The impact threw me backward into the cold ocean water, my calls slipping away in the initial shock. A rush of foul-tasting, glowing bale flooded into my mouth and I gagged, instinctively reaching up to tear off the slimy stuff as the ocean closed over my head.
Stop, Nje chided me, voice vibrating against my ears. You *** *** *** *** *** water.
It was trying to protect me, I assumed. Clenching my teeth on the rancid-tasting substance, I kicked back up to the surface. As I bobbed back up into air, my head was promptly struck by a broken section of the boat. I reached out and grabbed the wreckage, coughing as bale slid away from my mouth and nose. Salt water burned my eyes.
Nje hadn’t lost the calls it was holding; a circle of balelight still illuminated the area. Sailors thrashed around me, getting their bearings and grabbing on to remains of the boat. Lt. Guerin was treading water as she slid her soaked rifle over her back.
“Can you swim?” she shouted.
“Yes,” I gasped, still trying to catch my breath.
“Good.” She struck out toward one of the sailors who was shouting for help. Nje was speaking urgently, but I couldn’t spare the time to translate. Above us, the Chaser returned fire, its broadside diminished from the earlier battle but still, to my ears, an even, professional roar of gunnery.
“Saint-Cloud — lights only on deck,” Tancrède bellowed.
“Nje, drop all the balelights,” I coughed, maneuvering around the wreckage until I could see the ship. The ocean was plunged into darkness, except a few glimmers from the lanterns on the tow boats and the Chaser. I called a balelight low on deck, as well as I could given my need to guess at where to place it, and then took the time to replace my balewalls over the line of boats still trying to tow the ship. Maintaining my focus was a challenge — the water was much colder than I’d imagined it would be in the tropics. I could almost feel its chill seeping through my skin and toward my bones.
I hoped the captain was right, and darkness would make it more difficult for the enemy gunners to target the ship. As for myself, well — I didn’t think it was coincidence that my small boat had been the ship’s first target. The pirate sentinel would be able to Discern the bale surrounding and emanating from me as clearly as if I were holding the glowing moon in my arms.
“Is the Chaser clear of the reef?” I asked Nje in Empyrian.
I do not understand, it replied in Chevachèchen.
Another cannon blast broke the night, and then sporadic rifle fire.
Until I was certain the Chaser was clear, I couldn’t afford to release any of the lifting balewalls. And that meant the enemy sentinel would be able to direct the pirates to aim at the ship. I shivered as I clung to the broken chunk of boat, then began kicking away from its hull, finding it awkward going with shoes on.
The shouting around me had quieted, although I still heard splashing and low voices. I was glad that at least some of the sailors had survived. Then I started as a hand fell on my shoulder.
“You’re going the wrong way,” Guerin hissed.
“Their sentinel can see me,” I explained.
“Are you unharmed?”
“Yes. Cadet Cornelli?”
“With two of the sailors.”
“Good.”
“I don’t suppose you could create a magical boat?” Guerin inquired.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Pity.” She swam around to hang onto the boat’s wreckage with me, and together we began maneuvering it farther from the other sailors.
“You are *** *** ***,” Nje said, its inflection upset. “*** *** ***.”
Another round of cannon fire distracted me. I didn’t have much to say to it, anyway. My hands and feet grew numb as I clutched the wet wreckage.
The night sky was rather attractive, I thought, raising my gaze upward. The stars and moon visible overhead through the drifting clouds of smoke, and the black sea stretched out all around me. Whenever a ship’s cannon fired, flame spouted and sparks flew like tiny comets plummeting toward the water.
I’d never considered drowning an ideal way to die, but perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad. The water was so cold … perhaps one could simply fall into torpor and never even notice when they slipped under the surface. I experimentally opened my hands, finding the effort more difficult and painful than expected, but discovered that Nje had bound me to the scrap of hull with tendrils of bale.
Ah, well. I shrugged the moment’s impulse away with a trace of shame. It wasn’t a proper urge for an Imperial Navy warrant officer, anyway. Cowardice was punishable by death.
Guerin nudged me.
“Send a burst of balelight across the water, 10 o’clock.”
