Mallow tossed a small tip to the crew tying up his ship. He had been traveling virtually without rest since working for Tusk, and he’d quickly learned that crews had a very good memory for those who treated them well.
“Finally, a real city.” Mallow breathed a sigh of relief. “I’d forgotten what civilization felt like.”
The city of Naval Junction was, in many ways, the southern equivalent of Fugtown. Like most cities in the fug, it coincided with a large city in the mountains. In this case the surface city was called Brandt’s Peak, and it was home to Westrim Naval Academy. A navy needed ships, ships needed maintenance, and unless they had someone like Nita Graus, maintenance required access to the fug.
He smiled as he looked over the buildings of the town and hauled his heavy case. Home to a hundred or so fug folk, which was a sizable population by fug standards, it was that rarest of things, a city built entirely by the fug folk themselves. Most of the time, fug folk huddled hermit-crab-like into the husk of a city destroyed by the Calamity. In this case there simply wasn’t a suitable city in a position to take advantage of the naval academy’s needs. So Naval Junction was built. The buildings were spread equally between warehouses of parts, simple, sturdy houses for grunts who did the heavier labor, and elegant townhouses for the supervisors and higher-level workers.
Mallow sifted through his memory for the address he’d been told to memorize and destroy. He’d prided himself on having an excellent memory, but Tusk’s penchant for secrecy had put him to the test.
“Number twenty-three,” he muttered, squinting at the nearby doorways in the green glow of scattered phlogiston-powered streetlights.
“Over here, Mr. Mallow,” called a familiar voice.
He turned to find his employer approaching from down the street. He was accompanied by three surface folk, faces covered in filter masks. As rare as it was to see surface folk in the fug, outside of the notorious willingness for the Wind Breaker crew to lurk about, the more immediate concern Mallow had was the outfit Tusk was wearing. Mallow’s brilliant and inscrutable employer typically dressed quite simply, but when he was dealing with those for whom his true identity was best kept a secret, he dressed even more so. Right now the man who wielded inconceivable influence over people on both sides of the fug wore a wardrobe more suitable for a chimney sweep. It was a not-so-subtle sign to Mallow that subterfuge was in use.
“Yes. I was wondering where I might find you, sir,” Mallow said.
“May I introduce you to Mr. Bonney and Mr. Grawhill. They are quartermasters for the Westrim Naval Academy.”
Mallow and the surface folk regarded each other with similar levels of distaste, no hands offered for shaking.
“Your timing is impeccable. These gentlemen are in a rush. Are these the samples?” Tusk said.
“They are, sir,” Mallow said.
“Wonderful. Then inside.”
Tusk fumbled with some keys and unlocked the door to one of the finer homes. There was a stillness and coldness to the inside that suggested the house had not been used in some time, if ever. It was entirely furnished, but from the doilies on the tables to the seat cushions on the couches, every last thing had the shiny, creased, bleached appearance of something fresh from the craftsman who’d made it.
“Set it here, will you?” Tusk said, indicating the large desk in the study, not far from the front door.
Mallow did as he was told, taking care not to scuff or mar the pristine surface of the desk. He clicked the latches on the case of which, until this moment, he’d neglected to peek inside. He knew better than to do so unless instructed. He was now quite glad that he hadn’t. The case was filled with a carefully arranged and well-secured assortment of explosives, ammunition, and firearms: two types of pistols, a disassembled rifle, shells, bullets, canisters of powder, and a half-dozen other implements of war, showcased with a traveling salesman’s flair for presentation.
“These gentlemen are interested in outfitting some of their lower-level sailors with something a bit more potent than what has been standard issue until now,” Tusk selected a powder canister. “This is our latest mixture. This is a powder mix reserved for fug usage, of course, so it will cost a good deal more than what we call ‘surface grade’ munitions.”
Mr. Bonney nodded stiffly. “The sort of men we might have in our sights aren’t beyond doing business down here. If we are going to be matching them, we’ll have to be willing to get our hands dirty.”
“How much more money are we talking about?” asked Grawhill.
