The World Awakening

by Dan Koboldt

  “How you going to break it to the motley twins?”

  Logan smiled. “I’m planning to order an inferior officer to do it.”

  “They’ll take it better if it comes from you. One ship, one captain.”

  He had a point, but that didn’t make Logan look forward to breaking the news. He climbed down the mast. Ralf and Snicket lounged in the shade of the foredeck, playing a game with six wooden dice. Looked like Maiden’s Tear, a sort of craps-Yahtzee hybrid that normally involved a lot of drinking. They were sober as priests, though, since Logan had tossed every drop of liquor and moonshine overboard the moment they took the ship. Instead of drinks, they took punches in the shoulder from one another. A man’s game. A classic.

  “Sorry to break up the game, but we should prepare to get under way,” Logan said.

  “You’ll want to let that fleet pass for a while,” Snicket said. “They could have a rear guard.”

  “They’ll have one, all right. Us. We’re going to slip out and trail after them.”

  “What about Valteron City?”

  “There’s been a change of plans.”

  Snicket threw another pair of dice. Sixes. “Thought we were going to Valteron City. Didn’t you, Ralf?”

  “Sure thought so,” Ralf said.

  Logan bit his tongue, took a breath, and made his voice level. “Like I said, our plans changed. We need to follow the Valteroni fleet.”

  “You might’ve forgotten, we’re on a stolen Valteroni ship,” Snicket said.

  “And you might’ve forgotten that I’m the captain. We’ll stay back from the main body of the fleet. Barely within visible range.”

  “If we can see them, they can see us.”

  “That fleet’s going somewhere. They won’t care about a single ship lagging behind. Especially a Valteroni one.”

  “We were going to pick up a new berth in Valteron City,” Snicket said.

  Ralf grunted agreement.

  Logan pointed to the ships. “There aren’t any berths in Valteron City. Every ship with a Valteroni flag is right out there.”

  “Fair point. Maybe we’re better off back in Port Morgan.”

  “Sure, if you want to become a fisherman.”

  “It beats ending up in some admiral’s brig.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but Logan and Mendez wouldn’t be able to run the ship without him. Certainly not for night-and-day sailing that would be required to keep up with the fleet. Not like I can compel them to stay aboard, though. And he hated to lose the skiff. “What would it take to keep you on board to help follow the fleet?”

  “How about double pay?”

  Logan should have seen that one coming. “I think I can manage that.”

  “For us, and the lads.”

  “Fine.” It would leave him nearly broke, though. Not a lot of padding for supplies or emergencies.

  Ralf elbowed Snicket. “The other thing, too.”

  “All right, I was getting to it.” Snicket straightened. “We want one more piece o’ compensation. A favor from you, when this is over.”

  Alarm bells went off in Logan’s head. “What sort of favor?”

  “Don’t know just yet. We’ll name it when the time comes.”

  “I can’t just promise you something without knowing what it is.” I’m not a fool.

  “On our word, it’ll be something within your power. An inconvenience, nothing more.”

  Knowing these two, it would undoubtedly fall under the major inconvenience category but there was little Logan could do about that. He needed them, and this was their price. Well, this and about all that remained of his gold. He sighed. “Fine, a single favor within reason that I have the power to grant you. But you can’t ask it until the mission’s over.”

  “What do you think, Ralf?” Snicket asked.

  Ralf stood and spat in his right hand by way of answer. Snicket copied him, as did Logan. They all shook to seal the deal.

  “Glad we got that sorted,” Snicket said.

  Oh, I’m sure. Logan couldn’t dismiss the lingering suspicion that he’d just been played. Not much he could do about it now. “Raise anchor and get us ready to sail. We’ve got a fleet to follow.”

  Chapter 27

  Shadows

  “It serves us to remember that every Alissian is the hero of his own story.”

