The Abyss Surrounds Us (8 page)

13

Swift pretends she's not interested in the training process when she knows I'm looking at her, but I catch her curiosity out of the corner of my eye. Whenever I change around the patterning in the LED beacon, I can feel her leaning over to get a good look at what I'm keying in. She reminds me of a cat who used to lurk around the pens back home. He'd try to steal fish right out of our feed buckets, but if you ever caught him looking at one, he'd feign disinterest and start preening himself. Swift's not out for fish, though—she's just morbidly curious about the way a Reckoner becomes a fighting machine.

“You can ask questions, you know?” I tell her one afternoon while I work with Bao on the “stay” command. It's slow going because he's already got it so ingrained into his system that any LED signal means come to the ship and get fed. I have to start getting him to notice the nuances of the lighting patterns.

Swift ruffles her side-swept hair and folds her arms. “Fine. Why's he such a slow learner?”

“'Cause he's a terrapoid. His brain's not as suited for this kind of stuff. Anything reptilian is a brute-force sort of animal. Cetoids are much faster—mammalian Reckoners have more logical capabilities. And … ”

Swift catches my pause and mulls it over before prompting, “And?”

“Simioids,” I tell her, and even saying the word brings a shudder up my spine. “Simioids are the fastest learners, but that's what makes them so terrifying. You guys ever run afoul of one?”

“I don't even know what ‘simioid' means.”

I kick on the LEDs with the “stay” patterning and Bao wavers, still puzzling whether he's supposed to keep where he is or come in. “Monkey-type. They're much smaller animals, but their intelligence is through the roof. I never want to be a simioid trainer. It's the one type of Reckoner I've always refused to work with.”

“How come?”

“People aren't even sure if we should be making simioids. They've been shown to have really advanced language capabilities, and there's an argument in the Reckoner development community that by making them, we're engineering a new intelligent species. We've had a few simioids in our pens, and … I don't know, you look in their eyes and you can see it. See them as thinking beings. And it's never felt right to me.”

Swift scoffs. Her hand drops to the pistol in her holster, and I steel myself. She always touches the gun right before she starts a fight.

“What?” I ask. There's no avoiding a spat, but if I play along, maybe we won't waste much daylight on it.

“Thinking beings, huh? You're all soft over a bunch of genetically engineered monsters, but those same monsters go out to kill thousands of people and you're fine with it?”

My lip twitches involuntarily, and for a moment I forget Bao, forget training, forget anything but meeting Swift's fiery gaze. “The people Reckoners kill are pirates. Murderers who sack ships and steal from the innocent. Excuse me if I have more sympathy for a trained animal.”

There's something Swift wants to say. I can see it in the way her lips tense as if she's about to spit the words out, but she curbs herself and instead mutters, “Can I try the thing with the lights?”

It's the first time she's ever asked to be involved in something related to Bao, and it throws me off. I don't realize that I've frozen until she checks me with her shoulder, crouching to the level of the LED's controls. “I, uh … sure,” I manage to say.

We're in the beginning stages of training. There's no harm in her learning the basics of the beacon, though I'd hesitate to teach her anything beyond things like “stay” and “come.” And it could be useful—if I'm out in the water with him and he gets rowdy, it'd be handy to have someone on deck who could throw him a signal.

“How do you make it change?” she asks, her hands already prying at the switches.

I take a knee and slap her fingers away from the controls. “Opcode. Basically throwing down the right switches. You memorize the switchboard and hit the ones that give the right command.” I can't show off every combination without confusing Bao, but I've had the board memorized since I was ten. “First switch is the basic ‘come' command. It's the easiest to key in, so someone can bring in a Reckoner and put them to rest no matter what.” I flick off the other active switches, and the LEDs flash with the homing signal.

A plume of steamy breath jets from where Bao floats, and the pup swims right for us, the water cutting in a neat V-shape around his snout. When he reaches the beacon, he knocks it once with his nose and then tilts his head back, his mouth hanging expectantly open.

“Toss him a reward,” I press, elbowing Swift.

She reaches into the bucket, pulling a face as she squelches a fish in her grip. Then she straightens and holds it out over Bao, her other hand resting casually at her hip.

The pup's eyes flick upward.

“Wait—” I start, but there's no time for warning. I leap for Swift and wrap my arms around her waist. She shrieks as I haul her backward. Bao lunges.

He surges halfway out of the sea, his eyes bulging, his razor-sharp beak snapping shut with a wet
crack
. His body slams against the trainer deck, sending a tremor through the metal floor below us as we hit it. Bao bounces off the rim of the deck and slips back below the waves, bellowing once before the water closes over his head.

