Battle of the Ampere

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You will come back,” he said again.

  *

  When I returned to my seat, the Elgen fleet was in view. The Ampere was sandwiched in between the Watt and the Volta. Fortunately the Faraday, the biggest boat of the Elgen fleet, was on the far north side of the fleet. It stuck so far out into the bay that had it been next to the Ampere we never would have been able to get close.

  No one spoke. Jaime came back with us, looking at the fleet through his binoculars. The fishing boat made a wide, elliptical sweep of the bay, then drifted in toward the shore, carefully edging itself closer to the fleet.

  The first of the Elgen boats we passed was the Ohm, which in spite of the hour had all its lights on as men and forklifts scurried on its deck filling it with supplies. The next boat was the Tesla, then the Joule, which was completely dark and stranger looking than I had imagined. Next we reached the powerhouse of the fleet, the Watt. The battle cruiser was gunship gray with large cannons pointing out toward the sea behind her.

  Our boat slowed still more as we crossed beneath the shadow of the cruiser toward the Ampere. I turned back and looked up at the boats, wondering if we were being watched. All I could see were a few cabin lights and darkness. Jaime put down his binoculars, then moved over to the raft and waved to Jack to come help him. They quickly unlashed the raft, laying it flat at our feet on the floor of the boat.

  When we were in the shadow of the Ampere the engine cut back even more, then slowed as the captain put the boat in idle.

  “Now,” Jaime said.

  The rest of us stood as Jaime and Jack heaved the raft over the port side, leaving just the front towrope attached. Jack jumped over the side, disappearing from our view. Jaime handed over two paddles, then turned to us. “Rápidamente.”

  Taylor climbed over first, helped down into the raft by Jack, followed by me, Ostin, then finally McKenna, who I hadn’t heard speak since we’d boarded.

  “Mr. Michael,” Jaime said. He tossed me the coil of black rope, then handed the explosives to Jack. Then he pulled out a knife and cut our towrope.

  “Buena suerte, amigos. Go with God.”

  The boat shifted back into gear and was soon clear of us, leaving us alone and exposed near the Ampere’s massive stern.

  “Paddle,” Jack said. He took one paddle and handed me the other, and we paddled our way toward the boat until her stern rose above us like a great canyon wall.

  “Get the magnets ready,” I said to Ostin.

  Ostin lifted one magnet, then handed the other to McKenna. The magnets were fist-size and round with a small loop through the back where a strap ran through them, connecting them to the raft. The strap was about six feet long but was designed to be cinched tight, to snug the raft up against the boat.

  When we were twenty feet out I set down my paddle and reached out toward the boat and magnified. My magnetism was stronger than I thought it would be and our raft was drawn so quickly to the hull that we hit against the Ampere hard enough that I almost flipped the raft over.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  Ostin and McKenna stuck their magnets against the hull, which connected with an uncomfortably loud clang, then pulled the straps until the raft was tight against the boat.

  “My turn,” I said.

  Taylor leaned forward and kissed me, gently cupping my cheeks in her hands. “Be careful.”

  “I’ll see you soon.”

  I slid the rope coil over my head and one shoulder, then awkwardly stood in the leaning raft, putting my hands against the side and magnifying. The hull was cold and wet but easy to grab, as if the water actually enhanced my magnetism. “Watch for the rope,” I said. I threw my knees against the hull and began to climb.

  With all the adrenaline pumping through my body I reached the top in less than ten minutes. As I got near the railing of the deck, I stopped and listened for guards. I didn’t hear anything but the patter of rain, so I crept up a little farther so I could peer over the side. There was no one. I spotted a camera mounted high up on the wall facing down toward me. The camera appeared stationary, but the red light on top of the camera indicated that it was active. I wished Zeus was there to blow it out, and it occurred to me that I could take it out just as well. Throwing lightning balls was too risky, as a flash of lightning would almost certainly catch a guard’s eye. I could climb the wall beneath it and short it out; I just needed a little luck coming over the side railing.

