Children of Zero

by Andrew Calhoun

  Except that when he struck, she was no longer there. Brenna had seen through the little ruse and simply taken two steps to the side before Kettle’s cutlass could come anywhere close to her. Even worse, because he had overextended himself in trying to give himself an advantage, he was now opened up. Brenna grunted and advanced on the now panicking Kettle. She started by smashing her short sword into Kettle’s cutlass near the hilt, causing him to drop the weapon entirely. Then she charged him.

  He had just enough time to say “Shit!” before she launched her shoulder into his midsection and lifted him right off of his feet. When she slammed him down onto the deck back first, the only thing he could do was to keep his chin tucked down toward his chest so as to prevent his head from smacking straight off the wooden planks. In this at least he was successful, but there was no time for self-congratulations.

  “You’re a daft fucker,” she said as she came up on top of him. He raised his arms to protect himself from the punishment that he knew was coming, but it was to no avail. Two hard punches came into the side of his ribs on his left side followed by three open-handed smacks to the side of his face.

  “Cutting time,” she said. There was a knife in her hand again. Kettle had no idea how it got there, but he was very clear on what she was going to do next. She eyed his right hand.

  Fuck this! he screamed inside his head.

  And then a very strange thing happened. Something clicked inside of him. Later he would describe it as something very mechanical. It felt like a trigger being pulled – that instant where the click is audible and the firing mechanism is actuated. He would debate with himself whether that was the best analogy or whether a throttle mechanism was more accurate. He had driven a 400cc Suzuki dirt bike once when he was younger and almost wrecked it by starting at a slow crawl and then torquing the throttle full on. The acceleration he had unleashed had scared the bejeezus out of him at the same time as it had made him feel wonderfully alive.

  This was something like that. Valves opened up inside his mind and body, and he felt something new flow through him like a jolt of velvety electricity coursing through his veins. His head was no longer ringing from her smacks. His ribs didn’t hurt from her punches. All he felt was invigoration.

  Invigoration and clarity.

  His left hand shot up and grabbed the wrist of Brenna’s knife-wielding hand. Her immediate reaction was to push downward, guessing that Kettle’s goal was to try to keep the blade away from his exposed right hand. Instead he pulled her arm downward, using her momentum to bring the knife down hard and fast. He guided the point of the blade onto the deck just beside his hand. The steel jammed itself into the wood.

  With the blade momentarily out of the way and Brenna temporarily perplexed, he suddenly realized he had an array of options to deal with this woman crouching over him. He chose the most obvious one and used his right hand to punch Brenna full force in the left side of her face.

  The impact of his knuckles on her cheek was hard enough to split the skin open, causing the qarlden to give a loud “Argh!” sound and roll off of Kettle, who immediately used the time to roll away in the opposite direction and spring back onto his feet. He looked at the qarlden and saw blood dripping down her face. She reached up to touch the wound and then looked at the crimson evidence on her fingertips. The qarlden smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. There was real anger in her eyes.

  “He learns,” she said only half-sarcastically.

  Kettle didn’t have time to acknowledge the complement. He was on the move again, retrieving his cutlass from the ground and placing himself into an offensive stance. Best not give her too much time to react. Better to stay on the attack.

  Before he could take action, however, a shout rang out over the ship and interrupted their sparring.

  “Sail on the horizon!”

  2.9 SAELIKO

  The rain had picked up. Saeliko didn’t care, her attention directed elsewhere. She stood on the bow of her ship looking through a spyglass. My ship. Not Janx’s ship. My ship. It was an immensely satisfying thought. Here she was sliding the Epoch through the waves toward an illustrious future while Janx had been reduced to living an animal existence on Butterfly Island with a stump for a hand. Saeliko let herself smile. Sometimes life was luridly delicious.

  “Like what you see, harker?”

  Saeliko lowered the spyglass and saw Brenna standing beside her. The qarlden had mistaken the harker’s thoughts. Saeliko decided to ignore the question.

  “What happened to your face?” she asked instead.

  “Lucky shot,” Brenna grumbled.

