Armand Baltazar - Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic

“Diego can handle it.”

Emerson lowered the clipboard, still frowning. “Only my top drivers in the Royal Engineering Corps are rated for a class-three loader. Has your boy completed any formal training?”

Diego glanced at his dad. Santiago’s lips pursed, but he breathed deep and spoke diplomatically. “I can assure you that your steam converter is in the best of hands.”

Come on, Dad , Diego thought. He wished Santiago would give this arrogant man a piece of his mind.

“Well . . . ,” George scoffed. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Your drivers wouldn’t have the first clue how to pilot that Centauri loader bot,” Diego blurted. “My father designed it specifically for this station. You have to know what you’re doing, handle it right. Tear the wrong thing out and you could blast us all to pieces.”

“How dare you speak to me like that, you insolent whelp!” George bellowed. “Mr. Ribera, if you can’t control your crew , I can pull my team and take my converter back home with me.”

Santiago’s hand closed around Diego’s arm. “My apologies, Mr. Emerson.” Santiago yanked Diego away, guiding him across the platform toward the foreman’s office.

Once the door had closed, Santiago threw up his hands. “Diego! What has gotten into you? Do you realize who you were talking to?”

“Yeah,” Diego said, “a real blowhard.”

“George Emerson is the chief technical officer of the—”

“I know who he is, Dad! But that doesn’t mean he can talk to you like he did! Why are you defending him? You’ve done more for New Chicago than he’s ever done for his home. Why do you let someone like him push you around? Why do we even have to use someone else’s stupid converter when yours are twice as good?”

“That may or may not be true,” Santiago said. “There is always something to be learned from cooperation and sharing ideas.”

“Not with him!” Diego said. “If I were chief engineer, there is no way I would accept being treated like that.”

“What else would you do if you were chief engineer?”

“After I sent Emerson home? I’d make machines that would prove how strong we are, a city to be respected.”

“You sound like you mean feared .”

“Well, what would be wrong with fearing us? If you showed Emerson what you could really do, he wouldn’t come in here acting like he does.”

“You would have us be mighty and strong,” Santiago said, shaking his head, “but the mightiest are also often the loneliest. We need each other to survive in this world, even the more . . . difficult people. I can’t believe that is all you have learned from me. You have a lot of growing up to do before you’ll be ready to be chief engineer. Maybe you’re not ready for the Maker’s Sight.”

“Maybe I’ll never be good enough to be chief engineer. I mean, have you ever asked me what I wanted?” Diego shouted. “And the Maker’s Sight—I didn’t ask for that either! Why would anyone want to have an ability that they’d have to hide from the world? I’m not you, and I don’t want to be!”

A silence passed between them.

Suddenly, the floor shook violently.

“What was that?” Diego asked as he regained his balance.

“Trouble,” Santiago said, peering out the window. He pushed Diego toward the door. “Back outside. Hurry!”

The two emerged from the foreman’s shack into the deafening wail of warning sirens.

Workers darted in all directions. The wind had kicked up, the sky to the west darkening with the approaching storm.

“What’s wrong with your plant now?” George thundered over the din.

“There’s nothing wrong with the plant!” Santiago replied.

Another explosion tore through the station from below, shaking the floors. Diego stumbled and fell to his knees.

Something shrieked above them.

“Look out!” Santiago called.

George threw himself backward as part of a venting tower crashed to the deck. “Ahh!”

Diego scrambled to his feet to see Georgie pinned beneath the wreckage, screaming in pain.

“Diego!” Santiago shouted as he raced to Georgie. “Get the Centauri bot!”

Diego sprinted across the deck, dodging fiery debris as it crashed around him. A giant piece of the cooling tank knifed into the deck just feet in front of him, forcing Diego to dive out of the way. He stumbled to get up, regaining his balance as another steel girder slammed into the deck.

Diego reached the Centauri bot, clambered up the side, and slung himself into the cockpit. He powered it on, and the diesel motor revved to life. Diego jammed the throttle, and the Centauri lurched forward. The robot took one huge step but stalled as Diego fumbled with the controls. He could operate this robot with his eyes closed usually, but nothing about this moment was usual. Diego watched Georgie struggling. No time to think . He eased the robot forward and moved quickly.

The Centauri reached Georgie after several thundering strides. George waved his hands in the air, pleading with Diego to hurry. But the robot’s pneumatic claws could crush Georgie like a gnat if Diego wasn’t precise. He maneuvered the claws like they were an extension of his own hands and clamped down on the beam, lifting it free and flinging the beam out of the way. As he spun the robot back around, Diego looked to the horizon.

“Dad!” Diego shouted. “Three warships! Headed this way!”

He pointed toward the horizon, and Santiago raced to a maintenance ladder, scrambling up until he could see.

Blinding flashes of light . . . whistling. Three more explosions shook the platform to its core.

A section of the scaffolding exploded. Diego heard a terrified scream and saw a worker throw himself off the side into the sea to escape the flames.

“It’s the Aeternum!” Santiago shouted, dropping back to the deck. He waved to Diego. “Get to the command center!”

Santiago and George bent to help raise Georgie to his feet. Getting his arms around their shoulders, they lurched across the damaged deck, making their way around flaming piles of debris.

Diego powered off the robot and risked a glimpse back to the sea before climbing down. The ships were closing fast, but their cannons had stopped. The water all around them roiled. Shining backs broke the surface, surging ahead of the ships. Flicking tails, whitecaps and wakes forming as if behind invisible vessels. Diego wondered if they were machines, but as they neared the platform he saw something much worse. Pointed snouts, the glint of massive jaws. Mosasaurs, the most fearsome predators of the Vastlantic.

The station shuddered, swaying to one side, then back in the other direction with the next hit. Violent plumes of ocean spray exploded into the sky. Diego struggled to hang on to the railing and Georgie as they stumbled to the command center.

“In here! Hurry!” A marine sergeant waved to them from the doorway.

Diego lunged through as a terrible shriek sounded. The walkway they’d just been standing on twisted and collapsed out of sight. The command center teetered, and, for a moment, it seemed like the whole thing would fall into the sea. But the support towers groaned and the room stopped, frozen at a steep angle.

Diego fell against the wall, catching his breath. A medic grabbed Georgie and laid him on the floor to assess his condition.