by Amy Braun
The Lotus of Albion bobbed outside the glow of their lights. It had been a trap all along.
“But she can’t be steered!”
“Exactly! So you can’t come after us,” she said, coming around to face him. “What did your mate say? ‘She won’t steer, but she’ll float.’ You’re a good pilot, Captain Vanson. With a little luck, you can drop the Lotus down to the ground and walk to civilization.”
“Why are you doing this, Gwen?”
“There are a lot of us, you know. More than the Crown would like to admit. Imperial outcasts. Orphans of empire. You can’t dominate half of the globe and expect everyone to just stay in their places and be happy about it. We’re making our own home, a little paradise up here in the Himalayas. And I’m building a fleet to help protect it.”
She looked wistful and almost innocent, even with her gun still poking Vanson’s neck. “There are valleys up there that Europeans have never seen, accessible only by air. Fertile soil, crystal-clear water, flowers, trees. Protected and pristine. Like paradise. There’s no actual Shangri-La, of course. But we’re doing our best to make the legend come true.”
She remained beautiful in her defiance. Fiercely so—just like when he first saw her. Part of him wanted to—no, that would be treason. Still, her vision of freedom was...compelling.
She smiled at him—half mocking, half sincere, completely triumphant.
“Don’t let me catch you up here again, Captain,” she said. She leaned up and kissed him, nipping his lower lip with her teeth as she pulled away.
Then she sauntered, hips swaying, across the deck of the Burma Maiden toward the rope bridge. Pausing, she turned and looked back over her shoulder.
“Unless you come alone, that is.”
#
An hour later Vanson was staring up from the deck of the Lotus of Albion, his crew slowly releasing helium from the yacht’s balloons in a controlled descent. High above him he saw the dim silhouettes of the Jade Crow and the Burma Maiden heading toward the Zanskar valley, followed by the rest of Gwen’s fleet, and he wondered how difficult it would be to hike back up into this area the following Spring.
Alone, of course.
And a Bottle of Rum
by K.C. Shaw
Jo’s new airship, Dragonfly, skimmed eight hundred feet above the ground. The trees below made a green carpet tufted with red and gold; the autumn sky was a blue of unmatched perfection. Jo grinned. All she needed now was a fat prize to take.
Her friend Lizzy surveyed the horizon with the spyglass. The two girls were almost nothing alike: Jo was short, curvy, elegant, and brown-skinned, while Lizzy was tall, skinny, and pale. But they were fast friends.
It was a pleasant change to have a third person aboard to take care of the boiler. Usually that was Lizzy’s job, but they had rescued a young man named Dominic from a blimp explosion recently, and he was happy to shovel coal for them until he got home. He was handsome and didn’t try to tell Jo how to pilot her ship, a good combination.
Lizzy said, “Nothing. No, wait, there’s a big airship. South of us, headed inland.”
Jo’s pulse pounded with excitement—mixed, as always, with guilt that she took enjoyment from being wicked. “Time to see what the Dragonfly can do. Load the cannon.”
Lizzy passed her the spyglass. The ship was a good ten miles away, barely more than a speck despite the magnification. Jo adjusted their course so as not to converge on the airship too quickly. No sense alarming her pilot.
“Standing by to fire, Captain,” Lizzy said, with a twitch of a smile. She had hooked both of the forearm-length cannon to the rattan floor, one on either side of the small gondola. The Dragonfly had actual cannon ports.
Jo focused the glass on the airship again. They were a few miles closer already and she could make out more details. It resembled her old ship, the Seagull, in both size and conformation: twin balloon envelopes topped with a peaked wing, and twin propellers. The gondola was painted gray, with the Hulan flag snapping from its stern.
Jo started to say, “There’s a small blimp on the other side of the ship,” but stopped after “blimp.” She went cold all over.
Lizzy said, “Oh, shit.”
Jo didn’t even chide her for language.
“What?” Dominic asked.
Jo said, “The airship’s an escort. She’ll be heavily armed. Lizzy, watch closely. If you see a second escort we daren’t engage.”
