“No problems,” Amal called.
“Will you at least point out the right hatch?” Mari asked Banda, who looked unhappy with himself. He gestured toward one of the forward hatches.
Mari led the other three Mechanics to the hatch, which was open for ventilation and led to a stairway, or ladder, as the sailors called stairs on ships. “Calu, can you imitate that oaf that Alli slugged?”
“I can try,” he said.
“When we first reached the ship, the Mechanic on the quarterdeck thought someone might have fallen overboard. That gives me an idea. The ship would have to do a muster if they thought they’d lost someone, right? Like those bed checks when the Guild Halls try to catch Apprentices who aren’t where they’re supposed to be. Call down, sound annoyed but not scared, and say someone might have fallen overboard and that everyone has to come up for a muster.”
“Got it.”
“Anybody who comes up with a weapon on them gets pulled aside and knocked out,” Mari ordered. “If they aren’t armed, they get hustled over there. Bev, you’ll cover that group. If everything goes to blazes, our goal is to hold as many of the guards as possible up here and keep them from doing anything.”
“Do we open fire if we think we have to, or wait for you to say?” Alli asked.
Mari hesitated, swallowing at the thought of giving that order. She suddenly realized how Captain Banda had felt. “I know you guys. I trust you guys not to fire unless you have to.” Mari made sure to look at Bev so that she would know she was included in that statement. “If you think you have to, do it without asking for permission.”
Feeling sick to her stomach, Mari checked her pistol while the other three ensured their rifles were ready, then nodded to Calu.
He leaned over the hatch and called down in a loud, gruff voice. “Hey! Everybody up here! They think someone might have fallen off the ship and we need to do a muster!”
Groans and curses echoed up from below. “Says who?” someone yelled back.
“Senior Mechanic Denz!” Calu yelled back.
The grumbling subsided, but there remained a low rumble of discontent. Mari braced herself as the clomp of angry feet on the ladder sounded.
Two women came up first, scowling and disheveled from sleep. Alli met them with a leveled rifle and gestured them to move to the side fast. Surprised and mentally off balance, the women stumbled over to where Alli directed to find themselves facing Bev’s steely gaze and leveled weapon.
Then came a big man with an angry glower and a holstered pistol at his hip. As he cleared the ladder, Calu swung his rifle butt so that it connected with the Mechanic’s head and knocked him over to the side.
“What was that?” someone still coming up the ladder complained.
“Tripped,” Calu called back. “Watch your feet, you idiots!”
“Who the blazes are you?” another Mechanic said as he reached the deck along with two others.
“Special duty,” Calu said, keeping his voice in the low, angry tones of a Mechanic who was bullying someone. Mari wasn’t surprised that Calu could mimic it so easily. They had all heard that sound too often in their time with the Guild.
Seeing the rifles, the three let themselves be herded over with the first two.
Mari lost count after that, as they tried to keep the line moving while keeping anyone from realizing what was going on. A female Mechanic wearing a holstered revolver managed to jerk back and avoid Calu and Alli, but found Mari’s pistol barrel pressed against the back of her neck as Mari reached forward to seize the revolver.
There had to be twelve or even fifteen on deck already, Mari thought, but the line out of the hatch was backing up as the Mechanic guards on deck reacted too slowly to silent orders to move.
“Get out of the way!” someone still on the ladder bellowed, and a small group shoved their way onto the deck, sending those just ahead of them stumbling in all directions.
For a moment, Mari could not see Alli or Calu.
“Everyone freeze!” she yelled, surprised to hear how deep and intimidating her voice sounded.
On the other side of the crowd, a rifle shot sounded.
Mari waited, her pistol on the dazed Mechanics facing her, wondering how many more shots would erupt.
“That one went into the deck on purpose. The next one goes into whoever I think looks ugliest,” Mari heard Bev say.
“All of you get over there!” Alli shouted.
“Move!” Calu added.
