Tantamount Read online

  “Like an asteroid, Skipper?” Violet asked while their momentum took them deeper into the debris field. “Think someone was asleep at the helm?”

  “Nothing like that around here,” the skipper told her. The woman's face darkened and Violet remembered the whispers and shouts of shipboard gossip. Even in the brief moments before they'd launched the tender she'd heard Quill's name mentioned. It was enough to make her regret her flippant comment. If the wreckage hadn't been as demolished as it was, with most of the ship broken into tiny fragmented pieces, the Tantamount would have been in serious trouble. She was already dreading the return trip to the ship, seeing first-hand how much damage had been done.

  “See those cannons?” The skipper pointed to where the iron castings floated freely, anchored to a scrap of decking by a fraying rope. “High calibre, military issue.”

  “You saying this was an Alliance ship?” Violet looked at the uniformed bodies again and immediately wished she hadn't. Her stomach wanted to climb back up from wherever it had dropped to.

  “Air-corps,” the skipper confirmed. “You can't tell from the uniforms?”

  “Never saw a lot of them back home, Skipper,” Violet mumbled, covering her mouth with her hand. “Seen them less since I've been with you.”

  The skipper didn't press on the subject. Maybe she was regretting bringing Violet out here—she could hardly be blamed.

  “Sorry, Skipper,” Violet managed to say. She gripped the wheel tightly with clammy hands.

  “It's fine,” the skipper said, and sounded like she meant it.

  When Violet felt she could safely look up again she found the skipper still studying their surroundings. The skipper used to be in the Alliance—that was more shipboard gossip but something Violet heard often enough to believe it was genuine. What was it like for her, seeing her former fellows out here like this? If the woman felt anything, she didn't give it away. Tough woman, the skipper. She'd been around—Violet could read that from the tattooed sleeve on one arm. A Kitsune girl like Violet from a backwater rock just didn't compare.

  “Alliance ship, military protocols,” the skipper mused aloud. “They weren't going to get hit by a stray asteroid. Not even out here.”

  “So what did happen?” Violet asked, because it felt like she was expected to.

  “They were rammed.”

  “Rammed?” Violet blinked, startled.

  The skipper nodded grimly. “This was a ship that was maybe twenty-eight gun, lightweight, frigate class. Whatever attacked them was much bigger. Heavy, massive envelope ran straight through them. The change in pressure from the bigger ship's envelope would have ripped them apart. That's what happened.”

  Violet studied their surroundings. “You asked Jack to get ready for patients.”

  A shrug. “Wanted him to feel useful. There was a ruckus in the galley just before.”

  “You don't think we're going to find any survivors, do you, Skipper?”

  “Captain says we look. We're looking.”

  “Aye, Skipper,” Violet said quietly.

  The bubble drifted at its leisurely pace through the remains of the alliance ship. Every time they came to a body they would inspect it, moving around stray bits of timber and canvas, checking the obvious places a survivor might be. All they found were more cold bodies.

  “Something odd about these bodies, Skipper,” Violet said eventually.

  The skipper turned back to face her, eyebrows raised quizzically. There was precious little light out here amongst the mist and debris. Much of the skipper's face was shadowed, giving the woman a foreboding look. That look fit with what Violet had been feeling since they got out here. Something was wrong.

  “They look dead, Skipper, a long time dead.”

  “How so?” the skipper pushed for her to explain.

  “Seen bodies before, Skipper,” Violet shivered at the memories. “They . . . usually they all look the same out here. Frozen. Cold. These,” Violet turned her head to follow another corpse, “they look like they were left in the sun to dry. Or maybe someone buried them for a week.”

  Violet shuddered, rubbing at her wrist as she did so. There was a tattoo there, braided rope looped around the wrist and up into the palm, protection against being lost overboard, so she would always have something to hold fast. Most sailors had tattoos—the rope was Violet's first and only. Piper had taken her out to get it the first time she'd made planetfall with the Tantamount.

