The Ruby Celeste Series - Box Set, books 1 - 3: Ghost Armada, Dire Kraken, and Church of Ife

by Nicholas J. Ambrose

  Ruby glanced at Trove and nodded. “After you.”

  He gave a brief nod of his own and scurried up the gangway. Ruby moved after him—and met resistance.

  She turned. Francis stood stock still, his eyes closed firmly. His breathing was quick and ragged again.

  “What is it?” she hissed.

  “It’s—there’s no rail.”

  Another twitch of Ruby’s eyebrow. “We need to get out of here,” she said. “And the only way to do that is this way.”

  “I—what if I fall?”

  “Then I’ll catch you.”

  “I don’t want—”

  There was no more time; down the same staircase she, Francis and Trove had come less than two minutes ago came a full pack of men: thick-chested, bald-headed, all in white, and all carrying guns.

  Ruby gritted her teeth. “You don’t have a choice,” she said to Francis—and then yanked him by the arm and up the gangway as fast as her legs would carry her.

  “Stop!” someone yelled—more than one person, actually—but Ruby paid no heed. Dragging as hard as she could on the man behind her, her only focus was up ahead: the entryway in the Pantheon’s railing, and then its porthole.

  A pistol-like crack snapped the air in two—no, not pistol-like: it was a pistol, Ruby thought as, at almost the same instant, sparks flew from the railing a metre ahead. They had opened fire!

  “Oh God!” Francis yelled.

  “Just move!”

  More gunshots; two bullets were lost to the open air, while the third threw up a tiny explosion of wood from the Pantheon’s deck. The fourth hit the rail right where Ruby passed, and she pressed her body lower, aware that it wouldn’t matter either way.

  “Stop! Thief!”

  They reached the gap in the railing. Ruby spun, pushed Francis forward onto the deck first. He looked petrified, and no wonder: there were at least a dozen men hurtling along the parking bay, taking pot shots. A few precious seconds and they would reach the gangway.

  “Come on!” Ruby ran across the deck, Francis a half-step behind, to the open porthole. “Get down there.”

  “But—”

  “Now!”

  He didn’t need telling twice.

  Another pockmark exploded in the decking barely a foot ahead of Ruby. She threw her arms up against the spray.

  Francis was down the porthole. That was good. Everyone was on-board. Also good.

  Another crack whipped through the air, and something hot burned Ruby’s neck. She grunted and slapped a hand to it.

  “It’s been swell,” she muttered, then lowered herself onto the ladder. “But it’s time to go.”

  Wood exploded into fragments around her, and sparks flew from the porthole hatch—and then she was down and pulled it closed.

  Francis cowered against one of the walls, and beyond waited Trove. Paige’s eyes flicked to Ruby’s neck, and he closed them and winced. His breathing was laboured, worse than it had been inside Equity.

  “Are you—” Trove began, but Ruby cut across.

  “I need you to find a place to stow Francis until we’re safely out of here.”

  Trove nodded.

  “Will you be okay?” Ruby asked the captive. Her voice softened just fractionally.

  Francis gave a tight little nod.

  “You’re in safe hands.” To Trove, Ruby said, “I’ll be in the control centre when you’re done.” And up the corridor she strode, leaving the two men behind, heading for the Pantheon’s beating heart.

  12

  The room was heaving when Ruby stepped in; every station was manned, all anxiously awaiting Ruby’s orders. The plethora of screens were lit with camera feeds directed at The Pharmacologist’s Eden.

  Natasha Brady crossed to Ruby as she entered. She snapped off a salute.

  “At ease.”

  Brady relaxed. “You’re bleeding.”

  Ruby ignored it. She stepped past the navigation leader and to the main console, peering at the largest display of all. Currently it showed the Eden’s parking bay, which was sinking as the Pantheon rose.

  “Direct thrust away from the SkyPort,” Brady instructed her team, but Ruby held up a hand.

  “No. Just lift the ship for now.”

