Precipice

by Thomas Webb

  Montclair grinned and shook his head. Ueda saw through him as no one else did, but Ueda had secrets of his own.

  Montclair shrugged and sheathed his blade. Mysteries for another time, he thought.

  Montclair buckled the katana to his waist then pulled his linen undershirt over his head and began walking. He headed toward the aft of the airship, dressing as he went. He tucked his undershirt into his trousers, and glanced at the decking plates. New bolts would be in order soon. Buttoning his uniform jacket, he checked to ensure the guns were polished and oiled. He nodded to himself, satisfied at how they gleamed in the early morning light. No movement, even one as simple as walking across decks, was wasted on Montclair’s airship.

  It had only been a few days since he and Greg had met with the first lady in the executive office. Now, they were in a holding pattern, awaiting her further orders. Word from the Office of the President commanding them to move could come down at any minute. Montclair made a sour face at the thought of the waiting. Christ the Healer, he hated it! Each hour that passed was another hour lost. Another hour when the enemies of the Union moved closer to their goal. Thinking he’d go crazy, he’d decided to take Vindication out for maneuvers.

  Might as well take advantage and get some training in, he’d figured. Montclair prided himself on keeping the crew wartime ready — present orders from the Office of the President notwithstanding.

  Montclair found himself at the aft section of the upper deck, having arrived without fully realizing where his feet were taking him. A platoon of Union Marines lay prone, firing off the rear of the ship. A row of tethered targets floated on aether-gas turrets and trailed in the wind behind them. He watched the Marines: strong, capable, and highly trained men and women, all. They wore the new, odd-patterned Union combat uniforms. Montclair hadn’t decided if he liked them yet or not.

  Watching the Marines shoot was a joy. Nary a one of them hit outside the flying targets’ brightly painted ‘ten’ rings. Montclair was a more than fair shot himself, but he had nothing on the Marines, especially the sharpshooters. Watching them brought to mind another sharpshooter he knew, a gorgeous one with hair the color of embers. One he’d never in a lifetime thought he’d call ‘friend’.

  Montclair walked over to the leftmost Marine and took a knee. Montclair studied the Marine’s target. “Impressive,” he said. “As always.”

  “I’ve preached it enough to my troops,” Greg said, still peering out at his target. A neat grouping of sky-blue holes peppered the bullseye. “I at least try to heed to some of my own gospel.”

  Montclair nodded and looked out at the clear morning sky. “Let’s you and I talk,” he said.

  “Is that an order from the commander of the ship?” Greg asked.

  “No. I’m asking as a friend.”

  “In that case? Of course.”

  Greg got to his feet and made his weapon safe. Montclair backed off as Greg ordered his Marines to secure from morning target practice. Greg handed his rifle over to a lieutenant. Then he and Montclair made their way to Montclair’s stateroom, returning crewmembers’ salutes as they passed.

  When they arrived at his quarters, Montclair bade Greg in first then shut the door behind them. Montclair eased into the chair behind his desk, mindful of his katana. He’d been granted special permission to carry the eastern blade at his side in place of the standard issue cavalry saber, and it wouldn’t do to bend it on a desk chair.

  Greg slumped back into a leather seat opposite Montclair. Montclair pulled two glass tumblers and a bottle of hundred-year-old Highland Scotch whiskey from the drawer of his desk.

  For a while, they sat and drank without speaking. It seemed neither wanted to be the first to break the silence. Montclair’s tumbler was half gone before he decided that if someone was going to speak first, it would have to be him. “Anything you’d like to discuss?” he asked.

  “Not really,” Greg replied. He spun his now-empty tumbler in slow circles on Montclair’s desk.

  Montclair looked out the porthole and noticed they’d turned. Their morning maneuvers complete, they were headed back to berthing at the airship fields on Mason’s island. They’d perform maintenance to the ship during the rest of the day, before conducting a nighttime combat drill Montclair had scheduled for that night.

  Montclair took another swallow of the scotch, letting it burn all the way down his throat until it settled, warm, in his belly. He looked at the glass in his hand, noting it was almost empty. Best go easy with a day of maintenance work and a night of training still to be done.

