The terrifying whine of the turbofans gave him new inspiration, and he pulled himself up and wedged his chest armor over the edge. Pressing the toes of his boots against the hull, he wriggled his upper body farther into the passage and kicked his way inside.
“I’m in,” he gasped, and heard Layla’s whispered prayer of thanks over the comms.
There was no time to waste. He pushed himself up and clicked on his headlamp. The entire area was only five feet wide, with a ceiling so low that his helmet nearly touched it. At the back of the narrow passage, a sealed hatch led into the tunnels that Samson’s engineers couldn’t access from inside.
Michael clove-hitched the slack around a vertical post in the tunnel. He had maybe forty feet left. Ty’s calculations had been spot-on.
The hard part was over. Now that they had a ladder of sorts, Layla and Magnolia just needed to climb up the stern. He ran the rope through his belay device and cinched it snug.
“Okay, Layla, you’re next,” he said.
A minute later, Michael saw her helmet. Clamping her ascenders onto the taut rope, she stepped into the stirrups and pushed upward, first one side and then the other, until she reached the rudders. Michael walked up between the right and center rudders, grabbed her wrist, and hauled her inside. Magnolia came next, nearly jumping inside.
“We’re inside, Captain,” Michael reported.
“You have nine minutes,” Jordan said.
As if to emphasize the point, the ship groaned as they passed through another bubble of turbulence. The rope kept the three divers tethered together, but they all wobbled. Michael reached out for Layla to steady them both. Magnolia grabbed the poles connecting to the first rudder.
“It’s okay; we’ve got this,” Michael said, trying to reassure himself as much as the other divers.
He let go of Layla and pulled the coils of wire from his cargo pocket. Then he took a screwdriver from his duty belt and staggered to the bulkhead. Unscrewing the rusted control panel for the first rudder, he stared at a bird’s nest of colored wires.
Magnolia patted him on the shoulder. “Hope that makes sense to you, because it’s noodles to me.”
Layla was already working. She reached inside and began snipping while Michael prepared the new coil. They had done this a hundred times inside the ship, but never with so little time, and never in such harsh conditions.
Magnolia hovered behind Michael and Layla. “Come on, hurry it up!”
“I don’t even know why Jordan wanted you here,” Layla said. “We can do this fine on our own.”
“Um, because I’m fearless, fast, and, um, have great hair?”
Michael ignored her. He pulled the wires that Layla had cut, dropped them on the floor, and handed her the end of the undamaged coil.
They worked for several minutes, Layla doing the splicing and Michael feeding the new wire to her.
“Five minutes,” Magnolia reminded them.
“Shut up!” Michael and Layla said simultaneously.
Magnolia backed away, hands raised in surrender.
“Almost got the first one,” Layla said. She used her multi-tool to strip the end of a coil and tie it to the connection. She stuck her arm farther into the control panel. “There, that should do it for rudder one.”
Michael bumped his chin pad three times to open a line to engineering.
“Samson, Michael here. Try rudder one.”
Over the crackle of static came a grinding noise. All three divers turned toward the huge fin as it slowly moved.
“Good job,” Michael said. “Just two left.”
“And four minutes,” Magnolia muttered. When Layla turned to glare at her, Magnolia whistled and put her hands behind her back.
Michael shook his head and kept working. The ship would have some range of motion now, but they needed at least one more rudder to turn the ship enough to get away from the storm.
Michael and Layla moved to the next panel. They were a good team, working fast and efficiently together, especially under pressure. He honestly wished that Magnolia hadn’t come with them. If he had to guess, Jordan had sent her because her claim to fame was her speed and agility, but so far, she had been no help whatsoever.
“I think… yes! Got it!” Layla tightened a yellow wire nut down on the connection she had just made.
“Rudder two back online,” Michael reported to Samson.
They moved to the final control panel. He unscrewed it and pulled it off. This time, the mess of wires was more of a lump, fried by the electrical strike.
“Shit,” Layla said, leaning forward.
Michael pulled the rest of the wire from his cargo pocket. He was reaching out to give it to Layla when something flashed in his peripheral vision. Lightning lashed the side of the ship, and a heavy thud sounded as the stern suddenly plunged toward the surface.
Michael watched in horror as Magnolia fell backward, screaming. She windmilled her arms, striking the rudders as she fell between them.
The rope pulled Layla and Michael after her. He dragged his boots against the ground, but the ship dipped again and he lost his balance.
As he fell, the realization hit him like a gut punch. The lightning had severed the rope clipped above them on the top of the ship.
He hit the floor of the access tunnel knees first, sliding and reaching out for Layla. His fingers narrowly missed hers, and she flailed for something else to hold on to. The first rudder stopped her with a thump. She let out a squeak, and then she was gone, sucked into the void.
“Layla!” Michael yelled. He reached out for the poles connecting the rudders and grabbed them before he could slip through the gap. Looking down, he saw two battery packs glowing in the darkness. Layla was about ten feet down, and Magnolia was another ten below that.
He had to pull them back up before the turbofans sucked them in. Michael wrapped his fingers around the poles of rudders 1 and 2 and pushed himself to his feet, but the ship dipped again and he fell to his knees. The wind sucked him outside, and he fell helmet first toward the clouds.
They all dropped several feet before the slack caught on the clove hitch he had thrown around the vertical post. The rope went taut, and he came to a stop, arms and legs spread out as in a stable diving position. His heart stuttered when he looked down at Magnolia and Layla. Both were dangerously close to the turbofans.
A second later, a blast of wind took him, and he smacked into the stern. He braced himself with his palms and forearms, but his helmet whacked the hull so hard it rattled him.
Magnolia’s screams came over the screech of the wind, and Michael quickly saw why. She was being pulled toward the turbofan directly beneath the stern, about ten feet below her.
The stern finally began to rise onto an even keel, pushing on him and sending him swinging back out into the storm. Pulling on the rope above him, he fought his way into a vertical position. The ship was turning away now. The storm was almost on top of them, but he could see an end to the swell. They just needed to get around the outer rim of bulging clouds.
“Raptor One, what’s going on out there? Please report,” Jordan said over the comm.
“Captain!” Michael yelled. “You have to kill all power to turbofans nine and ten. They’re pulling Magnolia in.”
The brief pause felt like an eternity.
“Captain!” Michael shouted.
Jordan’s voice came at last. “Negative, Raptor One. I need those turbofans to get us out of here!”
Michael could already imagine Captain Jordan justifying his actions at their memorial ceremony, explaining to the citizens of the Hive how courageously the divers had sacrificed their lives to keep the ship flying.
Not this time.
Michael wasn’t going to let Magnolia and Layla die.
Squirming, he looked up. The bottom rung of the ladder was ten feet up and to his right. Clamping first one ascender and then the other onto the taut rope, he put his boots in the stirrups and began working his way up.