She handed the spyglass over. She remembered the Seagull’s plummet, the terrible sense of helplessness.
No. She would not let that happen again. Neither would she give in to cowardice and flee.
Lizzy said, “No sign of a second airship. Jo, that blimp’s carrying something valuable if they’ve got an escort.”
Before Jo could reply, a man’s voice crackled out of the radio. Jo jumped. “ Silver Two, we’ve sighted an airship.”
Lizzy, wide-eyed, whispered, “Can they hear us?”
“Not unless we press the red button and speak into the transmitter.” Jo had almost forgotten the Dragonfly had a radio. Her old airship had not.
After a moment of silence, another man said, “Thank you, Cirrus. Does it look like a threat?”
“Hard to say, sir. She’s not close enough yet to evaluate, but she’s on a course to intercept.”
The man from the Silver Two—Jo guessed that was the blimp—said, “Maintain present course for now. Keep an eye on it and let us know if you think it’s aggressive.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jo exchanged a look with Lizzy. Her heart pounded; her hands were clammy in their gloves. But her emotion was mostly excitement, not fear.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” she said, after she’d taken a deep breath. “We want to hole the blimp first. I’ll take us in close so you can get a good shot or two. Then we go after the airship.” She leaned over the gondola’s side to look down. They were passing above patchwork farmland and stretches of forest. If the Dragonfly had to land, Jo thought she could do it without smashing into a tree.
Lizzy said, “I’m ready.”
“So am I,” Dominic said.
“Good. Give me plenty of steam, Dominic. There’s obviously no use trying to sneak up on them, so we’ll go full speed ahead.”
She pushed the props to full. The Dragonfly kicked like a spirited horse, and then settled as she accelerated. Wind buffeted Jo and made the straps of her leather aviator’s cap dance.
The radio said, “ Silver Two, the airship has sped up and is approaching fast. Stand by for evasive maneuvers.”
Jo bared her teeth. She could see the airship and blimp easily now even without the glass. The Dragonfly’s speed nearly took her breath.
“Fire at will, Lizzy.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Jo climbed fifty feet or so above the airship’s altitude. They were closing fast, helped by a tailwind. Jo watched the other ship to get an idea of what she could do.
She came about neatly enough, climbing to meet the Dragonfly and steaming directly toward her. Jo suspected she would swing wide at the last second to fire.
Jo climbed another fifty feet, as though struggling to keep the high ground. The Cirrus matched her altitude. Then the ships were so close that Jo felt she ought to call encouragement to the other pilot.
Instead she said, “Lizzy, show them our colors,” and opened the envelope vents.
The Dragonfly dropped so fast Jo felt weightless. She closed the vents again before they lost too much hot air.
The Dragonfly passed neatly under the Cirrus. Jo heard the snap of cloth and saw Lizzy holding out their Jolly Roger.
“Prepare to fire,” Jo called over the roar of the props.
The blimp dropped ballast, the water resembling a solid block until the wind caught it, and shot upward—but not so quickly that the Dragonfly couldn’t keep pace. Jo yanked her own ballast cord, emptying the two buckets that collected condensation from inside the envelope and dribbled it back into the boil
er.
She slid beneath the blimp too, and then came up on its other side and slowed the props hard. For a moment the Silver Two shielded them from the Cirrus.
The cannon roared, and the Dragonfly kicked. “Got ’em,” Lizzy said, already reloading.
Jo saw the hole, nicely placed near the top of the Silver Two’s gasbag. It would vent hydrogen fast despite the hole’s small size—no bigger around than a saucer.
The Dragonfly slid past the blimp. The Cirrus came into view, broadside to them. Jo opened the vents again and dropped.
She heard the boom of the Cirrus’s cannon but felt no impact. It would take the gunner a few moments to reload. Jo closed the vents and pushed the props back to full.
Her stomach swooped with the Dragonfly. The airship rose again at Jo’s direction, flying close to the Cirrus.
Lizzy fired as they passed, and then swore. “Missed the bastards.”
