Aces (15 page)

“Why the hell
didn
’
t you tell me about these access tubes?!” Valjean
fumed.

“I didn
’
t know, they weren
’
t in the ship plans you
got!” Dooley answered defensively. Valjean was always saying how smart he was,
how he would do all the planning. Great plan so far, Dooley thought to himself!
The shuttle crew down on Ares were still alive, our ship is busted up, and now
we
’
re chasing after a couple of bratty children in a
damaged cargo ship. With the Navy surely on its way, soon, if not right now.
Great plan. Maybe, Dooley considered, he should shoot Valjean, before Valjean
got rid of him. Except, only Valjean knew who had hired them for this job, only
Valjean knew how to get the money. Dooley figured it would be best if he made
up a good lie. “When I came into the other compartment, I saw them, but they
ducked between the crates before I could get a good shot. I winged one of them,
there
’
s blood on the deck, that
’
s how
I tracked them to the hatch. I only saw the two of them. A girl and a boy.”

“Two kids? No
adults?”

“Not that I saw,
boss.”

So, Valjean
considered that he was only dealing with children, two scared children. That
could be good, or bad. Children were unpredictable. They were certainly
frightened, and alone. He had double-crossed them, they would be angry. Would
they follow through on their threat to smash the item he wanted?

Kaylee crawled
out of the hatch at the other end, offering a hand to her brother. Manny had
crawled on his elbows, holding his left hand with his right, wincing in pain.
His left hand still burned and tingled. That was good, he guessed, it meant the
nerves in his hand were still alive. Kaylee held a finger to her lips. “
Shhh. Wait here, I
’
ll check if anyone
’
s in here.
”

Manny did what he
was told, and tried to flex the fingers of his left hand. They moved, barely.
Kaylee gestured to him, waving him into the open area. “
I don’
t
think the pirates are in here yet. Are you OK?” Her brother
’
s
shoulder was still bleeding, and he had bruises on his face, from bumping into
things in the tube. She hurt too, for the same reasons.

Manny nodded. He
kicked the hatch closed with his foot, making sure it was latched. “Where do we
go now?”

Kaylee looked
around. They could run across to the hatch on the opposite wall, and keep
going. “Watch the doors, make sure they
’
re locked.”

“Yup, they are.”
Green lights shone on both panels.

Kaylee
’
s eyes stopped on a discolored deck plate, in the center of the
corridor, aft of where they stood. “We need to get out of this cargo pod.” She
decided. Jen had told them that access tubes connected one pod to another, in
addition to connecting compartments within a pod. “Manny, can you use your hand
to climb?”

“Uh-huh, I think
so. It's numb, but it's starting to tingle, I think the feeling is coming
back.” Gradually, his fingers were able to flex, he could almost touch his
index finger to his thumb. The tingling hurt like crazy, like ants crawling
under his skin.

They ran over to
the deck plate. Next to it was a small door, set into the floor. Kaylee got her
fingers under one end and flipped it open, exposing a control panel. Manny
stuck Jen
’
s card into the slot, keyed in her access code,
and hit the button. The deck plate slid aside, and they looked in. It was a
tube, going straight down. A long way down, with handholds along two sides.
Kaylee took a deep breath and lowered herself in. “How do we close this door
behind us?”

Manny looked at
the control panel. “There
’
s a button to close it.” He
looked at the door. “
I don’
t know if I can hit the button,
and jump in, before the door slides closed.”

“We need to flip
that little door closed, too, or the pirates will know where we are.” She had
an idea. From her pack, she pulled out chewing gum, and a pen. She put the gum
in her mouth and chewed, to make it soft and sticky. “Here,” she handed the wad
of gum to her brother, “stick this on the inside of the control panel door,
then stick the pen into it, so the other end of the pen will hit the close
button, when the door swings closed.”

Many took the gum
and the pen. He looked admiringly at his sister. “Wow, that
’
s
really smart, Kaylee.” He crouched down, positioned the pen, then stuck the gum
in place. Then, he lowered himself into the tube, leaning far over, to hold the
control panel door open with his fingers. “Ready?”

“I
’
m-“
There was a clanging sound, like a hatch opening. “They
’
re
coming!”

Manny let go of
the control panel door, it swung down, and the pen, slightly off-center, hit
the button. The deckplate door began to slide closed, and Manny ducked his head
and arms inside just in time. “That was close!”

Kaylee only
nodded, her mouth was too dry to speak. The tube was very dark, with only small
emergency lights every ten meters. They couldn
’
t see the
bottom, as they began climbing downward. It looked like the bottom was a very
long way down.

Dooley squeezed
his way out of the hatch, following the children. Valjean had sent him in by
himself. Rocko couldn
’
t fit, the robot was too big and
inflexible to get into the tube between compartments. He froze, listening.
There was a sound, like gears spinning, or a door sliding closed. He jumped to
his feet and raced to the open area, looking both ways. The doors at both ends
were closed. Which way had they gone? Picking a door at random, he ran to his
right, and checked the door control panel. Had it been used recently? He couldn
’
t tell. The door was locked, and he
’
d left his notepad behind. Dooley ran to the other door, and
checked it. Nothing. Next, he squeezed through crates to the opposite hatch.
The children hadn
’
t been there, the dust on the deck was
undisturbed. So, they
’
d gone through one of the doors.
Which one?
Dooley
’
s shoulders
slumped. What else could go wrong?

