Allie edged around the navigation plot, though the ship’s quarterdeck was more crowded than usual. He had Kaycie there with two burly spacers in case of trouble from the twins, and Presgraves was right up at the plot’s edge, watching images of Kronprinz eagerly — with Sween at her back, in case she became … disruptive.

  Allie narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying you’ve not?”

  Dansby spread his hands. “Look, Rab — ah, Miss Blackbourne,” he said with a guilty glance at Kaycie, “we’ve made the trade, we have the payment, as soon as we’ve cleared Kronprinz, I’ll put you and your brother back aboard your pinnace with your share and we can be shut of each other, yes?”

  “And no one will be happier than I,” Allie said.

  “I’ll take the don’t on that,” Kaycie muttered.

  “Kronprinz’s let loose sail, sir,” Smithey said from the tactical console.

  Dansby could easily see that from the images on his plot, as well that the frigate was falling off the wind herself, her bow coming to point at Elizabeth, and then past. More sail bloomed on Kronprinz, the dull grey flashing to an azure glow, shot through with white lightning as her particle projectors charged the gallenium mesh fabric of the sails and the lot began to catch the dark energy winds.

  “Come two points to port,” Dansby ordered.

  As if by some unspoken agreement, Elizabeth’s quarterdeck grew hushed, save for Dansby’s continued orders and their acknowledgment. The two ships’ courses soon separated more, with Elizabeth turning toward the winds and making sail for her best speed on that point, and Kronprinz dropping away to a running reach directly away from her. Then, with the Hanoverese frigate’s stern firmly in Elizabeth’s optics, Dansby took a deep breath.

  They were still within range of the frigate’s guns, were she to come about, but it appeared all had gone as expected, so far.

  “Grubbs?” Dansby said, finally.

  “Aye, sir.”

  “The bosun to the quarterdeck and a party to the Blackbournes’ pinnace on the hull. We’ll make ready to release our guests’ ship.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “You’ve really not done something snakey?” Rabbit asked.

  Dansby winced. He didn’t like the feeling that the girl thought so little of him, even with what he had done. Better by far to get her off Elizabeth and on her own, then, before it was found out.

  “I’ll have your share of the payment sent aboard for you,” Dansby said, “and you can be on your way.”

  “A shame, lad,” Blackbourne said, eyes on Kaycie. “An’ just when Young Blackbourne were makin’ headway.”

  “You were not, I assure you,” Kaycie said.

  Blackbourne winked at her.

  Allie stared at him for a moment, eyes narrowing. “Very well,” she said finally.

  “Indeed,” Dansby said, gesturing toward the hatch. “After you —”

  “Aspect change on Kronprinz,” Smithey announced, at the same time Grubbs said, “Signal from Kronprinz.”

  The Blackbournes stopped in their tracks.

  “In a moment, Grubbs,” Dansby said. He made a shooing gesture to the Blackbournes. “Don’t you wish to be back to your own ship?” he asked,

  Allie crossed her arms.

  “She’s coming about, sir,” Smithey said.

  “The signal?” Allie asked.

  “Signal’s —”

  “Hold a moment, Grubbs,” Dansby said. He pointed at Allie and Blackbourne. “Your ship, right? Off and on your own at last, yes?”

  “Not until I know what Kapitän Böhm wants,” Allie said.

  “Captain Boom,” Presgraves whispered to Sween, giggling in way that caused all eyes to go to her warily.

  “New signal from Kronprinz, sir,” Grubbs said, “Imperative and Heave-to.” Dansby glared at his signalsman. “Sorry, sir.”

  Dansby glanced at the navigation plot, then at Presgraves, who shrugged.

  “Isn’t it nearly time?” Dansby asked.

  “Time for what?” Allie asked.

  Presgraves shrugged again. “It’s not an exact science.”

  “It’s bloody time, Presgraves, humanity mastered it quite a while ago. Exact should be bloody —”

  “You did do something,” Allie said, “you lying, duplicitous snake!”

  Dansby winced again, but ignored Rabbit in favor of the navigation plot.

  Elizabeth had some distance on Kronprinz now, but, even as on their approach to the meeting, the frigate had the guns to reach them, something Captain Böhm then demonstrated.

