Nita and Drew worked away in the bowels of the East Seaward Hub. The current task, and one that would last the better part of the next month, was the disassembly of one of the distribution hubs that had been giving them trouble, in order to replace it with a fresh one. Though it was certainly a bit of skilled labor, it was easily one of the simpler jobs any member of the steamworks could be assigned to. The task was primarily the tightening and loosening of bolts in the proper order, and descended into a rhythmic tedium that left the mind free to wander. Typically, conversation, or even a bit of a sing-along, was crucial to maintaining sanity. But since the departure of the rest of the Wind Breaker crew, Nita had been quiet. Drew had thus taken up the slack.
“We’ll start on the coupler here, shall we?” he said.
Nita nodded and diverted the steam away from the next pipe. It would be a minute or two before the scalding-hot metal had cooled enough to work comfortably on it, so Drew picked up his thought where he’d left it.
“Deloris agrees. Together, we really believe the camera is the next great leap forward in artistic expression. And do you know what the missing piece is? The thing that has kept that remarkable tool from ascending to the proper position within our world? … Nita?”
She blinked, her eyes unfocused as she stared at the gleam of a gas lantern on the shiny pipe waiting to be installed.
“Mmm?” she said, suddenly realizing she’d been addressed. “I’m sorry. I was miles away. What is it you were saying?”
“The thing that has been missing from photographs? Color. Deloris has had a brilliant idea. I shall take photographs, my focus of course on framing and the selection of my subject. And when they are developed, she shall use colored washes to render them true to the vivid colors of life.”
“That’s very clever, Drew. I would like to see what you come up with.”
Drew looked her over. “I’ll tell you what. While we wait for this to cool, what do you say we get some fresh air?”
“That’s probably wise.”
The two of them walked carefully along the slick steam- and soot-soaked planks of the steamworks floor. Like all walkways and pipeways, this section of the mountain was carved out of volcanic rock. The rough, treacherous texture of the walls had trained them both to be sure of foot, lest they receive a nasty scrape. Nita led the way, lantern held high.
“You seem more distracted than usual, Nita. Ever since the Wind Breaker left,” he said.
“It’s just—it is the way of things. All this time I’ve been busy working out how to ensure they will be welcome here and preparing the things they would need. Now that’s all settled. I suppose without that to focus me, my mind is a bit scattered.”
“Forgive me, but from the outside looking in, I would say your problem is too much on your mind, not too little.”
“… Yes, I suppose that’s true.”
“So which of the classic sorrows plagues you?” he said. “Is it loss? Regret? Helplessness? Hopelessness? Doubt?”
Nita smirked. “A bit of them all, perhaps.”
“A fine thing then! That will make for some glorious poetry once it’s had time to ripen.”
“I’d just as soon be rid of it.”
“Then by all means, let it out,” he said. “The best grapes make for a terrible wine if the barrel isn’t well made.”
“… I’m not sure I appreciate the metaphor, Drew.”
“I work best in a visual medium. Literature is a weakness of mine. Listening, however, is a strength.”
She tried to gather her thoughts. “You’ve had more romantic dalliances than most the people I know.”
“I have dabbled in those most sun-dappled meadows as often as the opportunity has arisen.”
“Drew, as you’ve already admitted to lacking skill with words, perhaps it would be best if you kept to plain language for now?”
“I thought I’d painted a rather lovely picture with that one, but as you wish.”
“Have you ever… not been certain how you feel about someone?”
“No. Nor has anyone else.”
“That is a matter of—”
“That isn’t a matter of discussion, Nita. If you aren’t sure of something, it isn’t a feeling, it is an opinion. Feelings are not a matter of interpretation. They simply are. You may not be aware of them, you may not understand them, but your feelings on something—particularly on someone—are like the sun at dawn. They rise of their own, and even if hidden behind clouds, there is no doubting they are there.”
“You are getting flowery again, Drew.”
“Sometimes the situation calls for it. I presume the object of your confused affections is aboard the Wind Breaker as we speak? … It isn’t the tall fellow, is it? He is well meaning, but unless I’ve misjudged him, you would strike the end of his conversational repertoire at some point in the first evening of your courtship.”
“We are not discussing that aspect of the dilemma.”
“Then I have got excellent news. If there is a dilemma at all, and there plainly is, then your question is answered. You do have feelings for this mysterious person. The feelings of concern and doubt are painted all over your face, and have been since the moment the ship departed.”
They stepped into the sunlight and made their way down the stone steps to a small station with fresh water, both to drink and wash.
Drew took a towel to clean the soot and sweat from his hands and face. Nita did the same.
“I’m not so sure.”
He poured a tall tumbler of water, and one for her. “Let us frame it in this way. This mysterious other, are you afraid this person will hurt you. Emotionally or otherwise?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then you must be afraid that you will, or have, hurt this person.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“Then the answer is to throw caution to the wind. Throw your arms wide, open your heart, and take the chance. The worst that can happen is regret, and unless I’ve misread your expression, you’ve already got a dash of that. And even if things don’t go your way, there remains the possibility of some time in the aforementioned sun-dappled meadow before that happens.” He took a long sip of water and gazed at the sky. “And I have another reason to give your supposedly inscrutable feelings a try.”
“And what is that?”
He pointed.
Nita turned to find, just visible on the horizon, a spot of red approaching. Even at that distance, it was unmistakable as the envelope of the Wind Breaker.
“What are they doing coming back already? It’s only been ten days. They shouldn’t be back for weeks yet.”
“You know what they say about when you love something and let it go?” he said.
She squinted at the spot, focusing as best she could. There was something wrong. A swirl of lighter color around it. The faintest whisper of green around its envelope.
“They’re damaged… and they aren’t alone!” Nita said.
Drew shielded his eyes from the sun. Just beyond the Wind Breaker, a larger ship was visible.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but the agreement for safe harbor only covers the Wind Breaker. They shouldn’t be bringing anyone, right? … Nita?”
The comment was lost to her, barely heard as she streaked away. She was already a dozen steps down the mountain, bounding strides carrying her as fast as she could manage. Her mind painted terrifying pictures of what might have happened already. Attacked on the way back to Rim. Trailed all the way back in a running battle. But she forced herself to shove those concerns aside as well. What was important now wasn’t what had happened, but what would happen next. By now the keepers of the cannons would surely have seen them, and thus should have seen their pursuers as well. The word had been spread, and images of the ship passed to every cannoneer many weeks ago. They wouldn’t shoot at the Wind Breaker, and they would shoot at the pursuer, but some sort of a rescue party would need to be assembled in the event the ship wasn’t able to land. She’d fought so hard to give her crew a sanctuary in a hostile world. It would not end in bloodshed so near to her own home.
She reached the edge of the steamworks in minutes, her heart pounding in her chest and her lungs burning. The rest of the workers hadn’t noticed the ships yet, work continuing as though nothing was happening. She rushed past them and grabbed an armful of coil boxes on her way to the fastest carriage in the courtyard.
“Nita, it isn’t the end of the shift yet. We can’t spare you—” called Foreman Stover.
She turned to him. The man had an inspection glass around his neck, a field glass for quickly tracking down leaks in external pipelines. Without a word, she stepped up to him and snatched it from his neck.
“Now, Ms. Graus, those manners—” he said.
She looked to the ships with the glass. “Wailers. No. No,” she said.
Stover called after her, but she jumped into the carriage, his inspection glass still in hand, and sped out of the courtyard toward the shore. There weren’t any airships in all of Caldera. There was no way for her to reach them if they needed help. Unless…
She couldn’t spare a second thought. It was a long shot, but if there was even the chance she could be of aid, she would move heaven and earth to reach them. She nearly toppled the carriage as she rounded a turn and headed for the nearest of the shore’s cannons beside the salt fields. At this speed, assuming she didn’t break her neck, she would reach it in a few minutes. She prayed that would be soon enough.
#
Chaos reigned as Gunner fought to keep the ship under control. The wailer ship had been at the very brink of self-destruction when they’d taken control—evidently wailers did not take good care of their equipment—and in the days since then they’d been pushing it beyond its limits. It was well suited to half the task at hand, as there were as many telescopes as guns on the main deck. The same tools used to spot potential prey for raids worked perfectly for spotting the ship they were pursuing. In a testament to navigation, clear skies, and vigilance—not to mention Wink’s tireless sabotage—Gunner’s crew had spotted the false Wind Breaker two days ago. Since then they’d been running at full speed nonstop. Now the rattling of the engines threatened to shake them to pieces at any moment. The pipes of the steam system shuddered and popped, spouting leaks and fractures as quickly as the grunts could clamp on patches. Worse, of the entire “crew,” only Gunner had any formal training in an airship. Nothing on the ship was done properly unless it was done by Gunner directly or remotely via shouted orders. Kent and Donald knew how to keep the ship on course if pressed, and Dr. Prist was quick to absorb instruction. Nevertheless even keeping pace with the Wind Breaker, now that Wink’s sabotage had been discovered and corrected, took more skill than an amateur could manage. They’d fired much of their ammunition in the first few hours, barely punching a dozen holes into the envelope of the false Wind Breaker and damaging a few patches of hull before losing enough ground to put the ship out of range of their weapons.
For the last two days, Gunner hadn’t had a moment of sleep. His meals were hastily choked down while rushing from the ship’s wheel to the cannons or to the boiler and back. That he was even on his feet was a tribute to his sheer force of will. But will couldn’t wring any extra speed out of his turbines. And time was running out. The island of Tellahn was dead ahead. Rising up from its southern edge was the volcano that could well spell its doom. And just visible at the near shore were the first of its cannons. The most direct path to the volcano would take them over a thin patch of the eastern shore
“Dr. Prist,” Gunner bellowed in a gravelly voice. “We are getting to the ragged end of our options. I need you and the others to listen closely.”
“What do you need?”
“There are four wailer ships. I want you to ready two of them for flight.”
She squinted in the distance. “I’ll admit to not knowing them as well as you do, but it seems neither the ship or the land are near enough for a round trip on one of those vehicles.”
“The possibility of a round trip of any kind is well behind us. Just take notes and listen carefully. When the vehicles are ready, I want Kent and Donald to overstoke the boiler.”
“But that—”
“I want them to overstoke the boiler,” he repeated. “I want you to load seven charges into each of the two forward cannons. It should just barely fit, if you force it, which is why I’m having you do it instead of Kent or Donald. You’ve got the proper respect for explosives.”
“You’ll damage the cannons.”
“I’ll also get another few hundred yards out of them. Once the charges are in place and the boiler is stoked, I want you and Kent on one of those wailers and Donald on the other. Don’t bother with the false Wind Breaker. Don’t even get near it. Just head directly for shore.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be riding a bomb with a burning fuse. One does not plan any steps further than that.”
“I won’t let you do this.”
“Samantha, regardless of how you feel about me or my decisions, at the moment I am the captain of this ship and you are a member of my crew. You have your orders. Follow them.”
