Nina was almost sent tumbling as the boat’s twin engines roared, the sudden change in angle to the floor coming as a surprise. Not as much of a surprise as how loud the sudden salvo of rifle fire had been, but at least she had been expecting that. Clinging to Aline who sat beside her for support, she felt an arm snake around her waist before it gave her a tight squeeze. The floor wasn’t her place of choice to be sitting right now, but the amount of people crowded on board Alan’s boat hadn’t left them with many options. Room to fire back at their new pursuers was in short supply, and as a result the two of them had been relegated to sitting where they were.

“I thought you said there would only be one boat,” Alan yelled to Reina over the combination of both the motor and the intermittent rifle fire behind him. “Not five!”

“Looks like I was wrong,” Reina replied. “Guess you better call those reinforcements of yours in.”

Hours earlier, Reina had marched their group over to Alan’s temporary accommodation after their meal, offering him a generous sum to taxi them to the Light Fountain before escorting them to Terminus. In Alan’s eyes it had been an even better deal than what he had offered to them before. Not only did he need to travel there anyway, Reina’s offer would see him paid for it without losing any stock. Money in exchange for looking tough, essentially. Ormain was obviously a problem, but Reina had assured him that their vessel would remain unmolested. Considering Alan’s reputation, it was something that he had perhaps too hastily agreed with. He was an arms dealer, who knew what he was carrying around?

Unfortunately, Ormain didn’t seem to care. Not only had he decided to chase them across the ocean through a dark and miserable night of swirling rain, he had also managed to find a partner which could be used to probe their defences with little risk to his own team. Both Reina and Alan weren’t foolish enough to think that the captain placed any value on his new friends, and the fact that he had sent one straight into their maw was evidence enough. Even more concerning was that he was about find out that they didn’t have as much firepower as they had been pretending to have. Not quite a paper tiger, but if their opponents didn’t come at them head on then their fangs weren’t anywhere near as sharp as they were cracked up to be.

“No long-distance comms out here,” Alan said with a scowl. “You should know that.”

“Must have slipped my mind,” Reina replied.

Nina frowned at Reina’s attitude. She didn’t doubt that Alan was good at saving his own skin, but she certainly wasn’t comfortable with their current position either. She had already counted three wayward pulse rounds sailing over their heads, and the bright streaks of coloured light that shot through the night sky didn’t leave much to the imagination. Their boat wouldn’t be able to take many of them, if it could take any at all, yet through it all Reina continued to smile at her small victory.

Beside the bickering pair at the controls sat Zhannah, Alan’s second guard who had previously been happy to remain unintroduced. Nina had only caught her name after Alan had told her to stop joking around with Trim a little earlier, but now her face was a mask of concentration as her hands gripped the wheel. Nina was rather glad that she was the one driving as Jade’s inexperience was not something that she wanted to gamble with, especially when their lives were on the line. The new pilot in question was currently stationed at the small turret which popped out from the bow of the boat with a pair of binoculars, although Nina doubted that she would see any action. The mount for the light machinegun couldn’t swivel to face the rear, and even the most unintelligent of adversaries would avoid steering into its line of fire. It was a welcome deterrent, at least, as it allowed the rest of their group to be focused where it counted.

Where it counted was at the boat’s stern, using the apparently armoured seating at the rear for cover. A mess of magazines were strewn about around them, Nina and Aline both watching on as Saela picked one up before jamming it into a loaned rifle. Alan certainly hadn’t had time to argue over it, although he would probably find the time to complain about it later. He could probably complain about it now actually, as the exchange of fire was still sporadic. Their pursuers were wildly inaccurate at this range as they skipped over the waves, while keeping them from pushing up was their main priority. The clock was on their side as Alan could eventually radio for reinforcements, although how long it would be until then was something that Nina could only speculate over.

Nothing but a passenger in the conflict for the moment, she wished that it would stay that way. Why her and Aline were both placed just in front of their main defence wasn’t lost on her, however, and she fought a shudder as possibilities ran through her head. A medic or a replacement in the line of fire were the two options she would be left with if someone currently up there was hit, and in her current condition she didn’t know if she was fit enough to reliably serve as either.

“Might as well be shooting mosquitos at this range,” Svanda said as she fired off a shot, one of few as she focused on conserving ammunition. “You guys don’t have any rockets or anything lying around, do you?”

“If we had some, we would have brought them out by now,” Rop replied as though it were obvious. Paired with Svanda, he’d ditched his formal look in favour of protection from the elements, the two of them alternating between putting light fire down to keep the two boats that zipped around behind them at bay. Ormain’s two were even further back, seemingly satisfied to wait until they picked a favourable moment to turn the screws on them. Islands already flew by on each side, dark and often unlit lumps of black in the darkness, and sooner or later Ormain would find terrain that he wanted to attack around. At least the miserable weather ensured that the ocean was exclusively for their chase, as civilian traffic would cause nothing but extra problems to consider.

