CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“Captain.” Pisces’s urgent whisper woke Caledonia in an instant. She surged out of bed, gasping as the pain in her ribs surged with her.

“Hell,” she growled.

“What’s wrong?” Oran stirred beside her, already halfway to his feet.

Pisces scooped up Oran’s pants and tossed them to his waiting hands. “Ennick’s back.”

That had Caledonia on her feet, dressing as fast as her wounds would allow. “Has he said anything?”

“He’s waiting for you,” Pisces answered.

Caledonia nodded as she hurriedly pulled her shirt over her head and was rewarded with bright stabs of pain. She took a deep breath, then stopped rushing. She tucked her shirt into her pants, took her time lacing up her boots, and braided her hair back as she would any morning.

Oran took his cue from her and resumed getting ready at a regular pace. This wasn’t a call to battle.

“Right,” Caledonia said when she was ready. “Let’s go see what he has to say.”

They left the barracks as the first hint of dawn strained the darkest edges of night. One benefit of having chosen the Ready Racks, as Donnally had called them, was that they put Caledonia mere steps from the wharf. The command crew gathered in the office that must have once belonged to the harbormaster. Tin was already there when Caledonia arrived, working with Far to set out a loaf of fresh bread along with a nut spread, preserved sour cherries, and a pot of teaco.

Sledge and Pine were the last to appear. They rolled in looking disheveled. Sledge’s long hair was out of its braid and floated behind him like a shadow, while Pine’s shirt was rumpled and untucked, his eyes still narrow with sleep.

Ennick waited quietly at the far end of the table. His weathered face was streaked with ash and blood and his salt-and-pepper hair was stiff with salt. He’d only been gone for two days, but the man hadn’t stopped moving since the battle, and exhaustion showed in the wide press of his eyes.

“Welcome back,” Caledonia announced when they’d pulled chairs up to the slender metal table that ran down the center of the room. “Report.”

“Captain.” Ennick offered a short bow to Caledonia. “I’m afraid that I’m here to report Lir has taken the Net.”

Silence descended on the room like a cloud leaving a chill in the air that hadn’t been there before.

“Bloat fish,” Pine muttered into the dense quiet.

“But he sailed north. To Slipmark.” The protest in Pisces’s voice was weak.

“At first,” Ennick answered with a nod. “But he doubled back and sailed for the Net instead.”

“How many ships did it cost him?” Caledonia asked.

If Ennick was surprised at how quickly Caledonia accepted the news, he didn’t show it.

“None,” he said. “He got on the radio and made the one promise Tassos’s Bullets couldn’t refuse.”

“Silt,” Oran said.

“They let him right in,” Ennick confirmed.

It wasn’t a trick, but it felt like one. Instead of tripling his resources at Slipmark, Lir had gambled on the Net. And he’d won. It didn’t matter that they’d left ships behind. It didn’t matter that everyone knew Tassos had the Silt Rig peppered with bombs and the trigger to blow them. Lir had called that bluff and won.

“We need to move before he has a chance to shore up his defenses. So, I want options and I want them now.” Caledonia cast her gaze around the room.

Why should we move at all? Hime asked. We have the Holster. We can defend it and anyone who comes here seeking refuge. We don’t have to move to resist him.

Unclipping the black box from her own waistband, Caledonia placed it on the table. “We should move because right now, we have an advantage.”

“The trigger,” Pisces said softly as Hime reached for it, turning it over and over before she popped the lid to inspect it.

“The trigger,” she confirmed. “That rig is set to blow, but according to Cepheus, this only works in close proximity.”

“According to Cepheus?” Pine asked. “How do you know that isn’t a trick to get you to return to the Net?”

“Cepheus wouldn’t lie,” Pisces said hurriedly.

“Wouldn’t she?” Pine countered. “You’ve known her for two minutes, Pi.”

“I tried to blow it yesterday morning.” Caledonia turned her attention to Ennick. “Was the rig still there when you arrived?”

“We weren’t close enough to put eyes on it, but we didn’t see anything to suggest it wasn’t,” he said. “The wind was calm enough that we’d have seen smoke.”

“She wasn’t lying.” Pisces gave Pine a hard look.

“Maybe.” He shrugged.

“How close do we need to be?” Sledge asked.

“Cepheus said a mile and a half,” Caledonia answered.

“Can we boost the signal?” Sledge turned to Hime for this one.

Hime paused to consider. Not without rebuilding the trigger. And even then, it’s not a guarantee.

“Then we’ll have to be at the Net,” Caledonia said.

“Well, someone will have to be at the Net.” Sledge leaned forward, forearms crossing the narrow table. “Send us,” he said, tipping his head toward Pine. “We can slip in, get close enough to push the button, and get out of there before they know what’s what.”

“Or just send me,” Pine added quickly. “No reason to put more than one of us at risk. Especially on the word of Tassos’s second.”

Pisces shifted, but didn’t rise to the bait.

“We don’t have eyes on their defenses. We could be sending you straight into a trap. I don’t want to lose you—or our chance to blow the factory,” Caledonia said. “Other options.”

“We have thirty-eight ships ready to sail, but if we wait a few days, we’ll increase that number by ten at least.” Pisces tugged at her necklace as she spoke, sliding the charm back and forth. “We estimate Lir got away with a hundred ships. Now that he has the Net, he has a few more than that.”

Forty-eight ships against more than a hundred? Hime frowned at the odds.

“Or we stay here.” Tin spoke up for the first time. “Defend the Holster like Hime said.”

“Without the rig, there’s no Silt, and without Silt, Lir has no power.” Sledge leaned back in his seat, folding his arms across his mountainous chest. “The rig is how this ends.”

“We’ll have to move before Lir has a chance to find those bombs,” Oran added.

“We won’t match them ship for ship, but we don’t have to,” Caledonia said. “We only need to get close enough to blow the rig. Can we put crews on forty-eight ships?” Caledonia asked.

Tin frowned as she considered the numbers. “It would be easier with Tassos’s Bullets.”

“They won’t be ready,” Oran answered. “It’s too soon to ask them to help us destroy the thing they are suffering for.”

Tin nodded. “We’ll have to reshuffle the current crews, thin them out to cover all the ships, but . . . we can do it. Barely.”

“And how many days do you need to repair those ten extra ships, Pi?” Caledonia asked.

Pisces was quiet for a moment, quickly calculating all the necessary repairs in her head. Finally, she answered, “We can do it in three.”

“Good.” Caledonia turned to her command crew, letting her eyes travel around the circle. “We sail in three days.”