by Robyn Bennis
The rest of the deck crew were clipped on, which was all that saved Kember and one of the less experienced cannoneers from falling out. The unsecured wrench made its rackety way through the keel behind them, until it reached the companionway and fell through. It didn’t even hit the steps of the ladder on its way down, so extreme was the ship’s tilt. Josette swung out of its way as it fell past her. It clanked off the cannon and got stuck against the forward rail. A rifle that Bernat had not been able to secure in time followed it and nearly went overboard.
“Elevators level,” she ordered, when she heard water sloshing out of the tops of the ballast bags.
“Stern is clear of the clouds!” Jutes called down, his voice strained with the effort of keeping himself upright.
The hurricane deck followed in seconds, bursting from whiteout conditions into perfectly clear air. The dazzling brightness of the receding clouds filled the sky forward, but to either side there was clear blue sky above a skewed horizon.
When Bernat looked out and saw how steep their stern-first climb into the heavens really was, he unleashed a stream of vomit that arced ballistically over the forward rail. When the last of it was clear of the ship, he spat, rubbed his mouth, and said, “Please don’t interpret that as a lack of enthusiasm.”
But Josette’s attention was already fixed to starboard. There—less than fifty yards away, cruising through the clouds like a shark—was the enemy ship. Only its upper surface was visible, the rest a pale shadow beneath. Mistral rose to pass her, soaring tail-first into the heavens.
“Elevators down full! Rudder, put us right on her ass!”
“Right on her ass! Yes, sir!” Corporal Lupien answered.
The Vin ship was now in reverse, turning in a desperate attempt to bring its cannons into action, but they’d been following too closely to react, and now Mistral had the legs of her. The slope of the deck eased under Josette. Her boots touched down. Mistral leveled off just above the enemy, right on her ass, with both ships running in reverse and Mistral pulling slowly away.
“Reduce steamjack to full power! Corporal, line us up to fire.”
The enemy ship turned wildly, trying to shake herself free of Mistral, but Lupien had his eyes on their rudder and matched them move for move.
“I have you now, you son of a bitch.” Josette was staring at the enemy’s stern. It lay half in the murk of the clouds and half out, right under Mistral’s bow. “Ensign, you may fire when she bears.”
Josette hadn’t even finished the sentence before Kember stepped out of the way of her gun’s recoil and yanked the lanyard. The muzzle spat flame, sending eight-score musket balls screaming at the enemy in an expanding wedge of pure destruction that tore through fins, girders, cloth, and men.
The smoke cleared to reveal a ragged hole in the enemy’s stern so wide Josette thought she could shoot through it and pick off the crew. But a look down the crippled ship’s keel showed that there was no one aft of the boiler to shoot at. No one left alive, at any rate.
The enemy’s stern drooped, and its speed fell off. The shot must have pierced two or three of their luftgas bags, but there weren’t enough crewmen left to shift ballast to compensate. The Vin chasseur’s tail sank, tilting the ship so that she seemed to hang in the air by her bow, her tilt growing more extreme than Mistral’s had been when she left the clouds. A good third of the enemy ship’s length was above the clouds now, but sliding slowly back into them. It pirouetted in an uncontrolled turn as it sank, coming around to show its belly.
Jutes called down, “Mr. Martel sends his compliments and he says…” Jutes ducked his head past the hatch and gave her a baffled look. “He says, ‘Think we can check that one off the list,’ sir.”
“Tell Mr. Martel to go ahead and check it off.”
While Kember’s crew hurried to reload the bref gun, Josette kept her eyes on the enemy’s hurricane deck, which was above the clouds and just turning into sight. She could see the crew over there, hanging by their harnesses or crawling along the sloping deck to stick their heads over the railing. She waited for the blue flare of surrender.
Instead, she saw three stabs of smoke and, before she could even make sense of their significance, a mist of blood splashed her face and Ensign Kember fell to the deck, choking and holding her neck with both hands as crimson oozed between her fingers. Farther forward, one of her cannoneers dropped a canister shot and slumped against the gun as a dark patch grew on his chest.
