Geddis rolled over to his side, the pain in his ribs forced a sharp intake of air as he pushed himself up to a seated position. “Call me crazy, yeah, but I think that was the signal. Everybody in one piece? We all know I’m not.”

  “We're fine, Mr. Geddis,” Harry squeaked in the sort of tone that suggested he was the only one that enjoyed it and might even want to do it again.

  “Speak for yourself,” Danielle groaned. “Bosco?”

  “I think I’m dead. I feel dead.”

  Danielle wobbled over to Geddis and dragged his protesting form off the ground. “What's the plan now?” she asked.

  “The same as Sebastian's, I reckon. Get to the lifeboat, abandon ship. Fat lot of good that'll do in the long run, but it's all we've got.”

  Bosco sized up the large wooden door that stood between them and relative freedom. He retrieved the crumpled mattress from the corner and stood it against the door, then woozily crossed the room and turned to face it. He surged towards it and drove his shoulder deep into the mattress, the door shook violently in its frame, but it stood firm despite the strained protests of its bolts and hinges. Harry flopped into the mattress behind him with a loud cheer, the door did not rattle or loudly complain in response. Geddis put an arm out towards him.

  “Come over here, mate, let your dad finish what he's doing, eh?” Harry skipped across to Geddis and Danielle while Bosco stalked back to the far side of the room for a second attempt. He didn’t know if it was the hinges or the lock that gave way first, but the door broke from its frame with a burst of splinters and sheared metal and landed out in the corridor, him unceremoniously on top of it.

  The lights in the corridor flashed through various shades of blue and cast icy shadows across the walls. The multitude of blue was contrasted by the flickering orange of the fires that had broken out. Licks of flame dashed across the ceiling and ran down the walls, while fractured pipes hissed hot stream that met with the flames and produced a bilious smog. “Mask on, use your oxygen,” Geddis said to Harry, who begrudgingly complied. Danielle moved with a pace that managed to surprise him, even with most of his weight on her shoulder.

  “Do you want me to take him?”

  “I've got him, just clear the way.”

  “It's your hernia. Harry, stay behind me.”

  “Hey,” Geddis protested. “I've lost weight recently.”

  “Not from your mouth, you haven’t.”

  Around the corner lay a crumpled pile of bodies, crewmen mainly, but the lifeless arm of a guardsman protruded from within the pile. The twisted heap of limbs lay at the bottom of the stairs and continued some way up them – seven people in total. Bosco unpicked the tangle and dragged the bodies away from the stairs two at a time and respectfully set them around the corner.

  “I don’t wish to be that guy,” Geddis said. “But we’re still here, Bosco. They’re not. Kindness or not, we can’t afford it and they can’t see it. I’m sure their families would appreciate it, but they’re not here either.” Bosco didn’t reply.

  ***

  “What did you do to the ship, father?”

  “He didn't do anything!”

  “Yes, he bloody did!”

  Sebastian looked over his shoulder. “Is now really the time?”

  “Yes,” Erica snapped as she ducked under a bulkhead.

  “The ship is being torn to- Down the stairs, stop shoving. Pieces. Slowly, mind you. I'm not a complete idiot.”

  “We need get to Harry and the others,” Sarah said.

  “Holding cell, two flights down.” Sebastian’s pace quickened. “We need to hurry, we should be sky-breaking at any minute.” The jaundiced form of the rift churned and spiralled above them, jagged bolts of electricity arced towards the ship. Each bolt was pulled towards the hull by the current that danced along it, and each bolt tore more and more of the armour plating from it and sent it into a deadly orbit around the deck.

  A small group of crewman huddled around the outer door and wrestled with the handle. One turned to regard the trio, conveniently forgot he ever saw them, and got back to struggling with the door. The men scrambled out onto the deck just as lightning struck the stern of the ship and sent it violently rocking. The deck twisted apart like strings of hot cheese and lashed around, setting fire to the exposed wood below. The march for freedom about-faced and ran back inside, each man conveniently found something else to look at as they pushed past the escapees and moved towards the stairs.

  “What do we do if someone points a gun at us?” Erica asked.

  “Low-calibre firearms, mainly. Nothing that would do the ship any harm, though that doesn’t help us too much. We’d fair better than Danielle’s car at least. Besides, these poor sods have their own problems without worrying about us.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Smoke billowed up the stairwell towards the men while the shadows cast by the roaring flames danced along the wall and pitiable cries drifted up to meet them. The men formed an orderly queue and took it in turns to rush the stairwell, each driven back by the heat but rejoining the queue to make another attempt. Erica reached into her pocket for a handkerchief and hastily fastened it around Sarah's mouth and nose.

  The first man that disappeared came scrabbling back up seconds later, his hands blackened and burnt, his uniform already coated in thick layers of soot. The man who’d taken his place hauled him to his feet and pulled him back towards the rest of the line, which itself had retreated in an organised enough manner to avoid tripping over itself. Bosco clomped up the stairs, the legs of his paper trousers singed and smouldering. His footsteps reverberated through the thin corridor and sent a jolt of additional panic through the crewman as he emerged from the stairwell, a charred but alive crewman slung over each shoulder. Harry followed a skip behind – just far enough back to not trip his papa but not quite far back enough to avoid tripping Danielle and Geddis constantly.

