Third Daughter (The Dharian Affairs, Book One) (35 page)

“I didn’t design this beauty to be a merchant of death,” Karan said. “I didn’t know all the captain’s plans for her, but war was never a part of the prince’s plan, gods rest his soul.” He meant Ash’s brother, Tosh, and Aniri suddenly realized he must have known the younger prince. Worked with him on the skyship. No wonder Ash trusted Karan with their lives.

She gave a short nod. “Then we’ll have to stop that from happening.”

“Exactly so, fresh,” he said with a smile.

“We’re wasting time,” Janak growled. The energy coiled inside him seemed to have settled into a dangerous calm.

“Right, then,” Karan said. “Now that we’re all in attendance, perhaps we can stop this ship from raining fire from the sky.”

Priya moved quickly to the door behind them, closing it quietly and putting a Samirian key in the keyhole. The whirring and clicking hopefully meant that it was locked. Janak took a station next to Karan.

The tinker fisted his large hands on his hips and bellowed out to the room to be heard above all the racket of the machinery. “All stations, report.”

One by one, starting on the left and moving clockwise, the engine workers called out their status, loudly, like Karan, in practiced, formal voices.

“Forward vent, closed.”

“Aft vent, closed.”

“Rudder, carrying six degrees.”

“Starboard throttle, full.”

On through the stations they went, ending with, “Stern fins, twenty degrees rise, trim.”

Karan met each with a short nod, which could only be meant for himself, since the sailor’s gazes were fixed on their levers and needle gauges.

When they were done cycling through, Karan called out, “Forward vent, how is your ballast?”

“Control, forward vent, ballast full.”

“Bow fins, make ready for trim,” he called out.

“Control, bow fins, ready for trim,” a worker in the back answered.

“Stern fins, make ready for trim.”

“Control, stern fins, ready for trim,” came the reply.

“Starboard throttle, set your power to half.” Karan waited for the call back before saying, “Port throttle, set your power to half.” The immediate whining down of the engines made the thrum both less loud and deeper. It shook the floorboards of the engine room through Aniri’s boots.

“Rudder, set your angle to zero one zero,” Karan said, “and hold until our bearing is one eight zero.”

There was a pause. “Control, repeat?” came the answer from a worker standing in front of a panel filled with needle gauges, instruments, and one large lever that his hand rested upon.

“Rudder, bring us to bearing one eight zero,” Karan repeated.

“One eight zero, sir?” The sailor at the rudder station looked to the sailor next to him, doubt wrinkling his brow. “That will return us to Bajir, sir.”

“That’s an order, sailor,” Karan said.

The sailor hesitated. Every head in the room swung between the rudder station and Karan. Janak stood by his side, all tension at the ready, but Aniri didn’t know if the sailors could see that in the smoky light of the engine room.

“Captain’s orders,” Karan said carefully. “We’re coming about and heading back to Jungali.”

A muttering chatter rose up.

One man stepped away from his spot by the boiler, his shovel still in hand, and his face slick with sweat. “What about the mission, sir?” he called out.

“It’s been aborted,” Karan responded, then pointed to the rudder station. “Rudder, make your angle zero one zero, or I’ll come there and do it myself, sailor.”

The sailor’s eyes went wide, then he slowly eased the lever to the left and shouted, “Control, rudder, angle set to zero one zero.”

Aniri could feel the slow tilt as the ship heeled over into the turn.

“Belay that order,” a voice barked. It was the man who had spoken before. He swung his shovel onto his shoulder and called out, “I didn’t hear any order come down from the bridge.”

“Aye,” said a second man, closer, standing near a large brass tube that flared into a horn shape. “There was no order on the tube.”

“Well, that’s that, then,” Karan said quietly and nodded to Janak, who looked like he was ready to burst. He moved so fast, Aniri could hardly track him. He leapt from Karan’s side and landed at the rudder station. His hands blurred, connecting with the sailor in at least two spots. Aniri wasn’t quite sure what he did, but the man crumpled to the floor at Janak’s feet. The nearby engine workers shrank away, fear flashing across their faces.

