Page 43 of Craze

“Then what?” Tangle asks.

Macabre shares a glance with Craze, then looks to me.

Macabre>>Craze, Navi: What would you do? You’ve been interacting with them most recently.

“Normally, I’d just blast my way onto a ship,” Craze offers. “But I think Navi’s right. We need to mess with their heads. Distractions help when we’re outnumbered. But as far as getting on board a ship, I’m not sure.”

Tangle leads my friends around a pillar to a place with a pipe coming out of the wall. He turns on a machine that turns a soft red, and then flips on the water. It steams and makes my friends cry and rush in for their first semi-civilized shower in years.

The Titans quietly spread out the rations.

“Did you not get baths on the Ravenger?” Craze asks.

“Once every week or so they’d throw us in the wash pit,” I reply. “Cold water via a hose the guard sprayed at us.”

He rests a warm hand against my back. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

“Just know I can survive a lot of shit.”

Tangle passes me and encourages the other Titans to set up further from my friends. He’s the most timid of them by far.

“You’re not joining them?” Tangle asks me.

While the Titans heat up a small stove, I lean against the wall and keep watch on my friends while I think about what method might work to get us onto a ship when there will likely be hundreds of soldiers on the surface, searching for us.

“We have to make them think the threat is somewhere else. Distractions help,” I say. “But we need an intricate setup that convinces them more than for a moment. We have to make them curious.”

“A mine field could work,” Macabre offers as he tears open a packet of Solcrue rations. “But how do we get them there?”

Tangle lifts a device from the hovercart. “They found my relay at the last site. I could rig one up with a stronger signal.”

Craze has an idea. “Record Jeela talking to them. If there’s something I’ve learned recently—”

He clears his throat, glances at me, and quiets. But the way the other Titans turn to look at me, makes me think Craze really does like me.

“That’s nutty, man. But it might just work. I bet they’re starving forattention.” Tangle motions to me. “Think Jeela would do it?”

I walk a few steps closer to where my friends bathe. “Hey, Jeela. Want to lure some soldiers to their deaths?”

She straightens from washing her clunky metal legs. “Fuck yes.”

“Yeah, she’ll do it.” I turn back to the Titans. “So say we get back to the compound, and we’ve diverted some of these bastards, how do we make our way through the others. I wasn’t expecting to be greeted by Tav’s teams. I mean, we were a group of broken women. What threat were we to them?”

“Clearly, they had procedures or they knew something you didn’t,” Axe offers. “But there will be teams on patrol. We have noticed cargo leaving the plant. They always move it to the loading docks then take it aboard with the Tacticats. I think they’re still salvaging what we sorted in the plant.”

“Have any of you been inside the plant since it was rebuilt?” I ask. “I only had the power I did because I knew my lab so well.”

Tangle squirms, his body folding in on itself and switching him from facing us to facing the tunnel we arrived from. “I stole my tech from there. Thought it wouldn’t be an issue because I can basically fit through any gap. Smaller ones just take more time. That’s how Sevrin found out about me. Craze got me out.”

“Did you see the way he sliced up my arm with that grinder?” Craze laughs and chews on a strip of jerky he pulls from his pocket. “He was so pissed I shot sparks instead of losing my hand. I mean, come on, jackass. I’m a walking nanobooster.”

The Titans chuckle, but I’m not sure its as funny as they think.

I pop off of the wall and walk toward him. “Is that unique to Titans?”

“Yeah. I can make nanobooster serum. It was how I survived bashing my way through ships.” Craze’s eyes fill with concern. “Why?”

“And Sevrin knows?”

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