by Amy Braun
“You aren’t going to kill me,” Ken taunted, rubbing his injured hand. “Not after everything we’ve been through. Spiders are like family.”
“I wasn’t family when you were the one holding the gun,” Nandi pointed out.
“I knew I wouldn’t hit you in here,” he replied. “I just needed to scare you away from Doctor Hanan’s device.” Ken fingered the metal pack before slipping an arm through one of the loops.
The loud boom of cannons echoed again, shaking the deck. The Ottomans were getting closer.
“That’s my ride. Are you sure you won’t come?”
“Ken, stop!” she yelled. “I will shoot you.”
“No, you won’t. Once the Ashanti were warriors; once my father preached the code of bushido; but not anymore. We’re civilized now, puppets of our mighty empires. If you stay here, that’s all you will ever be.”
“Do you really think we are nothing?” said Nandi, aghast. “No one else can do what we do. Why do you think they look for people like us to be Spiders? We aren’t just the descendants of warriors, we are warriors. Without us, there would be no imperial fleets.”
“That’s not enough for me.” Ken fired the gun attached to Doctor Hanan’s device, ejecting the thin cord from its nozzle.
It crashed into Nandi, sending her flying across the deck. She skittered to a stop mere inches from the edge of the hangar and watched, breathless, as her own gun flew over the side. The cord retracted into the device, ready to be fired again.
Years of training kicked in, urging Nandi’s fingers to inch toward the emergency rope located at the entrance to every hangar deck. She felt naked without something anchoring her to The Virginia, especially this close to the edge.
For some, it might feel better to stand on their feet, but on an airship, that safety was an illusion. A Spider would always reach for a rope before they reached for secure footing.
Seconds later, that training saved her life as The Virginia changed direction again to shake off her pursuers.
Nandi lost her grip, but was able to buckle herself onto a tether at the last second; ending what would have been a very nasty fall. Unfortunately, Doctor Hanan had no such training, and he went tumbling over the side, screaming like a banshee.
“Hold on!” Nandi yelled. Her tether was too heavy to move, but all Spiders carried small ropes attached to their belts. She swung it like a cowboy in the American West, catching Joseph’s torso as he fell. “Doctor? Are you alright?”
“No, I am not alright!” he screamed. “Get me back on the ship!”
“Can you pull yourself up?”
“Are you crazy?”
Nandi muttered a curse and began hauling Joseph toward her. Rescuing Ottoman scientists was definitely not in her job description.
Once he was close enough, she hooked him into her tether, leaving him to dangle as she climbed back up to the hangar deck.
“Where are you going?” he shrieked. “You can’t leave me like this.”
“You’ll be safe there,” Nandi replied. “Just don’t do anything stupid—like unhook yourself.”
“That thought never crossed my mind.”
Masculine grunts above drew Nandi’s attention back to the hangar deck. Ken and Knightly were going at each other in a bare-knuckle brawl, fighting for control of Joseph’s device. Any other time, Nandi would have stopped and enjoyed the show.
They were both exceptional combatants. Knightly was a military-trained boxer, while Ken learned to fight dirty in the streets. It promised to be a hell of a bout, but Nandi knew she had to break them up. They hadn’t bothered to anchor themselves to the ship and were mere inches from going over the side.
“Hey, idiots!” she called, climbing back onto the deck. “Do you want to secure yourselves first?”
“Doctor Hanan,” Knightly asked between blows—neither of them paused to tether themselves. “Is he…?”
“He’s fine,” Nandi replied, letting the men battle it out while she secured herself to another line. They could kill themselves if they wanted, but she had every intention of surviving.
A missile exploded into The Virginia’s side, forcing the men apart as flames and shrapnel flew across the deck. Finally, Knightly dove for an emergency cord, but Ken had other plans. He ran into Knightly, tackling him around the middle, and sending them both overboard.
“I always knew that guy was crazy…” Nandi muttered to herself, watching the suicidal move.
She peered curiously over the side, not surprised to find both men still fighting, as they dangled from the end of a line. “Typical.”
