8
Santa Elena is off the stage in seconds, with me and Lemon tailing close in her wake. The captains who were clamoring for her blood just seconds before do nothing but stare as she sweeps up the aisle. The whole room is deathly quiet. They recognize. They know.
There’s only one ship in this ocean that’s brought down a Hellbeast before.
And we’re going to do it again. This isn’t just a rescue—it’s proof. We can show the Salt exactly why they should be listening to us. Show them our commitment to cleaning up this mess. We can win their loyalty and save the people they’ve fought so hard to protect.
If we can just take down this monster.
“Minnow crew to me,” Santa Elena commands. “Anyone who dares get within this thing’s range is welcome to tag along and help with the rescue, but if you get in my way, I will make no distinction between you and the beast.”
We sprint for the docks, the captain at the head of our little pack. The news must already have swept these streets, because everyone who dives out of our way looks at us like we’re running straight toward our deaths.
Which we very well might be. But Santa Elena’s shoulders are squared, her strides long, no hesitation in any movement she makes. If it’s to the death, so be it. With the Salt and the entire Flotilla watching, we can’t afford to be anything less than unflinching.
We charge up the gangplank and onto the main deck, Santa Elena shouting orders over the clamor of the crew. “Swift, get your gear. Varma, you’re piloting for her—I want both of you in the starboard Splinter in two minutes tops. Lemon, get to navigation immediately. I need your eyes peeled—put Yatori on course for the beast. Chuck, in the aft Splinter. You’re running defense for Swift and Varma. And you.” Her eyes fall on me, full of life, ready for a fight. “You stick to my side like glue.”
The ship springs to action around us as we stalk across the deck. I do my best to formulate a strategy. If I had Bao, it would be so simple. Cephalopoids don’t get plated—their flesh is tender, easy for a terrapoid beak to slice. But I don’t have a Reckoner to set on the beast, and the fact that there’s a civilian ferry in the mix means that any move we make has to be calculated. No blind shooting, no blowing things up. This monster has to be taken out with precision.
And I have absolutely no idea how to do that.
Santa Elena strides to the fore of the ship, pulling her radio from her belt. “All under-fifteens on this boat, report to me on the main deck,” she snaps. I whirl around just in time to catch a handful of deckhands scampering up the ladder from the lower decks. There are five in total, including the captain’s ten-year-old son. I only recently learned his name is Alvares.
“Everyone here?” Santa Elena asks, counting them off on her fingers as she checks, because these kids can and will lie about anything. “Alright, I want you on the raft for this one. No excuses. You five hold down our docking space and wait for us to get back, got it?”
They all nod, even though it’s plain to see they’d rather ride into battle with us. Satisfied, Santa Elena shoos them with a flip of her hand. Before they all trot off down the gangplank, she snatches Alvares by the shoulder, pulls him into a tight embrace, and mutters something in Spanish into his wild curls as he beats his arms in protest.
I hug my arms tighter around myself, trying to forget that I still have a mother.
When she lets her son go, she lifts the radio again. “Yatori, cast off,” she orders, and pneumatics scream just as Alvares leaps off the gangplank. The docking arms retract, the Minnow snapping free as the plank lifts, and finally Santa Elena’s eyes come back to me.
“Navigation tower,” she says, and I follow her there.
By the time we’re up the ladder, Yatori has us clear of the docks, the ship sinking into a slightly aggressive pace as we prowl wide around the Flotilla. I see the ships converging before I see their target—so many bows, all pointed in one direction. Something kindles in me, a spark of hope that maybe the pirates can unite over this after all.
Then I take in the attack.
From a distance, it almost seems like everything’s fine, like the ferry’s just stalled. But there are pulsing tentacles as thick as SUVs snaking up the sides of the hull, their colors shifting wildly in the afternoon sun. They vacillate between the deep blue of the sea and the white of the ferry’s hull, but there’s an undercurrent of black that tells me something clear as day. This animal is frightened out of its mind.
