Page 32 of The Space Between Stars

“I’m just calling attention to the bleeding fact that the moment your ‘luck charm’ touched foot on this deck, the ship slowed down. Everyone knows it.”

Her father glared at him and turned his gaze back to the sea.

They paced the quarterdeck, pretending there was no need to be anxious, until the vessel on the horizon was as large as Fankalo’s thumb.

Gelhard peered through his lens again. “That’s a blue flag with a stag on it.”

Her father cursed.

His quartermaster raised his eyebrows, thin mustache pulled back like he’d bitten into a lemon. “I’m pretty sure they’re still mad.”

Fankalo’s father gave her shoulder a squeeze and put his fingers to his mouth to whistle.

“All hands!” he bellowed, his voice carrying to either end of the ship.

The raiders made their various ways to the quarterdeck. They scurried down the ratlines and popped out from the hatch. They leaned over the rails from the topdeck and scrambled down the steps of the forecastle and back up again. All squinted against the glinting sun at her father with rapt attention. Nearly seventy heads manned the Rogue’s Rapture, and almost two thirds had responded to captain Alberous Keane’s summons within twenty seconds. Fankalo wasn’t sure what power he had that made them answer so willingly. All she knew was she wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything.

“We’ve got seven leagues between us and Nelfinden waters. We need to get there before the Pazirian spice trade. Savvy?”

She couldn’t read the mixed emotions that radiated from him. He was nervous, but also excited? This chase at sea… it was like a game to him.

Gelhard did not look so amused. “You really think we can hit Nelfinden waters in less than two hours?”

“What do you see as the alternative?”

“We fight them off and leave them the way we should have in the first place.”

A shadow passed over her father’s face. “We’re plundering raiders. Not pillaging raiders. There’s a distinction.”

Fankalo had heard her father reference the two-law codex—the creed he followed—on several occasions. Those aboard the Rogue’s Respite were sworn to it. They only robbed those who could do without, and they did not kill, unless in self-defense.

Gelhard’s face was all hard lines and malice. “Ever since you lost Fankalo, your mind has been addled.”

Her stomach turned. He meant the real Fankalo, the son she was replacing. A war passed between the two men in a glance.

“Fankalo is beside me,” her father hissed.

She clasped his forearm, and he put a protective, sun-darkened hand on her shoulder. It was a strange ruse, sure. But he needed her, and she needed him, and if keeping up the lie was the only way they could have one another, so be it.

“Continue to question me and I’ll have you demoted, as any other captain would. Or, if you want to pillage, I can drop you with the Tera’thians. They’ll take you with open arms.”

Gelhard only rolled his eyes. “I spoke out of rashness, Captain.” But Fankalo didn’t like the way he said Captain—like it had fermented on his tongue.

Her father’s only rebuke was a glare. “Let’s just get to safer waters. No Pazirian vessel will have the nerve to try us there.”

Minutes passed by as though they were full days. The crew shouted and signaled in an effort to keep the sails to their best angles. Gelhard commanded the helm beside the navigator, long limbs even more rigid than usual. Captain Keane never let his eyes leave the ship on the horizon, which grew ever closer.

As soon as they could see individual forms moving about on the opposing deck, Fankalo used her magic again. A wall of darkness hit her: water and screams and fast-moving metal.

“They’re going to shoot,” she cried. Not a moment later, a broadside launch, a machine like a tanka but as large as a man, released a fist-sized chunk of metal. The ocean directly in front of them spewed water several stories into the air.

Her father’s brows lowered, causing the sun’s gleam to shift across his dark skin. “Get below deck.”

“But I—”

“Get below deck, now.” He paused before barking to a small figure darting across the main deck. “Mitek, keep her with you!”

If there was one person in all the world she would obey, it was this man who had chosen to protect her and provide for her when the world had cast her aside. Just as she made it down the stairs, she heard a whizzing, followed by the splitting of wood.