The shoreline’s jagged edge surrounded the little fleet. Gannets wheeled around grassy cliffs as fishing vessels put out from a series of harbors. It was no ordinary shore, however, but a carefully crafted illusion.
An image of an island had been mathematically configured, transformed through vertical and horizontal planes, flipped across multiple axes. The results were projected by light-warping lenses into the aether at precise distances from the Hardweather—a recent and now indispensable addition to naval warfare: a mirage ship—to create the shield of false shore. Its aim was to confuse the enemy, adding a crucial layer of protection to both the island and the fleet that guarded it, which consisted of two first-class frigates, five brigs, and the fourth-rate frigate Hardweather.
Commander Sora Larking stood tall in her blue uniform jacket on the Hardweather’s quarterdeck. Her cocked hat was tucked under her arm, and the wind tousled her short sweep of dark hair.
“And how are the top-hands getting on with their new spyglasses?” she asked her officers.
“I can’t say we’ve had much progress,” the first lieutenant said. “Truth be told I had no idea that aether-spyglasses were quite so... puzzling to use.”
“I once looked though one out of curiosity,” Sora said. “All I could see was the back of my own head.” She broke into a smile and swelled with pride. “No, I suppose it takes a certain variety of genius to use such equipment...”
Several officers rolled their eyes. It was no secret that the commander’s lover was Lirren Harter, the mirage-master’s mate, who had joined the crew the preceding winter. Lirren had passed the Mathematickers’ Guild examinations with distinction, and was skilled in the use of aether-spyglasses and other aether-paraphernalia.
“With luck,” the lieutenant said, “we may find geniuses among the top-hands who can be trained in their use.”
“Indeed. And then we’ll have plenty of eyes to see through any aether-trickery the Elarans use to get at our miragers,” Sora said. “Continue with the training. Now!” She clapped her hands together and turned to the purser. “On to the matter of victuals! Do we have enough to keep us going until we next put into port?”
As they discussed provisions, raised voices were heard from up on the poop deck. The words disappeared on the breeze, but the ill-tempered tone was clear.
Sora sighed. “My apologies for cutting short such an agreeable subject,” she said, “but I suppose I ought to see what’s going on up there.”
Sora bounded up the steps, slipping on her commander’s hat to remind the miragers who was who. “Ahoy, my mathematical friends! Everything all right up here?”
The two miragers pivoted to face her. Hadden Darlett, the mirage-master and architect of the false shore, was poised at the aetherscope, a tall brass device that turned calculation into illusion. It was covered in lenses, gyroscopes, switches, and levers, and was bolted to the deck beside the stern rail. Darlett himself was a stocky man of middle years with a sagging face that seemed all the heavier when he frowned.
“All under control, Commander, it’s simply a... divergence of views.”
Sora’s glance shot towards Lirren, who was brushing away strands of her fair hair from her spectacles with one hand. Her other clutched an aether-spyglass, its shaft bristling with little brass switches. Behind her stood a calculation engine, a device that (as far as Sora understood it) was a large and complicated abacus with cogs and levers.
Lirren did not look pleased, and Sora fancied she knew why.
“Harter?” Sora addressed her directly.
Lirren resumed her customary composure. She held up the aether-spyglass. “I have seen something worrisome three points off the starboard quarter, Commander, and I believe we ought to take action. I can’t identify what it is yet, but I ran the parameters through the calculation engine, and the results aren’t consistent with the aether fluctuations from our own mirage alone.”
“I see,” Sora lied. “And Darlett—you presumably disagree?”
He sniffed. “I take Harter’s conclusions with the usual pinch of salt, Commander.” Sora frowned at Darlett’s insult towards Lirren, but did not reprove him. She and Lirren both needed his goodwill.
“I wished to verify her findings before reporting them to you,” he continued, “but she took umbrage at the suggestion.”
“If the anomalies are an Elaran trick,” Lirren said, “then we don’t have time to recalculate it all over again. They’re less than a mile from our stern.”
Sora saw nothing amiss out to sea. But she trusted that Lirren’s concerns were founded.
“Then perhaps I should raise the alert flag to warn the fleet immediately. Better safe than sorry.”
Darlett stepped up between Sora and Lirren.
“Commander, with all due respect, it would cause unnecessary panic to raise the flags prematurely. It is my professional duty to verify Harter’s findings, given her... previous record of competence, along with her wild theories about what an aetherscope is capable of.”
