His stomach wouldn’t have lurched any harder if she’d cocked back her arm and gut-punched him. Nathaniel stared, silently willing her to correct her statement. He surprised himself with the calm in his voice. “Why?”
“I received a cable from Fleet command. The fighting has been fierce. Two ships lost to the horrifics, four others crippled with a number dead and injured crew on board.” She abused the brandy, tossing it back as if it were gin. “TheTerebellum, theBellatrixand theGatriaare to alter course and offer assistance in both ballistics and transport.”
Nathaniel took a bracing swallow of his own, welcoming the burn of alcohol down his throat. The only sounds in the captain’s quarters were Nettie’s soft breathing and the constant background whir of theTerebellum’spropellers. Inside his head, the clamor was deafening with the wrench and squeal of broken girders, the screams of the dying, the gunshot snap of rivets popping out of steel.
The shuddering ship.
He closed his eyes to clear the images and opened them again to Nettie’s knowing, pitying gaze.
“TheTerebellumisn’t built as a skyrunner,” he said.
She lowered her chin and gave him a don’t-play-stupid-with-me-lad look. “I think we both know she isn’t just a cargo lifter either. I’ve seen you inspecting her. Her middle gun deck alone has enough cannon and gun batteries on her to make thePollux’s arsenal look like a child’s toy chest. Her engines can put out three times the horsepower for speed if pushed, and her shield is powerful enough to withstand a full broadside from the biggest horrific.”
Nathaniel shivered. He doubted anyone living had yet encountered the biggest horrific lurking in the dimensional rift. “That’s true, but her principal firepower is in that keel-mounted weapons platform. Completely unsuitable for fighting in the Redan. She’s a nautilus killer, Captain. Her guns are meant to blow holes into submarines and sea pirates. The rail ties can move the platform out a distance, but without a port or starboard rotation, the guns can’t target anything directly above the ship.”
“Jonas Tibbs is a first-rate helmsman,” she said. “I’d have poached him off theSerpentisyears ago if Captain Narada hadn’t threatened to put a cannon ball up my arse if I tried it. God rest his poxy soul.” She pinned Nathaniel in place with a sharp gaze. “A good helmsman paired with a good gunner can make the clumsiest ship do cartwheels on a high wire and hit a fly at a hundred paces.”
Nathaniel returned the look she’d given him earlier. “That is either the most spectacular exaggeration I’ve ever heard, or the most ridiculous. I’ve not yet decided which.”
She shrugged and downed the rest of her brandy before setting it on the nearby table with thump. “It doesn’t matter. What I want to know, lad, is if I need you to shoot at something, will you do it?Canyou do it?”
His stomach jerked taut against his backbone, leaving him queasy.The shuddering ship.
The Nathaniel Gordon of five years ago had earned a reputation within the airship fleet as a gunner both accurate and precise with his shots. The Nathaniel Gordon of now hadn’t fired so much as a slingshot in five years. For all he knew, he couldn’t hit the back end of a coster’s cart.
“You already have a senior gunner aboard with three juniors under his command. You don’t need a second senior.”
“Who says I have to ration gunners? Why limit myself to one senior when I have two on board?” She raised a hand to halt his reply. “I don’t need you telling me how rank protocol works. I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you have, mate. Owens is a capable gunner with a good eye, but you have more experience in a turret, not to mention fighting at the Redan.”
That Nathaniel would agree was a foregone conclusion. Short of assassinating Lenore for her, which was a ludicrous idea, he’d do anything Nettie asked of him. “I’m rusty,” he said. “I might miss.”
Her disbelieving snort made his lips twitch. “They’re horrifics, Nathaniel, not hummingbirds.”
The reminder of the peril they’d face when they reached the Redan killed what little humor Nettie’s sarcasm had kindled inside him. “Lenore...”
“Is a crewman aboard this ship. No better, no worse and no different from anyone else serving.” Nettie squeezed his forearm, her lined features softening. “Lad, don’t think I don’t worry for her. For both of you. Arthur’ll haunt me until I’m dead if something happens to his daughter, and I still wake up in a sweat some nights remembering when you fell from thePollux.” She was pale but resolute—the Nettie he’d always known. “But I’m not stopping or turning around to let one crewman off. Besides, Lenore would refuse. You know that.”
Nathaniel abandoned his half full snifter next to Nettie’s empty one and scraped his hands through his hair. “This is a nightmare.” His great relief at learning that Lenore would sail on theTerebellumon a peaceful test flight and supply run had shredded with the wind rising off the ocean waves.
Nettie nodded. “It is and no avoiding it,” she said flatly.
He stood in the shadows as Nettie informed the crew of their new orders, his gaze on Lenore. The blood slowly drained from her face, leaving her ashen. Her pupils had expanded with her fear, turning her brown eyes black. Some of the brasher crewmen whistled and cheered at the chance to taste battle. Others less cocky and more experienced stared at their captain with grim, determined faces. Nathaniel suspected if someone suddenly held up a mirror to him, he’d see that same expression stamped on his features.
Nettie answered several questions from the crew before dismissing them. She sought out Nathaniel’s gaze and jerked her head toward Lenore’s retreating back. “Follow her, idiot,”couldn’t have been clearer if she’d yelled it in his face.
He tracked her to the berth she shared with another female crewman. Only Lenore occupied the space at the moment, and Nathaniel closed the door, locking it behind him. She didn’t startle or even look at him. Instead, she stripped the sheets off her tidy bed and began remaking it.
“Are you frightened?”
She paused at his softly uttered question and stared down at her pillow. “A little,” she replied. They both stared at the hand she raised. Her fingers twitched and trembled. Lenore’s smile was sheepish. “A lot.”
He gathered her into his arms, words hovering on his lips. He was frightened as well. They would face something that made even the most hardened crewman’s stomach drop through the floor. The horrifics’ colossal size alone induced open-mouthed terror, their appearance straight out of an opium-eater’s hallucination of Hell. Nathaniel had fought at the Redan in more than a dozen battles, and each time he’d nearly pissed himself at his first sighting of a horrific.
Lenore shook in his arms, her face pressed into his shoulder. She mumbled something he couldn’t make out. Nathaniel leaned back and tilted her chin to look at him. “What did you say?”
“Do you think me weak for being scared?”
Her skin was hot satin under his fingers, her body a sliver of paradise in his arms, and he wished her anywhere but here aboard this ship. “No. Fear can be a good thing. It keeps you sharp and alert. It isn’t a weakness when it benefits you.”
