Ship Breaker

by Paolo Bacigalupi

From the con, through the rain, Nailer could see the crew fighting with the reel. Beside him, Captain Candless held the ship’s wheel. He shook his head. “Tell them to cut it,” he said.

  Nailer looked at him uncertainly.

  “Go, boy! Now! Cut it loose.”

  Nailer dashed down to the deck. He barely remembered to hook himself to an anchor before he went out into the wind’s lash. A wave washed over the prow of the deck, knocking him off his feet. He skidded into the main mast with a numbing impact. He struggled to his feet and stumbled across the pitching deck.

  “Cut it!” he shouted over the storm’s roar.

  Knot glanced at him, then up at the captain. A blade came out and with a fierce slash, the monofilament line parted. The wire whipped up and away, writhing like a snake. The parasail disappeared into cloud belly darkness.

  Watching it go, Nailer wondered if the ship had lost an advantage that they would miss later. Knot gave him a sad little smile. “Can’t be helped, boy.” And then he was running to join the rest of the crew as they unfurled the main sails in the storm.

  Nailer watched in awe as the crew fought to do their work. Rain slashed them. The seas rose and tried to drown them with huge surging waves, but still they grimly wrestled the ship to their will. And Dauntless responded. She surged through the stormy sea, lunging into wave troughs and then climbing their slopes before plowing down into the next deep liquid ravine. All around, waves rose high and monstrous. Nailer clung to the rail, clipped to his safety lines and out of the way of the feverish work as the crew fought their ship forward.

  Night fell heavy on them. Except for the occasional blast of lightning, it was black. Somewhere behind them, Pole Star pursued, but Nailer couldn’t see it and had no idea where it was. It was nice to pretend that its sleek outline wasn’t back there, hunting, but it was a fantasy.

  Eventually Captain Candless gave the word and they started shunting toward the coast, running closer to where they would attempt their trickery. Despite night blindness, the Pole Star would follow, sniffing at them with its radar arrays. And indeed, when Nailer finally ducked out of the elements to drink a hot cup of coffee, Dauntless’s main radar showed the bloody blip of the fighting ship closing still.

  Nailer sucked in his breath. “They’re close.”

  The captain nodded, his face grim. “Closer than we’d like. Go aft and look.”

  Nailer ran to a ladder and climbed up through the ship’s aft hatch. Rain beat down on him. Salt foam rushed around his ankles as the ship tore through another wave and climbed sickeningly.

  Nailer stared back into the slash of rain.

  Lightning ripped the darkness and thunder exploded. The Pole Star appeared, closer than he would have guessed, rising over a wave crest and crashing down again. It disappeared again into the darkness.

  When Nailer returned to the con, the captain said, “They kept their high sails up longer than we did. They’ve got a more stable ship.”

  “What are they going to do?”

  The captain stared at the radar blip of their pursuer. “They’re going to threaten us and then they’re going to board us.”

  “In the storm?”

  “They’ve fought in worse seas. The Arctic is the worst fighting on the planet. They aren’t afraid of a little rain and waves.”

  The captain leaned close to Nailer. “Just between us, boy, you’re sure about those teeth?”

  Nailer made himself nod, but the captain didn’t let him go. “This is a gamble. The kind I don’t like. The kind that killed Miss Nita’s last ship, you understand?” He jerked his head toward the decks, indicating his crew. “Maybe you think your own life’s cheap, but you’re risking everyone else here, too.”

  Nailer looked away. “In clear weather…” He trailed off. Finally he looked up at the captain. “I don’t know. In the dark? In a storm?” He shook his head. “I’ve been out on the bay, and been through the gap, but I don’t know if it will work or not. Not like this.”

  The captain nodded. He stared back again into the darkness where their pursuer lurked. “Fair enough. Not the answer I wanted. But honest. We’ll trust the Fates, then.”

  “You’re still going to try?” Nailer asked.

  “Sometimes it’s better to die trying.”

  “What about everyone else?”

  Candless was solemn. “They knew the risks of coming with me when we left the Orleans. There were always safer options than crewing with an old loyalist like me.” He pointed to the nav screens and the infrared feeds of the shoreline, glowing green before them, flaring with lightning flashes. “Now be my eyes, boy. Help us find safe harbor.”