I took a moment to figure out where that was, then dropped the wall protecting the cutters in order to accommodate the new call. My balelight flashed, almost blinding me, but before I let it slide back across the Line, I spotted a ragged line of boats rowing toward the Chaser, each packed stem to stern with armed pirates. The lookouts on the Chaser saw them, too, and cries of alarm went up.
“Sentinel, hold that light!” Tancrède bellowed.
With an effort I called it back, brightening the area over the pirates in a stark, unflattering white glow. They began rowing harder toward us, and those who weren’t at the oars brandished a motley assortment of pistols and rifles, shooting at the Chaser’s deck.
“There! The beck’s over there!” One of pirates pointed at me.
“No shooting!” another shouted. “Captain wants the bastard alive!”
“Shit.” I glanced at Guerin. Her eyebrows were high in surprise. “Now what?”
“Not to pressure you, Sentinel,” she replied conversationally, “but might you please violently deter the pirates from reaching us?”
“Oh. Of course.” I dropped the light and called balefire down on the small boat. Powder exploded and pirates screamed, throwing themselves overboard to escape the inferno. But the other boats had noticed, as well, and although cries of “Don’t shoot!” went up, some of the attackers began firing at me anyway as the boats drew closer. I winced as a bullet struck the bale armor that surrounded me, but although I felt the impact, when I looked at my arm, I saw no blood. I called more balefire on the next boat, and the next. The pirates started rowing or swimming away again as fast they were able, swearing up a storm. Then a bright balelight snapped around us.
“Nje?” I demanded, squinting.
Not me, it replied in Empyrian, then dropped into Chevachèchen. *** ship *** *** fire.
“Stop it, please, if you can.”
Someone on the Chaser was shouting, but I was too busy discerning across the water. And yes, there was the enemy sentinel, glowing on the deck of the Shrike.
*** *** balewalls *** you, Nje informed me as I pushed myself up higher on the wreckage with numb fingers, took a deep breath, and summoned as much balefire across the Line as I could to wash over the enemy — just as the enemy did the same to me.
As soon as flames licked my skin, I felt myself encased in bale and yanked underwater. Startled, I struggled, even though I could see the play of fire on the surface. Firelight dimly illuminated the water around me, and I saw that Guerin had immersed herself, as well, her eyes wide as she tried to keep herself below the surface.
Nje, help her! I tried to shout, although as I opened my mouth, bale slipped into my mouth and throat, tasting like carrion. I gagged on it.
You Saint-Clouds are *** *** *** *** ***, Nje whispered against my bale-covered ears. Tendrils of bale shot out and encircled Guerin’s waist, then swept up her body to cover her mouth and nose. She fought against it, her eyes widening in shock as she glared at me over the bale mask covering half her face, but I couldn’t speak to reassure her. Instead, as the flames dissipated, I kicked upward. My hands hit a sickly, glowing barrier before I could reach the surface. Startled, I looked from side to side. The Shrike’s sentinel had anchored a balewall on the wreckage around us on top of the water — damn good placement for a second-ranked pirate. I pounded on the bale, feeling my lungs starting to burn.
Stop, Nje commanded again in Chevachèchen. I *** *** you.
Frantic, I twisted my head to look for Guerin, hoping she might have found a way up. She was still floating next to me, though she’d apparently realized she wasn’t in danger and had stopped fighting the bale. Nje had wrapped bale around our noses and mouths as if it feared we stupid humans might otherwise decide to take a deep breath of salt water. Long tentacles of sickly, glowing bale extruded from our bale masks and spiraled out from our waists, probing at the wall that held us down and searching for the edges like alien tentacles. I didn’t think I’d be able to last much longer without air. I tried swimming upward again, my movements slow and clumsy as the water leeched away all my body heat.
***! Nje commanded. I had no idea what it was saying. ***!
I remembered the moment I’d let go of the wreckage, thinking that death by drowning might be a peaceful way to go, and decided that it was most assuredly not. Then Nje began moving us, its tendrils pushing against the balewall to propel us through the water. With a despairing groan, I closed my eyes and, despite all my best intentions and the bale that filled, finally drew in a heaving, desperate breath of bale and then … air?
