by Tammy Salyer
“What are you going to do?” he asked simply.
Jaemus thought a moment, then waved his stone back to him and pocketed it, not liking the slight pressure of it against his leg. He’d been so intrigued by the things when he’d first seen Ulfric use them, but a single one was next to useless for any purpose other than the violent kind. He decided it would remain in his pocket until he forgot about it or he had more of them, enough to put to uses that didn’t require someone else getting hurt.
Stepping to the spark engineer, he said, “Let’s go and see your ship.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jaemus locked the spark engineer inside the cargo closet of his small Glisternaut ship, no bigger than his own Octopod had been, and took a seat at the ship’s controls. Now, staring vacantly out into the wide, newly incandescent world, he tried to think. If Cote and the other star-jumping Glisternauts had truly turned on him, it would be his lone venture to, not to put too fine a point on it, steal their ships and jump them into the fray in Vinnr. There, he’d have to put the Magdastervians to work re-rigging the ships’ power systems, rather than have the well-trained Glisternauts here to do it. Every Glisternaut was an engineer on some level (from Wick, to Spark, to Glint—his own rank), which would have made the retrofit easy if they were doing the work. The Magdastervians were no doubt diligent builders and designers of their own devices, but it was going to be one of his life’s greatest challenges to teach them the mechanics of Glisternaut ships and simultaneously run a crew of them efficiently. And it wasn’t as if he had a great deal of time to do it, either.
He sighed at the daunting task that lay ahead and tried to ignore the distraction that had become Himmingaze, now spread across the horizon outside the ship’s windows. This was his home as he’d never seen, as he’d hardly even imagined it. Everything shone so brightly his eyes hurt. There was a sun somewhere above, but he sensed it would be a while before his eyes were conditioned enough to the horizon’s effulgence to seek it out. He’d forgotten the star’s old name—if he’d ever known it. It had hardly seemed important to a world that was locked inside an impenetrable Glister Cloud of dust and gas. Once all this was done, he promised himself he’d dedicate himself once more to both advancing his home world and to finding out what lay beyond it.
No time to linger, he finally told himself. Safran and Stave had taken the lead in organizing the parts he’d requested to modify the Glisternaut ships. They would begin delivering them before night fell in Vinnr, he expected. If he jumped back there now to tell them not to bring the parts here, he’d just be wasting time. His plan was to lure the Glisternaut fleet to Isle Stonering, then jump the whole lot of them back to Vinnr at once. Picking up the delivered parts on the way would be easy enough.
“Let’s see what we have here,” he said to himself as he perused the little ship’s operations controls. “Ah. Power—thrusters—lift. Up we go!” As he spoke, he brought all the little ship’s systems online, and a moment later, they jolted upward and out over the Never Sea. He had them cruising toward Vann, his home city and the fleet’s main port, in no time.
Before Isle Stonering had disappeared behind them, a shape began materializing on the horizon ahead, a dark spot in the prevailing whiteness. At first, he thought it was an afterimage from all the blinking he was doing at the unusually bright sky, but instead of fading as he focused, the shape was growing increasingly sharper.
He sat up straight in the pilot’s seat. No, it was not an effect of light. That was a Glisternaut ship, and it was coming straight toward him.
Over his shoulder, he called, “Were you expecting some company you forgot to mention, Spark?”
“I didn’t forget to mention them. I just didn’t.”
Jaemus grumbled.
The craft he was flying was a basic transit hop for getting from one hovering Himmingazian city to another. Nothing flashy or, of more immediate note, speedy about it. Jaemus’s piloting expertise might get him launched from Isle Stonering with no problems, but he’d never outrun the approaching ship.
“By the way, they already know you’re here. I called Commander Illago right after your, er, arrival,” the spark called.
Slag it! he thought, finding Stave’s crude reactionary language to be perfectly suited to the moment. Then he realized what the spark had said. “That’s Cote’s ship?”
“I contacted the commander himself. Maybe you should let me out of the closet now, before they add ‘menacing and harassment of a Glisternaut crew member’ to the list of charges you’re already facing.”
