The Lost Wreck of the Spero

by Nemo West

Table of Contents

Chapter 7: Negotiation

“What’s this all about?” Deak demanded as he leaned over the port railing of his rover.

Chelle met his gaze firmly from her perch on a ridge between two willowy mangroves. Sam and Triss were hidden at a safe distance, listening in through an open channel on Chelle’s Digit. Overhead, milky-orange evening twilight glowed through the canopy. “You had us at an unfair disadvantage this morning,” Chelle said. “But now that we’ve had time to think things over, you and I are going to renegotiate your bargain with Triss.”

Deak chewed on that news for a moment. Then he spat a greasy dribble of tobacco into the blue-black water beneath him. “We are, huh?”

“Yes, we are. Because Sam recorded the geo-coordinates of the Spero and, right now, he’s got a message ready to post to every news outlet and treasure-hunting group on the Net.” Chelle sniffed. “And if anybody comes here and reports the discovery of that wreck before the salvage rights expire, then Terra Nova gets to keep the amrathyte.” She cocked her head. “And you get nothing.”

With a scowl, Deak put his hands on his hips and rolled his shoulders, considering the matter. After a moment, he glowered at Chelle. “So, what do you want?”

“Our terms are modest,” she replied. “We want only two things.”

“Which are?”

“First, Triss doesn’t have to marry you.”

Deak folded his arms. “Oh, she doesn’t, does she?”

“No, she doesn’t. You said yourself you can get any girl you want after you’re rich. So, just get one that isn’t Triss.”

Deak let out a long, sharp exhale. “What’s the second thing?”

“We want enough amrathyte to buy the atmosphere scrubbers to save Etruria.”

Deak scoffed. “It wouldn’t do you any good. Because we can’t sell any of it until the salvage rights expire.”

“Fine. Then we’ll wait until after the rights expire.”

“What?” Deak blinked. “But the volcano will have already poisoned Etruria by then.”

“So?” Chelle shrugged. “The atmosphere scrubbers can still clean it. Then we can move back.”

Deak balked. “You mean, you’d spend all that money to clean this place up even after the evacuation?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” His brow hunched in genuine consternation. “There’s nothing special about this place. There are thousands of other piddling, pointless, forgettable little flyspeck worlds just like it. Why come back here after you finally have a chance to get away?”

Chelle set her jaw. “Because this is our home.”

“But you wouldn’t be able to save it.” Deak frowned. “You’d have to bring it back from the dead.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”

“Wow.” Deak sighed and shook his head. “You guys are idiots; do you know that?”

Chelle shrugged. “Then you won’t miss us after you’re gone.”

“You think?” Deak stood up straight, cracked his neck and then languidly paced the deck of his rover. “See, that all sounds great, but the thing is, I don’t plan on missing any of you at all.” He suddenly picked up his blastgun and thumbed the charger. “Because I have very good aim.”

Chelle back-pedaled, eyes wide. “What are you doing? Sam will send out the Spero’s coordinates.”

Deak shrugged. “Let him. My family’s killed plenty of people to protect what we rightfully stole. We got no problem killing a few more.”

“Wh-what?” Chelle stammered.

Deak’s only response was to raise his weapon.

Realizing with panic that her plan had failed, Chelle cursed and quickly scrambled into the thicket of prop-roots behind her.

“Trying to run is a waste of time,” Deak called after her as he jumped down to give chase. “Sam’s clunky old rover could never beat mine back to New Tuscany. None of you are getting out of Toboso alive!”

As she ran away, Chelle panted a warning to Sam and Triss into her Digit, “Guys, it didn’t work. Deak is going to kill us all. Just run. Get out of here!” Then she disconnected the call and fumbled to try and call the local constable back at the colony.

Just then, a blast from Deak’s gun sizzled past her head. The shot missed her but snapped branches and sprayed leaves where it struck nearby mangroves. Chelle shrieked and ducked, which made her lose her footing. As she scrambled to keep her balance, she accidentally dropped her Digit in the mud, but she didn’t waste any time recovering it. Deak was already too close. Frantic, Chelle kept her head down and raced deeper into the marsh.

For several terrifying minutes, Chelle kept running. Soon her throat burned from heavy panicked breathing and a sharp runner’s cramp stung her belly. She had no idea where she could possibly go or what she could possibly do to make it out of this.

Even Toboso itself seemed to be guiding her toward an inevitable end. To hold any hope of outrunning Deak, Chelle knew she needed to stick to dry land or at least as dry as any land could get in the marsh. Yet, as she ran, Chelle gradually realized she was racing along a small peninsula. The further she went, the narrower that peninsula became. Soon she could see blue-black water on both sides of her. She was headed toward a dead end.

A cold, heavy feeling of hopelessness washed over her. Not only was there no chance she could swim fast enough to outrun a blastgun, but every Etrurian knew never to trifle in Tobosan waters; that was where celomanders lurked to ambush their prey. In what were likely to be her last moments, it looked like Chelle would have to choose between Deak’s blastgun or a celomander’s jaws. She grimaced, hoping Deak would at least make it quick.