  “You think it was a corpse ship, Skipper? Maybe taking their dead back from some battle out in the Lanes?”

  The idea had been sitting at the back of her mind for some time now. Too many bodies out here, too far gone. It wasn't normal.

  “No,” the skipper said quietly, “that's not what the Alliance does with its dead.”

  “You'd be one to know, Skipper. But then what . . . ?” Violet gestured. She didn't finish her question.

  “Draugr,” the skipper said. “They're Draugr. Air-corps run with them these days,”

  “Oh.” It was a long time before Violet tried to make conversation again.

  She'd heard of Draugr before. Most everyone had. They were supposed to be common around the Alliance Lanes, but not out in the backwaters. Labourers, servants, slaves, Violet wasn't quite sure. She didn't even know if they were even alive or some sort of animation, just that they were becoming more and more common in the High Lanes. She hadn't expected to see something like that out in the Free Lanes.

  The thoughts washed away when she looked ahead of them. Part of the hull, more or less intact. The reinforced section around the keel of the ship; where heavier cargo would have been stored. It might even have maintained something of an envelope.

  “Skipper,” Violet called, pointing.

  “All right,” the skipper said. “Take us over. Nice and easy.”

  “Only speed we've got, Skipper,” Violet said, adjusting the angle of their approach. The bubble drifted leisurely towards the broken hull, which yawned dark even against the black. But not so dark Violet couldn't see it.

  “There's someone in there.” Violet's voice rose to a high pitch. She twisted around to face the skipper with wide eyes. “They look like they could still be alive.”

  The skipper's face creased into her habitual frown, hand straying to her side but grasping at air. Often the skipper carried a wand there, especially when they were ashore, less often aboard.

  “Hells.”

  “Skipper?”

  “Nice and easy,” the skipper repeated through clenched teeth.

  With white-knuckled hands Violet manoeuvred the bubble right to the edge of the hull wreckage until the empty space between them started to twist and fray. Violet eyed the distorted air warily, for that disruption meant there was air of some sort between them. There was an envelope present and it was reacting to the pressure of the air inside the bubble.

  “Skipper,” Violet called out, pointing.

  “Keep us out here,” the skipper cautioned her. “That's a fractured envelope, a different atmosphere from us. We won't take any chances here.”

  Violet shivered. This close and she could just about see inside the darkened recess. A figure huddled up as far inside the hull as it was possible. No uniform that she could see, the man wore drab colours that seemed to blend into his environment. The head shifted, appearing to lift to regard them. There was no other sign the survivor was aware of them.

  “Signal the ship,” the skipper said. “Tell them we've found someone.”

  Violet reached out and grabbed the signaller with one hand. She stared at it, struggling.

  “Skipper . . . ,” she said after a moment, her voice drying up.

  The skipper took her attention away from the survivor for a moment.

  “What do I send them?” Violet asked quietly.

  “You don't know?” the skipper asked sternly.

  Violet bit down on her bottom lip, shook her head.

  “Two white flashes, one red,” she was told shor
tly. “Survivors found. Send it 'til you get an answer.”

  Violet felt her face burning as she went to operate the signaller. A triangular fixture with three different faces of coloured glass, the faces could be flashed in coded sequences to relay messages. Violet took a long look at the survivor while she worked. The man was becoming more animated now, like a machine shaking off cobwebs and dust and starting up after a long downtime.

  The survivor didn't try to speak, not that he would have been able to make himself heard across the envelopes anyway. He appeared to be waiting, gauging the skipper and Violet.

  “Violet?” the skipper called, “what does the ship say?”

  Violet jerked her head back. She'd missed the ship's answering signal, had to wait for it to repeat. “Two green flashes, one white, Skipper.”

  “And that means what, Violet?”

  “Come back to the ship,” she said quickly.

  “Come back to the ship with cargo.” The skipper glanced over her shoulder reprovingly.

  Violet flushed. “I knew that, Skipper.”

