From the sail of the Prospect, Percy had watched the Gnat back behind her boat’s stern, and then plow forward and dive. That was the last she saw of the Gnat because the water was so brown and silted. The Grackle was just starting to come around to an angle where it could maintain the speed it had gained moving up the channel and still drive into the turnaround bay. The ram turned towards the Prospect, and just as it had the angle set so the ram would split the rear quarter of the Prospect — just as Percy was imagining the crazy fully-uniformed sub commander giving the order to put on a turn of the throttle — the sickening low crunching sound of an underwater collision came up to her ears, and she watched the bow of the ramming sub divert away from the bay, and back into the channel. As the big submarine came around it took on an unnatural list to one side, its sail hanging clean out over the water. Percy knew immediately what Shakes had done to save them. The sub with the ram carved an awkward path, its forward momentum carrying it up the channel until the ram on the bow collided with a cargo platform, which split in two, a splintering crack widening along the sharp line of the ram. The Grackle ground its way to a stop there.

“Fuck!” Percy called down to the control room. “Hemi, Shakes just drove the Gnat into our fuckin’ pursuers! See if you can get him on ship-to-ship.”

But she did not have to wait for Hemi’s report. The Gnat rose to the surface out in the channel, its bow heavily dented, but clearly still afloat. A moment later from the top of the sail came Shakes’ familiar spiky-haired form waving to the Prospect.

“OK, Sir Piero,” Percy said, “it’s all on you now, my new fuckin’ friend. Can you get us back to the main channel?”

“Yes, yes. You think this is the first pursuit I have done through Stilt City? I have a few tricks up my suit sleeves.”

Calling commands down to the control room, he completed backing the Prospect into the turnaround bay, and then pushed out into the channel. They got a good view of the sub with the ram as they passed. Black-uniformed crew were running back and forth on the deck with two-meter pry bars, pushing detritus from the platform off the deck. The channel was too narrow for a ship that size to turn around. If they could get unstuck, they would still have to maneuver into the turnaround bay before they could begin to follow the Prospect and the Gnat.

Once Sir Piero had the Prospect out in the channel, he put on as much speed as he thought they could without adding to the swamping of the structures along the channel and without risking accidentally driving into one of those structures. Behind them Percy could see the Grackle was already freeing itself from its stuck position and maneuvering backwards towards the turnaround bay.

With the Prospect successfully underway, Hemi climbed up to the bridge to consult with Percy.

“How the fuck did they find us in Stilt City, Hemi?” Percy asked. “The place is a fucking labyrinth!”

“Either they have exceptional intelligence in a foreign Authority’s port — which seems unlikely — or they followed the dulcet sounds of the Gnat’s ridiculously loud engines.”

“Fuck. Yeah. They must have picked Shakes up somewhere on his approach to Stilt City, and then just quietly followed him into fucking port and through the city.”

“With Shakes constantly stopping to ask directions, it may not have been very difficult to do.”

“Well, maybe we can get them to follow him back out too. Sir Piero, can we take your shortcut again — back to the main channel?”

“That is maybe not such a good idea. Faster overall, but the sub marine has to go much slower through,” said Sir Piero.

“I’m willing to go slower if it means losing our fucking pursuers though,” said Percy. “Hemi, let’s ask Shakes to start the diesel on the Gnat, and we’ll leave him to go back up the bigger channel he came in from. We’ll turn into the shortcut, and with some luck, maybe the Grackle will follow his loud ass instead of us.” In one way it felt like a lot to ask of Shakes, who had just risked his boat for them. But one of Percy’s principles of leadership was that if someone shows initiative, give them more responsibility.

“Alright,” Hemi said. “I will raise Shakes on the ship-to-ship and let him know the plan.”

“There’s too much of a risk that those fuckwads will overhear it if you use ship-to-ship. You should probably just flag Shakes down and shout across to him.”

“Alright,” said Hemi again, and climbed over the fairing of the sail and down to the deck. Percy watched him shout for Shakes’ attention, and when Shakes heard him, he pulled the Gnat alongside the Prospect and he and Hemi ironed out the details of the plan by yelling across the gap between the two boats. When he was done, Hemi climbed up to the sail and back down into the control room.

“How much further do we have to go to the shortcut?” Percy asked Sir Piero.

“Just another quarter mile or so. We have to slow the boat down even before we get there — it is easy to miss a small lane like that, and also, no turnaround.”

