‘So you refuse to surrender?’
Opal pretended to think about it, tapping her chin with a manicured nail. ‘Why, yes. I think I will fight on, against all odds. And by the way, please don’t look directly at the screen, it’s bad for my skin.’
Artemis sighed dramatically. ‘Well, if we have to go, at least we’ll go on full stomachs.’
This was an unusually cavalier comment to make with seconds to live, even for a human. ‘Full stomachs?’
‘Yes,’ said Artemis. ‘Mulch took something else from your shuttle.’
He picked up a small chocolate-covered ball, wiggling it in front of the screen.
‘My truffles?’ gasped Opal. ‘You took them. That’s just mean.’
Artemis popped the treat into his mouth, chewing slowly. ‘They really are divine.
I can see why you missed them in the clinic. We’re going to have to work really hard to eat all we took before you blow us to smithereens.’
Opal hissed, catlike. ‘Killing you will be so easy.’ She turned to Merv. ‘Do we have a signal yet?’
‘Nothing, Miss Koboi. But soon. If we have communications, it can’t be long now.’
Holly squeezed her head into the viewfinder. One cheek was swollen with truffles. ‘They really melt in the mouth, Opal. The condemned crew’s final meal.’
Opal actually poked the screen with her nail. ‘You survived twice, Short. You won’t do it again, I guarantee it.’
Holly laughed. ‘You should see Mulch. He’s shovelling those truffles down his gullet.’
Opal was livid. ‘Any signal?’ Even now, with certain destruction only moments away, they were still mocking her.
‘Not yet. Soon.’
‘Keep trying. Keep your finger on that button.’
Opal unstrapped herself, striding through to the lounge. The dwarf couldn’t have carried all the truffles and the explosives. Surely not. She had been so looking forward to a handful of the heavenly chocolate, once Haven was destroyed.
She knelt on the carpet, worming her hand underneath the seam to the hidden catch. It popped beneath her fingers, and the booty box’s lid slid up and back.
There was not a single truffle left in the box. Instead, there were two shaped charges. For a moment Opal could not understand what she was seeing. Then it became terrifyingly clear. Artemis had never stolen the charges, he had simply told the dwarf to move them. Once in the booty box, they could not be detected or detonated. As long as the lid was sealed. She had opened the box herself. Artemis had goaded her into sealing her own fate.
The blood drained from Opal’s face. ‘Mervall,’ she screamed. ‘The detonation signal!’
‘Don’t worry, Miss Koboi,’ the pixie shouted from the cockpit. ‘We just got contact. Nothing can stop it now.’
Green countdown clocks activated on both charges and began counting back from twenty. A standard mining fuse.
Opal lurched into the cockpit. She had been tricked. Duped. Now the charges would detonate uselessly at seventy-four and a half miles, well above the parallel stretch. Of course, her own shuttle would be destroyed and she would be left stranded, ready to be scooped up by the LEP. At least, that was the theory. But Opal Koboi never left herself without options.
She strapped herself into a seat in the cockpit.
‘I advise you to strap yourselves in,’ she said curtly to the Brill brothers. ‘You have failed me. Enjoy prison. ’
Merv and Scant barely had time to buckle up before Opal activated the ejector gel-pods under their seats. They were immediately immersed in a bubble of amber impact-gel and ejected through panels that had opened in the hull.
The impact-gel bubbles had no power source and relied on the initial gas propulsion to get them out of harm’s way. The gel was fireproof, blast-resistant and contained enough oxygen for thirty minutes’ shallow breathing. Merv and Scant were catapulted through black space until they came into contact with the chute wall. The gel stuck to the rocky surface, leaving the Brill brothers stranded, thousands of miles from home.
Opal, meanwhile, was rapidly keying codes into the shuttle’s computer. She had less than ten seconds left to complete her final act of aggression. Artemis Fowl may have beaten her this time, but he wouldn’t live to gloat about it.
Opal expertly activated and launched two heat-seeking plasma rockets from the nose tubes, then launched her own escape pod. No impact-gel for Opal Koboi. She had, of course, included a luxury pod in the ship’s design. Just one, though, no need for the help to travel in comfort. In fact, Opal didn’t care what happened to the Brill brothers, one way or the other. They were of no further use to her.
She opened the throttles wide, ignoring safety regulations. After all, who cared if she scorched the shuttle’s hull? It was about to get a lot more than just scorched. The pod streaked towards the surface at over five hundred miles per hour. Pretty fast, but not fast enough to completely escape the shockwave from the two shaped charges.