  No murmur of confusion came, but Ruby felt the air change in the room. Brady stepped forward, hovered at her captain’s elbow. “Miss Celeste?”

  “Raise the ship.” Ruby looked back at Natasha, then at the console once more. She pressed a hand to her neck, to the place the bullet had grazed, and withdrew it. Maroon smeared her fingertips. She glanced at it with distaste. “No sense leaving without a parting gift.”

  13

  A hundred metres—ninety—eighty—

  Rhod was almost at the stairs to the parking bay. Would have been already were it not for all these fucking people! But he was almost there, and that Celeste woman would have what was coming to her, and he would relish doing what his sorry excuse for a security team couldn’t—

  He juddered to a halt. Three great notched sails had lifted above the ground level. That was nothing unusual, as ships came and went all the time. But they continued to rise, and now a ship lifted into view, moving higher and higher, staring down the Eden.

  Right at the front was an aperture, wide open, and extended from within was a halo of steel, glinting in the midday sun.

  For one terrifying second, Rhod knew exactly what was about to happen. He knew what ship this was and who captained it. And in that moment he knew the sheer scale of the error he had made.

  Then there was a blinding flash of light and the world exploded.

  Francis Paige

  (Chapter Two)

  1

  “I warn you, Miss Celeste, this may sting.”

  Ruby sat in the Pantheon’s medical bay, laid back and skewed to one side on a thin plastic bed. Darrel Stitt, the ship’s aging doctor, was perched by her head, rubbing a tiny needle in a cloth doused in alcohol, followed by the surgical thread that hung from it.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Always brave, Miss Celeste.” The doctor placed his rag aside and pushed the needle through skin. A low hiss escaped Ruby’s mouth. “Though you’d do well not to get shot next time.”

  “It was a grazing blow.”

  “Then you’d do well not to take a grazing blow.”

  The room itself was not far from the control centre, placed at the rear of the Pantheon’s middle deck. It doubled as office, operating theatre, and ward all in one: a wide semi-circle that spanned the ship from side to side, it was a separated by foldable dividers that extended up and down the floor in little troughs. Unlike the majority of the ship, which was filled with dark wood and antiquated decorations (save the lower deck, the cafeteria and the kitchen, of course), this one was all plastic: green and what had once been white, but was now somewhat yellowed.

  As Darrel stitched, Ruby cast her eyes up to Trove, who stood patiently by the bed, eyes averted.

  “You look as though you’ve never seen blood before.”

  “It’s not the blood that causes discomfort,” Trove countered. “More the needle and thread moving in and out of your neck.”

  Ruby pulled a wan smirk. “Your report, Trove?”

  “I have questioned the crew. We acquired … rather fewer resources than we set out to.”

  Damn it, Ruby thought. But she had known, of course; they had been on the Eden for less than twenty minutes, and fully restocking the ship took a good hour at best, even with all hands put to work.

  “What did we come away with?”

  Trove consulted his clipboard. “We have food to last us the next week, but it’ll be tight; we were already down to the dregs upon arrival. Mikhail and his team succeeded in returning with a sack of pellets for the Volum, but no munitions, though he advises our armoury was still half-stocked upon arrival.”

  Ruby gave a tiny nod, which made the pull on her neck worse. She winced, and Darrel tutted and rearranged her head with his free
hand before continuing to stitch.

  “One set of first aid materials, a single set of filters for the water condensing units …” Trove’s eyes sailed down the meagre list. “And that’s it.”

  “Nothing for maintenance?” Ruby asked. “Oil for the cannons?”

  “Those were on Mikhail’s to-do list.”

  Damn it. Almost everything was running low except for the stuff they didn’t particularly need, and with seventeen mouths to feed—no, eighteen, Ruby reminded herself—they needed to at least stock the ship’s pantry as soon as possible.

  “How close is the nearest SkyPort?” she asked.

  “You mean aside from the one you just put a hole in? Wainsbridge is closest; at full speed we could make it in four days, but it’s behind The Pharmacologist’s Eden; we’d need to pass it again, or at the very least draw a wide loop, extending the journey to six or seven days.”