Lirren flushed and looked away. Sora swallowed an urge to rebuke Darlett. An aetherscope experiment Lirren had conducted aboard her previous ship, the Scallop, had led to a senior officer losing both legs and an arm. It had cost Sora several long-standing favors to keep Lirren in the navy, and only on condition that the “rogue mirager’s” discipline improved. Sora’s career fate and Lirren’s continuing service aboard the Hardweather—their future together—now hung on Lirren receiving a good report. As her immediate superior and a respected mathematicker, only Darlett could issue such a report. It would not do for Sora to fall out with him, even if he was a puffed-up old basket.
Sora nodded. “If you must. Get on with it.”
Lirren did not look Darlett in the eye as she handed him the aether-spyglass. While he took up position beside the calculation engine to check Lirren’s observations, Sora beckoned Lirren to her side.
“Sorry, darling,” she whispered. “Much as it pains me—”
“I know.” Lirren’s lips were clenched tight, but her grimace turned to a smile as she looked at Sora. “I want him on our side, despite everything. But at this particular moment, I’m concerned about whatever’s out there.” She gestured across the stern rail. “If my calculations hold, then it’s almost the size of the Hardweather. Perhaps a fifth-rated frigate, or a large sloop-of-war—”
Sora jerked back in alarm. “What? I thought you meant something small and obscure—how could something that size get so close without our noticing?!”
“The Elarans have been getting very good since they started kidnapping our miragers.”
Sora surveyed the surroundings. The other ships in the fleet were some distance away; the closest was a brig, the Cormorant, too far away to be of much use.
“Commander?” Darlett’s voice had a strained note to it. “Commander! My preliminary observations are incomplete... but I advise we raise the flag!”
“In fact,” Lirren continued, “they’re so good, they’ve just snuck up beside us.”
The mirage of empty sea and sky fell away from the enemy frigate just as the vessel came abreast of the Hardweather. Two gangplanks slammed down upon the Hardweather’s starboard gunwale, and Elaran sailors swung lines with grappling hooks into her rigging, lashing both ships together. A boarding party in green breeches and jackets poured across.
At more than three hundred strong, Sora’s crew likely outnumbered the boarders—but they were nowhere near ready for action. Top-hands scrambled down the rigging to join the fight; those off watch had to be roused from their hammocks; and officers rushed to distribute guns and powder.
From below came the first volley of enemy cannon-fire, puncturing the Hardweather’s hull.
After ordering the alert flag to be raised, Sora rushed the miragers down to their assigned hiding places. The navy had few miragers, and they were invaluable. Protecting them was a mirage ship’s duty. Darlett and Lirren were to be concealed in different spots to lessen the risk that both the Hardweather’s miragers would be lost in a single attack.
Darlett launched into a tirade as soon as they were below decks.
“Damn it all, Harter! If you’d worked faster, I could have checked your numbers and raised the alarm sooner! What’s wrong with you?”
Sora glanced sharply at Lirren, warning her not to rise to his words. Lirren simply scowled and rolled her eyes when she knew Darlett couldn’t see.
Sora marched them to the officers’ cabins at the rear of the gun deck, where a dozen or so officers were hastily arming themselves.
“That’s the way to do it, lads and lasses!” Sora cried. She gestured to the ceiling with her hat. “Get above and give ‘’em what for! Except you four—” She waved at a group of warrant officers’ mates. “I want two of you down here at all times to guard the mirage-master’s hiding place. The other two will follow me.”
Darlett was still spouting off about Lirren’s supposed inadequacies as Sora unlocked the bosun’s cabin with her master key. She promptly stuffed him inside.
“Stop blustering, man, and pull out that panel under the bed. Curl yourself up and get inside. You’ll find a pistol, powder, and shot down there—be prepared to use them if you’re found.”
Darlett huffed. “I’m a scholar, Commander, not a fighter, I—”
Sora grabbed his jacket and yanked him towards her to remind him of her physical strength. They were almost nose to nose. Darlett simply gaped.
“All that time you spent arguing with Miss Harter instead of listening to her—that’s going to cost lives, Darlett. The lives of ordinary crew who don’t have a designated place to hide. The least you can do is show some dignity.”
Sora shut the door, glad to see the back of him. If Lirren hadn’t needed his favor, Sora would have had him flogged for insubordination long ago. She ushered Lirren away and beckoned to the other two mates she had called upon.
