The Trinidad hovered closer to the Victoria, the deck open, crewmen waving them in.
Braddock looked back—and saw the second helicopter tumble and then straighten out, turning due east.
She punched the radio’s transmit button in shock, watching half her treasure swing over the jungle and away. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m taking off with your gold,” Victor Sullivan answered, on the pilots’ channel. “What the hell are you doing?”
Braddock snatched up her binoculars, found the sky-crane’s cockpit.
Sully blew a kiss in her general direction, as if he knew she was watching.
You. Bastard. If he could steal it, she could steal it back.
She looked up at the helicopter carrying the Trinidad, tapped the channel on the radio. “Follow that ship.”
Scotty answered, “Weh six hunner maeters frae th’ Victoryuh, wae kin land noh!”
She usually knew to listen to Scotty, he kept a cool head, but Sully was Aying away with her money, and laughing about it. She couldn’t live with that. “Victor Sullivan doesn’t get away with one ounce of my gold,” Braddock said, and her tone must have relayed her expectations. Their Halo turned in a wide circle and headed after him.
Next to her, Hugo put one hand on the rail, wind picking up as the Trinidad swept over the jungle.
* * *
Nate staggered to his feet at the same time the bleeding merc did.
“Hang on, kid,” Sully said, and then the deck swung like a funhouse as Sully directed them past a cliff that had come out of nowhere, sending Nate over a pile of rigging. The merc stumbled toward Nate, grabbing a small keg and holding it over his head—
—and the ship swung again, hard, throwing both of them against the starboard rail, next to one of the cannons. When the ship swung back, moving like a pendulum now, the merc slid away. Nate hung on to the rail and dug at the ropes tethering the cannon between the posts. The fraying fibers tore under his nails.
The heavy metal tube was set free, and Nate gave it an encouraging push. It crashed across the deck and into Bleeding Hat Guy, pushing him through the rail with a crunch and following him over.
The ship kept tipping, and suddenly Nate was sliding across the boards, skittering toward the nice new hole the cannon had made. He turned to claw at the deck, felt his boots hit air, saw the deck shrinking away, and jammed his arms straight out.
He grabbed the rail to either side, and heaved himself back onto the deck as Sully got control of the swings. The deck’s wild creaking lessened. Nate took a breath, swallowed, looked south—
Uh oh.
Charging toward them was the Trinidad, its swaying deck dotted with men. The larger ship was suddenly coming in fast, swooping forward, the pilots handling their copter much better than Sully was doing. Nate swore he could see Braddock on board, a Aash of platinum blond and shiny black clothes.
“Sully, I think they want their boat back,” Nate said.
“I’m aware,” Sully said, and the Concepción surged forward. Nate grabbed a solid piece of rail, edging sternward to where the wood was more securely anchored. Nate heard branches break against the bottom of the hull and then the deck swooped upward again, closer to the larger ship. That was definitely Braddock, coming in starboard, and her mercs were aiming guns at him.
At me!
Nate dove for the mainmast, rolling up behind it as rounds sprayed across the deck, clanging off cannons, splintering through the soft wood.
“Sully, have you considered Aying away from them?!”
“What do you think I’m trying to do, kid?”
The Trinidad had shifted parallel to their position, a little above them, but was close enough for Nate to hear Jo Braddock screaming, “Cease fire!” The sound of her voice swung in and out as Sully Aew them over Demar and toward the ragged islands eastward, the larger carrack right at their side. She was furious. He could still hear her shouting.
“…use grappling hooks! Take out the Drake kid and Victor Sullivan by any…”
Means necessary, Nate finished for her as the roaring copters drowned her out, talk about cliché—and when he risked a glance, he saw nylon ropes suddenly shooting down off the Trinidad, the sound of the fired hooks following a split second later. There were some misses, but three black lines wrapped around the brittle rail, and there were guys waiting to jump down. If the rail held, the Concepción would be outmanned.
A loose cannonball rolled past his feet. If only the cannons worked, I could—
Nate blinked—and the Concepción suddenly dropped five feet. Nate hit the back of his head on the mainmast, distracted before he could find a Aaw in his ridiculous, wonderful idea.
The flaw is that there’s gonna be a bunch of armed mercenaries in your face in about two seconds.
“I’m about to be boarded!” Nate whispered, rising into a crouch behind the mast. Sully didn’t answer. There’d been a couple of loose guns around, but they’d Aown off board at some point. Nate grabbed one of the long oars off the deck and gripped it, hoping Sully was about to pull off some expert Aying. Otherwise, they’d be sunk.
* * *
The Trinidad’s harness was bigger and longer than the Concepción’s, so all Braddock’s pilot had to do was sit on top of him. Sully didn’t dare go up and there were some cliffs to navigate ahead. He couldn’t break away without losing his cargo.
Sully looked up, saw the beady-eyed, bearded face of Braddock’s Scot glaring down at him, and gave him the finger. Eat shit, pal.
