come toward you ‘til they’re even. Good, now drop the displacers flat.”
Neale obeyed, bringing the truck to an awkward standstill. I motioned for him to switch places with me. When he crawled past me on the seat, he mopped cold sweat across the back of my shirt. I slid into place at the controls and tipped us forward, shouting through the window for Sable to hold onto her hat. A pulser round spidered across the Galeskimmer’s hull as we approached, rocking the boat on its runners. On the quarterdeck, Mr. Scofield looked over his shoulder in shocked surprise to see my Ostelle creeping from the fog like a phantom.
I eased the hovertruck to a stop beside the Galeskimmer. “Change of plans,” I shouted. “Get off the truck, you two. Get your boat out of here as quick as you can.”
Sable and Neale hopped onto the streamboat. “What are you about to do?” Sable asked, eyeing me.
I would’ve told her, if there were a chance she would’ve agreed to it. “Just get out of here.”
I veered away and took off toward my Ostelle, determined to distract the law-lovers I called parents for as long as I had to. I swerved into a sideways strafe, the closest thing to an evasive maneuver I could manage in this crippled turd of a hovertruck. The pulser cannon drew a bead on my lame tricks without breaking a sweat, but no shots came my way. Instead, the turret shifted its gaze onto the Galeskimmer and fired. The pulser hit one of the turbines, rattling the whole boat like a beggar’s cup. In light of my distraction’s apparent ineffectiveness, I gunned it straight ahead.
“I’m sorry baby,” I muttered, taking one last look at my beautiful undamaged Ostelle as she came zooming up to life size. “I’m so sorry.”
I aimed for center mass, unconcerned with where I landed, as long as I struck her a good one. I felt like an abusive lover, treating my pride and joy like the wall at a bumper car rink.
The hovertruck smashed into the deck head-on. The air outside my windshield was a mist of splinters and rivets and men I knew, screaming and diving to get out of the way. I was ploughing through layers of decking I’d laid down myself, sweating away in the afternoon sun with a rivetgun and a dream. I wondered if it was really worth it to send my parents and I and their whole crew to the Churn, all for a girl I only kind of knew, and half a dozen other less-endearing souls who were about to steal the fortune that should’ve been mine.
It wasn’t, I decided. It wasn’t worth it at all.
The hovertruck’s nose accordioned. Then the whole truck began to flip forward and vault away from the deck, like a fat gymnast attempting a somersault. I gripped the steering controls and locked my arms and legs as the truck inverted itself. I was sailing past a blur of debris toward midship, and the whole world was turning upside down. All I could think was, I’m never gonna get to tell anyone how awesome this is.
I was facing a sleeping bat’s version of the direction I’d come from when the hovertruck smashed into what I knew must’ve been the hatch in front of the center mast. The sudden stop sent a wave of pain down my spine. I slid off my seat and onto the windshield, smacking my head against something on the way down. I could see belowdecks through the huge hole the hovertruck had ripped in the floor. But my Ostelle was still afloat. Still standing proud. There had been no explosion; I’d achieved no glorious, heroic ending. That meant I still had work to do.
I kicked open the driver’s side door and flopped onto the deck, ears ringing, head and back smarting. I shot my last dart into Johnny Ralston’s right eye as he came toward me. I didn’t know for sure he was intent on violence, but the way I saw it, everyone on board my ship was the enemy. After all, they’d helped kick me off it.
I stumbled toward the pulser cannon, watching as the barrel spit another burst into the Galeskimmer’s backside. I felt more crewmembers converging on me, the way you feel every pair of eyes on a dark street.
Launching myself the last several yards, I slung my grapplewire around the gunner’s neck and yanked him out of the turret chair. It was Norris Ponting, a skilled powder monkey if ever there was one. Norris Ponting was about to become a ‘was,’ unless I got my way. I whirled on the advancing crew and shouted, “Stop right where you are, all of you, or Norris is done for.”
They did stop, but I got the impression that most of them were considering whether Norris was worth stopping for. As long as they spent some time deciding, that was fine by me; all I had to do was keep them off that pulser cannon long enough to let the Galeskimmer make a run for it. My grapplewire was tight around Norris’s throat, tight enough to make every breath come out wheezing. He was half-drunk, by the smell of him. I’d have bet money he was still a better shot than any other two crewmembers put together.