The stealth shuttle exploded in a flash of multicoloured light. Holly pulled the LEP shuttle close to the wall, to avoid falling debris. After the shockwaves had passed, the shuttle’s occupants waited in silence for the computer to run a scan on the stretch of chute above them. Eventually three red dots appeared on the three-dimensional representation of the chute. Two were static, while the other was moving rapidly towards the surface.
‘They made it,’ sighed Artemis. ‘I have no doubt that the moving dot is Opal. We should pick her up.’
‘We should,’ said Holly, not looking as happy as one might have expected. ‘But we won’t.’
Artemis picked up on Holly’s tone. ‘Why not? What’s wrong?’
‘That’s wrong,’ said Holly, pointing to the screen. Two more dots had appeared on the screen and were moving towards them at extreme speed. The computer identified the dots as missiles, then quickly ran a match in its database.
‘Heat-seeking plasma rockets. Locked on to our engines.’
Mulch shook his head. ‘That Koboi is a bitter little pixie. She couldn’t let it go.’
Artemis stared at the screen, as if he could destroy the missiles through concentration. ‘I should have anticipated this.’
Butler poked his massive head past his charge’s shoulders. ‘Do you have any hot waffle to draw the missiles away?’
‘This is a transport shuttle,’ replied Holly. ‘We were lucky to have shields.’
‘The missiles are coming after our heat signature?’
‘Yes,’ said Holly, hoping there was an idea on the way.
‘Is there any way to significantly alter that signature?’
An option occurred to Holly then. It was so extreme that she didn’t bother running it past the shuttle’s other occupants.
‘There is one way,’ she said, and turned off the engines.
The shuttle dropped like a rock through the chute. Holly tried to manoeuvre using the flaps, but without propulsion it was like trying to steer an anchor.
There was no time for fear or panic. There was only time to hang on to something and try to keep your last meal inside your body.
Holly gritted her teeth, swallowing the panic that was trying to claw its way out, as she fought the steering wheel. If she could keep the flaps centred, then they shouldn’t collide with the chute walls. At least this way they had a chance.
She flicked her eyes towards the readouts. The core temperature of the craft was dropping, but would it be quick enough? This section of the chute was reasonably straight, but there was a kink coming up in thirty miles and they would crash into it like a fly hitting an elephant.
Butler crawled up towards the rear of the ship. On the way he snagged two fire extinguishers and popped their pins. He tossed the extinguishers into the engine room and closed the door. Through the hatch he could see the extinguishers cartwheeling, covering the engine with freezing foam.
The engine temperature dropped another notch.
The missiles were closer now, and gaining.
Holly opened all the vents wide, flooding the shuttle with cool air. Another notch towards green on the temperature readout.
‘Come on,’ she said through rippling lips. ‘A few more degrees.’
They hurtled down and down, spinning into blackness. Little by little the ship was drifting to starboard. Soon it would smash into the kink that rose to meet them. Holly’s finger hovered over the ignition. She would wait until the last possible moment.
The engines cooled even further. They were efficient energy-saving units. When they were not in use, they quickly funnelled excess heat to the life-support batteries.
But still the missiles held their course.
The kink in the chute wall appeared in their headlights. It was bigger than an average mountain and was composed of hard, unforgiving rock. If the shuttle impacted, it would crumple like a tin can.
Artemis squeezed words from between his lips. ‘Not working. Engines.’
‘Wait,’Holly replied.
The flaps were vibrating now, and the shuttle went into a tumble. They could see the heat-seekers roaring up behind them, which were now in front of them, then behind them again.
They were close to the rock now. Too close. If Holly delayed just one more second, she would not have sufficient room to manoeuvre. She punched the ignition, veering to port at the last millisecond. The bow plates sent up an arc of sparks as they scraped along the rocky outcrop. Then they were free, zooming into the black void. That is, if you count being pursued by two heat-seekers as being free.
The engine temperature was still dropping and would be for maybe half a minute while the turbines heated up. Would it be enough? Holly punched the rear camera view up on the front screen. The rockets were still coming. Unrelenting. Purple fuel burning in their wake. Three seconds to impact. Then two. Then they lost contact, veering away from their target. One went over the top, the other under the keel.
‘It worked,’ sighed Artemis, releasing a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
‘Well done, soldier,’ grinned Butler, ruffling Holly’s hair.
