Set Sail

by Jack of a Few Trades


Chapter 9: I wonder what he's up to...

“Silverstream! Dinner will be ready in ten!” Sky Beak’s voice was muffled through the door. If I’d had music playing, I don’t think I would have heard him.

“Ok, Dad!” I yelled, assuming he’d hear me. Tonight was lobster night. I missed the days when Mom and Dad used to combine their cooking powers. Mom made the kelp fritters, Dad’s specialty was the lobster. My stomach rumbled at the thought of my favorite meal from days gone bye. Since Dad and I moved to Mount Aris, we rarely ate all together as a family.

Tonight, we only had half of the equation. Terramar was with Mom tonight, so it was just me and Dad for dinner. Lobster without kelp fritters. I was hungry, but I had something more important on my mind: math.

“Add three, carry the two…” I muttered under my breath, tapping a talon against my beak. The personality test results required a lot of calculation to get to the meat of the matter. Somewhere in the mix of numbers and letters spread out on the page before me resided the truth about Gallus.

Math always got a bad rap in schools, but I loved it. I enjoyed seeing patterns and figuring out how things worked with just some symbols on a piece of paper.

Sweat pooled on my brow as I worked, my brain running at full capacity. I was nearing the answer. Just a few more computations before I would have a picture of Gallus in rock-solid, quantifiable data. I took a glance over at the instructions one more time to ensure that I was adding and subtracting the right numbers and checked my work. The mess of values and variables condensed down into just three.

It was done. Centering came first, and he scored low: 24, firmly in the introvert category. That made sense, considering his closed off and shuttered nature. I smiled. The test was accurate after all!

For the next trait, Flexibility, he scored 53, just barely falling into the Adaptable category. Again, it made sense. He was pretty adaptable, but he also liked his routines when he could establish them.

The last metric featured a high score of 70, tipping him to the Rational side of the Rational/Emotional scale. Again, it made sense. Gallus was a thinky sort of guy. I’d only ever seen him get emotional in the middle of big moments, like when he confessed to us about his lack of family during the winter holidays.

Or on Saturday.

I scooted back from my work and rubbed my eyes, blinking hard. I had so totally focused on my work that the room was dark now, all of the day’s light gone from the windows. It must have been a couple of hours since I first sat down and looked at what I was doing. My stomach rumbled, but that didn’t matter. Now that I had my data, I had work to do.

So Gallus was I-R-A: Introverted-Rational-Adaptable. I could work with that. My attention turned from the papers scattered across the floor to the imposing figure of the easel, standing in the shadows. It knew I was coming for it next.

The colors on my palette were still wet from the painting session over the weekend, though what remained was mixed together and dried in a few spots where it had been spread more thinly. I elected to clean it and start anew, using a knife to scrape the old paints into the trash. A fresh perspective needed fresh paint.

With my palette refilled and fresh colors ready to go, I wheeled the easel out from the corner and put it in the center of the floor. I took a deep breath and took in the canvas, the lines from my previous attempt waiting to be joined by new friends, ready to be completed.

Introverted. Rational. Adaptable. What colors represented that? Hmmm…

Seconds ticked by with my brush hovering over the palette. My eyes darted from color to color, searching for a complement to the yellow, blue, and pink stripes already on the canvas.

Green? I considered it for a moment and shook my head. It was directly between blue and yellow on the color wheel—not complementary to either. It didn’t even correspond to the subject matter. I didn’t envy him, nor was he envious of me. It was just a random choice, but I had already started the painting with randomness! It didn’t need more of that.

I consulted the literature that came with the personality test, flipping through the pages until I found the information on Gallus’s personality type.

I-R-A personality types are resilient, independent thinkers who love an intellectual challenge, the pamphlet read. They are very focused on what’s real, and tend to be closed off—both in their resistance to trying new things and the concealment of their truest feelings.

I started losing focus as I read deeper into the writeup, even though it didn’t continue that much longer. The literature was more concerned with happy little icons doing average, everyday things than it was with providing the insight I needed. It made sense, given that the personality test had only cost me ten bits at the drugstore.

“I already know all of this!” I shouted, dropping the booklet on the floor.

I looked down at my brush and back up at the canvas. Did I really need any more? I knew Gallus. I knew him pretty well, all things considered! I could easily assign colors to those traits I knew about him. I could finish the painting right now. I could make it look good. An abstract painting could take liberties—maybe the finished result wouldn’t be what I envisioned, but that was okay. Nogriff would ever know.

Introversion would be a muted color. Pastel green? These core personality traits would fill some areas on the canvas, background colors that I probably should have laid down before I painted the first stripes a few days ago. Rational screamed a deep red, maybe with a little bit of orange mixed in? I could blend the two a bit, maybe do a three-way gradient once I’d picked a color for adaptability?

I swirled some colors together until I felt satisfied with the shade of green, but paused when I brought it up to the canvas. Something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t place a claw on it. Was it the colors? Sure, green blended into red wasn’t the most pleasing combo, but something else bothered me. Several minutes ticked by as my brush danced over the palette, never settling on a color or a mixture to begin. I slowly grew more frustrated at my indecisiveness until I took a step back and looked at the whole easel.

Am I going to sacrifice my artistic integrity just so I can finish the painting faster?

Even with the personality test, I knew nothing more about Gallus than I did last week. Yes, he closed himself off and concealed some of his true self from me, just like the test result said. It was accurate, but only as a broad generalization.

I didn’t want my painting to be a generalization.

I stared at the canvas for several more minutes, searching for a way around the problem, but none came to mind. My enthusiasm slowly withered until I finally breathed a defeated sigh out of my nose and set the palette aside. Pushing the easel back into its corner, I resigned it to be finished later, and turned it to face the wall. The last thing I wanted was for it to stare at me while I slept.

My palette was fully loaded with colors, but I had no idea what to use them for. My muse was stuck on Gallus’s painting, and it wouldn’t budge until I finished it. Unless I cracked the case in the next couple of days, the paints would dry up and go bad, never used to create anything.

That thought made me sad, but provided me with a little bit of motivation to keep working on the problem. I needed a new tactic, something that would yield me some real results, like what I’d gotten when he fell into the stackberries.

Do I need to push him into another thornbush to get him to be real with me?

I snorted, laughing off the ridiculousness of the thought.

Unless...

I blinked and shook my head. No. I would not inflict pain on Gallus to get him to talk to me. There had to be a better way, even if it was hard. I just needed to hang out with him more, and then the information would come. If I could hang out with him, that was. I hadn’t seen him at all since Saturday when he’d left in a rush because he needed to help his roommate move a fridge.

I understood the urgency. Refrigerators are heavy, but he could have at least mentioned it to me at some point before just running off. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to him! The way he acted, it almost seemed like he was nervous about something.

It was a good thing I knew he didn’t get nervous easily except in tight spaces, otherwise I’d think I was the one making him nervous. Boys sure could be weird sometimes.

“Dinner is ready!” Dad called from the other room.

Not a moment too soon. I flipped the lights off and went downstairs to get food, but thoughts of griffons didn’t leave my mind immediately.

“I wonder what Gallus is up to…”



“GRIFFON!”

I froze in my tracks, the feathers on the back of my neck bristling as I spun around to find the source of the shout. Cedar Breeze stood at the door to his office, and he motioned with a claw for me to come. I let out the breath I’d been holding and walked back into the shade under the dry dock overhang. The sudden lack of oppressive heat from the sun made me shudder. Or maybe it was the nerves?

I closed the door to the cramped office behind me and faced a cold glare from the lieutenant. “Sir?” I asked.

“What do you have to say for yourself, recruit?”

“I don’t know?”

