Bao sinks lower. Shadows close in around us, the dark of the night settling into the sea long before it touches the world above us. I can barely make out the sleek curve of the Minnow’s hull in the murk. We drop lower still. I pinch my nose and blow to pop my ears.
It’s so quiet, so calm down here. There’s nothing but the rush of water from the churn of Bao’s forelegs and the rock-solid sureness of his skull underneath me. I find myself wishing I could stay, wishing we could wait until Bao’s breath runs out or until the respirator sputters and quits. But somewhere up there on the Minnow’s deck, Santa Elena has Swift in her sights, and that thought keeps me rooted, waiting for the next instruction that comes through the comm.
Light spools through the deep as the Minnow’s engines flare, and I know it’s almost time. I don’t need to direct Bao with the Otachi. His bond with the ship is enough to set him after her as she runs, the Splinters’ hulls skimming in her wake.
There are six shadows trailing her, and three of them are swimming.
“Drop back, Cas,” Varma hisses in my ear. “They’ll be expecting signals to be coming from our ship. The farther Bao is from us, the more confident they’ll be. Wait for our signal to strike.”
I snap on the Otachi and cast Bao’s homing signal back toward his tail, my eyes fixed on the hulking forms of the three Reckoners overhead. Every homing signal is unique, coded to make sure that the beasts can only be controlled by their masters. But sometimes they forget themselves. Sometimes when they’re too amped up, they’ll go after any flashing light and any siren. But Bao is the only one who heeds my call, and the tightness in my chest unclenches as the pursuit boats and Reckoners pull ahead, still chasing after the Minnow’s shadow.
The biggest of the beasts is a cetoid. Its jointed flippers are tipped with vestigial claws that carve through the water as it leads the pack, plunging ahead with powerful strokes of its flukes. A cephalopoid follows close in its wake, tentacles rippling through the darkening waves, and a serpentoid brings up the rear. Its sinuous body dips underneath its companion ship, coiling against it before pushing off again. There’s a part of me that cries out at the sight of the other beasts, of the animals that I’ve spent my whole life raising.
There’s another part of me that reaches out to crush it.
Like Varma said, they’re focused on the Minnow. They’re expecting any signal to come from its decks. They won’t see me coming. Trainers have conducted battles from decks, from shattered hulls, and in their most desperate moments, from the sea. No one’s ever dared to fight from the back of the beast they’re directing.
No one has ever needed to.
Heavy pulses ring through the water, and flashes of light up above mark where the opening shells have struck. Santa Elena’s drawing them on, triggering the Reckoners’ responses. The three beasts lunge ahead, leaving their companion vessels defenseless in their wake.
“Cas,” Varma says in my ear. “Now.”
32
The lasers blast from my wrists, and Bao’s head wrenches up, forcing me flat against the plating. I’m lost against the surge, the line at my waist the only thing keeping me attached to his head. My ears swell and pop viciously—I can’t equalize in time. A scream bubbles out of me, and we break the surface like a geyser.
There’s no time for hesitation, no time for second thoughts. I point my wrist at the rearmost ship, whose guns are still trained on the Minnow’s retreating aft, and twist the setting to charge. Bao obeys with a roar, lunging forward so ferociously that I lose my grip and tumble back against his neck.
It’s too late for the people on the deck to do anything. They’re powerless as Bao comes crashing over them like a hurricane, his claws sinking into the ship’s rear as he closes his beak around the aft gun mounts.
Then their eyes shift to me, and they recognize who’s commanding the beast. Me in my mirrored goggles. Me in my respirator and armor. Me with the Otachi on my wrists, tied to the back of the monster raining hell on them, fighting on the wrong side of the war.
There’s no point in apologizing. I snap the Otachi to destroy and lean out over the side of Bao’s head, throwing the beams against the engines that protrude from the boat’s sides. Bao chases after them, but this time I keep my grip solid and sure in the plating, and my aim doesn’t waver. His claws slash once, and the boat is dead in the water.
The serpentoid peels off the Minnow’s tail, its arrow-like snout whipping around to find us, and I know that this boat must be its companion. It lets out a fell shriek and launches itself forward. Its winding body slices through the inky waves like they’re nothing.
I crouch against Bao’s neck, trying to make myself as small as possible as my monster wheels to meet the other Reckoner head-on. The serpentoid ducks beneath the waves, and Bao heaves toward it—and his beak closes on thin air with a crack that nearly knocks me senseless. My ears ring, but I can’t waver now, can’t let it get the better of me, because I’ve trained enough serpentoids to know exactly what the snake beast is about to do.
I flick the Otachi to charge and throw the beam out to our right. Bao veers, just as the first of the serpentoid’s coils lash up around his midsection. He escapes its grip, but just barely, and the strike sends him rolling onto his back. I cling to his plating so hard that my knuckles creak. The water slams me flat against him, and I reach down and anchor another line-hook to his keratin. He rolls his head forward, fueled by an instinct I can’t break him from, and this time the serpentoid’s too busy recovering to get out of the way. Bao’s jaws cinch around its neck.
The muscles snap taut underneath me as Bao bites down, and a sick, wet crunch rattles my bones. The serpentoid goes limp.
Two down. But in the frenzy of the fight, I’ve lost track of the other ships, and it takes me a minute to get my wits about me, my thoughts still stuck on the fact that I’ve just helped kill a Reckoner. The smell of the serpentoid’s blood washes over me, thick and pungent, and I drink it in before I can tell myself not to. Bao lets out a roar that shakes the NeoPacific, letting his kill tumble back into the waves.
A spotlight flares from one of the ships, its light nearly blinding me as they aim it at us. Then the other ship’s lights blast on, and I can’t see the stars above me anymore. Bao roars again, but this time it chokes off in a confused warble as he tries to make sense of the new signals blazing across him. I squint through my goggles, searching for what I know must be coming.
The lasers carve in the wake of the spotlights, their bright beams coming to rest squarely on Bao’s head. Shit. I throw up his charge signal, aiming it right back at the closest boat, but he shakes his snout from side to side, still confused.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” I growl into the respirator. It’s no use.
The cetoid is the first to strike, coming up hard against Bao’s underbelly with its plated snout. The hit sends me flying into the air as Bao shrieks in pain, and my fingers instinctively wind around the line-hook cables as my feet go sailing over my head. I land hard on my back, the helmet cracking against Bao’s plates. A thick tentacle towers out of the sea to our left and lashes down around his neck, inches from my position. I grit my teeth, turn the Otachi to their brightest setting, and plunge them against the cephalopoid’s soft flesh.