William Forstchen - Down to the Sea

A snap of light shot out, the barrel spinning to life, spitting out five hundred rounds a minute. The tracers snaked down, weaving, then cutting across the bow of the ship.

Sean opened up as well, cursing wildly.

Within seconds snaps of light arced back.

A violent shudder slapped their plane. An instant later the engine seized. One of the propeller blades tore loose, spinning off into the darkness.

He was tempted to simply point at the ship and end it. Pulling back on the stick, Richard tried to stretch out the glide, but within seconds he could feel the airspeed bleeding off, the controls going mushy. They were going into a stall. Panicking, he pushed the stick forward. Momentarily he regained control.

Still the tracers followed them, swinging back and forth. Dimly he heard Sean scream that they were burning. The ocean rushed up to meet them.

“There, that’s what we want!” Hazin cried, pointing at the burning aerosteamer as it plunged into the sea. “Mark the spot!”

The frigate continued to turn, sweeping through the wreckage.

He had wanted an intact ship, prisoners, a chance to evaluate how this new piece fit into his game. All that had disappeared in a blinding flash.

“Fire a flare.”

“Master, if we light a flare shell, anyone within ten leagues will see it.”

“Anyone within twenty leagues saw that ship blow up.”

“It will give them a clearer bearing on us. For all we know, there’s a ship of the Blue Banner closing at this very minute. They know the silhouette of this ship, and they won’t take the time to ask questions about our surrendering or not.”

“Light it,” Hazin replied sharply.

The captain nodded, passing the order.

The gun on the forward turret elevated and fired. The shell streaked upward, arcing, and then ignited with a brilliant flash, the flare swinging on its parachute. The ocean beneath it was illuminated as brilliantly as if both moons were full.

Lookouts forward shouted the bearing. The strange aerosteamer was clearly visible, one bi-wing and forward cab sticking out of the water.

He watched intently, waiting, and then saw movement.

“I want them alive!” Hazin shouted. “No matter what it takes, I want them alive.”

Gagging, Richard struggled to the surface. Blindly he lashed out with his knife, cutting through the fabric of a wing that had crumpled over the forward cab, trapping him as the plane had settled and started to slip under.

He broke to the surface, shrieking for air. Then something grabbed hold of his leg, pulling him down. He went back under. For a second of blind panic he thought it was a shark snagging his leg.

No, he had seen sharks attack. Both his legs, his entire lower body, would already be gone if it were that. They were out there, and soon enough they would close, but not yet.

He surfaced again, fighting for air, then went under. Sean was clutching him.

Richard grabbed him, pulling him up, his comrade clawing at him wildly. He tried to push him back, and both of them gor tangled in canvas, and wires; the wreckage of an airship that was rapidly going under.

Richard kicked violently, gaining the surface yet again, Sean by his side.

“Richard! I thought I’d lost you!” Sean gasped, still clinging to him.

“Just grab a spar, anything but me,” Richard sputtered.

Fumbling in the dark, Richard grasped one of the halfsubmerged float pontoons, which had snapped off on impact. Grabbing Sean by the collar, he pulled him over.

“The sharks, how soon?” Sean whispered, panic causing his voice to break.

Richard didn’t answer. Soon enough. If either of them was bleeding, it’d be only a matter of minutes before a pack of them latched on to the trail and closed in. He reached down to the holster on his hip…the revolver was gone.

Damn.

In spite of the warmth of the tropical sea, he began to shiver.

A sun seemed to explode directly overhead, casting a hellish blue-white light. A wave lifted them up, and he saw the ship bearing down on them. It was hard to judge distance, but the vessel seemed only a few hundred yards off, and for a second he thought it just might be the Gettysburg after all, this entire affair a tragic mistake.

But it wasn’t the Gettysburg . The ship was smaller, sleeker, a blocklike turret on the forward bow where the Gettysburg had its aerosteamer catapult. The ship was reversing its engines, knifing straight toward them.

The sea around him was littered with debris: bits of wreckage, a broken spar, flame-scorched canvas trailing behind it, part of a table sliced in half, chairs, bits of cloth, cable and rope, a deck grating, and, scattered here and there, bodies and parts of bodies.

Neither of them moved. The ocean was silent except for the engines of the approaching ship. The effect was frightful. “Richard,” Sean hissed, pointing at a body floating atop a cresting wave. A fin, rising half a dozen feet out of the water, slashed in, cutting a razor wake through the water. The body jerked, then abruptly disappeared beneath the waves.

“Don’t move,” Richard whispered.

The ship was still closing in. A boat was being lowered from amidships, already half lowered. He could see dark forms illuminated by the flare, running along the deck.

“The Kazan,” Sean gasped.

Richard looked over at his gunner. “Your revolver, you still have it?”

Sean fumbled with one hand, and shook his head. “I lost it.”

Richard groaned. “A hell of a choice,” he said, his voice shaking. “We can start swimming, but that will draw attention from down below. It’d be over in a minute.”

Sean shook his head violently. “If the Kazan are anything like what we’ve heard, you know what will happen.”

Richard suddenly felt a strange detachment from it all. They were facing death either way. He looked over at Sean. His companion’s teeth were chattering with fear.

The away boat was in the water, oars flashing, coming straight at him. In the bow he saw one of them, rifle in hand.

An unintelligible, guttural voice was shouting. The Kazan had a weapon raised, was pointing it.

Richard looked back and forth from Sean to the Kazan. Two choices of death….

He saw a body lift out of the water less than a dozen yards away; the open mouth of a shark, the flash of teeth. The terror of it was too much, and he started to swim the last few feet to the boat, Sean following.

“My lord, if he is alive, we will find him.”

Emperor Yasim tu Zartak was silent, icy gaze sweeping the sea. A flyer hummed past, skimming low across the water, heading into the darkness.

Yasim lowered his head. He was exhausted. A moon ago all would have thought him dead and his brother’s star in its final ascendancy to zenith. And then everything had changed. In the end, all it had taken was a bribe-a bribe that had emptied his coffers and indebted him for life to the Order. It was that or defeat, and though one was barely preferable to the other, still it was a victory.

He looked back at his bridge crew. All stood silent, respectful…and in awe of what had transpired this day; the climax of a generation of war.

The fleet of the Blue Banner, what was left of it, was burning. As for the Yellow, a blade in Sar’s back had settled that issue-yet another bribe. Half the Yellow had lowered their flags, switching colors to the Red. The other half had fled into the darkness.

It had all seemed so effortless, and none knew its true cost: The pledges made to the Grand Master. He smiled sadly, the cost, perhaps the throne itself; a price that would empty the imperial coffers for a hundred years, all that just for two blades in two backs. Granted, a few hundred others had died, or would die in the days to come. It would all be so seamless; done with a certain elegance.