“Apparently you have a lot to say. Word on the street is that you’re a bit of a chatterbox,” Cedar Breeze said, his tone uncharacteristically serious.

“Is this about my job?” I asked. “Because I hardly say a word to anygriff all day long.”

“Not to the crews, no, but I hear you like talking on your personal time. Chatting with strange hippogriffs who show up on your doorstep unannounced?”

I filled in the gaps. “The reporter?”

Cedar Breeze nodded.

“How did you—”

He shook off the question before I could finish it. “I have my sources,” he said. “Who was it? Was it Valiant Wing?”

“Yes.”

Cedar Breeze groaned. “Of course it was her. You know she’s the biggest muckraker at the Daily, right?”

“No, I—”

“Of course you didn’t. You haven’t lived here for two weeks yet.” Cedar Breeze sat down at his desk and wiped a wing across his forehead. “Let me tell you something. I was a journalist before I joined the navy, so I know how they operate. Those griffs will tear you down if you give them anything they can use against you. What did you tell her?”

I shrugged. “I don’t remember half of it. We mostly talked about how I’m the only griffon to ever work here.”

“I guess it shouldn’t concern me too much since I’m not in PR, but there’s something we usually tell our recruits on day one: never talk to the press. I figured you’d have less faith in strangers since you’re a griffon.”

I was taken aback, but only slightly. Nearly every time the lieutenant talked to me, he made at least one jab at how greedy or hostile griffons were. Every. Time. Because he was my superior, I knew I wasn’t in a position to counter it, so I stayed silent even though it irked me that I couldn’t call him on it.

There was a pause where he probably expected me to say something, but I kept my beak shut. After a moment, Cedar Breeze continued. “Okay, so you talked to the press unsupervised. That’s not good, but I doubt you gave away anything that would cause any real damage. I mean, you’re just on trash detail!” A raspy, very one-sided laugh echoed in my ears. The lieutenant cleared his throat. “Alright. I bet you’re going to hear about this from somewhere higher up the ladder soon. Be ready, because you’re probably gonna get one heck of a chewing out for it.”

“I’ll be ready for that,” I said, my eye twitching.

“Good. Dismissed,” said Cedar Breeze, waving me off and turning his attention back to whatever was on the jumbled mess of his desk. I didn’t care what it was, so I left on the downswing of a very unenthusiastic salute.

The trash had been particularly nasty that day, rotten leftovers from what I assumed was a fish chili night a week ago—dumped haphazardly into a leaky trash bag. I couldn’t force myself not to shower when I got back to my apartment. I spent extra time working the soap and water in between all of my feathers, deep-cleaning the sweat and rancid garbage fumes. I must have been in there the better part of an hour. Not that it mattered. I lived alone now.

The water got rid of the day’s funk, but it didn’t get rid of the tension I’d built up. I was annoyed and a little bit fearful of whatever reprimands were surely coming down the line for me. If they were so concerned about security, why didn’t they give me a briefing on what I could and couldn’t do on my own time? I was completely untrained, and they were getting mad at me for that?

I grumbled to myself as I paced around the den. I needed a distraction, and it didn’t feel right poking around in Ty’s room, so that left me with very few activities to occupy myself. I had a book I bought at one of the yard sales, so I sat down in my recliner and cracked open Nautical Terminology for Idiots.

I only got through the first page of the introduction before my eyes drooped. Exhaustion from the heat and exertion caught up with me all at once. I closed the book and rested my head against the chair.

The next thing I knew, I woke up in a pitch-dark room with my head hanging over the armrest. My right wing was pinned awkwardly under my ribcage, the wing joint complaining loudly about the situation. I propped myself up and folded the wing in, the dull ache subsiding a bit once the pressure eased.

I must have fallen asleep for several hours. I had to feel my way over to the light switch, the magilights in the room firing up with the dull hum of their enchantments. I stifled a yawn as I took a look around the room. Falling asleep had helped dull the unpleasantness of the day, but now I was wide awake at ten o’clock.

I would go stir-crazy if I stayed here for the rest of the night. Maybe a couple of laps around the mountain would clear my head and let me go back to sleep. I shut the lights off in my room and headed down the ramp but stopped at the front door.

Should I? Going out at night was something I reserved for emergencies back home in Griffonstone. After dark, the city transformed from callous to dangerous. Any griffon encountered on the darkened streets could be a threat—a mugger or maybe kidnapper if they were bigger than you.

But this place was different. Hippogriffs were hardly the self-serving opportunists that griffons were. A loner on the street at night here was more likely to get walked home than mugged. Hippogriffs were really not all that different than ponies, maybe only slightly less nice. Really, they were just tall ponies with beaks and claws.

I chuckled to myself as I imagined how ridiculous Princess Celestia would look if she grew a beak. Or maybe it wouldn’t be very ridiculous at all? She’d basically be a hippogriff without any plumage.

Still, better safe than sorry. I didn’t bother taking anything with me except for my keys. If I was going to get mugged, they’d get away with just me at best—I had plenty of sharp edges on me to discourage that.

I locked up the apartment and started walking at a brisk pace. The night air on the mountaintop was growing chilly, the nearly-full moon casting the street in dim streaks of moonlight. Since I’d lived here, I had always turned left when leaving the apartment. Tonight, I decided to turn right. Though it wasn’t exactly prime sightseeing time, it still counted as exploration.

Mount Aris was deceptively spacious, a place that looked considerably smaller from the outside. Walking around in the city proper, the tree canopy obscuring just how limited the space on the mountaintop actually was, I didn’t feel surrounded on three sides by gigantic stone wings fifty feet thick.

I walked in a straight line for a couple of minutes. I couldn’t tell for sure what direction I was heading, but the general slope to the right told me I was walking toward the south. Ahead of me, the murky darkness of the tree canopy solidified, and I knew I’d found the south wing. That meant I had three options: left, right, or up.

I needed to get my muscles working, so I went vertical, spreading my wings and taking off straight up. Some branches brushed me as I broke out of the canopy, but nothing close to what I’d crashed through when I went into the stackberry bush. I still itched a little bit from that.

When I broke through the trees, I noticed the stars... or the lack thereof. One of the things I’d missed about home was the night sky. Equestria had a bit of a light pollution problem, and the stars were never as brilliant there as they were back home in Griffonstone. Mount Aris had the same kind of sky as Ponyville, a bit hazy from all of the lights on the mountain.

I was something of an amateur astronomer back home, or at least as much as I could be, considering that I couldn’t afford a telescope. I still couldn’t, even with a navy salary. I always liked looking at the stars in my free time. I liked finding patterns and watching how different constellations drifted across the sky throughout the year, and as cheesy as it was, they made me hopeful. The vast universe held plenty of possibilities, each little point in the sky representing another place that existed far away from Griffonstone. I knew I wouldn’t be stuck in that backwater slum forever.

And look at me now. Crappy job, no prospects, terrified of my own friend.

I shook the thought from my head and kept flying, gaining some altitude. The mountain at night looked a bit like the big Hearth’s Warming tree I’d helped set up and then sabotaged over winter break, covered with glass house ornaments and illuminated by randomly scattered outdoor lights. I was directly over the Harmonizing Heights, close to the spire now, the ledge I’d fled from on Saturday looming faintly against the backdrop of the sky.

More memories bubbled to the surface. Silverstream being the first volunteer to stay with me after I confessed and got sentenced to remain in Ponyville over the break. Silverstream being a little clingy toward me for a few days after the Tree of Harmony put us through that fear gauntlet. Silverstream putting in so much more effort than she needed to so I could come here for the summer.

