by R J Theodore
“Oh, yes.” Chel made a small, derisive noise that wasn’t quite a laugh. “But they’ll keep trying. Not me, though. I only signed on because you lot already survived this. And because none of mine were going in with you. Risk was all yours. Still is.”
A prickle started between Talis’s shoulders. There hadn’t been much in the way of hazards when she and Tisker were aboard Scrimshaw’s ship, aside from living Yu’Nyun with their advanced rifles.
“What kind of traps?”
Chel shrugged. “The effective kind. No one’s lived to describe them.”
As Chel predicted, Ketzali het Parantu came about at their approach, gaining altitude, and furling their descent sheathing into storage compartments along the ship’s belly as it rose out of the chilly thinner air. Sophie watched, enthralled to learn how they had designed the mechanisms and strung the hoisting chains. She wouldn’t hand over her scope when Talis nudged her, and Tisker finally brought her the other.
Talis brought the glass to her eye in time to see the other ship firing its forward cannons.
She bellowed out a warning to the others, bracing herself against the railing, but the shot was wide, off their bow.
Tisker whistled to vent the sudden anxiety. “Guess the captain wasn’t kidding about, warning us to stay back.”
“Go run up a flag of conference; then switch spots with Dug. Tell him to cover his bandages.”
They were in Bone space, on a Bone ship. Best not to look like Cutter pirates, even if that’s exactly what they were.
“Better let me go with him,” Sophie said. “You and Tisker need to watch the ship.”
Talis snorted. “You aren’t very subtle, you know.”
Sophie played innocent, eyebrows up and eyes wide. “What? We could put that sheathing technique to good use.”
“Uh huh. Right. Sorry, Soph, but I promise to take notes.”
Sophie pouted but nodded and stowed her scope, then leaned back over the railing to hang the bumpers out for the other ship, which was angling its approach to tie off. The invitation had been accepted, it seemed. It did not escape her notice, however, that they’d chosen to leave the gun hatches open.
The temple ship’s captain cut an imposing figure, waiting to meet them with a small guard, amid the activity on deck. She wore shining black leather armor over simple priestess wraps, her hair braided and arranged into an impressive mane around the gold-dusted angles of her cheekbones. She wore heavy gold and turquoise jewelry, which was only out-sparkled by the jewels encrusting the pommels of her dagger and spear.
She gave Talis a severe appraisal as Sophie assisted the other crew in securing the ships together, using knots that could easily be yanked loose. Dug stood beside her, positioned just behind to show that, yes, this Cutter woman was in charge, for some reason.
“On behalf of Onaya Bone, the Mother of Earth and of these skies you sail, we claim this wreck and all salvage operations upon it. We will not allow your crew to descend.”
Talis looked over the edge of the railing, which currently was blocked by the other ship, but the motion was an affectation anyway. “How’s that going? I notice you don’t have any lines down. Give up on the lives you sent below already?”
Talis thanked the Gods-That-Remained that Chel had given her that insight. It had the impact she wanted. The other captain’s face faltered, revealing a guilt Talis knew too well from her own failures.
“The ships are dangerous, though their crews must be long dead.”
Talis nodded. “How about this? You let us in on the salvage, and we get your crew back for you, if they’re still alive.”
“Yours is not the first Cutter crew we have encountered outside your own territories, digging through the wrecks. We sank those ships. Why should we make an exception for you?” But her interest was piqued.
“We know a bit about the Yu’Nyun ships. We blew up the one on Fall Island.”
Talis rolled up her sleeve, then, and held her forearm out for the other crew to see. The cold air whipping across the deck seared at the edges of Onaya’s brand, and she had to resist the urge to rub at it.
At least that cursed itching scar finally came in handy. The captain’s focus locked on it, and hope mingled with the obvious surprise. One of the guard behind her began to cry, silently, tears running down his face. No doubt someone sent to the ship below was beloved of him and thought lost.
