Bethany hastily donned her uniform, leaving off the rigid, heavy jacket. She had not worn any of it since the funeral at Kjell, for it made her feel like a pretender, but now it seemed the most practical thing at hand. In the bottom of the uniform’s box lay several pieces of Walkinshaw gunleather: a belt with two holsters, one per side, for the pistols, and a scabbard designed to go across the back and hold the carbine. The assemblage struck her as ridiculous but, without the luxury of a waistband to stuff the pistols into, as many sailors did, it was the only way to bring them along. Bethany buckled it on and slid her rapier into the right side. The blade poked a hole near the hem of her skirt and when she took her first step it cut a slit. Bethany winced and adjusted it then hurried out the cabin door. She found the stokers and Badrine at the starboard gunnel. The Chief Engineer had also availed himself of a gun belt, though his was flimsy Navy issue. A service revolver was holstered on his right hip while another was stuffed with its butt forward into the belt at his left hip, his trouser pockets bulged with cartridges. Each stoker had a service revolver save for one who had managed to lay hands on a marine carbine and several chargers, he had fixed the bayonet and looked particularly eager.

“Tell me you left a good man on the throttle,” Granger muttered as he hobbled up to Badrine.

“He is up to it, sir,” Badrine replied.

“Very well.”

Granger looked at Bethany for an instant and gave a slight shake of his head. Turning to the assembled men he began, “I have reason to believe that our boarding party, or at least some element of it, has been cut off or overrun, or, at the least stalled within the enemy ship. Find them and give them whatever support they require. Good hunting.” He then signaled the helm who brought Fletch again alongside the liner. One of Nock’s men ran out the boarding plank, it scraped loudly against the jagged petals of steel that ringed the shell-hole and settled into place at a precarious angle.

Regarding it, Nock shouted “quickly now!” and motioned for the party to cross. They did, with Badrine at the head. Bethany was the last over. She looked behind in time to see both ships roll just enough to release the plank. It slipped from Fletch’s deck, hung briefly from the liner then splashed into the sea and sank.

“You don’t never look back until the ship’s taken, it’s bad luck,” a stoker in front of her cautioned.

The party paused in the compartment breached by the shell. It was a bunk room of some kind, either for crew or third class passengers. A few of the bunks were intact but most had been rent from their mounts and twisted into strange masses of fabric and metal. A puddle of paraffin burned beneath a fallen lamp. The compartment door hung ajar and when Badrine pushed against it fell entirely from its hinges. The noise echoed down the long passageway it opened onto and the entire party winced. The engineer stepped into the passage, holding his revolver awkwardly.

“Not a soul here, none living anyway, come along,” he whispered.

The passage was paneled in white painted wood with polished brass handrails as befit a liner. This made the blood and soot that stained it all the more apparent.

“Step carefully,” a stoker muttered, pointing to a dead sailor who was clearly from Fletch. The man’s body lay parallel to the corridor with a bullet hole in his stomach.

“I will see to it he’s taken off properly,” Badrine assured, noticing the man whose face he had nearly put his boot on.

Further down from the breached compartment the corridor was more intact, lamps remained burning, giving much more light to the party as they advanced.

“If they were stalled it wasn’t done here,” Badrine observed, “a portion of the party made it to the engine room. If they are still there they should have an easy time holding it, plenty of iron to stop a bullet and plenty of places to hide. If anyone is in trouble it will be the lads who were making for the bridge. We will go up.”

To this end, Badrine found a stairwell. He was not the first. Cartridge cases rolled about on the steps and the walls were pockmarked with bullet holes. Halfway up the stairs a door swung open. The party froze in place. In lamplight the shadow of a small child appeared, nearly stepping into the stairwell before a woman’s shaking voice, speaking Bexarian, called him back.

“Passengers,” Bethany whispered after someone in the opposing passage drew the door tightly shut.

“There can’t be many, otherwise we would have seen them down below. They’re likely priority travelers - evacuees, military families and such, if the Bexarians are anything like us there would be no more normal civilian traffic at this point in the war, certainly not in these waters,” Badrine stated.

“Were we right to attack this ship?” Bethany went on.

“With the fight they seem to be putting up, yes. There must be something of military value aboard. Now quiet, even whispers carry forever in a structure like this.”