“Some arms dealer your boss is,” Svanda joked before raising an eyebrow at a muzzle flash from one of Ormain’s boats far behind them. Trying a sniper rifle was a futile effort on a moving boat with this wind, although she didn’t know what else it could be. She didn’t doubt that the suits would open fire on their friends if they felt that it was advantageous, but now wasn’t the time. Goading them into a push maybe, although surely even they weren’t stupid enough to move up individually.

“Change,” Rop said, ignoring Svanda’s barb while ducking behind cover to reload. Trim quickly replaced him, a rifle which she had somehow pulled out from her stereo on her hands. The thing had looked more like a jigsaw puzzle than anything else when she had first started to assemble it, and Nina was really starting to wonder just how much junk she could fit in there. When they had some downtime she would have to ask Trim to go through the contents with her, just to satisfy her curiosity if nothing else. Now was not the time to think about such things though, there were people to escape from and it certainly wasn’t going to be easy.

Or kill, she mused. Three nameless men had already been slaughtered before they knew what hit them and Nina was thankful that she hadn’t been watching. It had driven home the fact that the stakes were the highest they had ever been before Zhannah even hit the throttle, and Nina wryly smiled at the fact that they were now quite literally all in the same boat. This wasn’t like her versus Rucille, or Jade and Saela versus the Zaffre Royal Guard, it was a showdown between The Cloud Orchestra and Ormain’s entire team, and this time they had both brought backup to the party.

“Not good,” she heard Reina mutter behind her. She and Alan had thankfully dropped their petty feud in exchange for pouring over a map in the darkness, but their reluctance to use a light hindered their progress. Alan’s hands pressed the paper against the dash while Reina followed their location with a finger, and her subsequent instructions were occasionally passed over to Zhannah who eased them left or right without losing speed. The map might as well have been leopard print to Nina when she had caught a glimpse of it earlier, nothing but a motley spread of green circles on blue with a few labels. Somehow Reina had managed to not only make sense of it, she had also managed to identify that there was a problem was ahead.

“What?” Alan asked, frowning at the map in the gloom. At least the windshield had kept it dry, something that couldn’t be said about his long green hair which now clung to his face. They group was at least relatively well dressed for the conditions, with a collection of dark waterproof jackets that they had rounded up at the last minute. They had known what they would be in for after all, and any advantage they could take was something that they would grasp with both hands.

“They’re splitting up,” Jade said, answering his question. Visibility must have been terrible for her, but at least the water was relatively calm. “Two are cutting around the island to our right.”

“Can’t we just go left then?”

“There’s no room,” Reina said. “The island there runs parallel to our path for too long, unless you want to drive us up the beach. Jade, don’t miss if they get overzealous on approach, we can’t afford to let a gift slip if they give us one. Aline and Nina, guns over the side, whatever you’ve got.”

Nina felt the arm around her retract as Aline gave her an encouraging smile, moving over to the side of the boat while picking her pistol up off the floor. Nina followed behind, fighting nerves as her knuckles turned white from gripping her own weapon. It hadn’t felt any lighter since she had thought about what she was doing earlier, although now her hands shook too in a new addition. If it was from the cold due to the rain or from fear she didn’t know, but now she had little choice but to peek over the side and take a glimpse at the dark collection of trees on the island beside them.

“Deep breath,” Aline said, elbowing her in the ribs. “Just like at the range but with the difficulty turned up a few notches. The distance is going to be a lot further than you’re expecting, so lift your aim a little. If you’re ever hesitant, just remember that they won’t be, alright? I don’t like this either, but it’s us or them.”

Nina swallowed before nodding, not that Aline would have seen it. Still on one knee to balance against the steady rocking of the boat, she brought her pistol up towards the rail and focused on the pistol’s sights. It was just like Aline had said, either fight them off or suffer the consequences. She didn’t wish death on anyone, but she knew that she would be distraught if someone from The Cloud Orchestra ended up being the sacrifice. Her life had already been saved by this group, more than once too depending on how she looked at it. The journey had already hit rock-bottom once, and she wasn’t going to let it do so again for either her or anyone else with her.

Before she could finish her thoughts, the island before her disappeared only to be replaced by a collection of muzzle flashes in the distance. A chorus of their own deafening fire rang out in reply, and suddenly she was in the middle of a fight for her life.

Aiming roughly in the direction of the flashes in the distance, Nina winced before squeezing the trigger.