The captain motioned with a hand, and the cannon hatches were closed. Someone stepped up to take her spear from her. She relaxed her regal stance, and Talis sensed Dug also relax behind her. “I am relieved to learn there are still Cutters who are not Veritors. We had begun to wonder.” She arched her back and lifted her chest again. “We have orders to retrieve a simula. If you rescue my salvage crew so that we may complete our mission, the rest of the take is yours.”
“Why a simula?” Talis had her suspicions, but Onaya could be playing several long games at once.
“The Bone Mother wants it. It is our duty to obey, not question.”
Talis nodded. Onaya wanted a simula, and there wasn’t much of a way to argue, mark of authority scarred into her or not, against this captain’s sense of religious duty.
“We’ll bring your crew back to you.” She was careful not to promise that she could bring them back alive.
Talis and Sophie huddled over the Yu’Nyun tablet in the crew galley. Neither of them had much of an appetite, but without a general idea of how long they’d be down there, or what would happen if—when—they returned, Sophie had insisted they not skip a meal.
The tablet registered the presence of the ship below as soon as Sophie activated its screen. She used the Yu’keem characters she’d been practicing to find her way to a schematic of the ship, including a damage report. More than half the line drawing was flashing with complaints of power loss, hull breaches, and other errors that were less obvious. Alien glyphs churned above the schematic, listing their grievances.
Sophie waved one finger over a section of the ship, not touching the surface lest she accidentally change the readout. “I think this is the best place to go in, Captain.”
“The safest?” Talis asked.
Sophie shrugged. “Not really a ‘safe’ spot, but it’s a breach in the hull we can enter through. And it’s fairly close to a large open area that’s probably a cargo hold and storage lockers, so that’s probably where we’ll find the other crew.”
Talis and Tisker hadn’t exactly been taken on a full tour when they boarded Scrimshaw’s ship at Fall Island and found the ring, along with Meran. She vaguely remembered the powered deck lifts, the sliding cabin doors, the vaulted atrium that contained the crystalline battery, and the fall as they had to leap for safety as the ship exploded around them.
When Sophie had been aboard the same vessel as a guest—before Talis blew it up—the aliens had led them straight to the bridge, with little to see on the way aside from shining white bulkheads and soft carpeted flooring.
What hope did Talis’s crew have if there were some kinds of technologically driven hazards on these ships?
With a pang of loss, she desperately wished that Scrimshaw was still with them.
“All right, but we need a plan to shut down their traps.”
Sophie tapped a spot on the screen and the tablet flashed gray for a moment. “I tried to power down the entire ship from here, but I think it’s too damaged for a two-way connection.”
Talis nodded. “Think you can do it directly, after we get aboard?”
The look Sophie gave her didn’t say yes. “Believe me, Captain, I’ve already packed the electrocancellation barrel. Glad I didn’t leave the heavy bugger behind in Lippen!”
Talis remembered her food and poked at the vegetables on her tray with her tined spoon. “Any idea what kind of traps we might be up against?”
Sophie nodded. �
��I’m thinking they’re not so much deliberate traps as malfunctioning systems and security lockouts.”
“How do you figure?”
The mechanic shrugged. “The Yu’Nyun never really doubted that they’d be in control of every situation, right? Planning traps for boarding parties meant admitting they’d ever be in that kind of trouble. I dunno, just doesn’t seem like it fits in with their way of thinking.”
“As if the Yu’Nyun minds work anything like ours.”
Another shrug. “Best I got, Captain.”
Talis nodded and sipped from her coffee. The last thing her stomach needed was more acid, but she’d promised herself that, after two years without, she’d never pass up an opportunity for a cup again. “Okay, I’ll take it.”
Tisker poked his head around the corner of the galley from where he was standing guard in the hall. They’d agreed as a group that they wouldn’t let the Bone crew take their ship back as easily as it was taken from them. Talis leaned back, pushing her tray of food away in resignation. “Tisker, any thoughts before you take the winch?”
