Stormbreak (Seafire #3) - Natalie C. Parker Page 0,94

“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.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

The following morning, it was Harwell who greeted Caledonia at her bedroom door. His mousy brown hair stood straight up from his head and he held his hands up as if in surrender.

“Ah, sorry, Captain, terribly sorry to interrupt—it’s just—well, just that—”

“Harwell,” she said, voice calm and encouraging.

“Right, it’s just that Lir is on the comm.”

Her heart leapt at the name, and her instincts told her to hurry, to run and see what it was Lir had to say to her, but in the next moment, she was calm once more.

“Thank you, Harwell,” she said. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

Behind her, Oran was lacing up his boots. She did the same, taking the time she needed to dress and prepare. When she was done, she strode into the early morning with all the clarity and focus she needed for the day.

The communication tower was no taller than the surrounding buildings, but the roof was covered in broad radio dishes that allowed them to send and receive signals over much larger distances than the receivers on individual ships.

It was strange to be inside the room that for all the turns of her life had collected and disseminated information about the Mors Navis and rogue