Driftmetal IV

by J. C. Staudt

  Belowdecks, alarms were sounding and red lights were flashing. The hallway kept shifting from left to right as I ambled along, feeling like a hapless drunk. Soon we leveled out and seemed to be regaining altitude, but I could tell by the screeching metallic sounds beneath my feet that the displacer engines weren’t happy.

  I made it to the bridge and flung open the door. The whole crew was there, as instructed, with Thomas bound by the wrists and Thorley standing over him. Blaylocke was sitting up now, his midsection wrapped in stained white cloth. Sable was wrestling with the ship’s controls, trying to fly straight—and doing a pretty fine job of it, given the circumstances. On the instrument panel, I saw two of the ship’s eight auxiliary engine indicators blinking.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “We took a shot from one of the artillery platforms,” said Chaz. “I guess it was trying to hit the Admiral’s boat, and we got in the way.”

  “How’s she handling?”

  Ezra spoke for Sable, who was locked in hypnotic concentration. “She won’t stay airborne much longer. And if we take another hit…”

  I turned to Thomas. I was angry, but I didn’t have time to lose my temper. “You let them go.”

  Thomas’s face was bruised and cut from the beating the operatives had given him in the rain. He started to weep. “I’m… so sorry.”

  “Sorry you got caught before the synod could commandeer the ship, you mean.”

  “I believe you’ve made an error, Mr. Jakes. We set out to bring the synod to power. They should have a chance to rule before we take it away from them.”

  “You’re welcome to your own beliefs, Tom. That’s not why I’ve had you restrained. You’re tied up because you’ve shown me once again that you’ve got the worst judgment on the planet. You made a decision that put us all in danger. You betrayed my trust.”

  Blaylocke spoke up from his seat on the floor. “I could’ve told you he was gonna do that.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “You told me no one cares what I say.”

  “I meant when it’s stupid. If you have something pertinent to say, then by all means, say it. Geez. Some people are so sensitive.”

  “How did you know it was me?” Thomas asked.

  “You’re not as clever as you think, Tom. When I called downstairs, you picked up. There’s a clear line of sight from the comm station to the brig, so you would’ve known whether the synod were in their cells or not. If they’d escaped, you would’ve reported it to me when we spoke. Unless, of course, you didn’t want me to know. Since you didn’t happen to mention it, and since the first thing you asked was if anything was wrong, my guess is you’d just set them free and you knew they were on their way up to the bridge. Not only that, but you sent the Regent here when I asked, because you were hoping they’d kill him as soon as he walked in.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Jakes. Forgive me.”

  “For the sake of brevity, I neither accept your apology nor forgive you.” I was tired of giving people second chances and expecting them to change. I had actually started to like Thomas, but there was no excuse for pulling a stunt that had almost gotten the rest of us killed. I was about to tell Thomas how disappointed I was in him when the third and fifth auxiliary engine indicators began to flash.

  “We’re losing power,” Ezra shouted.

  “Everyone find a seat and strap in,” I said. I looked at Thomas. “Even you, Tom.”

  I helped Chaz move Blaylocke to one of the crew seats, then took the co-pilot’s chair while Ezra took Chaz’s place at the radar station. “Head for those trees,” I told Sable. “My Ostelle is on the other side of the forest.”

  “I don’t know if we’ll make it,” she said.

  “Try.”

  We could either go over the forest or go around it, and we weren’t going to make it around. Treetops skimmed the bottom of our hull as Sable tried to keep her aloft. Everyone else was gripping their seats in white-knuckled terror; the only sounds were the patter of rain on the windshield and the brush of branches against the hull. Some of those branches began to snap as we lost altitude, still moving fast.

  “Steady her out, now,” I said, but Sable didn’t need my help.

  As the edge of the forest approached, the Highjinks lurched and threw us into our seatbelts. A marshal, two operatives, and an Evelyn spilled over the bow and tumbled down the windshield. The robot hit with a crack that sent fractures across the window glass before it barreled off the lip. Another engine began to fail; this time, it was one of the six primary displacers, the starboard fore.