I didn’t understand why I did it, but I came in for a landing on the ledge, knowing full well what I was doing to myself by coming here. My eyes were well-adjusted to the dark now, and I could see all of the details of the stone, even a couple of claw marks on it. A blue feather was tucked tightly into a crack. I dug it out with a talon and held it up to my face.

Yep, it was mine. I sighed as I twirled the feather in my claws. It had probably come loose when I scrambled to dive over the edge and run from her. That had been four days ago. I hadn’t talked to Silverstream since.

In fact, I’d been avoiding her. Yesterday she came over and, thankfully, didn’t let herself in this time. I hid in the bathroom, sitting in the pit with the lights off and praying she wouldn’t come in to try and find me. Apparently she got the message last time when she’d barged in and woke me up. After knocking for a couple of minutes, she left me alone.

I felt a little bit guilty, but I couldn’t blame myself for it like I could with all the other little slights I’d been throwing her way. If I had talked to her then, I would have broken down and blabbed about everything. The lies. The crush. All of it.

I needed more time to be able to face her. I needed to be able to put all of this nonsense behind me and get back to normal, and I felt that I was nearing the verge of a breakthrough. A few more days, and I would have all of those feelings repressed to the point that I could ignore them and let them die in the depths of my subconscious.

Not a moment too soon, as far as I cared. Without Ty in the house, I lived a solitary existence once again. I missed her. I wanted to hang out like we did last week. But I still needed time, and that was when I realized where I was. This was one of her favorite spots, and even though it was late, my chances of running into her were significantly higher up here than elsewhere on the mountain.

Not to mention that I hadn’t fed Sassafrass. I needed to head back, so I spread my wings and started coasting back down toward the city.

I landed on Main Street and opted to finish up with a little more walking. There were a few hippogriffs out on the street, though all of the open markets were shuttered for the evening. I kind of liked it, the usually bustling market all still and peaceful under the night sky.

I turned down the side street I had taken with Silverstream when we walked here before the incident on Saturday. The street was dark, the tree canopy covering the road and filtering most of the moonlight out like when I’d left. A few street lamps dotted the road, but the majority of them were unlit.

I kept my eyes out for the turn onto my street, but as I kept walking, it didn’t seem to be coming up where I thought it would. I kept walking for a while, but the intersection didn’t appear. I was heading downhill, toward the front of the city.

“Took the wrong turn,” I grumbled, doing an about-face and starting back the way I’d come. Not that it was a big deal. More exercise to tire me out, I couldn’t complain.

After a few more minutes of walking, Main Street neared once again. One more try—after that, I’d just fly up and come in on my usual return-from-work route. I noticed a tiny bit of grogginess creeping its way back into my eyes, so maybe by the time I got back—

Movement. My eyes darted to a tree house on the right. A shadow had just slipped around the back side of it. My hackles raised, but I gave myself a shakedown to quiet them. This wasn’t Griffonstone. I wasn’t about to get attacked.

I kept on my way, but on the other side of the tree, the shadow reappeared, darting to the next one, the hippogriff’s hind hooves audible against the dirt. Hippogriffs weren’t as stealthy as griffons, though this one was making a reasonable effort to try.

Then another shadow darted past, right on the heels of the last one. Instinctively, I crouched down, lowering my profile. Surely they knew I was here, as I’d just been walking out in the open. I slipped to the side of the path, hunkering down in the shadows, my ears perking forward to listen closely to any sounds I could make out. I couldn’t hear or see anything. The two shadowy figures seemed to have stopped behind a tree.

What are they up to? I wondered. A few more seconds passed with no more movement, and I slowly crept forward, putting more weight on my rear paws and walking on my knuckles to silence the clicks of my talons. I slunk along on the side of the road, hugging the edge of the streetlight’s glow. The shadowy figures were heading toward Main Street. There was no sign of them in the next gap between trees, and so I kept moving up.

There. They were on the move again. I crossed the road and decided to tail them a little closer, slipping between the buildings on the same back alley path they were using. It was risky business if any more hippogriffs were following them since they could come up behind me and catch me, but I had faith in my stealth. Though my feathers were bright blue, they blended well in the dark.

Wait. Why am I doing this? What those two mysterious hippogriffs were doing out here at night shouldn’t have been any of my concern. All I needed to worry about right now was the lizard waiting for her dinner back at home.

But what I needed to do didn’t quite align with what I wanted to do. Slinking around under the cover of night? That was interesting. I didn’t need to know what they were doing, but I was morbidly curious. I kept on their tail, careful to leave just enough distance that they wouldn’t notice me.

They paused at Main Street, hiding behind a closed market stand, watching and whispering to each other. They held for several minutes, peeking their heads out periodically. A few hippogriffs passed on the road here and there, and it became clear to me that they were waiting until the coast was clear to cross the wide thoroughfare unnoticed. I hunkered down next to a bush about fifty feet behind them.

Suddenly, they jumped up and broke out into a dead sprint, darting across the wide open street, both laden with some sort of packs over their backs. The leader was orange, a bit shorter and faster than the griff behind her, a pale gray male based on his stockier build.

They were probably sneaking around because of the contents of their packs. I fixated on those. Had they robbed someone? I slunk across the gantlet of street lights after them, hoping I would make it without being seen.

A few twists and turns down the back alleys north of Main Street, and I got my answer. They disappeared around a corner, and when I poked my head out, I was practically staring right up at them, just a couple of feet away. I froze, but they didn’t seem to notice me. The leader stood on the doorstep of the corner building, which she knocked on three times. I still hadn’t been noticed, so I slunk backwards and hid myself behind a trash can sitting by the road.

The door opened quickly, and the two mysterious griffs disappeared into the building, the door slamming shut behind them.

“So that’s it?” I muttered with a frown. Pretty anticlimactic for all the sneaking around. I waited a minute, and when no more signs of activity showed, I stood up to make tracks for home.

The door swung open, and out stepped the orange hippogriff. I sunk back into my hiding place, watching carefully and holding my breath as she scanned the horizon. A few seconds later, her gray partner in crime also came out. Neither of them had their packs, but the gray one held a bag of something in his claws. I couldn’t make out what it was in the dark, but I could hear it.

Coins. A lot of them.

Wordlessly, the two shared a fist bump and started on their way, walking right past my hiding spot without noticing me. They slipped around a corner, and once I was satisfied they were clear, I stood up and walked out to the main road.

That was a lot of money. Based on the size of the coin sack, at least five hundred bits—about what I made in a month. I found the right road home this time and spent the rest of the walk thinking about what they were going to do with all of that money. I wondered what I could do with all of that money.

Sassafrass was attempting to climb the glass walls of her tank when I got into Ty’s room, like her lizardy way of protesting me being late with her food. As Ty had instructed, I let a small crowd of ants crawl up onto the damp sponge before I transferred it into the tank, where Sassafrass started picking them off hungrily with her dart-like tongue.

As I watched her eat, I looked around the room at the various shelves stuffed with knickknacks. Ty had quite a collection of junk in here, most notably a guitar and a ukulele propped up on the wall. It was left basically as he lived in here, and it was interesting to see all of the things he had stowed, like I was viewing a small snapshot of his personality in physical form.

“I wonder what Ty’s been up to…”



I rolled onto my stomach and pushed myself up from the deck. I was vaguely aware of the dull ache where I’d landed on my shoulder when I dove, but it didn’t matter.

The lookout’s nest was gone. Debris littered the deck, small fragments of the shattered nest surrounding two large halves of it that had crashed into the deck, buckling it in a couple of places.

It fell right on top of Berry Breeze and Cardia.

