Chapter 53: Race the Dawn

“The age of piracy is over. The age of order has begun.”

-Bron Silvers, Minister of Glory, 189 U.E.

The sky bruised purple with the onsetting dawn. And with it, from the east, came Rand.

His ship, the Dancer, was closing in fast.

Most of the crew was ready on the main deck in case of a boarding, armed and grave-faced. Kazzul sat hunched over his controls, struggling to keep the ship under his command. Quintilla hovered at his shoulder.

“Captain, the Dancer is faster and more maneuverable than us. They’ll catch up before we reach Dead Echo.”

“Activate the auxiliary engine,” Quintilla said.

“Already did. What I said still stands.”

“Damn it! What about the Concordians?”

“I think I’ve got them on the rear feed. They’re far off, but closing fast. It’ll be a near thing if we want to avoid them.”

The walls around him groaned in mocking laughter. Dials and levers flipped around, forcing him to scramble to reset their course.

“Give… up…” the ship whispered. “Worthless… stupid… You’ll see them to their… doom.”

“Be quiet!” Kazzul growled and banged on the wall. I really don’t need your input right now.”

“Useless… useless… useless.” The ship laughed. “No wonder… she threw you away…”

“Shut up!”

Quintilla looked around the cockpit as bloody runes formed. The very walls seemed to warp, metal closing in on them. “Uh, Kazzul?” she asked. “What in all hells is going on?”

“Ask your spider,” he grumbled, “because I have no idea.”

“Fascinating,” Vormor called from the adjoining main deck. “It appears that a parasitic entity of some kind has latched itself onto the ship and is feeding off the infernal energies I poured into the wards.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Quintilla asked.

The lights flashed rhythmically, a slow heartbeat. The ship laughed. Nuts and screws shot out of their sockets, pinging across the cockpit. Kazzul took one to the shoulder, breaking the skin. He struggled to stay on a steady course, the ship wrestling him for control.

“It means… this ship is not our friend,” Kazzul said. “I thought I could keep a leash on her, but this is getting out of hand.”

“Auntie, fix this,” Quintilla said. Her tone was hard and unyielding.

“I will try, but it’s not as easy as it—”

“Now.”

Vormor set to work, chanting atonally and waving her tangle of arms around. The ship didn’t like that. She shook and shuddered, but Kazzul kept her steady.

“You’re not going to be the end of me, you crazy old bat,” he said. “You hear that? I’m going to outlive you! I’ll prove you wrong!” He paused. “I’m going to survive this, and I’m going to get her back.”

In the end, facing death and worse, Kazzul realized what was important to him. Not treasure. Not sex. Not booze.

Only Jahwa.

I will get her back.

The steering module was ripped from Kazzul’s hands, given a life of its own, and the ship dipped sharply towards the sea. Kazzul was thrown against the console, and Quintilla caught herself on the back of his seat.

“Everyone grab something!” Kazzul shouted. “This is going to get dicey.”

He switched off the auxiliary engine, grabbed the steering module, and put a foot on the console for leverage. He pulled with all his strength, yelling, the ship screeching in his ears.

“You… will be… mine!” the ship screamed. “You will suffer… like me!”

The Tits Up turned in midair. The wings were beginning to level out, but the ship was still hurtling towards the sea. Rand fired an opening volley from his great guns, shots going wide under the keel and making splashes in the water.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Kazzul said between gritted teeth. “Clingy isn’t a good look.”

He got the thrusters at a forty-five degree upward angle and flipped the auxiliary engine back on, providing a little bit of extra thrust. The sea was closing fast. Fifty meters. Thirty. Fifteen. Five.

The Tits Up brushed the water. Warning lights flashed. Then the ship shot back up, clearing another volley from the Dancer, and rocketed into the sky. Kazzul’s stomach lurched, and Stephan screamed from the back that he was going to be sick.

The captain put her hand on Kazzul’s shoulder. “You can do this,” she said.

Kazzul nodded.

“I think I’ve got it!” Vormor called. “Give me a few more seconds!”

The ship screeched her hatred and contempt. The magelight over Kazzul’s head fizzled out, sparks bouncing off his shoulders.

Then she went quiet. The walls went still, and the runes dried and flaked off. Warning lights blinked, alarms blared, and Kazzul was left panting. He had full control of the ship.

“There we are,” Vormor said. “Turns out it was a devil. Sneaky little critter, aren’t you?”

Kazzul looked back and saw the Spider hoist a twisted, red-skinned creature by its throat. She held it between two of her hands, the thing whining pitifully, and twisted. A spine crunched. She let it fall unceremoniously to the floor.

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“Well, that takes care of that,” Vormor said in a motherly tone, wiping her hands on each other.

Kazzul sighed with relief and returned to his work. That thing finally shut up. Thank the Great Worms.

He glanced into the rear feed and saw the Dancer firing a shell out of an underwing pod. It was slower than a normal cannon shot and ponderously large, closing in on the Tits Up by degrees.

Kazzul frowned. “What is… that?”

The shell split open like a gutted fish. It separated into dozens of little spheres that scattered in a cloud over their ship.

“Oh fuck…” he murmured. “Cluster bomb. Everyone, take—”

The ship shook. Kazzul was nearly thrown from his seat. An electric fizz could be heard as the Tits Up’s wards shattered. Clutching the steering module, he turned sharply to port.

“Wards are down!” he called. “One more clean hit and we’re done!”

“Is his anchor in range?” Quintilla asked.

Kazzul looked into the rear feed, shaky and full of feedback after that impact, and did the math in his head. “Not yet. But it won’t be long, at the speed they’re going.”

“Right. And the Concordians?”