  “Any others?”

  “The Oft-Trodden Footpath; that one is five days away.”

  Ruby nodded. Darrel huffed.

  “I suppose that’s where we’re headed then,” she said.

  “Miss Brady anticipated that; we’re on the way as we speak.”

  Ruby mulled over their state of affairs. Food was definitely the priority. They could watch out for passing flocks of birds, perhaps toss out the nets to grab at those that came too close—but even that would only extend their pantry levels minutely. No, it was clear: they had to move to the next SkyPort with as much haste as the Volum could muster.

  Not, she supposed, that it would mind.

  “There we go,” Darrel finally said, snipping the thread protruding from Ruby’s neck. “All buttoned up.” He retrieved a clean cloth, doused it in rubbing alcohol again, and pressed it gently to the wound; it burned a dull ache and Ruby’s eyebrow twitched. “It might bleed a little over the next couple of days, so I would advise taking it easy.”

  “You know me,” Ruby said. “Careful.”

  “Hah, yes. Let me just apply some gauze to catch the flow.”

  Protective pad taped down, Ruby was at last free to leave the doctor, and Trove able to look at her once more—though he did wait until they were safely from the room, the door closed behind them.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “Take me to Francis,” Ruby said. “I have a few questions to ask.”

  2

  Francis had been stowed in one of the empty crew quarters on the Pantheon’s first level. The door was locked from the outside, and Trove reached into his jacket for the key. He went to insert it into the lock, but Ruby held up a hand.

  “We have manners, Trove,” she said. “We knock.”

  She rapped twice, then permitted Trove to proceed. She opened the door and the two stepped inside.

  If Francis had looked lost before, he looked worse now. Though the room was not particularly large—one bed, a wardrobe, a desk and a small amount of open floor space—he seemed minute, sunken onto the bed and leaned against the rear wall. His knees were bunched together and held in his arms.

  He looked up, slowly. There was still fear on his face; less, but there.

  “I have some questions for you,” Ruby said carefully.

  Francis glanced between the two. “Are you taking me home?”

  Ruby licked her lips. That was twice now he’d asked that. “Where is ‘home’?”

  “Down there.”

  Ruby frowned. “Down where?”

  Another glance from Ruby to Trove and back again. And then Francis answered; two words alone.

  “The surface.”

  3

  Tension pulled the atmosphere taut. Ruby looked sideways at Trove. His expression was exactly the same as she felt: perplexed.

  “What do you mean?” Ruby asked. “You mean—down there. The surface. The ground.” She groped desperately for something to say, something Francis hadn’t already told her. “You’re not from up here?”

  He shook his head. “No. But—but you can take me home, right? You saved me from that—that place—and you can take me home, can’t you?”

  Ruby hesitated. So much fear—but that sheen of hope lighting his features!

  And yet, she couldn’t lie.

  She spoke, slow, careful, her voice measured. “We can’t.”

  “… w-what?”

  “I’m afraid we can’t do that. I can’t do that. The Pantheon … this ship is designed to fly. It has to stay airborne. If it dips too low, it won’t lift again. It’s just too heavy.”

  Francis’s face sank. Then something seemed to click in his mind, because the hopeful look came back. “But those people came down and took me. They—they could do it. You could take me to someone who can take me home.”

  Ruby shook her head.

  Francis’s face dropped. “Why?”

  Ruby sighed. She sat down at the foot of the bed. “It’s expensive. Most people don’t have the tech. The only person within a few hundred miles that could—well, I just tore his SkyPort in half.”

  Silence. The last light slipped from Francis’s face.

  “So there’s nothing?” he finally said.

  “Not that I can do. But you can stay here,” Ruby added, trying to sound at least a little upbeat. “This room here, it’s yours now. We’re like a family. Trove can show you around the ship, and—”

  She stopped. Francis had drawn his legs into his chest as far as they would go. Face hidden, his shoulders shook. No sound; his sobs were masked.

