Nina breathed a sigh of relief as she slumped to the floor, her body rocking with the momentum of the boat as it sliced through the water. Feeling as empty as the magazine in her pistol was, she looked up as a hand found her shoulder before giving Aline a wry smile, wondering if the mental exhaustion was mutual. Mutual or not, however, the intermittent fire from the four behind them served as an unwelcome reminder that things were far from over. Ormain wouldn’t rest until the balance had been tipped in either direction, yet at the same time he seemed too hung up on risking his own losses to try and force the issue.

She didn’t know why Reina had directed them into the stretching rows of solar panels that looked so eerie in the dark, but it seemed as though it would at least give them a brief respite. On their right she could see the glossy blue patchwork which shimmered in what little light was available, the massive panels bent at a forty-five degree angle in wait for the rising sun. With the bottom sitting only just above the waterline and the top some three or so meters above the surface, the array was matched by one of its many copies to their left, although on that side they only saw a bland protective backing.

Spaced far enough apart to leave them with some seven or eight meters of clean water, Nina thought it looked like a hallway which had been tipped to one side. The walls were welcome even if she didn’t know how much of a beating the panels could take, as anything between them and Ormain’s guns was better than nothing. They couldn’t be flanked if they had protection on each side, and she was quite sure that they had the upper hand on the boat which had followed them in too. The fact that it was keeping a wary distance between them helped her come to the conclusion, but then again she was well out of her depth when it came to those kinds of calculations.

“Will this take us close enough?” Trim asked Alan, using the moment that she had for reloading to assess their condition. Relatively unscathed would be an appropriate term as it could have certainly been worse. Two rounds had pierced through the bow close to where Jade sat, while another three had dented the armoured seat at the rear. Nothing but shaken nerves on their end yet while Svanda had scored an impressive hit of her own. A repeat against one of Ormain’s boats would probably be out of her reach if they continued to hang as far back as they had been, but at least they had whittled down the numbers once again while the clock remained on their side.

“No, we’re still going to have to cover more ground,” Alan replied, implying that the clock would be running for a little longer than they had been hoping for. Nina resisted the urge to groan, instead focusing on warming up her hands. Cold and wet while hanging off the edge of a speeding boat weren’t pleasant conditions for them, and she certainly wasn’t under the illusion that she wouldn’t have to do so again. Reloading while her hands shook had already been difficult enough as the cold metal was harsh on her fingers, but at least she’d saved herself from embarrassment by managing to do it without help. Two magazines, she’d managed to somehow chew through – twenty-eight rounds. Much more difficult in practice once compared to how comfortable everything had been at Julia’s shop, but the sound of bullets whizzing over your head probably did that to anyone at first. She’d almost had a heart attack when the first few bullets had screeched against the armoured seating at the rear, and when the bow was struck she almost had a second. Even Jade had seemed to take it better than her, and she was only a meter away. Not cowardice, she told herself, but just common sense. She wasn’t cut out for being in the line of fire, although she wondered if Jade and Aline had once felt the same way too.

Desensitisation did strange things.

“Why don’t we just slow down?” Saela asked. “The guys behind us won’t stand a chance.”

“They wouldn’t,” Svanda agreed. “But one pulse round straight up our guts would turn us into sitting ducks for the rest. Reina, you have a plan, right? This cover is pretty flimsy, and we can’t keep eyes on the others either. They might try to come up close and hit us from each side as we exit.”

“I thought we could knock some of these panels down,” she replied before turning to Alan. “Surely you’ve got something in the hold that we could use.”

“I don’t, so I hope you have another idea,” Alan said with a frown before watching as a wayward pulse round drifted over their heads, the colour muted as the round was already dissipating. Cheap weapons would do that, the compressed energy not holding together as well at a longer distance before breaking apart and harmlessly scattering. It demonstrated just how far behind Ormain’s hired help had fallen, although nobody would blame them. There wasn’t much room to move from side to side in the corridor and pushing up would do nothing but present themselves on a platter. “This is a delivery boat, not a floating armoury.”

“Grenades?” Svanda asked.

“Nope.”

“Anything at all that could be used to collapse some of these panels?”

“No,” Alan replied with evident frustration. “Why don’t you just shoot out the support struts?”

“Hey,” Svanda mused as she eyed the posts which rose out of the water to support the panels fly past them, thin mixtures of concrete that wrapped around steel. “That isn’t a bad idea.”

Nina, along with most of the rest of the crew, turned to watch as Svanda tried to hit a few of the posts which flew by. The speed at which they were traveling made it difficult to hit such a thin target, but at least they were close and so it didn’t take long for her to succeed. Watching with anticipation as her handiwork was quickly left in their wake, however, they were disappointed to see that the panel in question only sagged to the side a little.

“Would need to hit both sides,” she thought aloud with a frown. “Difficult.”

“Can you focus on shooting the people behind us instead of inanimate objects?” Rop asked with a sour tone, not bothering to spare her any attention as he focused on the pirate boat behind them in the distance. It was a valid concern considering that they were being chased by three boats full of people who were out to put them on the ocean floor, but it didn’t stop Svanda from scowling in return.