  “Which one was it?”

  “Kettle.”

  “Really?”

  “I was about to make him shit his pants before Lakkari called out the sail.”

  “Well, you might see it happen before too long. He’s going to get the fright of his life if we go up against this one.” Saeliko gestured toward the barely visible ship in the distance.

  “May I?”

  “Yes, but keep your reaction to a minimum.” Saeliko handed over the spyglass, which Brenna then used to take a better look at their potential prey. As soon as the qarlden was able to pick out the ship from the waves, she sucked in a breath.

  “Oh.”

  “Exactly.”

  “It’s Maelian,” Brenna said. She was looking at the long, semi-unfurled flag fluttering in the rain atop the distant ship’s mainmast. It revealed the Snow Bear of Laeden bracketed by halberds, the royal crest used by the Empress of Mael. “Any idea which one?”

  “Triumph, I think. Probably making the run from Buckettown down to New Dagos.”

  “Triumph? Didn’t even know she was in the Sollian.”

  “Janx knew,” Saeliko admitted. “Before we went to Meshaltown, Janx told me there were rumors of a big pile of quickspice up in Buckettown. Plus Potter’s Deep has been uncovering new veins of silver in their mines. Apparently the Triumph was diverted from her usual routes to make a run out to the Twins.”

  “How come she never told us about it?” Brenna wondered out loud.

  “Because she was a coward. She was skilled at acquiring valuable information, but she lacked the guts to take advantage.”

  “And we’re going to take advantage?”

  “We put it to a vote,” Saeliko said. “Just like I said we would.”

  The Triumph was a fifty-cannon frigate, which meant she outgunned the Epoch. And it was probably fully crewed up with a complement of near a hundred and thirty or forty sailors. Hard pickings.

  It was also very tempting. The fact that it was traveling southwest was telling. It meant that it had picked up its cargo in the Twins and was heading toward New Dagos before gearing up for the journey out of the Sollian and back to Mael.

  “Shall we call the vote right now?”

  Saeliko nodded. “Get everyone on deck, including Haley and the rest of ‘em.”

  Brenna walked away and started giving orders, leaving Saeliko alone at the bow with her thoughts. She raised the glass again and gazed at the Triumph. Catching up to the distended frigate wouldn’t be a problem. The Epoch was already well to the south of the Triumph and traveling directly west. By maintaining this course, the paths of the two ships would meet like two sides of a triangle coming to a point. She couldn’t have planned it better if she had tried.

  “Excuse me, harker.” This was Lofi. She had taken off her glasses to keep them out of the rain, which had matted down her hair, making the surgeon’s lean, oval face look all the narrower.

  “What is it?”

  “Two of the men from Butterfly Island . . . well . . .”

  “Spit it out.”

  “They’re in rough shape.”

  “Which ones?”

  “The tall, blond, skinny one and the big black one. Their names are Nathan and Curtis. At first, I didn’t make much of it, but Curtis started coughing up some blood a few hours ago.”

  “They’ve been sparring with Jren, right? T
ell her to ease up a bit.”

  “It’s not that,” Lofi said. “I mean, Jren has been smacking them around pretty good, but that’s not the problem.”

  “So?”

  “Black spots are starting to show up on his cheeks.”

  This caught Saeliko’s attention. Coughing up blood could have just been from getting hit in the ribs and stomach, but the black spots were worth worrying about it. They signalled the onset of sickness. The only thing more dangerous to a crew of pirates than cannon fire and sea squalls was a contagious disease.

  “Looks like Qomari Tears,” Lofi added.

  “Keep your voice down,” the Saffisheen harker ordered. Nothing good would come of the crew learning about a potentially life-threatening condition on the Epoch. Qomari Tears was one of the nastier afflictions that sailors could pick up. No one knew what caused it, but the repercussions were well documented. The disease basically ate away at your insides until you dropped dead. A painful way to go.

  “Where are they now?”

  “In the brig.”

  “Lock it.”

  “Aye.”

  “And then check the others for symptoms, but do it quietly.”