“Getting dangerously close. They’ll be able to open fire on us soon.” He frowned into the concave glass screen of the rear feed, rubbing at a black dot over the horizon. “It looks like we’ve got another ship coming in. Still pretty far off, maybe thirty minutes.”

“Friend or foe?”

“No idea. Let’s hope for the former.”

Quintilla nodded and stepped back. “Okay, crew, listen up! Kazzul, keep Rand off our backs for a minute. Vormor, can you get our wards back online?”

“I can try, dear,” Vormor said with an uncertain quaver to her voice.

“Good enough. Kurko, I want you to head down to the cargo hold and launch the chaser ship on autopilot. Kazzul, what’s the nearest land apart from Dead Echo?”

“Uru.”

“Send it towards Uru. The rest of you, get ready for a fight. Rand won’t risk killing us before we show him the treasure, so he’s probably going to try and board us. Is that clear?”

“Yes, captain!” the crew responded in unison.

They got to work.

*****

Quintilla did her best to keep a brave face for the crew. The intrepid captain. The fearless fighter. She did her best to not show how terrified she really was.

The odds were rarely in their favor. But this was different. Four ships against one? Those weren’t odds you could work with.

Thumbing her revolver, she watched Kazzul perform evasive maneuvers, shot after shot from Rand’s cannons diving into the sea around them.

“Chaser’s been launched,” the pilot said, eyes fixed on the rear feed. “Wait… Wait… Yes! One of the Concordian ships broke formation. They took the bait.”

A few of the crew members whooped. Quintilla nodded, lips pursed.

Three against one.

Still too many.

“What’s the status on those wards?” she asked, glancing over at her aunt.

Vormor was waving her hands around, eyes rolling as she chanted in Zhurfuran. She didn’t respond.

“Power’s slowly running to the wards,” Kazzul said. “Whatever she’s doing, it seems to be working. They should be online in another minute.”

“Good. Give her time to finish. As soon as those wards are up, I want you to spin us around one-eighty.”

Kazzul glanced back. “Captain? Did I hear that right?”

“You did. We won’t make it to Dead Echo with the competition firing on our asses, so we might as well turn around and start firing back.”

Kazzul slowly nodded. “I hope you’re sure about this.”

She wasn’t, but it would have to do.

Yin got up from the co-pilot’s seat. “If you get us close enough, Taira could teleport me onto one of those ships. Take out the pilot, maybe the captain, leave ‘em dead in the air.”

“Good idea,” Quintilla said. “Tee, you got that?”

Taira nodded. “I will try. But bridging a portal between two moving ships will not be easy.”

“When is it ever? Get it done.”

The wards came back online with a happy whir, and Vormor fell forward, coming out of her trance. Panting, she slowly got back up.

Kazzul turned the ship sharply around. A shell grazed the top of their wards, easily deflected, and he leveled the Tits Up’s great guns on the Dancer.

“Give ‘em hell,” Quintilla said.

Kazzul fired.

Two shots struck the bow of the Dancer, cracking the wards open. A third barely missed as the enemy ship diverted its course.

“The Concordian ships are coming in hot,” Kazzul warned. “They’ll be on top of us in a minute.”

Taira opened a portal to one of them, the split in reality wobbling and sputtering as her sister struggled to keep it open. Yin leapt through, the floating light coming after, and Taira closed it behind her.

The Concordians opened fire, but Kazzul took them under the Dancer, using the enemy ship as cover. The Concordians seemed to have no qualms firing on their ally, and one shell struck the top of the ship, causing the Dancer to teeter in the air.

The wildcard ship was right over their bow, getting closer by the minute. Even with the naked eye, Quintilla could tell it was no Concordian vessel. Kazzul tried flashing a friendly signal, and got one in return.

“Friendlies!” Kazzul called. “We’ve got backup!”

The crew let out a collective cry of triumph.

But who? Quintilla wondered. Is it Chaesim? Did he manage to get us some Elandran support after all?

As the ship drew closer, it became clear that it was no Elandran vessel either. The black blotch glided forward, an ugly ship that expanded and contracted like an agitated muscle, strapped down with a multitude of cannons.

The Sea’s Rebuke.

Dryden had come to their aid.

“The madman,” Quintilla hissed. “He owes us nothing. Why is he here?”

“Who can peer into that man’s tangled mind?” Stephan mused.

“Who fucking cares?” Kazzul called. “As long as he’s on our side, I won’t ask questions!”

One of the Concordian ships ground to a halt, slowly drifting to one side. Squinting, Quintilla could make out a blood spatter on the inside of the cockpit. It seemed that Yin had performed her job admirably.

“Tee, get a portal open for Yin,” she said.

The Sea’s Rebuke rammed straight into the last Concordian vessel, shattering both their wards in the process. The Aqithi bio-ship let out a rumbling bellow and wrapped black tentacles around the wings of the smaller trading vessel.

One on one.

Quintilla grinned.

Those were odds she could get behind.

“Kazzul, line up a clean shot on the Dancer!” she called. “Rand won’t let us go until we sink him into the depths.”

Kazzul turned the ship around, aimed, and fired. The Dancer dipped, nimble lady that she were, and the shells flew over the top of her. Rand retaliated with a volley of his own off their port, forcing Kazzul to go starboard to evade. One of them hit clean, knocking out the wards once more. Quick as a cobra, the Dancer’s drain anchor shot out on a rattling chain, leading the shot starboard.

The ship shook as the heavy metal anchor tore through the left-hand side of the cockpit, burying itself in the floor of the main deck.

Magelights sparked and fizzled. Kazzul’s console went dark, and he smacked it with a string of curses. The Tits Up slowed to a crawl, thrusters sputtering out with a dying whimper.

Quintilla drew her revolver.

“Prepare to be boarded!” she called.