Josette ran forward, stepping not to but over Ensign Kember and the fallen cannoneer. She went straight to the bref gun, grabbed the dropped canister, and pushed it into the bore. The cannoneer with the rammer hesitated to come forward and expose himself to more musket fire, but when Josette reached out to take his rammer and do his job herself, it seemed to shame him into action. He took his place by the gun and rammed the canister home.
Before he’d even finished, Josette took Kember’s place and sighted down the length of the cannon. It was aimed at the enemy’s envelope, well above their hurricane deck. “Bow angle down three degrees.” While she waited for Mistral to pitch down, Josette pointed at the enemy. “Bernie! Put some goddamn fire on that ship!”
Bernat was kneeling over Kember. When he heard Josette, he hesitated for a second and then ran to pick up a rifle. He went forward, knelt in front of the rail, and fired.
Josette took Bernat’s place, kneeling over Kember, who was still choking and writhing on the deck. To get at the wound, Josette had to pull the girl’s hands away from her neck by brute force. Underneath, the bullet had torn a divot from the skin on the right side of her neck, which now hung open like a bloody door, laying bare the grisly strings of muscle, tendon, and blood vessel below. The open cavity filled with blood as Josette watched, but the largest vessels were not severed—none spouted blood in those rhythmic spurts that meant death within seconds.
Josette slid the divot of skin back over the wound, lining up the torn flesh as best she could and pushing down on it. She did this not from any surgical instinct, but from a vague notion that it had come off, and therefore had to be put back. She tore off her flight harness, removed her jacket, and tied it into a loop around Kember’s neck and under her armpit.
The ensign looked at her with wide, terrified eyes. She struggled to speak, but could only manage a croak.
Josette put a bloody hand on her cheek and said, “You’ll be fine.” She looked up and motioned to the remaining cannoneers. “Take her back.” Josette really had no idea whether the girl would be fine. She might still burst a blood vessel and bleed out, or the wound might putrefy and go septic.
A bullet plinked off the cannon as Josette moved forward. She ducked, keeping her head below the railing as she heaved the dead cannoneer clear of the gun. He fell facedown onto the deck and a moaning gush of air escaped his lips. For a moment she thought he lived, but it was only that the fall had pushed the breath from his lungs.
“We’re three degrees down, sir!” the elevator steersman called. He and Lupien were keeping their heads down, manipulating their wheels from a crouch, steering by the inclinometer and the hematic compass.
Josette sighted down the cannon. It pointed directly at the enemy’s hurricane deck, which was just about to swing out of sight and be eclipsed by the spinning envelope.
She stepped out of the way of the recoil and pulled the lanyard.
The bref gun fired, its bellowing report followed instantly by snapping, scraping, and screaming sounds. The smoke cleared to show the Vin hurricane deck hanging by its rear suspension lines, with the forward lines cut; the bottom side of the deck was slapping against the envelope, wafting back and forth like a sheet on a clothesline. Below it, the last man to fall was just passing into the clouds.
No, not the last. There was one man still clinging to a control cable, dangling above the abyss and pulling himself up, hand over hand. “Bring me a rifle,” Josette said, stepping to the rail. Bernat slapped the gun into her hand without hesitation or ju
dgment. She lifted it to her shoulder, leaving a smear of Ensign Kember’s blood where she held the stock.
She cleared her mind and waited patiently, until her aim was at its steadiest. She took a breath and let half of it out.
And did not squeeze the trigger.
She lowered her rifle, watching as man and deck and ship sank into the clouds, out of sight. With any luck, the survivors could free-balloon their wrecked ship to a survivable landing.
On her way to stow the rifle, Bernat took it and said, “I’ll see to that.”
She nodded, avoiding his eyes as she went up the companionway, following the men who were carrying the cannoneer’s body aft. “Take the deck,” she said to Jutes as she went past. “Bring us to five thousand, and continue on course for Durum at cruising power.”