  Nailer watched the screens. The shadows of shoreline showed, lit by more lightning flashes. A cannon boomed behind them. A missile streaked overhead.

  “She’s afraid we’re going to make a run into the jungles,” Candless observed.

  Nailer looked back. “Are they going to sink us?”

  “Pole Star is not your problem!” The captain grabbed Nailer’s shoulder and pointed him forward. “Your problem is out there! Show me where we need to be!”

  Nailer bent to the screens, scanned the black shoreline ahead. The island glowed on screen. He frowned. No. That was wrong. It was some other hill. Everything was different in the dark and rain. The ship heaved through the waves.

  “I don’t see it,” he said. He tried to peer though the rain-spattered glass. Saw nothing but blackness.

  “Look harder, then!” The captain’s fingers dug into his shoulder.

  Nailer stared at the darkness. It was impossible. The land in the scopes’ view was all a blur of vegetation and selfsame coast. He stared into the rain again, looking through the forward windscreens. Another slash of lightning. Another. And then a ripping crack of thunder. He saw the island and gasped. They were too far off.

  “Back there!” He pointed. “We’re past it!”

  The captain cursed. He hurled the wheel over, calling orders to the crew. The sails cracked and flapped ineffectually. The ship rocked violently as a wave took it from an unexpected angle. The shadow of a crewman plunged from the mast, then jerked to a halt, dangling precariously from a harness. The sail’s boom swept across the deck. Dauntless came around. Suddenly the great bulk of the Pole Star loomed over them, bearing down. Dauntless was wallowing in the waves, her sails flapping uncertainly. Down on the deck, Nailer could hear Reynolds shouting, “Make fast! Make fast!” as she prepared the crew to run aground. “Hands on the pumps!”

  Pole Star was on top of them. Nailer could see half-men on the gunwales, twirling grappling hooks, eager to leap aboard. Dauntless’s sails flapped and then suddenly filled with wind. Dauntless surged forward again, gaining speed. Pole Star threw herself up beside them, seeking to grapple, but Dauntless lunged past, carried by the surf.

  “Right!” Nailer yelled. “Go right!” He could see the island. The teeth were already beneath them. The big ones would be. They were going to run aground.

  “Starboard is what we call it,” Candless said dryly as he spun the wheel. The man seemed strangely relaxed suddenly. Dauntless surged forward, shoved by the waves toward the rocky outcrop of the island, and then they were sucking through the shallows and past the island and the Teeth.

  The ship settled into the bay’s relative calm.

  “Storm anchors!” Captain Candless shouted as the crew furled the ship’s sails. Dauntless wallowed, then shuddered and swung about as prow anchors bit. Waves rushed against her sudden immobility. She turned with the waves, her nose pointing out into the surf, and then the aft anchors dropped and the ship stilled.

  Nailer clambered down from the conning deck and out into the slash of the rain.

  “Launch in two!” Reynolds shouted. “Prepare to board!”

  Lightning flashed. The great bulk of the Pole Star was coming for them. Nailer clutched the rail as the monster roared in. “Fates,” he whispered, and touched his forehead. He hadn’t realized he was religious until ju
st now, but suddenly he found himself praying.

  Reynolds came up beside him, watching the fighting ship plow down on them. “We’ll see if you’re right, boy.”

  Nailer’s throat was dry. Pole Star surged forward, seemingly planning to simply crush them under its weight. As it poured through the surf, Nailer was suddenly seized with a new terror: In the high seas of the storm, the Teeth would all be much deeper under water. Pole Star could slip across after all. Despair engulfed him. He hadn’t thought about the storm surge. No wonder Dauntless had come across unscathed even when they were in the wrong position.

  Pole Star was reefing its own sails and slowing, guiding itself with the minimum acceleration so that it could come up beside them and board. Nailer watched with sick despair. He’d been wrong. He thought he’d been so damn smart, and now they were going to be boarded, all because he hadn’t thought of all the details.

