Cold Snap snatched up the captain’s binoculars and looked through the window.
Sails. So many sails. They rode in with the eastern sun. They snapped and billowed in the breeze. They filled the sky like a flock of ivory birds.
The ships they drove looked no less impressive. Heavy of draft, full of masts were some. Trim and sleek were others. Gilded and painted figureheads showed creatures from all manner of legends pointing their prows ever forward.
There had been more ships at Port Archer. Cold Snap knew that for a fact, but they were mostly tramps and fishers. What bore down on the limping Rosewere powerful military vessels. By the yellow and red pennants snapping in the wind, undoubtedly some jewels of the Minotaurian navy.
Cold Snap feared this. When the captain informed him that their destination lay on the zebra land’s coasts, he knew that the battles between the minotaurs and the coastal tribes sparked all along that rocky coast. The navy may not think twice about attacking a lone, uncolored ship, and the captain’s letter of marque may not mean much to the minotaurs.
He moved closer to the captain’s window. All plans of escape had been forgotten in the moment of impending battle. He saw the distant crews moving like insects aboard their craft. There were many, many of them.
Types of ships were not something Snap had studied on the farm. He barely could tell a schooner from a canoe. Time on board Captain Gideon’s ship had taught him much. He could make out eight ships. A brig and four schooners led the charge like wild cats bounding through the sea while the three lumbering and powerful frigates behind them lagged behind and readied their many cannons.
The Yellow Rose was rushing through her own preparations. He could feel the engines rumbling at an even higher pitch.
Engine. He clarified. They only had one. That was why they were traveling so slowly. With both, they would outpace the squadron even with this wind. That was why they were preparing for battle.
“Gunnery, estimated range and disposition?” the captain’s voice crackled from his desk.
Ice filled Snap’s body. He hadn’t heard the captain come in. He should have left when he had the chance!
His panic subsided. Captain Gideon had not addressed him. In the stress of the moment, there was a slim chance the griffon hadn’t noticed him. And even if he had, a snooper in his quarters was small fry compared to what was outside that window.
He turned. The captain wasn’t there. His confusion lasted a good moment before another voice replied. “Range of eight-hunnerd yards and closing fast. They were on the far side of the islet when we departed.”
It was the captain’s electric voice machine. He had wires running all through the ship to critical areas so he would know of dangers anywhere on his ship. He must have kept it on for the storm.
No doubt Captain Gideon’s pride ship could take on any of the frigates or the whole of the smaller escorts and triumph, but on an open ocean with half-power and this vast foe? Perhaps things may not go so well.
Or perhaps they would hound the steel beast and they would mutually destroy each other. Wouldn’t that be ironic? Our lucky day. Cold Snap thought sourly.
Already, the ships were gaining. Slowly the schooners broke away from the group and into formation to flank the limping ship.
Ironsides. Hammerfall. Glorious Dawn. They swooped around, their chase guns opening in a brief crump of gunfire. The shots ranged far short.
Daring. Repulse. They held back and tacked to bring themselves into a broadside. With a bellow, the ships vomited iron, which splashed across the water. Only one, a ball spent and skipping across the surface, smacked into the Rose’s hull.
The Yellow Rose didn’t respond. No cannons cracked their retort. No burst from the deck sweep. Not a shot from the deck. Why? Captain Gideon was many things, but willing to tolerate such offense? Never.
Apparently, he was not the only one wondering. “Gunnery, what is our own disposition? Why are we not answering them?”
The response seemed far too long in coming. Snap gripped on the optic’s casings until he thought it would shatter. Finally, the gunnery officer’s accent broke through. “Ever’thin’s locked up! Magazines, blast doors, dumbwaiter, ever’thin! We lashed and locked down for the storm. It’s taking time to get ever’thin operation like!”
“How long until you’re firing?”
The gunnery captain’s electric voice crackled under the stress. “Crew’s werking onni. Three or four minutes!”
Snap looked back out at the schooners hounding them and the frigates rapidly growing closer. They didn’t have three or four minutes.
Captain Gideon thought the same. “Wheelhouse crew, gunnery crews, and engine crew: remain at your posts. All other crew: to the armory immediately. Prepare to repel boarders.”