“Splinters away on my mark,” Lemon announces, but I block out the rest of her countdown as we careen toward the Hellbeast and its prey. I have to figure out a way of beating this thing, or at the bare minimum some order I can pass along to the captain, who’s watching me expectantly with a taut smile on her features.
“I…” I stutter, and something dark flashes in Santa Elena’s eyes. She’s relied on me, and I haven’t let her down so far. “We have to bait it away from the ferry, first thing. Can’t do anything about it when it’s that close to civilians.”
The captain nods, then leans over her radio as the two needleboats streak out in front of the ship. “Circle close, but not too close. See if you can get the beast’s attention, but don’t you dare let it snag you.”
Something sure settles inside me as I watch my orders take shape. “Tell the other Salt crews to hang back. Keep the Minnow itself at a safe distance—we have no idea how fast this thing might move once it’s loose.”
As Santa Elena radios in my instructions, Yatori pulls the ship up, setting us into a lazy circle just outside of the beast’s easy range. The Splinters weave back and forth as they dart in close, turning so fast that their spray kicks up against the Hellbeast’s arms. One tentacle detaches from the ferry, waving experimentally back and forth as it stretches out after the whine of the needleboats’ engines. Varma and Swift dart in again, their hull flashing past the loose tentacle just outside of its reach. Chuck circles wide on the other side of the ferry and then charges back, screaming within a hair’s breadth of one of the tentacles still attached to the ship.
It loosens, a touch of reddish pigment flushing into its coloration. But as it falls away, I notice something very wrong with the ship in the monster’s grasp. “The hull’s cracked,” I breathe.
Cephalopoids have a knack for shattering ship hulls. Their favorite method of attack is to find a hold that allows them to crush and crush, each minute winching their muscles tighter until the rivets holding a ship’s hide together peel back, or its beak finds a weakness and tears through the metal, or the pressure of the suckers rips the ship open like a can of biscuits. Even without training, this monster figured out exactly how to take down the ferry.
And the very second it relinquishes its quarry, the boat will start to sink.
Santa Elena reads the situation, blinking quickly. She adjusts a dial on the radio, then says, “This is the Minnow, hailing on all Salt frequencies. The ferry’s hull is cracked. The instant that beast lets go, I need every daring ship inbound to start running evac immediately.” Part of me is thrilled that she hasn’t forgotten the civilians. Another part reins it in—with the rest of the Salt focused on evacuating the ferry, there’s no one to stop the Minnow from taking all the glory.
A few affirmations snap out from the radio, but the captain’s eyes are already back on the Splinters. She sets her hands on her hips, and I step up to her side, trying to see what it is she’s seeing. Is it the patterns Chuck and Varma carve as they feint right and left, urging the Hellbeast to stretch itself farther each time? Is it the way Swift sits in Varma’s gunner seat, bristling for orders to shoot? Or is it the beast itself that has her attention?
It has mine. Not because of the threat it poses, but because of the black pigments that swirl across its shifting skin. Cephalopoids are complex. They’re smart. They can be frustrated and wrathful, and that’s what I’d expect from a monster like this.
But this thing’s just scared.
A poor, lonely beast, severed from the purpose it was bred for, caught up in a world it doesn’t understand completely, latching on to the first bit of instinct that comes to it—I can’t avoid the irony as I look down on the monster that reflects myself back at me.
Which is, of course, when the captain’s hand lands on my shoulder. “Cas, a strategy would be mighty helpful right about now,” she hisses. “At the bare minimum, talk me through what we’re doing here.”
My jaw clenches. This Hellbeast isn’t violent like the other one was, and even if it were, a cephalopoid is a whole different can of worms. All Reckoners are nigh impossible to kill when they’re being controlled by trainers, and even without lights and noise to direct its motions, this cephalopoid is smart enough that it won’t go down easily.
