Seafire

by Natalie C. Parker

  Every hour that passed weighed heavily on Caledonia’s mind. Bullets didn’t like to travel at night, but the longer it took for ships to pursue the Mors Navis, the more ships there were likely to be. One ship would make this hard enough. Any more than two made it essentially impossible.

  There were so many ways this could go wrong.

  She’d almost been tempted to ask Amina what her spirits would take in trade for a friendly wind. Instead, she’d asked her to install dozens of new hidden holsters around the deck and fit each one with a loaded weapon.

  They were as ready as they could be. All they needed was a Bullet ship to spot them and take the bait.

  No longer content to sit and stare into the dark, Caledonia left the bridge. With a quick wave to her deck crew, she slid down the companionway stairs leading into the berth. Her boots hit the cabin deck with a dull slap. A thick darkness surrounded her, and she took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dim glow of sun pips in the ceiling above. As promised, Amina had redirected most of that power to the ship’s propulsion system, leaving only a few pips with juice. After a moment, the light settled into a dusty arch along the hallway.

  Even though she could walk the belly of this ship blindfolded, Caledonia let her hand drift along the wall as she moved. Years ago, the cabins of this hall had housed the families that made up the crew of the Ghost. Each family had its own room no matter how many bodies it contained. Now the cabins slept four girls in bunks with extra weaponry stored in chests beneath the floor.

  While most were asleep, Caledonia could hear the gentle rise and fall of hushed voices behind closed doors. There was not always so much time before a fight, and nerves would only pull tighter as the night went on.

  She continued through the dark galley, which smelled of coffee and tea even in these quiet hours. Dinner had been heartier than usual, thanks to the demise of poor Metalmouth and additional spoils from the barge. As usual, Far had brought her a plate knowing she wouldn’t make time to sit for a proper meal in the galley. By now, though, Far was probably asleep on her pallet in the pantry, ready to feed the girls on dead watch if they came asking for food. On a different night, Caledonia might have looked in on the woman, but tonight she kept moving, sliding down the stairs to the storage bay.

  She didn’t know where she was going until she’d descended to level three, in the very bottom of the ship’s belly, and reached a solid, metal hatch tucked into a corner at the forward end of the bay. Paint flecked the surface, peeling away little by little. In full light, it would be a patchwork of dark blue and yellow. Under the hazy glow of sun pips, it was cast in shades of gray. In the center stood a heavy wheel, spun and bolted in the lock position.

  It wasn’t their custom to take prisoners, so the hold wasn’t always used as such, but right now, a Bullet sat on the other side.

  Caledonia shoved the bolt back and turned the wheel, unlocking the hatch.

  The door opened to reveal the boy coiled in a spill of silvery light from the porthole. His hands were cupped before him, bound together with cords of pale rope. He wasn’t asleep, as she’d expected, but neither did he look up. He kept his eyes focused on a spot across the room. A bruise had formed on the side of his face, and along the bare skin of his arms were several more. The gag pulled tight between his lips was damp with spit and blood. He looked smaller than Caledonia remembered.

  “Sit up.”

  Letting the door hang open behind her, she stepped over the frame and into the room. The walls were lined with boxes, each packed with canvas and clothing and bandages. Nothing too easily weaponized. The remaining space was long and narrow, barely wide enough for a body to repose for sleep. This was no place for a long-term stay. There was only room here to breathe and wait.

  The other time this room had been used for such a purpose was two years ago when they found Hime. And her needs had been dramatically different. For a moment, Caledonia could almost see the small girl curled on the floor like a fern, could almost hear the dull smack of her hands and feet as she pounded against the floor in anguish. It was clear that she could not speak, and they’d assumed the scar on her ear meant she was deaf as well. It had been Amina who realized they were wrong, who bent low to whisper words of comfort while the girl writhed helplessly.

  Caledonia had almost forgotten how terrible it was to witness Silt withdrawal.

