Better to be taken prisoner than die fighting hardened marines.
“Warning shots,” Quill observed, snapping Nel’s attention back to the moment. Cannon fire was coming their way, at the outer limit of the Mangonel’s range, far outside of what the Tantamount’s token battery could manage. The first round sent a geyser of water shooting skyward off the starboard bow. Second and tertiary shots marched steadily closer to the ship, each volley causing another column of water.
Underneath Nel’s feet, the ship rocked, listing too far to one side. She grabbed hold, waiting for the Tantamount to right itself. She saw Quill take a tumble, leaning dangerously far out over the railing towards the tilt of the ship. The ship that wasn’t coming back to the plane. A hard glance at Mantid showed a confused navigator, forelimbs flailing in a frustrated dance.
“What happened?” Nel demanded. “They didn’t hit us. Feels like half the ballast came loose!”
“Because it did!” Quill pulled his head back from the side. “The ship is breached, taking on water. The garboard!”
Hells. Hells, hells, hells! Nel cursed herself silently with every blue tongued invective she could think of. The damned hole in the hull, the one she hadn’t made time to fix. Because of what had almost happened to Violet.
For want of a girl, a ship was lost . . .
No time to think about that.
Another shot struck the water nearby, a column of foam and spray shooting skyward, dousing them all.
“We need to turn!” She had to yell to make herself heard. “Turn hard. Hard as she can, lift the seam out until we’re riding the plane.”
“Quill, take over,” the captain ordered. “Don’t let them get that sort of bearing on us.”
A smile spreading over his face, Quill resumed his usual post at the helm. The ship gybed immediately as Quill’s efforts started to bring them around, the sailors in the rigging moving quickly to respond and rejig the sails. Nel grabbed for a handhold, silently willing Quill not to submerge the ship. It was easy to forget they were restricted to a mere two dimensions here, their movements as flat as the world they were trying to escape.
More shots rained down from above. Falling between them and where they needed to be. Quill pulled the ship higher into the wind, forced off his course.
“We need a diversion, Nel,” the captain advised her. “Perhaps the guns?”
Nel stared for a moment, before catching the guise of the captain’s thoughts. Another cannon shot smashed into the waves nearby. Nel was already running for the guns.
ATOP THE MAST, huddled and clinging to the inside of the crow’s nest, Violet had been one of the first to realise Quill had retaken control of the Tantamount. The mad Kelpie had pitched the ship at such an angle the crew on the starboard deck could have reached over and dipped their hand in the rushing waters. It was even worse than a few moments ago, when the ship had listed the other way, crashing drunken and flailing against the waves. Violet clung to the tapered part of the mast, refusing to let herself think about falling. Bandit rode her back, arms wrapped in a death grip around her neck. Whatever happened next they’d have to face it together.
Violet followed the skipper’s mad run across the deck, bent low and almost spiderlike, clambering over ropes and winches, the ether in the plane barely strong enough to keep the woman’s feet planted against the pull of the flat world.
The skipper made for one of the thaumatic cannons mounted on the sides of the ship. The weapons seemed insignificant compared to what the Mangonel Falling could throw at them. Violet had watched the warship manoeuvre into position above them, twisting on its axis to bring its lateral batteries to bear. She’d been counting them. At least three gun decks, with maybe fifty different cannons making up the broadside. Over a hundred in total when the other broadside was taken into account. A full broadside, even at this range, might take them out entirely, yet the Mangonel seemed content to toy with them for now.
Violet tried to figure out the skipper’s plan, sure there was some method to her madness. She wasn’t fool enough to try and outshoot the dreadnought—the best gunners in the Lanes wouldn’t take those odds. So what then?
