She could take the chance that nobody would inspect her work afterward and simply pretend to replace them. There didn’t seem to be anybody else on board who knew much about mechanics, but the Ardmorran ship was still too far away and she had the time, so she might as well be thorough and not take the risk. So, she rotated the wheel one slot further, placed the chisel against the backside of the next cog dowel where it was fitted into the wheel, and hit the end of the chisel with her hammer until it popped the old cog out. Then she placed the chisel between her teeth and leaned over the housing, beginning the process of hammering a replacement dowel into place, yet again.
- - -
It had taken her the remainder of the morning to replace all of the worn cogs in the gear wheel and put the first part of her preparations for escape into place. The noon sun was high overhead and despite the chill air from their current altitude, Esther was sweating from exertion. They had leveled off their ascent some time ago, but they were high enough that the air was much thinner. It reminded Esther of the summer two years ago when her family had made the trip up to the ruins of the Temple of the Sun in the Crymn Mountains.
Esther closed up the propeller housing and sat down on the stanchion lattices, dangling her legs over the edge to rest. She couldn’t sit long, otherwise perspiration and the cold air would give her a chill. Besides, she was thirsty and she still needed to take a look at some of the other propeller housings before she approached the captain about repairing each one.
She stood and walked back along the stanchion, pulling her safety rope out of the hook as she went, then climbed up the rungs and back over the railing. The cask of water had been moved back against the wall by the door that led to the galley and officers’ quarters under the quarterdeck, and men were occasionally stopping by to get a drink. Esther untied her safety rope and walked over, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible and drank several cups of the stale liquid. She was sure she tasted a hint of alcohol in the water as well—probably to keep it from going totally bad, as well as the crew somewhat mollified. After she was finished, she headed to the nearest stanchion on the starboard side. She tied on the safety rope, climbed over the railing and down onto the stanchion, then walked out to the propeller housing and popped it open to inspect the gear wheel.
As she’d suspected, quite a few cogs were worn or broken as well. Not near as many as the propeller gear wheel she’d just repaired, but enough that she thought it would cause power transfer loss and satisfy the need to replace them. She climbed back onto the deck and headed to the next propeller and confirmed that it too had some broken and worn cogs as well. Committing herself to a course of action, she turned aft, her heart rate increasing with each step as she drew nearer to the quarterdeck. The captain stood at the ship’s aft railing staring off into the distance in the general direction of their pursuer. He appeared deep in thought and Esther could tell that he was worried. That thought lightened her heart somewhat. The Madrausan’s had two warships and only one Ardmorran ship pursued them. If he was still worried, then that was good news for Esther.
“Captain,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. He turned to look at her, the worried look on his face vanishing, replaced by his usual unreadable mask. Somehow that made her feel even more nervous and she could feel perspiration running down her chest and her hands felt clammy with anxiety. “I…I’ve finished making the repairs to the propeller housing. It is ready for use.”
“Good,” he said simply, turning away again.
“Captain,.” The worlds came rushing out of her mouth, “I’ve inspected several other propeller housings and many of them have significant problems as well—not as bad as the one I just finished repairing—but bad enough to affect how fast you will be able to maneuver. If the captain would allow me to take each one offline in turn, I can repair them as well.” She tried to keep the look of hope she felt from showing.
The captain turned back to look at her again, scrutinizing her with his cold eyes and handsome face. “And why would you want to do that?” he asked finally.
“Because sir,” she said, repeating the reasons she’d rehearsed half a dozen times in her mind, “I wish to live. And I realize that the more use I am to you, the better my chances of survival and protection.”
He stood there, staring at her for a moment. “Very well. But first, let’s go down and see how well your repairs worked.” He moved forward, walked down the stairs off the quarterdeck, and down the hatch to the deck below. Esther followed—her heart pounding in her chest, her skin prickling and slick with perspiration that had nothing to do with heat or exertion.
She followed the captain to the rowing station on the propeller she’d just repaired. The shirtless men—the slaves—were sitting idly, waiting for the order to begin turning the propeller shaft again.
The captain spoke to them in Madrausan and they began turning the crank shaft with a rowing motion. One of the crew—the foreman in charge over the rowing slaves—walked over and observed as the rowers increased their pace. He grinned and nodded at the captain. The rowing motion was smooth, without the jerking that occurred at some of the other stations when a gear slipped due to a broken or worn cog.
The captain turned to her. “Very well. Let him know,” he said, pointing at the foreman, “And he will order the propeller offline until your repairs are done. Be quick about it though! I want them done as quickly as possible.”
“Yes sir,” she said, trying as hard as she could to keep the elation that she felt out of her voice. She turned to the foreman and pointed at another station. He nodded and barked an order at the slaves who stopped rowing and leaned on the crankshaft to rest. Esther turned and headed back topside, trying not to jump up and down with excitement.