“We need to draw them off anyway,” Jo said. She sent the Dragonfly careening in a zig-zag course away from the blimp. “Are they following?”
“Yes,” Lizzy said. “We’re faster than they are. Don’t pull too far ahead.”
Jo risked a glance aft. The Cirrus was pursuing, but had already fallen nearly a quarter mile behind. The radio said, “ Silver Two, what’s your condition?”
“We’ve been holed and are losing altitude. Webber’s climbing up to patch.”
Jo wrenched the Dragonfly around and caught the same tailwind as before. It pushed them back to the Cirrus so quickly the other ship had no time to turn. Lizzy fired from the portside cannon as they came alongside. The Cirrus’s answering volley sounded at the same moment.
A cannonball shot through the gap between the top of the Dragonfly’s gondola and the lower curve of her envelope. Lizzy cursed so loudly Jo worried it had done some damage, although she hadn’t felt anything. She turned again, jaw clenched with concentration, and presented the Dragonfly’s starboard side to the Cirrus’s port.
Lizzy fired again. The Cirrus did not—probably because her crew had not had time to reload. Jo brought them up a hundred feet to give Lizzy time to reload as well. “Did you hit at all?”
“I think so,” Lizzy said. “Hard to see through all the smoke.”
Jo took a moment to glance around. A mile to the south, the blimp hung just above the trees. The air smelled of gunpowder. And the Cirrus was rising to meet them.
“Here we go again,” Jo said to Lizzy.
She turned the Dragonfly hard to port, to present a narrower target since the Cirrus was sidling toward them broadside, a tricky maneuver for an airship. She pulled the elevator stick back at the same time and shot over the Cirrus.
The whole ship jerked so hard that Jo thought she had misjudged their height and rammed the other ship. Then they were free.
“Damage?” Jo said, turning the Dragonfly again. She was momentarily disoriented: the sky empty, the Cirrus out of sight. She might be closing on them from any direction.
“None to us, I think,” Lizzy said. “The Cirrus is a lost cause.”
Lizzy was coiling one of the grappling hooks’ ropes, which she hung in its place. Jo leaned out of the gondola to look for the Cirrus.
The airship fell toward a field, dwindling to meet its own shadow. Jo saw a long tear in the portside envelope, ending at a splintered spot on the Cirrus’s wing’s edge.
Lizzy said, “I took a chance, hope that’s all right.”
“That was a big chance,” Jo said.
“If we’d caught her wing instead of pulling through, I was going to cut the rope.”
The Cirrus managed to land, but Jo knew she would be airborne again as soon as her envelope was repaired. The Dragonfly had no more than half an hour to loot the blimp and get away. She turned the ship back toward the blimp.
The radio crackled. “ Cirrus, what happened? Are you all right? Cirrus! Come in, Cirrus!”
Jo held her breath, and let it out in a relieved whoosh when she heard the reply. “ Cirrus here. We’re grounded. What’s your situation?”
“Webber repaired the hole but we’re barely buoyant. The pirates are headed our way. We’re prepared to bail out and blow the hydrogen.”
Jo raised her eyebrows in surprise. Blowing up a blimp just to keep from being boarded seemed awfully drastic. The Cirrus responded, “What’s your altitude?”
“Four hundred feet.”
“The blast would slap you into the ground before your chutes opened. The pirates only have three crew that we saw; you may be able to take them out with the shotgun once they’re close enough.”
Jo said, “We daren’t board. We’ll have to hole them again.” How long would it take the Cirrus to repair the tear in their envelope? Someone would have to climb up onto the wing to reach the tear, probably two people: one to glue a patch on, the other to hold the first one’s ankles so he wouldn’t fall. And even the most expensive silk glue took at least fifteen minutes to dry.
Lizzy said, “We could bottom their gondola and force them to bail out. Our cannon has a longer range than a shotgun.”
“We’ll try it,” Jo said. “Tell me where to stop.”
