Phoenix Rising

by Bryony Pearce

  “Move it, we have salvage!”

  Bringing the Phoenix to a stop was no simple task. Barnaby Ford had built her to forge through the junk-filled sea. If she lost momentum there was a chance she’d be trapped in near-solid waste, unable to move.

  After half a dozen missions had left her wallowing as easy prey for the various Navies who sought control of Captain Ford and the Phoenix, he had dry-docked her once more and devised a system for salvaging junk that did not involve weighing anchor at all.

  Each crew member now had specific duties during a salvage mission – back-breaking tasks, which meant that if a mission was called unnecessarily they could get pretty resentful. The last mistake had old Arnav eating alone for a week.

  Swinging to a stop Toby muttered under his breath, “It’s good.”

  Polly fluttered back on to his shoulder and nuzzled his ear. “I’d have called it myself if I wasn’t a parrot.”

  Toby smiled. “I’d like to see their faces if you did. Even after all this time, they still think you’re an ordinary bird.”

  Toby dropped to the deck with a thud that vibrated through his ankle bones. He tossed the rope away and made for the sternward hatch that would lead him down past the galley towards the boiler room.

  “Divert power to the pumps, Toby,” the captain yelled, as though Toby hadn’t done the job dozens of times. “Slow this old girl down.”

  Toby waved acknowledgement of the order and ducked beneath a swinging canopy made of plastic chair backs. He spared a look upwards. Arnav was already shinnying towards the crow’s nest, his crooked toes confident on the rigging despite his age, his bow legs and the twisting of his weakened wrists.

  Coming towards him down the passageway, Big Pad was leading twelve of the strongest pirates. “All right, lad. Reckon you’ve spotted real treasure this time?” He jogged past Toby, already wrapping his hands with hessian in preparation for turning the winding gear that would open the hull. Each of the four windlasses required three men to operate them.

  Most of the other crewmen were heading in the same direction, towards the bow, and now Toby had to fight against the tide.

  “I reckon you called salvage ’cause yer bored.” Crocker barged Toby with his shoulder. “No thought for those of us gotta do the actual work.”

  “Be silent, Crocker.” Amit slid in front of Toby. “Ignore him, Toby, he has a gaand main keera.”

  “A bug up his—” Amit’s teeth glinted as Ajay, his twin, translated. “Get to the wreck room, Crocker, we have a pump to prime.”

  “Let Toby through, you fools. You can’t do your jobs till he does his.” Dee was perching on top of the deck housing, sunlight shining on the dozen rings dangling from her right ear. Dee waved, then jumped down and started to herd her team of seven towards the hooks that would be used to grab and steer the salvage.

  The crew parted in the passageway, forming a human tunnel towards the boiler-room hatch. Toby ran, ignoring the gob of phlegm that Crocker hocked after him.

  When he arrived at the hatch, Toby took a last breath of fresh air, spun the wheel, pulled the door open and jumped inside. He shot one hand out to catch the top of the ladder, his feet curved for the rungs and with barely a jolt he was climbing downwards.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Polly muttered.

  Toby grinned. He was one floor nearer to the boiler room and on the same level as the captain’s ward room and the galley. He hopped from the ladder and looked along the passageway, checking it was empty before he ran full tilt.

  The passage was empty – the whole crew, fifty in total, were on salvage duty. Feet echoing in the hollow silence, Toby raced towards the second ladder, slipped the arches of his feet around the outside and slid down.

  On his shoulder Polly spread her wings and slowed him enough that his toes touched down almost gently. She nipped his ear and flew down the passageway ahead of him. Toby sprinted after her.

  TWO

  The heat inside the boiler room hit Toby the moment he entered. Air from the huge forced-draught fans hammered at his face and he groped for the goggles that hung by the door.

  Back on his shoulder, Polly hunched and muttered crossly as superheated steam whistled through the supply pipes and soot billowed out, settling on everything in sight. The boiler room was filled with the remains of old kitchens, desks, chairs – anything remotely flammable that Simeon, Theo and the others dragged from the salt to feed the combustion chamber – and it was all black.

