A GUTTERING BREEZE STINGS MY EYES BADLY WHEN I get back outside. It flicks my hair against my face. All I want to do right now is curl up in a ball somewhere and cry like a baby, but I blink away my tears to focus on the situation. My legs are like jelly, and the pitch and roll of Spirit amplifies the feeling. I’ve never felt so utterly lost and scared on the water. The breeze has picked up a couple of knots already and we’re beginning to make some headway, but there is no way we’re going to outrun the motor launches that are scudding over the swell toward us. The wind is gusting all over the place.

“How long do you think we’ve got?” Ash to Marcus.

“Five minutes?” Marcus is looking at them through his binoculars. “Does this look right to you?”

Ash takes the glasses and looks. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, are we sure they’re pirates? They’re wearing military gear — and they’ve got some serious hardware.”

“They’re definitely not friendly,” Ash mutters, handing the binoculars back, “and they’ve obviously researched the expedition, knocked out our communications, tracked our position. The only thing of value on here is us, so I’m guessing they’ll think long and hard before shooting. We may be able to buy enough time to get an SOS out somehow, to put them off.”

Charis is still at the wheel but Ash tells me grimly, “Rio, take over. You’re the best — we need all the speed you can get out of her.”

I nod and get to it. It’s a relief to have something to do.

“Charis, you and Marky come with me. JEN! Forget the radio! Can you use the broadband to get a message out?”

She runs up the steps to the cockpit, waving the iPad. “I already tried. I think maybe half the message went through before I lost Internet access. Stupid thing has been temperamental for days. I wonder if that storm front is interfering with it?”

Ash swears and disappears below deck. “Keep trying. Cell phone, anything. Mayday and position, nothing else, there isn’t time. Iz? Gather up all the remaining cell phones we have, see if any of them have got any signal, you never know …”

The pirates are gaining on us fast, their powerful launches leaving a foaming triangular wash astern. Amazingly, I find myself worrying about the whale shark not being able to get out of their way. The heaving throb of the motors comes to us on the breeze, their hulls pounding the waves like beating war drums. At a quick glance I’d say there’s about five guys on each launch and two of the launches have a huge gun fixed on a stand in the middle. I’m willing the wind to pick up, but it mocks me, gusting all over the place. By constantly trimming the boom and the jib I manage to get the yacht up to eight knots, but we’re like an old lady with a walker being run down by guys on motorbikes.

Ash, Charis, and Marcus resurface with armfuls of distress flares, which they scatter onto the cockpit table and benches. Charis’s prosthetic fingers hum and buzz frantically, opening boxes of them. Marcus clambers over toward me, squeezes past the wheels, and starts pulling the pins on the can-sized ones that float, throwing them into the sea behind us. They fizz and bob on the water, coughing out plumes of hissing red smoke that begins to rise and form a dense fog. A smoke screen.

The smoke swirls around me. While Marcus works, Ash and Charis are opening a dozen rocket flare tubes. When they’re done, Ash passes some to Marcus and then comes over to give me a couple. “That’s the business end,” he says, his face drawn with worry. “You just pull —”

I take them. “I know how to use a flare.” My tone is edgy, and I instantly regret it. All I want is for him not to worry about me. He needs to focus.

Ash blinks. “Good. We’re going to use these offensively. They’ll be more accurate when the pirates get close. Aim at the head — try to blind them. We may be able to scare them off.”

I barely hear his words over the thudding in my ears. My mouth is so dry I can hardly speak. “Ash, what if they shoot at us?”

His face softens. “Get as low as you can. If they board us, don’t argue, just do whatever they say.” Then he turns away, wreathed in red smoke, to take up a position by the port jackstay with Marcus and Charis.

I reach out to make him stay, but stop myself. As if he’s sensed it, Ash says without looking around, “I won’t let them hurt you, Rio. We’re all in this together, right?”

His words should help but they don’t. I feel totally alone.

The smoke screen was a good idea, but it’s pretty useless because it hangs too low over the water, sloping away under the breeze. For a few tense minutes all we can do is wait and watch while the pirates get closer and closer. When they are just a few hundred yards away a couple of their guns rattle and spit fire.

I jump a mile at the sound. I want to get off, to throw myself in the water and swim away, but there’s no escape. Standing behind the wheel, I’m more exposed than anyone else. I’m almost blinded by my own tears.

“Ash!” I scream. “What should I do?!”

He runs over to stand by me, putting his hand over mine on the wheel. “They want us alive, Rio.” His breath is warm in my ear. Then he raises the flare in his other hand and yells at us, “Make it count, guys! Wait for my mark!”

Our attackers howl and scream, trying to intimidate us. They spin their launches, sending waves that hit Spirit’s hull side-on, making us roll alarmingly. Most of them look like boys. When I look again, I can see a thin guy with a pockmarked face grinning on the prow of the nearest launch. His leopard claw has been blown back onto his shoulder by the slipstream. The sight makes me want to throw up.

He’s the guy I saw in Cape Town.

I flinch when he aims his gun high. It spits fire and rakes our mast with zinging shots, lining the sail with holes. My knuckles are white on the rim of the wheel. The Spirit of Freedom begins to roll on the wash when the launches swing alongside.

Ash yells, “NOW!”

There’s a hissing sound when our first flares shoot off, followed by several screaming discharges, one after another. Smoke trails converge on the launches, but a couple of the flares arc too high and miss. One is on target and hits a boy on the second launch square in the chest, knocking him overboard. A sickening bang and a red smoke trail follow seconds later, but I can see him swimming away. Ash and the others aren’t watching. They’re already preparing to fire another wave. Ash’s next flare lands in the leading launch and sends the pirates into a panic. Their launch swerves out of control while they dance around after it. One of the older ones manages to pick it up to throw it overboard, but it goes off in his hand with a bloody red explosion. The parachute hits him in the face and probably saves him from being blinded. He lets out a guttural scream that cuts right through me, and he tears at his sleeve to wrap his shattered hand and stem the flow of blood.

It is a momentary setback for them. I’m shaking so much that my flares go wide when I let them off. They narrowly miss the second boat and hit the water. It’s chaos. There’s red smoke and shouting everywhere.

Charis fires her second flare, leaning over the jackstay for a better aim, and it hits another boy pirate full in the face. He falls to his knees, screaming. Seconds later it explodes.

All the color drains from Charis’s face. “YEAH, WELL, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? SOD OFF, THE LOT OF YOU!” she yells, fighting back tears. Suddenly she’s shaking like a leaf, too. I don’t think she expected to hit anything, because the good arm she aimed with is not the one she favors. Her prosthetic fingers whir into a tight ball and then stretch flat again. She tries to pick up another flare and drops it.

Ash and Marcus have more flares ready, but a line of gunfire rakes the deck and they have to dance out of the way, diving onto the cockpit seats. There’s a metallic ping when one of the bullets ricochets off Ash’s leg. Charis throws herself out of the way and falls awkwardly to the deck near me, trying not to land on her prosthesis.

I duck between the wheel and the navigation console and pull her under cover, and we crouch there in silence, breathing heavily. Just in case we were in any doubt about their intent, the pirates scream and whoop and fire at the hull again while we are all hiding, the shuddering impacts sending splinters of decking flying.

“OKAY!” Ash yells, waving his arm. “ENOUGH!”

We stay down, listening while the launches roar closer and bump heavily against our hull. Spirit leans and pitches. We’re being boarded.