“Yes, sir” was all he said.
11
BERNAT INSISTED ON helping tend to the wounded, but refused to feed them the hard-tack porridge and pickled beef the rest of the crew were eating for dinner. Instead, he dipped into his own stores to prepare some lovely little sesame-stuffed mushrooms for Bashir and a savory broth for Kember, heating it atop the boiler.
He was kneeling next to the ensign, about to spoon steaming broth into her mouth, when she gave him an odd look, took the spoon, and sat up to feed herself. He wasn’t sure why he’d assumed she couldn’t.
She tasted the broth and gave an approving nod, letting out a croak that sounded vaguely like, “Good.”
“Old family recipe,” he said. “At least, that’s what it said on the can.”
He looked across the catwalk, to where Bashir had perked up considerably and was chomping away at his mushrooms. When he saw Bernat looking at him, Bashir lifted one in a sort of salute. He grimaced when the movement hurt his wound, but returned to eating in short order.
It cheered Bernat. The only sour note was the dead cannoneer, whose body lay not ten feet from him, wrapped in canvas and concealed in a sleeping alcove with the curtain drawn.
The presence of the dead man had barely dented the ebullient mood on the ship, which Bernat found odd. Yes, they’d done a hard job—escaped an ambush, sent an enemy chasseur plummeting to earth—but the victory against the scout over Durum had been more complete by any measure. It had cost less and accomplished as much, and hadn’t left the aftertaste of an enormous army bearing down on Garnia. Yet he’d felt miserable after that victory, while he was positively buoyant now.
Élan was a fickle bitch. It reminded him of Josette, in fact.
He wondered if he could get his letter back from Durum’s postmaster, or if it had already gone out. How frequent could the post be out here? He pushed the matter to the back of his mind. There was nothing he could do about it until they landed in Durum, and by then he might not want it back in any event.
With the wounded doing so well, Bernat made two cups of tea and went forward. Grey was on the starboard side of the engine, so he went around to port, but she followed after him, aiming to ambush him at the gearbox. He walked faster and made it there ahead of her, then pressed on to the companionway without looking back.
On deck, he found the sky dark and the captain leaning over the front rail. He went to stand next to her.
“I missed the sunset,” he said, handing her a teacup. With a hand free, he covered his own cup to stop the wind from spraying hot tea into his face.
“By several hours,” she said, nodding her thanks. “Another hour and we’ll be in Durum.”
“Time flies when you’re tending to the sick,” he said. “But Private Bashir is looking better.”
She was in the middle of a sip when she stopped and stared at him. “Bashir’s going to die.”
He shook his head. “No, I’ve just come from him. He looks much better.”
She finished her sip and lowered the cup below the rail, out of the wind. “Men with gut wounds can rally, sometimes. They get better and have a good day. But it takes them in the end. He’ll be dead by next week.”
Bernat swallowed and looked away, off into the moonlit mountains of cloud below. “I didn’t know,” he said. “Does Bashir know?”
She took another sip of tea. “If he doesn’t, don’t tell him.”
He wasn’t sure he liked that, but he nodded.
She must have read the doubt in his expression, for she said, “Everyone says they want to know how bad it is, to know whether or not they’re going to make it, but it only makes them miserable when they find out. Give him his one good day. Not just for his sake, but for the morale of the crew.”
“You really care about them, don’t you?”
She whipped her head around and screwed up her face. “Of course I care about my crew. Why would you ask that?”
He was about to answer frankly, when he remembered her advice about not telling the wounded how bad it is. He said instead, “You come off as a bit cold.” If he’d been giving his full and honest opinion, it would have involved comparisons to icebergs.
“I … admit that I’m not good with people.”
“You’re quite good at killing them,” he said. “Perhaps if you’d put that kind of energy and attention into, say, smiling…”
“I smile!” she said, belying the assertion at that very moment.
“You smirk from time to time,” he said, “but I’ve seen you smile only twice. Once in response to the improved speed of your airship, and once when you saw a cloud that resembled a certain part of a man’s body.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “You thought I didn’t notice that, but I did. The point is, you never smile at people.”
