Bethany awoke on the floor of her cabin, her face a few lines from the foot of the stove. She was still dressed, coat and all. Morning light, softened by fog, drifted in through the window. A weight pressed against her back, she thought briefly that is was the box from Walkinshaw’s, slipped from under the bunk, but turning her head she found Clotilde asleep beside her. At the end of her watch she had been asleep on the bunk, and she had not merely slipped off in a rough sea, for she had carefully brought a blanket and pillow with her.

Bethany rose as gently as she could. She entertained sleeping more, a glance in the remains of the mirror told her she needed it, but the scent of breakfast from the master’s cabin drew her through the door. On deck she immediately perceived that Fletch was moving quite slowly. There was no question as to why, a thick fog wrapped the ship, not even the wavetops could be seen beyond a few arshins. She ate quickly and said little, the other officers’ usual conversation dulled somehow by the ship’s slow pace. Returning to her cabin she bore a tray of coffee.

Clotilde was awake and had ventured back to the bunk, sitting upright. Bethany poured a cup of coffee and offered it to her.

“I don’t drink coffee,” she replied, flatly.

“You had better start, it will help you keep together.”

“How so?”

“It helps, it’ll warm you up, at least.”

Clotilde accepted the cup and saucer, taking a very tentative sip.

“It’s terribly bitter,” she reported.

Bethany had already added sugar from the ship’s dwindling store. She thought a moment, excused herself, and returned with a tin of sweet, condensed milk from the steward’s cupboard. She stirred in a spoonful, proclaiming “there, an infant could stomach it now.”

Clotilde succeeded in finishing the cup and seemed to become more even and aware.

“Would you like to eat something?” Bethany asked, tending to the stove.

“No,” Clotilde answered.

“It has been days though, at least, you haven’t had a bite on this ship.”

“I will have dinner with you tonight, perhaps.”

Clotilde left the bunk, crossing the cabin to the desk and the tray of coffee. She poured another cup, dosing it with condensed milk repeatedly. Bethany was in a corner, brushing her uniform coat.

“How do you manage?” Clotilde asked, her voice breaking.

Bethany looked up from her coat briefly, “what do you mean?”

“There were men from Bray on Tess, and Letitia said she remembered reading of what you did in the papers. That was terrible enough, the act itself, but beyond that the imprisonment, and living, what, as a fugitive? To come aboard this ship with all that upon you and then be asked to kill more, and see others killed. No, no I cannot conceive of how you are able to go on.”

Bethany put the brush aside and donned her coat, shaking her head, “I don’t manage, not well, or at least I haven’t. You do not want my advice.”

“I do, you seem well enough, I envy that.”

“You should not. I assure, if your life or disposition resembles mine when this is done I shall be terribly sorry for you. You still have a chance, marry and have enough children that you are too busy to think of this time in your life, of this war, of me.”

“Isn’t that somehow false?”

“False?”

“Who would marry a murderess? I would have to lie to any man I met.”

“You are not a murderess. I know what it is to be one, I promise you, you are not. Anyhow, would you marry a man who had killed another in a duel?”

Clotilde considered it for a moment, answering “I suppose.”

“What you did was a thousand times more just than a duel, for heaven’s sake men have been lawfully shot in the head over card games. You killed your jailer, your father’s murderer, you could go before any court, entirely unrepentant, and like as not you would receive a medal.”

“It doesn’t work,” Clotilde stammered, “you’re right in what you say, but it doesn’t work, I am not helped by it, I wish I were.”

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Bethany approached her, “well, how can I minister to you, I am not the decent one between the two of us. Is there any way I might help?”

Clotilde regarded Bethany quietly, a flicker of warmth in her eyes. She touched the sleeve of Bethany’s coat, as if to grasp her arm, but drew her hand back, “I’m not sure, I would tell you to let me alone, but this is your cabin.”

“I can move to the master’s cabin, I have been meaning to anyway.”

“No, no, I should not have said that, don’t trouble yourself.”