  It still amazed Toby that valuable combustibles had once been considered worthless. They had been tossed into the vast, floating rubbish dumps that broke apart when the supervolcano eruption triggered a chain of tsunamis and polluted the whole sea. Not that anyone cared about the sea, when the sun had vanished.

  “It’s not that bad, Polly, stop whining.” Toby tightened his goggles and focused on the boiler that had been repurposed by Captain Ford to run on burning junk.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Polly squawked, outraged.

  Toby responded to Polly’s scandalized sputter with a smile but, as he checked the feed water level, it vanished. “Look at the water level, Pol. The gauge glass is only half full.” Toby cocked his head as he listened to the chug of the boiler drum. “What do you think Harry was doing down here while it was my turn up in the crow’s nest? Having a kip, probably.”

  “He’s got a lazy streak. I’ll mention it to the captain next time I’m uploading his log.” Polly hopped from Toby’s shoulder to her perch above the attemperator.

  The main job of the boiler was to make high-pressure steam that could then be used to power the paddles, heat the oven, operate the pumps and cutters in the wreck room and warm the ship. The steam from the boiler travelled through the coils of a superheater, which dried it out. The attemperator was used to make sure the dry steam remained at the right temperature and Polly preferred to roost above it, where she was sheltered from the fans.

  Below Polly the attemperator was quietly ticking.

  “You hear that, Pol?”

  “Can’t hear anything above the banging and clanking – infernal racket.” Still she tilted her head.

  The attemperator’s sound was a sour note in the boiler’s usual melody. Toby ran his eye over the gauges. Everything seemed all right. Pulling his spanner from his tool belt, Toby tightened two bolts and listened again. The ticking had quietened.

  “That’s better.” Polly nodded. “Good ears.”

  Toby tucked his screwdriver under his arm as Polly pointed a claw towards the control panel.

  “You’d better divert the power from the turbines—”

  “To the pumps, I know.” Like a pianist Toby ran his fingers over the control board.

  He could feel the Phoenix ploughing forward, getting closer to the plane. If he didn’t stop her turbines, the paddles would keep turning at full speed and they would batter through the salvage like a wrecking ball. Toby shuddered at the thought and began to flick switches.

  Once the wings that formed the ribs of the hull were winched open and the sea was churning into the Phoenix, the pumps would need power to get the water out of the wreck room again and stop the ship from sinking.

  Toby’s shoulders strained as he pulled the lever.

  “Done.”

  He leaned his forehead against the soot-blackened wall and felt the paddles grow sluggish, only moving now with their own slowing momentum. As the Phoenix started to rise and fall in time with the flotsam on the sea, Toby allowed the relative quiet to seep into his bones. For a moment, even Polly was still. Then he pressed his fingers against the hull as if he could see through it.

  “Were we in time?”

  Polly’s claws clicked on the pipework. “We’d hear if not. The captain would call down.” She indicated the comms tube.

  Toby nodded. Each silenced paddle told the crew that the pumps would be operational when the hull opened; it was their signal to start working. Sure enough, above the whistle of the steam
racing to the turbines, the sounds of the salvage mission drifted through the vents. Toby could hear the banging of Uma’s drum as she kept time, making Big Pad’s team turn the windlasses beyond screaming muscles, bleeding palms and torn calluses. He felt the tortured grinding as the hull spread open. Then the shouts of the hookmen rang out as they fought to catch the plane.

  Toby turned, eyes right, as burnt-orange seawater rose above the level of his small porthole: the Phoenix was getting heavier as the wreck room filled. He pressed his hands against the hull, feeling for the irregular hum as Amit and Ajay pumped madly to fight the incoming tidal wave.

  Polly glided from her roost. “We’d better move it, if you want to see the salvage come in.”

  Toby burst from the hatch and on to the gangway.

  Amidships was empty and the Phoenix felt full of ghosts, so Toby sped towards the action at the bow. The Phoenix bucked beneath him, fighting incoming water, but Toby’s feet remained fixed to the gangway, his toes secure.