The skipper took charge of one of the guns. Hounds, apparently acting under orders Violet couldn’t make out, took another on the opposite side of the ship, the high side. Both pointed the cannons directly at the water and let loose as fast as their weapons could fire. The resulting barrage kicked up fountains of water and spray. The skipper and Hounds kept at it until both their cannons ceased firing, spent. Violet watched the skipper spin her battery around, whacking at the casing repeatedly with her hand until it discharged a burnt-out canister; a practically luminescent crystal the skipper pitched far away from the ship into the water, skimming the surface like a stone on a pond. Super-heated and already volatile, the crystalline ammunition exploded when it finally broke the water’s surface with a cracking boom that made Violet duck down inside the nest. A second boom followed: Hounds. Spray rained down on Violet even at that height. When she peeked, she saw a curtain of water still falling.
Both Hounds and the skipper moved to the secondary guns alongside and began again. By then the sea around the Tantamount was a blue and white haze of mist and steam, the air so badly obscured Violet couldn’t make out the Alliance ship anymore. She signalled as much to the crew below and got a wave in return from the skipper. It wasn’t much, their watery camouflage, but enough to stop any sharp-eyed gunners lining up their killing shot.
The skipper’s stop-gap smokescreen had bought them the time to reach the falls. And that Violet could see. The falls, where the water tumbled off the end of the world, just like the Tantamount was about to. And if they were lucky they’d vanish just as mysteriously into space as that same water. Days before Violet had pestered the skipper about where the water went to. Now she would find out first-hand.
Coming up to the edge, the water frothed and boiled, bubbling over into the black abyss that was space. Quill held the Tantamount steady at its precarious and impossible angle, just as Violet clung tight to the mast, one foot planted on the rim of her nest. Bandit clung fiercely to her, still refusing to let go. She considered making a run for the relative safety of the deck but the mast was swaying too violently for that to happen. One wrong step and she would plummet into the water and be swept over the edge. Most of the rest of the crew had descended out of the rigging, leaving her alone up high. It wasn’t a comforting thought as the Tantamount cleared the falls and . . .
Violet had expected the Tantamount to keep sailing, using the momentum of the falls and Quill’s thaumatic powers to push out into the void, clearing the world’s grasp. Instead . . . Quill held back. The Tantamount crested the falls, riding the current for a few brief moments before violently pitching forwards, diving straight down with the rest of the crashing water.
Without the ether hammered into the lining of the hull, the ship and all its crew would have been thrown asunder, following the plight of cascading water or tossed like rag dolls into the black. But up in the nest at the edge of the envelope the ether’s grasp was weakest, the air thinnest. Violet and Bandit were thrown against the curtain of the nest, Violet almost rolling over the rim as she clutched with one hand, the other wrapping around the terrified and screeching loompa. Small clawed hands tore at her, desperately. She barely felt the scratches as the ship plunged down, was nearly thrown from the nest again when the ship twisted through a half roll, driving directly through the curtain of the world’s waterfall, the sails and timbers of the ship groaning in protest as tons of water crashed down on them. Then the Tantamount broke through, emerging into the dark underbelly of the flat world, inside the aquatic curtain.
Quill pulled the Tantamount up, levelling their path off relative to the world above them, sailing parallel to the world. Violet stared in awe at that world. It was like a vast, giant cave, blocking out most of the light and shrouding the heavens in something even darker than the black. But from that dark stabbed
giant mountains, the craggy roots of the flat world that the Tantamount now wove through. The spaces between them were vast but it wasn’t long before the ship felt lost in the stone forest. Violet cast around but was unable to see anything beyond the dark in the menhir-like maze. She threw a leg over the nest, ready to make her way back down to rejoin the crew.
And paused, halfway through the motion, Bandit perched on her shoulder. She could see the curtain again through a gap in the massive stalactites, a chance opening that let her see their back trail. Just long enough to spot the dark shadow on the other side of the curtain. Before it broke through.
NEL PICKED HERSELF up from the deck. The entire crew had become one sodden mess. She wiped still-dripping hair out of her face before screams from the crow’s nest wrenched her attention up. Nel saw Violet gesturing frantically, signalling be damned. Genuine panic set in for a moment—had the Mangonel Falling already followed them through the falls? She’d been convinced Quill’s gambit would buy them the lead they so desperately needed. It was madness for a ship the size of the Mangonel to try and follow them here.