Boarders. What was happening now was just the opening act to a deadly play. The probes, the shots across their bow, the show of force: these were all the first pleasantries in a maritime clash. The roaring cannons came later if the victim did not strike colors and yield.
If the victim did not see wisdom in such odds and surrender, then a deadly melee would settle the matter. Despite never having been to sea before, Cold Snap knew that such a battle would be intense and horrible. If it came down to that, then the captain’s technological edge would mean little in the face of raw numbers. Even one of those frigates probably carried more crew than the Rose.
This was not a battle that could be expected to be won. Wisdom required a graceful surrender with the striking of the colors.
Cold Snap had yet to see a flag on this ship.
Already, he could hear the thundering in the halls of many hooves rushing for the armored vault of the ship where its most precious cargoes were kept and her weapons held in ready store.
He looked through the glasses once more. Now he could clearly make out the hostile crews. He could clearly see the mixed wonder and blood-lust infecting the enemy crew. Never had they seen any ship like this before, and it would fall before their blades.
Blades. He needed a weapon. He looked around hurriedly. The ships were holding distance. No doubt they were waiting to see the unknown ship’s response to their challenge. Their patience would be short lived.
With a quick dash, Cold Snap was out the door and clambering down the stairs after the trailing crew making their way to the armory. There was a line. It passed in a moment, and claws shoved a hatchet, a pistol, and a cartridge pouch in his grip.
He fumbled with the awkward rig and finally managed to get the belt secured around his neck and shoulder. The pistol thumped awkwardly against his side, but he had no time to fret over that. He gripped the hatchet in his mouth and rushed for the bright sunlight and the open air.
Occasional jeers sounded between the ships. Snap burst out of the hatch and then pausing at the sight of the ships arrayed against them. The escort ships grouped closer to flank the Rose. By now, they were close enough to hurl a cable from one ship to another. Their crews rushed hither and thither. Snap didn’t know what to do.
A white flash and a thump sounded from the Ironsides. Instantly, a ball shattered against the ship. Snap felt needles lance his hide from the spalling shot. He dove out of the open and behind the ships loading crane. Another thud and another echoed through the air. One blast rattled the steel he hid behind.
He heard a scream of pain somewhere and uttered a soft whimper. This wasn’t what battle was supposed to be like.
The cannon-fire died. Was it ending?
“Unknown vessel!” a magically amplified voice boomed from one of the ships. “I am Captain Shaving of the Glorious Dawn. I speak for Admiral Rankin File of the Royal Majesty’s Hamaica squadron. You are flying no standard and resisting lawful force in waters of a hostile nation. Reef sail and prepare to be boarded!”
The ships drifted closer. Not all of it was for boarding. They traveled in a fairly narrow strait between the islet and a reef. None of the ships had room to do much maneuvering. If they couldn’t have tossed a rope between the ships, then soon enough they could jump across.
It was only beginning.
He felt for the pistol and pulled it out of the holster. A revolver, he’d heard the crew call them. It was leaps and bounds ahead of any weapon he’d seen elsewhere. Six shots before reloading. He felt like it wasn’t enough.
Snap risked a peek around the crane. By now, the smaller ships realized their prey wasn’t going to surrender, and their cannonfire did nothing to the ship.
“Captain Shaving, your request is heard and emphatically rejected.”
Captain Gideon’s voice crackled over the ship’s wires. He continued. “I offer your ships and your crews this one offer. Continue your way to Hamaica. Cease hostilities and cede this battle without bloodshed and you will enjoy long service to your crown. Do not and your crews will taste destruction by your own hubris. You have eight ships to my one, and I assure you that at the final shot, only one ship will remain. Mine. Continue, or be destroyed.”
The ships sailed in silence until the enemy captain, his pride still bleeding, growled out his fateful answer. “Unknown vessel: you have given poor reply. You have not given surrender. You have given us no choice. Your words will be your damnation!”
At this range, the magical amplification was deafening. It left a terrible pain in Cold Snap’s ears, and he barely heard the enemy captain’s order: “Grapeshot”-
He never had time to finish the order. Before he’d even uttered part of it, the Rose lurched under Cold Snap’s body. Her pilot had thrown everything into a hard-starboard turn and pushed all power out of the remaining engine. Even with her disability, the many-ton ship heaved like a cork and made for the closest adversary.
