“In my experience? If you really want something, you’ll let reason fly to the wind. You’ll let your plans come apart at the seams, and you’ll keep pursuing that dream regardless. What, you think I made it here by playing it safe?”

-The Golden Son, account written by biographer shortly before the latter’s death, date unknown.

 

They were getting close. The Intrepid was now a spot on the horizon. It’d be getting much bigger before long.

Kazzul had no intention of going along with the captain’s idiot plan. He already had his own thought out. They would thank him later, once he had saved all their lives.

Taira remained in the cockpit, but he ignored her. She would only be a distraction, for what he had planned.

As they drew closer to the warship, the latter slowed its speed out of caution and twisted to the side to show its great guns. They likely hadn’t anticipated meeting any other ships on this unorthodox route to Redharbor.

Operating on instinct, Kazzul flashed an old merchant signal. Any actual merchant vessel from the archipelago would be able to spot the difference, but if these Concordians were from the mainland, unfamiliar with Aiyek, they would perhaps not pick up on it.

“Will they believe it?” Taira asked.

“Shh!” Kazzul hissed. “Do not break my concentration.”

The warship straightened out and remained on its course. It flashed a Concord signal in return.

Kazzul blew air between his teeth in relief.

“Everyone, get ready to board in a few minutes!” Kazzul spoke into the tube-shaped farshout connected to the wall on his left, which would disperse his voice throughout the whole ship. “This may get a little bumpy. Hold onto something.”

He glided a little nearer to the Intrepid under the guise of an innocent merchant vessel, as close as he dared before they’d be able to make out with the naked eye that they were certainly nothing of the sort.

Then, he turned the ship sharply and set a course directly for the warship and cranked the speed up as high as it would go. The Tits Up groaned in protest, and he placated it with a few quick button presses.

Let’s hope she doesn’t get too unruly.

It didn’t take long for the Concordians to identify this as an act of aggression. They slowed to a crawl and turned their broadside on the pirate ship as its great guns honed in on the smaller target.

If they were hit by even one of those volleys, they’d be blown out of the sky.

Kazzul waited. He couldn’t act too soon.

“I’m opening the portal,” Taira said, sounding more unsure of herself than she had any right to.

Kazzul glanced back. A storage drawer behind her suddenly flew open, striking the woman in the back of the head and knocking her to the floor, unconscious. All around, the ship let out a raucous laugh of groaning metal.

“Good one,” Kazzul said. “Many thanks for the assist.”

Of course, it was less of an assist and more an act of self-preservation. She wanted to be thrown through that portal about as little as Kazzul did, and he knew that the ship trusted him far more than it did a relative stranger like Taira.

The warship fired its first volley, great big shells hurtling towards them almost too quick for the eye.

Kazzul pulled back the throttle all the way in that exact moment and allocated 90% of the power supply to the front wards.

As the thrusters dropped off, the ship hiked downward in the air. The volley passed overhead with rumbling whines. One of the shells grazed the wards, but with the extra power, they reflected it easily without much damage.

Kazzul breathed through his teeth. There was still a long way to go.

He capitalized on inertia by letting the speed he had built up before cutting the engines carry him closer to the warship. He sank lower in the air, causing the great guns extra trouble in realigning to face their ship.

Once they were sufficiently close, Kazzul returned the wards to their normal state, re-engaged the engines, and cleared the bottom of the Intrepid. Up close, the size of the warship could not be understated—twice the size of the Tits Up, maybe larger, cannons bristling on every side.

He began to ascend, straining all the while against the ship’s own, selfish influence.

There was some rustling behind him, then a groan, then he suddenly had Taira slumped over the co-pilot’s seat. She looked around blearily, rubbing the back of her neck.

“What… happened?” she asked. “Did I do it?”

Kazzul ignored her. He didn’t have time to deal with her.

The Tits Up came up on the starboard side of the warship at a spitting distance. At this range, he didn’t even have to aim. He smacked the button for a full port broadside, and looking out the left-hand side of his cockpit, he saw the shimmering wards of the mechanical behemoth flicker and contort as they were bombarded with heavy gunfire.

“Ha!” he shouted.

Kazzul steered the ship forward, causing the warship’s returning fire to miss entirely. He made to spin the vessel around directly in front of the Intrepid so that he could pierce it with the drain anchor. If he managed that, his job in all this would be concluded.

“Kazzul Clanless! By every false god, what do you think you’re doing?” came a commanding voice from the back of the cockpit.

Kazzul spared a glance. The captain. Of course.