Knightly did well, but it was obvious he lacked Ken’s skill on a rope. No one could defeat a Spider in aerial combat except another Spider. With a mental apology to her training master, Nandi slid down their rope, adding one more person to the brawl.
Three bodies on a single cord was insane. The well-used ropes were checked obsessively, but hangar A9 was an under-utilized part of the ship.
There was no way to know when these ropes were last serviced. The combatants weren’t passively hanging either. They were wriggling about fighting for the backpack still hooked onto Ken’s arm.
Nandi’s training master would think they all had a death wish.
At least she had the advantage of being buckled onto another cord. It made her movements reckless, knowing she had the second line to protect her. She used Knightly as a distraction, slipping in close so she could unbuckle the device from Ken.
“Stop, or we’ll all die!” Ken shouted, but he had no intention of stopping. She knew he was overwhelmed and hoped to scare Nandi and Knightly off their guards.
It worked for Knightly. The spy paused and looked down, closing his eyes briefly in prayer as he saw the vast carpet of forest below.
Ken kneed him in the groin.
“You fight dirty,” Nandi berated him.
“I fight to win.”
“Not this time.” She finally pulled the device free, hooking it over her own arm. Letting go of Ken’s rope, she dove for Knightly, catching his wrist.
“Let go,” she ordered. She knew she was asking a lot.
Knightly wasn’t tethered to the ship. The only thing keeping him alive was his grip on the rope, and thanks to that blow to his groin, that was growing weaker by the second.
“Trust me.”
“Bollocks.” Knightly let go, trusting Nandi’s hold on his wrist to save him. It wasn’t until he released his grip on the cord that she realized how surprised she was by his actions.
He really let go without a harness, she thought. Knightly was either incredibly brave or incredibly foolish.
They swung away on Nandi’s cord, leaving Ken to curse and grumble after them.
“We don’t have much time,” she called.
Already Ken had pulled his release cord, taking him back up to the deck. In a few minutes he might climb down Nandi’s line and they would restart their three person fight.
“Wrap your legs around me. That’s it.”
With her free hand, Nandi secured the device to her back and reached for her lasso. She tossed it at Doctor Hanan, catching his foot, and pulling them closer until the three of them huddled in a group.
“What are you doing?” Knightly demanded. “We have to get back to the airship.”
“It’s too late for that,” Nandi replied, hating what was coming next. “Ken is already unhooking my line.”
“Unhooking your…” Joseph looked up in horror.
Sure enough, Ken was busy at work on Nandi’s cable. She was also held by Joseph’s cord, but it would take only a moment to unhook that one too.
“Why is he doing that? He’ll destroy the device.”
“And the only evidence against him,” Knightly surmised. “With us gone, he can pretend this never happened.”
“This device of yours,” said Nandi. “Has it ever been tested?”
She fingered the narrow cord protruding from the pack that Ken had sent crashing into
her. It looked thin enough to rip in half with her bare hands. She tugged, but it held.
“I hung from the ceiling for thirty minutes,” Joseph replied. “Although the ceiling of the aircraft hangar is only 40 meters high and I only weigh 13 stone…”
“We don’t have a choice,” interrupted Knightly, as Nandi’s cord came loose. Now all three of them were dangling from Doctor Hanan’s tether and running out of time. “Do you think you can make it work?”
“I’ve done all I can,” Joseph replied. “The rest is up to providence.”
“Then you should start praying.” Nandi aimed the gun at the tallest, thickest tree she could find. She only had one shot at this. If she missed…well, it had been a good life. She took a deep breath and fired.
An instant later, the last tether holding them to the ship was released, sending them plummeting toward the forest below. She had been in freefall before—illegally playing around The Virginia without a harness—but she had never truly feared for her life. Not like this. Her eyes watched the hook as it shot toward the tree and blinked in disbelief when it actually hit its target.
“Bugger me!” she shouted, hitting the recoil button. Instantly, their trajectory changed, swinging them in an arc toward the tree.