  But first I needed to get rid of the rope. I magnetized the lower half of my body, then took the end of the rope and tied it around the deck’s outside railing with a figure eight knot. I looked down. The raft was completely invisible to me and all I could see below was an occasional whitecap in the sea. I took the coil from around my neck and dropped it into the darkness below. The rope almost immediately tensed. Jack was on his way up. I clung to the side of the boat and waited.

  It took Jack even less time to climb up than it had me. He was strong enough that he wasn’t even using his legs but swinging them back and forth as he grasped the rope hand over hand and pulled himself up. He stopped when he was next to me. He looked at me clinging to the side of the boat. “You look like a spider,” he said.

  “I feel like one,” I said.

  He looked up. “Anyone topside?”

  “No. But there’s a camera.”

  “Have you tried putting it out?”

  “I was waiting for you,” I said. “Give me a second.” I climbed back up and peered over the side again, then, still wearing my cloak, flung myself over on top of the deck. Sidling up against the interior wall, I quickly stole beneath the camera, then climbed up, grabbed it, and pulsed. The red light on top of it went out.

  I leaned back over the rail. “It’s out.”

  “Good,” he said. “Taylor’s on her way up.”

  I looked over the side. “You can see her?”

  “No. I can feel her on the rope.”

  He climbed the rest of the way up the rope, then grabbed the railing and pulled himself over.

  “Let’s pull her up,” he said.

  We both grabbed the rope and began pulling. Taylor suddenly came into view. We lifted her all the way to the railing. “Thanks,” she said, panting.

  Jack grabbed on to her and pulled her up and over the side. Then we threw the rope back down.

  A minute later we felt the rope tense. All three of us grabbed it and quickly pulled. McKenna practically flew up. When she was a few feet from the railing Jack grabbed her and pulled her over as well, then we tossed the rope back down.

  “Ostin knows to tie the pack to the rope, right?”

  Jack nodded. “I reminded him.”

  We felt the rope tense, and we quickly pulled. The rope was so light that it almost felt like there wasn’t anything on it.

  “I see the pack,” McKenna said. We quickly pulled the explosives up and over the side. Jack untied the pack and threw the rope back over. It was nearly a minute before we felt it tense.

  “Let’s pull,” I said.

  With all four of us pulling, we lifted Ostin up in just five minutes. When he got to the top he looked pale and terrified, and he grabbed on to the railing as if for his life. Jack and I each grabbed one of his arms and pulled him over.

  “That was horrific,” he said.

  “The fun’s just beginning,” Jack said.

  We took off our cloaks and threw them over the side of the boat, then Jack pulled the pack on over his shoulder.

  “We need a key,” Ostin said.

  “Let’s try the door first,” I said. “Just in case they left it unlocked.”

  We found the door where Dodds’s plans said it would be. As we expected, it was locked. There was another camera near the door. I climbed the wall next to it and put it out as well.

  “You guys wait here,” I said. “Taylor and I will find a key.”

  We walked around the back of the boat. We saw a pair of shoes sticking out from
behind a tender. Then we saw an expulsion of smoke.

  “Someone’s sneaking a cigarette,” Taylor whispered.

  We walked up to him. Smoking was against the Elgen code, and the young Italian sailor was horrified to see us.

  “Hey, I’m just . . .” He looked at Taylor. “You’re a girl.”

  “I know,” she said. She rebooted him. Then, as he sat there, grinning stupidly, I pulsed and knocked him out. Then I reached over and took his key and the ID he wore around his neck.

  “Should we throw him overboard?” Taylor asked.

  “Tempting,” I said. “But too loud.”

  “What do we do if he wakes up?”

  I pulsed my finger, then wrote into his uniform: DEATH TO HATCH.

  “That will keep him from fraternizing,” I said.

  I shocked him one more time, then we hurried back to the others. They were gone.

  “Where’d they go?” Taylor asked.

  As we walked up to the door, it suddenly opened. “Come on,” Jack said.