  —R. Holt, “Primer on Alissian Cultural Immersion”

  Logan would have killed to get a closer look at the Victoria. He caught glimpses of the elegant ship as they shadowed the fleet north, but not enough to pick out who might be aboard. Even with the field glasses, which Ralf and Snicket had probably noticed by now. Neither had said anything, but they’d begun actively not looking at the field glasses whenever Logan had them out. They might as well have pointed and asked, what you got there, anyway?

  He’d locked most of their weapons and other gear away in the small armory in the captain’s cabin. For emergencies only, and he hoped things wouldn’t get that desperate.

  The Valteroni fleet sailed unerringly north and kept consistently within the sight of land. With the prevailing wind out of the west, this required changing tack every couple of hours. First, the signal flags went up on every vessel, indicating the change of bearing. Then a long trumpet blast sounded, and like magic, every ship came about to the new heading simultaneously. The first time it happened, Logan wasn’t even ready for it, and they nearly bumbled right into the path of one of the stout merchantmen that made up the rear guard.

  The redirects continued at night, with lantern signals instead of flags. It required constant vigilance to watch for the change, and then some hustling up in the rigging to get the ship ready. The only good news was that it reinforced Logan’s decision to keep Ralf and Snicket on board at any cost. Without them, they’d never have kept up with the fleet.

  The morning of the third day, the steady pattern of tack-sail-tack-sail broke down without warning. Mendez was on fleetwatch duty up in the crow’s nest, and called down. “Heads up! The formation’s changing!”

  “How?” Logan shouted back. He wished he’d thought to bring a second pair of field glasses.

  “They’re spreading out. Ships on either side of the line are falling back a bit.”

  A half-circle, then. That’s a defensive formation. A cold thought intruded. “Do you think they’re on to us?” There would be no escape if the fleet decided to capture them. The admiral would have sent ships to circle back around hours ago, to box them in against the mainland.

  “Nah, they’ve still got their backs to us.”

  “Even so, we should fall back a bit until we know what’s happening.”

  “Good idea.”

  For Mendez to take a position on something, he must really be concerned. Logan spun the wheel, bringing the ship to port and more into the wind. He stopped when the mainsail began to flap. It cut their speed by several knots, with the advantage that he could turn back and speed up again if he needed it.

  Logan’s comm unit crackled in his ear. A short, distinct burst of static. Oh, please tell me. “You hear that?” he shouted.

  “A bit of static? Yeah, copied. Hope that’s good news.”

  “You and me both.” Logan covered his comm unit with his hand, willing it to connect. Come on, baby. Give me some tone.

  A long, soft beep rewarded his prayer. Network online. “Yes!” He went for his burst-transmit button, but the lieutenant beat him to it.

  “Op Command to Alpha Team, status report.”

  He shouldn’t have felt so much relief at the sound of Kiara’s voice, given what she’d done. Yet the downtime and the comms outage had somehow muted the red anger that boiled inside of him. At least if he could talk to her, he had a connection to the gateway back to Earth. A path forward. A chance at seeing his girls again. “Good to hear your voice, Lieutenant. What the hell happened?”

  “Network imbalance. We lost two of the north-south relays within ten minutes of each other. The techs think it was a
planned attack.”

  “Well, you’ve got a bigger problem. There’s a massive Valteroni fleet sailing north right into your twenty.”

  “How many ships?”

  He gave her a rundown of the tallies he and Mendez had done.

  “That’s a lot.” There was a grim tone to her voice.

  “Recommend you evade or redirect pronto.”

  She remained silent so long, he thought he’d lost the comm network again. No doubt, she was getting a situation report from the other officers in the fleet. And probably chewing out half of her crew as well.

  “It’s too late,” she said at last. “They just came into visual range, which means they’ve probably spotted us as well.”

  Damn. “I would have warned you sooner, but the comms were down.”

  “I’m sure that was part of the plan.”