  I wanted to tell everyone we’d be fine. But that would’ve been a sketchy promise to make. All Sable had to do was reach the tree line, pull us level, and set us down in the grass. But we didn’t make it that far.

  Just as she began to ease back on the controls, the sixth auxiliary engine choked on a mouthful of foliage. The forward tilt of our velocity drove us downward into the tree trunks, whose increasing girth became a gauntlet of defensive linemen to our flight path. We splintered through a dozen, then two dozen. Finally, the resistance became too much. The hull shuddered. The windshields shattered in our faces. The Highjinks slid along the felled trunks of several tall pines and slammed into an ancient cedar, spinning off and careening into a lopsided spiral.

  The ship thudded to the dirt and slid into a stand of firs, coming to rest with thick green branches poking into the control room. Sable cut the engines. She released the controls and slumped back into her chair with a sigh of exhaustion and relief.

  “Nice flying,” I told her.

  She glared at me. “I did the best I could.”

  “What? I’m being serious…”

  She unhooked her seatbelt and flung it aside, then got up and stretched without replying.

  “How is everyone?” I asked. It was like I’d just walked into a room full of mimes; everyone was white as a sheet, and no one said a word. They had all taken my advice and worn their seatbelts, though, so they were no worse for the wear.

  Outside the ship was a different story. The Highjinks was resting in the side of a shallow gulley, at the end of the massive divot she’d carved in the forest floor. Tendrils of smoke rose through the rain from her disabled engines, and the twisted gray metal of her hull was shining wetly in the half-light.

  There were bodies everywhere. The Evelyns which remained functional were chasing down and systematically executing every Civvy in sight, wounded or not. We filtered out through the hatch and were climbing down the slanted deck toward the ground when I heard a noise. A cry or a whimper, coming from within one of the tech supply crates.

  “Keep going… I’ll catch up,” I told Sable. “Make for the Ostelle and don’t stop ‘til you get there.”

  With my one good hand I pulled myself up the deck and cracked open the crate door to find the Regent’s family inside, battered, bruised and scared. I scanned the area and made sure there were no Evelyns around. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

  The Lady Regent gave me a look of fearful disdain. “I’ll not be going anywhere with the likes of you,” she said, clutching her babies tight to her breast.

  “I know, I’m the big scary bad guy,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I spared your lives once already. I’m not going to change my mind now. You need to come with me.”

  “We’ll wait here until the authorities arrive,” she insisted.

  “The authorities are busy getting their keisters handed to them right now. Sorry, but they’re not coming. I can take you to them, though. My boat is crawling with Civs.”

  It took a little more convincing, but eventually I managed to coax the Lady Regent and her children out and help them to the ground. I ordered the Evelyns to stop, then endured a long rainy walk through the woods with the irascible woman and her four crying, whiny brats in tow.

  Actually, that’s not entirely true. The eldest child, a boy of eleven or twelve, never complained once. Instead he did his best t
o stay calm and collected for the benefit of his mother and siblings.

  My Ostelle was a hub of activity when we arrived. It looked like Kupfer and his lackeys had been preparing to take off until my friends had arrived and thrown their plans into disarray.

  “There he is,” came a familiar baritone voice. “There’s the rat who hung me out to dry.” Zilch leaned over the railing and hawked a colorful gob that landed a foot ahead of me.

  I saved your life, you ungrateful do-gooder, I wanted to say. “How about you make yourself useful and help the Lady Regent and her children aboard,” I said instead.

  “You don’t give the orders around here.”

  “Then take your filthy law-loving boots and go dirty up someone else’s quarterdeck with them, ‘cause right now you’re standing on mine.”

  “Here you are, Lady Baloncrake,” said Zilch, snapping from crass soldier to polite gentleman. When he’d seen her to the captain’s quarters, he passed by me and whispered, “Just you wait, rat. You’re gonna get yours.”

