“Gunners! Starboard!” Pine’s commands were accompanied by gunfire.

“They’ve come along the hull, Captain,” Sledge reported. “They’re going to try and—”

An explosion sent a short plume of fire up the starboard hull, nudging the ship hard to port. The deck tilted, the hull groaned, and one propeller rose above the waterline, smashing uselessly against the ocean.

Sledge and Pisces vanished into the belly of the ship. The gunfire faded, and Caledonia knew without being told that it was because the Bullets had accomplished their work. They’d put another hole in their hull and retreated into the protection of their reinforced ship. Why waste lives and ammo when you didn’t have to?

“Captain.” Pisces returned soaked in seawater, her breath quick. “They punched a hole in level three. In the hold and forward storerooms. We’re taking on water.”

Chapter Thirty-three

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

With a hole in their side, the whirl would pull them under as easily as if they were a flower petal. Panic sang a single piercing note in Caledonia’s mind, warning her that there was no way out, that she was about to lose her second ship and kill her entire crew. It reverberated through her body, freezing her in place.

And then she quashed it.

“Oran, tell me why it appears here,” she said, letting her world narrow on him for a moment.

“We think there’s a deep trench here. The whirl shows up when two opposing currents pass over it. That’s our—their—best guess.”

She nodded, returning her sights to the whirl, her thoughts to the task ahead.

“Pi, take a team. Get everyone off level three and do what you can to seal the breach.” Pisces nodded once and was gone in an instant. “Harwell, tell everyone to strap in; Nettle, kill the engines,” she said calmly. “And give me the wheel.”

Nettle was all too happy to comply. The engines faded. The ship tilted more firmly into the crusher. The ocean roared around them, fore and aft. Caledonia placed her hands on the wheel. She let her palms rest firmly against the worn wood, her fingers curled loosely there so that she could feel the rumble of the ship in the pads of her fingertips. She adjusted her stance, placing her feet firmly beneath her hips, letting the ship become an extension of her own body.

Then she waited.

The scream of the ocean grew nearer, the rings of the vortex stood out creamy white against the muddy blue of the surrounding waters, and the air was dense with salty mist.

“It sounds hungry,” Harwell said, not even bothering to hide his fear.

“She sounds furious,” Nettle added with considerably more wonder and admiration in her voice.

Caledonia thought it sounded like a warning, but it was one she didn’t have the luxury of heeding.