Choose

12. Sea Legs

October 7, 2009

Hank boarded the Miraj like a man coming home. She floated in one of the broad harbor bays on the wealthier side of the docks. On either side of her, tall, bright-canvassed clippers nodded like sleek thoroughbreds. By contrast, she looked like a rusted lump of lemon-shaped metal dropped in a bathtub. She rode low in the water as if she’d sprung a slow leak and her sails were a crazed patchwork pattern of scavenged canvas.

She looked like an accident. As if she could fall apart at any moment. And that was precisely the way Hank intended her to look. He couldn’t hide the fact that she was an airship – but older airships commonly had their starshard uncoupled and repurposed for a newer airship design. The shardless ships often found themselves scrapped, but a few were seaworthy, if a captain were desperate enough to want a ship that old.

The Miraj’s wood creaked and groaned in welcome and he smiled as he ran a hand across the rusted metal of her deck railing. She pitched once, like a spirited horse testing her master, and his weight automatically shifted to the rolling deck. Behind him, Remora gasped and gripped the railing tightly.

Hank’s smile deepened. Perhaps a few minutes on board a real ship was all it would take to frighten the girl back home to her bankrolls and fancy parties.

It had been amusing to watch her flabbergast Ratchet – satisfying to watch that old goat, pampered and bedecked in a costume that would put the Playwrights to shame flap his lips like sails in the wind. Even so, the Miraj was his, just as surely as he was hers. No piece of paper could change that.

He’d thank Remora for paying off his debt, assure her that he’d pay her back what he owed, toss her back ashore as easily as a discarded fish, and be on his way.

Jinn wouldn’t be so easy to get rid of, but Hank was on home ground now. He had the advantage, and as long as he had the Miraj, he was never unarmed.

He moved behind the nearest sailarm, kneeling down to spin the rusty metal hatch wheel covering the stairs to belowdecks.

“Bones!” he barked. Immediately, the ticker stood at his side.

“Captain?”

“We’ll be setting sail soon. I need you to check her, stem to stern. Make sure she’s still seaworthy, and make sure that rat of a debtor didn’t install any nasty surprises while we were away.”

“Aye, Captain.” The ticker sketched a salute and moved off to do his duty. Hank nodded, grateful that his First Mate hadn’t argued the point. Bones was business itself when it came to the ship – that’s what made him such a great First Mate. He knew Bones would rather stay and discuss the business with Remora, but Hank didn’t like the way the ticker got all soft when the girl was around. She was trouble, and he didn’t want any latent heroics from Bones to keep him from throwing her off the ship when they were done.

The girl’s baffling hold over his First Mate was a worry for another day. For now, he just wanted to get everyone except himself and Bones off his ship, and his ship out of sight of land as quickly as possible.

He glanced around and saw the girl still clinging to the railing. His grin widened. No sea legs on her, then. He doubted she’d ever even been off land before. Rich kid like her – she probably hadn’t even left her house for much of anything.

“Come on then,” he called to her, one boot kicking the portcap securely open. “I thought you were in a hurry!”

Her face flushed, then paled. She bit her bottom lip and narrowed her eyes, visually screwing up her courage before releasing the railing and darting across the curved metal deck to his side. The ship took that moment to give a particularly nasty buck and the girl skittered off course, keeping her feet but just barely.

More slowly, Jinn followed, his black robes catching the wind and billowing sharply, but his tall figure barely seeming to lean to keep his balance. Some of Hank’s mirth fled. He’d have liked to see the calm and collected Shima brother fly artlessly across the hull, but he supposed that was a bit much to ask.

Besides, Remora danced drunkenly enough across the surface for the both of them. Every breeze seemed to toss her slight form to the side, and every pitch and roll of the ship caught her by surprise.

She did finally manage to make it to his side, clutching the portcap with a white-knuckled grip. She turned her face up to his and instead of the frustration and embarrassment he expected to see, she smiled. Pale, but with two bright patches of red upon her cheeks, she grinned. “Goodness! That will take a bit of getting used to, won’t it?”

She looked…exhilarated. She was too thin by far and as wet behind the ear as a sea minnow in a bucket, but something in those wide brown eyes made him want to smile back at her.

He quashed the feeling, killing the last of the mirth he’d felt at watching her tossed about the deck. She was the enemy. “Are we going to have that business meeting now, or would you like to play about on the decks for a while first?” he said.

The brightness in those brown eyes dimmed a little, and he hated that he allowed himself to feel even a little bad about that.

“You’re right, of course.” She turned to Jinn. “If it would be possible, could you please wait out here until McCoy and I complete our business?”

The tall Shinra gave a shallow bow from the waist. “It is my understanding that the outcome of your business will affect my own mission. I will wait.”

She smiled at him. “Thank you, Jinn.” She took the first two steps into the descending porthole stairs, then paused, looking back up. “Oh! If my things arrive while I’m still downstairs, could you please tell them to begin setting up without me? And if the cook arrives, tell him I’d like a cup of Melange – my orange spice tea – please? And order something for yourself as well if you’d like.”

“Scratch that,” Hank barked. “She won’t be staying. Don’t let them put anything in my ship.”

Remora rolled her eyes and winked at Jinn. The Shinra had the audacity to wink one red eye at her in return. Hank growled. “You. Inside. Now,” he said to Remora.

Wisely, she walked.