Glory Season

Maia glanced back at the display again, catching a blurred picture of women laboring across platforms of cut logs, straggling to tie sections together and erect a makeshift mast. As predicted by Maia’s research, the tides were gentle on that side, at this hour. Unfortunately, that was far from true right now at the mouth of the spy tunnel.

At last, the sea calmed down for a spell. No wall of rock seemed about to swat them. With sighs, Maia and the others rested their oars. They had passed a busy, sleepless night since the fatal encounter with Inanna, the reaver provocateur.

First had come the unpleasant duty of rousing all the other marooned sailors, and telling them that one of their comrades had been a spy. Any initial suspicions toward Maia and Naroin quieted during a torchlit tour into the island’s hidden grottoes, and were finished off by showing recorded messages on Inanna’s comm unit. But that was not the end to arguing. There followed interminable wrangling over Maia’s plan, for which, unfortunately, no one came up with any useful alternative.

Finally, hours of frantic preparations led to this early-morning flurry of activity. The more Maia thought, the more absurd it all seemed.

Should we have waited, instead? Simply avoided springing Inanna’s trap? Let the reavers go away disappointed, and then try to slip away in the skiff at night?

Except, all eighteen could not fit in the little boat. And by nightfall the pirates would be querying their spy. When Inanna failed to answer with correct codes, they would assume the worst and try other measures. Not even the little skiff would be able to slip through a determined blockade by ships equipped with radar. As for those left behind, starvation would solve the reavers’ prisoner problem, more slowly, but just as fully as an armed assault.

No, it has to be now, before they expect to hear from Inanna again.

“Eia!” Naroin shouted. “Here they come! Sails spread and breaking lather.” She peered closer. “Patarkal jorts!”

“What is it?” young Brod asked.

“Nothin’.” Naroin shrugged. “I thought for a minute it was a big bugger, a two- master. But it’s a ketch. That’s bad enough. Fast as blazes, with a crew of twelve or more. This ain’t gonna be easy as mixin’ beer an’ frost.”

Charl spat over the side. “Tell me somethin’ I don’t know,” the tall Medianter growled. Tress, a younger sailor from Ursulaborg, asked nervously, “Shall we turn back?”

Naroin pursed her lips. “Wait an’ see. They’ve turned the headland and gone out o’ view of the first camera. Gonna be a while till the next one picks ’em up.” She switched channels. “Lullin’s crew has spotted ’em, though.”

The tiny screen showed the gang of raft-builders, hurrying futilely to finish before the reaver boat could cross the strait between neighboring isles. It was patently useless, for the most recent image of the sleek pirate craft had shown it slashing the choppy water, sending wild jets of spray to port and starboard as it sprinted to attack.

“Will they board?” Tress asked.

“Wish they would. But my guess is takin’ prisoners ain’t today’s goal.”

The current kicked up again. Maia and the others resumed rowing, while Naroin turned switches until she shouted. “Got ’em! About three kilometers out. Gettin’ closer fast.”

Keep coming… Maia thought each time she glanced at the display, until a looming expanse of white sailcloth filled the tiny screen. Keep coming closer.

At last, the raft crew cast loose their moorings of twisted vines. Some of them began poling with long branches, while two attempted to raise a crude mast covered with stitched blankets. For all the world, it looked as if they really were trying to get away. Either Lullin, Trot and the others were good actors, or fear lent verisimilitude to their ploy.

Naroin kept counting estimates of the reaver ship’s approach. The ketch was under a thousand meters from the raft. Then eight hundred, and closing.

The situation on the raft grew more desperate. One agitated figure began pushing boxes of provisions off the deck, as if to lighten the load. They bobbed along behind the raft, very little distance growing between them.

“Six hundred meters,” Naroin told them.

“Shouldn’t we get closer now?” Brod asked. He seemed oddly relaxed. Not exactly eager, but remarkably cool, considering his earlier confessions to Maia. In fact, Brod had insisted on coming along.

“Lysos never said males can’t ever fight,” he had argued passionately, last night. “We’re taught that all men are reserve militia members, liable for call-up in case of really big trouble. I’d say that describes these bandits!”

Maia had never heard reasoning like that before. Was it true? Naroin, a policewoman, ought to know. The former bosun had blinked twice at Brod’s assertion, and finally nodded. “There are… precedents. Also, they won’t be expecting a male. There’s an element of surprise.”

In the end, despite gallant protests by some of the others, he was allowed to come along. Anyway, Brod would be safer here than on the raft.

“Be patient an’ clam up,” Naroin told the boy, as they fought choppy currents. “Four hundred meters. I want to see how the bitchies plan on doin’ it. … Three hundred meters.”

Brod took the rebuke mildly. Looking at him a second time, Maia saw another reason for his relative quiet. Brod’s complexion seemed greenish. He was clamping down on nausea. If the youth was trying to show his guts, Maia hoped he wouldn’t do so literally.

It was getting near decision time. Plan A called for battle. But if that looked hopeless, those on the skiff were to try fleeing downwind, keeping the bulk of the island between them and the raiders. Only in that way might those sacrificing themselves on the raft get revenge. But, given the enemy’s possession of radar, Maia knew the unlikeliness of a clean getaway. For all its flaws, the ambush scheme still seemed the best chance they had.

“Three hundred meters,” Naroin said. “Two hundred an’eight… Bleedin’ jorts!”

Her fist set the rail vibrating. This sound was followed almost instantly by a roll of pealing thunder, anomalous beneath clear skies.

“What is it?” Maia asked, turning in time to glimpse, on the viewer screen, a sudden spout of rising water that just missed the little raft, splashing its frantic crew.

“Cannon. They’re usin’ a cannon!” Naroin shouted. “The Lyso-dammed, lugar-faced, man-headed jorts. We never figured on this.”

Guilt-panged because the plan had been her idea, Maia craned to watch, fascinated as Naroin switched camera views of the approaching reaver boat. At its prow, a flash erupted through smoke lingering from the first shot. Another tower of seawater almost swamped the wallowing raft. “They’ve got ’em straddled,” Naroin snarled, then snapped at Maia. “What’re you lookin’ at? Mind yer oars! I’ll tell what’s happenin’.”

Maia swiveled just as a tidal surge washed their tiny craft toward a jutting rock. “Pull!” Brod cried, rowing hard. Heaving with all their might, they managed to stop short of the jagged, menacing spire. Then, as quickly as it came, the bulging sea-crest ran back out again, dragging them along. “Naroin! Turn!” Maia cried. But the preoccupied bosun was cursing at what she saw in the screen, taking notice only when a mesh of fiber cables suddenly stitched across the water, stretched to their utter limit, and abruptly snatched the electronic display out of her hands. The spy device flew some distance, then met the waves and sank from sight.

The policewoman stood up and shouted colorfully, setting the boat rocking, then quickly and forcibly calmed herself as more echoes of discrete thunder rounded the cliffs. Naroin sat down, resting hand and arm on the tiller once more. “No matter, it won’t be long now,” she said.

“We can’t just sit here!” Tress cried. “Lullin and the others will be blown to bits!”

“They knew it’d be rough. Showin’ up now would just get us killed, too.”

“Should we try running away, then?” Charl asked.

“They’d spot us soon as they circuit the island. That boat’s faster, an’ a cannon makes any head start useless.” Naroin shook her head. “Besides, I want to get even. We’ll get closer, but wait till the last shot before