Chapter 419: We Won the Dock and Lost the Spare Engine

I shouted for Lukas to get behind the service wall before the rising water hit, and he moved without wasting time asking whether I meant the threatening water directly beneath our feet.

The captain’s pressure strike tore upward through the outer planks and punched into the spare engine’s trolley. Its casing split against the shelter support, spraying fragments across the dock. Lukas reached cover, but one sharp piece caught his upper arm while the trolley’s handle struck his side.

He stayed upright, but the way he pressed his arm to his ribs turned my irritation cold. Gullet had just made this much more expensive than an engine.

[System: Watch the water, mate. I know you want his head, but yours needs to stay attached while you collect it.]

Gullet drove himself onto the flooded platform and swung his hook blade. I folded my wings and ducked, hearing it scrape the piling close enough to make me hate his breathing.

I wrapped a thick section of my length around the inner piling and packed it firm. His second blow struck my braced side and hurt enough to make the whole idea of heroism seem overpriced, but it didn’t throw me into the open channel.

"You broke the engine I wasn’t even using, you petty aquatic bastard."

"I’ll take the rest of you with it," he said, dragging himself closer.

Bollocks Detector stayed quiet. He sounded as though he meant every word, and I found that strangely insulting when I had been hoping for a coward behind all the noise.

Lukas pulled the barrier halfway closed with his good arm. I backed toward him around the piling, keeping Gullet on the other side while the captain tried to reach me with that ugly knife.

Water began gathering behind his shoulders again. Ten seconds had passed since the first large blast, close enough to the footage that our estimate now looked much less like wishful thinking.

"Open the drain gate, then get inside the launch shelter."

Lukas pulled the marked handle beside the gangway. The shallow water on the platform drained through the lowered side channel, breaking its continuous spread across the dry inner section. Gullet still had the deep harbor behind him, but his easy line through the puddled dock had disappeared.

[System: Drain the bastard’s red carpet, mate. Let him drag himself up here and complain in person.]

The captain redirected his building strike toward the gangway instead. I moved before he released it, launched clear of the narrow opening, and landed inside the protected berth. The wave smashed the empty rail where I had been and drove loose boards against the closed barrier.

His rammer shifted sideways under the blast, blocking his own water lane. I laughed despite the pain, because ruining your escape route while trying to look frightening deserved an audience.

Our repaired launch waited beyond that obstruction with its engine already running. Lukas had reached its controls, one arm pressed against his ribs, and the shore watch had cleared the last prisoner through the gate.

Gullet looked from the blocked channel to the dry wall and the watch lamps above us. I waited over the narrow gap he would have to climb, letting him see how much I wanted him to try.

I lifted the captured boarding hook and hummed the same few notes again. He recognized the invitation this time.

"You’ve scratched the place up, so come finish the visit. I promise I’ll put something nice on the invoice."

He showed his teeth, slid backward into the harbor, and vanished beneath the trapped boat. This time I watched the disturbed water move away instead of following it.

Lukas exhaled sharply and lowered himself onto the seat.

"Please tell me we’re doing the sensible thing for at least twenty minutes."

"We’re going to the medic, and if you complain I’ll tell every woman here you cried because your new coat got dirty."

"It was an expensive coat, and that’s a valid emotional response."

The watch took over while we left in our working launch. We still had the treasure and two new boats, but I kept seeing Lukas’s blood instead of the profit. The captain had somehow made a very good evening feel unfinished.

The medic cleaned and dressed the shallow cut, then checked his side. Bruised ribs, no fracture, and movements he needed to avoid. I listened harder than Lukas did until she told me staring wouldn’t make the dressing stick faster.

I stayed beside the table until she finished. The captain could spend another hour feeling pleased with himself while my friend got proper care.

[System: Sit with your mate, you wound-up bastard. Gullet’ll still have a face worth ruining after the bandage is on.]

Get that in writing. If somebody else kills him tonight, I want to know who to complain to.

I settled the clinic charge against our repair and rest allowance, then asked the medic whether he needed anything else. She said peace, which Lukas enjoyed hearing far too much.

Lukas was given pain relief, clean dressings, and instructions to return if breathing became difficult. He listened, which was more impressive than anything I had done with the boarding force.

A dock worker delivered photographs of the wrecked engine to his phone while we waited for the medicine. One showed a green ceramic fragment wedged into the cracked casing, its curved surface stamped with three white bars.

The medic recognized the tile pattern from the resort drains her brother maintained. She directed us to the dock office’s service chart, then told Lukas to keep me away from his dressing.

We bought a copy before the office closed, adding it to the chart expenses already in our allowance. The matching tiles lined a submerged maintenance channel beneath the east dock, leading toward the western service lane shown on our navigation reader.

I traced the submerged route with a tendril and felt my bad mood improve. He had sneaked under us through a drain, and now I knew which drain.

I looked at the channel’s far end and pictured our captain swimming home through it, entirely unaware that he had just shoved a piece of his front door into my spare engine.