  He vaulted on to the rail surrounding the bridge for the best possible view. The captain waved him off as he strained to see past the steerage, so Toby swung from the rail and ducked below the mast.

  “Dee, can I help the hookmen?”

  “Not now, Tobes.” Dee’s long curls had escaped from her scarf. She ground her teeth as she used her hook to manoeuvre the plane towards the Phoenix’s open hull.

  “You can help here, my boy.” In front of the hookmen, Uma’s team slumped over the windlasses. Job done for the moment, they had to regain their strength for when the hull needed closing again. Uma handed Toby a packet of two-year-old beef jerky. “Hand this out and don’t let that parrot get hold of any.”

  “She doesn’t eat meat.”

  Polly ruffled her feathers and glared at Uma as she walked between the men, distributing cups of filtered water and patting shoulders with a motherly air. The ship’s doctor looked like a cuddly matron, but a club dangled at her waist and beneath her soft exterior she was all muscle and old scars, as hardened as any of the pirates on board.

  Toby followed her, pressing jerky into work-scarred hands. All the time he strained to see the plane, but it was out of his line of sight.

  “All right, lad? Come to see your salvage?” Big Pad smiled tiredly around a mouthful of beef. “Can’t hardly see you, though.” He gestured to his face and Toby rubbed his cheeks, thinking Paddy was talking about the soot that covered him. Only then did he realize that he was still wearing his goggles. He pushed them on to his head, pulling his hair back from his face as he did so.

  “Better.” Big Pad stretched his shoulders with a crack. “It’s going to be good salvage today, lad, I can feel it. Don’t much like the look of that weather though.”

  “What weather?” Toby hopped to grab some rigging and leaned out. In front of him the hookmen were guiding the plane smoothly towards the open hull. The sky ahead was as blue as Polly’s wing feathers. He turned to ask what Big Pad meant and blinked. The grey line Polly had pointed out earlier was now a thick band across the heavens. The Irishman was right; there was going to be a storm.

  Toby’s mind raced as he measured the distance. “It’s a while off yet. I’ll have the paddles running ages before the front reaches us.”

  Big Pad nodded. “You’ll see us right, lad.”

  Toby was about to vault back on to the deck when he spotted waves breaking over something vast; a shadow that was moving with the current towards his plane.

  “There’s something under the water. Something big.” Toby pointed. “There.”

  Polly stretched her wings for balance as she leaned to look. Then her eyes widened. “Big rig! Big rig!” she cried.

  “Ashes,” Toby breathed. She was right – the submerged cab had been knocked aside by the opening hull. Now it was being pulled towards the trapped plane, on course to hit Toby’s salvage. If the hookmen didn’t let the plane go, they might be dragged overboard when it hit.

  His eyes flicked to the straining team. “Dee, there’s a rig down there – it’s going to take out the plane. Let it go or we’ll lose it altogether! We can pick it up again once the lorry’s gone past.”

  “Are you sure?” Paddy bounded to his feet.

  Toby pointed as a breaker surged and the submerged lorry rose to the surface. Rust and a few remaining streaks of green paint made it look as if the sea bed was rising up to defy them. Now the rig was free of the pull of the open hull, it was speeding towards the plane.

  Paddy gasped, then spun towards the hookmen. “Dee! Listen to Toby, release the plane.”

  “Hooks off,” Dee shouted.

  Her men groaned, but released the salvage without demanding an explanation.

  Toby held his breath as the plane bobbed free and began to move away from the Phoenix. It was no longer trapped, but it was still in the path of the oncoming lorry.

  Dee leaned over the side, tracking the rig, and she and Toby yelled in unison as it drove into the plane like a sledgehammer. The plane screamed with a sound of metallic distress and Toby’s grip tightened on the rigging as one wing sheared off altogether. Surf covered the wing and the current took it swiftly out of sight along with the big rig, which had done its damage and was now sinking back to the seabed.

  “Damn it.” Dee’s hair flew across her face and her red scarf blew from her head.

  It fluttered out across the junk that clogged the sea and as Toby traced its path, his eyes widened. In defiance of the current, the plane was now heading back towards the Phoenix.