- - -
She spent the remainder of the day completing the repairs on the rest of the propeller housings and putting her escape preparations into place. It was well past dusk when she dragged herself back on deck, bone weary and famished. As soon as she climbed back over the railing, she dropped to the ground and just sat there for a couple of minutes, resting. The smell of food finally overcame her exhaustion and she stood, stumbling aft towards the line of men waiting to receive a bowl of something that smelled like stew. She tucked her chisel and hammer under her harness belt and grabbed a bowl from the crate, wiping it out with her shirt. The same fat, greasy man dumped a ladleful of whatever-it-was into her bowl. She could feel the stares of the crewmen on her as she walked to the side of the ship and slumped down against the railing, tipping the bowl up with both hands to her mouth to eat.
The piping hot food burnt her tongue and she sucked in air to try and cool it as she juggled the chunks of food in her mouth. It had briefly tasted like a potato before she’d scalded her taste buds. The stew was surprisingly good and even had chunks of salted meat. When you’re hungry, a lot of things start to taste good that normally wouldn’t. She smiled at the thought.
“What are you smiling at boy?!”
Esther jerked her head up, her smile vanishing. A Madrausan crewman sat on a crate next to the main mast, staring at her. He was somewhat shorter and fatter than most of the Madrausan’s, and although most of the crewmen were somewhat slovenly, this man was much worse. His thick beard was flecked with food and spittle that bore no resemblance to their current meal. His hair was lanky and matted with grease. His skin looked lighter than your typical Madrausan’s as well—almost as light as that of an Ardmorran.
“Surprised that I speak your tongue?” he said derisively, “Thought only the officer’s knew the language of the Northerners? Well my mother—may she wallow in her grave—was from Rodheim, sold into slavery by her merchant father.” The man spat on the deck. “Now my mother, she was a firm disciplinarian. You look like you could use some…discipline, boy.”
Esther—not liking where this was going—grabbed her hammer and climbed to her feet, retreating towards the bow of the ship without saying anything as the man and his friends laughed
at her. She had some final preparations to make and needed some material from the storage area anyway—and getting away from that horrible man seemed like a very good idea.
When she reached the forward hatch that led below deck, she paused a moment and walked over to the side railing. She leaned over, looking down and aft. She could see the lantern lights of the Ardmorran ship quite a ways below. They’d caught up to the Madrausan flotilla, but had made no attempt to match elevations and engage.
Esther nodded, then walked back to the forward hatch, scrambling down the steep stair to the deck below. She walked towards the storage area and stepped down the half stairs, past the front row of slaves rowing the crankshafts on either side. She untied the bag of dowels from the belt of her harness, placing them back in the crate where she’d gotten them. She thought again about her plan, going over the calculations in her head. Realizing how crazy the plan was, she took a deep breath, steeling herself. Okay, she thought, the chances of me surviving this are pretty low, however, the chances of me surviving much longer on this ship are almost nonexistent.
Suddenly, she heard a noise directly behind her and she spun around. The slovenly looking man who had been laughing at her a few moments ago stood on the stairs between the foremost rowing stations. No laughter touched his face now and icy tendrils of fear ran down her spine.
“I’ve been watching you boy, and the thing is, I don’t think you’re a boy at all,” he said, reaching out suddenly and pushing her hard up against the wall. He stepped forward, pinning her with one arm and shoving his hand into her shirt with the other, smiling wickedly when he felt the swell of her breasts under the material she had wrapped her chest with.
Anger replaced the fear gripping her spine and her vision swam as adrenaline poured into her bloodstream. Without hesitating, Esther slammed her knee into the man’s groin as hard as she could. He released her with a groan and she dropped to the ground to grab her hammer. She swung it up against the side of the man’s head as he stood there, doubled over in pain. He fell to the ground with another groan and lay still. She didn’t think he was dead. The force of the blow had been impeded by the narrow confines of the storage area, and she briefly contemplated finishing the job, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it as the memories of the other two men she’d killed brought fresh waves of guilt and panic. The timetable for her escape had just been moved up. She turned and ran up the stairs. The slaves didn’t look at her as she ran past them and hadn’t missed a beat in their rowing when they’d watched the man assault her. She felt sorry for them. Fortunately, the foreman was at the aft end of the deck and hadn’t noticed the commotion.
When Esther had repaired the propeller housings earlier, she’d also sabotaged them—or rather, she’d prepared them to be sabotaged. All she needed to do now to complete her act of sabotage was to finish knocking out the wooden pins securing each of the large gear wheels to the propeller shafts and in short order, the wheels would come loose—possibly break apart. The propellers would cease to function and the ship would be a sitting duck for the Ardmorran warship.
Esther emerged on deck and swiftly walked over to the railing above the first stanchion. With her unconscious assailant lying in the storage area and liable to be found at any moment, she didn’t have time to attach the safety rope to her harness. She quickly climbed over the railing and down onto the stanchion, walking carefully out along it to the propeller housing. The growing twilight made the task even more difficult.
