Chapter 7 - Unlocking the Map
Elara scrambled silently back to the captain's quarters, locking the heavy steel door behind her just as she heard muffled voices echoing in the corridors.
She quickly prepped the syringe, her small hands shaking, and injected the antibiotics into Silas’s arm just as he had instructed her earlier. He winced, his eyes fluttering open.
"They're here," Elara whispered in terror.
"They have to search the whole ship. We have a little time," Silas rasped, forcing himself to sit up. The medicine wouldn't work instantly, but he was fighting the fever with sheer willpower. "Show me the locket, Elara."
She opened the brass pendant and handed it to him. Silas squinted at the micro-engraved grid in the dim flashlight beam.
"It's a topographic map of the county," Silas murmured. "These coordinates... forty-one degrees north, seventy-three degrees west. It's the old radio tower at the peak of Miller's Mountain. Your father buried the vault directly beneath the transmission array."
"Can we make it?" Elara asked.
"You can," Silas said, pulling his hunting knife from its sheath. "The peak is only two miles north of this ship. You take the zodiac raft. The water goes right up to the base of the mountain now."
Elara shook her head furiously, tears spilling down her dirty cheeks. "No! I'm not leaving you. You promised you'd keep me breathing!"
"And I'm keeping my promise," Silas said softly, placing a heavy hand on her cheek. "I'm slowing you down, little bird. I can't climb that mountain. But I can make sure Thorne doesn't follow you."
A heavy pounding struck the steel door of their cabin.
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"Open up, old man!" Thorne’s muffled voice slithered through the metal. "I know you're in there. Hand over the girl and the key, and I'll make your death quick."
Silas looked at Elara, his eyes fierce and unyielding. "There's a maintenance hatch in the floor. It drops straight to the lower cargo bay. You run, Elara. You find that vault, and you don't look back. Be the fire."