  “How did you get the door open?”

  “Him,” Ostin said, pointing to a sailor lying face-first on the ground.

  “You punched him?” I asked Jack.

  He nodded.

  “Feel good?”

  “More than I can say, brother.”

  We hurried in single file down three flights of stairs. Just as Dodds had warned, the bottom level was dark and noisy with the dull, steady roar of the Ampere’s motors.

  As we moved up the hallway to the engine room, someone at the opposite end of the corridor pointed at us and shouted. The man wasn’t dressed as a sailor but as an Elgen guard.

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t hear him,” Taylor said.

  He pointed a gun at us.

  “Ostin and I will see what he wants,” I said. “Before he sounds the alarm. The rest of you stay here.” I turned to Taylor. “I might need a little reboot.”

  “I’ll watch for it,” she said.

  Ostin and I walked toward the end of the corridor. As we approached the guard grew more livid. He shouted, “No one is allowed stern entry on level one! Are you crazy or stupid?”

  “Neither,” I said. “I’m electric.” I pulsed and he collapsed to the ground.

  “You’re getting better at that,” Ostin said.

  We handcuffed the guard and took his weapons. Then we looked around. Just thirty feet in front of us were what looked like jail cells. “What’s that?” I asked.

  “The brig,” Ostin said. “It was on the blueprints.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t get around to memorizing them.”

  “I did,” Ostin said.

  We walked toward them. Two of the cells were occupied. One had an Elgen guard lying unconscious on the floor in a pool of blood. The other was jammed full of people, with a woman hanging upside down against the bars, her long hair touching the floor.

  For a moment Ostin and I and the cell’s occupants just gazed at one another. Then a graying, middle-aged Italian man said in a low voice, “You’re not Elgen.”

  “That’s for sure,” Ostin said.

  “You’re Michael Vey.”

  “Bingo,” Ostin said.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I’m Chairman Schema.”

  “He’s the chairman of Elgen Inc.,” Ostin said.

  “Why is he in his own jail?”

  “Hatch,” Ostin said. “Remember, he’s taken over.”

  I looked at the woman hanging upside down. “Who is she?”

  “She’s dead,” Schema said. His gruff voice didn’t conceal his grief. “She sacrificed her life for mine.”

  “She was one of the board members,” one of the women said. “We’re all board members. Hatch imprisoned us.”

  Schema looked into my eyes. “Please let us out.”

  “Why would I do that?” I said. “You belong in there. You’re as much my enemy as Hatch is.”

  “That’s not true,” Schema said. “Hatch is all of our enemy. We directed him to let you and your mother go. He rebelled against us.”

  “It’s true,” a man in the back said. “That’s why we’re in here.”

  “I’m not letting you go,” I said. “And we’re wasting time. Come on, Ostin.” I turned to go.

  “He’s going to kill us,” a woman said. “Please, have mercy. I beg you, Michael. We tried to save you.”

  Something about her plea stopped me. I turned back. “What will you do if I let you out?”

  Schema said, “We’ll take the company back from Hatch.”

  “After we blow up the boat there will be no Hatch.”

  “Then I hope you succeed,” Schema said.

  I looked at Ostin. He shrugged.

  “But if he survives . . . ,” Schema said. “Hatch has grown too powerful. No one knows what he’s capable of.”

  “We do,” I said.

  “I know this organization. I know where the money is. I know the Elgen weaknesses. I can stop him. Let me have my revenge.”

  “Revenge against Hatch?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Against Hatch.”

  I turned to Ostin. “What do you think?” I whispered.

  “My enemy’s enemy is my friend,” he whispered back. “Besides, they could be the distraction we need.”

  I looked at them, then said, “All right, we’ll let you go. But if you betray us, there will be no mercy. I will personally barbecue you.” I looked around. “Where’s the cell key?”

  “It’s an electric key,” Schema said. “The guard has it around his neck.”

