Chapter 49 Jaya
JAYA
If the gamemaster loses control, then the field becomes a bloodbath.
—from The Gamemaster Manual
The sensors flared to life as they cleared the mists of the pit and saw the killdoms racing through the night.
Jaya swallowed her victorious cry, saying only, “I told you so.”
Rhumia scowled. “Lucky guess.”
She rushed to the comms panel as Daz ordered his men to man their stations, arm their long-range pulsers.
The bridge was a flurry of activity, and despite the danger lurking beyond, she could not help but feel a thrill of exhilaration, the anxious, breathless excitement that came before a game, when the field was set, the fighters ready to charge.
“Akaros, are you in position?” she said.
“We are,” he replied through the comms. “Do we know which one is Maya’s killdom?”
At his question, her excitement tamped down a degree. She scrambled through the comms units, heart climbing up her throat, but—no. There was no signal from Maya. “Something’s gone wrong.”
Rhumia heard. “This has been a suicide mission from the start—”
“Enough.” Daz watched the second killdom, the Relentless Destiny, as it sailed out with the Lord of Sea, no doubt meaning to pincer them. “We go for both.”
“But Maya is on one of those ships,” Jaya said. “She’s been gathering intelligence on the Jantari navy movements. If she’s harmed, we would lose all that data.”
“Tough,” Rhumia said.
Jaya turned to her, a curse on her tongue, but Daz held up his hand. “Didn’t I say enough? If you two continue to argue, I will relieve both of you of your duties.”
Jaya wrenched her mouth shut, though she itched to drive her stylus through Rhumia’s smirk. If only they were in the field. She would have had control, a gameplan—harmony.
“We’re moving in,” Akaros said. “The Relentless Destiny is mine.”
“Left full rudder to ninety,” Daz called.
Afira turned the model, and the ship groaned, slicing through the waves as they turned sharply. Akaros moved off their port stern, cutting out to the west to draw out the Relentless.
“Increase speed, hold steady.”
“Increasing,” Afira called.
Jaya grasped the panel edge as their ship bounded forth. But the killdoms did not split and take Akaros’s bait. Instead, the Relentless Destiny kept its path behind the Lord of Sea, the two bearing toward them, much too fast.
“They’re going to pincer us. Daz, please,” she said. “At least send a signal to the ships. Something Maya knows. Then we’ll know which one she’s on.”
“Shoot them down,” Samson said, his voice edged with something that sounded like pain, felt more like spite. “We’ll have them in range.”
“Lord bearing two-ten, contact in ten minutes. Relentless in fifteen,” Rhumia said.
“Port ninety,” Daz said. “Afira, arm the pulsers.”
The killdoms were armed with sparkbombs, old and heavy, but the bounders were too light, too fast, to hold any.
And they did not mean to destroy the killdoms. They were to capture and sail them into Tsuana as victors.
Jaya gripped the panel, her stomach twisting as Afira pressed the model for charges, and the holo flashed red, indicating that the pulsers were armed.
Suddenly, there came shouts from outside the bridge, up at the pilot’s nest. Jaya rushed out just as she heard a hiss, then a loud sizzle. Visha held up a flare, and in the night, it seemed to throb, a panicking heart.
“Port stern!” she cried. “Turn! Turn!”
“Right full rudder!” Jaya shouted back to the bridge.
Rhumia seized the model, jerking them to the right. Jaya was flung onto the railings, and she gasped as the metal collided with her spine and sent shock waves down her back. She moaned, trying to rise to her feet.
And then she heard it.
How could she ever forget that sound?
Staccato noises, like fire spitting, logs cracking. The sound her mother’s and father’s pyres made as she lit the bases and offered their souls to whatever cruel gods lay beyond.
And then it flared on their screens: a bright white dot hurtling toward them. Yet it was Visha’s cry, loud and terrified in the night, that made it all too real.
“Sparker! Sparker! It’s coming right at us!”