“Will you at least point out the right hatch?” Mari asked Banda, who looked unhappy with himself. He gestured toward one of the forward hatches.
Mari led the other three Mechanics to the hatch, which was open for ventilation and led to a stairway, or ladder, as the sailors called stairs on ships. “Calu, can you imitate that oaf that Alli slugged?”
“I can try,” he said.
“When we first reached the ship, the Mechanic on the quarterdeck thought someone might have fallen overboard. That gives me an idea. The ship would have to do a muster if they thought they’d lost someone, right? Like those bed checks when the Guild Halls try to catch Apprentices who aren’t where they’re supposed to be. Call down, sound annoyed but not scared, and say someone might have fallen overboard and that everyone has to come up for a muster.”
“Got it.”
“Anybody who comes up with a weapon on them gets pulled aside and knocked out,” Mari ordered. “If they aren’t armed, they get hustled over there. Bev, you’ll cover that group. If everything goes to blazes, our goal is to hold as many of the guards as possible up here and keep them from doing anything.”
“Do we open fire if we think we have to, or wait for you to say?” Alli asked.
Mari hesitated, swallowing at the thought of giving that order. She suddenly realized how Captain Banda had felt. “I know you guys. I trust you guys not to fire unless you have to.” Mari made sure to look at Bev so that she would know she was included in that statement. “If you think you have to, do it without asking for permission.”
Feeling sick to her stomach, Mari checked her pistol while the other three ensured their rifles were ready, then nodded to Calu.
He leaned over the hatch and called down in a loud, gruff voice. “Hey! Everybody up here! They think someone might have fallen off the ship and we need to do a muster!”
Groans and curses echoed up from below. “Says who?” someone yelled back.
“Senior Mechanic Denz!” Calu yelled back.
The grumbling subsided, but there remained a low rumble of discontent. Mari braced herself as the clomp of angry feet on the ladder sounded.
Two women came up first, scowling and disheveled from sleep. Alli met them with a leveled rifle and gestured them to move to the side fast. Surprised and mentally off balance, the women stumbled over to where Alli directed to find themselves facing Bev’s steely gaze and leveled weapon.
Then came a big man with an angry glower and a holstered pistol at his hip. As he cleared the ladder, Calu swung his rifle butt so that it connected with the Mechanic’s head and knocked him over to the side.
“What was that?” someone still coming up the ladder complained.
“Tripped,” Calu called back. “Watch your feet, you idiots!”
“Who the blazes are you?” another Mechanic said as he reached the deck along with two others.
“Special duty,” Calu said, keeping his voice in the low, angry tones of a Mechanic who was bullying someone. Mari wasn’t surprised that Calu could mimic it so easily. They had all heard that sound too often in their time with the Guild.
Seeing the rifles, the three let themselves be herded over with the first two.
Mari lost count after that, as they tried to keep the line moving while keeping anyone from realizing what was going on. A female Mechanic wearing a holstered revolver managed to jerk back and avoid Calu and Alli, but found Mari’s pistol barrel pressed against the back of her neck as Mari reached forward to seize the revolver.
There had to be twelve or even fifteen on deck already, Mari thought, but the line out of the hatch was backing up as the Mechanic guards on deck reacted too slowly to silent orders to move.
“Get out of the way!” someone still on the ladder bellowed, and a small group shoved their way onto the deck, sending those just ahead of them stumbling in all directions.
For a moment, Mari could not see Alli or Calu.
“Everyone freeze!” she yelled, surprised to hear how deep and intimidating her voice sounded.
On the other side of the crowd, a rifle shot sounded.
Mari waited, her pistol on the dazed Mechanics facing her, wondering how many more shots would erupt.
“That one went into the deck on purpose. The next one goes into whoever I think looks ugliest,” Mari heard Bev say.
“All of you get over there!” Alli shouted.
“Move!” Calu added.
The crowd shifted, moving back and to the side. Most of them looked scared, and all of them looked confused. That had been their best weapon, Mari realized, to make things happen too quickly for the Mechanic guards to have time to understand what was going on. But it had also been their greatest risk, since moving so fast had meant little time to react if the Mechanic guards had gathered their wits in time and charged as a group.
Mari moved to the side to be in line with Alli and Calu, all three of their weapons pointed at the Mechanic guards. She could see Bev slightly off to the side, her rifle also leveled.
“Who—?” another angry voice began demanding from near Mari.
She pivoted to cover the woman coming up from another hatch. “—are you?” Mari finished for the suddenly silent Mechanic.
“Mechanic Deni of Farland,” she said, raising her hands. “Ship’s crew. I heard a shot.”
“Good,” Mari said, trying to get her breathing and her heart rate back under control. “Your captain has surrendered the ship to us. He said you would follow his orders.”
“Captain?” Mechanic Deni called.
“Follow the orders of Master Mechanic Mari! Pass the word to the rest of the crew,” Captain Banda’s answer came back. “She is the master of this ship.”
As Banda’s words soaked in, the faces of the Mechanic guards twisted into almost comical expressions of anger, disbelief, and fear.
Mari faced them again, stepping back from the hatch where Mechanic Deni stood. “First off, no one will be harmed as long as no one tries anything. Secondly, anyone who tries anything will be harmed. You’re also being covered by rifles from other parts of the ship, so don’t do anything stupid.”
It took a while to get the rest of the Pride’s crew on deck and for Captain Banda to assure them that Mari had control of the ship. Banda suggested to Mari that an improvised barrier be set up to confine the guards, who were gradually coming to grips with their situation and muttering among themselves in a way that Mari did not like at all. She had the two sentries and Senior Mechanic Denz added to the group but left them tied up for now.
The crew set to with a will to rig a large net so that it hung from some of the spars overhead and completely confined the Mechanic guards against part of the starboard rail. “They’ve endured their share of abuse from that group,” Banda commented to Mari. “You’ve made my crew prisoners and happy in the same day.”
A small group of guards began to move forward as the last section of the net was raised, but found themselves facing Bev’s rifle again. Something in her face convinced them to stop and back up. “You can untie your friends and the Senior Mechanic now,” Bev told them.
Mari finally relaxed a little as the barrier settled into place. It wasn’t impossible to get over, but to do so would require a lot of awkward climbing for the guards. “I guess now we can deal with your passengers, Captain. Do you have the keys to where they’re held?”
“No,” said Banda, shaking his head, “you do. It’s on the same ring as the key to the weapons. That one there.”
Mari twisted the key free and handed it to Banda. “Then please do me the favor of releasing them and getting the passengers up on deck, Captain.”
“Please?” Banda asked. “And the use of my title? Why so polite, Master Mechanic, when you rule this ship?”