“As you are the first I’ve met with, I believe we can see our way clear to a sixty percent increase over the cost of current munitions.”
“The first you’ve met with?” said Bonney.
“Yes. When I am through with this meeting, I shall be heading north to conduct similar discussions with representatives of Circa.”
“You’d sell arms to both sides?” rumbled Grawhill.
“Certainly. We here in the fug are entirely neutral. We do not play favorites between the people of Circa and Westrim. It simply isn’t economical.”
“Economical.” Bonney crossed his arms. “So it’s a manner of money.”
“When one boils them down, all things reduce invariably to either time or money, which are effectively interchangeable.”
“And how much would it cost to keep this high-grade equipment out of the hands of the enemies of Westrim?”
“Enemies of Westrim?” Tusk said, an impressively genuine tone of surprise coloring the words. “I was under the impression that Westrim and Circa were still enjoying the peaceful coexistence afforded by the Centrum Accord.”
“And how much would it cost for you to… set aside the details of the Centrum Accord for the purposes of this exchange?”
Tusk opened the desk and pulled out a small ledger, then pulled a pencil from his jacket pocket. “Naturally, the size of Westrim is a consideration in a potential exclusivity agreement. We stand to make a great deal more from an agreement with Westrim than Circa. Nonetheless, there will be a net loss if there isn’t a further price increase.”
He jotted down some figures, then looked them over. “Speaking strictly in hypothesis, as I am not in a position to make decisions of this nature without higher-level consultation, I think we could comfortably permit you special consideration regarding ammunition and firearms for… double the standard price.”
Bonney and Grawhill whispered between themselves.
“That’s acceptable,” Bonney said. “When do we start talking real numbers? I want this equipment in the hands of my men as soon as possible.”
“I shall discuss it with my superiors directly. Of course, the matter can be expedited with a small down payment.”
Bonney nodded to Grawhill. He pulled a fat sack of coins from the pocket of his overcoat and handed it over.
“I hope to have your answer within the month, sirs. Thank you for your business.”
They exchanged some stilted farewells, and the surface men took their leave. Tusk arranged the contents of the sample case, returning it to its proper order.
“Take this, would you? We shall require it again for a similar meeting with representatives of Circa.”
Mallow gathered the case. Tusk dumped out the coins and began counting them out.
“While I appreciate your taciturn tendencies, you seem more pensive than I am accustomed to, Mallow. A heavy mind?”
“It’s nothing, sir.”
“At the moment, yes. But the seed has just been planted. You know something? Two years ago, there wasn’t a single person above or below the fug who had the very special mixture of stupidity, insanity, and competence necessary to upset the current peace between Circa and Westrim. Certainly no one in Circa would do it. They’ve lost ground to Westrim in every prior clash. And Westrim wouldn’t dare, because Circa is absolutely in the best position to secure and defend Ray Island, which is a linchpin in the economy of all of Rim. No one down here could do it because, fearful though they may be of upsetting us and losing access to the services we provide, the surface world harbors a more than healthy distrust for any overmanipulation from down here.
“Then came the Wind Breaker. In fact, to be more precise, then came Amanita Graus. With her, the Wind Breaker was liberated from our control. And with that liberation, they became the one variable in a world otherwise locked down. Capable of anything. And as much as that can position one to be a hero, any power that one man has and another doesn’t is a source of fear, and fear is a source of hate. Hate, fear, uncertainty. Those are tools for men like me, Mallow. I’d hoped for a war against Caldera. But I’ll settle for a war between Circa and Westrim. If we are lucky, the Wind Breaker will reach out to Caldera themselves. Bullets and ships will fly. And whoever wins, the money and power all flows back to us, the ones with the skill and resources to keep the war machine running.” He noted the tally of the coins and swept them back into the bag.
“This is all about money?”
“Heavens no, Mallow. It is about power. But like time, money is a ready replacement.”
#
Captain Mack stood at the helm like a priest on his pulpit. His crew stood before him, joined by Digger, Dr. Prist, Donald, and Kent.