Then everything went to madness.

“Bridge!” the man at the large brass tube shouted into the horn. “Mutiny on the engine deck—” Janak was on him, stopping his breath with a quick strike to the throat, and soon he lay in a heap on the floor as well. The man from the back surged forward, readying his shovel to swing, and several more workers lunged for Janak.

He whirled, his hands flat planes and his boots swiping high then low, a spinning figure in the middle of the melee. She didn’t see him actually touch any of the sailors attacking him, but they flew backward, one by one, landing motionless on the floor or slumped against an instrument panel. The man with the shovel lay flat on his back, splayed out, unmoving. His shovel skittered to a stop against another worker’s feet. Janak stood in the middle of the bodies, back straight as an arrow, feet wide and hands splayed, ready for more.

No one moved.

“Now, then,” Karan said, commanding the attention of the remaining workers. “The rest of ye want to question my orders?” There were still eight engine workers left at their stations, but no one so much as twitched an eyebrow.

“Right.” Karan strode to the rudder station, checked quickly on the status, and seeming satisfied there, moved two stations forward, closer to the door, where an array of tiny levers bristled from the instrumentation panel. It also had a larger handled lever like the rudder station, and Karan clacked it down with a heavy mechanical thunk. But when he examined the needle gauge, his face pulled into a scowl.

“Ashoka,” he called out, and the prince, who had stood by Aniri’s side during the entire brief showdown hurried to the control station. Karan pointed to a gauge where the needle was well into a red zone that Aniri could see even from her spot by the door. “The burning glass is still operational. I’ve thrown the main switch; it should have laid all the wings flat, cutting off the rays to the central crystal, but the tube is still hot.” He tapped it. “Could be it will take a moment to cool, but it should at least have dipped.” His face was solemn when he turned to Ash. “There’s a manual override control on the bridge. They could have cut us off before I was able to shut it down.”

Ash ran a hand across his face. “There’s no way to turn it off from here?”

“From here… no. Not if they’re controlling it from the bridge now.” Karan glared at the sailor at the station next to them. “We could try to take the bridge, but…”

Ash gave a small shake to his head, and Karan nodded. They didn’t seem to think that was a viable option. Aniri glanced at Priya: her face was scrunched with worry. This obviously wasn’t part of the plan. Janak appeared by Karan’s side, startling the large man out of his frown for a moment.

“We can turn back to Jungali,” Janak said.

“We can’t return to Bajir like this,” Ash said. “With the burning glass still operational, we’ll just destroy whatever’s in our path.”

“Continuing on to the capital is not an option.” The menace in Janak’s voice made clear he wouldn’t countenance that.

“No,” Ash agreed. “We can’t do that either.”

“We could vent some navia and bring ’er down,” Karan offered, carefully. “Of course we’ll be landing in our own flaming pit of fire, so I’m not keen on those odds, Ashoka.”

The prince glanced at Aniri. She gave him a weak smile and a nod. She knew it might come down to destroying the ship, which would likely mean themselves as well, in order to stop it.

He turned back to Karan. “If that’s what it takes to stop the destruction of the capital, I want you to do it. But I would like to hear any other options you have first.”

“Aye.” Karan leaned a hand against the panel, the other one working the goggles on his brow, as if that motion was helping him think. “If there was some way to get directly to the burning glass…” He studied the small forest of switches on the panel. “It wouldn’t take much, only a few of the panels out of alignment might reduce the power enough… or we could disable it entirely by—”

A loud rattling came from the door behind Aniri and Priya. Aniri had just enough time to shoot an alarmed look to Ash, Karan, and Janak, all of whom had swung to look their way, when a tremendous crack sounded from the door. A split second later the door flew open, catching Priya in the back and sending her crashing into Aniri. They both tumbled to the floor as several sailors armed with blunderbusses stormed into the engine room.

Janak ran toward her, but before he could reach the cluster of armed sailors, a shot rang out, and he flew backward. Aniri stared in horror as he fell to the floor and didn’t get up. She scrambled to her feet, ready to join the fight, when Karan’s voice bellowed out.