“To the sick bay. We’ll hide Miss Harter there, and you will guard her with your lives. Understood?”
They nodded, though both wore grim expressions. Sora followed them out onto the cramped gun deck. A ragged contingent of crew members was making a belated start on loading the Hardweather’s nineteen starboard guns. Their iron wheels rumbled like a coming storm while shouts of combat came down through the hatchways from the top deck. As Sora stooped to avoid cracking her skull on the low ceiling beams, Lirren spoke into her ear.
“I have a cherished daydream about filling his bed with mirages of eels while he’s in it. Perhaps even real eels. But more pertinently right now, I think there’s a way to turn the odds in our favor.”
Sora glanced at her. “Is there? If you have some miracle idea, I’m all ears.”
“It’s simple—with Darlett out of the way, I could—”
The report of enemy cannon issued from their right-hand side: a great boom followed by a sickening crunch as another volley of eight-pound shot burst through the hull. Sora grabbed Lirren and hurled them to the floor to avoid the wood splinters slashing through the air.
The dust cleared, and Sora sprang up. Even through the thick smoke, it was clear the hull was badly damaged. One gun had been knocked on its side, and crew members lay groaning about the deck.
Sora helped Lirren to her feet.
“Are you all right?”
Lirren dusted down her uniform and adjusted her spectacles.
“Bruised, but unharmed.”
“Very well.” Sora turned to the gun deck at large. “Bring the injured to the sick bay, then return to loading. Let’s put a few holes in their ship. Hop to it!” She took Lirren by the hand. “We can’t hang about here. Come on. And tell me this miracle idea.” She gestured to the guards she had commandeered and marched along behind them. Lirren spoke rapidly.
“With Darlett gone, I could displace the boarders with the aetherscope. Just pick them off one by one.”
Sora’s stomach, usually dauntless, turned to ice.
“What?”
“You know very well what. Displacement! Moving matter with the aetherscope, not just light.”
“Ah.” It was not what Sora wanted to hear. “You mean picking someone up and flinging them somewhere else?”
Lirren huffed. “If you want to put it like that, yes. Pick them off our ship and fling them back to their own. They wouldn’t know what was happening. They have no counter-strategy.”
Sora winced. “Like you did on the Scallop?” Much as she cared for Lirren, she didn’t know what to make of her arcane aether-theories. But she did know that a repeat of the Scallop incident would go down poorly with the admiralty.
Lirren pulled Sora behind a thick support post by the center stairwell, where there was a little shelter from the chaos of deckhands hauling guns and running for powder.
“I wasn’t at fault! If that damned lieutenant had followed my instructions, he’d still be in one piece. It can be done. And what of it if a few Elarans lose the occasional limb?”
The two guards had stopped and were now peering back with impatience. Around them, gun crews worked ropes and ramrods while their lives hung in the balance. Their vigor and courage made Sora hungry for action.
“If that plan backfired, you’d be out of the navy, not just off the Hardweather.” Despite her mounting impatience, Sora’s heart sank at the thought. The two seasons they had spent together on this ship had been the happiest of her life. If they had to return to seeing each other only during shore leave, she might wither.
“I used all the influence I have to keep you in your post,” she said. “I can’t do it again.”
A pained look crossed Lirren’s face as she gestured to the deckhands around them. “So you won’t save your crew from the boarders?”
Sora opened her mouth to retort, but Lirren cut her off.
“And you don’t trust me any more than Darlett does?” Her brows drew together as she looked Sora dead in the eye.
Sora’s whole body tensed, and she spoke through clenched teeth. “Damn it all, Lirren, I have every confidence in you—which is why I can’t send you up top. We can ill-afford to lose our miragers.” She took a deep breath, softening her stance. “And I can ill-afford to lose you myself—”
There was a loud thud beside them. A young man in a blue jacket had tumbled down the stairs from the top deck. The hilt of a cutlass projected from his chest, blood spreading across his white shirt. His eyes were wide open in disbelief.
A deckhand in Elaran uniform leapt down after him and curled his hand around the hilt to pull it out. More Elaran boots tramped down the stairs, and Sora grabbed Lirren to run the few remaining yards. Just as they reached the bulkhead between the gun deck and the sick bay, another round of cannon-fire smashed through the Hardweather, scattering more fixtures and crew. One of their guards pitched forward, landing heavily on the boards. The other opened the door in the bulkhead and shunted Sora and Lirren inside before joining them.
