by Michael Rigg
As the ship came still closer, it became even larger. So large, in fact, I was hardly surprised when I saw doors swing open like a bomb-bay in the mid section of the ship. I saw men working ropes and pulleys inside. They planned to bring us up inside their ship! "Oh, wow," I muttered as I realized this. "Is this common?"
Kevin and Maggie exchanged glances, Kevin's face suddenly growing dark.
Then a few things happened all at once. Maggie reached forward and pulled a lever. A loud jut of steam exploded out from underneath the wagon, making us lurch forward and causing the pots and pans and other bric-a-brac to dance around and clatter loudly behind me. The wagon started to take a sharp dive. Kevin yelled for me to get down. And, in a glimpse, I saw some figures inside the airship man what appeared to be mounted harpoon guns and swing them toward us. It was when Maggie shouted "Pirates!" that I noticed they'd struck the Confederate flag, pulling all markers inside the ship.
The harpoon guns fired with thunderous whoop! whoop! whoop! sounds, followed immediately by a swishing spring echoing in the space between us and the enormous airship. One of the shots impacted with the balloon above the wagon's canopy. It burst with a loud woof of air. Two more harpoons shattered what was left of the balloon and tore through the canopy behind me embedding deep into the floor of the wagon, breaking several plates, bottles and gadgets.
The wagon slumped to the side, angling down as if it were going to spin ungracefully toward the earth. Maggie screamed and started to roll out of her seat before Kevin caught her and pulled her back. We dropped. My stomach flew into my mouth before our short descent ended with a hard jerk that almost felt like we'd hit ground. I tumbled back into the main compartment, bumping off the cot and snagging my skirt on the barb of one of the harpoons.
I felt the entire wagon creak and roll, now suspended by the three cables fired from the airship. We still had forward momentum, but Kevin was forced to shut down the engine to avoid spinning us around their tow cables or swinging us around to crash us into their engines. All he could do was hold his tiny wife closely. All I could do was look up through the tear in the canopy and watch the men grinning down at us, laughing and pointing.
"What do we do?" I called out to Kevin.
He answered after a moment's consideration. I realized this had never happened to him before and what he was about to give me was pure conjecture. "They'll likely just rob us and leave us off somewhere." His voice was weak, almost shaky. It's no wonder Kevin Tarnish never lies. He's very bad at it.
We were all about to die.
Moments later the wagon was hoisted into the compartment of the pirate ship and swung to the side, suspended from the bay ceiling, after the pirates worked to hook us to an overhead boom. All we could do was hold on and hope they wouldn't drop us. None of them said anything. They just scrambled like workers on the job, crawling over grappling lines and climbing hand-over-hand on the cross-rigging inside the bay to anchor us to the inside of the ship. The only time they spoke was to shout out commands to each other.
I looked forward and saw Kevin and Maggie holding each other, glancing around nervously. Maggie, I could see, was sobbing. Kevin, his goggles now hanging around his neck, blinked with wide, wet eyes at the men as they worked around him.
"Hey!" came a voice from the back of the wagon. I looked and saw an overweight man with a stubbly beard and a greasy fireman's shirt leering at me. "Hey, pretty baby, how about you come outta there, huh? Let's have a look at ya."
"Go to hell," I spat.
That wiped the smile off his face but also made a pistol appear in his hand. He pointed it at me and pulled the trigger. The arc of bright light from the weapon punched me solidly in the chest. I flopped over backward, barely registering Maggie's screams. I felt myself flopping on the floor of the wagon but couldn't regain control of my arms and legs. It felt as though the muscles of my limbs were contracting into my body. My entire body felt tight and feverish, then completely lax as if I'd just fallen into a coma from the neck down.
It also sparked a memory...
The cubical room was white. Men and women standing around me were dressed in sweat or track suits of navy blue, black or gray. Each one of us, myself included, had a badge-shaped patch over our chests. Two men who wore jackets with the letters C.I.A. stamped on the back stood before us. One held an M18L Taser. "Okay, cadets. Welcome to 'This is what it feels like to be a perp' class." Both men chuckled.
The memory faded.