She didn’t look happy.

“What happened to the teleportation?” she asked. Her gaze moved back and forth between Kazzul and her sister.

“Change of plans,” Kazzul said.

“You were going to do this from the start, weren’t you?” Quintilla hissed.

“We don’t have time for this right now. I’m about to deliver you a warship on a platter. Watch.”

The Tits Up was now properly aligned with the Intrepid, both drifting in the air mere ship lengths from each other. Kazzul quickly aimed the anchor with a joystick, and upon pressing the button at its apex, an unholy rattling was heard inside the ship.

The giant hunk of enchanted metal was thrown away from the ship, attached to a chain, aimed right for the cockpit of the enemy ship.

A meter or two before it would have collided with the hull, it was deflected by a shimmering field, thrown wide. The wards shattered in its wake, but the damage was already done.

“The wards weren’t damaged enough,” Kazzul said. “Damn it!”

“If you had followed my plan to the letter, this would not have happened,” Quintilla said, letting a hand fall on his shoulder and squeezing it tightly. “Tee, I need you ready to teleport the ship on my mark.”

Taira had largely composed herself, supporting her weight on the co-pilot’s seat. “But…”

“Be quit of your doubts! We need you now!”

Taira nodded slowly. “O-Okay. I’ll try.”

The Intrepid swiveled on a pin, its guns coming around to point straight at the Tits Up.

Kazzul said a prayer to each of the Deep Gods in rapid succession. This was it. Either, they’d be torn to shreds inside a portal, or they’d have their wings clipped by the warship and spiral into the sea.

“Kazzul! Pull in that anchor!” Quintilla barked. “We can’t afford to lose it when we jump.”

Numbly, if only to give his mind something to occupy itself during his final moments, he grabbed the joystick and pressed the necessary button to retract the drain anchor.

Taira stood up straight and put her hands together. Black-and-white energy crackled between her fingers. “Do I do it, Quincy?”

Quintilla waved her away. “Not yet. We have to wait for the anchor. Without it, we’re dead in the water.”

The drain anchor was pulled back by its chain, link by link, into the ship.

The warship’s great guns were pointed right at them. Kazzul stared down a half-dozen massive barrels. Any moment now, they’d fire.

The whole ship shuddered as the anchor was reset back into its track.

“Now!” Quintilla shouted. Spittle flew from her mouth.

“I will move us behind the warship!” Taira said. “Be ready to bring us around!” She threw her hands to the sides. “Tano!”

For a moment, everything went black. Then, his eyes adjusted to the absence of light, and he could see the ship around him. Metal twisted, melded with flesh, flowed like water.

His body became something else. It wasn’t his own anymore. It drifted away from him, and he watched as his corporeal being swirled like thick syrup into a drain.

Kazzul tried to scream, but there was no sound. The world shook with his fear.

Then color returned, and everything snapped back into place, and he was thrown back into his body.

He looked around blearily. Amazingly, the ship was intact. Every strut and fixture in its place. He looked around, and saw Quintilla and Taira tousled but likewise unharmed.

Through the cockpit, he saw only blue sky. Leaning forward in his chair, he took hold of the controls and tugged on them to bring the ship around.

Behind the warship, she said. I have to capitalize on this advantage, and quickly.

The Tits Up resisted his attempts at control. She was not happy. Not in the slightest.

The bloody runes came back on the walls. Whispers echoed inside the cockpit, in a language that should never have been observed by mortal ears.

Kazzul locked in countermeasures, but they were ineffective. He wasn’t in control of the ship anymore.

“Please,” Kazzul said. “Not now. You need to give me control.”

He tugged at the control stick, to no avail.

“What are you blabbing about?” Quintilla asked. “Kazzul, get this done, now!”

“Shut the fuck up and let me work!” Kazzul shouted. “She’s angry! Give me a moment!”

For once, the captain let it rest. She took a step back.

“If you don’t cooperate, we all die,” Kazzul said. “You too. Is that what you want?”

The ship did not deign to answer.

“Alright, what? What do you want? Tell me!”

This time, a rumble surged through the ship. A rumble almost like a voice. “I want… you.”

“Yes!” Kazzul pounded the control panel. “Yes, whatever, just give me control!”

The runes washed away. When Kazzul touched the control stick, the ship followed. It spun on his whim, and within moments it was facing the Intrepid.

Kazzul grinned. With his left, he held the anchor joystick and maneuvered it so that the anchor was aimed at the stern of the warship.

He pushed the button.

The drain anchor fired out of its track with a great, rattling boom.