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

by Nicholas J. Ambrose

  Francis threw every ounce of strength he had into the thrust. For an instant it seemed the hull would only rock beneath them, but then it tore clear and they tumbled out. Francis hung in the air for a moment, then crashed to the ground of the SkyPort, two metres below, Vala and Stefan landing beside him.

  “Vala! Are you okay?” Stefan was already on his feet, pulling his wife up.

  “Fine,” she said. “Francis?”

  “I’m okay,” he mumbled. But he wasn’t: his body groaned. Something had to be broken, he was sure of it.

  “Can you get up?”

  He rolled over. Blue sky swivelled into view. And the Pantheon—or what was left of it. Little more than two weeks ago, he’d seen this ship for the first time: majestic, sleek, and perfect, even if Natasha did say it was old. Now it was a ruin: a tangled mass of wood and metal, smoke pouring out of the many holes in its shattered carapace. It barely resembled a ship anymore.

  He didn’t get long to look. Vala and Stefan were already pulling him to his feet. The world swum, and he breathed hard to steady it before he greyed out. His hands were bloodied, he saw, and crimson speckled his vision.

  “You’re bleeding,” said Vala.

  “So are you,” Francis retorted.

  Cacophonous Harmonics was nothing compared to The Pharmacologist’s Eden. Not least because it heaved with screaming shoppers, and flames were spreading very quickly from the far corner, incinerating everything they touched. Alarms sounded here, too, rallying for evacuation.

  Turning back to Vala and Stefan, Francis said, “Go help the others escape the port, and get yourselves to safety while you’re at it.”

  “What about you?” Vala asked.

  “I need to go find Natasha.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Stay safe, Francis.” She grabbed him in a tight hug.

  “Yeah, stay safe,” Stefan said. He clapped Francis again on the shoulder—damn, it hurt—and then he and his wife were away.

  Francis turned and looked through the crowds of people. Somewhere out there was Mikhail, and if they were lucky, Natasha.

  Gritting his teeth and wiping the blood from his eyebrow, Francis pushed into the crowd.

  7

  Fighting the masses was almost impossible. For every step Francis took forward, he only seemed to be bustled another to the side, another back. How he made any progress at all, he didn’t know.

  He grabbed at someone passing. “Have you seen—” But the man just looked at him with terror, then pushed his way out of Francis’s grip and disappeared into the throng.

  Francis cast terrified eyes in all directions. There were so many people! How could he find Natasha and Mikhail through all this?

  Then he remembered the communicator. He’d snapped it onto his wrist. Now he lifted it, cycled through the contacts, and found Mikhail’s name.

  Mikhail’s answer was almost instant. “Miss Celeste?”

  “It’s Francis!”

  “Francis? What are you doing with Ruby’s communicator?”

  “She gave it to me. Where are you?”

  “Near the clock tower!”

  Francis swivelled. There! Not too far from him, either.

  “Stay there, I’m coming!”

  “Hurry up! Everything is on fire!”

  “I know!”

  Francis shoved through and found himself back at the open central area’s edge. Fewer people were here, and he sprinted alongside storefronts until he reached the clock tower—the tallest thing on Cacophonous Harmonics—and, beneath it, Mikhail. Mikhail nodded at Francis, and the two began to jog around the outside of the square.

  “Have you seen her?” Francis asked.

  “No. I’ve tried asking, but everyone’s too distracted. But this place is small. There aren’t too many places she can be.”

  Francis’s eyes roved. Faces, dozens and dozens of them, but none the one he was searching for. “Are you sure she’s even here?” he said desperately. “What if she was killed in the blast?”

  “She wasn’t.”

  “How—”

  Francis didn’t finish the sentence. Mikhail pushed ahead. There was a tiny little public garden outlined by bushes—and sprawled out in the remains of a plant much flatter than the others was the navigation leader’s long, unmoving body.

  8

  Francis sprinted the last of the distance and skidded to a halt. Mikhail had already squatted beside Natasha, hands fussing.

  “Is she—”

  “She’s alive,” Mikhail said.