Swift lies paralyzed beneath me, the pulpy remains of the fish stuck to her hand. It's fallen on the deck in two pieces, cracked in half by the sudden impact. But her hand's still there, not down Bao's throat, so at least something's gone right for a change.

“I said
toss
,” I hiss through my teeth, my face pressed flat against the deck.

“Sorry,” she groans.

“Do you have to taunt every living being you come across?”

“I think you broke something.”

“At least you've still got your arm,” I spit. “Moron.”

Swift claps me on the back with her gut-soaked hand. I elbow her in the stomach and roll off her, landing flat on my back.

And then somehow we're both cackling. Not the quiet chuckles at each other's expense that we've shared from time to time, but the raucous laughter that comes from sheer relief and the adrenaline in our blood gradually slipping away. A flush fills my face.

Swift catches my gaze, and she laughs even harder. “You look like a tomato!” she crows, trying to wring the slime from her hands.

“At least I don't snort when I laugh,” I wheeze between breaths.

This only makes her snort harder. She picks up half of the fish and throws it at me. It hits me in the shoulder with a wet slap. “You're so good at it—why don't you give him the fish?”

I sit up, ready to leap on her again, but then the second half of the fish comes flying at my face. “Jesus Christ, Swift!” I yelp, swatting it away.

“Yeah, that's right, here's your uncivilized pirate wench,” she cackles, rolling on her side and pushing herself to her feet.

A bellow from the water marks Bao's impatience. I pull a fish from the bucket and pitch it out into the sea, not caring where it lands.

As I sit there, taking in the bright world around me and the damp deck beneath me and the blood that's rushed to my face, I finally take stock of what's just happened. I was in a situation where I was completely safe, where Bao couldn't touch me. And I threw myself headlong into his path, just to save Swift from her own stupidity.

Swift, my captor. But Swift, the reason I'm still alive.

Swift, my guard. But Swift, my guardian.

She's saved my life, and I've saved hers. Well, saved her arm, at least. Bao probably would have ripped it clean off if she'd left it there a microsecond longer. I acted without thinking. Maybe there's some instinct deep inside me that wants to save people; maybe that's why being a Reckoner trainer feels right, why I leapt for Swift the instant I realized she was in danger. Maybe I'm a good person at the core.

But in the back of my head there's an insidious little voice telling me, “You're part of the ship now.”

The laughter we shared sours in my memory, and I fight to keep my face straight.

Then the all-call crackles on.

“This is navigation,” an unfamiliar voice drawls. “We've picked up a bucket on our instruments three leagues to the North. Unescorted. The captain says we're hitting it. Prepare accordingly.”

14

A change comes over Swift as soon as the all-call snaps off. The dog is gone; she's all wolf now.

“Bao can't keep up,” I tell her.

She doesn't seem to care. She strides for the door into the
Minnow
, her shoulders squared, her right hand on her pistol as she cranks the hatch open with her left.

“Swift, wait—
Bao can't keep up.
” I stagger to my feet and lunge after her, but she slams the hatch just as I hit it. There's a click beneath my fingers, the click of the lock sliding into place.

She's gone mad with power or fanaticism or
something
. She can't possibly be thinking straight by locking me down here.

But it's about to get worse. If the ship takes off without Bao and leaves him far behind, he won't catch up. It's a rule of Reckoner training. You don't leave a pup unattended in open water. Without supervision, a Reckoner pup could wander off into the wild or submerge, never to be heard from again. We take careful precautions to ensure that none of our beasts go missing, installing tracking tags on all of them at the minimum. But Bao doesn't have that luxury. If he's gone, he's
gone.

Which means I have to act fast.

Swift didn't leave me a radio, so I can't hail the captain and tell her what's happening. All I have at my disposal is what's left on the trainer deck …

And the deck itself.

I know what I have to do. I swallow back the knot of fear building in my throat and step up to the deck's edge. Above me I can hear the pounding of feet as the ship prepares for battle, and below the engines are starting to hum. I haul the beacon up over the deck's lip and drag it backward until I've positioned it in the middle of the deck.

Bao lets out a confused bellow. He knows the engines are firing up, knows that he should be backing away to a safe distance, where the subthrust won't scorch him, but we were right in the middle of training. His pattern's been interrupted; he's looking for guidance.

And so I give it to him, slamming my bare foot down on the LED beacon. The lights flare under my foot as the homing signal snaps on.

The pup groans, his beady eye peering up onto the trainer deck.

“C'mon, you little shit. I know you can do it,” I mutter under my breath, but Bao's not having it. The engines are spinning up now, sending a deep rattle through the deck below my feet.

