Swift snorts, and Santa Elena aims a kick at her.
“I’ll … ” I start, but I don’t know what to say. It takes months to train Reckoners into aggression, but then again, that’s with safety considerations. That’s with standards and regulations, with pacing that avoids stressing out the beasts. If I push Bao, maybe we can get somewhere in three days. Maybe I can make him lethal.
He’s already lethal, I remind myself, thinking of Code’s bright green eyes.
“You’ll do your damndest, Cassandra, or dear Swift will be that thing’s next meal,” Santa Elena snarls.
For a moment I think she’s kidding, but I see the way Swift’s jaw clenches, the way her body leans slightly away from the captain’s side. That must have been what they talked about last night, and suddenly I feel stupid—so completely and utterly stupid—because this was Santa Elena’s plan all along.
When I was alone on this ship with nothing to lose, she could barely control me. It was a stroke of luck for her that I felt the need to uncover the mystery behind Bao’s origins. But she gave me a companion, a protector, a friend, and she bided her time until it became clear to her that I’d been snared by her trap. That’s why she didn’t seem bothered by my revelation that Bao was still docile. It wasn’t because she thought that he’d instinctively fight when the time came.
No, she knew about that idea stewing away in the back of my head. The one where once I’d gotten what I needed to know, I’d take the beast she gave me and turn him on the ship that had taken everything away. The one where I used Bao to crush the Minnow into oblivion.
The one that’s impossible now, because I care too much about Swift. I can’t take her life, her livelihood; I can’t let her family starve.
And not once in this conversation have I questioned using Bao to fight the pursuit. Not once have I doubted that I can turn my monster against the people coming to rescue me. Santa Elena has worked her magic.
“I’ll do everything I can,” I tell her, hating how much I mean it.
26
In the first few hours with the Otachi, I’ve been able to bait Bao into ramming the tug enough that he now associates the flashing pattern with charging. When I project out against a wave, the beams cutting into the murky ocean waters, he surges after them, throwing the full force of his body after the bright lights.
My arms are sore. I’ve been switching between them, trying to keep myself going, but by noon I’ve hit a point where I can barely lift either of them.
Swift brings down a tray of food from the mess just as the sun reaches its high point in the sky. She avoids my gaze when she hands it to me.
“Hey,” I say when she turns her back without a word.
Swift freezes. Her neck stiffens, as if the tattoo branded there has nailed her in place.
“Captain says we’ve been getting too chummy,” she mutters. “Says we shouldn’t talk as much. Says we’ll both pay if we do.”
Telling her exactly what the captain can go do seems unwise in this situation, so I simply say, “Shame,” and try to mask the fact that her words have set something boiling in my stomach. I guess there’s no need for me to be guarded on this ship anymore, not after what happened to Code. Everyone’s too afraid of the captain to try anything, Swift included.
The bruise on her face has gotten a little bit worse. It must have been fresh this morning, and it makes me wonder just how long the captain interviewed her. I want to ask her what they talked about, but she’s already through the hatch, slamming the latch in place behind her.
I eat slowly, the food tasteless in my mouth. Out across the waves, I spot Bao rising out of the water, a neocete held delicately in his jaws. Seems I’m not the only one who needed a lunch break.
When I call him back, he’s sluggish to respond. I can see the tension that coils and uncoils in his muscles when he draws up alongside the trainer deck. He’s already feeling cranky and overworked. If I push him, he might push back in a way I can’t control, but I can’t afford to lose any time.
“Sorry, little shit,” I tell him, and strap on the Otachi again.
I try to go easier on him in the second round, letting him take a few minutes to shake out his limbs before calling him back in to have another go at the tug. With each hollow thud of his plated snout against the ship’s metal side, I can feel the frustration building inside him. He can’t make sense of why he’s being asked to repeat the action, and he’s gotten too big for any sort of reward to be effective every time he strikes true. I can’t exactly furnish a host of carved-up neocete carcasses like we do back home, and red meat is the only sure way to get a Reckoner’s favor. As his frustration mounts, I start to worry that he’ll remember Code, that eventually he’ll just stick his head onto the trainer deck and snap me up.
But I’m frustrated and overworked too. It doesn’t mean he gets off the hook. I blaze the lasers again, and again, and again, conducting a hundred-and-fifty-ton orchestra with wrists trembling from exhaustion. There’s something I want to try, something I’ve never been able to attempt within the confines of regulated Reckoner training.
I want to see how far he’ll go to get me off his case.
So I keep on throwing up the same signal. The lights I project are so bright and sharp that they leave streaks across my vision in their wake, and I know they must be burned into Bao’s retinas by now. The lasers mounted on the Otachi are powerful enough to scorch things that get too close, and though the smudges in my vision make it difficult to tell, I think they’ve already started to wear a dark spot on the tug’s hull.
I wait for the moment I feel certain.
It doesn’t come until nearly evening. When I throw the Otachi’s beams against the tug’s side, Bao lets out a groan so loud that the ocean around him vibrates, and when he wheels, it’s with a burst of energy far stronger than anything he’s done in the past hour. He cuts through the waves like a freight train, his thick limbs kicking up a froth in his wake. I wait until he’s half a body-length from the tug’s side.
Then I twist one of the knobs, switching the signal from charge to destroy.
He doesn’t know what it means. He doesn’t need to. Something clicks, something falls into place, and his fury unlocks. Bao hits the tug with a roar, but instead of glancing off, he keeps going. His forearm crashes down on the deck as he locks his beak around the cockpit, and the shriek of tearing metal echoes across the waves.
I stagger back a few steps.
Bao’s neck muscles snap taut as he wrenches his head back, ripping the cockpit from the ship. His weight crashes down on the tug’s deck, and the boat’s hull warps. With a high-pitched keen, he thrusts his head back down, and when his jaws snap shut, it’s like a thunderclap. The tug cracks cleanly in two, the pieces bobbing up on either side of him as he sinks between them. Bao chases one of them, locks it in his beak, and starts swatting at it with his foreleg. His massive claws shred the hull like tissue as both he and the fragment of the ship sink into the depths beneath us.
My work here is done. A pup’s training ends when they devastate their first tug. From here on out, it’s instinct. It takes months to properly train a Reckoner.
But I did it improperly, and I did it in a day.
There’s a sudden roar from the decks above me, and I realize that we had an audience all along. Somewhere up there, Santa Elena must be watching. Somewhere up there, she’s seeing exactly the kind of beast she has on her side.
I hope she’s impressed.
As for me, I’m terrified and just a little bit proud. A Reckoner’s strength comes from careful practice, from routine and comfort and precision. What I just saw Bao do was nothing like that. Proper training is tai chi; this was a backstreet knife fight. Now not only does our beast have a taste for blood, but he’s also got a knack for savaging ships that’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.