  “Aye, Harker.” Lofi started to leave, but Saeliko grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back.

  “Lofi,” she said in a hushed voice. “When was the last time you’ve heard of anyone coming down with Qomari Tears?”

  “Not in the last twenty or thirty years, maybe.”

  “And no known cures, right?”

  “Aye. There’s nothing that can stop it. You know, Harker, it might be best to just kill them now and give their bodies to the sharks.”

  “I would if the circumstances were different,” Saeliko admitted. “But we already agreed that killing them might run counter to whatever the Five have planned for them.”

  “There might be another way.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’re not that far from the Twins. We could just drop off the sick ones on the coast somewhere and be done with them. Surely the Five wouldn’t mind.”

  Saeliko considered it. It wasn’t a bad idea. “I’ll think it over,” she said and turned back toward the Maelian ship on the rainy horizon. Lofi’s receding footsteps signalled her departure, leaving the harker alone with her thoughts again.

  The crew had gathered on the main deck. Saeliko eventually left the bow and moved through the masses, stopping here and there to slap women on the back and make a few joking comments about how they looked like scroungy rodents with their hair wet from the rain. She then mounted the stairs to the quarterdeck and took her position at the railing looking over the main deck.

  “All right, sistren. This is where life gets interesting.” The crew had gone silent, all of them listening to their harker speak. Saeliko could hear the rain pitter-pattering against the wood and canvas of the Epoch. She could also see five of the Butterfly Island additions – Haley, Kettle, Dallas, Soup and Tyler. Soup still had bandages on his arm and leg where she had stuck knives in him. Presumably Haley and Kettle would translate the harker’s words. Since they were a part of the crew, they would be allowed to vote just like everyone else.

  “There’s a ship out there,” Saeliko continued. “And it’s sailing for New Dagos. It’s called the Triumph.”

  This set off a ripple of comments and murmuring. Some of the women had obviously heard of the ship before. Others hadn’t.

  “I won’t lie to you. The Triumph is no pleasure raft with milksop aristocrats out on a fishing trip. This is a big, murderous whore of a ship with fifty guns and a hard crew. She’s a merchant ship, but unlike most merchants, she ain’t got many soft spots for us to tickle with our cannons.”

  “And you want to send us against her,” Deshi called out. It wasn’t a question. Saeliko already knew that Deshi would be voting against the plan. The trick from here on in was to make sure that the ornery shipwarden wouldn’t be able to persuade too many others to doubt their harker.

  “Aye, I want to take her,” Saeliko said, looking at the rest of the crew rather than Deshi. “So should all of you, and I’ll tell you why. This is a rare opportunity, an opportunity that Janx would have run from like a craven dog with its tail tucked between its legs. And that’s why most of you are in debt to the Epoch. That’s why most of you have to borrow coin to get something to eat every time we go ashore. That’s why you can barely afford the rentboys in Meshaltown and you can’t even get in the door of the brothels in New Dagos. And that’s why the Epoch has naught more than a couple of coins left to rub together on the entire ship.

  “We take the Triumph and we change all that in a single day’s work. With the wealth packed in that ship’s hold, you go from paupers to rich women. Remember, you’re no longer under Janx’s tyranny. You’re no longer in the greedy hands of the government of the Concord of Mael, sucking away at your earnings like a leech. You’re pirates, and you take a pirate’s share of the loot.

  “Now if that isn’t motivation enough for you, my sistren and brethren, let me explain to you exactly what that ship out there represents. The Triumph isn’t just a prize, and it’s not just a path to riches. Oh, it is those things, but it’s a lot more to be sure. That fifty-gun frigate out there is a symbol of our past. It is a symbol of a time in our lives when the government of Mael convinced us, nay, deceived us into thinking that they spoke for our interests. That they deserved our fealty and our praise. That they had earned our servitude, our willingness to live off of meager scraps while they drank out of crystal chalices and dined off of silver plates.

  “Under Janx, you were slaves to the Epoch and slaves to Mael. Now you are free women and men with a chance to strike a powerful blow against those who had made you slaves in the beginning.”