But Jaemus had stopped listening to him. Swinging the pilot’s seat toward the wave-speaker, he hailed the incoming ship. “This is Jae—rather, this is the Glisternaut ship Council’s Crest coming from Isle Stonering. I see you ahead. Please have Captain Illago come to the wave-speaker right away.”
“Sorry, Council’s Crest, this is Flight Leader Drustim, captain of the Deep Sea Gem. We intercepted your transmission to Captain Illago and the Glistering Horizon a short time ago. We’re in closer range than the captain, so we came immediately.” The flight leader paused, then came back on and said conspiratorially, “Is it true? You captured the renegade heretic?”
Jaemus’s shoulders drooped. No thank you. This wasn’t what he was planning at all. He did not want an entourage as he approached Vann. He simply needed time to sneak into the docks, slip aboard the nearest cosmocruiser unnoticed (fancying that his newly acquired celestial gifts conferred an automatic excellence at the finer covert crafts he would be able to draw from), and abscond with it and as many others as he could remote pilot to the island. And if that failed, he’d simply send them from Vann to Vinnr via starpath. No fuss, no muss—at least not until he had to explain to any who might have been aboard when they were sent across the stars how they happened to be in a very new, very unfamiliar world. But that was an issue he was willing, no, happy to ignore for the time being.
Enabling a few settings on the control console, he readied the ship to give its all in an attempt to outfly the Deep Sea Gem and this Flight Leader Drustim. Hopefully, they would be too stunned by his sudden rush away to muster a rapid pursuit. He’d lose them over the open water, then circle back to Vann.
From the hold’s closet came: “Glint Engineer! What are you—”
“Shush!” he said. “I’m getting us out of here and don’t need any distractions at the moment. I’ll get back to you when I’m done.”
“But—”
“Silence! I command you!” he cried, feeling foolish for his faked authority, but he had to get going and didn’t have time for pleasantness. It seemed to work for now.
The Glisternaut’s question, apparently a popular one, was repeated via wave-speaker. “Spark Engineer Saxton, what are you doing?”
Jaemus turned down the volume and accelerated, enjoying the smooth ride of the ship in a way he hadn’t realized he’d missed. He was a man born to water and air, not the hard earth of Vinnr, and they would always feel right to him.
“Glint Engineer!” said his captive. “If you go much further, we’ll be stranded!”
Saxton’s voice sounded more concerned than angry, and the unexpected tone pushed itself to Jaemus’s ear. Stranded? As in stopped cold and stuck in the Never Sea? That was impossible. Glisternaut ships could fly forever as long as they were amply fueled with—
“Water and lightning,” he cursed. “How could I be so stupid? No Glister Cloud storm, no lightning—no power reserves!” Glisternaut ships were designed to run on the two most common resources in the realm: seawater and storm lightning. Without both, the ships were just metal bubbles of air, with unfortunate Himmingazians stuck inside.
As if to confirm what he only just realized, the craft’s control panel sent him a friendly, quiet little message. Ping. In his mind, it sounded like, Hey dimwit, you realize you’re running on fumes. Shoot me with some Glister juice now, or I’m going down and taking you with me.
Overhead, the craft pursuing the
m shot by, but not before Jaemus saw it begin to slow. They’d spotted him.
As the Council’s Crest settled into the mild waves, staying afloat for now, the spark called out again. “Are we out of power?”
“That seems to be the case.”
“You should have listened to me!”
His unwilling passenger was silent after that. As Jaemus pondered what to do next, the shadow of their pursuer returned.
The Deep Sea Gem was much larger, equal to a couple dozen of the spark’s small transport craft. It came to a hover overhead, and Jaemus rose to collect the only onboard weapons: a shelksie. He didn’t want to use it, but he had already grown so averse to using his klinkí stone that the stun weapon was his default choice of tool in case he had to act forcefully. They’d send down a rescue soon to fish him and the spark from the water. And from there, he’d simply have to hijack the bigger ship. “Simply” being the word he was not yet sure how to define.