Mulch poked his head through from the passenger area. His face was slightly green. ‘I had a little accident,’ he said. No one enquired further.
‘Let’s not celebrate just yet,’ said Holly, checking her instruments. ‘Those missiles should have detonated against the chute wall, but they didn’t. I can think of only one reason why they wouldn’t keep travelling in a straight line.’
‘If they acquired another target,’ offered Butler.
A red dot appeared on the plasma screen. The two missiles were heading directly for it.
‘Exactly. That’s an LEP supersonic attack shuttle, and, as far as they’re concerned, we’ve just opened fire on them.’
Major Trouble Kelp was behind the wheel of the LEP attack shuttle. The craft was travelling at over three times the speed of sound, booming along the chute like a silver needle. Supersonic flights were very rarely cleared, as they could cause cave-ins and, in rare cases, be detected by human seismographic equipment.
The shuttle’s interior was filled with impact-gel to dampen the otherwise bone-breaking vibration. Major Kelp was suspended in the gel in a modified pilot’s suit. The ship’s controls were connected directly to his gloves, and the video ran into his helmet.
Foaly was in constant contact from Police Plaza.
‘Be advised that the stolen shuttle is back in the chute,’ he informed Trouble. ‘It’s hovering at one twenty-four miles.’
‘I have it,’ said Trouble, locating the dot on his radar. He felt his heart race. There was a chance that Holly was alive, and aboard that shuttle. And if that were true, he would do whatever it took to bring her home safely.
A sunburst of white, yellow and orange flared on his scopes.
‘We have an explosion of some kind. Was it the stolen shuttle?’
‘No, Trouble. It came from nowhere. There was nothing there. Watch out for debris.’
The screen was streaked with dozens of jagged yellow lines as hot metal shards plummeted towards the centre of the Earth. Trouble activated the nose lasers, ready for anything that might head his way. It was unlikely that his vessel would be threatened — the chute was wider than the average city at this depth. The debris from the explosion would not spread more than a mile. He had plenty of room to steer himself out of harm’s way.
Unless some of the debris followed him. Two of the yellow streaks were veering unnaturally in his direction. The on-board computer ran a scan. Both items had propulsion and guidance systems. Missiles.
‘I am under fire,’ he said into his microphone. ‘Two missiles incoming.’
Had Holly fired on him? Was it true what Sool had said? Had she really gone bad?
Trouble reached into the air, tapping a virtual screen. He touched the representations for both missiles, targeting them for destruction. As soon as they came into range, the computer would hit them with a beam of laser fire. Trouble steered into the middle of the chute so that the lasers would have the longest possible line of fire.
Lasers were only any good in a straight line.
Three minutes later, the missiles powered around the bend in the chute. Trouble barely spared them a glance, and the computer loosed two quick bursts, dispatching the missiles efficiently. Major Kelp flew straight through the shockwave, insulated by layers of impact-gel.
Another screen opened in his visor. It was the newly promoted Commander Ark Sool. ‘Major, you are authorized to return fire. Use all necessary force.’
Trouble scowled. ‘But, Commander, Holly may be on board.’
Sool raised a hand, silencing all objections. ‘Captain Short has made her allegiances clear. Fire at will.’
Foaly could not remain silent. ‘Hold your fire, Trouble. You know Holly isn’t behind all of this. Somehow Opal Koboi fired those missiles.’
Sool pounded the desk. ‘How can you be so blind to the truth, donkey boy? What does Short have to do to convince you she’s a traitor? Send you an e-mail? She has murdered her commander, allied herself with a felon and fired on an LEP shuttle. Blast her out of the air.’
‘No!’ insisted Foaly. ‘It sounds bad, I grant you. But there must be another explanation. Just give Holly a chance to tell us what it is.’
Sool was apoplectic. ‘Shut up, Foaly! What are you doing, giving tactical orders? You are a civilian, now get off the line.’
‘Trouble, listen to me,’ began Foaly, but that was all he managed to say before Sool cut him off.
‘Now,’ said the commander, calming himself, ‘you have your orders. Fire on that shuttle.’
The stolen shuttle was actually in view now. Trouble magnified its image in his visor and immediately noticed three things. First, the shuttle’s communications mast was missing. Secondly, this was a transport shuttle and not rigged for missiles and, thirdly, he could actually see Holly Short in the cockpit, her face drawn and defiant.