The crowd shifted, moving back and to the side. Most of them looked scared, and all of them looked confused. That had been their best weapon, Mari realized, to make things happen too quickly for the Mechanic guards to have time to understand what was going on. But it had also been their greatest risk, since moving so fast had meant little time to react if the Mechanic guards had gathered their wits in time and charged as a group.
Mari moved to the side to be in line with Alli and Calu, all three of their weapons pointed at the Mechanic guards. She could see Bev slightly off to the side, her rifle also leveled.
“Who—?” another angry voice began demanding from near Mari.
She pivoted to cover the woman coming up from another hatch. “—are you?” Mari finished for the suddenly silent Mechanic.
“Mechanic Deni of Farland,” she said, raising her hands. “Ship’s crew. I heard a shot.”
“Good,” Mari said, trying to get her breathing and her heart rate back under control. “Your captain has surrendered the ship to us. He said you would follow his orders.”
“Captain?” Mechanic Deni called.
“Follow the orders of Master Mechanic Mari! Pass the word to the rest of the crew,” Captain Banda’s answer came back. “She is the master of this ship.”
As Banda’s words soaked in, the faces of the Mechanic guards twisted into almost comical expressions of anger, disbelief, and fear.
Mari faced them again, stepping back from the hatch where Mechanic Deni stood. “First off, no one will be harmed as long as no one tries anything. Secondly, anyone who tries anything will be harmed. You’re also being covered by rifles from other parts of the ship, so don’t do anything stupid.”
It took a while to get the rest of the Pride’s crew on deck and for Captain Banda to assure them that Mari had control of the ship. Banda suggested to Mari that an improvised barrier be set up to confine the guards, who were gradually coming to grips with their situation and muttering among themselves in a way that Mari did not like at all. She had the two sentries and Senior Mechanic Denz added to the group but left them tied up for now.
The crew set to with a will to rig a large net so that it hung from some of the spars overhead and completely confined the Mechanic guards against part of the starboard rail. “They’ve endured their share of abuse from that group,” Banda commented to Mari. “You’ve made my crew prisoners and happy in the same day.”
A small group of guards began to move forward as the last section of the net was raised, but found themselves facing Bev’s rifle again. Something in her face convinced them to stop and back up. “You can untie your friends and the Senior Mechanic now,” Bev told them.
Mari finally relaxed a little as the barrier settled into place. It wasn’t impossible to get over, but to do so would require a lot of awkward climbing for the guards. “I guess now we can deal with your passengers, Captain. Do you have the keys to where they’re held?”
“No,” said Banda, shaking his head, “you do. It’s on the same ring as the key to the weapons. That one there.”
Mari twisted the key free and handed it to Banda. “Then please do me the favor of releasing them and getting the passengers up on deck, Captain.”
“Please?” Banda asked. “And the use of my title? Why so polite, Master Mechanic, when you rule this ship?”
“It’s what I do,” Mari said. “I have no reason to treat you with anything but respect, Captain.”
“I hope you will always feel that way,” Banda said, smiling
A short distance off to port, the Gray Lady raced along next to the Pride of Longfalls, the first rays of the morning sign highlighting the blue and gold banner flying from her mast. The rising sun turned the sky to shades of coral and turquoise as Banda led the bewildered passengers onto the deck. One of them laid eyes on Mari and began laughing. “Master Mechanic Mari of Caer Lyn! I should have known when I heard gunshots and cursing that the Senior Mechanics were trying to deal with you!”
Mari broke into a smile. “Mechanic Ken! I haven’t seen you since I left the Guild Hall at Caer Lyn for the Academy at Palandur!”
Ken, well into middle age, walked over to her, oblivious to the rifles held by Mari’s friends. He grasped her forearm, still grinning. “And now a Master Mechanic! Well done, Mari!”
Alli smiled too. “Hey, Ken.”
“Alli! And Calu? That’s great. I guess what the Guild tried to keep asunder, Mari brought together.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Calu said. “Why are you here, sir?”