Large hands grabbed my ankles and tugged. Then they were on my knees, under my skirt, grabbing my thighs. I struggled to make my limbs work as the hand moved up the leg of the laced drawers Maggie had given me and probed higher. Then another hand cupped my breast, squeezed and pinched me through the chemise and corset. Then both hands were on my arms and I felt myself lifted up and over, my head lolling loose at my neck. I dropped like a rag doll over the large man's shoulder, my arms dangling as his hand held me by the rump, his fingers a little too close for comfort.
Unceremoniously, I felt myself spin, then flip back again. I hit the deck of the bay with a metallic thud, my arms splaying out, my bandaged head banging off the corrugated deck plate. I winced as the pain shot through my body. I could start to feel my limbs again.
I looked up in time to see Kevin and Maggie pulled from the front of the wagon by another man as the one who took me climbed into the back. Pots, pans, boxes and bits of clothing flew out of the back, along with the Wocmend Machine which crashed to the deck and shattered into several large pieces and bits of broken glass. I looked over at Kevin and saw his chin pucker. One of the men who pulled out Kevin and Maggie drew a revolver and pointed it at Kevin's temple.
"Where's your jewels? Yer value-alls?" One of them spat toward Kevin in a thick accent. "Tell me or my friend here cleans out yer brain pan."
Kevin stammered a bit before saying, "W-w-w-we we h-haven't g-got any."
The pirate with the gun to Kevin's head took Kevins' top hat and placed it on his own mop of grimy hair before mimicking, "W-w-w-w-w-we ain't, we ain't." He laughed, showing brown teeth.
The other men roared with laughter. I started to regain some strength and pushed myself up. I sized up our kidnappers. The one who had taken me was portly, not in good physical combat shape though he seemed quick with the shock pistol. The tall dark skinny one with Kevin's hat had no chin and a long beak-like nose. One of the men called him "Wiley." A third had taken off Maggie's hat and goggles and had a fistful of her hair. He pulled her head to the side and whispered something to her that made her sob harder and cry out. A fourth man was really no more than a boy of maybe fifteen or sixteen. He held a rifle of some kind across his chest. It was an enormous gun for the kid, almost as long as he was tall, a thick weapon that looked like it could fire soup cans as projectiles, which is precisely what occupied the bandoleer the boy wore over his chest.
The one whispering to Maggie looked up from her to his mates and called out, "I like this little one!"
The one named Wiley, with Kevin's hat, said, "Oh, ya ain't likely to have her if the Cap'n sees 'er first!"
"I just said I liked her is all."
“Maybe he'll let you have seconds,” Wiley laughed.
"Hey!" The fat one by me called. He came out of the back of the wagon with two bottles of what appeared to be liquor. "Bingo!"
"Nice," Wiley nodded.
Fat bottle man pointed toward me and said, "Oy, didja see the fish I caught?"
That drew the attention of the others toward me and they all looked me over lecherously—except for the boy with the big gun who spoke in a thick cockney accent, "Whass wrong wiff 'er 'ead? She got a bandage on."
The fat one said, "Ain't gotta worry about a bandage head. Ya just put a bag over 'er ugly mug when ya drill 'er!"
Wiley laughed at that with a long, drawn out "Ooohhhhhhh!" I saw that Kevin, shoulders slumped, turned red. His jaw worked angrily.
I glanced between each of them. Parts of my brain I didn't know exi
sted—other parts that had sparked to life when I took down that guy named Grubbs—all started to sizzle to life. Training I never knew I had took over as I remained lying on the deck, acting weak. My muscles began to re-connect and recharge. All the men seemed pretty satisfied with their catch. All of them, with the exception of the boy, seemed to relax. Only the one with Kevin's hat had a weapon pointed at anyone. The lech groping Maggie had tucked his into his pants to free up the hand that now worked at Maggie's blouse, and the one who had groped me was busy pulling loot out of the back of the wagon.
I took in the bay. All around us were bits of other assorted vehicles that had been snatched out of the sky. Parts of kites, aerocars, balloons, biplanes and even part of a SkyTrain fin were all around, hanging from block-and-tackle on the ceiling, spread out over lighted work benches, or propped against walls or hanging from hooks. A hundred or so cables, lines and ropes stretched here and there. The pirates had to duck or climb over them as they moved around. Some were connected to pulleys that held plane engines, others just seemed to be support wires or hung loosely without any discernible purpose. Some were coiled on the deck near the enormous hatch that still hung open. Between the roar of the wind from the open hatch and our proximity to the engines, the whole bay vibrated and hummed with the sounds of an enormous airship. I doubted that anyone else throughout the ship would hear a gunshot in here.
