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

by Nicholas J. Ambrose

  It was here that Ruby led Tesla now.

  “I’m assuming, given your position, that you know at least a little something about the equipment your weather station was provided with,” she said.

  “Of course. It would be pretty inconvenient calling someone in to fix every little thing that went wrong.”

  Ruby nodded. Good.

  “After your drone landed on the side of the ship, relayed your message and co-ordinates, I shot it.”

  “What? That was the only one!”

  “Then it’s a good thing we came to rescue you.”

  “What happened to it? Toss it overboard?” Tesla accused.

  “No. We stored it—here.”

  They reached the metal door into the servicing area. Ruby pushed; it hefted open, revealing a square room filled with tools and equipment. In the centre, a table: and on that, the wreckage of the drone.

  “I had my men pick it apart,” Ruby said. “Just in case it was bugged.”

  “You’re paranoid, you know that?”

  Ruby ignored Tesla’s remark. “Fortunately, as you are no doubt aware, we found nothing untoward. If we had, I imagine I would have re-routed the ship.” She licked her lips. “You’d have died in that closet of yours.”

  Tesla approached the drone’s remains. He picked up some of the larger pieces, scrutinising them. “So I’m guessing you want me to fix it.”

  “More or less,” Ruby said. “There are a couple of tweaks on the software side I’d like. How are you with programming? I have my own programmers, but I expect you’re more familiar with the code that instructs—instructed—this thing.” She tapped one of the drone’s wings.

  “I know how to program these things, yes. I’ll need my datapad, though.”

  “Of course; I’ll get it to you shortly.”

  “What are the tweaks?”

  “I want control ported over to the Harbinger’s computers,” Ruby said. “Total control, if you please; once you’ve finished reprogramming its intelligence, I’d like no ties to remain between datapad and drone. Can you do that?”

  “Yes. But I’ll need access to the ship’s systems.”

  “I’ll have Sia and Brie assist with that. And Reuben Evans will be dispatched soon to assist on repairs.”

  The look Tesla gave was dark. “You don’t trust me.”

  “I’m ensuring the process is swift,” Ruby said. “I’d like to be able to test the drone before reaching our destination. Is that possible?” Her answer hadn’t been direct, and if Tesla was as clever as she gave him credit for, he’d noticed that too—but her redirection pushed it out of his mind as he again let his eyes stalk over the drone’s wreckage.

  “I think so,” he answered.

  “Good. Then I shall leave you to begin. You’ll find tools—well, everywhere,” Ruby said, gesturing around the room. “I daresay you know what most of them are better than I do.”

  5

  After returning to her quarters, Ruby checked the time. It was still a while before breakfast. She would catch Evans then; in the meantime, she pinged Brie on her communicator. The girl would probably answer; her shift was finished, but she had acquired that habit of waiting up for Francis lately.

  Exhaustion must have caught up with her, though, because Brie didn’t respond.

  Ruby recorded a message. “Miss Channing, hello. I’m having Tesla repair the drone we found a few days ago. I don’t expect that to be finished for another day or so, but when it’s done he’s going to reprogram it and slave it to the ship. Oversee the process, as well as helping him with the Harbinger’s systems. And check over the code, please, just in case he inserts any backdoors. I don’t expect him to, but better safe than sorry. Liaise with Sia; she’ll also assist in the process.

  “If you need further information, you know how to find me. Speak to you soon. And thanks.”

  Ruby closed the channel.

  That only left Evans.

  Ruby waited until breakfast had started, then another ten minutes for good measure, before setting off.

  When she arrived, Evans was eating toast and listening to Peters tell him about the dream he’d had last night. Mikhail and Herschel listened on the sidelines.

  “Morning,” Ruby said.

  “Captain,” Mikhail greeted with a nod. “How can we be of assistance?”

  “Just Reuben on this occasion, I’m afraid,” she said. “I require his expertise.”

  “What expertise?” Peters asked. Evans elbowed him, and his laugh turned into a cough.