They crashed through the canopy. Nandi expected at any moment to splatter on the forest floor, but the cord continued, incredibly, to pull them toward the tree. Instincts took over and she lifted her legs to kick them away from the trunk an instant before impact, but they still bumped into quite a few branches, swinging back and forth above the forest floor like a pendulum.
They were bruised and bloody, but miraculously still breathing by the time they stopped.
“Is everyone alive?” Knightly asked. From the tone of his voice, Nandi knew he must be in a lot of pain.
“Barely,” Joseph groaned.
“Can you imagine the look on Ken’s face when he realizes we survived?” she chuckled. Careful of her ribs, which she knew were at least bruised, if not broken, she unhooked herself and began climbing down the tree.
“Yes, well, we have other concerns at the moment,” Joseph replied. “Do you have any idea where we are?”
“We were nearing Vienna when the battle began,” said Knightly. “It’s possible we are still somewhere in Austria-Hungary.”
“Aren’t the Austrians allies of the Ottomans?” Nandi helped Joseph from the tree, checking to make sure he was uninjured.
“Yes.”
“Bollocks.”
“Indeed.” Knightly held Nandi’s chin up to the light, frowning at the scrapes she had obtained from the fall. “You handled yourself well up there. Better than me. Have you ever thought of joining Her Majesty’s Secret Service?”
Nandi regarded him for a long moment. She liked being a Spider. She loved the camaraderie of an airship crew and flying through the air with nothing but a cord to support her . Could she give that up for constant danger, travel, and adventure?
“Do I have to rub myself with fish?” she inquired doubtfully.
“I may have been a bit…zealous…in my role.”
“It was believable,” Nandi acceded. “Does Her Majesty have any rules against fraternizing among her spies?”
Knightly’s cheeks turned an adorable shade of pink as he pondered the best way to answer that question. “It is generally frowned upon,” he admitted, “but things sometimes happen in the field. That’s where my best friend met his wife.”
“His wife…” Nandi replied with a grin. “That’s a big leap from partners.”
“We have a long way to go.” Knightly wrapped his arm around Nandi under the guise of supporting her while they limped through the forest. “Shall we get started?”
Doctor Hanan chuckled and swung his device onto his back. “With the two of you, I daresay this will be an interesting journey.”
Nandi pressed her lips against Knightly’s. He tasted of sweat, but thankfully, this time, not of fish. “I hope so.”
A Wind Will Rise
By Andrew Knighton
Dirk Dynamo pedaled frantically, legs going hell for leather to keep the pedalo-thopter’s wings flapping. A fierce wind lashed at him, stray cloud brushing his face like Death’s own icy fingers. He was glad he’d worn a thick jacket.
“Nearly there,” Timothy Blaze-Simms called from the front of the machine, tailcoat flapping as he stood excitedly in his seat.
“We’d be nearer if you’d sit down and pedal,” Dirk growled.
They burst out of the cloud bank into clear blue skies. Below them, the Atlantic was just as clear and empty, a carpet of rippling blue from horizon to horizon. The only other sight was their target.
The Storm of the South hung in the air ahead of them, looking for all the world like a whale of the skies. Most of the airship was made up of its vast gas bag, acres of treated canvas straining under the pressure from within. A lightning rod rose from the top, and Confederate battle flags hung from its bows, blue crosses dark against their crimson backgrounds. A stain on his country’s recent history that Dirk would rather the world could forget. Stopping this floating menace, with its piracy and slaving, could only help.
“Are those seagulls?” Dirk asked as they closed on the airship. His legs ached like hell and he was getting short of breath, so he welcomed the distraction.
“Too big,” Blaze-Simms replied, peering through his binocular goggles. “I do believe they are vultures.”
“At sea?” Dirk leaned forward, pedaling faster for one last surge.
“One sees very few Confederates since they lost the war,” Blaze-Simms said. “Why not vultures who have lost the land? Oh look, almost there.”