“Y’mean aside from ‘let’s blow up the gods-rotted ships and be done with them’?”
It probably wasn’t the worst idea, and it would be the fastest solution to the six ships mapped out on Chel’s charts, but it didn’t get them many answers, and a few crates of Yu’Nyun weapons could make a big difference for someone like the Tempest if their revolution got a tailwind. Could definitely work as currency to get the rebels interested in helping them get their message out. So they’d dive a ship or two, then destroy the rest.
“Yeah, aside from that.”
Tisker grinned at her, then tipped back his own coffee mug. The ship’s galley was stocked with fresh, thick cream, and he’d taken advantage of it. “Let’s do what we came here to do, Cap.”
Chapter 22
Hankirk had abandoned his privilege. All the finery of the Imperial court was a mere whisper of his past now. He pulled the musty wool coat up around his neck to block out the winds as rain soaked the deck of Silus’ Sake, a heavyweight trawler that had taken him on when the sloop he hired in Diadem reached the end of its route and wanted to head back. The trawler was a ponderous ship, but the fare had been cheap, and the crew entirely uninterested in Hankirk’s presence.
It kept to the safety lanes of the storm cloud as it pushed deeper against the driving rain, toward the water depot at its center. From there, Hankirk hoped to find a ship willing, for the right price, to convey him to one undercity port or another. Eventually, he would wend his way to Subrosa.
He could feel the weight of Silus Cutter’s ring against his chest. Could feel the pulsing vibration of the power it contained. It altered the pattern of his heart with a more ancient rhythm. Kept him calm in the face of every shift as the firmament threatened to come down around him. All his designs. Two years of planning, now to be realized. He would save his world, as an agent of change and chaos if necessary, even if it took his last breath to see it through. He had never been concerned for himself.
Despite the wet misery of the storm system, the depot at its center was alive with activity. Mostly the usual trawlers arriving to load their reservoirs with rainwater, but there was also an unusually high number of other cargo ships present. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for a few to be there, filling their own water stores directly at the source rather than paying added fees to refuel at the docks for which their cargo was destined. But there were at least a dozen non-trawlers tied up at the docks, their crews ducking to and fro in foul weather gear against the driving rain. This indicated a more organized gathering.
The reasons for which were made evident as Hankirk sought a connecting passage.
“Heading past the border while the getting’s good,” said one gruff sailor, pushing past Hankirk as though he were no more an obstacle than the rain.
Another ship had much the same destination in mind. “Market’s going to crash; that’s what I heard. Might have more luck among the Rakkar. They always need somethin’ transported.”
The cowards were fleeing!
Hankirk put his mechanical hand out to stop the next crew woman from passing him by. His gearwork was wrapped in oilcloth to protect it against the rain. The humidity alone would be enough to have him dismantling and cleaning the gears out whenever he finally did get off the depot’s island and out of the perpetual storm cloud. “What’s got everyone spooked? I’ve never seen so many ships make a run on the borders.”
“Haven’t had much luck with the borders, but now that they’re open, we’ve got a clear shot.”
“Open?” The timing baffled Hankirk.
The woman scowled beneath her deep canvas hood, casting her gaze over Hankirk’s shoulder toward the distant station. “How’d you make it this far, out of touch as you are? The coronation. Borders are open to let the ambassadors through, and trading ships alike. But only till the coronation’s over and they’re back home again. We’ve gotta haul ourselves away, if we want to be out of reach of the Imperials at the other end of this.”
The woman shoved him out of the way and moved on, muttering about landlocked fools into the rolling thunder and howling winds.
Hankirk spared a moment of worry for the crown princess who would have a hell of a fight ahead of her to keep the Veritor plots at bay.
In the shelter of the depot’s office, ship crews were in less of a hurry to go about their business. A wall of heat had welcomed Hankirk as he stepped inside and massive propane heater fought back the chill.