She slowed the props and spiraled above the blimp until the Dragonfly had lost most of her momentum. Then she brought the ship down cautiously, broadside to the blimp.
“This should be good. Can we hover at all?” Lizzy said.
“I’ll try to compensate for the wind.”
They were already nose into the wind, which was gusty this close to the ground. Occasionally an updraft tried to lift them, although—since the blimp bobbled too—that was less of a concern.
“I had a lesson doing this once,” Jo said. “I did rather well, but no one was trying to shoot me at the time.”
She flinched at the distant report of a gun. But Lizzy had guessed correctly at the safe distance, or perhaps the shooter wasn’t much of a marksman. No bullet struck.
Lizzy said, “Why don’t we hail them?”
Jo almost laughed. “Won’t they be surprised?” She wanted to be the first to use their radio, but all her attention was taken up on keeping the Dragonfly hovering more or less in place. “Hail them and see what happens.”
Lizzy picked up the transmitter, which hung on a hook beside the radio and was attached to the console with rubber-coated wires. “I press the red button?”
“Press and hold it down while you speak.”
Lizzy said, “ Silver Two, this is the Dragonfly. You have sixty seconds to jump ship before we put a cannonball into your gondola. No parley. The countdown begins now.”
Jo admired how piratical she sounded.
Lizzy hung up the transmitter. “Suppose it’ll work?”
“It already has. Look.” Jo nodded at the blimp.
The gondola door opened and a man appeared. He hesitated, and then leaped into the air.
A parachute of white silk blossomed from his back. It barely had time to open before he reached the ground, but it caught the wind just in time. He stumbled then ran some distance away as though he expected the blimp to drop onto his head.
Two more men appeared in the doorway and jumped, one after the other. They both landed safely. Lizzy said, “How many crew in a blimp that size?”
“I have no idea. Four?”
“There’s the fourth gone. They’ve all landed without splattering. I’ll hail them again, just in case. It’s been more than a minute.”
Lizzy said into the transmitter, “Hope that’s all of you. We’re sending that cannonball through your gondola now.”
Another man flung himself out the door, his parachute already opening. He hit the ground hard enough to fall, but was already up and limping toward his crewmates before they could reach him.
“Good enough. Let’s board and see what they’ve got,” Jo said. Lizzy drew her pistol.
#
The blimp’s gondola was deserted, when Lizzy swung across and searched it. Jo knew immediately, because Lizzy’s voice crackled t
hrough the radio to tell her. Jo laughed.
It wasn’t long before Lizzy swung back, a wooden crate the size of a breadbox clutched to her stomach. From the way she carried it, it was heavy.
“What’s in it?” Jo asked.
“We’ll find out. There are more.”
She and Dominic used the coal shovel and Lizzy’s saber to lever the box’s lid open. Lizzy whistled. Dominic said something in Tunnish that Jo couldn’t understand.
The box was full of silver ingots, so bright that they almost didn’t look real. “Foolish of them to advertise it in their blimp’s name,” Lizzy said. “There are five other boxes. I’m going to get them all.”
“Hurry,” Jo said. It had taken her five precious minutes to maneuver the Dragonfly against the blimp’s lower curve, almost another five for Lizzy to snag the blimp’s gondola with the grappling hook.
With no pilot, and without her engines running, the Silver Two drifted gently with the wind. Jo let it tow their airship along.
“Should I help her?” Dominic asked. “I can swing across too.”
“It would take too long to move the other swing line to the starboard side,” Jo said. “You can stow the boxes as Lizzy brings them over.”
Dominic looked disappointed.
Lizzy was back in moments with the next box. The two gondolas were not very close together, but since they were moving with the wind instead of against it, the swing was much less dangerous than usual. Even so, Jo’s heart banged with fear every time her friend launched herself into open air.
“That’s all of them,” Lizzy said at last, breathing hard from her exertions.
“Good. Let’s get out of here.”
Fast as Lizzy had been, the operation had taken another ten minutes or more. The Cirrus might be airworthy again at any moment, and the Dragonfly was vulnerable while lashed to the blimp.
