‘How soon will they catch us?’ Rhys asked, turning back to look at the distant pirates.

‘Hard to tell, but I think they’ll be in firing range in an hour or two if we stay at full power,’ Tom said, pausing before sighing and rubbing his face. ‘Depending on what weaponry they have as well.’

‘Let’s push it for as far as we can, then drop into the cloud sea and try to hide. The further we can get, the better. They might find us when we‘re hiding, but if we keep pushing for the forest, we have a better chance of losing them for good there.’

‘There’s no way to know when they’re in weapons range,’ Lucy warned with a wave at the pirate ship. ‘We don’t know what weapons or gadgets they might have, and the closer they get, the harder it will be for us to hide.’

‘What do you suggest?’ Rhys asked, hoping that Lucy had a better plan than he did.

‘If we go into the clouds now, we can move away at a different course for a few minutes and then kill everything but the ventral thrusters. If we stay silent and don’t move, they should pass us by.’ Lucy explained, looking between the three of them to see what they thought.

‘I’m not comfortable with the thought of hiding in the clouds after what we’ve seen,' Oliver said tensely before sighing. 'That being said, I don’t see any other choice for us.’ Oliver's face was pale, and he looked drained, reminding Rhys that the cargomaster had been awake all night. He doubted any of them would be able to get some rest now, though, so he would have to carry on.

‘Neither do I,' Rhys said, rubbing his face before coming to a decision. 'There's no better time to do this, so we might as well commit to it.’ Rhys's tone was heavy as he prepared himself for what was coming. ‘Let’s get this done before they get any closer.’

Taking a position at the helm, Rhys took hold of the lever for the ventral thrusters and slowly pulled it back, not giving himself time to think about what he was doing. Not wanting them to fall too fast, Rhys kept the lever at the halfway point.

The Endeavour began to dip down as the ventral thrusters were reduced in power, the fall slowly building in speed as they approached the top of the cloud sea.

The Endeavour stayed level as they dropped, causing the upper edges of the sea to curve in over the bulwark as they displaced the clouds. A cloud of fog started to cover the deck of the Endeavour, thickening with each moment they descended. Rhys felt the rush of the clouds racing past them as the Endeavour maintained its speed, forging through the surface of the sea.

The clouds sealed up in their wake, and Rhys watched with a heavy heart as he steadily lost sight of the blue sky above them. He hated this, it hadn’t pleasant last time, and since the kurador, he’d been dreading doing it again.

The clouds around them steadily grew denser as they continued down, and Rhys waited until the clouds started to turn grey before bringing their descent to a halt. The top of the misting was as far as he was willing to go for this.

The thick fog and the lack of light made seeing anything a challenge, but thankfully the quartz built into the helm gave off enough of a violet glow to illuminate what he was doing.

Turning them two five points to starboard, Rhys lowered the power on the rear thrusters to a fraction of what it had been. The feeling of the clouds rushing past them faded, and visibility worsened as the Endeavour stopped disrupting the clouds as much.

‘Now, we wait,’ Rhys muttered, keeping one hand on the helm as he rubbed his face and tried to calm his racing heart.

There wasn’t a defined line where the sea's top layer became the misting. Rhys remembered sinking into it the last time he brought the Endeavour down this low, but this was the first time he’d kept to the border between the two.

Rhys had always thought that the lack of light made the misting such a dark grey, and he was sure that it did play a part, but he could tell now that it wasn't the only reason. Looking at how abrupt the line was between the two areas, not to mention how it wavered and moved around, higher in some places and lower in others, Rhys was confident that there was something else to it.

Rhys's eyes had adjusted to the low-light of being this far down into the sea, and Rhys could see his crew staring out at their surroundings. Each of them hadn’t left where they’d been standing when they began to descend, instead grabbing hold of the ship to anchor themselves.

A distant low-pitched call came from up ahead, its almost inaudible vibrations sending a shiver down Rhys’s spine. He recognised the call of a striss ray, but he’d never felt it with such impact before. It almost seemed to be amplified by the cloud sea itself.

Sure enough, a trio of large shapes passed overhead a minute later, moving with the strange undulation of their wings that they were known for. The clouds barely rippled from their passage, only their call and physical forms giving them away.

The rays soon passed by as they ever so slowly moved on, none of them daring to speak or move from their positions. Here and there they saw other signs of life within the cloud sea, most of which was above them. It seemed that even the creatures that lived within the sea preferred to stay above the misting.

Each minute of travel seemed to drag into eternity, with the oppressive clouds around them blocking their vision. For all they knew, the pirates could be just a few hundred feet away, and they wouldn’t know.

Time dragged by as they travelled on, the minutes stretching out into one hour, then two. Given how the pirates were gaining on them, Rhys expected that they had reached the point when the Endeavour submerged now. These next few minutes would be critical.

They hadn’t gone very far from where they were in absolute terms, but the pirates had no way of knowing that. The Endeavour could have dropped down and maintained a high speed for all they knew.

After a few minutes passed, Rhys started to relax, the tension fading from his posture. Breathing out, Rhys stopped looking out into the cloud sea and surveyed the deck of the Endeavour once more.

The other three were still where they’d been when they started to descend, though the ever-present cloudstuff seemed to be pushing down onto the deck and billowing off the side.

Rhys’s eyes went wide as he recognised the effect, his face paling as he looked up and saw a dark shape directly above them. He could feel the pressure from its downdraft as it descended toward them. It was smaller than the Endeavour, with a blocky aft where Rhys could see the outline of numerous vapour thrusters.