The sick bay was cramped. Its three hammocks were already occupied and stained with blood. The heavy air stank of the stuff. At least a dozen wounded sat on the floor waiting for the surgeon. They saluted Sora when she entered, and the sight of them filled her with a prodigious urge to go up top and fight side by side with her crew.
The surgeon was at his operating table stitching a deep, gory cut that an older top-hand had taken to the belly. The man winced, but saluted Sora all the same. The surgeon glanced up at the newcomers before returning his gaze to his work.
“Commander!” he said, with a cheerfulness out of place in the circumstances. “I’ve been expecting you. I see our plans to hide Miss Harter are bearing fruit?”
Sora’s fingers swept the hilt of her cutlass; her impatience to join the action was rising.
“Indeed they are. Lirren!” She gestured to a wooden chest behind the operating table. A scatter of nasty-looking medical instruments lay on the floor beside it; the surgeon had evidently emptied it in haste to accommodate Lirren. “Climb in there.”
Lirren turned to face her again.
“If you allow me,” she whispered, “I can put a stop to all of this.” She gestured to the wounded, who peered inquisitively at them. “I can get rid of the Elarans in no time flat, and we can save our lot from getting maimed and worse.”
Sora sighed. Her patience was running low.
“This is a mirage ship. Our duty is to support mirage work. The crew are here to protect you—it would be a poor reward for their hardship if you put yourself in the way of enemy bullets and blades.” She brushed Lirren’s cheek with her knuckles. “Let me get rid of the Elarans the old-fashioned way. It’s what I’m trained to do.”
Lirren’s lips were parted and ready for further protest. “But—”
Sora placed a hand on her shoulder. “Please don’t make me order you. If it comes down to it, my duty has to come first.”
Lirren’s posture slumped. “Then there’s no more I can say.” She turned towards the hiding place with a resigned expression. Sora had no time to dwell on the disagreement. She took out her loaded pistol and drew her cutlass, calling on her reserve of impatient energy. The remaining guard stood beside the door.
“Stay here and defend Miss Harter at all costs,” Sora said.
“Aye, ma’am.”
Then the guard opened the door, and Sora charged out into the fray.
The gun deck was thick with the sour, sulphurous odor of gun smoke. On the wooden planks, fighters stumbled over the bodies of at least twenty crewmates, either killed or blacked out, but the Elarans were losing vigor, while Sora was still fresh.
She expended her single pistol shot almost straight away, right into the chest of a cutlass-bearing woman barreling towards her. Sora made for the nearest stairwell, where two Elarans blocked her path.
She was no stranger to close combat. She slashed away the first man’s cutlass with her own and followed by smashing his nose with the heavy pistol-butt in her left hand. She kicked the other fellow back onto the deck, dashing his head against a powder chest.
Up she fought, slashing at and grappling with boarders who were descending the steps. At last, she ducked through the hatchway and emerged into the open air. The top deck was a mess of combat: the clash of cutlasses, the snapping and smoke of pistols, linen shirts streaked with red. It was hard to be certain, but those remaining of the Hardweather’s crew seemed outnumbered by the boarding party. In spite of the odds, Sora threw herself into the fight, belting the nearest Elaran across the head with the pommel of her cutlass and knocking him to the deck.
Her uniform marked her as the commander, and sure enough, half a dozen boarders split from their fellows to round upon her. She dispatched the first few in a whirl of cutlass, pistol-butt and vicious kicks. A stocky man with a stubby blade lunged at her like a pit dog. Sora dodged his attempt to run her through, but stumbled over a fallen comrade. The man kicked her square in the chest, pitching her to the deck. Her pistol clattered to the boards.
A sinewy older woman in an officer’s hat shoved her boot-heel into Sora’s ribs, knocking the wind out of her. The woman cocked a pistol and pointed its barrel right at Sora’s wheezing face.
A bosun’s whistle shrieked across the deck. Sora did not recognise the signal, but the woman with the pistol glanced in its direction, hesitating for just a moment. Sora knocked the pistol from her grasp and grabbed her arm, pulling her down. She rolled away from the woman and sprang up, panting to regain her breath.