Knowing the whole crew on a first-name basis meant that I knew their tech, too. I knew who was augmented and who wasn’t, where their augments were, and how they were likely to use them. I backed toward the turret with them inching toward me, ravenous as a pack of wild dogs. Ma and Dad were nowhere to be seen. I guessed Dad was at the helm, past the hovertruck that was sticking fifteen feet into the air at midship, three of its four engines still idling.
When my back rubbed against the turret chair, I yanked Norris Ponting around the side with me and sat down in it. I pulled him across my lap so I could reach the controls. We swiveled around in a one-eighty so the pulser cannon was pointed straight at the hovertruck. I was a little surprised the gun had the capability to turn that far, but I wasn’t complaining.
Norris Ponting was getting squirmy. I had the pulser cannon as collateral now; I didn’t need him anymore. So I planted a foot in his back and shoved him over the railing. He cried out as he fell. One or two of the crew jerked forward, but thought better of coming any closer. Over my shoulder, the Galeskimmer was making ready to cast off. Another twenty seconds, I judged, and she would be on her way toward clearer skies. That was when Yingler emerged from belowdecks, picking his way up the staircase’s wreckage and appearing from behind the hovertruck.
“I wouldn’t be so hasty,” shouted the man formerly known as Vilaris.
“Knowing you’re on board is all the incentive I need,” I said, rubbing the trigger button with my thumb.
“There’s something you should be made aware of, Muller.”
“I’m already aware that killing you is going to make me very happy,” I said. I eased the controls. The turret swiveled until I had Yingler in the gun sights.
“Be that as it may… don’t look down. Or rather… do.”
I did. Half a dozen sloops were rising through the fog below my Ostelle, all of them flying the red-and-tan flag of the Civil Regency Corps. The Civs had cast electronets between their ships like a collage of spider webs. To catch me in case I try to jump again, I realized. Norris Ponting was in the closest of the nets, climbing aboard the nearest sloop with help from the Civs.
This Yingler was a real piece of work. Not only had he managed to befriend my parents; the scheming wretch was bold enough to show his face to the Civs like they weren’t going to lock him up for what he’d done. Sable and her crew were getting ready to take the money and run, leaving me here to fend for myself after I’d led them to the jackpot of a lifetime. And don’t get me started on how I felt about my parents.
I’d had it with trusting people, I decided. I’d had it with civility. This was war—even if I was the only person on my side. Even if I was pitting myself against a world full of people who were against me.
I pressed the trigger. Yingler erupted in blue arcs of electromagnetic energy that shot to his feet and spread out across the deck. People dove for cover, unsheathed their weapons, and began to fire them at me. Before Yingler had slumped paralyzed to the deck, I was already swiveling to face the Civs. I trained my sights on the sloop Norris Ponting had climbed into, and fired. The sloops were small; lighter and faster than streamboats like the Galeskimmer and my Ostelle. One pulser shot from above carried enough burst to cover almost the entire deck and fry every techsoul on board.
I swiveled toward the next sloop
and followed up with another well-placed shot. Every member of the crew went stiff as a tree trunk and fell over. The clinkers on the first sloop were going haywire, and the boat shot upward as the driftmetal runners exerted their unchecked force. The electronets broke away, but not before pulling an adjacent sloop so far up that half the crew went sliding over the port railing. I didn’t stop until I’d disrupted every Civvy ship in sight. Bullets and laser bolts and flecker rounds were pummeling the back of the armored turret chair.
I was creating chaos, and loving every second of it.
Then someone managed to hit the pulser cannon with a hand pulser. It surged and went dead. At Platform 22, the Galeskimmer was setting off. I had half a mind to shoot it, too. It was a good thing the cannon was out of commission, because as soon as the Galeskimmer left the dock, it turned around and came toward me.
Sable was at the helm, with Dennel and Thorley and Mr. Scofield and Nerimund manning the four-pounders. They loosed a volley in our direction. The air rushed past my head and the cannonballs crashed and bounded across the deck. They reloaded and fired once more before Sable straightened her out and came across the bow. My parents’ crew was shooting at the Galeskimmer now. Eliza Kinally and Neale Glynton were returning fire with