the deck toward the bow,
following the hovertruck as it sped along overhead. I was going to
make a jump for it, and there would be no second
Galeskimmer
to break my fall this time.

The hovertruck dipped as Neale struggled with the
controls, dropping in so close I could smell the displacer engines
and feel their heat on the top of my head. The vehicle zoomed past
just as I reached the bow.

Solenoid.

I was flying toward it with a little extra in my
jump, and then the hovertruck dipped again and I was too high,
soaring over the top and watching the thugs begin to beat Sable to
the floor of the truck bed with their pulserods.

I spun the cylinder in my arm—not the one with the
grapplewire; the left arm, with the darts. I locked in a good one,
the readout in my enhanced eye telling me what I was dealing with.
I flicked my wrist back, and the dart shot through the top of the
thug’s skull. My body was flipping as I flew past the truck bed and
lost sight of them, crashing onto the hovertruck’s hood like a
thrown wrestler. Little boy Neale smiled at me and gave the
controls an excited yank. I bounced up and slammed down hard again.
Good thing I wasn’t a primie, or I might’ve broken something.

Where the hood met the windshield, I clung by the
tips of my fingers and tried to get to one knee. We were swaying as
we flew. I could hear Sable’s gasps and feel the pulserod zapping
her, missed strokes gonging the metal bed and vibrating through the
truck. I lifted myself and ran up the hood, letting the truck’s
velocity carry me over the windshield and across the roof. I spun
around and laid out, driving my shining telerium wrist spikes
through the thug’s shoulders and dragging him along with me.

We crashed down next to the motionless body of the
other thug, the one I’d hit with the dart. The live thug fought
back all the harder as I plunged my spikes into his face and chest.
He was alternating clumsy swings between the pulserod and a closed
fist when he caught me on the shoulder. Just a glancing blow, but
with a pulserod, even a glancing blow is enough.

The prickling wave jolted through me. I slumped
over, mashing my face against the truck bed. The thug climbed to
his feet, rivulets of purplish blood streaming from his puncture
wounds like runoff from a sewer drain. Sable groaned and rolled
over, still dazed and waiting to regain control of her body. My
vision flashed white as the pulserod crashed into the back of my
skull, its electric echo radiating through me. The thug reeled back
and swung again, bashing my ribcage with another shocking blow.

Neale must have decided we were getting too far away
from the
Galeskimmer
, because the hovertruck twisted around
and everyone slid across the bed like crackers on a fast-moving
plate. Cumbersome as these hovertrucks were, the ability of
centrifugal force to part your feet from the ground is not
something to underestimate. The thug toppled over me, his pulserod
spinning away across the bed. I slid toward the back edge; the dead
thug slid into me, and Sable into him.

We were headed back toward the
Galeskimmer
now, picking up speed but not flying high enough to clear the mast
when we got there. If little Neale Glynton wasn’t driving fast
enough to snap the mast in half, he was going to wrap this truck
around it like a breakfast omelet. I was less worried about our
flight path than about the thug who was picking himself up at the
back of the truck bed. He had a plasticky face and robotic
hands—exposed telerium digits, tension hinges, and optical fibers
snaking down his arms. Sable and I were getting to our feet too.
Now it was two against one. But that didn’t matter much, seeing as
our ride was about to come to an abrupt end.

What bothered me most, however, was that beyond the
far side of Platform 22, the shape of my
Ostelle
was
emerging from the fog.

10

I shot the frayed end of my grapplewire into my
opposite hand, holding it like I was getting ready to floss a
giant’s teeth. Sable began to circle the tiny truck bed, knifeblade
at the ready. The thug eyed the pulserod lapping at his heels,
judging whether we’d let him crouch for it. No, he decided, and
backed up a step to activate his knucklespurs. They slammed out
from his clenched robotic fists with a metallic stomping sound,
miniature telerium pyramids that made his hands look like dog
collars.

We were speeding toward the
Galeskimmer
. I
didn’t have time for this nonsense. I feinted with the grapplewire.
The thug flinched. I shot him with a dart, the same kind I’d used
to put a hole in his buddy’s skull. He plucked it from his chest
and tossed it behind him, a smug look on his punctured, bloody
face. Then his look turned sour. He staggered, buckled over, and
flopped off the rear edge of the truck bed.

Sable breathed a sigh of relief. We turned and
peered over the front lip of the truck bed to see where we were
headed. The
Galeskimmer
had docked itself below the crumpled
doors of the processing facility. Thorley and Dennel were inside,
tossing chunky burlap sacks into the growing dust cloud they’d
started on the
Galeskimmer
’s deck. My
Ostelle
was
coming across the port side, leveling the pulser cannon and making
ready to fire. Carrying gravstone on a ship that flies on
driftmetal runners is a bad idea of the most monumental kind. But
hey, what other option did we have?

I vaulted onto the hovertruck’s roof, swung down
onto the running board, and cracked the door to pull myself inside.
“Where’d you learn to drive, the bloody circus?” I said.

Neale might have blushed, but he was already so red
in the face I couldn’t tell the difference. He gave me the
slightest shrug. He was tiptoeing the pedals from the edge of the
seat, his chin lifted so he could see over the steering column.