“OK. When you’re sure you’re close, have Bastian slow us down as much as you think you need to.” Percy looked behind. There was no pursuing sub there, but she could only see about a quarter mile down the channel before the sighting was lost in the winding ways of the channel and the clusters of warehouses and cargo platforms. A quarter mile was nothing. The Grackle might be right behind them, but she had no way of knowing.

A few minutes later Sir Piero called down to Bastian to slow the Prospect to five knots. Sir Piero scanned the signs and structures along the port side of the channel ahead of them. Then he pointed to a small, rapidly-approaching gap between the huts built along the channel. “There it is, Captain Percy.”

She nodded. “None too fucking soon,” she said with another glance behind. Still there was no pursuing sub. She put two fingers in her mouth and let out a loud, short whistle that rose in pitch. Shakes looked up at her from the sail of the Gnat following behind the Prospect. She waved to him and pointed to the wider channel. He waved back to show he understood, cigarette in hand.

As Sir Piero brought the Prospect into the narrow way of the shortcut, Percy could hear the cough and sputter of the Gnat’s diesel starting even above the significant rumble of the Prospect’s own engines. As Sir Piero began his careful navigation of the shortcut pass, Percy kept looking back to make sure the Grackle had not come into sight. Carbonous black soot shot up in a long stream from the Gnat as if the small boat were aflame. Shakes’ head disappeared for a few seconds from the sail as he went below to connect the diesel engine to the prop drive. A moment later he reappeared and put the engine in gear. The Gnat cruised quickly and noisily off up the channel.

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The Prospect moved into the small channel between the huts, backtracking the route it had come in by. Sir Piero had them moving faster this time though, kicking up enough wake to slosh up against the bottoms of the huts, but just short of driving water into the huts. That did not prevent residents from coming out and cursing their passing.

As before, they wound their way through the small homes. Sir Piero faced the bow and scanned the path in front of them with binoculars. Occasionally he cupped a hand around his mouth and yelled forward loudly in various local languages to try to get a local fisherman or kids rowing tiny coracles to make way for the Prospect to pass. He kept up a never-ending stream of instructions to Hemi and Bastian below, making tiny corrections in their course to keep them in the center of the narrow passage.

Percy rode her boat facing the stern, on the lookout for the thing she feared — the black shadow of the sub rising up somewhere back in their wake, among the densely-clustered huts.

She was just beginning to believe the Grackle may have gone for the bait and followed the Gnat when she heard a muffled thump and crunching wood coming from some distance behind. The sounds bounced over the thatched roofs of the huts. Through her binoculars she saw long boards, clumps of thatch, and huge splinters shooting up into the air. Every few seconds, another hollow thump and crunch, followed by more splintering wood.

The thumps came faster, flowing together until the detritus of the huts was being blasted into the air in a long continuous stream of pulverized wood and straw. The ram of the Grackle was being used to plow a direct route through, as though the ramshackle homes were nothing but so much snow needing to be cleared from the central artery of some Northern city. A path of monstrous destruction, moving rapidly towards the Prospect.

“Sir Piero, that sub that was after us? They are coming this way,” said Percy. “Is there any chance we can move faster through here?”

Sir Piero looked behind him and saw the rampaging destruction headed towards them.

“Sorry, Captain Percy, I am not destroying my neighbors’ homes for the sake of your boat.”

“You aren’t going to ground us again, are you? We’re finished if we get stopped.”

“No, no. No fucking way! Your boat was loaded before. It is unloaded now — lots of clearance.”

“Unless the tide went out…” said Percy.

Sir Piero did not reply. He resumed shouting directions down to the control room.

Percy did not have nearly as much faith as Sir Piero that the Prospect would clear the bars of shallow muck so easily, even with her boat unloaded. She asked Hemi to keep a close eye on the depth-under-keel gauge and let her know immediately if the warning light came on.

It was only moments later that she could see ahead the shade of water with a distinctively different ripple pattern on the surface that indicated a shallow spot running across the lane. Sir Piero pointed it out to her, but did not order the Prospect to slow down at all. Percy tripped down the ladder to the control room and watched the depth-under-keel gauge intently. The needle lowered itself down till it triggered the warning light, and sank to under a meter of water, but they cruised over the shallow spot without even touching the muck this time.