Eidothea’s lookout nest was relatively large, a full platform atop the mainmast instead of the barrel-sized ones that cheaper ships used, and now it was sitting in shambles on the deck. I rushed over to the debris, and I found that my worst fears were realized.

A pair of wine-red hind legs were sticking out from under one half of the platform, one of them wrapped in a splint.

My training had prepared me for crisis scenarios. I knew that keeping a calm and level head would create a more effective response to the problem. In that moment, knowing that a hippogriff was under the debris, that immediately went out the window. I panicked and grabbed at the rubble, feebly attempting to lift it off of Berry Breeze. It didn’t budge.

“Help me!” I shouted. One by one, crew members gathered around and took up positions. We heaved on three, lifting the heavy mass of mangled wood off of the hippogriff below. We moved it to the side and dropped it. It didn’t matter anymore.

Cardia, who must have jumped out of the way as I did, was already by Berry Breeze’s side when we finished moving the debris, but as soon as I laid eyes on the victim… I knew. There was too much blood. Cardia looked up at me and shook her head, a forlorn look of resignation on her face.

I felt sick. Angry. Guilty. Emotions I didn’t know about boiled to the surface, ready to erupt, but before they could come out, I was pulled back to reality by a very candid reminder of what did this in the first place. Another cannonball whizzed through the air, but this time way off the mark, sailing well clear of the stern and hitting the water on the far side of the ship.

Right. We’re still under fire.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and pulled myself together. I was the first mate, so I had a job to do. If I cracked now, we were as good as dead. “Battle stations!” I screamed, twirling my wrist in a circle above my head, signalling to the crew to get a move on. “I need eyes on! Did anyone see what side that came from?”

“Starboard bow!” shouted a sailor. I crossed over from the port side and peered out into the fog, leaning forward and squinting hard to try and make out anything in the mist, but there was nothing there but a gray wall.

Another cannon report in the distance was almost immediately followed by the sinister hiss of the cannonball as it passed overhead, missing so high that I never heard a splash on the other side.

“They’re firing blind,” I said, thinking out loud. “The one that hit the crow’s nest was just beginner’s luck.”

I still couldn’t see the source of the cannonfire thanks to the fog, but on the next shot, I saw the faintest flash in the mist before the next ball sailed by us, this time a little closer but still a fairly wide miss. We didn’t have much time before they got lucky again. I folded up my sightglass and rushed across the deck with wings spread, bypassing the ladder entirely.

Captain Virga watched me burst through the wheelhouse door, and I could see the tension in her eyes. “Typhoon, would you mind telling me what the hell is happening out there?” she asked.

“The crow’s nest took a direct hit and we lost part of the mainmast. I’m not sure if Bluesy was at his post when it struck, but we confirmed a casualty from the debris falling on a rescued sailor.” The words tasted acrid coming out. I wanted to scream, but I had to hold it together.

“Any idea where it came from?”

“Somewhere off the starboard bow. No idea on the range, but they’re totally obscured by the mist.”

Moraine turned around in her seat. “How the hell did they hit us on the first shot if they can’t see us?”

“Lucky shot,” I said. “Their aim isn’t great, but they must have been watching us and attacked right after the fog rolled in. They’re firing blind, but I think they’re trying to dial it in.”

The captain nodded and began turning the wheel to the right, feathering the throttle to the steam engines. “I’m turning toward them to present a smaller target. Moraine, get on the cube and notify command that we are taking fire from unknown hostile elements and intend to neutralize the threat.”

“Aye, Captain,” said Moraine, picking up the communication crystal.

“How many of the crew are assisting with the rescue?” the captain asked of me.

“A couple dozen are out there now. Should we call them back?”

The captain pondered it for a moment, but shook her head. “No, they need to keep rounding up the survivors. Any idea on the size of what we’re up against?”

I shook my head. “Can’t see them.”

“We need to send spotters out there then,” said Captain Virga.

“I’ll do it, ma’am,” I blurted. The job would have been better left to gunnery spotters, but I wanted to do something, not sit here with cannonballs flying around me.

I expected the captain to turn me down, but instead she nodded and levelled an intense stare at me. “Alright,” she said. “Find that ship, and do it before they start scoring hits again.”

I snapped off a salute and quickly did an about-face before I could let my nerves show. I exited the bridge and jumped down to the deck. “Hydro!” I shouted, finding the big blue leader of the previous reconnaissance flight. He was assisting with tossing the lookout’s nest debris over the side to clear the deck.

“Sir!” He stepped out from the gathering of sailors on deck.

“You’re on me. We’re sniffing them out.” He was wearing his equipment from the first flight he made, but I still needed some for myself. I headed below to the gun deck and outfitted myself with flight goggles and a sword from the armory room at the back of the gun deck, fitting the belt snugly around my midsection.

“Ready?” I asked.

Hydro put his goggles on and nodded. My pair were tinted for flying in sunny weather, but they would work. I secured them over my eyes and we took off at a dead sprint, leaping over the railing and taking wing. We set off in the direction the cannonfire had come from: straight south, according to my compass. I thanked my old drill instructor for her insistence that I keep a compass on me because the ship faded into the mist immediately after we lifted off, leaving us with no landmarks except for the glowing blaze of Itroscia’s wreckage.

The flight lasted under a minute before we found out just how close we actually were. A muzzle flash cut through the mist just below us, and the telltale whizzing of the cannonball as it hurtled past. The source lurked just ahead, a dark silhouette slowly bleeding through the murky fog. Finally, I could see what we were up against.

“Seriously?” It was an enemy ship, alright. But it was small. Considerably smaller than Eidothea. A two-masted schooner—a little vessel obviously intended for civilian use but commandeered as a quick run-and-gun swashbuckler—useful for terrorizing unarmed fishing boats but horribly underpowered to deal with a fully-outfitted navy corvette like Eidothea. They must have only had one long gun on board, which they were aiming in our general direction. I held up a flattened hand, bringing Hydro and myself into a hover. “You seeing what I’m seeing?”

“Yep. That’s what took out our lookout nest?” he asked.

“Must be.”

“Weird that they’re shooting at us. Usually they just run away,” said Hydro. “Think they might have sunk Itroscia?”

I studied the faint silhouette below us as another cannon report cracked through the air from below. “I’d be shocked if they did it alone.”

Hydro nodded, keeping his eyes trained downward. “So, what do we do?”

“That’s up to the captain.”

We flew back to Eidothea at full speed, crashing headlong through the mist with abandon to get the information back as fast as possible. Once the ship appeared from the gray, I could see that the rescue operation was moving along. Our crew was using their shards to daisy-chain the survivors and let them transform into seaponies. A steady stream of them swam toward the ship, and they were gathering on the port side where the crew on board was changing them back so they could climb the netting we’d lowered over the side. I dismissed Hydro back to his post on deck as we landed. He went over to assist with bringing hippogriffs aboard, and I went straight to the bridge.

“It’s a schooner,” I said, closing the door behind me. “Looks like one long gun. About six hundred meters out.

“Just the one?” asked Captain Virga.

I nodded. “That’s the only source of cannon fire.”

Captain Virga seemed to sense the implication in my answer, frowning and scratching her beak. “They didn’t sink Itroscia.”

“That’s what I was thinking. It looks like they’re either making a diversion or leading us into a trap.”

Moraine scoffed, still working with the cube at the desk. “And we’re not already in the middle of one now?”

She made sense. We were alone out here, and our position would leave us with little in the way of tactical advantage.

“Whatever it is, we can’t continue the rescues if we have cannons trained on us,” I said. “They’ve already killed our lookout and one of the survivors. Can we spare some crew to fly over and take care of it? I can lead the mission.”

