Captain Gravenor’s Airship Equinox (Steampunk Smugglers)

by Hiestand, Heather

  When he looked away, he saw Philadelphia still turned to the wall, face in her hands, her shoulders trembling. Moving until he was almost touching her, he leaned toward her ear. “We are done here. I am taking you away from this place.”

  She sniffed and rubbed at her eyes. “I understand why they hate me now. It’s the same reason I hate myself.”

  He inclined his forehead until it just barely grazed her hair. “A scientist can’t be blamed for how their research is utilized. Humans need to understand. It is in our nature, and only the most special of us can think like you do. You aren’t to blame for any of this.”

  “I’m to blame for you being here.” She tilted her head to his. They were only a couple of inches apart. The trust and worry in her eyes seemed unbearably dear.

  “Are you to blame for this?” he asked, his voice rough. “Can you control this?” He bent his head and took her lips with his, then sucked her lower lip between his teeth when he found it strangely sweet.

  She gasped but didn’t attempt to break free from his possession. He didn’t deepen the kiss, but smoothed it, softened it. Her mouth relaxed against his. Slowly, he released her, soothing the teeth marks with tiny kisses. Then, he took her lips again. Her fluid mouth was wide and he hadn’t thought they’d fit together so perfectly, but oh, they did. He forgot where they were, what had just happened, and tasted the hot, damp porridge-flavored contours of Miss Philadelphia Hardcastle’s mouth, until searing pain slammed into his foot.

  He jumped back with a curse and stared at the brass hand on the dirt. She had dropped it on him! He was flattered she had forgotten herself so completely.

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “I’m so sorry! I forgot.”

  He blinked. “Why, Miss Hardcastle, that must have been quite a kiss to make you lose your grip on the hand.”

  She licked her lips slowly, then put her hand to her cheek. “Why did you do it?”

  “Because I wanted to.”

  She nodded. “I wanted it, too. Are we really going to run?”

  “Count on it.”

  “Then I’d suggest you wait to embrace me again, Mr. Gravenor, as I really cannot be trusted to think clearly under these circumstances.” She walked shakily to her cot and sank onto it, staring at the floor. “I know I am forgetting something terribly important.”

  He wondered if she’d never been kissed before. The compliment she paid him was absurd, yet flattering. A kiss so powerful it could stop the thought processes of an inventress the likes of Miss Hardcastle? Impossible. But sweet.

  He watched her spine straighten, then her fingers fluttered. As he picked up the dead man’s hand, she flew to a bucket and pulled out a length of wire, then another and another. She twisted and curled until she had a long hook of sorts, with a loop at the end. With a mischievous grin in his direction, she pointed through the bars of the cage.

  He looked. And looked again. And spotted it. The twins had left the dead man’s knife behind.

  He cursed softly. “Is it of use to us?”

  “I don’t know, but I see no reason to leave it. I knew something was different, but needed to order my thoughts to remember what had changed.” She patted her hair.

  “Let us do this quickly then, in case we receive company. If they remember to feed us they could return at any moment.”

  She fairly flew the five paces to the bars, then crouched to the dirt floor and poked the wire hook through. It flopped on the dirt, then became stuck around a rock embedded in the ground. But then, very precisely, she caught the knife by the pommel and pulled it back through the bar.

  “Ha! I didn’t even need the lasso.”

  He raised an eyebrow at the Americanism. She grinned.

  “Everard had a taste for American dime novels. He couldn’t be a cowboy so I guess joining the BAE was the next best thing.”

  Brecon picked up the knife and twirled it in the fingers of his good hand. How could it be used in their interest? He considered using it as a threat, poking it into Two’s throat and forcing One to lead them out of here. But that would not be successful. If escape were that simple, he could have stuck his hook into one of them long ago.

  Was there some way to persuade the man to take them directly to an airship? His airship, to be exact? If others were testing it the aircraft was operational. He could fly them out of here on his two-man airship. But the Red Wing heater cannons would get them long before the balloon could inflate. So what? To the barn then? Saddle horses?