A cascade of voices from several decks above proved him right. Most were Bexarian but a few were distinctly familiar.

Badrine pointed up and mouthed “slowly.”

On the deck that seemed to be the source of the voices the stairwell led into a crew area. Steward’s jackets hung on pegs across from a rack of plates and saucers. Sunlight could be seen at the bottom of a door just before them and opening it revealed a sprawling dining room. Some of the tables were pristine, still set with menu cards and wilting flowers in crystal vases, but many had been flipped to provide the defenders with fighting positions. Bullet holes dotted them and a few Bexarians lay dead behind one.

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From the far side of the room came an alarmed Bexarian voice. An enemy in what looked to be a marine uniform leaned out from behind a gilt pillar and aimed a service rifle. Badrine fired before he could but missed. The Bexarian did not. His shot passed over Badrine’s shoulder and into the skull of a stoker. The dead man fell onto his compatriots, still stacked behind him in the doorway. The fellow just behind also went down, pawing at his bloody face only to rise when found he was unhurt. Bethany felt a few drops of blood on her cheek.

Badrine rushed forward, taking chunks out of the pillar with his revolver. Stepping over the dead man his stokers advanced as well until the marine fired again. His shot smacked into the bulkhead behind the boarders but caused them to duck and quickly press themselves against the same tables their enemies had exploited. As they did so the stomp of boots and jangling of slings against rifles rose behind them. The boarders turned to see tens of Bexarians moving up the broad corridor meant to funnel passengers into the dining room.

“Move aft and turn around, I’m not about to be shot in the back,” Badrine ordered and began to mantle a table.

“You still will be if that marine fancies doin’ it,” a stoker responded. Badrine stopped and slumped back into cover. He peeked over it, “He’s still there but we’ve no chance at a shot.”

The other Bexarians were advancing rapidly up the corridor. Bethany looked over her bit of table and saw what the others had: the marine pressed firmly against the pillar with only drab fabric outcrops, the sleeve of his uniform, visible. None of Badrine’s shots had penetrated the pillar, only damaged the plaster facade as it was steel on the inside and apparently part of the ship’s structure. A bullet to any of the exposed areas would be only a graze though it might make him flinch enough to expose himself further.

A Bexarian officer in the advancing party shouted something to his men as they neared the end of the corridor. Bayonets clicked into place and freshly emptied rifle chargers clattered to the deck. Bethany drew her rapier.

In a single movement she stood and flicked it from her hand. It faltered but soon advanced, leaving a shimmering moldavite wake. The rapier went into the marine’s exposed bit of sleeve just below his elbow. He turned with the impact but misjudged his movement, allowing the point of the blade to find flesh. It ran his arm through until stopped by the hilt. Screaming he staggered and fell onto his back, driving the rapier up but not out. He reached for the blade with his good hand and grasped it. As he began to pull upward to free himself the blade dug into his palm and sliced it to the bone. With both arms now useless and gushing blood he writhed and called to his fellow Bexarians across the room. The boarders moved to the now safe side of the tables and drew down on the approaching party.

Bethany regarded the man she had pierced, he was alternating between screams and whimpers as he tried to stand or at least roll back behind the pillar. She went sallow and stammered, “won’t somebody... for god’s sake...”

The stoker with the carbine turned from the cover just enough to shoot the marine in the chest, killing him. “What did you do?” Badrine asked, glaring at her, “what was that?”

“Never-mind that, start shooting!” a stoker cried, taking his own advice and opening up with his revolver.

The Bexarians were coming out of the corridor in a loose vee. Most were sailors and only half had long guns. A few dropped with relative ease, especially to the man with the carbine, whose shots were mostly hits in comparison to the wandering revolver-fire of his compatriots. The losses led them to take cover, a few in the wings of the corridor and the rest against their own flipped tables.

“You are out-numbered entirely. Do as your wise friends did and surrender now,” a Bexarian officer urged, speaking his foes’ language slowly but accurately.

“Our ship can sink you at any time, you should tell your captain to strike!” Badrine replied.

“If you were willing to it would already be done! Put your weapons on the deck and you will be treated mercifully.”

During the exchange the Bexarian officer had raised his head to be heard. As it began to dip down one of the stokers fired his revolver at it. His shot encountered the officer’s head near the brim of his peaked cap, shredding his scalp and sending him howling to the ground. Enraged, the Bexarians opened up with everything. The tables could not stop rifle bullets and two punched straight through, burrowing into a stoker’s stomach.

