Scout's Law

by Henry Vogel

  Gant was only halfway through the message when the first crewman fired at us. A few more shots flashed our way, none of them coming remotely close to hitting the Wind Dancer, before someone—probably Raoul, who no doubt wanted to watch me die up close and personal—got the crew under control again.

  “Veer away from the pinnace’s course, Captain Cochran,” I said. “We need to make sure Raoul follows us rather than our families.”

  Cochran ordered a sweeping course change to due north. To our considerable relief, the anti-grav airship followed us. Indeed, Raoul performed a more abrupt course change, cutting inside the arc of our turn and slicing off a big chunk of our lead in the process.

  Shortly after that, another blaster bolt flew our way, missing the Dancer by a good ten yards. My hopes for a fusillade of poorly aimed shots that did nothing but drain power packs failed to materialize. Instead, one crewman fired every thirty seconds.

  “Ranging shots,” Cochran said. “Smart move on their part and a much more disciplined approach than I expected. Once they get in range, those rifles could wipe us all out before the airship comes within crossbow range.”

  “I know. I had three of the rifles in my hands before I made my mad dash to catch a ride with you. I had to drop them to carry Callan.”

  “I don’t think three rifles would make much difference, David.”

  “Especially those three rifles. The trogs never cleaned them. They had so much dirt and grit in them-”

  Cochran raised an eyebrow when I stopped speaking. “Problem?”

  “No, solution. Maybe.” I leaned over the railing and looked at the ground five hundred feet below us. It was just what I hoped for. “Do you trust your pilot to fly this fast but at an altitude of twenty feet?”

  “Why?”

  “The inner workings of those blaster rifles are open to the air, so it’s easy for dirt to get into it. If enough gunk gets into those rifles, they should stop working.”

  “So you want to use the Dancer’s engines to kick dirt in Raoul’s face and into his rifles as well.” Cochran nodded as if the idea appealed to him. “Let’s give it a try!”

  Over the next minute and a half, the Wind Dancer descended steadily. Once Raoul figured out what we were doing, he dropped steadily, keeping us within range of the blaster rifles. By the time we leveled off, our engines kicked up a brown cloud of dirt and dust and sand in our wake. The fine particles served a second purpose, absorbing and dissipating the blaster bolts’ energy, essentially forming an energy shield between us and Raoul’s airship.

  Raoul stuck to our stern, though he never descended far enough to match our altitude. The fringes of the dust cloud still enveloped his ship, giving us hope the blaster rifles were fouling. Raoul also kept shooting at us every thirty seconds, gauging a blaster bolt’s range through the dust cloud. Captain Cochran returned the favor with crossbows when the other airship pulled within fifty yards of us. To my delight, crossbow bolts flew far better through the dust than blaster bolts did. When our crossbowman winged Raoul’s rifleman, Raoul ascended out of crossbow range and, unfortunately, out of the dust cloud.

  “Is Raoul giving up?” Cochran asked me when the Dancer’s envelope blocked our view of the other airship.

  “Not likely. I’ll climb up on top of the envelope and see what he’s up to.”

  “The hell you will!” Cochran’s expression brooked no argument. “I will not be the man who loses Aashla’s greatest hero to a random gust of wind.”

  With a few shouted commands, two of Cochran’s crew ran up into the airship’s rigging and up the side of the envelope. Seconds later, the two men descended even faster than they went up.

  “The other ship’s coming down on top of us!” shouted one.

  “Brace for impact!” cried the second.

  Then the airship shuddered as a great weight dropped onto the envelope and drove the ship toward the ground. Timber snapped and splintered as the Wind Dancer crashed bow-first into the ground.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Callan

  Captain Cochran’s young son offered me a hand up into the little pinnace. I didn’t need the assistance, but smiled gratefully and accepted the boy’s hand.

  “Thank you, Master Cochran.”

  The lad’s eyes gleamed as he responded in a formal tone, “You’re most welcome, Your Highness. I’d be most pleased if you would call me Will.”

  I settled into a seat on the pinnace as the rest of the passengers came up on deck and were helped aboard. Besides Captain Cochran’s wife and youngest daughter—an energetic girl of about six named Sasha—there was a gaunt man in his middle years and his plump wife.