He shed his wet overcoat, hanging it near those of the small crowd gathered to warm themselves while they waited for a depot clerk to call the numbers on their queue tickets. A metal grate beneath the coat rack allowed the water running off the oiled canvas coats to drain. Probably straight back into the reservoirs of water that the depot would then sell back to the ships.
Hankirk made his way to stand amid the sailors ringing the heater. He only listened at first, not wanting to distract anyone with his ignorance of the situation. A cluster of captains and first mates rubbed the feeling back into their calloused fingers and spoke their mind. No one they were afraid of could hear them in the heart of a storm.
“Don’t trust it. They’re just trying to get their own crews through, I bet.”
“Wish I’d thought to fit the old bucket with some salvage gear myself, frankly.”
“Sure, sounds like a mountain of a payday, but you really trust those aliens not to cut your throat rather than pay up?”
“I dunno; they’re pretty well behaved, ain’t they?”
There was a mutter of ironic laughter. “Sure, of course. This side of Nexus, they’re all smiles, right boys?”
“I don’t think they can smile.”
“Ah, and there’s the truth of it. Don’t trust a one who can’t smile. Even the Rakkar—who ain’t got the sense to love a fresh breeze on their skin—got cheeks what can smile.”
The conversation turned to creative insults against the Yu’Nyun anatomy as only sailors could imagine. They were impressive, morbid delights, as the crowd fancied what the alien bodies were good for, if they were so rigid and yet so delicate.
Hankirk finally attempted to draw the conversation back to what he hadn’t been able to deduce from the snippets thus far.
“Salvage gear? Why the interest?” He seeded the question to hear them confirm what he already suspected.
There was a light chuckle from most of the bodies around the heater, but one captain spoke up, talking through teeth clenching her cigar in one corner of her mouth. “Truthtell of th’whole coronation mess is these Yu’Nyun want their’n ships back. A year ago, they didn’ave the pull t’send anyone down, not while it was still in Imperial claim. But since then, they’ve settled in like fleas’n a colony ship, they ’ave, an’ they’ve got all the clout they need t’order the Imperials around.”<
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“But why not wait? Can’t be long until the wrecks are through on the rounds again, right?” Hankirk knew exactly how long it was. There’d been plenty of talk about it in the audiences he’d attended with Hrrin’ru’taetin and Patron Demir while he was still in Diadem’s good graces.
“Apparently, Bone crews have been poking at their wrecks, an’ now there’s some other salvage crew workin’ fer a Vein company—frankly it defies belief that they didn’t push harder from the start—but that’s not the point, anyway. Point is: the aliens’ve decided not t’wait for some’n else to pick their carcasses clean ’fore the who’lot passes into Cutter skies.”
“Figure the aliens are going to make another run at the gods,” Hankirk said.
Someone took it as a question and scoffed. “Shhaw, not likely. Ain’t many of them left, and it’s not like they could dust off their ships and immediately make another go of it.”
Hankirk took some small measure of pride that his rumors had spread so that no one batted an eyelash to hear that the aliens were not innocent refugees, as the Veritors had portrayed.
“Aye, but they’d better do something before the Tempest learns to fly formation.”
Hankirk’s attention pricked at that. The strength of the Tempest was supposed to just be rumor on the wind, less substantial than the truth about Silus Cutter, the battle at Nexus, and the aliens. Yet here, folk were talking about it like it was a full-formed militia. “The Tempest? Aren’t they the group handing out blankets and hard tack?”
“Oh, aye.” It was the captain speaking around her cigar again. “Tha’s what they do wit’ th’one hand. It’s the other hand t’watch. Like a card swindler, I an’ mine figure it’s all distraction. Other hand’s finger on a trigger, an’ it’s the aliens and the Imperials they’re eyeballin’.”
“So the Tempest is the most likely party to move on the Veritors?” Hankirk didn’t realized he’d said ‘Veritors’ instead of ‘Yu’Nyun’ until someone sniggered.