  Irritating as it was, the disruption won some grudging admiration from Logan. To achieve that kind of coordination, in a world without satellites or even wired communications, represented a major accomplishment. Weeks of planning, certainly, and well-trained personnel to carry out the sabotage. It had to be one of Holt’s bigger plays, and he’d saved it for the perfect moment.

  “Guess you’d better retreat until you can regroup,” Logan said.

  “Negative. We’re engaging.”

  “You’re outnumbered five to one!”

  “I’ve had worse odds. If we move fast, we might be able to sneak to the windward side.”

  She thought she had hundreds of years of warfare knowledge and technology over the Valteroni fleet. But she hadn’t seen them sailing for the past two days, as Logan had. They coordinated as well as any modern navy could dream of doing. Better, perhaps, given the tight formations. Hell, I should just tell her. “Listen, Lieutenant. Can you go triple-Omaha?” That was one of their codes, a request for one-on-one communication. Hopefully she knew he wouldn’t ask unless it was important.

  “Give me a minute,” she said.

  He changed his mind three times during the brief wait.

  “All right, Logan, we’re triple-Omaha. Go ahead.”

  What do I even say? Well, all things being equal, the lieutenant valued directness. “We’re shadowing the Valteroni fleet. The Victoria is with them.”

  “Say again, over.” Her voice had no emotion to it, as if under complete restraint.

  “The Victoria is with the Valteroni fleet.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  A pause. “And the crew?”

  “Unknown. I don’t want to risk getting that close.”

  “Where is it right now?”

  “Rear of the fleet, seaward side.”

  “Keep it in visual range.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “No matter who’s on it, that ship is company property. I want it back.”

  “I think the two hundred Valteroni ships between you might have something to say about that.”

  “How close are you?”

  “To what?”

  “The Victoria.”

  “I don’t know, three quarters of a mile? But we’ve got a skeleton crew that can barely sail this ship.” He knew better than to tell her about the boys from Port Morgan. “I forgot my boarding party on my other boat.”

  “Get as close as you can. Maybe you’ll think of something.”

  Unless it’s suicide, my position will be the same. “I’ll see what I can do. But don’t do anything brash, Lieutenant. It’s been ten years. I’m sure she’s not aboard.”

  “This isn’t about her.”

  “Sure it isn’t.”

  “This is about operational security. I want to know how our state-of-the-art sailing yacht that we thought had sunk fell into enemy hands.”

  Logan started to say that the Valteroni weren’t the enemy, but caught himself. “Let me paint a picture for you.” He knew some of his irritation slipped into his tone, but he didn’t care. “The Victoria sails out of radio contact and gets into trouble. Maybe they run aground, and a pirate ship happens along. Someone takes the ship, and leaves no survivors. Otherwise I think we’d have heard from at least a few of them.”

  “There are too many unknowns.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  She sighed. “Something you won’t like.”

  That sums up this whole gods-damned mission.

  “Mendez!” Logan shouted.

  “Right behind you,” Mendez said.

  Logan jumped. “Damn, you’re a sneaky bastard.”

  “I learned from the best.”

  Yeah, you did. “How much of that did you hear?”

  “Just your side of it.”

  “You want to take a guess at what she wants?”

  “Her ship back.”

  “Bingo.”

  “And a list of everyone on board.”

  “One name in particular.”

  “Oh, man.” Mendez shook his head. “Did you know her? The sister?”

  “A little. We only overlapped a couple of years, and I was at the bottom of the pecking order.”

  Mendez gave him a dubious look, like he didn’t believe that was possible. “What was she like?”

  “Picture the lieutenant, then go two degrees colder.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s below freezing.”

  “She was a good officer, though. A lot of our security practices were instituted in her time.”

  “Well, she can’t be that clever, if she agreed to hire you.”

  Logan offered a thin smile. “That was more of the lieutenant’s doing. Relling herself didn’t make mistakes.”

  Mendez had the field glasses up. “I don’t know, man. I think I’m looking at one of her mistakes right now.”

