by George Wier
“Good,” came Merkam’s hollow-sounding reply. “Stand by for Level Three. Where is Koothrappally?”
“On his way,” Ross replied, and then to himself, “I hope.”
“Good.”
Abigail poked her head down inside the main hatch. “Jack. Are you alright? Are you wounded?”
“I am unharmed,” he said, and thought, Except for my heart. My wife is in love with another man.
[ 19 ]
On the Bridge of the Arcadia, Judah Merkam looked over at Nikola Tesla to make certain he was fastened properly to his seat. The belts were western gun belts, top of the line, cut in half and saddle-stitched to the leather seats. The forward triple-paned and reinforced vulcanized glass showed them the southernmost portion of Colorado Springs and a fierce glow from directly below.
It was fortunate that he could start the transmogrifier from the Bridge and bring it to Level One without Jack Ross being at his post. That was a design challenge from the first, and it cost them several weeks of their already delayed schedule to get that one factor implemented, but it had worked. Merkam breathed a sigh of relief that his foresight may have saved them.
He could have brought the engines from Level One to Level Two on his own as well, but dials were not always reliable. For anything above Level One, the Engineer had to be at his post at the transmogrifier. Now the electromagnetic field around the ship produced a shimmer through the front glass. So far, it was working as anticipated.
“You know, Judah, I must say that trouble follows you everywhere you go,” Tesla said.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Merkam replied. “By the way, old boy, what would you say that is?” Merkam pointed.
The stars above them were blotchy, shimmering things, but there were fewer of them than a moment before, and those they could see winked out one by one.
“Some...blackness,” Tesla replied. “Could be the weather, what with all the cold wind.”
“You know, Nik, have you ever had one of those...”
“What?”
“Uh. Feelings? That something...not good...is about to—”
The stars disappeared completely.
The ship shuddered with impact. The bulkhead to Tesla’s right dented inward. The interior of the ship rang like a bell.
“Oh my God,” Tesla swore. “What the hell?”
A face thumped into the forward window, illuminated only from within. Then another.
Judah Merkam ducked his face over to the petals of the speaking tube. “PIRATES!” he screamed.
[ 20 ]
Judah Merkam’s voice came over the loudspeaker with crystal clarity. It was the first time the apparatus had worked without a distant, tinny quality to it, as if from a gramophone. Merkam’s shout froze the blood. “PIRATES!”
Billy Gostman and Denys Jay-Patten exchanged glances. From the direction of the Bridge at the fore of the ship, Koothrappally called down at them. “Repel the invaders we must!”
“Get to the Bridge!” Ekka Gagarin shouted. “You are needed there. We’ll handle the pirates.”
Jay-Patten grinned.
The hull of the Arcadia became a sounding board for dozens of clanking irons. The noise was cacophonous.
From the deck below them, Abigail Ross’s voice called upwards. “I’ve got Conklin belted in. Do you need my help up there?”
“No,” Billy called down to her. “We’ve got them.” Billy’s hand whirled to get his pistols out of their holsters. He checked his load. “I’m loaded for bear.”
A pirate face regarded Ekka, Billy and Denys through the main window nearest the midship cargo hatch.
“Ropes,” Ekka said, and pointed to the cargo lashings close by. “We’ll have to tie ourselves off.”
“I’m coming up there to help,” Jack Ross hollered.
“No!” Ekka shouted. “Get us out of here! You can come up if they break into the ship.” Ekka grabbed the end of a rope and whipped it free from its stanchion and began tying it around Billy’s ankle. Jay-Patten broke his Nitro-Express open and inserted a round.
The Indian helped himself to his feet. “I fight,” he said.
“Good,” Billy replied. “Cook, fight. It’s all in a day’s work. Where’s that damned big robot when you need him?” Billy asked. No one responded or they simply couldn’t hear him. The clanging from outside had doubled in volume.
Billy turned back to the hatch in time to see the inner wheel spin.
“Oh shit,” he said. Then to himself he muttered, “So much for promises, Pat.”
