Ganymede (The Clockwork Century 3)

Deaderick said, “Agreed. Don’t let them. ”

“Can you adjust for their movement, incoming?”

“If I have to, Captain. Give me a second. … All right—bay charges set, aimed, ready to shoot. ”

“Ladies, you hear that?”

“Why do I get lumped in with the ladies?” asked Troost.

Josephine shouted at him, “Why do we always get lumped in with the men?” And then over him, she loudly confirmed to the captain, “We hear you!”

“Fire!”

The bay door slammed. “Fire in the charge bay!” Ruthie announced with wicked, exuberant glee.

And a second enormous bullet blew free of Ganymede, propelled toward the bottom of a Texian boat that was swiftly incoming. Everyone on board knew the approaching craft was moving fast, despite the way it appeared to crawl across the bay. From their strange position near the shallow seafloor, everything on the surface appeared to creep.

The charge in its hydrodynamic shell left a billowing trail of bubbles and a roiling, curling tail of disturbed liquid in its wake. It crashed against the bottom of the boat and lodged the

re briefly, while the ship bumbled back and forth, shuddering and shaking in response to the hole smashed in its underside. It did its best to settle again to a stable position on the rippling water of the enclosed bay, even as it began to take on water.

Everyone waited. Josephine ran out of the charge bay.

She searched the window for the target, and spying it, she hollered, “Explode, Goddamn you! Explode!”

But nothing exploded, and given another half a minute, the shell toppled out of the hole it’d made, sinking down to the silt of the bay floor and settling there, where it did nothing more interesting than stick halfway into the muck.

Cly stood up, and Josephine turned around. Their eyes met.

He didn’t need to say it, but he did anyway—partly to Josephine’s back as she dashed back into the charge bay. “Get another one! Fire another one before they realize what’s happened! Launch another shell while we still have the advantage!”

She dived headlong into the bay and gestured to Troost and Ruthie. “The next one. Set it up! Load it!”

Troost was on it. The small man was stronger than he looked; he lifted the next shell in line and dropped it onto the track, then stepped out of the way. Ruthie was right behind him. She shoved the shell along the track and tried to slam the round door behind it, locking it into the firing chute. It stuck, and she swore at it.

Josephine pushed her out of the way and threw her weight against it, bruising her elbow badly in the process but shutting the door all the same. It smacked closed with a pop of the seals and a click of the latch. Josephine pulled the lever to spark the fuse. When it didn’t take, she yanked it again to light the thing.

“Ruthie, I need another fuse. …”

“Oui, madame! It is ready to go!”

Indeed, the new fuse caught and lit and burned, and Josephine called out, “Fire in the charge bay!”

“Deaderick?” Cly asked, wondering about the angles and direction, but Early had already corrected for the boat’s continued trajectory, and he announced, “All set, sir!”

The charge fired, and a third big bullet went billowing toward the boat, almost too close, almost so close that Cly had second thoughts. He turned to Fang, who shrugged—then he turned to Deaderick and asked, “Are we too—?”

But before he had time to finish the question, the charge connected and blew into a thousand shards, propelled by gunpowder and fire. It shattered and split, right in the middle, and the boat began to sink—this one faster than the first.

A huge—and hugely heavy—gun slid downward. The shell had come up right underneath it, and now the gun was falling, its weight pulling the craft apart. The antiaircraft piece had been bolted to the deck, and it took a slab of this same deck with it as it tumbled down through the serene, thick water. Pieces of wood shattered, and splintered planking came raining down through the swamp, then up again as it left the weight of the gun and its fixings.

Everything that could float, did. Everything that could not, drifted to the bottom.

Josephine came running out again, with Ruthie on her heels. “Did we hit it? Did we take it?”

“We took it!” Houjin shouted. “It’s gone down! I can’t see it anymore!”

“Look around that visor, kid!” Cly pointed at the window.