Her fists tightened, but there was no arguing with him. At least, not to his face. She hurried down to the lower hatches, where Kent and Donald were wrestling with the latest failure in the steam system.
“We are abandoning ship,” she said.
“About bloody time!” Donald said.
“Guy wants you to ready three of the wailers, then pack the boiler full. I’ll be loading the cannons one last time, then we’ll be getting off the ship.”
“All of us?” Kent said.
“Guy is dead set on going down with it, but I intend to give him at least the option to do otherwise. We’ve got to move quickly.”
The three set off in different directions, Dr. Prist heading directly for the munitions room. She grabbed as much powder as she could carry, rushed to the breech of each cannon, and loaded the charges in. They were made to hold six of the carefully packed satchels of powder, but as he’d suggested, a bit of force allowed her to just barely ease the final charge inside.
As she locked the second cannon, she felt the ship’s already deathly shudder begin to intensify, and with the grinding of overworked machinery came an extra turn of speed. She hurried through the lurching, steamy hallways, her hair frazzled and her normally exquisite clothing terribly mussed, and wrenched open the special case she’d brought along.
“I’d intended to put these in Guy’s hands, but under the circumstances, I’ll have to make do with my own skills,” she muttered to herself, pulling out cloth-wrapped glass vials filled with dark blue liquid.
She filled two burlap sacks with as many as she could carry and dashed back to the top deck. Donald and Kent were already moving unsteadily out over the precarious planking that led to the wailer crafts.
“Donald!” she called, rushing to him. “Here. I want you to fly high over the false ship ahead on your way to shore and drop this bag on it. Kent and I will do the same.”
“That is not what I ordered, Samantha,” Gunner barked from the ship’s wheel.
“Consider it a mutiny!” she replied. “And there is a third wailer pressurized and ready for you. So don’t ride this blasted ship into the sea if you don’t have to.”
The ship shook with another pipe rupture, nearly pitching Dr. Prist over the side. Kent grabbed her and maneuvered her into the gun seat of the wailer. She had a few more parting words for Gunner, but Kent was a shade more pragmatic than sentimental. He unfastened the vessel from the mother ship and pushed its tiny turbine for all it was worth.
Dr. Prist had to shut her eyes and hold on for dear life as the ship screamed to top speed in moments. The wind stung at her face, and her hair tore free of its tight bun to trail behind her. After a few moments she pulled her darkened goggles into place and surveyed her surroundings. The height spun her head and turned her stomach, but she forced herself to focus instead on the ships both ahead and behind. Kent had guided their ship quite steeply upward. Donald was barely a dozen feet ahead and gaining thanks to the lighter load on his vehicle.
The ships they rode would run down after only a few minutes, and they would get steadily slower after the first minute or so. That would put them in terrible danger of being unable to dodge the deck guns of the false Wind Breaker if they were too near to it when the bulk of their speed was spent. She didn’t care, and clearly neither did the grunts. Both screaming ships drifted up and assumed a flight path that would take them directly over the enemy ship.
Behind them, an apocalyptic crack signaled the first of the mother ship’s cannons firing. A heartbeat later a dozen new holes opened in the hull and envelope of the false Wind Breaker. She looked back to Gunner’s ship. Where once had been the starboard cannon now was a smoldering hole. The entire cannon had exploded from the overpacked charge. Whole panels and planks peeled away from the ship and plummeted into the water. Gunner fought the ship under control and began to aim the second cannon even as flames crawled, fanned by the rushing wind, over the belly of his ship.
She looked forward again. Donald passed over the false Wind Breaker and dropped his sack. It struck the front of the envelope and flashed into what at first appeared to be a cloud of twinkling blue dust. As the dust collected, it formed clusters of short spikes. The crystals spread along the surface of the envelope until they encased one of the five turbines. It made a horrid grinding sound, then stopped cold.
“What the hell was that?” Kent shouted.
“A happy accident,” Dr. Prist called back.
“That was a happy accident?”
“The advancement of society is fueled by the mistakes of chemists. Now get close! I don’t want to miss!”
Kent angled the wailer down, bringing it as near to the churning blades of the ship as he dared. Prist swung her sack and let it loose. Despite the proximity, she didn’t score a direct hit on the remaining turbines. Luckily, she didn’t need to. The crystals grew forward, even against the blast of the turbines, and soon consumed three more. Two of them ground to a stop. The other shattered through the shell of crystals, but the pair of attacks had left the ship with just two healthy turbines out of five. Kent pulled up, and a moment later Gunner unleashed the contents of the remaining cannon. A cloud of shot chewed up the aft end of the gondola, shearing some of the rigging and leaving the gondola askew as well as pulverizing the rear cannon. A secondary explosion shook the rear of the ship, suggesting the rear cannon had been loaded when it was struck.
“That’s all we can do,” she called back to Kent. “Head for shore!”
#
Gunner fought with the airship’s wheel. Flames were beginning to lick up onto the deck now. The screech and crackle of bits of the gondola tearing away were constant, sometimes drowning out the worrisome rumble of the steam pipes. As the gondola lost weight, the ship gained both speed and altitude. Combined with the effects of the bizarre but fascinating bombs the others had dropped—against his orders—his ship might just have been able to catch up with the false Wind Breaker. Alas, losing substantial portions of the infrastructure had made it almost impossible to control.
He glanced aside to the wailer ship the others—also against his orders—had readied for him.
“A captain goes down with his ship. That is the tradition,” Gunner affirmed.
He raised his sight and peered down at the badly damaged copy of the Wind Breaker. It had slowed to a crawl, and phlogiston billowed out of the holes in the envelope. Not nearly enough, though. If the crew of that ship prepared even half as well as his own, they would have enough spare phlogiston to reach their target. He swept his sight to the shore now. They were near enough for him to see the individual defense cannons in enough detail to know they were slowly shifting. Two of the nearest ones were taking aim at his airship. Between the flames working their way toward his remaining fuel and blasting powder, the overworked boiler threatening to rupture, and the engines set to burst to pieces, the cannons were in a four-way race to see what would destroy his vessel first.
Gunner turned the wheel toward the false Wind Breaker. If he could align himself nearer to it, perhaps the cannons would strike it in their attempts to blast him out of the sky. Any hope of that was instantly dashed as the wheel spun free, some element of the linkage between it and the controls for the propellers finally breaking loose. He was officially at the mercy of the wind and what little life the engines had left in them. He raised the sight again and swept it across the gondola of the Wind Breaker. A second section of rigging had torn away. The deck sagged, members of the crew fighting against the slope to reach their stations. And there, clinging to the side of the gondola, was the tiny form of an inspector.
He gritted his teeth. “He sneaks aboard an enemy ship. He fakes his own death. And even after days of pursuit and dozens of cannon blasts, Wink is still alive?”
His lip twitched. “To hell with tradition. If our ship’s inspector can survive this mission, then I’m seeing it through to the end.” He limped for the wailer. “You can’t very well be the captain of a ship with no controls anyway.”
A distant clap came from the shore. His hands gripped the wailer’s rigging just as a shell tore through the far side of the main ship like tissue paper. Ropes and struts snapped. The skin of the envelope tore open and released its load of phlogiston in one vast plume. Gunner hauled himself onto the wailer’s pilot seat as the airship dropped from the sky. Thick ropes held the wailer in place, dragging it down. He tugged at the line, but the knot was under too high a load. It would have to be cut. He drew his pistol from his belt, but the violent wind rattled and shook the wailer so violently he couldn’t bring the weapon to bear on the rope without risking putting another bullet in his own leg, or worse, in the wailer’s pressure tank.
One of the airship’s whirring propellers finally sagged against the deck. Its blades shattered, shards of metal shredding the deck and scything through the air. Tattered and splintered wood gave way, and the stricken ship dropped away from the wailer. The mooring planks and an irregular chunk of the deck dangled beneath it, weighing it down, but he finally managed to fire off a shot to sever the knotted rope.
Now free of the additional weight, his escape ship hung gently in the air, drifting to a stop. The whirring and churning of the doomed airship’s engines, and even the whistling of the wind, faded to silence. It was the first time in two days he’d not been assaulted by the mechanical din of a failing ship. For any other person at any other time, clinging to a flimsy two-person airship hundreds of feet over the sea would have been an incomprehensibly dire situation. For Gunner, it was a precious moment of respite. The peace came to an end when the main ship struck the water. The miraculously intact boiler, once immersed in the cold sea, ceased to be a miracle. A chest-thumping blast sent shards of wood and iron hissing in all directions.
The strokes of luck necessary for Gunner’s heart to still be beating after all he’d been through were difficult to count. Fate, it would seem, felt there had been one too many, and the scales were due to be balanced. A fragment of what had once been the main ship’s boiler whistled past him on its journey toward the clouds. It didn’t strike the wailer’s envelope, nor did it strike his body. That would have been far too swift and simple. Instead, it sliced neatly through one of the pipes that supplied steam to the little turbine that powered the wailer. Venting steam sent it into a spin. It took every ounce of his strength to keep from being thrown free. After a stomach-turning minute of helpless rotation, the steam tank ran dry and he twirled to rest again, adrift in the sky as the ship he’d been pursuing limped toward its target.
He reached up to vent enough of the gas from the little envelope to avoid drifting endlessly upward.
“Well… That’s that then…” he said.
#
Alabaster barked into the megaphone he’d kept since the shipyard. His intended use for it was the delivery of stirring speeches in the face of those who would oppose him. After one of the hits to the ship caused steam to start spraying from the speaking tubes, he’d been forced to put it to the more mundane use of addressing the crew.
“Why are we moving so slowly?” he cried. “Victory is at hand! The ship is destroyed, and the purpose of this ship is fulfilled. The cannons are defending us, not attacking us. And yet we crawl toward history instead of bounding!”
The lengthy pursuit had taken its toll on the crew of the false Wind Breaker as well. One of the crewmembers had been killed, the captain was injured, and the remaining two crewmembers were exhausted. Yet despite this Alabaster seemed tireless, fueled entirely by his righteous fury and the promise of infamy.
“It is a wonder we’re still moving at all!” the captain called. “Pipes and linkages are broken all over the ship. It’s all I can do to keep on course.”
“We slowed when those fleeing cowards streaked over us. Has it occurred to you they may have done some damage to our turbines?”
“I don’t know, Alabaster. I was distracted by the two cannon hits we took right after that. The ones that killed my engineer.”
“Am I to believe there was but one member of this entire crew with the skill to keep the ship in operation? How could anyone be so foolish as to fail to include even the most basic of contingencies?”
“There are only so many people willing to go on a suicide mission, Alabaster. So unless you think you can fix the ship, I would suggest you get some ropes and see about lashing the gondola to what rigging is left before the whole bloody thing drops off.”
“I care not if the gondola drops off, so long as it drops over the mouth of the volcano. How long until we reach it?”
“At our present speed, perhaps an hour.”
“And at our full speed?”
“Minutes.”
