D. MacHale - SYLO

“Where’s Granger, Olivia?” I called.

Grasping the back of my chair, Olivia looked back for our pursuers.

“I can’t see them. I think they had to make a really wide turn so that big ship is blocking them now and—no, oh no, here they come. They’re moving past that ship now.”

“We can’t outrun them forever, Tucker,” Tori said, still calm.

“I’m open to suggestions.”

Tori scanned the watery battlefield and the endless line of ships while I did my best to dodge obstacles. We were traveling so fast that I nearly ran down a life raft carrying a dozen sailors. They screamed at me angrily as we flew by but I wasn’t about to stop and apologize. Besides, they were the bad guys. I think. We kept getting bounced and thumped as we flew over pieces of junk. It would only be a matter of time before we ran into something more substantial, and at that speed it would mean catastrophe.

“Kent, come here,” Tori called.

“No, I’m the lookout!”

“Come here,” Tori said more insistently.

He reluctantly joined us.

Tori was oddly calm. I feared she may have been in shock from the injury, but her eyes were clear and she seemed focused.

“We could die out here,” she said to all of us.

“Gee, you think?” Kent shot back sarcastically.

Tori gave him a withering glare and he shut up.

“Granger isn’t going to give up. Even if we get past this line of ships, he could follow us all the way to the mainland and shoot us down on shore.”

Nobody said a word because she was saying what we all had been thinking.

“If we don’t do something drastic,” Tori said. “We’re dead.”

“Drastic like what?” I asked. “It’s not like we can turn and fight.”

Tori looked forward. We were still traveling north along the line of foundering ships that stood between us and the mainland. Far ahead was a destroyer in flames. It was perpendicular to the mainland and listing to its side, away from us. Beyond it was a battleship that was dead in the water, parallel to the destroyer.

“Drastic like we could die,” she said. “But we’re going to die anyway.”

I looked at Kent and Olivia. Both looked sick.

“Do you have an idea, Tori?” Olivia asked with surprising calm.

Tori said, “I do. But it has to be now—and you have to trust me.”

Kent looked back and announced, “That damn black boat is right on our tail. They’re going to start shooting any second.”

“Do it,” I said to Tori.

“Hurry,” Olivia added.

Tori glared at Kent.

Kent said, “Go.”

Tori instantly unbuckled her seat belt and said, “I’ll take the wheel.”

“You sure?” I asked.

Her answer was to push me out of the captain’s chair and grab the wheel with her right hand. Her injury was to her left shoulder, making that arm useless, but I trusted Tori with one hand on the wheel more than any of us with both.

“Take the throttle,” she commanded.

Tori gently nudged us to port, getting us closer to the line of ships. She had to make two quick course adjustments to dodge floating debris, and with each movement of the wheel, I saw her wince with pain. Yet even with the handicap, she could maneuver the speeding craft with an expertise that I couldn’t match.

“Olivia! Tell me what’s happening back there,” she commanded.

“They’re getting closer,” Olivia cried.

“Maybe fifty yards back,” Kent added. “And closing.”

I looked ahead at the destroyer that was perpendicular to the mainland. Its entire superstructure was ablaze and it was listing hard to starboard, away from us. It would roll onto its side at any second—and probably hit the battleship that was lying next to it.

That’s when I knew.

“You can’t be serious,” I said to Tori.

“Everybody hold on to something,” was her response. She was locked in, calculating the physics of what she was about to attempt. I hoped she was working with something more solid than guesswork.

I buckled into the copilot’s seat. Kent and Olivia each grabbed safety rails.

“What are you going to do?” Olivia asked nervously.

Tori ignored the question and called out, “How far back are they?”

“Forty yards,” Kent replied. “The guy’s standing at the machine gun. He’s lining us up.”

Tori said, “Tucker, when I tell you, power down by half but keep your hand on the throttles.”

“Got it,” I replied though my mouth had gone dry.

The doomed destroyer loomed over us as we came up quickly on its stern. I saw sailors jumping for their lives off the port side.

“Thirty yards!” Kent called out.

The machine gun behind us opened fire.

We were about to cross the stern of the flaming destroyer when—

“Now!” Tori called.

I pulled back on the throttles as Tori spun us into a sharp left turn. We had been traveling so fast that I feared we would flip, but with an expert touch she kept us righted as we side-slipped forward, passing the stern of the doomed ship…

…with our bow now pointed toward the mainland.

“Throttle up!” Tori yelled. “Go, go, go!”

I thrust the throttles forward and the monstrous engines roared back to full power. The jolt of acceleration was so sudden that Olivia and Kent were nearly thrown over.

“You’re crazy!” Olivia shrieked in terror.

I couldn’t argue with her. The listing, burning destroyer was now to our left. To our right was the battleship. Between them was a narrow corridor of water. The battleship was doomed. Even if it had power, it wouldn’t be able to clear in time. The burning superstructure of the destroyer was seconds away from toppling onto the deck of its neighbor—with us sandwiched in between.

“My God,” Kent screamed. “We’re in hell.”

The heat was quickly becoming unbearable as the listing ship tilted toward us. The flaming superstructure loomed directly over our heads, creating a ceiling of fire.

Tori didn’t show a hint of fear or concern.

“Are they coming?” she asked.

I twisted to look back and was shocked to see Granger’s gunship sliding into the same maneuver we had just made. It was about to follow us into the suicide corridor.

“Yeah, they’re coming,” I called out. “They fell back a little making the turn. I don’t think they expected us to do that.”

“Neither did I,” Kent wailed. “We’re gonna be incinerated.”

Tori stayed focused. I kept my hands on the throttles, pressing down hard as if that might help us go faster, but the engines were already wide open.

We made it to the mid-ship point—and Olivia screamed.

A chunk of flaming metal fell off the superstructure and dropped toward us. It would have landed directly on the deck if Tori hadn’t made a subtle but lifesaving shift toward the battleship. The flaming mass hit the water to our port side, the hot metal sizzling as it slammed into the water.

“The whole thing’s coming down on our heads!” Kent screamed.

The destroyer had reached the tipping point and was on its way over. Our engines roared and dug into the water that was being churned up by the massive ships on either side of us. Bits of molten metal fell like sparkling rain all around, each drop as dangerous as acid. Some hit our front deck and quickly melted holes in the fiberglass. We huddled under the canopy to avoid the burning shower, but the thin top would do nothing to protect us from the tons of flaming metal that was seconds away from hitting us.

Above the pounding of our engines and the white noise of the inferno, I could hear the panicked shouts of sailors from both sides who were abandoning ship.

I reached out and held on to Tori’s shoulder. I wanted her to know that in spite of what was about to happen, she had made the right move. The only move. Besides, I wanted the last moment of my life spent making human contact with someone.