  “I stand corrected.”

  “Do you really think the captain’s still alive?”

  “I don’t see how she could be. She loved that ship more than anything.” He didn’t add that someone would have had to kill her to take it away. Ironically, Relling wasn’t even slated to command the Victoria’s maiden voyage. That should have been Kiara’s gig, but Relling wanted it and had the rank to enforce her will. “I’d love to know how it ended up the flagship of the Valteroni fleet.”

  “There’s one way to find out.”

  “That’s what she said,” Logan said.

  “We might have a chance here in a minute. A new signal just went up.”

  Now or never. “Get us more sail. We’re going to need maximum speed to catch up.”

  “Don’t forget the hat,” Mendez said.

  “Aw, really?”

  “It’ll help sell it.”

  “The thing smells funny,” Logan said.

  “How about you go raise the topsail, and I’ll be the captain?”

  Well, when you put it like that. “Fine.” Logan tugged the floppy felt hat on his head and tried not to think about how ridiculous it looked. The feathers had to add a foot and a half in height, long enough to catch the wind whenever it guested. How Valteron had come to dominate Alissian seas while its captains wore these things he couldn’t begin to understand.

  The line of officer ships shifted into a sort of wedge formation, with the Victoria in the van. The fleet’s entire attention was forward. No one took notice when Logan slid their ship into the end of the line. The clangs of distant bells drifted across the water, and with them, the unmistakable scent of burning wood.

  Chapter 28

  Force Multiplier

  “Never sail farther out than you can row back.”

  —Pirean saying

  “I’ve got smoke ahead,” Mendez called. He’d climbed back up to the crow’s nest to get a look at what lay beyond the line of Valteroni ships.

  “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Logan muttered to himself.

  “All right, we’re coming up on the rest of the fleet,” Mendez called. “Make that two fleets.”

  Some of the other ships in the wedge peel
ed off to either side to protect the flanks. Logan slid into the gap, drawing them closer to the Victoria. Now she was a quarter mile distant, and he could begin to make out figures moving on the deck. “Talk to me, Mendez!”

  “I make twenty or thirty on board. Can’t see the pilot from this angle.”

  Damn. “Any sign of Holt? Or Relling?”

  “Negative.”

  “Keep looking.”

  The Victoria disappeared behind a screen of drifting smoke. Orange light sparkled on the horizon, the eerie dance of fire at sea. Logan said a prayer and steered to bring them closer. Distant whumps sounded from across the sea ahead, followed by the crash of shattering wood.

  “What is that?” Logan demanded.

  “Siege equipment.”

  “Ours or theirs?” Granted, at this moment, the distinction between us seemed a little gray. They were in a Valteroni ship sailing with the Valteroni fleet. How will Kiara recognize us as friendlies?

  “Uh, both,” Mendez said. “Logan, you’d better get up here.”

  Shit. “Snicket!”

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “Take the wheel for a minute.”

  The man jogged up to the wheeldeck in an uncharacteristic hurry. Logan pointed at the Victoria’s stern. “Keep us in view of that vessel.” He glanced at the Port Morgan boys, who sat near the stern sewing bits of canvas into an extra sail. “Get the lads below until we know what we’re getting into.”

  “You got it.”

  Logan climbed up the mast to the crow’s nest. “What’s the situation?”

  Mendez handed him the binoculars. “Have a look.”

  The sea battle ranged over more than a mile square. Catapult-flung stones and arrow volleys arced between the lines of ships—the tall Valteroni vessels on one side, and a motley assembly of northern vessels on the other. The former outnumbered the latter by a fair margin, and had spread out in a great half-circle to pen them in. Aboard the northern vessels, tiny figures in familiar black armor scrambled to find cover from the relentless assault. Every now and then, one of Kiara’s ships managed to fire one of the modular catapults mounted atop the ship.

  “Why aren’t they firing more?” Logan asked.