Above them, dust and debris blossomed from one of the massive inverted mountains. Where above the explosions had been limited to water, here the Tantamount was showered with rock and stone. Nel raised a hand to shield her face, running for the bridge. She joined the stunned Captain and navigators, all facing the stern of the ship.
Behind them a bright spot gleamed. Wand fire: ship mounted, pinpoint in the darkness. The stream of turbulent light shot overhead, causing another explosion of rock ahead of them where it hit.
“Quill!” Nel grabbed the navigator by the shoulder, forgetting herself, and snatched her suddenly numb hand back.
Quill took charge again, the Tantamount rising in tune with his hands, climbing to dubious refuge amongst the roots of the world. Nel strained her eyes trying to catch a glimpse of the ship behind them, but all she could make out was the discharges of their weapons. Every shot, and they were shockingly few in their frequency, narrowed the gap, striking closer to the Tantamount. They were being stalked, hunted, by someone who wasn’t just firing blindly anymore.
“Captain,” Nel twisted away from the stern to face the captain, “we need to . . .”
Her words were lost as another brilliant bolt lanced out of the darkness, striking true, direct to the main mast, just above the top platform. The mast swayed as the light from the impact faded, cracking, a sound shockingly loud inside the envelope, and began to topple backwards, the top third falling towards the bridge.
It crushed the stern. Nel tried to sit up, not even aware of how she’d been knocked down, trying to wave the air in front of her face clear. The captain lay across her body, looking down at her, eyes bright and shockingly aware. His face was lit up in flashes, the ship shuddering as more thaumatic bolts struck them. The soaking timbers started to steam, then smoulder, then smoke.
“Get up, Skipper,” Horatio ordered.
Nel couldn’t recall seeing the man so focused. He pulled Nel to her feet.
A wordless cry from Quill. Echoing the pain of the ship. Her poor ship. But that wasn’t what had struck at Quill. She saw then.
Violet, still clinging to the nest atop the mast. A nest on the verge of separating from that mast. And in front of Nel’s eyes it did. She saw the look on Violet’s face as she started to float free of the Tantamount’s envelope, a certain death in a cold void.
And the nest stopped, hovering, shaking.
Quill. It could only be him. Nel hadn’t missed the still and broken form of their other navigator, crushed beneath the mast. She saw Quill then, at the head of the stairs leading to the main deck, framed by a damaged and flaming ship. The successive shots had struck the sails, tearing flaming holes through them. One threatened to rip itself free and blanket the deck. The Tantamount was burning. And Quill was ignoring it all, one hand outstretched, almost imploringly, trying to drag Violet in by sheer force of will.
Because he’d promised.
Nel faced her protégé, only a dozen feet away. Violet’s eyes found hers, wide, frightened, terrified. And Nel had to look away, her body feeling heavy and sluggish as she turned towards Quill. Each step felt like lead as she closed the distance between them. And then it was Quill’s eyes that found hers, filled first with surprise, then with horror, as she crashed into him, carrying them both over the stairs and down hard to the deck below.
Breaking his concentration.
QUILL GRIPPED THE front of her shirt, threatening to rip Nel off her feet. He grabbed her with both hands, pulling her right to his snarling maw. His hands didn’t burn like they should, too far gone to even channel his own power. The navigator shook her, wouldn’t stop shaking her, incoherent. Rage. Grief? She couldn’t tell. Didn’t care.
She struck him. It felt like breaking her hand in the process. Quill went down to the deck and lay still, for what felt like a forever moment, before he raised his head to face her again.
“Save the ship, Quill. Save the gods damned ship.”