The massive hatch clanked inward and Billy Gostman put a hole in the first pirate’s forehead, right above his eyes. Three more swooped in after him, cursing and shooting. Jay-Patten vaporized one of them with a shot from his JPM and another discovered a knife had blossomed from his throat from the woman. He fell and was dead before he knew what was happening.
“Him dead,” the Indian stated.
The last of the three slashed at Billy with a cutlass but Billy brought up his pistol, absorbing the force. The gun fell from Billy’s stunned fingers. Billy shot him with the gun in his left hand.
Four more pirates poured in through the open hatch.
Thus began the sky battle over Colorado Springs.
[ 21 ]
“Intruder! Alert! Intruder! Alert!” the mechanical voice of the great robot filled the main cargo chamber of the ship. The robot took three stair steps at a time and emerged on the platform with Billy, Ekka, Denys and Two Hats.
The four pirates turned to face the robot and were crushed by a hammer-like blow. They fell among the pile of their brethren. The robot went to the hatch and levered itself out. The fighters looked at each other, then in silent agreement checked their tie-off ropes and leapt after it.
“Wait,” Two Hats called after them. “Where my rope?”
Strangely there was no wind outside the ship. The robot crushed any pirate that came within reach. A harpoon struck it dead center, denting it. The robot wrapped its arm around the rope from the harpoon and then spun its arm at high speed, taking up the slack. Billy fired his gun at anything that came at them. There was scant light outside, and even the starlight was obscured. It was only from the dwindling flames in Colorado Springs that he could make out the silhouetted ships charging them and the men dangling from them.
Jay-Patten fired the JPM at the black hulk of the dirigible that was being drawn to the robot by the twining of its arm. The brilliant light of the JPM round punctured the dirigible and set it on fire, and the ship began to lose altitude, fast. The robot spun its arm the other direction until the rope came free and tumbled into space. As the burning hulk fell, Billy could make out the ship’s name: Angelina. He’d known a Mexican girl with that name once. A real beauty.
A shot tore through Billy’s shirt and grazed his side. Damn, but it burned. He almost went down, but Two Hats’s strong hands caught and righted him.
“Two Hats return favor,” the Indian stated.
“Thanks,” Billy said, and reloaded his pistol.
A ballista cracked onto the hull beside Ekka. She leapt upward in an acrobatic flip and the ballista fell into the night. If she hadn’t done so, the blades of the spear would have taken her feet off at the ankles.
A too-bright light sprang into being from one of the dirigibles, very nearly blinding the four defenders. The light was joined by a dozen others.
“Shit,” Billy yelled. “There’s a hundred of ‘em. Everybody back inside!”
The ship lurched. Ross had thrown the transmogrifier main gear into Level Three. Billy, Ekka and the Indian fell into the night.
Denys Jay-Patten flipped back into the hatch at the last second. He shouted out the names of his compatriots, but there was no one to hear him. The Arcadia rolled onto its belly. Denys stared at the two remaining ropes there—Billy’s and Ekka’s. His fingers brushed them and they twanged. In his mind’s eye he could see them dangling beneath the craft.
He thrust his head ou
t and looked down, but the curvature of the hull of the ship defeated his view. The robot lofted a dead man and threw it at something, Denys could not see what. The glow from burning Colorado Springs was far behind them now, and they were moving away from the black ships of the sky pirates.
“Robot!” Denys called. “Get in here and help me reel in these ropes!”
At that moment a black shape flew in through the hatch over Denys’s head. Denys ducked out of reflex, and this saved his life. The keen edge of a cutlass blade shaved a swatch of hair from the top of his head.
The flying black shape bounded off the far wall of the hull and landed on the loading platform facing Denys. The man smiled.
“Who the hell are you?” Denys asked. He dropped his rifle onto the pile of dead pirates at his feet and drew his saber from its sheath.
“Oye be Blackbeard.”
