Driftmetal V

by J. C. Staudt

  “I’ll restrain these jokers,” I told him. “Get the bag and let’s get out of here.”

  I confiscated the night guards’ weapons and bound their hands with their own magcuffs while Thorley helped Chaz and Sable up the rope. The Maclin operative was alive but badly injured, so I was less worried about him. I should’ve been more worried about him.

  The canvas bag strained under the weight of its contents as Thorley dragged it onto our square platform. When the cutting tool was tucked away beside the big power generator, we all hopped on, latched our harnesses to the safety bolts, and held on as best we could. Chaz opened the button cover along the edge of the platform and stepped on it.

  The ring of gravstone counterweights around the outside of the platform separated from their corresponding driftmetal ingots with a click. We took off like a rocket. We were at such low altitude that it didn’t take much to send us hurtling straight upward.

  That was when things got bad. The injured Maclin operative launched a well-aimed grappler that punctured the platform from below. The prongs splayed out to grip the wood, yanking the operative off the ground like a rag doll. The sudden shift in balance jerked a corner of the platform downward.

  It was Sable’s corner.

  I was to her right; Thorley to her left. Chaz was diagonally opposite her. Of the four of us, Chaz was the one most likely to be fatally injured if he fell from this height. That was why, when the platform slanted, I reached for Chaz instead of Sable. It was a split-second decision. Not something I could spend time thinking about or weigh the pros and cons of, even with the medallion’s help.

  These grapplewires are getting popular, I thought, as the platform spun like a playing card between two fingers. The motion flung Chaz’s body over the top. Our bag of money slid off and plummeted to the rooftop below. The cutting tool tipped over and dangled by its hose. My fingers closed around Chaz’s upper arm, and I managed to keep him from tumbling over Sable, who had a firm grip on one of the polyweb straps holding the power generator in place. Thorley lost his grip altogether and was left hanging by the harness around his waist.

  We reached the summit of our ascent, springing up and down a few times before coming to rest several yards below the Ostelle’s deck. The platform was tilted so steeply it was almost vertical. The Maclin operative still hung from the bottom corner, and thus the full weight of the plasma cutter’s generator was leaning toward that same corner, where Sable was holding on. The operative neither moved nor reeled himself in. He may have killed himself in the effort, just to give us a final screw-you.

  That was when the polyweb straps holding the generator began to creak. There was a pop. The generator jerked downward a few inches. Chaz bounced, but stayed where he was. I was still holding onto him with one hand and the edge of the platform with the other. The generator slid against its strap, pressing against Sable’s fingers and forcing her to move her grip down a few inches.

  I glanced up at the Ostelle’s deck, where the clash of steel and the ring of weapons fire was still abundant. “Can you reach the cutter?” I asked Sable. “We need to sever that grapplewire.”

  She peeked over her shoulder. “I think so.”

  I looked at Chaz. “Can you hold on without me?”

  Before he could reply, there was another pop. The strap’s bolt shot up half an inch. Sable shook like a fish on a line. The big metal box groaned, threatening to escape its restraints. It slid a short distance, then stopped. We held our breath.

  “Thorley, you alright over there?” I asked.

  “Fine,” he said. “Can’t do a damn thing, but I’m fine.”

  I couldn’t see him past the generator. “How close are you to the cutting tool? Can you kick it toward Sable?”

  A pause. “I can try. Gotta get the right swing on it.”

  “Sable,” I said. Our eyes met. “Be careful. The switch is on the side of the housing.”

  She nodded, but all I saw in her expression was fear.

  “Chaz… when I say so, turn on the generator.”

  “Yup,” he said, reaching out for the power button.

  I said a silent prayer to Leridote. Or anyone else who might’ve been listening.

  The platform wobbled as Thorley built momentum with his body. He swung and kicked the hose toward Sable. She let go with one hand and hooked an elbow around it, hugging it to her chest.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s it.”

  She tried to lift the cutting tool, but it was too heavy for one hand. “I can’t…” she said.

  “Sable, listen to me. You can. Don’t you dare give up. Do you hear me? You can get to that cutter… but you’re going to have to let go.”

  She looked at me, startled, as though I’d just slapped her.

  “You’ll need both hands anyway,” I said. “Look at Thorley over there. He’s doing it. Just hanging by his harness.”