  Shaking away her ghosts, Caledonia studied the boy. He was strong, well-fed as all Bullets were. His shoulders were rolled forward, his knees bent slightly toward his chest as though his instinct was to roll into a ball for comfort, yet his body was tense, every muscle locked tight. The three scars banding his left bicep were spaced less than an inch apart. Two were gnarled and old while the other bore the puffed look of a fresh wound. Even in this silver light, the violent orange pigment left by Silt was visible. Bullets took so much of the drug that it settled in their blood, in their skin, blooming in their scars like the flowers from which it came.

  Lost in a momentary surge of disgust, Caledonia was startled to find the boy had lifted his chin just enough to watch her. It was hard to discern his expression with the gag in place, but there was no malice in his dark eyes. Instead, he seemed thoughtful, curious even.

  “I have questions. Give me lies and I’ll split your tongue,” Caledonia warned.

  In response, the boy bowed his head, lowering his eyes briefly before meeting hers once again. He accepted her words without anger.

  Caledonia stepped farther into the room until she stood over him, one foot on either side of his legs. She crouched and roughly ripped away his gag. Blood darkened the corners of his mouth. He smelled like salt and metal.

  The boy wet his lips, eased his jaw back and forth, the whole time keeping his eyes on her. “Thank you,” he said after a long moment.

  Caledonia frowned and tossed the gag in his lap. “Thank me again and it goes back on.”

  The boy wisely said nothing further. He didn’t move other than to blink. He kept his shoulders rolled in, his chin slightly lowered, and his expression perfectly neutral. It was an obvious attempt to appear small and nonthreatening, but whether it was genuine or deceitful, Caledonia wasn’t sure.

  Though he was in every way the opposite of the boy from the beach—brown skin instead of white, deep eyes instead of shallow, square jaw instead of sharp—looking at him stirred that hollow anger in her heart.

  “Do you know a Bullet called Lir?” she asked, finally understanding why she’d come here in the first place.

  The boy sat up straight, suddenly alert. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t need to. The answer was there in his reaction: Lir was alive, and this boy knew him.

  Still crouched over him, Caledonia leaned in until her nose was only an inch from his. “Name his ship.”

  Caledonia didn’t think she imagined the tremor in this boy’s lip. He feared her. Or Lir.

  “Let me stay with you,” he said. “Don’t drop me in the shallows.”

  “Don’t mistake this for a negotiation.” Caledonia leaned back so he might appreciate the full cast of her derision. “Name his ship or it’s not the shallows for you. It’s the deep.”

  He swallowed, gaze drifting from her eyes to her temple and snapping back again. “I can help you.”

  Her fist cracked out before he finished the words, crashing into his already bruised cheek. The boy slumped sideways, catching himself awkwardly with bound hands against a wooden box.

  Bending close enough to grip his chin, Caledonia spoke in a deadly whisper. “I know that lie all too well. Speak it again and I will slit your tongue in two. Do you understand?”

  He did, nodding only as much as Caledonia’s grip allowed.

  “Lir sails the Bale Blossom.”

  The name caught Caledonia by surprise. She heard Lir’s voice in her ear, calling her Bale Blossom, calling it fitting, and a fresh fury began to burn in
her heart.

  The boy continued. “He’s one of Aric’s Fivesons. If it’s him you’re after, you’re in for a hell fight.”

  In truth, Caledonia had been after him from the very first day she and her crew took their guns to the sea. She just never dared to hope it was possible to find a single Bullet in all the wide seas.

  “There’s more,” the boy said, soft, daring.

  “What makes you think I’ll trust a thing you say?” He’d given good information, but the more he said, the less she trusted.

  Shouts echoed through the hull, entering the hold like a resilient song. A ship had been spotted.

  Dropping the boy’s face, she stood to leave.

  “Caledonia,” he called in that daring and gentle voice.

  She turned, immediately regretting her decision not to replace his gag.

  His eye was swelling now, purpling from her blow, but still he met her gaze and said, “I won’t lie to you.”

