The Moon and the Stars || Heroes of Olympus

Chapter 29

Leo stormed around Bunker 9, cursing himself for being stupid, muttering about Windex for some reason, while we tried to calm him down.

"It's fine," I said. "We're here to help."

"Just tell us what happened." Piper urged.

It'd only taken us a few minutes to answer Leo's distress call, which was great, but we didn't know why he'd called us, and I was getting worried.

I cracked my fingers, a frown drawing my eyebrows together. My hands were constantly moving, tapping up and down my arms, picking at scabs and cracking my fingers, fuelled by my nervous energy.

Jason looked all cool and confident as usual - all surfer-dude handsome with his blonde hair and his sky blue eyes. The scar on his mouth and the sword in his hand gave him a rugged appearance, like he could handle anything

Piper stood next to him in her orange camp T-shirt. Her long brown hair was braided to one side and her dagger Katoptris gleamed at her belt. Despite the situation, her eyes sparkled like she was trying to suppress a smile. Now that she and Jason were officially together, Piper looked like that a lot.

Leo took in a deep breath. "Ok, guys. This is serious. Buford's gone. If we don't get him back, this whole place is going to explode."

"Leo." I said, worried. "What did you do?"

He sighed. "Come here."

He led us across the hangar floor, carefully skirting around some of his more dangerous projects. They were quite interesting really. In the few days we'd spent at camp, Leo had been busy in Bunker 9, it became like a second home for him. After all, he'd discovered the secret workshop, but Piper and Jason still felt uncomfortable here.

I could hardly blame them. Built into the side of a limestone cliff deep in the woods, the bunker was part weapons depot, part machine workshop and part underground safe house, with a little Area-51 style craziness thrown in for good measure. Rows of workbenches stretched into darkness. Tool cabinets, storage closets, cages full of welding equipment and stacks of construction materials made a labyrinth of aisles so fast that Leo figured he'd only explored about ten percent of it so far. Overhead ran a series of catwalks and what Leo called pneumatic tubes that were used to deliver supplies, plus a complex high-tech lighting and sound system.

A huge magical banner hung the centre of the production floor. Leo had recently discovered how to change the display, like the Times Square JumboTron, so now the banner read: Merry Christmas! All your presents belong to Leo!

He ushered us to the central staging area. Decades ago, our metallic friend Festus the bronze dragon had been created here. Now, Leo was slowly assembling his pride and joy - the Argo II.

Currently, it was not looking it's most impressive.

The keel was laid - a length of Celestial bronze curved like an archer's bow, two hundred feet from bow to stern. The lowest hull planks had been set in place, forming a shallow bowl held together by scaffolding. Masts lay to one side, ready for positioning. Festus' head sat nearby, carefully wrapped in velvet, waiting to be installed in his place of honour.

Most of Leo's time had been spent in the middle of the ship, at the base of the hull, where he was building the engine of the warship.

We climbed the scaffolding and jumped into the hull, Jason, Piper and I following Leo.

"See?" He said.

Fixed to the keel, the engine apparatus looked like a high-tech jungle gym made from a bunch of mechanical parts. Leo slid inside and pointed out the "combustion chamber".