John Ringo - Emerald Sea

“You want us to transport the children?” the skipper said, frowning. “We can do that, but I can’t guarantee that we won’t be attacked again. That kraken… was frightening. And I can think of ways that it could attack that we wouldn’t be able to counter with Evan’s flamethrower. Grab us from underneath and gnaw through the hull comes to mind.”

“It’s the best chance that we’ve got,” Edmund said, well aware that with a spy on board it was more dangerous than he was making out. “Bruce is dead. Jason hasn’t been elected as their leader but he’s already taking charge, and he’s on our side. Hell, all the mer are on our side except a couple that are dead set on supporting New Destiny and they have made themselves scarce since the attack. We’ve got the mer, and the delphinos for that matter, on our side. But we need to get them to this Key Harbor or whatever and get their babies protected. And the only way to get the babies there, is by sending them with you. I’m putting the lives of the mer in your hands, Skipper. Can I trust you?” Edmund realized very well that he might be putting them in the hands of an agent of New Destiny, but looking in the eye of the skipper he saw not a flicker of misdoubt.

“Before anything happens to them I will die in their defense, sir,” the skipper replied. “And so will every one of my crew.”

“I need some of the dragons,” Edmund said with a nod. “I’ll take Joanna, Chauncey and Donal. You take the rest and the regular riders. They’ve shown they can take on just about anything that New Destiny has thrown at them; I’d be surprised if the three of them, working together, couldn’t even take on a kraken.”

The skipper nodded seriously at this, then started to crack a smile. Finally he put his hands over his face, trying very hard not to laugh. Edmund could tell it was half hysterical.

“Are you finding something humorous, Colonel?” he said coldly.

“It’s just…” the skipper said, taking a breath and wiping his eyes. “General, just for a moment, step back and think. I’m commanding a dragon-carrier . And I’m fighting kraken and black-sailed caravels. Every now and again… it just catches me off guard and I have to giggle. I got this job because I was a tall ships’ sailor. I took out barkentines so that groups of people could experience what it was like to sail in the tall ships. Now I’m figuring out how to use dragons to protect my warship. It just… gets me sometimes. I wouldn’t do this in front of the crew, but…”

Edmund stared at him coldly for a moment, then grunted. Before he knew it he was laughing as well.

“Okay, you got me, but I just gutted a Changed human being and stuffed my arm into its chest , to use it as a shield ,” he said, chuckling blackly. “You think you’ve had a strange day?”

“Daneh,” Edmund said, coming up behind the doctor as she was tying off the last suture in one of the injured mer.

The square had been a shambles after the battle, but most of the debris, dead ixchitl and pieces of dead mer, had been cleared out. The ixchitl had been disposed of by the simple expedient of feeding them to the dragons.

Some of the mer had taken less of a dose of neurotoxin than Bruce, who had been hit by at least two harpoons. They had been able to maintain a ragged breathing and Daneh had concocted, on the spot, a form of tail-to-chest resuscitation that had let them live long enough for the fast-decaying toxin to work itself out of the body. Others had been badly bitten by ixchitl or had simply injured themselves in the flight to safety. It was one of the latter she was finishing work on, a young mer-man who had gashed his arm, badly, on the coral, jamming himself into a crevice.

“Hold on, Edmund,” Daneh replied. “You’re going to need to favor that for a few days or the stitches will tear out. I’d put a bandage on it if we were on the surface, but nothing really stays here in the water. Just be careful of it.”

“I will, ma’am,” the boy said, wincing at the pain of the wound.

“Daneh, I want you and Rachel to go on the ship,” Edmund said as the boy swam away.

“I’m going to be needed with the mer,” Daneh said. “There’s going to be more fighting. I’m not just going to run for safety.”

“Daneh,” the duke said, drifting closer and lowering his voice. “You and Rachel are the only ones I can send that I know aren’t the leak. You’re going to have to find some way to figure out who it is.”

“You know it’s that damned rabbit,” she replied, quietly. There were mer around and it would do their morale no good to know that the women and children were being sent on a ship that had a potential agent onboard.

“No, I don’t know it’s the rabbit,” Edmund said. “And neither do you. Don’t assume that. The one person I refuse to suspect, though, is Evan.”

“Why?” Daneh said, then frowned. “Not that I would, either.”

“Because he’s such a perfect little engineer,” Edmund replied. “You can tell what he’s thinking just by looking at him. I don’t think he could carry it off. I may be wrong, but I also think that he might have an idea how to ferret out the mole. Whoever it is has to be communicating somehow. Even if he’s being visited by an avatar, there are traces of their presence. Evan should be able to figure something out. If he can’t, I’m out of ideas.”

“Okay,” Daneh said. “I can see that. But Rachel could go.”

“I want both of you to go for the same reason you both came down here, I trust you more than Rachel and, really, it’s going to need two. Just go, okay?”

“Okay,” she sighed, reaching out to stroke his face. “Take care of yourself.”

“I will,” Edmund said. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

Getting the mer-women out of the cavern was easier than retrieving their babies. But the latter, well swathed in sailcloth, were lifted out through the light fissures and then both groups were ferried out to the ship and hoisted over the side on slings.

While that was going on the ship was discharging its cargo. Since there weren’t enough of the bronze-headed spears that had been brought as friendship gifts, they were supplemented with boarding pikes. The pikes were made of low-carbon steel and would rust quickly in the salt environment but they were all that were available. As this was going on, Edmund went over the side and rounded up Herzer and Jason.

“Here,” he said, when he finally found them going over plans for the retreat. He thrust out two scabbarded short-swords, wrapped around by heavy belts of a synthetic fabric.

Herzer drew his and tried to whistle. The blade was bright silver and surprisingly light. The design was identical to the Blood Lord blades that he had trained with but while they were light and maneuverable, this blade felt like a feather.

“What is this?” he asked. “Titanium?”

“No, it’s a high-tech alloy from the twenty-third century,” Edmund replied. “Angus showed it to me just before the Fall. It takes power to work initially, but I had some prepped when the Fall came. I made those just before we came down here as a bribe to Bruce. It’s much better than titanium; among other things you can shape it to a damned near monomolecular edge. Don’t run a finger down the blade to see how sharp it is.”

“I won’t,” Herzer said, strapping on the sword. The belt was just long enough.

“Thank you,” Jason said, sounding weary.

“We’re taking Donal, Chauncey and Commander Gramlich,” Edmund said. “Put that in your calculations.”

“Thank you again,” Jason said. “I thought you were going on the ship.”