  “All right, so nothing to discuss. Have you, maybe, spoken to anyone, then?”

  “About what?”

  Oh, I don’t know, Montclair wanted to add. Maybe about the rogue Strategic Intelligence agent you killed in cold blood?

  “Christ the Healer, Greg!” Montclair snapped. “Have you spoken to anyone about last year?”

  Greg shook his head.

  Montclair made it a point to soften his tone. “Have you spoken to anyone about Esmerelda, then?”

  Greg’s wife Esmerelda, a Cuban revolutionary murdered on Kincaid’s orders, was the reason Greg had killed the man in the first place.

  “No,” Greg said. He helped himself to more of the scotch, pouring the ocher liquid into his glass and pounding it back in a single gulp.

  Montclair slammed his fist on the desk hard enough to make his own glass jump. Liquor splashed onto the wood, catching the light in shades of amber and gold.

  "Damnation, Greg!” Montclair shouted. It was uncharacteristic of Montclair to lose his cool, but after holding it all in for so long, an explosion was almost inevitable. “Are we soldiers, Greg? Or are we damned assassins?"

  Greg didn’t flinch. "I've never been a ‘soldier’ per se, Julius."

  “Don’t give me that Marine Corps bullshit, Greg. You know what I mean. Killing that way is DSI business. It’s not something men of honor do.”

  Greg glanced up from the remnants of his scotch and looked Montclair in the eye. “You need to wake up, Julius,” he said. “If you could have killed Horton before he stepped foot on that train… if you could have crept into his bedroom one night and slit his throat while he slept — you know, before he killed all those people? Wouldn’t you have done it?”

  Montclair opened his mouth to speak, but froze. His rage subsided in the face of a stark truth. He would have done it. He knew he would have with absolute certainty, same as he knew the sun would set that night and rise again tomorrow. So why couldn’t he reconcile that with what Greg had done? No, he corrected himself, with what I helped Greg do.

  “It’s different,” Montclair offered up, wishing he could take the words back the instant they left his mouth. He couldn’t have come up with a weaker, more worthless reply if he’d tried.

  Greg laughed. “Oh, really? And just how exactly is it different?” He drew the word ‘different’ out, reminding Montclair of how meritless it was. “Is it because I killed only for love? Only to avenge the taking of the one thing my heart existed to beat for? And you would have done it to… what? Save some lives? Well, that’s very damned noble of you, Julius,” Greg spat, “but who’s to say I didn’t save lives in removing Kincaid from this world?” Greg paused, letting it sink in. “‘Soldiers not assassins’, my ass.”

  Montclair felt his stomach lurch. Vindication had begun her descent. He took a sip from his glass. This talk wasn’t going as well as he’d hoped it would. Not even close.

  “You need to stop lying to yourself,” Greg said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Greg shook his head. “You still don’t get it, do you? After all we’ve been through? When the first lady gives us the signal, what is it that you and I are going to do?”

  Montclair had a ready answer. “We’re going to follow orders, Greg. It’s what we do.”

  Greg dismissed the statement with a wave of his hand. “Semantics. Answer the question, Julius. What exactly has the First Lady of t
he Union tasked us with doing?”

  Montclair saw through the cloud of mistrust and anger and realized Greg was right, more than right, actually, but Montclair wasn’t quite ready to concede the point. Instead, he changed the subject. “Why didn’t you keep to our agreement to meet at the inn?” Montclair asked.

  Greg shifted in his seat. That question got to him. Greg looked away, unable to meet Montclair’s eyes. “I was out of the country,” he offered, “on assignment.”

  Montclair leaned across the desk. “On assignment with DSI, you mean?” He waited for a response: an admission, a denial. Anything. When none came, he continued, “On assignment with Strategic Intelligence, the very same organization that took Esmerelda and the same organization Kincaid belonged to — a man you and I murdered in cold blood.”

  Greg’s didn’t speak for some time. His silence was all the answer Montclair needed. “We’ve worked with DSI before, Julius.”

  “Scarlet and Copperhead are the exception, Greg. Not the rule.”

  “And Abe?”

  “He hadn’t even been through Indoctrination last year. He wasn’t an agent then, technically.”

