Serial Sunday: Tranquillity, Part IV
By Paul Leone.
The Doloire fired first, but with Fortune’s bane upon her. The subtle currents of the æther could be overcome by captains and creatures, but had a way of hindering inanimate objects such as cannonballs. And the Tranquilla’s hull was painted midnight black. It was a liability in combat by day, but at night, it served to hinder enemy aim. (The aquamarine crystals on the masts were another matter, but had the advantage of being slender targets unless the foe was ahead or aft of the Tranquilla.)
The first volley from the Doloire fell short. Six cannonballs arced down and passed beneath the Tranquilla’s keel, then continued on their way through the æther out of both sight and mind of any human.
Emma laughed and jumped up on the deck railing, balancing there with practiced ease as she pointed her sword at the Doloire. “Not enough powder in your guns, boys!” she called out across the amplifying æther.
One of the pirates fired a shot in her direction and missed. She laughed, bit her thumb and flicked it in his direction, and jumped down again just as more shots rang out.
“Pleased?” Letizia asked in the silence after the echoing gunfire.
Emma grinned. “Immensely so.” Then, a more sober look on her face, she turned back to the Doloire. “Orders, Captain?”
Letizia lowered her head to the brass speaking tube that connected the stern deck to the bridge below. “Mr. Yim, can you draw any more speed from the lenses?”
“They’re giving it all they’ve got, captain!” the Cathayan navigator called back.
Letizia had expected that. No drawing away from them. It’ll be battle, then, she said to herself, looking noticeably less eager than Emma was after reaching the same conclusion. A ship the size of the Doloire most likely had a score more crewmen than the Tranquilla. Drawing in close and challenging them hand to hand, even with Emma’s mastery of the blade, was a plan most unlikely to succeed. So was attempting to match them gun for gun and shot for shot.
“Maneuver,” Letizia said. “We have speed superior to theirs, if little else. If we cross their bow, they might not have a chance to fire before we’re out of range again.” She bent over the speaking tube again. “Turn to starboard, bearing towards Pollux, and full speed ahead!”
Even as the ship began to turn towards the brightest of the stars of Gemini, Letizia sprang up on to the lowest plank of the stern castle railing that faced the rest of the ship. Her sword flashed as she drew it and waved it once before lowering it again lest some eagle-eyed arquebusier take aim at the shiny object and its wielder.
Those crewmen who weren’t below in the bridge, manning the cannon or monitoring the aeolipile looked up at her, wariness and, yes, fear on their faces. They knew how long the odds were at least as well as she did. Letizia’s face was still as stone, concealing her own fear. She looked each one in the eye before speaking in a much louder voice than usual. Perhaps the words would carry across the æther to the Doloire, perhaps not. But it was enough that her people heard them.
“You men of Tranquilla, men of courage and famous for your infinite victories, you who have always protected this ship, your mother – and mine, too – in many a conflict with our foes, show now your prowess and your aggressive spirit toward them with manly vigor! You, my comrades in arms, obey the commands of your leaders in the knowledge that this is the day of your glory – a day on which, if you shed but a drop of the foe’s blood, you will win for yourselves crowns of eternal fame!”
Letizia punctuated this proclamation by pointing her sword again at the Doloire as the pirate ship turned about and began to give chase. She was rewarded with looks of quiet, grim determination. There were no rousing cheers in response – Emma could have done better with a “For gold or glory!” perhaps – but determination to do or die was far better than fear.
Above Letizia, the aquamarine lenses glowed brightly as they were adjusted to channel the maximum amount of propulsive energy the aeolipile could absorb, and perhaps a little bit more. The boards beneath Letizia’s feet shifted and groaned. The ship could only take so much strain beyond its usual limits, she knew.
“Not long,” she murmured as she squeezed the top of the deck railing. She watched as the Tranquilla turned across the Doloire’s bow. The other ship began to turn, too, but the movement was interrupted by the roar of cannons. The deck below Letizia shuddered slightly from the force of her ship’s guns. Two shots went wide, vanishing into the æther, but the other two struck glancing blows, gouging the projecting bow and the port side hull – slashes instead of thrusts.
Letizia cast a wary look at the masts of the pirate ship. Those emerald crystals were glowing more brightly than before. Mighty and gracious God, grant us more speed than they. At least now that it’s a chase, they can’t... Letizia’s thought trailed off as she watched the pirate ship.