A thin trickle of rancid but fresh oxygen entered my lungs. My eyes snapped open and I drew in another breath. Nje had … what? Created a hollow tentacle, some kind of bizarre breathing tube, that extended beyond the balewall’s edge? I grabbed the bale over my face as if squeezing it might deliver more air to my burning lungs.
Then, with a flurry of tentacles and arms, Guerin and Nje were yanking me up, out of the water. With a horrid sensation, the bale slid out of my throat and mouth and I gasped clean, fresh night air as gun- and cannonfire roared overhead.
“Fuck, fuck!” Guerin swore hoarsely, coughing and shivering. “Roll over and float, Sentinel!”
I made an effort and rolled myself over, shivering and staring up at the night sky. As I floated, a hand grabbed my wrist. I glanced to one side. Guerin was also resting on her back, her grip keeping us close.
“Thank you,” I murmured, finding it difficult to enunciate through numb lips.
You are very welcome, Nje replied against my ears, in Empyrian. I heard the wardroom’s scrupulous manners in its choice of words. Had I been thanking it or Guerin? I couldn’t remember.
“C-call help?” Guerin asked, her shaking voice barely audible against the clamor of battle. I drew in another deep breath, trying to focus, and cautiously tilted my head to look around.
Wreckage and bodies floated around us, and the great dark mass of the Chaser loomed overhead, lit by lanterns and intermittent explosions of powder as firearms went off. A rowboat bobbed by the hull, apparently intact. I attempted to call a balelight to illuminate it, but I struggled to hold my concentration, and it eluded me.
“There,” I said, gesturing with one trembling hand, instead. Guerin turned and began to swim for it. I envied her military stamina. I rolled over to follow but began to sink, instead. More bale tentacles coiled around me, propelling me forward as I shivered in their grasp.
Within minutes, and with Nje impatiently helping us both with coiling limbs of bale, Guerin and I tumbled into the abandoned pirate boat. We were both pale and shaking. Shouts and cries above us demanded attention, but neither of us had the energy to care. My uniform clung to me, heavy, cold, and wet.
“Fuck me, Saint-Cloud.” Guerin’s voice was weak and slurring as she leaned against the side of the boat. “You w’re right.”
“What?” I tried again to kindle a small balelight, but again the call slipped away in my exhaustion. Maybe Nje could help me hold it, I thought. I should ask.
“Wearing bale.”
“What?” I pulled my attention back to her with effort. Guerin rolled her head to look at me.
“Defin’ worse than a ball gown,” she mumbled. I had no idea what she was talking about. “But better’n drowning. What’s’s name?”
“Nje?” I felt the transient stir against me, tendrils of bale looping up around my throat and over my ears.
“Nje.” Guerin touched her forehead in a weak salute. “Much oblig’d, Nje.”
She is welcome, Nje buzzed against my ears. I will *** *** is yours, Saint-Cloud.
“Nje says you’re welcome,” I mumbled back to her. She laughed, weakly, then flexed her fingers and started rubbing her face.
“We need to move,” she said at last. “Can you make a fire?”
“No….”
She grunted, slowly starting to move again.
“You all right?” she asked.
“Nje … c’n you … call balefire for us?” I was going to ask that, wasn’t I? Had I already asked that?
No. I can not call. I **** *** a call **** you ***, it replied. Are you *** die?
“No?” I was guessing it’d had asked if I was about to die. I didn’t think so. I was moving, wasn’t I? But it so cold. We were in the tropics. Why was I feeling so cold in the tropics? “You can’ … can’t call?”
No.
I struggled to think clearly.
“C’n you —” A bright light kindled around us. I broke off in surprise, raising a numb hand to protect my eyes.
“Nje —”
Enemy, it snapped, as bale slid up to cover me.
“Drop the armor and don’t think about making any calls, Sentinel,” a voice shouted across the water. “We have three guns trained on you and your friend, and we’ll be happy to blow you both to pieces as soon as you even reach for the Line.”
I blankly considered the pirate boat in front of us, three of its six occupants brandishing pistols and one standing to address me. The speaker was a striking young woman wearing mismatched, well-worn trousers and tunic. The balelight glittered over a constellation of crimson beads woven into her long, tightly braided hair.