  “Kronprinz firing, sir,” Smithey announced.

  That much was evident from the plot, where two lines of light streaked away from the frigate’s bow to flash on either side of Elizabeth.

  “Signal, sir,” Grubbs said.

  “I’m sure,” Dansby said. “Presgraves, do you suppose they found it?”

  “Found what?” Allie asked.

  “Yes,” Kaycie said, “what have they found, Jon?”

  “Why do you keep calling him ‘Jon’?” Allie asked.

  “For a reason that’s not a bit of your business,” Kaycie told her.

  Blackbourne leaned toward her and whispered. “Y’can call Young Blackbourne anything y’like, lass — an’ his Dangus Khan, as well.”

  Kaycie looked from the navigation plot which showed Kronprinz coming up to the wind as close as she could sail in pursuit of Elizabeth.

  “Really?” Kaycie asked. “Now?”

  Blackbourne leaned closer. “If’n y’like, lass.” He grinned. “The threat o’death, Young Blackbourne hears, is a wonder —”

  “Aspect change!” Smithey yelled. “She’s turning!”

  “Hard a’port,” Dansby yelled in response. “Roll ninety!”

  “Aye, sir!”

  Dansby was very nearly grateful for Kronprinz’s distraction, even if it meant the Hanoverese frigate was turning to present her broadside and send a round two dozen lances of deadly shot straight into them. If Elizabeth were to manage to turn in time to protect her vulnerable stern, and roll quickly enough to present her thicker, tougher keel to the shot, they might just survive this first broadside.

  He caught Kaycie and Rabbit glaring at him.

  Well, the ship might survive — odds are rather against me.

  “Presgraves,” he said, trying to understand how his plan, which he’d thought quite the thing, could be going so wrong. “What do you suppose gave it away? Did they find the thing?”

  “What thing, Jon?” Kaycie asked.

  Dansby caught her eye, which was a bad thing to do, since he’d never been able to put Kaycie off once she looked him in the eye.

  “I …” He sighed. “Well, I may have held a mining charge or two back from that job on Keldworth Heath.”

  Kaycie opened her mouth to speak, then her eyes widened nearly as much. “You kept one?”

  “Look, it’s not as though I … well, see, if one’s engaged in shipping that sort of thing under the radar, as it were, it’s only to be expected that a crate or two should stick along the way, isn’t it?”

  “Two? What in the Dark would possess you to do that?” Kaycie demanded. “Where would you ever think we’d have a need for two bloody nuclear mining charges?”

  Dansby spread his hands to take in the navigation plot. “Well, it’s just the one now, isn’t it? And, in all fairness —” He shrugged. “— I have found a use for one.”

  “Jon —” Kaycie’s response was cut off by Rabbit’s shriek.

  “You tried to nuke my buyer?”

  Dansby winced. “They are, generally, at war with us quite often —”

  “Firing!” Smithey called, and Dansby thought he would never again in life be so grateful to face a frigate’s broadside — not only because this was likely to be the last time he had such an opportunity, but because it put an end to Rabbit’s and Kaycie’s admonishing him.

  Sweet Dark, if I make it out of this, I will never again put two lasses together in the same ship. One’s bloody enough, but they do seem to sort of feed off one another in a most disagreeable —

  He broke off the thought as the frigate’s broadside neared.

  The roll hadn’t been quick enough, he saw, though a number of the shots would miss, no fewer than six would strike true along Elizabeth’s starboard side, just below her own gunports. There’d be damage to the hold, sure, as the hull wasn’t so thick there as it was lower down to support the keel. Moreover, the angle was bad and the shot would likely punch straight through the hold’s upper bulkhead to raise havoc on their own main deck where their guns were.

  Dansby gripped the navigation plot’s edge as the shot struck and Elizabeth shuddered from the jets of vaporizing thermoplastic driven off her hull by the frigate’s fire. He waited for the clouds of off-gas on the plot’s images to clear, for calls reporting damage, for the sound of running feet on the deck as those injured on the gundeck were dragged below to what passed for a surgeon aboard a merchant ship.

  “My ship!” Rabbit shrieked.

