Stormbreak (Seafire #3) - Natalie C. Parker Page 0,34
mark! We need to be fast, our redirect as tight as we’ve ever done.” Caledonia looked over the familiar faces of her bridge crew, knowing they understood her intentions.
They’d made these canals their own in the past six moons. The Bullets pursuing them had the immediate advantage, but Caledonia had laid a trap for them long ago. Of course, when she’d set the charges that would bring down a small section of the walls, she hadn’t imagined approaching the site in reverse. And she hadn’t imagined needing to change directions.
“One hundred yards!” Harwell’s warning came amid a fresh hail of bullets.
“Pi,” Caledonia said without taking her eyes off the dark waters ahead.
“On it.” Pisces was already shouting for Pine as she left the bridge, readying the gunners to provide cover when the Luminous Wake made her move.
“Fifty!” Harwell called
“On my mark, Nettle,” Caledonia said quietly. At her side, Nettle was breathing evenly, her expression steely as she steered by Caledonia’s command. “Engines to half power!”
The ship slowed beneath their feet, giving the Bullets room to assault their nose with a fury of explosives. Caledonia ignored it all. Whatever damage they took, they would deal with it. Her only concern at the moment was making sure she had a crew left to do the dealing.
“Twenty-five!”
“Kill the engines! Ready on thrusters!”
Caledonia searched the dark strip of sky soaring above the channel walls. Behind her, the Bullets roared, and she heard the heavy plunk of hull puncher harpoons hitting her nose. She ground her teeth at the sound.
“Fifteen!”
The cliff wall to their right was nearly at an end. If she gave the order too soon, they’d destroy themselves. If she gave it too late, this wouldn’t work at all. She needed to give the order at precisely the right second and then trust her crew to change directions on the head of a pin, leaving no room for the Bullet ships to get in front of them.
Caledonia took a deep breath. Blood. Gunpowder. Salt.
The ship slowed beneath her feet, its nose sliding past the end of that cliff wall. “Now!” she called.
The ship growled as thrusters stopped them in their tracks and pushed their nose sharply to starboard. The maneuver exposed their port side to the Bullet ships, who wasted no time in renewing their attack.
Pine’s gunners returned fire, doing their best to provide cover as the Luminous Wake swung in a steady arc.
Then, finally, a new channel opened before them, empty and waiting.
“Engines to full!” Caledonia called.
They soared forward, leaving the two Bullet ships scrambling for speed in their wake.
Just as the two ships made to round the bend, Caledonia turned to Harwell, who stood ready with the remote in his hands. “Hit the button, Harwell.”
“Aye, Captain,” he said.
Behind them, the top of the canal walls exploded outward. Boulders crashed down on the two Bullet ships, driving their noses into the water and punching massive holes in their decks.
They vanished inside dust and rock and did not reappear.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Engines to half speed. Harwell, plot a new course out of here. Nettle, release the helm for a minute and follow me.”
Nettle hesitated so briefly Caledonia almost missed it, but she stepped aside, giving the helm over and following Caledonia outside. Quiet echoes of the eruption rumbled along the canal walls, sending smaller stones skittering onto the deck of the Luminous Wake. The crew hurried to assess the damage, every one of them aware that the danger might not be over just yet.
Caledonia directed Nettle to the rail. “Three deep breaths,” she said.
A frown appeared on Nettle’s slender lips, but she complied. Closing her eyes, she filled her lungs three times, releasing each breath in a slow, steady stream. When she opened her eyes again, a thin wall of resistance had crumbled. Her shoulders deflated and the tension she’d clung to while driving the ship backward at high speeds without being able to see where she was going lifted, leaving her shuddering in the rush of wind.
Caledonia let her feel it all, and then she pulled the girl against her own chest, wrapping her arms firmly around Nettle’s slender shoulders.
“Good work,” Caledonia said, brushing a hand down the back of Nettle’s hair.
“I don’t know why I’m shaking.”
“If you weren’t, I’d be concerned,” Caledonia soothed.
“You never shake.” Nettle sounded disappointed in herself, and for that Caledonia felt a stab of guilt.
“You just never see it,” she admitted. “I trembled for hours after we sailed through that whirl. I just have more practice hiding it.”