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“What was that?”
Trouble brought up a front view on the monitors. A goblin stood there with a large tube on his shoulder.
“Bazooka of some kind. I think it’s one of the old wide-bore softnose cannons.”
Cudgeon smacked his own forehead. “Don’t tell me. They were all supposed to have been destroyed. A curse on that centaur! How did he manage to sneak all that hardware out from under my nose!”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” said Trouble. “He fooled all of us.”
“How much more of that can we stand?”
Trouble shrugged. “Not much. A couple more hits. Maybe they only had one missile.”
Famous last words. The doorway shook a second time. Large chunks of masonry tumbled from the marble pillars.
Trouble picked himself off the ground, magic zipping a gash on his forehead.
“Paramedics, check for casualties. Have we got those weapons charged yet?”
Grub hobbled over, hampered by the weight of two electric rifles.
“Ready to go, Captain. Thirty-two weapons. Twenty pulses each.”
“Okay. Best marksfairies only. Not one shot fired until I give the word.”
Grub nodded, his face grim and pale.
“Good, Corporal, now move it out.”
When his brother was out of earshot, Trouble spoke quietly to Commander Cudgeon.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Commander. They blew the Atlantis tunnel, so there’s no help coming from there. We can’t get a pentagram around them to stop time. We’re completely surrounded, outnumbered and outgunned. If the B’wa Kell breach the blast doors, it will be over in seconds. We have to get into that Operations Booth. Any progress?”
Cudgeon shook his head. “The techies are working on it. We have sensors pointed at every inch of the surface. If we hit on the access code, it will be blind luck.”
Trouble rubbed the tiredness from his eyes. “I need time. There must be a way to stall them.”
Cudgeon drew a white flag from inside his tunic.
“There is a way ...”
“Commander! You can’t go out there. It’s suicide.”
“Perhaps,” admitted the commander. “But if I don’t go, we could all be dead in a matter of minutes. At least this way, we’ll have a few minutes to work on the Operations Booth.”
Trouble considered it. There was no other way.
“What have you got to bargain with?”
“The prisoners in Howler’s Peak. Maybe we could negotiate some kind of controlled release.”
“The Council will never go for that.”
Cudgeon drew himself up to his full height.
“This is not a time for politics, Captain, this is a time for action.”
Trouble was quite frankly amazed. This was not the same Briar Cudgeon he knew. Someone had given this fairy a spine transplant.
But now the newly appointed commander was going to earn that acorn cluster on his lapel. Trouble felt an emotion well up in his chest. One that he’d never before associated with Briar Cudgeon. It was respect.
“Open the front door a crack,” ordered the commander in steely tones. Foaly would be just loving this on camera. “I’m going out to talk to these reptiles.”
Trouble relayed the command. If they ever got out of this, he would see to it that Commander Cudgeon was awarded a posthumous Golden Acorn. At the very least.
Uncharted Chute, Below Koboi Laboratories
The Atlantean shuttle sped down a vast chute, sticking tight to the walls. Close enough to scrape paint from the hull.
Artemis poked his head through from the passenger bay.
“Is this really necessary, Captain?” he asked, as they avoided death by an inch for the umpteenth time. “Or is it just more flyboy grandstanding?”
Holly winked. “Do I look like a flyboy to you, Fowl?”
Artemis had to admit that she didn’t. Captain Short was extremely pretty in a dangerous sort of way. Black-widow pretty.
“I’m hugging the surface to search for this alleged crack that Mulch insists is along here,” Holly explained.
Artemis nodded. The dwarf’s theory. Just incredible enough to be true. He returned to the aft bay for Mulch’s version of a briefing.
The dwarf had drawn a crude diagram on a backlit wall panel. In fairness, there were more artistic chimpanzees. And less pungent ones. Mulch was using a carrot as a pointer, or more accurately, several carrots. Dwarfs liked carrots.
“This is Koboi Labs,” he mumbled around a mouthful of vegetable.
“That?” exclaimed Root.
“I realize, Julius, that it is not an accurate schematic.”
The Commander exploded from his chair. “An accurate schematic? It’s a rectangle for heaven’s sake!”
Mulch was unperturbed. “That’s not important. This is the important bit.”
“That wobbly line?”
“It’s a fissure,” pouted the dwarf. “Anybody can see that.”
“Anybody in kindergarten maybe. So it’s a fissure, so what?”
“This is the clever bit. Y’see that fissure is not usually there.”
Root began strangling the air again. Something he was doing more and more lately. But Artemis was suddenly interested.
“When does the fissure appear?”
But Mulch wasn’t just going to give a straight answer.
“Us dwarfs. We know something about rocks. Been digging around ’em for ages.”
Root’s fingers began beating a tattoo on his buzz baton.
“What fairies don’t realize is that rocks are alive. They breathe.”
Artemis nodded. “Of course. Heat expansion.”
Mulch bit the carrot triumphantly. “Exactly. And of course, the opposite, too. They retract when they cool down.”
Even Root was listening now.
“Koboi Labs are built on solid mantle. Two miles of rock. No way in, short of sonix warheads. And I think Opal Koboi might notice them.”
“And that helps us how?”
“A crack opens up in that rock when it cools down. I worked on the foundations when they were building this place. Gets you right in under the labs. Still a way to go, but at least you’re in.”
The commander was skeptical. “So how come Opal Koboi hasn’t noticed this gaping fissure?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say it was gaping.”
“How big?”
Mulch shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe five yards. At its widest point.”
“That’s still a pretty big fissure to be sitting there all day.”
“Only it’s not there all day,” interrupted Artemis. “Is it, Mulch?”
“All day? I wish. I’d say, at a guess, this is only an approximation . . .”
Root was loosing his cool. Being one step behind all the time didn’t agree with him.
“Tell me, convict, before I add another scorch mark to your behind!”
Mulch was injured. “Stop shouting, Julius, you’re curling my beard.”
Root opened the cooler, letting the icy tendrils curl over his face.
“Okay, Mulch. How long?”
“Three minutes, max. Last time I did it with a set of wings, wearing a pressure suit. Nearly got crushed and fried.”
“Fried?”
“Let me guess,” said Artemis. “The fissure only opens when the rock has contracted sufficiently. If this fissure is on a chute wall, then the coolest time would be moments before the next flare.”
Mulch winked. “Smart, Mud Boy. If the rocks don’t get you, the magma will.”
Holly’s voice crackled over the com speakers.
“I’ve got a visual on something. Could be a shadow, or it could just be a crack in the chute wall.”
Mulch did a little dance, looking very pleased with himself. “Now, Julius, you can say it. I was right again! You owe me, Julius, you owe me.”
The commander rubbed the bridge of his nose. If he made it through this alive, he was nev
er leaving the station again.
Koboi Laboratories
Koboi Labs were surrounded by a ring of B’wa Kell goblins. Armed to the teeth, tongues hanging out for blood. Cudgeon was hustled past roughly, prodded by a dozen barrels. The DNA cannons hung inoperative in their towers, for the moment. The second Cudgeon felt the B’wa Kell had outlived their usefulness, then the guns would be reactivated.
The commander was taken to the inner sanctum, and forced to his knees before Opal and the B’wa Kell generals. Once the soldiers had been dismissed, Cudgeon was back on his feet and in command.
“Everything proceeds according to plan,” he announced, crossing to stroke Opal’s cheek. “In an hour, Haven will be ours.”
