"She puked on me!" cried Oscar Pleasant, voice muffled and echoing up from somewhere below.
"That'll only improve how you smell," said Andrea Holt. Despite their mood, several pirates chuckled.
Fengel cleared his voice. "Well?" he asked. "What do you think, Miss Stone?"
Lina looked up at the Copper Queen. The makeshift airship hung like a black moon above them. The rope supporting them climbed up to the prow, suddenly all too thin a thing to ascend. The idea was madness. But let's consider my options. I could refuse and end up starving over the ocean with a bunch of scurvy brigands. Again. It’s rather a long drop, and the water sounds very cold, but what more have I got to lose?
Lina eyed the net around her. It tented above them, rising sharply to meet the rope they dangled from. The mesh was tight, tough, and narrow. But if she cut there, and there... "Yeah," she said eventually. "I think I can fit through this, if I'm careful. Give me the knife."
The crew below her grew silent, stifling their groans and curses, waiting to see if she could escape. Someone shoved something hard up past her rump, which Lina might have taken exception to in other circumstances.
"Here," said Fengel, muffled, arm pinned against the net by her thigh. He pressed a heavy knife, sheath and all, to her. Lina felt a glimmer of the butterflies. She took it, drawing the blade free. It was a heavy thing, meant for both utility and fighting, bigger than the duelist's cutters she'd lost.
The ambient twilight faded with every passing moment. Lina took a breath and sat up, moving until she hunkered in the little hollow where the mesh of the net came together.
Lina took the rope in one hand and bent to work. The tough fibers split beneath the sawing of her blade, first only a few and then in bunches. With a jerk that shook their whole net, the rope split. The pirates gasped, likely staring at the ocean below. Lina couldn’t see it, but she could hear it in the dark. Somewhere below the waves crashed and roared as they were pushed onto each other by the wind.
In quick succession she cut through another two pieces of mesh, the net jerking and swaying. "Captain," called Lucian from somewhere below. "Perhaps we should think up another plan?"
"This'll do," said Lina, fingering the hole. It was just barely wide enough for her to squeeze through. She replaced the knife in its sheath. "Captain," she said, looking down below. "What am I supposed to do once I get up there?"
Silence. She felt Fengel beneath her, and dimly spied the shape of his hat crushed against the net. "Improvise," he replied after a moment. "Look for a winch, perhaps."
Lina nodded. She tucked the sheath into her shirt and parted the hole in the net. Taking a breath, she pushed herself through to her waist and twisted to grab at the upper part of the mesh. Slowly, carefully, she pulled herself out to half-stand on her fellows. The whole thing swayed. Lina cursed and closed her eyes, fighting off the vertigo and the sudden awareness that nothing, nothing at all, would keep her from falling.
Below, pirates swore. Sarah Lome loudly retched, Oscar Pleasant complaining immediately. By feel, Lina pulled herself up to where the net hung from the rope. She opened her eyes and stared up that rope, rising into darkness, the hull of the Copper Queen even blacker than the night sky above. Lina couldn't tell how far down they dangled, how far she had to climb. Oh well. Sink or swim.
"Here I go," she said to those below.
Lina started her climb, pushing off from the mesh of the net, grabbing higher with her other hand. Bit by bit she pulled herself up. When the mesh ran out she took the brunt of her weight with her arms, grunting at the strain, while she wrapped her thighs around the rope. Stretching, she grabbed a higher span and pulled up before clamping with her legs again in a jerking inchworm ascension.
The rope spun, a trick of the wind, or the momentum of those below her. The pirates groaned and cursed. Lina put them out of her mind. She climbed, until her arms burned and her legs cramped. Ten feet felt like a hundred. Twenty felt like a thousand. Lina paused for short rests, stopping more and more often. I can't keep this up. Cold fear settled in her stomach. She would fall, maybe bouncing off of the heavy net below before splashing down to her death in the wine-dark sea.
After an eternity, Lina reached up again and felt hard wood brush the back of her hand. Peering up, she saw the prow of the ship and let out a relieved gasp. She climbed a little further, just a little higher, until she could grab onto the gunwales. With an undignified shimmy she scrabbled over its edge and collapsed on the bow deck in exhaustion.
Panting, her limbs aching, Lina lay still and recovered from the climb. When she could breathe normally again she put a hand out to the deck and sat upright, fumbling the awkward, uncomfortable knife sheath out from her shirt. Taking a look around the deck, she decided she probably wouldn't need it.