Beowulf's Children
Chapter 18

ROBOR

Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.
-ARTHUR WELLESLEY, Duke of Wellington

    It was a power relay switch. One piece, carefully removed. The problem had to be diagnosed, and new parts brought from Electronics. No real vandalism, just a twenty-minute stall.
    Justin was airborne, with Zack and Hendrick beside him. He was almost blind with anger. The entire camp was in a frenzy, and there was just no telling what could come of this.
    Zack looked at Justin for the tenth time. "And you knew nothing about any of this." 
    "Not a goddamned thing, Zack."
    "According to Cassandra, someone placed a very powerful disrupter in your father's house. More delay tactics. Who could have done a thing like that?" Zack's voice was cracking. 
    Jessica.
    "I don't know, Zack. And I won't make irresponsible guesses." 
    "No, I don't suppose you would." 
    They headed into the mountain passes.

    The alarm buzzer sounded. They had only a minute or two of juice left in the fuel cell.
    Cadmann flicked on the radio. "This is Cadmann. Skeeter Twelve, calling Robor. We are almost out of fuel, and cannot return to land. Please advise us of your position for emergency landing."
    Nothing. He repeated his message, and then sat back, arms rigid against the wheel, listening to the static.

    Jessica heard her father's voice, and then heard it cut off. She ran down the corridor, just in time to see Trish turn away from the controls. "What was that?"
    "A bluff," Trish said. "And not a very good one, at that." 
    "What did he say?"
    "He said that his skeeter was almost out of fuel, and asked for permission for an emergency landing." Jessica's mind spun. It was a bluff. It had to be. A freshly charged skeeter had more range than that. But what if it wasn't freshly charged? Christ . . . 
    "Trish . . ." she began.
    "Aaron ordered radio silence," Trish said flatly. "And that's what we're going to have."

    A shock wave hit Skeeter XII, and they jolted to the side. Wind and rain and an ugly laboring in the engine all mixed together. They plunged about three hundred feet before Cadmann managed to regain control. Carlos wiped his hand against the windscreen, clearing away condensation, peering out. It was hopeless. There was nothing to be seen. 
    "I'm sorry," Cadmann said--
    A flash of lightning, very close by, too close. It split their universe, blinded them, and Cadmann let some inarticulate sound of effort and anger and fear escape, and they plunged so low that they were momentarily out of the clouds. Another flash of lightning and--
    "I see it!" Carlos yelled. "Damn it! Two o'clock. There."
    An arc of fire rolled along the underbelly of the cloud, lightning swelling in its belly. And there, gliding like a great dark predator, was Robor.
    Cadmann gritted his teeth, and took the skeeter up into the cloud again. "We can make it," he said. 
    "If we don't, can I quote you?" 
    They rose up above the flat top of Robor, and Cadmann hit the lights. They were dim, all emergency power draining to the batteries, but enough to illumine the top. There were docks for four skeeters up there, and three of them were in place.
    "All right," He said. "I'm setting her down. You take the right-side mooring cable, I'll take the left. If either of us makes it, we're safe." 
    The engines quit.

    "See?" Trish said, laughing. "No SOS. It was a bluff." 
    Jessica stared at the control panel, and then looked out at the storm. A bluff. She hoped it was a bluff. She freezing prayed it was a bluff. Otherwise . . . 

    They slammed into Robor's landing deck just as another lightning flash tore a hole in the sky. Robor jolted, and then stabilized. Its gyros would compensate, and keep the deck level. It was slick, though. They skidded for three feet before coming to rest.
    Cadmann wrapped a mooring cable around his arm and reeled it out. He hopped down to the deck. The wind slammed into him, and Carlos was out the other side with the right-hand cable. There were docking rings countersunk in the deck in numerous locations. The trick was finding one.
    A violent shudder struck Robor, and the skeeter started sliding again. Cadmann backed up, slipped to his knees, slid across the deck and toward the edge. The damaged strut collapsed, and the skeeter slid across the plates, right at him. He screamed as he went over the edge, the skeeter right on top of him.