I nodded to myself mentally. I just needed an opening.
My guess was that once they got everything sorted out here, and divided up what loot they could scrape from the top, they'd invite the Captain down to inspect the latest acquisition. Judging by the way they were treating us, and especially the way they treated Maggie and I, I figured there was a reason the hatch was still open. I started to stand up slowly, glancing between Kevin and the one named Wiley with the gun pointed at his head.
Careful not to look threatening, I kept my eyes mostly on the deck and pretended to be weaker than my coiling muscles wanted. The bad news was that they had pulled Kevin and Maggie from the front of the wagon and me from the back. There was some distance between us and a lot of ropes and chains to negotiate to close the space. My fat friend with the grubby hands stashed the bottles in a coil of rope nearby and was coming up fast.
"What'd it look like in there, Fats? We get us a good one?" Wiley asked.
Fats, appropriately named, stepped up beside me and grabbed me by the bicep. "Looks like a Ford model S-Sunriser." He looked over the outside of the wagon and sneered. "I've seen better kites. We can scuttle her for parts, I reckon."
"Cargo?"
"Lotsa bottles and tools," Fats shrugged. He jerked my arm and pulled me closer to the rest of them. Good. "And, of course, these lovely bits o' honey. She ain't got the rack of the little one, but 'er arse is fit fer poundin'."
They all chuckled at that, except for Wiley who pushed the barrel of his gun harder against Kevin's head. Kevin was still red, his eyes darting side to side. Don't do it, I thought to him. They'll kill you. You're not trained for this. Then a surprising thought: I am.
Wiley said, "What about this one." Indicating Kevin.
"Hatch 'im," the one by Maggie said.
The British kid smiled wide showing crooked—and some missing—teeth. "Yeah! Yeah, 'atch 'im!"
Fats said, "Do it before the Cap'n gets here so we can get it on with the ladies."
Maggie started to catch on to what they were talking about and looked between them, shaking her blond locks and whimpering "No-no-no-no," but the one by her grabbed a fistful of her hair and shut her up with a yank. That made Kevin flinch toward him. And that made Wiley cock his pistol.
"Let's take a long walk to the hatch, my friend," Wiley said to Kevin.
I took a breath and shouted, "No!"
All eyes turned to me. Fats drew the shock pistol out of his pants and pointed it at my throat. "I mean... You don't want to kill him."
"'Atch 'im!" Brit kid yelled again.
"Shut up, Leslie!" Wiley barked to him, then looked to me with a fiercely territorial expression.
Wiley, apparently the leader when the captain wasn't around, smiled slickly. "What's he to you, red? He yer boyfriend? Yer lay when the blondie's not around?" He prodded at Kevin's temple and sneered, “Yeah? Now that ain't fair, buddy, you havin' two birds to pluck and we got none.”
I shook my head and said, "He's a doctor." I nodded to Maggie. "And she's a nurse." Then I quickly added, "We're all useful to you. I'd think snatching a medical team out of the sky would set well with your captain." I glanced to Fats. "I'm guessing you don't have a shipboard doctor or you'd have better hygiene." That brought a couple of snickers. Good.
Fats gripped my arm tighter and shook. "You, bitch. I oughta—"
"Knock it off!" Wiley barked. He lowered the pistol and spoke to Kevin. "That true, lanky? You a doc?"
Kevin slowly raised his head and looked to me through the hair hanging in his face. His dark eyes were wide. He nodded slowly.
Wiley raised the pistol again and tapped him on the head with it. Kevin winced and nodded, taking the painful hint to speak up. "I am a doctor."
Leslie the Brit shouted above the din of the engines, "We don' need a doc! 'Atch 'im, Wiley, you promised!" Leslie turned and moved to the edge of the hatch and pointed down to earth with his long soup can gun. "C'mon,” the kid whined. “I ain't seen a 'atchin' up close."
