‘’Fraid so,’ Will said, digging about among Annalie’s stuff. He pulled out her shell. ‘Found it!’
He was about to call Essie when Pod put out a warning hand.
‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Someone might hear.’
‘Good point,’ Will said. He sent a message instead: Where are you? The Admiralty are in the building, be careful!
No reply came back.
‘I guess we’d better go look for them,’ he said.
They gathered up their gear and ventured out to look for the others.
A Sundian man came hurrying past wearing gardening clothes and gumboots. Rather alarmingly, he was carrying a pitchfork.
‘You kids, go back to your quarters,’ he warned. ‘We’ve been attacked, it’s not safe for you to be roaming around out here.’
‘What’s happening? Where are they now?’ asked Will.
‘I heard they’ve taken the control room,’ the man said. ‘Now go on, back to your quarters, and stay out of the way until you hear the all-clear.’
The man hurried away in the direction of the control room.
‘We’re following him, right?’ Pod said.
‘Of course,’ Will said.
‘Spinner!’ Annalie cried, running to his side.
Spinner was lying on the floor, blood already seeping from a wound in his side. His eyes were closed, and for a moment Annalie was afraid he might already be dead, but at the sound of her voice his eyes opened and he murmured, ‘You have to get out of here.’
‘We’re not going anywhere without you,’ Annalie said.
‘I’ll be okay,’ Spinner said gamely. ‘I don’t want you falling into his hands.’
Sola shouted to the marines. ‘We need to get him to a doctor, now!’
The same marine who’d told Beckett to stand down crouched beside them. ‘How bad is it?’ he asked.
‘Bad,’ Sola said fearfully. ‘There’s so much blood.’
‘You need to put pressure on the wound,’ the marine said. ‘Annalie, are you all right?’
For a split second she wondered how he knew her name, and then their eyes met and she realised that this was not just any Admiralty marine. It was Lieutenant Cherry.
‘Sir,’ Cherry said, rising to his feet, ‘this man needs urgent medical attention.’
‘No one’s going anywhere until I get what I want,’ Beckett said.
‘What’s left?’ Sola cried bitterly. ‘You’ve got both of us. The research is gone. What more could you possibly want?’
‘There are always more copies,’ Beckett said.
‘No, there aren’t,’ Sola said.
‘She’s telling the truth,’ Annalie said desperately. ‘Remember why Sujana got in touch with you? She was afraid Spinner would destroy the research forever.’
Beckett frowned. ‘He was bluffing.’
‘No, he wasn’t,’ Annalie said. ‘He wouldn’t bluff about something that important. He was ready to do anything to keep this research safe from you. Even if that meant destroying it.’
Beckett looked from the defiant, frightened Annalie, to Sola, who was weeping now, angry and devastated. Finally, he grabbed Spinner by the shirt front and yanked him close. ‘Is that true? Is it gone?’
Spinner looked at him wearily and said, ‘It’s finished, Avery.’
Beckett stared at him for one long moment then let out a roar of anger. He let Spinner slump to the ground.
‘Arrest them all,’ he snarled. ‘Find the kids, too. And his stupid parrot.’
‘He needs medical attention,’ Cherry protested.
‘And he’ll get it,’ Beckett said, ‘when you’ve found the rest of the conspirators.’
‘No!’ Sola cried.
‘Sir, this is against the Admiralty code on the proper treatment of prisoners,’ Cherry said.
‘I don’t care what the code says,’ Beckett roared. ‘This is my operation and you will obey my commands or suffer the consequences.’
‘Sir, requesting permission to give first aid to the prisoner,’ Cherry said formally, ‘in order to carry out our mission and bring him back to face charges.’
‘Arrest him, too,’ Beckett snapped. He saw that some of the marines were hesitating. ‘Arrest him or you’re all on a charge of mutiny!’
Then, quite unexpectedly, all the lights went out.
Down below
The control room door burst open and more bodies came crowding in, shouting in the darkness. It was pitch black, even with the door open—they’d killed the lights in the corridor too—so Annalie could hear and feel rather than see that the room was suddenly full of fighting bodies.
She heard a voice somewhere near her ear, and a hand landed on her arm. ‘Annalie? Is that you?’
‘Yes! Cherry?’
‘I’m getting you out of those cuffs. You’ve got to get your father out of here.’
Her cuffs fell to the ground. She was free.
Lights were beginning to appear in the darkness: glinting, flashing torch beams illuminated marines fighting with Sundians. Essie scurried over to them. ‘Let’s go!’ she squeaked.
Cherry hurried to undo her handcuffs, then Sola’s, and finally Spinner’s.
‘We need to get him to sick bay,’ Sola said.
Essie grabbed a wheelie office chair and scooted it over to him. ‘Get him onto this.’
They bundled the groaning Spinner onto the office chair.
Annalie turned to Cherry. ‘Thank you for rescuing me,’ she said. ‘Again. Why did you stick your neck out like that?’
‘This is not the Admiralty I signed up to,’ Cherry said. ‘Go, quick, before the lights come back on.’
Annalie gave him a quick hug, then she, Essie and Sola pushed the office chair around the edges of the room, avoiding the still-fighting marines and Sundians, and escaped into the darkness of the corridor.
Essie switched on the torch on her shell and illuminated some familiar faces as Will, Pod, Blossom and Graham appeared out of the darkness. ‘We thought you might be in there,’ Will said. Then he noticed Spinner. ‘What happened?’
‘Beckett shot him.’
‘We need to get him to sick bay,’ Sola said.
‘We need to get out of here,’ Annalie said. ‘Beckett’s capable of anything. We can’t let Spinner fall into his hands again.’
‘We won’t let that happen,’ Sola said.
‘Your guys are pretty tough,’ Will said, ‘but the marines are tougher and they’ve got bigger guns. Annalie’s right. I think we should get out of here.’
Sola opened her mouth to argue, but then changed her mind. ‘I’ll go to sick bay for some medical supplies,’ she said. ‘Meet me at