  “How did she end up here?”

  Mikhail shrugged. “Tossed this way in the blast? Either way, she’s safe. Needs medical attention, but …” He looked her over carefully. “No cuts, at least on this side. Maybe breaks …” He trailed off and gave Francis an uneasy grin. “Can you tell I’m not a doctor?”

  “We’ll find one. Darrel, or someone on the port.”

  So Natasha was okay. Or seemed to be, anyway. And that was good.

  “Listen, can you stay with her? Or get her to safety?” said Francis.

  “I think so. Why?”

  Francis looked back at the wreckage of the ship.

  “There’s something I need to do.”

  9

  This time the struggle through the crowd was easier. Already people were filtering out of the SkyPort, making Francis’s fight simpler. Still, it was only a diminished form of chaos, and it was not without effort that he crossed the concourse, asking people as he went if they’d seen a red-haired woman with a bandage about her waist. Very few answered, and of those that did, no one had seen her.

  Which likely meant she was still on the ship.

  When at last he reached it, he sprinted around the outside. There had to be an opening somewhere; no way could he climb two metres of shredded steel to enter through the hole he, Vala and Stefan had tumbled from. Surely there was an easier way.

  There. The cavern that had, until a few days ago, been the porthole. It was sideways now, a great mouth-like doorway into darkness.

  Darkness from which smoke poured.

  Well, this was as good as it got. Clapping his arm over his mouth, Francis jogged through the hole and back into the Pantheon.

  As familiar as he’d become with its walkways, suddenly the Pantheon was strange. Tipped on its side, the corridors were misshapen and pocked with holes. Wood panelling had come off, exposing metal that was brown and frayed in the few places Francis had light enough to see by. Which wasn’t often: only the occasional bulb remained aglow that Francis slowly crept toward, bowed low so as to avoid the smoke that hung to the ceiling.

  “Ruby?” he called. The noise was muffled through his arm. Inhaling deeply, he removed it and shouted, “Ruby!”

  No answer.

  What if she had escaped the ship after all? What if it was empty now, and he was willingly walking deeper into its flaming bowels? It could collapse on him at any moment, or something might give and he’d be enveloped by choking smoke. He could die in here, looking for someone who had already left—

  “Ruby!”

  He hurtled forward. Splayed out in a heap was a body: shorter than him by an inch, a bandage around the middle, topped off with tangled crimson hair and a tricorne hat.

  “Ruby! Are you okay?” He squatted, rolled her over. Probably weren’t supposed to touch the injured, but damn it, they needed to get out of here. Now he’d removed his arm from his face, he could smell just how much smoke clogged the air. Every breath was harder than the last.

  Ruby’s eyes rolled back in her head. Francis shook her by the shoulders; no movement.

  “Ruby! Wake up, damn it!”

  He shook her again. This time a flicker, and then her eyes drifted slowly back into focus. She looked at Francis as though through a veil, and her eyebrows arced in confusion.

  “Francis?” she heaved.

  “Get up,” he said, already pulling her to her feet. “Come on, we’re getting you out of here.”

  “I told
you—”

  “I know what you told me,” he said. “And we found Natasha. So I came back for you. Now use your legs, damn it, like you told me to when we boarded the Modicum. One foot, then another, got it?”

  She obeyed: mercifully, she obeyed. They hobbled back the way Francis had come, breath hard under the smoke.

  A misstep, and the floor beneath Francis’s foot gave way. Smoke erupted from the hole and he wheeled backward. Fire roared underneath, glowing through the cleft.

  “My ship,” Ruby sobbed.

  “Come on,” said Francis. “We’ve got to go.”

  They skirted the newest wound, treading carefully. Like the Modicum had before, it held. Francis didn’t know how, but he wasn’t about to question their good luck.

  A light shone ahead, blinding against the darkness. The exit.

  “Come on,” Francis coughed. “Almost there.”

  They took the last dozen metres as fast as Ruby could go, finally spilling out into the open. Racked by coughs, Francis wanted nothing more than to crash to the ground and breathe until his lungs were clean again. But he held firm and gripped Ruby as she clung to him for support, coughing feebly herself.

