The Guns Above

by Robyn Bennis

  “Not a lover,” he said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Then it must be … a disappointed father.”

  She snorted. “Wrong again. My father died in the army.”

  “Really? Which battle?”

  Dupre put her head closer to the diagram. “Syphilis.”

  He thought. “I don’t remember that one. Oh! You mean the pox.” He chuckled. “I thought you meant a battlefield. Isn’t that funny?”

  “We all thought so,” she said, hunching so close to the diagram that she couldn’t possibly see it clearly.

  Bernat’s chuckle caught in his throat. “I, uh, I didn’t mean … please accept my apologies.”

  “For this alone, or for the sum of your behavior during these trials?”

  He might have given a pithy reply, but he was flustered from giving accidental offence. Intentional offence he would certainly have reveled in, but this misunderstanding left him somehow unbalanced. “I think I’ll take a walk,” he said, going down the companionway.

  “Pray don’t stop at the rail.”

  Bernat went down and took his habitual station on the right side of the hurricane deck, where he could look out at the horizon.

  Lieutenant Martel was on deck, standing in the captain’s spot. “Thank you for your quick thinking earlier, my lord.”

  Bernat was just about to deflect the credit onto Dupre, as he had when Private Grey complimented him, when he remembered that he wouldn’t have to worry about romantic entanglements with Martel. Probably not, anyway. He nodded politely.

  Miles of hill and countryside went past below. It was quite relaxing, now that he’d purchased a spare pair of goggles from Jutes and could keep the wind out of his eyes. He would also invest in one of those dashing leather caps at the first opportunity, but for purely aesthetic reasons. The fluttering of his tightly cropped hair hardly bothered him anymore, but he felt himself in some small way an airman now, and wanted to look the part.

  The airship’s shadow stretched far to the east by the time they crossed the semaphore system at a place the crew called “The Knuckle.” As Martel dictated a report from the captain’s notes, Kember relayed it by signal lamp, reporting the exact circumstances and details of Mistral’s mishap. Bernat hoped his name would be included favorably, but the report stuck to such phrasing as “the carpenter” and “the officer of the deck,” which seemed to be represented by abbreviated signals requiring only a few flashes on the lamp. He supposed it too much to ask that there be a signal-lamp abbreviation for “the achingly handsome gentleman of high birth who saved the ship.”

  When the report was finished, Martel lifted his telescope to read the reply. A grin grew on his face as he read, silently mouthing the words. Bernat couldn’t make out most of them, even watching Martel’s lips, but he noticed “enemy” and “Durum” repeated several times.

  Martel lowered the telescope. “Ensign, you have the deck.” He went up the companionway stairs, taking them two at a time.

  Bernat followed him, to where Dupre was still poring over structural diagrams.

  “They’ve confirmed the report of an enemy scout over Durum,” Martel reported.

  Dupre looked up. “Then take us west, away from it. We’ll hold station over The Nose. If the scout isn’t gone by midnight, we’ll divert to Arle.” She went back to her diagrams, but Martel lingered. Without taking her eyes off her work, she asked, “Is there anything else, Lieutenant?”

  “No, sir. It’s only … well, I had thought we would have a go at them, sir.”

  “In this ship?” She scoffed. “Apart from the damage she’s already suffered, we haven’t finished our trials, so we don’t know what other nasty surprises Mistral will have in store for us when subjected to the stresses of aerial combat. No, Lieutenant. Glory can wait for another day.”

  The carpenter came forward, moving like a man on a mission as he passed Jutes at the head of the companionway. “I hear somethin’ about an enemy scout, sir?” Chips asked, touching knuckle to forehead. The rumor had spread through the ship faster than a person could walk. Bernat looked back along the keel, where the crew seemed to be divided into two factions: half of them were looking eagerly at Dupre, relishing the thought of battle, while the other half shot wary glances at each other.

  “Do you have something to report, Mister Rosen?” Josette asked.