She undid the clasp to the propeller housing and opened it. The gears turning inside were surprisingly noisy as they creaked and groaned. She’d never tried to reach into the propeller housing while the large propellers were turning before. Hammering the wooden pin securing the large wheel to the shaft was going to be a little tricky while it was turning. She pulled out her hammer and leaned over, her shirt billowing from the air of the propeller’s, and hammered at the rotating pin until it was barely holding. Not bothering to close the housing, she turned around and walked carefully—but swiftly—back along the stanchion, climbing up the rungs and back over the railing.
She moved to the other side of the ship and did the same thing. Her heart pounded in her chest as she finished sabotaging each propeller in turn, waiting for someone to find that wretched Madrausan and call out an alarm at any moment. Finishing her sabotage on the rearmost propellers was going to be hard as they were the most difficult to get to, and the officer’s on the quarterdeck would be much more observant if she was scrambling about on the stern of the ship beneath them.
Esther suddenly heard shouts and a loud cracking sound coming from the fore end of the ship. She turned and could faintly see the foremost propeller housing on the port side tear itself apart as the gear wheel came loose. It must have gotten jammed between the wall of the housing and the cage gear. Time to go, Esther thought turning and running up the stairs onto the quarterdeck. The captain stood at the front railing where the quarterdeck looked out over the rest of the ship, his face a mask of rage as he watched another propeller housing come apart. He caught sight of her as she reached the top of the stairs.
“You!” he yelled, pointing.
Esther ran aft past startled crewmen, the captain shouting for them to grab her, and without missing a step, she leapt up onto the aft railing next to the tall rudder on the stern of the ship and jumped off into the chill night air.
CHAPTER 9
Nautilus
Most people don’t really believe that I did it, but the fact is, I really did. I find it frustratingly amusing when they tell me that it was impossible.
Terror gripped Esther’s heart as she fell through the night sky, tumbling uncontrollably. She forced herself to remember that this is what she had planned. That helped quell her fear long enough to figure out how to stabilize herself and stop the tumble.
The cold night air pulled at her arms and bit at her exposed hands and face as she plunged through the darkness. It stung her eyes and she could hardly see as it squeezed tears from them and caused her nose to run. Through her tears she caught a glimpse of the Ardmorran ship’s lights below and to the left. She needed to angle herself better or she was going to miss it entirely. Squinting, she experimented moving her arms in the frigid wind and was able to control her trajectory somewhat, adjusting her path so that it would intersect with the Ardmorran ship. It was coming up really fast—too fast, only seconds ahead. She spread her arms and legs out, attempting to slow her fall.
She had been contemplating this move ever since the captain had told her that the Ardmorran ship would stay below the Madrausan ships. If she could position herself correctly, she had calculated that she should be able to fall into the sails, which would cushion her enough to survive the fall. The margin for error was very small, however. She had to hit the sail squarely, otherwise her momentum would simply carry her across the sail and throw her over the side. She also had to hit it from the front, where the sail could give under her. If she hit it from the back with the wind already in the sail, it would be the same as if she’d hit the hard wooden planks of the ship itself.
Adrenaline fueled anxiety bore into her stomach as fear and panic again threatened to take control. If her assumptions were wrong, or if her flight path was off by the barest margin—or if the sail material simply had a weak spot—she could end up plunging right through it and smash into the deck. Her broken body would be all that remained.
Suddenly, the sails were there, directly in front of her. Instinctively using her arms and the wind, she quickly flipped around, placing her back towards the sails. Then she hit. First impact felt like a board being broken across her back, but the sail held, billowing about her, wrapping her in its protective grasp. Her velocity and the force of her sudden deceleration were too much, however, and darkness took her.
- - -
Images filtered into her mind as she slowly regained consciousness. People standing in a circle around her. Being lifted up and carried below. Voices. Suddenly she came f
ully conscious, gasping for breath as a rush of pain swept through her body, and the skin all along her backside was stinging madly. She looked up to see a man looking down at her, concern written on his face. She was being carried in his arms. She gasped for breath and a painful moan escaped her lips as his arms pressed against her aching back.
“Lay him down on the table,” she heard a man’s voice say in Ardmorran. She bit her lip against the pain as the man laid her gently on a table, the hard wood sending ripples of pain up and down her back. A wave of dizziness passed through her. “Alright, step aside please,” said the voice, “Let the doctor through.”
Another man stepped into her vision. He was young, perhaps in his early twenties, with gray eyes and sandy hair. Very young for a doctor, thought Esther, and handsome. Esther blushed, wondering where such a thought had come from at a time like this.
“Oh good, you’re conscious,” he said, “That is most excellent indeed.” He shook his head, “I don’t know how you ended up there, but you took quite a spill when you tumbled out of the sails. Here, I’m going to need to examine you.” He reached over and undid the ties on her tunic, then nodded to someone standing above her head. As they pulled the tunic off, Esther bit her lower lip again to distract herself from the pain. When they lifted it off her head, the room spun about as the dizziness returned, bringing intense nausea with it.
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