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

by Nicholas J. Ambrose

  When they finally stepped out of the foliage beside the dock, Tesla stopped and marvelled.

  “That’s your ship?” he said. “A SkyHugger?”

  “That she is,” Ruby answered. At Tesla’s expression, she said, “You look surprised.”

  “Just, it’s a recent model and … well, looking at you …”

  Ruby’s expression darkened. Tesla didn’t see: he paced back and forth, surveying the ship. Natasha wore a similarly dark look.

  “Part of the Fidelity series,” Wong continued, oblivious. “Two Volum for greater power and speed; one near the front, one at the rear. Six side fins and two on the underbelly for turning; three batteries; two condensers plus one recycler; two main internal decks, plus an engineering sector, and a dwarfed mini deck up top …”

  “How do you know all that?” Ruby demanded.

  “They’re all manufactured to the same specs.”

  “Fine. Then why do you know all that?”

  “Sometimes we need to monitor air traffic, and it’s useful to know what we’re looking at.” Tesla shrugged. “All this data is on that pad. I can show you, if you like.”

  Ruby eyed the device. “I’ll pass.”

  “What modules do you have installed?”

  Ruby held his gaze, but remained silent.

  Tesla wasn’t fazed. He went back to scrutinising the ship, now heading for the dock. “Short-range radar, eight adjustable cameras … Is yours equipped with—”

  “Easy,” Mikhail said. “Too many questions.”

  “It’s fine,” Ruby said. But it wasn’t, and Francis could tell. She wasn’t happy with any part of this exchange: not Tesla’s thinly-veiled insult, not his questioning, and certainly not his knowledge of the Harbinger, innocent or not. “We’ll discuss further on another occasion. For now, I’d like to be on our way. People: on the ship.”

  Mikhail led the charge along the dock. Tesla followed, taking in the Harbinger’s black, angular sides.

  Francis pondered. Wong was clearly well-informed. Maybe he’d know some way in which Francis might get home; a class of ship that could travel between air and surface affordably?

  “Hey,” he said, catching up with Tesla. “I’m Francis.” He stuck out his hand.

  “Tesla,” Wong said without reciprocating, and Francis dropped his arm. “As you already know.”

  “I was wondering; you know a lot about ships, right?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Do you happen to know of anything that could get down to the surface and back?”

  Tesla guffawed. “You’ll be lucky. That sort of stuff is specialist, and expensive. Why? Thinking about a vacation?”

  “I came from there,” Francis explained.

  Tesla looked confused. “From the surface?”

  “Yeah. Couple of months ago; I was kidnapped.”

  Tesla gaped into Francis’s face. Then he burst into another laugh. “Good one. You almost had me there. Nice.” He made a gun with his fingers and fired it at Francis, then stepped onto the Harbinger, following the others inside.

  Francis stopped and sighed.

  A gentle hand found his shoulder. He looked sideways, to Natasha.

  “Never mind,” she said. “We’ll keep searching.”

  Francis nodded sedately. “Yeah,” he said. He inhaled, another of those not-particularly-cleansing breaths, and continued, “Let’s get in. After all that walking, I’m starved.”

  Tesla Wong

  (Chapter Three)

  1

  “Cheers, Sam,” said Francis. “Sorry I couldn’t help this evening.”

  Samuel waved Francis away. No hard feelings.

  Slipping between the bolted-down tables and chairs, Francis took an empty spot beside Mikhail, Evans, Peters and Herschel. Already they were a good halfway through their puceal and rice.

  “Evening,” Mikhail said.

  “Hey.”

  “Where’s the encyclopaedia?” Lines broke Francis’s forehead. “Tesla.”

  “Oh. Erm. Maybe Ruby is finding him somewhere to sleep?”

  “She wants to hurry up, if she’s hoping to feed him; I’m heading back for seconds.”

  “And thirds,” Peters chimed.

  Over his plate, Evans pointed his fork at the free seats at Francis’s table. “Saving those for Brie?”

  Francis grimaced. “No. When are you going to fix my lock?”

  Evans shrugged. “Sometime.”

