Hard Magic: Book I of the Grimnoir Chronicles

Billy Clanton and Frank McLowry commenced to draw their pistols at the same time Tom McLowry jumped behind a horse. I had my pistol in my overcoat pocket where I had put it. When I saw Billy and Frank draw their pistols I drew my pistol, I knew that the McLowry brothers had the reputation of having wizard’s magic and I aimed at Frank McLowry. The two first shots which were fired were fired by Billy Clanton and myself. He shot at me, and I shot at Frank McLowry. I do not know which shot was first; we fired almost together. Morgan then shot Billy Clanton. The fight then became general. After several shots were fired Ike Clanton ran up and grabbed my arm. I could see no weapon in his hand and thought at the time he had none, and so I said to him, “The fight has now commenced. Go to fighting or get away.” At the same time I pushed him off with my left hand. He started and ran down the side of the building and disappeared between the lodging house and the photograph gallery. My next shot struck Frank McLowry in the belly. He staggered off on the sidewalk but was still able to pick up a horse to throw at us. Virgil was struck by the flying horse before Holliday, who had the shotgun, fired at and killed Frank McLowry. Tom McLowry was unarmed. It made no difference, for his kind does not need a pistol to kill, and I shot him in the head.

—Testimony of Wyatt Earp,

Tombstone Epitaph, 1881

UBF Tempest

“Captain, I’ve found them again,” the teleradioscope operator said.

I wish they’d quit calling me that. Francis walked over and looked over the UBF employee’s shoulder. All he could see were green lights moving up and down, some fast, some slow, and some not at all. They’d tried to explain to him how the machine worked, but it was all about electrical resonance against metallic objects and the frequency and speed of return and traversing whatnots and so forth, and it just made him want a drink really bad. “Where?”

“About a hundred miles further south than we expected. They’ve changed course. I think they’re heading for the Marianas.”

That didn’t make any sense, but at least they weren’t getting any closer to Japan. That had been making him really nervous. “Driver!”

“Uh . . . It’s Helm, sir,” replied the man stationed at the very front of the glass bubble cockpit. Francis was still trying to learn the volunteers’ names.

“Very well, Mr. Helm,” he said, and couldn’t figure out why that caused Lance to snicker. “Follow that blimp.”

Lance was sitting in one of the vacant chairs in the command center, with his boots up on a bank of sensitive electronics. “You’ve really got no idea what you’re doing, do you?” At least he was decent enough to lower his voice so the men wouldn’t be able to hear them over the engines.

“Frankly, not even the slightest.” He took a seat at the empty communications station. Most of the seats were empty in the command center. Less than a quarter of the Tempest’s crew had volunteered to stay, and that was only after he’d promised some very hefty bonuses.

Two security men had stuck around, and one was a Brute. Grandfather’s Healer had told him politely to go to hell, but at least he’d convinced the man to stick around San Francisco long enough to help Mr. Browning once his Power had recovered. The only other functionary who’d stayed was, surprisingly enough, Mr. Chandler, Grandfather’s accountant. All the rest had assured him that they would see to company business, and he had no doubt that they were currently maneuvering to get the UBF board to somehow get rid of him before Grandfather’s body was even cold.

So he had a handful of barely-mended Grimnoir knights, a drastically undermanned and unarmed prototype ship, and no clue what he was doing. He’d broken a direct order from a Grimnoir elder and would probably be cast out of the Society he’d devoted his life to, if he lived that long. And he still hadn’t even really come to terms with the fact that he was now, theoretically, the richest man in the world.

“Mind if I make a suggestion?” Lance didn’t bother to wait for the reply. “If we’re going to try this, then we need every advantage we can get. The Tokugawa is probably still running a skeleton crew, but that means they’ll have five times as many men, and at least one mean son of a bitch of an Iron Guard. They won’t be expecting this, but they will have men on watch, and they’ll probably be doing it from behind mounted guns, which we don’t happen to have. So how about we use that radio bouncer to keep track of ’em, and not get into visual range until dark?”

Francis sighed. “How about I just make you captain?”

The grizzled knight thought about it. “Do I get to wear the fancy hat?”

“You figure out how to get Jane off the Tokugawa alive, I’ll have your old cowboy hat gold-plated.”

Banish Island, Micronesia

Pirate Bob Southunder, Scourge of the South Seas, Terror of the Marianas, killer of men, sinker of ships, and general pain in the Imperium’s rear took the time to pass out treats to all the village children like some sort of kindly South Pacific Santa Claus before joining his men on a mission.

