Prow to Paddle

Steam from the opened sluice gates tasted of sulfur and dead kelp, masking the sound of their approach just long enough for Ta'ani to aim their reinforced prow at the cutter's flank. Beyond the lip of Lock Roto'uri lay three hundred yards of open canal, boiling brine churning against void mist. If Pari's gunboat caught them in the center channel before they fouled its paddles, bow carronades would reduce their patched barge to kindling. Ta'ani clamped both grease-slick hands around the rough oak tiller, holding the craft against the surging backwash.

"More coal, you mute bastard!" Ha'ata barked from the open hatchway forward, his iron knee brace clanking against the boiler frame. "The needle is trembling below five atmospheres! If the draft dies now, the current will spit us against the weir wall like a greasy rag!"

Beneath the deck grating, Rua did not grunt or pause. The scrape of his wide coal shovel rang against iron plates, followed by the dull roar of anthracite catching in the firebox. A plume of greasy black smoke coughed from the shortened stack, mixing with the steam rolling off the canal surface.

"Mind the draft!" Cook Kele yelled, huddling beside the coal bunkers with a notched cleaver in one hand and an iron kettle in the other. "You dump sulfur slag into the grate and my dried dogfish broth turns to bile! A man cannot kill cartel filth on an empty belly!"

"Shut your fat mouth, Kele," Moana said from the bow. She knelt by the reinforced timber mount, checking the lashings on the three primed sulfur cartridges. Her rubberized diving suit glistened with fresh lard, and two heavy iron grapnels lay coiled at her bare knees, their four-barbed flukes honed bright against basalt grit. "If you drop that pot on my spare line, I will throw you over the gunwale to cool the water."

Ta'ani ignored the bickering. His gaze was fixed on the churning brine twenty paces ahead, where the current sheared violently between the harbor mouth and the central aqueduct. He leaned his full weight against the tiller, feeling the tremor of the submerged water through the timber grain. The canal was drawing hard to the south, sucked toward the open celestial troughs that spanned the void to Ka'anua. A novice helmsman would have fought the rip, hauling against the rudder until the pintles snapped. Ta'ani gave the barge a quarter turn into the boil, letting the falling head of water catch the wide belly of their hull and whip them forward into the main channel.

A deafening boom shattered the steam fog.

Ten yards to starboard, an eighteen-pound iron ball hammered the basalt wall of the lock gate. Chips of volcanic stone showered the deck, whistling through the rigging and punching holes through an empty grease barrel. The shock wave slapped the barge hard, throwing Kele against the coal bags and sending his iron kettle clattering across wet timber.

"They have the range!" Boy Tane cried from the amidships gangway, ducking behind the heavy oak coaming with white knuckles clamped over his ears.

"No," Ta'ani growled, his voice cutting through the hiss of the safety valve. "They are firing blind into the gate mist. Pari knows someone is coming out, but his gunners cannot see the waterline."

Through the shifting curtain of white vapor, the black silhouette of the cartel scout cutter emerged.

It was a broad ironclad, built low in the boiling brine with twin paddle boxes churning the water into frothing yellow scum. Two short-barreled bow carronades poked through its forward armored mantlet, their muzzles smoking from the initial volley. Along its upper rail, cartel deck-watchmen in boiled leather cuirasses were frantically hauling on tackle to reload the starboard piece. High above the paddle housing, on the armored steering bridge, a tall silhouette stood behind the iron-plated rail, barking commands through a brass horn.

"Look at that fat pig," Ha'ata shouted up through the engine hatch, his soot-streaked face twisted in a mocking grin. "Pari put his heaviest plating on the forward bulwark and left the paddle wheel guards open to save iron. Drive this tub into his wheelhouse, Ta'ani, or I will crawl up there and bite your heel!"

"Keep the pressure at six!" Ta'ani shouted back.

He adjusted his grip on the tiller, sighting along the heavy bronze stem of their barge. The enemy carronades were swinging around, their iron carriages groaning as the gunners sought a target in the fog. The cutter's bow was too heavily armored for their single uncalibrated sulfur-iron shot; to waste one of their three cartridges against forged plate would leave them toothless. They needed to cripple the vessel's propulsion and take the deck by hand.

"Down!" Moana hissed.

