Beyond the Endless Sky

Chapter 15

Clarissa wasn't willing to try the manoeuvre the captain and Mercy used to get across the hall so quickly, so she was left to follow in their wake to the cargo hold. She trundled as quickly as she could manage, but walking was a peculiar experience with the weak pull of her clingy boots.

By the time she reached the stairwell the others were out of sight. The door, however, had been left open, and when she made her way down Clarissa could see Mercy standing in the middle of the cargo hold, her head titled up and her hat in her left hand.

"Vincent!" Mercy cried out. She slapped her hat back on and ran to the back of the cargo hold, and then up the wall. For a moment, Clarissa wondered who Vincent was. She had gotten rather used to calling him 'captain' in her head.

Clarissa tromped into the cargo bay to see the black box spinning in the air a dozen feet over her head, with the captain clinging to one of the sides. The box was as tall as the captain, and just as long, and was drifting lazily towards the far wall. Red lights were flashing all along the sides, and a quiet siren was humming in the distance.

"Mercy!" the captain called out, as he spun around in the air. "Grab a fire suppressor, would you?"

Clarissa thought it was the oddest request, but Mercy moved like they were following a well-rehearsed plan. She walked up the wall to a nearby canister resting in a bracket, ran across the wall until she was as close as she could manage, spun about so that she clung to the wall with her hands, and then pushed off towards the cube.

Mercy's trajectory put her behind the box in just a couple of seconds. Clarissa thought she had missed, but as Mercy passed the cube she matched the captain's spin, and handed the canister to him as easily as if she had been standing still. Mercy passed on, and stopped with a gentle bend of her knees as she stuck to the cargo bay ceiling.

The captain, meanwhile, pointed the nozzle of the canister ahead of him, and squeezed the lever. A cloud of white foam filled the air and formed a ring around the captain and the box, growing larger as it spat across the cargo bay. A dozen seconds later, the nozzle sputtered, gave out a last cough, and died. But the box's spin was little more than an idyllic twirl now, which seemed to be enough for Captain Locklear. When the box drew close to the wall a few seconds later, the captain was able to both guide it to a stop, and keep it from crashing.

Captain Locklear sighed and whistled in relief. He turned to Mercy and shot her a glib question. "You know I'm holding the fate of the sky in my hands right now?"

"Here's hoping you treat it like a newborn babe, sir," Mercy replied, her voice strained. But she was smiling and scooped up the empty fire extinguisher floating in the air beside the captain.

"Clarissa, Mercy, would you take over for a minute? I need to keep Tonya from doing any reckless flying for a little while," Captain Locklear said, stepping away from the now mostly stationary cube.

Clarissa marched up to the position the captain had abandoned and tried to reach for the box. "Mercy, what happened? How did the box come loose?"

"I don't know. But that's a problem for later," Mercy said, quietly but sternly. "Right now, I'm going to tilt the box so that the edge comes down to you. I'd like you to catch it slowly and don't push it back up. Treat this like the fate of millions is riding on you."

Clarissa thought that last comment was oddly specific, but held her hands up towards the cube and waited. Mercy twisted her arms, pulling on one side of the box while pushing on another, and the whole contraption descended towards her.

Clarissa caught the box with her outstretched hands and gently pushed against it until it stopped descending. Once it did, she gripped it by the edges, and nodded to Mercy, "Got it, ma'am," she said.