CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

In the bay of the Bone Mouth, just off the curved shoreline of the Gem, eighteen ships closed around the Luminous Wake like the petals of a flower. Their bows were crowded with all who had survived the attack. People clung to the rails or climbed atop the bridges or lined the companionways, all pushing in as close as they could get to lay their eyes on the Luminous, where Caledonia stood atop the bridge surrounded by her command crew.

Her hair was loose and tumbled around her shoulders in tired waves, and she was dressed for battle. Her steel-plated jacket was cinched tight against her torso and her short blade was belted at her side. The ships had collected quickly, giving her very little time to dwell on the fact that she was about to ask the same people she’d failed in Cloudbreak to join ranks with a Fiveson.

As she looked over the gathered crowd, she was once again in awe of how many people had chosen to follow her. Fifty-four ships had been reduced to twenty, nearly a thousand people to four hundred and nine. But for Gloriana’s ship, they were all here, watching her with strong, resilient faces.

“We have lost a great deal,” Caledonia began, taking the receiver from Harwell and turning in a slow circle. She fought the urge to apologize, to lay bare every ounce of pitiful remorse she felt. Instead, she focused on their immediate needs. She could blame herself in private, but an army needed to know their leader trusted herself. “We were prepared, and we were taken by surprise, but we are still here.”

There was no immediate cry of approval, no roar of ready rage from the crowd. This was not the pre-battle moment of near-visible energy and anticipation, when the possibility of victory was as real as that of defeat. This was a trembling moment on the other side of defeat.

It was Caledonia’s job now to lift them up, to invite them to feel this loss and return to the fight.

“We have all lost people we love. That has been the way of the world, the way of Aric’s world and now Lir’s. Fighting against that has always been hard. Once, it was impossible, but you made it a reality. And as long as you choose to stay, I promise to lead. To choose our battles well.” She paused, sensing unease worming its way through the crowd. “Our next fight is far from here, and it’s one we cannot undertake alone. Aric’s Fivesons have long been our enemies. Lir most of all. But Lir has turned against Fiveson Tassos and they are brothers no more. This gives us an opportunity: if we ally with Tassos, join our forces with his, we stand a chance at stopping Lir once and for all!”

A quiet murmur threaded through the air. In the faces before her, Caledonia spied uncertainty, mistrust, and deep hurt. It was impossible not to feel responsible for all of that. And wasn’t she?

“You want us to join a Fiveson?!” a voice shouted.

The crowd shifted and another voice called, “We’ve been fighting to get away from them!”

“I want you to win this war with me! And to do that, we have to keep driving into it. Not away,” Caledonia continued, forcing them to bend their attention back to her voice.

“Why should we trust you?!” a voice called from one of the ships.

At her back, Sledge growled deep in his chest. She could sense Pisces shifting, too, and Oran glaring through the crowd. Hime tipped her head to one side in a deceptively soft challenge, Nettle balled her fists, Pine thumbed the grip of his gun. But none of them could help her with this.

This was her role. And part of being the leader meant accepting responsibility for things she could not always control.

“I have been asking myself that same thing.” Caledonia swept her gaze across the whole crowd. Answering as though the question had come from all of them. “I will not always be right.” She gave the statement room to travel, to be heard before she continued. “I cannot promise you that we will win. I can’t promise you we won’t lose again. I can’t promise we will survive this fight.” She paused again, taking a deep breath. “The only thing I can promise is that I will never stop fighting to stop Lir, to change this world and give those who survive us something better than what we have!”

Caledonia’s voice was a roar and her command crew took up the cry, raising their voices and slamming their feet against the deck.

“We can do this, but we have to act now!” she shouted. “Are you with me?”

All at once, the rest of the crowd took up the call, raising their voices and stomping their feet. It was so much more than the urgent song of war that vibrated in the air on the dawn of battle; this was the steady pulse of the ocean current, the constant coiling and uncoiling of the wind; this was the cut of a blade, the sting of sweat, the grinding pain of a throat screamed raw.

It was a song of survival.

“Prepare your ships!” Caledonia cried.

In moments the fleet was mobilized, their noses aimed for the Net with the Luminous Wake running out in front like a banner. At her starboard side was the Blade, Sledge and Pine in command.

“Captain,” Harwell called as Caledonia entered the bridge. “Gloriana reports that there are signs of a recent battle, but as far as she can see, the only ships still at the Net belong to Tassos. She’s holding position until we arrive.”

“I guess we know where Lir sailed after Cloudbreak,” Pisces muttered.

“He doesn’t like to fail,” Caledonia confirmed, following Pisces’s line of thought. “But seems like Tassos outsmarted him.”

“Not something anyone saw coming, I promise you,” Oran added.