That's when a booming voice echoed from somewhere behind me and fats. "No one's getting hatched unless I say so!" Everyone turned toward the new voice. The Captain wore high boots, faded dungarees, and a fireman's shirt similar to the rest of the crew. He wore a leather vest over the shirt, decorated with an assortment of patches, pins and medals undoubtedly taken from conquests. Above his dark face sat a tattered-brim fedora. An assortment of goggles were strapped to the hat. Most of them were missing lenses. One had a cracked lens with a dime-sized hole in the glass that was stained dark red.
The man was tall and built like a stack of barrels. A thick bush of a black mustache barely linked with the thinner chin beard below and long dirty black hair hung down to his shoulders. His dark face was marred with soot stains not unlike the others, so I immediately pegged this "Captain" as one who liked to do a lot of dirty work himself. He wore a gun belt low on his hips and the pearl handles of twin revolvers glinted in the sunlight reflected up through the hatch.
I offered him a smirk. "I take it you're Blackbeard." That brought me a tighter squeeze and a tug on my arm from Fats, but the Captain ignored me as he looked me over quickly and moved over to the others. Fats and I watched as he passed.
"I'm Captain Elias Vernon. Welcome aboard the Mystic Lady." As he got closer to the others, Wiley un-cocked his pistol and lowered it. A moment later, Fats lowered the shock pistol and tucked it back into his pants. Leslie stood straighter and shouldered his can rifle like a proper British soldier, and the one holding Maggie loosened his grip on her and stepped back a pace. "You will be our guests for at least the next twenty-four hours." He turned to the kid. "We're not hatching anyone between Memphis and Nashville. We wait until we're over water."
"That's pretty smart for a pirate captain," I sneered. This time, Fats did nothing to try to shut me up. He even loosened his grip as Elias Vernon turned toward us.
"What's your name, fiery maiden?"
I offered an authentic smile and slight curtsy. I struggled to keep the tone of my voice sounding strained from nervousness and not pent-up fury. "Alice, but 'fiery maiden' works too. I like the sound of that."
He raised an eyebrow. Still looking at me, but speaking to his men, he said, "That one is mine." And, by making the simple declaration, the entire situation changed. Fats let go of me and stepped back. He touched the center of my back to nudge me closer and followed as I stepped over ropes and chains to join the rest of them. Wiley smiled more and holstered his pistol. The others seemed to relax. Good. The situation was improving. I don't know how or why that thought came to my head, but I was fine
with letting silent instinct take over.
Vernon turned to Kevin. "So, you're a doc?"
Kevin looked up, then away as if afraid to meet his eyes. "I-I am, sir. Yes."
"And who are these ladies you're traveling with?"
Kevin looked at me. He didn't answer. Vernon grabbed him by the shirt collar and yelled into his face. "I asked you who they are!"
Blinking, Kevin said, "Magdalene and A-Alice." His eyes flitted to Maggie. "Sh-She's m-my wife, sir."
The Captain pulled Kevin close to his face. I saw Kevin wince from what must have been horrible breath. Vernon forced him to sight down his arm as he pointed to me, his grimy finger inches from my nose. "And what about Miss Alice there? She a relation o' yours, Doc?"
Kevin shook his head. "N-No, sir. A passenger. We picked her up in Shreveport."
Good boy, Kevin. A half truth is no better than a full lie.
He let Kevin go. "So, Fiery Maiden, you're a hitch?"
I shrugged. "If that means 'hitchhiker,' I suppose so."
"Looks like you picked the wrong wagon to hitch a ride with."
That completely loosened everyone up. They all laughed heartily at the Captain's joke as if it was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. Their laughter, of course, was fake and meant only to firmly plant their collective noses as far up Vernon's filthy backside as they would go.
Something in my mind said, 'now,' and I felt myself moving as if by some unlocked instinctual prompt. Just like with Grubbs, my body moved with a speed and agility that surprised me even as parts of my brain took over and guided my hands, arms and legs.
I reached out for Wiley's belt and snatched the pistol into my left hand before he even knew I was there. I swung it over my right shoulder and managed to catch Fats across the nose with the metal sight on the pistol's barrel. As Fat's reared back from the unexpected hit, I twirled around, swapping the gun to my right hand, and ducked behind the fat man, coming up quickly behind him with a head lock and jamming the pistol into his temple. "Don't move!"
