Featured in The Copper Press, 18 October, 2161 A.M.

Shanghai’s Old Concession District smells of jasmine tea, coal-smoke, and rain that can’t decide if it is water or ground glass. In the alleys where neon sigils pulse against damp brick, vendors sell dragonfruit beside Shard-proof umbrellas, and airships drop anchor cables through fog like monsters fishing for rooftops.

Captain Barnabus “Barnaby” Harrier had lived here nearly a year—long enough to memorize the tram-whistle schedule, not long enough for his ghosts to quiet. He rented the top floor of the Three Cranes Boarding House, overlooking Waning Lantern Pier. On clear nights he could see the mast-forest of sky junks crowding the Huangpu Air Channel; on stormy nights the view dissolved into a mirror that showed only the past.

Most legends paint Barnaby as perpetual rogue, but Shanghai witnessed his softer chapter. After unearthing proof that House Galaviz orchestrated the artillery order that killed Miranda, he found himself directionless—vengeance mapped, resources lacking. While brokering smuggling runs to fund the hunt, he crossed paths with Nakajima Hanae, a half-Ryukyuan aerostat mechanic with laughter that could weld iron. What began as partnership beneath humming engine coils turned to quiet affection in teahouses. When Barnaby whispered his grief, Hanae answered not with platitudes but a socket wrench and a promise: “Machines break hearts; hearts mend machines.”

Their daughter, Miyake, arrived during a typhoon that toppled signal towers. Barnaby cut the umbilical cord with the same sailor’s knife that once pried open Cordoban paychests. He thought the gesture poetic—severing old lines to greet new life—but every dawn thereafter he woke from dreams of Miranda’s dying gasp, wondering if poetry mocked or absolved.

Peace frays where vengeance waits. On a mist-thick morning, a courier bearing the insignia of The Lemurian Sovereign Credit Bank delivered a blue wax-sealed envelope. Inside: a promissory note worth fifty thousand crowns, payable to bearer upon presentation of a *Galaviz internal affidavit*—an item rumored lost aboard a tramp freighter named Barrow Tide.

Scrawled below the formal print: “Captain Harrier—Barrow Tide docks here tonight, berth 42B. Affidavit sits in the captain’s safe. Take it and meet me in Havana. Proof and payday.” —V.

The signature belonged to Victor Sorn—a Lemurian spy Barnaby met during the Shardstorm Coast raid. The affidavit, if genuine, could tie Galaviz executives directly to the black-ops misfire that killed Miranda.

But the Barrow Tide would linger only twelve hours before flying south. And Miyake had a fever so fierce her tiny fists left sweat halos on linens.

Hanae found Barnaby on the boarding-house balcony, envelope clutched like a live coal.

“Another storm behind your eyes.”

“Opportunity,” he corrected, but his voice cracked.

She understood immediately. “You’ll chase it.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You do,” she replied, setting a cool hand on his cheek. “Because love for the dead still borrows from the living. Just promise you bring yourself home to me. Miyake will need stories.”

Guilt weighs heavier than any sky-ship ballast. Barnaby had promised sobriety and stability after the Sloop Dog disaster. He’d meant it. But vengeance isn’t a switch you flick; it’s a needle in the vein. Now the syringe glittered blue.

Night fell like spilled ink. Barrow Tide squatted on a mid-river mooring, envelope balloons half-deflated for refit. Barnaby hired two local riggers and a mute picklock named Yue. Their skiff bobbed beneath the freighter’s belly; grapnels found latticework; silent ascent began.

Cargo hatches yawned. The trio slipped through holds stacked with contraband: lemurian silk, Atlantean glow-wine, crates stamped with Galaviz Aeroworks—Property Sealed. In the bridge cabin, a brass safe glimmered behind a map rack. Yue’s picks sang; tumblers surrendered.

Inside lay a vellum cylinder embossed with Galaviz’s twin gears. Barnaby unrolled it—schematics, troop movements, signatures. Iron-clad proof.

And an unexpected addendum: a requisition for *post-incident hush payments* to “independent operators, codename Lantern-Flock.” Coordinates traced to Petrolina’s undercity—the same cell Barnaby’s former allies once destabilized.

Sirens shattered contemplation. Dock patrols swarmed decks; someone had tripped a pressure switch. Shots ricocheted. Yue took a round to the collarbone, dangling limp as Barnaby dragged him to the skiff. A lucky flare lit the freighter’s hydrogen bags; blue fire crawled skyward.

The Barrow Tide blossomed in silent, flower-bright destruction—evidence turning to cinders behind them. Only the affidavit cylinder survived, soaked but legible.

Barnaby returned to Three Cranes at sunrise, soaked, blood-spattered, affidavit hidden in oilcloth. Hanae rocked fever-drowsy Miyake near the charcoal brazier. The child’s cheeks glowed unhealthy crimson.

Hanae met his eyes. “Can it wait?”

He held up the cylinder. “This can end it.”

“And begin something worse,” she whispered. “If your path circles back to the friends who buried your first crew… will you forgive?”

Barnaby’s silence answered.

Hanae placed Miyake in his arms. The infant’s fingers curled around his broken-knuckle thumb. A shard of dawn filtered through paper walls, illuminating them like lanterns.

“I will come back,” he vowed.

Hanae nodded, tears caught in lashes. “Bring stories.”

He left as Shanghai’s morning drums echoed over the Huangpu. Each beat felt like the ticking of Miranda’s locket against his heart—one lover’s image guiding him away from another.

The Sable Kite lifted on noon thermals, shadow gliding across sampans and silk barges. Barnaby charted a vector for Lemuria, then Petrolina. Below deck, the affidavit dried beside a half-empty bottle of sobriety he would not uncork.

On the pier, Hanae raised Miyake’s swaddled form toward the skyship’s shrinking silhouette. Barnaby, at the helm, touched the locket: Miranda inside, Hanae behind, Miyake between—his heart a compass with three true norths.

Thunderheads loomed ahead, bruised and green. He breathed their violence like medicine. Somewhere inside waited closure—perhaps a bullet, perhaps forgiveness, perhaps both.

The logbook closes here. If you hear this tale, know that Captain Harrier’s greatest adventure began not with cannon fire but with a whispered goodbye on a Shanghai morning when the rain tasted of salt and ash.