  “Then say so. All right, Captain says we bring him in, we bring him in. It's one more than I thought we'd find.”

  The keel of the wrecked ship would have been filled with ether, Violet thought. The amber coloured rock that all ships of the void used as ballast. Ether was what provided both gravity and envelopes in space, keeping the miasma out and the breathable air in. Enough of it seemed to have survived to keep an envelope, and the survivor, alive.

  “Get ready to open the hatch, Violet. Stand back.”

  “You're not going to mesh the envelopes?” Violet asked, referring to the process of merging two different atmospheres. Strictly speaking the bubble didn't have an envelope as it lacked the induced gravity to hold it in, but it still had its own air, so long as the hatch remained shut. A hatch the skipper had just said she intended to open.

  “We can't mesh. The bubble won't fit in there.”

  “It might!” Violet protested.

  “And if we get stuck in their gravity?” The skipper shook her head. “No, we're doing this the hard way.”

  Violet was incredulous at the plan so Nel ignored the girl. If she stopped to think about it she would realise how stupid it was. Taking a moment to clip a safety cord to a carabineer on her belt, she took a firm grip on the valve release wheel that held the hatch shut. Nel twisted the wheel slowly, counter-clockwise, and grit her teeth as the hiss of leaking atmosphere grew louder. They only had a few minutes before the hatch would have to be shut again, minutes before the air inside the bubble became too thin to breathe as it was vented into space.

  Nel took a firm grip on hatch, bracing her feet against the interior wall in the weightless bubble and pulled. The hiss became a rush as the atmosphere was sucked out of the bubble. Unlike a ship like the Tantamount, the bubble didn't have the gravity to keep the air where it was meant to be and now it was making good its escape from the glass confines.

  With a clear run to the other envelope now, Nel braced herself for what she knew would be bitter, freezing cold. When her fingers and toes wrapped around the edge of the hatch opening, ready to pull herself through, she looked at her bare skin and swore. In the rush since she'd woken up in her hammock, she hadn't realized she was wearing little more than her nightshirt and breeches. No gloves or boots, no coat, very little at all to protect herself from the void. All back in her cabin, along with her sidearm. She could already feel the icy touch in the square of the hatch.

  “Skipper?” Violet asked again. “You sure about this?”

  That quiet voice of reason. Irritating. No, Nel wasn't sure about this at all.

  “It's fine.” Nel clenched her jaw, gauging the distance to the other envelope. Not more than a few feet really. She could do this. Just a few feet.

  She braced herself, crouching down in the flow of air as it rushed out of the bubble. Her legs uncoiled beneath her as she launched herself across the gap.

  The cold hit her like a slap, a vicious blow the size of a breaking wave, washing over every inch of her skin. It lasted only a few seconds and then she was inside the dead ship's envelope, which felt like a furnace by comparison. Gravity reasserted its presence, some hangover from the original ship and she hit the deck hard on her knees. Nel's whole body was shivering; sweat had formed on her skin and turned to an icy hoarfrost, a second bodily layer her shivering shook off like an animal shedding its skin. She managed to get her feet up and under, rising shakily, not looking forward to the return trip she'd have to make in a moment.

  “Can you move at all?” she asked of the survivor, who hadn't made a move towards her. Up close she got her first good look at him.

  Probably early thirties, square jawed like so many other Alliance corpsmen Nel had seen aboard ships of the line. Close cropped practical haircut, barely a finger's width of black follicles remained and the beard on his face appeared to be only a couple of days old. Had he been here that long? She could find out later. The survivor was gaunt and tired but otherwise healthy, though she didn't like the way he studied her with those dark eyes. It felt like she was being judged.

  “Yes,” he said in a voice hoarse from thirst and disuse.

  “Good,” Nel said, unclipping her safety cord and pulling two lengths of rope through her carabineer. “Loop this round your waist and tie it off. Is there anyone else with you?”