“Our focus is thus established. We must restore our proper speed. The simple fact that the crew of the formerly pursuing vessel is now heading toward the shore introduces the very real possibility that it will inform the cannoneers that we are not who we seem. Until we get past the cannons, the risk of failure looms.”
“Then climb up and see what’s gone wrong!”
“I shall do just that! I shall haul this sorry crew to victory if I have to do it on my very back!”
He dashed to the nearest rigging. Scaling it was no simple task, his injured arm slowing him greatly, but he forced aside the pain just as simply as he did the fatigue. Now that they were no longer under attack, there was no need to worry that an unexpected dodge would shake him free, so he sacrificed security for speed, putting his afflicted arm to work until he rounded the upper curve of the envelope and saw the sapphire carnage Dr. Prist’s handiwork had left behind.
“What madness is this?” he said, approaching the edge of a treacherous patch of jagged blue crystals.
He waded onto the patch of crystal and hammered at it with his heel. It took three solid blows before a goodly hunk of it cracked and sloughed off like ice from a pitched roof. He looked over the pieces of glassy blue material jamming the workings of three of the turbines.
“This will take ages to undo if I am forced to resort to simple hammering like a thickheaded brute,” he reasoned.
He held tight to the ropes of the rigging where they stretched across the dome of the envelope and investigated the stuff. It was already laced with fractures. If not for those tiny breaks, he might have still been bashing at the piece he’d knocked free.
“They are damaged… but what has been done to damage them? It could have been any of the impacts. Or perhaps the crystals simply form in this manner. Bah, they wouldn’t have been able to stop the turbines if such was the case. What then…”
As he turned the puzzle over in his mind, out of habit he found himself scanning the sky. A few days of constantly seeking to escape a pursuer had a way of swiftly instilling new behaviors. This one, it would seem, was a worthwhile addition. In his hasty sweep of the horizon, a tiny speck of darkness caught his eye. It was far off, and high above, but far too large and swift to be anything but an airship. As he focused, eyes watering in the unwelcome brightness of day, he detected just a whisper of red in the vague blotch against the clouds. It was all he needed to see. In a way, it was what he’d been waiting for.
“And so they have come. I am truly fate’s most favored son. My greatest foes shall be on hand to see all that they’ve worked for vanish in a puff of fug.” He turned to the locked turbines and gave the mound of crystal a kick. “Provided I can get this worthless ship running!”
#
“I wouldn’t’ve believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, Cap’n,” Lil called from her perch at the forward railing of the true Wind Breaker.
She lowered her telescope and turned to Captain Mack. “She’s taken a couple of hits, but I’d swear that ship ahead looks more like us than we do.”
“Coop,” the captain said. “What have you got?”
The other deckhand was in a far more precarious position. One arm was wrapped in rope as he stood on the outside of the ship’s railing and hung almost parallel to the water below. He too held a telescope.
“Looks like loads of flotsam in the water. Some of it’s still smokin’. An airship must’ve just gone down.”
“Cap’n, that’s Gunner’s ship. It’s gotta be. They took Gunner down!” Lil fretted.
“Any sense of what sort of ship it was, Coop?” Captain Mack said.
The deckhand leaned even lower, as if the additional few inches would make the difference. “Ain’t enough left to… now wait a minute… Looks like there’s a string of them wailer flags.”
“Then it was a wailer ship. And that means there was a way off,” the captain said. “I want both of you to get to searching the skies.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” they said in unison.
Mack leaned down to the speaking tube beside the ship’s wheel. “Glinda, are the cannons loaded?”
His medic’s muffled voice barked back in a flurry of complaints.
“You knew the rules of my ship, Glinda. Everyone can do everyone’s job. … If needs be, I would cook up a meal, but we ain’t had the need. And now ain’t the time to dig that up again. Just give me a yell when the cannons are loaded.” He shook his head and muttered under his breath. “That woman’ll be the death of me yet.”
Lil and Coop had taken up positions on opposite sides of the deck, their telescopes moving in slow sweeps.
“Anything yet?” the captain called.
“There’s an awful lot of sky to cover, Cap’n,” Coop said.
Captain Mack set his eyes on the ship ahead and started to sift through his options. If they’d faithfully copied the Wind Breaker, it would have a rear cannon, so he would have to be mindful of it. They were gaining ground, but not quickly enough to be within cannon range before they were over Tellahn. If he were the man commanding the cannoneers and two ships showed up matching the same description and one started firing, his orders would be to take down the one on the offensive before a stray shot hit a busy street or defenseless home. There was the very real chance this would come down to a ship-to-ship small-arms battle. He grinned. That was just fine. They may have copied his ship, but no one could copy his crew. If it came down to man versus man, his people would come out on top. All he had to do was get them there.
He teased the controls for the engines, pushing them a bit further than they really ought to go. The turbines were squealing, but they’d hold for a few minutes more before he had to back them down again. Like a musician tuning his instrument, he trained his ear on the chorus of whining mechanisms and eased them to the very limit of safety. They reached the pitch he was seeking, then were joined by a barely audible tapping he’d learned to pay close attention to.
Nikita, their second and more recently recruited inspector, appeared working her way down along the rigging. She’d been riding atop the envelope, remaining as vigilant with her ears as the rest of the crew had been with their eyes. From the look on her face, her careful surveillance had been successful. She skittered to a stop at his feet and anxiously drummed out a message.
Nikita heard a gun. A gun like Gunner’s gun, not like a ship gun, she tapped.
“Do you know where it came from?”
Yes.
“Tell Coop. Fast.”
Nikita was visibly grateful at the order, dashing to her favorite member of the crew and climbing into his jacket. After she finished rattling out her message to him, she extended her little arm and Coop followed the gesture with his telescope.
“I should’ve known. Three fingers below the horizon, Cap’n. Off to starboard.”
Mack turned some valves and adjusted the turbines again. The ship pitched forward, and there, barely visible against the churning sea, was Gunner, still clinging to his drifting escape vessel. Mack altered course just enough to bring them within range of his stranded crewmember.
“Get the gaff ready. We don’t have time for a second pass,” the captain called.
Coop fetched a long, sturdy stick with a hook at the end and tied it securely to an eye at the top of the mooring winch. They swept past Gunner’s damaged vessel, and Coop handily hooked it as simply as if he were hanging a hat on a hook. Gunner held tight to avoid being thrown free when his ship was yanked along with the Wind Breaker. When the initial jolt was over, Coop grabbed a rope and held out his hand.
“Welcome back aboard, Gunner,” he said. “Now get off o’ there so’s we can cut it free.”
“No,” Gunner said, his voice hoarse. “We need it. We need its grapplers and winches.”
“We got grapplers and winches from the last time we snagged one of these.”
“We need all the help we can get,” Gunner said. “Trust me.”
“Coop, drag that broken-down wreck aboard.”
“I’m tryin’, Cap’n, but he wants I should pull up the ship along with him,” Coop said.
“Just get them both aboard and cut the envelope free.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” he said.
He heaved Gunner from the seat of the vessel to the deck with little effort. When the armory officer’s legs hit the deck, they crumbled beneath him. Lil rushed to his side and helped him up.
“You been through the wringer,” she said. “Looks like you took a shot in the leg. You want I should get you down to Butch so she can pull the bullet out once she’s done with the cannons.”
“I’d rather take her place. I’ve had that bullet in me for over a week. A few more hours won’t kill me,” Gunner said.
“You sure about that?” Coop said, producing a crowbar to finish salvaging the wailer.
“There are a host of things with a far greater chance of killing me in the next few hours.”
“Where’s Wink? And the rest of the folks who were with you? The note said you had the grunts and the doctor,” Lil said.
“They got a bit farther on their own wailers than I did on mine. If luck is with them, they’re safely ashore.”
#
Dr. Prist and Kent had indeed reached the shore of Tellahn several minutes prior. It was not, however, what she would have called a safe arrival. It was at that point that Kent realized the wailer ship didn’t raise and lower itself by pumping phlogiston in and out of the envelope as most ships did. These little ships sliced through the air and rose and fell based upon the angle of the envelope. Once they were out of forward velocity, they were left to the whims of the ship’s set buoyancy. With two passengers, that meant they were falling, and without much choice as to where they fell. Wind and fate conspired to deposit them in the branches of a large tree at the edge of a shoreside town. And there they had remained because the local law enforcement was rather firmly opposed to any other activity. They had thus been trapped like a treed cat.
“Stay where you are! That ship is a friend of Caldera, and as you have fired upon them, you are enemies of Caldera,” barked a policeman from the base of the tree.
His uniform, gaily colored and ornamented, had more in common with a circus performer than a constable, at least by Rim and fug standards. His tone of voice and weapon—which was a similarly ornate cudgel—were far more stern and in keeping with the position.
“My dear sir,” called Dr. Prist. “Far be it for me to contradict the local constabulary, particularly arriving unannounced as we have, but there is rather more at stake than what may appear, from your point of view, to be a small invasion.”
“That ship’s carrying something that could wipe all of you out!” Kent shouted.
“I repeat, the Wind Breaker is a friend of Caldera. You are the threat,” said the policeman.
“We aren’t the ones attacking you! We haven’t done a thing against you, nor do we intend to,” Prist assured him.
The pointless exchange between a policeman without the authority to change his position and a pair of uninvited guests in a far more literally unchangeable position might have continued for another hour if not for the significant contribution made by Donald.
He’d made a similar discovery regarding the control of the altitude for his vessel. Without a second passenger, his problem had been opposite that of Kent and Dr. Prist, and without Gunner’s insight into the position and operation of the vent nozzle, he’d taken a more direct approach. He’d blasted a hole in his own envelope with his pistol. This had resulted in a far faster descent. Before the eyes of his fellow crewmates and the assembled crowd, he and his ship came crashing down through the roof of a nearby barn. A burst of hay was followed by a string of angry expletives confirming both his survival and his opinion of the landing.
The whole crowd, police officer included, rushed to investigate. Kent took the initiative and lowered Dr. Prist down to the ground before joining her.
“Just what are we supposed to do now?” she hissed, moving unsteadily across the downy grass of the roadside.
“You! Come back!” called the policeman, realizing they were now free of their predicament.
“Forgive me for this, but we haven’t got the time for you to get your land legs back,” Kent said.
He threw Dr. Prist over his shoulder and ran toward the road. One of the spindly spring-driven carriages had been left by a curious onlooker, and Kent jumped into the driver’s seat after plopping Dr. Prist into a passenger seat.
“Do you know how to operate this vehicle?” she asked.
“No, but that’d make it the second strange vehicle I’ve had to learn in a hurry. I’m starting to get used to it.”
He worked his way through all the levers, cranks, and pedals available to him until a startling twang jolted the vehicle into motion.
“What about Donald?”
“Right about now I’m more worried about the first people in that crowd to get to him. He sounded more angry than hurt.”
“Fine, then head toward the nearest cannon,” she said.
“I don’t know what you think we’ll be able to do once we get there, but since toward the cannon is also away from that crowd, I’ll humor you.”