Discernment revealed that she was holding two calls, one of them the light around us, and the other extending into the darkness to the enemy ship. I swallowed and searched for a Vigilance badge pinned to her shirt, but of course there was none. I supposed pirate sentinels didn’t care about Imperial registration and licensing laws.
“Sentinel,” I grunted to Guerin, closing my eyes to gather my strength. Focus. I needed to focus. If only the shivering would stop.
The lieutenant heaved a sigh, more seen than heard in the shouting and sounds of combat overhead.
“Lost my rifle,” she confided, teeth chattering. “I can fight … if I must … but … can’t swim again.”
Instead of replying, I nodded and called balefire across the Line — or tried, anyway. As I fought my weariness to focus on the call, the sentinel shouted:
“Fire!”
Bullets struck me, knocking me backward. Nje angrily roared something in my ears.
“Take it!” I ordered, but my grip on the Line had already faltered, and there was no call there for Nje to pluck away from me. Two pirates grabbed their oars and began rowing as the other three reloaded.
“Try that again and I immolate both of you,” the sentinel said, her voice cold. “That bale armor might be able to resist fire for a while, but how do you feel about smelling your companion burning while we test it?”
Shit. I sat up, groaning at the pain radiating from the impact points on my chest. I looked down, touching the spot. The bale was intact, and I didn’t see any sign of blood. I looked at Guerin. Her face was pale, but she gave a pained grimace, baring her teeth in an exhausted but defiant smile.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’m s’ cold, fire’d be a pleasure.”
“I can’t.” I looked away. “Can’t put you at risk.”
“Risk’s m’ job!”
I shook my head. Perhaps the Navy would want me to fight, even if it meant sacrificing an officer, but the lieutenant had become a friend, and I couldn’t bear to lose the very few people I had left in the world.
Nje buzzed angrily in Chevachèchen as I raised my bale-encased arms.
“Drop the armor,” I murmured, as softly as I could. “Hide until I call.” Much to my relief, the bale slid off my arms and slithered under my clothing.
“My good behavior ….” I paused, struggling to muster the words, to enunciate clearly. “… depends … on your treatment … of my c-companions.” I shivered, wishing I could peel off my wet uniform and put on something dry and warm. “If you … if you kill them … no point in … not killing … all of you … fast as I can.”
The pirate woman gave me a long, evaluating look, and then abruptly stiffened.
“What is that?” she demanded. The pirates around her tensed, the weapons snapping toward me again.
For a split-second I considered lying — but what was the point? If they were going to kill me, I would, as threatened, muster the last of my strength to try to kill all of them, again.
“My … guardian spirit,” I said. I lifted my chin and stared at her. “I am Mazarin Saint-Cloud, and it protects me.”
Both she and the other pirates flinched. Next to me, Guerin gave a short, weak laugh.
“Don’t fuck with me,” the sentinel hissed, then said something in Chevachèchen to the pirates. As they raised their pistols, Nje uncoiled, encasing me in bale again.
She is enemy, it buzzed angrily in my ear in Empyrian. Do not talk to her. We should *** *** her.
“Shoot us and it kills you all,” I warned. “You can kill me, but you can’t kill it.”
Yes, ‘kill’, good, kill, we should kill her, Saint-Cloud, Nje hissed softly, immediately picking up the new word. *** *** *** die.
The pirates muttered to each other in a mix of languages, and the sentinel answered tersely, staring at me. I did my best to look like the embodiment of a forbidding bugaboo, although how well I succeeded, wet and shivering as I was, I couldn’t guess. Still, she was hesitating, and I thought that was a small win.
“We shall see,” she said, tightly. “The captain wants to talk to you. One call, Grandeu’ Saint-Cloud, and we’ll see which of us dies first.”
I slowly nodded. It was a tense truce, but taking time to gather my strength seemed seemed like the wisest course.
“Understood.” I looked across our boats at her. “Who are you?”
“Call me Kimona. Now, I’m stepping across to join you, and my companions are ready to shoot if either of you two makes a sudden move. Let’s find out what’s happening on deck.”