There was not a single truffle left in the box. Instead, there were two shaped charges. For a moment Opal could not understand what she was seeing. Then it became terrifyingly clear. Artemis had never stolen the charges, he had simply told the dwarf to move them. Once in the booty box, they could not be detected or detonated. As long as the lid was sealed. She had opened the box herself. Artemis had goaded her into sealing her own fate.
The blood drained from Opals face. Mervall, she screamed. The detonation signal!
Dont worry, Miss Koboi, the pixie shouted from the cockpit. We just got contact. Nothing can stop it now.
Green countdown clocks activated on both charges and began counting back from twenty. A standard mining fuse.
Opal lurched into the cockpit. She had been tricked. Duped. Now the charges would detonate uselessly at seventy-four and a half miles, well above the parallel stretch. Of course, her own shuttle would be destroyed and she would be left stranded, ready to be scooped up by the LEP. At least, that was the theory. But Opal Koboi never left herself without options.
She strapped herself into a seat in the cockpit.
I advise you to strap yourselves in, she said curtly to the Brill brothers. You have failed me. Enjoy prison.
Merv and Scant barely had time to buckle up before Opal activated the ejector gel-pods under their seats. They were immediately immersed in a bubble of amber impact-gel and ejected through panels that had opened in the hull.
The impact-gel bubbles had no power source and relied on the initial gas propulsion to get them out of harms way. The gel was fireproof, blast-resistant and contained enough oxygen for thirty minutes shallow breathing. Merv and Scant were catapulted through black space until they came into contact with the chute wall. The gel stuck to the rocky surface, leaving the Brill brothers stranded, thousands of miles from home.
Opal, meanwhile, was rapidly keying codes into the shuttles computer. She had less than ten seconds left to complete her final act of aggression. Artemis Fowl may have beaten her this time, but he wouldnt live to gloat about it.
Opal expertly activated and launched two heat-seeking plasma rockets from the nose tubes, then launched her own escape pod. No impact-gel for Opal Koboi. She had, of course, included a luxury pod in the ships design. Just one, though, no need for the help to travel in comfort. In fact, Opal didnt care what happened to the Brill brothers, one way or the other. They were of no further use to her.
She opened the throttles wide, ignoring safety regulations. After all, who cared if she scorched the shuttles hull? It was about to get a lot more than just scorched. The pod streaked towards the surface at over five hundred miles per hour. Pretty fast, but not fast enough to completely escape the shockwave from the two shaped charges.
The stealth shuttle exploded in a flash of multicoloured light. Holly pulled the LEP shuttle close to the wall, to avoid falling debris. After the shockwaves had passed, the shuttles occupants waited in silence for the computer to run a scan on the stretch of chute above them. Eventually three red dots appeared on the three-dimensional representation of the chute. Two were static, while the other was moving rapidly towards the surface.
They made it, sighed Artemis. I have no doubt that the moving dot is Opal. We should pick her up.
We should, said Holly, not looking as happy as one might have expected. But we wont.
Artemis picked up on Hollys tone. Why not? Whats wrong?
Thats wrong, said Holly, pointing to the screen. Two more dots had appeared on the screen and were moving towards them at extreme speed. The computer identified the dots as missiles, then quickly ran a match in its database.
Heat-seeking plasma rockets. Locked on to our engines.
Mulch shook his head. That Koboi is a bitter little pixie. She couldnt let it go.
Artemis stared at the screen, as if he could destroy the missiles through concentration. I should have anticipated this.
Butler poked his massive head past his charges shoulders. Do you have any hot waffle to draw the missiles away?
This is a transport shuttle, replied Holly. We were lucky to have shields.
The missiles are coming after our heat signature?
Yes, said Holly, hoping there was an idea on the way.
Is there any way to significantly alter that signature?
An option occurred to Holly then. It was so extreme that she didnt bother running it past the shuttles other occupants.
There is one way, she said, and turned off the engines.
The shuttle dropped like a rock through the chute. Holly tried to manoeuvre using the flaps, but without propulsion it was like trying to steer an anchor.
There was no time for fear or panic. There was only time to hang on to something and try to keep your last meal inside your body.
Holly gritted her teeth, swallowing the panic that was trying to claw its way out, as she fought the steering wheel. If she could keep the flaps centred, then they shouldnt collide with the chute walls. At least this way they had a chance.