“Splitting our crew between that and the survivors would be dangerous,” said Captain Virga. “Divide and conquer, we’d be playing right into their hand.” The captain stared pensively out the window for a moment, and then she took a grip on the wheel. “Put the rescues on hold for now.”

I saluted and went outside, descending the ladder with haste in my step. I was about to make a lot of griffs unhappy. As much as I hated doing it, I had orders.

“Make way!” I bellowed, parting my way through the small crowd around the netting. The survivors were easy to distinguish from the regular crew by their soaked feathers. Their uniforms were in varying states of repair, many of them missing their bandanas. I peered over the side, watching a couple of sailors clamoring their way up the netting. Down below, a dark blue hippogriff who I remembered as Brutus clung to the edge of the netting just above the water line, using his shard one at a time to transform the seaponies back to hippogriffs. He had things surprisingly organized. “Hey Brutus!” I shouted.

“Ty?” he asked.

“Bring it in, sailor,” I said, waving my claws in a ‘come here’ gesture. He looked up at me quizzically, but nodded and started climbing up after the last hippogriff he’d de-fishified. This was met with a lot of shouts from the gathering of seaponies still waiting in the water. “We can’t take you all on right now,” I addressed them. “We have to go take out whoever is shooting at us before we can get the rest of you aboard. Stay here, we’ll be back for you as soon as we can.”

I turned away from the railing before their protests could meet my ears as anything more than a dull roar of voices.

I felt the ship gently accelerate. It was slower than if we had our sails out and a tailwind, but the steam engines did a passable job of getting us underway. As a corvette, Eidothea was sleek and built for speed as far as sailing ships went. The group of seaponies in the water drifted away slowly, and I could feel their anguished stares on my back even though I wasn’t watching them.

The crew continued tending to the several dozen new arrivals from Itroscia. Cardia directed the process of moving them down to the lower decks, the more severely injured griffs being carried down below by my crew. As I watched them shuffle down the ladders, a selfish thought crossed my mind. We were about to be extremely crowded with lots more mouths to feed for the rest of our voyage. Did we have enough supplies to get us to port, especially now that our mainmast was damaged?

I didn’t dwell on it. Those thoughts could wait until we didn’t have hostile ships firing on us, as another cannonball whizzing past us reminded me. The shots were still missing wildly because they couldn’t see us directly, but they were close enough to be problematic. Another random chance hit like the one that took out the crow’s nest could wreak havoc with even more griffs on board.

Our gunners would need to be briefed, so I joined the procession going down. The gun deck was a tense place, all of the gunners sitting ready by their cannons, peering out of the gun ports and watching tensely. Powder Keg was near the bow, his…

His arm was stuck down the bore of a cannon.

“What are you doing?” I asked incredulously.

“Powder’s wet,” he said. “Gotta get the shot out so we can replace it. I keep hearing cannonballs and a lot of racket upstairs. You got good news for me?”

I decided not to tell him about Bluesy. “We’re going after the pirates shooting at us. Is your crew ready for a full broadside?”

Powder Keg nodded. “Minus this one, we’re ready to go. Twenty-three cannons waiting for the signal.”

“You have it. You’re cleared to fire at will.”

He chuckled manically. I normally would have been off-put by his enthusiasm to shoot someone, but I was angry. The bastards on that schooner killed two griffs and Poseidon knew how many more on Itroscia.

I wanted to see them torn to shreds and sunk.

A few minutes passed in tense silence as we slowly made our way toward the pirates. The source of the cannon fire slowly drew closer, and I spent those minutes running back and forth ensuring that everything was squared away and ready to go. Any crew on deck was armed with swords, and when the silhouette of the offending ship finally appeared in the mist, we were as ready for combat as we could ever be.

As soon as we came into view, the cannon shots got a lot more accurate, one of them glancing off the hull on the port side and splashing into the water just off the stern. The stationary pirate ship ran out their sails in an attempt to dodge us, but we were too quick for them. We had been approaching them dead on, and then the ship started a right turn, lining up the port side for a pass on the pirates.

The seconds that ticked by as we approached carried the tension of a cable stretched between two planets. The main deck was silent, everygriff staring intently at the target. I half expected them to mount a last-ditch attack and send any flight-capable pirates at us, but they didn’t. The ships slowly aligned parallel to each other, and when we were abreast of them, Powder Keg got his wish.

The row of port-side cannons erupted, a zipper of lead running from bow to stern as the gunners got their first ever taste of action. One after the next. Boom. Boom. Boom. The percussion of each one was tangible in my face. I watched the pirate crew duck down as the hail of fire descended on them. Cannonballs ripped into the smaller vessel, punching gaping wounds into the hull. Wood splintered, followed by smoke. If I hadn’t been already deafened by our own cannons, I could have sworn I heard a faint scream from the distance. Or maybe it was just my ears ringing.

Cheers erupted from the crew on deck once the volley ended. We watched the enemy craft begin to list and smoke, fire breaking out in its stern. It was a triumph for Eidothea’s crew. The first engagement we’d ever participated in, unplanned and unprepared, and we came out on top. Someone hugged me spontaneously, and I halfheartedly accepted it.

It felt surreal. The vengeful part of me was sated. We’d torn them a new porthole below the waterline, just like I wanted!

But we’d probably just snuffed out dozens of souls. It wasn’t that I was horrified. They more than deserved it. I had no qualms about doing what we had to do, but I felt… different. Though I hadn’t lit the fuse, I had participated in the sinking of that boat. I had given the order to fire that resulted in the killing of other living beings.

What disturbed me was that I didn’t feel any remorse.

But the operation was far from over. I would have plenty of time to dwell on things later. We had work to do. With the immediate threat dispatched, we could turn around and go back for the rest of Itroscia’s crew, hopefully before any other pirates got too big for their britches and came at us.

Eidothea started its turn back toward the northwest, and I kept my eyes on the receding form of the pirate ship as it slipped lower into the water. I could see the tiny forms of several pirates scurrying around on the deck of the stricken ship, a few of them jumping overboard.

Okay, scratch that, I felt just a little bit of remorse—emphasis on little. They were still murderers and thieves.

Now that the immediate threat had been taken care of, I could think a little more about the big picture, in particular what Hydro and I had discussed.

“Think they might have sunk Itroscia?”

“I’d be shocked if they did.”

I learned long ago that gut feeling was never to be ignored. Though we had taken out the threat for now, my instincts told me that we only had part of the picture. Something else was lurking out there. The griffs we’d rescued from the Itroscia wreck could hopefully provide some useful information on what we needed to do. I mounted the ladder to go down to the crew deck, but stopped just before my head dipped below the surface.

Another cannonball whizzed past the bow.

The unease in my gut hardened into a dense mixture of anxiety and frustration. It couldn’t be as simple as just taking out one rogue ship, saving the crew, and going home as heroes. No, we just had to deal with an entire damn fleet.

I climbed back up onto the main deck, readying myself for another speech to calm the crew down, but then another cannonball came. And another. One from the port, one from the starboard, and two from the stern. Instead of assurances, I yelled the order to battle stations, flew up to the poop deck, took out my spyglass, and extended it in search of the source of the cannonfire. The fog was thinning slowly as the cold front receded further away from us, giving me a bit more range. This time, the sources of the shots weren't totally obscured. A couple of sloops were flanking us on either side, taking potshots but clearly missing on purpose. Not a huge problem. We could handle that.

But when I found the ship firing from off the stern, my jaw dropped.

Out of the fog, the faint outline of a ship nearly twice the size of ours revealed itself. They had their blackened sails run out, and somehow they were still approaching us fast despite going against the wind. It was a galleon, a massive ship made for both fighting and hauling big things, evident by the way its stern rose to a sharp point on the end, giving it the appearance of a cat stalking its prey—us.