  Chips gave his old-fashioned salute again, so great was his excitement. “We’re in good shape for battle,” he said. “Frame two’s stronger now than it was before it failed. Used half the line and timber in the ship to brace it. Won’t fail again, sir, I can promise you that. Been over every inch of the tail cap, too, and she’s right as rain, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Dupre said. “It’s laudable work, but we won’t put it to the test just yet.”

  The carpenter looked so blank for so long, Bernat began to worry a blood vessel had burst inside his brain.

  “Oh, and Chips?” Dupre said, looking up from her diagrams. “Lord Mooncalf here has sprung one of the struts above you. Wrap it up when you have a chance, please.”

  Chips turned to Bernat. “Ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of, my lord. Happens to a lot of people, their first week aboard.” He saluted Dupre for the third time, turned, and shambled aft.

  * * *

  THE DAMN FOP continued to linger after Chips and Martel left. Josette tried to concentrate on the diagrams, but found the thought of his eyes on her too infuriating.

  Then again, it wasn’t just the fop infuriating her, was it? It was the behavior of her crew. Their enthusiasm didn’t bother her, for everyone knew chasseur airships were filled with bloodthirsty bastards who relished a good fight. This set them apart from the regular army, where the average soldier was quite sensibly terrified at the prospect of impending combat. The all-volunteer chasseurs, on the other hand, were populated by roughly equal measures of the suicidal, the heroic, and the brutal. Although, she reflected as she looked back along the keel, her own crew wasn’t quite representative. Her crew seemed to be split between those who resented her because they thought she was going to get them all killed, and those who resented her because they thought she wasn’t going to let them kill anyone else.

  The two factions only agreed on the necessity of questioning their captain’s every goddamn order. Captain Tobel, in this situation, would have given the same order she had. He would have protected his ship first. She was certain of it, and just as certain that Captain Tobel’s order would have been obeyed without question, without grumbling, without second-guessing, and without irate glances.

  So why was she getting all of that in spades?

  Perhaps, after all, there really was something missing in women officers—some intangible air of command naturally present in male officers, which she couldn’t acquire even by saving everyone aboard from certain death. Everyone was patting the fop on the back, congratulating the little bastard for his quick thinking. How did he merit such respect for coming late to the scene and understanding nothing of the situation, but merely following Josette’s example? She couldn’t explain it, except to wonder if he, for all his uselessness, had something that she lacked.

  Her mind was racing so fast now that it jumped that track and landed on another. The goddamn shooting contest! The late Captain Tobel couldn’t hit a pagoda with a rifle if it was right under his keel, and had anyone thought the less of him for it? No! Of course not! But Josette had gone seventeen shots with the Deadeye Dandy and only lost by a nose, and they were calling her a bungler—if not with their mouths, then with their goddamn eyes.

  “You seem to be turning red.”

  Her head whipped up and she saw the fop smiling at her. “What?” she asked.

  “You’re turning an alarming shade of red,” the fop said, still smiling amiably. “I just thought you’d want to know, while there’s still time to release the pressure.” He winked at her, made some note in that blasted book of his, and went down the companionway.

  “God damn him,” s
he muttered. Soon they would take her ship away. She was convinced of that now. They would take her ship, and she’d be lucky if they gave her command of a goddamn blimp.

  Jutes left his post and approached.

  She looked up at him and sighed. “All things considered,” she said, “this flight could have gone better, eh?”

  “Cap’n,” he said very quietly, “might be wise to reconsider that decision.”

  Not Jutes too, goddamn it. “It’s the same decision Captain Tobel would have made. Surely you see that.”

  Jutes seemed to think about it. He nodded. “Aye, but it ain’t the decision you have to make.”

  “And what if I do make the other one?” she asked. “What then? I’ll only be trading one set of malcontents for the other.”

  “Mayhap that’s so, sir, but a tidy little victory ought to sort that problem right out. The crew? They’ve heard of this fighting captain, this woman warrior who charged her ship into an entire company of skirmishers. Whatever they may think of her, what they’re wondering right now is where that woman has got to. Truth be told, I’m wondering too.”

  Josette laughed. “When last I saw her, she was lying on top of a hill, somewhere south of Arle.”

