“Dive into the Chaos Sea!” Captain Lauretta Mitchell yelled, even though she knew that Marcus Sommel, her First Mate and Pilot, didn’t need her prodding. His judgement was as sound as hers, and often enough, his hunches had led them out of trouble that she’d waltzed them into.

“Aye, ma’am!” Marcus replied, voice as steady as a rock.

The Xylarchy ship, the spear-shaped one, flew towards their starboard flank, the tip empowered by focused Chaos. She was sure it would rend their Protective Sphere to tatters. The fact that the child-Knight, Yuriko Mishala, managed to fend them off with her artefact weapon had been a miracle. Of course, there was no doubt why the Xylarch privateers were after them.

In truth, she would have preferred if the girl hadn’t acted back then, but things moved far faster than she anticipated. Even if she had time to protest, she wasn’t even sure she could do so. The memory of Yuriko’s frightful aura pressing down on her made her shiver.

Still, she couldn’t change what happened and she would be consigned to Chaos if she let the bounty out of her hands. A clean ten million Sovereigns was nothing to sneeze at. Why, she wouldn’t make that kind of coin in a hundred years of trading, not as profit anyway. But it looked as though this current business venture was about to charge its first cost.

Well, second, considering she’d had to hastily trade away her cargo. The items she had with her wouldn’t bring in a profit back home. Still, she loaded up on valuable reagents from Viterra City; there wasn’t that big a market for such though, only the researchers of Sharom would buy up any exotic ingredients. They paid poorly though. Ah, well, Bella wasn’t that well-known for high quality expensive items. She could have just taken gold home, but her merchant’s sensibilities wouldn’t let her pass up the opportunity to increase her profits. Further, Denari coins aren’t that valued, and she sometimes would make more by melting and extracting the gold rather than exchanging the coin. Given that most Denari coins were minted by the Xylarchy…

She shook herself out of her reverie when the Ebon Horizon pierced the Waypoint’s minor Veil, and all at once, they were buffeted by turbulent Chaos Flows. This close to an island of reality, the Chaos smashed and churned. The ship rocked and bounced, but they were lucky. They emerged some distance from the other Xylarchy ship. The disc shaped vessel, the White Tide, Lauretta thought, recalling the logs and records of known dangers.

The Tide had struck seven merchant ships in the past year alone, though most escaped unscathed. That was after sacrificing their cargo. To those who fought back, the one ship that did, well, the Perfumed Quarter had limped back to Ugeddu plane’s quay with half of the crew dead, including their wily captain. The Quarter was still in dry dock, as growing a new hull out of Venere wood took several Seasons.

Not once did it cross her mind to surrender or parley. She knew what the girl held, and she knew her value too. Worse, who knew what the Mishala Clan would do to her if she let their scion fall into Xylarch hands?

As for the other ship, the one shaped like a spear, well, Lauretta didn’t know it, and it wasn’t in the logs. Which either meant it was new, or had migrated from a different territory. From the well practiced cooperation between the three pirate ships before, she didn’t think it was manned by a fresh captain.

“The spear pierced through the Waypoint,” Marcus reported. “Both ships are behind. We can avoid them if we push the engines.”

Lauretta nodded and toggled a runescript pattern. “Chief Runeer, we’ll have to push.”

“Forcing the engines will have drastic effects!” Layla’s voice came from the pattern.

“How long?”

“Twenty…no, thirty minutes. More than that and chances for catastrophic failure are high.”

“How long?”

“...maybe an hour. Then the engines will break.”

“Very well.” Lauretta withdrew her Animus from the pattern. “You heard her, get us out of here in less than an hour.”

“Aye.”

Piloting through the Chaos streams was no easy feat. Any fool can point a ship in one direction and use the power of their engines to plow through any resistance. A skilled pilot would use the streams to their advantage. But Chaos is anything but predictable. Advantageous circumstances could change in the blink of an eye, and using the streams meant they had to pull their Protective Sphere as close to the vessel as possible. Which meant their buffer would be so thin that any errant blow could puncture it.

She cracked her knuckles before submerging her consciousness into the Ebon Horizon’s controls. With an easy thought, she pulled the sphere close, warping it so that it followed the contours of her ship. Her ordinary sailors, at their stations around the deck, added their Will into her efforts, making sure that the Sphere kept the Horizon stable.

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Her efforts caused the Protective Sphere to hover less than an inch from the Venere wood. The sailors were similarly protected. She accounted for every crewmember on deck, contouring the sphere around their forms. The fact that they were channelling Animus and Will into the Sphere made it easier for her. If the marines were above deck, she would have to expend far more mental energy to ensure their safety.

The Ebon Horizon buckled as Lauretta felt Layla empower the engines. Marcus deftly manipulated the controls, taking advantage of a slipstream to get further ahead. The two Chaos ships fired their projectiles, but their flows changed just then, causing the attacks to fall short. Another change and the bolts overshot the Horizon, striking the space in front of them. The Chaos rippled and Lauretta thickened the sphere just in time to deflect the wave.

A bit of the Chaos penetrated though, and the surface of the deck was suddenly covered in frost. She clicked her tongue, hoping that the change was only on the surface. There wasn’t anything to be done about it now.

