❖ ''ZF 16 Ariomma to unknown vessel. Please identify yourself. Over.'' ❖
Farah and Kazem are twins working aboard the Ariomma, a trading airship that sails the edges of a flat world. Out here is a frontier far from civilization: a place known as the...
Farah crouched beside the gangway with her back to its cold metal rails and her forehead on her knees. The fight for safety aboard the Ariomma no longer felt winnable. She wasn't strong or skilled enough to take on three people at once, and their awareness of her ability negated what little edge it could have given her. She couldn't get Kaz back alone. It would be Esfandiar all over again, only this time, she would be the one under the knife.
A jolt made the metal rings on the gangway jingle. The Ariomma jumped forward as the Verulux came free. Farah gripped her knife tighter. In her curled-up position, its tip nearly tickled her chin, and her breath fogged its blade. All she or anyone else had left to offer were fighting skills. Both the Ariomma's pilots were dead. Jhaṛa had possessed that knowledge, too, but she was also gone, and Farah did not know whether anyone else knew more than the very basics. Without a pilot at the helm, the Ariomma could speed up dangerously. If they were pointed the wrong way, they might fly into the outer Tideless, or the raging wind-currents that spun about the inner seas.
Not that that would be such a bad thing. In the chaos that would ensue, Farah might gain the upper hand again. After all, she was the crew member most used to scrambling up and down ladders and navigating the top of the airship sure-footed. It was a skill she'd brought with her from the outer city.
But the ship did not speed up. Instead, it began slowing detectably, and Farah lifted her head. She did not claim to know much about piloting airships, but Kaz babbled enough about them that Farah knew self-piloting was a thing only Colony ships had. Maybe it would be worth her while to sneak down to the gondola. If the steering and propulsion controls were manual, she might be able to figure them out and stop the ship, or turn it in a favorable direction.
Even as she considered the idea, though, a mind re-entered the edge of her telepathic range. Farah tensed. Mega. The mechanic was looking for someone, and it wasn't her.
Gemi.
Farah's stomach dropped. Before she could jump to her feet, Mega located the storeroom Gemi was hiding in and bolted it shut, locking the radio operator inside. They weren't going to kill her. Not yet, at least. Now Baskoro and Cahya's minds reappeared. Farah braced for the start of their unavoidable hunt.
Something behind her jingled.
Farah went still. The sound stopped almost immediately, and a chill draft ran its fingers up the back of her neck. Heart beating a frantic pattern against her ribcage, Farah looked over her shoulder. On the other side of the gangway was a hole in the airship's outer fabric. A new hole, just like the ones that had riddled the Verulux.
Farah leaped back. In two ticks, she was pressed to the opposite wall in a fighting stance. She had not heard anything tear the fabric. There was no ammunition in sight, and she had not heard a gunshot. Was it a sniper or saboteur? That wouldn't explain the sheer number of holes in the Verulux, though, or the unrefined damage that ship had taken. Who shot an airship full of more holes than a filter-cloth, then took the bodies of its crew and left it there?
Midway down a catwalk, Cahya and Baskoro stopped. Farah struggled to keep from hyperventilating as her breaths came short and fast. She could make a dash for the backup control room right now, if she picked the right catwalk. But Kaz had been shot in the leg. He would not be able to run with her, meaning any attempt at escape would be useless. She needed a distraction. Fire was out of the question. She could try the gondola, but she'd be most easily cornered there, and she did not know how to make a call from the radio room.
Farah paused on that thought. If she could get Gemi out and sneak her to the radio room, they could call for help. Then another thought hit her like a static shock. Farah leaped from the wall and scrambled up the gangway. The Nectamia's mechanic had stood here when his companion dropped her papers while the captains talked. Farah dropped to her knees and jammed her knife into a crack between the boards. She swept the blade sideways. There was nothing in the crack, so moved to the next one, scouring each until her knife pinged against something metallic. She levered it out and turned it over.
Lying in her palm was a card-sized device patterned with the tracks of wires sandwiched between thin metal plates. A button and a small switch lay recessed in one of its corners, while a light blinked in another. This was the tracking device the Nectamia's mechanic had planted on their ship. The Nectamia or the Colony must be tracking them at this very moment, unaware yet that anything was wrong.
Farah's hands shook as she clutched the card. She didn't know how to reverse-engineer this, but there was someone else here who could. There was a reason Gemi worked in the radio room. From what Farah knew, she could manipulate small amounts of electricity, and had refined her talents to the point of being able to manipulate electronics in minor ways, too. If anyone could rig this card to send a distress signal to the Nectamia, it was Gemi.
She had to reach Gemi.
Farah returned nervously to the wall as a cloud's pass darkened the room around her. There were potential traps all over this plan. She didn't know if Gemi would want to cooperate with her. If she didn't, she might call the Nectamia and frame Farah as the enemy, leaving her here with the others, or worse, convicting her just as Baskoro had planned to. Farah's whole body shivered at the possibility. Gemi was the opposite of cruel, but people could do anything when they were desperate. She and Gemi rarely crossed paths. She didn't know how the radio operator viewed her.
She also didn't know if the Nectamia would forgive her for threatening their first mate. Farah swallowed against the jagged lump in her throat. She regretted that attack now. Even without it, she would have been at risk if the Nectamia's crew had gotten wind that she was a telepath, but she'd made the situation immeasurably worse. Her safety in calling the ship was far from guaranteed.
On the other hand, the alternative was death. She couldn't abandon Kaz that way.
Farah hugged the tracking card to her chest and took a deep breath. The shadow over the room calmed her a little, reminding her of the dark and quiet places she preferred when navigating the outer city. Darkness was safety.
Something rustled to her left. Farah glanced over, and all the blood in her body ran cold. Poking through the skin of the envelope was a tentacle as thick as her arm. It tapped over the edge of the gangway where she had been crouched only minutes before, then slowly withdrew. When it vanished, all it left was another identical hole.
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