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The atmosphere was definitely dodgy as Destiny’s crew gathered around her silently. Nicole’s heart was thudding with excitement as they began to climb silently up the side of their ship. Ryan, too, was feeling flutters of barely suppressed giggles, as though this was just some joke they were playing on a teacher.
The two guards were busily talking to each other about what they were going to buy with their share of the treasure.
“I’m gonna get me own ship, I am,” said one animatedly. “No more of us bein’ pushed around by the cap’n. What’d you say, mate?”
“Yeah, no more- Oof!”
The other guard yelled as his companion was tossed right through the viewport window. He yelled even more loudly when Richard and Geoffrey picked him up and shoved him out, too!
Pirates from the lower deck were soon crawling up like ants, and the huge fight had begun. Nicole and Ryan found themselves ducking fists for their lives! They teamed up against a burly former crew member who looked large enough to bash their heads together, but too stupid to work out how to do it. In a minute or so, they heaved him out of the window, too.
There was a familiar vibration below them as the ship started below them. Velpney roared, “Fly high, but not high enough to get us all killed!”
In response, whoever was piloting raised the ship high into the air. Whenever Nicole got a chance to look down, she was almost dizzied by the sheer height above the planet they were flying at.
Halfway across the deck from them, Richard and Geoffrey were hurling any pirates they could reach out of the viewport. The pirates then plummeted, howling, to their doom.
At the very edge, Amanda was wrestling with skinny little pirates, nearly tossing them over her shoulder. She was unprepared, however, for Velpney. The huge man grappled with her for a few moments, then shoved her with all his might off the brink. She plunged, screaming, toward the planet’s surface.
“No!!!”
Danial leaped toward Velpney and pummeled every inch of him that he could find. Velpney tried to shake him off, but when that did not dislodge him, he reached up and threw him away… off the edge.
“Captain, we’ve lost Amanda and Danial!” cried Celebrin. “Velpney… it was Velpney!”
Dominique punched her way through a melee of twisting pirates to see Geoffrey and Celebrin trying to reach Velpney. She ran to help them, but was intercepted by a group of tall, gangly aliens.
Celebrin reached Velpney first. She ducked his considerable fist and kicked him in the chest, sending him reeling backward. Then his huge hands shot out and grabbed her.
Celebrin kicked out at him again, but to no avail. He practically threw her over the edge. She plummeted down.
“Celebrin!”
Geoffrey threw himself at Velpney. He hit him again and again, his eyes blurred and his face stained. Velpney sagged under the attack, but tore Geoffrey away. Again Geoffrey lunged at him, but Velpney flung him away and hit him… clear through another viewport window.
The battle was thinning out. Many of the pirates had been flung out the windows as well, but several were still there. Destiny’s tiny crew was outnumbered three to one.
Nicole and Ryan teamed up against Cerbrey. The twitchy alien was flailing his four arms, but they could easily skip away. Together they managed to toss him out the window.
Velpney roared with rage and pounded toward them. They nearly got out of the way, but…
“Ryan!!!”
Nicole dropped to her hands and knees, staring after Ryan.
“Nicole, look out!”
Richard dove between her and Velpney and caught Velpney’s punch in the side of the face. Grinning wickedly, Velpney tipped Richard’s unconscious form off the ship.
Nicole got up and turned to see him holding Dominique over the edge of the viewport window.
“No!”
“Yes,” hissed Velpney.
“You wouldn’t! You need the maps to find the treasure!”
“Yes, I do. She doesn’t have them, though. You do. Give me the maps and I won’t drop her.”
“Nicole, don’t listen to him! He’s already killed someone you valued much more than me without even blinking! He’ll kill you anyway!” cried Dominique.
Nicole stared at her, then down where Ryan had stood barely a minute ago.
“I’m not giving you the maps. The necklaces, aren’t they? You’re not getting them. They were given to me by two great people. You murdered one. The other was murdered by your friends, I guess. You’re not getting the maps,” she said quietly.
Velpney sighed. “Then I guess I’ll have to,”
He let go of Dominique.
Nicole’s eyes flashed. She strode up to Velpney. She was more than a foot shorter than him, but she didn’t care.
“This is for Amanda,” she said calmly, and kicked him in the chest. He staggered backward.
“This is for Danial.” She punched him in the stomach, and he reeled back again.
“This is for Geoffrey.”
“For Richard.”
“For Celebrin.”
“For Dominique.”
“For Ryan.”
Velpney was now teetering on the very edge of the broken viewport window.
“Let me guess,” he sneered. “For you?”
The look on Nicole’s face was enough to make any pirate cower.
“No,” she said, quite calmly. “For my father.”
Velpney was falling, shouting up at her all the way. Nicole sank to her knees and sobbed uncontrollably into her hands, the sole passenger of Destiny.
She stepped once more onto the planet’s surface and began to search.
Nicole found Geoffrey first, lying in a patch of clover nearby. His black eyes were shut tight.
Somewhere in a field near him she found Richard and several pirates, Cerbrey among them.
In a patch of trees lay Danial and Amanda, lying spread-eagled on the ground with their eyes wide open, staring at the trees above them. Another pirate lay nearby.
On the shores of a wide lake, Nicole spotted Celebrin and a few more pirates. Celebrin’s sky-blue eyes mirrored the air above her as she stared unseeingly into the air. Ryan was lying nearby, green eyes shut forever.
She wept for a while over her friend, then journeyed on. On Geoffrey’s other side lay Dominique and Velpney. Dominique still had a last look of defiance on her face. Velpney’s eyes glared up at her. Nicole shivered; his eyes were still evil.
Nicole didn’t spend too much time on grieving. She had much more important things to do.
First she buried her companions. It was long, hard work digging a grave big enough for the seven of them. The pirates she simply tipped into the lake.
After a restless sleep and a quick meal on the ship, Nicole set about repairing the broken windows and the communications module. This task took two days’ hard work, and Nicole was exhausted.
On the third day on the planet, Nicole went to the lakeshore. She sat and stared at the necklaces, her father’s and Celebrin’s. ‘These two maps,’ she thought. ‘It was these two simple necklaces that led to all this.’
A resolve was forming in her as she stared at the necklaces. Would she hunt for the treasure? No. Would she ever return to this planet again? No. Would she ever go home? Possibly. Would she be a Traveler, a solitary one? Yes.
Nicole stood up and threw the necklaces as far as she could into the lake. They sank immediately.
“There may they lie until the end,” she murmured.
Nicole boarded Destiny and went to the lower deck, where she powered up the engines and blasted off, away from the planet, never to return again. Destiny’s lightspeed engines picked up, and Nicole left her old life and blasted into new adventures as a Traveler.