  Perhaps he should use the knife to kill them. Quickly. Stab One, stab Two. Grab their heaters and leg it. He glanced at Philadelphia. She wasn’t a fellow ruffian like him, but a lady in corset and skirts. Even though her corset was torn, it still had all the parts that allowed it to conform to her body. No part of a rescue plan should involve running.

  “I can see those gears turning, Mr. Gravenor. Planning your next avenue of attack?” She licked her lips.

  He bowed slightly. “Not on your radiant form, my dear, but on this prison.”

  “Oh.” She touched her hair again. “Do you still want to tunnel under the wall? I’ve had some thoughts about a shovel, though I don’t know if the batteries we have will last long enough.”

  “No, under the cage. Now that we know there is a door on this level, we’ll be fools not to use it. As long as no one is watching us here, it’s the best plan. We can get under the cage more easily than the wall.”

  “I’ll work on the shovel, then.”

  Boots clanked on the steps and a young boy and girl trotted into the room, one carrying a tray and the other buckets.

  “Where are the twins?” Brecon asked the girl, who worked in the scullery.

  “Burying the body,” said the boy. “She’s a mute, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  The boy fished in his pocket for the cage key. Brecon’s hand twitched around the knife, hidden along the back of his thigh. He couldn’t use it on a child, though, not even for Miss Hardcastle. No, he wasn’t ruffian enough for that.

  Silently, he watched the children go about their business while the inventress poked at the brass hand, muttering to herself. When the children had clanged back up the steps, he used the wooden spoon to ladle up bowls of porridge. Then he wiped down the knife and cut the one sausage they’d been provided and split it into the porridge.

  “I believe I’ve solved the mystery,” she said, sitting next to him on the bench and taking up her porridge.

  “Just like that?”

  “I had several theories rattling around in my brain. I only needed to see the hand to know which was correct.”

  “Does it use the aether?” Brecon didn’t know if he believed in the mysterious substance. It had never been proven to exist.

  “No.” Her eyes caught the sunlight and gleamed. “Electro-magnetic waves.”

  “Explain.”

  She took a bite of porridge. “The BAE airships must be wired. The brass hands each have a receiver and the BAE airships have a transmitter. The wiring acts as an antenna and issues a shock by electromagnetic waves if the hands are too far away from the wiring.”

  “And it is only so strong, so if you get far enough away from the airships the transmitter has no effect, but then if you are close you are recaptured.”

  “Exactly.” She set her bowl down and picked up the hand, pointing to a coil with a disk at one end. “See? This is a capacitance plate. It holds a charge, enough energy to kill a man if there is a large enough stream of energy.”

  “Dastardly.”

  “But clever. If you are in the business of controlling men, this is the way to do it.” She picked up her bowl again. “They must install lightning rods to avoid inadvertent charges that would electrocute everyone.”

  “And the hand you made for me is safe from the airships?”

  “It doesn’t have the capacitance plate,” she agreed. “There is no way to hold enough charge to kill you. And I don’t know what frequency they are using, even if
you had a transmitter, which you don’t. Your hand wouldn’t fool anyone. The battery case is smaller so that makes the back look different, and of course the other equipment is missing too. I’m still not quite certain about one or two items.”

  “I don’t plan to board a Blockader airship any time soon,” Brecon said. “Just get out of here.”

  She downed her sausage quickly, once the porridge was gone. “I’ll work on my shovel.”

  For his part, he decided to see if he could use the knife to open the lock on the cage. Much quieter than digging. How he wished he had Terrwyn Fenna’s valuable lockpicking skills.

  By the next day, he realized what he really needed was a file. He’d borrowed a hairpin from Philadelphia and messed around with it and the knife until he heard a couple of tumblers move. Now, he was trying to file down the point of the knife with sandpaper.