“It’s not aggressive,” I start. Santa Elena lifts an eyebrow. “What I mean is… We took down the cetoid Hellbeast in the NeoAntarctic because we were able to bait it into Swift’s line of sight.” I leave out the part where I nearly got myself killed in the process. “And that cetoid had a weakness. The blowhole was a single target—a design flaw, I guess. Cephalopoids don’t have something like that. Only way to take them down for sure is destroying their brain, and to do that, you have to get past eight arms and a bone plate.”
“A rocket wouldn’t do it?”
I shake my head. “Wouldn’t come close. Cephalopoid flesh is designed to absorb blows like that.”
Down below, another tentacle peels off the ferry, whipping out so quickly that it nearly upends Chuck’s Splinter. She cuts hard across the waves, struggling to keep the boat pointed straight. The captain grips my shoulder tighter. “So what do we do?” she asks. “How do we kill it?”
We don’t, I want to tell her. We bait it away, save the people, let it live. It’s scared. It doesn’t deserve this. But the company I keep would never accept something like that. If we’re going to convince the Salt to follow us into battle against the Hellbeast threat, this creature has to die.
“If I had Bao, this would be a lot easier,” I grumble. “I don’t… I don’t know.”
Her hand slips from my shoulder, her eyes hardening. The captain’s disappointment crushes me like a weight. I find myself astonished that her good faith means that much to me, that it hurts this much when it’s gone. Suddenly I know exactly how Swift feels. Santa Elena lifts the radio again, snapping it back to the Minnow’s private line. “Seems our new blood’s run its course.”
“Orders?” Varma asks. Below, his Splinter swerves, bleeding off a bit of speed as he teases the edge of the Hellbeast’s reach.
“Stay alive. Peel the beast off the ship. And after that, I’m open to suggestions.”
My heart’s in my throat. I drop my hand to the pistol on my belt, my fingers sliding into the grip as if I can squeeze an answer from the gun. Something to win back the captain’s favor, something to make sure the animal doesn’t suffer. A clean death.
A burst of yells snaps through the channel, and I lunge forward, leaning against the window as I take in the scene. The cephalopoid has detached. Red pigment flushes across its skin as its arms splay after the Splinters. A worrisome stream of bubbles spurts from the cracks in the ferry’s hull, and Santa Elena twists a dial on the radio and shouts, “Salt crews, get in there immediately.”
The ships at our back plunge forward, and Yatori twists the wheel. I steady myself against the glass as the Minnow bucks, its engines catching. We set after the Hellbeast, which in turn sets after the Splinters. Varma and Chuck weave their paths together, drawing the beast on, and I can barely make out Swift in the gunner seat as she lunges upright and slings the rocket launcher over her shoulder.
That’s not going to work, I want to scream at her, but even if I did, it wouldn’t keep her from firing the first shot. The shell slams into the cephalopoid’s tentacles, the thunder of the blast rolling over the waves. But when the smoke clears, the damage is nothing but surface level, and the cephalopoid is still coming.
“Don’t waste your ammo,” Santa Elena growls, but doesn’t bother putting those words through the radio channel. Swift reloads the rocket launcher, keeping it poised, but she holds back before firing, looking for her opening.
She’s not going to get one—I can tell her that much.
I’m so focused on watching the weapon in Swift’s hands that I nearly miss the moment the cephalopoid’s attention shifts. Its alien eyes flick backward, spotting us on its tail, and suddenly its speed flags. And we keep hurtling toward it.
“Yatori, swerve!” I yell, just as one of the beast’s tentacles lashes out, the suckers on the tip sticking to our hull with a wet slap. The helmsman yanks the ship portways, the deck lurching beneath our feet, but it does little to shake the monster’s hold.
“Gun it!” Santa Elena shouts. “I don’t want that thing getting another arm on us.”
The engines roar, and the Minnow plunges forward, yanking the Hellbeast like a pull toy. It flares its arms, dragging us back, and the ship swings sideways. Santa Elena and I scrabble for handholds, and Yatori clutches the wheel with all his might. Lemon hugs the navigation panel, her cheek smashed against the instrumentation as if she’s listening to the computers’ processes.