The crew on board the doomed ship wailed as the battle turned against them without a single shot. They scrambled away from the rail, their weapons clattering forgotten to the deck.
Captain Gideon’s iron leviathan plowed into the ship. Cold Snap winced as he heard the stout timbers crack like kindling. For a brief instant, the Rose rode on the hulk’s bulk. Her iron prow still pierced the doomed ship. The Glorious Dawn was no more.
Before the survivors had cast themselves off the wreck, the battle was joined. Captain Gideon did not dawdle. The pilot immediately reversed the engine. Being powered by steam and iron, it could do something the sailing ships could not: travel upwind.
One flashed past. Smoke cracked from swivel guns, filling the air with a hellish roar and scent. They meant to paint the gray ship red.
Cold Snap quivered behind his cover, his breathing hard and his heart hammering. The loading crane mounted on thick steel and it felt far too thin. Vibrations thrummed through the structure as shot and shrapnel peppered it. It was a testament to the ship’s crew that they held positions. They held their cover and didn’t expose themselves.
They would have to soon. The frigates were coming. They held their fire. Something rocked the ship. With a wild scream, figures leapt from a ship that had grappled itself to the Rose.
Ironsides.
Steel flashed and weapons cracked. Minotaurs wearing leather harnesses and bits of steel armor rushed the ship’s crew. The first wave dropped from a disciplined volley. The second closed in quickly and gained a foothold. Metal clattered as sword met hatchet and gun barrel blocked stroke.
Gunshots broke through the ringing steel. The crew of the Rose were professional and sure of their weapons, but their numbers couldn’t stand. As more of the Ironside’s crew gained the deck, the Rose’s marines were forced back in a dogged resistance.
All this happened in a matter of seconds. First, Cold Snap was huddling behind his crane and praying to the solar goddess that he be spared from the cannon. Next, he stared eye to eye with a young minotaur wielding a sea knife.
He scrambled backwards in time to avoid a vicious slash. An instant later came a second that clanged off the crane. Snap remembered his hatchet and swung. It missed, but his foe staggered out of range. The rest didn’t last long.
The minotaur came back. This time, he waited for Cold Snap’s miss, grabbed the haft, and heaved. Now the two grappled in a deadly tug-of-war over the weapon. The two jerked and jostled for position.
Snap was strong and had good footing, but the minotaur was taller. Snap felt his hooves slide across the timber deck.
It was at that moment, Snap realized something very important about fighting bipeds: They had two hands. One for the hatchet, and the other for the knife. He saw steel flash and instinctively released the hatchet. It saved his life.
While the minotaur stumbled, Snap had an instant to draw the revolver.
It was at that moment, Snap realized something very important about handguns: You needed hands. He barely had the weapon cocked and realized he couldn’t fire it.
So he threw it. The machined tool went flying through the air and connected with the minotaur’s head. In a beautiful display of physics, the pistol rebounded back to the deck with a clatter and the minotaur went overboard with a yelp and a splash.
Magic surrounded the pistol. It jerked up and fired three rapid shots. A body crumpled beside him. Nebula rushed close and shoved him out of the middle of the deck.
“Don’t stand there! They’re everywhere. You need a weapon.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Nebula shoved a saber into Snap’s mouth. He barely noticed the foul taste of the hilt. He nearly dropped it, but not from the taste. Two more ships were nearing to grapple and overrun the beleaguered Rose.
“Got any magic tricks?” Cold Snap asked numbly around the weapon.
“What am I, a warmage?”
The ships grew closer. Snap dropped the sword. “I have an idea!”
He ran to the crane and unhooked it. “Closest ship wheel!” he shouted to his friend.
Nebula blinked and grinned. His magic surrounded the hook. Snap gave a mighty buck and sent the hook arcing over the water. With Nebula’s nudging, the hook landed square on the Daring’s wheel, much to the surprise of her pilot.
The two cranked the winch tight before he could react and his knife only scraped steel cable. With a groaning splinter, the ship’s wheel tore off in a spray of wood. Now without any control, the Daring found herself driven by the wind past the Yellow Rose and away from the battle.
