by Nico Rosso
The next crewman didn’t want to sneak around and wait. He stepped out of the shadows and into the middle of the street. There was no question that Anna could drop him, but like Jack, she waited to see the man’s play.
His accent was just as thick as the other fellow’s. French, maybe, like his captain’s name. “I know how you cowboy gunfight.” His hand hovered over his holstered gun. “Showdown.”
It was an old trick. Taunt someone out of cover, let your hidden shooter take him down. Jack had a hidden shooter of his own. He slowly stepped off the boardwalk and into the dusty street. The wind whipped at his back. Even holstered, he knew he was faster than this airship sailor, but he kept his gun in his hand.
The man even grinned, like he was playing a part on the stage. “I call you a yellow-bellied …”
A shot rang out, whining high with ether. Jack didn’t even turn to look. The sagging expression on the sailor’s face told him all he needed to know. Anna had taken out one of the high shooters.
Jack called back to the man. “Finish your insult.”
He hesitated, then rallied, swaggering. “Yellow-bellied …”
Jack fired, cutting off the man and putting him on the ground. “We don’t talk through a real showdown.”
One more crewman left.
He slipped from the street to the buildings on the opposite side as the hotel. The airship sailor could be hidden anywhere. Inside, on a roof. Around a corner.
Another of Anna’s bullets popped from high. Wood splintered on the roof of the building behind Jack. A crewman recoiled from the impact and swung his rifle around toward her position. Jack fired his shotgun. At the same time, another bullet streaked from the top of the hotel. The man was hit by both and disappeared behind the edge of the roof.
Jack swung his shotgun high in a wave to her. Her response was a brief glint of sunlight off the barrel of her rifle. No one else would ever see such a display from her.
The threat in town was over, but it had stalled them. The airship hovered over the mountain, about a mile away. It appeared to be lifting heavy objects from the mine. They would be on the move again. Jack and Anna were almost out of time again. The sound of her trike firing up swept down on the wind. Whatever they were going to do, they had to act fast.
AS SHE FLEW down from the hotel to Jack in the street, she saw large numbers painted on the flat rooftop that had been invisible the night before. 21-B1. Sky Train route markers. The last use this town would have.
At least these buildings provided shelter for a night and cover for a fight. The jagged mountains where the airship hovered looked like they could give some good shooting perches—if the Man O’ War stayed long enough. Once he hit the open air, they had no hope of catching him.
Anna skimmed just over the street until Jack stepped out of the shadows. He ran alongside her and jumped onto the side of her trike.
“You see that fool thinking this was a showdown?”
“I could’ve picked him off, but I knew you had it handled.” Watching Jack in action held an edge of terror. He was a beautiful predator. She was glad he was on her side.
“Each one of these bastards could be the one who pulled the trigger on those soldiers.”
“And they all helped nab Song.”
He crouched next to her, gripping the frame of her vehicle, squinting toward the airship. “Sometimes payback is better than the payoff.”
Ahead, the airship winched up another heavy crate. Trailing behind it on the ropes were several sailors. She cranked the throttle, but it wasn’t enough.
“They’re done loading,” she said. “Turning tail soon. We can’t catch them like this.”
Jack turned, searching through the sky. “Just need a bigger engine.”
“Unless you got one in your vest pocket …”
He tugged on her arm and pointed to the sky behind her. “Sky Train.”
She turned to see a five-car train with engines in the front and back and three passenger cabins in the middle. “That’s the High-Mid Sierra Eagle, heading east.”
“Get us to her.”
Turning hard, she wheeled in the air and poured on the throttle. “You ever do what I think you’re planning on doing?”
He laughed, a little wild. “Nope. You?”
“You’d have heard about it.”
“Well, neither of us has taken on a Man O’ War before.”
They’d climbed to about a thousand feet. There were only about two hundred yards between them and the Sky Train.
“He never took us on, either.”