“Fall back!” Badrine commanded, rising himself and grabbing the badly bleeding stoker by the shoulders.

Bethany found herself alone against a table. She had tried to follow but could not, the rounds whistling overhead kept her legs frozen. A stoker, nearly behind the safety of a pillar, ran out again and reached to pull her back when a bullet slammed into his chin. Blood and chips of bone showered Bethany as the man tottered then fell forward, narrowly missing her.

Bethany flinched and peeked above the table. Several Bexarians were out of the fight, attending to their officer, but the rest were closing in. Badrine lent out from behind his pillar and motioned urgently for her to fall back. Next to her the stoker was still alive. Every time he breathed the blood in his ruined mouth gurgled and crimson bubbles shone in it. A Bexarian came around the table, failing to notice her cowering on the opposite end, and picked up the dieing man’s service revolver. He pointed it at the stoker’s head and pulled the trigger, receiving only a metallic click for his effort he threw the revolver aside with a slight shrug. Bethany drew the carbine from the scabbard on her back, the rustle it made caused the man to turn toward her. As he approached Bethany, still crouched, raised the carbine without shouldering it and fired upward. The stout recoil nearly knocked it from her hands but the shot found its target. Clutching his chest the Bexarian crumpled. Bethany ran the carbine’s lever and fired two more shots at the Bexarians who were now rushing forward en masse. Badrine and his surviving men fired from the relative safety of the pillars, cutting a few down but the rest were soon on top of Bethany. She killed the one nearest her with the carbine but short-cycled the lever, jamming it. Dropping it she went for a pistol only to feel a boot kick her square in the chest. She fell flat, her eyes shut. They were driven open by the pain of someone hauling her to her feet by her hair. When she was upright the Bexarian responsible held her by the neck, standing to one side so as to allow another to beat her across her back with the butt of a rifle. This was done twice until she vomited from the pain. The Bexarian holding her then ordered the other to stop. He pointed to her, making a slashing motion across her throat, while beckoning Badrine and his men over.

Through lidded, weeping eyes Bethany saw her rapier, still embedded in the dead marine. She willed it to move and it did - a few arshins - before clattering to the deck. She tried again but her efforts grew weaker as her mind gave way to desperate pain. Behind her, two distant shots rang out.

Bexarian shouting, also distant, followed. Most of the party turned in its direction. They had a brief, incomprehensible exchange, then all except for the one holding Bethany began to move. His compatriots motioned for him to follow, shouting something. With his free hand he patted his waistband searching for his revolver. Finding it, he began to draw.

Bethany’s fading vision failed in an instant and she fell to the deck. She blinked and saw only red. With aching hands she wiped her eyes of blood and brain. Next to her lay the corpse of her captor, the top of his head caved in. The stoker with the carbine had taken a desperate shot and succeeded. He was still outside the cover of his pillar, working the action, when a Bexarian returned fire. Bethany closed her eyes, expecting to hear the increasingly familiar thud of a body falling to the dining room’s shining parquet deck. Instead came the crack of splintering wood and a yelp. She opened her eyes in time to see the stoker’s carbine clatter to the deck, the rear of its stock wrecked by a rifle bullet. Half of the Bexarians’ backs were still turned and Badrine’s men opened up on them, killing a few as the rest bolted toward wherever the other gunshots had come from.

“Cowards!” Badrine cried, “come on, let’s run them down!” he went on, waving his stokers forward to the corridor. As he passed Bethany she tried to rise, he put a hand on her shoulder, pressing her down behind a table: “Stay here. You’re out of this fight.”

She was.

Her head throbbed and she realized she was still weeping gently. The pain from her stomach and back was so intense that grew nauseous and wretched again. She tried again to stand but faltered and fell, missing the table and coming to rest in a stew of blood and vomit. It struck her that she might soon be dead, she was not visibly wounded but, then again, neither were the sailors who fell from the tops. Those that did not die at once bled to death from the inside and the impacts of the rifle butt had felt almost as strong as such a fall appeared. She pulled herself from the worst of the vile pool, to a clean area of deck behind another table. Curling against it, she closed her eyes.