They rattled along the road toward the towering cannon not far away.
#
Lo, the mighty volcano that had birthed Tellahn, took up a substantial portion of its southeast corner. Every inch of the fiery mountain was put to the best use the people of Caldera could manage. Where it met the sea, volcanic rock quarries harvested the remnants of ancient eruptions and used the heat of the mountain to help speed the creation of sea salt. Beside the saltern stood the nearest of the shore cannons. More importantly, as it was nearest to the steamworks, this cannon also hosted a small facility that, at the moment, was the only thing that might get Nita closer to her friends.
She hopped off the carriage and dashed toward the cannon. The base of it was the size of a small house, with gears nearly as tall as Nita and connected to a complex assembly for aiming the massive contraption. The barrel extended from one end, held at forty-five degrees and facing the sea. Every piece of the weapon was built from two clearly differentiated metals. Strategically placed strips of purple-blue trith supplemented oiled black iron in configurations as artful as the engineers could manage, and as utilitarian as the artists would allow.
The cannoneer sat anxiously in the seat of the weapon, surrounded by levers and wheels. His spotter displayed a similar level of uncertainty and unease from his seat behind the operator. The airships were still far to the east, placing them outside the field of view and targeting range of the weapon. Thus, if not for the sound of the cannon firing farther up the coast, they wouldn’t have known the ships were coming at all. Now that they knew, there was little to do but wait for instructions. And as Nita was the first person to arrive since the blast to the north had split the air, they began interrogating her even before the carriage had rolled to a stop.
“What do you know about this?” called the spotter. “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
“I don’t know, but I mean to find out.” She turned and held up her borrowed field glass. “They’re damaged, but I can’t tell how badly. Can you see the ship with your telescopes?”
The spotter worked at a handwheel, causing his chair to rotate independently of the cannon, but it clanged to a stop at the end of its range well before his largest optics could be brought to bear on the ships. Abandoning them, he pulled out a smaller and more traditional telescope.
“Which ship? There are two,” he said.
“Two? But the cannon fired. If there was still an enemy ship, it should have kept firing.”
“There are certainly two ships. One if them is passing over the perimeter battery now. The other should be well within range of the cannons.”
“Tell me how the one with the red envelope looks. Does it look like it will be able to land safely?” She turned and held up her field glass again. “They’re over land. I don’t know why they haven’t started coming down for a landing.”
“Slow down, slow down,” the spotter said. “Which one with a red envelope?”
“The Wind Breaker. You must know the ship. It’s the only one you’ve been instructed not to target.” She climbed up the side of the cannon and snatched a small rendering of the ship from where it had been wedged beside the controls for the main optics. “This one, right here!”
He looked to the rendering, then held up his telescope again, sweeping back and forth between two points in the sky.
“… Which Wind Breaker?”
“Give me that,” she snapped, snatching the telescope from his hand.
She raised it to the sky and sought out the nearest ship. The superior telescope gave her a much better view, but it didn’t help her much. The damaged rear rigging had caused the gondola to tip upward, concealing the deck of the ship and thus the state of the crew. A strange patch of twinkling blue had coated a portion of the envelope and several of the turbines. Someone, the angle and glare from the crystals concealed all but the general form, was hard at work chipping at the jagged patch of blue. The ship, at least in the very short term, did not seem in danger of dropping from the sky. Then she shifted to the other point in the sky much farther away.
“… There are two Wind Breakers.”
“I told the commander this would be a problem. How will we know when they arrive if they are the ship we are to allow through or simply a ship of the same class. We all know how the people of Rim can’t abide making things unique. It’s all copies of copies and other such drudgery.”
“The Wind Breaker is unique. I embellished it myself. There isn’t another ship in all of Rim that could be confused for it. I need a closer look. If it’s Captain Mack and the others, they need my help. If it’s someone else, they’ve got some explaining to do.”
“I’d offer the main telescope, but I can’t angle it correctly.”
“No. I need a closer look than that.”
“How can you—”
Nita pointed to a small structure not far from the shore. “I need a decoy,” she said.
“A decoy… one of the target decoys? What are you going to do with it?”
“You let me worry about that.”
“You don’t have the authority to use that equipment.”
Nita couldn’t afford a long argument. Having asked nicely once, she decided to take matters into her own hands and deal with the consequences later. She hopped down from the cannon and dashed for the carriage to fetch some coil boxes, then rushed for the building near the water with larger than average pipes leading back to the volcano and the steamworks within.
Nita came to the door of the warehouse, a fairly small building for what it supposedly contained. It was locked, but a swift blow from one of her larger wrenches solved that problem. She threw the door open and rushed inside. The cannoneer and spotter, eager to stop her from doing whatever it was she thought she was doing, sprinted after her. She shut the door and braced it with the very wrench that had gained her entry. The men responsible for the cannon beat uselessly at the door, but it held firm. She turned to investigate the contents of the warehouse in the dim light that filtered through the ill-fitting slats of the roof.
As the purpose of the cannons was to shoot down enemy airships, which until recently meant all airships, there was value in being certain that the operators had the skills necessary to strike their targets. Having no airships of their own, the solution was to create decoys that could be set in motion and sent into the skies to serve as training targets. Caldera, again until recently, hadn’t had any way to acquire or produce phlogiston, making airships of any reasonable size or efficiency unfeasible, not that the largely isolationist populace had spent any effort puzzling out how to build one. Like nearly all their most difficult problems, the Calderans had turned to the mighty Lo for a solution. And as always, it had provided the answer.
She found a hose and hooked it up to a steam outlet on the wall, then coupled it to the base of a large wooden crate packed with brightly colored silk. She spun the valve and steam straight from the heart of the steamworks whistled through the hose. The silken contents of the crate bulged upward and began to unfurl, brilliant yellows and reds blooming forth like a flower. Soon the bulging silk reached the ceiling. It continued to fill, billowing out to fill most of the available space within the warehouse. Nita dropped down to avoid the scalding-hot fabric.
The steady flow of steam filled the silk more and more, until finally the pressure against the roof was too much and the weak slats and beams gave way. Wood rained down on all sides, and what was now clearly a balloon leaped upward to continue filling, now unrestrained. As it pulled away, it revealed the rest of the crate’s contents. Inside was another length of hose, this one attached to something within the inflating silk itself. A small propeller lay loose inside, beside a gear train with two sockets. One was on the outside, the other inside.
Nita took the propeller out and tightened a few nuts to affix it to the outer receptacle. The inner one was just the right size for a coil box. She clicked a box in place and dumped the other one into the crate. The crate was treacherously small for what she had in mind, but then she’d had no illusions of this being easy. She stepped into the crate as the massive silk balloon, now visible in all of its glory as a gorgeous assortment of colored fabrics, filled enough to begin to lift it from the ground. With her weight, the slightly lighter-than-air vehicle slammed back to the ground, and the steam continued to pour into it. Gradually the chains affixing the balloon to the crate started to rise again, thus dragging her along with it.
The hose pulled free and flipped madly about, but within seconds she’d left it well below her. The tube from within the envelope began to leak scalding water, so she hastily tossed its end over the side, then faced the problem that in all honesty should have been addressed before she’d begun.
“Steering…” she murmured, looking over workings that clearly lacked any consideration of a pilot or passenger.
She pulled an adjustable wrench from her sash.
“How hard can this be?” she said.
#
“Captain! Are the cannons loaded!” called Alabaster as he worked his way back down the rigging.
The captain, at the end of his wits, visibly shuddered at the sound of the mastermind’s voice.
“The cannons that haven’t exploded are still loaded because we’ve yet to have anything but our backs to an enemy.”
“Fire them. Both. Simultaneously.”
“If we use our weapons, we could be identified as—”
“Did I ask you for your opinion? Fire the cannons!”
“For what possible reason? If we turn to face the Wind Breaker—”
Alabaster, uncharacteristically, chose actions rather than words. He pulled the jeweled revolver from his belt and held it to the captain’s face.
“I am familiar with the basic operation of an airship, so I have just two questions for you, and then you are relieved of duty. Where are the controls for the cannons?”
The captain looked Alabaster steadily in the eye, pointing out the controls without shifting his gaze.
“The one merciful aspect of the entire sorry enterprise is the certainty that you won’t survive it, Alabaster.”
He ignored the comment. “And the control to drop the ichor?”
“There.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
With that, Alabaster calmly squeezed the trigger and the captain fell motionless. Alabaster stepped over the fallen captain’s body and approached the ship’s wheel. It was jerking to and fro, largely at the mercy of the badly damaged workings of the rest of the ship. He gripped it tight and muscled the ship back into a course toward the volcano. The green fields and magnificent little cities of Tellahn stretched out below him. With his injured arm, he reached out and tugged both cannon controls. They thumped, sending their contents arching upward and outward. The recoil snapped a piece of temporary rigging and nearly sent him tumbling down the pitched deck, but he held firm. And as a reward for his aimless cannon blast? The crust of crystal formerly encasing several turbines shattered, falling away in a few large chunks and a fine blue powder. He felt the ship accelerate.
“I almost wish I hadn’t killed you, Captain. With you dead there was no one to witness my brilliant solution.”
Alabaster basked in a few moments of smugness before his lips tightened and his eyes squinted in the brightness of the sun. A huge, brightly colored balloon loomed ahead. It was still a fair distance away, but closing fast.
“I had been told that this island doesn’t have any airships. Obviously even this was a piece of blundering buffoonery. Someone fire upon that balloon, would you?”
No one leaped to serve him. After a quick scan of the deck, he determined that there was no one to obey the order.
“Egad. Am I the only one left?” He tugged the megaphone from his belt. “Are any of you fools still alive, or am I running this ship myself?”
The only reply were the muffled shouts of the two remaining crewmembers below decks as they frantically tried to keep the ship from falling to pieces.
“Of course. The curse of competency. Any task of appreciable challenge is left to me.”
He grasped the top of the ornate cane he’d holstered in his belt like a sword. After a sharp twist, he withdrew a long, thin rapier from within. He jabbed it down through the spokes of the ship’s wheel and drove its tip into the decking to lock the wheel in roughly the correct orientation, then trotted to the nearest deck gun.
“How I hate sullying my fingers with such boorish weaponry,” he grumbled. “At least the artistically obsessed people of this backward culture are foolish enough to present themselves as bright and obvious targets.”
Alabaster clicked a fresh chain of spikes into the deck gun and levered it into position. The balloon was drawing closer. He smiled as he saw Nita angling its propeller housing with one of her many wrenches to steer the “vehicle.” He would have the honor of ending her personally. How delightful!
Unfortunately, the gun mount was, like most of the rest of the ship at this point, rather badly damaged. It stiffly resisted as he tried to take proper aim. This annoyance quickly became secondary to the rabid squeal coming from behind him. He turned on his heel and drew his pistol. Wink had left his hiding place and had a look of utter ferocity in his eye.