She climbed back up to the bridge with a smile on her face and patted Sir Piero on the back. She was feeling a sense of relief not just from clearing the bar so easily, but also because her intuition about the size and displacement of the sub pursuing them suggested to her that the Prospect might have an opportunity coming.

She lifted her binoculars and leaned out from the sail to get a clear view around the Prospect’s exhaust stream. The Grackle was still charging recklessly up the narrow passage, splintering the little huts on both sides of the waterway. She could see the faint shadows of people atop the sail directing its course. With no reduction in speed at all, it drove into the shallow bar.

The sharp leading edge of the ram plowed deep enough into the sludgy ground that the muck erupted from the bottom in a thick black moraine that rose until it cleared the surface. A small tsunami of brown water, turbid with mud, rose and traveled up the small channel before the stuck boat.

Their pursuers were stopped dead in the passage. Through her binoculars, Percy imagined she could almost see the figures of the people on the bridge of the sail thrust forward against the edge of the fairing as the momentum suddenly came off the boat. She could see an arm raised in anger and hear the vitriol spilling off the sub’s sail.

As soon as the residents in the surrounding area realized what happened, they attacked the grounded sub, throwing rotting food, scraps of wood, and rusted bars of metal at the black monster that had been tearing up their neighborhood.

The Grackle began shooting jets of bilge water out of its sides, and presumably blowing any remaining water out of their ballast tanks as well. Percy could see they were also driving forward at full throttle, hoping to push through the shallow spot on straight power. The screws were kicking up a tremendous wash of frothy water behind the sub, enough that nearby huts leaned back from the pressure against their stilts.

This angered the residents still more. They began to land on the stuck sub, beating on the deck with long metal poles and trying to pry up hatches. One local tried to climb the hand holds to the sail. That was when Percy saw the thin shadow of an arm extend and then a flash, followed a moment later by the report of a small-caliber pistol reaching her ears. The body of the climber fell back through the air, hit the curved deck of the sub and slid into the brackish water.

After that, the people on the bridge opened up on the locals — shot after shot rang across the water. Figures fell to the deck amid the mass of residents scrambling to get off the deck and back to their small boats and canoes alongside.

The Prospect was now gaining crucial ground on their pursuers, quickly finding their path through the winding way. Soon Percy could see the main channel ahead. Further behind, amid the chaos and the violence, it did appear that the Grackle was making headway against its bottoming. Percy estimated they might push clear with just a few minutes more.

The Prospect turned out into the main channel and Percy took over command. She immediately had Bastian throttle up to the Prospect’s full surface speed of fifteen knots.

“Careful, Captain Percy,” said Sir Piero. “I cannot recommend all this speed in the channel full of big heavy ships and small wobbly boats. If any Authority vessels spots the Prospect, they will intervene to try to keep order in the channel.”

“I fucking know it. But those fuckers behind us are certainly not going to take it easy in the channel — maybe the Authority will intervene with them instead!”

“That seems true enough. Here I must leave you, then. If the Authority catches me piloting a craft at this speed in the channel, I will no longer be a pilot. Besides, there’s fifty meters of water in the channel, you do not need me any more — as long as you manage not to get crushed by a moving freighter.”

“Well, fuck. That was as fine a bit of piloting as I have ever seen,” said Percy. She leaned over and called down to Hemi in the control room. “Hemi! Toss up the pay for Sir Piero.”

Hemi underhanded a small cloth pouch clinking with coins up from the control room and Percy snatched it from the zenith of its rise.

She handed it to Sir Piero. “You’ll find a generous gratuity in there for your work under tense conditions, Sir Piero.”

“I am the best pilot in the city, Captain Percy! If you come in this way again, be sure to ask for me.”

“We fuckin’ will, for sure. Can you get your boat off at this speed? I really don’t want to slow down.”

“No problem. I was born and bred on the water!”

Sir Piero tucked the bag of coins into his pants, gave Percy a casual salute, and nimbly went over the side of the sail. He pulled his wherry to the edge of the deck and sat down in it. He lifted his paddle and pushed off. He slid the tiny craft down the curve of the Prospect’s hull and into the rapidly passing water like someone maneuvering over a big rock in river rapids. After a few paddles he had safely made some distance from the giant steel cylinder flying past, and he paused to give one final wave to Percy on the sail before paddling in the direction of a large oiler that was crawling upstream to see if he could win a second job for the day.