Chapter 420: I Started Humming Before We Left the Room

The morning after Gullet hurt Lukas, I started humming over breakfast, and my friend put his cup down before I reached the second line.

"We’re making the plan first, because I’m not spending the rest of this trip explaining why you attacked a war barge with a bread roll."

I glanced at the roll beside my plate. It was disappointingly soft, which removed one option.

"I was considering whether he deserved the butter," I said, sliding the roll away from Lukas before he could remove another useful option.

[System: Put the bread down, mate. We’re killing a pirate, not opening a bakery with a complaints department.]

His arm was dressed and his ribs had turned an ugly color overnight. Reaching too high made him wince, so I pulled the map closer and told him the captain could do our heavy lifting when we took his ship.

Lukas took his medicine and packed spare dressings. I tried hovering over him until he threatened to put me outside with the luggage, which seemed ungrateful considering how beautifully I was expressing concern.

The main barge had missed its original departure after the dock fight and moved into the repair anchorage sheltered by the Blackwake shoals, farther along the western lane. The harbor notice showed a new departure for the following morning, so we had that night to reach it without turning the entire channel into a public argument.

Our launch was fueled and my wing finally moved normally after treatment and gradual practice. I tested it again outside, enjoying the clean pull until Old Mate asked whether I planned to admire myself all the way to the anchorage.

Our service chart showed the submerged maintenance channel joining the anchorage near its stern. That gave us an approach, but swimming straight up it would put us beneath the same captain whose water attacks had broken an engine.

"We need something so stupid he’ll be embarrassed to shoot it. Nobody wants to explain declaring war on a floating decoration."

Old Mate slowly lowered his drink, and I recognized the look. Somebody was about to mistake agreeing with each other for having a good idea.

Then he pointed toward a bright orange object visible outside the window. A dock shop was selling a floating seafood display used by a closed restaurant. It looked like a dinner platter wide enough for six people, complete with a smiling plastic crab and a shrimp whose expression suggested it owed money.

[System: Buy the giant prawn, mate. We’ll float right up his arse disguised as the lunch special.]

That is disgusting, wasteful, and probably discounted. I asked Lukas to check the cash before either of us developed a better idea.

The display had a flat maintenance recess underneath and proper tow points because it once carried advertising lights around the resort canals. We bought it for six hundred credits and paid another four hundred for straps, quiet paddles, and temporary mounts. The smiling crab lost one eye during loading, which improved its honesty.

We mounted the display ahead of the launch. Its broad shell hid us from a low stern lookout, with the barge’s upper deck blocking the high angle. Lukas checked the sightline while I argued that the crab’s missing eye gave it character.

Our first practice turn shoved a plastic feeler through the windscreen. We removed it, tried again successfully, and repeated the turn when Lukas refused to accept my claim that the shrimp had learned its lesson.

[System: Beautiful, mate. Only cost us one feeler to invent naval camouflage, and the prawn still looks brighter than both of you.]

The registered freight hull’s safety plan, filed with its harbor repair notice, showed three useful levels. The upper work deck carried the crane and deck guns. A narrow service walkway ran below it along a floodable central well. The cargo hold sat behind a heavy watertight door on the forward side of that well, while the stern opened into the water through a low loading gate.

Lukas copied that layout onto a simple sketch, marking where he could reach controls without carrying anything heavy. His job was the upper deck, locks, lamps, and rigging. Mine was everyone who wanted to make that difficult.

The thousand credits included quick clamps for our launch. We left the gifts and treasure in guarded storage, although I briefly considered bringing the captain’s hat until Lukas asked whether I wanted to die wearing evidence of poor judgment.

I called the girls and explained Lukas’s treatment and our planned attack. I used the words screened approach instead of giant floating seafood, which lasted until Cherry asked why Lukas was laughing.

Bridget answered that controlling the approach was sensible, then asked whether our escape route remained clear. Lyra wanted confirmation Lukas had eaten with his medicine. Cherry wanted the photograph immediately because she knew omission when she heard it.

Lukas took it with his phone and sent it himself.

"If this works, I’m putting the picture beside your captain’s hat," he told me. "If it doesn’t, at least they’ll have something appropriate for the funeral."

"If you put a plastic shrimp on my memorial, I’m coming back and rearranging every pocket in that coat."

After dark, the current carried us toward the anchorage with the engine low and the display ahead. We kept to the maintenance channel’s outer edge rather than diving through its enclosed throat, using the chart to avoid its shallow stone lip.

A lookout walked along Gullet’s stern rail, glanced toward our ridiculous platter, and shouted for someone to collect the restaurant rubbish before it scratched the paint. Nobody sounded an alarm.

The current turned us gently beside the barge, bringing our launch into the blind strip below its raised work deck. Lukas shut the engine off and caught a low ring with the padded hook we had prepared.

I tasted salt, oil, and the wonderful possibility of making a very expensive man unhappy.

[System: Easy now, mate. Let the prick grab the prawn before we explain that today’s special comes with a kidnapping.]

Above us, the lookout leaned over to grab the plastic shrimp’s remaining feeler, placing himself directly within reach of my tail.