Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker #1)(76)

Nailer searched frantically for his knife but couldn’t see it in the dimness. His father stalked him. Nailer turned and ran. Behind him, his father laughed and gave chase as Nailer dashed for the mechanicals room. Under the glow of emergency lighting, Nailer cast about, looking for some tool he could use as a weapon. His father burst into the room behind him.

“My my, you’re a slippery one.”

Nailer backed away. The damn Pole Star crew kept a tight ship, not even a wrench or a screwdriver lying around. Nailer grabbed a loose service panel and hurled it, but his father dodged easily.

“That the best you can do?” he asked.

Nailer grabbed another loose maintenance panel, then looked up at where it had fallen from. An entire wall of gears and hydraulic systems loomed beside him, the floor of the ship that had now become a wall. If he could climb up, he might be able to get out of reach inside a maintenance hole.

Nailer ran to the wall of exposed gears and pulled himself up. With the ship turned sideways, there were enough open panels that he could climb up along them. He peered into the slots between, almost sobbing with desperation. None of the gaps were big enough for him to hide from his father’s machete reach. He climbed higher.

“Where you think you’re going, boy?”

Nailer didn’t answer. He got ahold of another huge gear and hauled himself higher. He slapped at a service panel’s lock and tore it away. He threw it down at his father, missing again. Below him, Richard Lopez was watching, bemused.

“You think I can’t just climb up and pull you down?” He shook his head. “I used to think you were smart, boy.”

Nailer pulled himself higher. His father said, “Why don’t you just come down and die like a man? It would be so much easier for both of us.”

Nailer shook his head. “Come get me, if you want me.”

He loosened another panel. If his father could be convinced to start climbing, he could maybe drop the damn thing right on his father’s head.

“All right, boy. I tried to be nice.” His father took hold of a gear and reached up for another handhold in the next service panel. With the machete, his climbing was hampered, but he was horrifyingly fast, even so.

Nailer dropped the panel. For a moment, he thought it would catch his father perfectly, but then the entire ship heaved with another wave and the panel missed. Richard Lopez grinned up at Nailer, unfazed. “Guess you’re not such a Lucky Boy after all.” Then, quick as a spider, he clambered up after Nailer.

Nailer scrambled higher, but there was nowhere else to go. He clung to a huge gear, staring down at his dad. He was trapped. Richard Lopez smiled and swung his machete. Nailer yanked his feet out of reach. The machete clanged against steel.

A blinking LED caught Nailer’s eye. He stared, and felt a surge of hope. He was right beside a control deck, with its familiar label: FOIL OVERRIDE. KEEP HANDS AND LOOSE CLOTHING CLEAR.

Nailer slapped frantically at the release lever and hit the engagement override button. Just like Knot had done what seemed like ages ago. He looked down at his father. “Let me go, Dad. Just let me and Nita go.”

“Not this time, boy.” Richard Lopez grabbed Nailer’s ankle.

Nailer said a prayer to the Fates, grabbed the engagement lever, and jumped free. His weight yanked the lever down and then he was falling.

The scream of machinery filled the room.

24

Nailer hit the floor. His ankle blossomed with pain. The scream of machinery cut off abruptly. Nailer looked up. His father dangled above him, half his body sucked into the hydrofoil’s gear system. The man was trying to reach into the machinery where an arm and leg had been consumed. Blood showed on his teeth.

“Damn,” he said. He seemed puzzled, more than anything else. He tried to free himself again. Nailer’s skin crawled. The man should have been dead, the way he’d been sucked into the gears, but still he fought for life. Fueled by amphetamines and sliding high, his father still didn’t understand his predicament. For a terrible moment, Nailer was filled with dread that his father could not die. That he would pry himself free and come after him once again.

Richard stared down at him. “Come here, boy.”

Nailer shook his head and backed away. His father’s free hand went to the gears again. “What the hell did you do?” He stared at the gears, then stared at the blood dripping from within the mechanicals. In the LED dimness it was almost black. “I’m not done yet,” his father said. He looked down at Nailer. “I’m nowhere near done yet.”

But already his voice was weak. Nailer stared up at the man who had terrorized him for so much of his life. All of a sudden Richard Lopez was different, not the swaggering, dangerous man he had been, but something else. Miserable. Vulnerable.

“Come on, Lucky Boy,” his father croaked. “We’re family. Help me out.” He tried to reach down to Nailer. Tried to smile. Licked bloody lips. “Please,” he said. And then, more softly, “I’m sorry.”

Nailer’s body shook with revulsion. He gave his father one last look then turned away, limping for where Lucky Girl lay bound.

He ran into her at the door, and almost screamed before he recognized her. She hefted his fighting knife. “Thanks for the knife,” she said. “Where’s—” She gasped.

Nailer pulled her out of the room, nearly dragging her. “Come on.” He hurried her down the corridor, half expecting his father to call after him again, but no more sounds followed them.