The Final Spark

  “Does that sound ever stop?” McKenna asked.

  “Probably not,” Ostin said, speaking for the first time since they’d boarded. His voice was raw and strained.

  The pain in his voice hurt her. “Hey, tell me some facts about submarines.”

  “Sorry,” Ostin said. “I’m not in the mood.”

  McKenna frowned. “How deep do you think we are?”

  Ostin breathed out slowly. “The Joule can dive to six hundred feet.”

  “What makes that sound?”

  Ostin sniffed, then said softly, “At six hundred feet the water pressure is 282.6 pounds per square inch. That’s a lot of pressure on a pressurized can.”

  “I heard that the Elgen carry all their wealth in this boat.”

  “Not all of it,” Ostin said. “Just enough for a rainy day.”

  “That would be a lot of rain,” Ian said, suddenly joining the conversation. “There are stacks of gold bullion running two feet high across the length of the boat.”

  “They’d have to use that much weight as ballast,” Ostin said.

  “There’s also diamonds and boxes of paper currency. I could open the safes that hold them,” Ian said. “Just for fun.”

  “That would be fun to see,” McKenna answered. “Maybe someday we’ll share in all that loot.”

  “Maybe,” Ostin said, sounding not at all interested.

  Abigail glanced back at McKenna with a sad smile, then climbed onto the bunk above Taylor.

  An hour later Cassy walked into the bunk room. “Lunch is ready,” she said softly. No one moved. Everyone was asleep. After a few minutes, Cassy went back to the Conn to keep Welch company.

  2

  How Many Elgen Does It Take to Screw In a Light Bulb?

  After all the physical and emotional stress they’d been through over the last week, their exhaustion finally took over and they slept more than eighteen hours. Jack was the first to wake. He looked around the dark room lit only by the glows of his electric friends. With no portholes there was no way of knowing if it was day or night.

  He climbed down from his bunk as quietly as possible, then walked back up to the Conn. Welch looked up at him as he entered. Jack had bed hair, the bulk of it pressed to the right side of his head.

  “Looks like you got some rest,” Welch said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Anyone else up?”

  “Not yet.”

  “We probably should wake them in the next hour or so or they’ll be up all night.”

  “There is no night and day down here,” Jack said. “What does it matter?”

  “We need a schedule,” Welch said. “Cassy and I are going to need sleep.”

  Just then Tessa, Zeus, and Ian walked into the Conn. “We can watch the Conn,” Zeus said.

  “My men need sleep too,” the COB said.

  “We can’t stop sailing,” Welch said.

  “We don’t need to. The Joule’s completely automated. We can program our course, and she can run on autopilot. If there’s a problem, she alerts our room.”

  Ostin, McKenna, Abigail, and Tara walked in.

  “Everyone’s up except Taylor,” Tara said.

  “Let her sleep,” Welch said. “Cassy, you can go rest.”

  “No problem,” she said, yawning as she stood.

  “Tara, would you mind showing them to the dining room?” Welch asked.

  “I can,” Cassy said. “I think I’ll get something.” She turned to the others. “Let’s go.” Cassy led them down a ladder and then in the opposite direction of the bunks to the Joule’s dining area. Like the rest of the boat, every inch was used as efficiently as possible. Against one wall were bins of dried fruit and grains. Jack opened a canister that read: DRIED MANGO. He grabbed a handful of the dried fruit and tossed it into his mouth. The others followed his example, opening other bins of fruit: pineapple, guava, and apple. They were hungrily devouring the fruit when a young Fijian girl walked into the room. She stopped near the door, looking at all the people. “Cassy?”

  “Hey,” Cassy said. She turned to the others. “Guys, this is Kiki. She’s the ship’s cook. We didn’t think she would be safe with the Elgen, so we kept her with us.”

  “Welcome to the Joule,” Kiki said with a slight British accent. “The new captain Welch asked me to prepare something for you to eat. I’m making spaghetti for tonight. For now, I have baked rolls and meats for sandwiches.”

  “What kind of sandwiches do you have?” Jack asked.

  “We have fish, pork, Vegemite, and Nutella.”

