Seafire

by Natalie C. Parker

  She let her gaze travel around the rest of the room, confirming there was no one else here. At least, no one she could see. The center of the room was occupied by large engine blocks, the ceiling layered with pipes. If there was someone else here, they had plenty of places to hide.

  “Ares,” Caledonia tried again. “I know you remember us. Look, that’s Pisces. Pi. Your sister. You’re holding your sister right now.”

  Ares shook his head. “My sister died a long time ago.”

  “On the Ghost, right?” Caledonia held her gun steady, aimed directly at his forehead. “She wasn’t on board when it was attacked. Remember that? She went to shore. With me.”

  A frown pressed Ares’s brow, but he didn’t look away. Instead, he studied her more intently, taking in her red hair and the sigil on her cheek. Still, his arms tightened around Pisces’s throat.

  Pisces gasped. “Ares. Look.” With one hand, she lifted the charm she wore to the level of his eyes.

  Ares’s eyes settled on the little charm. He frowned, and then suddenly his arms snapped open, and he took a startled step backward. With a gasping breath, Pisces spun to face him.

  “Ares,” she repeated. She held her hands out, palms up and as nonthreatening as she could make them. “It’s me. Pisces. See?” She turned her cheek so he could clearly see her sigil.

  Caledonia kept her gun trained on his chest. High and to the right. If she did have to shoot him, she’d make it survivable.

  Ares stood very still for a moment. His hands hung at his sides like they were filled with lead. On his face was an expression that looked very much like pain.

  Finally, he spoke. “You’ve cut your hair,” he said.

  “You’re taller!” Pisces laughed, rushing forward and into his arms.

  At first, he didn’t move. He was unbending as a tree even as Pisces wrapped her arms around his neck. Then a small shudder moved through his body and he whispered, “Spirits.” He bent and lifted Pisces clear off the deck as though he didn’t even notice. “Oh, spirits.”

  Caledonia’s throat was tight. Tears coated her eyes. She bit them back, anxiously scanning the room for a sign of Donnally. She was glad to see Ares. So heart-stoppingly glad, but she needed to see her brother, too. And when she couldn’t wait a second longer, she interrupted their reunion.

  “Is there anyone else here?” she asked. “Ares, where’s Donnally?”

  “Donnally?” Ares gently set his sister on the ground again. “He’s not here.”

  “Here, in this room?” Caledonia demanded.

  “Here, on this ship.” Ares frowned. “Cala, I’m sorry, but he left a month ago.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  She didn’t hear a word more. She turned and just started walking.

  She barely saw the corridors of this dreadful ship. She followed the natural progression of stairways until she was back on the main deck, where there was more to fill her ears than the hollow sound of her disappointment. Where the sun was warming the air and everything smelled like blood.

  The Bullets had been bound more securely and now sat on the rear deck, far from the center of activity. Nettle was organizing the retrieval operation with expediency, ensuring that their efforts to strip the Electra of her most valuable and portable parts went as quickly as possible. All the wounded had been taken back to the Mors Navis, and Tin stood in the midst of the scene, conducting all operations with a firm touch.

  Everything was going as it should be.

  Spotting Caledonia, Tin moved across the deck. Her expression was one of grim resolve, and instead of a blade she now clutched her notebook in one hand. The news it contained would likely break Caledonia in two. She wished briefly that her heart might be like self-healing glass, repairing itself the instant a fracture was formed.

  When the girl was near enough, Caledonia nodded, asking simply, “How many?”

  “A dozen wounded,” Tin said, voice steady. Evidence of the battle was splattered across her pale face. “Five dead.”

  “Who?” Caledonia clenched her jaw tight.

  It took Tin a moment to answer. She stared down at her notes, perhaps willing them to appear in Caledonia’s mind so she might avoid speaking the names aloud. Finally, she cleared her throat. “Alesa, Quinn, Thatcher, Maddy, and—” Her breath caught, stealing the final name.