“I been thinkin’ long and hard,” he said. “Our target is Fort Cipher Hill. Best we can figure, nowadays it’s a shipworks, but the old name is liable to hold true. It’ll be a fort. Plain and simple. It was a fort before the fug, and a hundred or so years of it bein’ in the hands of folks like Tusk ain’t likely to have made it any less sturdy. But Tusk took his jabs at us. And there ain’t no man, woman, or child down here or up there that ain’t felt his fingers around their throats once or twice without knowin’ it. I don’t know about you all, but I ain’t too fond of havin’ my strings pulled. I mean to cut ’em. And that fort? That fort’s where all our strings are tied. I don’t know if Tusk’ll be there. If he’s got half a mind, he won’t be nowhere near it. But that don’t matter. We take that place away from him, at best he’ll be toothless, and at worst he’ll know there ain’t nothin’ he’s got that’ll be safe from us. It’s leave us be or get the same again. And again and again until he does leave us be.
“But that don’t change the fact that we’re dealin’ with a fort. And a fort ain’t the sort of thing that a ship takes out. It’s the sort of thing that a navy takes out. That an army takes out. You all are some of the finest folks I ever worked with. The best crew I ever had, and the only allies I ever had. But you all ain’t a navy. And you ain’t an army. And worse, this fella we’re fightin’? He’s got a good head on his shoulders. Smart as Alabaster, and he ain’t half as off-his-rocker, so we can’t count on him trippin’ over his own feet. So far he’s been a few steps ahead of us whenever we crossed paths. Playin’ catch-up ain’t no way to win a war. But I reckon I can solve both problems at once.”
He stepped down from the helm. “To take a fort, we’re going to need numbers, we’re going to need firepower, and we’re going to need somethin’ we ain’t never had before—a ground force. And to do it, we’re goin’ to need thinkin’ better than I ever had. So startin’ today, and goin’ until this job is done, we ain’t a crew no more. Not just one, anyhow.”
He turned. “Gunner, Dr. Prist, you’re on firepower. Best you can muster. Most you can muster. I want things out there Tusk ain’t ever dreamed of. Because if he ain’t ever dreamed of it, he ain’t got a defense for it.”
Gunner raised a singed eyebrow. “Are you giving me permission to deploy Samantha’s experiments?”
“So long as you got half a notion you can handle them if they go wrong, load them up and point them at Tusk. Have ’em ready to be heaved from the deck, the fléchette guns, and the cannons of the Wind Breaker. But be ready to outfit another ship if needs be.”
Prist clasped her hands. “This is going to be a tremendous opportunity to advance the field!”
Mack turned to Lil and Nita. “You girls have spent as much time down here as any of us. You were the first to work out that Ebonwhite and his ilk weren’t the only fuggers out there. I’m puttin’ it on you to put together a ground force. Somethin’ quick. As many as you can get. And, again, somethin’ Tusk ain’t gonna see comin’.”
“I’m not sure I’d know where to start, Captain,” Nita said.
“It ain’t my concern where you start. All that matters is where you finish. Fort Cipher Hill. Three weeks from today. Sundown. Me and Butch’ll be on the Wind Breaker. Lil and Nita’ll bring the troops on the ground. Gunner and Prist’ll bring the heavy artillery. … And then there’s Coop.”
He turned to the taller deckhand. “You and whoever you can scare up to help you are in charge of finding us some sort of air support. It don’t matter how good I can fly or how good our guns are. If there ain’t but one thing to shoot at, we’re going down.”
“Who you want I should recruit, Cap’n?” Coop asked.
“Ain’t my concern what you do. Ain’t my concern what any of you do. All I need is for you to get your piece done and show up at Fort Cipher Hill in three weeks at sundown. That’s how we beat Tusk. He’s more than I could ever be in the thinkin’ department. He bested Admiral Maxwell, way back when. A military mind ain’t gonna beat him. He’ll work out what we’re doin’ if we only got one plan. But if there’s a team of us, each with our own plan, then he’ll have to be onto all of us to be ready. Maybe he can manage that. Maybe he can’t. But even if he can, that’s still a stack of plans he’ll have to handle instead of one. And if he gets one of us, works us over and tries to get us to rat the others out, ain’t gonna do him much good, because all we’ll know is the time and date and what we were up to. The others are on their own.”