  Jack squinted. “What’s Nutella?”

  “It’s chocolate spread,” Tara said. “It’s good.”

  “A chocolate sandwich,” McKenna said. “It’s about time someone invented that.”

  “I think you all must be very hungry,” Kiki said.

  “Starving,” Ostin said. “We haven’t eaten anything for more than a day.”

  “I will fix that.” Kiki opened a cupboard and brought out a basket filled with scones. “The Elgen liked my scones with papaya jam and cream.” She set the container on the table. “I also have fruit salad.” She took out another bowl and set it on the table. Then she brought out a stack of bowls and several handfuls of utensils. “Please, help yourself. Eat.”

  Taylor walked into the room. She hesitated near the doorway. McKenna thought she looked a little better. Not good, but better.

  “How are you?” McKenna asked.

  Taylor shrugged.

  As she walked over and sat down next to McKenna, Kiki began boiling water for tea while Cassy cut the homemade bread into slices and then brought out plates and what they needed for sandwiches: grilled pork steak, salted mackerel and tuna, lettuce and tomatoes grown on the islands, mayonnaise, mustard, Vegemite, and a large plastic container of Nutella. Everyone ate ravenously except for Taylor.

  McKenna said to her, “You need to eat.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “That’s why you need to eat. We don’t know what’s ahead, and we all need to keep our strength. If you won’t eat for yourself, eat for the rest of us.”

  Taylor looked at her. “If I slow you down, you can leave me.”

  “You know we would never do that.” McKenna gave her a slice of bread with Nutella. “Please. Eat something.”

  Taylor just looked down at the sandwich.

  “What would Michael say?”

  Taylor erupted. “Nothing! He’d say nothing! He’s gone!”

  Everyone stopped eating and looked at Taylor. Taylor looked around, then said, “I’m sorry.”

  McKenna touched her chest over her heart. “He’s not gone. He’s here.” She touched Taylor’s chest. “And there. He will always be there.”

  Taylor dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  McKenna hugged her, and Taylor put her head on the other girl’s shoulder.

  “You don’t need to apologize,” McKenna said softly. “We understand. Everyone understands.”

  After a few minutes Taylor stopped crying and sat back. Then she lifted the bread and took a bite.

  “Thank you,” McKenna said.

  “Thank you,” Taylor said. “You care more about me than I do about myself.”

  * * *

  A few minutes later Cassy said, “The tea’s ready. Help yourself. I’m going to bed.”

  “Wait,” Kiki said. “I have a surprise.” She opened a cupboard and brought out a cake topped with baked pineapple. “The Elgen were celebrating a birthday and made me bake a cake for them. They never got a chance to eat it.”

  “That makes me happy on two accounts,” Jack said. “You, Kiki, are the best thing that’s happened to us for days.”

  “With the days you’ve had,” Kiki said, “I don’t think that would be very hard to do.”

  PART TWO

  3

  Building an Army

  Almost two hours after the Joule set sail, Enele Saluni and the rest of the Tuv
aluan prisoners completed their walk-through of Hades island, gathering the Elgen weapons and ammunition that had survived the battle. Many of the rifles were pried from the charred, skeletal hands of dead Elgen soldiers. The bones crumbled as the Tuvaluans pulled the weapons loose. With the magnitude of the Elgen’s assault, Enele’s men easily gathered more weapons and ammunition than they could use. Still, at Enele’s insistence, they took all they could, filling the bottom of their small boats with as many rifles and as much ammunition as they could carry. They planned to provide weapons for the Tuvaluans they recruited into their army, and they didn’t know if weapons would be available on the other islands.

  Tragically, of the hundreds of Tuvaluan natives that the Elgen had sent to their prison on Hades, only a few dozen remained. Enele divided the survivors up between the three boats that Welch had left them, putting his two strongest warriors, Zeel and Nazil, in charge of the other two craft. Before setting sail the three men gathered together to plan their mission.

  “We’re ready,” Nazil said, speaking for both himself and Zeel. “Our boats are full of weapons.”

  “How many arms have you collected?” Enele asked.