  Dansby stared at the plot in shock.

  Elizabeth hadn’t rolled enough to present her keel, but she had presented the Blackbournes’ pinnace, nestled against her starboard side, and every shot had struck home on the smaller ship. Some had blasted clean through the pinnace to spend themselves against Elizabeth’s hull, but so much of their energy was spent that the result was no more than a shallow pockmark in the thick thermoplastic.

  The pinnace, though, was a shattered wreck, and, as they all watched, its single mast, folded and nestled against its hull so as not to interfere with Elizabeth’s, broke loose, caught in the dark matter they sailed through and was pulled behind. The quarterdeck watched in silence as it hung by a single bit of rigging for what seemed an extraordinarily long time before the line snapped and the mast, yards folded tight against it, dropped behind. It struck Elizabeth’s massive planes in passing before spinning off into darkspace behind them.

  “My ship,” Rabbit whispered.

  Her words shook Dansby loose from shock they’d not been damaged more, and he spun to the signals console.

  “Detheridge and a work party to the hull, instanter! Cut that hulk free!” He turned to the helm. “Rosson, keep her between us and Kronprinz!”

  “You snake!” Allie screamed, lunging for Dansby, but held back by Kaycie and her brother. “I’ll kill you!”

  “Your ship’s lost,” Dansby said, “and might’ve killed us all if the fusion plant went!” He caught the gleam in Presgraves’ eye and hurried on to distract her. “But she might serve a purpose, yet, if we can keep her between us and Böhm!”

  “I suppose the cart failed,” Presgraves said.

  “What?” Dansby asked.

  “The antigrav cart,” she explained. “The batteries must have run out by now.”

  Dansby shook his head. “What, why? The things work all day.”

  “Well, we had to take most of them out to fit the mining charge in, didn’t we?” Presgraves shrugged. “Probably why the charge didn’t go off, if the battery’s run out to the timer.”

  “But —” Dansby kept looking from Presgraves to the plot. “Half a point to starboard, up five degrees, Rosson.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  That didn’t keep them on their best point of sail, but did keep the receding pinnace between Elizabeth’s stern and Kronprinz.

  “Firing!” Smithey called.

  “The mining charges have their own batteries for the timer,” Dansby said. “Why would —”

  “It were a tight fit, sir,” Sween answered for Presgraves, who was staring at the images on the plot, eager to see if this broadside would breach the pinnace’s fusion plant. “Had to leave off some bits — the casing, shaping charges, …”

  “The battery?” Dansby asked.

  “Had the whole cart’s to go with instead, sir,” Sween said.

  Dansby rubbed his forehead, cursing himself for not overseeing, or at least checking, the work himself, but he’d been off distracting Kaycie and the Blackbournes so they’d not think he was up to something — now he was going to die because of a bloody battery.

  Shot struck the receding pinnace, carving bits off the bow and stern, and nearly splitting the little ship in half. The two largest pieces opened as though on a hinge to reveal a bit of the space behind.

  Presgraves grunted in disappointment.

  Kaycie grunted as she struggled with Rabbit, who was trying to launch herself over the navigation plot for Dansby’s throat.

  “Still …” Kaycie said in between grunts. “That doesn’t explain … despite your idiocy … why they’ve started shooting at us.” She jerked Allie back and then shoved her into Blackbourne’s arms. “Here, keep hold of her before I decide it’s easier to shoot her.” Kaycie stepped back and drew her sidearm, which seemed to settle Rabbit somewhat. “I’d have thought,” she said to Dansby, “they’d have just moved the crate to another cart, or, at worst, had to spend some time picking up if the cart failure knocked the crate off. Charging the batteries would have come before opening it up and discovering a mining charge, wouldn’t it?”

  Kaycie cocked her head as though having a thought, then she lowered her gaze to the deck, shut her eyes, and took a deep breath.

  “What was in the crate, Jon?”

  “What?” Dansby asked. “In the crate? Gallenium, of course.”

  Kaycie raised her eyes and glared at him. “All of it?”