“And what do we do when we get there?” Gunner asked.
“Work out how to make sure it ain’t there when we leave,” Mack replied. He climbed back to the helm. “I want you to beg, I want you to borrow, I want you to steal. Promise the world to anyone who’ll help you. Fight this one like there ain’t no tomorrow, because if we lose it, there may as well not be. And one last thing. I don’t want you askin’ yourself ‘What would Cap’n Mack do?’ I’ll be doin’ it. I want a stack of different plans from a stack of different minds. I want the unexpected. I want crazy ideas. Stupid ideas. I want him expectin’ us high and gettin’ hit from low. I want him expectin’ a fire and gettin’ hit with a flood. This ain’t the first time we been outgunned or out-thought, but it’s the first time we been outgunned and out-thought by this much, so the old ways ain’t gonna work. Let’s show Tusk somethin’ new.”
“But Cap’n,” Lil said. “What’re you gonna be doing until then?”
“We got a man on us. Someone who wants the ship down and the crew dead. We got enough on our plate without havin’ to look over our shoulders. I mean to deal with it.”
“By yourself?”
“No. Me, Butch, and Wink.”
“But what about—”
“You got your orders. Worryin’ about me ain’t one of ’em. Now get on it. Three weeks ain’t much time to do what needs doin’. I been holdin’ you all too tight lately. I see that now. So I’m lettin’ you loose. I reckon you’ll do me proud.”
He swept his eyes across the assembled crew. “Now get to it!” he barked.
#
Coop scratched under Nikita’s chin as he marched back and forth in a courtyard at Ichor Well. “What do you reckon, Nikita? Cap’n wants loads of ships in the air. Ain’t never had to scare up anything like that before.”
Nikita tapped out a reply on one of his buttons. Digger came.
“Oh yeah?” Coop said, putting his hand to his ear.
Sure enough, the sound of a small two-seater airship was humming up from the distance.
“He’s a darn sight better at thinkin’ up plans than me. I reckon he’s the first recruit.”
He trotted over to the smaller mooring points for ships such as Digger’s and waved off the current ground crew. When Digger was near enough to drop a line, Coop quickly tied it down and helped steady the ship.
“Coop! I didn’t expect the fine service of—”
“Digger, you and me are on the hook to recruit us our own navy!” Coop called up.
“… What?”
#
Nita watched as the freshly repaired Wind Breaker rose into the sky, taking with it the skeleton crew of Captain Mack, Butch, and Wink. Just minutes after the captain had issued his orders, the crew had been rushed off so that he could begin work on his own piece of the complex and ill-defined network of schemes.
“I hope they don’t get hit again with that abrasive before I can get back on the ship…” Nita said.
“Aw, Dr. Prist’s special stuff’ll clean it all out just fine,” Lil said.
“I know, but who’s going to administer it? I can’t picture Butch climbing up into the rigging.”
“Wink’ll do it. The little fella’s been sore about you takin’ the biggest part of his job ever since you showed up. Now come on. He gave us a job. We got to work out how to do it, and you’re the one who does all the good thinkin’.”
“Right. Right, let me see,” Nita said, turning her mind to the task. “He wants us to put together a ground assault.” They paced along the grounds of Ichor Well as Nita looked about for inspiration. “Three weeks… minus the time it will take us to get to Fort Cipher Hill. Do you have that map he gave you?”
Lil tugged a folded bit of paper from her pocket. It contained a rough sketch of Fort Cipher Hill as it existed before the Calamity, and its location in relation to a few local landmarks both above and below the fug.
“If we use steam carts, we can get there from here in three days, assuming the terrain isn’t a problem.”
“Probably ain’t the best idea to assume nothin’.”
“A week then, to be safe.” She added under her breath, “As if there were any way to be safe during this mission.”
“You knew it was going to be rough when you signed back up, darlin’. No sense mutterin’ about it now.”
