First Command: A TIDES novella Page 5
I can see agreement with Syd’s words play in the seamen’s eyes. I am the villain, the tyrant, the heartless bane of their existence. Syd has discovered my fear and is using it against me.
Fine. I grit my teeth and straighten my spine. Fine. I’m not here to make the crew like me. I’m here to keep them alive. There is a Tirik ship with twice our guns hunting us, a prize crew too small to stand up to sea combat, and days yet before we are safe in Ashing waters.
A calming coolness coats my nerves, my chest. Not an absence of emotion, but a distance from it. As if the fear of loneliness and the crew’s judgment has bowed its head in deference to my job. I do not need Syd Carley to be my friend. I need him to be my first officer. And if he can’t do that, I do not need him at all.
“Landon, Ellis.” I find the men easily, and something about my stance and voice has them touching their foreheads before I’m done speaking. “Escort Mr. Carley to his cabin, if you please. Mr. Jax, have the spirits emptied as I instructed.” My orders hang above the deck for a heartbeat before the crew sets them in motion. I cross my arms and lift my chin, my heart beating hard but steady beneath my perfect coat.
The next hour passes in silence, with none of the crew daring to look at me too long, much less approach. Where Syd’s easy smile used to be, now only cold formality lives. It stings to be so distant from everyone that I feel more like a concept than a person, but the sting helps me think. Notice things.
Such as the tightness of Jax’s freckled face and the uncharacteristic way he worries the hem of his coat.
“Mr. Jax,” I call quietly, motioning the middie to me. “What is on your mind, sir?”
Jax touches his hat, his feet shifting beneath him.
“Words please, Mr. Jax.”
The middie’s voice is feather soft. “You recall a little earlier, ma’am, when you’d made a comment about Swift’s protocols?”
I nod, the boy’s anxiety making my own muscles tense. A slow knowing kind of dread fills me, and I’m certain that something is very, very wrong even before he speaks.
The boy swallows. “Well, that started the crew talking. And Vicom and Nunes, they are both from the Swift, ma’am. The only ones. Neither one of them has ever seen Mr. Carley before. They did have a third lieutenant aboard but he went missing while boarding the Marquis and was presumed dead. Vicom and Nunes thought Mr. Carley a Faithful officer. So when you said he wasn’t…”
My heart stops beating. Syd Carley is not from the Swift. Or the Faithful. The past two days replay themselves in my mind, each piece adding to a horrible puzzle. Syd’s late and odd appearance, his accent, his ill-fitting third lieutenant's uniform, his too-forward manners. His presence beside the accidentally discharged gun that guided a Tirik ship to us in the fog. The insistence we stay and fight an impossible battle. The oh-so-right words uttered in my cabin, the play at seduction. And now the final piece in Syd’s game—the play to render my crew ineffective and turned against me. I see it now, the full picture. Blood drains from my face.
“Mr. Jax,” I say with a calm I feel none of, “beat to quarters and prepare to repel boarders.”
“Boarders from where?” Jax’s eyes widen as he looks at the clear ocean waters.
“From our prison hold, I suspect, Mr. Jax,” I say dryly. “Syd Carley is not an Ashing officer, but a Tirik one.”
“True.” Syd’s voice carries over the deck as he pulls himself through the hatch and points a pistol at my chest. There is no flirtation, no happy irreverence in his dark gaze as he pulls the trigger.
Chapter 8
I dive out of the way, throwing myself down to the deck. The bullet whizzes above me and lodges in the mainmast.
“Jax, my pistols!” I yell and am relieved to see the boy scamper away as the sailors rush to distribute cutlasses among themselves.
Landon is halfway through distributing cutlasses when a herd of freed Tirik prisoners erupts from the hold. Their clothes and skin are dirty from their time in the prison hold, but their eyes flash with feral wildness. They carry makeshift weapons, whatever they’d had a chance to grab in the past hour, and the element of surprise. My crew, by contrast, is startled and exhausted. And—thanks to Syd—well plied with alcohol. Five of them are too wobbly to stand on their own two feet. But they are all ready to fight.
The Tirik coming up through the hatch’s funnel meet Ashing blades. In the front lines, Midshipman Korrelie picks up Squirrel and throws him against the mast. I scream my fury.
Syd discards his now-empty pistol and draws a sword, his eyes still on me.
“Captain!” Landon shouts, and it takes me a moment to realize he means me. I glance over in time to see him slide a sword toward me. “On your right!”