She snorted. “Perhaps not at you.”
“I don’t expect a miracle,” he said with a smirk.
“I just…” She trailed off, then started up again. “I just don’t know how to please these people. Everything I do seems to make them dislike me more. Osprey’s crew loved Captain Tobel. They would have done anything for him.”
Bernat laughed. “You think these people wouldn’t do anything for you? In the last twenty-four hours, your crew has done four days’ worth of repairs in one night, overflown an enemy column, and gone cheerfully into battle for you.”
“Are you suggesting they secretly adore me?”
“The exact opposite, in fact. They’d do anything for you because they wouldn’t dare disappoint you. I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but you’re scary when you’re angry.”
She didn’t seem to like the thought of that. She looked at him sourly and said, “It was never my plan to make them fear me.”
Bernat smiled. “But you have a knack for it, and that can be even better than a plan.” A moment’s thought brought a grave expression to his face. “What would it do for your happiness, do you suppose, if you actually got your wish?”
The question caught her completely off guard. She couldn’t even formulate a response.
Bernat ran his finger across an imaginary newspaper article as he recited, “Captain Josette Dupre, the most popular officer in all the army, adored by her crew, loved by her fellow officers, today hanged herself out of misery.”
This extracted a chuckle from Josette. “I suppose I hadn’t thought the matter through. But, you know, I would appreciate the occasional—” She went suddenly quiet and looked toward the horizon.
Bernat heard a sound in the distance. It reminded him of a morning during his childhood when he’d found an empty wine cask by the front door and had upset the entire manor by rolling it across the marble floors of the entry hall. It had rumbled along until, once per turn, the barrel went up on its cork bung and came down hard, sending a hollow boom echoing down all the halls. That was the sound he heard now: a long, rolling rumble punctuated by sudden clashes. “Thunder?” he asked.
Josette narrowed her eyes, looking forward. “Not thunder,” she said, handing him her teacup.
He watched her as she returned to the commander’s spot on deck. “That column couldn’t have gotten ahead of us, could it?” he asked.
&nb
sp; “Not that column.” She looked up at the instruments. “The other column. The one we never spotted. A vanguard force sent ahead to secure Durum. Goddamn it, I should have known.”
He looked forward again, gaping. He could just barely see flashes of light through the clouds.
Josette called up the companionway, “Increase steamjack to full power. Rig for battle.”
* * *
JOSETTE LOOKED THROUGH her night glass as soon as Mistral broke through the bottom of the clouds. A mile up the road, four field guns were firing on Durum from the absolute worst emplacement she could think of. They were placed right in the road, where they were in the way of reinforcements coming from Vinzhalia, exposed to counter-battery fire, and could only fire on Durum’s stronger eastern wall—the only wall with a semblance of modern fortification. It was a foolish location from which to attack the city, but the Vins had a schedule to keep, and had apparently decided that, lumber survey or no, they hadn’t the time to cut a road through the woods.
The Vin battery fired a rippling volley. In those brief moments of light, Josette could see that the battery’s only protection was a single wall of rubble-filled wicker gabions, but she could also see that the inexperience of Durum’s defenders had preserved the attacking artillerymen from annihilation. By the light of another volley, she saw gouges torn in the road ahead of the battery from shots that had fallen short. A couple of gabions had been hit and were split open, spilling the dirt and rubble within. A shattered carriage wheel spoke to at least one good shot from Durum that had dismounted a Vin gun earlier in the exchange, but the Dumpling bastards already had the gun repaired and firing again.
The Durum battery returned fire for the first time since Mistral had broken below cloud cover. None of their three shots hit anything, and the Vin battery replied with two more volleys before the defending cannons were loaded and fired again. Despite their seemingly suicidal placement, the Vin guns were throwing eight shots for every three returned. Josette couldn’t see where the Vin shots fell, but the obvious target was the redoubt and, as soon as it crumbled, the gate beyond.