The group of Elarans turned away from Sora and dashed back to their gangplanks. The woman in the officer’s uniform clambered back upright. Sora raised her cutlass, ready to parry, but the officer had lost all interest and was now hurrying after her crew.
Sora’s guts froze—were they retreating because they had succeeded?
Had they taken Lirren?
She called out to the crew members who remained standing on the top deck.
“Shoot them with all you’ve got left! Don’t let them away unscathed!”
A few pistol shots rang out, but only a couple hit home. The enemy vessel had already caught wind in its sails and was peeling away from the battered Hardweather. As the Elarans drew in the gangplanks, the ship disappeared once more behind a mirage of empty air. The encircling mirage of shoreline was broken and fractured on the horizon, lost without the care and attention of the miragers. Some way off the starboard quarter, the brig Cormorant scudded across the waves with full-bellied sails, too late to be of any help.
Sora begrudgingly acknowledged her Elaran counterpart’s skill in organizing the whole escapade as she floundered back down the stairs to check on Lirren. Her boots had scarcely touched the gun deck when a voice called out for her.
“Commander! Commander!”
She turned to see a warrant officer’s mate dashing up from the stern cabins, red in the face, swerving around fallen crew members and debris. He was one of the guards she had stationed at Darlett’s hiding place.
“The mirage-master!” he cried. “He’s been taken!”
Time froze for a moment as Sora absorbed this news. She hadn’t given Darlett the slightest consideration since she left him in the bosun’s cabin, assuming him safe.
“What happened?”
The young fellow panted as he relayed his report. “They came... through the stern windows... They used their own ship’s boat... and paddled up behind us... They used hooks and all sorts to climb up...”
Sora leaned against a wooden post. “Cunning scoundrels!”
The young man stopped to take a deep breath. “I heard a commotion in the cabin, so I turned to see what it was... There were two Elarans, pulling him out from under the bed. He had a pistol, but he just waved it around... One of the Elarans challenged us with a blade, we couldn’t save him... They bundled him out the window, and I looked out and saw their boat. I made to fire my pistol, but the boat vanished...”
Sora thumped the wooden post with her fist. “More damned mirages. Using our own people against us, no doubt.” And now Darlett would become yet another mirager pressed into Elaran service. A precious naval asset that Sora had been entrusted with, now lost. She rested her forehead against the post and closed her eyes. This would shatter her reputation, already tainted because of—
Sora jerked out of her slump. Was Lirren safe? Had the Elarans devised some trickery to get at her as well? Her heart lurched with foreboding as she turned back around toward the sick bay.
There, striding towards her, was Lirren herself, with no more ill-effects than a creased uniform and crooked spectacles. Sora rushed forward and threw her arms around her.
“You’re safe! Goodness, there’s one thing to be glad about, at least...”
Lirren returned the gesture before standing back.
“I heard enough of that report to know what happened. But there is a chance.”
Sora didn’t have to ask where this line of thought was leading. She turned it around in her mind. It was still fraught with danger, but her prior caution had not averted catastrophe. And they both still needed Darlett and his good word.
“Whatever the punishment for this will be, it can’t be worse than whatever they’ll do to me for losing Darlett... Very well. Let’s try it your way. Are you going to fling Darlett back here through the aether?”
“That would be impossible. He’ll be below decks where I can’t see him, and neither can the aetherscope.” Lirren grinned. “No, Commander—I’m going to fling you over there through the aether.”
The ship’s cook ascended the steps to the poop deck bearing a bottle of brandy and a crystal goblet.
“From my personal stores,” he said. “Pre-war vintage.”
He filled the goblet, handed it to Sora and saluted. “An honor to serve you, Commander.” Sora pretended not to notice the note of farewell in his words. She swallowed a large mouthful of the brandy.
“Thank you.” She leaned against the starboard gunwale, stomach tumbling with apprehension. She glanced across her shoulder. The swift little Cormorant was heading in the likeliest direction of the Elaran ship, having received instructions to do so from the Hardweather’s flag signals. Sora had given the orders for form’s sake, though the plan was all Lirren’s.
The cook stood aside for a petty officer bearing a boarding axe. She bowed as she presented it to Sora.
“As you requested, Commander.” Sora drained her goblet and returned it to the cook, taking up the axe. She weighed it in her hand; it was top-heavy, with a solid blade.
Lirren was behind the aetherscope, its lenses glinting like an array of watchful eyes. She popped her head out from behind the device, peering out to sea through her aether-spyglass.
