Ship Taken
- From behind the tree line they hear a whisper. It's Bruce, and he says he saw how it all went down.
- Kate and Matt are more concerned with whether Bruce is about to go down—he looks terrible.
- Bruce's leg is still bleeding, and he's in quite a bit of pain, but he's holding up. Apparently, after Matt and Kate chased off the cloud cat he went back in search of them, but got lost—between his poor sense of direction and his wounded leg, he had just gotten back to the ship when the pirates were arriving as well.
- Bruce makes his report: There were about a half dozen pirates, running at the ship with pistols drawn. They forced the crewmen who had been on the ground preparing for takeoff back onto the ship at gunpoint, and pulled up gangways. One pirate jumped and took off running into the woods—the guy Matt and Kate saw—and he'll be bringing back the rest of the pirates, that's for dang sure.
- Matt estimates that it will be at least six hours until the rest of the pirates show up. (The scout has to make it back to camp, gather everybody, and then they all have to make the trek back. Boom. Math.)
- The three of them try to come up with a plan.
- Kate wants to sneak on board, lure out one of the dumber pirates, and whack him over the head with something heavy to steal his gun. Then she'd like to storm in, surprise the other pirates, and shoot them all through the hearts. Um… never get on Kate's bad side.
- Matt, ever the buzz kill, points out that none of them have any real experience with guns, whereas the pirates were probably given firearms for pacifiers in their infancy. Also, Matt admits he's not so cool with shooting someone—even Szpirglas.
- Well, okay then. But the fact remains that they do need to find a way to separate the pirates from their guns and save the day.
- Bruce decides that it's a good time to assert rank and claim a leadership role. Matt points out that he's only been on the ship for three days, and compared to Matt's three years that's a drop in the bucket—plus his rank was bought, not earned.
- Here's Matt's plan: If they can make it to his room, he can get his set of spare keys. They should try to lure pirates into different cabins and lock them in, reducing the amount of pirates they need to deal with.
- Kate is soothed by the idea that they'll have to whack at least a few of the pirates out of necessity, and they agree on Matt's plan.
- They sneak on board via the tail fin.
- Right inside the bottom of the tail fin is the ship's auxiliary control room. If there's ever a problem with the main control car, this is where the Aurora can be flown from.
- While Matt's assessing all of the information the control panel can give him, Kate asks to see Bruce's leg. Yikes—it doesn't look good at all.
- Matt volunteers to go to the infirmary for bandages and disinfectant. Kate's worried about splitting up, but it'll be safer and faster if Matt can just do his thing.
- He makes it to his room and snags his keys. So far so good.
- Matt makes the assumption that Szpirglas has probably assembled his hostages in the starboard lounge—it's the biggest reception room on board and therefore the most convenient for his evil purposes—so he needs to get on top of the passenger quarters in order to spy down on A-Deck.
- Up he goes onto the axial catwalk (which, if you remember, runs above and parallel to the keel catwalk). Careful not to throw shadows down below, Matt grabs a harness and a coil of rope.
- When he's directly over A-Deck he straps himself in and lowers himself onto the roof of what he's hoping is the gymnasium. His plan is to sneak through the ventilation ducts.
- Matt's claustrophobia sets in almost immediately, but he plows ahead—carefully—until he's able to spy on the lounge… which is indeed crammed with passengers and crew.
- The crew have been bound and lined up against a wall, and Baz has apparently been shot in the shoulder.
- Dr. Halliday is begging the pirates to allow him to get some medicine for Baz from the infirmary.
- Szpirglas calmly explains that he needs all of his men to keep an eye on the crew, and can't spare one to escort him to the infirmary until the rest of his lackeys show up. When he's calm he's more like an exasperated schoolteacher than a vicious pirate. (No, Bobby. You can't go to the bathroom until Billy comes back. Those are the rules. Tsk tsk.)
- Matt assesses the situation: there are six pirates (including one he's affectionately dubbed Rhino Hand) plus Szpirglas, and Crumlin is somewhere. That makes eight armed pirates against three unarmed kids. At least until the rest of the pirates show up. Gulp.