  “You just did,” she answered. And then she left.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Not until dawn skated across the morning seas did the Bullet ship make its approach.

  For three hours, Caledonia and the crew of the Mors Navis watched the dark shape against the horizon. Unwilling to get too close before first light, the Bullet ship hovered threateningly, waiting. When the sun pulled away the cover of night, Caledonia recognized the sleek bow of an assault ship marked with two vertical bands of red paint dripping down the nose. And on its quarterdeck, the black scales of a sun sail grabbed at the early light.

  It was comparable in size to the Mors Navis, and like the Mors Navis, it could put on incredible speeds quickly, though it wasn’t nearly as maneuverable and as a result worked best in concert with other ships. At the moment, however, it was alone on the horizon, observing its prey from afar.

  With their wind sails bound and the sun sail in shreds, Caledonia hoped that their distress was convincing enough to entice the Bullet ship. To sweeten the pot, it was time to give the appearance of fear.

  “Maximum propulsion,” Caledonia called. “Ready the masts!”

  The ship rumbled, pulling water in from the front and shooting it out the back in an attempt to gain speed. A tail rose behind them for mere seconds, sending them forward a few useless feet before the system cut out and the ship drifted once again. A second later, mast ports snapped open, and the posts climbed to only half their usual impressive height before stopping.

  Let them think the Mors Navis was trying to run, and let them think she’d been caught off guard by the failure of her systems.

  Caledonia kept her eyes on the assault ship. For a moment, it stayed put, hovering a few miles out. It would be just her luck to have attracted a Ballistic more concerned with caution than glory. Caution would sink them for sure.

  Then a tail of water rose behind it, and the distance between them began to shrink.

  “Pi!” Caledonia called, but Pisces was already diving over the port rail to her tow, packed with fresh charges. She wore the slim pouch of the blue lung on her back and the full mask of its regulator over her face. Testing once that air flowed from the tube connecting the two, she vanished beneath the chop. The action would do nothing good for her wound, but keeping her out of the water at a time like this would be worse for everyone.

  “Stay low, girls.” Redtooth’s voice carried gently down the line. “Look beat.”

  If the assault ship decided to blast them from a distance, they’d be sunk. Her girls needed to stay low, needed to look like they were more ready to surrender than fight. But playing the victim went against fifty-three sets of instincts. They were a wall of clenched teeth and clasped fists, of blood hot with fire and fight, of voices barely cinched in throats. It wouldn’t hold for long.

  The approaching ship wasn’t moving at full throttle but tacked left, then right, surely trying to ascertain whether or not the Mors Navis was as incapacitated as it seemed.

  The crew held their breath. Most crouched beneath the cover of the starboard railing and a wall of plate metal shields, while Amina’s Knots were secured in their half-raised masts. Beads of sweat fell from their brows and prayers from their lips as they waited.

  Caledonia stood. She lifted her chin, let her stormy red braid fall forward over her shoulder, and when she was sure she had the eyes of the assault ship on her, she lifted her pistol and fired a single shot directly into the ocean: surrender.

  For a moment, the only sound was the shuddering of their tattered sun sail, then the air filled with a roar as the assault ship tacked toward the Mors Navis and sped up.

  “Stay steely, girls!” Caledonia felt her own pulse spike. The urge to brandish her weapon was nearly overwhelming, but right now, being passive was the only thing keeping them alive. “Don’t break!”

  The assault ship gathered speed until the ghost funnel mounted to the bow crooned in unearthly tones. It was like the hollow cries of children lost beneath the waves. No matter how many times Caledonia heard that sound, it never failed to send a quiet shiver down her spine.

  In moments, the ship was upon them. Its deck teemed with Bullets, faces alight with the impending conquest, arms bare to reveal bright orange scars. The ship veered around the Mors Navis, circling once to survey the situation. A spray of gunfire knocked into the hull, daring the girls to break formation and take up their weapons.

  “Steely!” Redtooth called over the noise.

  Not a single girl reached for her gun.