“Open a firing lane,” she commanded, and Marcus complied. He anticipated a ripple and used it to spin the Ebon Horizon sideways, allowing the port side Carronade an angle of attack. The gunnery officer, currently Christoph, managed to fire. A scintillating ball of superheated plasma careened into the distance.

Alas, the captain of the spearship looked just as skilled as Marcus, and they managed to dip their vessel such that the ball flew past them. Still, it slowed them for a few moments. The White Tide fell behind, too slow to keep up with the spearship or the Horizon’s boosted engines.

The Chaos flows soon swallowed the trailing ship, bringing them out of visual range. Lauretta resisted the urge to sigh with relief. Her stomach clenched when her hunch proved all too accurate.

Out of the turbulent Chaos flows, the third Chaos Ship, the floating island, emerged. Icy boulders launched ahead of the ship and somehow, the projectiles were etched with runescript. Instead of the Chaos disrupting the flight path, it seemed to empower it. The boulders collected a nimbus of Chaos and from the way the flows diverted from the gathering, there was no doubt that it would easily pierce through the ship’s Protective Sphere, even were it at full power.

“Only if it hits us,” Marcus said grimly even as he spurred the Horizon’s engines further. Sweat beaded and flowed down his forehead, even dripping into his eye, but he never blinked, lest that brief instant bring about death. The Horizon tilted to starboard, dove down deeper into the Chaos Sea where the denser flows should dampen the blow.

The boulder missed them by less than five paces. A yawning gulf in terms of personal battle, but against a Chaos Ship, that was the equivalent of dodging the slash of a blade by a single hair. The force of its passage rocked the ship. Lauretta’s hands tightened on her armrest, barely keeping herself from being flung off her chair. Marcus was strapped to his seat, but the movement slammed the back of his head against the backrest. For a moment, the Ebon Horizon was still, but her Pilot managed to regain control quickly.

The small delay lessened the gap between the other Chaos Ships. From that loss of control, the ship didn’t move with the Flows but was buffeted by it. Marcus struggled at the helm, letting loose a stream of profanities in the process.

Lauretta, for her part, kept the sphere’s energy as even as she could.

But that ice boulder was but the first of many, and worse, they were pincered. The other two ships were behind, while the island was twenty degrees port. To their stern and starboard was the Waypoint they just left, but if they reentered, they would be cornered. Open Chaos was their only chance.

Gritting her teeth, she commanded, “Take us out of here! Quickly! Burn the engines if that’s what it’ll take!”

Marcus bit his lip and nodded. His Animus surged into the control orbs, and the Horizon jolted forwards, handily avoiding a barrage. Lauretta’s sphere manipulation allowed them to slip past the Waypoint’s borders with the barest margin.

“They’re still coming!” Marcus grunted.

The Horizon propelled itself by creating a repelling force at their rear, though that same force was used to make them fly inside a plane. That force was created by specialized runescript plates that corroded and needed to be replaced after several weeks of travel.

Now, Animus and ambient Chaos were pushed into those plates far in excess of their rated maximum. Who knew how long the plates would last? But they either burned or were captured. The fate of any Xylarch captive was uncertain. Most times they were ransomed back to the Empire, but Lauretta’s career as an independent captain would be over should that happen.

The Horizon slowly pulled away from the pursuit. Their ship cleared the Waypoint without being drawn inside, and without getting caught. Marcus jostled the ship, left, right, up, and down, avoiding follow up boulders, and fiery bolts from the disc. The spear ship accelerated towards them, but the pilot or captain weren’t as experienced as Lauretta and Marcus. The way the Chaos flowed hindered the spearship enough that they couldn’t close the distance.

All power had been diverted to the thrust plates and there was nothing to spare to return fire. And it proved to be their undoing.

“No…!” Lauretta gasped as something formed out of the Chaos right in front of them. A chunk of rock, several paces wide, spun and glanced off the Horizon’s bow, twisting their trajectory to a side. The jolt made them momentarily lose control, and powerful flows took hold of their ship.

“We can still…get…loose!” Marcus grunted, twisting the controls and forcing the Horizon to turn.

With mounting horror, Lauretta saw the flows start to form into a whirlwind. “Chaos storm! Why now? Why here?” She sobbed.

An icy boulder missed them by a few paces, then was caught in the flow. It spun on its axis while the Chaos corroded the controlling runescript pattern. Soon enough, the boulder disintegrated.

The Chaos flows formed into a whirlpool, and a funnel descended into the depths. The Ebon Horizon struggled with all of its might to pull out of the flows, but Lauretta’s vaunted skill with the sphere energy gave her no edge. The flows were too strong, and the strength of the Protective Sphere too weak.

Blam!

The Horizon shuddered, and all at once, Lauretta’s vision turned red as the ship’s animating spirit sent its distress. The Horizon was immediately swept into the flow, going round and round in ever tightening spirals. At the moment, it took nearly three minutes to complete a revolution, but each succeeding movement came faster and faster. The density of the Chaos pressed in on the sphere, and with another snap, they collapsed.

Boom!

A chunk of the floating island’s ice boulder smashed into the hull, and Lauretta felt it. A breach. Then the Horizon started to bleed wood chips and Animus. Then, people.