  Our pilot, Jade, bounded onto the pinnace and went straight to the controls. After a quick scan of the dials, she turned to the crewmen holding the pinnace at bay. “Release the lines!”

  The little airship rose from the deck as Jade fed power to the propellers. Taking off from a moving airship is trickier than most people know. Without careful control on the part of the pilot, the pinnace’s propeller could slice through crewmen, the lines connecting the parent ship’s hull and the envelope, or even the envelope itself. Jade’s eyes never stopped moving as she deftly maneuvered the pinnace away from the Wind Dancer.

  “What is the meaning of this?” The plump wife turned a glare on her gaunt husband. “Vass, why don’t we have a real pilot for this airship?”

  Prompted by his wife, the man turned his own glare on Mrs. Cochran. “I would like an answer to that question, myself. The very idea of trusting our lives to a mere girl! Rest assured, Mrs. Cochran, I will register a most stern protest with the merchant guild.”

  I inherited my mother’s short temper, which I struggle to hold in check for the sake of court diplomacy. But this pinnace was far from the Mordanian Court, so I relished one of my rare chances to release my temper. “That girl is handling a very difficult bit of piloting and doing it exceedingly well. Now kindly be silent and stop distracting Jade from her job!”

  The couple turned their glares on me but kept quiet. Mrs. Cochran smiled gratefully at me, as did young Will. Jade never changed expression or even gave an indication she heard the exchange. Thirty seconds later, the pinnace pulled away from the Wind Dancer and Jade relaxed a bit.

  The plump wife wasted no time venting her anger at me. “How dare you take such a tone with me, young woman! Do you have any idea who my husband is?”

  Putting my elbows on the pinnace’s railing, I leaned back nonchalantly. “I neither know nor care who your husband is, madam. Do you know who I am?”

  Vass, the gaunt husband, sniffed. “A well-mannered young woman, which you most assuredly are not, would show respect to her elders and introduce herself first.”

  Captain Cochran told David a man would have to be blind not to recognize me. Since neither of these two was blind, I had to assume their heads were stuck too far up their backsides to see me clearly. I turned on what David calls my princess glare and was pleased to see the couple pull back slightly.

  “I usually have someone with me to handle introductions, but he stayed behind on the Wind Dancer to ensure that we all got safely away.”

  I felt a tug at my sleeve from Will. “May I introduce you, please?”

  I sat up and inclined my head. “It is most kind of you to offer, Will. I would be honored if you would proffer introductions.”

  The boy stood and bowed slightly to the irritating couple. “This is Mr. Vass Sune, merchant of the city-state of Oshwindon, and Mrs. Sune, his wife. Sir and madam, may I make known to you Her Royal Highness, Princess Callan, heir to the throne of Mordan.”

  Rob, the much-missed late captain of my guard and namesake to my son, taught me many things during his years of service. Among those lessons was to never take pleasure in the discomfort of others. I guess that’s one lesson that just didn’t stick, because I took considerable pleasure watching the Sunes’ mouths open and close without any sound emerging. They looked exactly like a couple of fish
out of water—or at least out of their depth.

  Ignoring them, I smiled at Will. “That was very well done. Where did you learn all of that?”

  Will flushed with pleasure but wasn’t inclined to answer. Mrs. Cochran answered for him. “Jade has all of the adventures they’ve written about your husband and reads them aloud to Will and Sasha. I don’t doubt my son can recite most of the stories word-for-word, he’s heard them so often. I’m sure he learned those words in the stories.”

  Behind us, the Wind Dancer gracefully changed course, swinging out of our wake and onto a northerly heading. Without the massive envelope above it, Raoul’s distant airship was more difficult to see. Then the dot elongated, evidence it was also changing course to follow the Wind Dancer.

  The Sunes finally found their voices and offered profuse apologies. I waved off the whole affair before heading aft to put some distance between the Sunes and me and to watch the Wind Dancer for as long as possible.

  “Thank you for defending me, Your Highness,” Jade said quietly.

  “Your piloting skill should be all the defense required,” I replied. “I did nothing but point it out.”