- Crumlin and Szpirglas head toward the kitchen together, and Matt follows in the ducts. What he overhears is heartbreaking: the rest of the pirates are only three hours away, and the plan for the Aurora is to scuttle her (tear her apart and use her for her parts). What's even worse is they plan on setting fire to her once she's been ravaged, and they're gonna lock the passengers and crew inside. So: everyone dies, and the Aurora gets destroyed. Pretty much Matt's worst fears come to reality.
- Szpirglas also suggests that it's probably time to shoot someone else, just to keep everyone scared and obedient. How nice.
- Chef Vlad is ordered into the kitchen to cook something nice for the pirates.
- Matt slithers through the ducts and sneaks his way into the infirmary, where he's able to get some bandages, peroxide, antiseptic ointment, aspirin, and some mysterious dark liquid.
- On his way back to Kate and Bruce he swears he sees something out of the corner of his eye, but when he turns there's nothing there. Spooky.
- He makes it back and updates the two of them on their situation.
- Bruce's leg gets some much-needed medical attention from Matt, and Kate is impressed. Then she declares it's time to whack some pirates.
- Matt suddenly has a brilliant idea: they could fly her themselves from the auxiliary control room—at least high enough so that the other pirates can't join forces when they arrive.
- Bruce insists that all of his training at the Academy has taught him that it can't be done. But Kate believes in Matt, and he's pretty darn sure he can do it with their help.
- The first task will be to cast off the hundreds of landing lines attaching The Aurora to the ground—this usually takes hundreds of crewmen, but Matt thinks if they do it in a particular order they'll be fine.
- Now it's time for Bruce to be the party pooper. What happens when all the pirates hear the engines starting? They'll obviously go to the control car, and then right to the auxiliary control room where presumably they'll kill Matt, Kate, and himself.
- But Matt's got a plan: that mysterious liquid he stole from the infirmary? It's the same sleeping draught that Kate used to drug Miss Simpkins. Matt is going to somehow get the drug to Chef Vlad in order to poison all the pirates.
- In order to do that, Matt will have to go through B-Deck and use the dumbwaiter to go up to the kitchen where Vlad is cooking. It's a good thing he's tiny.
- So they split up: Kate is going with Matt because he needs someone to operate the controls on the dumbwaiter. Bruce is going to start casting off the main landing lines aft of the passenger quarters (if he does it from the hull there's only forty, and less chance of being seen from the windows), while Matt and Kate will get those forward. They are leaving the stern line for last.
- Matt and Kate are halfway to the kitchen when they hear voices and have to slide under the metal grille of the catwalk floor and hide.
- There are three pirates, one of whom is Crumlin. They're admiring the beautiful engines they're gonna steal when they stop to light a cigarette right over where Matt and Kate are hiding.
- The match they drop lands on Matt's cheek and he's forced to remain perfectly still. Ouch.
- Then the cigarette smoke makes Kate need to sneeze. Just as Matt pinches her nose the pirates walk away, and the kids are able to get to the kitchens on B-Deck without being discovered.
- Whatever Chef Vlad is cooking smells delicious, and is wafting throughout the ship.
- Matt crams himself into the dumbwaiter. For someone who hates small spaces, he sure volunteers for a ton of claustrophobic activities.
- He makes it up to where Vlad is cooking and starts to panic—he was hoping the chef would hear the dumbwaiter and turn around, but it appears that the activity in the kitchen has drowned out the sound. Now he's stuck in the dumbwaiter until someone notices him. And that someone could be a pirate. Uh-oh.
- He starts to knock on the glass, and finally Vlad turns around and sees him. He opens the door and answers it as if he always finds small boys crammed in there.
- At that exact moment a drunken pirate stumbles in, demanding to know when the soup will be ready. Vlad expertly distracts him and sends him off to go open a wine that will go with the meal he is preparing.
- Matt hands Vlad the sleeping elixir and Vlad nods wisely. He makes a bowl up and gives it to Matt before he dumps the whole thing into his soup cauldron.
- Matt eats half the bowl of soup on the way back down, but saves half for Kate. Aw...
- There's a problem, though—when he arrives back on B-Deck, Kate is nowhere to be seen.