“Where’d you get Mr. Goodbars?” Sullivan asked, as Southunder gave a candy bar to a kid, patted him on the head, and sent him on his way.

“They were on an Imperium cargo ship, believe it or not. Why? You want one?”

“Sure.” As a general rule, Jake Sullivan never turned down anything free. The two of them walked up the forest path toward the remains of what had once been a mighty volcano. There were five heavily armed pirates right behind, and he was sure that was no accident. He’d not yet earned Southunder’s trust.

The pirate had refused to talk further about the Geo-Tel yesterday. He’d slept in the village as a guest, but he’d seen the occasional flashes of cigarettes glowing in the jungle from the men assigned to watch him all night.

He’d woken up with one of the Japanese serving girls crawling onto his sleeping mat, but he’d turned her away as politely as he could without her speaking hardly any English. “No like girls?” “No. Like girls just fine.” “No like me then?” “No. You’re nice.” “Oh. Have girl already.” “ . . . Yeah . . . something like that.” She’d left him alone, and he’d gone back to staring at the tin roof, hating himself because he’d finally fallen asleep again only to catch himself dreaming of Delilah’s body, her soft skin pressed against him, his lips on her neck, and he had awoken again, cursing himself as a selfish, pathetic failure of a man. He’d lain there awake until the sun came up.

They’d eaten breakfast in silence: more fish, fruit, and wild boar. None of the pirates commented on the .45 on his hip or the automatic rifle he’d reassembled. They might not trust him yet, but anybody worthy of sharing your hospitality should be worthy of helping to defend it. The men had been excited. Something was happening. After breakfast Southunder had invited him on this walk.

“Are we going to destroy the Geo-Tel now?” he asked.

“It’s not here,” Southunder answered.

“I don’t care where it is, as long as it gets broken into a million pieces and burned. Are we going to go get it then?”

“I’ve kept it safe since you were wearing short pants, Mr. Sullivan. A few more hours won’t kill you.”

“Nope. But if the Chairman gets it, he’ll kill the whole world.”

Laughter always seemed to come easy to Southunder. “Truth be told, I’ll be glad to be rid of it. I would have gone last night but my ship was still getting patched from our last job. I didn’t dare keep it with me, because if they found me, they’d find it. No, not even Pershing knew exactly where it is for exactly that reason. I’m the only one who knows. It’s well hidden. We’ll dig it up later.”

Sullivan stopped walking, right in the middle of the trail. The men following paused, uneasy. “You buried it?”

“Well, of course. I’m a pirate,” he answered.

Sullivan shook his head and went back to walking. “Pirates and buried treasure . . . I can’t believe this. So where are we going?”

“We have a train to catch, and you wanted a chance to earn my trust . . .”

* * *

The dirigible was sleek, of a design that he’d never seen before. It was a single hull, with one lightly armored bag. It was a hybrid, with two lifter wings folded in so that it could fit inside the hollow formed by the partially collapsed volcanic cone. There were four engines, big gleaming things with propellers longer than he was tall.

Sullivan walked under the cabin, dodging between the tie ropes as the crew let it gently rise. There was no top structure. Everything was under the gas bag, like they used to build them. It was remarkably streamlined for such an older design. Even the front of the cockpit was a circular mass of glass and aluminum struts with not a square edge to be seen. The cabin stretched from the very front to the very back, so seamlessly melded with the gas bag that it might as well have been one piece. It might have been old, but it was well cared for. The brass fittings gleamed. Every inch of hull was freshly painted: light grey underneath, dark blue on top.

On closer inspection, none of the parts seemed to match. The exhaust pipes on one side were different than the other. Two of the engines were different designs. As he studied it, he realized that the whole thing had had so many parts replaced from scavenged or captured vessels, it was hard to tell where the original ship began.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Southunder asked. “It’s an actual Zeppelin, not some poor Stuyvesant UBF knockoff, but handcrafted by the finest airship Cogs there’s ever been.”

“It looks old . . .” Sullivan said.

“Aged. Like good cheese,” Southunder agreed.

“It don’t have much armor.”

“Two hundred feet of raw speed. I could cover every inch in dreadnought plate, and it wouldn’t help us beat the entire Jap navy. We strike quick and get out. The bag is divided into locking cells. We could lose three quarters of them and still limp it home.”

