Ah, Walter thought, but that’s not the only way to level a playing field. Just as in that night’s game of Rats, there were two ways of winning any contest. One was to lift yourself up to the level of your competition. The other was to bring them down below you, crushing them in the process.
Walter thought about how he had cleverly won at Rats earlier. There was another option available to him, a way to secure Hommul’s place among the clans. And it was a plan so delicious, Walter couldn’t help but lick his teeth.
36 · The Raid
Walter waited while the moderators stared at their handheld computers. One of them frowned, obviously disappointed in the amount of time Walter’s hack was taking to display itself on the GU website. His eyes flicked up to Walter’s, then darted over to the comm box, before finally settling back on his computer. Walter held his breath, imagining all that was taking place in the background. A peal of sharp thunder cracked in the distance. The other two trainees shifted nervously, everyone growing uncomfortable with the delay.
Finally, the glow from one of the computer screens dipped, then brightened as the page refreshed with Walter’s hack. The second computer did the same. The two moderators frowned but nodded over the results. One of them quickly turned the screen so Walter could see, then waved him aside and pointed to Pewder, letting the boy know it was his turn.
Pewder tossed Walter a snide look as he brushed past. Walter just focused on thoughts of pure honey. He imagined himself unboxing a new powersurfer, still wrapped in plastic. He thought of anything good he could conjure, keeping all worries of what would follow to himself, even though he knew not much would happen until after the floods.
Another rumble of thunder grumbled much closer to the city. For once in his life, Walter urged the Palan rains along, impatient for them. He fidgeted in place while the other two boys uploaded their hacks, attempting to replace Walter’s web update with one of their own.
Pewder’s worked without a hitch, updating even faster than Walter’s had. Donal’s program may have worked, given enough time, but that was part of the test. The poor boy flushed as the moderator’s fingers ticked down, counting off the last seconds of the half hour. When his fist clenched, the other mod give Donal a slight nod, as if to convey hope for next year. Donal couldn’t even turn to face Pewder and Walter, both of whom were bundles of nervous excitement—even if for different reasons.
The first splatter of rain punctuated the end of the exam, snapping the small cluster of pirates out of their reflections. The lead moderator pointed down the alley, his fingers twisting in the shape of “single-file, fast over quiet.”
Donal trotted off first, more wet on his cheeks than could be accounted for by the occasional drops of rain. Pewder went next, beaming with pride, his entire carriage more erect, taller, more confident than it had been when they’d entered the alley.
Walter let the two adults go next, even as they hesitated and tried to wave him along. He stood alone in the corner of the alley, looking back toward the swirling charcoal rainclouds obscuring Palan’s starry night, and felt a drop of rain smack the top of his head and weave its way through his short hair. Before he turned to follow the others, he caught one faint glimpse of a blinking red light, high atop the Navy’s containment tower. As the light was swallowed by the storms, Walter had a sudden surge of doubt. Had he sliced far enough through the flood diverter’s cables? Was there any chance the rushing wall of floodwater would fail to knock them down? Would they hit with enough force to carry the containment tower away completely?
What might become of the tower worried him more than his program, which at the very worst would do nothing, and then nobody would ever know it had been there. But if it worked! Walter felt dizzy with the potential consequences, the assured fallout among what remained of the clans. He imagined those one’s and zero’s he had arranged swirling through the air around him, coursing up through the mighty clouds, racing off to find eager receivers and hyperdrives to infect. He thought about the hapless pilots, inputting jump coordinates to the annual clan meeting, and being whisked off to Earth instead!
Too delicious, Walter thought. He licked the rain from his lips and finally turned to hurry after the others, chased along by the patter of heavy drops of rain and the thoughts of the shift in power that was about to occur. The shift he will have created.
••••
The streets were thick with rain by the time they arrived back at Hommul HQ from the finals raid. The wide gutters gurgled with temporary rivers, their turbulent surfaces dotted with loose trash and debris. The examination group hurried down the stairwell and stood in several inches of water, steady falls cascading down the steps and already overwhelming the gated drain below their feet. Walter fidgeted in place while one of the moderators fumbled with the lock. It was all he could do to not shove the man aside and open it himself.