  The two headed out into the corridor. As they passed the other diners, Ruby made chitchat, but once they were out of the room she turned to the matter at hand.

  “I’ve instructed Tesla to repair the drone we found. I’d like you to help him.”

  “All right. I can do that.”

  “I need you to keep a close eye on him,” Ruby continued. “He seems safe, but … Watch what he’s doing. Ensure he repairs only the drone, reverting it to its original state. No extras. If I want those, I’ll handle them later, and through you. Not him.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Is he down there now?” Evans asked.

  “Yes; I started him on the project an hour ago. You will, of course, want to recheck the progress he has already made.”

  Evans nodded. “Absolutely.”

  “Great. Thank you, Reuben.” Ruby readjusted the tricorne on her head and glanced sidelong at the cafeteria. Her stomach gurgled. “I’d better let you get back to breakfast—and get to my own. Coffee isn’t anywhere near as filling as—what’s today’s offering, other than toast?”

  “Porridge.”

  Ah. Well, wasn’t that something.

  Onward

  (Chapter Four)

  1

  Francis was collecting ingredients for the morning’s breakfast when a head popped through the door—a head topped with a mass of crimson curls and a tricorne hat.

  “Morning,” Ruby said.

  Francis pushed aside the crate he’d been trawling through. “You’re up early.”

  “Always am. Who do you think drinks all our coffee?”

  “Good point.”

  “Fancy a hand?”

  “Sure.” Francis flashed her the list Sam had given him this morning. As always, the text was just barely legible. Even now, after months, Francis was still surprised Sam could read and write at all. “Vegetable omelettes this morning.”

  “No alternative?”

  “There’s toast, but Sam’s already baked the bread for that.”

  “Aha.”

  They set to sifting through crates. Already Francis had found the onions; next were peppers. The red ones were nearby, he was sure of it. The green ones, though … Frowning as he shoved another box aside after peering in—slightly sprouting potatoes; he’d have to tell Sam so they could be used before going soft—Francis wished he’d bothered to make a better job of keeping the pantry tidy. That way finding things wouldn’t be such a palaver. Still, at least the cheese and eggs were easy enough: in the cooler beside the freezer. Small blessings.

  “Yellow peppers?” Ruby asked, holding up a bag.

  Francis shrugged. “Not on the list, but may as well.”

  Ruby placed them to one side gingerly, on the tub Francis had filled with onions. Resuming her search, she said, “So no luck asking Tesla about a trip home, then?”

  Francis shook his head. “Nope. He doesn’t even believe I came from the surface in the first place.”

  “Yes, I overheard … He’s strange. But not without his uses.”

  “Strange?”

  “Well, no. More … abrasive,” Ruby said. “Then again, when you first arrived …”

  Heat rose to Francis’s cheeks. His ears burned. Indignant, he opened his mouth to protest, but Ruby laughed.

  “Kidding. Relax. I was hardly any better.”

  Francis’s embarrassment ebbed. “No, I suppose not,” he said. He sig
hed. “I really hoped, after seeing how much he knew about the Harbinger, he might know something. Some kind of vessel I could use to get home.”

  “It is complicated,” said Ruby. She opened a cardboard box, looked inside and frowned, then closed it and slid it away, rather more gently than Francis tended to. “Volum are wondrous things for us; less so for you.”

  Francis grimaced. Ruby was right. Volum were both blessing and curse. In the past months, Francis had researched the creatures. Nowhere near as much as Benjamin Thoroughgood—the Pantheon’s Volum caretaker, prior to infection by a parasite that caused dementia, ending with his throwing himself overboard. But Francis could see why the globular beasts were so fascinating: they generated lift, and within their sphere of influence reduced buffeting wind speeds to almost nothing, increased air pressure, local temperature and atmospheric oxygen content … But there was a lower limit to their lift. If a ship sunk too far, it would never rise again.

  It was clear a Volum wasn’t Francis’s solution to getting to the surface. So he had started pondering other methods.

  “What about a hot air balloon?” he’d asked Natasha one evening.