  Ruby stood. Her heart broke for this man: abducted, taken away from everything he had ever known. She wished she could do something, anything—but there was no way. Not now.

  Quietly, she crossed the room to Trove. “Let’s leave him to his thoughts.”

  They stepped outside, and Trove pulled the door closed softly behind them before joining Ruby at her elbow.

  “That took an unexpected turn,” he said.

  Ruby was quiet. She reeled, searching for holes in her thoughts, ways she might somehow be able to take Francis home. There were none.

  “Come on,” she said at last. “I’d like to check the extent of the damage to the deck.”

  Ablaze

  (Chapter Three)

  1

  Flames roared, staining the sky with a towering streak of black smoke. It would be hours before all the fires were put out; long past nightfall, maybe even beyond dawn, Rhod guessed as he staggered through the ruined Eden.

  Celeste’s attack had been devastating. The rear wall of storefronts had been targeted dead centre—right where Rhod’s office once was. The blast, at such close range, had torn down two-thirds of the wall. The remainder had been distorted by the impact; at the edges several levels had twisted or collapsed, great beams contorted at terrifying angles before terminating abruptly.

  Fire teams had been dispatched, and the Eden’s water reserves were being pumped as hard as they could go while the SkyPort’s crew attempted to combat the flames. The condensers were being pushed to the absolute limit to draw as much moisture from the sky as they could to quell the inferno.

  People had died. Rhod couldn’t even comprehend the sheer number that had to have been vaporised in the blast: hundreds, at least. More were surely trapped under the rubble, asphyxiating as their lungs filled with smog.

  There had been a mad dash for the parking bay as almost every person on the Eden fled. Even some of the staff had tried to escape; Rhod had seen their stricken faces as they passed in the chaos, thought of reaching out and grabbing them—but then he too was bustled and tossed about, and they were gone. Now the only people here were the staff that hadn’t abandoned the port and the few survivors desperately searching for lost souls.

  Now he hobbled across the ground level, away from the wreckage. Away from the screaming people, pawing desperately through warped metal and concrete. Away from the dozens of hoses aimed at the blaze. Someone reached out as he passed, wailed something incomprehensible, but Rhod shrugged the woman off, his face dazed, eyes
vacant.

  He trekked across the ground level; past smaller, localised fires. Rubble had ricocheted in this direction, great chunks, taking out entire stalls, fountains, devastating half of a miniature public garden. A cluster of bodies lay slumped in formation, heads and shoulders missing, and beyond that a great steel rod that had ploughed through a railing before coming to a halt.

  He walked and walked. Passing the middle of the Eden the rubble was less and less; only the smaller pieces carried this far. Facing forward, the sky was blue: no fires burned here.

  Step by step, Rhod’s mind began to move again. Cogs turned. He would have to repair the Eden. It would be costly. There would be some kind of insurance to pay, without question; measures to prevent this happening in the future.

  But before all of that, there was something more important: Celeste.

  2

  “It just happened so fast,” Lars said. Leaning against Equity’s façade, one arm draped over Charlotte, who clung to him, his eyes stared straight ahead, taking in nothing. “She pulled the sword, and then …”

  “I’m so glad you got out okay,” Charlotte whispered. Her eyes were pink, though her tears had subsided long ago.

  The Pantheon’s attack had come barely moments after Charlotte reached Equity. Her focus on getting to Lars had been so single-minded she hadn’t even seen the ship. One second there was the Eden’s usual hubbub; the next a deafening boom, then nothing but screams.

  “If you hadn’t come,” Lars began, but his words died. There was no need to finish. They’d both seen the destruction, the vacuum where the office had once been. Where Charlotte had once been.

  They were still, quiet.

  Lars jerked to his feet. Charlotte spluttered as she was tossed aside. She shot him a look, but followed his eyes and gave a little gasp before hurrying up herself.

  Rhod Stein approached.

  “Sir,” Lars began.

  “I want to use the phone.”

  That was all he said before he was past.

  Lars watched him disappear. Charlotte stood beside awkwardly. She bit her lip.