“Stop!” Surprisingly, the command brought everyone to a halt. “Garesh, you fool, you can’t fire that thing in here! You’ll burst a boiler or worse. With your aim, you’ll probably put a hole in the bag.”

Garesh stepped to the front of his sailors, blunderbuss extended, a grin on his face. “Then I’ll be careful to aim well, tinker.” But his gun wasn’t pointed at Karan, it was leveled at Ash’s head. “The Jungali people will have to mourn the loss of yet another royal. How appropriate for him to die at the hands of mutineers on board the country’s finest war vessel. But no one will be surprised that the Dharian princess he wanted to marry turned traitor. Such is the bad luck of the Malik royal household.”

Ash bore his taunts with a cold look of disdain, as if Garesh were beneath his contempt.

Garesh cocked the hammer back on his gun, and Aniri didn’t hesitate. She whipped her sword from its sheath and lunged at Garesh’s arm. The tip of her blade barely reached him, but it smacked against Garesh’s gun just as it fired.

Garesh swore and whirled on her. Aniri backed away and looked to see if Ash had been hit, but a cloud of steam billowed out to swallow half the room. Garesh and his men were distracted by the sudden hiss that came with it. Karan bellowed and appeared out of the cloud, tackling Garesh. They went down, wrestling on the floor, with Karan’s massive hand around Garesh’s throat. With his free hand, Karan snagged the goggles off his forehead and tossed them to Aniri. She clumsily caught them.

“Go, fresh,” he wheezed, then pulled his arm back to punch Garesh in the face. Two sailors fell on him, trying to wrest him away. Aniri stared for a split second at the goggles in one hand and her sword in the other, then hooked her arm around Priya’s and dragged her through the blasted-open door.

Aniri didn’t look back, just ran through the corridor, retracing her steps up the stairs to the captain’s quarters where Ash had rescued her.

Ash.

Tears blurred her eyes. She kept her father’s sword in front for any of Garesh’s sailors along the way. Janak was shot for certain—she couldn’t tell where or how badly he was hurt.

Or if he was dead.

The tears made it impossible to see, so she swiped at them. Her boots pounded the metal steps.

Ash could be dead as well. She told herself the bullet must have gone wide—otherwise steam wouldn’t have filled the engine room. Or was that Karan’s doing? Priya followed behind, face drawn. They reached the captain’s quarters, and Aniri paused, making sure they hadn’t been followed. At least not yet.

“Did you see the prince, Priya?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

“No, my lady.” Her delicate face was taut with worry. “But I’m sure Karan will protect him, if he can.”

Aniri’s heart squeezed. Priya was as worried about the tinker as Aniri was about Ash. But she had no time for that now.

She held up Karan’s goggles. “Why did he give me these?” She was asking herself as much as Priya. “He said
go
, but go where? I don’t know if there are escape boats, but I’ve no intention of leaving. Do you know what he meant?”

“No, my lady. But Mr. Karan, he’s…”

Aniri’s heart wrenched further as tears glistened in Priya’s eyes.

“He’s a brilliant tinker,” Priya said. “I’m sure he meant for you to do something important with the goggles.”

Of course.
“The butterfly!”

“My lady?”

“The burning glass, or whatever its proper name.” Aniri sheathed her sword and pulled on the darkened goggles, securing the strap and propping them on her forehead, so she could still see. “Karan mentioned something about getting to it and disabling it.”

“Do you know how to do that, my lady?” Priya’s eyes were wide.

Aniri grimaced. “Not exactly. But I know where it is, and there must be a way up top to reach it.” She glanced down the end of the hall. “Priya, how do I get to the upper decks of the ship?”

“This way, my lady.” Priya scurried with light steps down the hall, past the captain’s quarters, to another set of stairs at the end. At the top, the brilliant summer sun shone through a window in the door. Pounding steps sounded somewhere in the ship—Aniri hurried up the stairs and threw open the door.