I felt our ship’s turn tighten. The captain was taking evasive maneuvers, probably to try and outrun the looming threat. Surely she needed something of me, so I dropped down to the bridge. “What’s the game plan, Captain?” I asked on my way through the door.

“Shoot the gap and get the heck out of here,” she responded levelly. Only her white-knuckle grip on the wheel betrayed how nervous she was. “I doubt that galleon can make it through the gap we did. All we have to do is get there. Moraine, you got a bearing for me?”

“0-7-5,” Moraine called out. “I think.”

“Do you think or do you know?” barked Captain Virga.

“It’s between 0-7-4 and 0-7-6. I can’t tell exactly without any landmarks to go on. We’ll have to adjust once we can see it.”

The captain cursed under her breath.

“And the rest of the survivors?” I asked.

More cannonfire erupted from the galleon’s deck guns, the shots screaming past both bow and stern.

“They’re swimming,” she said with a sigh. “This is officially too hot for us to handle. We’re bailing and hoping they can’t catch us.”

Eidothea had a good chance of outrunning the galleon if we could maneuver around them and avoid a broadside. But it would be close. We were angled perpendicular to their approach, and with just our steam-powered propellers, we were a lot slower than usual.

“Can we use the sails on the mainmast?” asked Captain Virga.

“Negative,” I said. “The top of it is sheared off. Just the fore and mizzen.”

“Raise every sail we have left. We need all the speed we can get.”

I saluted and went to work once again, using my fingers to pinch-whistle and get the crew’s attention as I left the bridge. “All griffs on deck! Run the sails out, now!

We went to work immediately, taking our places and the ropes and opening our sails wide. The cold wind caught on them immediately, attempting to pull them free of our control. The masts groaned as the wind grabbed the sails, the speed boost they provided immediately noticeable.

The galleon drew closer, beginning to angle itself toward us. They were still fighting the wind, but they must have had one crazy propulsion system to be able to keep up with us. We just had to keep trying.

They must have sensed our play, because all three of the pirate ships were converging toward us. One of the sloops followed behind the stern, but they had no chance of catching up. The other was closing in from the port side, and the galleon loomed on the starboard. They and the much larger galleon were attempting to catch us in a pincer movement. Our only hope now was our speed. If only they hadn’t gotten that lucky shot on the mainmast, we probably would have made it with time to spare.

All we could do now was watch and wait with bated breath. The minutes ticked by as the slow race played out. Now that they were closer, I could make out that the galleon’s hull was painted in pale olive green, similar to the color of algae. An imposing figurehead in the shape of an eagle adorned the bow, and I could see a crowd of sailors on the deck, waiting and watching just as we were.

Green Haze. The intel was wrong. The hunting ships had followed a false lead, and now we were here to take them on all alone.

The pirates drew nearer minute by minute. The fog was clearing steadily, and now we could see the rocks ahead that would be our saving grace, but we were going to make it by a whisker. Running into that gap at full sail was a risky move, and we could easily sink ourselves if the pirates didn’t beat us to the punch.

Green Haze loomed a mere hundred meters away now. I could make out the faces of the pirates on deck. A ragtag group, mostly parrots with a few abyssinians and equids mixed in. They were eyeing us hungrily, waiting in the wings like we were their meal just moments from being delivered. Most of my attention was on them, the biggest threat, so it came as a shock when I heard shouting from the port side of the deck.

“Get clear! Incoming!”

I whirled around to see one of the pirate sloops mere meters off the port bow, closing fast. They were coming in shallow, the wind pushing them quickly toward the ship.

The sound it made when the sloop hit our bow was horrendous. Creaking, groaning, splintering wood. The confused shouts of the crew on deck. The whole cacophony of the crash was horrible, as was the lurch as our ship lost a very considerable amount of forward speed.

So they were stopping us by force. Well played, pirates.

For the first time during the whole engagement, Captain Virga emerged from the bridge, a grim scowl on her face. She drew her sword, crossing to the port side of the deck, headed for the point of impact. “Swords ready, griffs! Don’t let them board us!”

“I wouldn't worry about that too much, Captain,” said a new voice from behind me, loud enough to pierce through the commotion. The crowd of griffs on deck turned as one to face its source: a bright red parrot wearing a worn gray coat and a tricorne cap with an eagle embroidered on it. He hovered in place just off the starboard side, a belt carrying a broadsword and two flintlock pistols hung loosely around his waist. “We wouldn’t want to go somewhere we aren’t welcome.”

Captain Virga rushed through the crowded crew and took up a place on the railing at the front of the pack, raising her sword toward the pirate, though he was well out of her reach. “Sternclaw,” she spat.

“Ah, so there’s no need for introductions! I’m always happy to save time.” Sternclaw barked a laugh, a chilling sort of joviality so inappropriate that it carried a sinister edge. He was flanked by a small wing of goons, other parrots all hovering in place behind him, swords held in their claws as their wings were occupied with keeping them aloft. “Good morning, Captain and crew of—” he craned his neck to peer toward the bow “—Eidothea! I love the names you navy griffs put on these ships—very elegant.”

“You do realize that what you’re doing is a provocation of war, don’t you?” said Captain Virga. “You sank Itroscia and marooned the entire crew to die.”

“Accusations! Goodness.” He feigned shock, even floating backwards a few inches for effect. “Not a lot of pleasantries in you griffs today. Is it the weather? I personally hate it when it gets foggy and cold, but there’s no need for nastiness.”

“Do you deny those accusations?”

Sternclaw shrugged. “Well, no, but when you put it like that you make me sound like some kind of maniac.”

“You fire on my ship unprovoked and ram her with a sloop, and you’re concerned with semantics?” Captain Virga’s grip tightened on her sword. “You really are mad.”

The parrot’s smile fell. “Now we’re throwing insults. Tsk tsk, Captain, you could use a lesson in politeness.”

Captain Virga’s brow furrowed. His nonchalance was getting to her. “You know it’s unwise to present yourself before an enemy force? Maybe I should come up there and teach you a lesson in war strategy.”

“I wouldn’t advise that.”

“And why not? I’ve got a hundred griffs and you have seven parrots with you.”

Sternclaw chuckled, and then his face darkened. The sickly cheerful demeanor evaporated, replaced with a stone-cold glare full of murder. “Because if you even so much as make a move at me, my crew will ensure that there are no survivors.”

I think everyone on the deck involuntarily glanced at Green Haze’s cannons. Captain Virga, for her part, appeared unfazed by the threat. She did adapt a less threatening posture though, lowering her sword and resting it on the railing. “What is it you want, exactly?”

And then he snapped right back to chipper. The sudden change creeped me out. “Oh, nothing much. Just all of those magic necklace things you’re wearing.”

Captain Virga looked over to me and tipped her head slightly, motioning for me to come over. “What in the name of Poseidon could you possibly do with our shards?” she asked as I parted a few griffs out of the way.

“I have my reasons,” said Sternclaw. As soon as I stepped up to the captain’s side, I heard a click. Captain Sternclaw had a pistol aimed right at my head. Nothing sent shivers down the spine quite like being a twitch of a claw away from death. “I don’t like all these side-eyes and nods you’re giving him, Captain. I don’t think you’re planning a dinner date for later. You wouldn’t happen to be plotting something, would you?”

Captain Virga shook her head. “No, nothing of the sort. It seems you have the better of us, so we concede. We fully intend to cooperate so we can achieve the best possible outcome for all of us. We’d like to go home at the end of the day. I’m merely sending my first mate down to check the bow for leaks after you rammed it. Is that allowable?”