  “And Red,” Caledonia finished for her. “Where is she?”

  Tin pointed to the command tower. In its shadow, Caledonia could make out the shape of a body lying on the ground, blonde braids stained red. They’d left her for the captain. As was right.

  “Thank you.” Caledonia aimed her steps for Redtooth.

  The girl was taller than Caledonia, with more muscle and weight. Though Caledonia’s body was weak from the fight, she crouched and pulled Redtooth into her arms.

  “Let’s go home, my friend,” she whispered.

  Slowly, she rose to her feet with Redtooth’s body gripped firmly to her chest. All work ceased as she moved across the deck toward the gangplank. The eyes of her crew tracked her until she and Redtooth were safely aboard the Mors Navis once again. Caledonia let the tears roll down her cheeks. For the loss of her friend, for the loss of her crew, for the loss of her brother, again.

  “I have her, Captain.” Amina met her on the main deck, taking Redtooth into her own arms.

  “You have her,” Caledonia repeated.

  Caledonia watched them go belowdecks, then climbed to the command deck, where she could be alone for a minute.

  They’d done what they’d set out to do. They’d rescued Ares, and that was no small victory. The Electra was in no shape to gather recruits. The colonists would enjoy a temporary reprieve at the very least.

  Still, it was hard to find anything but a deep sense of defeat in this moment. Five crew members were lost, Donnally was nowhere to be found, and the brief hope that had lived in Caledonia’s heart was gone for good.

  “Captain.” Tin stood before her, a look of concern on her face. “Captain?”

  Caledonia blinked and cleared her throat. “Yes.”

  “We’ve got trouble. Our scouts spotted a Bullet fleet on approach. They’re ten miles out, coming from the east and moving fast.”

  So they would have to run. They would leave this ship without her brother and run for their lives. Again. Caledonia’s heart felt too heavy and too numb for anything other than this steadying sense of responsibility.

  “How many ships?” she asked, voice and spirit tired.

  Tin’s eyes tracked every movement on the deck even while she answered Caledonia’s questions. “Scouts saw at least six. They look like the same ones that chased us out of Lower Cloudbreak.”

  “How so?”

  “They said the nose of the flagship was covered in baleflowers.”

  Baleflowers.

  Lir.

  “Set the charges,” Caledonia said with renewed urgency. “And bring our girls home. It’s time to go.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Caledonia couldn’t think. She raced to her cabin, where she threw her weapons to the floor. And for a moment, she felt everything.

  Her heart tapping a frantic rhythm against her chest, her tears burning her eyes and washing her cheeks, her breath whistling in and out, struggling against her lungs. There was Redtooth’s death, spinning a hole in her gut. There was Ares’s return, fluttering between joy and sorrow. There was Donnally’s absence, straining in her chest. And there was the fury of Lir’s approach, twisting around her ankles, urging her to run, to kick, to move.

  In the midst of that storm, only Lir felt solid. With Oran’s information exhausted and out of date, Donnally was out of reach. There’d be no way of finding him in the whole of the Bullet fleet. That was a hopeless, helpless dream now.

  But here again was Lir. And this wasn’t like Cloudbreak. There was no need to
ask her crew to take on this fight. There was no promise of brothers to be found in her future. There was only Lir and the promise of revenge. If she couldn’t have one, at least she could have the other.

  A plan began to form, knitting together from the broken plane of hope in her heart. She would take her revenge, and she would do it without asking anyone else to risk their lives. She would do it without losing anyone else. Her body filled with the heady sensation of purpose, her mind suddenly clear and calm.

  She spun, and there was Oran. Standing just inside her cabin with his wide dark eyes. He was saying something, asking something. His mouth was moving.

  Caledonia didn’t hear it. She crushed the distance between them, pressed her body flush against his, pushed her hands along his cheeks and into his hair. And then she took her kiss from his lips.