The Doloire was not pursuing them straight on. It was sailing at a slight angle. Letizia frowned for a moment before realizing the logic of it. This way they could keep up the cannon fire while also keeping up the chase. Next, they’ll steer to starboard to let the other cannons have their chance, she thought. Sure enough, the Doloire’s bow turned.
Below on the main deck, the Tranquilla’s crew abruptly fell silent.
“Steady hearts!” Letizia started to call out. But it was not the Doloire that had struck her men mute. They were looking back, but up, above the pirate ship. “Oddio...”
A huge round shape loomed above the Doloire and the Tranquilla, descending down towards and between them.
It was an ætherokhelone, one of the vast and mighty turtles that swam the deep heavens, heedless of mortal men and their fleeting concerns. What were books and battles to beasts that lived for centuries? From the vast size of this particular ætherokhelone, easily twice as large as the Tranquilla and the Doloire combined, it may have been alive when Christ Himself walked the Earth. Letizia stared, eyes wide and mouth agape, as it passed between the two worldships, not oblivious but uncaring of their existence.
Ah! Infelix culpa that denies us this grace within Earth’s sinful sphere, Letizia thought as she gazed at the mighty beast. But happy am I to behold thee.
And then a cannon boomed aboard the Doloire, breaking the spell. The ætherokhelone roared, its bellow shaking the ship’s planks and masts alike.
“Hold fire!” Letizia yelled in the brief silence that followed the ætherokhelone’s roar. “Hold your fire, for the sake of your souls!”
The mighty beast could have snapped the Tranquilla in half with a single blow or bite. Avoiding its attention while it reacted to the Doloire’s panicked shot (and it had to have been that, or else all the pirate guns would have fired, for all the difference it would have made) had just now raced to the top of Letizia’s goals in life.
She suspected Captain Langley’s goal was to escape.
Just than, Friar Mateo emerged from the lower deck. “What – dear God,” he said as he saw the giant creature between the two ships. He crossed himself and uttered “Draco iste quem formasti ad illudendum ei...”
“Testudo est, non draco,” Letizia corrected with a raised eyebrow.
“Magnum monstrum est!”
It was a giant monster, Letizia had to admit.
Emma looked at the two of them like they’d lost their minds. “Orders, Captain?” she asked, her voice somehow capturing the essence of a sword in the gut.
“Ten degrees starboard and ahead. Absolutely no cannon or gunfire, no matter what.”
Emma nodded and relayed the orders down below. Even the pugnacious Englishwoman knew this was one fight they needed to avoid at all costs.
The captain and crew of the Doloire, though, seemed to be of a different mind. The larger ship swung slightly to bring itself fully parallel to the ætherokhelone and then unleashed a full volley of cannon fire. All six shots hit. None did any damage, although there was quite a bit of noise as well as dust shaken off the ætherokhelone’s impenetrable carapace. Perhaps that was their plan all along? At any rate, the Doloire was turning away the instant the shots left the cannons.
They needn’t have bothered. The ætherokhelone roared again, much more loudly, and continued on into the darkness. Letizia guessed it was more upset about the obscuring dust shaken loose than anything else that had just happened. But her mind was bent towards another fact of the situation, one that made her smile slightly, ever so slightly.
Emma was back at her side a moment later. “We could sail away now and find another job,” the redheaded woman said, just softly enough that only Letizia heard.
“What? Give up?”
“It’s an option, Captain. A safe one.”
“He found us here, in the deeps. I don’t know how he knew about us at all, probably a spy back on Vulcan, but he was canny enough to lay in wait for days until we came along. That sort of man, I understand. He will follow us and find us again unless we deal with him now. It’s not even about the book.”
Emma looked at her, openly and deeply skeptical.
“It’s not just about the book,” Letizia said. “Give me one chance to win this, Emma. I have his measure now. His measure and my plan.” Letizia said. “And when it’s over, I’ll have the book, too. As I promised.”
Emma hesitated.
“Do you trust me, my friend?”
Emma eyed her for a moment, then grinned. “Aye, Captain, that I do. Full about and full speed ahead?”
“Full about and full speed ahead.”
Paul Leone is an author who, among other works, wrote the book In and Out of the Reich for Sea Lion.
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