Back and forth Arabella dashed, gun deck to magazine and back again and again. Forward, the gun deck was a sunlit Hades of smoke and noise and furious shouting, three hard rectangular shafts of light from the gun-ports sweeping the scene as Diana swerved and tumbled in her attempt to avoid the corsair’s shots. Abaft, the magazine was a dark Hades of quiet, desperate activity, two ill-trained crewmen gingerly scooping the dangerous powder into measured charges as quickly as they dared. Between, the upper and lower decks were a raucous Hades of flying fragments, tumbling casks, and airmen slick with sweat or blood scrambling hither and yon. A dozen holes or more pierced the hull, each a deadly forest of smashed timbers which had to be navigated past.
On each traverse Arabella was forced to find a new route, as new damage or crowds of men or debris blocked her path. At one point she was nearly crushed by two crates that floated free, knocked from their lashings by cannonballs when the ship suddenly changed course and sent them crashing toward the starboard hull. Only her sharp eye and the fortunate presence of a heavy floating barrel, which she could use to change her course with a strong kick, had saved her then. Another time she collided with an airman who’d fallen unconscious at the pedals—struck in the head by flying wreckage or simply passed out from exhaustion—and drifted from his station unexpectedly.
When she arrived at the gun deck, she joined with her crew to get the number three gun loaded and aimed. It was hot, furious work, full of shouting and swearing and peering through the ports in hopes of spotting the other ship. And when the corsair did appear, pulsers whirling as she moved rapidly against the clouds beyond, a great wordless growl burst from the gun crews as they strove to haul the heavy guns into position before she could get away again.
To Arabella’s eye the French ship did not seem damaged at all.
“Fire!” cried the officer, and Arabella leapt away to fetch another charge of powder. Behind her the immense triple crash of Diana’s guns was followed by a groan of disappointment—another miss.
Exiting the gun deck she found her way blocked by a tangled knot of splintered wood, with a deadly cloud of nails spewing from a shattered cask like an angry swarm of chakti. A harsh, sharp smell of sawdust and iron assaulted her nose. Quickly she sprang off the coaming of the gun deck hatch, sailing with tucked arms and legs up the companionway to the upper deck just as the nails clattered against the bulkhead behind her.
*
Arabella shot out of the companionway into a bright, airy, screaming maelstrom. Blinking against the unaccustomed light, she caught herself on a stay and took a moment to orient herself.
The deck was a tangled mess of spars, sails, and rigging that smelled of gunpowder and blood. One of the main yards lay diagonally across Diana’s waist, a shambles of rope and Venusian silk that blocked her passage and her view. Above, the mainmast still seemed whole, though several topmen floated limp and bleeding against a background of roiling smoke.
And then, rising above the larboard rail like some malevolent moon, the corsair hove into view. Near enough that Arabella could easily make out the rapacious grins on the faces of her crew, she turned as she climbed, yawing about to bring her guns to bear on Diana’s midsection. The French ship was not undamaged—one mast was little more than a mass of splinters held together by shreds of silk—but plainly she was still very much able to maneuver. Abaft, her pulsers whirled like a windmill in a gale.
The corsair’s four gun-ports gaped, black and malevolent, seeming to grow larger as the ship swiveled herself to point directly toward Arabella.
With a shriek, Arabella flung herself away from those four hideous maws, flying aft, hiding herself in the tangled silk of the fallen yard. A moment later the corsair’s quadruple report sounded, the flash of her guns just visible through the waving silk, almost immediately followed by a shattering crash as the balls struck Diana. The ship jerked at the impact like a wounded living thing.
Arabella disentangled herself from the imprisoning fabric, finding herself on the far side of the wreckage. She was near the quarterdeck now. Abaft, officers on the quarterdeck orbited the sun of their captain, who stood, still strapped in place, pointing and calling out commands.
Arabella looked over her shoulder. From here the French ship could not be seen at all.
The quarterdeck was officers’ country, inviolate—no mere airman could enter that sacred space uninvited. Nevertheless, Arabella sprang from her position immediately, sailing through the stinking, littered air directly toward the captain. “The corsair!” she called as she flew, pointing behind herself. “She’s right over there!”
Kerrigan whirled to face her, anger showing on his blood-spattered face, but the captain called back, “Where?”
Catching herself on a stay, Arabella pointed through the obscuring silk. As though to confirm her observation, the unseen corsair’s cannon sounded again, directly in line with her pointing finger.
For a moment Captain Singh’s brow furrowed in furious concentration. Then he said, “Ashby, report to the magazine. Tell them to provide you with an explosive charge. Carry it to your gun and instruct your captain to target the enemy’s magazine. I will endeavor to provide him with a clear shot.”
Before she could even reply “Aye, aye, sir!” the captain had already turned away, barking commands to his officers.