“Hydrogen?” Hydrogen blimps made him nervous.

“Not a lot of helium out here,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a Torch.”

A Torch, as in one. And if they lost their man that could control fire and then took a hit from an incendiary round . . .”It don’t have many guns . . .”

“We don’t slug it out with Kagas, Sullivan. Twin pom-poms in the nose and two more in the rear, one of our mutual friend John’s big fifty cals on either side to keep the fighters off, and a few rail mounted light machine guns, plus we’ve got two fighters onboard, top of the line Curtiss R5C Raptors, most maneuverable biplane in the world.”

Some of the Japanese navy ships carried like thirty fighters. After seeing what he had to work with, Sullivan came to respect Southunder even more. The crew was leading the dirigible out from its hiding place and into the sun. They were going on a mission.

“Pershing ever tell you why they ran me out of the Society?” Southunder asked. Sullivan shook his head in the negative. “They said I was too impulsive, too reckless.”

“You use a twenty-five-year-old Zeppelin with a few guns on it to harass the most powerful navy in the world . . . They might’ve had a point.”

Southunder ignored him. “Pershing saw it too. He saw that times were changing for our kind. Something big is coming, and the world is going to be one way or the other, and I don’t want it to be the Chairman’s way. Too many folks think that they can keep the world from changing . . . I’ve got a wife that I only see when I bring in loot to sell in the Free Cities. We’ve been married for thirty years, and I’ve got kids and grandbabies. You got a wife, a family, Sullivan?”

“I got nothing.”

His voice was so gentle that it was hard to hear him. “I don’t want my grandkids to grow up in a world run by a bunch of fascists, or socialists, or progressives, or anarchists, or communists, or eugenicists, or any sort of ist or ism. When I get those types, the men who just need to control everything, to tell everybody else what to do, I stick it in and break it off. I’m fighting for freedom.” Proudly, he gestured around the cave at his men. He loved them like a father. “We ride the air and plunder the seas. We’re the last free men and I’ll die a free man.”

“Amen,” Sullivan said.

“There’s an Imperium dirigible train that’s gotten out of their convoy routes because of the bad weather north of here. We’re going to take it, and you’re going to show me you mean business.” Southunder raised his hand and gestured at the name on the side of the dirigible. “Mr. Sullivan, I give you the Free Ship Bulldog Marauder, best damn dirigible there’s ever been.”

Imperium Submarine J-47 Flower of Carnage

The Imperium captain watched the dirigible rising from the side of the volcano through the periscope. He was normally lord of this vessel, but in the presence of a Shadow Guard, he had to defer to his betters. Having four of them aboard made him deeply uncomfortable. He moved aside so the elite soldier could look through the glass. “We could surface and engage with the deck gun before they are in position to return fire.”

“No,” the Shadow Guard commanded.

The darkened sub stunk of diesel fumes and polluted air. They’d been recycling the air for hours. The Shadow Guard’s Finder had already vomited all over the deck twice, and the stink was annoying the captain. He had no patience for seasickness. Their orders were specific. He had not been told what they were supposed to be retrieving, but awareness of their presence could cause its destruction. They had been ordered to maintain complete radio silence and only communicate through the Shadow Guard’s magic. The waters ran clear here and he knew that his submarine would show up like a vast black shadow so close to the surface. He shouted orders. The dive bell sounded.

The Finder was sitting cross-legged on the grate, eyes closed, deep in mediation. The captain had never seen one such as this. He had removed his loose shirt, and his torso had been crisscrossed with kanji. The captain wore two, as befitted his rank, so he knew a bit about such things, and he could see that none of the Finder’s kanji were based in the physical geometries. Rather, all seven of his were attuned to increasing his Power’s sensitivity.

The schools had taught him about Finders. They could feel and see through the disembodied spirits that inhabited the shadow of this world. A truly powerful Finder could actually become a Summoner, capable of bringing in servants from other planes and giving them life here, but this Finder was different. He was like a perfectly tuned tracking dog. He imagined that such sensitivity would drive one mad.

Finders were limited by such things as range, and certain materials or spells could thwart them. The disembodied were easily distracted, but looking at this particular strange specimen, he knew that nothing brought within his range could possibly hide. It was if he’d been specifically bred for this kind of mission. Apparently his submarine’s job was just to get this man within range of whatever it was he was seeking.