A muffled shout echoed from the bridge and was answered aft. A short, loud exchange followed, ended by the beginning of a drum roll. Bethany opened the cabin door, listening for a moment before turning back to Clotilde, “we’re beating to quarters.”

“Why?”

Bethany leaned from her door again, stopping a sailor as he hurtled toward his station, “what’s the trouble?”

“Lights in the fog, miss,” the sailor answered, already moving away.

“There’s a ship out there,” Bethany informed Clotilde.

“I heard,” Clotilde murmured, the last of the color draining from her face.

“It could be anything, probably a merchantman,” Bethany assured her, reaching beneath the bunk for her gunbelt. She added “all the same, I must go,” as she buckled it on. She turned for the door, Clotilde was stuck in place, expressionless. All at once she lunged toward Bethany, pulling the 4.5 line automatic from its holster. Bethany whirled around, expecting Clotilde to have the pistol against her head already. It was not, it hung in her right hand, at her waist.

“If it’s not a merchantman and they board,” Clotilde explained.

“Give it back, please,” Bethany urged.

“No.”

Bethany drew her other pistol, the shorter, slimmer model, “here, I’ll trade you. What you have now is liable to knock you over.”

“Do not trick me, is that one loaded?” Clotilde demanded.

Bethany ran the slide back far enough to reveal a cartridge, Clotilde accepted the smaller pistol and gave the larger one over. She turned the automatic about in her hands, studying it.

“Stay in here, if we get shelled, go under the bunk,” Bethany instructed, again making for the door. The deck was packed with men but deathly quiet. She could hear the screw lope through the water and one of Nock’s men crack the lid of a crate of shells. Farley stood just behind the bowsprit, looking down his spyglass. His boat cloak rustled in the dying breeze, hitching on the Voynich rifle slung across his back.

“Lights in the fog?” Bethany began, coming alongside him.

“Yes, the helmsman saw it and it was confirmed with a glass.”

“Can you see them now?”

Farley offered her the spyglass, “one point to port.”

Bethany swung the glass in that direction; true enough there was a small constellation of lights - deck lanterns or portholes - less than verst away, “why haven’t we stopped?” Bethany inquired.

“As it stands we must be abeam her, I’d prefer to close with her sooner rather than later, if we stop she can come up on us, to run we would have to show her are beam and risk taking a full broadside.”

“Full broadside? Are you sure she’s a warship?”

“Assume every fellow you meet in a back alley is a wandering preacher, see how long you live,” Farley retorted.

A sailor’s call carried across the water from the other ship, the distance and the fog rendering it very faint.

“Is that Bexarian?” Farley asked.

Bethany shrugged, “don’t ask me.”

“I do not think it is, I wanted a second opinion.”

“You’re right, I suspect, it wasn’t sharp enough for Bexarian.”

Farley turned to a sailor a few paces behind him, “pass the word, I want all of my marines up here, with their carbines.”

The marines arrived promptly, the clatter of their slings and boots terribly loud against the nervous silence on deck. They took positions around the bowsprit, leaving Bethany and Farley standing uncomfortably in their midst.

“Did we not just conclude it wasn’t Bexarian?” Bethany wondered.

“It costs me nothing to call them up, besides, we cannot be sure.”

From the other ship came a sharp metal clunk. The fog was split by the beam of a searchlight.

Farley ducked reflexively and faced the bridge, “light our signal lamp! If they’re sighting on us we may as well do the same! And stand ready to come about and give them the deck gun!”

Fletch’s signal lamp awoke, casting about in the fog for the other ship. It landed at last on a relatively featureless patch of hull, painted white but streaked heavily with rust. The sailor at the lamp swung it upward and swept across the ship’s deck. It revealed a vessel at least three times larger than Fletch, strangely proportioned and bristling with guns, a few in turrets on her deck and the rest mounted just below the superstructure. Among them, its upper half in an armored house, was a massive sidewheel. Hoisted at her short, sail-less mizzen was the Assembly Naval Jack. That proved nothing, indeed, Bethany saw Farley’s face sharpen to a glare.