“It hovers,” I said, grabbing his hand and easing
the controls into their neutral position. “You don’t have to stay
moving all the time. Press the right pedal and let the left one
come toward you ‘til they’re even. Good, now drop the displacers
flat.”

Neale obeyed, bringing the truck to an awkward
standstill. I motioned for him to switch places with me. When he
crawled past me on the seat, he mopped cold sweat across the back
of my shirt. I slid into place at the controls and tipped us
forward, shouting through the window for Sable to hold onto her
hat. A pulser round spidered across the
Galeskimmer
’s hull
as we approached, rocking the boat on its runners. On the
quarterdeck, Mr. Scofield looked over his shoulder in shocked
surprise to see my
Ostelle
creeping from the fog like a
phantom.

I eased the hovertruck to a stop beside the
Galeskimmer
. “Change of plans,” I shouted. “Get off the
truck, you two. Get your boat out of here as quick as you can.”

Sable and Neale hopped onto the streamboat. “What
are you about to do?” Sable asked, eyeing me.

I would’ve told her, if there were a chance she
would’ve agreed to it. “Just get out of here.”

I veered away and took off toward my
Ostelle
,
determined to distract the law-lovers I called parents for as long
as I had to. I swerved into a sideways strafe, the closest thing to
an evasive maneuver I could manage in this crippled turd of a
hovertruck. The pulser cannon drew a bead on my lame tricks without
breaking a sweat, but no shots came my way. Instead, the turret
shifted its gaze onto the
Galeskimmer
and fired. The pulser
hit one of the turbines, rattling the whole boat like a beggar’s
cup. In light of my distraction’s apparent ineffectiveness, I
gunned it straight ahead.

“I’m sorry baby,” I muttered, taking one last look
at my beautiful undamaged
Ostelle
as she came zooming up to
life size. “I’m so sorry.”

I aimed for center mass, unconcerned with where I
landed, as long as I struck her a good one. I felt like an abusive
lover, treating my pride and joy like the wall at a bumper car
rink.

The hovertruck smashed into the deck head-on. The
air outside my windshield was a mist of splinters and rivets and
men I knew, screaming and diving to get out of the way. I was
ploughing through layers of decking I’d laid down myself, sweating
away in the afternoon sun with a rivetgun and a dream. I wondered
if it was really worth it to send my parents and I and their whole
crew to the Churn, all for a girl I only kind of knew, and half a
dozen other less-endearing souls who were about to steal the
fortune that should’ve been mine.

It wasn’t, I decided. It wasn’t worth it at all.

The hovertruck’s nose accordioned. Then the whole
truck began to flip forward and vault away from the deck, like a
fat gymnast attempting a somersault. I gripped the steering
controls and locked my arms and legs as the truck inverted itself.
I was sailing past a blur of debris toward midship, and the whole
world was turning upside down. All I could think was,
I’m never
gonna get to tell anyone how awesome this is
.

I was facing a sleeping bat’s version of the
direction I’d come from when the hovertruck smashed into what I
knew must’ve been the hatch in front of the center mast. The sudden
stop sent a wave of pain down my spine. I slid off my seat and onto
the windshield, smacking my head against something on the way down.
I could see belowdecks through the huge hole the hovertruck had
ripped in the floor. But my
Ostelle
was still afloat. Still
standing proud. There had been no explosion; I’d achieved no
glorious, heroic ending. That meant I still had work to do.

I kicked open the driver’s side door and flopped
onto the deck, ears ringing, head and back smarting. I shot my last
dart into Johnny Ralston’s right eye as he came toward me. I didn’t
know for sure he was intent on violence, but the way I saw it,
everyone on board my ship was the enemy. After all, they’d helped
kick me off it.

I stumbled toward the pulser cannon, watching as the
barrel spit another burst into the
Galeskimmer
’s backside. I
felt more crewmembers converging on me, the way you feel every pair
of eyes on a dark street.

Launching myself the last several yards, I slung my
grapplewire around the gunner’s neck and yanked him out of the
turret chair. It was Norris Ponting, a skilled powder monkey if
ever there was one. Norris Ponting was about to become a ‘was,’
unless I got my way. I whirled on the advancing crew and shouted,
“Stop right where you are, all of you, or Norris is done for.”

They did stop, but I got the impression that most of
them were considering whether Norris was worth stopping for. As
long as they spent some time deciding, that was fine by me; all I
had to do was keep them off that pulser cannon long enough to let
the
Galeskimmer
make a run for it. My grapplewire was tight
around Norris’s throat, tight enough to make every breath come out
wheezing. He was half-drunk, by the smell of him. I’d have bet
money he was still a better shot than any other two crewmembers put
together.

Knowing the whole crew on a first-name basis meant
that I knew their tech, too. I knew who was augmented and who
wasn’t, where their augments were, and how they were likely to use
them. I backed toward the turret with them inching toward me,
ravenous as a pack of wild dogs. Ma and Dad were nowhere to be
seen. I guessed Dad was at the helm, past the hovertruck that was
sticking fifteen feet into the air at midship, three of its four
engines still idling.