Stormbreak (Seafire #3) - Natalie C. Parker Page 0,105
it’ll be too late,” Caledonia said, voice grim.
Oran didn’t answer. They both knew it was true. Once Caledonia hit the water, she was on her own.
“Incoming!”
The ship rumbled. Fire sprayed across the deck and the girls scrambled to put it out. Then the moment they’d all been waiting for: the Mors Navis turned her sleek bow toward them and moved to engage. Caledonia jumped to her feet. Lir was on that ship. Maybe Donnally, too, and every instinct urged her to stay with her crew and fight, but Hime stood in her way.
End this.
Caledonia’s eyes strayed back to the deck of her ship, where her crew was moving together so seamlessly it might have been choreographed. They needed her, but they also didn’t, and that gave her all the confidence she needed to redirect her thoughts and her mission. Theirs was to finish this battle. Hers was to end the war. And as much as her heart still longed for vengeance, Lir wasn’t the war.
“I will,” she promised. “Pisces! You’re in command!”
“I have command!” Pisces shouted for all to hear.
Smoke now stretched across the deck, and Caledonia’s crew turned to her as she draped one leg over the rail of the ship. They were all there. Ready to hold the line for her, ready to finish this together.
Even Oran. He stood in their midst with a gun in his hand, and though he looked as if it took every bit of his will not to race to her side and haul her into his arms, he didn’t.
“See you after, Captain,” he said.
The unspoken promise lingered just beneath the surface of those words. Caledonia intended to come back for them.
“Stay steely, girls!” she shouted, and then she dropped over the edge.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Her boots hit the shallow hull as a spray of gunfire peppered the Luminous Wake just above her head; a missile drove beneath the waves and exploded nearby; and all around the ocean was furious with vigorous, slapping waves that rocked her small boat.
She dropped her pack, revved her engine, and ducked low behind the wheel, aiming for the megaship. The second she pulled away from the Luminous Wake, three ships drove up on either side of her. Narrow noses sheared through the waves like needles, sliding alongside her with ease. Each bore a single pilot, their bodies bent low so that they were nearly prone against the boat. From their slender hulls, webs of electricity arched in a dome, cocooning them in a shield that dispelled gunfire as if it were nothing more than rain.
The two nearest edged in until they were close enough that Caledonia felt the hum of electricity against her skin. Then, with a snap and a vibrant shock, the two shields merged into one with Caledonia safely in the center.
They drove hard, skimming along the waves as they angled around and between larger ships. Inches above Caledonia’s head, gunfire snapped against the shield in a constant refrain. Ahead, the megaship loomed large against the blue sky, while just beneath, two dark holes like eyes marked the channels that would carry her through to the other side. She aimed for one, bracing her feet on either side of the narrow hull.
As she drew closer to her target, the battle shifted suddenly. It was as if all at once, the Bullets understood her goal and together turned their sights away from her fleet and onto her. They approached from all sides, firing relentlessly. The shield sparked and snapped. Fire flashed across the nose of her ship and for a second the mouth of the tunnel was lost behind a wall of smoke.
When it cleared, what she saw made her stomach drop.
A crusher was aimed right at her. And Caledonia suspected that no matter what kind of tech the Hands of the River had on their small boats, it wouldn’t matter when that prow hit them dead-on.
The slender wheel vibrated against her slick palms. She wasn’t going to make it. Either she changed course now or she would feel the full, punishing effect of that ship’s substantial prow.
But before she could do anything, another ship surged into her peripheral vision. Caledonia recognized it as the Blade. Sledge’s command. And all at once she knew exactly what he was going to do.
The Blade swept in, gaining speed as they arched like an arrow flying through the air. Ice gripped Caledonia’s lungs. The Blade soared ahead of her just in time to slam into the crusher.