  Behind us, Mrs. Sune spoke in a stage whisper, apparently thinking me too far away to hear her. “Mrs. Cochran, why did you not tell us you had royalty on board your airship? It is your fault we made such a poor initial impression on Her Highness!”

  “They only came aboard twenty minutes before we left on the pinnace, Mrs. Sune. No slight was intended,” Mrs. Cochran replied quietly and far more politely than the Sune woman deserved.

  I turned back toward the Sunes, preparing to unleash my temper yet again. Jade caught my eye and shook her head. “I know you wish to help, Your Highness, but please don’t.”

  “Why is your mother so polite to those people? And what are you afraid will happen if I speak up?”

  “The Wind Dancer is registered in Oshwindon and flies their flag.” Repressed anger smoldered behind Jade’s green eyes. “Mr. Sune is a powerful member of the city-state’s merchant guild. He can cause real trouble for us if he wants to.”

  I considered the problem for all of one second. “Could they bother you if the Wind Dancer was a Mordanian-flagged trading vessel?”

  Jade snorted. “No, Your Highness. The Oshwindon merchant guild needs Mordan more than Mordan needs the merchant guild. But you, of all people, must know the large fees required to register as a Mordanian vessel. And there’s a long waiting list, too.”

  “You do realize your father saved my life when he pulled David and me off that mountain, don’t you? My family takes our debts seriously.” I switched to my princess-of-the-realm voice. “On behalf of your father, will you accept my royal decree naming the Wind Dancer and any other ships your family owns, now and in the future, Mordanian-flagged trading vessels?”

  “You can do that?” Jade goggled at me. “I mean, you can do that, Your Highness?”

  “Does that mean yes, Jade?”

  The pretty young woman nodded emphatically. I turned my attention back to the ongoing recriminations Mrs. Sune threw at Mrs. Cochran, who remained polite and deferential throughout the harangue. “Mrs. Cochran, may I be the first to welcome you and your family to the Mordanian merchant fleet?”

  All eyes turned my way as a startled Mrs. Cochran said, “Pardon me, Your Highness, I must have misheard you.”

  “You heard just fine, Mrs. Cochran. By royal decree, your family now sails under the Mordanian flag. These people,” I pointed at the Sunes, “no longer hold any power over you. Please feel free to stop deferring to this woman’s craven attempts to lay her boorish behavior at your feet.”

  Mrs. Cochran stared at me for a few brief seconds. “Thank you, Your Highness! Oh my, you have no idea what this means to us!”

  “I owe your family my life.” I turned back to the Sunes, igniting my princess glare again. “If I hear the barest whisper that you have used your position in Oshwindon to cause even the slightest trouble to the Cochrans, I will personally see to it that my father enacts a special tariff on all goods offloaded by Oshwindon airships. We’ll call it the Sune Surtax. I’m sure it will make you quite popular among the other Oshwindon merchants.”

  “W-w-why we would never dream of causing problems for these fine folk, Your Highness!” Mr. Sune stammered.

  “Your Highness!” The urgency in Jade’s voice drove the Sunes from my mind.

  Spinning around, I saw Jade pointing toward the Wind Dancer. More accurately, I saw her pointing to where the Wind Dancer used to be. A billowing cloud of dust hid both the Dancer and Raoul’s airship from sight.

  “What does the cloud of dust mean?” Jade asked.

  “It means we can change course and hide from Raoul and his crew.” I scanned the horizon, looking for some feature besides the flat expanse of the desert and the sharp mountains where the galactics had their base of operations. “Do you see anything that can conceal this pinnace?”

  “Now see here, Your Highness,” Vass Sune protested, “Cochran sent us off in this airship so we could get away from those pursuers! Surely it is unwise to go against the good Captain’s wishes.”

  “Well, I think it’s f-,” Jade gave her mother a sidelong glance. “It’s, uh, brilliant.”

  “Mrs. Cochran, you have children aboard so the final decision rests in your hands,” I said. “We may escape that airship if we continue our flight, but we might also simply prolong the inevitable.”

  The woman looked at her three children, then back at the cloud of dust, before turning to me. “What would you advise?”

  “Fly away, obviously!” Mrs. Sune responded superciliously. “How can you even consider another action, you foolish woman?”