Almost subconsciously, Rhys grabbed the thrust controls and rammed them forward. The Endeavour thrummed with power as the rear vapour thrusters responded, the ship accelerating forward as it started to pick up speed. At the same time, he pulled back on the dorsal thrusters, starting their descent once more.

Noises of surprise reached Rhys’s ears, but his gaze was focused on the dark shape above them. One second passed, two, three, they hadn’t responded yet.

Rhys's hope for them to break contact was shattered as the pirate ship began to accelerate, both in its forward speed and how fast it was descending. Strangely, they seemed to be moving to one side as well, so they were no longer directly overhead.

The pirates had already been descending, so the gap between them continued to shrink as both ships dropped down. They were in the misting now, the dark grey clouds around them pressing in as they continued to fall.

A thunderous crack came from above, a blue ball of energy streaking out from the pirate ship across the Endeavour and off into the distance.

‘Rhys!’ Lucy yelled from where she was holding onto the bulwark. ‘They’re in range. If you try and go any further down, they’ll risk shooting us rather than lose the prize.’

Rhys stared back at her vacantly for a moment, denying what she was saying as his mind scrambled for an alternative. Looking up at the uncomfortably close pirate ship, Rhys realised that there was no getting out of this. They’d lost. All he could do now was make sure there was no needless death.

Rhys pulled the rear thruster power down with a heavy heart as he pushed the ventral power up. The Endeavour’s fall immediately began to slow, the pirates matching them before both ships began to rise through the sea.

The pirates came closer to them as they rose until the other ship was barely fifty feet from the Endeavour. The plume from the vapour thrusters was causing the area to be a swirling mass of cloudstuff, but Rhys could see the other ship enough to make out more detail.

Three cannons were aimed at them from their starboard side, representing more firepower than everything on the Endeavour combined.

‘Rhys, we need to hide our valuables, is there anywhere we can put them? Anywhere hidden?’ Lucy asked, coming over to the helm as she spoke to him with an urgent tone.

‘Hidden?’ Rhys repeated dumbly, in shock from the whole situation.

‘The money, my pistol, any sentimental items Oliver and Tom have. Come on, Rhys, snap out of it,’ Lucy said, grabbing Rhys by the shoulders and shaking him.

‘Right, right, hide things, yes,’ Rhys said, blinking rapidly as he got himself under control. ‘Yes, I have somewhere to hide things. Not much, though.’

‘Okay, I’d say hide half the money and any valuables you have. The less they find, the more suspicious they will be. If we’re lucky, they’ll just rob us and be on their way. A ship like this with no real weapons or armour won’t be worth taking as a prize.’

‘Right, okay. Find out how much the other two have and get someone to take over the helm. Once you know what needs storing, get it to my cabin, and I’ll take it from there,’ Rhys said, mind racing as he focused on the task at hand. The fact that the pirates might not take the ship had kindled hope in his chest. He didn’t care if they took the cargo and the money; that didn’t bother him. As long as he had enough to start over, Rhys would do so gladly. There was no replacing the Endeavour.

Locking their course on the helm, Rhys rushed to the stairs and down to his cabin. He had a few boxes where he stored his parts and runework; they would do to hold everything. He needed to do this in a way that didn’t give too much away.

Grabbing two of the boxes, Rhys empties their contents into the others, grimacing at how mixed up their contents became. Leaving one by the door, Rhys started to fill the other with his prized possessions. The few artificed items he owned, his notes on runes, just over half the money and, after a pause, some of the more valuable tools he owned.

‘Rhys, I have everything of mine,’ Lucy said as she pushed open the door. She had her pistol, tools and a pouch of money bundled in her arms, everything Rhys had expected.

‘Drop it in the box and send the others. We don’t have much time,’ Rhys said, trying to work out how long they had before they reached the top of the cloud sea.

‘Will do,’ Lucy dropped her items off and rushed away, shouting for Oliver to head through.

The cargomaster had only a pouch of money to store away, which was a relief for Rhys. They were still well within the room he had to work with, but he’d worried the others might have some bulkier items.

T0m came in a minute later, absently throwing a money pouch into the box with the others before pausing. He was holding a small ironwood box in his hands, its surface glossy from where it had been treated with a sap solution to preserve it.

Rhys saw that Tom was hesitant to put it in the already packed box and stepped forward to hold out a hand. ‘Here, I’ll make sure that it’s put somewhere they won’t find it.’

‘Thank you, Captain,’ Tom said, clearly relieved as he passed the box to Rhys. ‘This is all I have of them. It’s the most precious thing I have.’ Tom’s voice was filled with a longing that took Rhys by surprise.

‘Don’t worry, I will treat it with the respect it deserves,’ Rhys said, carefully putting the box on a nearby surface. He’d keep it separate from the others to make sure there was no damage to it.

‘Thank you,’ Tom said again, his gaze lingering on the box for a moment before he turned and walked out of the cabin with a stiff gait.

Rhys shut the door behind Tom as he left and looked over the assembled valuables of his crew. ‘Okay, Zaxx, I need you to store these boxes for me. We can’t let the pirates take it.’

‘Yes, Rhys, I will do so now.’ Zaxx whispered into his mind, the boxes melting down into the ship's surface a moment later. ‘I will hide my nature from those who seek me, but you must remember that I can do little to aid you outside this ship.’

‘Thank you, Zaxx, but I hope it will not come to that. All being well, the pirates will steal our cargo and be on their way.’ Rhys managed a shaky smile as he spoke, feeling a little more at ease now that their valuables were secure.

All that remained now was to deal with the pirates themselves.