Thistle in the Sky | #NONC2022 | ✔

Chapter Seven

The Verulux had only one deck. Farah flicked off her flashlight as she stepped out into its well-lit mess hall. The place was a disaster. Furniture was upturned, smashed, and flung against the walls. Drifts of chairs lay piled together, but the chaos was otherwise dispersed: this was not the result of the ship rolling violently, or of some other explosive force. There were no scorch marks. There was no smell of burning or gunpowder. Blood streaked the floor and holes punctured the walls on both sides of the room, but there were no bodies.

Baskoro paced around a slithering red streak on the floor. Farah made for the galley. It too had been upturned: dry rice had spilled across the linoleum, and several cupboards stood ajar, their doors dented. The rest were still closed. Farah picked her way over to one and found it locked. If this was pirates, they had not been after food. It was a hint in favor of an attack against the Colony, reinforced further when Baskoro reached the gun deck in the gondola below. Farah detected his surprise. The ship's ammunition was still present, correct, and accounted for, and only one of its guns had been fired. The windows were smashed. There were still no bodies.

Whoever had attacked had targeted the ship's defenses, and struck with such swift and devastating accuracy, the Verulux had not gathered itself in time to fight back. The enemy force had torn it open like a bandit's waterskin. But that must have been their only purpose. They had then left the ship to rot in the sunshine and saltwater for the Colony to find.

Only one question continued to niggle at the back of Farah's mind. Where was the crew?

There was blood on the floor in numerous places: not just in the mess hall, but pooled in the hallway, spattered on one wall of the galley, and smeared through the ship's control room. Baskoro had found it there. Farah could not tell how the crew had been injured. The signs were too diverse, and not all of them matched what she'd have expected from such violent gunfire. If it was gunfire at all.

Baskoro was taking inventory of the ship's damage. By his assessment, grappling hooks or some newer weapon had torn open the envelope outside, while the holes were the result of a gun attack. This was the heart of Farah's doubts. Guns were rare and expensive in the outer city, but she had seen the damage even handheld revolvers like Jhaṛa's could wreak. She peered into another "bullet" wound. This one had punched through one of the Verulux's thin inner walls, but it too lacked an exit hole.

A whistle from the Ariomma signaled that Jhaṛa wanted their report. Farah left the scene reluctantly. Neither she nor Baskoro spoke as they returned to their ship. Farah didn't speak there, either: Baskoro commanded the conversation, and Jhaṛa only seemed interested in what he had to say. By the time Farah had slipped out of her cloudhopper harness, a decision had been made. If the attack on the Verulux amounted to a declaration of war, the ship was too valuable to leave behind. Unless the Nectamia came back into radio range, they would tow it with them to the Colony.

This declaration spurred a frenzy of activity. Farah stayed on top of the envelope while the rest of the crew secured towing lines, primed engines, recalculated fuel use, and updated contingency plans. Jhaṛa was willing to sacrifice a lot to keep the ship in tow. Farah eyed the watchman at the back of the ship. He paced close to the hatch where the cloudhoppers were stored, and though he periodically stopped at an exit hatch to listen below, he didn't leave his post.

Farah got to her feet and slipped down into the ship. She reached the axial catwalk and found Jhaṛa near the Ariomma's rear control room, deep in an argument with Esfandiar.

"You're askin' for trouble," growled the sailor, his thoughts stormy.

"I agree," added another voice. Cahya the superstitious woman was also here. "I heard a ship's whistle last night, and when I checked the charts this morning, there was no ship due to cross our path. The search and rescue vessels don't whistle. Gemi confirmed it. This is bad luck, I'm telling you. "