  We’ll see who gets what. I entered behind the Lady Regent to find everyone gathered around and shouting at one another. The members of my strike team who’d survived—Yingler, Pearson, and the others—were there as well, seated or standing around the domineering desk at which Kupfer sat, wearing an equally domineering feathered tricorn. I could practically smell the tension between Yingler and the two primies. Blaylocke was slumped in one of the upholstered wooden armchairs with Chaz standing beside him, both looking at Yingler with hateful apprehension.

  When Yingler saw me, he shouted over the crowd. “You came through for me after all, Muller. You not only delivered the primitives; you’ve rescued the Regent and his family.”

  “The Regent—” I began, then remembered the red-eyed gaggle of little ones surrounding Lady Baloncrake. “I haven’t delivered anyone to you.”

  The crowd noise quieted to a murmur.

  Kupfer’s voluminous plume shook when he spoke. “Do you mean to refuse the Regency in its hour of need?”

  “Listen, Kupfer. I’ve had a long day. But don’t think I spent a single second of it—not one solitary instant—for you or your needle-chinned underling here. I’ll never help you again as long as I live.”

  “Then you’ll be content to rot in a cell with the rest of your co-conspirators. Take them away, lads.”

  “By whose authority?” I shouted.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said… by whose authority are you trying to lock me up?”

  “Why, the Regency’s, of course.”

  “What Regency?”

  “The Regency. Of… Esperon. Have you gone daft, man?”

  “You mind telling me who you plan on reporting to if I refuse? Who’s going to enforce these charges of yours?”

  “My orders are spoken in the Regent’s name and given power on behalf of the Regent himself.”

  “You want to know who the Regent is? There’s your Regent.” I pointed at the boy, no more than twelve, who now stood in his father’s shoes without knowing what that meant.

  “Are you insinuating that the Regent is dead?”

  I facepalmed. “That is exactly what I was insinuating. And the reason I was insinuating it rather than coming right out and saying it is because his wife and kids are standing right here. Nice job, Kupfer. Which topic of conversation would you like to blunder through next?”

  “I… I didn’t—” Kupfer reddened.

  The smallest of Max’s children, a round-faced toddler in pigtails, began to cry. Her two middle siblings joined her, and their mother found that she could no longer hold back her own tears.

  “How about the topic where your whole fleet is out there getting obliterated right now? Or the one where I remind you that there are now more people loyal to me on this boat than you? Yeah, that sounds like a good one. Because I’ve had just about enough of your windbaggery for one lifetime. The Regency is gone. Whatever sliver of power your tiny little peabrain believed you possessed went with it. So I suggest you either see yourself off my ship, or go find the brig and lock yourself in it. Anyone who still wants to serve the dead Regency is welcome to go with you.”

  Kupfer stood and removed his outrageous hat. “Perhaps we can discuss this—”

  “Brig or gangplank, Kupfer. Make your choice, and make it now.”

  Kupfer began to gather his things.

  “Did I say you could take your crap with you? Get out.”

  Sheepishly, he scooped up what he could and moved for the exit. Yingler tried to follow, but I stopped him. “Not you. You don’t have a choice. You’re staying with me, seeing as how we’ve got places to go and old friends to visit. Friends named Malwyn and DeGaffe. I know how much you’ve been dying to get reacquainted with them.”

  Chaz brightened at the mention of those names. “We’re going back to Pyras?”

  “You guessed it, ol’ buddy. We’ve got some unfinished business there that’s long overdue, don’t we? Of course, we’ve got to find the blasted place first.”

  Chaz wrinkled his mouth. “That might take some doing.”

  “We’ll get to that when the time comes,” I said. I turned to the Regent’s wife. “Now, Lady Baloncrake. Unlike Lafe Yingler here, you’ve got a decision to make. I know you want to go with Captain Kupfer, but I want you to be aware that the stream is about to become a very dangerous place for you and your children. Your eldest son, especially. Once the synod cleans up the mess from Admiral Pearson’s attack and gets back on its feet, rest assured they’ll be coming after your son. They don’t want a trace of the royal bloodline interfering with their right to rule.”

