“Means it’s not part of the Alliance,” Gravel said. “Right, Niko?”
“That’s part of it.” Kaspar nodded.
“All dark and lawless and uncivilised is the Free Lanes,” Gravel made a face.
“Be there soon,” Kaspar said. “And then . . . we’ll see.”
“ENJOYING THE VIEW?”
Violet traced the incoming horizon, the dock-world of a backwater planet whose name had already slipped her mind. It grew steadily larger, the mist chased away by the Fata Morgana’s encroach.
“It doesn’t feel right,” she told Kaspar.
“What do you mean?”
“This,” she waved her hand in front of the polished crystal, the planetary landscape reflected in it. “The perspective is wrong. The way the ship moves, I feel it, and then I see this, and this is wrong. It’s wrong.”
“You’re not the only one to say that.” Kaspar stood at ease, rocking back and forth on his heels with the pitch of the ship, hands clasped behind his back. “Not enough that we’re listing. Maybe something else is lost, with all this metal and glass between us.”
“It is.”
“It’s an odd thing for you to say that.”
“Why?”
“Because we pulled you from outside, Violet. Frozen and cold. I would have thought if anyone would have wanted something between them and the mist, it would be you.”
Cold. Falling . . .
“So you thought wrong,” Violet said. “Can’t be the first time.”
“I see the ice still has some melting to go.”
You don’t know cold. You don’t know it at all.
Violet grabbed at her head, knuckles massaging her temples. The motion knocked her glasses askew, the fragile wire frames almost bending from her reflexive actions. The glasses made everything worse, staring out at the world through scratched and tinted filters. Worse but better, because without them there was no colour. They made her nose hurt, leaving painful indentations on the bridge. She probably looked ridiculous too. The pain made her short-tempered and snappy. She knew it made her that but it didn’t stop her snapping at people. At Kaspar and Gravel.
“And how are you today, little one?”
Violet turned, leaning against the hull of the ship. Raines stood a few feet away, hands clasped behind his back, studying her intently. She disliked it when he looked at her like that.
Like some peculiar specimen in some jar, some pretty butterfly pinned to a board.
“Better,” she said.
“You do indeed look more sure of foot, more flush with colour. You are recovered from your latest incident? The glasses are helping your vision still? Well, one could presume so. However, the proof is in the undertaking, so they say.”
“Sir?” Kaspar inquired.
“I would like you to accompany the shore party, little one,” Raines explained, addressing Violet. “The first officer is leading a search of the more lurid elements of this port. A distasteful task, some would say, myself among them, but I believe it would be beneficial for you to accompany them.”
Violet stared. “Why?”
“You will of course accompany our young friend, Ensign,” Raines continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “You and your companion sailor friend. I believe he is attending to preparations towards such manners now.”
“As you say, sir.” Kaspar nodded respectfully.
Prat, Violet thought, folding her arms. She couldn’t imagine a reason why Raines wanted her to go ashore. He might be one of her own kind but the way he treated her made her skin crawl sometimes. Like one of his experiments.
Still . . . if she was allowed ashore there would be opportunities.
Opportunities for what?
Her hopes took a beating when she was confronted with the sight of Aristeia Quinn. Her encounters with the woman hadn’t been pleasant so far, but they had been minimal. Now they’d be making landfall together.
Leanly muscled, covered in scars. Deliberate scars, something Aristeia and Mors had in common. They were like tattoos, only carved into her flesh. Pale skinned like a lot of humans who spent time in the mist, dark hair just touched with grey.
Wooden ships and iron men. Iron women, more like.
They never call her skipper.
Skipper or no, when Aristeia gave orders the marines moved. Like freshly greased clockwork. And it was marines, not sailors, that made up their party.
Marines were like soldiers who sailed, rather than sailors who could fight.
Someone had once told her that. The Fata Morgana seemed to have a few of them, these marines. All tough and big and mean-looking. A mix of all distaff sorts. And armed, all for the shore party.
“Am I to understand that the girl is coming ashore?”
Aristeia had noticed her.
I got a name, lady, Violet thought, but held her tongue.
“That is the way of it, Mistress Quinn,” Raines said. “I would be most appreciative if you would include young Violet and her companions in your expedition today.”
“Her companions?” Aristeia repeated. “Last I heard both Brandon and Kaspar sailed under our colours, on this crew.”
“Yes, indeed. Perhaps we can discuss this later, but suffice to say they have been . . . delegated the chore of looking after my young friend for such time as she is with us.”
“Have they now.”
“Yes, now perhaps a word in private, first officer?”
Aristeia allowed herself to be drawn aside by Raines, some distance from Kaspar, Violet, and the marines. The woman gave Violet several long, cold looks as Raines spoke at length, occasionally nodding. Whatever he relayed, the woman showed little reaction. It was a welcome relief when Gravel appeared, a distraction if nothing else.
“Where have you been?” Kaspar asked him.
“From one end of the ship to the other,” Gravel squinted at them. Violet guessed he’d been down in the hold or some other dimly lit part of the ship and his eyes were still adjusting. She hadn’t been able to make time to see Bandit herself, let alone Sharpe. Gravel always seemed to make time for the loompa. “What’s this fuss about? Are we going ashore?”