Finally, the door popped open and the small group of Palans squeezed into the mildew-laden air. The excited chatter of another exam group rumbled down the hall ahead of them. More thunder growled outside until the stairwell door slammed shut, cutting it off.
“Just in time,” Pewder said, smiling and shaking the wet off his hands. His excitement was lost on Donal, who hurried off toward the showers and bunkroom. Pewder shrugged at Walter. “Always next year,” he said.
Walter smiled and nodded, but he felt more in common with Donal at that moment. Passing the stupid finals had never been in question for him. The real nerves were just beginning to creep up as he considered what he had done, the very real consequences that were now out of his hands. While other Junior Pirates would spend that night worrying about their scoring reviews and placement, Walter would agonize over what the future had in store not just for his clan, but all of Palan. He hurried down the hallway toward the bunkroom to change into dry clothes, the comfort of being locked inside for a flood at least affording him the time to rest and contemplate.
“You boys cut it a little close, didn’t you?”
Walter turned and saw his uncle standing in the doorway of his office. The old man’s eyes were the dullest silver, the look of someone who’d stayed up all day.
“Donal and Pewder maxed out their times,” Walter lied. He shrugged and turned to hurry off.
“I heard your hack took its sweet time as well.”
Walter turned back. His uncle was smiling, one hand resting on the side of his ample belly, the other clinging to the doorframe. Walter sniffed the air, but the mildew was too strong. He wondered if the odor was as much due to laziness as he always assumed, or yet another noxious cloud to occlude guilty thoughts.
“Why don’t you step inside for a second,” his uncle said. He moved into the hallway and waved Walter toward his door.
Walter hesitated. He looked down at himself. “Why don’t I go change first?”
“I’ve got a towel inside.”
His uncle took a step toward him, one meaty hand reaching for his shoulder.
Walter hissed; he ducked past his grasp and into the office. He hated the way his uncle liked to pinch his shoulder, hurting him while pretending to be nice.
Inside, he found the office partly lit and fully wrecked. There were piles of papers everywhere: stacked high on the desk, mounded up in the corner, spilling over and suffocating a computer monitor. The only clear surface was his father’s old couch, which looked recently slept in. A dented pillow was wedged by one armrest, a bed sheet knotted up at the other. Walter scanned the room for the promised towel and spotted it hanging from a hook, nestled between two rain slicks. His uncle entered behind him and shut the door. He adjusted the dimmer up a tad while Walter retrieved the towel, sniffed it at arms-length, then used it to dry his head and neck.
“I’ve been thinking about our conversation at your mom’s place the other day.”
His uncle weaved his way around the desk and lowered his bulk into an old wooden swivel chair.
“In fact, I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”
Walter ran the towel down his arms, then turned and hung it back up between the slicks. He was having a hard time remembering what in the hell conversation his uncle was talking about. All he could recall was the loss of his blasted gun.
“I may have found our clan a ship.”
Walter turned. That conversation, he thought.
His uncle powered on the monitor, casting himself in a broad cone of greenish light. He reached for the mouse and slid it back and forth. Walter wondered if he was supposed to step around the desk and see something on the monitor.
“I thought you were against taking out loans like that.” Walter glanced at the sofa, considered sitting down, but decided against it. He stood and scanned the carpet for clues among the papery detritus.
“I finally found a ship we can afford.” His uncle sat forward, the chair squealing as he did so. He reached for a sheet of paper and held it out to Walter. “I called in a few debts so we’d be able to pay cash. She’s not much, no arms and no real defense, but she’ll get us to the off-planet clan meetings for the first time in forever.”
That last bit sent a shiver up Walter’s spine. He stepped forward and took the piece of paper, but his body had turned cold, his ears full of cotton.
“When?” he barely hissed.
“When what?”
Walter looked at the piece of paper. “When were you thinking of doing this?”
“Already have.” His uncle stood, grabbed a loose heap of paper and began tapping the sheaf on the desk to straighten it. “The sale went through earlier today. We own our first ship.”