They were over the mountain range that stretched to where the airship loaded its final cargo and rose higher in the sky. It slithered among the peaks, heading north.
Jack coiled next to her, as if he could jump all the way to the airship and take on the Man O’ War with his bare hands. “He thinks he’s hiding in the mountains, but it’ll just slow him down.”
The distance to the Sky Train closed. One hundred yards. Fifty. She could smell the ether catalyzing in the tanks of each car. The powerful fans of the engines washed over the trike, buffeting it. She struggled to keep it upright. Jack clutched the frame. A hard angle up took them out of the wash and she came closer.
He let out a low whistle of relief. “Second-to-last car.”
“Is Sky Train engineer another one of your talents?”
“I learn fast.”
She paced the trike, hovering three feet over the moving Sky Train. No time to hesitate. She killed the engine and twisted the shutoff valve for the ether. The trike fell onto the roof of the last passenger car. It bounced once, nearly shaking Jack off, then landed again. She jerked the break handle, locking the wheels.
Then she found her breath.
She and Jack got off the trike and stepped onto the roof of the flying Sky Train. Wind blasted them. If they lost their footing, they’d fall a thousand feet. Or be pulled into the roaring propeller fans of the rear engine.
Arms spread out for balance, they edged their way carefully to the end of the car. A slim ladder led down to the gap between cars. She reached it first and climbed quickly down. As Jack joined her on the hitch between the cars, she caught glimpses of the airship disappearing into the mountains. They were slightly protected from the wind, but one false step would send them to certain death.
“What the hell are you doing up here?” The engineer stared at them through his little window with eyes round as a full moon over the prairie.
Jack stared down at the creaking metal hitch. “We’re taking your engine.”
“No you ain’t.” Fumbling for a small pistol in his coat, the engineer looked unfamiliar with how to handle a gun.
Anna leveled her eyes at him, barely speaking over the din of the fans. “I’ve pulled the trigger more times than you’ve blinked.” She motioned for him to step out of his pilot house. “Just tell them that Jack Hawkins and Anna Blue took it.”
The man stopped searching for his gun, face pale. With hands up, he stepped gingerly from the pilot house, opened the door to the engine, and came out.
Anna asked, “You can get on with just one engine, right?”
The engineer nodded.
She added, “Be careful with my trike parked up top.”
Jack gave the engineer a polite smile. “Obliged. But we need to know how to fly it.”
“It takes months of training …”
He quieted when Jack raised his half-metal hand. “I don’t need to know how to make love to it. Just fast and slow, up and down.”
“Left hand lift, right hand throttle.”
Jack patted him on the shoulder and stepped into the engine. “I knew it was easy.”
Anna followed, nodding to the engineer just before she closed the door. “Turn us loose.”
He snapped himself into a harness on the back of the passenger car and leaned down over the hitch. She closed the door, barely having enough room to turn in the narrow passage to the pilot house. After two steps, the
world spun. The engineer had unlatched the cars.
The engine fell away from the rest of the Sky Train. It turned, unbalanced like a leaf drifting to the ground. She slammed against the metal walls of the passage, struggling to keep her feet.
Jack’s voice shot out of the pilot house. “I got it, I got it.”
The metal all around her shuddered, then the engine plunged twenty feet. She braced her hands against the walls just to keep from slamming into the ceiling. The motors groaned, revved high, then evened out. The engine finally found its balance and flew level.
She arrived at the pilot house to see Jack gripping levers and turning dials in a room full of controls.
He gave a half-convinced smile. “Now I got it.”
“You sure about that?” The narrow window didn’t give much of a view, but she could still see the mountains and brief glimpses of the airship.
“I ain’t changing careers, but I can run that bastard down with this.” He adjusted some controls and the engine picked up speed, angling toward the Man O’ War. They were a little over a mile away.
“I left my Winchester on the trike—you’re going to have to fly us pretty close.”
“Close?” His mouth turned down in a grim snarl. “I’m going to ram that son of a bitch.”
