Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker #1)(73)

Reynolds came up beside him, watching the fighting ship plow down on them. “We’ll see if you’re right, boy.”

Nailer’s throat was dry. Pole Star surged forward, seemingly planning to simply crush them under its weight. As it poured through the surf, Nailer was suddenly seized with a new terror: In the high seas of the storm, the Teeth would all be much deeper under water. Pole Star could slip across after all. Despair engulfed him. He hadn’t thought about the storm surge. No wonder Dauntless had come across unscathed even when they were in the wrong position.

Pole Star was reefing its own sails and slowing, guiding itself with the minimum acceleration so that it could come up beside them and board. Nailer watched with sick despair. He’d been wrong. He thought he’d been so damn smart, and now they were going to be boarded, all because he hadn’t thought of all the details.

“Captain!” Nailer shouted. “They’re not—”

Pole Star stopped moving forward. It hung in the waves, stilled, even as water rushed around it. A wave crashed against it. Another. A bustle of activity on the decks was suddenly visible. An ant mound of people suddenly kicked to life. The ship swung slowly sideways, then stopped. A huge wave smashed into it. Another. The ship turned completely broadside and then it snagged again, caught on another spire from the deep. A huge wave smashed into its hull and the entire ship heeled.

Reynolds laughed and clapped Nailer on the shoulder. “They’ve got their hands full now!” she shouted over the storm roar. “Let’s finish this!”

They ran for the launches, Nailer piling in behind Reynolds. The little raft swung above roiling seas, dangling from a pair of drop clips. Knot and Vine and Candless and a half-dozen other crewmen were all in with him. Down the length of the ship, two other launches dangled over the side, full of Dauntless’s crew. The high whine of biodiesel engines firing live carried over the storm’s rush. Prop blades blurred as motors revved. Their own launch’s motor fired alive, vibrating.

The boats ahead of them cut free. They dropped like rocks into the waves, engines screaming. They hit water and shot forward, arrowing for the sinking Pole Star.

“Clear!” Reynolds shouted. Drop hooks snapped open. Their launch plunged. Nailer’s stomach flew into his mouth. Free fall. They slammed into the ocean. Nailer jackknifed forward and slammed into Vine’s broad back. Pain blossomed. He’d bitten his lip. Their raft surged forward, and he grabbed for balance as they accelerated.

“Weapons check!” Candless shouted. Nailer reached for the pistol strapped to his waist. He could feel his heart pounding. Trimble grinned beside him.

“Nothing better than a storm boarding, right, boy?”

Nailer nodded sickly. Their tiny boat hurtled through foam and breakers under Reynolds’s sure hand. They shot up beside the tilting Pole Star, coming at her from the stern. Enemy crew were out on the deck. Nailer thought he saw the captain clinging to a rail, trying to send her people out to stabilize the wreck. He felt a stab of victory. One moment she must have been so confident, and now she was frantic. He laughed in the rain, feeling water gushing down his face. He’d done that.

Their launch slammed up against Pole Star’s hull. Knot hurled a rope ladder grapple up over the rail, then rushed up the side with Vine close behind. They surged over the rail with their guns and machetes, followed by the rest of the crew.

Reynolds slapped Nailer’s back. “Move it, boy!”

Nailer grabbed the ladder and clambered up. He came over the side in time to see Captain Candless grappling with the other captain. He twisted his body and the woman plunged over the rail. She landed in the sea, splashing for survival. Candless pointed his sea pistol at the remaining crew.

“Stand down and surrender!” he shouted over the roar of the storm and even if his voice wasn’t clear, the gun was. Nailer looked down into the surging surf and wondered what had happened to the other captain. She was simply gone, sucked under in the Teeth.

They’d taken the Pole Star.

Nailer turned to smile at Reynolds when a wave of half-men boiled up from the hold, guns firing. Candless went down in a spray of blood. Reynolds threw Nailer aside and her gun cracked beside him. Nailer lifted his own pistol, shooting through the rain, sure that he was missing and yet squeezing the trigger anyway. A huge wave hit the ship. Pole Star’s deck tilted sideways. Combatants went sliding into the sea.

Nailer grabbed for the rail as he went over the edge. His gun plunged into the water. He dangled half off the deck. Storm surf surged up around his legs, grasping and eager to take him under. Nailer dragged himself out of the vortex and clung to the rail. The great clipper, so seemingly impregnable, had become impossibly small. It was sinking.

Reynolds was shooting at someone in the darkness, but Nailer couldn’t see who. She caught sight of him. “Get Miss Nita!” she shouted as bullets ricocheted around her.

One of Pole Star’s half-men rose up from the water beside them. Unkillable, they seemed. Reynolds turned her pistol on the creature and shot him in the chest. He sank back. Nailer couldn’t see any of Dauntless’s half-men at all. Maybe Knot and Vine and their kin were already dead.

Reynolds’s pistol cracked again. She glared at Nailer. “Go!”

Nailer drew his fighting knife and fumbled his now-useless ammunition over to Reynolds. He scrambled for the nearest hatch, praying that he wasn’t about to run into another lot of half-men, and dove through.