The wind that blew across the flight deck was freezing, laden with hadal sulfur and fine moisture.
Yan Zhiqiu landed upon the wet teak planking of the upper gallery fifteen arm-lengths below the shattered window. Her bare feet absorbed the shock with a hard, rolling slap, her knees flexing to fade the moving impact through her pelvis and spine. Her left forearm remained locked like an iron band around the canvas-wrapped celadon urn, cradling the fifteen-pound vessel against her ribs, while her right hand held the pre-flood Broken Slate ready for impact.
Behind her, the four-hundred-degree steam roaring from the cut heating vents in Zhu Heling’s study billowed through the broken window frame, churning into the cold cave air in thick white plumes.
The ship was listing ten degrees to port.
The great iron dreadnought groaned as floodwater filled the lower boiler compartments. High above the deck, the four massive brass propellers thrashed unevenly, their spinning rhythm stumbling as the steam pressure fluctuated. Heavy cargo booms swung on their guy-wires, their iron blocks clattering against the masts like distant gallows chains. The deck timbers, three-inch heart-teak caulked with pitch and sulfur-tar, were slick with sea-mist and water drops, slanting toward the deep pit.