  “Seventy-three rifles, twenty-five magazines of ammo, and twenty-four grenades.”

  Enele turned to Zeel. “And you?”

  “Sixty-nine rifles, twelve sidearms, thirty-four magazines of bullets, and one fifty-millimeter machine gun with about three thousand rounds.”

  Enele wiped the sweat from his forehead, then said, “That will do for now. It’s time to go.”

  “Where are we going now?” Nazil asked.

  “We sail to Nanumaga.”

  “Nanumaga?” Nazil said with surprise.

  “Yes. Then Vaitupu.”

  Nazil and Zeel glanced at each other in surprise.

  “Not to Funafuti?” Nazil asked.

  “If Hatch is still alive,” Zeel said, “he will be in his Starxource plant in Funafuti. We should sail to Funafuti first.”

  Enele looked at them angrily. “You don’t think I have more reason than anyone to sail to Funafuti?! My grandfather is being held there in a monkey cage. Yes, I know Hatch will be in Funafuti. And for good reason. It’s his stronghold. The man, Welch, told me that Hatch has enough weapons in his Starxource plant to destroy our nation many times over. What are you thinking? To attack him with the thirty-two of us? Any fool can attack an army and die. A wise man doesn’t plan an attack; he plans a victory. I will act the part of the wise man. We will build an army, then, when we are strong enough, attack. Do you disagree with me?”

  Both men sheepishly shook their heads.

  “Then we sail to Nanumaga. The Elgen brought many of our people there to work the fields and run cattle. There we’ll find food, soldiers, and large produce boats to transport them. If we are lucky, we can gather more than five hundred soldiers. After we have taken what we can, we’ll sail to Vaitupu, where the Elgen train their soldiers. There we’ll find more weapons. There may even be warships.

  “Then, after we have sufficiently armed our soldiers, then, and only then, will we attack Funafuti. Then we will be victorious.”

  “Our apologies,” Nazil said. “You are wiser than us. You let your intelligence not your anger rule you.”

  Enele looked at his comrades sympathetically. “You both have great reason to be angry. You are loyal Tuvaluans, as well as courageous warriors. You’ve seen Hatch’s cruelty to our people. You’ve suffered that cruelty. I too am filled with anger so deep, I fear it might consume me. There’s no doubt that the time will come when anger will rule us all. But for now, we must remain in control. We’ve an army to build.”

  4

  The Bati Kadi

  It was shortly before noon when Enele’s three boats sailed nearly due west for Nanumaga—the diamond-shaped Tuvaluan island that Hatch had renamed Demeter, for the Greek god of agriculture.

  Demeter island was nearly the same size as Hades, but the similarities stopped there. Hades had been a vast, ugly wasteland even before the battle. At Hatch’s command, the Elgen had slashed and burned their way through the once beautiful island, stripping it of its foliage, making it more difficult for prisoners to escape or hide. The uglifying of the island had another effect that worked well with the Elgen’s plans. It made the island look like death. The Tuvaluans said of Hades, “No one ever comes back.”

  Demeter was the opposite of Hades—it was a lush, tropical paradise abundant with vegetation and farming. Originally, the Tuvaluans grew only a few crops on the island: copra, coconuts, and breadfruit, all largely for export. But the Elgen had interest only in their own self-sufficiency, so they now grew only what they needed and consumed: tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, cabbage, eggplant, arugula, strawberries, taro, and, at Hatch’s request, jalapeños.

  Demeter was sixty-two nautical miles from Hades, which took the small boats almost three hours to traverse. With Enele in the lead boat, the small Tuvaluan force landed on the island’s northern shore beneath the inland cover of a partially submerged mangrove forest. They hid their boats among the trees, taking only the weapons they could use, and then made their way, on foot, to the labor camps where the Elgen had forced their families and friends into slavery.

  The Elgen had realized that one of the advantages of operating on a small island was that there was no need to build fences to keep the workers in. Without boats, there was no escaping, and the only fences were those around the Elgen compound, for protection in case of a slave uprising, and the fences around the Tuvaluan sleeping quarters, to keep the slaves under control at night.