  “Captain!” Nailer shouted. “They’re not—”

  Pole Star stopped moving forward. It hung in the waves, stilled, even as water rushed around it. A wave crashed against it. Another. A bustle of activity on the decks was suddenly visible. An ant mound of people suddenly kicked to life. The ship swung slowly sideways, then stopped. A huge wave smashed into it. Another. The ship turned completely broadside and then it snagged again, caught on another spire from the deep. A huge wave smashed into its hull and the entire ship heeled.

  Reynolds laughed and clapped Nailer on the shoulder. “They’ve got their hands full now!” she shouted over the storm roar. “Let’s finish this!”

  They ran for the launches, Nailer piling in behind Reynolds. The little raft swung above roiling seas, dangling from a pair of drop clips. Knot and Vine and Candless and a half-dozen other crewmen were all in with him. Down the length of the ship, two other launches dangled over the side, full of Dauntless’s crew. The high whine of biodiesel engines firing live carried over the storm’s rush. Prop blades blurred as motors revved. Their own launch’s motor fired alive, vibrating.

  The boats ahead of them cut free. They dropped like rocks into the waves, engines screaming. They hit water and shot forward, arrowing for the sinking Pole Star.

  “Clear!” Reynolds shouted. Drop hooks snapped open. Their launch plunged. Nailer’s stomach flew into his mouth. Free fall. They slammed into the ocean. Nailer jackknifed forward and slammed into Vine’s broad back. Pain blossomed. He’d bitten his lip. Their raft surged forward, and he grabbed for balance as they accelerated.

  “Weapons check!” Candless shouted. Nailer reached for the pistol strapped to his waist. He could feel his heart pounding. Trimble grinned beside him.

  “Nothing better than a storm boarding, right, boy?”

  Nailer nodded sickly. Their tiny boat hurtled through foam and breakers under Reynolds’s sure hand. They shot up beside the tilting Pole Star, coming at her from the stern. Enemy crew were out on the deck. Nailer thought he saw the captain clinging to a rail, trying to send her people out to stabilize the wreck. He felt a stab of victory. One moment she must have been so confident, and now she was frantic. He laughed in the rain, feeling water gushing down his face. He’d done that.

  Their launch slammed up against Pole Star’s hull. Knot hurled a rope ladder grapple up over the rail, then rushed up the side with Vine close behind. They surged over the rail with their guns and machetes, followed by the rest of the crew.

  Reynolds slapped Nailer’s back. “Move it, boy!”

  Nailer grabbed the ladder and clambered up. He came over the side in time to see Captain Candless grappling with the other captain. He twisted his body and the woman plunged over the rail. She landed in the sea, splashing for survival. Candless pointed his sea pistol at the remaining crew.

  “Stand down and surrender!” he shouted over the roar of the storm and even if his voice wasn’t clear, the gun was. Nailer looked down into the surging surf and wondered what had happened to the other captain. She was simply gone, sucked under in the Teeth.

  They’d taken the Pole Star.

  Nailer turned to smile at Reynolds when a wave of half-men boiled up from the hold, guns firing. Candless went down in a spray of blood. Reynolds threw Nailer aside and her gun cracked beside him. Nailer lifted his own pistol, shooting through the rain, sure that he was missing and yet squeezing the trigger anyway. A huge wave hit the ship. Pole Star’s deck tilted sideways. Combatants went sliding into the sea.

  Nailer grabbed for the rail as he went over the edge. His gun plunged into the water. He dangled half off the deck. Storm surf surged up around his legs, grasping and eager to take him under. Nailer dragged himself out of the vortex and clung to the rail. The great clipper, so seemingly impregnable, had become impossibly small. It was sinking.

  Reynolds was shooting at someone in the darkness, but Nailer couldn’t see who. She caught sight of him. “Get Miss Nita!” she shouted as bullets ricocheted around her.

  One of Pole Star’s half-men rose up from the water beside them. Unkillable, they seemed. Reynolds turned her pistol on the creature and shot him in the chest. He sank back. Nailer couldn’t see any of Dauntless’s half-men at all. Maybe Knot and Vine and their kin were already dead.

  Reynolds’s pistol cracked again. She glared at Nailer. “Go!”

  Nailer drew his fighting knife and fumbled his now-useless ammunition over to Reynolds. He scrambled for the nearest hatch, praying that he wasn’t about to run into another lot of half-men, and dove through.