  “Dee, get away from there!” He swung down from his perch, grabbed Dee around her waist and dragged her from the railing just as the plane slammed straight into the hull in the gap between the paddle cage and the bilges. The noise was like a bomb going off.

  The pirates were knocked from their feet.

  “Ashes, Dee, you nearly went overboard.” Still shuddering from the impact, Toby tried to jump to his feet, but Dee pulled him into a tight embrace.

  “Thank you,” she gasped.

  Toby felt her trembling and the fact that she had almost died hit him in a wave. Without Dee, the Phoenix would be a totally different ship. She’d been there right from the beginning and was at the centre of all he knew. Dee was the one who had persuaded the captain to let him work in the boiler room. He tightened his arms around her.

  “It’s OK – I’m fine.”

  Toby nodded. He could feel the crew’s eyes on them. He jumped to his feet and offered Dee his hand, but she shook her head and pushed herself to her knees.

  Marcus ran to her side. “That was close.”

  Dee waved him away. “I’m fine, thanks to Toby. Where’s the plane? Is it still worth bringing in?”

  “Worth bringing in? Of course it’s worth bringing in.”

  Around Toby, other crew members who had been knocked down were getting back on their feet. Captain Ford stood above them. His fists were planted on his hips. His cheeks, as far as they could be seen above his grey-speckled beard, were flushed scarlet and his eyes, the same blue as Toby’s, flashed. A brass compass swung from a leather strap around his neck.

  The deck shuddered as he jumped to land beside them, boots crashing into the gangway.

  “We’re not losing this salvage now. Bloody well done for spotting that rig, son.” Barnaby slapped Toby on the back.

  He caught his father’s scent of sun-baked leather and the fish oil that he used to clean his tools.

  “Hookmen, back to your places.” He leaned over the gunwale to judge the placement of the plane. “Toby, we need to reverse if we want to catch that plane. Get some power back to those paddles.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Toby ran for the hatch. If there was a chance the plane could be salvaged, he wasn’t going to miss it. He raced ahead, skidding dangerously on the spray-slickened metal. Polly flew after him, gulls called overhead, and the storm drew closer.

  THREE

  Toby hit the boiler-room door like a tornado, already
pulling his goggles over his eyes. As soon as his heart stopped pounding, his ears caught a strange sound.

  “Something’s changed.” Toby pulled his screwdriver from his tool belt and stalked around the boiler.

  The captain’s voice echoed from the speaking tube. “Why aren’t we reversing?”

  Toby hesitated, his eyes narrowed. Over the whine of the turbines, he made out a gentle hissing, like a trapped snake.

  “Toby, what is it?” asked Polly.

  He spun back to the boiler and tapped the water-level gauge. “Water’s adequate and operational pressure is fine. When did I test the feed water for impurities?”

  “Twenty-six hours ago.” Polly’s claws clicked on the floor as she followed him. “You injected the chemicals, it should still be balanced.”

  Toby scrubbed furiously at the salt drying on his cheeks. “I can’t see anything wrong. Can you?”

  Polly flew to her roost. “Nothing appears out of order.”

  “Something’s not right; I can hear it hissing. Ashes, we haven’t got time for this.”

  “Toby, we’re going to lose the salvage.” The captain’s tone was urgent.

  “We’re not losing that plane, not after everything.” Shoving his worries to the back of his mind, Toby closed his ears to the distressing sound and reached for the lever that would send the paddles into reverse.

  Polly bobbed up and down. “If you say there’s something wrong with the boiler, then there’s something wrong with it.”

  “It’ll have to wait.” Toby closed his hand around the warm metal and moved the lever one notch. Immediately he heard the whistle of four-hundred-degree steam rushing along delivery lines that were usually only opened when manoeuvring the Phoenix into dock.

  He licked his lips. He hadn’t pinned down the source of the hissing, but the boiler seemed to be running with no problems. The Phoenix bumped in the water as the paddles came back online and then, torturously slowly, she began to reverse.

  Toby fidgeted as he timed her, thirty seconds … forty.