  “Still.”

  Like two immovable stones, the men sat facing one another. The room suddenly felt claustrophobic, the silence stifling. Montclair glanced outside, caching a glimpse of the familiar view of DC across the Potomac. They were back at the airship field. He’d been so engaged in his argument he hadn’t even noticed their arrival.

  A frantic banging on Montclair’s door broke the tension in the room. Montclair breathed a quiet sigh of relief at the distraction. He looked at Greg. “We’ll finish this later,” he said.

  “I’m not one of your troops to be ordered around, Julius,” Greg replied. He wasn’t backing down an inch. He glanced at the gold eagles on each of his shoulders. “I’m not even your subordinate anymore.”

  They locked eyes. Montclair clenched his jaw. The knocking resumed, this time more urgent.

  “Come!” Montclair shouted.

  Jasper nearly fell over himself getting into the room. “Begging your pardon, sirs. There was a messenger waiting for us when we set down.”

  “All right, Jasper,” Montclair said. “It’s obviously important. Spit it out.”

  "The message, sir, it’s from Scarlet. She needs your help.”

  10 Maryland Countryside - Hills Above a Pasture, September 1866

  Scarlet lowered the spyglass and breathed a sigh of relief. She stood, shedding her field-constructed covering of woven vegetation. It was a long walk down the foothills to the Quaker farm below. She peeked out through the foliage, safe from her vantage point. She smiled as the clean, powerful lines of the USS Vindication materialized above the treetops.

  Scarlet hardly spared a glance at the freshly turned earth as she walked by. The hired mercenaries would now forever rest, their shallow graves unmarked, on a lonely foothill at the base of the Appalachian Mountains.

  They’d found her quickly, much more quickly than she’d anticipated – thanks to the handsome reward McCormick had placed on her head. The poor bastards rotting in the ground behind her were only the first to track her down. She knew they wouldn’t be the last, because the heartier of the two deceased mercs had told her so, just before he died. He’d all but verified what Scarlet already knew.

  She’d been a marked woman, ever since the minute McCormick had discovered their plot. Scarlet shrugged. No matter, that. It wasn’t the first time she’d been hunted, and she’d always managed to get the better of anyone foolish enough to come for her. Always.

  A coral sunset hung just above the treetops by the time Scarlet stepped off the foothills onto level earth. In the distance, Vindication descended toward a wide expanse of pasture. Some industrious dairy farmer had taken advantage of the space where the land leveled out, choosing to make his living from verdant green grass fed by runoff from the base of the mountains. Several cows grazed the prized pastureland ahead of her, mooing at the alien craft descending out of the sky toward them. The bells around their necks clanked as they plodded aside, making room for the mammoth airship. After Vindication settled, the cows continued on about the business of chewing the sweet, green grass. They paid little attention to the monstrous airship of war floating nearby.

  True to her craft, Scarlet dropped down low behind a patch of holly and surveyed the ship for several minutes. She saw the gangplank ratchet its way toward the ground then watched as a tall, brown-skinned man in Union blue strode down it. Next to him walked a second man, equally tall and almost as broad, his combat uniform a riot of greens, grays, and blacks. Scarlet smiled wide. Good. Only the two of them. Just as she’d specified in her coded message.

  Scarlet broke cover and walked out into the open. She zigzagged toward the waiting men, careful of her step. This was an active cow pasture, after all.

  She took in the grandeur of the ship, about as out of place amongst the fields and the livestock as a courtesan in the temple of the Healer.

  Scarlet walked up to Montclair and greeted him with a crisp salute. “Thank you for answering my summons, Colonel.”

  Montclair glared down at her, arms crossed, his face set in stone. Then, he broke into a smile and took her in his arms. “I think we’re beyond saluting,” he said. He gave her a squeeze, following it with a peck on the cheek.

  A warm rush of relief flooded Scarlet’s body. It had been only a few days since the coup attempt. She’d been little more than adrenaline and raw nerve endings ever since. Only now, in the relative safety of trusted friends, did she realize just how on edge she’d been these past few days. She fought the urge to cry in the colonel’s arms, livid with herself for having the thought at all.