Chapter Twelve
* * *
“NEVER RODE IN a bullet before.” She tore her eyes off the approaching airship to check the main passage of the engine. There were doors at both ends, but no other exits. Massive tetrol engines rumbled all around. She hadn’t seen any fuel gages, but knew there must be enough juice to redraw a map.
She ducked back into the pilot house. Jack was occupied with all the controls of the engine. It wasn’t a smooth ride, but he was getting them there. Less than a quarter mile.
“There’s a back exit,” she noted. “Gotta time it perfect.”
“I climbed down from the roof of a moving iron coach,” he said, “fought Wilbur Bass senseless, grabbed him, and jumped out just before plummeting into the Blood River Gorge.”
The airship spotted them and started firing ether-powered cannon shells. Jack swung the engine through the air, evading the screaming projectiles. The distance to the Man O’ War continued to close.
Anna gripped a support rail, eager to start shooting back. “In Los Angeles, I chased ‘Dynamite’ Lacy Regan through a flophouse with her timed bombs going off. Took her out a second-story window to an awning below as a whole room went up in flames.”
They were close enough for the Gatling guns to ping off the metal skin of the engine.
Jack did what he could with the controls, making them a difficult target. “This should be old hat for us.”
Only a few hundred yards away, the crewmen on deck were now visible. They scrambled with experienced efficiency. The device buzzed in her pocket. The Man O’ War was on his ship.
“They’re better at flying that tub than you are with this.”
“You’re right.” He pushed a lever forward, getting more speed out of the engine. “But they boxed themselves into those mountains. No room to maneuver.”
“They’re wood, right?” The airship had the sleek lines of the sail-powered ships in San Francisco Bay. “And we’re metal.”
The engine continued to plunge down toward the airship at a steep angle. One hundred yards. A cannon shot tore off one of the propeller fans and the engine lurched to one side. Jack struggled with the controls, keeping them lined up on their target.
Anna hurried up the passage and threw the back door open. They’d have to clear a short porch and railing on the way out. That seemed like the easiest part. Overhead, more shots flew past. From the sound of the guns, they were very close.
Jack came running up the passage, filling it completely with his wide frame. “I aimed it at one of the ether tanks on the ship.” He grinned wildly. “Let’s do some damage.”
The wooden edge of the airship came into view. She pulled on her tinted spectacles and leapt out the back of the engine. Jack was right behind her, vaulting over the railing and falling fifteen feet toward the deck of the ship.
She landed, rolled, and got to her feet. But there was no way to find her balance. The engine crashed into the top of the airship, taking out an ether tank on its way. The deck pitched. Crewmen ran about. Jack wrapped an arm around her and the two of them sprinted toward the back of the ship.
The first explosion knocked them to the deck. The second one tore a hole through the ship, sending splinters out in a halo of destruction. More blasts wracked the ship, starting fires and causing it to list to one side. Crewmen shouted and hurried, trying to put out the fires and right the craft.
Jack helped her to her feet and they gathered themselves. The twisted metal engine jutted out of the center of the ship, pouring smoke.
He gave it a little salute. “It died a hero.”
“Let’s not do the same.”
They turned, looking for the next move. It found them. The Man O’ War stalked the deck, bellowing in fury at his crew. When he spotted Jack and Anna, he pointed his crewmen toward them.
Gunfire added to the crackle of the burning ship. Jack took out one man with his pistol, another with his shotgun. Using the green dot of her prismatic sight, she stopped two more from attacking.
It might be their ship, but the crewmembers saw it wasn’t going to be an easy fight. They fanned out, taking cover amongst the wreckage around them. Their captain’s frustration rose. He shouted at them in a foreign language, then disappeared into a stairway leading below deck.
Jack moved to give chase, but shots from the crewmembers kept him pinned behind a broken piece of the ship’s central support. “He’s running.”
“Bastard’s going for the most prized thing on his ship.”
