PoraBora

Chapter Sixty-Two

Surrender.

Akoni considered. Surrender might save the lives of the koa on the hammerhead. It was too late for anyone else. Somehow, word had spread to every other ship that Akoni had taken control and Makaia was in the brig. A message had gotten out. Maybe because of a koa. It didn't make a particular difference who because it was too late to do anything about it.

Noikoa would have heard shortly thereafter, ready for anything.

As for why the other three ships still fought beside him, Akoni didn't know. Perhaps the koa had taken them successfully. To their own detriment.

Surrender.

Noikoa was being incessant. Akoni too, of course, because he fired another cannon shell at the wooden chasers.

If he did surrender, Noikoa would close in on him. Keasau had been made skittish by the battle, but he had not yet been torn into a raging oil beast. Noikoa would take care of Akoni before it came to that. He wouldn't have to do it himself. The silvertip was still afloat. The bat ray had been commandeered. Between the two, and the dozen smaller boats, some of them metal, they'd have the hammerhead well and settled.

Even if Akoni could fight them off, Ikaika would notice sooner than things went his way that they would, and would collapse the entire navy on him just to finish the job. It wouldn't even be a waste of oil, because in another hour they'd have Keasau in their net.

Surrender.

Akoni shoved the powder further back the throat of the cannon and rolled the next cannonball. And if he did surrender, he thought, poking a metal rod into the vent to break up the gunpowder, the men would be spared. Not Akoni, probably, not even for sentiment, but the koa and the syphons.

The koa beside him, with the dead cousin, and now dozens of dead brothers in arms, all because of Akoni, lit the cannon with his linstock.

They both covered their ears.

He'd realize it, eventually. And the koa would make a decision if Akoni didn't. The worst of mutiny was always in a time of war.

It would only depend on if they valued their lives more than revenge.

But they'd be spared, he hoped, since Makaia had been spared, and the hammerhead would continue to float, and Noikoa would be free to focus on Keasau. And Akoni would no longer be able to stop him.

The cannon fired, rolling back into the deck. Akoni looked over to see if they'd hit. They hadn't, unless you counted jellyfish. Somebody else had better luck, or better aim, and a cannonball sheered straight through an outrigger, blasting pieces up the cavern, blowing a man and his leg overboard in separate pieces.

Another boat came in from Noikoa's side. Akoni grabbed the cannon and heaved it to aim, as the koa prepared the next packet of gunpowder.

Don't shoot.

It wasn't surrender, so Akoni noticed it.

"That's a koa," said the koa.

Akoni grabbed his monoscope. It was Hui, and a girl, and a boy, none of them older than fifteen. "Sharks," he grunted, and he shouted across the deck, "Let the manta through! That's one of ours!"

He stood to flash a message back. Go ahead.

The manta punched into their range, its motor blazing, jellyfish wafted away by its wake.

"Don't let up!" Akoni commanded before he ran down to lower the mouth.

The closest boat wasn't the manta. Two koa noticed too, joining him on the mouth, spears ready. A last attempt by cannons missed their mark, only just, and the attackers were close enough to face.