That was when the Crest began to sink. Double slag it! he thought. What else could go wrong?
More concerned about what might be drawn to the disturbance in the water outside than being stuck in a sinking craft, Jaemus dithered momentarily. His plans of surprising the Gem crew who came to get them had relied on them not knowing he was currently free and actually in charge of the ship. But a floundering man that has been forced to abandon ship was hardly in a position to surprise anyone, much less gain the upper hand. He would just be a sitting duck, waiting to get constrained once he and the spark engineer left the craft and waved for a rescue.
Nothing is easy when there are rules to break and worlds to save, is it? he thought grumpily, and released his captive from the storage closet. To Saxton, he said, “As you can tell, we’re sinking. It’s going to be a long swim to the surface, but look on the bright side: you’ve caught the most wanted heretic of Himmingaze’s history.”
The spark engineer looked unimpressed. “And lost my ship.”
“Yes, I do apologize for that. I failed to foresee the current power issue. You would understand my lapse if you knew the kinds of things I’ve been dealing with lately. We should probably go.” He pointed toward the hatch.
Saxton’s face betrayed his growing frustration with the day as he grabbed the hatch release and gave it a firm pull. He grunted when it refused to budge, then pulled harder. Then harder still until the light green of his features began to darken with effort.
“Let me help,” Jaemus said, wondering if he might be able to muster some celestial-powered might he didn’t know about. Taking a grip beside the spark’s hands, he helped pull, the two giving it everything in them. To no avail.
“Jammed,” Jaemus grumbled just as the quietest whisper of what could only be water leaking into the hull sounded from somewhere. “This really isn’t how I saw this day going at all.”
“They’re not going to be able to retrieve us if we sink too far,” the spark said with an unmissable hint of accusation in his tone.
Jaemus stepped away from the hull and thought a moment. He’d seen Ulfric once use a klinkí stone to melt through a cell-door lock. On reflection, though, he didn’t think that would do them any good. He’d simply create one more hole for water to splash in, and they’d still be stuck inside.
However, the windows would crack to pieces if he put enough holes in them. “Come with me,” he told Saxton. “But wait by the cockpit door. I don’t want you to be harmed.”
Jaemus entered the pilot’s space, leaving Saxton behind him, and pulled the stone from his pocket. He wasn’t worried the spark would try to overpower him or something else as heroic. Once Saxton’s eyes caught the stone, he seemed most content to wait where Jaemus suggested, thoroughly distrusting of the wystic object’s abilities.
With one arm raised to cover his face should the front window do more than crack, Jaemus focused on the klinkí stone and drove it with the full weight of his thoughts into the transparent glass-like material.
He’d misjudged just how forceful he could be. The stone shot through the window and kept going into the thoroughly dark waters outside. They’d descended so far that no more light pierced through.
“Oops,” he said, trying to maintain a modicum of calm. He hadn’t attempted to use the stone without having it in his sight before. Now, the real test was whether he’d be able to retrieve it. With eyes closed, as water rapidly filled the small cabin, he called to the stone with his most commanding mental voice.
There was a sharp crack, and he opened his eyes. The stone had responded. Another hole, barely larger than his thumb, had joined the first about two feet away, and between them branched a deep and still-growing crack.
“Brace yourself,” he called to the spark and rushed from the cabin. The window was going to give any moment.
He was right. With an unexpectedly subdued hssshhhh sound, the window broke apart and the sea rushed in. The next instant, they felt the ship thump gently on the Never Sea’s floor.
Jaemus took hold of the spark’s arms and nodded toward the opening to freedom. He wasn’t exactly urging Saxton to go first, but he was certainly hesitating himself. It was a long swim to the surface, and this was the Never Sea, home to many things with teeth and mouths and the urge to make meals of Himmingazians. Last time he’d gone for a swim—was that only two days ago?—he’d had the protection of Griggory’s wystic stone shield and a slangarook to scare off everything else. Now it was just him, his single stone, and an innocent Glisternaut to protect. He didn’t know how to use the Fenestros or the Scrylle he carried to aid them, unless he wanted to swing it around like a club, which seemed not only unlikely to be of much good but also uncouth.