  “Out of the mouths of harpies…” Jade muttered.

  “That is truly invaluable advice, Mrs. Sune,” Mrs. Cochran said, smiling sweetly at the merchant’s wife. Turning back to me, Jade’s mother added, “We shall find a place to hide.”

  The older woman spluttered, “What nonsense is this?”

  Her husband added acerbically, “Is that meant as some type of jest? Why would you ignore advice you said was invaluable?”

  “In the two weeks your wife has traveled with us, she has never failed to share her opinion on matters ranging from child rearing to food preparation to airship navigation. She has never let her complete lack of experience in any of these matters deter her.” Mrs. Cochran’s face grew stern. “Never have her opinions been even remotely useful. I would go so far as to say a woman could lead quite a successful life by asking Mrs. Sune’s advice on all matters and doing the exact opposite. I’m testing that theory now.”

  The Sunes’ compressed their lips in displeasure and, mercifully, fell silent. Will whooped and little Sasha clapped her hands.

  Jade grinned. “Damn, Mom, that was patchless!”

  Mrs. Cochran returned her daughter’s grin. “Is that good?”

  Jade rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mom. If clothes or a gas envelope don’t have patches, that means they’re perfect.”

  “Ah,” her mother nodded. “I’d have said they were tightly stitched when I was your age.”

  Jade’s eyebrows rose. “You had slang back in the olden days?”

  “Of course we did, Jade. Your generation may have changed the words, but they didn’t invent the concepts any more than my generation did.” Mrs. Cochran flashed a downright wicked smile at her daughter. “Come to me after you’re married, daughter, and I’ll tell you about a lot of other things your generation didn’t invent!”

  I laughed, reminded of my own mother’s advice on matters of love. Jade, on the other hand, blushed furiously and turned her attention to the horizon. A moment later, the girl’s stare intensified and she pointed into the distance.

  “Your Highness, there’s a wreck a couple of miles away.” Jade shielded her eyes from the sun. “Mom, I think it might be the Sorrin!”

  I looked at Mrs. Cochran and raised an eyebrow.

  “We flew this
route partially to search for the Sorrin. It is—or at least it was—one of the fastest merchant airships flying under the Oshwindon flag. One of the younger crewmen has taken a fancy to Jade.” The look on Mrs. Cochran’s face spoke volumes concerning her low opinion of this young man. To her credit, when Jade’s mother spoke next, her voice held obvious concern. “I do hope the boy is all right.”

  “Don’t worry about Forbose, Mom.” Jade was almost hopping with excitement. “He knows how to take care of himself!”

  “Of that I have no doubt, dear.” Mrs. Cochran’s tone could have taught the desert a thing or two about dryness.

  Jade’s eyebrows drew down and I felt certain we were about to witness the resumption of an ongoing family disagreement. I jumped in with a question, hoping to divert attention back to our current problems. “Jade, how long will it take to deflate the envelope enough to hide in that wreck?”

  Startled by the change of subject, Jade’s simmering anger faded into calculation. “If we can anchor the pinnace, we won’t have to deflate at all. We can just winch the envelope down until it’s flush with the deck. We’ll blend into the desert well enough that someone will have to be right on top of us to see us.”

  “Ah, is that why the envelope is the same color as the desert?” I asked, keeping Jade thinking about anything except arguing over her boyfriend.

  “Yeah. I mean, yes Your Highness. It helps hide the pinnace if we have to abandon ship and run from raiders.”

  “We’re nowhere near a formal court, Jade. You and your family may call me Callan. It’s a lot easier on everyone and much faster in an emergency.”

  Jade looked at her mother who nodded. “If you say so, Callan.”

  “I say,” Mr. Sune said, “if someone as important as you is missing, Callan, can we expect the Mordanian Navy to come to our rescue?”

  “First, I gave Jade and her family leave to call me Callan. You have not been given such leave.”

  The Sunes’ jaws dropped open. Of course, Mrs. Sune found her voice first. “You would put these…these…people above us?”

  I flashed a vicious smile at the couple. “Why, yes, I would. As for a Naval rescue, I wouldn’t count on anything for at least another day, probably more. Even then, it will probably be a Federation ship.”