The End Has Come

She ran it in her head ten different ways. Every time, Ishim had a high chance of being shot before she got to the man. She had a high chance of being shot, too, but a bullet or two would only piss her off, not take her down.

The kids stayed aft, crouched on a blanket, staring at the deck. No help there.

Ishim caught her eye and shook his head, his graying braids swinging with the movement. Karron pressed her lips together and nodded. She would wait then; wait for the passengers to screw up. Humans always screwed up.

They poled over to shore. The hull ground into the reeds, and Jill threw a rope up onto the broken bridge. A man rose from above and caught it, tying the ship off. Two more men made their way out of the brush and slogged into the shallows.

“Lower the ladder. This is where you get off,” Jill said, motioning with her pistol. Covenant gun, the pointed cross clearly stamped on the barrel.

“I am not leaving my ship,” Ishim said. He folded thickly muscled black arms over his chest, chin up. “You want to go somewhere, we’ll take you. But I do not leave my ship.”

She and Ishim had checked all the bags. They’d made Jill and Nolan stand while they patted them down, too. Where had they hidden the guns?

Karron looked back at the kids. They hadn’t checked them. Stupid of her. She should know how dangerous children could be. He hadn’t told her, the other night. Karron wondered if the boy would have, if she’d agreed to help. He hadn’t said a word, because he knew the man and woman would force her hand if they had guns. It was how a War Child would think, what she would have done in his place.

Oni caught her eye now and mouthed a word of apology, looking decades older than seven. Bee clung to him, staring at the planks, her knuckles white where she gripped Oni’s shirt. There was a gun on the ship, next to the steam engine in a hidden compartment. Fat lot of good it would do her now. She had a small knife on her belt. Knife in a gunfight. Not so good either.

All scenarios led to Ishim being shot before she could fight back.

Her mind buzzed, her blood singing the song of death. The song of war.

Memories buried and half-forgotten arose, snapping into place like a joint of out of socket. She’d killed once before to protect the ship, to protect Ishim. She’d come back from the warm rage that time. She could return again from that bright place. She had no choice.

Karron raised her eyes from the kids to the Ring where it slashed the blue skies above, shining white in the sun. She was no more able to stop being a killer than the Ring was able to stop dropping rocks. Hating the Ring for the storms and the fires was as pointless as hating the sun for shining. Hating her nanotech and her training was the same. She could fight it, the way they fought the river to move upstream. But let go, stop for a moment, and she would drift like the ship, going the way nature intended.

Karron set her pole down slowly. It was too long to use as a weapon. She turned to Jill after a glance told her the men on the shore didn’t have guns in their hands.

“You think you are the first to try to hijack our ship? Ishim and his brother built this ship with their hands, sweat, and tears. His brother’s name is on the hull, his brother’s blood in the nails and boards, his hair in the rope and sail.” Karron moved slowly to her left. One more step and she’d have the gaffing hook. She kept her eyes on Jill.

“A captain,” she continued, knowing Ishim would hear her, knowing he’d understand, “a true captain always goes down with his ship.”

Oni acted before she could. The boy crossed the deck in a blur of preternatural speed, whipping the blanket into a weapon before him. It caught Jill in the side and threw her off balance. The boy was small, and there wasn’t much strength in the blow, but the blanket’s momentum shoved her into the mast, distracting the woman for a precious moment.

Karron grabbed the gaffing hook. Ishim dropped to the deck, sweeping his own pole to the side and catching Nolan in the legs with it. Karron sprang and landed on the man. She plunged the pointed end of the gaff into his throat with her right hand even as her left went for the revolver. Blood sprayed from his mouth as a gunshot cracked out over the water.

Bee screamed. Karron wrenched the revolver from Nolan’s dying fingers and rolled to the side, pointing the gun where she’d last seen Jill.

Oni was down, holding his hands to his thin stomach, dark blood welling between his fingers. Jill turned, swinging the gun a little wildly. Dimly, at the edge of her battle-focused awareness, Karron saw movement as the man on the bridge jumped to the deck and the other two tried to climb the side.

The revolver was her hand, a metal extension of her killing will. Fifteen years without a gun, and she felt as though time had stood still. She was a Child again, full of light, bright and hot and deadly.

The laughter ringing over the water was her own, echoing back at her as she squeezed the trigger.