Perhaps it was hunger, anger, or desperation, but the inspector moved with an erratic, random lurch that caused Alabaster to miss twice before Wink reached his feet, climbed his leg, and sank his chisel-like teeth into a very sensitive piece of anatomy. Alabaster screamed in pain, but dared not use the pistol for fear of finishing what Wink had so eagerly started. Instead he stumbled about, clawing at the angry creature. Eventually he tore Wink free and hurled him toward the rails. Wink snagged a piece of rigging and scrambled upward.
“You horrific traitor to your creators! You bloodthirsty bundle of disease and dysfunction!” He raised his pistol and took shots at Wink. “You would dare assault the greatest mind of our time!? The architect of such masterful schemes that Ferris Tusk himself sought my aid? You don’t deserve the honor of spilling my blood, even if you do hold the distinction of a connection to the Wind Breaker crew!”
He fired a few more times, achieving little more than emptying the weapon and creating a few more holes in the envelope. His injured arm made reloading the gem-encrusted weapon an arduous task that he completed just as the heavy thunk of metal on wood caught his attention.
Alabaster turned to find Nita had skillfully snagged the railing with a makeshift grappling hook fashioned from a length of rope and a crowbar. He rushed to it, but she pulled it tight and jumped from the balloon. Without her weight the bizarre vehicle shot upward, and she slid along the rope toward the railing.
“Get off my ship!” Alabaster growled, heaving at the crowbar.
Again hampered by his injured arm, he couldn’t quite summon the strength to dislodge the bar before she reached the deck and delivered a punishing kick from between the balustrades that threw him from his feet. Before he could spring upright again, Nita had climbed to the deck.
“Alabaster!” she cried, scowling at the mastermind.
It was clear from her expression Alabaster was an unexpected and unwelcome discovery. She pulled a cheater bar from her belt and marched forward.
“Tell me what is going on here,” she demanded “What is this ship? Where is my real crew?”
Alabaster backed away. His reproachful expression and smug tone did their very best to suggest that, despite being badly injured and retreating from an able-bodied attacker, he was still quite unquestionably in the superior position.
“Do not delude yourself into believing that you could possibly understand the nuances of my plans. You may have found your way aboard, but it is too little, too late! This ship shall deliver its payload to the heart of the volcano! Victory shall be mine! My legacy will be writ large in the suffering of your people!”
“So you’re taking the ship to the volcano. Not while I have anything to say about it.”
“Then you must be silenced!”
He raised his jeweled pistol and fired, but she dove aside. Nita lacked the sort of crazed acrobatics some of the other members of the Wind Breaker crew made use of, but she was still a good deal more agile than an injured madman drunk on his own brilliance. His poorly aimed shots bit chunks from the deck as Nita dodged and sought cover, circling around him and working her way closer.
Alabaster backed away from her as she approached. The realization that his plans could be foiled if she took control of the ship convinced him to devote more care and attention to his aim. His next two shots missed by mere inches, but as he lined up what might have been the kill shot, the cost of his reallocated concentration asserted itself. Retreating blindly had led him onto a section of deck ravaged by one of Gunner’s attacks. The heel of his boot caught on the uneven surface, and he fell to the ground, landing hard on the injured arm. His gun hand slammed into the deck. The weapon discharged and flipped from his fingers.
“No!” he cried, grabbing wildly for the weapon.
Tiny scrabbling footsteps raced across the deck, and Wink dove for the gun, snatching it up and waddling away with it. Alabaster reached for his tail, but the dull point of Nita’s cheater bar came down hard on his wrist, forcing it painfully against the deck.
“You have done some grotesque things, Alabaster. Or at least, you’ve tried to,” Nita said.
She kept enough pressure on the bar to keep him squirming in agony while she pulled a length of rope from her belt.
“Until now I’ve thought you weren’t my problem. You were Rim’s problem, and the fug’s problem. And there were good people in both of those places who could put you in your place. But if you’ve come this far, then you are my problem. And an engineer is nothing if not a problem solver.”
Nita worked the fingers of her off-hand, flipping the end of the rope into a simple knot. Tying a loop with a single hand was a trick Lil had taught her early in her tenure on the ship, as it was an indispensable skill for someone as likely as not to be hanging from a piece of rigging when the need for a knot arose. She leaned low, putting a bit more force on the bar as she did, and snagged Alabaster’s injured arm to begin binding him.
In a flavor of underhandedness quite uncharacteristic of him, Alabaster spat in her face. She flinched and recoiled just enough for him to catch her in the ribs with a spindly knee, then shove her and deliver a double kick to her abdomen to launch her aside.
He was on his feet again in a flash, rubbing his wrist and sprinting for the ship’s wheel. By the time Nita had regained her footing, Alabaster had reached his sword and yanked it free. No longer braced, the wheel spun. Both Alabaster and Nita stumbled toward the railing as the ship turned sharply. Nita struck the railing hard and barely had time enough to dash aside before Alabaster’s swiping sword carved a notch from the railing where she’d been.
Alabaster’s raw fury kept Nita on the defensive, dodging this attack and deflecting that as he advanced. The frenzy of swiping steel might have been the end of her, if not for the thick canvas and leather of her work uniform and the veritable armor plating she wore in the form of her tool sashes. Even so, her journey this far had cost her most of her larger tools. She’d equipped herself for maintenance rather than arming herself for battle. A bar was no match for a sword in hand-to-hand combat.
The furious villain delivered a wild swipe that sliced neatly through the rope tethering Nita’s balloon to the railing. It spun away into the sky. Nita pulled the crowbar from where it had bitten into the railing and raised it to deflect the return swipe. Now armed with a tool in each hand, the tables began to turn. Sparks flew as metal clashed with metal. The free-wrench advanced, twice nearly disarming Alabaster with the hook of her crowbar.
Sensing things were not going his way, Alabaster delivered a final kick to give himself some room, then dashed for the hatch below decks. He shut the hatch behind him and slid the brace in place, then rushed for the bowels of the ship.
#
Nita didn’t even bother fighting with the hatch. Chasing a maniac into the cramped lower decks of a ship under his control was a recipe for disaster. Instead she rushed for the ship’s wheel and looked over the controls.
She was anything but experienced at the wheel of an airship. Captain Mack had put her at the helm only a handful of times, and each of those times the ship was in proper repair and calm weather. Now they were approaching the mouth of the volcano. The breeze was already growing uncomfortably warm, and the constant updrafts were whipping the air into treacherous eddies and swirls that tossed the ship about.
“Wink!” she called, holstering her cheater bar and grappling with the wheel.
The inspector trudged up beside her. He’d visibly expended his short supply of fear- and anger-fueled energy. The days of evading the crew of the false Wind Breaker had taken their toll. He stopped at her feet, still clutching the ornate pistol like the spoils of war. Nita reached down and snatched it from him, sliding it into a loop formerly occupied by one of the wrenches that had already been repurposed elsewhere. She then hefted him from the ground and let him clutch her side.
“I’m going to have my hands full getting this ship turned around. If Alabaster wants this thing headed for the volcano, then that’s exactly where it won’t be going. I need you to watch for the others. Understand?”
Wink watched, the inspector tapped wearily.
Nita spun the wheel in the direction of the turn the ship had decided to take while left to its own designs. This may not have been the wisest choice, as the already sharp turn intensified. The gondola swung wide, and the damaged rigging groaned. Nita spun the wheel opposite in an attempt to correct the spin, but by the time she’d brought them out of it, they had done nearly a full pirouette and were headed roughly toward the volcano’s mouth again.
Now working with a bit more care, she eased the ship into a slower turn. Even this took all her limited training, as the violent winds perpetually threatened to haul them off course again. A full minute of battle with the ailing airship eventually placed the turbulent updrafts of the volcano behind her. Ahead, the true Wind Breaker was approaching. Nita could feel the first flutter of relief in her chest when she detected a panicked message being tapped on the massive monkey-toe wrench strapped to her back.
Guns, Wink warned.
Nita ducked just in time for a pair of rifle shots to hiss through the air where her head had been. Wink abandoned his post at her side and dashed for the rigging. Nita pivoted around the helm and swept her eyes across the deck. Alabaster had returned from the lower decks. He was now joined by the pair of crewmembers that—unbeknownst to Nita—represented the entirety of his surviving crew. All three were armed with rifles, Alabaster’s sword once again sheathed within his cane. Nita’s mind raced. She’d never survive long enough to get the ship down safely. At least, not while outnumbered and outgunned on the ship’s deck.
The fragments of a plan formed in her mind, and she acted upon them as they arose. First, she spun the wheel again, putting the ship into yet another spin. The crewmembers stumbled aside as the ship tipped, each firing another shot that came nowhere near its target. While they tried to recover, she rushed toward them. By the time she reached them, she had her crowbar in hand again. A precise swing hooked the leg of one of the crewmembers as she passed, yanking him from his feet. She continued forward and disappeared through the hatch they’d emerged from. The dark, cramped interior of the ship was no less of a threat than it had been before, but it was officially the safer option.
When she wasn’t met with a hail of bullets upon stumbling into the darkened hall, she braced the door and charged forward. Moving through the twisted, damaged halls of a ship so very much like the one she’d called her home for several months was eerily like a waking nightmare. It creaked around her, Alabaster already fighting to correct the course. The air was heavy, hot, and wet, steam rushing from broken pipes and filling the hall with a haze. Behind her, the hammering blows of the crew attempting to batter their way through the braced hatch spurred her forward. That she’d not yet encountered another foe within the ship convinced her there weren’t any others left lurking in the halls.
She worked her way downward. Nita of all people knew that while the controls might have been on the main deck, steering an airship like the Wind Breaker was all about routing steam to and away from the proper turbines. And that meant that with the right training one could exert just as much control over the ship from the boiler room as the helm. While she had the barest bit of training at the wheel, she’d lived and breathed the steam system of the Wind Breaker.
The boiler room was right where it should be, though a single glance confirmed that this was indeed not the Wind Breaker she knew. The original fug-made configuration was in place here, a purposefully complex arrangement of superfluous valves and junctions that she’d gone through a great deal of trouble to simplify in her role as ship’s engineer. No matter. She’d grappled with this system once before. She could do it again.
Wrenches danced across pipes, tightening some valves and pinching off others. The ship began to turn, turbines above her grinding to a stop while others spun dangerously with the rerouted steam. Buried as she was within the bowels of the ship, she had no way of knowing where precisely it was headed anymore, but as long as it wasn’t moving in a straight line, she had a fighting chance of keeping it clear of the volcano.
Two quick blasts echoed from the deck, then the hammering of boots above her rushed across it. The crewmembers had blown open the hatch and were on their way. The boiler room lacked a door. If she were to attempt a standoff, facing down two rifles with a single pistol would ensure it was a very short one. Better to retreat to the one room she was certain would have a good heavy door to barricade.