“Song.” Jack broke cover, gunning down a crewmember and sending the others to deeper cover. “He’ll lead us there.”
They sprinted for the stairway. One crewman poked up from cover with his ether pistol and paid the price. She quickly reloaded as they descended the stairs.
Inside, the ship shuddered and screamed like a wounded animal. Fires burned everywhere. Broken walls and supports formed mazelike tunnels. Gunpowder exploded somewhere in the bowels of the ship, tearing new rifts in the structure.
“There’s the rat.” Jack hauled himself over a thick span of wood and helped Anna to the other side. Charron smashed his way through the smaller pieces of burning ship, searching forward.
More explosions wracked the structure. A ten-foot section tore away from the side of the ship, showing the passing mountains and sky. One of the huge propeller fans dangled just outside the hole.
The floor shook with another explosion, then fell away. Jack and Anna scrambled, scraping past broken wood, until they landed on the deck below.
“It was just a goddamn telegram,” she recalled, spotting Charron and following him deeper into the ship. “Seemed like a simple way to start.”
Jack shouldered past some broken timbers. “Things got twisted fast.”
A crewmember leapt out of a shattered doorway at them. She planted a fist in his face, knocking him back. Then she patted Jack on the ass and gave him a wink. “I wouldn’t change a second of it.”
She headed where they’d last seen Charron, Jack close behind her. “I’m starting to get strong feelings for you, Anna Blue.”
“Careful, Mr. Hawkins, we’re on a crashing airship. A girl might think you’re being hasty.”
“Think what you want.” More of the side of the ship fell away, drawing fresh air in and feeding the fires. “We’re getting off this wreck, with our bounty, and when we’re on solid ground I’ll tell it to you all over again.”
Danger shrieked all around them; still, there was more comfort being there with Jack than she’d ever known. “I’ll never get tired of hearing it.”
The Man O’ War continued plunging through his dying ship. Wires sparked, torn from their fittings. The same metal that made her
small detector was bolted to places throughout the passages.
The next crooked hallway they pursued Charron into was lined on one side with doors. The other wall was gone, open to the exterior of the ship. Before the Man O’ War could get halfway down the passage, one of the broken doors flew open and a man darted out.
She called to Jack, “There’s Song.”
Before the doctor could flee the hallway, Charron swept down on him. The Man O’ War’s huge fist balled in Song’s coat, holding him immobile. The doctor struggled, but could not break free. He glanced at the huge hole in the side of the airship and the wreckage that created it.
Song’s shocked eyes turned to Jack and Anna. “You crashed a Sky Train into the airship? You really are the best.”
Charron yanked the doctor off his feet with one hand and held him in the air. “They are dead.”
Jack asked Anna, “You got enough light in here for your fancy sight?”
The green dot was clear on the captain’s chest. “Call the shot.”
He shouted at the Man O’ War. “Let that man go or pay the price, Charron.”
The captain tightened his grip on Song and drew a short cutlass. He hissed something back to them in his language, then spoke in English. “It took another Man O’ War to kill Olevski. You won’t be enough, hunter. And when Song finishes his work, no one will be able to touch me.”
Jack spoke low for Anna. “Fingers.”
She shifted the green dot to Charron’s hand on his cutlass and pulled the trigger. He was incredibly fast, pulling away as he heard the shot. The bullet sparked off his blade. She maintained her aim and sent two more bullets at him, anticipating where he might move. It worked. He yelled out in rage as blood poured from his knuckles. But not enough. A normal man would’ve been shattered by the shot, yet Charron was far from normal.
While the captain was distracted, Jack charged. He emptied his pistol at the Man O’ War’s chest. Two of the six shots found flesh; one on the inside of his forearm, the other creased his hip.
Before Jack could bring his shotgun to bear, the captain yanked Song in front of him as a shield. Jack instead blasted at the unsteady floor, creating a chain reaction that opened up a huge hole. The Man O’ War, Song, and Jack all fell through.
