The Airship Aurelia (The Aurelian Archives)

by Courtney Grace Powers

  “What about the packing lists?” Reece pulled on his jacket while shooting the back of Hayden's head a surly look. “You were so annoyingly meticulous in putting them together…don't you want to—”

  Reece let his sentence hang unfinished as the suite window slid upward and Gideon Creed hopped into the room, wearing a black knitted cap with a bobble on top. His winter jacket and trousers were black as well; against the dark color, his already-too-pale Pantedan skin looked as white as the snow flickering past the window.

  “The storm's started up again,” Gideon said without preamble. He dusted at the snow speckling his broad shoulders and looked from Reece to Hayden, who had returned to his book after shooting the puddle at Gideon's feet the shortest of disapproving stares. “Somethin' up?”

  Reece jerked his chin at Hayden. “Get him to come with us, will you?”

  Shrugging, Gideon walked to Hayden's armchair and put his hands on its back. Hayden started scrambling an instant too late. Gid pushed down on the back of the chair so it tipped up onto its hind legs, teetered precariously, and then toppled with a thump. Giving a shrill shout, Hayden spilled out of the chair, his book landing on his stomach.

  “Crude, but effective,” Reece commended.

  Hayden picked himself up, red-faced. “Alright, I'll come, but listen.” He busied himself with smoothing the pages of his book that had gotten dog-eared, obviously hiding from their expectant stares. “I told you I'd help with preparations, and I will. But I don't want either of you forgetting I'm not coming with you to The Ice Ring.”

  Reece's smile suddenly felt pasted. He did keep forgetting. It was easy to forget; he'd never imagined having a crew that Hayden didn't play a prominent role in. Mordecai, Nivy, Gideon, and Reece. Hayden would have brought some semblance of balance to their motley crew of talents. But he was insistent upon staying behind for his father and sister's sake. Finishing his hard-earned education was an unspoken bonus.

  Hayden suddenly chuckled. He joined Reece and Gideon at the door, grabbing his patched winter coat and winding a tatty grey scarf around his neck.

  “You don't have to look so sober.”

  “I'm just not keen on travelling the Streams without a doctor. It's tempting fate.”

  “We've tempted her enough times before,” Hayden said patiently as he closed the door behind them. “I would think she'd be getting bored with us.”

  There was a definite air of festivity lying over the campus, as thick as the layer of snow sparkling on the twilit lawns. Red ribbons had been weaved through the iron picket fences, and gigantic wreaths adorned the faces of the brick school buildings. The fog was draped thin tonight, but that merely meant the details of a person's face took shape at five feet away rather than two. Fat, lazy flakes of snow were falling down straight and true, while wind howled in the distant Atlasian wilds, likely on its way to campus.

  The three friends walked the well-worn path from Dormitory Taurus to the heart of campus, filling in the slushy footsteps of students who had come this way earlier.

  “Who's in tonight?” Reece asked, narrowly avoiding a run-in with a lamppost that had jumped out of the dark at him.

  “The usual, far as I know. Po, Nivy, Gus, Tilden…” Gideon's thick drawl trailed off, and he frowned, his Pantedan eyes—a disconcerting shade of sky blue—squinting up into the falling snow.

  “What?”

  “I think Po might'a done somethin' you won't like.”

  Reece stopped walking. “She didn't break my ship, did she?”

  Shoving his hands roughly into his pockets, Gid muttered, “You won't get mad at her?”

  “I guess it depends. I mean, if she murdered a close relative or a beloved pet I might have to raise my voice a little, but…”

  “She brought Agnes in on the plan.”

  Slowly, Reece started walking again, brow furrowed. Tutor Agnes was a hard old crow with a brilliant mind and a sense of humor to put a room full of slaphappy drunks to sleep. She was also the one he owed his report on fuel molecules to. He liked her. He just wasn't certain he could trust her on this job. Gus and Tilden, Po's older brothers, were committed to making Aurelia sky-ready again, but Agnes…wouldn't her allegiance first be to the school?

  “Well, it's a few points short of pet-slaughter, anyways,” Reece mumbled, nevertheless walking a little faster towards the hazy dome across the street.

