There’s no point in apologizing. I snap the Otachi to destroy and lean out over the side of Bao’s head, throwing the beams against the engines that protrude from the boat’s sides. Bao chases after them, but this time I keep my grip solid and sure in the plating, and my aim doesn’t waver. His claws slash once, and the boat is dead in the water.

The serpentoid peels off the Minnow’s tail, its arrow-like snout whipping around to find us, and I know that this boat must be its companion. It lets out a fell shriek and launches itself forward. Its winding body slices through the inky waves like they’re nothing.

I crouch against Bao’s neck, trying to make myself as small as possible as my monster wheels to meet the other Reckoner head-on. The serpentoid ducks beneath the waves, and Bao heaves toward it—and his beak closes on thin air with a crack that nearly knocks me senseless. My ears ring, but I can’t waver now, can’t let it get the better of me, because I’ve trained enough serpentoids to know exactly what the snake beast is about to do.

I flick the Otachi to charge and throw the beam out to our right. Bao veers, just as the first of the serpentoid’s coils lash up around his midsection. He escapes its grip, but just barely, and the strike sends him rolling onto his back. I cling to his plating so hard that my knuckles creak. The water slams me flat against him, and I reach down and anchor another line-hook to his keratin. He rolls his head forward, fueled by an instinct I can’t break him from, and this time the serpentoid’s too busy recovering to get out of the way. Bao’s jaws cinch around its neck.

The muscles snap taut underneath me as Bao bites down, and a sick, wet crunch rattles my bones. The serpentoid goes limp.

Two down. But in the frenzy of the fight, I’ve lost track of the other ships, and it takes me a minute to get my wits about me, my thoughts still stuck on the fact that I’ve just helped kill a Reckoner. The smell of the serpentoid’s blood washes over me, thick and pungent, and I drink it in before I can tell myself not to. Bao lets out a roar that shakes the NeoPacific, letting his kill tumble back into the waves.

A spotlight flares from one of the ships, its light nearly blinding me as they aim it at us. Then the other ship’s lights blast on, and I can’t see the stars above me anymore. Bao roars again, but this time it chokes off in a confused warble as he tries to make sense of the new signals blazing across him. I squint through my goggles, searching for what I know must be coming.