  “Well —” All eyes on the quarterdeck seemed to turn toward him. “That was a great load of gallenium to just go and blow up, wasn’t it?” He pointed at Rabbit. “She said they never check aught but the weight, so —”

  Kaycie sighed. “So they’re shoving this cart down to the hold, when its batteries go out and it crashes to the deck, spilling a ton of — what, Jon?”

  “Gallenium … a bit,” Dansby said. “The top two layers of bars with a bit of scrap under —” He pointed at Presgraves. “Which would have been more than enough if —”

  “Firing!” Smithey called.

  All eyes turned back to the navigation plot, where it was obvious the pinnace, even were it still whole, was so far behind them that it would offer scant coverage past this next broadside.

  Or none at all, Dansby mused as the shot struck and the little ship disappeared in blinding ball of plasma as its fusion plant was breached.

  “Yes!” Presgraves shouted.

  “Kill you!” Rabbit screamed, making it halfway across the plot before Kaycie and Blackbourne managed to latch on to a leg each and drag her back. Kaycie seemed to have given up on the threat of shooting her as not very effective. Legs got her dragged back far enough for the two to grasp handfuls of fabric at Allie’s waist and pull her off the plot completely.

  Blackbourne sighed, then shrugged and gave Kaycie a grin. “Yer lucky day, lass, as it seems Young Blackbourne and his fiddle bow’ll be aboard for some time.”

  Allie turned and slapped her brother. “Are you mad? They’ve destroyed our ship!”

  “Weren’t a very good ship.” Blackbourne shrugged. “Smelled a might.”

  Dansby had only half an ear for the twins, as he studied the plot. With the pinnace gone, the next broadside would be all for Elizabeth, but they’d gained some distance on Kronprinz and her guns.

  “Bring us up to the winds, Rosson, close as she’ll bear.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Message to the gundeck, Grubbs, load with chain — we’ll fire for her sails and try to slow her!”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Both Elizabeth and Kronprinz put their bows as close as they could to the winds — Elizabeth had the edge there, so that the range steadily opened, but they had only minutes, perhaps two or three, before the frigate’s crew was able to reload her guns and the big ship would turn once more to bring those to bear.

  Dansby gripped the edges of the navigation plot, watching for the first shiver of sail that indicated Captain Böhm had given that order — that’s when Elizabeth would have to move too, turning and rolling again to take the broadside on her keel, with no pinnace to block the shot, then roll back to send her own fire into the frigate and, hopefully, damage enough rigging to let them gain a bit more distance.

  And there it was — a twitch, a shudder, barely visible. Dansby opened his mouth to give his own orders —

  Kronprinz bucked, jerked in space as though she were a ragdoll in a dog’s jaws, then she split, blinding light spilling from cracks in her center. Her bow twisted, carried away by a bit of sail, then more cracks came, knocking great panels of thermoplastic away. The damage shook her stern to and fro.

  “Must’ve plugged that cart in,” Sween said.

  Blackbourne nodded. “First thing Young Blackbourne’d do, a cart drops. Plug her right in.”

  Dansby stared at the broken frigate in awe as the two halves parted, then a crack appeared in her stern and a great light, greater than they’d just seen, greater even than when the pinnace’s fusion plant was breached, grew, consuming every bit of the ship as a new, brief-lived star appeared in darkspace.

  “Old cart?” Blackbourne asked. “Takes a time to charge?”

  “Aye,” Sween said. “Wouldn’t use a new one for that — knowing, you see.”

  Blackbourne nodded, then gave Presgraves an odd look. “She all right?”

  Presgraves was staring at the images on the navigation plot as Kronprinz’s star faded. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the table’s edge and her lips were parted, tongue running slowly over them. Her chest nearly heaved with deep, slow breaths.

  “She’s, ah —” Sween began.

  Presgraves released the plot’s edge and grasped a handful of Sween’s jumpsuit, dragging him toward the quarterdeck hatch, her face gleamed with a thin sheen of sweat. “Shut yer gob, Culloden Sween, an’ come along! Y’ve work to do!”

  Silence laid heavy on Elizabeth’s quarterdeck.

  “They, ah, will need some time, I expect,” Dansby told the Blackbournes after a moment.

  Epilogue

  Malcome Eades was, Dansby thought, quite the oddest looking man he’d ever met.

 

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