    Carlos was on his hands and knees, and his face smashed against the metal sheeting as the skeeter behind him crashed onto its side. He knew in that moment that he was going to die.
    It pulled him toward the edge, and his knee hit the anchor ring. He scrabbled for it in the darkness, and found it, flipped it up, and clipped the line into place. It snapped taut in the next instant, and behind him he heard a scream, and a grinding crash, and he knew that Cadmann had gone over the side.
    He was on the verge of muttering a prayer when he heard the groan.
    "On my way!" he sang. He followed the cable to the wrecked skeeter, and climbed around it, finding handholds every step of the way. He came around to the other side and heard a thump. He peered over, and saw Cadmann hanging there, the cable tangled around his arm. 
    Jesus. "Cadmann!"
    His friend looked up at him. Stunned, not injured. Weyland shook his head, like a water buffalo trying to clear itself, and looked down at the ocean, black and slow, far below him, and then back up at Carlos. "Help me," he whispered. And Carlos extended a hand to him, and helped him up.

    Trish found Aaron in the main galley, supervising as the crates were hauled up from the hold and opened. Provisions, and equipment, mostly, and he had chosen well.
    "We've got a problem," she said. "We've lost power in engines two and three. We're running on a single engine now."
    Aaron's head snapped around. "What?" 
    "It's true. Five minutes ago. We lost two and--" 
    Her collar speaker crackled. "Trish. We just lost engine one. We have no power."
    "What in the hell!" Aaron seemed to grow, his face reddening, and his entire body growing even as they watched. "We'll be blown back toward land, dammit!" 
    "I'm afraid so. We have the rudders and stabilizers--" 
    "I'm going up," he said. "Something is very wrong up there."

    Carlos slapped Cadmann's shoulder as the first trace of a human figure appeared over the side of Robor.
    The wind howled around them, and Cadmann had to scream.
    "Get back, dammit. I have a grendel gun, and I'll use it." 
    "Cadmann?" Aaron yelled back cautiously. "Damn. How did you . . . ?"
    "Power of human stupidity. Just get back down." 
    "We'll crash if we don't have our power, you know that."
    "No, you won't. I'll give you engine one again. You are going to use it to turn around, and head back to land. And then you are going to put down."
    "Cadmann. Your daughter died. We have to do something. We have to find out what it was, or her death will be for nothing."
    Cadmann was tired and sore. His shoulder throbbed. "Listen to me. We can't talk about that now. I don't have any choice but to turn you around. Let's not let this get any worse than it is." 
    "Worse than it is. All right."
    There was a flicker of movement behind him, and Carlos suddenly screamed, his entire body arcing, Cadmann spun and fired at a figure against the clouds. The grendel gun bucked in his arms. He fired a dart directly into Toshiro Tanaka's chest. Toshiro's hair flew out in a corona, and his teeth clamped on his tongue. Blood shot from between his clenched teeth and his hands lost their grip on the port access ladder. His body arced backwards and he fell screaming and twisting, to the sea far below him. 
    "Toshiro!" Aaron screamed.
    Cadmann, cursing, checked Carlos. He was fine. Damn damn damn! The children had dialed their grendel guns down to stun. He had been too damned tired, too trigger-happy.
    And Toshiro Tanaka would plunge two thousand feet to the water below. And from that height, the water might as well have been concrete.
    "One dead, Aaron," Cadmann said. And he could barely speak. His teeth were chattering, and not just from the cold. "One dead. Let's end this."
    "You killed him, Cadmann," Aaron said. "He's dead, and you killed him. Why don't you tell your people about how you did this to save lives. All right. We're turning around." Aaron climbed back down. Cadmann collapsed against the wet cold plate of the deck and closed his eyes, feeling the rain pelt against his skin.