It seemed to take forever, but the captain was used to being patient. It came with the assignment. The heat from the burning kanji permeated the sub. It was like being next to a bank of electric heating coils. The Finder opened his eyes and let out a long exhausted breath. The Shadow Guard leaned forward eagerly.

“I have it.”

Free Ship Bulldog Marauder

The dirigible train was floundering. The lead blimp’s engines were disabled, and the other three were crowding into it. Four individual single-hulls had been close tethered together in a line when the Bulldog Marauder had appeared, and now it was all a jumble of crashing aluminum and fabric, like a herd of injured animals being circled by a cunning predator.

Most of the locals hated the Imperium, so there was always constant radio chatter reporting where their shipping was. They’d tried to trap Southunder a few times with decoys, cargo ships armed to the teeth, but he had a good nose for such things, and seldom had been caught unaware. They’d come up from behind, doing a steady eighty knots with horsepower to spare. Once the captain had made the call that it was a legitimate target, he’d used his own Power to alter the winds. Sullivan had never seen a Weatherman work before. There wasn’t any flash or anything fancy. It was methodical. First they reached out and understood how everything was functioning within their range. Then they had to coax bits of it to work just right. Standing at the very front of the cockpit with his hands pressed against the glass, it had taken Southunder ten minutes to alter the currents until the wind was at their backs.

Once the Imperium train had spotted them, black smoke had puffed from their engines as they cranked up the RPMs. Southunder counteracted that so that the wind slammed right into the nose of the lead dirigible, slowing it, and rocking the crew. Within minutes they were passing through the oil vapor. Then they closed at terrific speed.

When they had gotten into range, a heavy machine gun had opened up from the rear dirigible. Southunder had calmly ordered the pom-pom gunner to silence it, and four solid one-pound shells later, it was done, leaving the cargo blimp’s back end a mess of tattered fabric and broken railing and the black dot of the gunner tumbling toward the sea. “We can’t use the bursting shells on the hydrogen ones,” Southunder had explained calmly. “Can’t sell burned cargo.”

They’d dropped altitude then, diving beneath the train. They needed to get alongside to board and this route exposed them to the fewest guns possible. Pirates armed with scoped rifles were tethered to the outer catwalks and they fired at anything that moved on the train above, and when they had a clean shot, they started shooting at the lead dirigibles engines.

“This is the dangerous part,” Southunder had said. “We’ve got a very powerful Torch on the crew, and can control any fires that break out if we’re in range, but sometimes they’ll go suicidal and ignite the whole thing while we’re right under them.” He’d smiled, trying to be reassuring. “That can get exciting.”

Within minutes the engines had been destroyed and the blimps had started to blunder into each other like blinded whales. Southunder had spun his finger, the wings had been turned accordingly, and the outer engines were pointed straight down, driving them right toward the jumble of crashing behemoths.

“Now all we have to do is pull up alongside while they’re shooting at us and board,” Southunder told him. “Piece of cake.”

Barns was the helmsman, and he frowned as he pulled back on the controls. “By piece of cake, Capitan Southunder means that it’s just like elephants fucking while going a hundred miles an hour swinging on a trapeze . . .”

“Don’t forget the elephants are filled with explosive gas,” Sullivan responded. “Where do you want me?”

Southunder jerked his head. “Take that ladder up top. Boarding party is in position.”

“Aye aye, Cap’n.” Sullivan said. He’d always wanted to say that since he’d first read Treasure Island as a kid. He made sure all the pockets on his canvas vest were closed and that his automatic rifle was tightly slung, then started up the ladder.

“Sullivan,” Southunder called after him. “Just so you know, we’ll pick up the last piece of the Geo-Tel on our way home. It’s not far from here. I just thought we’d kill two birds with one stone this way.”

“About damn time.” Sullivan climbed up through a hole onto the next deck. Ten men were crowded into the tight space, packed between hot pipes in two teams of five. It was dark except for a pair of red light bulbs. He had to crouch to keep from hitting his head. They were armed with a variety of weapons, everything from old Bergman subguns with snail drums, to Winchester trench shotguns, to stolen Jap guns he didn’t recognize, and even a Mauser Broomhandle machine-pistol with the shoulder stock. Beyond that they all had little axes or big knives on their belts. Parker was in the lead armed with a double-barreled shotgun that had been sawed off just ahead of the forearm.

“My team heads fore. Ken’s team heads aft.” Parker leaned around to see through the columns of ready pirates. “Ori, don’t let us all burn to death, right? If these things catch, we don’t have much time ’fore we’re all cooked.”