  “Let me see,” she whispered. “I want to see my ship.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Please.”

  The woman staring at him now was broken. Soot dirtied her face, lines cut by tears. Blood still trickled from one corner of her lips, and now it really was black, dyed by the smoke.

  “Let me see.”

  Francis obliged. Hobbling slowly, they turned. The Pantheon came into view—and Ruby howled.

  “My ship! My—my ship!”

  She fought to be free, but Francis held tighter. “Ruby—no—you can’t—”

  “My ship! It—it’s ruined!”

  “Ruby—”

  “Let me go!” she begged. “Please—just let me—my ship! What’s happened to it?”

  Francis tugged. She was hysterical, fighting with all her might. Thank goodness for the wound in her side, because Francis might not have been able to hold her steady otherwise.

  “Ruby, there’s nothing we can do,” he said. “Come on, we need to get out of here. This whole place is going to burn down, your ship included—and us, if we don’t move.”

  The captain sobbed, pressed a bloodied hand to her face. She heaved with spasms as she bawled. But she stopped fighting, and Francis held her tight as she mourned the Pantheon’s loss.

  “Come on,” he said.

  “Okay,” she finally conceded. “L-let’s go.”

  Giving her ship one last look, Ruby allowed Francis to pivot her. They began to lurch toward the open end of the port; with it, the parking bay, and with that, perhaps, the promise of safety.

  10

  Rhod had docked. He didn’t expect Celeste to have remained on her wrecked ship; she was probably somewhere on the port. And amidst the chaos, thinning out though it was as ships began to make their escape from Cacophonous Harmonics, he didn’t think it would be a very easy task to find the woman.

  But he knew how he could locate her.

  Though many hundreds of miles out, Rhod kept good tabs on all his competitors. That was the way you controlled an empire and drove profits: by watching what everyone else was doing, and then doing a better job of it yourself. So he made sure he knew what every SkyPort sold, specialised in, as well as the comings and goings of the smaller businesses that sometimes set up residence in a rented spot.

  Along with that, and not exactly necessary but of interest nonetheless, Rhod liked to keep track of the private aspects of each port too. Their staff facilities, warehouses, how their engineering team worked … Not for any reason, expressly. Just that it interested him.

  And perhaps came in handy if he needed to send Imelda’s men in to deal with a competitor.

  So he knew, as he barrelled a path across Cacophonous Harmonics, that the SkyPort had an office to the rear helmed by a man named Keith Bracken. And he also knew that this office was used to review the port’s many camera feeds; cameras which should still be functional. Mostly.

  Cameras he could use to find Celeste.

  Rhod thundered into the office, kicking the door off its hinges. Keith jerked in his direction. He was a skinny man, in the middle of a phone call—probably desperately trying to figure out what the hell had happened in the past ten minutes. He gave Rhod a terrified look—and then Rhod withdrew his pistol and pulled the trigger, wiping the look off his face.

  Rhod strode around the desk. Televisions painted the wall in two rows of four. Three displays were replaced by static. The others showed views of the port, almost all of which were painted yellow with flame. A couple showed the open area in the centre of the port, which was almost clear, while another was half-focussed on the wreckage of the Pantheon. Rhod scrutinised this most closely, but nothing exited except smoke.

  So Celeste had left. The question now was, where was she?

  He kicked Keith’s body to one side, ignoring the shrill voice that squawked away on the other end of the phone—it would go silent in a moment; always did—and sat in the dead man’s seat. Then he stared at screens, searching.

  It didn’t take long.

  There: Celeste, with that stupid pirate hat on her head, clutching a man who looked oddly familiar. Rhod leaned forward. Was that the deckhand she’d stolen?

  It was!

  Well, wasn’t that rosy.

  Rhod smiled. He reached for the microphone that directed Cacophonous Harmonics’s intercom system, licked his lips, and pressed the transmit button.

