Chapter 15

Breakthrough

IN THE WEST One Peace Keep, the Chairman was enjoying his last few moments gloating over Griffin’s hopeless predicament. Any time now, Decimal would give the order for the White Knights to advance. The fun wouldn’t last long after that. It was almost a shame.

As he looked across the holographic battle-zone map again, delighting in the way the mass of troops symbolized his power, a glint of silvery-grey caught his eye.

‘What’s that?’

He batted General Decimal on the shoulder and pointed.

‘Look – there!’

Something was moving across the centre of the map. It hadn’t been there a moment ago. It had appeared just above the ruined reactor building.

Decimal immediately ordered one of his officers to provide a visual close-up. A video image flashed up moments later on the control room’s main display. What it showed was quite bizarre.

‘What on Jupiter’s moons is that?’ said the Chairman.

It looked like someone had taken a massive piece of rusted metal, magnetized it so that hundreds of other bits of scrap had stuck randomly to it, then somehow got the whole lot airborne.

‘I believe it’s some kind of ship,’ replied Decimal.

The Chairman’s eyes flashed. ‘Griffin!’ he hissed.

Decimal looked back anxiously at the battle-zone map. The mystery craft was moving due east, surprisingly fast.

The Chairman was tracking its course too.

‘It’s heading straight towards us!’

Decimal frowned.

‘It will strike the containment field first,’ he said. ‘They’ll burn up as soon as they hit it. Why would they want to do that?’

‘Maybe it’s some sort of trick,’ said the Chairman. ‘Maybe there’s nobody on board.’

He was becoming increasingly agitated. He was not going to let Griffin slip through his fingers again.

‘Send your troops in now!’ he barked at Decimal. ‘That thing has to be a diversion. Look at it – it’s not fit to be manned. Our knights will finish those Skirter scum on the ground!’

But Decimal was lost in thought. He already knew from the scanner data being fed directly into his brain that there were people on board the strange ship. For them to fly into the field was suicide. It made no sense. He didn’t like things that didn’t make sense. To Decimal, logic was everything.

‘The only way it could work as an escape strategy,’ he murmured to himself, ‘is if somehow . . .’

His computer-aided brain finally solved the puzzle.

‘The field generator!’

He whirled round urgently to address his chief officer.

‘Check the status of all the field generator’s systems, immediately!’

But even as he yelled his orders, an electronic siren broke into a loud wail. All across the control room, alarm lights began flashing red.

Decimal turned back to the holographic map. Before his horrified gaze, a triangular section of the containment field fizzled, then blinked out. The failed zone lay directly in the flight-path of the Skirter ship.

The Chairman, beside him, was turning purple. He began screaming like a lunatic, to anyone who would listen.

‘ATTACK! ATTACK! ALL UNITS ADVANCE IMMEDIATELY! DON’T LET THEM GET AWAY!’

Salt swung the nose of the Sieger out of the docking bay and began to steer her towards the exit of the Peace Keep’s shuttle garage.

For once, the old Armouron was uncertain what his next step should be. He had delivered Lanista’s repaired armour only so he could get closer to the scene of his team’s secret activities – because he feared they weren’t secret any more. Lanista’s search of the sewers suggested she was on to Oddball and Hoax, at least. Salt had fully expected to arrive at the Keep to hear news of their capture. He had spent the journey from the Academy trying – without success – to think of a way to get them out of trouble.

But his worries had been unnecessary. The Corporation assistant to whom he had delivered the spaulders had been adamant. Lanista was not at the Keep. Nor had there been any recent news from or about her.

Salt knew that no news was definitely good news. Maybe Oddball and Hoax had managed to escape the Chairman’s sister somehow.

But it left him with the problem of what to do now. To choose how best to help his students, he needed to know how the mission was going.

He didn’t have to wait long. As the Sieger glided out from the mouth of the garage, Salt looked west towards the glowing dome of the containment field – and his heart soared.

In the near face of the dome, a triangular window of clear sky was plainly visible.

An instant later, a large, oddly-shaped aircraft burst through it. It zoomed straight towards the Peace Keep, thundered narrowly past its battlements and roared away eastwards across the sky.

They did it! Thank the Twelve!

Salt no longer needed telling what to do. His young knights had got Griffin out, it was clear. Now he had to get them home safely.

The original plan had been for the two teams to meet up after the mission at a specified sewer airshaft. They could then return to the Old School the way Oddball and Hoax had left, through the disused tunnels.

But that’s no good now, thought Salt anxiously. The Corporation is on to the fact that someone is using the sewers. They’re not safe.

He would have to stop the young Armouron trying to get back that way. As the rendezvous was on his way back to Nu-Topia, he could fly the Sieger there. If he managed to intercept Rake and the others, he could transport them to the Academy in the shuttle. It would be simple enough for them to then sneak back into the Old School via the secret passage from the garage. They could resume their ‘punishment’ duties without anyone being any the wiser.

The key was to catch them in time.

Salt pulled the Sieger round in a tight curve, until she was pointing east. He fired up the main thrusters and opened their throttles out to full.