  “Tonight, or tomorrow? Please?”

  “Yeah, maybe. What’s the matter? Don’t want a girl strolling in and hopping into bed with you? Sounds like my kind of wake-up.”

  Peters: “Maybe if it was Mikhail instead of Brie.”

  Mikhail and Evans punched him, an arm each.

  Francis rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t. Anyhow, she only did it once, and she ran out just as quick.”

  “Oh, you got lucky?”

  They erupted into laughter.

  Exasperated, Francis said, “Look, can you please just hurry up and fix the damn thing? I’m on edge all the time, and in this heat I can’t stand sleeping in pyjamas, just on the off-chance she—”

  He shut up. Behind their heads, Brie had stepped through the door.

  “Girl could do with a nap,” Evans muttered. He was right: having interrupted her sleep pattern earlier, she looked tired. “Francis, you’ve got enough room in your single bed for the both of you, right?”

  Francis gritted his teeth. “I could fucking well kick you right now.”

  “What? Nothing wrong with being skinny.” Evans grinned wider as annoyance flared across Francis’s face. “Hey, relax, I’m kidding. That’s what we do. Peters here gets enough of it. I mean, just look at him.”

  “Oi!”

  “I’ll fix your lock soon. Need to check we’ve got the stuff to do it first. Funnily enough, locks don’t get broken around here very often. At least, not Glim’s.”

  “I’ll have you know—”

  “Hi, Francis.”

  Francis looked up. Brie waited awkwardly, holding a tray.

  “Can I sit here?” she asked.

  “Um—yeah, of course,” Francis stammered. “Feel free.”

  Brie sat. She looked as though she might say something, but then picked up her knife and fork instead. Her eyes tracked the room, fixing on the nearby table and the workhands’ bickering. Then watery blues fell back on Francis in one of her too-long gazes.

  He did his best to look away. At least there was food to be distracted by. No need for idle chitchat.

  “How’s your day been?” he asked.

  —so why did he have to go and make idle chitchat?!

  “It’s been okay,” Brie said.

  Francis waited. When she didn’t continue, he nodded and forced, “Are you working tonight?”

  “Yeah.” Brie sighed. Blonde hair fell over her slumped shoulders, and she flicked it away. “I don’t have to be if—”

  “Yes, you do.”

  Their heads turned. Ruby had slipped into the room without their realising; she passed Brie, with Trove in tow, carrying her own dinner.

  Brie looked fraught as captain and assistant took the table’s remaining seats. But Ruby disregarded what she’d overheard, merely nodding a hello to Francis and the men at the adjacent table.

  The rest of the meal was quiet. Colour had risen to the tops of Brie’s cheeks, and there it stayed. Now she glued her eyes to her plate. Not another word passed her lips; not a word from any of them, in fact.

  When finally Francis had finished, he was glad to leave. Even if he did wish he could have gone back for seconds.

  2

  Most of Francis’s evenings were spent in the rec room, or the library. But tonight he didn’t feel like reading, and nor did he fancy being in the rec room, where Evans would inevitably resume his jibes. So instead he headed onto the topside deck, contenting himself to sit at the fore of the ship and look out.

  Summer approached its zenith. The evening sk
y was pure blue. It would be another hour yet before it became awash with pinks, and another before twilight descended.

  Where was Tesla? Probably going through the same routine as when Francis had arrived on the Pantheon, he guessed: questioning handled, he’d have been found a home, however temporary. Now he was probably unpacking his belongings.

  Lucky. I never got a chance to bring any of my things.

  Francis sighed. After Tesla had reeled off all that information on the Harbinger, Francis was sure he would know something. And yet: still no closer to home.

  The same answer, all the time and everywhere: the tech was specialist, and expensive.

  What if it had been only Rhod that possessed it?

  Francis’s thoughts turned to his parents. How were they doing? Had they received his letters? And if they hadn’t, were they still searching for him? Or had they given up, deciding their son had run away in the dead of night with not a word or goodbye?

  “Stop it,” he muttered to his building tension.