“The Elaran ship is two points off the starboard bow, a mile and a half out. More or less dead ahead of the Cormorant.” She patted the aetherscope. “I’ve arranged it so the Elarans will see several false replicas of the Cormorant approaching them from various angles. The more confusion the better. Don’t forget, once you’ve completed the first stage, stand up straight on the stern rail so that I can see all of you. Tuck in your limbs and stay absolutely still.” Her finger described a rough outline of Sora’s body in the air. “I have to capture a section of aether, and if you stick an arm or leg outside of the section, you’ll lose it—like that twit on the Scallop. Now!” There was an unnerving air of finality to Lirren’s tone. “Ready?”
Absolutely not, Sora thought. “I—yes?”
One corner of Lirren’s mouth lifted into half a grin, which Sora always found charming.
“Reluctant?”
Sora hesitated a moment. “Well... I’ll do anything I can for one of my crew.”
If Lirren was smiling—even half-smiling—then she couldn’t be all that upset with Sora’s trepidation.
“But you’re here all the same,” she said. “Waiting for me to experiment on you. If I can’t have outright enthusiasm, I’ll take that.” She moved back behind the aetherscope and began operating the device once more. The realization hit Sora that if this did not go to plan, she and Lirren might never see each other again. Panic washed through her—is this how she wanted them to part?
“Darling,” she said, “don’t ever doubt that I lo—”
When an aetherscope casts a mirage, there is always a moment’s lag (or so Lirren explained it). The operator presses down on the final switch, and then—a pause—as the illusion travels through the aether before landing in its intended place.
Sora knew she was in the pause. She knew by the indistinct streak of grey sky overhead and dark sea below. She also knew by the sensation of bilious sickness in her throat, something she had not felt since her first storms at sea.
There was just time to realize this when she found herself on the poop deck of the Elaran ship.
“—Vvv?”
She almost toppled over with disorientation, but had the sea legs to right herself and get on with it. The rival aetherscope was beside the stern rail to her right. Out to sea, six identical brigs were branching away in all directions from a single point—there was no way to tell which was the real Cormorant. A gangly young man in an Elaran uniform operated the aetherscope. He must have heard Sora’s heavy landing, for he turned to face her with a puzzled expression.
Sora shoved him aside and lunged at the aetherscope. She swung the boarding axe and tore straight through the device’s workings. Lenses shattered, brass fittings flew over the stern rail. The first stage of the plan was complete: the frigate could no longer hide behind a mirage.
“You’re one of ours, I assume?” Sora asked the man. He nodded, looking incredulous. “Sorry about that. Had to be done. I’m going to rescue my mirager, you see.”
“By yourself?!” His gaze darted past her and his expression turned grim: three Elaran officers tramped up the steps from the quarterdeck.
Sora climbed onto the stern rail and stood erect and compact. “Of course not!” She gestured quickly to the many Cormorants, whipping her hand back to keep it within Lirren’s outline. “I’ll be bringing one of those.”
Two Elaran officers unsheathed their cutlasses, while a third raised his pistol.
The pistol issued a crack—but the sound was cut off.
Sora landed on the Cormorant’s quarterdeck, right on top of the steers-hand. The brig lurched to starboard as the combined weight of two people pushed on the wheel. Sora regained her feet, helping the bewildered steers-hand back to his post at the wheel.
She addressed the brig’s astonished commander, a young first lieutenant.
“Apologies for my inelegant arrival. And apologies for commandeering your ship. You will have noticed a frigate appear from thin air about a mile off your port bow? I’m taking your crew to board it. Is that clear?”
The lieutenant stood to attention and saluted. “Absolutely, Commander.”
The Cormorant’s crew did not match the enemy frigate’s in numbers, but they were fresh and eager, their guns were loaded and ready, and they had the element of surprise in their favor. While the Cormorant’s crew slid up on the frigate’s starboard, Lirren had arranged one of the mirages to mirror it, bearing the threat of boarding on the port side as well. The Elaran crew were in confused disarray as they began their defense. Sora left the main action to the Cormorant’s first lieutenant and wove through the chaos, using the axe to both deal out blows and parry them.
Sora hurried below decks to the ship’s hold. With the axe, she tore at the locked doors of storage compartments, checking each in turn. The first five held provisions and tools. As she smashed a hole in the sixth door, she spotted a blue jacket.