The back of the gasbag was now beneath them. Dirk lifted himself off the pedals, checked the knife tucked into his boot and the Gravemaker snuggly holstered at his side. Both gave solid reassurance against the battering wind and the sea so far below to either side.
“Ready?” he called out as the pedalo-thopter started to wobble and lose height.
“Ready,” Blaze-Simms replied, grasping his swordstick and securing his top hat with a strap.
“Then let’s go.”
They leapt. Dirk landed with a thump that knocked the air from his lungs. With one hand, he grasped a rope running around the gasbag, securing himself in place, while with the other he grabbed Blaze-Simms as the Englishman slid past.
They watched the pedalo-thopter bounce off the back of the airship and tumble forlornly into the sea.
“I suppose I shall have to make another,” Blaze-Simms said. “But this is hardly the moment to worry about it.”
“Damn straight.” Dirk looked around for the nearest ladder to climb down by.
“I believe it’s time for tea.”
#
“Dammit, Tim, this is not the time.” Dirk glanced around the compact space of the galley, wary that they might be caught out before they found the captives—slaves, Colonel Storm had labelled them, hostages and victims, their families insisted. Innocent folks either way.
“Thirst can be crippling to a chap’s fighting capacity,” Blaze-Simms replied, putting cups and saucers on the gleaming steel work surface. “And besides, who knows what intelligence we might find?”
“Intelligence? In the kitchen?” Above Dirk’s head, pans and kitchen knives swung in the breeze around the air vents.
Blaze-Simms opened another cupboard, blinking in surprise.
“Actually, yes,” he said.
Dirk peered over his friend’s shoulder. Inside the cupboard huddled a girl, maybe twelve years old, pale and trembling, and wearing the remnants of a once expensive yellow dress.
“You alright there, miss?” Dirk held out a hand, but the girl shrank back, eyes wide with fear. He caught a glimpse of a tear across the back of her dress, and an all too familiar injury on the flesh beneath.
Dirk’s blooded boiled. Hadn’t they left this behind?
“Someone whip you?” he asked, as gently as he could.
>
“Bad man,” the girl whispered, wrapping her arms around herself.
“Don’t worry,” Dirk said. “We’re here to save you from the bad men.”
She shook her head.
“Bad man.” She held up a single finger.
“There’s just one of them running this place?” Dirk frowned. That made no sense. A vessel this large…
“One man and the hundred captives he’s taken off ocean liners,” Blaze-Simms said, once more rummaging through the cupboards. He turned to the girl with a smile. “I say, you don’t have any tea in there, do you?”
She shook her head.
“Coffee would do, at a push.”
“Chicory,” she whispered.
“Good lord.” Blaze-Simms shook his head sadly. “What war’s privations will do to a man’s tastes.”
“Tim, this really ain’t the time.” Dirk scratched his head. Something was bothering him, a piece missing from his sense of the situation. “If he’s got no crew, then how’s Storm capturing those ships?”
“By bein’ an awful sight smarter than y’all,” said a voice behind them.
Dirk spun around, hand going for his Gravemaker.
But it was too late. There was a bright flash of light and his whole body flared with pain. He fell to the floor, blackness closing in on him. The last things he saw were a beard like a shovel, and a pistol that seemed to glow.
#
Dirk woke to another jolt of pain. He screamed and snapped his eyes open. He found himself looking down at vultures circling above the wide blue of the sea. His body was being stretched out, hands reaching towards the ocean as he hung upside down, strapped by his feet underneath the airship.
To his left, hung Timothy Blaze-Simms, still unconscious—and still with his top hat strapped on. As Dirk looked at him, a screwdriver fell out of Blaze-Simms’s pocket and tumbled end over end, glinting in the sunlight, until it was lost to sight against the vastness below.
Turning to the right, he saw another man standing proud amid the riveted beams of the airship’s landing struts. The wind tugged at an all-too-familiar gray uniform, crisp and clean except for an old bullet hole near the right shoulder. The man wore a holster on one hip and a whip on the other. Above a thick, neatly-kept beard, blue eyes sparkled like hate-filled diamonds.
