Conundrum

Chapter
18

A thunderous blow rattled the ship, nearly knocking the gnomes off their feet. Sir Tanar toppled backward into his cabin and fell over his hammock, hitting the deck with a thud. Conundrum and Snork clutched one another and stared about in fright.

“Have we been rammed?” Doctor Bothy cried as he staggered out of sick bay.

“I don’t think so,” Snork said.

At that moment, the commodore’s commanding voice shouted down from the conning tower, “Prepare to dive! All hands, prepare to dive!”

Another blow resounded off the iron hull, staggering the Indestructible’s occupants. Snork and Conundrum rushed to the bridge, where they found the commodore sealing the hatch. “Ahead full! Hard to starboard!” he shouted.

As the commodore’s commands were answered and the ship lurched forward in the water, they turned and looked through the forward porthole.

Still some distance away, but near enough to see its monstrous crew scurrying about on its decks, the pirate galley cut a swath through the waves. Its two great sails of red and white stripes bellied full with the wind. There was no way the Indestructible could outrun it. Their only hope was to dive.

Sir Grumdish stood beside the helm as Snork took over from the pilot. Sir Grumdish held a dagger in his fist, his knuckles whitening around the hilt as he stared out through the porthole at the approaching ship. Even as he watched, a large catapult on the bow of the minotaur ship loosed a large boulder.

“Flood the forward ballast tanks and engage the descending flowpellars!” Snork shouted. The ship immediately began to nose under the waves. The boulder careened off the conning tower, jarring everyone to his teeth. Sir Grumdish loosed a string of curses and shook his daggered fist at the pirates.

Indestructible continued her descent even as the minotaur vessel drew closer. Water lapped against the porthole, and the gnomes felt and heard the sudden quiet of the deep close round them. Commodore Brigg ordered the Peerupitscope raised. He placed his eye to the eyepiece, then swiveled round until he found what he was looking for.

He started back in surprise. “Lower the Peerupitscope! Quickly!” he shouted. The long metal tube slid down. “Brace for impact!”

“What’s wrong?” Snork asked.

His answer came in the form of a long painful wail of metal against metal, of copper keel scraping against iron hull. The Indestructible lurched violently to starboard, nearly capsizing and sending the crew and everything else that wasn’t tied down flying off walls, pipes, and each other. Suddenly, the ship righted, tossing everyone about once more.

Through it all, Commodore Brigg managed to keep his hold on the Peerupitscope. As the rest of the crew members crawled back to their posts, he shouted for it to be raised again. After a few moments, it shot up, and he peered through it, his mouth set in a grim line.

“Sir Grumdish,” he said.

“Aye, Commodore?”

“Load the UAEPs.”

“Aye, Commodore!” Sir Grumdish exclaimed with obvious relish.

“Navigator, come about on my mark,” the commodore shouted. “Chief Portlost, prepare for a crash ascent, and give me everything you’ve got. We’re going to sink that ship, if it’s the last thing we do.”

As the crew prepared for battle, the glowworms in the glowwormglobes hanging from the overhead pipes reacted to the excitement, changing from their normal cool blue light to an angry blood red. Professor Hap-Troggensbottle stumbled onto the bridge, the edges of his beard black and smoking.

“What happened to you?” the commodore asked as he maneuvered the Indestructible into attack position.

“Small mishap. Nothing to worry about. What’s going on? Are we under attack?” the professor said.

“We were. Now we’re the ones doing the attacking!” Sir Grumdish answered fiercely.

“Stand by the Toaster!” the commodore shouted. “Prepare to ascend. When we reach the surface, we’ll give “em both UAEPs, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll stave a hole below her waterline she won’t likely forget!”

“Aye, Commodore!” Sir Grumdish cheered.

Conundrum joined Snork at the wheel now, and together they peered out the porthole at the murky water of the Blood Sea of Istar. Snork made small adjustments to their course according to the directions of the commodore, who kept his eye glued to the Peerupitscope. The Indestructible grew quiet as, with everything ready, the crew members waited at their stations.

Sir Tanar crept from his chamber and down the corridor to the bridge. The sudden silence, after so much commotion, filled him with foreboding. He found the gnomes standing dutifully at their posts, washed by the eerie red glow of the glowwormglobes, only their goggling eyes and quivering beards showing any outward sign of their excitement.

“Commodore Brigg,” he said. “Have we begun our descent?”

The commodore ignored him, and instead stepped back with a broad smile on his face. “Lower the Peerupitscope,” he said softly. The long gleaming tube of metal sank into the floor.