A shadow fell over the ship. The first of the frigates arrived. Dragonfire. Her crew managed the swivel guns and readied their shots on the clusters of Captain Gideon’s crew. They didn’t last seconds before precise fire eliminated every one of them.
Eventually, the admiral would grow tired of this boarding. Already the Yellow Rose had proven to be far more trouble than he expected. Would he try to take the ship and learn its secrets or scourge everything and sail on? The remaining two frigates and the uncommitted brig came in closer.
How much longer before the guns started helping? They wouldn’t be able to stand against the boarding party of even one frigate. Some of her crew fired ineffectually on the Rose. That was just the start. They needed something more.
Cold Snap looked at his friend. For once, Nebula had no smile or confident grin. What could they do against such odds? “Good adventure?” Snap asked.
Nebula said nothing. Then a shallow smile crept across his lips. “The best.”
A shrill whistle wailed high above them. Before they could figure the reason or use for it, the Rose’s crew started withdrawing from their positions to the choke-points of the bulkheads. Familiar low thumps echoed from the ship, and Snap saw a shower of small spheres.
An instant later, they crashed into the frigate’s deck in blossoms of orange flames. The fires billowed and spread like a living beast, consuming rope, sail, and crew alike. The once organized crew scattered in horror. Some of them caught in the blast and their coats burning furiously and others rushing to stay away from their flaming confederates. Those aflame had other ideas and rushed for the sides.
“About to learn a hard lesson, they are,” said an earth pony with scarred and bubbled flesh along his side.
“What’s that?” Nebula asked.
The earth pony nodded towards the ship and the flaming figures leaping into the sea. “Phosphorous burns underwater.”
The Rose’s crew did not delay. They retreated further inside and dragged the two friends with them.
One of the still-distant frigates shouted, perhaps from the admiral himself. It was too distant to make out, but Snap still knew what the admiral wanted.
Sink. Annihilate.
He would lose no more ships to this monster. Smoke billowed from his frigate. It was the last thing he saw before someone sealed the door.
The Yellow Rose groaned. Probably a dozen balls struck her, ricocheted off her armor, and tore through her light metal. It was a barrage that would have riddled another ship. She sat in silence for another moment.
Krumpf. Krumpf. The shots reverberated through the ship. A second salvo shook everything. The guns were finally firing.
Cold Snap broke away from his friend and rushed up the hallway and up the familiar stairs.
Tut-tut-tut-tut-tut. The deck sweep chattered away.
Another salvo shook everything. This time, he heard a distant explosion.
He gained the landing and rushed inside the captain’s cabin. A blast of wind caught him. A shot had torn a hole in the window and left a jagged frame before continuing to the far side where the spent round rolled through Sucat’s bedding.
Outside, the scene was pure chaos. The schooners were all either burning wrecks or just floating listlessly. The frigates were just as bad. One favored a side and was slowly sinking. A second burned all the way to the waterline and sent a titanic plume of smoke into the sky. Barely a timber was left of her. Most of her had either been blasted to the heavens or consumed in the fire when her magazine detonated.
Only two ships remained fairly solid. One frigate and the brig. They were now holding distance and trying to put space between them and the Yellow Rose. If their commanders were smart, they would try to escape.
Cold Snap looked around and reached for the captain’s binoculars. Through them, the frigate looked about the same as what he’d first seen. When he looked at the brig, he frowned in confusion. Striped figures poured out of the ship’s torn deck and viciously attacked the surviving crew. In moments, the deck was clear of all save the zebras. One of them heaved the ship around.
A thunderous broadside swept the lone frigate’s masts and rigging. Before the splinters had all landed, the zebras put on all sail and fled the battle. The frigate’s mainmast stood suspended by its own ropes and swayed in time to the sea.
Captain Gideon’s voice crackled from his device. “All crew, prepare for departure. Bring any wounded to the surgeon for immediate treatment. We resume our heading.”
With that, the ship rumbled. It wasn’t one engine. Now it was two as she was meant to have. With all that power, the Yellow Rose tore into the deep ocean and left the war behind.