  The door onto the deck opened behind him. The knot in his stomach tightened. Brie had come to find him.

  But she hadn’t; it was Vala that sat by Francis, crossing her legs and holding them in her arms. “Good evening.”

  “Hey.”

  “How did the day’s adventure go?”

  Francis shrugged. “Okay. Ruby told you pretty much everything of note.”

  She had: as soon as they’d returned to the Harbinger, she’d called a meeting, then redirected the ship.

  “How about yours?”

  “Wonderfully,” Vala said. She shrugged her knees out of her arms and leaned backward on her hands. “I got a lot of samples; seeds and plants and cuttings. Would you like to see?”

  Thankful for the distraction, Francis nodded. “Sure.”

  Vala’s greenhouse occupied the majority of the ‘dwarfed mini deck’, as Tesla had called it. The roof was entirely glass, so in the day sunlight streamed in.

  On the Pantheon, Vala’s botany had been restricted mostly to her and Stefan’s quarters. Some plants were littered throughout the ship, but it was hardly an ideal situation. On the Harbinger, she had space to spread out. And she’d filled it: this entire room was packed to brimming. Split into three long aisles by tall metal racks, every shelf in the greenhouse was full.

  “God,” Francis marvelled. “How did you even have room for new stuff?”

  “Efficient management,” Vala said with a smile.

  She led Francis down the leftmost aisle. Francis ogled. Now and again he stepped in here with Vala, and she had told him more names than he could remember. He tried to go over them now: the bulwark, a thick nest of thorns protecting a single flowerhead in its centre. The petals were drooping. It wouldn’t flower again for another year.

  Thiefweed was next. Its sprout-like appearance was misleading: under the soil was a vast bulb, thin roots snaking. None were visible now, but Vala had let them grow once to show Francis the effects. Left unchecked, they snuck into the soil of surrounding plants and siphoned away nutrients.

  A row of charis followed, seeded from the original Stefan had given Vala as a wedding gift. Their scent was tangy, but over the rest of the greenhouse, Francis couldn’t smell them. Purple heads glittered. Evidently they flowered year-round.

  Toward the end of the aisle was a clearer rack, and on this were rows of small plant pots, packed with new cuttings and samples, compost, or, at the bottom, liquid feed. Vala’s tools were discarded on the floor beside them, topped by a dirty pair of gloves.

  “These ones will be lovely,” Vala said. She pointed to several leafy cuttings protruding from dirt. “The rubbery-leafed bushes along the track,” she clarified.

  Francis said, “They’ll be big. They were taller than me.”

  “Yes! I may need to begin expanding—back into my quarters, perhaps.”

  “Hah. Stefan will like that.”

  “Of course he will. If I’m happy, he’s happy.” Vala winked, and Francis grinned. “Oh, and these,” she continued, moving down a shelf and picking up a square pot. Inside was a tiny flower with downturned round petals. “Lowbells. Sadly I only had time to collect three. But never mind; that’s enough to start.”

  “Did you get anything from the megadurian?”

  “A few seeds. And more than a few stings.” She flashed Francis the inside of her palms and ends of her fingers. Four red welts.

  “Ouch.”

  “Never mind,” Vala said, unfazed. “These are all planted now. I have a few others, but I expect it may well be information overload if I tell you about them all.”

  “Probably,” Francis confessed.

  “Not a worry. Fancy helping me out a little?”

  “Okay. With what?”

  “Cross-pollination; I’m attempting some hybrids. May be unsuccessful, but one never knows without trying.”

  Vala showed him what to do. It was a very gentle, careful process, brushing pollen between male and female flowerheads.

  “You’re much better at this than Stefan,” she mused after a while. “He’s so heavy-handed.”

  Vala hummed as she worked. She was at least twice as fast, Francis saw, and he considered increasing his pace. But hers were practised hands; his were not. He had his excuses.

  After a while, Vala said, “So. We have added a new member to our crew.”

  Francis nodded. “Tesla Wong. His colleagues locked him up because he didn’t want to go grave-robbing.”

  “I see. Well, looks as though fate has grave-robbing in mind for him regardless.”