  When he heard boots on the stairs, he tossed the knife under the blanket on his cot and picked up a piece of wire he’d had handy as a decoy. Miss Hardcastle unscrewed the additions she’d made to the dead man’s hand and tossed them under her blanket.

  The captain appeared, flanked by her brothers. Two held two buckets in his meaty grip. One had a rucksack. In a moment of sheer panic, Brecon wondered if he’d left any scrape marks on the lock. A trickle of sweat dripped down his back as the three approached. The captain gestured and One opened the lock, barely looking down as he inserted the key. Brecon stared hard, memorizing the shape. Could they cut into the dagger and create a rough key? Would that work better?

  “Have you solved the mystery of the brass hand?” the captain inquired pleasantly.

  “I believe so.” Miss Hardcastle met the captain’s gaze with a cool resolve of her own.

  “Tell me what I need to know.”

  “There will be a transmitter on each airship,” she said, gesturing with her hands. “Look for a lightning rod and it should be nearby, attached to a wire running in both directions. If you can destroy the transmitter, the brass hands will not present a danger to the enslaved men.”

  The captain raised an eyebrow. “And the individual hands?”

  “There is a receiver in each one. Remove it and an individual hand would be free from the energy transfer.”

  The captain’s lips curved in a nasty smile. “And if I wanted to give the Blockaders a taste of their cruelty? I would put this transmitter on my own airship?”

  The inventress put a hand to her stomach, as if sickened by what the captain proposed. Brecon felt the same way. What if she wanted to create her own enslaved crew?

  “Only the enslaved men have brass hands, not the BAE officers.”

  “Regardless,” said the captain. “Perhaps a taste of their own medicine would involve forced amputation.”

  Philadelphia took a deep breath. “You would need to strip the wiring and put that around your airship.”

  “I could supply that.”

  “You have to match the frequency of the transmitter and the receiver in the hands,” she said.

  “But you could do it. I’ll make an airship available, and all the wiring you need.”

  “Why?”

  The captain opened her eyes in a parody of innocence. “For practice, of course. Set up the wiring and the transmitter, even the lightning rod if you must. I’m sure we have an amputee around here somewhere. We’ll put the brass hand on him so you can test. Then I’ll send the men through the airship so they can see what they are up against.”

  “So this is a test plan, so your men can practice destroying the system?”

  The captain smirked.

  “Why does it need to be a working system?” Miss Hardcastle asked.

  The captain shrugged. “Why not? It will be fun for you, to use your skills in a practical application.”

  The lady’s hands became fists. Brecon touched her shoulder, warning her not to speak or act.

  The captain kicked at the dirt floor. “Really, One. You need to clean this blood away.” She turned and strode out.

  “We could use another meal,” Brecon called, ignoring the sour twist in his stomach as he instinctively glanced at the blood trail.

  “By the way,” the captain called over her shoulder. “You two stink. One, give them their gifts.”

  Two grinned savagely and tossed the contents of his buckets at Brecon and Philadelphia, soaking them from head to toe. Brecon spluttered as Philadelphia removed the water from her face with her dirty sleeve, leaving a sheen of machine oil on her cheek.

  Two stepped forward and dumped the last of a bucket over her head. “Scrub away that oil. The captain doesn’t want the crew to think you’ve been mistreated when you’re out testing the airship.”

  One tossed his package through the bars. “Clean clothes.”

  The twins offered nothing but blank expressions as they turned and walked toward the steps. One slowed as they reached the alcove where the door was hidden, as if pointing it out. Or perhaps just marking the blood trail. Brecon wondered if he knew they’d left the knife behind.

  “The free trader has become a tyrant,” Miss Hardcastle whispered.

  Something told him there was a small chance One was concerned about that. “We need to get out of here.”

  “If we’re going to be allowed out to wire an airship, maybe we can escape that way.”