She rushed through the halls, past familiar rooms in unfamiliar configurations, and finally came to the gig room. All the way she could hear the pounding steps of the crewmembers directly behind her. When she reached the gig room, they were near enough for her to hear their labored breathing. She dove into the gig room and slammed the door. It unfortunately braced from the hallway side, but as the Wind Breaker’s counterpart of this room had been host to her own quarters, she’d worked out fairly quickly that jamming something between the door and the frame made it devilishly difficult to open. The spike of her spud wrench served the purpose just fine. No sooner was it in place than the door shuddered against its frame as both crewmembers attempted to reach her. She dropped to the ground in expectation of the application of the rifles to blast through the door as they had with the hatch above, but no shots came. Instead they continued to hammer and thump at the unforgiving wood without making any progress.
Nita turned her head to the gig itself and the space above it. There she saw the answer to the question of why they’d not fired their weapons. It was a capsule-shaped object as large as a pair of bathtubs stacked one atop the other. A single glance was all it took to identify the thing as a bomb. Furthermore, the crate she’d tipped aside as well as a dozen more half-empty ones were labeled “Burn-slow.” This was a very dangerous place for a stray bullet. The hammering continued, but if Nita’s instincts were correct, in very short order they would have larger concerns.
The pipes running along the walls were already shuddering far more violently than they had been before she’d put wrench to valve in the boiler room. A system like this did not like to be unbalanced, and at the moment the port side of the ship was receiving twice the pressure it was designed to. Soon the rattle of the pipes was louder than the hammering on the door, and shortly after that the hammering stopped entirely as both crewmembers realized if they didn’t take corrective action, there wouldn’t be enough pipes left intact to spin the turbines.
Once they were gone and the threat of interruption was not immediate, she approached the bomb. The material of the casing had a distinct indigo hue. She ran her hand across it and gingerly tapped it.
“Trith? But… how could they make their own trith? And so much?” she mused. “And what purpose could there be to drop it into the volcano?”
The pipes began to ease their rattling, and she could feel the ship shifting. Judging from the brimstone-scented air rushing between the cracks of the trap door beneath the bomb, if they weren’t directly above the intended target, they soon would be.
“Questions for later,” she asserted.
She climbed atop the bomb, trying for the moment to set aside the thought of just what it was she’d perched upon, and looked at the release mechanism. It was complex, and most of the workings were hidden behind enclosures she’d have to remove. No telling how long it would take. Before she tackled it, she’d need some insurance. As tempting as it would be to try to put the burn-slow to use somehow, she decided the best choice was to use the crates. She pried a board from the top of one, leaving the nails protruding from the corners, and hopped down to the hatch to hammer it into place as though she were barricading a door against an angry mob. A springy sound drew her eyes to the ceiling. Across the room, a pin attached to a cable running along the ceiling shot up from a mechanism obscured by some crates. Chains rattled and loosened. The hatch beneath her sagged and strained against the single board she’d hammered into place. They were opening the bomb bay doors, or at least they were trying.
“That’s not a good sign…”
#
“You’re sure she’s on board,” Lil said, rocking uneasily from foot to foot.
“Who else would ride a steam balloon to intercept an airship?” Gunner asked.
“Me, for starters,” Lil said.
“And me, for seconds,” Coop said.
“Well then it’s either Nita or one of you two,” Gunner growled. “And since you’re here, then that just leaves the one option, doesn’t it? Now get your mind on the job!”
Gunner had been busy. He and the deckhands had muscled the wailer over to one side of the deck and cobbled together a hose to run steam to its mechanisms. They’d then bolted it down and powered it up. Now Gunner was awkwardly astride the device, aligning the false Wind Breaker with one of its grappling-hook launchers. Coop manned the matching launcher that they’d salvaged and installed some months earlier. Each aimed off the port side of the ship, which Captain Mack was bringing to bear on the enemy ship.
Burning-hot wind rushed up from below, bringing with it choking fumes. Each member of the crew donned their goggles to keep the stinging air from their eyes.
“Call out your parts now,” Captain Mack ordered.
“Me and Gunner hook up our twin over there and pull ’em tight,” Coop said.
Lil pulled her rifle around from behind her. “And I keep an eye on the deck and make sure we don’t have no surprises.” She raised the weapon and sighted down the barrel. “It’s just Alabaster on deck right now. The way this hot air’s got him and us shakin’, I’m havin’ a heck of a time keeping him in my sights. Every time I get him lined up, it takes all I got to keep from just pullin’ the trigger.”
“He stays alive until we’re linked up. With the wind this mountain’s kicking up, we’re better off with someone trying to hold it steady until we’ve got them hooked. After that, take him out as soon as you’re able.”
“I can’t hardly wait,” Lil said.
“After we’re hooked and the deck is clear, what’s next?” Mack said.
“Coop and me head over. He takes the helm, I find Nita and Wink and bring ’em home,” Lil said.
“From there, we get the fake Wind Breaker away from the volcano or we die trying,” Gunner said.
“I might skip that dyin’ part. Seems to me it’d make it harder to get the job done,” Coop said.
“A few more yards, Captain,” Gunner called.
Mack spun the wheel and did his level best to keep the ship steady in the turbulent air, but it was a lost cause. All he could do was creep closer. Gunner adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger. The barbed hook launched with a hiss of steam. Gunner watched its flight with a practiced eye and, as it passed over the deck, reversed the winch. His hook dropped down and bit deep into the deck. The rope tightened and the two gondolas swung toward each other. Lil scrambled farther up the tilting deck to keep her weapon trained on Alabaster. The shifting of the false Wind Breaker’s deck dislodged the mastermind from the ship’s wheel, sending him tumbling toward the far railing. When he struck it, he looked down at the vast field of lava beneath him. A horrid smile split his lips.
“He’s gettin’ ready to do somethin’ nasty, Cap’n,” Lil said. “I’m sure of it!”
“Coop, get that hook planted. Gunner, you get up with Lil and the two of you start takin’ shots.”
Lil didn’t wait for backup. She pulled the trigger and watched a chunk of railing splinter behind her target. Gunner took a shot that missed by inches but scattered Alabaster with splinters. Still the madman crawled. He seemed unaware or unconcerned about the danger. His eyes were fixed firmly on a lever protruding from the ground beside the ship’s wheel. Lil looked to the Wind Breaker’s own helm and found no counterpart for it. This could only be the bomb release.
Coop fired his hook and it latched on, winching the ships together more swiftly. This tipped the gondolas even more severely. Loose debris and untethered tools slid across the deck of the false Wind Breaker to tumble into the fiery pit below. A stray bit of rigging snapped free and drifted down along the deck. Alabaster rolled toward it and used it to haul himself toward the helm. Never one to miss an opportunity to gloat, he paused periodically to raise his megaphone from his belt and taunt the Wind Breaker crew.
“So we meet again. A gaggle of besotted nitwits and the finest mind of this time or any other. And as before we stand at the very cusp of ultimate victory for me and the veritable end of your pathetic lives.”
Lil and Gunner continued to take shots, but the violent shaking of the two ships and the sharp angle of their decks made a clear shot an impossibility. The two remaining crewmembers, finally having decided the damage to the boiler was no longer the greatest threat, emerged from below decks.
“Coop, you take the crewmembers,” Gunner said.
“On it,” Coop said, brandishing his rifle and dashing to the proper vantage.
Alabaster huddled behind the sparse cover the helm provided, now nearly upon it.
“As you are torn from this mortal coil like the mindless screeching simians you are, I hope your feeble brains take some solace in knowing you were bested by the very best.”
Bullets continued to fly, and Alabaster proved frustratingly prudent. He positioned his wiry frame behind the thickly built control mast that held the ship’s wheel. He wouldn’t be able to pull the lever without exposing himself for attack, and as the two ships winched closer, their motion became more synchronized and thus the shots of the Wind Breaker crew more accurate. He held his ground and waited as the Wind Breaker and false Wind Breaker crew exchanged fire.
When the moment came, he was ready. Lil was crouching behind cover. Gunner was reloading. It was a brief window, but wide enough for him to lean forward and grasp the lever.
“You. Have. Lost!” he announced, heaving his weight against the mechanism.
After an initial click, rather than the laborious grind of equipment actuating and a massive weight dropping, Alabaster tumbled forward against a lever completely devoid of resistance. It came free from the deck as he stumbled forward and sprawled out. One could only imagine the legendary tirade against fate that was already collecting in his mind, but for the moment he delayed the monologue in favor of scrambling to the shelter of the hatch to the lower decks.
“Did I miss something? Seems like a great big switch like that ought to make something obvious happen,” Coop said.
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Lil said. “Nita happened.”
#
In the gig room, Nita hung by her knees from the clamping mechanism. She’d been furiously disassembling it, all the while practically baking in the growing heat. Linkages, casings, and dozens of bolts and nuts rattled along the floor, dislodged by her frenzied sabotage. The last piece of the puzzle, a stout cable leading to the clamp’s release mechanism, had taken ages to unearth. The wire cutters were still in her hand when the snipped cable disappeared into the ceiling. Three seconds later and the bomb would have dropped onto her hastily barricaded bay doors, no doubt smashing right through.
For the first time since she’d started working at the mechanism, her mind allowed the sounds of her surroundings to filter in. Gunshots rang out every few moments. She could hear the distant thump of boots and the shout of angry voices. A battle was blazing on deck. The smaller but far more pressing noise came from the crew hatch. It was a tiny, rapid tap. She climbed the sloping floor and unfastened the hatch. It swung open and released a wave of hot air like the opening of an oven door. An angry, frightened form rushed inside and clung to the side of her head.
Wink rattled out a message against her goggles.
It was hot. Wink was outside. Nita took too long. Wink wanted to go home.
“You and me both, Wink. But until I’m sure they aren’t going to try to get in here and drop this bomb manually, we’re staying put.”
Wink glared at her. Nita owed Wink good food, too. The Wind Breaker crew all owed Wink good food.
“Let’s focus on staying alive long enough to get it, shall we? Now quickly, tell me what you saw out there.”
Lil and Coop were coming. This crew was going.
#
The madness of two ships strapped together in an angry, broiling-hot sky cannot be overstated. The sounds of crunching, creaking wood and metal rose to deafening levels. The two envelopes were held tight, spinning turbine blades now and again buzzing against the sturdy cloth of the opposite ship, shearing fresh holes and releasing plumes of phlogiston. There were too many jobs to be done and too many places to look to catch everything that was happening. Lil and Coop ditched their rifles, which would do them little good in close quarters. They climbed up their own deck, jumped the railing, and ran down the other deck. Coop took the wheel and commenced fighting with the controls in an attempt to match efforts with Captain Mack and get the tangled ships moving away from the volcano. Lil moved with care toward, and then into, the hatches leading below decks, cautious of what or who she might find. Alabaster and his crew had disappeared below decks once it became clear their bomb was no longer obeying them, at which point the crew had lost track of them.
“No, no! Turbines four and five down, one through three up!” Captain Mack bellowed over the din.
“I’m tryin’, Cap’n! This ship ain’t doing too good. Half the controls ain’t doin’ nothin’ at all.”
