Versions of Diplomacy

Langley didn't give anyone a chance to ask questions.  Sabreur was already back on the Ark and the last group of their crew followed Langley and Sino aboard.  That was when she started yelling orders, even as the first of the crew opened their mouths to ask who the stranger was that was on their ship.  They wound up having to close their mouths and run for, as Langley put it, ‘battle stations.'

"Anticipating a fight, are we?" Sino asked as she watched the crew disperse to their proper locations.

"Of course.  You stay on the main deck and shoot anyone that tries to board when we blast past those gunships."

"I don't use pistols."

The statement hit Langley like a bucket of cold water drawn specially from the harbor of Pinnacle by a loving mother wanting her child out of bed nice and early.  She blinked and then seized the advantage to finally regain control of her own life.  After all, this was her ship, after all.

"Well, then you're just useless.  Stay on the main deck and stay out of the way."

And she spun on her heel and stalked away without another word.  Sabreur glanced at Sino and then just shrugged and headed for the gun level to help with the loading, firing, and sneak in one of his experimental ammunitions without Langley's knowledge.

Crystal stayed on deck and no one bothered to shoo her elsewhere.  There was the automatic assumption that she could take care of herself.  And for a moment she stood utterly still and stared at Sino until he turned and met her gaze.  It was a very even one, he found, like that of a bird.  For the first time in Swerthia he felt distinctly uncomfortable.

That, and the smell of ‘mancy around her.

"You're the source of the necromancy I saw," he said.

And Crystal nodded, once, and turned and walked to vanish into the belowdecks without another word.  Sino shivered.

Langley was at the helm, taking over for Sparrow.  There were two gunships in the harbor.  One was docked at the moment but one was idle in the middle.  A heavy skimmer, not very fast, but loaded with cannons.  It didn't really have to move – just point and fire.  That one would be a problem.  Still, they had the element of confusion on their side.

Being Stormriders, they usually did.

Langley swung the Ark around hard, paying no regard to the wooden structure of the docks around her.  The skimmer drive kept the ship above the level of the planks but the support beams buckled and strained under the fluctuating gravity above it.  With natural gravity pulling down and with the Ark pulling both up and down at the same time, the fibers of the wood simply could not withstand it and they splintered, sliding a good couple yards of pier off into the water.  Then Langley opened up the engines and the crew raised sail.

There was no response from the gunship.  Of course, there was probably also no orders from land as the twins and Sino had left the city in quite a bit of panic and had effectively gutted the slaver organization pulling the strings right now.  There was a very good chance that the captain of the gunship wouldn't have any orders and Langley was hoping he would err on the side of caution and not fire upon the Ark.  After all, firing on a ship under orders of the government was one thing, but sinking an Alannian skimmer and being wrong about it was quite another entirely.

It cost people their jobs.  Or if Alannis got upset - worse.

Langley chewed on her lip as the Ark picked up speed.  Ajiin slipped down from the top deck and said that the gunship was showing signs of activity on top but it looked like they were just tracking the Ark right now and hadn't gone to battle stations yet.  Langley nodded.  She'd use the shift generator.  It'd throw them off even more and let them slip out unscathed.

"You doing okay?" she asked of him.

"Eh?"

"Yanno.  You okay?  After all this."

"Meh.  Confused.  Didn't find anything… I'll… just write my parents when we reach Alannis.  Ask for my real family history."

"Were you adopted?"

"I look just like my father."

"Were your parents slaves then?"

"Don't you have a ship to be piloting?"

He climbed back up the ladder onto top deck to keep an eye on the gunship.  Langley rolled her eyes and reached over for the controls of the shift generator.  Pulled down the lever that would divert some of the energy from the boiler to the generator.  Waited until the ‘mancy circle that indicated that the machine was ready to be activated lit up in green, like a luminous mushroom.  Then she gave Sparrow the wheel temporarily and placed her palms onto the middle of the ‘mancy circle that would activate the shift generator's displacement field.

And she remembered that she was already ‘mancy sick and should not be doing anything else.

"Damn it all!" she cried and Sparrow jumped, "He's going to be useful after all.  Augggh."

She stormed out of the helm without another word.  Across the harbor the gunship was still tracking them and she could see that there were quite a few people onboard.  Still, no sign of them readying to fire.  All it would take though was for one decision by a smart captain and the Ark would be ripped apart.  Langley stalked across the deck and grabbed the back of Sino's shirt.

"You are useful after all," she growled, "Come activate something for me."

"Glad to know that.  I enjoy being useful and all."

"Shove the sarcasm."

Langley gave him the five-second overview of what the shift generator was and how it was activated as they climbed up into the helm.  He eyed the machine warily for a moment, studying the circle.

"This isn't my area of expertise," he finally said.

"Me neither," Langley replied, "I have no area of expertise.  Makes it easy to do cross-mancy stuff.  Now just connect this circle with the ones linked in the generator room and it'll run fine."

She hoped.  Sino just took a deep breath and put both hands on the circle.  He didn't say anything but the circle around his hands lit up with blue fire and then dimmed to a subtle glow.  There was a sheen that passed around the ark, like the gloss of a pearl, and then the air was still again.

"It's working?" Sino asked.

"It's working," Langley affirmed.

A moment later Ajiin's voice drifted down to them.

"Lots of commotion on the gunship," he said, "More like panicked, bewildered, confusion though."

"I like the sound of-" Langley began.

"That's just what we wa-" Sino started.

Then the two fell quiet and eyed each other.  And something she remembered about the Cadre, vaguely, from long ago, clicked into place.  Officers were almost always captains as well.  Might not have their own, dedicated skimmer, but they were captains and would give orders like a captain.

"OUT!" Langley bellowed, "Your job is done.  Out of my helm!"

"Of course, Captain," Sino replied, bowing his head to her in mock respect and then backing away to the ladder that led to the main deck, "Just call me if you need more ‘mancy done… seeing as it's out of your grasp right now."

"OUT."

Then for a moment there was only silence in the helm.  Ajiin slipped down from the top deck and closed the hatch behind him.

"We're clear," he said, "Moving out of range of the gunship and they're paralyzed with indecision."

Sparrow didn't say anything but just watched her, out of the corner of his eye.  After a moment Langley shooed him aside and took the wheel back, aiming the Ark for open waters.  She'd need to drop the shift generator before it broke again and divert that power back to the engines.  There was the messy way of doing it – cutting power without disassembling the circles first.  But that would definitely break it for later use.  She needed ‘mancy.

"Ajiin," she said, "Go get Sabreur up here.  I need him for a moment."

"Yes Captain."

Then there was more silence in the helm, the shouts and laughter of the crew only a background noise that she filtered out.  She could see Sino sitting on the rail of the skimmer, watching out into open waters and very much separate from the rest of the crew.

"You'll always be captain of the Ark," Sparrow said softly, "And I don't like that man much."

Langley sucked in a breath and then let it out, hissing between her teeth.  The journey home was definitely going to be the hardest part of all of this.

"That makes two of us," she said, "And why the hell isn't Sabreur up here yet?"

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