Leaving Nettle at the helm, Caledonia moved onto the command deck, where she could keep the horizon in view while the wind whipped at her cheeks. Her ankle ached only dimly now and she walked without any sign of a limp. Behind the Luminous Wake the fleet spread out like the wings of great bird. Even leaving one crew stationed at the Gem to wait for more survivors, they were eighteen ships strong. Eight ships flanked either side of the Luminous and the Blade, each one with Caledonia’s sigil emblazoned on its hull in stark white paint. Together, they churned up the sea, boldly leaving a slashing trail in the surface of the ocean as they passed between the smaller islands of the Bone Mouth.

A whistle from on high signaled the first sighting of the Net. In the seconds that followed, Caledonia saw them: a line of small shapes pressed against the horizon like smudges of paint.

The ships grew larger as they drew closer, their hulls sheering out of the ocean. Before them, the water was littered with evidence of a recent battle, jagged leaves of metal clawing out of the sea with edges still smoking.

An involuntary shiver rushed down her spine at the sight. These ships had haunted her thoughts all her life and now she was approaching them, not under cover of night, but in the full light of day. Not with the intent to slip past them, but to engage them. Even now, it went against every instinct she’d ever honed, and her mother’s voice whispered in the back of her mind, Run.

“I can’t tell if I’m nervous,” Pisces said quietly at Caledonia’s side, “or if I only think I should be nervous.”

“They’re just ships,” Caledonia answered, doing everything she could to sound sure of herself, but she knew exactly what Pisces meant. They’d spent their lives equating these ships with captivity, with Aric’s biting grip. Coming here intentionally was like sailing into a nightmare.

“If you believed that, we’d have come here long ago.” Pisces’s voice turned wry as she called her sister’s bluff.

Inside the bridge, the crew had grown steely and quiet. Every terrible story they’d ever heard about failed attempts to breach the Net present in their minds as they drew approached.

Caledonia took a minute to study the impassive structure, calming her own mind with a practical task. The ships were uniformly large, their forward-facing hulls reinforced with long spikes ready to skewer approaching ships, their decks lined with automated cannons. She could only imagine there were more surprises waiting in the water between them.

“Slow us down, Nettle,” she called. “Keep us out of range of those cannons.”

“Yes, Captain,” the girl answered as the ship slowed.

Caledonia searched up and down the row, looking for any indication of movement. They were close enough now that they’d surely been spotted, but still, there was no sign from the Net. Caledonia had intended to rush in and stop her ships just out of range, but with every minute that passed she grew less and less certain of that plan.

“Why . . .” Pisces whispered, echoing Caledonia’s concerns.

Caledonia only shook her head. She had no answer. And that was never a good sign.

She was on the brink of calling her fleet to a stop when a second whistle sliced the air, this one a pattern of four sharp sounds.

“They’re on the move!” one of Amina’s Knots called. “Ten tails on course to intercept.”

Relief twined with a new kind of tension in Caledonia’s gut as ten ships peeled away from the Net and headed directly toward them.

“Send Silver ahead.” Caledonia kept her eyes on the ten approaching ships as the Luminous Wake slowed even more. Seconds later, Silver Fleet took the lead with Gloriana joining in at the fore. Much as Caledonia wanted to be the one out in front, she’d come to accept that part of commanding a fleet was staying where she could see the field. “Harwell, tell the others to follow our lead. Nettle, keep a half mile between our noses and Silver Fleet’s tails.”

“Aye, Captain,” Nettle called from her post at the wheel.

Silver Fleet glided forward at half speed like an arrowhead. Caledonia led the rest of the fleet a short distance behind while ahead the ten Bullet ships moved faster, their thrusters frothing at their sides.

All Caledonia needed was to get close enough to be in contact. To show that they hadn’t come for a fight, but to talk. Of course, that was easier said than done. No one ever encountered a Bullet ship without intending to do one of two things: run or fight. Caledonia only hoped that her refusal to do either would keep them from an all-out battle.

“Harwell, remind everyone to hold their fire.”

The distance between Silver Fleet and the Bullet ships constricted until they were within firing range. Caledonia held her breath, waiting for that first missile to streak through the air, but none came.

“So far, so good.” Oran was braced against the hatch, eyes narrowed and cast out to sea.

Then the Bullet ships cut their engines. They glided forward on inertia and nothing more. Not even their thrusters churned. It was a cautious way of sailing and one Caledonia wasn’t used to seeing from Bullets.

“That’s encouraging.” Pisces had a scope pressed to her eye. “Never seen a Bullet ship take a hint before.”

All at once, Caledonia knew it wasn’t a hint at all. It was a trap.

“All stop!” Caledonia cried. “Radio Silver Fleet to cut their engines!”

But before the command was out of her mouth, the waves slapping at the sleek hulls of Silver Fleet sparked with blue-white electricity.

Nine ships flashed against the deep blue of the water.

Lightning cracked across steel plates. It leapt from the tips of waves, striking out with deadly kisses. The air snapped and even though the Luminous Wake was some distance away, they heard the screams of their crewmates as they tore through the sky.