Starnclaw considered it for a moment, and then uncocked his pistol, waving it to the side. Captain Virga turned to face me, and I was really glad I was paying attention to her face, because she mouthed the words ‘Full steam.’ Immediately I understood. Raise the boiler’s pressure as high as it could go, and then give it full throttle.

We were busting out of here, or we were going to die trying.

I carefully backed away from the railing, watching the pirates to make sure I wouldn’t end up with a bullet in the head anyway. When I got to the ladder to the lower decks, I bolted down it, only remembering that I hadn’t been breathing for a solid minute when I reached the bottom. I sucked down wind as I raced through the gun deck, the crew deck and down to the orlop deck—the cargo hold. The orlop deck was cramped and dark, only a single narrow passage between supply crates and ropes as thick as my hind legs. I thought I felt a rat brush my leg, but now was not the time to think about rodent problems.

Faint light ahead guided me to the stern. The fire in the boiler was the only light source down here below the waterline. I pushed ahead as fast as I could through the cramped space, ignoring the latest in a series of adrenaline rushes I’d had in the last hour.

The boiler was a large metal box tucked away in the very back of the ship. The low overhead in the orlop deck rose about a meter to accommodate its size. The actual mechanism was concealed behind a large wall of metal plate, several valves sticking out of its surface and a firebox door the only features on its surface other than rivets.

“Ty?” asked the crew member who had been tasked with keeping the boiler fed. He was fairly new, so I wasn’t totally solid on his name yet. I decided his name would be Boiler until I learned otherwise.

“Grab your shovel,” I said, taking the spare one from an overhead rack. “We’ve got to get this fire going as hot as it can.”

“Yes, sir,” said Boiler. He sounded frightened, a bit of shakiness in his voice. “What’s going on out there? I heard a lot of cannons going off. Did something hit the bow?”

I shook my head. “It’s a mess,” I said, taking a shovelful from the coal pile and throwing it into the firebox. “Be glad you’re down here. Might be the safest place on the whole ship.”

We continued shoveling coal into the firebox until we had reasonably reached the limit of what fuel we could dump into it. The fire in the box roared, the heat threatening to singe the hair on my legs every time the doors opened. “Keep the fire going as hot as possible and don’t let off any excess pressure until it’s at the limit. Be very careful with that pressure valve. If you take your eyes off it for a second, you could blow us all up.”

Boiler gulped. “What’s all this for, sir?”

I paused, searching for the right words. “To save our asses.”

Boiler nodded reluctantly and saluted me. I gave him a quick slap on the shoulder and bolted back to the ladders. I could count on one hand the number of times we’d actually fired up the boiler since I had come aboard Eidothea, and now it might be the one thing that saved us.

Once I got back topside, it was immediately clear that Captain Virga was stalling. Sternclaw was wearing a smug grin, chattering away about something or other. “...simple really. Parrots lack magical ability, so if I want to do anything fun, I have to get creative. That’s why I need your necklaces.”

“Surely there’s a better way to get magical artifacts than this,” said Captain Virga, almost chiding him like a schoolteacher would a rowdy fledgeling. “I hear the black market is full of those. You probably know more about that than I do.”

I slipped over to her side. “The hull looks solid, ma’am. A little damage, but it should hold until we make it to port.”

“Thank you, Ty. Would you go alert the second mate on the bridge?” She flashed me a weary look. She was nervous.

So was I. I saluted her and made my way to the ladder cautiously, keeping an eye on the pirates. He was more occupied with her than with me. “And pay for some shoddily enchanted glass? Do you know how much I actually make ransoming cargo ships? I couldn’t afford what those buzzards out in the Badlands are charging.”

I stopped paying attention and climbed the ladder, again only remembering to breathe once I was safely inside the bridge. “Moraine,” I said.

“Please tell me there’s a plan to deal with these goons?” she said.

“Yeah, there is.” I crossed the bridge to the wheel and took my position at the helm. The parrot goon squad could see everything I was doing through the windows, so we had a very limited window of surprise to work with. I gripped the wheel and the throttle levers next to it, my hands shaking faintly and rattling my claws against the handles.

“Run.”

I threw both throttle levers forward as far as they would go, and the ship lurched. I could feel the pressure in the boiler beneath my feet releasing, faint vibrations rolling through the decking. I jerked the wheel to starboard, angling us toward the gap in the rocks. Captain Virga was ready. As soon as we were under power, I heard her muffled scream from outside: “Full sail, let’s go! Everyone else, get those—”

A gunshot rang out, followed by the commotion of an entire crew of hippogriffs springing to life. A chorus of battle cries and wingbeats followed the gunshot. The sails were opened once again, and they added to our acceleration, though the sloop still clinging to our bow slowed us down. The parrots I could see through the window all flapped hard upwards at once, giving themselves altitude. They rose out of sight, revealing instead the side of Green Haze just a stone’s throw away. Two decks of cannons run out.

Aimed right at us.

“Hit the deck!” I screamed. Puffs of smoke and fire spouted from the cannons on the galleon, and I had a bare second to react before the windows exploded inward. I closed my eyes and turned my head, the glass raining across my right side. The thunder of the cannons mixed with the horrible cacophony of shattering glass and splintering wood. Something heavy and hot hit me in the shoulder. It felt like my whole chest had ignited, the flames burning down into the flesh. I fell down hard as the wheelhouse shredded around me.

That horrible second lasted for an hour. I lay on the floor, arms protecting my head, ears ringing from the sound. I heard more cannons, this time our own going off in retaliation, but they were something short of a full broadside. I only counted five shots from our guns. I opened my eyes and looked up.

None of the windows on the starboard side were intact, and a couple of the wheel’s handles were torn off. Moraine was also on the floor, covering her head with her claws. She turned her head toward me and—

A huge shard of glass was sticking out of Moraine’s right eye.

“Oh gods,” I muttered, crawling across the floor to her. My own face lit up with pain as I looked at hers. “Moraine, you with me?”

“I can’t see anything!” she gasped, shuddering. “My face hurts so bad. Ty, is something in my eye?”

Shivering, I nodded. “You could say that.”

Moraine’s breathing sped up as she panicked. I chanced a glance out the starboard windows. The cannons had disappeared from Green Haze’s gun ports. They were reloading, and in less than a minute, they’d be ready to fire again. We didn’t have time to panic.

“Moraine, can you stand?”

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Okay. Can you open your left eye?” Reluctantly, she did. Tears spilled down her face as she propped her good eye open with her claws. “Good. There’s a big piece of glass in your right eye. Be careful with it. I need you to steer.” I helped her to her feet and guided her back to the wheel. When she was situated, I crossed the bridge and opened the door. “I’ve got to go check on the—”

I opened the wheelhouse door and immediately retched when I saw the scene on deck. The cannons had been loaded with grapeshot. Anti-personnel fire. The entire volley was intended to kill the crew, not destroy the ship.

Dozens of griffs lay dead or dying on the deck below. Those who were fortunate enough to escape the worst of it were dazed, milling around aimlessly in a sea of death and destruction. Our sails hung limply against the mast, having not been secured before the volley.

I searched the deck for the captain, and when I found her…

I stared. Her pale blue form lay motionless in the spot she had been standing when I saw her last. I couldn’t pull my eyes away. I had just spoken with her moments before. I had just enacted her plan to get us out of here.

And now she was dead.

Every second I stared at her body, I felt more and more dissonance. It grew outward, a strange numbness that started in my chest and worked its way down my limbs. I was frozen in place in the wheelhouse doorway, unable to move. Unable to avert my eyes from the horrible sight of my commander lying dead among dozens of her crew.

Something yanked hard on my tail, pulling me back a step.