[ 22 ]
Billy Gostman felt as if his right arm was about to pop out of its socket. Two Hats gripped his arm with both of his powerful hands. The rope was taut around Billy’s ankle and it hurt. Ekka swung around him in a lessening arc. She’d already hit him once, nearly dislodging Two Hats.
Two Hats’ moccasins brushed the bubble below the ship and his shoes shimmered with something akin to St. Elmo’s fire—a crackling blue electric energy.
“If my chief were here,” Two Hats said. “He would name me Blue Foot.”
“I forgot to ask your name,” Billy replied. The muscles in his arm screamed at him.
“Two Hats,” the Indian said.
“That makes sense. I’m Billy.”
“Me know. Me hear woman say your name during battle.”
“Ekka?”
“No. Other one.” Two Hats lowered his voice as Ekka swung by again. She missed them by inches, even with her hand outstretched. “You own hearts of two women. I not want to be you.”
From above Billy heard the distinct clang of metal on metal.
“White hunter fights with sword,” Two Hats said. “It is good.”
“Yeah, but who’s he fighting?”
“It may be he makes war with ghost.”
Ekka swung back again. “Brace, Billy!” she cried. “I can’t stop!”
She hit Billy square this time, and instead of falling, Two Hats released one hand and grappled at Ekka with the other. He missed her arm but hers twisted around and took hold of his.
“Billy,” she said. “Quick, take off your gunbelt.”
“Oh. Right.” Billy used his free hand and got his belt loose. Somewhere along the way he’d lost both of his pistols. He passed the belt to Ekka, who slung it first around the Indian’s bicep, then around Billy’s own. She pulled it taut, drawing Two Hats upward by inches. Billy detected movement, tucked his chin and gazed upward. The robot had their ropes and was reeling them in.
“That hurt,” Two Hats said between clenched teeth. “But feel better than eat boulder.”
[ 23 ]
“Poppycock,” Denys said. “Blackbeard’s dead. He died in 1718. He was hanged and his head was struck from his body and was displayed publicly. You don’t even have a decent beard, what?”
“Oye’m ‘is great-grandson,” the strange pirate stated, and moved his cutlass in a figure eight.
“Blackbeard the Fourth?” Denys laughed. “You’re one-sixteenth of the man he was, quite literally.”
“If’n oye ‘as one sixty-eighth the man ‘e wern, oye’d still beat you. Who thee be?”
“One sixty-fourth, you nit.”
“Huh?”
“One sixty-fourth. Sixteen doubled is thirty-second. Thirty-second doubled is sixty-fourth.” Denys twirled his saber in a figure eight, then brought the tip of his blade to hover in the air between them. Blackbeard’s blade touched his.
“Oye hires uvver men ta do me figgers. Whomever thee be or whomever thee b’aint, Oye’m ‘bout to carve thee to cornfetti.”
“It’s ribbons,” Denys said. “Carve you to ribbons. Don’t you know anything?”
“Oye knows thee for a dead man,” Blackbeard said and lunged. Denys easily countered the thrust by stepping aside and parrying the blade away. At the same instant he kicked the man hard on his left side.
Blackbeard back-pedaled and swore. “Wot ta Debbil’s hell was thot?” he asked. He’d never before been kicked by a man during a sword fight.
“Jiu-jitsu,” Denys stated.
“Chewy wot?”
“Nothing. You wouldn’t understand.” Denys lunged, feinted. Blackbeard riposted and sparks flew where forged steel clanged. Blackbeard’s cutlass sang and Denys stepped backwards, the cutlass slashing where he had been an instant before. The downward slash connected with the platform and more sparks flew. Denys stepped forward as Blackbeard withdrew his blade and brought his saber in a downward arc, not at Blackbeard’s head or chest, but at his sword arm. The saber connected with the man’s wrist. Hand and sword clattered to the platform. Denys, his eyes never wavering from Blackbeard’s face, looked for shock where there was none. He glanced at the stump of the man’s wrist, expecting spurting blood, but there was none. There was, instead, a spark of electric fire from the wrist. Denys himself was stunned for a moment, and Blackbeard took the opportunity to calmly retrieve the sword and hand with his good left. He removed the disembodied fingers from the hilt, held the hand out in front of him and dropped it.