“I know, I know. That gives us two weeks to figure out how to lay siege to a city and put the plan together.”
“That’s practically forever, the way we usually do things,” Lil said.
Nita set her mind to the task. “We have plenty of steam carts now. And they’ve been well modified for travel through The Thicket. If I can swap out the fléchette guns on them for something more potent, and persuade some of the Well Diggers to pilot them with us… but even with all the help I can muster, I don’t think I could get more than five or six of them finished and reliable in time to leave. And we probably can’t spare that many drivers.”
“We could track down some of the other folks we busted out of Skykeep. I reckon they owe us for ever breathin’ free again.”
“We don’t have the time for it. All we have left are a few two-seater wailer-style ships, and if we use them to head down to the mine where most of the others ended up, how will we get them back?”
“Yeah… Yeah, that ain’t gonna work. Not to mention, Cap’n said we oughta pick somethin’ Tusk wouldn’t see comin’. And anyone who knows you is liable to guess you’d be comin’ with somethin’ steam-powered and fancy.”
“I’m a free-wrench. Building and fixing things are my only real skills,” Nita said.
“Now that ain’t true. You’re a good dancer, and you got a good eye for art…”
“Nice of you to say, but they aren’t overly applicable to wartime.”
“True… Uh… You’re real good with animals,” Lil offered.
“Am I?”
“Sure. Wink ain’t really got attached to anybody but the cap’n until you came long. But he comes scurryin’ to you every time you show up from a long trip. He’s a real sweetheart since you showed up.”
“I think that’s just because I usually bring him macaroons.”
“Aw, half the folks I know only flash a smile my way if they think I’ve got somethin’ to eat or drink. Good with animals is good with animals.” Lil paused. “Say…” She tugged at the thread that held her recently acquired bone pendant.
“You look like you’ve got an idea,” Nita said.
“I think I got a couple. The cap’n says we should do somethin’ Tusk won’t see comin’. Well, most every time we have a plan what needs doin’, it’s the cap’n who comes up with it, or Gunner, or Digger, or you. You all are the smart ones. Me and Coop are just the ones who do the jobs.”
“You’re more than—”
“I ain’t more than that and you know it. But I reckon the last thing Tusk’ll see comin’ is an idea I came up with. And he can’t hardly plan on us havin’ folks on our team we ain’t never worked with before.” She twisted the pendant in her hands. “We gotta get us a cart. And load up on bullets. I reckon there’s some folks we gotta pay a visit to.”
#
Gunner opened a chest in his small room at the Ichor Well facility. Space was at a premium on any ship, and for the Wind Breaker that was doubly true, so when Prist had offered to find him a place to keep the larger and more ungainly items in his collection, he’d jumped at the chance.
“Ah…” he said, smiling behind his mask as if greeting an old friend. “It’s been too long.”
He lifted a weapon from inside the chest and held it into the light. It looked like the overfed, illegitimate love child of a rifle and a revolver. The barrel was as large around as a coffee cup. It had a cylinder with eight chambers at its base. He hefted it to his shoulder and slammed the chest shut.
As Gunner navigated the bustling walkways of Ichor Well, the workers gave him wary looks and wide berths. Gunner shook his head. How exactly he had earned the reputation for being dangerous with weapons was beyond him, but at the moment he didn’t mind. In all honesty, now was a good time to treat him with care, as for the next few weeks he would as likely as not be working with weapons that deserved the distrust and caution that most people treated him with anyway.
He pushed open the door to Dr. Prist’s laboratory.
“Is that you, Guy?” She looked up from her desk in the corner. Her eyes lit up. “Oh, that is just the right size.” She stood and, with a bit of a struggle, took the weapon from him. “Very solid engineering on it. I imagine it will be able to handle a good deal of pressure.” She squinted at an etched set of arrows between the cylinder and the barrel. “What is this here?”
“Mmm? Oh. Tight though the tolerances are, a bit of back pressure tends to vent out there.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“It’s how I lost my pinky.”