  “I don't think you have to worry about her turning you in,” Hayden said. “Po's a sweet girl, but she's as serious about this as you are, and she'd never risk disappointing you. If she thought there was any chance Tutor Agnes would take this to Parliament—”

  “She needed the help,” Gideon added in a grumble, looking straight ahead. “You're pushin' her too hard.”

  “And if you're worried Agnes might let something slip to someone, you should just talk to her. She's really quite nice.”

  Reece made a noncommittal noise. He'd go to Agnes and tell her to keep quiet when he wanted his ears boxed.

  The Aurelia's current home had originally been an observatory—thus its glass dome body—but now it was The Aurelian Academy's Museum of Antiquities. While the museum housed Honora's greatest collection of automata and antiques, its prize exhibit and centerpiece was Aurelia herself. Reece silently skirted the edge of the building, careful not to disturb the snow on the hedges.

  “Are the guards—” Hayden began worriedly, his breath misting in the air.

  “Out of the way till half past three,” Gideon reassured him, sounding bored. “Comon'.”

  They wended their way between shrubs and bare magnolia trees until they reached the steel maintenance door that had come to serve as their afterhours entrance to the museum. Gus, Po's lanky blond brother, was waiting for them with the door propped open on his hip.

  Reece gave his customary greeting with less heart than usual. “Miserable evening, eh, Gus?”

  Gus shrugged. “I like the cold.”

  Reece could have pointed out it was snowing, and Gus probably would have disagreed. Thus was the nature of their relationship.

  The concave interior of the dome had tiered balconies spiraling all the way up to its glass ceiling. Plants, statues and glass display cases were arranged in an austere fashion around the lobby so as not to crowd the airship any more than was inevitable because of her bulk. Reece stopped to lean against a marble pillar and study her as he had so many times before. He knew what they were doing was right—Aurelia didn't belong to Honora, and Nivy's people needed her for their war—but he couldn't imagine never seeing her again, as would be the case when she was returned to The Heron. He felt the same way about Nivy.

  The girl was a skinny silhouette standing on the edge of Aurelia's left wing with a sputtering thermal torch in hand. The fog beyond the glass walls gave her focused face a blue edge.

  “Who gave her a thermal torch?” Reece asked loudly. Nivy looked up, her dark ponytail swinging.

  “Think they had a death wish?” Gideon added.

  Putting down the thermal torch, Nivy crossed to the tip of the wing, and as Hayden gasped, jumped, hugged the pillar Reece was leaning against, and slid down so he had to leap out of her way or else be made landing pad. She touched down casually and dusted her hands as she straightened.

  “Our very own resident monkey.” Reece laughed as Nivy passed him by and made a remarkably monkeylike face over her shoulder.

  Gus led them to the rear of the ship, where a rickety ladder climbed through the cargo bay hatch. Reece tilted his head curiously. Warm yellow light wasn't the only thing falling through the hatch; there was muffled string music sneaking out as well. Gus and Nivy ascended the ladder confidently, but Reece, Hayden, and Gideon clustered together at its bottom and peered up through the hatch first. Someone laughed. Bottles clinked. Nivy stuck her head through the hatch and waved them up.

  Not sure what to expect, Reece climbed up into Aurelia's yawning cargo bay. A few oil lanterns sat about the room on large crates Reece knew were fill
ed with luggage, weapons, and rations. They did well lighting the length of the room, but the height, they could barely scratch. A few feet over Reece's head, wooden walls and hanging chains faded into shadow.

  Mordecai was leaning against one of the nearest crates, puffing on a pipe. His brilliant Pantedan eyes were like very pale sapphires, and they crinkled as he laughed a hoarse smoker's laugh. Beside him stood Tutor Agnes, her white hair—as short as Mordecai's was long—tucked back in a handkerchief. Reece had never heard her laugh before, but she seemed to have liked some joke of Mordecai's. Which was odd in and of itself, since Mordecai's jokes ranged from off-color to traumatizing.

  “Evenin', Reece.” Mordecai nodded, taking his pipe and tapping it on the sole of his boot.

  Agnes's face hardened instantly. “Mr. Sheppard.”

