by Dan Koboldt
“Ship moving to intercept,” he called over his shoulder. He hadn’t marked it when they came in, which meant it came in after they’d arrived. Maybe that was bad luck. Or maybe that was Holt’s plan all along. He knew they were in Valteron. If he guessed why, this wouldn’t be a bad place to set a trap. And we just took the bait. The thought chilled him.
“I see it,” Kiara said. She swung the steering rod over. The hum of the motors didn’t change. They were already at full throttle.
If the other ship beat them to the cliffs, that was it. They couldn’t afford a collision—no amount of high tech could drive a ship through another solid object. It’s going to be close, too. The other ship had a wind advantage, and was already heading at the perfect angle to slide between them and the harbor mouth.
Logan wished he’d reloaded the crossbow. “Mendez, see the man on the tiller?”
“Yeah. Don’t have a good shot, though. Boom’s in the way.”
“Can you put one right next to his head?”
“Absolutely.”
“When I say.”
Mendez nocked an arrow. The wind lulled as the ships and the egress point all got within fifty yards of each other. Then it gusted, and sails went taut.
“Now,” Logan said.
Mendez drew to his cheek, touched his nose to the string, and let out half a breath as he took aim. The bow thrummed. The arrow thunked home, right by the helmsman’s head. The man yelped and threw himself behind the bulkhead. The ship’s bow wandered starboard for two glorious seconds. The sail luffed, losing wind. They fell off twenty yards before someone got hold of the tiller again.
Kiara swung the steering rod again, and the cliffs loomed up to either side. The starboard hull ground against the side, but not enough to slow them.
“Nice shooting, Mendez,” Logan said.
“Learned from the best.” Mendez grinned. “Well, second best, if you count Bradley.”
Logan clutched a hand over his heart. “You wound me.”
The ship glided out of the gap. Moonlight on water had never looked so good. Logan breathed for what felt like the first time in an hour.
“What do you think he’s up to right now?” Mendez asked.
“Who knows? Sleeping in, flirting with pretty girls.”
“So . . . the usual.”
“I hate to break up this amusing conversation,” Kiara said. “But we’re about to be boarded.”
Chapter 39
Loss
“I must again emphasize the importance of long-term strategic thinking for Project Gateway. Impatience serves neither us nor them.”
—R. Holt, “Reevaluating Alissian Assumptions”
When he saw how close the admiral’s ship was, Logan’s heart started pounding in his ears. It couldn’t be more than fifty yards back. And coming fast, too. “How is this possible?”
“The motors only do about fourteen knots. They have the wind advantage.”
Logan saw the other ship’s extra sail then, round and taut with the full wind. Damn. “How long?”
“Thirty seconds.”
He ran up to the cockpit and stashed the contraband backpack at Kiara’s feet. “Keep an eye on this, will you?”
The bow thrummed as Mendez tried a shot at the helmsman. No dice. They knew about the bow, and were keeping behind cover. The ship gained on them. Logan stepped on the crossbow so he could cock it with his good arm.
“Brace yourselves!” Kiara shouted.
The ships collided with a thunder. The deck rocked beneath Logan’s feet. He dropped the crossbow bolt and it rolled away. He grabbed a line to keep from tumbling over. “Can you shake them off?”
“Negative,” Kiara said. “The wind’s pushing them on us.”
The soldiers wanted to mount a boarding party, too. Logan marked six of them. They’d piled up amidships and were already swinging grapples.
Time to take the fight to them.
He drew his sword and vaulted over the rail. He hit the deck running. Two soldiers turned to face him, and if they were surprised, they didn’t show it. He charged the one closest to the rail. His opponent slashed down with a saber. Logan parried and threw a shoulder into him. He fell sprawling into the men behind him, right as they swung back their grappling hooks. They all went down in a tangle of rope and steel.
The second man skirted clear and came at Logan, his sword already slashing. Logan skipped away. But his boot caught something on the deck, and he fell hard against the rail. The impact knocked the wind out of him. He rolled free. The swordsman pounced on him. Thrusting downward. Logan’s muscles wouldn’t respond.
Son of a bitch, I’m going to die at sea.
Steel flashed overhead. The swordsman went down, his neck spraying blood. Mendez again, thank God. But now three foes had found their feet and drawn weapons. They moved to surround him.
Logan tried to get up, but felt like he was moving through Jell-O. A blur shot past him. Chaudri. Her sword caught one man at the knees. He screamed, toppling over. Logan’s legs finally responded. He stumbled along the rail, cutting the grappling lines as he went. A soldier threw another one onto the cog. Why were they still trying to grapple? They’d lost half their number already. They should be clearing the deck.
Unless.
God, let me be wrong.
He looked across the bay to the docks of Valteroni City. Four massive ships glided toward them on moonlit water. Galleons, by the look of them. Twenty or thirty soldiers each. The admiral must have made some kind of distress signal.
Or else it’s always been a trap.
He shook his head. Better not to think about that.
“Sails ho, Lieutenant,” he shouted.
