22
After the call with Tom, I hustle down to the docks feeling lighter and more clearheaded than I’ve been since August. Even though my eyes are still red and swollen, I haven’t stopped smiling. I know what I have to do. It’s so ludicrously simple—it’s been in plain sight all along. And if I’m right about my suspicions, then maybe, just maybe, we stand a chance against the Hellbeast pack.
When I board the Minnow, I spot Varma sunning himself in nothing but a pair of board shorts on the fore of the main deck. He tilts his sunglasses down when he sees me, his brow furrowing. “Another fight? Really?” he shouts. As I approach, his confusion deepens. “But… you’re smiling,” he says once I’m towering over him. “Okay, I’m not playing a guessing game with your weird love life. Give it to me straight.”
“This isn’t about Swift,” I tell him, offering a hand. He takes it, and I pull him up. “I think I cracked something, but I need a pilot and a Splinter to test it out. Want in?”
His smile twitches a notch wider. “Sounds fun. I’ll go put on a shirt.”
Two minutes later, I’ve donned my wetsuit, my Otachi duffle slung over my back and packed with the rest of my armor. Varma meets me at the aft Splinter dock, and I clamber into the needleboat after him, my whole body shaking with a kind of energy I haven’t felt in ages. “Is it weird to feel this happy when your whole life’s going to hell?” I ask as I pull the restraints over my shoulders.
“Nah, that’s just optimism,” Varma replies. “It looks good on you.”
Before I have a chance to retort, he jams down the undocking button. The pneumatics jolt us sideways, and I bite down a scream as the Splinter plunges into the harbor. “I’m never going to get tired of that,” Varma says the moment we settle. He spins the engines up and sets us in a lazy cruise away from the docks.
I slouch into the seat and unzip my duffle. As we prowl into the open waters of the harbor, I unsnap my restraints and start suiting up. Just days ago, this would have been a straightforward ride, a simple sprint for the maw of the crescent. But in the past three days, pirate boats from all across the NeoPacific have arrived. Fung ran out of docking slots on the first day, and the rest of them have been dropping anchor, haphazardly along the inner ring of the bay’s curvature, creating a maze of hulls that Varma weaves through with a mix of reverence and caution. Brush up against any of these ships and we run the risk of being gutted before our own captain can get a word in.
I strap on my chestpiece, my fingers slipping on the clasps that hold it in place. Up until now, my training of Bao has been confined to the trainer deck—I haven’t worn the armor since the day we brought him in.
“So, the plan?” Varma asks as we swing around the hull of what looks like a repurposed SRCese warship, its red and gold painted over but still visible.
I snap the Otachi onto my right arm. “Training as usual. With a fun twist.”
“You’re talking like the captain, and I don’t love it,” he deadpans, but he keeps driving. I pull my mask and respirator around my neck, set my helmet on, and roll my head back, watching the pirate guns pass above us like tree branches. All of these weapons, ready to carve into Hellbeast flesh. And yet the greatest weapon of all is lurking in the deep waters just outside the harbor mouth.
I set the Otachi to the homing signal the second we clear the horns. Bao surfaces a minute later, his blowholes trumpeting slightly as he lets out a stale breath. “Bring me up next to him,” I tell Varma.
“Swear to me he’s not going to take a swipe at my ride,” he retorts. “Santa Elena will hang me from the nav tower if she loses another Splinter.”
“On my honor as a pirate.”
He lets out a faint hmph, just audible over the engines’ whine, and twists the wheel. We glide across the smooth afternoon seas, drawing up along Bao’s good eye. He watches us, his muscles tensing as the distance narrows. I double-check the armor’s flotation, set my mask over my eyes, and then vault over the Splinter’s edge. The NeoPacific plays a game of catch and return with my body, enveloping me before spitting me right back up as the floatation drags me back to the surface.
When I get my bearings, I find Bao staring me down, his eye skimming just above the ocean’s surface. He tilts his head, bringing me into his shadow as he moves closer. I swim to his side and run a hand over the familiar holds in his skin and spikes. Beneath me, his muscles start to relax.
