Seafire

by Natalie C. Parker

  “See how they take care with the anchor?” Oran spoke into Caledonia’s ear, sure to keep his voice low.

  Caledonia found the anchor with her scope, noting how the Bullets on the chain avoided touching the hull at all costs. It was the only evidence of the danger. Not even the water below seemed affected. As Oran promised, the electrical field was designed to stop just above the waterline so as not to charge the water for yards in all directions.

  “Red, how many Bullets do you count?” she asked.

  “Twenty-five topside,” Redtooth answered promptly. “Not sure about belowdecks.”

  “They cap these crews around fifty or sixty.” Oran spoke with confidence. “They save as much room as possible for the conscripts.”

  They held their position for another hour, studying the movements of the crew and trying to get a more accurate count. It was safe to assume they outnumbered Caledonia’s crew, but if Oran was right, perhaps not by much.

  It was strange to think that she could be looking at Donnally or Ares right now and she’d never know it. More than once she caught herself letting her sights rest on a single Bullet with dark hair, searching for the feature that would confirm it was her little brother. She was so close to him. So close to having him back in her life. Part of her wanted to go now, to return to the ship and mount the attack immediately.

  But that was foolish. And she was not a foolish person.

  “We have what we need,” she said when the sky was full dark and the Bullet ship portholes filled with a cool blue light, while above the orange countdown ticked steadily. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Night felt darker this far north. Maybe it was the cold. The way it slithered through the fibers of coats and pants or curled around ears and throats. It wasn’t the constant pressure of a hot night spent around the Bone Mouth, but a seeping discomfort that made everything feel endless.

  But maybe it was simply that the morning was a time of promise and possibility, a time Caledonia had convinced herself would never come. A time when Donnally and Ares existed in more than just her dreams. Maybe that was why the darkness felt so complete. Because the promise of what lay just beyond it was so incredibly bright.

  The news of the Electra stirred the blood of the ship. Everywhere she looked she was met with bright eyes, hands ready to fight. She gave the order to rest, but with the fight so near, there would be little of that.

  Far pushed her kitchen crew to their limits, whipping up as much of a feast as they ever enjoyed. Girls gathered in the galley to eat and later in the cargo bay to double and triple check their guns, to refill a few more spent cartridges with powder even if their own clips were full. Some bathed, some slept, some shut their doors and spent their energy on one another. Everyone had their own way of preparing for battle.

  In the hours just before the sun glazed the cold ocean, Caledonia and Pisces collected cups of black and blue paint and moved through the ship drawing their individual sigils on the hands and cheeks of every girl, anywhere that would be easy for the brothers to see. Pisces’s mark went on easily, but the brushes weren’t fine enough to fill only half of Caledonia’s blunt-tipped arrow. Every time she tried, she produced a shapeless smear, so she gave up and just drew the outline.

  There was no way to anticipate how the brothers would react. Caledonia’s imagination insisted on presenting her with a tearful, easy reunion. She wanted it. But she was certain nothing about this would be easy, including, and maybe especially, winning their brothers’ minds back. They drew these sigils in the hope that it would distract the brothers from the fight long enough to be subdued without injury. Since they couldn’t guarantee it would be one of the two of them to find the boys, every girl needed to bear one of the marks. Surely, they would see and remember. Donnally would. She knew that with unbridled certainty.

  Caledonia came to Oran last. Days ago, he’d been moved from the hold to a cabin near her own, and she found his door ajar, the room inside dark. Keeping her eyes firmly on the hatch and not beyond it, Caledonia raised a hand and knocked.

  She heard movement right away, the slow unwinding of limbs from a bed, and then the light was on and Oran stood before her, layering on a second shirt.

  “Time already?” he asked, his hair stiff with sleep, his eyes pinched with the same.

  “Nearly.”

  He noticed the cup of paint in her hands and raised a curious eyebrow.

  “It’s for my sigil. To mark you as one of my crew, and as someone they can trust.”

  His eyes traveled to the mark at her temple and back to the paint. Then he stepped aside to let her into the room.

  They’d given him a room alone, and though the space was just as large as Caledonia’s, the number of beds it contained made it feel smaller. Two sets of bunk beds climbed in uneven steps along two walls, their ends overlapping in the corner. The third wall contained a set of four lockers and little else. There was no window in this room, which many of the girls preferred for easy sleeping. Judging by the swipe of the blankets, Oran had chosen the second-lowest bunk.

  He stopped in the middle of the room, as though suddenly unsure of what to do. Caledonia chose a perch at the end of his bed, motioning for him to sit on the lower bunk on the adjoining wall. He followed her lead, resting hands on knees.

  Over the past days, Oran had been at her side more often than not, but there was something decidedly different about being alone with him now. She stirred the black paint, though it was smooth already, and eased the unexpected tension with a question. “How are your wrists?”

  “Nearly back to normal.” Oran lifted his hands to show the color of his wrists had improved. “How’s your head?”

  She frowned at the memory of her blunder during the storm. “Still not as hard as the deck.”

