Nymeria and Ned were commanding the deck...well at least they knew it. Nobody was going to tell them otherwise. There was a head wind and they tacked their way to the channel. Then it was a real head wind and they dropped sails and lashed them and Jiemba and a treekin sat at the wind crystals and hit full blast. For a second Captain Dirk at the wheel thought they were going to go airborne. The ship snuggled down in the water and then lept forward. He estimated 20 knots at least. They cleared the channel in minutes and he shouted back over his shoulder through the open door, "That will do it!"
A sail crewman shouted, "Sail ho starboard side." When they looked they could see a Zon flag flapping in the stiff headwind. Dirk shouted, "Shes turning into the head wind." For all their shouting to each other the Zon ship showed no sign they had noticed the Sovereign yet. Thomas shouted,"We have her lined up, take the shot Arya?" Arya nodded and boom went the thunder box. The shot hit her in the aft at the waterline. It had arced up a little and was headed downward into the headwind. It punched through the back of the ship and shattered the keel as it went through. The whole bottom of the aft of the ship was gone and she went down almost instantly. They couldn't even find survivors on the water after a few minutes. "Pretty sure that was a spy watching for us," Dirk said.
The Sovereign set sails and began tacking to the west. It would take them a week like this to get to the treekin homeland. But they were underway.
The three new Amani crew members were stunned by the thunder boxes swift disposal of the Zon ship. Mangana the younger wanted full disclosure as the the weapons use, maintenance, loading and aiming. The older Mangana whistled and went deep in thought at the destruction it wrought. Jiemba just hugged Nymeria a little closer as it happened.
Several council meetings were held about what they should do after they dropped Calancy off at her homeland port city. How exactly would the fulfill Arya's second task of fleshing out who and what the enemy was. Captain Springer and Portsmith wanted to capture a higher military Zon and take him and some mechanisms the Zon were using back home as quickly as possible. Arya turned to Captain Dirk, "Dirk your thoughts?" Dirk had a far away look in his eyes. He said, "We can't know what's in store for us yet. My thinking is we should allow for everything that's coming. We should still hold to the thought of getting back home alive with as much information as we can. The people we have encountered are about to be hard pressed by the enemy we are here to study. Our own humanity may require further action to aid them."
Gendry, Thomas and the younger Mangana were hard at work in the forge rooms making more hand catapults. They enlisted Jack and one of the archers in assisting their efforts. Even Trevor was pulled into the mix as they discussed which woods that they had on hand could be best used to copy the Zon weapon. The archer said that they were called crossbows and that he had seen some of them at home, but none of those had the draw crank mechanism nor the strength of this one. He gave them good advice as to how to fashion the bow parts and withing a few days they had four complete ones done and a smattering of ammunition as well.
Arya was drilling with the battle group honing her skills when during a break she caught Nymeria on the fore castle with her nose in the air. She went over there and hugged the wolf and said, "What is it girl?" The wolf looked at her and whined.
Two days later it was clear what the wolf already knew. The smell of wood smoke was in the air and the further west they went the stronger it got. Few things put fear into the treekin like fire in the trees and they were pacing the deck now worried about their homeland and what might be taking place there. By Caelan's reckoning they were less than a day away from landing at the port city and later that night, even at this distance there were orange glows and thicker smoke in that direction. The treekin homeland was burning.
Early the next morning the Sovereign pulled into port through a thick smoke. They ran silent so they could ascertain the situation clearly. As they pulled into the dock a large Zon warship was already docked there and fires and shouts were everywhere in the town in front of them.