  “Good afternoon, patrons of Cacophonous Harmonics. I’d like to apologise for blowing a hole in the port just now; rest assured I intended no harm to come to the majority of you at this point of commerce.

  “But you, Ruby Celeste,” he continued. “I very much intend for harm to come to you. And it will; I can see that you’re injured.” The woman on the screen stopped, and Rhod smirked as two heads searched for the source of the transmission. “That’s right, Celeste. I can see you, and your little friend.

  “I’m coming for you. And do you know what I’m going to do when I get there? I’m going to kill you. And maybe I’ll kill him, too.

  “Oh, and by the way,” he added offhandedly. “I wouldn’t run. I’ll only make it slower if you do.”

  Ending the announcement, Rhod gave a final look at Celeste’s location, then reached down and lifted up one trouser leg. There, in a leather pouch wrapped around a meaty ankle, was his dagger. He drew it out, looked over its sleek, glinting surface with a malevolent smile, and then marched around the desk and from the office.

  11

  For a long second, Ruby and Francis stood stock still, neither sure what to do. Then Rhod’s final words clanged back to Francis, and he pulled at Ruby once more.

  “Come on. We’re almost there. If we move—”

  “We don’t have time,” Ruby said.

  “If we’re quick—”

  “No!” Ruby cried. Her eyes were panicked orbs of white. “There’s no time! I can’t move fast enough. But—but you can!” She tried to extract herself from Francis’s grip, but he held on. “Francis, let go! You can get to safety!”

  “I can save you—”

  “Francis, please!” she shouted desperately. Wet lines streaked her face. “It’s me he wants, not you! If you hide—look, over here!” She pulled, somehow dragging him around in a half-circle and across to the nearest storefront. “Down here, in this little nook by the door.” She unwound her arms; Francis fought to grab her, but somehow she was too quick. “Just hide here, okay?”

  “Ruby—”

  “Please, Francis.” Just as they had in the Pantheon’s control centre, her eyes begged. “Please, just stay here until he’s gone. It’s me he wants. You—you can survive. You can live.”

  “But—”

  Ruby sniffed. Swiped sooty tears from her face. She drew in a deep breath. “You’re part of my crew
now. That’s an order, Francis. Hide. Be safe. Live.”

  How much time had passed since Rhod’s announcement? Where had he even delivered it from? Francis didn’t know, and every second longer they waited …

  “Okay,” he whispered at last. He crouched in the alcove. Two potted plants were stood to either side, and he positioned behind the leftmost one as best he could. Ruby pushed his shoulders to shrink him further. “That’s the best I can do,” he said.

  Ruby nodded. “Okay.”

  “Please be—”

  But Francis didn’t get to finish, because Ruby was gone.

  12

  One hand clutched against her bandaged side, Ruby hobbled toward the edge of the SkyPort. It was a dozen metres away, no more. Maybe Francis was right: maybe they could have made it. But if they didn’t, that would have meant Francis was with her when she failed, and she didn’t want to endanger his life any more. She’d done that enough.

  Before she was even half the distance, a voice called out from behind her, “Celeste!”

  She turned. Thundering forward, a victorious grin plastered across his face, was Rhod Stein. More than six feet tall, two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and fat: a hulking behemoth, bearing down on her.

  So. This was it. The end.

  13

  “Good afternoon, Mr Stein,” Ruby started. The words didn’t quite finish leaving her mouth: Rhod crossed the last distance between them and slapped her hard across the face. Her head jerked; blood sprayed.

  “Good afternoon nothing,” he barked. He gripped her face and pressed the steel dagger to her neck. The point dug in. She quivered, and a trickle of blood dribbled down. “I’ve waited for this moment for a long time, Celeste.”

  Ruby’s breath shuddered. “Do it slow,” she grunted. “I promise I won’t cry.”

  “Hah! Talking it up,” Rhod growled. He pressed his face close in to Ruby’s. “Maybe I should make it slow, just to see.”

  “Just don’t chicken out halfway. I imagine this is the first time you’ve done the dirty work yourself.”

  “You think wrong.”