Skid X Pump Ship Novels & Stories

ship didn't explode; it simply crumpled, its gravity drive failing as it slid down the face of the ice and vanished into the black depths with a gurgling, metallic roar. Silence returned, save for the heavy panting of the survivors and the distant, rhythmic grinding of the floes. The Skimmer was wedged into a soft bank of slush, its engine dead, the hull leaking but holding. Julian pulled Hope back to the center of the deck, his chest heaving. He looked at Leo and Clara—they were alive, battered but standing. "We lost them," Siren breathed, looking at the spot where the white ship had vanished. "For now."

“One more. Hold. Good. Keep the hand.” We slid up the flagship’s downwind side at a distance that would make a gentleman tip his hat and a pirate whistle. Kade’s mouth thinned; his knuckles weren’t white, but they remembered how. The flagship’s galleries opened like a choir’s throat. Muskets waited in the hands of men who would drop them for pikes in another minute. The flag officer on the booms held his glass like a crucifix. “Jas,” Kade said, voice a good knife. “Their pumps. Low. Two hands. Give them reason to read.”

The stealth transport ship was completely different now. Leo had spent eighteen hours straight working on the engines. Thanks to the secret files on the data drive, the ship’s hull was now coated in a special silver-polymer material. It didn't just hide them from radar anymore; it absorbed the physical shock of heavy weather.

Transported by the selkies, Devrim and Junayd joined and his group moved onto the fourth ship in line. "That wasn't difficult, but it was time consuming. We need to speed things up if we hope to make it to Xander before he is wise to us." Devrim pressed his screw deep into the wood and spun it to bore a hole. Junayd shrugged. "Even a few less ships of pirates storming the oceans is a win in my book," the General whispered. They stopped talking as a pair of boots clattered past them on the deck overhead. It seemed the pirate had not seen the human barnacles attached to his ship, because he moved on toward the prow.

"Thorne, get the heavy copper cables ready. The moment Vane drops the skids, we have ninety seconds before the oil in this bird solidifies completely." The descent into Chamonix was a terrifying plunge through a canyon of black ice. The gunship rattled violently with its rivets screaming as the freezing air current slammed against the hull. Vane fought the controls, his muscles tearing against the unassisted hydraulic sticks and his face drenched in sweat that froze the moment it rolled past his jawline. With a sickening crunch, the ship’s landing skids struck the icy ledge outside the abandoned railway tunnel. The aircraft slid ten feet toward the sheer drop before the mechanical emergency

The vessel was approaching the entrance to the New York Harbor channel. "The automated ballast-transfer pumps are dragging an eight-millisecond response latency " Avery called out. She swiped her thumb across the interface. "The shipyard in Virginia used hydraulic actuators that couldn't handle the rapid trim adjustments required by the Thorne-Sterling Vanguards high-speed routing curves. If we don't re-pack the seals with polymers before the winter transit shift the stabilization grid is going to burn out its primary capacitors." Silas stepped out from the interior of the wheelhouse. His shouldered frame immediately cut through the glare of the sun reflecting off the water. He had discarded