  In addition, the workers had all been injected with RFIDs, radio-frequency identification, technology that the Elgen had mastered when their headquarters were still located in California. By tagging each of the slaves, the Elgen could not only track their movements, but even monitor how much work each person accomplished or not, and punish them accordingly.

  The force stopped when they reached the edge of the forest. Before them lay acres of crops tended by hundreds of Tuvaluans. It made Enele angry to see the condition his fellow Tuvaluans were in. Their clothes were dirty and torn, some barely covering the emaciated bodies that wore them. The Elgen fed them little, making the threat of withholding food a severe punishment if not a death sentence.

  “Look at them,” Zeel said. “I will kill the first Elgen I see.”

  “I don’t see any Elgen,” Enele said. He turned back. “Nazil?”

  “None.”

  “They may be watching their slaves from cameras,” Enele said. “They love cameras.” He turned to the men. “I will take just two with me, Adam and Raphe. Divide the rest of our people into two groups. Nazil, take your group to the south side of the field and work your way through, gathering soldiers as you go. Zeel, you keep your group hidden here. If the Elgen attack, they will not suspect a hidden force, and you can attack them from behind. Understood?”

  “Yes,” Nazil said. “But what will you and the two young men do?”

  “We will be the Bati Kadi.”

  Zeel and Nazil both nodded. Bati Kadi, meaning “the pinchers of the black ant,” were the ninjas of the South Pacific, stealthy warriors who infiltrated the enemy line to slay their unsuspecting foes.

  “We’ll sneak into the Elgen’s headquarters and take them by surprise.”

  “Why don’t you take more men against the compound?” Zeel asked. “It is their most fortified place.”

  “That is why, Zeel. It is their most fortified place and far too powerful to attack with as few men as we have. But a mouse may enter where a lion cannot.” Enele leaned over and strapped a holster around his leg, instructing his two new companions to do the same.

  The two men Enele had selected were brothers, Adam and Raphe Sopoaga. Enele had met the brothers in prison on Hades, where they had been sent for beating up an Elgen guard who had tased an elderly Tuvaluan woman for the amusement of it. Enele had gotten especially close to Adam, who was the you
nger of the two brothers, but more outspoken in his passion for liberty. They were young and nimble, traits more important than size when playing the role of Bati Kadi. But even more important, both of them had spent time working as slaves on the island before being sent to Hades. Adam had even been inside the compound before being transferred off the island.

  “If we do not return,” Enele said, “you will lead your new soldiers back to our boats and arm all you can. Then you will attack the Elgen compound. After you have defeated them, take their weapons, reclaim the rest of the weapons from the boats, and then take their boats and sail to Vaitupu for weapons. Free our country.”

  “Yes, Enele,” Nazil said. “But let us hope that you return.”

  “That is my hope as well.” Enele saluted them. “Go with strength.”

  “Go with strength,” they echoed.

  The soldiers separated. Enele and the brothers moved quickly north through thick foliage toward the Elgen’s compound. Enele hoped that Hatch had depleted his Demeter forces in his attack on Hades, but he didn’t count on it. When they reached the edge of the compound, Enele crawled beneath a bush to get a better look at what they were facing. He didn’t like what he saw. Getting into the compound undetected seemed nearly impossible. The compound was completely fenced in, and the Elgen had motion detectors and cameras mounted almost every twenty yards. Still, surprisingly, they could see no guards in the watchtowers or patrolling the grounds.

  “There are more secluded places near the back,” Adam said. “Follow me.”

  As they circled back around the compound, Raphe spotted what looked to be a weakness in the compound’s security. At the far back side of the building, dark in shade, a giant dakua tree limb partially extended over the barbed fence. The windows facing out toward the tree were frosted or covered with blinds as well as metal bars.

  The guard compound hadn’t been built by the Elgen. It had originally been the island’s sole school building, but the Elgen had added the fence and security, along with other adaptations. The fact that the tree limb was still there seemed to be a huge oversight, a sign of Elgen arrogance, or a trap. Raphe inspected the tree to see if there were any wires attached but found nothing out of the ordinary.