Ken waved away the honorific. “We’re all Mechanics now, Calu. Why am I here? Because I was one of the Mechanics who taught and sponsored a certain Apprentice Mari of Caer Lyn. Given how she turned out, I was accused of not doing any of that well.”
“Given how she turned out, I’d say the question is still open,” someone else said.
Mari turned to look. “Master Mechanic Lukas. You?”
“Me.” Lukas was considerably older, and wasn’t smiling. “Under suspicion as someone who once advised you, but I’m here because I protested too strongly that we had to change practices or lose more of the Guild’s technology. What now, Mari? I always told you to think three steps ahead. What’s the point of this? Freeing us is well intentioned, but life as a refugee among the commons isn’t likely to be much of an improvement over life as a prisoner of the Guild.”
“Why don’t I tell everyone?” Mari said, feeling more nervous than she had just before swinging into the dark. She waited as the freed passengers gathered on the port side and the crew near the bow, then stood before them all, her friends arrayed behind her. There were twenty guards, plus Senior Mechanic Denz. The crew consisted of another twenty-five, with Banda and four other Mechanics, five Apprentices, and fifteen common sailors. Plus thirty-one passengers.
“Tell Alain and Asha to swing over from the Gray Lady,” she asked Mechanic Dav. “You and Bev help them get aboard.”
Turning back to the eyes upon her, some hostile, some curious, Mari took a deep breath. “I’m going to start off by saying that anyone who does not want to join me will be free to leave this ship. They will be put off in one of the ship’s boats, with sufficient food and water to reach land. All I ask is that you listen to me before you decide.”
“Don’t listen!” Senior Mechanic Denz yelled. “You are all already in great trouble, and this will surely get you all branded as traitors, just like that delusional, arrogant young fool!”
Bev smiled and raised her weapon. “If you say anything else without first raising your hand and then being called upon,” she told Denz, using the old schoolroom rule for young Apprentices, “I will shoot you.”
Mari waited, but no one else said anything and Denz appeared to have been quelled by Bev’s threat. “Let me say a few things that you all know are true. The technology the Mechanics Guild uses is failing. Everyone knows it, but the Senior Mechanics refuse to make any changes. Mages can actually do things. Many of you have seen that, and you have all been told not to speak of it. The commons hate us, and even though they supposedly do as the Mechanics Guild and Mage Guild order, they actually find ways to sabotage us at every turn.”
No one interrupted, so Mari continued. “Here’s what you may not know. I committed no crime against the Guild before it tried to have me killed. I was loyal and doing my job as best I could, and I was set up to be killed by commons.”
“How do you know that?” one of the passengers asked.
“I was told it by a Master Mechanic who had personal knowledge of the matter,” Mari said.
“What she says is true,” an older male Mechanic among the passengers said. “I was one of those in Palandur who learned of it and tried to bring about an accounting. Instead, we were ordered to be silent about it.”
“Here’s another thing,” Mari added. “Something you all may have felt. The commons have been slaves of the Great Guilds for centuries. They’re like a belt under greater and greater tension, and they’re about to snap. The rioting, the sudden, random attacks on Mechanics and Mages, the blind defiance we’ve all been seeing is getting worse at an accelerating rate, and soon it will pass a point of no return. When it does, this entire world will go the way of the Kingdom of Tiae. Only much worse. Tiae isn’t an anomaly. Tiae is a warning sign.”
“I have felt the tension you speak of,” a male Mechanic said. “But how can you be sure this isn’t just a temporary problem, part of a cycle of resistance and acceptance?”
A deeper silence fell before Mari could reply. She turned enough to see that Alain and Mage Asha had joined her group, standing out in their robes. “Partly because of them,” Mari said, indicating the two and knowing how badly the Mechanics she was speaking to would take that. “And partly from being among the commons.”
“Do they work for you?” someone demanded.