  “Afraid not,” she’d answered. “We’re ten miles up. Hot air balloons can’t climb more than ten thousand feet, because the air density inside the balloon and outside equalises. Even if the air was heated first, you’d drop so fast.”

  “How high is ten thousand feet?”

  “Not ten miles.”

  So he tried a different tack. “Couldn’t the effects of a Volum be reduced somehow? Keep the pressure, but switch off the lift?”

  “You mean for an easier ride down?” Natasha shook her head. “Not unless you fancy starving it to death. Even so, you’d be switching everything off. And have you seen the size of them? It’s a long, painful process. Those things can undergo some serious shrinkage before you’d even notice the difference.”

  Next he’d considered parachuting down. It would be terrifying, sure, but if it was a means for him to get back to his family …

  Yet that idea was fraught, too: “You’d get frostbite,” Natasha told him. “This high up, it’s way below freezing out there.”

  “Aha—red peppers.”

  Ruby’s words brought Francis back to the present.

  “A little on the wrinkled side,” she said, “but they’re still good.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Just green peppers to go?”

  Francis re-checked the list. “Except for eggs and cheese, yeah. We’ll grab those last.”

  “I shall let you carry the eggs,” Ruby said. Already her rustling search had resumed. “I expect I’m a little more heavy-handed than you. And jittery, too, after coffee. You ought to avoid drinking it.”

  Francis laughed. “Fine by me.”

  “Here we go; green peppers.”

  There weren’t many; barely more than half a dozen. Good thing they had the yellow ones to bulk things out.

  Placing her find with the rest of their haul, as Francis replaced boxes in some semblance of neatness, Ruby asked, “Is Vala growing any?”

  “I think so, but they’re not far along.”

  “Alas. Then these are our last for a while. We shall have to savour them.”

  “Hah. Maybe Sam won’t cook all their flavour out today, and we’ll get a chance to.”

  Ruby smirked. “You sound like Trove.”

  Between them, they carried the ingredients from pantry to kitchen. Unlike the Pantheon, where the pantry had been on the deck below, here on the Harbinger they occupied the same level, so it was a simple matter of following the corridor.

  After leaving the items with Sam—he looked them over and grunted accusingly at Francis, who said, “Yes, I know; cheese and eggs. We’re on our way now.”—they returned to the pantry.

  “So what is Tesla doing while he’s with us?” Francis asked.

  “Repairing that drone of his, currently,” Ruby said. “It’ll be slaved to our systems and provide us with an extra set of eyes. Always useful.”

  “I see.”

  “Mr Evans is helping. You may see him at breakfast, if you’re interested in a more thorough report on their progress.”

  “Could you nudge him about my lock, please?”

  “Hm?”

  “My lock is broken,” Francis explained. “I’ve been asking Evans to fix it for days, but he still hasn’t got around to it.”

  “How did your lock get broken?”

  “Brie.”

  Ruby frowned. “Miss Channing?”

  “The one and only.” Francis sighed, yanking the door to the chiller open and stepping inside. Ruby followed. “That girl doesn’t leave me alone. I’m surprised she hasn’t turned up this morning, actually.”

  Ruby consulted the clock on her communicator. “Her shift isn’t over.”

  Oh. Damn it.

  “Why didn’t you say she’d broken your lock?” Ruby asked, taking the two blocks of cheese Francis passed her.

  “It was embarrassing. She … she woke me up.”

  “Oh?” Ruby lifted an eyebrow. “Francis, your ears are rather red.”

  He turned away. The nearest rack was stacked with cardboard egg boxes. Francis busied himself with them.

  “What did she do?”

  “She—she climbed into bed with me.”

  “What?”

  “She climbed out just as fast!” Francis said quickly. He looked backward. Ruby’s eyes were alight, but she kept the smile from her face. “As soon as she realised I wasn’t—you know—she ran off.”

  Ruby appraised. At last, she said, “I see. Well then. I knew she’d developed a ‘thing’ for you, but this … It seems somewhat out of her character.”

  “And funny?” Francis accused.

