Free Dream Sky by Brett Battles

pistol’s butt into the back of the man’s skull. The guy dropped to the deck and didn’t move. Robert wasn’t sure if he’d killed the man or just knocked him out, but he wasn’t going to waste time checking. He grabbed the guy’s rifle and moved up to the cabin door, ready to fight any others who might come up to see what was going on.
    But the door to the stairs was shut, and the only one present was Pax.
    “Was wondering if you were just going to follow us all night,” Pax said.
    Robert pulled the second gun from his waist. “Here.” He tossed it to Pax. “Are they all armed?”
    “Saw four rifles. But I think only the main guy really knows how to use one.”
    Noise on the stairs below them, then someone knocking loudly on the trapdoor. “Hey, what’s going on up there?”
    “Can you turn this thing around?” Robert asked.
    “I got it this far, didn’t I?”
    More pounding. “Hey, Luke! Why’d you shoot that flare?”
    Another voice yelled, “Open this damn door!”
    Pax started turning the wheel.
    “What’s going on up there? Stop turning! Stop right now!”
    “I’ll be back,” Robert said. “You be okay?”
    “I should be asking you that,” Pax said.
    Robert knew that at any moment the others would come running up the side stairways. He figured his best position would be to get to the rear of the boat before they showed up.
    The pounding on the pilothouse door lasted a few more seconds and then there was silence from below.
    Robert reached the stern as one of the guys peeked onto the top deck from the stairway and raised his rifle, aiming it at the pilothouse. Robert let off a shot in the man’s direction. It flew high, but was enough to make the guy duck out of the way.
    “Jacob!” The voice was almost directly below Robert. “There’s another boat back here!”
    Robert heard someone running below him.
    “Son of a bitch!” a second man—must’ve been Jacob—said. “Gotta be his asshole friend.”
    “How the hell did he—”
    “Shhh.”
    Robert leaned down to the very edge of the deck, listening. Whispered voices, too low for him to pick up more than a word or two, were followed by the soft padding of feet and creak of the deck. Had they both walked off, or only one?
    No way to know. The only thing he was sure of was that the fate of the one hundred and twenty-eight survivors on Isabella Island were in his hands, so he and Pax would either wind up in control of the boat, or he would die trying to make that happen.
    Another set of feet slinking away. One of them had stayed behind, but he was gone now.
    Robert quietly lowered himself over the side.
    __________
     
    I F NOT FOR the stars, it would have been impossible to see the coast. Even then, Pax needed to consult the compass to make sure he hadn’t overshot the turn and put them on a crash course for the beach. Once he was sure they were headed in the right direction, he straightened the wheel and used the bungee cord system the boat’s former captain had created to hold it in place.
    The moment he stepped out onto the top deck, a rifle cracked and a bullet slammed through the pilothouse floor, a few inches from where he’d been standing.
    __________
     
    “Y OU MUST HAVE missed,” one of the men whispered from the other side of the toilets.
    Robert wasn’t sure what they were shooting at. He was only glad it wasn’t him.
    Bang-bang ! Two shots, one on top of the other.
    “Dammit!”
    Robert sneaked a look around the right side but could see no one. Taking slow steps to prevent the boards from revealing his presence, he slipped past the bathroom door and approached the front corner. As he neared, the back of a man came into view. Robert eased to a stop and put both hands on his gun. When the rifle fired again, he swung out from his hiding place, his gun in front of him. He could see both men now, the one farthest from him aiming a rifle at the roof.
    “Drop ’em!” Robert yelled.
    The nearest man whirled around and