Yet right before Chelle stopped running, she suddenly heard an anguished yelp behind her. She spun around just in time to see Deak flail to the ground in a full-body spasm. His blastgun thumped down into a patch of wiry undergrowth and his features contorted in pain. Chelle blinked in astonishment.

Then she saw Triss and Sam racing up behind Deak. Triss wielded an enpulse wand like a wrathful sorceress, and the luminite fibers in her hair flashed in a halo of Tyrrhenian sunset shining through the canopy. Beside her, Sam dashed forward and snatched Deak’s blastgun from where it had fallen.

As she comprehended what was happening, Chelle suddenly realized she wasn’t going to die after all. Triss and Sam hadn’t listened when she’d told them to run away. Instead, they’d come back to save her. With a weary, astonished grin, Chelle sank to her knees.

Triss and Sam ran past Deak and over to Chelle. Sam stood guard, leveling the blastgun at Deak, while Triss wrapped a comforting arm around Chelle’s shoulders. “Are you alright?” Triss asked.

Chelle smiled up at her. “I am now.”

Concerned, Triss said, “We heard a gunshot. Did he get you?”

“No, he missed. But barely.”

“Oh, good.” Triss hugged Chelle tightly.

Meanwhile, without Triss’s enpulse wand targeting him, Deak gradually regained control of his muscles. Panting, he slowly pushed himself upright and glared at the others. “Don’t be too proud of yourselves,” he spat. “You just delayed the inevitable. That’s all. My family won’t hesitate to massacre this entire colony to keep our claim to the amrathyte.” He shook out his still-trembling arms. “If you don’t want that to happen, then you’ve only got one choice.” He turned to Sam and held out his hand. “Give me the gun.”

Sam swallowed and glanced at Triss and Chelle. Deak had confronted them with a stark choice: either they die, or the entire colony dies. The looks on their faces showed they understood the weight of the decision Deak was forcing them to make.

Yet Chelle had no intention of letting her childhood bully get his way. Growing up as a chubby girl alongside a spiteful, spoiled rich kid, she’d already suffered enough indignities at his hand. Seized by a defiant impulse she couldn’t possibly explain, she suddenly stepped forward, grabbed the blastgun from Sam, and threw it into the nearby lake. It landed with a splash a dozen or so feet from the muddy shore. Then Chelle spat a fierce obscenity at her attempted murderer.

As his weapon vanished into the blue-black water, Deak gawked and shouted, “You idiot!” Then he turned to the others with a truly malevolent sneer. For a moment he hesitated, as if weighing his options. Then he suddenly bolted toward the lake and dove for the spot where his gun had sunk.

Triss raised her enpulse wand but not quickly enough. She couldn’t fire after Deak reached the lake because the water would defray the beam. She’d have to wait until he stood up far enough to offer a clean target.

Chelle grabbed Sam’s elbow. “Can Deak’s gun still fire after it’s been wet?”

“Knowing Deak, he probably bought a top-of-the-line assault model,” Sam answered quickly. “So, most likely yes.”

“Then what should we do?” Chelle worried.

“We stand our ground,” Triss said firmly. The others turned to her, somewhat stunned by her resolve.

“A-are you sure?” Sam asked.

“You heard the threat Deak made. If we try to run, we could put the entire colony at risk,” Triss said. “So, we stand our ground.”

Chelle and Sam looked at each other and back at Triss. Then they both nodded. “Okay,” Chelle said.

“Okay,” Sam agreed. “But, if we’re going to do this, then we should spread out and get behind any cover we can find. We don’t want to stand so close he could shoot all of us at once.”

“That makes sense,” Triss said. “Alright, everybody grab your wands and spread out.”

As the three friends undertook their plan, Deak continued to dive up and down near the site where Chelle had thrown the blastgun, until a large, violent splash suddenly broke the water’s surface. Sam, Chelle, and Triss all jumped backward as a massive reptilian form erupted from the lake’s depths. An instant later, the telltale jaw-snap of a celomander cut through the air. The three friends heard a gurgled scream. Then they saw Deak’s limbs flail helplessly before he vanished in the deep eddy left behind as the celomander resubmerged.

Chelle had only seen the aftermath of celomander attacks before; she’d never actually seen one happen. Watching a wild animal turn a person into prey, right in front of her, struck her with bone-deep terror. As her limbs trembled and her guts turned to jelly, she could only stand in shock and gasp, “Oh, my god!”

Beside her, Sam stood slack-jawed and equally horrified by what had just happened.

Triss, however, only cocked her head, stared for a moment, and then grunted an ambivalent, “Huh.” After a beat, she turned to her friends. With a tired voice, she asked, “Can we go home now?”

Sam blinked a few times before answering, “Um, yeah, let’s... let’s get out of here.”

Chelle looked out over the slowly settling waters beside them one last time. Then she sighed and shrugged. “Yeah, let’s go home.”

Proceed to chapter 8...

Copyright © 2022 by Nemo West

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