“Darlett! Is that you?” She peered in. The blue-jacketed figure was sitting up in the corner.
“C-Commander?” One final blow and a hearty kick, and the hole was big enough to walk through. Darlett all but leapt into her arms. “H-how did you...”
“We can’t hang about—the Elarans will be coming down here for powder and shot. Follow me.”
Sora led him up to the gun deck, where she had to fight her way from one stairwell to the next, pushing through the blades and smoke in the cramped space. Darlett was an utter encumbrance. He clutched at her jacket and treated her as a shield, tugging her in front of him in panic when he perceived danger. Her smooth dodges became unwieldy lurches, and she took several heavy cuts to her arms, face, trunk. The axe was an unrefined weapon, but had a certain brute authority in these close quarters, knocking aside thin cutlasses and biting into incautious flesh.
She emerged onto the top deck bruised and bloodied, her uniform in shreds. There was a ferocious fight to starboard where the Cormorant was lashed as its crew battled the Elarans for control of the ship. Sora stuck to the port side, where the fighting was thin and the top-deck cannons stood idle, and dragged Darlett astern.
“Commander!” Darlett gestured to the Cormorant, its sails visible above the frigate’s gunwale. “Is that one of our brigs? Surely we ought to board it?”
“No, Darlett, we’re taking another way—step lively!”
The Elarans were putting up a fervent struggle against the Cormorant’s crew. Sora nudged Darlett to the ship’s side so she could put herself between him and the rest of the fighting. She held her boarding axe ready.
“Has the Hardweather’s boat come for us?” he asked.
“Not the boat. Too slow, too dangerous. There’s no time to explain it, just follow my—”
“Commander, I don’t appreciate being left in the dark—I must know where you’re taking me!”
Sora ground her teeth. “Your commander has come to rescue you in person—do as I order! We’re going where Miss Harter can see us and use the aetherscope to—”
Someone yelled in the Elarans’ language above her head—Sora looked up, and only just dodged an Elaran top-hand dropping down from the rigging in an attempt to land on them. She took advantage of his fumbled landing to swing the axe straight into the back of his knee, cutting his tendons to bits.
Darlett crouched and cowered beside one of the unmanned guns. “Good blazes! Commander, you can’t be serious—Harter’s theory is lethal!”
“It works, Darlett! How do you think I got here? Get up on that gunwale. Avoid the rigging—there’s a clear spot.”
Darlett shook his head and clung to the frame of the gun.
“I’ll be cut up like that fellow on the Scallop! I might as well stay here and be cut up by the Elarans!”
Sora paused. Did Lirren really need a good report from him anymore? The Hardweather was now full of witnesses who could attest that her method worked safely.
She bent down and, for the second time that day, grabbed him by the jacket, holding the axe’s blade perilously close to his face.
“This isn’t a polite invitation—do as you’re told, or I’ll have you flogged and report you to the admiralty for wanton insubordination and inferior mathematical skills. Climb up there!”
Darlett opened his mouth to retort, then seemed to think better of it. He was far from nimble, but he used the gun as a foothold to climb up as best he could. Escape was finally at hand.
Sora’s glance darted between him and the fighting on the starboard side. The Elarans’ energies were focused on the quarterdeck, mercifully. As she watched, a woman in a blue jacket broke off from the fight and dashed towards her.
“What news?” Sora cried. “Have we taken the ship?”
As if by way of reply, the woman drew two cutlasses—one from each hip. Sora barely had time to register that her breeches weren’t white—they were green. The jacket was stolen. This was the lean Elaran who had nearly shot her aboard the Hardweather.
Sora had no time to draw her own cutlass. The Elaran came at her with both blades at once. The boarding axe could only parry one of them. The other bit into her shoulder, breaching her already ragged sleeves and slicing straight into flesh. The woman wielded both cutlasses while dodging Sora’s attempted blows with a dancer’s coordination. Injured and drained from acting as Darlett’s shield, Sora raised the axe to parry one blade—and failed to evade the other. The Elaran brought a cutlass down upon the back of Sora’s right hand, severing the tendons. She cried out in horror as the axe fell from her grasp. Her opponent pushed her up against the gunwale and pulled back one of the cutlasses, ready to thrust it into Sora’s chest.