  “Filling her in on the plan, Mordecai?” Reece asked dryly, eyeing the older man, who smiled innocently beneath his push-broom mustache.

  “And quite the plan it is,” Agnes remarked. When Reece hesitated, then opened his mouth, she added brusquely, “You have my silence, Mr. Sheppard, only because Ms. Trimble has so foolishly gotten herself tangled up with you and your companions. I am here to protect her from your impressive idiocy and keep her from working herself to an early death. Nothing more.”

  After a thoughtful pause, Reece nodded. “Glad to see we're still friends.”

  Agnes's lips quirked, threatening a smile.

  “Hey,” Gideon barked as he surfaced through the hatch. “What the bleedin' bogrosh are you doin' here? Where's the Vee?”

  “Thought we were gonna start callin' him Owon,” Mordecai said, calmly dodging the question. His glance flicked up and back again, and Reece automatically craned his neck to squint at the blob of orange lantern light flickering against the ceiling like a firefly trying to get out of a window. The orchestral music was drifting down from there, as was Po's chatty voice.

  Growling, Gideon shoved past his grandfather, who picked a bottle of amber liquor up from the floor beside his feet and topped off the shot glass Agnes was hiding in her cupped hands.

  Nivy gestured to Reece as they followed Gideon.

  “Tilden's with them,” Reece interpreted to Gideon's back. “He's armed.”

  “It don't matter,” Gideon snapped. “Mordecai's supposed to be watchin' him, not horsin' around like some kinda—like some kinda—” Words apparently failed him; he broke off with a disgruntled sigh as he climbed a spiral iron staircase to the mesh bridge above.

  Two people were sitting cross-legged on the floor of the bridge, facing each other across the lantern. An old wooden wireless sat a little further off, emanating the soft music making the dimly-lit cargo bay feel almost homey. The first person was Tilden, the stockier, slightly more freckled Trimble brother. He held an ALP on his lap, its barrel aimed at the strange figure across from him.

  Owon—a shortening of his preferred name, One Thousand Two Hundred and One—was a Vee, one of The Veritas. The Veritas called themselves truth seekers, justice hunters, but they were one of the more harmful of Eldritch's additions to Honoran government. Luckily, Owon was, as far as they knew, the last of the Vees left on Honora; the rest had disappeared not hours after Eldritch's death.

  Owon looked like all Vees in that his head and eyebrows were shaved and his eyes were a pupilless black. He also had the sunken cheeks and the sickly pale skin; the only thing that made him unique was his large, hawkish nose.

  Tilden looked away as Gideon, Reece, and Nivy approached, and Owon's hand twitched. Gideon's revolver clicked dangerously as he swiftly brought it out from behind his back and assumed the deep, ready posture of a Handler.

  Owon's lips curled at their corners as he withdrew his hand. “We merely had an itch, Gideon Creed. But please, do not hesitate to shoot us. It would be better, we think.”

  “That's a terrible thing to say.” Po swung down into the halo of light, hanging from her knees by a chain. Her white-blond braid swung hypnotically back and forth below her head and brushed Owon's shoulder.

  “Po!” Reece barked. “Don't—why are you—just—” Too flabbergasted to fabricate a sentence, he edged around Gideon, stepped over the lantern, and took Po by the arms. “Down,” he instructed. Her bare feet fell to the steel grating with soft thuds. “You're as bad as Hayden sometimes. You can't trust Owon, Po. I know his cheerful mealtime talk about death and destruction can be deceiving, but he's really not a very nice person.”

  Po pushed away his arms, looking flustered. “You don't gotta talk to me like I'm an Eleven. I was bein' careful.”

  Reece noticed Tilden fingering the ALP, which had somehow gotten turned a little more in his direction. “Cut that out,” he snapped. “Gideon, you and Tilden take Owon to Mordecai. I need to speak to Po.”

  Owon rose with smooth grace and allowed Gideon and Tilden to take either of his arms and march him towards the spiral staircase. He'd learned going quietly, saying nothing but wearing that creepy smile of his, had more effect on his captors than death threats.

  With a sigh, Reece turned to Po. She had taken Tilden's spot before the lantern and was massaging her bare feet in its small area of warmth.

  “Po,” he said tiredly, “where are your shoes?”