Looking down, Sully saw a half dozen mercs sliding down the Trinidad’s hull, turning to leap across the open air on thin ropes to the Concepción’s railing. Below them, air-blasted jungle gave way to the random cliffs and beaches of Demar’s east coast. Nate jumped out on deck and swung a long oar, knocking two guys into the rail. One fell through a splintered opening in the port side and plunged out of sight.
“You don’t see that every day,” Sully said, and aimed for a narrow slot through the cliffs ahead, hoping the kid had his sea legs.
* * *
The helicopters swept through an opening in the cliffs, forced together by the tight passage. When they swept back into the light, Nate saw that a guy was climbing one of the giant harness chains, not far below Sully’s copter.
“You got a stage-five clinger, Sully!” Nate called, and within ten seconds, he heard a single shot. The climbing merc dropped off the chain, fell to the shallows far below. Sully might suck at Aying, but he was an excellent shot.
Over the open water, the carracks swung apart—and then came crashing back toward each other, the Trinidad’s pilot overcompensating for the split while Sully kept Aying due east.
Shit!
Nate reached for something solid but the ships collided in a juddering, cracking smash, the Trinidad’s hull smashing long-side into theirs. Nate was rudely dumped into the air, and rolled across the top deck along with the handful of mercs who’d made it aboard, bodies Aying everywhere, cannonballs jumping on deck. There was a new hole in the side of the ship, and a ragged split had opened up around the hatch to the hold. Nate fell into the crack, splintered boards slapping him on the way down. Another guy crashed down with him, a skinny merc wearing a bandana around his head.
Nate and the merc landed on the gun deck; both came up at the same time, shaking off broken pieces of timber. The merc wore a leather shoulder holster, his gun under his left arm, mag pouches on the right. He snatched for his weapon and Nate tackled him, both of them smashing into a teetering stack of barrels. The merc kicked free and Nate came up on his knees on top of a shifting pile of gold.
Bandana Boy had his gun out. Nate grabbed a heavy round shield, brought it up in front of him just as the merc fired. Three rounds smashed into the gold and most of the way through, thick gold bubbles popping up next to Nate’s face.
Nate frisbeed the shield at the guy, knocking him back against the stairs with a heavy clunk. He leapt after his throw, ready to do some punching, but the merc was out cold, having whacked his skull against the support post.
That’s a nice rig. Nate looked down at the drooling merc, admiring the shoulder holster—nothing to bind at the waist, no ugly modern webbing— and then slipped it off the comatose merc. It was too cool for a guy wearing a bandana. Nate put it on, picking up the dropped weapon, a PM 9-mil according to the stamp on the grip. He didn’t know guns well, but it felt good in his hand and he liked the finish.
Overhead, he heard his brother’s killer screaming orders, and the Concepción swung under his feet. Heavy boots landed on the deck above his head and thundered aft. Nate holstered the semi and hung on to the stairs, prepared to go down with the ship if it meant Braddock lost her precious gold —
—and he saw the cracked barrel under the steps, spilling out sacks of gunpowder tied with twine. Like the ones on deck, those in the middle had stayed dry.
It’s a sign. Nate grabbed a small, heavy sack, tucked it into his waistband, and staggered up the stairs.
* * *
Two of the remaining mercs jumped for the Concepción when the ships crashed together, but one of them fell short—the rail he’d hooked broke off in a hand-sized chunk. He disappeared into the water below.
Goddamnit! Braddock was seething. Couldn’t they do anything right? The shifting, battered carracks were about to come apart again, there was now a gaping hole in the upper decks of the smaller ship, and Sully was headed for a rocky pinnacle off one of the scattered islands east of Demar. Scotty was shouting at the pilots.
Braddock looked at Hugo, met his steady gaze. He’d been with her since the beginning, he and Scotty both. They were the only men she could trust not to fuck things up.
“Get over there and get me my boat back,” she said.
Hugo didn’t hesitate. He looked down at the Concepción and then jumped, even as the Trinidad swung away from the smaller boat.
Hugo cleared the landing and rolled across the cracked main deck, then disappeared into the aft cabin—
—and the helicopters were too far apart now, splitting around the rocky cliff at the head of the island chain. Braddock lost sight of Hugo, the Concepción swinging behind the steep tower.
The Trinidad shuddered against her slings, fighting to turn with the wind.
Braddock stumbled, grabbed the creaking rail.
“Hold steady,” Braddock ordered. “Do not let him get away!”
She could hear Scotty take it up with the pilot. “Gonnae-no ’at ship!” he shouted, and she could hear his frustration a beat later. “Stop them!”
The Trinidad came around the cliff and picked up speed, cutting north to head off Sully as the Concepción surged into view—and Braddock saw, with horror, that the debris spilling from the hole in the carrack’s deck sparkled as it rained down over the sand and sea.