There was a blur of blue jacket at the edge of Sora’s vision. An almighty snap rang out, and the woman was enveloped in a puff of smoke. As she fell backwards to the deck, Sora saw Darlett had fired a pistol straight into her side where he couldn’t possibly miss. He promptly dropped it and flinched.
“I didn’t use it when they took me!” he said, his voice high and strained. “I’m a scholar, not a—”
“That’s abundantly clear, Darlett.” She held up her blood-soaked right hand and winced in pain as she tried to flex it. None of her fingers moved. “Agh! I want to get off this damned ship now. Darlett, climb up and hold onto the mast-stay as best you can.”
Darlett obeyed. With much huffing, he clambered into position on the gunwale and clung to the bundle of thick ropes that held the mainmast steady.
“You say Harter’s method works, Commander?” Darlett’s voice was still strained.
“Perfectly!” Sora climbed up after him, wheezing for breath. Darlett helped her up, and she leaned on him.
“How does this work?” he asked.
“Just stand compact and keep bloody still. She’ll bring us over when she sees us. And don’t forget, Darlett, I get no credit for this rescue. All the planning was down to Miss—”
“—Haaaugh!”
Sora landed back on the Hardweather in an uncontrolled fall. Around her, a gaggle of officers who were gathered on the poop deck applauded and whooped in delight. Sora struggled into a sitting position. She rested her injured hand on her leg, staining her white breeches red. It was dawning on her that she may never use it again, and would become another of those officers with a lifelong disablement and a corresponding nickname among the crew. She felt ill with pain, exhaustion and loss of blood, but also thrilled at Lirren’s success—and at this ready batch of witnesses whose word could restore her reputation. Elevate it, indeed. Even an injury like this was a price she was willing to pay for such an outcome.
Darlett was next to her, examining each of his limbs in turn. They were all present and correct. He was clutching a bundle of severed rope from the Elaran ship—the mast-stays had evidently been caught in the outline.
Lirren shouldered her way through the assembled officers, grinning with triumph.
Sora looked up at her. “It worked!” she panted. “You mad genius!”
“That is the finest compliment I’ve ever—” Her face fell. “Your hand!” She hunkered next to Sora and whipped out her handkerchief to wrap the wound. Sora smiled at her.
“It was viciously attacked by an Elaran. Nothing to do with your wonderfully useful methods and theories. As I was saying, Darlett, all credit for your rescue goes to Miss Harter, who has now successfully flung people through the aether three times. Which is bound to change naval warfare forever, wouldn’t you think?”
The assembled officers murmured in agreement. Lirren glared meaningfully at Darlett across her spectacles as she tied off the makeshift bandage. He cleared his throat.
“I suppose... I suppose the commander has something of a point.”
Still panting, Sora clapped him on the back with her good hand, harder than was strictly necessary. “That’s the spirit! The sort of point one might put in a report to the admiralty, I dare say?”
Darlett looked to Lirren again. “I... Well. I suppose, one occasionally underestimates... yes, and something of an apology is, as it were, perhaps—”
A raucous cheer from the ship’s waist cut his words short. It spread in an instant to the officers, who turned to regard the Elaran ship. Sora followed their gazes—their own navy’s flag was being hoisted by the Cormorant’s crew.
“Huzzah! Another mirage ship for our side!” Sora made to stand, with Lirren’s assistance. Lirren helped Darlett up as well, and they cheered together as they watched the flag reach the top.
When the jubilation subsided, Sora clapped Darlett’s back again.
“Someone get this poor man a drop of grog. He’s had a trying day. In fact—double grog rations for everyone, and triple for our miragers!”
The officers cheered their commander, then drifted into excited, chattering groups. Darlett was pulled aside to give his account of the story, and Sora and Lirren had a brief moment to themselves.
Lirren lifted Sora’s newly bandaged hand to her lips and kissed it ever so delicately.
“If Darlett can bring himself to express his gushing gratitude on paper, I’ll be able to stay in the navy after all. And aboard the Hardweather.”
Sora smiled. “She’s a good old tub, if you can put up with her commander.”
Lirren looked her up and down. “I do wonder if a commander who can’t keep her uniform intact can keep a ship afloat. But I’m open to persuasion.”
Sora cocked an eyebrow. “Then may I begin persuading you over a drink in the mess?”
Lirren linked Sora’s good arm and saluted, adding her charming half-grin as she made to rejoin the rest of the crew. “Aye aye, Commander!”