He had to be addressing the Torch. Sullivan turned. He had not seen the other Active tucked into the back of the room and he was surprised to see the serving girl from the previous night. “Okay, Mr. Parker. No fire.” She waved shyly when she saw Sullivan looking at her, then decided to study her feet.

“That’s your Torch?”

“Sullivan, meet Lady Origami, or at least that’s what we’ve taken to calling her since she didn’t have a name.”

“Twenty seconds!” Southunder’s voice came up the ladder. “We’re mid-starboard side, second vessel!” Parker started to count out loud. Sullivan took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. Two men held massive steel grappling hooks attached to long spools of rope. When he got to three, the Jap named Ken jerked up the locking bar, and at one, he shoved. Sunlight flooded in as the pirates charged out, screaming. For a second it reminded him of the trenches in France, but then the moment was gone, and he was bellowing along behind the others, running up the steel grate, coming out the very top-front end of the Bulldog Marauder’s cabin.

The hooks sailed through the air, both of them catching on railings on the Imperium ship. Barns was good. Sullivan only had to leap across a few feet of empty space before he was on the enemy’s craft. He didn’t have an assignment, so he followed Parker’s team down the catwalk. Gunfire erupted just around the curve of the hull, out of sight, but was answered with a thunder of two 12 gauge shells.

The pirates moved down the railing, shooting anyone that appeared ahead of them. As they reached a door to the interior, Parker signed for some to enter and clear it. They were followed by screams and the rapid chatter of a subgun. Parker kept going, so Sullivan followed. At the very end of the rail, a soldier in a brown uniform came tearing out from behind a spotlight, swinging a sword. He was screaming some war cry, and Parker shot him right in the face, dropping him clean. The pirate took cover behind the spotlight. Sullivan crouched next to him.

“See that bridge?” Parker asked as he broke open the shotgun and pulled out the spent shell. “We need to cross it and get to the next blimp.”

Sullivan peeked around the spotlight. The knotted mass of cable and short planks might have been a bridge at one point, but after the dirigibles’ crashing together, it was just a mess now that he didn’t particularly want to try to climb. A group of Imperium soldiers was running down the other catwalk, coming their way. “Company,” Sullivan said as he leaned out and shouldered the BAR. He lined up the peep sight, put the front sight on the lead man and squeezed the trigger. Bullets puckered the soldier’s chest, sailed through and struck the man behind him too. Both went down in a spray of blood. He worked the rifle over the rest as they took cover behind the pylons.

Parker had to shout to be heard over the rushing of wind and the return fire. “We didn’t expect this many. First blimp must’ve been transporting troops.”

Sullivan analyzed the situation. There were lots of them, few of him, and they had more guns. The glass shattered next to his head as he ducked lower. They were all along one side of the blimp railing. It was far, but he figured he could do it. This would be tough, but he wouldn’t need to hold it too long. The world faded to its physical bits. The lightness of the hydrogen offended him in an abstract way, but most everything was just matter when you got down to it, and everything answered to gravity. He Spiked.

For the Imperial soldiers on the lead blimp, down suddenly changed direction, and they found themselves falling away from the cover of the pylons. Many of them caught themselves on the railing, but the unlucky bounced off, spinning away into the empty sky. Sullivan cut his Power and those hanging by their fingertips fell to the grating where there was no cover.

Sullivan rose, firing the BAR, working it right down the opposite deck. The rate of fire was slow enough that he just gently worked it from body to body. It was a massacre. He dropped the empty mag, smoothly reloaded from a vest pocket, and put a single round into the last man still crawling.

“Damn . . .” Parker said, peering over the perforated spotlight. “You get them all?”

“No,” Sullivan said. Somebody had been out of his range and had ducked beyond the curve of the hull. It had been an officer, and it sounded like he might be screaming someth—

THOOM.

The explosion was muted as the officer committed suicide, but whatever device he’d touched off had been incendiary, intended to take everyone with him. Sudden fire licked around the curve of the bag, bright hideous orange, and it just consumed everything. The canvas began disappearing like dry grass, leaving a hideous skeleton of aluminum in its wake, and the fireball was coming right at them.