I swing, slicing down a man intent on smashing my head with an iron ball. The steel bites through flesh, hits bone. A scream sounds, distant despite happening right beside me.
Syd ignores his fallen comrade.
“Why did you wait so long to attack?” I ask in Tirik.
Syd closes the distance, stepping over the dead man’s body and aiming his blade at my chest. “Because I’m not an idiot. Having the Tirik frigate take care of you was my first choice.” He shrugs. “Plus, you were so eager to fall for the ruse, I needed to see where I could take it.” Syd’s sword flies at my neck.
I block, the impact echoing through my muscles and singing in my bones. I had been willing to play into his game. Willing to do anything for a friend.
My eyes lock on Syd’s sword, an officer’s weapon that fits perfectly in his large hand. We never did find the weapon of the Marquis’s captain. Or the body. The captain who spoke Lyron so well he read books in our language for pleasure. “The Marquis was yours, wasn’t she?” I rasp. Gathering all my strength into a single thrust, I shove Syd’s sword away and quickly find my feet.
Syd steps back and rebalances, adjusting his stance to take the most advantage of his greater reach. “The Marquis is the Republic’s. But yes, I am her captain.”
“Was,” I correct as I sidestep a lunging thrust that would have disemboweled me if I moved a second slower. My boot scrapes the sand as I close the distance between us and fight to keep my ground. Only by keeping close, staying inside Syd’s guard such that his longer reach becomes his liability, can I hope to win. “Do you really believe the Republic’s rhetoric?” I ask.
“Is there any kingdom in the Lyron League that would educate an orphan thoroughly enough to fool even an Ashing princess?” Syd demands. “Any kingdom that would have granted a nobody like me command of a ship?”
I kick his knee.
Syd shifts, and my foot connects with the meat of his thigh instead. With his free hand, Syd strikes me across the face.
I stumble backward, keeping my balance only by virtue of running into someone behind me. The pain of the blow barely registers before Syd’s sword comes again, feigning high, then cutting down and across my chest.
The angle of his strike forces me into a weaker, backhanded parry.
Syd pushes the advantage, pressing with all his strength against my defense. My arms tremble, giving way to his deadly blade inch by inch. Over our crossed swords, our gazes meet and lock. Familiar, beautiful brown eyes stare into mine.
“Do you hate me?” I ask.
“I rather like you.” Syd kicks me away and swings his blade. “You are decent enough for a new officer, and you treat the crew well. It’s what you stand for that I despise.”
I stumble back and pivot. The move is fast enough to save my life, but Syd’s blade bites into my arm just the same. Warm red blood soaks my jacket, but the pain is numb in battle’s heat. I sidestep the next attack, lower my center, and lunge inside with my sword extended. From the corner of my eye, I see Jax dashing toward me, his hands gripping my pistols, his feet navigating the bloody melee.
Syd sidesteps to parry my thrust, and we end standing a hand’s width apart.
I feel as much as see his arm draw back, the hilt of his sw
ord aiming for my temple. My injured arm shoots up to block the blow. I scream in pain when it connects.
“I’m sorry,” says Syd, and I know what he means. Sorry for causing me pain, not for trying to end my life.
Gasping, I draw back and punch him in the nose. There is a crunch, and blood flows freely down his face, soaking his shirt.
“What would you have done if I’d accepted your advances?” I pant, putting my hand behind my back. I let my sword fall from my grip as Jax presses the cool hilt of a pistol into my palm. To my right, Ellis and Landon form a protective wall, as if keeping me alive will ensure an Ashing victory.
“Talked my way into an audience with your father,” says Syd, running a sleeve over his face to stop the blood. “And then killed him.”
“It almost worked,” I confess and press the unmistakable barrel of a primed pistol against Syd’s sternum.
Syd freezes. His eyes take in the pistol first, then my face. His jaw tightens, chin rising into the air.
“Surrender,” I whisper. “Surrender and give me your parole to make no move against Lyron.”
“I can’t.” Syd fights for a smile, of all things. “You know I can’t.”
My eyes sting.
Syd makes a grab for the pistol in my hand. My finger tightens, the trigger depressing before I can think. The pistol’s report feels as loud as a great gun’s as it belches its small ball into Syd’s gut.
Syd’s eyes widen in pain, his arms slackening as he drops to his knees.
And stupid idiotic me catches Syd as he falls. He swallows, finding my eyes. There is no coming back from a belly wound, and we both know it.