Before Mari could answer, Mage Asha did, her emotionless voice carrying clearly and eerily in the stillness of dawn. “Master Mechanic Mari has shown us new ways of wisdom. We follow her to learn more, and to aid her when called upon.”
“You’re teaching them to be Mechanics?”
“No,” Mari said, “I’m teaching them to be human! A lot of you may be wondering how I have managed to stay alive with both of the Great Guilds and the Empire trying to kill me. That Mage,” she said, pointing at Alain, “is the reason. In places where my Mechanic skills would have failed or been insufficient, his Mage skills made the difference.”
“That’s hard to believe,” another passenger commented. “Mages?”
“Believe this,” Senior Mechanic Gina said from where she stood with the passengers. “I was briefed on her before this job, told everything the Guild knew. Master Mechanic Mari should have been dead a dozen times already. She keeps getting out of impossible-to-get-away-from situations, including escaping from the Queen of the Seas with just one companion and disabling the ship in the process. According to the updates we received just before sailing from Julesport, at Altis she not only avoided being killed by the Special Missions Mechanic force but also did substantial damage to Guild assets, including sinking a ship
comparable to this one. The Guild keeps blaming our failures on incompetence, but the Special Missions goons never fail. Until Altis. Either the Mages have made a big difference, or Master Mechanic Mari is personally unstoppable and unkillable.”
After a few moments spent thinking, another passenger nodded. “No offense, Master Mechanic Mari, but I do find it more believable that the Mages made a difference.”
“There’s still something else going on,” another insisted. “Why did these Mages even listen to you? You’ve got commons on that ship following you, and according to the Guild you’re close to stirring up rebellion by all the commons. What are they seeing?”
“They listen to me,” Mari said, not sure how the full truth would be received. “Because I listen to them.”
“She’s insane!” Senior Mechanic Denz yelled, ducking back behind the other guards to shield himself from Bev. “She thinks she’s the daughter of Jules!”
“She is the daughter,” Mage Asha said. “It has been seen.”
The commons among the Pride’s crew turned shocked glances toward the sailors from the Lady who were aboard. Those sailors hoisted their fists high and shouted answers to the unspoken questions. “It is her!” “She’s the one!” “The daughter has come at last!”
Mari braced herself for the reaction from the Mechanics, but instead of mockery and contempt she saw thoughtfulness changing to admiration and looks of shared amusement. What did that mean?
“Smart,” Master Mechanic Lukas murmured.
She finally got it. These other Mechanics thought that Mari was working a scam on the Mages and the commons, posing so successfully as the legendary daughter that she could get them to do as she wanted.
“What’s your plan?” Lukas asked.
“To set Mechanics free,” Mari said, determined not to disclose too much while people who were certain not to join her, like the guards and Senior Mechanic Denz, were in earshot. “Free to do new things, to innovate, to change. Learn what we can from the Mages and accept what skills they can bring. And give the commons freedom. Why are Mechanics ruling the commons? We’re engineers. Let the commons rule themselves and come to us for the technology and the tools they need.”
“If the commons rule themselves,” one of the passengers said in a worried voice, “everything could go to blazes.”
“It’s already been going to blazes,” Mechanic Ken commented. “There are almost always wars and raids and attacks going on, and look at Tiae. The Guild has always claimed it can rule the commons, but the Guild ended up abandoning Tiae. That’s not a sign of superior strength or wisdom.”
“It’s Tiae that makes me believe her the most,” another Mechanic said. “That and my experience with far-talkers. I was on a task force working on the portable far-talkers being constructed now. We were told to use the same design, but some of the components being turned out either don’t work or are bigger, heavier, and less efficient than they’re supposed to be. Something is being allowed to change, but only in one direction, and that’s downhill.”
Captain Banda pointed back to the stern cabin. “One-half of that used to house a far-talker. But over time the big far-talkers have been pulled off most Mechanics Guild ships to be used for parts to try to keep the far-talkers on a few other ships and those in the Guild Halls still working.
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