“Antony? Like Mark Antony?” Harold asked.
“The singer?” Anne asked.
“So most of those,” Jayla said, pointing at the red-and-gold ships, “must be Cleopatra’s ships. And soon, she’ll be calling—”
“An all-out retreat!” Winston finished. “The rest of Antony’s ships will be pulverized, though Antony will make it back to Alexandria—”
“In time for their infamous joint suicide, ensuring the victory of Octavian and Rome!” Jayla beamed.
“Suicide?” Anne squeaked. “Jayla! What are you talking about?”
The girl gave the older woman a frank look.
“History,” she said.
“Now, Mister Winston,” Harold boomed, gesturing vaguely at the clashing ships. “They can’t see us, right? We’re not in any danger here?”
“Correct,” Winston said. He walked out from behind the captain’s station to stand beside the nervous couple. “The bubble around us masks us from sight, and the preprogram has carefully selected an area of ocean that is historically interference free. Nothing can get to us so long as the bubble is up.”
“Thank heavens,” Anne whimpered.
“Don’t you need to drive?” Harold asked, cautiously looking back at the captain’s chair.
“Everything’s in the program,” Winston reassured him. “We’ll have a nice viewing of the battle for about fifteen minutes, then the engine will kick us back to present day, and you’ll be back with plenty of time to catch your dinner reservations.”
And for Winston to lock up at four, but he didn’t say that aloud.
“Look!”
Like a rising flock of birds, a cloud of arrows rose from the Roman ships, peaking between the two fleets to arch down, fast and deadly, onto the Egyptians. Distant howls of pain carried to the Niña, and Egypt’s boats launched their own volleys of rocks and projectiles.
“Marcus Agrippa is leading the Roman fleet, right?” Jayla asked, barely taking her eyes from the scene.
“Yes, and it will be one of his greatest achievements,” Winston said. “I always thought it was a shame that the rest of his life was just politics and parties.”
“But he is the reason we have Rome today,” Jayla said, finally turning to face him. “He built baths and aqueducts and the first pantheon. And he was the right-hand man of Octavian. He did so much cool stuff!”
“Ahh, but when you consider his—”
“Uh, Mister Winston?”
Harold and Anne were nervously watching the captain’s station, which was beeping loudly. Winston returned to his seat to see the screen blinking an orange warning. “Recommended return: click to confirm,” flickered on and off, with seconds counting down below it.
“But time isn’t up yet,” Winston said to himself. He pushed the warning off the screen, only for another box to pop up, lined in red. “Security breach imminent. Temporal return: confirm?”
“Is there something wrong?” Anne asked.
“Everything’s fine, the program is just—”
The screen went full crimson, practically screaming in black text “CONFIRM RETURN.” His insides twisting, Winston reached out to press Go when a powerful gust of salt air roared by, and a dozen pointy shadows appeared overhead. He didn’t have time to yell as arrows pelted the top of the sphere. The translucent film flickered opaque, then clear, then opaque again, and with a whine like gears wound too tight, the sphere shuddered and collapsed. Ancient arrows, their momentum slowed, clattered to the boat’s benches and deck and, a moment later, the Niña dropped into the sea.
The issue with time-travel boats is that they are boats in name only. Sure, they float in their docking pools, but that’s just to cushion their returns to the current era. They were not designed for waves, or salt spray, or even water deeper than a few inches. And they were certainly not made to be dropped into a violent ocean battle between two ancient superpowers.
Water surged up as the Niña landed, waves splashing over the low railing to soak socks and practical footwear. Both Harold and Anne fell sideways across their bench, shouting and clawing all the way. Jayla managed to remain upright, though she’d wrapped herself around the railing so tightly her toes barely skimmed the deck. Winston bounced in his captain’s chair, which he quickly pushed himself from to begin banging on the console.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” he said to himself, his voice pitching higher with each repetition. The screen had abandoned the previous warnings, and was now flickering “Failure” over and over. He jammed his palm into the green button, rewarded by a despondent whir that died a moment after it started.
“What’s happening?” Anne cried, just as Harold yelled, “Did it break?” and Jayla shrieked from the bow, “Are we all going to die?”
“It’s fine!” Winston said, waving his free hand as the other smacked the console. “It’s fine. Fine. I just need to . . . to . . .”
“Can you reboot the program?” Harold asked, pushing himself to his feet before pulling up Anne.
“Yes! A reboot! I just need to reboot the program!”
Winston reached beneath the console and flicked a switch on its underside. There usually wasn’t any need to restart the boats while on a tour, so all the top-facing console buttons were more for show. Buzzers, lights, an oversized volume control for the speaker system. The only practical items were the Go button on top, and the On/Off button below. The latter of which now caused the entire boat to shudder, sputter, and go still.
“Hey,” Jayla said, only to yell, “Hey!” a second later. Winston looked up to follow the girl’s desperate pointing. Across the waves, at the edge of the sea battle, fingers were being pointed in their direction. Fingers, and swords, and quite a few bows.
“Can they see us now?” Jayla asked.
“Y-yes,” Winston said, his mouth suddenly gone terribly dry. “The security sphere is down. It’s-it’s somehow not working, so they can definitely see us.”
“They’re turning this way,” Anne said.
And indeed, one of the ships was changing course toward them, a full-sailed Roman vessel bristling with soldiers. The crew had pulled out oars to assist their turn, dipping and rising in tandem as they pulled away from the battle’s throng.
Winston pressed the On/Off switch again, and the console screen lit up, flashing the All the Time in the World Temporal Travel Company’s logo, as well as a dancing, animated T. rex. It transitioned to a loading screen, and after a small eternity, flickered finally to a program directory.
“Mister Winston . . .” Harold said.
The ship was much closer. A row of archers lined the portside, arms and strings tensed as their bows bent toward the Niña, wave-tossed and soggy and barely able to compute.
“Get down! I mean, get back! I mean—” Winston gave up on speech and threw himself at the Mackenzies, pulling Harold and Anne to the deck between the benches. Reaching out, he hooked the collar of Jayla’s raincoat and jerked her backward, sliding her across the damp deck to land beneath the first row of seating. The back of Winston’s neck tingled, and he didn’t spare a look over his shoulder. He simply curled between the benches, trying to squeeze his most vital bits under the lip of the seating.
The arrows rained down. The last volley had been diminished by their mistaken trajectory and the security sphere, their momentum spent by the time the field collapsed and they could clatter, toothless, to the Niña’s deck. The second attack had no impediment. Iron tips clattered like hail, pings and plunks against the benches, the captain’s station, the deck. Anne had begun an inconsolable wail, and Jayla was jabbering, panicked, about the arrows and the armies and if they were all about to die.