“Oh, you poor darling,” she said, handing it back. “Though I suppose a lesson learned in that manner is likely to remain at the front of your mind from that point forward. Set it down over here. We’ll need to start working out payload size.”
Gunner hefted the gun onto a workbench he’d cleared. He levered open the cylinder, and she set about taking measurements.
“Yes, the proportion of ingredients should be large enough to be an effective weapon in most cases. That is, provided we can separate the reagents until impact… Though I suppose if they mix in-transit that would not present an issue. This weapon is very well suited. Perfectly suited, I would say. In fact, what else might this be useful for?”
“I cobbled it together out of a model cannon,” he explained. “The sort that are used for noisemakers before military demonstrations and the like. I thought it might be useful as a midpoint between a cannon and a rifle.”
“I thought that was the purpose of those steam-powered weapons on the deck, that fire the spikes.”
“Fléchette guns are more about putting a great deal of ordnance in the air. Thus, it requires a great deal of ordnance to do any real damage to a ship. This could send a lead ball the size of my fist in one side of an envelope and out the other, and at twice the range of even our sturdiest fléchette gun.”
“Interesting… Why does it look to be in pristine condition?”
“Captain Mack was of the opinion that I didn’t have very many more fingers to spare, so it was best if I kept to slightly more conventional weaponry. Also, the rest of the crew wouldn’t touch it.”
“I see.” She glanced at the clock. “Heavens, the day is sailing by and there is so much to do.”
“What help can I offer?”
“If I work out the mass of the canisters we’ll need to launch, can you work out the charge sizes we’ll need to launch them to various distances?”
“Gladly.”
She found a stack of papers and a pencil and set them before him. He adjusted his mask a bit as he began jotting down numbers.
“Oh, Guy, please. Enough with that mask for now,” she said. She plucked a jar from a rack along the wall and uncorked it, revealing a sample of ichor that quickly pushed the fug from the room.
“You are certain you don’t mind? I understand you are more comfortable in the fug.”
“More comfortable in it, but I can breathe just fine regardless of its presence. And since you cannot say the same, I think it is reasonable to endure a bit of discomfort in exchange for allowing you to work without that ridiculous apparatus.”
“I appreciate the gesture, Samantha,” he said. He slipped the mask off and took his first easy breath since breakfast. In doing so, he freed his rather unruly hair from the mask’s leather straps. He ran through a few calculations, then paused. “Are we planning on using the old formula for the cannon powder, or the new?”
“For the sake of expedience, I think the new. It’s the only powder I have in any quantity.”
“Have we done a flash test of it?”
“Mmm… Not in so small a quantity. I suppose it may not scale as expected.”
“Shall I do the test then?”
“By all means.”
Gunner smiled wide and trotted to the fortified cabinet with the more dangerous compounds inside of it. He fetched a canister and a scale to dose it out. He seemed downright giddy at the opportunity to work with a substance that most of the other Well Diggers wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. When he had the proper quantity, he fetched a gas burner.
“Really now, Guy,” Prist said.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
She stepped up to him. “I’d always thought the greatest blame for your frequent mishaps regarding gunpowder and its applications has been the poor quality control. A bit too much oxidizer is enough to make anything behave in a way you wouldn’t expect, but seeing you skirt even the most basic safety equipment…”
She reached past him and grabbed a glass face shield from a hook on the wall. “Oh, and your hair…” she said. She placed the mask down and reached into the pocket of the apron she wore over her dress and revealed a red ribbon.
“What is that for?” he asked.
“You’ve let your hair get so long, you’ll need to tie it back,” she said, gathering it up behind his head and skillfully tying a bow.
“I am not certain that is appropriate.”
“Guy, if you won’t trim it short, you must tie it back. And to think I’d been puzzled as to why you so often came to visit with the lingering scent of burnt hair about you.” When his hair was wrangled, she slipped the face shield in place and donned one of her own. “Why wouldn’t you think to put on some protection?”
“Again, space is at a premium on the Wind Breaker. And time as well. I seldom have access to such equipment.”