Walter looked at the piece of paper. It was a proof of sale for a GN ship, a class 290. He searched the document for any information on the hyperdrive, but the only details listed were gross tonnage, thruster ratings in Newtons, how much freshwater she held. Nothing on the engine models. He couldn’t believe the awful timing—that his uncle had given in to his idea at the very moment he’d found a different way to level the playing field—
“Something wrong?” His uncle sniffed loudly and set the stack of papers back where they had been. The neat pile slid off the mound and returned to its natural, jumbled state. “I expected a whiff of excitement,” his uncle said. “Not this . . .” He waved at the air between them. “This dread.”
Walter collected his thoughts. He held the bill of sale back out to his uncle. “It’s just, I don’t want to get the blame if anything goes . . . badly.” Walter glanced at the couch. He reconsidered his uncle’s offer and sat down heavily.
His uncle walked around the desk and leaned back on its edge, precariously shifting the mounds of paper behind him. “It won’t go badly,” he said. “Your mom and I discussed this last night. We won’t build a fleet that can sink us, and we won’t be taking out any loans. Just one ship. No weapons. We might try some salvage work when fuel rates are low, but it’ll mainly be for status, you know? No more sitting here and twiddling our thumbs and waiting to hear what status the clans relegated to us in their meetings. This time, we’ll be joining the flotilla in our own craft.”
“This time?” Walter’s voice was the barest of gurgles.
“Yeah, why wait another year? We wouldn’t have rushed the sale for any other reason. Of course, we’re gonna have to hire a pilot, but that won’t be a problem. Tomorrow morning, while the floods are cascading over Felony Falls, we’ll be soaring up in our very own starship. The ship you’ll soon become a full Senior Pirate inside of.”
His uncle beamed with pride. For a moment, Walter assumed it was the thrill of the sale, then he remembered the exam he’d completed not an hour ago, the looming promotion, how much all of that meant to his mother and uncle. And then he realized the purchase of the craft was not merely due to his age-old pleadings, but to his graduation! For all he knew, they had been planning this for years and years, all while he bitched and moaned about Hommul not having a ship of its own.
His uncle stepped closer, sniffing the air.
“You feeling alright, Nephew?”
Walter nodded. “I’m fine. Just . . . a little spacesick thinking about it, that’s all.”
Walter’s uncle loomed over him. He slapped Walter on the back. “Don’t you worry. After a few flights, your belly will be hard as steel. And if not, you’ll soon be running this joint, so you can send whoever you want up into space for you.”
Walter dipped his head. He tried to think of normal dreads, like his fear of the floods, hoping to maintain the ruse of being afraid to fly. He buried deep his thoughts on the following day—the idea that his grand plan had been for naught, that soon he would be whisked off to Earth with the rest of the Palan fleet.
The irony of it all was nearly too much to bear. He’d always wanted to escape to the mystical planet of freedom and riches, but it had always been with a mind of getting away from the other clans. Now he had discovered a way to send them off, surely to be captured in Earth orbit and rounded up while he and his Hommul clan took defacto control over a shipless Palan.
But now Walter was going to get all of his wishes. He was going to get a ship; he was going to visit Earth; he was going to become a Full Pirate, and all on the same day. And all those tasty treats were doomed to mix together like the putrid slop of a restaurant’s flooding alley.
37 · Above Palan
“Look at all that water. You could flood the hyperspace out of something with all that water.”
Walter leaned close to the porthole and peered dutifully out at his receding home. It was a sight he had longed for many times, but now he wanted to be elsewhere. Anywhere.
“You can see more clouds already forming over there.” Pewder jabbed a finger against the glass, pointing to another flood forming on the horizon as the last rains dissipated out at sea. Walter looked from these new clouds to his mud-colored continent, which sat like a dollop of dirt on a bright blue sphere. The clouds were probably less than a week away—a rare double-flooding—but already they appeared big enough to swallow all the lands. The new perspective had Walter marveling that all of dry Palan hadn’t long ago been washed away completely.