“Mag bombs,” Sledge said in horror. “Submersible ones. He can target the deepships.”

It didn’t matter that Hesperus had taken every precaution to keep these ships a secret. Aric had such perfect control over these seas that he’d learned of them anyway. Who was Caledonia to think she could stand against him? She was no one. Just a girl wounded by his reign the same way every other child had been. She’d fooled herself into believing she was something more, and that folly was going to get the rest of them killed.

She needed her sister, but Pisces was down below, taking fire.

We need you to lead, she heard Pisces’s voice urge. We need you to be ours.

A cold shudder drifted down from her shoulders to her fists. She let it settle there, trembling in each finger. Her sisters were what made her more. Her sisters made her exactly what she needed to be.

Caledonia quashed her horror. One bad turn wouldn’t cost them the battle.

“They know what to do. And so do we.”

Caledonia surveyed the ships before her. She didn’t have the numbers they did, but every single one of those Ballistics and Fivesons would want the personal glory of capturing her and presenting her to Aric. Would they risk destroying her ship and killing her in the process? She didn’t think so.

“Nettle, take us in. Let’s give them something else to shoot at,” she commanded. “Sledge, I want gunners on the port rail. Amina, target that mag gun!”

A wall of water shot up between the Luminous Wake and the Bullet ships. For a second, the entire fleet vanished behind a violently churned ocean. Their deepships were on the attack.

“Nettle!” Caledonia cried, but the engines were already spinning, the ship breaking south before the Bullet ships had a chance to regroup and open fire.

A second round of explosions rocked the line of Aric’s ships as far below them Pisces orchestrated the attack.

“Two down!” Amina called, her voice ringing with early victory.

“Incoming!” one of her Knots shouted, and the air filled with the pop of gunfire as they sniped at the heavy artillery now singing their way. The missiles exploded in the air before they neared the hull of the Luminous Wake.

The deepships struck again, throwing the Bullet fleet into near complete chaos. A third ship listed heavily to one side. The Bullets aimed their guns and missiles at the water and fired ruthlessly, while five ships broke away from the group to pursue the Luminous Wake.

“Time to run!” Caledonia cried, shifting to the next phase.