  Colonel Montclair broke the embrace and held her at arm’s length. She could feel him staring at her, taking in the dirt and blood on her face. “Looks like you had a hell of a time getting here,” he said.

  Scarlet glanced down at herself, realizing how she must appear. Every bit of clothing she wore was bloodied or torn, and what clothes she had managed to scrounge up were an ill fit. She practically swam in the shirt and trousers she'd taken from the smaller of the two mercenaries. It wasn’t as though he’d needed them anymore.

  “Let the girl get her bearings at least, before you start interrogating her,” Major Gregory said. He looked at her. “Now, I believe I’ll have one of those hugs, too.” He smiled and opened his arms wide.

  Scarlet stepped into the embrace, relishing the feel of being able to let her guard down, even if only a little, even if only for a moment.

  “It’s good to see you too, Maj-oh!” Scarlet said, noticing for the first time the golden eagles on Gregory’s uniform. “Congratulations!” She stepped back and saluted.

  Colonel Gregory laughed. She couldn’t be sure, but something about the laughter rang hollow. He waved off her salute. “No need for that,” he said. He smiled, but the joy didn’t reach as far as his eyes. It seemed strained, somehow.

  Scarlet glanced from Montclair to Gregory and back again. Something about their body language felt… off. Whatever it was lay just beneath the surface. She sensed it there, lurking, unspoken, like a viper waiting to strike. There was tension between them.

  “Let’s get you onboard,” Montclair said. He placed his arm at the small of her back and guided her up the gangplank. “I’m sure you have quite a tale to tell us. But first, you can bathe and get yourself some fresh clothes,” he sniffed and gave her a look, “if you wish.”

  “I’d recommended it,” Gregory said.

  Scarlet shivered at the mention of the bath and the fresh clothes. She’d spent the last week on the run. Living off the land, foraging, stealing, killing. Not to mention digging shallow graves by hand. And she looked every inch of it.

  “Sorry about your uniforms,” she said, eying the fresh dirt and mud she’d gotten on Montclair’s jacket and Gregory’s thick shirt.

  Gregory shrugged. “We have others,” he said simply.

/>   Scarlet looked over Colonel Gregory’s shoulder. Sergeant Major Josiah Franklin, Vindication’s senior enlisted man, ambled toward the top of the gangplank. He beamed when he saw her, the smile twinkling in his sole remaining blue eye.

  “Sergeant Major,” Montclair said, “I believe you remember Scarlet?”

  “Oh, indeed I do. One of the finest shots I ever did see, and pretty as a picture to boot.”

  Scarlet smiled and executed a mock curtsey, eliciting a laugh from the old man.

  “If you’re done flirting, Sergeant Major,” Montclair said, “would you please be so kind as to help get our guest squared away?”

  “It would be my pleasure,” the sergeant major said. He turned to Scarlet. “Good to see you again, young lady.” The gruff old soldier with the eye patch offered her his arm. “If you’ll come with me, please?”

  She took the older man’s arm and let him escort her across decks. The sergeant major’s strength, his demeanor… he reminded her of her minder, much like the farmer who’d given her a ride out of the Maryland forest. Seemed a lot of people reminded her of Copperhead lately. She renewed her unspoken vows to find and free him, and to make McCormick pay.

  A quarter turn o’ the clock later, Scarlet found herself sitting at a small table in the galley, a sheaf of leather-bound papers and a bowl of beef stew steaming before her. She inhaled the aroma of savory vegetables, beef, and rich broth, her mouth watering. It was a far cry from the grubs and berries of her last meal. Vindication thrummed beneath her feet as she reviewed the documents and wolfed down her stew, the decks vibrating and her stomach lurching as they lifted off.

  A turn o’ the clock after her meal, Scarlet was bathed, fed, and outfitted in a Union Army combat uniform, a donation from a sympathetic female crewmember who was just about Scarlet’s size. She digested both her meal and the contents of the papers she’d read as she marched down the halls of Vindication’s command center, exhausted but alert. Despite being drained from her ordeal, she arrived at the war room entrance feeling better than she had in days. At the entry, she met a pleasant surprise. Kenshin Ueda, also on his way in, met her at the hatchway.