Adrift (Book 1) by K.R. Griffiths Page A

held no interest for his only son.
    Still, some relic of those days spent in his father’s garage as a kid, working the heavy bag with his puny arms and trying to stave off endless boredom came back to him; a genetically-coded response to threat. Somehow, the old bastard's programming was still in him somewhere; the urge to fight.
    Mark dismissed the idea. In a four-to-one battle in a confined space, he would have no chance.
    That left only one option. The one Mark’s father would never have taken. Mark had to get the hell out of there. Get back to the security suite and somehow persuade Steven Vega that there were terrorists aboard.
    He just had to hope that the words he had heard the men speaking meant that they were not planning to detonate the bomb immediately.
    They said half an hour, didn't they? That's plenty of time to reach Vega and get some backup.
    And some firepower.
    Mark reasoned that there had to be a timer, and that the men had to plan to escape the Oceanus somehow before they detonated the weapon.
    Unless they're suicide bombers.
    Suddenly, the fact that the four men were obviously related terrified Mark. He imagined a group of children being raised by some monster, their young lives darkened and poisoned until they were capable of carrying out unspeakable atrocities. Capable, even, of sacrificing themselves in the name of some twisted cause that Mark would never understand.
    Get the fuck out of here.
    Wincing at the soft creaking of the metal beneath him, Mark began to awkwardly shift himself backwards in the vent, grateful that the distant rumbling of the engine drowned out the noise he was making.
    The men wouldn't hear him, and as he eased away from the vent and back into the shadows, he knew they wouldn't be able to see him, either.
    No problem. Just move fast, and move quiet.
    Mark shuffled back a little further, until the men disappeared from his sight. Once he was clear of the vent, he began to move through the duct a little more quickly, confident that even if the men heard the noise he was making, they would not be able to see him and would most likely assume it was mechanical.
    It would be okay. The bomb wasn't attached to anything that Mark could see. If worst came to worst, it could be tossed overboard and the Captain could be informed that he should gun the engine and get as far away as possible.
    Mark began to think that despite the sudden, frightening turn his day had taken, everything might just be okay. He had stumbled across the danger with time to defuse it. Hell, even Steven Vega would be proud of him.
    And then the blood in his veins turned to ice as the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt shattered the silence. Static blared, and Vega's voice rang out like an alarm.
    "Ledger, get the fuck away from that deck, and do it—"
    Panicked, Mark fumbled at the radio, finally locating the volume dial, and twisting the noise away into pulsing silence.
    For a heartbeat, he remained frozen in the thick, quiet air, straining his ears and praying that he would hear nothing; praying that the engine was loud enough.
    "Where the fuck did that come from?"
    A whispered hiss reached Mark's ears, floating through the air and into the vent like toxic gas.
    "There's someone here. In the vents."
    Mark grimaced.
    Fuck.
     
    *
     
    "I'll go," Herb yelled.
    Edgar wanted to stop it, but it happened too quickly. If he had been able to react in time, he would have grabbed Herb's collar and physically restrained him; would have yelled at his little brother that their work was done, and the authorities finding out that they had intruders on the ship wasn't going to matter now.
    Let whoever was in the vents listen. Let them run for help. By the time it arrived, it would be far too late. The Rennick boys had done the hard part. All that remained now was to push the button and get to the extraction point. They just had to stick to the damned plan.
    But Herb had panicked, and for reasons Edgar didn't think he could