“Splinters, distract it,” Santa Elena grunts into the comm. “Shoot it. Bait it. Get it off us.”
“No.” The word snaps through the comm with calm authority, with every ounce of potential Santa Elena’s carved into her. Underneath the groan of metal under stress, Swift’s voice fills the navigation tower. “Chuck, get clear. Varma, get out of the boat.”
What the fuck does she think she’s doing?
Part of me knows exactly what the fuck she thinks she’s doing. I catch the moment Santa Elena’s surprise over being defied melts into a hungry look. The radio goes untouched. Instead the captain leans forward against the window, waiting to see if her work has wrought something worthy.
I scan the waves, searching for their Splinter, but all I find is Varma’s head bobbing up and down as he treads water, abandoned in our wake. The Hellbeast slaps another tentacle on our hull, and a primal fear curls through me so powerfully that my lips start to tremble. It occurs to me that I’ve never been on the losing side of a Reckoner attack. I’ve never felt what these pirates feel when they run up against a beast designed to obliterate them. I’ve never looked down at a monster rising from the waves and known I was about to die.
Which is what I’m stuck on when I hear the scream of her engine, too high for the cephalopoid to detect. Its rage is focused on us, sharp like a knife, and it scarcely notices when Swift’s Splinter comes roaring around our keel.
The rocket launcher sits in the seat beside her, the seat she once occupied. I stare, thunderstruck, as she guns the engine, bending low over the controls. The waters froth around her as the cephalopoid’s tentacles rise out of the water, reaching for our hull, but she pilots with a single mind, the Splinter on an arrow’s course.
An arrow’s course set right for the Hellbeast’s eye.
Swift always knows where to put a killing blow.
Ice seeps into my veins, ice more frigid than the NeoAntarctic we left behind. I take it in as if in slow motion, the moment the beast realizes what’s coming for it, the moment she unsnaps her harness and leaps clear of the boat, the moment the needle-sharp bow of the Splinter plunges into the soft, glassy surface of the cephalopoid’s eye.
I don’t watch the Hellbeast die. It’s a foregone conclusion, predestined by the momentum of the ship that rocketed through the monster’s eyeball and up into its brain. I know what that will look like, and I don’t want to take any part in it. What I watch, with my breath swollen in my lungs until they feel like they might burst, is the spot where Swift’s head disappeared beneath the waves, far too close to the beast’s tentacles for my liking. The ocean’s surface is glassed over, decorated with the wreath of froth she left behind.
When she bursts from the waves, her uneven hair hanging in her face as she claws for breath, I can’t help but sigh, not caring that the captain might catch it. Only then do I dare shift my gaze to the damage she wreaked.
Which is significant.
There will be no recovering the Splinter, even if it weren’t embedded in the cephalopoid’s brain. The hull has shattered from the impact, and smoke curls up from where the overheated engine cooks part of the cephalopoid’s flesh. The beast’s body is already starting to sink little by little, and its pigments have flushed white, marking it as well and truly dead. The ghostly tentacles lose their suction as the deadweight of the Hellbeast drags at them. They peel off the Minnow’s hull a sucker at a time.
And taking it all in, barely a speck against the mass of the monster she killed, is Swift, treading water, her breathing ragged through the radio.
She makes a strangled, surprised noise when the cheering starts.
It comes from the passengers on the ferry, even as they’re helped across haphazard gangplanks onto the rescue ships. It comes from the pirate ships that prowl the waters around us, rising over the churn of their engines. It comes from the towers of the Flotilla at our back, and as I turn and shield my eyes against the sun, I pick out people with binoculars and cameras waving their arms from the heights of the floating city.
I glance back down just in time to catch Chuck wheeling her Splinter around, Varma already slumped and sopping in her copilot’s seat. She skims up to Swift, who clambers aboard on unsteady legs, like all sense of the sea has been knocked out of her, like she can’t believe what she just did.
Next to me, the captain chuckles. “Well, Cassandra,” she says, her hands folded behind her back and her smile as sharp as the syllables of my name. “Maybe next time.”