  Caledonia wasn’t sure if he laughed first or if she did, but in the space between her words and their laughter, some final braid of tension unraveled. The boy who’d landed on their ship in the colors of the Bullet fleet was now just Oran.

  “Lean in.” Caledonia lifted the brush from its cup, the hairs thick with black paint.

  Oran did as directed, leaning in and tilting his head toward her. Lightly, she pressed her fingertips beneath his chin and jaw, turning his face so she could work. She started one inch beneath the corner of his eye and drew a long line vertically toward his jaw before hooking it toward his ear. Another one followed, this time hooking toward his lips, then she drew the smiling curve that connected them.

  “They’ll know you’re a friend now.”

  “Is that what I am?”

  His breath ghosted warmly over her palm and wrist; his eyes remained trained on her. Those layers of brown and gray were even more textured up close, the inner rings bursting outward like the arms of a starfish. She tried not to look, but they pulled her back again and again until finally she didn’t look away.

  “Yes,” she answered, knowing it was too much of the truth, and also knowing that part of trust was giving people the truth when they asked for it.

  They were suddenly closer. His chin resting in her palm. Her lips so near to his.

  There was an unfamiliar warmth growing in her chest, an unexamined desire singing in her ears. Every thought in her mind was suddenly centered around his brown eyes, his long nose, his lips, his lips, his lips.

  He leaned up. Lips brushing hers like the warmest southern wind. He paused there, waiting, the touch of his lips so light against hers it could barely be called touch. She wanted more. And in that moment, she snapped back.

  The brush lay on the floor in a smear of black paint, and it was only by some small grace that the cup was still upright. Caledonia sat up straight to repress the unwelcome tremor in her body.

  “Did I overstep?” Oran asked, eyes intent and otherwise unshaken.

  Retrieving the brush, she drew in a deep breat
h and gripped his chin, a little tighter this time. “When I want a kiss, I will be the one to take it.”

  Ignoring the smile that slipped across Oran’s mouth, she set to work. She drew the next sigil with quicker strokes, a circle intercepted by two vertical lines just off center.

  “For the record,” Oran said when she was done with her work, expression deadly serious, “that kiss is there for the taking.”

  Caledonia laughed again. There was a new kind of tension between them now. One that drew them closer instead of pushing them apart. It wasn’t entirely uncomfortable.

  “I’ll add it to Tin’s inventory,” she teased.

  Caledonia knew the time had come to ask the questions she’d held in reserve. The ones that had nothing to do with how they bested the Electra and found their brothers. The ones that had everything to do with what happened after.

  “You said my brother liked to sing at first.” Now that she’d started, she found it was difficult to continue. But she pushed on. “Can you tell me what he’s like now? Is he like you? Does he want out?”

  “Caledonia.” Oran leaned back, lips tightening in reluctance. “I told you, I don’t want to lie to you.”

  “Then don’t,” she said quickly, suddenly panicked. “What do you know?”

  “I know that it goes hardest for the kids like Donnally. He’s not the same boy you knew from the Ghost. He’s been out here a long time, and for Bullets survival is violence.”

  Caledonia’s mind reeled. What did Oran know? What had he seen of her brother? What had he become in the four years since she’d seen him? And then, another question. This one brought her to her feet. “No one knows that name except me and Pi.”

  Surprise widened Oran’s eyes, his mouth opened in silence.

  “You didn’t hear it from us, so tell me the truth: how do you know its name?” Caledonia demanded.

  The small space suddenly felt smaller. Oran rose to his feet, moving toward Caledonia as if to take her hands. She snapped them away.

  “Oran,” she warned.

  “I—everyone knows the Ghost.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “Be explicit.”

  “Because,” Oran started. “Everyone knows Ballistic Donnally.”

  Caledonia stepped back.

  “You said—” She took a breath. Blood. Gunpowder. Salt. “You said . . . he was a member of Electra’s command.”

  “He is.” Deep regret painted Oran’s features. “He’s the first in line. Donnally commands Electra.”

  The world she’d known a moment ago had been wholly changed with those three words: Donnally commands Electra. She had no bearings. And she wouldn’t find them in this increasingly small cabin with the boy who—what had he done? Had he lied? No. It was too confusing to unpack, so she clamped it down.

  “Find Red,” she said, pulling the hatch open behind her and stepping unsteadily through. “She’ll make sure you’re armed.”

  And then she left.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Caledonia stood in a circle with her four most trusted girls, her stones. Pisces looked more herself than she had in weeks, with her hair freshly shorn and her arm in good repair. Amina had her head turned up, listening to everything the winds had to share. Hime had removed her apron and bore holsters on her hips, and her silky hair was woven in a tight braid down her back. Redtooth had a fresh smear of red clay across her mouth and looked hungry for the fight. In the center of the circle, Caledonia dropped a bit of the bedraggled lace she’d worn since Lace’s funeral.

  The night was thick around them, the wind cutting, but they stood strong on the nose of the command deck as they reviewed their strategy. Amina’s electro-mag would provide a pulse capable of interrupting the electrified hull, but no one knew for how long. They had one shot. If the Electra got its hull charged again before they made contact, the game was up. It was this need for swiftness that brought them to it: They would storm the Electra, and when they were close to impact, they would fire the electro-mag, disabling her hull before they rammed her.

