Emile felt the sphere lift smoothly into the air and gently swing toward the left. His aerial view of the Conquistador was of the deck lined with sailors standing in clusters between the banks of depth charges regularly dotting the gunwale. The middle of the vessel resembled a porcupine, its array of cannons and gun turrets pointing every which way. Personally, he found it difficult to believe that any pirate ship could survive even a brief confrontation with a technological terror such as the Conquistador .