  A devilish grin crossed Ruby’s features. “I shan’t deny my amusement,” she said. “If it happened to anyone else, I daresay you would feel the same.”

  “Hmph.”

  “Regardless, I shall talk to Reuben later and ensure he fixes your lock post-haste. Would you like me to speak with Miss Channing, too?”

  “And tell her to leave me alone?”

  “Well, that or give her some pointers.”

  Francis grimaced. “Never say that to a man holding a tray full of eggs.”

  Ruby stuck out her tongue. “Come on, let’s get back to Samuel, or everyone’s breakfast will be late. Just think of the fallout; why, I’d have a mutiny on my hands. And that would never do.”

  2

  “You know, I’m missing out on supervision while I do this,” Evans complained. “What if Tesla does something to the drone while I’m out of the way?”

  “In that case, it’s a good thing I tasked you with rechecking his work, isn’t it?” Ruby countered.

  They were stood in the corridor outside of Francis’s quarters. Pieces of Francis’s old lock were spread about Evans’s knees. Now he fussed with the new one as he prepared to fill the cavity he’d just made in the door.

  “Glim could do this,” Evans said. “Or Mikhail. Hell, even Herschel; or Francis, here. It’s just a lock. All you need is a screwdriver.”

  “They have other duties. Besides, I asked you. You promised Francis you would do this. We make good on our promises.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Evans twisted a screw. “Paige, I don’t even know what you’re complaining about. If a girl woke me up by climbing into my bed …”

  “You’d think you were dreaming, I expect,” Ruby said.

  Evans chortled. “Something like that.”

  To Francis, Ruby said, “It’s all sorted.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Where’s my thanks?” Evans chimed.

  Ruby ignored him. “I’ll see you shortly, Francis. Reuben.”

  Off she trotted.

  Francis leaned against the wall, drumming his hands.

  “Done,” Evans said a minute later, standing. “Though I still reckon you’re making a big mistake.”

  Francis
shook his head. “I don’t. Anyhow, thanks. Even if it did take you five days.”

  Evans shrugged. “I’m a busy man.” He grinned and clapped Francis on the shoulder. “Catch you later.”

  Francis watched him go. Once he was gone, he tested out his new key, just in case he’d been fobbed off with a dud. The workhands were all the same; everything was a joke. But the tumblers clicked: the key worked.

  Peace at last.

  Well, assuming Brie didn’t decide to break this one, anyway.

  3

  The day and the next crawled. At first it was because Francis was on edge; despite Reuben’s repair, every time he returned to his quarters he was sure he would discover his new lock’s mechanisms ruined. Likewise, he awoke the next morning convinced Brie had invaded and crawled in beside him.

  Fortunately, neither of those things happened.

  Brie wasn’t the only cause of Francis’s anticipation. The Harbinger was pushing ever onward to the Exceptional Luck’s crash site: a floating rainforest atop a sprawling cluster of islands, according to Tesla. Part of Francis wanted to feel Ruby’s excitement, but he was just scared.

  “Why aren’t you excited?” Francis asked Natasha as they sat on deck. He fiddled with her telescope, peering skyward at the crescent moon smiling sideways from the evening sky.

  “I’m intrigued,” said Natasha. “It’ll be interesting to see what we find.”

  “But you’re not excited.”

  “Well, you forget that I’ve been with Ruby for over four years. None of this is exactly new to me.”

  “Gone grave-robbing before?”

  “Yes. And I wish you wouldn’t call it that.”

  “Sorry. Just adopting the term from Tesla.”

  “Presumably you think he’s right.”

  “Well, if they are dead …” Francis twisted the telescope, refocusing. “He’s kind of right.”

  Natasha shrugged. “I suppose. But someone has to collect their goods.”

  “And it may as well be us,” Francis finished.

  “Exactly.”

  Francis frowned. “It’s kind of immoral.” He took one last look at the moon, and passed the telescope back to Natasha. “But then again, I stabbed a man in the neck three months ago, so I guess I know all about moral quandaries.”