Stormbreak (Seafire #3) - Natalie C. Parker Page 0,28

He kissed her again and Caledonia let him lure her from the swift current of her anger.

“How do you know you’ll still want whatever that is?” she asked with a teasing smile.

“Because I love you.”

The words seemed to surprise them both. Caledonia pulled away sharply.

Oran watched her with a steady, unflinching gaze. Expectant and somehow also resigned to whatever she said next. As if now that he’d said the words, he knew their truth and was ready to accept whatever she said in return.

“Oran,” she said and then there were no more words. Her heart beat a hasty, incomprehensible rhythm in her chest and her mind refused to settle on any single thought. Did she love him? How did he love her? Why had he chosen this moment to say it? When she was unprepared. Had considered no course, no strategy, no possible means of response.

“Oran,” she repeated in a desperate attempt to trick her mind into finding an answer when all she wanted to do was ask her command crew for options.

The skin around his eyes tightened and he opened his mouth to speak when there was a pounding at the door.

“Captain!” Pine’s voice filled the silence behind the pounding. “We’ve got news.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

By the time Caledonia and Oran arrived in the observatory, the rest of the command crew and Hesperus were already gathered.

It was late. The curtains were pulled against the chilly night air and a fire had been set in the low-lying fire pit. Kae pressed a cup of hot teaco into Caledonia’s hand as she entered. Around the room her crew bore signs of having been roused from sleep. All except for Amina and Hime, who were bundled as though they’d just returned from town. And Nettle, who bounced on her toes and looked like she was physically restraining herself from speaking.

“Captain’s on deck,” Pine announced, fixing Oran with a dead-eyed stare.

The room snapped to attention, heads swiveling toward the sight of their leader. Caledonia took one of the seats near the fire, directly across from Amina and Hime.

“Captain,” Amina said with a sharp nod. “We have a problem.”

Behind Amina, Hesperus glowered at everyone. His jaw was clenched and he bristled with energy, suggesting that the problem was something more of an imminent threat.

“I’m listening,” Caledonia said, setting her teaco aside.

“A rogue ship came in after sundown,” Amina began. “They went through all the usual channels: the ship was searched before moving into port, the crew questioned, everything seemed in order. Hime and I were doing rounds on the dock when they were assigned a berth and began to unload their cargo.” Here she leaned forward, elbows pressed to knees, expression stony. “Their cargo included everything they needed to build a pulse bomb.”

Pulse bombs weren’t explosive in the way of mag bombs, missiles, or even star blossoms. They weren’t incendiary, they were acoustic, made for shaking apart the foundations of buildings or shearing off the side of a cliff.

“Why wasn’t it caught immediately?” Pisces demanded. “Everyone assigned to intake is supposed to know what they’re looking for.”

“They do,” Tin said, rushing to defend the teams she worked so hard to organize. “They all do.”

“But pulse bombs haven’t been used in ages,” Oran supplied. “Their pieces look practically harmless in isolation and Aric stopped their production because they’re useless at sea.”

“Not so useless if your target is basically a mountain,” Pine shot back.

“Cloudbreak,” Hesperus growled. “My city is their target.”

“Yes,” Amina confirmed without turning to look at the man towering behind her. “But there’s more. A single pulse bomb is bad in isolation, but not enough to do more than a little damage. With two or more, they work in conjunction. They amplify each other.”

“What happens then?” Pisces asked.

Hime raised her eyes and signed, They blow a hole in the foundation of Cloudbreak. The entire city could crumble in an instant.

“How many were they planning on building?” Caledonia asked. “How many would it take to destroy the city?”

“They only had enough to build a single bomb.” Amina’s answer lacked the reassurance Caledonia was hoping for. “I’m not sure how many it would take. Five? Six? And depending on where they’re placed, it may take less. These things have a way of setting off chain reactions within structures . . . or mountains.”

“That’s it?” Pisces’s expression went slack.

“That’s good though, right?” Nettle was huddled close to the fire, knees drawn to her chin, all her earlier eagerness sapped by the news. “There was only one and we got