  The Mors Navis rocked as the assault ship made a tighter circle, pulling in close.

  An older man on the deck stepped up to the railing. His hair was close cropped and the bridge of his nose pointed in three different directions on its way down his face. On his right arm he bore five horizontal scars, each brilliant orange, and beneath it, the A inside a circle marking him as one of Aric’s Ballistics.

  The man’s darkly placid expression shifted as he searched the deck of the Mors Navis, surprised to find it full of girls. Finally, his eyes settled on Caledonia.

  “Weapons over!” he commanded. “Come peaceful and I may give you a home in my clip!”

  The reaction among his Bullets instilled no confidence that his words contained truth. Laughter, cheering, the cocking of guns. It did little to suggest that his home would be a friendly one. But the assault ship was still too far away for this to work. They needed to draw them close enough to board.

  Caledonia spoke only for the ears of her crew. “Guns over, girls. Like we planned.”

  She raised her own pistol in the air and threw it into the ocean. It landed with a splash and was quickly followed by several more as the rest of her crew disarmed themselves. It was a loss. And not a small one, but they stood to gain so much more.

  Satisfied, the Ballistic gave the signal. The assault ship moved forward, lapping the Mors Navis once more before sliding along her side. The grip hooks came down like curved teeth, latching on to the Mors Navis and allowing the Bullets to lower a gangplank connecting the two ships.

  “Captain first.” The Ballistic looked on shrewdly.

  Caledonia stepped forward. Alone, she crossed the gangplank to the deck of the assault ship. She could smell the too-sweet perfume of Silt, see the glassy look in the eyes of every Bullet. She counted more than forty of them scattered across the deck. Their sun sail was hoisted at the rear on a single mast bolted in place, all but unguarded.

  With great effort, she turned to face her crew, still safe aboard the Mors Navis, and for a moment, she was arrested with guilt. She had never asked them to take such a risk as they took now. But they looked on, their eyes alert and fiery, their mouths set and determined. They trusted her.

  Turning back to the Ballistic, she spoke: “I am Captain Caledonia Styx of the Mors Navis, and I surrender.”

  “Caledonia Styx. Nothing but a girl.” The Ballistic’s grin was
mirth and conceit. Then, with a movement so fast Caledonia barely saw it coming, he struck her across the face with the back of his hand. She crashed to her knees before him. Her vision split, but not so much that she missed the smug expression on his face when he said, “Surrender happens on your knees.”

  Blood slipped down Caledonia’s chin. The taste of it was bright on her tongue. She felt sharp and bold, but she did not smile when she responded, “Yes, sir.”

  The Ballistic let one of his boys check her for weapons. Rough hands slid down her arms and back, searching for guns and large blades and finding none. It was a cursory search. Surely they planned something more thorough for later. Given the chance, they’d divest her of more than her weapons. Her senses would go next, riddled with Silt until she became one more piece of Aric’s army.

  Satisfied, the Ballistic returned his attention to the girls still aboard the Mors Navis. “Now the rest of you!” he called, resting a shotgun on his shoulder.

  Amina was next. She led a small band of five girls across the plank, making a good show of looking defeated and defiant all at once. Lace led a small party over on Amina’s heels, and reluctantly two more groups followed until they had twenty-six girls aboard the Bullet ship.

  The Bullets moved around her girls, reaching for cuffs and ropes to bind them. While the attention was on her surrendering crew, Caledonia pulled a small remote from her belt. She hoped she’d given Pisces enough time, but there was none left to spare.

  “This rain will only soak you. Last chance, girls.” He said girls like it tickled his throat, with a purr and a smile. It coaxed a sneer from Caledonia’s own lip, but she held her tongue and found the switch with her thumb. When none of the girls moved, the Ballistic raised his hand. Dozens of Bullets raised their guns and leveled their hungry eyes on the girls still aboard the Mors Navis. “Fire!” the Ballistic shouted just as Caledonia flipped the switch.

  An explosion on the starboard side rocked the assault ship, knocking everyone to the deck.