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"I’le one of you!"

The boat is picking up speed Everything explodes inside Mark at once--he’s not going to let this sorry excuse for a hu a seat, he rears back his foot and launches it forward, kicking Boss in the shoulder The ain Then again He connects each tio!" Mark yells as he slaain

"Kill …," Boss says, but he seeth left

Mark yells with a burst of adrenaline, then throws all his strength into one last assault, this ti both feet forward He s with his nose and his neck, and theback into the wake of the churning boat His body disappears in the white bubbles

Mark is desperately sucking in each breath He scoots himself around and crawls up onto the lip of the seat and looks over the edge Sees nothing but the wake and black water behind that Then he spotswhere Boss fell It’s receding now, growing s there, holding her gun Mark slouches doaiting for the barrage of bullets But instead, he notices the woainst the bottom of her chin

Mark wants to scream, to tell her not to do it But it’s too late

The woer

The boat drives on

CHAPTER 48

Mark woke up in a cold sweat, as if the spray from the water in his dreaain--like so rolled around loose in his skull every time he moved Thankfully Alec was easy on hithened themselves for the day ahead For the search for their friends

The two of the spilling in through the s A warh the broken one

"You were too dead to the world to notice," Alec said after they’d sat in silence for a while, "but I took this baby up for an observation run while you were sleeping And … I confirmed what I’d suspected Just a couple miles away, the bonfire … they … have Lana, Trina and Deedee I saw the herded like sheep"

That left a sick lump in Mark’s sto herded from one house to another I spotted Lana’s black hair and Trina with the kid in her arot closer to make sure" Alec took a deep breath before he finished "At least we know they’re alive and where they are And noe knoe have to do"

Mark should’ve been relieved that his friends weren’t dead But instead he was consuet theainst … how et how to talk, kid?"

Mark had been staring at the back of the pilot’s chair as if so were painted there "No Just scared" He’d given up long ago trying to act brave for the old arood A fine soldier is always scared Makes you normal It’s how you respond to it that iven that speech a few tiullet and let’s get hopping"

"Sounds good" Mark drank long and hard frohty burden of his drea to fade a little "So what’s the plan?"

Alec was just wiping his ’s et our friends But first we break into the ship’s weapons stash"

Mark knew nothing about Bergs, but Alec knew more than most In the central area of the ship there was a locked storage facility that required passwords and retinal scans to open Since they had neither the words nor the eyeballs for such access, they decided to work at it the old-fashioned ith an axe

Luckily the Berg was old and had seen its better days many years before, so it only took three turns each and a half hour of sweat to bust the hinges and locks off the metal door Little shards of steel clattered across the hallway and the big door tipped over and slammed into the opposite wall The echo seeh the vessel for a solid minute

Alec had thrown the last blow of the axe toinside this beast," he announced

The storage roo had power, but hts had been broken, except for a s look like it ashed in blood Alec started searching, but Mark could already see thatbut trash and discarded containers strewn about fro upside do and then Alec swore under his breath with every disappointing discovery, and Mark was feeling it, too How could they possibly have a chance if all they had when they went after Trina were their fists and their feet?

"There’s so over here," Alec et open whatever he’d found

Mark stepped up to him and looked over his shoulder The object was e box with several metal clasps

"It’s useless," Alec finally said when his hands slipped off the clasps for the third tirabbed it fro the door hinges He hefted it in his hands, ready to take a shot at getting the box open

"You’re gonna do it?" Alec asked, straightening up "You sure about that?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

Alec pointed at the box "Boy, do you have any idea what could be inside that thing? Explosives High-voltage machinery Poison Who knows?"

"And?" Mark pushed

"Well, I wouldn’t just start whacking at it or we ht be dead before noon We need to be careful Delicate, precise hits on the clasps"

Mark alhed "Since there’s not one delicate cell in your entire body, I think I’ll give it a go"

"Fair enough," Alec replied, taking a step back and sweeping his hand out with a bow "Just be careful"

Mark gripped the handle of the axe tightly and leaned in, taking little chops instead of full swings at the small but stubborn brackets Sweat poured down his face and the thing almost slipped out of his hands a couple of times, but eventually he broke the first seal and moved on to the next one Tenelse and his fingers had grown alh every last clasp