  “Well, that ain’t but a day’s flying from here, Cap’n. We could swing by and try to find her again.”

  She looked down at her diagrams. “I don’t think she made it, Jutes.”

  “Cap’n, I wish you’d—”

  “That will be all, Sergeant.”

  Jutes touched his knuckle to his forehead and hobbled back to his post.

  She took her work and retreated to her cabin in the stern. There, she sketched out a new tail configuration that would prevent a repeat of this afternoon’s girder failure, at a small cost in weight. Perhaps she’d be relieved of her command by semaphore signal before she could even put the Durum shipyard to work on it, but she’d try, damn it.

  She was almost finished when she heard Kember clearing her throat outside the curtains of her cabin. “Lieutenant Martel sends his compliments,” the ensign said, “and we’ve arrived over The Nose.”

  “Thank you, Ensign,” she said without opening the flap. She could hear Kember walking forward.

  She finished marking up her diagrams, the work of a quarter hour, and then went forward herself. Alighting on the hurricane deck, she looked out to see the pointed outcrop of The Nose casting its shadow toward the east. The fop was staring at it with the awe and wonder of a true idiot. She looked west at the sun, still high in the afternoon sky, and then east, to where Durum lay over the horizon.

  Why did it have to be Durum?

  “Ah, to hell with it.”

  Martel tilted his head. “Sir?

  She didn’t answer him, but only looked out over the deck crew. “Bring us east to ninety-five degrees on the compass. Pass the word to the mechanic: increase steamjack to full power.”

  Jutes grinned back at her before he relayed the order. Everyone on deck only looked at her with confusion and trepidation, as Mistral’s nose swung around to point east.

  She returned their looks, each one in turn, though they all looked away when her eyes met theirs. She took a long breath and said, her voice loud and hard, “Rig for battle.”

  7

  THE CREW ADJUSTED the rigging, brought water and fire blankets forward, readied the bref guns, secured the small-arms racks to the rails, and loaded the rifles.

  Bernat wondered if any of them questioned Dupre’s feeble pantomime of a brave captain, and suspected they didn’t. They hadn’t seen the real Dupre, hiding in the bow, fretting until she turned red. The crew, no doubt, thought she’d been planning this all along, that her hesitation was part of some elaborate stratagem. He would have to mention that in his letter. Perhaps he’d add something about “permitting the deceit and vanity natural to her sex to rule over her other faculties, such as they are.”

  As he was contemplating this, the woman herself appeared before him and shoved a rifle into his hands. “Here. Make yourself useful and help the loader.”

  Bernat looked at the crewman who was busy loading rifles, then at Josette. He was thoroughly confused.

  She sighed and spoke very slowly. “Load this rifle, please.”

  He took the rifle, but could only stare at it. “And how does one go about doing that?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You must be joking.”

  “At the palace, we have someone to handle these sorts of trivialities.”

  She snatched the rifle back. “If he can’t find any other utility, my lord will perhaps lower himself to firing a shot or two at the enemy?”

  “That sounds delightful,” Bernat said. He didn’t relish the thought of going into battle, but it seemed he had no choice, so he might as well kill a few Vins while he was at it. It would, at least, give him something to brag about.

  The ship drove on, gaining altitude so quickly the change caused a pain in his ears.

  “Passing through five thousand,” Corporal Lupien said. Bernat was beginning to suspect the men and women of the signal corps simply enjoyed making pointless announcements.

  Martel, posted along the forward rail of the hurricane deck, suddenly put his telescope to his eye and cried out, “Enemy sighted! Two points starboard at about four thousand.”

  Bernat looked in the direction he was pointing and, by squinting, could barely see a speck in the sky. “Tallyho!” he cried. But when he looked about, only blank stares met his enthusiastic grin.

  “Tally-what?” Martel asked.

  “It’s what one says on a fox hunt, when the quarry is sighted.” His grin diminished. “You know, ‘tallyho!’ I thought everyone knew that.”