“We are,” Kaspar nodded. “All of us.”
“All?” Gravel stared. “Us? Her? Her?” He cast a meaningful look at the first mate. The woman didn’t miss the reaction and Gravel flinched at her frown in his direction.
“Hells,” he cursed under his breath.
“Damnit, Brandon, be more careful,” Kaspar winced. “Stand to.”
Gravel fell in alongside his friend, overly stiff and attentive as the first officer strode up to them, booted feet loud in the metal corridor.
“Keep a watch on her,” was all she said, but both boys snapped off parade-worthy salutes. The woman’s eyes lingered over Violet but she made no further comment.
They took a tender to the surface of the planet. A reassuring wooden vessel, oak and pine, timbers and pitch with rope and sailcloth. Violet crouched down in a nook, her fingers stroking the grain of the planks. So reassuring and familiar. The sail flapped until someone adjusted the boom, cold-faced marines sat silently, leathers creaking and the occasional restless foot.
“The mist is thin here,” Aristeia could be heard saying to the navigator. “Don’t let us slip off the pathway.”
The mist is thin.
It was a blue sun, the planet orbited. Dangerous to look at directly while still in the black but Violet risked a glimpse. The surface of the star, massive even in the distance, roiled like an ocean of white caps. Blue and white. Somehow colder than the black.
Violet thought about asking why it wasn’t the Fata Morgana herself making port. But the answer seemed obvious. They didn’t want anyone to know they were there.
That explained the silence. The anxious look on Gravel’s face and the tightly controlled grimace on Kaspar’s. Aristeia wasn’t going ashore to visit or secure supplies. There was no trading intended. She had a mission, one that required both secrecy
and a significant armed presence.
Yet somehow it was still permitted for her to tag along.
Curious and curious still.
Aristeia’s raptor stare fell upon them again. Wordlessly, she passed two utilitarian wands to Violet’s minders. Gravel accepted his clumsily, Kaspar tucked his through his belt without comment. The first mate leaned close to him, passing on something Violet couldn’t make out. Kaspar just nodded, his face still pale and taut.
“Nothing for me?” Violet said. Aristeia ignored her.
“You ever even used a wand, Miss Violet?” Gravel asked her.
She looked pointedly at the weapon in his shaking hands. “You ever even?”
“Shot the head off a wooden man once,” Gravel said. “Took it clean off.”
“A wooden man?” Violet repeated.
“It was a bucket,” Kaspar said. “Shiny.”
“A shiny bucket?”
“Very shiny,” Gravel agreed. “Weren’t even aiming for it.”
Violet looked over the side of the gunwales. Below she could start to make out details of the dockside town. The town was still shadowed, not much more than silhouetted buildings, but on the horizon, sunrise was beginning. A razor’s line of the most brilliant blue and white against the black, punctuated by a starburst of brightest yellow fire.
Colours. Missed you all.
She jostled the glasses on her face. Still didn’t feel right, how they sat, how she saw through them. Like the ship, only more personal. But the colours, those were worth the niggling inconvenience. Just needed the headaches to stop.
Too much in your head. That’s the problem.
“Are we still in the Free Lanes?” Violet asked.
“This is Port Autarch,” Gravel told her. “Name of the town. Maps call it the Cold Night, ’cause it is. So yes, it is.”
“Should I know that?”
“No reason you should. No reason anyone should have to. People avoid the place, and the place would be a whole lot better if someone were to nudge a comet around about the town square.”
“I’ve seen that happen,” Violet told him. “It’s not pretty. Not a solution either.”
Gravel shrugged. “Town square is where they hang people.”
“Criminals?”
“No. Examples. Don’t have to be criminals to be one. Don’t take them down, neither. Just leave them there until there’s nothing to take down.”
“You sound familiar with it,” Violet said.
“We’ve been here before,” Kaspar told her, his voice solemn and quiet. “Not just us, the Morgana. It was our last job. We didn’t get to finish before we were called away.”
“Called away to do what?”
Kaspar shrugged. “Raines.”
“When was this?”
“A few months ago.”
“And now you’re back. Why?”
“If we’re lucky, I know why,” Gravel said.
He might have said more but like everyone aboard he had to grab for a hold. The tender shuddered, tipping to one side. Something had hit them.
“Brace!” Aristeia called out. “All hands down!”
The vessel tipped the other way, deliberately, Violet thought, as the world turned downside and they were looking up at the ground. At township and harbour and unforgiving rock. They shuddered again. An impact, Violet realised, something had hit them. A hole caved in one side of the boat, and a marine grabbed at his thigh as splinters gouged into it. Another gave a strangled shriek, cut off mid-cry as he was thrown clear off his seat and the thin envelope. He tumbled for a bit, cartwheeling, before the pull of the planet caught him and he disappeared to earth.
Someone’s shooting at us.
Hells.
“Take us down! Now!”
Violet grabbed on, she wasn’t sure as to what. The wood under her feet didn’t feel so reliable now. It was breaking, coming apart at the seams. And going down.