“Ty! Go!” Moraine shouted, pulling me back to reality. I whirled around and faced the horror head on, steeling myself against it.

Captain Virga was gone. That meant I was our new captain.

“Raise the sails!” I screamed, jumping upward to the poop deck and the mizzenmast. My shoulder screamed in burning agony, but I ignored it. I rushed to the ropes and was joined in short order by several wide-eyed griffs in various states of shock. We took up our positions on the ropes like mindless drones and heaved, pulling the sails open and tying them off. The effect was appreciable in the strong wind, the ship creaking and groaning under the extra thrust.

We still had the sloop clinging to our bow, and that was our next problem. Pirates on the deck of that ship were coming out, drawing their swords. One by one, they spread their wings and started flying toward us. I drew my sword, ready for the impending fight.

But it never came. The parrots flew upward, crossing over top of us just above the height of the mast. The sloop’s crew was abandoning ship and returning to Green Haze.

A new set of hoof and claw steps joined us on the poop deck. It was Hydro, the plumage on his neck stained red from a gash just below his jawline. He was lucky it didn’t go deep enough to get the jugular. “Are you guys okay?” he asked.

I didn’t answer him. “Find survivors and render first aid. Hydro, go down and see how many first aid kits Cardia has left.”

“Yes, sir,” he acknowledged. “Why aren’t they boarding us?”

I followed the fleeing parrots back to the pirate galleon. The guns had been rolled out again. I pointed a claw at them. “That’s why. Get down!

The screaming of a thousand murderous demons manifested itself once again. Another volley erupted from Green Haze, but this time they fired actual cannonballs. The heavy fire tore through Eidothea, wood splintering and cracking the length of the ship. Once again we all dropped to the deck in hopes of surviving. I watched a ball crash through the foremast, shearing it off just above the deck. The broadside was over in seconds, but this time the damage was more structural. The foremast fell over the side of the ship and splashed into the water below, taking another of our sails with it.

Two hundred meters to the gap. We were so close, but we wouldn’t survive another volley. On shaking legs, I stood and hobbled over to the side of the ship that had taken the worst of it and peered over the railing. Holes dotted the side of the ship, large ones. Smoke rose from some of them. Was something on fire down there? Then a scarier thought occurred to me.

Were we taking on water?

Immediately I rushed down to the bridge. “Moraine, keep us on course for the gap!” I didn’t bother waiting for her response. She knew what she was doing. I could trust her to get us there.

Down the ladder I rushed. The gun deck was in shambles, and I didn’t even want to think about what those cannonballs might have done to the crew deck, crowded as it was with survivors from Itroscia.

Down in the orlop deck, my fears were realized. Water pooled on the floor. I could hear the sound of it rushing in under pressure on both sides of me. For these sorts of emergencies, we kept wood wedges and hammers below the waterline. I felt my way to one of the breach kits and took as many wedges as I could grab in one wing and a hammer in the other.

The darkness of the orlop deck was less than ideal, but a clue lay ahead. Light shone in through a hole in the ceiling, and I traced the trajectory to find where a jet of water was shooting into the ship. The ball had split the hull outward but not punched through, and I accidentally kicked it as I walked up, stubbing my claws. I didn’t care. I immediately went to work, driving the wooden wedges into the hole with frantic fervor despite searing pain in my shoulder. The seawater was like a firehose punching me in the face. I couldn’t breathe. And still, I hammered away. It was this, or we were sunk.

It took six wedges to fill the gash left by the cannonball, though a slow trickle of water remained. It would have to be that way for now. The water had risen to fetlock deep now. I rushed to the next hole I found near the bow and filled it. I nearly choked on seawater, but I got the second hole patched. With that one sealed, I turned around and saw the faint outlines of a couple of other griffs had followed along and were hammering away to seal breaches down by the stern.

There were enough griffs working on the breaches that I felt reasonably confident they’d be able to control it, so I left them to it. Captain Virga was dead. I was the acting captain now. I needed to lead us out of here. “Good work, griffs! Keep it up!” I shouted as I headed for the topside. The words felt hollow.

Once I was on the surface again, I felt a bit of relief. Green Haze trailed behind us, no longer in position to pepper us with cannonballs. We were entering the gap now, a gap they were too large to fit through. I heard groaning and crunching, watching as the pirate sloop clinging to us rose out of the water and stopped in place, ripping free of the bow. Eidothea bucked to the side as The Blades sheared the parasitic vessel off of us, impaling it on the rocks.

We made it. Normally I supposed I would have cheered at such a success. I had survived a too-close brush with death. We had escaped from Captain Sternclaw.

But not all of us had. I was surrounded by the bodies of griffs I’d known for years. My friends. My second family. I watched Green Haze disappear behind the rocks, and I didn’t know what to feel. I couldn’t say that I felt nothing, but stepping over the bodies of my crew only made me nauseous.

Back in the bridge, Moraine stood at the helm, watching nervously out the windows. She still had a huge piece of bloody glass sticking out of her face. “This was a lot easier when I had more crew to guide us through. And two eyes,” she added dryly. At least her injury hadn’t dampened her spirit.

I didn’t respond. Moreso, I couldn’t. I flopped myself down at the navigator’s desk and looked at the cube. It had split into chunks, a deformed lead ball lying on the desk next to it. So much for telling command what had happened.

I sat there for a few minutes, watching the rocks pass outside the window, my mind numb. Not a single thought went through my head during those minutes. I think my brain had taken all the abuse it could for one day. I hadn’t slept all night either. As the adrenaline slowly drained from my bloodstream, I became more and more aware of the pain in my shoulder. What had happened with that anyway?

“Ty,” said Moraine, pulling me back from my zone-out.

“Yeah?”

“You’re bleeding.”

“So are you.”

“Look at your arm.”

I glanced down, and sure enough, my entire right arm was red. A charred hole in the shoulder of my vest led to a deep wound, blood oozing from it and dripping from the tips of my claws. Had I left a trail on the floor? “Huh, would you look at that.”

“Go down and get yourself checked,” said Moraine. “That looks serious.”

“You first.”

She glared at me with her good eye.

“Okay, fine. But you’re going as soon as I get back.” I said, hoisting myself out of the chair and limping for the door. My vision swam a little as I stood. I was about to step out when Moraine stopped me.

“We’re losing power,” she said.

I twisted my face up in thought. “Oh yeah, the orlop deck is flooded. Probably quenched the fire in the boiler.”

Moraine’s eye widened. “And we’re down to one sail?”

I nodded.

The rocks receded away from the window a little. We were through the narrows. I glanced to the port side, toward the spot where we’d left Mother of Pearl before we traipsed into The Blades.

It wasn't there.

I was too tired to care. “Looks like we’re running out the oars,” I sighed, climbing down the ladder and doing my best to keep my sight above deck level. Everything hurt, but only like a distant echo of pain. I knew it was there, but I couldn’t tell where it started or stopped. On wobbly legs, I lowered myself down the two remaining ladders to the crew deck.

The entire deck overflowed with hippogriffs in varying states of distress. It was bad enough that some of the Itroscia crew, still drenched and covered in oil, were helping tend to the wounded among Eidothea’s crew. Some griffs were bloodied. Some were missing limbs. A couple were dead, cannonball holes directly above some of the bunk spaces.

I stood off to the side, my head swimming. It was like watching the scene through a glass orb, everything distorted and further away than it should have been. A distant echo of voices and commotion that I couldn’t understand reverberated through the space.

Suddenly, the floor rushed up to meet me, darkness encroaching on the edges of my vision. One last thought went through my head before everything went dark.

I wonder what Diamond’s been up to...