Clockwork Dream

xiii Lurkers in the Mist

Leo spent the better part of the hour praying for his life and avoiding being impaled by one of the numerous mechanical parts that turned into projectiles every time they were hit. The sharp turn at the end had nearly done him in when one of the chairs knocked over an entire sheath of hammers that went hurtling towards his head. It was a pity too. He'd spent half a day organizing the place. There was more junk crammed in their tiny shared room than air to breathe.

Lazarus hadn't so much as lifted his head throughout the entire event. His corner space was strategically placed so it was shielded from the worst of the damage. Leo wondered if he was used to it, or if he was just so caught up in his own head at times that the outside world didn't even register.

He was in the process of cleaning out a pathway back to his bunk when the door swung open with a loud clank. Instead of the familiar grinning face he had come to expect, a new dour one appeared.

"Come." The man grunted.

The wall of muscles, blank expression, and terse sentence structure all suggested that he was a man of few words who expected to be obeyed without delay, but Leo was never good at reading people. "What happened earlier?"

His question was received with a glare that could melt ice. "An attack."

"Thank you for that helpful clarification." Leo muttered under his breath.

He underestimated the pirates hearing, however, because the glare intensified to the level of liquefying stone and joined by the words, "Say that again, I hate it when people mumble."

There was a note of malice in that voice, matched with a milk curdling sneer that shut him up.

The path they followed was the one that lead to the bridge and a knot of panic settled in his stomach, exacerbated by the last dregs of adrenaline coursing through his veins. He had only attempted to learn more from Lazarus once after learning what the lunatic thought he had created, and that had ended with a wall of silence.

Entering the large room, the first thing he noticed was that Matthew, Alice the stowaway in tow, and several other crew members had already arrived. They were talking in hushed tones, though silence reigned the instant they caught sight of him. Once again he found himself placed in the spotlight.

One person gave no move to acknowledge their presence, or even to indicate she realized they had arrived.

Captain Riker stared out the large glass wall that dominated the command room. It was a mesmerizing sight. Mist swirled and crashed against the glass in an infinite number of patterns. On occasion some dark shape would dart out of the gray clouds, vanishing back into the fog before it could take on any solid form. All they left was the unsettling feeling that he had been visited by some strange apparition that wasn't meant to be glimpsed by mortal eyes.

Finally Captain Riker broke the silence. "Calloway, how knowledgeable are you when to comes to navigation systems?"

"Ah, I know the basics." He had an unfortunate feeling that he knew where their conversation was headed.

"Could you fix one? The radar in particular. It's a third generation holocore system."

He measured his next words carefully. "It would depend on the extent of the damage, and considering the manner in which it was damaged I would guess it's pretty severe. I wouldn't be able to fix it properly or permanently but I might be able to do a patch job."

"That was a yes or no question. I only have two options. The first is to turn back and get out of the mountains where the rest of the armada is waiting for us and take our chances. We might be able to avoid them but it's unlikely. You can see why that might not be the most popular choice. They won't follow us in here though, and for damn good reason. Most sailors think it's bad luck to go flying through mists like this. They say spirits haunt them and addle the controls and a whole host of other superstitions. These men don't think that way of course, the darkness is our ally. There's just the small problem that we wouldn't see a bloody mountain until after we'd already crashed into it. Can you or can you not fix that? If so you'll be rewarded the same freedoms Mrs. Dresden here enjoys, not to mention severely reducing the chance that we all die in the next few hours."