Ministry Protocol: Thrilling Tales of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences

by Tee Morris

  *****

  Defenestration, thought Wellington, was a ridiculous word. As much as he liked having words for very specific things, who could possibly have occasion to use a word for being thrown out a window? But here he was, tumbling backward through open sky, defenestrated out of an airship by pirates, betrayed by a fellow agent, and tumbling towards the certain doom of the icy water that would break his body and swallow him whole.

  Time slowed, and as it did so he saw, coming towards him, a metal pipe outstretched from the ship. He reached for it with both hands. One hand slipped immediately off, but he caught the pipe in the crook of his right arm. His body yanked violently against the metal, banging against the side of the ship, so that he slipped to his fingertips. Looking below, dark clouds floated serenely underneath him. He looked upward, the air of the ship rushing past him, and heard the crackle of electricity and a loud shriek.

  “Not a real mission,” he growled, clinging to the cold pipe. “Practically a paid holiday.” He shifted his grip and kicked upward, wrapping his legs around the support. From above, smoke, fire, and pirates waited for him, if he could actually find a way back inside. He inched up along the pipe, his eyes looking around for entrance back into the ship. A handhold away was a window. But where did the window lead? An empty bedchamber? More pirates?

  The window opened, and Lady Kristiana White, of the Taylor-Whites, stuck her head out the window. “Oi!” she cried. “What are you doing out there?”

  Wellington looked around him, then back at her. Did he really need to give an explanation? “Pirates?!” he yelled, his voice straining against the wind.

  “Thought as much!” said Lady White, holding out her hand. “Give it here, chap! Let’s get you inside.”

  Their fingertips barely touched as Wellington reached towards her. “Give a little push!” she assured him. “I’ve got you.”

  While it was hardly wise to trust the aristocrat considering Crux’s deception, the cold truth was he couldn’t remain out here forever. He pushed off, and felt a strong hand catch his. Lady White hauled him up into the window with an immense strength, and dumped him, unceremoniously, onto the floor of the ship’s kitchen.

  Around him several women gathered, helping him to his feet. “You are—” Tact, Wellington thought. “—stronger than you look.” His heart was beating hard in his chest.

  Lady White flexed her considerable muscles. “I used to be a strong woman!” she said, “In the Traveling Circus of the Oswalts.”

  He coloured. “You! A Lady?”

  “Oh tosh,” said Lady White. “We all have pasts.”

  Wellington nodded. “Yes,” he agreed, “that we do.”

  He withdrew the Nipper from his pocket, thankful that it had remained there this entire ordeal. “Lady White, do you know how to use one of these?”

  She chuckled. “I can use any gun. I’m a hunting champion.”

  “Excellent,” and he gingerly passed the weapon to her. “There are only a few pirates, and many of you. If you gang up against them, using this, you should be able to overwhelm them.”

  “Where did you get this?” she asked.

  This “paid holiday” was resembling more and more like a mission with each passing second. “What if I said I took it off a pirate?”

  “I wouldn’t ask any more questions,” said Lady White with a wink. Then she took his arm. “And what will you be doing, while we overtake the pirates?”

  “They took Baroness Blackwell,” he said. “I intend to get her back.”

  “Well, you should run off and get her,” Lady White returned, patting him on the shoulder. “We all know what trouble she would be, if she fell into the wrong hands.”

  Wellington’s brow knotted. “You do?”

  “Blew up her boarding school,” said Lady White, nodding along with the collected ladies. “Well known. In the right circles, of course.” She turned to the group of ladies around her. “Now then, Women of the Empire, let’s go show these pirates what we’re made of!”

  And, much to Wellington’s horror, she hiked her skirt up, revealing bright, blue stockings, kicked open the door, and charged into the Ballroom. The pirates were quickly overwhelmed by the angry aristocrats, thanks in no small part to the Nipper, and the Lady with an amazingly accurate shot.

  Wellington remained close to the shadows, working his way out of the Ballroom towards the Bridge. Through one of the Hammarström’s observation windows, he saw the pirate’s vessel, stuck to the edge of the grand airship like a black tumour. He rushed up the stairs, watching the retreating pirates as they crossed a wooden plank connecting the two ships. From the scant light coming from the Hammarström, Wellington could just make out Josepha Blackwell, in her stained red dress, pushed ahead of Baron Dragomir.

  “Josepha!” he called out to her. “Don’t go with him!”

  Baron Dragomir pushed Josepha behind him. “You are too late,” he bellowed. “She knows who she is. She’s my sister, and my family—well, we create our own rules.”

  Wellington was about to run for him when he saw Doctor Blackwell behind her brother, reaching up her own dress. He had to delay him. Just for a moment. “Baron, the people we work for have a lot of money. We would be able to pay you for her.”

  The Baron laughed, shaking his head. “You cannot pay for blood,” he said, and motioned to his crew. The connecting plank attaching their two ships began to retract.

  The Nipper discharged from behind Baron Dragomir. Her shot went wild, out into the sky. They grappled for the gun, but Dragomir overpowered her in moments, wrenching the gun from her grasp. Wellington’s hand gripped a distress chute on seeing Josepha leaping out over the open sky, her skirts flying, like she was made of electricity and light.

  Then she rolled into Wellington, and it was very clear that she was made of flesh, bone, and squishy stuff. Particularly when they landed hard against the Hammarström’s deck.

  “Your loss!” cried Dragomir, as his ship floated into the sky. He gave a little bow, holding the Nipper in his hands. It was glowing brightly.

  “You might want to shield your eyes,” Josepha warned just before the darkness disappeared in the wake of a terrible explosion, light and heat washing over them as their own airship listed dangerously.

  It was several minutes before they could see or hear again, and by that time, Dragomir’s pirate ship was just so much ash in the air.