  “No.” The survivor followed her instructions, finishing by clicking the sprung gate over the cord. He pulled on it once or twice, testing the lock before inclining his head at Nel. She frowned back at him, hand on her carabineer. The knot he'd tied was a good one, just not one a sailor would have chosen. She expected more conversation, if not outright questions. Her survivor was taking this all a bit too calmly for her liking.

  She turned, shuffling the carabineer round to the other side of her belt so as not to be caught up in the loose rope. Violet gave her a wave and slowly cranked the hand winch Nel's safety rope was attached to until it was taut. Nel looked back at her passenger.

  “We're going to jump, same way I came in, and Violet is going to reel us in at the same time. It's going to be cold so brace yourself and don't even think about missing the hatch. I won't be coming back out to get you.”

  The survivor ducked his head. “I understand.”

  “Good.” Nel scowled. “You got a name?”

  “Sharpe. Castor Sharpe.”

  “Hold on to your breeches, Castor Sharpe. On the count of three then, one . . . two . . . three!”

  Nel took another leap out into the void, experiencing that flash of vertigo as gravity vanished and sub-zero temperatures took over. She realised she should have waited longer between exposures, too much haste, but that realisation came a second too late. Her vision was tinged with red now. In all likelihood she'd done some damage by not letting her body recover. She clutched at her lifeline with frost-tinged fingers, trusting in Violet to get her back inside the bubble. She was dimly aware of something large looming up ahead of her and could assume it was the bubble. A current hit her, pushing her back and all but killing her momentum; the air gushing out of the bubble. Then the line went taut again as the winch caught up and took over. Hands were pulling her inside and she felt the flush of warmth on her limbs. Not as fierce as the last time, suggesting that the bubble's atmosphere was still leaking out faster than it could be pumped in.

  Struggling to see through the red haze that was her vision, Nel pushed herself towards where she guessed the hatch was.

  “I've got it, Skipper,” Violet called over the roar of air being sucked out.

  “The hells you do.” Nel could see her tangled up with the survivor and the rope they'd both been pulled in on. She gasped as her own frozen hands touched the cold metal wheel and stuck but she managed to brace herself and pull the hatch towards her, fighting against the outgoing flow of air. For a moment she wasn't sure she was going to be able to finish the job, then someone else grabbed the wheel and between them th
ey forced it close. The wheel locked solidly into place. Exhausted, Nel just held onto it, not quite leaning—that was impossible floating inside the bubble—but she took a moment to collect herself. Carefully she pried her fingers off the metal, leaving skin behind.

  She pushed herself around, expecting to see Violet, but it was Castor Sharpe instead. Just past him she saw Violet, who winced at her expression.

  “Thank you,” Nel said to Sharpe. She put a hand to her face; it came away with the faintest smear of red. She must have burst a blood vessel out there. That explained the red haziness then.

  “Take us back, Violet,” she ordered, still looking at the blood. “Think you can manage that?”

  “Aye, Skipper.” Violet quickly busied herself with the signaller, telling the Tantamount to reel the bubble back in, much as Nel and Sharpe had themselves been. At least Violet remembered the signal for that.

  “Good,” Nel said. Using the wheel to push against, she turned herself around to face Sharpe. He was shaky after their ordeal, not as bad as she imagined she herself looked, but he might have had trouble standing in actual gravity.

  “That was impressive how quickly you recovered from the exposure,” Sharpe said, his voice still sounding raw and disused.

  “You managed all right yourself,” Nel replied. She'd recovered because the hatch needed to be shut, simple as that. Sharpe had moved a little too quickly for her liking, though maybe it had just been the adrenaline. He looked ragged now.

  “Once my surgeon looks you over you can tell your story to the captain,” Nel told Sharpe. “No sense in you telling it twice, let's do it once and do it right.”

  Sharpe's head pivoted on his thick neck to regard Violet, who was busy with the signaller and didn't notice. With her back to them her bushy foxtail was plainly visible. As always it moved with a mind of its own, snapping back and forth.