Free Pathfinder by Julie Bertagna Page A

Gail and Rowan. She pictures her mother with Corey clutched close, herkeen eyes searching, searching, searching for Mara; her father cursing her stubbornness, refusing to believe he has lost her.
    Alex steers them toward the chaos of boats around the city. People huddle closer on the fishing boat that is now their home. The sense of loss is overwhelming.
    â€œHeads down!” Alex suddenly yells.
    A bulky, thuggish-looking, black speedboat roars out from behind the legs of an impossibly high sea bridge that stretches out into the ocean, then suddenly breaks off, unfinished. The speedboat, emblazoned with the words SEA POLICE and crammed with an armed, orange-uniformed police crew, cuts in front, its sirens blaring. A huge gun barrel glints above the bow windshield. Now a fleet of orange waterbikes zips across the waves to encircle them. The speedboat fixes its large gun on Mara’s boat, while the police waterbikers swivel their handlebar guns into position.
    They are surrounded.
    â€œTurn back! Turn back at once!” a harsh megaphone voice commands.
    Alex looks petrified but stays on course—there’s nowhere to turn back to. He even keeps his nerve as the waterbikers send thundercracking volleys of machine-gun fire overhead, in warning.
    Then he cries out in horror and begins frantically wheeling the boat around.
    â€œ
Get down!
” he roars.
    Mara can’t see what’s happening. But she hears something howl through the air, feels it hit the water close by, then is rocked by a terrifying force as a missile explodes in the sea.
    The boat fills with screams. Mara struggles to prise herself from the crush, tries to jump overboard, desperate toescape. But there is no escape. She grips the rim of the boat and squeezes her eyes tight shut. “
Mom! Dad! Help me!
” she screams, but her voice is lost in the wave of panic.
    There is the strangest lull. The boat lurches on a wave and Mara waits for the hit. The moment stretches—enormous, empty, dark, and still.
I’m dead
, thinks Mara.
It’s happened. It’s over
. She opens her eyes. She is still in the boat. There’s no screaming missile, no explosion, nothing. Then—
    â€œThey’re going!” shouts Alex, his voice cracking with relief.
    And it’s true. The sea police have about-turned and are speeding off in another direction. Then Mara sees what has deflected them—a bigger target. A fleet of boats has appeared on the southern horizon and it’s this that the police battalion is headed for. Alex takes his chance to steer hastily toward a mooring place on the edge of the boat camp that stretches far into the waters around the city.
    â€œWhat were they going to do—kill us all?” Rowan whispers, his face gray, his eyes wide and unfocused with shock.
    The shock deepens as they begin to enter the vast boat camp.
    â€œI don’t like this, don’t like it,” Gail is muttering feverishly, like a small child. “I want to go home, Mom. Oh, please, let’s turn back and go home.”
    Fishing boats, ferries, rusted military craft, once-luxurious cruisers, old and battered pleasure crafts, and bashed yachts, all kinds of vessels, even ramshackle handmade rafts with patchwork sails; rich and poor, all ages, all kinds of people, are crushed here into a common pulp of human misery. The sea runs red with sunrise, the water steams, the noise and stench are terrible.
    This is unreal, thinks Mara. It’s hell on Earth.
    â€œWhere are they all from?” she whispers.
    â€œWho knows?” says Rowan.
    Alex nudges their boat into the crush.
    â€œYou’ll have to move on—this is our space and it’s too crowded already!” shouts a raucous voice. “There’s no room for anyone else.”
    The owner of the voice is a furious woman who stands at the helm of what once must have been a sleek, luxurious yacht. Now it’s dirty and battered, its deck overhung with