“Then you might consider saving your experimenting until you come down here. I can see to it that you’re given your own laboratory space.” She cleared her throat. “It was rather nice having you here while the fortifications were being built.”
He raised an eyebrow—or at least the stubbly remnants of an eyebrow that had been seared off a week earlier. “Oh?”
“Yes. A shame you were so busy. We could have spent more time together.” She paused for a moment, as if replaying the words in her head. “As an assistant. Or collaborator, of course.” She cleared her throat again. “There is a certain shorthand available to those who have worked with chemicals in the past that I simply have not been able to teach any of the grunts.”
“Right… Stand by for flash test.”
He mixed a bit of the powder, lit a small taper from the gas burner, and ignited the sample. The powder flashed away in a rush of heat and pressure. Flames licked against the face shield—and thus likely would have singed away his eyelashes if not for the protection. No powder was left behind when the flash was through.
“Success,” he said.
“Excellent. It would be a shame to have to run all of the calculations twice.”
“Indeed.”
He put the various equipment away and commenced the calculations again. After a few moments, he set the task aside and raised his head. “Samantha, you and I are both adults.”
“Of course.”
“And adults needn’t mince words. We are capable of approaching things logically and intelligently.”
“Certainly.”
“Just what is the nature of our relationship?”
She chuckled. “What sort of a question is that?”
“You are the only person outside of my family who calls me by my given name. And I don’t believe I’ve heard anyone else refer to you by yours.”
“Entirely acceptable among colleagues.”
“We have been exchanging lengthy correspondences for quite some time.”
“Again, entirely acceptable for colleagues.”
“Then we are merely a pair of colleagues.”
“Yes. Very good colleagues.”
“I see.” He began another calculation.
“Had you supposed otherwise?” she asked.
“I think it would be more accurate to suggest I had hoped otherwise,” he said.
She huffed. “You are a sailor, Guy. Don’t think I don’t know what that means.”
“A woman in every port?” he said. “You don’t truly believe that, do you?”
“I have seen your belt.”
He glanced down. The thick leather strap was visibly and deliberately notched.
“I shan’t be just another notch.”
He smirked, then laughed. She tipped her head up haughtily.
“Is it really so laughable a supposition?”
“I am the armory officer of the most besieged and beset vessel in the skies. These are downed ships.”
“A likely story.”
“Very likely, because it is true.”
“So you would have me believe that a strapping specimen such as yourself hasn’t taken his pick of the fawning ladies of the surface, tripping over themselves to have a member of the crew of the legendary Wind Breaker?”
He smirked again. “Strapping specimen?”
“Don’t evade the question.”
“Samantha, how much time have you spent in surface cities?”
“None whatsoever.”
“The level of discourse in the ports of call that will still have us—because I’ll remind you that, regardless of our growing legend, most ports would prefer to avoid us lest the fug folk blacklist them like the people of Lock—is at a disappointingly low level. I can stomach only so much talk from people of small minds and little intellectual curiosity. Particularly in light of the stimulating alternative you represent.”
She gave him a pointed look.
“Intellectually stimulating,” he clarified. “On the rare opportunity I have to spend some leisure moments in a bar or at a show, I find men and women alike are more closely in line with Coop and Lil’s way of thinking than yours. If I’m absolutely frank, you’ve spoiled me for other women.”
“That is quite frank, Guy.”
“As I said, we are adults, not children blushing in the corner, waiting for the other to step out on the dance floor first.”
She took a breath. “Well then, in the spirit of frankness, I too have been somewhat put off by the overall thrust of the mindset in the fug. Fug women are quite rare, and while that mercifully hasn’t gone in a broodmare-ish direction, it has gone in the only mildly more tolerable direction of locking us away like precious treasure. It is bloody frustrating to be treated as though we are made of glass, liable to shatter should we be exposed to any danger. Even if you weren’t a fascinating conversationalist, a novel and innovative thinker, and yes, a strapping specimen, I rather think I would still enjoy your company on the basis of your relative willingness to permit me to take my own risks.”
“And yet, we are merely very good colleagues.”
“There is the matter of me being a fug woman and you being a surface man.”