Chaudri was locked in a contest with one soldier. Mendez faced two. Logan ran over to help. He tried to get the drop on the closest one, but the man jumped aside as he swung his sword. He slashed back, quick as a viper. The blade raked across Logan’s chest. Jesus, he’s fast. He retreated the way he’d come. He stumbled again, flailing his arms.
The swordsman snarled and jumped forward, slashing downward.
Hook, line, and sinker. Logan planted his feet and sidestepped. The soldier’s sword found the deck. Logan chopped downward, and his blade severed the man’s hands off at the wrist.
He groaned, and crumpled to the deck.
“I want everyone back on board!” Kiara ordered over the comms.
Logan slid between Chaudri and her opponent. “You heard the lieutenant.”
She turned and cut the last of the grappling lines. The ships shuddered, and began to slide apart.
“Fall back!” Logan shouted.
Mendez tangled up the spear of his opponent in some of the rigging. He turned and ran toward Logan.
“Go, go!” Logan shouted.
Mendez sped up and vaulted over the rail.
Logan spun his sword and started cutting halyards. Canvas tumbled down on the deck, fouling up the opponents. “Chaudri!”
“Right behind you!” She cut the last grappling line. The deck lurched as the ships broke free.
Logan had a longer jump. By the time he climbed the rail, it was about six feet. I can make that.
This time his boots just missed the deck. He threw his arms over the rail to keep from falling. The rest of his body slammed against the hull. His bruised arm was agony.
“Hang on, Logan!” Chaudri had made it back. She worked her way along the rail toward him.
Kiara threw the tiller over, and the other ship wheeled away.
“S’OK.” He ground his teeth and tried to get a foot up. He almost lost his grip. Jesus. Maybe not so OK.
Chaudri helped him get a foot on the deck. Mendez appeared, put him in a bear hug, and heaved him bodily over the rail. They ended up in a pile on deck. Chaudri laughed, and started to climb over the rail herself, but then something metallic clattered onto the deck. A grappling hook.
“Watch it!” Logan scrambled away and dragged Mendez clear.
The rope went taut. The hook shot back toward the rail. Chaudri grunted as it hit her. The hidden armor kept the point from skewering her, but the force of it ripped her away from the rail half a second before Logan and Mendez reached her. She tumbled into the water, flailing against the drag of the rope.
“Veena!” Mendez shouted.
Logan cursed. “Man overboard!”
“Hang tight, I’ll bring us around,” Kiara said. She swung the tiller. The ship started to turn. That’s when Logan noticed how close the other Valteroni ships were. They towered over the cog, closing fast. Their lamplit decks swarmed with soldiers.
Logan looked at Kiara and saw the press of her jaw. Oh, shit.
She swung the tiller back around.
“What are you doing?” Mendez demanded.
“We can’t go back for her,” she said.
“What?”
“The backpack is more important. I’m sorry, Mendez.”
“Screw that!” Mendez stripped off his cloak and jacket. “I’m going after her.”
“You can’t swim,” Logan said.
“Then I’ll see you in hell, hermano.”
Logan heard a soft click behind him. Wind brushed his cheek. A crimson dart bloomed in Mendez’s neck.
Mendez mumbled something in Spanish, his eyes wide in outrage, and fell to the deck.
Logan spun on the lieutenant, who held the dart pistol with a steady hand. “What the hell?”
“We both know he’d have drowned trying to save her.”
“We can’t just leave her!” He stomped to the rail. Chaudri had wriggled free of the hook, and was swimming after them. Not fast enough, though. He stripped off his own jacket. “I can get to her.”
“With that arm?” Kiara asked.
He looked down and saw what she saw, the mottled bruises where the admiral had hit him. “I still have to try.”
He put a foot beneath the rail. Heard a click behind him. Something stung him on the back of his neck. He swatted at it, felt the hard cylinder there. Damn it to hell.
The world went black.
Chapter 40
Taken
“When the spotlights are on, carelessness always costs you.”
—Art of Illusion, August 1
Quinn drifted back into consciousness through a slow curtain of pain. He tasted salt in his mouth, and the bitter tang of blood. His head throbbed. He opened his eyes. Everything was an indistinct blur of grayness. He went to rub them, but he couldn’t move his arms.
“You know, I always thought there was something peculiar about you,” a woman said.
Oh, no. He recognized that voice.
Captain Relling sat in a wooden chair about five yards away, tapping the wooden club casually against her open palm. He couldn’t see anything other than her, but they were indoors. Some kind of small room. Rope chafed at his wrists, which were tied to the wooden chair behind his back. His ankles were bound to the front legs. How long was I out? Probably at least an hour. All of his joints ached.
“The polyglossia does odd things, doesn’t it?” Relling said. “Trains you not to watch someone’s lips when they talk.” She set the wooden club across her knees and leaned over it. “Were it not for that, I’d have pegged you a long time ago.”
He shook his head, which only added to the pain. He had to convince her she’d made a mistake. But the pain made it hard to concentrate. His cleverness was gone. How the hell had she known?
“I love Steve Perry.” She sighed. “Journey was never the same without him.”
Son of a bitch. Of all the things that might have outed him to one of the locals, he’d never have guessed it would be eighties music.
“It could have been a fluke, I suppose,” she said. “A song with similar words might exist in this world.” She held up his comm unit. “But this would be a major leap.”