“Then cut or crimp the steam lines. A few more minutes of this and neither of us will be in the sky!” ordered the captain.
“I’m on it, Cap’n!” Coop said, pulling a knife from his belt and eyeing the hoses running up to the false Wind Breaker’s turbines.
“Gunner, how are we looking?”
“I’m our only lookout and, counting the hole that we blew in the deck, there are three places for people to emerge. If they’ve got half a mind between them, at least one member of their crew is going to get a shot off on one of us before we can take them all out.” He swept his weapon across the deck of the other ship, then slowly raised his eyes. “Oh dear lord…”
Mack turned. Smoke was rising, and the first wisps of flame licked over the far railing of the ship.
“That lunatic has lit the ship on fire!” Mack called. “Everyone off, Coop, Lil, Nita, everyone off the ship!”
“Captain, if the rigging burns through and the gondola drops in—” Gunner began.
“I know what we’re up against, Gunner. But we can’t do anything if we’ve got people on deck when the envelope lets go.”
“Throw me a rope,” Coop called, dashing to the railing. “I’m fetching Lil.”
“You’ve been ordered aboard, Coop!”
“I know it, Cap’n. But there ain’t no way Lil and Nita heard you. I reckon I’d best deliver the message.”
“Coop!”
“Cap’n, you can do what you think you ought to when this is all said and done, but I ain’t abandoning this ship until I know Lil’s got a shot at abandoning it too.”
“Throw him the line, Gunner,” the captain called, unwilling to waste another moment on the argument.
Gunner obliged as the captain abandoned any finesse and attempted to haul their ailing duplicate away from the volcano’s mouth through sheer brute force. The two ships veered aside.
Coop caught the lifeline Gunner threw and deftly looped it around his waist. He yanked the knot tight, pulled out some slack, and drew his pistol.
The flames reached the nearest of the ropes securing the envelope. Already overtaxed, it snapped within seconds and the whole of the ship pitched backward. The motion threw Coop from his feet and yanked both ships violently. All but the captain fell to the shifting deck. By the time they were climbing to their feet, they found that whatever plan either of Alabaster’s crewmembers had in mind, they’d wisely replaced it with the same tactics favored by rats on sinking ships. They were rushing onto the Wind Breaker’s deck.
Gunner managed a snap shot that struck one of the men, knocking him from the ship and sending him to a particularly spectacular end. The other managed to sprint across the deck and disappear into the hatch. The presence of a boarder, though, was the third most worrisome occurrence. The greatest concern was the members of the crew currently aboard a burning ship, and the second was the absence of Alabaster himself.
#
“Nita!” Lil called, hammering on walls. “You just holler if you hear me! Seems like this ship’s fixin’ to fail us!”
Lil had spent enough time on a ship to know that if the gondola was hanging at this angle, it wasn’t going to be hanging at all in a few minutes. The sting of smoke also set off alarm bells in her mind. A steam-powered ship always has a bit of a smoky smell, but this was certainly the charred scent of burning deck boards.
She climbed the slope of the hallway, walking as much on the wall as the floor. Her search had taken her through as much of the cramped interior of the ship as the damage and heat would allow, but she’d been fairly certain from the start that she’d find Nita behind the door now looming before her in the dim hallway. Wreckage blocked the final passage, but she didn’t need much of an opening to squeeze through. After getting snagged but muscling her way by it, she finally reached her destination.
Lil hammered on the badly damaged gig-room door. “You in there, darlin’?” she cried. “Speak up!”
“Lil!” Nita called from the other side. “What are you doing here! Get off the ship!”
“I ain’t goin’ alone. Now are you gonna open this dang door, or am I gonna have to tear it off its hinges?”
Lil could hear Nita working at her barricade, and finally the door swung open.
“You just can’t stay out of trouble, can you?” Lil said, climbing into the gig room.
“It’s gotten worse since I met you,” Nita said breathlessly. “What is going on up there?”
“Nothin’ good. Holy smokes, look at the size of that thing…” Lil’s eyes widened at the sight of the bomb.
“I don’t even know what it is.”
“If Gunner and that chemist of ours have got it figured right, that’s a big ol’ keg of ichor.”
Nita’s eyes darted about, her brain quickly working through the consequences of the revelation. “No…”
“That’s about how everyone else reacted. And the bad news, since we don’t want it dropped, is that this whole impostor of a ship is about to drop out of the sky.”
Nita thought feverishly. “We… we need rope. We need lots of rope. Three, maybe four lifelines.”
“Plus one for us,” Lil said.
“And we need to get this hatch open,” Nita said. “Wink! Where did you get off to!”
We got off the ship! We got off the ship! tapped Wink from beside the open crew hatch.
“Yes! Go! Tell the captain we need as many lifelines as he can spare.”
Wink vanished through the hatch before she’d even finished the instructions.
The pitch of the ship was at forty-five degrees and rising. With each passing moment, more ropes and lines attaching the envelope snapped and unraveled. Nita handed her pry bar to Lil, then attacked the barricaded bomb bay door with the spike of her spud wrench. Lil eagerly levered up board after board.
“Nita,” she huffed, wiping sweat from her forehead. “What all is in these crates here?”
“Most of them are burn-slow.”
Lil gave one of the bay doors a kick and it started to give. “So we’re over a volcano in a burning ship stuffed with extra fuel and loaded with a poisonous bomb. Coop’s liable to have a fit once he finds out we’re the ones having all the fun.”
#
Inside the Wind Breaker, Butch stood at the ready for the inevitable call for medical aid. She had bandages and ointments laid out and separated into doses, ready to treat everything from a bullet wound to a burn as soon as someone uttered her name. At the sound of hasty footsteps down the hall, she expected to see a bleeding member of her crew step into the doorway of her galley.
The figure who stepped into view was someone else entirely. It was the sole surviving member of Alabaster’s crew. At the sight of her, he attempted to raise his rifle, but the cramped space and his rattled nerves made it a struggle, so he abandoned it for his pistol.
“Hold it!” he barked, weapon aimed shakily at Butch. “You’re my hostage. Your crew is going to take me to safety, understood?”
Butch placed her hands on her hips and glared at him, treating the threat of bodily harm with the same unshakable attitude of mild irritation that flavored her every interaction. She muttered something in reply.
“Don’t test me, woman!” the fug person shouted, marching up to her to place the barrel of the gun squarely in her face.
She was a formidable woman, one could tell that at a glance. But Alabaster’s man clearly hadn’t anticipated just how formidable she was. If he had, he likely wouldn’t have placed his groin anywhere in the vicinity of her knee. The error of his ways became clear in a blinding flash of pain as she leaned aside and delivered the well-aimed blow. His weapon discharged, the bullet ricocheting off a frying pan and embedding itself in one of the tables. Butch grimaced at the loud report and slapped the gun from his hand, then kicked his legs out from under him. He landed on his rifle and struggled to bring it to bear on her, but she placed a heavy boot on the butt of it to pin it to the ground. As it was strapped to the fug man, this pinned him to the floor as well.
“You’re dead, woman! You are dead! Once I get my gun you are dead!”
Butch wiggled a finger in the ear that had taken the brunt of the pistol’s sound, then sneered at the fallen man. He spotted his pistol, just out of reach, and tried to grab it. Butch placed her other boot on his wrist. His eyes turned to her in fury.
“Do you think I’m afraid of you! I knew what I was getting into. I know about your sniper and those two lunatics. You’re just the cook! Why would I be afraid of you?”
A rare mirthful smile lit up her jowly face. Though she didn’t speak his language, Butch quite efficiently delivered the answer to that question by reaching into her apron and revealing her trusty meat cleaver.
#
Coop dangled beside the false Wind Breaker’s hanging gondola. One hand held him to the line to which he’d been tied. The other held a bundle of four stout lines a half-crazed, patch-less Wink had instructed him to bring. Before him, the bottom of a false gig rattled and thumped until Nita and Lil finally hinged it open.
“You girls quit dillydallyin’. There ain’t but three bits of rigging left, and the fire’s darn near taken half the ship,” he called.
“Never mind that, just lend us a hand!” Nita called.
He swung himself until Lil caught his hand to drag him in. The three threw loops of rope around the bomb. It clearly wasn’t designed to be secured in such a way, but the bolts affixing the trith plates would hopefully provide enough purchase to hold it snugly.
The ship creaked and shifted, another bit of rigging giving way. They redoubled their efforts, dripping with sweat and wheezing in the smoky, burning air.
“There. That’s as good as we’re going to get it,” Nita said.
“I ain’t sure four lines’ll be enough,” Lil said.
“We only got two more ready, and those’re for you two,” Coop said.
“Then go get ’em!” she said.
He swung out and began to climb up the rope to fetch more lines. A slow, ominous creak rattled the ship. He looked up to see the final two pieces of rigging give way. The gondola dropped three yards before the twin towlines stopped it. Now free of the ship and its weight, the envelope rocketed into the sky, tearing free the steam lines and a fair chunk of the upper deck.
The Wind Breaker’s envelope, already leaking and now tasked with supporting two heavily loaded gondolas, was not up to the task. They plummeted at nearly a free fall. If they didn’t drop some weight, they would all be dragged into the lava below.
#
The sudden shift nearly dumped both Nita and Lil out the open hatch. When the ship came to a stop, it tipped completely sideways. Lil was able to hold tight to one of the lines. Nita lost her grip and tumbled down onto the dislodged crates. They were sizzling now, the burning exterior of the ship beginning to ignite the fuel.
Without a word, Lil released the lines attached to the bomb and jumped down.
“I’ll be fine,” Nita coughed as Lil helped her to her feet. “Don’t worry about me! The bomb’s the important thing.”
“Call me selfish if you want,” Lil said. “But as much as I care about savin’ the lives of the people down there, I care about savin’ your life more.”
A hoarse voice echoed from the doorway. “A pity that neither can be saved.”
Their heads snapped toward the sound. It was Alabaster. He was singed, he was bleeding, but he was also armed with a makeshift torch in one hand and his sword in the other.
“Why ain’t you dead!” Lil barked, reaching for her pistol, only to find the holster torn and the weapon missing.
It must have been what had been snagged when she was one her way through the cluttered hall that Alabaster had just navigated.
“You don’t understand, do you?” Alabaster said, stalking forward and dragging the tip of his torch along the crates of fuel to spread the fire. “It is so obvious to me now. I am no mere villain. I am a super villain. I am the villain of his age! I am the very apotheosis of villainy! Fate will not allow me to fail, because this golden moment belongs to me! The very stars have aligned to place us all here and now.”
Outside the hatch, the jagged rim of the volcano’s caldera rose past them as they continued to race downward.
“You are to be but witnesses to my greatness! That explains how you were able to come this far. That explains why you have no way to stop me.”
“Then explain this,” Nita said.
She reached into her sash, drew Alabaster’s own pistol, and pulled the trigger.
It clicked empty.
“Ha-ha! You see! You see!” Alabaster raved.
“Oh shut up!” Lil snapped.