“Commodore Brigg,” Sir Tanar said insistently, clearing his throat for emphasis.

Again, the commodore ignored him. Turning to Snork, he said calmly, as though telling the cook what to prepare for tonight’s mess, “Navigator, surface the ship.”

“Aye, sir!” Snork assented with a red gleam in his eye. He turned to Sir Grumdish.

“Emergency ascent!” he shouted. “Blow the ballast tanks! Engage the ascending flowpellar!”

Sir Grumdish shouted down the ladder to engineering, “Emergency ascent, aye! Engineer, blow the ballast tanks! Engage the ascending flowpellars!”

They heard the chief shouting, “Blow the ballast tanks, aye! Engage the ascending flowpellars, aye!” His voice quickly became lost in the whir and shriek of spinning gears and clattering spring cranks.

Responding to the controls, Indestructible leaped upward. The crew staggered and held on as the bow of the ship tilted upward and the engines drove her through the water. The brownish light shining through the porthole quickly brightened and shaded to a deep red, then a pale pink. Suddenly, it vanished, replaced by fingers of foam running down the surface of the glass. The bow of the ship rose up out of the water like a breaching whale, then came down with a heavy surge, huge waves lashing out to either side.

“Fire the UAEPs!” the commodore shouted.

“Fire the UAEPs!” Sir Grumdish repeated. “Aye!”

Just as the ship began to settle back into the water, it lurched backward. Twin forty-foot-long sprays of glistening water erupted from the bow, and from them shot two enormous arrows, directly at the minotaur vessel.

The pirates spun round in surprise at the sudden appearance of the Indestructible less than a hundred yards off their starboard rail. Half panicked by the sight, their crew tried to swing their catapult around and bring it to bear on the gnomes” submersible, but their efforts were wasted. One UAEP swept through them, scattering them across the decks and knocking not a few overboard. The other UAEP struck home in the mast, thudding into the hard timber and splitting it from base to wind-bellied topsail.

The minotaur captain, seeing the steel-headed ram jutting out from the bow of the Indestructible, recognized the hopelessness of the situation. Already, the mainmast of the pirate galley was cracking under the weight of the sails and push of the wind. He swept out his scimitar and roared in a bestial voice, “She’s gonna ram us! Prepare to board and take ’em, lads!”

Indestructible closed on her helpless prey. The crew cheered as the galley’s mainmast split asunder, spilling its sheets and lines in a chaotic heap upon her decks and burying many of her crew. But they saw numerous other pirates, steel in hand, gathering at her starboard rail, the red gleam of murder in their eyes.

The commodore held on. “Full speed!” he shouted. “Brace for impact!”

Indestructible struck the waves, spray flying before its bow. The galley loomed closer, larger, fining up the porthole with its stout timbers. And then, with a rending shriek of metal and cracking of wood, the Indestructible lurched to a sudden stop. Everything not tied down or braced flew forward, smashing against walls and bulkheads.

Conundrum climbed to his feet and pressed his face against the bridge porthole. “That’s done her!” he screamed joyously, pointing at the sea rushing into the pirate galley around the bow of the Indestructible, which was firmly lodged into a hole in the galley’s side large enough to swallow a small whale. The others crowded closer to witness the destruction.

Suddenly, a dark shape dropped before them, its hideous bestial face filling up the window, red eyes blazing, forward swept horns rising from its head. It had a dagger clamped firmly in its mouth, and a scimitar in one sledgelike fist, swept back to strike. The bitter edge of the blade pinged against the glass of the porthole, inflicting no damage but causing everyone to leap back in fear. Other shapes dropped around it, and soon they were pounding on the hatch with their blades.

“Let’s hope they don’t have hammers!” the commodore said, laughing nervously. He turned and shouted down the ladder, “Withdraw the ram!”

“It’s stuck!” Chief Portlost answered as he climbed up to the bridge. He stood before the commodore, wringing his beard in frustration.

“Well, back us up. They’re boarding us,” the commodore said.

“We can’t, sir!” the chief wailed in dismay. “We don’t have a reverse.”

“Is it broken?”

“No, sir. We never designed the ship to go in reverse,” the chief answered.

“Well, that’s torn it,” the commodore said, placing his fists on his hips and stomping his foot.

“Commodore,” Snork said. “The galley’s sinking.” Already, the sea covered half the porthole. The pounding on the hatch had an air of desperation to it, and the minotaur outside the porthole had dropped his scimitar and was trying his dagger against the hatch’s seals.

“She’s sinking,” the commodore repeated, “and taking us with her.”