  “Either that or it represents a quick way to die,” Deshi remarked snidely. Her comment produced an instant tension that permeated across the Epoch, reflected in a heavy silence interjected only by the occasional squawks of the few Sollian gulls still remaining to brave the rain. Half the crew had its eyes on Deshi, the other half on Saeliko.

  “Deshi’s right,” Saeliko announced. Her admission earned confused glances. “You’re absolutely right,” she said directly to the old shipwarden. “If we don’t do this the right way, or if we lose our mettle half way in, we could all end up dead. If we had a full crew of two hundred and a set of mortar guns on the deck, this assault would go a whole lot easier. But we don’t. If we had a dozen more swivel guns mounted to the rails, we’d be able to pummel them hard and soften ‘em up before clambering onto their deck. But we don’t.” Saeliko was pacing back and forth on the quarterdeck now, keeping her watch on the crew all the while. “Life is full of excuses when one focuses on all the advantages they don’t have.”

  She stopped suddenly and let loose a grin. “But we do have something.”

  “What’s that, Harker?” Brenna asked.

  “That.” Saeliko was pointing up to the top of the mainmast. “We’ve got the Snow Bear of Laeden.” It wasn’t an overly stirring sight. On a clear, windy day, the royal banner streamed out gracefully from the top of the mainmast and gave the entire ship a somewhat impressive air of elegance. Today it hung rather limply in the rain.

  Back on Butterfly Island, she had convinced the crew to raise the red. This was both a literal and metaphorical expression that represented the act of casting off whatever ties a ship had to legal employment in favor of becoming a pirate vessel. The Epoch had only been able to achieve this with respect to the metaphor for the simple reason that within the entire inventory of the Epoch, there was not one single bit of red cloth other than a few used items of clothing in the rag chest.

  This would be rectified once they got to Myffa’s Cove where there were no doubt shops that in fact specialized in making red banners with customized symbols – animal heads, weapons, spirits, crests and the like – to cater to the pirate community. Nevertheless, since it was bad luck to sail without a banner, the Epoch
was at present flying the same old Snow Bear of Laeden that had graced its mainmast prior to the mutiny.

  “The Triumph doesn’t know we’ve raised the red,” Saeliko told them. “New Dagos doesn’t know. The Concord of Mael doesn’t know. The only two people who do know are on Butterfly Island. And given that they are running short a couple hands, I doubt they’ve been able to flap their arms and fly back to New Dagos.”

  “What’s your plan?” Deshi yelled out. It wasn’t a cynical question either. The shipwarden was curious, which pleased Saeliko.

  “Simple,” she said. “Our best chance to take down the Triumph is to get close enough to board her without being torn to shreds by her cannons. The Bear lets us do just that. We’re a privateer vessel operating under orders from the governess of New Dagos, an honorable representative of the good government of the Concord of Mael. We signal the Triumph for a harkers’ meeting, and we make ourselves look as non-threatening as possible. Our cannon ports will remain closed, and the majority of you lot will remain below decks until I give the signal.”

  “Risky,” Deshi concluded, but she evidently had nothing else to say on the matter.

  “Aye, risky,” Brenna agreed. “But I’d sure as the holy fucking Five like to see what’s in the hold of that there ship.”

  Jren piped up and buttressed Brenna’s enthusiasm with her own. “And I’d love to see the faces in the Banana in Myffa’s Cove when I give ‘em a sack o’ coin and ask for their finest wine and five rentboys.” A few rain-soaked hurrahs rang out, and Brenna patted Jren on the back.

  “Sistren, we put it to a vote,” Saeliko cut in. She wanted to speed up the process while they were focused on the potential reward rather than the danger. There was no doubt some of them would die in an attack on the Triumph, even if everything did go according to plan. On the one hand, these women and men wouldn’t have signed up for service on the Epoch if they hadn’t been willing to risk life and limb to make a living, just as they wouldn’t have conceded to raising the red if they had been completely adverse to the idea of swinging a cutlass and firing a pistol from time to time.