“And just what matter is that?”
She scoffed. “It simply isn’t done. We are quite literally from two different worlds.”
“I see. And this is how you feel.”
“It is the way of things.”
“Samantha, let me tell you something I have learned in the past few months. The way of things is badly in need of a revision. So if your only motivation for or against a course of action is ‘the way of things,’ consider doing what you want, rather than what ‘is done.’”
“Yes. Yes… I… Ahem.” She straightened up and fixed her hair. “I shall take it under advisement.”
He chuckled. “Do keep me posted on your decision.”
“Shall we get back to it? Time is wasting.”
“Yes, of course.”
#
“What do you reckon we should do, Digger?” Coop said.
Digger, who looked a bit on edge in the best of circumstances, seemed terribly anxious. “I’m not even certain I understand what he wants us to do.”
“We’re supposed to get more ships to come and help out. You got any friends with ships you reckon we can persuade to help out?”
“Coop, the entirety of my wealth and every favor I could muster went into getting the Ichor Well established. What you see here is all I have to offer.”
“Oh… Well I ain’t got nothin’ neither. This here’s a real poser.”
“I don’t understand how your captain can possibly expect any of you to do what you’ve been told. It is a stack of impossible tasks.”
“Gunner findin’ better ways to poke holes in ships ain’t too tough. It’s what he’d be doin’ with a couple weeks off regardless.”
“Granted. But for the rest of us, he’s asked us to conjure up two armies.”
“An army and a navy, more like.”
“Split hairs if you must, but for the first time I doubt Captain Mack’s judgment.”
“You ain’t never doubted his judgment?”
“Never so thoroughly as now. He takes a series of difficult-to-impossible tasks and assigns them to those beneath him without instruction. If we succeed, it will look as though he’d made all the right decisions, and if we fail, he can blame it all on us. Does that sound like leadership to you?”
Coop cocked his head. “You ain’t never had a boss, have you, Digger? Besides, I wouldn’t worry about who takes credit. If we fail, we’re liable to be dead, so it won’t much matter. Back to thinkin’.”
“There isn’t any sense thinking it over. We don’t have the ships, and even if we did, we don’t have the crew.”
Nikita crawled out from inside Coop’s jacket and sat on his shoulder. Coop fished some waxed paper from his pocket and unfolded it to reveal a macaroon, which he held up for her. She took it and nibbled happily.
“It’s just the crew that’s the problem,” Coop said. “This is the fug. Everyone roundabout the base of the mountains makes their money buildin’, fixin’, and sellin’ airships. No shortage of ’em about. Just a matter of gettin’ ’em in the air.”
Digger rubbed the bridge of his nose. “That is broadly true, but it isn’t as though we just leave the ships in ready-to-fly condition. And we certainly don’t keep them armed. And even if we did, ‘only needing the crew’ is quite large enough a hurdle to completely cripple our chances at success. Remember, after all, that we need crew that can be trusted, and that knows how to do air-to-ground and air-to-air combat.”
“Nope,” Coop said.
“What in that statement could you possibly be disagreeing with? These are facts.”
“No one said they need to know how to shoot.”
Digger shut his eyes tight. “What good would they be if they don’t know how to fight?”
“Cap’n didn’t say nothin’ about them shootin’. He said he needed more folks to be shot at. Ain’t no trainin’ involved for folks to be targets.”
“I think it was implied that we needed them for combat aid. He said ‘air support.’”
“I ain’t the best thinker, Digger. I worked out awhile back that things go smoother the fewer empty spots I fill in when folks give me orders. So I ain’t gonna sit here and try to work out what the cap’n meant when I can just go by what he said.”
“But—”
“What’s easier, Digger? Gettin’ a bunch of ships, or gettin’ a bunch of ships that can fight?”
“Getting the ships alone, obviously, but—”
“Then let’s not make things harder. Cap’n wants ships in the air over the place in three weeks. That’s what we’ll get. If we work that out and there’s time to spare, then we start figurin’ out the guns and the fingers to pull the triggers.”
Digger covered his face. “We are doomed…”