  “They’ll be expecting that. And many of those around won’t be sympathetic to us, as they’ll have no idea what is happening.” He ripped the sleeve off the shirt he wore and opened it, then used that to clean Philadelphia’s face as best he could. Then, he kissed the tip of her nose.

  She looked woeful. “Do you think she’s planning to build her own enslaved army?”

  “I can’t say, but we don’t want to give her the tools. It’s the best way to create a monster. We need to get out of here now. Do you think your shovel will work?”

  “I’ve calculated the battery strength versus the heavily packed dirt, and how deep I think we have to dig to get under the bars, and it isn’t looking like we have much room for optimism,” she admitted. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to dig enough to allow a child to escape.”

  “Then we’ll need to pick the lock, or cut through the bars.”

  “We have nothing that will cut.” She used his sleeve to towel off her hair.

  “Then screwing it is.”

  She gasped.

  He grinned. “Lockpicking, that is. I apologize for my use of street slang.”

  “Thank you for the translation, Mr. Gravenor.” She put her hand to her throat. “Picking the lock is a more elegant solution, and certainly quieter. I was concerned about my little engine. What difficulties are we likely to face?”

  “We aren’t experienced at the craft, for one. I am trying to file down the knife so that I have a more precise point.”

  “I can help you with that.”

  “Excellent. First, let’s see what is in the sack.”

  She opened it, finding a worn black dress and a pair of trousers and a shirt. “They certainly don’t expect us to be warm.”

  Brecon sighed. “Maybe they want us to take ill. At least we’ll both have something that isn’t ripped.”

  “I suggest we layer, filthy or not. Those buckets they threw on us didn’t do much to make us clean. We needed soap.” She coughed.

  He wondered if they’d be able to get dry before the sun went down. Damn that Captain Red Kite!

  As they worked through the afternoon, they discussed what they should take with them. Nothing. How they should flee? On foot or horseback.

  “You must leave your airship behind?”

  “We do not want to be thieves,” he said. “We just want to go. And we can’t risk noise.”

  “Do you think the captain will lose us with any more resignation if it is simply our thoughts we take, versus chattel?”

  He stopped smoothing a bundle of wires he was making into an approximation of a lockpicking tool. “Perhaps not.”

  “She is so
full of hate, that woman.”

  “I never saw it until you came. But then, I never knew why she hated the Blockaders.”

  “I am sorry to bring out the worst in her, as I was sorry I ignited the worst impulses of my relatives.”

  “I am sorry for all of your troubles. As an inventor myself, or at least a craftsman, I do not see that you deserved any of it.”

  “You are an inventor yourself, Mr. Gravenor.”

  He pressed his lips together. Long since, he had abandoned his own sketches to work on her designs. “What will be our story on the road?”

  “Where do you resolve we go?”

  “To Cardiff. It is the only place to get money, from my family.”

  “We could go to my cousin’s house and pick up my things. I had a few pounds, not much.”

  “I wish we knew if she’d left your possessions in your room, or if she’s already dispersed them.”

  “You make a good point. But won’t the Red Kites look for you in Cardiff first?”

  “It is a risk we shall have to take, I think.”

  “I wish I had friends we could go to. I can see the high cost of isolation, now.”

  “Allies are very important in a crisis,” he agreed. “But we have each other. It will be enough for now.”

  She nodded, offered him a nervous smile, then picked at a gob of wax on the leather apron she wore over the black dress. The rest of her outer clothing was hanging over cage bars to dry, as were his original trousers, jacket and ripped up shirt.

  The children brought supper to them just as the late began to lower in the sky. Brecon realized that it had to be well into September by now. They had been in the cage for weeks. He resolved they would not spend another night there.

  He ladled out the stew while Philadelphia tore the bread into chunks. “When we leave, we’ll have about ten miles to walk.”

  “We can do that. In our present condition we had better arrive at the shipyard before first light.”

  “Looking like vagrants may be a good disguise, really. At least from the Blockaders. How recognizable are you to them?”

  “Not very. I mostly saw Cousin Everard.”