The sidewheeler’s lamp went briefly, returning with the deliberate flickers of a signal.

“Sir, she claims to be the battleship Skvoreshniki. She’s making some signal after that, sir, but it is nonsense,” the helm reported.

“I know, I know, and she wants us to return the private signal,” Farley began without deigning to face the helm, “Miss Esterhouse would you please retrieve the book from Granger’s cabin.”

Bethany hastened to Granger’s cabin and found the codebook, the one she had almost put overboard at his orders, and returned to Farley.”

“Find the section headed ‘challenges’ and then find this month,” Farley instructed.

Bethany did so and Farley went on, “right, she is signaling ‘V’ ‘Q’ ‘4’ ‘F’ ‘Y’”

Bethany scanned a page of the book, “return... ‘P’ ‘M’ ‘G’ ‘7’ ‘X’”

“Tell the man at the lamp, Miss Esterhouse,” Farley pointed.

The signal was sent and Skvoreshniki’s lamp flicked once in acknowledgment. She then did nothing but continue to train her guns on Fletch, until, at last, her steam whistle bellowed a long, warm hello. The battleship had a launch in the water at once, it came alongside bearing an officer and ten marines. They boarded, stepping onto the deck near where Bethany and Farley waited, flanked by Farley’s men.

“On behalf of Skvoreshniki, I extend the ship’s greetings. I am Commander Whittle, second to Captain Vaux, whom you will meet soon. The Captain apologizes for not coming himself, but there was a risk that you were under a false flag, using a captured signal book.”

“I understand, Mr. Whittle, we were unsure of you as well,” Farley replied.

“Clearly,” Whittle observed, eying Fletch’s marines, who were several times better armed than his own, dressed in battle-worn uniforms with extra cartridge belts over top.

“Might I speak with Mr. Granger? Or is he present now?” Whittle continued.

“Mr. Granger was killed in battle, I am the captain,” Bethany announced.

“Acting?” Whittle inquired, his tone sharpening.

“No, sir, it was always my station, however, I lent operational control to Mr. Granger, and now to Misters Farley and Badrine.”

“Of course... naturally,” Whittle answered, “well might I see Mr. Threlfall then?”

“We lost him as well, sir.”

Farley took a step forward, “why do you ask for Threlfall? You have two officers right here.”

“Indeed I do, but I have a black-priority communique scribed by Mr. Threlfall, neither signed nor affirmed by Mr. Granger or either of you, that says this ship was in grave distress and engaged by a superior Bexarian force. Truly, we expected to find your wreck. That is why we are here, Skvoreshniki and an entire emergency detachment, to find survivors, if any, of your destruction and attack the Bexarian fleet that engaged you.”

Farley shot Bethany a look while she appraised Mr. Whittle. His demeanor had hardened since he had come on deck, he was plainly nervous now, his right hand too near his service revolver.

“That is all true, the communique,” Bethany assured him.

“Then why am I standing on an intact ship?”

“It was not a fleet, though in the chaos it seemed like one...” Bethany began, “...in fact it was a single unconventional vessel, our engineer, Mr. Badrine, has made an excellent study of it.”

“Even so, you have not a lick of armor, how did you survive?”

“We were with the privateer Tess, and she was entirely destroyed, she distracted the enemy, allowing Mr. Granger to steer us to safety in a storm.”

Whittle nodded to her, calming somewhat, and turned to Farley, “is her report, in your opinion, accurate, sir?”

“Yes, sir,” Farley affirmed, pointedly.

“And what of this vessel? She must be a battleship, to warrant language as vigorous and dire as that of the communique.”

“It would be better to answer that with Mr. Badrine present, we recovered drawings and prisoner reports from her base at Hegalia, as Miss Esterhouse said, he has made himself an expert in them.”

“Very well. We are the rear guard of the detachment, steam with us and I will fix a time for Mr. Badrine and whoever else you deem appropriate to speak with Captain Vaux. He will present any relevant portions of your findings to Vice Admiral Locke.”