The envelope was starting to fray. She saw broken timbers and ropes, anything not tied down, fly from the boat and vanish. Debris that would drift or fall, depending on which side it had exited. There was no up or down anymore. They were spinning.
“You alive there?”
Violet opened her eyes, not realising they’d been closed to begin with. She was lying on the ground, grass under her hands and feet, staring up at the sky. Grey sky.
The colours were all gone.
Violet raised a hand to her face, found everything where it was supposed to be. Nose, chin, lips, but no glasses. No colours.
No headache either, but everything else hurt.
“I’m alive.” She sat up. Kaspar was kneeling in front of her, Gravel peering over his shoulder in concern. The marines were scattered around them, in various stages of getting to their feet. The remains of the tender were nearby, the bow crumpled and so many splinters.
“More than can be said for our stalwart boat there,” Gravel said what she was thinking. “Be needing another ride back to the ship.”
“Can’t they come get us?” Violet asked. She pinched the pearl still hanging from her ear between thumb and forefinger. Broke the big boat and now the little one too. How many more boats we got left? Getting to be a habit.
“They might have to,” Kaspar grimaced, looking up into the sky. “But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“What happened?” Violet said, letting Kaspar help her up. “Something hit us?”
“The locals,” Kaspar said. “Don’t care much for the Alliance.”
“And we made such a song and dance for them too,” Gravel said. “Coming in flying our colours and such.”
Kaspar shrugged. “Navigator softened the landing. Took a shaft through the chest for their troubles and bled out soon after. Couldn’t leave even if the boat had stayed in one piece. We’d be dead if not for them though, all of us.”
“Can the ship . . . would they shoot at her too?”
“The Morgana?” Gravel chuckled. “Big steely-skinned monster pretending she’s a ship. Like to see them try. She’d shoot back, more than like. Be messy.”
“You want that?”
“Not with myself in between I don’t,” Gravel said.
Makes sense. Explains why they sent us in like that too. One more reason anyway. Still doesn’t explain what we’re doing here though.
Aristeia was calling her marines to order. She marched over to the three of them.
“You all survived,” she said, stating the obvious.
“Thanks to your navigator,” Violet said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Man was dead before we hit the ground. If he’d done his job right that never would have happened, so save your concern.”
“But I thought—” Kaspar started to say.
“You thought wrong, Ensign.” She glanced over her shoulder at her marines, stark uniforms that stood out even to Violet’s colour-blind eyes. “We need information, this lot would attract too much attention. You three head into town ahead, sound out the locals. Report back here within four bells.”
“Aye, sir.” The boys both saluted and responded in unison. Aristeia’s attention lingered on Violet again, but she didn’t give the woman a response.
Until Aristeia’s back was turned.
“And where are you gonna be, lady?”
The first mate’s back stiffened into a rigid line. Violet wouldn’t have been able to resist turning around to respond in her situation; Aristeia did.
“Nearby.”
The woman walked back through her marines, one and all they fell into step behind her, carrying the already stripped contents of their craft. All but two managed it on their own, those that could not hobbling along with support. One remained. The navigator who had died before impact.
“Best be going then, right, sir?” Gravel rolled his shoulders. “Got a town to inspect and locals to incite.”
“As you say,” Kaspar nodded.
Violet took one last look at the wreckage. The sun had risen,
she could feel what should have been heat on her back right now. Except it was cold, like a winter day. The chill before the frost. She’d always loved dawns, where the night gave way to blue and purple shades before dissolving into the warmer colours of day. But now she only saw grey. Shades upon shades of it.
Stupid colour.
Chapter 17
NEL HAD PROMISED an appearance from their reluctant stowaway crew member. That appearance had never arrived.
“Damnit, woman, are you trying to make me look stupid?” Nel growled at Lock. The Korrigan ignored her, head and hands intent on the hopelessly bent length of wire she was still probing her restraints with.
“Give me that,” Nel said in disgust, snatching the makeshift lockpick away. She knelt down and set to work. “I thought you knew what you were doing.”
“Never said I knew nothing about this.”
“Your damned name is Lock!”
“Best I could come up with on the spot, Skipper!”
“Hells damnit, woman.” Nel glared at the chains. She was having no more luck. Bad enough she had to leave Quill and Sharpe back on deck to come see what was taking so long.
Shouldn’t have acted so damned smug about it. Thought I was being clever. Too damned clever. That’ll teach me.
She could feel the tumblers through the length of the wire, the tip catching but not releasing them the way it should. Nel bit down on her lip, refusing to acknowledge the fact that she had little idea what she was doing.
She heard footsteps behind her.
“Go away, Quill,” she said without turning around.
Something clattered down beside her, something metallic.
“From the captain’s cabin,” Quill said. She heard his footsteps track back above deck.
Nel ground out some of the previous captain’s colourful language before snatching up the key. Not surprisingly, it was a perfect fit.
“You and me,” Nel pointed at the woman. “On deck and now.”
“So long as there’s grog I’ll follow you.”
Nel stopped, one foot on the stairs, twisting back to her. “Hells, I know you, don’t I?”
Lock shrugged. “Had drinks a few times.”
“More than a few—you fleeced me at cards,” Nel scowled. “You took me for so much I almost sobered up.”
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