So I might be right about this.
“C’mon,” I murmur, crimping my fingers in one of his keratin plates. “Don’t you dare try anything.” I let my arm take some of my weight, and a snort rings out above me as Bao’s blowholes flare. I run the tip of my foot over the plates on his jaw, then slot my toes on a spiny ridge. His eye goes narrow. He remembers what happened the last time I tried this stunt.
“Varma, fall back,” I hiss. “You’re making him nervous.”
“I’m making him nervous?” he retorts, the comm in my ear snapping with his words, but the whine of the engines grows focused as Varma spins the Splinter and retreats toward Art-Hawaii 26. Even though the distance puts Bao at ease, it winds me up more than I’d like. If things go south now, there’s no easy escape.
I lean forward, pressing my chest against the side of his head as I shift my full weight onto him, and he responds just the way I want, rolling his head so that I’m lifted out of the water. His eye stays fixed on me, and I hold out my Otachi-clad arm, my fingers splayed to show him that I’m not going to give him any signals. The keratin beneath me creaks as his muscles slacken even more.
Next come the line hooks. I unspool the first line and jab the barb into his keratin plate, leaning back to test its hold with my weight. Once I’m certain it’s stable, I pull a second hook from my belt.
Which is when it all goes to hell. Some distant noise—a backfiring engine, a discharging cannon, something else loud and sudden—cracks across the water, and Bao spooks. Before I have a chance to pull the Otachi, before I even have a chance to scream, he ducks his head, plunging beneath the waves. My instincts kick in, my mouth clamping shut just before I go under, but a half-breath does little good when I’m being dragged to the depths on a line attached to a sea monster the size of a warship. My ears pop, and I scrabble for my respirator, cramming the device into my mouth as the light around me fades. I let my lungs loose, and a cloud of bubbles bursts around my face. The device spins to life, my next inhale full of crisp, sea-flavored oxygen.
But I’m not out of the woods yet. He’s dragged me deep, and if we stay down here for long, I run the risk of decompression sickness upon resurfacing. Already my ears are gearing up to pop for a second time, and I dig my teeth into the respirator’s rubber as the pain in my head builds. I kick off the side of Bao’s head, reorienting my body so that I’m pointed along the line of his beak, and tug hard on the Otachi triggers.
The homing signal flares, and Bao falters beneath me. His pupil shrinks against the laser’s brilliant light. I edge the beam closer to his eye, a warning that he can’t ignore. He slows, and I twist the dial to the stay patterning.
He stops immediately.
“That’s right,” I grunt into the respirator. “Listen for once, you twit.” I shake my head, trying to jar the pressure loose, then pinch my nose and blow to equalize. With my brain a little clearer, I find the second line hook dangling from my belt and root it into Bao’s plating. Once I’ve regained my footing, I nudge him up with quiet bursts from the Otachi. We inch our way back to the surface slowly, pausing every twenty feet to give my blood a chance to breathe. The light grows around us until finally, finally we break into the sunlight. I spit out the respirator and suck down a gasp of unprocessed air, collapsing against Bao’s head.
Another distant bang rings out, and the Reckoner hitches underneath me, his eye rolling wildly. I tug the Otachi, and the homing signal calms him before he tries to dive again. I have no idea who or what could be making noises like that on a peaceful island in the middle of the afternoon—all I know is that Bao’s got beef with them.
A twinge of guilt curls through me as I remember what lies on the other side of his head. He’s well within his rights to shy away from anything that sounds like cannon fire. But if he’s going to be in the thick of a fight again, I need him to be better than that. I need him to be unshakeable. There’s too much riding on it.
“You’re okay, little shit,” I croon against his plating, feeling just a little ridiculous. It shouldn’t even be reasonable for a tiny human voice to calm a monster of his size. But I feel it—feel the tension fading beneath me. Because I’ve worked it out. I solved it.
Bao’s emotional bond isn’t to the Minnow. He’s never treated it the way other terrapoids treat their companion ships. Even when she was too young and untrained to defend it, Durga used to nestle up to the Nereid like it was her favorite thing in the world. But Bao’s hold on the Minnow has never been as tight, and I should have realized it the day he followed the sinking Otachi into the depths, leaving the boat behind for a simple signal.