Dooley never
looked down to notice the discolored section of deck plating beneath his feet,
or the short blue fiber sticking out of a gap between plates, where the edge of
the sliding door had snagged the top of Manny
’
s backpack.

“They
’
re gone, boss.” Dooley shouted down the tube ahead of him,
looking forward to Valjean
’
s cruel face, framed in the
open hatch. “They went out one of the doors, I couldn
’
t tell
which one.” Dooley added as he crawled out, stood up, and brushed the dust off
his knees. Before his boss could say what an idiot he was, Dooley added “They
have an access card, boss, they can unlock a door in seconds.”

Valjean frowned.
For once, he didn
’
t reprimand Dooley. The technician was
right, and without Dooley, they wouldn
’
t have gotten
anywhere in the ship. He handed Dooley
’
s notepad to him,
and gestured toward one of the doors. “See if you can locate that box again. We
’
ll get another shot at them, next time, we
’
ll
come at them from all sides.” The smile Valjean gave Dooley made that man
swallow hard. Valjean, Dooley concluded, shouldn
’
t smile
too often. It was creepy.

While Dooley
plugged in his notepad, Valjean walked over to the intercom and plucked the
microphone out of its cradle. “Attention, children. This is the pirates. Sorry
about that, we didn
’
t mean to shoot at you. We stumbled
across you, and were startled, that
’
s all it was. We were
afraid you
’
d shoot at us first. And, we didn
’
t
know you were children.”

The pirate
’
s words rang out, reverberating in the confines of the access
tube. Kaylee and Manny halted in their climb down the tube. Only ‘down
’
wasn
’
t the correct
word anymore. Since they were moving between cargo pods, they were also moving
between artificial gravity fields. The place where they were now, almost
halfway down the tube, was in almost zero Gee. Manny warned they needed to turn
around soon, and start climbing ‘up
’
, not ‘down
’
.

The pirate
continued. “I have sent my shuttle to rescue the people from the command
section. When the shuttle returns, I will contact you. In the meantime, I
suggest you find a safe place, and stay there. This ship is damaged, and moving
around is not a good idea.”

“Shut up, you big
liar.” Manny said under his breath. His left hand still tingled. “He wasn
’
t startled when he shot the hatch handle while I had hold of
it.”

“Come on, Manny,
let
’
s go.”
Kaylee sighed.
“I want to
get out of this tube.”

Dooley
’
s brow was furrowed as he worked on his notepad. Valjean
walked over almost casually, checking the energy charge in his pistol. “Did you
find the box?”

Dooley gave a
careful answer. “The last place it was located was in that compartment, but it
’
s not there now. I
’
m getting a signal, but
it
’
s weak, and the signal is being picked up by more than
one sensor.”

“What does that
mean?” Valjean asked impatiently.

“
I
don’
t-“ Dooley fiddled with the controls, trying to determine which
sensor was picking up the strongest reading. “Damn! Got it! They
’
re
moving between cargo pods. There
’
s no sensors in those
access tubes. Boss, they
’
re beneath our feet.”

“How did they get
there?”
Valjean demanded.

“An access tube?
Boss, I don
’
t know. But I know how to get there, two
compartments from here, there
’
s a junction, it connects
all the cargo pods.”

Valjean frowned.
“All right, move out. No more slip-ups. You hear me? No more slip-ups.”

Manny climbed out
of the tube, rolling onto the deck. This cargo pod looked exactly like the one
they
’
d left. His arms were shaking, and his fingers
cramped, from holding onto the railings, all the way down, then up. He reached
over to open the control panel door, and pressed the button to close the
deckplate door behind them. They
’
d seen no sign that
pirates were behind them in the tube.

“We
’
ll stop-
“ Kaylee paused to catch her breath, “here, for a
minute.” The combination of fear and frantic running had her panting, and
shaking slightly. She hoped it wasn
’
t obvious to her
brother.

Kaylee felt like
a fool, a gullible, foolhardy child. She felt every month of her fourteen
years, and no older. What had she been thinking, she asked herself as she
stared at her feet? I
’
m just a kid, she thought, a
teenager. She had no business trying to deal with pirates, hardened criminals.
What she felt like doing was find a dark, safe place and hide. Not with her
brother around to watch, not while her brother needed her. Maybe that was what
being an adult was all about, she considered sourly. Doing things you don
’
t want to do, because you have to. Because it
’
s
the right thing to do. Because other people are counting on you, need you.

She stole a
glance at her brother. He had also been out of breath, and was now sitting
slumped on the deck, next to a cargo-moving robot pallet. Manny, at only 12,
was not crying. He appeared anxious, but not scared anymore. Maybe he
’
d gotten numb from being scared.

“I feel like
smashing this thing.” She said angrily, pointing to the box in her backpack.

“Don
’
t, Kaylee. That
’
s the only way we
’
re getting Mom and Dad back.” Manny said wearily. “Maybe he
’
s lying about sending the shuttle away, but if we smash it, we
have nothing to bargain with.”

Kaylee nodded.
Her brother sounded wise beyond his years. Getting shot at seemed to have
changed him. She was tired. She wanted this over, wanted her life back. But
mostly, she was angry. Angry at being chased, angry at being shot at. She could
see it in Manny
’
s face, too. Something had changed,
something inside them. “I
’
m tired of running.” She said,
surprised by the words coming out of her mouth. “
I don’
t
want to run anymore. I want to hit back at them.”

“Me too.” Manny
got a determined look on his face. Her brother could be immensely stubborn. He
had that familiar look now.