  “Come to one hundred and twenty degrees on the compass,” Dupre said. The bitch was ignoring him.

  Lupien made a few turns on the wheel. The ship came about, but not far enough to point directly at the enemy. Bernat asked Martel, “We aren’t going straight for them?”

  “Cap’n wants to keep us between them and the sun,” he said, handing the telescope to Bernat. After a bit of fumbling, Bernat found the enemy ship in the glass.

  He’d been expecting something smaller, perhaps some weathered little blimp covered in patches. But the thing Bernat saw through the telescope was an airship, comparable in size to Mistral and bristling with guns.

  “She has a fierce broadside,” Bernat said.

  “Three per side,” Martel said. “But they’re only swivel guns.”

  “What a comfort,” Bernat said. When he looked into the telescope again, the ship was turning toward them. “They’ve seen us! They’re attacking!”

  Martel snatched the telescope back and looked out. “No, no,” he said. “They’re only turning to keep near cloud cover, but the weather isn’t doing them any favors today.” Indeed, the mottled cloud cover had been shriveling up all afternoon. The cloud bank near which the enemy lingered was one of the largest in the sky, but only a few miles wide at that.

  “Range?” Dupre asked.

  “I make it five miles.”

  It seemed to Bernat that an hour or more had passed before Martel called the range at two miles. Consulting his pocket watch, however, he found that the elapsed time had only been four minutes.

  Dupre nodded and ordered, “Crew to stations. Mr. Martel, please send a bird to Arle with the following message: ‘From Mistral: have engaged Vin scout over Durum.’”

  Lieutenant Martel patted Bernat on the back, in a most uncomfortably familiar manner for a commoner. “Don’t worry, my lord. Everyone’s a little nervous, their first time.” He trotted up the companionway ladder and disappeared into the keel.

  The gun crews stood in their places next to the cannons, except for Corne, who had found Bernat standing in his spot and didn’t know what to do about it. Bernat had sympathy, but not enough to move. If Corne wanted the spot so badly, he should have gotten there earlier. Martel came down carrying a pigeon. He released it over the rail, then went back u
p the companionway to take station aft.

  They were on the outskirts of Durum now, passing over farmland and old, flooded quarries. The Vinzhalian ship hovered below and to the east, just beyond the old stone wall that surrounded the town. Just south of the town was Durum’s aerial signal base. Its airship shed was a pitiful little thing compared to Arle’s, but it was still the largest building in sight, and would have been the tallest if not for a rather excessive spire on the town’s pagoda, most likely added to keep the shed from being taller.

  Bernat saw something fall from the enemy ship. He thought they must be bombing the town, until Kember said, “Scout dropping ballast! Sandbags … and now water. They’re turning away.” She put the telescope to her eye. “And they’ve released a bird. It’s heading east, toward Vinzhalia.”

  “Range?”

  “To the bird, sir?”

  “To the scout ship, Ensign.”

  “Over a mile, I’d say. A mile and a half. No, maybe less than that. A mile and a quarter. Maybe a little over a mile and a quarter.” Kember’s voice had a noticeable tremor in it.

  “Thank you, Ensign,” Dupre said.

  The girl winced. Bernat deigned to pat her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I have it on good authority that everyone’s nervous their first time.” They were close enough now that, even without a telescope, he could see a port opening in the tail of the enemy ship. It was suddenly lit by a brilliant light, from which emerged some small object, streaking toward them and trailing smoke. “Good God,” he screamed. “They’re shooting at us!” Only then did the shriek of the rocket reach his ears.

  Behind him, Dupre sighed and said, “It would be more remarkable if they weren’t, Lord Hinkal.”

  The rocket arced up until it was hidden from sight behind Mistral’s own envelope. He heard a bang in the distance and saw burning scraps of rocket falling about half a mile in front of the bow. The next rocket was even less accurate, turning hard right as soon as it was launched, spiraling around to explode nearer to the enemy ship than to Mistral.

  “They’re at about four and a half thousand feet,” Ensign Kember reported. “Still dropping ballast, climbing fast. A bit under a mile away, I think.”