“Someone’s gotta get us out of this mess,” she said before redirecting her attention to the boat behind them once more. “If you’ve got any ideas, feel free to voice them.”

“How about we just shoot them?” he asked before turning silent, regretting his words when he realised that Svanda had already hit the target while he hadn’t. A wolfish grin was all he got from her in reply, but as a response it was more than anything that words could portray. Left with no choice but to return his attention to the target behind them in resignation, he busied himself by reloading his rifle and checking their reserves. Still plenty of ammunition to go around, although the magazines that remained were now surrounded by spent casings in a testament to just how many pot-shots they’d been taking. Reina had been right when she said that they only needed a few to hit though, the bullets which had pinged off the armoured seat which he had been hiding behind proving her point adequately.

“The second idea it is then,” Reina sighed before looking up to the night sky above them. The rain hadn’t ceased yet, although it hadn’t turned for the worse either. More of a light annoyance than anything else, although cold hands were never pleasant. Regretting her lack of forethought to bring gloves, she quickly looked over her crew with a frown. Risking people wasn’t something that she felt comfortable with, but a smaller risk now was probably going to be better for them than gambling on Ormain’s lack of accuracy over the next stretch of open water. Ultimately, she was responsible for them, and in return they put faith in her because they trusted her to make the right decisions. That was what being a leader was about, and she would never be one to shy from tough decisions.

“Are we going to drive up the panels and drop in on Ormain?” Jade asked to the ire of Alan’s group. Even Nina could see that they wouldn’t be able to build enough momentum to carry them up and over, and that was even assuming that the panels could support the weight. They couldn’t, by her assumption, and so the only thing that would happen is that they would end up wrapping themselves around one of the many concrete posts that they were currently flying past. Silently thankful once more for the fact that Zhannah was the one in control of the boat, Nina watched on as the puzzle pieces were clearly falling into place inside Reina’s head.

“Svanda and Aline,” she eventually said, ignoring Jade’s comment as she sized up the panels beside them. “I want suppressing fire off to our left… so your right I guess if you’re facing backwards. Just guess where about Ormain’s second boat is, whatever it takes to stop them from pushing up.”

“Ammo?” Svanda asked.

“Burn through it, I don’t care,” Reina replied. “Keeping them back is the priority.”

Svanda shrugged before setting to the task without asking questions, indiscriminately firing rounds off at an oblique angle into the solar array beside them. Aline soon followed suit, and soon the two of them together were systematically destroying so much of the array that it made Nina cringe. The pulse rounds wouldn’t just eat through one row, countless more behind them would also be riddled with holes before the energy had sufficiently dissipated. It wasn’t exactly wanton destruction if Reina had a proper reason for it, but she certainly didn’t want to think of the cost of repairs either.

Not that Reina would be sticking around to claim responsibility.

“There better be a reason for this,” Alan said with a frown. “We have to wrap this up before we close in the Fountain now because I’m not paying for damages when the authorities turn up, and something tells me that you don’t plan on doing so either.”

“Of course there’s a reason,” Reina replied before tapping her temple. “Out of the three boats following us, who do you think is the weakest link?”

“The one right behind us,” Alan replied immediately. “Crap weapons, crap skills. No questions.”

“Mmm,” Reina smiled. “But then think about which boat would be the weakest link in a close-quarters shootout.”

“The sam-,” Alan started before pausing. “No, it’s not the same. It’s…”

“Ormain’s second boat to our left,” Reina finished. “The guy’s a good shot and the rounds against the seat show that, but he’s only one guy if the other one needs to drive. They don’t have a pulse rifle either.”

“You want to broadside them as soon as we emerge,” Alan sighed. “Your ‘suppressing fire’ is just ensuring that you have enough time to be able to get into place before Ormain can join the party.”

“He won’t push up if his partner can’t,” Reina agreed. “The last thing they’ll expect is for us to hit the brakes.”

“Alright then,” Alan said, the tone in his voice suggesting that even he couldn’t believe what he was agreeing to. “What about the boat behind us?”

“They won’t be expecting the turn either. If we turn at ninety and then race along the edge of the plant, we’ll be close to out of range before they swing around. From there we can hold them at a distance, although I don’t know if Ormain will let them go to begin with.”

“And the captain himself?”

Reina frowned at the question, although it didn’t stop her from relaying her instructions to Zhannah. They had shot through about three quarters of the array now, but they would need to slow to a crawl if they were going to turn as tightly as she wanted them to. Rop, Saela, and Nina were collected up on the left-hand side of the boat at her instruction, and while they said that they were ready to welcome Ormain’s second ship with a storm of bullets she could see that Nina wasn’t. Poor girl, but she would learn. Everyone at The Cloud Orchestra needed to pull their weight, and that weight included protecting the rest of them. At least Svanda was placed at the back corner of the boat so that she would also be able to join in, and even Jade could probably get a shot in from where she was. Three to five guns versus one to two were the best odds that they were going to get, even if they only had one second to make it count.

“The captain himself?” she finally replied. “I just hope that he has enough sense to stop for his own men if they’re met with trouble instead of continuing against the odds.”

She didn’t voice it, but she also hoped that her team would emerge unscathed.