  Ostin took the cell key from the guard and opened the cell door. As each of them stepped out, I melted the bands from their wrists. When Schema was free, he said, “Please help me get her down.”

  I looked at the woman. “All right.”

  As he wrapped his arms around her, I grabbed the bands on her feet and melted them. Schema gently laid her body on the floor. He knelt down next to her. “I’m so sorry, Judith,” he said. “He will pay for what he’s done.” Schema looked up, his eyes wet. “Thank you, Michael.”

  “You should get off the boat as quickly as possible,” Ostin said. “It’s not going to be here much longer.”

  I took the guard’s gun, magnetic key, and utility belt and gave them to Schema. “This might help.”

  “Do you know a safe way out?” one of the women asked.

  “Go that way,” I said, pointing down the corridor. “Take the stairs to the main deck. There’s a rope on the port side you can climb down.”

  “Don’t take our raft,” Ostin added. “Just swim to shore.”

  “Are you leaving with us?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” I said. “There’s something we need to do.”

  Together we moved back down the corridor toward the stern stairwell, Ostin and I bringing up the rear. As we approached the engine room Jack, Taylor, and McKenna stepped out in front of them, blocking their way. “Where are you going?” Jack demanded.

  “We’re letting them go,” I shouted over the motor’s hum.

  “Sorry, didn’t see you,” Jack said. He stepped aside. “I recommend a speedy exit.”

  As the freed board members climbed the stairwell, I shouted to the others, “Let’s get this over with.”

  The engine room door was constructed of inch-thick metal with a large glass portal that gave those inside a clear view of the corridor. I grasped the handle and slowly spun it until it opened. Not surprisingly, there was an armed guard stationed near the entrance. He immediately turned to us, his hand hovering near his sidearm.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  Ostin stepped forward. “Seaman Liss, first class,” he said. “The admiral sent us down for a surprise inspection.”

  “I wasn’t informed of this,” the man said.

  “Hence the surprise . . . ,” Ostin said.

  The man stared at him. “I received no notice of an inspection,” he
said.

  “Perhaps you don’t grasp the concept of surprise,” Ostin said.

  “You’re not authorized to be here,” he said. “I’m alerting security.” He reached for his radio, but Taylor rebooted him. His expression went blank and for a moment he just stared at the radio as if trying to remember why he was holding it. He blinked several times, then looked back at us. “Who are you?”

  “You were taking us to the engineer,” I said.

  He still looked confused. “Sorry, I . . .” He looked at us all and nodded. “This way.”

  The Ampere’s engine room wasn’t anything like I had imagined it would be. I’d never seen an engine room, outside of black-and-white photographs of old steam ships with glowing furnaces fed by men with soot-blackened faces shoveling from coal scuttles. The Ampere’s engine room was about as far from that as possible. The room was brightly lit with stark white walls and white paneled ceilings with thick chrome pipes running both vertically and horizontally. The ship’s engines, four of them, were mounted in the middle of the floor with chrome pipes leading into them from different angles. The floor was made of steel plating, forged with diamond patterns for better traction.

  The engineer was standing near a bank of gauges and switches. He didn’t look any happier to see us than the guard had. He snapped at the guard, “What are these sailors doing in here?”

  “Dr. Hatch sent us,” Jack said.

  “Admiral Hatch,” Ostin corrected. “Surprise inspection.”

  “Elgen protocol does not allow surprise inspections,” the engineer said.

  “Exactly,” Ostin said. “Surprise.”

  He looked us over, then said, “You all have the same serial number.” His expression changed. “You’re not Elgen.” Suddenly he reached for his sidearm. I was about to surge when Taylor rebooted him. He grabbed his forehead, crying out with pain. “Ah . . .”

  “Tell all your men to line up against that wall,” I said.

  He looked up at me, pain still evident on his face. “Why would I do that?”

  I glanced at Taylor, and she rebooted him again. This time the man screamed out with pain, fell to one knee, then to his side, crying out as he hit the floor. Then he went silent.