Read The DeCadia Code (The DeCadia Series Book 1) for Free Online Page B

chains. She was one of the most notorious pirates that roamed the airways of DeCadia.
    Maybe they wouldn’t look too closely at a slave.
    Valeria snorted at the thought. Given the way her day was going, there wasn’t a chance in Hades they wouldn’t recognize her.
    Val couldn’t worry about it now. She had to get control of the merchant ship. She jumped back onto the ladder and pulled her way up as another massive volley of cannon balls left The Apollo , several striking the attacking pirate ship. She grinned. Those boys down there had gotten the hang of it quick. Every hit the pirates sustained gave The Apollo precious time.
    The helmsman was a raggedy, old man with a gray, stained beard and she could smell him from a good ten feet away. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. The struggle he was having with the wheel spoke to the fact he should have long since retired from the service of helms master.
    The wheel was spinning too fast for either of them to even hope to wrestle it to a halt. Val looked around for an object to help foul the wheel, however the upper deck was clear of anything that she could wedge between the wheel spokes. Had the engines been working, this wouldn’t even be an issue. Now they had to manually stop the manic rotation of the wheel. She looked down and saw debris littered on the fore deck and wasted no time in climbing down.
    Another explosion rocked the ship and Val’s eyes shot up when she heard the crack. A cannonball had hit the main mast of The Apollo . It was splintering and there wasn’t a thing any of them could do about it. When it came down, all hope they had of landing this beast went with it.
    “You three!” Val shouted and hauled the three closest crewmembers along with her. “Grab that board and come with me.”
    She scrambled back up the ladder and took the piece of wood so the other three could climb up and then ran to the helm. The helmsman didn’t say a word when he saw her rushing with the wood. He understood what she was trying to do and moved aside so she could push the wood through the wheel spokes. Together, with the helmsman and the three crewmembers, Val began the laborious task of stopping the wheel. It took all their strength, but after a moment, the wheel slowly ceased to fight them and began to stop its agonized turning.
    Once Val had complete control, she shouted, “Get yerselves strapped down. The mast is going down and when we lose the rest of our sails, it’s going to get ugly.”
    The crew wasted no time in doing as they were told, but the helmsman frowned. “I don’t know who ye are, girl, but I want my station back.”
    Val turned the helm, bringing the ship to an about face. She manually set all the levers to land and said a prayer to the wind gods she could do this with no sails. “You ever landed a ship that’s about to go down hard?”
    “Well, no…”
    “I have,” she lied. “Now, go get yerself lashed to something so you don’t fall overboard.”
    A loud snap caused them both to swing their attention to the mast. It was swaying. The helmsman gave her one last look and then ran to find something to tie himself to. Val only hoped Tobias was getting the slaves secured and ready. She’d already witnessed several fall overboard with each hit The Apollo took.
    “Come on, girl,” she soothed as she turned the wheel again and set them into a downward motion. “We can do this. You just need to hold out a little more and I’ll get us down. Promise.”
    The ship groaned and Val groaned with her, still they were going down. The remaining sails provided enough wind to stop them from hurtling to a certain death; even so, they wouldn’t last long. When the main mast gave out, it was anyone’s guess whether they would make a safe landing or not. Val blocked out the sounds around her and focused on the sole task of steering the wheel and fighting the momentum of their descent.
    She felt the vibrations of cannon fire beneath her, felt the wind