A short, sharp bark of a firearm silenced him. Lil had retrieved her birthday present, a single-shot boot pistol, and fired.
She looked to Nita and shrugged. “I couldn’t think of nothin’ clever like you.”
Alabaster stumbled back. He dropped his torch and fell against the wall. The fire spread along the floor that had become their wall, and above them the grinding crunch of the grappling hooks on the deck suggested soon their only connection to the Wind Breaker would be the lines strapped to the bomb.
“We need to go, now!” called Coop from outside the hatch, wrangling the remaining lines. “Things are starting to let go up there! I’ve got to get back or these lines are liable to pull loose!”
Lil helped Nita onto the bomb, then grabbed the lines. “Go!” she called back to Coop. “We ain’t gonna come this far just to die on account of a failed knot!”
Coop scurried up his line. Nita and Lil worked as best they could to secure the remaining lines, but every few moments another deck board would break and they’d lose a few more inches of slack.
“Almost. Almost…” Nita groaned, straining to haul enough of a loose end to tie it tight.
Time ran out. The grappling hooks let go, and the gondola shifted around them and swung again. It pivoted completely upside down. The weight of what remained of the false Wind Breaker’s gondola now hung solely by the lines lashed around the bomb and the clamp holding it to the gig room’s roof.
“Why won’t it let go?” Lil cried, stomping angrily at the bomb.
“I just spent ten minutes trying to keep the clamp from opening,” Nita said. “Now I’ve got to get it open!”
She swung down the side of the bomb as far as the hastily tied safety line would allow, but she couldn’t reach the release mechanism. Without a moment of hesitation she unfastened the knot and slipped down. Lil didn’t waste breath arguing, she simply undid her own line, grabbed hold of one of the tightly stretched lines straining to hold the bomb, and laced her fingers with Nita’s to give her some semblance of support.
The engineer kicked aside a block of smoldering burn-slow that had been dislodged in the latest shift. She held Lil’s hand tight and slid beneath the bomb to drive her heel into the release mechanism. It faltered, allowing the bomb to slip a few inches, but refused to let go. She hammered it again, and again.
“No!” bellowed a crazed voice. “I won’t let you!”
A crate shifted and a battered, bleeding, but adrenaline-fueled Alabaster lurched toward her. Nita kicked one last time, and the clamp finally released. Alabaster dove and the ship dropped away as he grabbed hold of her ankle and held tight.
Without the weight of the second gondola, the Wind Breaker shot skyward. Lil cried out, straining to keep her grip. All Nita’s weight, as well as the dangling Alabaster, seemed to triple as the ship accelerated upward. Her sweat-drenched hand began to slip. Nita recovered enough to grab her wrist. Lil’s boots scrabbled and scraped across the surface of the bomb. She hauled herself up and, as the surge upward slowed, hooked a leg around one of the lines. This freed up her second hand to finally start helping Nita to relative safety.
#
On the deck of the ship, Gunner and Coop had their hands full. Lifelines, and the things they were mounted to, were only ever intended to support the weight of a single person. Even with every line they could spare, the stress of even briefly supporting the weight of an entire gondola had threatened to strip the mounting points from the deck. Every spare scrap of rope on the ship had been called into service to strap and lash the network of tangled cords to anything that might conceivably hold the weight of the bomb and the dangling crew.
“Cap’n, you gotta get us up over dirt so we can drop this load, or it’s liable to drop itself!” Coop said.
Captain Mack spun a valve to dump any remaining phlogiston into the envelope, but the gashes sliced into the side of the fabric while they were in contact with the false twin were allowing the precious lifting gas to flow out almost as quickly as it flowed in.
“The envelope’s bleeding like a stuck pig,” he called out. “We’re not long for the sky.”
“We should shed some weight,” said Gunner. “Drop the gig, or dump the wailer from the deck.”
Mack eyed the jagged edge of the volcano’s rim. The ship itself had risen above it, but their cargo was still just shy of clearing it.
“No time. Coop, how far below the ship is the bomb hanging?”
“About twenty-five feet, give or take a few,” he said, hands shaking as he struggled to keep one of the repairs from unthreading itself.
“Let’s hope it’s take a few, because we ain’t got much to give,” Mack said.
He guided the ship for the lowest point on the rocky rim. The ship shifted and the hanging payload swung like a pendulum. The captain judged the distance, the angle of the ship, their speed, the wind, and a thousand other factors. He was going to have to position the bomb and its passengers perfectly in a narrow notch in the volcano’s rim. This wasn’t threading a needle. He’d done that dozens of times. This was threading a needle at arm’s length, with his eyes closed, in the middle of a windstorm. And if he failed, his crew would only be the first of the lives lost.
#
Nita kicked and flailed wildly at Alabaster as she finally grabbed ahold of one of the ropes secured to the bomb. Despite his injuries his grip was vice-like. As soon as she was firmly atop the bomb and able to arm herself, he’d hooked his injured arm through a rope and pulled himself up as well. For a few heartbeats, the three of them stood, crowded atop the burning-hot indigo-colored weapon of mass destruction as it swung aside. Alabaster slid his sword from its cane. He was far, far more interested in success than survival. He swiped the weapon toward one of the support ropes, but Nita’s desperation-sharpened reflexes placed a wrench between the blade and the rope. The trio tangled. Two women against a badly injured fug person should have been no struggle at all, but Alabaster needed only to nick one of the ropes holding them to the Wind Breaker and all would be lost. It took every ounce of their strength and agility to stay atop the bomb and to keep it from dropping.
Lil, who may as well have been born dangling from the rigging of a ship, gained the upper hand. She swung around the outside of a rope and came in behind Alabaster, immobilizing one arm behind his back while Nita attempted to wrestle the sword away from him.
“You cannot defeat the incomparable Lucius P. Alabaster!” he raved. “I am indefatigable! I am indomitable! I am—”
“Quit makin’ up words!” Lil howled.
The ship made a sudden shift that propagated down the lines and caused all three of them to falter. They turned their attention for the first time in too long to where exactly they were going. The jagged black stone of the volcano’s lip raced toward them. They would not clear it cleanly. Lil abandoned her grip on Alabaster. She and Nita wrapped their arms tight around one another with one of the support ropes between them. Alabaster watched the approaching wall and, for once in his life, was speechless.
The bottom edge of the bomb bashed into the lip and swung back. Nita and Lil swung forward but held tight. Alabaster launched forward flailing through the air and disappearing over the lip. Ropes snapped. The bomb went one way, Lil and Nita the other. The next few moments passed in flashes and bursts. Flipping through the air. Tumbling to the ground. Rolling down the slope. Sliding to a stop. And finally… stillness.
#
Nita was the first to regain some measure of her senses. There wasn’t a muscle or bone in her body that didn’t ache. They had tumbled quite a distance from the mouth of the volcano, but even so, some combination of her time in proximity to its molten heart and the tumble down its side had left patches of her leather-and-canvas uniform charred and burnt. All the same, aside from some sharp pains in one shoulder, she seemed to be relatively intact.
She scanned the mountainside. The fact that she was not at this moment suffocating amid a torrent of fug meant the bomb hadn’t fallen back into the mouth of the volcano. Her clearing vision eventually spotted it, deformed but not ruptured, at the end of a long trench of churned-up stone some distance farther along the mountain.
A shadow passed over her, and she squinted upward to find the Wind Breaker dropping down to a relatively level patch of mountain not far off. In lieu of an anchor, they heaved down the wreckage of the wailer. Coop slid down the line to the ground and dashed to Nita.
“You okay? Where’s Lil?” he blurted, the two questions mashing together into a single outburst.
“I don’t know,” Nita said muzzily, still trying to shake free some cobwebs.
Coop placed two fingers into his mouth and produced the most piercing whistle Nita had ever heard.
“Lil Coop! Chastity, dang it, speak up!” he called.
“There!” Nita said.
The smaller deckhand had landed atop a pile of black gravel not far away, but the coating of dust she’d earned during her tumble made her hard to spot. Nita tried to dash to her side, but after a few steps it was made clear that her head wasn’t quite up to the task of navigating the uneven mountainside at anything above a walk, and a pain in her ankle suggested she’d aggravated an old injury.
“You okay? Lil, speak up!” Coop called.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. Quit hollerin’. What happened?” she muttered, rubbing a knot on her head.
“You went a couple of rounds with the mountain and the mountain won,” Coop said.
“That ain’t the way I see it, what with me on my feet an the mountain just sittin’ there. There ain’t no pile of dirt that’s a match for a Cooper. Even if it’s got a fire in its belly.” She shook her head, then looked to Nita. “Come here, you.”
Lil pulled Nita into a hug that caused them both to wince in pain. “Ain’t it good to be a crew again? Even for a minute?” Lil said.
“Life had become rather dull without the Wind Breaker to spice it up.”
The gig lowered to the mountainside and Butch hopped out, moving surefootedly to the girls to administer first aid. Each was prodded and probed and every yelp of pain cataloged for future treatment.
“So what happens now?” Coop said. “The bomb’s not in the fire. Heck. It ain’t even leakin’. That trith is a heck of a thing. You girls are safe. We missin’ anything?”
“Where’s Alabaster?” Nita said, her eyes shooting open.
Coop snapped his fingers. “That’s right. Me worryin’ about Lil here pushed it right out of my head. We spotted that fancy getup of his on the other side of that hill over yonder. Gunner’s got a rifle on him, just in case.”
The group moved with a degree less urgency until they found the motionless form of the fug man. He was a good deal more twisted and broken than either Lil or Nita. The Wind Breaker crew formed a circle around him and peered down.
“You reckon he’s dead?” Coop said.
Butch reached down to check, but Alabaster’s eyes shot open, and he released a long, raking cough.
“You… can’t defeat… Lucius… P.…”
“We know your dang name! What does it take to kill this guy?” Lil said.
“I reckon I can work that out,” Coop said, pulling the pistol from his belt.
“No,” Nita said. “Butch, patch him up.”
“You sure about that, darlin’?” Lil said. “This is the second time he’s tried to kill just about everybody he could. Nutjob or not, you give a fella enough chances and he’s bound to do what he’s aimin’ to do.”
“This is Caldera. The laws are unyielding. If we kill him now, we’re murders. He has to stand trial.”
Coop scratched his head. “If them’s the rules…” he said dejectedly, holstering his weapon. “What about the other one?”
“There’s another one?” Nita said.
“Sure. Butch did a number on him, but I reckon there’s enough left to toss in jail.”
“Then he gets a trial too.” Nita craned her neck, cringing as she discovered yet another reminder of her trip down the mountain. “It is going to take a bit of work to get this ship fit to go back home.”
“No doubt. Matter of fact, we’d best get to that airfield of yours before we lose so much phlogiston we can’t make it,” Coop said.
They hauled the deliriously muttering Alabaster onto the gig, then piled in and began to rise back into the belly of the ship. Lil looked at those around her, then smiled.
“It’s good to have the gang back together.”