Ventress Ship Novels & Stories

He fought his way to the surface, breaking through the waves, gasping for air. Debris was raining down from the sky—chunks of concrete, burning steel, and flaming grain that hissed as it hit the water. The Vanguard Depot, the pride of Imperial logistics, was a towering inferno, its silos peeled open like burning flowers. "Saoirse!" Tristan screamed, treading water frantically. "Vane!" "Here!" a voice coughed to his left. Vane bobbed to the surface, clutching a piece of floating debris, looking like a drowned rat.

The Acheron was no longer a state-of-the-art marvel of naval engineering; it was a falling anvil. The deck dropped out from beneath them with the stomach-churning violence of a severed elevator cable. Gravity inverted for a terrifying, weightless second as the stealth ship’s nose pitched down in an uncontrolled dive toward the abyssal plains of the Pacific. Loose tools, shattered drone components, and the bodies of the Vanguard mercenaries drifted upward before slamming brutally back down against the forward bulkheads.

He just pulled back, and another hand took its place. "We're overrun," Vance said, checking his magazine. "Two rounds left." "Use the flare gun," I said, handing him my launcher. "Against a mob?" "Against the spores," I said. "Fire keeps them back." Suddenly, the ship lurched. It wasn't the kelp pulling us down. It was a vibration. A hum that started deep in the keel and rattled the teeth in my skull. The light outside changed. The moonlight on the water vanished.

Mario asked, excitement flickering across his face. ​"There is a second warehouse," Chloe said, her eyes narrowing. "It’s an old cold-storage facility in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, disguised as a defunct meat-packing plant. It’s registered under a shell company called 'Apex Logistics.' And here’s the kicker: the Sovereign isn't the only ship. There are two high-speed transport vessels—the Valkyrie and the Wraith—that are trailing forty miles behind the main ship. They move without transponders. They dock at a private pier three miles north of the main terminal, exactly one hour after the Sovereign hits the port."

Chapter 90: The Western Bastion From the high parapets of the Iron Bastion, the world looked like a sea of liquid fire. Grand Marshal Vance did not flinch as a concussive shockwave from an exploding Eastern mortar shell rocked the stone foundation beneath his boots. Shards of burning wood and black soot rained down upon his heavy iron pauldrons, but his gray eyes remained locked on the harbor narrows below. The Sultan’s primary flagship—a monstrous, double-hulled dreadnought clad in thick sheets of green-tinted bronze—had pushed past the outer sandbars, its massive ram shearing through the capital's heavy harbor chains as if they were cobwebs.

in her chest from drowning out the conversation. ​The atmosphere was suffocating. Every time Elara moved, the violet lattice of veins on her neck flared, casting a rhythmic, ghostly light onto the faces of the Alphas. ​“The scouts from the Mist-Runner pack have confirmed it,” Vance said, slamming a fist onto the table. “Sixteen dreadnoughts. Gold sails. The Southern Armada isn't coming to offer aid, Elara. They’re carrying enough shadow-glass cannons to level what’s left of the Citadel from five miles out.”

Gresso's childhood ended when he found his father dead on the floor. When Ingrid took them out on walks, sometimes they went out to the pier because Trojan loved seeing the big ships. Gresso didn't really have a plan until he spotted the mast of a large cargo ship that said S.S. Victoria. Gresso didn't know where that ship was headed, but he knew it was leaving and it was leaving Iceland, so he and his brother had to get on it.

A woman was in the middle, and her soaked dark hair hung to her waist. Anne! She was alive. Not yet strong enough to call out, he started to swim toward the boat before it left him behind. As he drew closer he recognized Godric, Ashton, Charles, Lucien, even Jonathan on board. Just beyond them two ships, the HMS Ranger and Ashton's merchant vessel Black Lily, were drifting around the wreckage of the Maiden Fair. The entire League and Anne were on that boat, all staring silently at something he could not see.

​The Respiration didn't land so much as it anchored itself into the sea, its massive, barnacled hull groaning as it settled against the basalt pedestal of the spire. It was a Frankenstein of a ship—sections of sleek Sterling "White-Steel" welded to rusted industrial scavenge and draped in a hardy, vacuum-resistant strain of Whisper-Moss that glowed with a sickly, pale violet light.

Desperate Plans Damien’s dark eyes burned, focused and unyielding, already calculating our next move. “Kyle,” he rasped, breathing sharp, "find us a way inside one of those ships." Kyle’s trembling fingers flew over the damaged console, rerouting power from the lifeboat’s emergency grid. "There’s... one possible breach point," he gasped, "Maintenance Dock 7 on the lead warship. But it’s... suicide." Vanessa snapped, loading her rifle: "Good thing we’re already dead.” Boarding the Enemy Ship The lifeboat surged as Rook’s emergency steering kicked in, forcing us toward the massive steel hull of Natalia’s flagship—the heart of her war fleet.