“Oy never could ‘boyd the godrotted thing anyways,” he said, and smiled.
Blackbeard slashed with the cutlass in his left hand and Denys parried the blow, then tossed his saber from his right hand to his left. It was his turn to smile.
“Aye! So’s yer an ambi! ‘Ta odds be’s e’en.”
Jack Ross’s head popped through the hatch from the Engine Room and he ducked again as Blackbeard’s cutlass came back in preparation for another savage slash.
“Don’t mind me,” Jack said.
“To your post, Mister Ross,” Denys stated confidently. “I’ll do with this blackguard.” Denys caught the blow dead even and the two went into a battle of brute strength of arms for a moment.
Denys shoved hard, brought his saber inside the other man’s guard and carved a groove across Blackbeard’s chest. Blood began to flow.
“So you’re not all machine,” he stated. “Pity. It would have assuaged my guilt for killing you.”
“Oy b’aint be deaded yet.”
“I think you should drop that dreadful pirate accent. It doesn’t become you, Mister Teach.”
“You mean like this?” Blackbeard said, the pirate accent instantly gone. Denys eyes widened. Blackbeard noted the shocked expression and took the opportunity to lunge.
At the last instant Denys turned sideways and the cutlass pierced his shirt. He felt the blade slide along his back. He spun abruptly to face Edward Teach and the saber was wrenched from the man’s grip.
Denys’s blade hovered before Edward Teach’s face.
“You know, we should hang you, cut off your head, and display it publicly in San Antonio. Say, at the gates of the Alamo.”
“Go ahead and kill me now,” Edward Teach stated. His arms hung limply at his side.
The voice came from above. “We’ll do neither.”
Denys Jay-Patten glanced upward. Judah Merkam stood at the railing outside the Bridge.
“He’s a pirate, Judah. It is customary to at least hang him.”
“The way he fights, we may need him where we’re going. Clamp him in irons and throw him in the hold with the robots. Looks like he’s almost their kind anyway.”
“Yes,” Denys replied. “We may need him at that.”
At that moment Billy Gostman slid in from outside the main hatch. His boots hit the platform so hard it rang for a moment. Ekka Gagarin and Two Hats quickly joined him as the robot uncoiled two ropes from its great arm.
“What’d we miss?” Billy asked.
[ 24 ]
“Somewhere there’ll be a town newspaper reporting the strange rain of dead pirates from the sky
,” Billy said. The last of the bodies was tossed overboard and there was yet another rope tied around Billy’s ankle, but this time as an auxiliary to the one around his waist.
“Be careful out there, Billy Gostman,” Ekka said. There was a gentleness in her voice he’d not heard before.
Billy nodded.
His job was to go out and make sure there was no appreciable damage from the depredations of the pirates, or at a minimum, damage that would further delay the initial trip south.
While outside the craft the land sailed by beneath him. To the west the jagged peaks of the Sangre de Cristos made for a shimmering snail’s track across the darkened landscape far below. Streams flowed in sinuous curves down from the mountains and glinted in the moonlight. How high up were they? He’d have to get to the Bridge to find out. Certainly the Arcadia flew higher than any sky pirate would dare. A bank of silvery cloud below them scudded off to the south and east. Anywhere he looked other than at the surface of the craft itself was a gauzy curtain—the effect of Merkam’s transmogrifier. One day he would have to figure it all out for himself.
The Arcadia bore the dents of the pirates’ harpoon guns, but nowhere could he find a puncture through the plate steel. One of the things was lodged into one of the craft’s fins, but there was no danger there. A number of ropes fluttered and flapped here and there on the ship, and they were difficult to detach while dancing on the hull. He released a number of them and decided the last half dozen or so would not interfere with their flight. One, especially, was hung up on something so tight Billy couldn’t lift the rope from the hull without pinning his fingers underneath the hemp. They would keep until the Arcadia got to Texas.
