“If you refuse us,” Zy Roder continued, “then we will resume our attack.” The man now grew more intense. Gone was the pleasant voice of a fellow sailor. Saint Dane or Zy Roder — whatever he called himself here — wanted the people of Grallion to understand what he was capable of.
“We cannot sink Grallion, but that is not our intent. We will begin with your pilot house. It will be obliterated so that you will have no control of your habitat. Then we will destroy your docks so you will be trapped. We will target your engine rooms so you will have no power. You will be prisoners on your own habitat, with no means of escape. Trust me, friends, we know where you are most vulnerable and we will not leave until our demands are met.”
This was pure Saint Dane. He probably didn’t even care about getting the food. What he wanted was to cause panic. The word would spread quickly among the habitats that the food supply on Cloral was suspect, and that would create chaos as normally peaceful people would start to fight over the dwindling supply of fresh food. My guess is that Saint Dane probably had something to do with poisoning the food supply as well. His plan for toppling Cloral was beginning to become clear.
“I will give you one peck of time to begin the transfer,” his voice boomed. “If I see no sign of your compliance, we will open fire. So until then, enjoy your day!”
What was a peck? Was that an hour? A minute? A second? Uncle Press read my mind and said, “Twenty minutes, in case you were wondering.”
Saint Dane had one more thought. “Oh, one last thing,” his voice boomed. “Welcome to Cloral… Pendragon.”
Yikes. My knees buckled, which I’m sure was the exact reaction Saint Dane wanted. He knew we were here. Luckily, the other vators had more to worry about than why this pirate had given me a personal greeting. That would have been hard to explain. So instead of questioning me, they all started chattering at once. Half argued to give him the food, the other half wanted to fight. Neither choice was a good one.
“At least we know a little about his plan now,” said Uncle Press, trying to sound positive.
“Yeah, big deal,” I shot back. “What are we going to do about it?”
At that moment Spader burst into the shack. He looked around quickly until he saw us. “Press, Pendragon, come!” he shouted.
Neither of us knew what else to do, so we followed. Once outside we saw that Spader was off and running. He led us down to the same floating docks where we first arrived on Grallion. The area was deserted because all the other aqua-neers were up on deck, ready to defend their habitat.
He ran to the end of one dock and jumped onto his skimmer. We finally caught up to him. I shouted, “What are you doing?”
While he spoke Spader busily prepared the skimmer for a trip.
“My father taught me everything there is to know about every ship on the sea,” he said quickly. “I know about that raider cruiser, thePursuit. There were only a few built, back when the aquaneers feared there might be a war between the habitats. They even built warships that traveled underwater. But the war never happened and the cruisers and submarines were never used — except for a few that got hijacked by raiders.”
“What’s the point, Spader?” asked Uncle Press.
Spader stopped working and looked up at us. “I know where she’s vulnerable. I can scuttle the guns.”
“How?” I asked in disbelief.
“Simple. There are two intake ports below the waterline. That’s where they bring in water for power and ammunition. If I drive a skimmer into an intake port, it’ll jam up the works. No water, no guns. It’ll be dead in the water and we can take her!”
“Did you tell Yenza about this?” asked Uncle Press.
“She wouldn’t listen. She thinks I’m off my cake.”
“Are you off your cake?” I asked.
Spader jumped off his skimmer and back onto the dock. He stood across from us and spoke with sincerity.
“Ever since you turned up here, I’ve had a feeling,” he said. “First you, Press, then later when you came back with Pendragon. I feel like you two mates are here for more than just picking fruit. Am I right? Are the three of us in for a natty-do, or am I just shooting fish?”
It seemed Spader had some rumblings about his future as a Traveler after all. He didn’t know much, he could only sense it, but it was there just the same. His father probably taught him many things to prepare him for this moment, just as Uncle Press did for me. Whatever it is that makes one a Traveler, it was starting to kick in.
“Are you with me?” Spader asked.
“More than you know,” answered Uncle Press. “What’s your plan?”
Spader jumped back down onto his skimmer.
“Press, stay here. Get to Yenza. Tell her what we’re doing. When the intake ports are jammed up, I’ll send up a signal with this flare.”
He held up a small pistol that was probably a flare gun.
“This flare won’t go up until thePursuitis crippled,” he added. “Then Yenza can take a crew and board her before the raiders figure out what happened.”
“What about me?” I asked.
“You’re getting pretty good under the water, mate,” he said.
“Whoa! You want me to go with you? Under that cruiser?”
“I told you, there aretwointake ports. I can’t hit ‘em both at the same time.”
I looked to Uncle Press, hoping he’d bail me out of this suicide mission. He didn’t.
“Are you up to this, Bobby?” he asked.
No! I wasn’t!
“It’ll be easy, mate,” said Spader. “They won’t be looking underwater. All we have to do is sneak up from below, wrench off the intake covers and send in a couple of skimmers. Snappy-do!”
It did sound easy. I spent a lot of time underwater with Spader and I was pretty confident down there. Maybe I could do this after all.
“I don’t suppose there’s a plan B?” I asked Uncle Press.
“Not this time,” he answered. “Unless you’ve got one.”
I didn’t. I was going underwater.
“Wait for the flare!” shouted Spader.
“Be careful!” Uncle Press shouted back as he ran back up the stairs toward the deck.
Yeah, careful. That was a joke, right?
Spader opened the cargo carrier that was behind his skimmer and pulled out two water sleds and two air globes. He threw one air globe to me and stowed the two water sleds in the floor compartment of his skimmer. He then unhooked the cargo carrier so he wouldn’t have to drag it along.
“Are those water sleds big enough to do the job?” I asked.
“Nah, those are for our getaway,” said Spader.
“Then what are we going to use to jam the intake ports?”
Spader jumped from his skimmer onto another that was right next to it. He threw a few toggle switches and the engines whined to life.
“You take my skimmer,” he said.
This didn’t make a whole lot of sense. If we were going to sneak up on the raiders’ cruiser from underwater, then why were we each taking a skimmer? They may be fast, but Saint Dane and his crew would see us coming for sure.
Spader put his air globe over his head and it instantly conformed to him. I did the same. I jumped onto the skimmer and started to power it up. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and asked, “Won’t they see us coming?”
Spader pointed to a black toggle switch that was under the steering column.
“They would — if we were on top of the water.”
He flipped the black toggle and a rush of air bubbles blew out from under his skimmer. Then it started to sink. Spader looked at me and smiled. I found the same switch on my skimmer, and threw it. The same thing happened. Slowly my skimmer submerged. As it turned out, these babies didn’t just fly over the water, they traveled underwater, too!
Just before his head went under, Spader asked, “How do you know Zy Roder?”