It’s just me and my brother. Like old times. Except completely different.
‘The Nautilus isn’t our inheritance,’ I say. ‘The Nautilus belongs to herself.’
‘Herself?’ Dev scoffs. ‘Come on, Ana. It’s a machine made by Prince Dakkar. It belongs to us!’
He lunges, trying for a full-body tackle. I dance out of his path, though my ‘dance’ is more of a clumsy stumble. My chest wound throbs. The inside of my drysuit is lacquered with warm, sticky blood.
‘I thought about telling you,’ Dev continues, as if we’re having a casual conversation, ‘but you weren’t ready. You didn’t know about alt-tech. You didn’t understand what HP had done to our family. They still have you fooled. It’s time to wake up.’
I scream and charge. It’s not my smartest move. I feint a punch, try to knee him in the groin, but he’s expecting that. He blocks, then tosses me aside like a practice dummy. I land hard on my butt. Pain flares up my spine.
‘Give it up,’ Dev snaps. ‘Don’t be stupid.’
Stupid little girl.
Behind me, my fingers close around textured metal. One of Gem’s pistols.
‘I’ll admit, I underestimated you,’ Dev says. ‘That giant octopus …’ He shakes his head. ‘You’ll have to explain how you pulled that off. But you don’t belong at HP any more than I do. We’re going to board the Nautilus together, and you’re going to surrender command to me. I will take what’s rightfully mine.’
Somehow, I get to my feet.
Dev frowns at the gun in my hand. ‘Come on, Ana, you had your chance to kill me. You couldn’t do it, remember?’
Kill him?
Suddenly I realize why Dev has been so uninterested in Gem’s weapons. He assumes they are loaded with standard rounds. A laugh bubbles up in my throat. Dev has no intention of killing me. And he knows I won’t kill him, so the guns are useless. It would never occur to my brother to use anything less than lethal ammunition. Dev tends to play an offensive game.
My hysterical giggle seems to unsettle him.
‘Ana, you’ve lost a lot of blood.’ His tone is so caring, so brotherly. ‘Put that down –’
‘You don’t get it, Dev.’ I raise the gun. ‘What’s rightfully yours isn’t the sub. It’s your family. Your friends. And you destroyed it all.’
I shoot him three times. The last rubber bullet snaps his head back, raising an ugly red spot right between his eyes. He falls backwards, crashing spread-eagled on the deck.
My hysteria turns to despair. I sob and drop the gun.
I’m not sure how long I spend weeping at my brother’s side. He’ll live. His pulse is strong. Still … I’m mourning. Something between us has died.
Nearby, Gem groans. ‘Ana?’
I wipe my face. ‘Hey …’ Still wobbly, I straggle to Gem’s side. He looks groggy and cross-eyed, but otherwise not too bad for somebody who was recently smacked with a ratchet.
I hold up two fingers. ‘How many fingers?’
He squints. ‘Twenty-five?’
‘Yeah, you’ll be fine.’
‘Is Dev –？’
‘Taken care of,’ I say, trying to keep my voice from breaking. ‘I shot him with rubber bullets.’
Gem’s eyes widen. ‘That couldn’t have been easy, Ana. Are you –？’
‘I’m okay,’ I lie. ‘I’ll be okay.’
I try to help him sit up, but he groans and lies down again. ‘I think maybe I should just … stay here for a minute. Why has the boat stopped?’
I hadn’t even noticed. The engines have gone silent. We’re dead in the water. This means someone stopped the boat. Which means there are more enemies on board.
‘I’ll check the bridge,’ I say.
‘You look terrible.’
‘Thanks. Don’t worry, I’ve got this gun.’
‘It’s a nice gun,’ Gem agrees. ‘Be careful.’
I totter off. I imagine I’ll be defeated if I have to fight anything more dangerous than a three-year-old with a pool noodle, but I have to secure the ship.
On the bridge, I get another surprise. Standing over the unconscious body of an LI upperclassman is a frizzy-haired girl in a nemonium dive suit, a Leyden gun in her hand.
‘Ester?’ I croak.
She turns, looking embarrassed. ‘So I got your comm message. It turns out dolphins aren’t the only ones who can fit through that chute that leads to the tank in your cabin.’