  If he hesitated, she didn’t feel it. He met her kiss with a full one of his own, wrapping his arms around her chest, hands pressed flat against her shoulder blades. There was no room for tenderness between them. The moment was burning around them, tricking them into thinking there was only this kiss.

  Caledonia kissed him harder, letting the fire of this moment obliterate every other thought in her head. Letting it make her bold and daring.

  “Cala!” Pisces shouted, driving the two of them apart.

  Caledonia pushed Oran away, spinning to face Pisces. “What?” she demanded.

  “We need you topside.” Pisces looked between Caledonia and Oran, muscles tense. Her gaze narrowed on Oran before returning to Caledonia, landing even harder than before. “Now.”

  She was gone before Caledonia had caught her breath. “Spirits,” she muttered, reaching for her coat before remembering she’d ditched it on the bridge just before battle.

  Instinctively, Oran stood aside to let her pass. But before she left the room, he caught her wrist. “I didn’t know,” he said. “I didn’t know he wouldn’t be there. That’s what I came to say.”

  Even through the fabric of her shirt, his hand was hot. “I believe you.”

  As she surfaced on deck, she felt the ship drifting slowly away from the Electra. The crew had worked hard and fast to disengage from the collision. Any lingering hull damage from the hit would have to be addressed on the move. Their ten-mile lead wouldn’t last long.

  She found Pisces on the command deck with Amina and Hime. Somewhere on this ship there was Ares. But even that victory was missing from their expressions. They regarded her cautiously and, she realized, with a hint of their own grief over her still-missing brother. And over Redtooth.

  Pisces greeted her with a cool glare. Whatever her opinions of the kiss she’d just witnessed, they weren’t good, but she wouldn’t share them here.

  “Options,” Caledonia demanded.

  Run west, find a cove for cover. Hime looked uncertain even as she said it. Hide until they’re gone.

  “Too risky,” Caledonia said. “Others?”

  “Run west,” Amina began. “Use the coastal topography for cover and keep going.”

  Caledonia nodded. It was her thought as well.

  “Cable mines.” Pisces crossed her arms as she thought. “We’ll set them adrift as we leave the cove. It won’t be much, but it will give us a little edge.”

  The pause that followed was so natural. They all expected a fourth and even a fifth opinion to fill the space between them. But none came. Redtooth was gone.

  “Good. We’ll do both.” She turned toward the bridge and raised her voice. “Nettle, take us out, slow and steady. We don’t want to leave them a trail if we can help it.”

  Nettle’s response was in the quiet churn of her engines. The ship moved through the water with as little chop as possible.

  “Amina, time to get those mines ready. Hime, we need you back in the med bay.” The two girls nodded and moved off in a hurry. Caledonia waited until they were alone before speaking again. “Pi, I need you to take command.”

  “Command?” Pisces asked suspiciously. She planted her hands on hips and lowered her voice. “What’s going on?”

  There was too much to say, and Caledonia had no idea how to say it. The sun above was heartless and cold, everything she needed to be in this moment. Pisces might curse her today and tomorrow and even the next day, but eventually the pain would ease.

  “Listen to me, Pi.” Caledonia drew her down the command deck, to the very tip of the nose, where no one might overhear them. “You have Ares, and the loyalty of this crew. As soon as I’m gone, take the ship and run. Use Oran and Ares to figure out how to punch the Net and get out of the Bullet Seas forever.”

  Pisces studied her through narrowed eyes.

  “Why are you talking like this? What do you mean, gone? We have the lead. We’re fast and smart, and we’ve just sailed those waters. This is no worse than anything we’ve faced before.”

  If she’d found Donnally, things might be different. She could imagine running with them, fighting for a life beyond the Net. But she hadn’t found Donnally. He was as absent as he’d been since the destruction of the Ghost. And the person responsible was headed straight for her.

  “I’m leaving,” Caledonia stated. “There’s something I have to do. Just stick to the rules and you’ll be fine.”

  “The rules?!” Pisces couldn’t decide between a laugh and a sneer. “The ones you follow so well? We fight together or not at all, remember that one?”