If I'm going to get him up on the deck, I'm going to have to do something really stupid. I thrust my hand in the bucket of fish and come up with a bundle. As the noise beneath my feet builds to a roar, I hold them out over the edge, right over Bao's head.

His nostrils flare.

I'm ready for it this time, and I dive backward when he lunges, his powerful legs scrabbling against the deck. His claws leave dents in the floor as he heaves himself forward, his belly shrieking against the metal.

I stumble and fall, but I can't let that slow me with a Reckoner pup the size of a Jeep bearing down on me. I toss the handful of fish at his snout, and he opens his jaws wide, catching two of them on his lolling tongue. Water seeps off him, nearly flooding the deck, and it strikes me that if the tank he hatched in were set up, he wouldn't be able to swim in it. Bao's eyes roll as he swallows, his legs kicking halfheartedly as he tries to slide himself closer to the beacon.

“You're fine, you little idiot,” I huff, throwing another fish to distract him. I roll onto my belly and crawl over to the LEDs, hitting the off switch before Bao starts to confuse himself.

The all-call crackles on again and the voice declares, “Engines report ready. Brace for ignition in three.”

Shit.

“Two.”

I scramble to my feet and throw myself toward the switch that closes the bay doors.

“One.”

There's a scream beneath my feet and a rattle from the mechanism. The
Minnow
leaps forward like a horse from the gate, the deck rearing up just as the rear bay doors slam shut. I wind my fingers tight around the nearest handhold, my muscles burning.

Bao slides backward, squalling the whole way until he crashes into the bay doors. The spray from the boat's wake washes through the side ports as we accelerate, and after a few seconds I can loosen my grip without worrying about flying into Bao's reach.

I didn't think this through. Bao can only handle being out of the water for so long. His skin will dry out, his own weight will sag against his internal organs, and he'll only get more stressed the longer he's out of the water. But he's alive for now, and I can work with that.

I grab a mess of towels and wet them in the puddles that have accumulated in the rear of the deck. I can't do anything about his weight without refilling the pool, but I can at least keep him damp. Bao's beak bobs and weaves, following me as I work my way around him, draping the soaking towels over the crucial areas of his skin where the water will seep between the keratin plating.

I've left the side ports wide open. The harsh wind rips at my face, and flecks of seawater fly off the
Minnow
's hull and into my eyes. It's a bright, sunny day, and I can feel the power of the hunt shuddering through the deck beneath me.

“All Splinter pilots to stations,” the all-call demands over the roar of the passing air.

I can only imagine the chaos that must be unfolding in the abovedecks. A knot of fear builds inside me, a quiet thing that starts at the back of my throat and grows until it burns at my eyes. We're going into battle.

We're going to kill some people.

The ship rocks against a wave and I crouch next to Bao, keeping one hand latched onto the plating on his back in case he tries to make a move. The all-call mentioned that the ship was unguarded. No Reckoner escort means that the ship we're about to hit is going to be armed to the teeth. There will be crossfire, and Bao and I will be right in the thick of it.

His hide's still growing, and it's nowhere near tough enough to stop a bullet. I have to crank down the side ports before the shooting starts or else we're both dead.

I squint against the wind and reach for a handhold, dragging myself along the deck until I reach the switches again. Before I hit them, I take one last look at the open waters, at the wide sky above me and the early autumn sun.

The all-call crackles on again. “Splinters away on my mark. Three. Two. One.”

The pneumatics release with a harsh
snap
, and two bright white hulls split from the ship, plunging into the NeoPacific just ahead of me. I lean out over the water, craning my neck to catch a glimpse of the Splinters as they drop back behind us. I spot Swift's wicked grin as she hunches over the controls of one and Varma's easy smile as he slouches in the cockpit of the other.

“Splinters away,” the all-call announces.

There's a scream like a jet engine and the white hulls take off, their needle-shaped forms skimming over the tops of the waves like gulls as they shoot ahead of the
Minnow
. Three others join them, one circling wide from the aft of the ship and two cresting out from the other side of the stern.

They're our herding dogs. When we get within range of the ship's sensors, it will bolt. The Splinters are the ones that'll slow it down. Any decent-sized Reckoner could snap a Splinter in half with a single bite, but an unescorted ship would be hard-pressed to hit one with their artillery. The guns aboard the needleboats are weak—nothing hull-piercing—but they're enough to bring most other ships to a standstill.

And that's when the
Minnow
will pounce.

This is going to get messy fast, and I need to keep out of it. I crank down the doors as quickly as the mechanism will allow and slide my way back over to Bao. With a layer of metal between us and the waves at our hull, it sounds like we're in a washing machine, surrounded by the muted churning of the sea.