Nel turned her back on him, found herself facing the galley. The galley was exploding, a billowing fireball that threatened to engulf what was left of the ship. Jack was thrown clear, taking Nel down with him. He got up, bellowing. Calling Gabbi’s name. But the captain got there first, striding into the inferno, arm raised in front of his face as he forced his way through the smoke. Gabbi was there on the floor, trapped under fallen timbers. Alive or dead, Nel couldn’t tell. She shouldered Jack aside, trying to run to her friend’s side. The captain heaved aside burning debris, smoke rising from him as well now. His great coat, trailing around his knees, had caught alight. Irritably, almost casually, Horatio threw the burning garment aside, far into the inferno. He stooped, and to Nel’s amazement, the captain pulled Gabbi free, turning to face her.
Horatio, Gabbi cradled in his thin arms, took a step towards Nel. And the rear of the ship erupted in flames, smoke and fire swallowing them both.
There was a scream. Was it her? The captain? Gabbi or Jack? It didn’t matter. Right then nothing else mattered.
Crushing, stabbing pain on her shoulder. Quill spun her around, away from the carnage. The deck shifted under her feet, and the bow of the Tantamount dropped out of sight. Nel stared in disbelief as half the ship broke away, ripped asunder. Ether spilled out into the void between the severed portions, painting the macabre cross section of the gutted ship with a silver sheen. She saw crew above and below decks alike tumbling away.
“The ship’s dead!” Someone grabbed her by the shoulders, made her face them. Hounds. “We need to go. We need to go now!”
Nel pushed the woman away, trying to locate what it was that was tearing her ship apart. All around her the timbers screamed in their death throes. Splinters, jibbing, ropes, everything was falling away, disintegrating before her eyes.
A flash of light blotted out the expanse. A heavy battery of wand fire. It ripped up the deck, threw her back. She saw stars. Then only black.
She grabbed at the hands lifting her up. Quill’s. He hesitated.
“I told you to save the ship, Kelpie,” Nel heard herself say.
Quill’s eyes narrowed. “You are the Tantamount.” He threw her and rough hands caught her. Felt like Jack. Smelt like him too. Quill climbed in after her. They were inside a bubble, the hatch closing behind them.
“Let me up.” Nel shook off the hands. It wasn’t hard, she was already floating. Jack let her go. It was just the three of them inside, already drifting away from the ship. Her head was spinning. Or was that the bubble? It was both. The bubble was spinning, rolling, rotating. One of them. She glimpsed severed cables, their tether and hose. No going back.
The Tantamount was burning. In pieces. Like a giant, petulant child had ripped her ship apart in a tantrum.
There was another bubble alongside them. Nel had just registered this when the world lit up. Incandescent streams arcing through the black. They struck unerringly, all seeming to find the oth
er glass sphere.
Then it grew larger. The sphere was stressed, fractured. Behind the patterned cracks Nel saw faces, people she knew. Saw their expressions grow wider before they got closer.
Nel put her hand against the glass as the two spheres collided.
THE SHIP WAS burning, what was left of it. Timbers scattered, bodies of her crew floating. A sail fluttered, some trick of the thaumatics casting it around outside the fractured envelope. None of it seemed quite real, viewed through the glass of the ship’s porthole. The small circular window was frosting over, the wash of water from driving through the fall was frozen on the outer hull.
“Is it over?” Gravel asked as Kaspar turned away from the scene.
“It never started.” Kaspar shook his head in disgust. “Ship like that . . . never had a chance.”
“Captain had some brass monkeys,” Gravel marvelled. “Crew must be half mad to follow a man like that. Diving off the edge like that? Through the falls? Never seen the like.”
“We went through the falls.”
“We are in a flying suit of armour,” Gravel argued. “Not nearly the same. Was that ship even armed?”
“Of course, it was, you saw what happened above.”
“When that dreadnought was chasing it? Bloody ridiculous, Niko. If not for us they would have been free, home and free. That thing never could have chased them down. Never.” Gravel laughed bitterly. “And now they’re dead. Because of us.”
“Not our fault,” Kaspar said stubbornly, “we were following orders.”
“Orders were to blow them all to hells?” Gravel asked sceptically. “You trying to tell me Mors’ gunners couldn’t have stopped after they took down the mast?”
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