The Dead Fleet (Juggernaut #3)

Thirty Two

'I need a minute, Tila.'

'We don't have time, Mal.'

Malachi pulled his sleeve from Tila's fingers and slumped against the wall. Sweat darkened his clothing or otherwise tickled its way down his body where there was space between fabric and skin. It was unpleasant. He rubbed his shoulder blades against the wall to relieve the irritation as he panted.

Tila was neither sweating or even out of breath he noticed. She just glowed.

'I can't run like you. I... I...'

'What?'

Malachi just shook his head, saving his breath for recovery rather than speech.

Tila, restless and impatient as ever, abandoned Malachi to his complaints and scouted ahead. Ten meters or so ahead was an intersection. She edged her way to the corner and looked around.

On her left, the closest wall, was a bank of three elevators. The corridor continued past them until it turned left again, back in the direction they had come from. Another gloomier tunnel faced the middle elevator and beckoned Tila ever deeper into the Solar Forge.

Tila heard nothing so she crept forward.

One of the elevators had been forced open in the past. Near the floor the outer door was covered in dents and scratches as if it had been attacked with heavy boots and tools as if someone had tried to escape it. The upper part of the door was neatly housed into the structure but the lower part had been torn open with considerable force. Half a meter of doorway had been folded back on itself, making an opening just big enough for a person to pull themselves through. The elevator floor was almost a meter below ground level, and the inner doors had been forced inward in the same way as the outer door. Whoever had been in there had escaped with help. The elevator was now merely another item on this ship which had broken and never been fixed.

It was almost like home.

The other two elevators seemed undamaged but none were operational. Tila thumbed the buttons anyway. She knew they still had two decks to climb so anything that helped Malachi along would be welcome.

'Don't touch that!'

Startled, Tila whipped out her staff and it snapped open, stopping centimetres from Malachi's face.

'Don't sneak up on me, Mal.'

Malachi slapped the staff away from his face.

'Are you trying to get us caught? What if the elevator worked? What if someone was in it?'

'What if they were?'

'We'd have to fight them.'

'You mean I'd have to fight them.'

'We can't look for fights. We need to escape quietly.'

'I'm not looking for a fight.'

'You're always looking for a fight!'

Tila finally lowered the staff but her eyes remained on his. 'I just never thought I would want to fight you.'

'Look...'

'Shut up, Mal,'

'Ellie.... she'll be ok. She-'

'Do you promise?'

'Tila-'

'Do you? Can you promise me she'll make it back. That we'll all escape? Can you promise me that.'

Malachi dropped his gaze.

'That's what I thought.' The staff snapped to its smaller size and vanished behind Tila's back.

'I promised Ellie I would keep her safe, back on Parador, in the pool. Promises are important. You make them, you keep them. That's what my mother said, and she promised me-' Tila turned away from Malachi and faced the gloomy tunnel. 'I'm not letting Ellie down, okay?'

'I get it, Tila. Once we get back to the ships we'll make a plan.'

'No, you don't get it Mal, I already have a plan. First we get back to the ships. If she's there we leave. If she's not, you wait and I go back to find her.

'You can't! Not alone.'

'Are you going to keep up with me? That's what I thought. I go alone.'