Chapter 22: Hard Landing

“Success is a flower; misfortune a weed. Keep your garden neat.”

-Concordian saying.

Alarms blared. Red emergency lights flashed, bathing the cabin in an eery glow.

Once Taira had regained her senses, she struggled out of her harness and fell to the floor. She crawled over to Stephan on her hands and knees, who lay motionless on his side.

“Stephan,” she said. No response. “Stephan!” she repeated. Still nothing.

With some effort, she got him onto his back. She checked his throat for a heartbeat, found a steady rhythm. Blood trickled from his forehead, which she wiped away as best she could with the edge of her sleeve.

Stephan’s slim jaw was framed by deep shadow and blood-red light, lips parted.

“Wake up, Stephan,” she said, unsure of what to do. She tugged on his shoulder, and his eyes flickered open for a moment before falling shut again.

She took a few moments to breathe and figure out what to do.

Med-patches, Taira thought. He’ll need those.

They kept medical supplies on the main deck upstairs and the cargo hold downstairs.

It seemed that the ship was still mostly in one piece. With the crash, however, heading downstairs could be dangerous, since the cargo hold would have taken the brunt of the impact. Besides, if she headed to the main deck, she could check on her sister.

As soon as Taira stood up to leave, Stephan stirred, groaning while he rubbed the side of his bruised head.

“Codes,” he said, working himself into a sitting position. “That was… quite the landing. He looked around blearily. “Am I alive? Or is this hell? It’s all very red.”

“I think you survived,” Taira said with a shaky smile. “I was worried.”

“Yeah, well, don’t stop worrying just yet. My head is killing me.”

Taira helped him up. He complained incessantly as she brought him out into the hall, keeping his left arm against his chest.

Yin emerged from another cabin, dragging a badly shaken Torch.

“Everyone alive?” Yin asked.

“So far,” Taira said.

They met Quintilla as they went up the stairs to the main deck. The captain made a quick headcount and nodded with satisfaction.

“Good. Everyone accounted for,” she said.

“What about the big man?” Yin asked.

“He’s fine, just a bit banged up. He was in my cabin when it happened—shielded me during the crash, the fool.”

“S-Stephan is injured,” Taira said. As the adrenaline wore off, she felt herself becoming lightheaded.

Quintilla dug a few med-patches out of her pocket and threw them Taira’s way. “Everyone, head down to the rec room. I’ll fetch the rest of the crew so we can talk about our next move.”

“Sooo, the ship isn’t going to explode or anything?” Yin asked.

“That would be a mercy, far as I’m concerned,” Torch muttered.

“We’re fine,” Quintilla said with a reassuring nod. “The Tits Up has taken more beatings than a back-alley whore. We’ll get her back online, don’t you worry.”

*****

Taira applied the last of the med-patches to Stephan’s bruised arm. He winced, but gave a grateful nod and tugged his button-up back over his shoulders.

Taira found herself wishing that she could have gotten to touch his arms a bit longer. She blushed at the thought.

Don’t be silly, she chastised herself. That’s terribly inappropriate.

Kurko was receiving similar care from the captain, while Kazzul prodded at a thin scratch on his right forearm. Torch sulked on the floor, refusing to talk to anyone.

“Okay, everyone,” Quintilla said, giving Kurko’s beefy arm a final clap once she had finished patching him up. “We need to find out where the fuck we’ve landed and what kind of damage has been done to the ship. I’ll split us into two teams, one to check the inside of the ship and another to explore the outside.”

A lightning bolt lit up one of the circular windows, and a few seconds later, a crack of thunder sounded. Torch jerked, curled up tighter, and cursed at the heavens.

“Torch, I’ll have mercy and let you stay inside. Kurko, Taira, go with him. Everyone else is outside with me.”

“Yes, captain!” Kurko said. No one else seemed to share his enthusiasm.

*****

The excursion team went down to the cargo hold. The ship was running on emergency power, metal groaning like a thing alive. They were forced to lower the ramp manually, which got stuck in a sandbank halfway down. Quintilla and Yin were first to leap onto solid ground, followed by Kazzul, who slipped and fell in the wet sand. Kurko jerked him back up.

Stephan was last, hesitant to jump the gap of more than two meters. His head thumped like mad, and his left arm was rendered useless by sharp, insistent pain. The med-patches still hadn’t done their job.

“Hop to it, Mr. Lordling,” Quintilla said. “I’d rather not stand here all night.”

Stephan sighed, sat down on the edge of the ramp, and closed his eyes. He scooted over the edge, fell, hit the ground. He stumbled and nearly fell, but caught himself with a desperate thrashing of limbs. He was met by a torrential downpour that doused his clothes and slicked his hair against his scalp.

Through the darkness and the rain, Stephan could just barely make out some trees further up the shoreline. Not an entirely barren island, then.

The ship was properly beached, its hull deeply entrenched in the sand. Even Stephan could tell there was some extensive damage on the hull.

“Any idea where we are, Kazzul?” Quintilla asked, hands on her hips as she scanned the long strip of shoreline.

“I think so,” Kazzul said. “I’ll look around to confirm. But first, I need to check on the engines.”

“I’ll go with you. Yin, stay and keep watch. You’ve got better eyes than any of us.”

“Expecting trouble, captain?” Stephan asked.

“Always,” Quintilla said, before turning to walk with Kazzul.

“And what about me?” he called after her.

The captain didn’t turn around. “Yin keeps an eye on the island, you keep an eye on her. Make sure she doesn’t do anything… Yin-like.”

With that, they rounded the side of the ship and went out of sight.

Yin scoffed. “Jealous. I’ll only do what she said because I feel like being nice.”

“Sure.” Stephan walked along the sand a little to get a good look at the ocean. Just unbroken water as far as he could tell. He looked back at the treeline, scanning it carefully. Nothing. Just trees.

“Is there something we should be worried about?” Stephan asked. “This looks like an abandoned island. Why’d she leave us back as lookouts?”

“Probably just being thorough,” Yin said. She wiped a strand of wet hair out of her face.

“Does she strike you as the thorough kind?”

“When she wants to be. There are the lakata, of course.”

“The crocodile men?”

Yin shrugged. “I dunno. I’ve just heard the rumors. They say a group of lakata can eat a skimmer down to the bones in less than a day.”

“And is that fact, or the ramblings of superstitious pirates?” Stephan asked.

“How am I supposed to know?”

Quintilla and Kazzul returned a few minutes thereafter, having done a full round of the ship.

“Well, bad news is, the lightning took out a thruster,” Kazzul said. “Good news is, it’s only the one. It’ll take me a bit less than a day to fix if I can wrangle Torch to help me.”

“I’ll make sure that he gets on it,” Quintilla said. “Oh, another bit of bad news.” She held up a stick. No, a bone. Human.

It had large bite marks in it.

Stephan swallowed hard. He felt as though he was being watched from the trees.

This is going to be a long night.