The Net was suddenly very close and now Caledonia could see exactly how it had earned its name. The ships weren’t just evenly spaced but woven together like a flexible, yet treacherous scarf. What she’d taken for long ropes of razored wire and hooks was, in truth, a vast array of webbing. The webs draped between the stationary ships like canopies, but Caledonia felt certain that any rogue vessel attempting to slip through the Net would trigger the trap. Those webs would drop, ensnaring an entire ship to prevent its escape. And if previous experience was any indicator, they were likely electrified, too.

“Cala,” Pisces said, her eyes locked not on the Net itself but the water. “Fins.”

Caledonia followed her sister’s gaze to the sight of six fins. They slashed through the water in lazy rocking motions, deep gray sails above shadowed bodies. These weren’t the blunt dorsals of dolphins but the black-tipped flags of sharks. As she searched the bright blue water, she found more of the creatures swimming far beneath the surface and clustering close to the hulls of other ships down the line. There were dozens of them.

“Keep your crews on their ships,” Tassos said.

“Is that what they’re here for,” Caledonia answered, ignoring the threat. “To keep your crews in line?”

This won another laugh “I don’t need sharks to keep my clip in line.”

“But you do need something.”

At this, Tassos abandoned his jovial tone, his voice dipping low when he answered, “We all need something, Bale Blossom.”

The closer they drew to the Net, the more Caledonia marveled at the intricacies of its design. Here at the end, there was a ship unlike the others. It was long and flat, its base marked by what appeared to be two narrow tunnels leading straight through to the other side of the Net. The deck seemed to rise and fall chaotically, without a thought for function, and the whole of it crawled right up to the shore of the Bone Mouth’s nearest island. Beyond this point, the the islands themselves became the barricade.

Caledonia tried to peer between the ships to catch even a glimpse of the Silt Rig, but with only seconds to scour the sea, she had no luck. The ship approached swiftly until all she could see was the Net itself. Every piece of it fed so seamlessly into another, she realized she had no idea where they were going to dock. Just as soon as she’d had the thought, the ship cut its speed, then rotated and began to slide backward toward a narrow space in the matrix. Docking orders were shouted up and down the main deck and the Deep Cut inched backward.