  The storm’s fury muted. Nailer wiped his face frantically, clearing his vision, blinking in the sudden stillness. Emergency LED lights lit the corridor, running on current from the ship’s batteries. Nailer couldn’t help inanely calculating scavenge value of the lighting systems as he made his way down the corridor. He passed brass fittings and steel doors, noting easily stripped service lines. The corridor tilted, rocked by the storm waves outside. Nailer staggered.

  Focus, you idiot. Find Lucky Girl and get out.

  Nothing moved in the dim red glow of the corridors. Somewhere above, guns were still firing, but the interior was strangely silent. Nailer made his way deeper into the ship, listening to the creak and rush of water outside, his stealthy footsteps and the rasp of his own loud breathing. He paused, trying to get his breath back. He listened for signs of movement ahead.

  Nothing.

  He crept farther down the corridor, his knife held ready beside him. He couldn’t be alone down here. Lucky Girl had to be around, and where she was, there would be others, too.

  Once again, Nailer wondered at his capacity for suicidal stupidity. Betraying his father had been colossally stupid, but hunting around in a sinking ship topped it. If he’d been smart he would have let the whole thing go when Lucky Girl disappeared in the Orleans. He could have found other work. He could have walked away without a problem. Gone up the Mississippi. Anything. But instead he’d been swept up in the loyalty that her people displayed: Candless and Reynolds and Knot and Vine… and if he was honest, his own silly fantasies about the beautiful swank girl had played a part, too.

  Nice going, hero.

  He shook his head. Here he was, back at Bright Sands Beach, where he’d started, worse off than ever, and about to get his head shot off by a half-man because he thought some swank girl—

  Movement ahead. Noises. Nailer pressed against the corridor wall. Muffled shouts echoed to him. He peered down the corridor. A ladder led down. He slipped closer and stuck his head close to the hole, listening.

  “Get me another seal! No! There! Not there! Here! Here!” More shouts. Crew trying to contain the damage. Trying to block the rushing sea as it poured into the ship.

  Nailer peered through the hole. Down below, the corridor was filling with water. Men and women splashed through the water, knee-deep in its embrace. More water sprayed from the walls, and still the crew labored. Nailer wished he had a gun. He could have shot them all… He stifled the thought. It was insane to pick a fight with people who didn’t care about him one way or
the other.

  One of the crewmen turned. His eyes widened. “Hey!”

  Nailer jerked his head back up the hole and ran.

  “Boarders!” The cry went up. “Boarders!”

  But Nailer was far down the hall. Boots clanged on the ladder as he ducked into a cabin and closed the door. He was in a crew cabin, bunks and gear strewn wildly by the heaving of the ship. Boots pounded past.

  Nailer took a deep breath and slipped back out. The tilt of the ship was making it difficult to move around. The corridors were all canted so that the door in the wall was slowly turning into a door in the floor. He actually had to lift the door in order to slide out of the room, and then he slid to the far side of the corridor before getting his footing. The ship was trying to turn turtle. He scrambled for the ladder, praying that he wasn’t about to run into more crew.

  Climbing down was an odd experience of scrambling nearly sideways. The entire ship was almost on its side. Water poured around him. He ran past where the crew had sealed off a part of the cargo hold, headed deeper into the belly of the torn ship, searching desperately through cabins and storerooms. He found no one. Everyone had to be abovedecks or busy fighting to control the flooding. He was alone. Finally he gave up on stealth and simply shouted.

  “Lucky Girl! Where the hell are you? Nita!”

  No response.

  She had to be higher up; that was the only answer. He’d somehow missed her.

  Or else she’d been drugged.

  Or she’d been taken off already.

  Or she’d never been here at all.

  He grimaced. She could have been left back in the Orleans. Or killed. He slogged through water, trying to find his way out. The water was in all the decks now. The wall had become the floor, and he was having a hard time keeping his orientation as the ship went onto its side. The ship jerked. The world turned again. Water sprayed. He yanked open a door and was rewarded with a flood of water that sent him sprawling and sliding down the corridor before he came up gasping and managed to get to his feet. He fled the rising waters.

  “Lucky Girl!”