Then a thud rolls through the deck beneath my feet. Phobos fired, and the copter chasing Varma takes a direct hit to one of its rotors. The whole bird screams as it tries to compensate, spinning wildly and sinking so low that its underbelly skims the top of the waves. Another shell slams into the water, and the third strikes the cockpit, exploding with a blast that casts long shadows across the trainer deck floor.

I sneak a glance outside, just in time to catch the twisted wreckage of the craft disappearing beneath the waves. One down.

But the other three are shifting their attention to the Minnow’s engines, and I’m about to be in some serious shit. The chances of a stray bullet finding me just got a whole lot better. My heart thunders in my chest, and the engines shudder below me. I raise one hand to my ear and press down. “Swift? Still alive up there?”

“Miraculously. Hold on a second.” Another thud rattles through the ship, but there’s no explosion in its wake; the shell must have missed its mark.

“If I give up my position to them, their paradigm will shift. Their infra will recognize that I’m unguarded. They’ll stop shooting at the engines and start trying to bring me in.”

“Cas—” Swift starts.

There are children on this boat. There are people on the Minnow whose only crime was being born on the fringes. The people on the copters aren’t trying to spare them, and even if they do bring me in, they won’t waste the opportunity to take out a pirate ship. There’s only one way to save everyone on the Minnow.

“I think I can get all of them right up against the water at the back of the ship,” I tell Swift. “And then I’ll light the Otachi.”

There’s a long pause. Then Swift laughs, as if she can’t believe what she’s hearing. “I’ll tell the captain. Give me a second.”

“I don’t have a second,” I hiss. The guns are swiveling around, the barrels pointing straight at the engines beneath my feet. “Make sure she doesn’t shoot me for this.”

Swift yells, “Cas, wait—”

But I’m already pushing off the wall, sprinting for the edge of the deck, my fingers fumbling with the straps of my right-hand Otachi. I strip it off, toss it over my shoulder, swing my arms up, and dive headfirst into the sea.

The water thrums with the beat of the rotors overhead, and I turn end over end, my fingertips scrabbling for the dials on my wrist. I twist them, the device comes to life, and a beam of light blasts down into the depths as the sound of Bao’s homing call rattles out after it. With the saltwater burning my eyes, I can’t keep them open long enough to see if he responds.