  The young crewman at the front of the line hesitated, his trembling hand hovered over the hilt of his knife. As he reached for the blade, a stocky man with at least twenty years on him grasped his wrist tightly, yanked his arm down by his side and kept it there as he pushed past him. He nodded, mumbled something that was lost to the roar of the flames, then reached out towards one of the comatose men. The nervous young man, dislodged from the line by a hard shove to the back of the head, stepped towards Bosco to receive his remaining comrade. Bosco turned towards Danielle and scooped Geddis onto his shoulder. “Mind, I warn you, I have eaten recently.”

  Instinctively, Harry hopped towards Danielle and wrapped his arms around her neck. Bosco pushed through the crowd of bewildered sky-sailors towards the door, a chorus of hard pats played a drumbeat on his shoulder as he went.

  “Come on, you bleeding heart – shake a leg,” Sebastian yelled through cupped hands. Bosco broke into a light jog, a toothy grin occupied his face in between deep pants.

  “You know me, my friend.”

  “Harry!” Sarah rushed towards him, but was cut short when Erica grabbed her by the neck of her dress and dragged her backwards.

  “Catch up later, not burning to death now. Come on.”

  Geddis groaned along with his stomach. “Is that Sebastian? Tell him he owes me money.”

  “Come on, out. Reunions and unpaid bar bills later.”

  Without warning, the pallid electrical sky gave way to the brilliant blue of home and the dancing web of electricity parted to reveal clouds of pure white.

  “Holy shit,” Danielle gasped.

  “Holy shit,” Harry repeated with a giggle.

  The air was perfect – it was like she'd died and gone anywhere else, really. Neither her eyes nor her lungs were used to not having the subtle burning sensation accompany everything she did, and it almost felt hard to breath without it. The ship shuddered and shook her from her revelry as a large portion of the stern tore away and fell towards the woodland far below. Crates and beds and objects, and people unfortunate enough to be close enough to the gaping wound, were expelled from the ship at dizzying speed. Their frantic wailing became a confused cooing as they saw the sky, then quickly descended into wailing again, then into nothing.

  “Where now?” Danielle shouted.

  “Lifeboats, near the front” Sebastian replied, completely unsure if there were any.

  “I'll check!” Sarah announced in a tone that suggested she wasn't going to listen to objections, and ran off, darting between the flames and around the corner.

  “Your arms must be tired, Danielle,” Erica said and held out her arms. “I'll take him.” Harry hopped down from Danielle's arms, and her shoulders gave an immediate sigh of relief. It’s not like he was as heavy as Geddis, but she was far too tired to be able to tell the difference.

  “It's here!” Sarah shouted before turning to run back. The lifeboat was a large, rectangular cradle of the kind that might be used to clean the windows of obscenely tall buildings, and due to budget limitations, may have actually been one of those.

  “In, hurry.” Sebastian slid the rail back and pushed the girls onto the lifeboat, Harry still tightly gripped to Erica's neck. “Danielle, Bosco.” He reached out a hand towards the control console and began the process of uncoupling the lifeboat.

  “Hurry up, father.”

  “Daddy, we have to go.”

  “I know, I know- There!” Sebastian looked up from the console and smiled as a shot rang out behind him. A small red pond formed on his shirt, which quickly became a lake and then Neptune. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and looked on in horror as it came away streaked with blood. He looked towards the lifeboat, everyone was shouting and screaming, but he couldn't hear them – it sounded like he was underwater.

  “Stay,” came a voice from behind him. He couldn't hear it either, but he turned to follow the hysterical pointing. “I invite you to my ship. I give you a second chance, and you betray me again!” Parnell growled through gritted teeth, his right arm tightly across his ribs. “What more do you want to take from me, Sebastian?” The gun rang out again, the shot struck Sebastian in the left leg. His knee buckled and he tumbled to the deck. His ears popped as his head struck the cold metal, and the sound that was sorely lacking came rushing in to overwhelm him. The screaming, oh god the screaming. He pushed up to all fours.

  “Stay there! Don't move!” he shouted. Blood trickled from his mouth and pooled on the deck. “That means you, Sarah. Close your eyes, okay, sweetheart. Close your eyes.”

  “The charge is treason, Sebastian. What say you?”

  “Oh, I'm the traitor? I'm the traitor! You betrayed your own people, you betrayed your own sister! Went off to war and came back worse than the bastards you were fighting. Classic. You’re a sociopath, Emory. We all lost people, we all suffered. What makes you so fucking special, eh?” Sebastian lifted his head and looked back towards the lifeboat. “Go! Go on, leave already!”

  “We can't, not without you,” Erica cried. “We’re not leaving you.”

  “Go!”

  Parnell took a step closer. “Because I cared! I cared, Sebastian. And you stay back, freak. I have enough for you.” He adjusted his aim towards the snarling Bosco long enough for him to get the idea but not so long that Sebastian would get any of his own. “You took our only chance to put this behind us, to start again. Don't you see? I'm a hero – I'm a hero and you, you are just another traitor that I have to put down. I have to. You did this to yourself, this is your own fault. Why wouldn’t you let me save people?”

  “You're another footnote, Emory. Just another monster for the textbooks.” Sebastian lurched towards the console and mashed his bloodstained hand across it. The lifeboat shuddered as its couplings groaned and it blasted clear of the ship with a burst of steam, then began a rapid and uncontrolled descent. A gunshot rang out above them.