  Her stomach twisted and her cheeks burned. “I have to go. This is my best chance.”

  “For what? Cala, talk to me. Whatever it is, let us help you. You said it yourself, you’re here because of us. Without us, you fail. Or were you lying up there?” She drove her finger in the direction of the bridge, where just hours before Caledonia had stood to rally her whole crew.

  “I wasn’t lying. But this time I need you to go, leave me. Let me keep you safe.”

  “That’s not what this looks like. It looks like you’re making a reckless decision, and I care about you too much to let you.” Pisces reached for her hand, twisting their fingers together. “I love you, Cala. More than anyone else in this world, I love you.”

  “You shouldn’t.” Ice and grimy oil slid through Caledonia’s heart, leaving a nauseated feeling in the center of her chest. It was time. “I’m the reason our families were killed. Me. I broke the rules. That night on the island, I met a Bullet. Instead of killing him, I let my guard down. Gave away the ship. If it weren’t for me, they’d still be here. All of them.”

  She waited for the horror to sweep across Pisces’s face, even for a blow to follow it. But nothing changed except for the depth of Pisces’s frown.

  “Why don’t you look surprised?”

  “Because this isn’t surprising. You showed up with a gut wound you never explained, and you’ve always felt guilty for that night.”

  “I feel guilty because it was my fault. I met a Bullet on the beach and gave away the Ghost. It’s my fault.” The memory filled her like a breath and left her just as quickly. “I can’t do anything about that, but I can do something about that Bullet.”

  “We were fourteen turns. And we were alone.” Pisces was so calm, so sure of herself in the face of this confession. She was like a piece of flint; where she’d been broken, her edges had become sharp and beautiful; struck hard enough, she’d start a fire. “You are no more responsible for what happened than I am.”

  “I don’t accept that.” Caledonia looked over the steel-gray ocean to where Lir approached.

  Pisces grabbed her by the shoulders. “You made a mistake! We’ve all made mistakes.”

  “Well, mine get people I love—and people you love—killed!” she shot back.

  “Our first family shall not be our last,” Pisces stated.

  A crack opened in the wall around Caledonia’s heart. She’d done an unforgiveable thing, and Pisces was comforting her. It
didn’t make sense. “I got them killed, Pi. Just like Lace and Red. I got them all killed.”

  “Cala, I forgive you. Is that what you need to hear? I forgive you. But if you do this—if you leave your crew now and go off to fight this Bullet on your own—then you’re betraying the family you’ve built. Is that what you want?”

  Caledonia shuddered. Lir was out there. He was coming to this very spot. She would never succeed in bringing Donnally home, but at least she could do this. At least she could root out the cause of all their pain and leave her crew in better hands than her own.

  The tears burning her eyes were unrelenting. They slipped down her cheeks in a constant stream, but she stared through them, let them run from her eyes unblinking. She tipped her face up to find Pisces’s eyes and gave the only words she could find.

  “I’m sorry.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Darkness was thick beneath the ocean’s surface, an unknowable world she had no choice but to enter. Caledonia hated it. The morning of battle had carried them into a dusky afternoon, and while the cover would only work in her favor, she wished it wasn’t so dense. But dusk was nothing to the ocean. Dusk and dawn were for the sky.

  As the Mors Navis sailed smoothly toward the mouth of the cove, Caledonia dropped into the water after the tow with her crew none the wiser. All except Pisces, who stood on the rear deck watching with her arms pinned across her chest. As terrible as it was to be leaving her, Pisces had her brother back and she was loved by the entire crew. She’d be fine. Even if it took a while for her to find the bright bits again.

  Nettle hugged the shoreline as tightly as she dared as they neared the edge of the tumbling hills, bending the ship around the peninsula to avoid being spotted too soon. In their wake, they dropped a dozen mines. Those mines now hung in the water between Caledonia and her ship. Even if she wanted to go after them, she couldn’t.