Oh, hell. He’d grown so accustomed to having that in his ear, he never gave it a second thought. So much for the amnesia. “You—” he began, but his tongue was swollen and clumsy in his mouth.
She raised an eyebrow. “Hmm?”
He tried to spit, but drooled on himself. He wiped his face on his shoulder. “You were following me.”
“What better way to get to know someone?”
She looked him up and down in a predatory way, looking so much like Kiara that he barked a laugh. Or tried to, at least. It came out somewhere between a cough and a wheeze.
“I still can’t figure out what you are,” she said. “No one from the research team would be so careless. But one of Logan’s boys wouldn’t be so easy to incapacitate.”
Oh, that hurts. She wasn’t wrong, though. Logan was going to kill him for getting busted over a goddamn Journey song. Well, a Steve Perry song, technically speaking.
It wouldn’t matter to Logan. He’d never let Quinn live this down.
Assuming I live through it anyway.
“Well, are you going to say anything?” She looked at him expectantly. “Or should I just assume that you’re a spy?”
Oh, you want me to say something? He locked eyes with her. “At least I’m not a traitor.”
She pursed her lips. Nodded to herself, as if unsurprised. Then she stood, and clubbed him on the head. He tumbled into darkness again.
Waking up the second time was even worse. Quinn felt like he’d been hit by a truck. That’s what I get for mouthing off to Kiara’s sister. He’d sure as hell found the right button to push.
“Good, you’re back,” Relling said. “Maybe you’ll watch your tongue this time.” She paced the length of the small room, the club clutched tightly behind her back. “I don’t consider myself a traitor, you know.”
Quinn snickered. It was the best he could manage.
“I’m quite serious. The Enclave is the reason I’m still alive.”
He shook his head, and didn’t look at her. He needed some time to get his wits about him. She picked up something from the floor. His belt. Damn, she must have taken it off of him. “The R & D lab has done some spectacular work. The shocker buckle used to weigh half a pound.” Her fingers found the hidden catch.
He sucked in a sharp breath. He couldn’t help it. Even at half charge, the shock would hurt like hell. I’m guessing she knows how to fire it, too.
“You’ve spent some time in this world,” Relling said. “You must know what the storms are like here.” Her eyes went distant with the memory. “Thirty-foot swells. Relentless winds whipping you from all sides. And a featureless ocean that defies your best navigation equipment.”
Quinn had suffered through a couple of storms on land. He nodded. Grudgingly.
“The Victoria was six days out when we lost comms,” Relling said. “Then the sky went black, and the wind came up. The sea tossed us around like a goddamn kid’s toy.”
“Sounds rough,” Quinn said. He didn’t feel an ounce of sympathy, but he wanted her to keep talking.
“I’ve seen category-three hurricanes back on Earth. They’re a cakewalk compared to this storm. It nearly sank us.” She paused, and looked like she’d tasted something sour. “What came after was even worse.”
“Mildew?” he asked.
She poked him hard in the chest with her club. “Pirates.” She spat the word. “Boarded us in the middle of the night and killed half my crew before we fought them off. Then the sky went dark again. The second storm tried to finish the job. The magicians found me lashed to the wheel, with a nasty head wound and no memory whatsoever.”
“Seems to be working fine right now,” Quinn said.
“It took even longer to return to me than the Victoria did to repair.”
Bullshit. He didn’t know much about amnesia, but it was far more common in Hollywood than it was in real life. “Why didn’t you come back?”
“You don’t understand. It had been years.”
“So?”
“The Enclave magicians didn’t just save my life. They gave me a home. A purpose.” She looked down and away, uncertain
for the first time. “I met someone.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. He was having trouble wrapping his head around this, and the throbbing headache didn’t help. But through the pain came a realization: if her loyalty wasn’t with CASE Global, then he had to tread lightly. Seem nonthreatening.
Most of all, not get clubbed in the head or zapped with his own belt.
“So, it’s complicated,” he said. “I get that. But what do you want from me?”
“I find it best to start with the basics.” She stood and took up pacing again, this time twisting his belt buckle in her hands. “Is Quinn your real name?”
“Yes.” There was no point in hiding it.
“And I assume you work for CASE Global Enterprises.”
“Eh, I’m more of an independent contractor.”
“What kind?”
He tried for a smile, and it hurt. “What kind do you think?”
She looked at him flat-eyed. Then her lips quirked upward. “I’ll be damned. You are a magician. But the David Copperfield kind.”
Quinn didn’t say anything to confirm it, but he didn’t deny it, either.
“You came back for a second time.” She said it more to herself than to him. Then she looked up. “This place is getting to you, isn’t it?”
“Alissia?”
“The Enclave.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But he was pretty sure he did.
“This island has an odd effect on people. It changes them. I know it changed me.”
Changed you into a billy-club-wielding lunatic. He couldn’t deny, though, that there was something that had been pulling him back to the Enclave’s island ever since he first stepped foot on it. That said, he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of agreeing with her. “What a delightful tale,” he said. “Let me go.”
“Oh, that was just the warm-up. Let’s move on to some real questions.”