  “They have no right to rule,” she said. “That right is borne by my son alone, now.”

  “Be that as it may, you’re still very much in danger.”

  “And what do you propose I do about that?”

  “I’m willing to take you a short distance and drop you off with someone you trust. Preferably someone besides Kupfer.”

  “I would prefer to remain in Captain Kupfer’s capable hands.”

  I chuckled. “If that’s how you define capable, go right ahead.”

  “Lady Baloncrake, I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” said Sable, who was suddenly standing beside me.

  “Why ever not?”

  “Because Muller is right. The stream is dangerous. Even more so while your son is with you. Oh, and Kupfer is a pompous jerk.”

  “Is there anyone else you could stay with for a little while?” I asked. “Like, literally anyone…”

  “I have some family on Halloren,” she said.

  Sable looked at me. “Why don’t we just bring them with us?”

  I stared back at her, wide-eyed. “With us? Uh-uh. No way.”

  She frowned. “Why not?”

  “Because we’re headed to a place where everyone hates the Regency’s guts.”

  “Does such a place exist?” asked the Lady Regent.

  “Oh yes.” I laughed. “Oh, yes.”

  “Muller,” said Sable. “Pyras is hidden, right? It’s outside the stream. Outside the reach of Maclin and its operatives.”

  “Yeah. But it’s also full of primies.”

  “What if just the Regent’s son came with us? He wouldn’t be in any more danger in Pyras than he would in the stream, would he?”

  “No,” I said. “He’d be safer from Maclin and its agents there than anywhere else on the planet.”

  “So why don’t we take him?”

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “Out of the question. I want nothing to do with who rules the world anymore.”

  Sable gave me a disapproving look. “You lost that privilege the second you agreed to help Maclin take Roathea. This family has no home… and, I’m sorry if this offends you, Muller, but that’s partly your fault.”

  I wasn’t offended. But that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear right then, either. Mostly because I hated it when she was right. Having been away from her
all this time, I’d forgotten how often that happened. Nonetheless, I set my jaw and held onto my stubborn refusal for a few moments longer. “Fine,” I finally said, sighing loudly. “Fine. The kid can come. But that’s it.”

  Lady Baloncrake thought for a moment. “I’m afraid I won’t suffer to be separated from my children.”

  “I understand your hesitations,” said Sable. “But in times like these, you’ve got to think about not only what’s best for your family, but what’s best for the world and its future.”

  She was pensive again, longer this time. “And if my son goes with you, he’ll be safe?”

  “Sending him with us is the best way to protect him from the people who want to harm him,” said Sable. “We don’t know how long that battle back there is going to last, or what the outcome will be. We just need to wait a little while, until things settle down.”

  “I’ve learned that you can’t trust many people in this life, Your Ladyship,” I added. “But I’m giving you my word as a scoundrel and a traitor… because that’s who I am, and I won’t pretend to be anyone else. We will keep your son safe until such a time as the Baloncrake family might rise to power again.”

  “I want to believe you, only I…”

  “You’re afraid to. I know. I’d be afraid to leave a kid with me if I were you.”

  “Why are you doing this? If you truly despise the Regency, that is…”

  That was one I had to think about for a second. “The Regency has done some awful things in the name of justice. I don’t think it has to be that way. We may have tried and failed to change things this time, but as long as we have a future, we’ve got the hope that something better will come along. If your son is the key to that future, then… I guess I’m okay with being a part of it.”

  Lady Baloncrake pursed her lips, but said nothing.

  I knelt beside the boy. “What’s your name, kid?” I asked.

  “Max.”

  “Maxwell Baloncrake, Jr., huh?”

  He nodded. “The Third.”

  “The Third… right. Well, Junior. You’re kind of the most important guy in the world right now. How would you like to take a ride on my boat with my crew and me?”