Bao hates it. I can see the stress eating away at him. He's got his head drawn back into his body, his chin rocking back and forth on the floor as he lets out a long, keening groan. His blowholes flare in and out rapidly, and all I can think right now is how lucky I am that he's not an ichthyoid or a cephalopoid or anything that couldn't handle a stint out of the water.

But he's still a Reckoner, and they're meant to swim. His body is designed to rely on the water's support, and though his keratin plating shields him on the outside, it also weighs against him in ways that I can't fight for long with the tools at my disposal. I've got the wet towels, but that's about it.

All I can do is wait and pray.

If Swift had waited three seconds before running off to kiss the captain's ass—if she'd just
listened
to me, the only person on this boat who knows how to keep the damn beast alive—we wouldn't be in this mess.

She's not on my side. I'd almost forgotten, what with the sleeping in her bed and the joking around and the lessons about Reckoner training. Her life may depend on mine, but she's only interested in saving her own skin. For a few minutes there today, when we were both earnestly laughing, I'd forgotten what she was.

The
Minnow
's pace slows. We must have caught up to the ship. The engines' pitch descends until their low thrum rattles the deck beneath us, matching Bao's groans. With the partitions down and the engine noise masking his complaints, we've managed to almost completely disguise the fact that we've got a Reckoner onboard.

It hits me. This is the first time in weeks that we've come into contact with another ship, the first time since we left the
Nereid
to sink that there've been good, decent people nearby. People with radios and uplinks. People who could tell my parents that I'm alive, who could get an armada on our tail, rescue me, and confiscate Bao.

People whom Santa Elena is about to butcher.

I want to throw up the partitions and toss Bao into the water. I want to dive in after, to flail my arms and scream for help. I want to get aboard that ship and find their radio, call home, get someone to come
save me
.

But there's a flaw with that plan. I'm on the
Minnow
, coming from the
Minnow
. They'd see me as a pirate before anything else, and they'd shoot me on sight.

I'm all by myself down here, locked away from everyone that might hear me, so I feel no shame when I suck in a huge breath and scream like I've been stabbed. Bao jerks his head at the noise, but he's too weak out of the water to do anything about it. I let my lungs empty until the sound chokes off, and when I draw my next breath I feel lighter.

So I scream again.

But this time I can't get it all the way out before a loud explosion rocks the ship, causing the deck beneath my feet to lurch. Bao kicks, his claws scrabbling against the metal floor.

It's starting.

Muffled thuds ring out from the upper decks as the
Minnow
returns fire. They'll target the ship's engines first, taking out any chance of it fleeing. That's part of the reason Reckoner trainer decks are positioned right over the engines. A boat that's dead in the water is so much harder for a beast to defend, so we keep the Reckoners' focus close to the thrusters.

My first solo battle, on the
Nereid
, was so atypical. I'd been utterly focused on Durga back then, and I'd seen nothing but the
Minnow
's victory in the aftermath. A sick sort of curiosity grips me, a frustration that I can't see the attack in progress. Dad taught me the basics of pirate tactics when I was little, and I want to see them put into practice.

Once they take out the engines, they'll target whatever artillery's trained on us. I'm guessing that starts with whatever shelled us in that opening shot. The Splinters are probably already seeing to that. When they disable those guns, they'll pull up alongside the ship and throw down the ladders.

And then comes the part that I don't want to think about, but I
have to
, because of Captain Carriel and all of the dead crew I left behind when Swift dragged me off the
Nereid
. They're going to swarm this boat, and they're going to kill everyone onboard who fights back. Bullets will find brains, knives throats, until the decks are wet with blood. I saw the bodies last time, the crew that had put up a fight laid out in the open. This time, I won't know what they look like. I'll just know that they're all dead.

Once they've eliminated the crew and disabled the communications, they'll loot the ship. They'll take every last piece of valuable equipment, tear out the tech, strip out the wires. Hina and her team will raid the kitchen, and tonight we'll feast like kings.

No,
they'll
feast like kings. I'll be fighting too much nausea to take from the spoils.

Bao's my only comfort as the fight grows louder and louder. He's breathing slower now, his blowholes flaring, his sides heaving in and out. I kneel next to him and press one hand flat against the towels, feeling the steady pounding of his massive heart beneath them.

Another shell hits the ship.

I replace my hand with my head, letting the thunder of his heartbeat drown out the noise of the
Minnow
's wrath.
We're alive
, I remind myself. My cheek is damp against the towel, my hair plastered to my head. With my nose this close to him, I can smell the faint carrion stench he carries, and it reminds me of Durga. Of the last time I saw battle.

Of the time I was ready to do anything I could to save that ship.