He isn’t attached to the ship. He’s attached to me.
The ship didn’t guide him through a tangle with three trained Reckoners. The ship didn’t find him in the middle of a storm and scream in his ear to bring him back to what he once was. Normal Reckoners are taught by a rotating cast of trainers, making their companion ship the one constant in their lives, the place where their focus falls. But Bao had two constants—the ship and his trainer. His stupid turtle brain latched onto the latter and stuck.
Once I’m sure he’s calmed, I prop myself against the line hooks, my toes dug in above his jaw and my weight balanced on the belt at my hips. Bao leans with me, tilting his head to accommodate the extra luggage hanging off him. A laugh bubbles out of me as hope takes root.
This just might work.
“Hey Varma?”
“Yeah?” he replies immediately. If he saw us go under, he doesn’t sound phased. I guess he’s optimistic too.
My grin turns wicked. “I’ll give you a five-second head start.”
He wastes three of his seconds trying to figure out what I mean. On two, he spins the engines until they shriek. On one, he streaks across the NeoPacific, his tail pointed squarely at us.
When my countdown hits zero, I twist the Otachi to charge and squeeze the triggers until my fingers pinch and burn. Bao’s hesitation is momentary—present, but nowhere near the way he struggled when we trained from the Minnow’s deck. He lifts his head, lofting me higher as his legs send us careening forward. We pick up speed, and the sea wind breaks over my face. Its salt has never tasted sweeter.
Varma knows the game doesn’t work if he goes in a straight line—no matter how massive, terrapoids can’t close on a Splinter at full tilt. As we speed up, he cuts left and right, burning off his momentum until we’re within snapping distance. He flashes a coy grin over his shoulder, then reaches into his gunner station and flips a switch. “Clip’s disengaged, blanks are in,” he shouts into the comm over the roar of the engines. “Ready for some fun?”
“Bring it,” I reply, adjusting my footing in Bao’s plates. He tenses, feeling the change. “With me, big guy. With me,” I mutter.
The Splinter veers right, curving into Bao’s blind side, and I swing the Otachi to match, leaning up to peer over the crest of his head. Varma spins out, his guns pointed at us, and just as Bao’s head comes around, he fires.
The noise of the blank shot cracks across the NeoPacific, and Bao’s pupil dilates. He drops his jaw and roars, his fury barely shielded by my helmet and earpiece. I pull the Otachi triggers, flashing the charge signal out to our left, but Bao’s focus is caught on the Splinter, on the source of the threat. He launches himself at the needleboat, and my earpiece snaps with Varma’s sharp inhale as he rockets the Splinter just out of Bao’s reach.
As the boat ducks into his blind spot, I flare the Otachi again, this time slashing the beams within inches of his eye. Bao jolts, then leans toward the line of the lasers, and my spine goes slack as he finally takes the command. Once we sink into the turn, I edge the beams back toward Varma, and Bao responds immediately. I can sense it beneath me—how his instincts are firing on all cylinders, how much he wants to wreck that boat.
But it’s not boats he’ll be wrecking if this all goes right, and I need that idea out of his head. So as soon as he’s on the Splinter’s tail, I say, “Varma, again. On his left this time.”
Varma careens into a wide turn, his guns swinging their sight on us, and lets off a spray of blanks that snap and pop like firecrackers. Bao’s head whips toward the Splinter, and I almost lose my footing—I have to drop my signals and clutch at his plates to ensure I don’t slip. By the time I’ve recovered, he’s charging right at Varma. I pull the charge signal again and point it to the right. A frustrated warble rolls out of Bao, but he swings in the lasers’ direction, following me into his blind spot, trusting that I’m pointing him in the right direction.
A familiar rush washes through me. The power, the glory of being the most dangerous thing in these waters. Even the distant threat of the pack can’t dampen it. If we can work him past his trauma, we might save these oceans. We might stand a chance after all.
I swing the beams back onto the Splinter’s wake. “Again.”