  “I guess so.”

  “How does he seem to you?”

  Snide and smarmy, Francis wanted to say, but he held his tongue. Instead he opted for, “Okay. He’s smart; reeled off all kinds of info on the ship. I don’t think Ruby liked that very much.”

  “Well, no,” Vala said. She replaced her tray of flowers on the rack she was working from, then retrieved another. “She’s protective. And after losing the Pantheon, I don’t expect she’s looking to lose another ship.”

  “She seems a lot more careful lately.”

  “Her guard is up. After what happened with Rhod … It’ll come down again. It’s already started, I think. You’ll notice she didn’t ask our feedback on searching out this trade ship, tonight.”

  “She was guarded before,” Francis said. “With me.”

  “All in the interest of self-preservation.”

  “Hm.”

  They worked.

  Again, it was Vala that ended the quiet. “I see Miss Channing continues to dog you.”

  Francis pulled a sour expression. “Don’t remind me.”

  Vala chuckled. “She’s sweet, in her own way.”

  ‘Stalker’ seemed a more apt word for it, Francis thought.

  The task took another fifteen minutes all told, and Francis’s wrist was beginning to tire by the end of it. Fortunately the conversation stayed away from Brie; instead Vala alternately hummed or made chitchat, telling Francis stories about the silly things Stefan had done when he was ‘wooing’ her. Francis was glad: not only did they make him laugh, but they also distracted him again from the things pressing on his mind: Brie at one end, and the possibility of returning home at the other.

  3

  Come morning, Ruby was tired.

  Thinking had kept her up all night. First she’d worried over Tesla’s confiscated datapad. Was it tracking? Right now it could be beaming their location to anywhere.

  But when she cycled through its functions and pored down through its code with a rather exhausted Brie, Ruby was convinced it wasn’t. The device was inert.

  True to Tesla’s word, there was a knowledgebank of ships and their classes. Numerous other things, too; local maps, SkyPort information, data on weather patterns … Ruby ignored almost all of this; after a momentary scan of details on SkyHugger-class vessels, and briefly lamenting the single image it held of the ancient series the Pantheon had been part of, she put
the pad aside.

  Tesla was being honest.

  Maybe he could be put to use.

  After the sun had risen and Ruby fuelled herself with her usual coffee, she made her way to Tesla’s quarters. He was lucky: this was the last empty room available.

  She knocked.

  “Hello?” Tesla called.

  Retrieving the key from her pocket, Ruby unlocked the door and stepped inside.

  Tesla sat at the desk idly, arms folded, and gave Ruby a begrudging look. “You decided to let me out then.”

  Ruby skirted past the accusation. “I have a job for you, if you’re willing to do it.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Yes. Though I will remind you that my crew and I rescued you from certain death.”

  “Assuming my colleagues didn’t return.”

  “Do you suppose that likely?” Before Tesla could reply, Ruby continued, “If you’re willing to help, I won’t lock the door. I won’t give you the key either—but you’ll be free to come and go as you please.”

  “Why can’t I have the key? Don’t I get any modicum of privacy?”

  “Rest assured, my crew will respect your personal space.” Ruby sighed at Wong’s pout. “I’m not interested in keeping prisoners, Tesla. I’m merely acting with my crew’s safety in mind.”

  “I’m not going to do anything. I don’t have a weapon. Or did you forget frisking me? And you’ve got my datapad.”

  “You can have that back soon.” Tesla perked up, lifting his eyebrows. Good; confiscating it had been useful in two ways, then. “Now, are you willing to help?”

  “Fine,” he huffed. “With what?”

  4

  In years gone by, the SkyHugger class of vessels had been produced identically; the Pantheon was no different to the others manufactured in its series. But the Harbinger was modern, and sported two customisable modules that could be selected upon purchase (or acquisition, in the Harbinger’s case). One of these was Vala’s greenhouse; the other, on the lower internal deck, was a mechanical servicing bay. After spending so long picking apart faulty machinery where it malfunctioned, it was a nice change of pace to have a dedicated space for it.