A second carronade erupted from the cutter's bow. The blast was deafening, a gout of orange fire tearing through the steam. The solid shot passed six feet above Ta'ani's head, screaming like a wounded hog before it gouged a deep furrow across the barge's timber coach-roof. Splinters rained down, sharp as dagger points. One ripped across Ta'ani's forearm, opening a shallow gash through old boiler scars, but his hands never left the helm.

The cutter was fifty yards away, turning slowly to bring its port paddle wheel into reverse to widen the firing arc. But the canal current was too swift, and the heavy ironclad was sluggish in the churning backwash.

Ta'ani saw the opening. The depression limit on the cutter's forward guns was shallow; the thick gunports could not angle their barrels down far enough to strike a vessel hugging the waterline within thirty paces. If they got beneath the gun line, the cartel could only hit them with muskets and pikes.

"Rua! Dump the draft wide!" Ta'ani roared.

The stoker answered with a violent clatter of draft chains. The small boiler screamed, safety valve lifting with a piercing shriek of vented steam, and the barge surged forward across the foaming brine.

"Moana! Grapnels!"

The distance died in heartbeats. Forty yards. Twenty. Cartel musketeers crowded the cutter's rail, leveling heavy flintlocks through the mist. A ragged volley cracked across the water. Lead balls thudded into the barge's reinforced oak bulwarks and chipped sulfur scale from the deck gun's brazed collar. One ball struck the bronze mount inches from Moana's face, whining away into the void fog, but she did not flinch. She swung the first heavy four-barbed iron grapnel in a tight circle above her head.

"Brace!" Ta'ani bellowed.

He threw his entire weight onto the tiller, kicking the barge straight into the cutter's port flank.

The impact tore through the hull with the roar of an iron mine collapsing.

The barge's reinforced prow, armored with three-inch scrap plate, smashed directly through the cutter's port paddle housing. Splintered oak floats and sheared iron brackets flew in every direction, whipped around by the dying rotation of the wheel. The grinding screech of iron tearing through iron echoed off the high basalt canal walls, sending violent vibrations up through the deck timbers that dropped Tane and Kele to their knees.

The heavy tiller kicked sideways with monstrous force, striking Ta'ani's left ribs and driving the air from his lungs. Pain flared hot and sharp, but his feet held against the battens.

Above them, the cutter listed violently to starboard, its crippled paddle wheel jammed in the crushed wreckage of the barge's bow.

Moana hurled her first grapnel. The iron prongs flew true, hooking deep over the cutter's bulwark netting and biting into the timber cap. She snubbed the braided hemp line around a deck cleat and hauled it taut with a sharp shout.

"Second iron!" she yelled.

From the cutter's elevated quarterdeck, a cartel petty officer swung a small swivel gun toward the fouled wreckage below. The gunner pulled the lanyard before the piece was fully trained.

A thunderous blast of canister shot swept the barge's stern.

The hail of lead and iron scraps tore the aft bulwark into matchwood. A cluster of iron slugs hammered the rudder post, shattering oak pintles and ripping the heavy tiller clean out of Ta'ani's grip. The severed rudder spun away into the boiling foam, lost to the deep current.

Ta'ani dropped behind the shattered coaming as the canister blast died away in the fog. He wiped brine and copper dust from his eyes, looking back at the empty stern. The oak pintles were sheared flat. Their rudder was gone, swallowed by the deep current of the aqueduct, leaving only the splintered post trembling against the foam.

Moana snubbed the second grapnel taut around the forward timber bit, locking the two hulls together in a groaning knot of iron and crushed oak. The cutter's port paddle was dead, choked by the barge's prow. Neither vessel could drift free.

From the engine hatchway, Ha'ata hauled himself up onto his good knee, his pale face blackened with flue soot. He stared back at the shattered stern, his thin lips pulled back over yellow teeth.

"The steering is gone!" the wright yelled over the hiss of vented steam. "The pintles are sheared! We have no way to bring this tub back to the lock!"

Ta'ani reached down and took up his five-foot iron boarding spade, testing the weight of the forged blade against the palm of his calloused hand. He looked past the wrecked paddle box to the cutter's armored wheelhouse, where the cartel steersman was hauling frantically on the brass helm.

"We do not need a rudder," Ta'ani said. "We are taking theirs."