Chapter 337: The Cover Charge Was Your Gunboat

I reached for the emergency control, and Horass hit the space my head needed to cross before I could pretend the move had surprised him.

His hand struck the deck fitting as I pulled back, bending the loose edge farther across my route. The launcher stayed angled away from his own damaged stern, where the broken coolant pipe had begun spilling beside the engine housing.

He knew the ship was hurt and was covering the control while his remaining deckhand worked the shutdown. I couldn’t wait for them to finish and restore a safe firing position, so I stopped looking for a clean escape and chose the ugly one I could actually reach.

[System: Nuh-Uh is ready, mate, with well over eight minutes since the barge. Fifteen seconds of physical protection, not heat, so use the post between you and that launcher and don’t waste a bloody heartbeat showing off.]

Keep counting, and if this works you can complain about my technique for the rest of the week.

I activated the stance as Horass struck again, turning his blow into a deafening metallic clang. My body became dense enough to dent the deck beneath me, but I didn’t suddenly grow strong enough to throw him aside.

I dropped against the bent fitting instead, letting my new weight push its loose end down while his arm recovered. It opened a narrow line beneath the launcher, with the thick mooring post between my head and the weapon’s mouth.

Horass moved to close that line immediately. He caught my upper coils and drove them against the post, producing another terrible noise while Old Mate counted the seconds I still had.

[System: Keep the tail moving, champ, because he’s got your front end and the lever doesn’t give a stuff which part of you reaches it.]

I hooked the manual separation bar with my tail and pulled across the small distance I’d measured before the fight. The winch lock released, letting the gunboat’s own pull take the damaged loading arm away from its deck support.

Horass released me to move clear of the falling frame, exactly as a fighter with sense should. His foot reached safe plating, but the loose cable whipped across the gap and caught the launcher harness still strapped around his shoulder.

The arm’s weight dragged him back before he could free the strap. He cut one buckle, nearly got out and then lost the remaining angle when the falling structure pinned the harness against the broken engine guard.

I pulled myself behind the mooring post as Nuh-Uh ended, leaving me shaking and hurt in all the places the skill had never healed. The gunboat’s drive stopped with a grinding crash, and the deckhand scrambled clear of the engine as its warning lights changed.

A hot leak hissed across the trapped loading arm. Horass worked at the second strap with quick, careful movements, but the frame had crushed the buckle against the guard and left him fighting several pieces of damaged machinery at once.

His rank hadn’t disappeared. He bent one section of the frame far enough to make me stare, yet moving it twisted the broken line beside him and sent another burst of heat across the deck.

I could leave while he fought it, reach Mara’s pod and let the man who’d threatened my home solve his own problem. The thought felt good for one ugly moment, especially when my middle cramped and reminded me what his hands had done.

Then he looked towards the red emergency lever on the far side of the loading arm, the matching release Sera had shown me before he arrived. He couldn’t reach it from where the harness held him, but I still had a route beneath the damaged rail.

"Stop fighting when I get you clear, and tell your crew to do the same. You get medical help, and the operation ends here."

He watched the leaking line, judged the distance to the lever and looked back at me. "You have my agreement," he said, then ordered his remaining crew to lower their weapons where I could hear it.

I moved before I could turn the choice into another argument. My bruised coils dragged across the deck, the heat hurt near my fins and I reached the lever with none of the protection I’d already spent.

The release dropped the trapped support away from his harness. Horass tore himself free, cleared the hot line and caught the deckhand by the back of his coat before the man slipped into the water beside the wreckage.

We reached the safe platform separately, both needing help and neither pretending the other had suddenly become a friend. Horass set the rescued crewman down, laid his remaining launcher on the deck and told Tollan he would accept escorted custody under the agreement we’d made.

Tollan kept his officers clear of the discarded launchers and directed the medical crew forward. Horass stayed seated under their watch while the harbour team secured the disabled gunboat and clamp machine, keeping the agreement he’d made with me.

Only once the operation was stopped did Old Mate deliver the reward. [System: Eight thousand five hundred EXP and forty IP, mate, taking you to forty-eight thousand of sixty thousand and three hundred forty-five IP. You spared the big bastard, so no kill reward, and I still don’t want him asking to hold a bloody koala.]

I’m not offering visiting hours until I can breathe without reviewing my life choices.

Mara confirmed the wreckage was isolated before bringing the rescue pod alongside, and I watched the medical team take the injured deckhand first. Horass checked that the man was breathing, then sat where Tollan directed him, leaving enough space between us that neither had to pretend mercy had made the afternoon comfortable.

Bridget reached me beside the medic and held my face gently while I told her I was staying put. I let the treatment happen without making anyone chase me for it, because surviving had already taken more cleverness than I had left.

Later, with Horass alive under supervision and my injuries properly checked, Tasmin sent a private-table booking from the club. The name on it was Raymond Vane, and the attached photograph showed our entrance from a position nobody had asked permission to use.