Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(70)

“What type is that?”

“True believers in a cause they’re willing to die for.”

“The guys you met are the kind who are true believers in a cause they expect other people to die for.”

Dabeet had to agree. “Anyway, you get my point. I think these clowns are planning to kill us all. Or if they aren’t planning it, that’s what’s going to happen anyway because they’ll fight to resist the IF’s take-back of Fleet School. They can’t afford to get caught, because then the IF would know whom to retaliate against. They either have to get away clean, or die in a way that leaves no bodies behind.”

“Killing us all and then getting away is their Plan A,” said Monkey. “And if they can’t get away, blowing up the whole station including themselves is Plan B.”

“I bet they come here on a hijacked ship,” said Dabeet. “I bet they steal an outbound shuttle from the Moon and redirect it here. They’ll only have the weapons and explosives they can carry in luggage.”

“We’re probably making up a far more effective plan than they actually thought of,” said Monkey.

“But we’ll be better off if we don’t assume they’re stupid.”

They sat there looking at each other in silence.

“It doesn’t matter if you open the door,” said Monkey. “Because if you don’t, they’ll just lay down the explosives and blow the station from the outside.”

Dabeet nodded. “That’s probably their Plan C,” he said. “But if I can, I am going to open the door, because, you know. Mother.”

“You’ve got to realize your mother is going to die anyway,” said Monkey. “Speaking realistically. She’s a loose end.”

Dabeet shook his head. “We don’t know that.”

“They’re killers.”

“We think they’re killers because here we are in Fleet School, which used to be Battle School, so we’re predisposed to think of brutal war against unfeeling enemies.”

“You think we can negotiate with these guys? Let them in and have a nice chat?”

Dabeet shook his head. “Opening the door or not opening the door will lead to everybody dying, or a lot of people dying, or at least a few people dying, depending on how it goes. You think I haven’t been living with this for the past months? I don’t want anybody to die. I may not have any friends here, Cynthia, but I don’t have any enemies, either. I don’t want anybody to die, and I especially don’t want them to die because some Earthside yiffa picked my mother as their hostage.”

“So you have a plan?” asked Monkey.

“I do not,” said Dabeet. “But if I did have a plan, it would depend on our having control of the mechanical stuff in the station, so we might be able to isolate them and cut off their air, or something that lets them inside but then we kill them all.”

“Oh, I see,” said Monkey. “That’s a good plan, except that you don’t actually have a plan.”

“I know I don’t,” said Dabeet. “But if I could get inside the mechanical area of the station, I might be able to learn enough about the way the station works that I could come up with a plan.”

“So why are you wandering around the whole inhabited portion of Fleet School instead of getting into the machinery?”

Dabeet buried his face in his hands. “Cynthia,” he said.

“Please call me Monkey,” she said. “I hate the name Cynthia.”

“Monkey,” said Dabeet, “what do you think I’ve been looking for? I can’t find a single door leading into the mechanicals. Why do you think I was looking at that stupid locked vent that I couldn’t possibly get my shoulders through?”

Monkey looked at him in something like awe. “You don’t know?” she said.

“Know what?” asked Dabeet.

“There are doors all over the place. They don’t all lead everywhere, but they all lead somewhere, and if you go into the right ones, you can get all over the station without having to go through some air duct.”

“There are no doors,” said Dabeet. “Not even trap doors in the ceilings.”

“This from the koncho who discovered that you could make boxes out of the wall panels in the battleroom,” said Monkey.

Dabeet thought about that for a moment. “Oh,” he said. “The doors don’t look like doors. They look like walls.”

“You got it.”

“I don’t like you calling me a koncho,” said Dabeet.

“It’s just a word,” said Monkey.

“A word that means ‘traitor,’” said Dabeet. “I’m trying my best not to betray the school or anybody. Except for the kay-quops who kidnapped me and threatened my mother. I’m trying really hard to think of a way to betray them.”

“So you’re a koncho coming and going,” said Monkey. “A double agent. Very thrilling. If either of us lives through this, they’ll make movies about you.”

“So how do I know which walls are really doors?”

“They’ll always be panels of interior walls, with rectangular shapes.”

Dabeet nodded. “But they don’t just open for children, do they?”