  “I'm waiting for Gideon to buy me a new pair. He promised he would,” she answered cheerfully.

  There came a clang and a muffled curse. By the sounds of it, Gideon had missed a stair.

  Nivy pointed at the wireless and spread her hands in question.

  Po bit her bottom lip sheepishly. “It's just so dark in here. The music fills it up, you know? Makes the dark less…powerful.” She perked up, dimples sinking in her cheeks as she smiled. “But we'll prolly be done rewirin' the auxiliary lights tonight, Cap'n.”

  “Good. How's the Afterquin coming along?”

  “She's just been asleep so long, I worry she's forgotten how to be an engine.” Po had a habit of making an engine sound like a living, breathing thing—even the Afterquin, and Aurelia's engine filled an entire room. “And then she's missin' those essentials still. I can substitute parts, but once she goes airborne, there's no tellin' how fast she'll burn out the subs.”

  Reece had that part under control. A few good things had come from growing up on the edge of wealth and politics. First, money wasn't, and never had been, hard to come by for him…mostly because he never remembered to spend it, and it had a habit of gathering interest when he let it sit in his accounts. Secondly, the upper class provided friends like Scarlet, who could negotiate the color out of a crayon. If anyone could get her hands on the confidential records listing the owners of Aurelia's auctioned-off parts, it was her.

  “How long until she's ready? Ten days?” Reece asked.

  Po stared at him. “I…didn't you say we had a couple'a weeks still?”

  “Will it take that long?”

  “Workin' only four hours a night? Probably.”

  “What about working on her during the day? I'm going to have Mordecai forge some maintenance requests. The museum itself could hire you. They'd essentially be paying you to fix Aurelia for us.”

  Po twiddled her fingers as she counted in an undertone, her eyes shut tight in concentration. “Well, if we can get in nine hours'a work a day…which'll be tough, because Tilden and Gus need to keep up their shop, too…maybe five days? Seven, tops.”

  Nodding, Reece leaned over and carefully unwound the tapered wick inside the lantern. The flame flared violently, and he squinted.

  “There's something else, Po. But listen…you can say no.”

  Po scooted closer to him, looking up into his face with an earnest, puppy-like expression that made him smile.

  “Aurelia needs a mechanic, and you're the best there is. But I don't want anyone coming along who doesn't want to. I need a crew who is ready to take my orders, and if someone feels talked into coming, they might not be too keen on that. This job is going to be dangerous…very dangerous. Everyone who comes is accepting the risk i
nvolved.”

  Reece paused, eyeing Po worriedly. She seemed to have gone into shock. Her brown eyes, liquid in the lantern light, refused to blink. He exchanged a look with Nivy, who shrugged bewilderedly.

  “You're…askin' me to come?” Po asked in a whisper.

  “You don't have to,” Reece said again, “but I'd like you to.”

  Squealing, Po threw her arms around his neck and hugged him till he coughed. “I gotta tell Tilden and Gus!” she laughed, standing and running towards the stairs with a whoop.

  Reece almost called for her to wait until he had Gideon on hand. That way he'd be ready when her brothers came to call, asking why he'd invited their sweet little sister to join him on a dangerous trek across the galaxy.

  Nivy gave him a dig in the ribs, her eyebrows raised. He read her face for a minute, analyzing her expression.

  “I know,” he finally said. “But I told her it'd be dangerous.”

  Nivy's semi-exasperated but mostly amused expression said she doubted Po had registered that part of his invitation. They could hear the echoes of her delighted voice announcing to everyone down below that “the cap'n” had brought her on as official mechanic.

  Spreading his hands over the lantern, cupping its faint warmth, Reece frowned thoughtfully. “I've been thinking, Nivy. About The Heron.”

  With a hesitant nod, Nivy bid him continue.

  “From what you've told us, The Kreft have been here for hundreds of years already. Orchestrating politics from the shadows, quietly beating down any rebellions The Heron could raise.”

  Looking confused—they'd been over this a dozen times already—Nivy nodded again.

  “Why haven't The Heron sought help from other planets? If a unified galaxy were to fight The Kreft, the war might've ended a long time ago. Why haven't The Heron ever asked for help?”