  “Hime,” Caledonia began, speaking with her hands and her voice, “there’s still time to go below. I won’t deny you this fight, but we will certainly need you after.”

  I understand, Hime said, shaking her head as she spoke. But my place is with you.

  Caledonia swallowed her protests. Much as she would prefer to have the girl below, she knew this was an important moment for both of them. She turned to Amina. “How are the winds today?”

  “Conflicted,” she answered with her eyes on the dimming stars above. “But in our favor.”

  “That sounds better than usual. Red, how are your boarding parties?”

  “Steely,” Redtooth answered quickly. “Ready to jump as soon as we hit her.”

  “Pi?” Caledonia asked.

  And Pisces reached for her hand, squeezing tightly when she said, “Let’s go get our brothers.”

  Caledonia ignored the flash of fear in her chest. Pressed it down, down, down and covered it with the memory of Donnally’s clever smile, the slippery feel of his dark curls, the sound of his voice saying, Hoist your eyes!

  And now that same sweet boy was not simply aboard the Electra but in command of it. She couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud to Pisces. A Donnally in charge of a Bullet ship was not a Donnally she could conjure in her mind, but if she saw her own horror reflected in Pisces’s face that would change. And maybe it didn’t matter. He would still be among the command crew, and if he was in fact the Ballistic of that ship, she’d know exactly where to find him. She would get to him first.

  They walked together to stand on the small deck behind the bridge where they could be seen by the entire crew gathered on the main deck below. They were armed and ready. Among them, Caledonia found Nettle, her young face braced for the fight ahead, her bright ribbons ornamenting her dark hair. There was Tin, standing in the firm clutch of her sisters, each one more steely than the last. And there was Oran. He’d abandoned his burnished red coat in favor of the closer fit of his long-sleeved shirt. Over it, he wore double holsters lined with guns and a short sword.

  The crowd was dense, their eyes turned toward Caledonia and the four girls behind her. All around them, the sun pips glowed blue in the darkness, ringing them in starry light. It was time for her to speak, to rally and inspire. She stood silently for a moment, studying the shape they made on the deck. Knowing that there were forty-nine souls before her and in a few hours there would very likely be less. Knowing that those losses would follow her forever.

  Rhona would have taken this moment and turned them around. Rhona would have kept her ship and her crew whole and hidden. She believed small losses were unavoidable, but the same was not true of big losses. Rhona wouldn’t have taken this risk. But Caledonia was not her mother.

  Somewhere along the way, she’d come to the hard realization that there was nothing she could do to keep them all safe. But she could help them to fight. It wasn’t her job to save them; it was her job, as Pisces had known from the very beginning, to lead them.

  “Sisters!” Caledonia called. “I thought that you came across the world to the Northwater because of me, and for days I’ve struggled to understand why you would take such a risk to rescue two boys you’ve never known. But I’ve learned something over the course of this journey. You’re not here because of me. I’m here because of you. If not for you, I might have tried to do this on my own. If not for you, I’d have failed early in this journey.

  “I cannot promise you safety. I thought I could, but we don’t live in a safe world. We live in a world of no good options, but it’s because of you that we can make the best of them.” She paused. She could feel their energy rising, could almost hear the collective pounding of their blood. On their cheeks, the sigils of her family and of Pisces’s family shone in the blue glow of sun pips. They were marked, all of them, as
her family. It was beautiful and terrifying.

  “On the back of the sea, who do we trust?” she called.

  Her crew answered together, “Our sisters.”

  Caledonia raised her voice a little more. “When our ship falters, who do we trust?”

  “Our sisters.”

  She shouted, “In a storm of Bullets, who do we trust?”

  Their voices spiraled together, rising up like the early morning sun. “Our sisters!”

  With a grin, she finished the call. “We fight together!”

  And they responded, “Or not at all!”

  “Here we go, girls!” Redtooth shouted.

  The Mors Navis roared to life. They’d moved slowly closer to the bay over the course of the night, but they needed room to build up their momentum. Now they pushed to speed with Nettle at the helm.

  Amina and Hime took their position high on the nose by the gun that would fire the electro-mag. Nearby, Pisces held the binoculars to her eyes, marking the pace and watching for unexpected troubles. Redtooth stood with Caledonia halfway between the nose and the bridge where they could carry commands to the crew waiting on the deck below. And the crew was divided into raiding parties that would attack together.

  An icy wind stole tears from Caledonia’s eyes and tugged furiously at her hair. In spite of the cold, her body was coated in sweat, and she shed the gray coat she’d worn all morning.

  Redtooth leaned in close, raising her voice to be heard over the wind. “No good options,” she said with a grin. “Seems like our specialty.”

  Caledonia was reminded of the moment weeks ago when she’d stood on this very deck with Amina discussing the possibility of intentionally engaging a Bullet ship and stealing its sun sail. It had been the first in a long series of no good options.