Kora and Scarlet stood there, hands at their sides, looking around, then at each other. Only moments had gone by. It was a struggle to just stand here, exacerbated by the wind that threatened to throw them overboard. If they were thrown from the ship, there was no safety net—they'd only fall miles down to the desert sands below, to be swallowed by the sands.
Kora knew if she didn't fix the sail that was trying to come loose they'd all be in trouble. She wondered if Alex was all right. Last she'd seen, Alex had flown off the deck on the board. And where was Felix?
Hopefully they'd strapped themselves onto something.
Which gave her a thought: the rope guns. The archaic rope pistols the Resistance had provided for them. They were downstairs in the requisitions closet.
"What do we do?" Scarlet yelled over the humbling noise of the storm that surrounded them.
That was the question.
It was surreal—being surrounded by a dense cloud of sand, shifting all around, millions and millions of particles forming a larger whole. Wind like Kora had never experienced whipping past and around. She was sure that if the wind had any sort of direction or solidarity it would blow them right off the ship. Since it was blowing every which way it was oftentimes cancelling itself out. There was nothing they could do, really.
If they landed the ship on the ground, they'd get buried in the sand.
They couldn't necessarily fly out over the top of the storm, because the magnet engine only worked in the greatest area of the planet's polarity. You couldn't take it out of the most polarized part of the atmosphere. You could—with rocket thrusters. Kora could push the diesel engine to the edge, take them up over the storm. It would only hold for a few minutes, though. And it would put a tremendous amount of stress on the diesel engine. Might break it. Really their only option was to ride this out. They had to ride out a freakin' sandstorm.
Because of the way Scarlet and Kora were turned, they both saw it. A ship, at least twice the size of The Ginger Star, came up on their left, materializing out of the sand. Before Kora had time to even let out a scream of fright, the bow of the oncoming ship plowed into the side of The Ginger Star. She'd noticed, just before contact was made, that the bow of the opposing ship, or at least the bowsprit, looked to be made of metal—perhaps iron. It was intentionally ramming them.
The sound of The Ginger Star crumpling inward, wood panels snapping, reached their ears as the force of the blow threw them off their feet.