A Day at the Harbour

Barton Harbour was always a busy town, a port from the wilderness of New Cambria back to the civilized Cambrian realm, but never so busy as today. Today a caravan of minerals and Oldmantium crystals had arrived, reaching the port town after a trek from the great interior deserts and through the savage forests that lined the coast. Stately Cambrian merchant marine ships rested at dock, ready to take the  goods. A single small boat was docked alongside the merchants, ragged and torn, missing it’s main mast. Imperial warships, with cannons glinting in the mid-morning sun, circled like wolves, protecting the merchants from any unrest in the town.

And there was unrest. Rumors had it that the caravans had been attacked. Some claimed it was the native Nialli people of the woods. Others claimed it was Patricians, New Cambrian rebels. The Patricians were looking to keep the minerals, the foundation of the NewTech that made the Cambrian Empire so strong, in the colonies. When the caravan reached the port, missing three of its drivers, it did not stop the rumors.

When Innara Reymont stepped out of her father’s dim hidden shop, she blinked at the sun, but kept an eye on the crowds first and foremost. The people had an aire of anger about them, a simmering tension in the dusty streets that belied the calm weather. If there was not a fight this morning, she would be surprised. She glanced at the paper in her hand, wished again she was aware like other Zhan He.

The constant buzz of laws and each other’s dealings in the back of each Zhan He’s head, the awareness of each others promises in real time was a constant for most of her people, but not her. She was, in many ways, a burden, making her own promises to be added to the mental din of her people, but not able to hear any of the others. Most times, she took a perverse pride in it, being mentally deaf, but  now she wished she wasn’t. She wished she could know other’s plans, especially her father’s. She sighed, trying to guess his scheme, and made her way to the docks.

If the town was busy, and seething with anger, then no place was more so than the docks. The metal monstrosities known as Rigs loaded the ships, walking up and down the docks from the caravan, carrying crates of metal that must have weighed a ton each in metal arms, piloted by dour looking boys who just wanted a meal, much less a paycheck. Imperial soldiers kept an eye on the loaders, crystal tipped stun rods hanging from their belts, and one with one of the NewTech shoulder cannons leading them, looking for trouble. There would be no theft on the Imperial watch.

She worked her way through the crowd, dodging Rigs, showing her papers when needed to the soldiers, and ignoring the Patricians either shouting at the soldiers, or scheming behind  buildings. She stopped at the dock looking again at the deed in her hand. Her father had simply asked her to take care of the  boat listed, but had handed her a deed. Ownership. Own her ship. Yes. it was hers now, whether he had said so or not. She was sure of it.

The salt spray washed out the sounds of the soldiers and Rigs and Patricians behind her as she looked over her damaged ship.  Three holes pierced the wooden hull, just above the copper plating that armored the keel. The mast was in splinters, and she wondered how the ship had come to port at all with no main sail. The sails that remained, fore and aft, were in tatters. The ship was a wreck.

She looked closer, knowing her father would not have led her to this place without reason. There were holes but they were above the waterline. There would be some water splashing in, but nothing that couldn’t be gotten out. The sails were replaceable, but the mast…

She stepped off of the dock onto the ship and it shuddered like a living beast, straining at its bonds to be free on the seas again. Yes. Her father had sent her here to save this ship. But why? Why this ship?

She saw that the deck was in good shape despite the beating the ship had to have taken as she paced the length of it all. It was small, and she wouldn't need much of a crew, five or six people at most.  She stopped at the stub of the main mast and frowned. From the dock, it looked as if the main timber had simply snapped clean, perhaps taken off by a ball. Up close though... The splinters parted to show a much cleaner break than should have been possible. The mast looked as if it had simply lifted off of a base, another mast that ran into the hold.  A mechanism that looked a bit like a door hinge held stubbornly to the  splinters of the upper mast, what should have been the only mast, but the  lower mast was perfectly fine. Had the mast been made to fold in half? Why?  What manner of craft was this, Father? Why send your pariah daughter to claim it? What sort of game are you playing?

She stepped  below deck and felt… something, a thrumming energy in the confines of the beast. She closed her eyes and her skin prickled, glowing faintly with a tracery of star patterns. She shuddered; she’d not felt anything like that since she left the Zhan-He Courts as a child. What WAS this thing?

She followed her senses to the aft of the small clipper, the questions growing in her mind. The ship reminded her of her childhood. It was broken, yearning to be free, but held back, by those claiming they could fix her. So much power. So much potential. So utterly incapable of using it.

When she opened her eyes, she stood at the aft of the ship, in front of a plain copper door. The door opened at a touch, revealing the source of the energy. A large crystalline stone, easily the size of an ox, glowing with a icy blue light hummed before her, connected to a piece of machinery she’d never seen the likes of.  It was mounted to the back of the clipper, putting out the thrum of a hurricane barely contained. An engine. She smiled.

She’d heard rumors of such devices… Engines that could use Oldmantium to make ships move faster than the wind. She’d never expected to see one, a symbol of unconstrained power, standing before her, roped to a dock like a dog on a line. She certainly never expected her father, Magi of the Zhan-He courts, the one that had kept her trapped for so long, to gift her one. Yes, beast, I will repair you, she thought, and together, we shall be free.

A shout went up  on the docks and Inarra ran to the deck..  One of the Rig pilots was  holding the lieutenant with the shoulder cannon, now crushed, by the throat in his machine’s claw. His soldiers surrounded the pilot, batons at the ready.

“Ain’t so tough without ya lit’le pea shooter, are ya? Now im’a ask you again. Real slow like, since you Imps ain't used to talken to people. Where. Did. You. Put. Miss. Haveshem?”

The lieutenant gurgled,  holding him himself up as best he could while his soldiers circled the boy and his machine.

“We dont have to tell you anything boy, till this job is done. All you’re doing here is making trouble for yourself. You set me down and only you will pay the price here today. Not your friends or the little old innkeep.”

“Bloody Imps! Ya can't tell us what to do no more!”

“Can’t we?”

He got a grin on his face and the boy screamed and jerked as three different stun rods unleashed into him from different angles. When the soldiers stopped, the boy was smoking, a corpse in the standing Rig. The corpse of the lieutenant dangled from the closed claw, windpipe crushed, but still smiling.

Innara frowned. Freedom for her, a boat that could outrun any imperial ship. Servitude for the townspeople. If only she could…

She could. With this boat, this beast, she could.
That was her fathers plan then. Freedom, yes, but not just for her. She smiled. This she could do.