“Ax,” Sullivan said as he yanked the little hatchet from Parker’s belt. He ran down the grating, toward the fire, and slid to a halt at the end of the catwalk. The bridge was attached by rope running through several steel grommets. He started chopping, slicing through the rope with such fury that sparks rose from the plate. Wouldn’t that be funny if a spark blew up this blimp while I was trying to—damn it—cut faster. He kept swinging with speed born of desperation.

The wall of heat struck him, sucked the moisture from his eyes, burned his skin. The lead dirigible was curling into itself, forming a U, as the heaviest bit was in the center. Flames washed over his body as the last rope snapped free. He stumbled back with his shirt on fire, dropped the ax, and beat out the flames. The burning blimp spun downward, falling slowly, like the bright petals of a flower falling from a tree, and Sullivan swore as he realized his hair was on fire too.

He made it back to Parker just as he saw that the skin on the nose of his dirigible was smoking. “Aw hell . . .” Simultaneously tiny bits of hissing fire appeared all down the visible seams. They were at the wrong damn end to make it off this one. The entire nose instantly disintegrated in a jet of orange flame.

And then it just stopped.

Sullivan looked around in disbelief, somehow still alive. Parker was slowly uncovering his eyes. The fore section of the blimp was hanging in ragged tatters, beating in the breeze, and he could feel them tilting as they lost altitude. The Japanese Torch dame was coming down the railing toward them, her eyes glowing and hair whipping in the wind.

“Fire good!” she exclaimed, lowering her hands. The lights died and her eyes returned to normal.

“No, sweetheart, you’re good,” Parker shouted.

Sullivan couldn’t agree more.

The crew of the Bulldog Marauder was efficient. They quickly searched the damaged dirigible’s cargo hold, found a few chained slaves and some valuables, loaded them into the less damaged remaining blimps, and cut away the damaged blimp so that it could sink in the ocean. Southunder left five men to drive the remains of the train south to be sold in one of the Free Cities of New Guinea, where the resistance would surely appreciate the supplies. The slaves, mostly Chinese, were put to work with the promise they’d be set free as soon as they landed.

Sullivan joined Southunder in his stateroom, which was little more than a closet with a table sandwiched between armored bulkheads. He was getting tired of always having to duck to avoid hitting his head. There was a map on the table.

“I buried the piece on this atoll.” Southunder stabbed his finger into the map. “It’s in a chest, wrapped in enough cold iron to give any Finder fits, then sealed in wax. I put every ward and glyph in the Rune Arcanium on it, then I booby trapped it the old fashioned way with spike traps and a bunch of dynamite that’s probably unstable as hell by now.”

Sullivan studied the map. The atoll wasn’t that far from Banish Island. They’d probably flown over it to catch the train. “We should’ve went there first.”

“Not if we wanted to catch that train ahead of the storm front. I can steer the weather some, but I can’t board dirigibles in a hurricane, and I wasn’t about to let that cargo get away. I’ve been keeping watch over that blasted thing for twenty years, and unescorted trains are rare. Tesla could wait a few hours . . . No need to risk the traps, so we’ll just stand off and blast it with the pom-pom guns until the dynamite goes off. Then we’ll go down and pick up the pieces.”

“So you decided to believe me then?”

He shrugged. “You strike me as an honest man.”

There was a sudden pounding on the bulkhead. “Captain! Come quick!”

Southunder was surprisingly nimble. Sullivan had a hard time catching up as the captain ran down the passage and slid down a ladder to the command deck. By the time he got up to the control bubble he could see exactly what the commotion was about. To the north was a wall of black clouds, crackling with lightning, but more terrifying was what was to their west, several large Imperium airships, and even to Sullivan’s untrained eye, those did not look like cargo ships.

“There shouldn’t have been any navy in this area,” Barns said. “Could they have gotten here already from the train’s distress call?”

“Damn it. Kagas.” Southunder muttered. There was a large brass telescope mounted at the front of the cockpit and he swiveled it toward the ocean. Sullivan followed the direction it was aiming and noticed more black specks on the ocean, surface ships. “That’s not why they’re here.”

There was a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Is that the atoll?”

Southunder pulled away from the telescope, his face ashen. “Well, looks like you were right.”

“Hate to say I told you so,” Sullivan muttered.

The black ships were getting closer. Tiny dots dropped from their bellies as they released their parasitic fighters. “Orders, Captain?” Barns asked.

Southunder steadied himself against the telescope. Pushing for the atoll would mean certain death. If the fighters didn’t get them, the heavy antiaircraft guns on the surface ships would. “Run for the storm.”