“It is unfortunate you were born in Ashing,” Syd gasps between breaths, the light in his eyes dimming. “The Republic can’t win against people like you.”
“It’s unfortunate you were born Tirik,” I whisper back. “We could have been friends.”
Syd conjures one last perfect smile. “You don’t need me among your friends,” he says, closing his eyes.
I stand with my hands behind my back in Captain Fey’s cabin as he rereads the report before him and raises a brow at me. “Despite their greater numbers, the Tirik prisoners were unable to mount an offensive against better-trained Ashing seamen,” he quotes aloud. “Their resolve faltered quickly after the death of their captain.”
I nod.
Captain Fey puts down my report. “Well, Lieutenant, it appears you’ve had a bit of excitement on your cruise,” he says calmly, as if I’d run into nothing beyond a squall.
“A bit, sir.”
“In fact,” he drawls, “every sailor in your crew requested to be moved into your division on the Faithful. Even Landon.” He pauses to let the words sink in but holds up his hand before the warmth spreading through my chest can transform into a smile. “And what of the butcher’s bill?”
That snaps me back at once. “Ten seamen have been discharged dead, sir.”
Captain Fey nods. “It could have been a great deal worse, Ms. Greysik. You saved the ship.”
“The losses were double on the Tirik side, sir,” I add. “Including one Captain Syd Carley, though I understand he went by a different name in truth.”
“Ah, Mr. Carley.” Captain Fey interlaces his fingers and leans back in his chair. “According to the Tirik prisoners we interviewed upon your arrival in Ashing, the man you knew as Syd Carley was a trained intelligence officer as well as a sailor. I imagine it was his intelligence training that gave him the idea of feigning his death and infiltrating your crew. His own crew resent him for it, though, especially his decision to keep them locked up while he attempted other means of regaining the ship.”
“Strategically speaking, sir, he made the right call. Reckless, brilliant, and best of all options.” I shake my head. “How can the Tirik crew still doubt it, even after witnessing the failure of the brute-force approach firsthand? Had Syd tried to free the prisoners and retake the ship earlier, before my crew was tired and half-drunk, he’d have had no chance of success.”
“It is one of the mysteries of command, Ms. Greysik. No matter how correct your decision, someone will always be a critic.” He smiles at me. “When did you really figure out something was amiss?”
My face heats. “When…Mr. Carley indicated that he found me…attractive, sir.”
“And?” Fey asks, tilting his head.
“And I knew it could not be true. That there had to be an ulterior motive.”
For the first time in my life, I see Captain Fey bury his face in his hands and sigh deeply. “Storms help me with adolescents,” he mutters. “A mix of brilliance and stupidity in a single contrary package.”
“Sir?”
He sighs and looks up at me. “What I meant to say is that it is a pleasure having you back, Lieutenant Greysik, as it appears we’ve new orders.” Fey hands me a paper with my father’s seal clear beside the Admiralty’s.
Blood drains from my face as I read the words printed on it. Words that will send the Faithful alone into the heart of the Tirik fleet. While I understand why the king of Ashing would like to show off the Ashing naval prowess before the other kingdoms, the risk of failure outweighs the chance of success too greatly. “This is…” Choosing between impossible, suicidal, and moronic to describe my father’s latest idea is difficult.
Captain Fey quirks a brow in warning. Because there is only one response to give.
I touch my hat. “Aye aye, sir.”
END of PREQUEL NOVELLA
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About the Author
Alex Lidell is an avid horseback rider, a (bad) hockey player, and an ice cream addict. Born in Russia, Alex learned English in elementary school, where a thoughtful librarian placed a copy of Tamora Pierce’s ALANNA in Alex’s hands. In addition to becoming the first English book Alex read for fun, ALANNA started Alex’s life-long love for YA fantasy books. Alex’s debut novel, THE CADET OF TILDOR (Penguin, 2013), was an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards finalist. Alex is represented by Leigh Feldman of Leigh Feldman Literary. She lives in Washington, DC.
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Also by Alex Lidell
TIDES
FIRST COMMAND (Prequel Novella)
AIR AND ASH (TIDES Book I) - Pre-Order Now
WAR AND WIND (TIDES Book II) - coming June 20, 2017
TILDOR
THE CADET OF TILDOR
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Reviews are an author’s lifeblood. Please consider saying a few words about this book on Amazon.
Read the next book in the TIDES series