Maybe learning to use Winter’s Bite would have had its uses, he thought as the two men exited the cabin and began kicking toward the surface with all the strength they had.
He could have used his Mentalios lens to illuminate the darkness, but he didn’t want to waste the energy—and he really didn’t think he’d want to see the great maw of any fleech that came toward him anyway. That was one bit of ugly, horrific fauna he’d seen quite his fill of. They moved nearly as fast as lightning and struck as hard as a lead hammer. He’d know if one had ahold of him without needing to see it, yes indeed.
And then something did strike him.
“Strike” wasn’t the right word. Something tickled one of his feet, and in a single beat of his heart, he knew he was simply dead. No dying, no white light, just dead. Because the fear he felt was far too humongous not to send him into instantaneous heart failure.
Silence your thoughts, Bardgrim, a voice rumbled in his head. You make more noise than a school of tunafish.
Before he could pull himself together, the sensation in his foot spread to his other, then he was being buoyed upward through the water on something solid, hard, and once his fingers brushed it, surprisingly rough. Not a fleech—it felt more like…
At this new voice in his mind, Jaemus’s panic momentarily stilled. Hello? he sent after a moment. When no response came, he added: Hither? Is that you?
Shhh! Your speck voices are like grains of sand rubbing against our eardrums.
Jaemus took a breath, mentally whispered for light from his Mentalios, and took in the sight of the great beast below him, the great beast that had inexplicably arrived and decided to… give him a ride? He didn’t need the Mentalios, however, as they were approaching the surface rapidly. A moment later, he could see both the beast he now sat atop and the body of Saxton held in one of its great claws clearly. The slangarook’s scales were a sheen of blueish-purple that bordered on black, and the many fins along its flanks and the ridging its long undulating tail were the same gossamer thinness of Hither’s. But since this was not Hither, the question of why it was helping them came to mind.
You can—can you speak? This was the first time he’d realized the creatures were not only sentient but conversant, and all of Griggory’s seemingly one-sided conversations with the slangarook that’d become the Creatres
s’s vessel fell into place.
Better than you can think, speck.
Hey, he sent, settling into the mental link. That sounds suspiciously like an insult.
Shall I shake you off and let you discuss with the sea worms how sorely I’ve rubbed your feelings?
Um, no. That is to say, no thank you. And also I suppose another kind of thank-you is in order. Why exactly are you helping me?
Lífs sent us. Now shh! The slangarook shoal is about to dine, and I’ve heard enough of your noise to last my next eons. Hold on.
Hold—? Before he could finish his statement, the creature surfaced so rapidly that his whole body cleared the sea. Jaemus barely had time to grip one of the creature’s great back-swept horns, then they settled and floated atop the water. He rubbed the water from his eyes and immediately came to understand what the creature’s statement regarding the slangarook shoal being about to have dinner meant. In the near distance, the sea was being thrashed to foam by an untold number of creatures embroiled in battle. Occasional slangarook fins broached the choppy waves, and worse, the occasional arch of a fleech’s back could be seen. So the Council’s Crest had created enough disturbance to inspire the fleeches to come searching for a meal. If the ’rooks hadn’t arrived, Jaemus was sure he’d have ended his day as a digestif.
Spark Saxton’s body rose languidly to the surface, face upward, eyes closed. He looked asleep, and Jaemus’s fears renewed. “Is he dead?” he gulped.
That depends. Do specks die of fear?
Er, I’ve never actually seen it happen, but—
He was spared further distress when the spark’s eyes opened suddenly, wide enough to be mistaken for saucers, and he sputtered. The moment he spotted the slangarook, he let out a screech and dove. He got nowhere, though, as the slangarook gave a sudden whip of its long tail and plucked Saxton from his attempted escape in its claw once more. Specks are grossly predictable.