  “But my bolt…”

  “It’ll hold. You’ve gotta do it now, Sable. Down the strap, nice and easy.”

  She eased her grip on the polyweb strap.

  Jase Waylar was a large man. He was a carpenter, and a valuable addition to the crew of my Ostelle. He didn’t make a sound when the Maclin operative shot him. Even as he stumbled backwards, tripped over the Ostelle’s railing, and fell overboard, he didn’t utter a word. That was why we didn’t know he was coming until he landed.

  6

  Even if he hadn’t been so large, Jase Waylar would’ve crashed down onto Chaz with enough force to complicate our situation. As it stood, his landing was catastrophic.

  The generator shuddered with the impact of the falling man. The bolt holding the strap to the bottom corner popped out another two inches. Jase flopped off Chaz and fell past Sable. We heard him land on the roof a second later with a wet crunch. The generator began to tip.

  “Let go,” I shouted.

  Sable held on.

  “You have to let go.”

  The generator squealed as it leaned toward her.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “Sable. Let go.”

  She did.

  Just as the bolt gave a final pop, Sable let go. The strap came free. She fell backward, and the generator dropped after her. Chaz smacked against the platform, caught by his harness. Sable tried to swing clear, but she wasn’t fast enough. There was a sharp metallic clang as the generator struck her, a glancing blow across the head. The machine hit the operative on its way down, yanking the grappler from the platform with a splintering crack. Man and machine hit the roof and shattered on impact.

  The platform began to right itself. Sable was hanging head-first, legs and arms splayed out like a backwards skydiver. A slit of blue-violet blood welled at her temple. The blood spilled over and ran through her hair, dripping in thin ropes that caught the wind before they spattered onto the roof below.

  I uttered a sound that, to this day, defies description in my own mind and that of my companions. We rose toward the Ostelle’s deck. My hearing tunneled out until the battle was a distant echo. I hooked a leg onto the platform to pull myself up. I crawled to Sable’s corner and grabbed her harness strap.

  Thorley pulled himself up and came over, but there was no way to get Sable onboard without help from the deck. So Thorley did the bravest thing he could’ve done after an incident like that. He stood up on the platform, unhooked himself from his harness strap, and jumped across to the Ostelle. From there he used the winch to drag us in, even with the battle raging around him.

  When the four of us were on board, I handed Chaz my flecker pistol and drew the pulser from my belt. “Guard her with your life,” I said. “I’ll clear us a path to my cabin.”

  Bodies lay strewn across the deck, hung over cargo crates and bunched along the railings, drenched in blue. I tried not to notice how many were crewmembers—or how few, by comparison, were Maclin operatives. Sable lay unresponsive behind me. The canvas bag full of money was on the bank roof far below. To say this had become the least succ
essful bank heist of all time would’ve been an accurate portrayal. Why were Maclin operatives storming my ship, and how was I going to get them off without dying?

  I had the answer to one of those questions in my cabin.

  I shot an operative in the ear and grabbed his rapier when he fell. I used it to stab a second operative in the face, which was the second-best use of a weapon I could think of. The first would’ve been to ram it up the keister of whatever numb-nuts commander happened to be in charge of the hoverfrigate blasting us with displacement from above.

  I slipped into my cabin and locked the door behind me. From beneath my bunk I fetched the remote control unit and mashed the button. “Evelyn… all hands on deck.”

  I heard them crashing through the interior holds, probably making a blasted mess of the place. I didn’t care. As long as they were topside in a few seconds, they could do all the collateral damage they needed to.

  The hatch splintered open as the first Evelyn hustled up the stairs.

  Approximately zero milliseconds later, I was shouting, “Evelyns One through Twenty, destroy all Maclin operatives in sight. Evelyns Twenty-One through Forty, destroy all primary starboard displacer engines in sight.”

  It was like unleashing a bunch of four-year-olds in a candy store; things started breaking, and people started turning colors. Maclin operatives raised flecker shields in valiant self-defense, only to be plasma’d to death. Others pivoted on their solenoids and heeljacks to let pursuing Evelyns blow through the Ostelle’s railing as if it were made of matchsticks.

  One by one, the hoverfrigate’s starboard engines winked out as the Evelyns delivered massive amounts of firepower. The ship careened into a slanted dive, ropes trailing from its sides like loose strands of hair. The pilot tried to stabilize it, but there was no recovering. The tops of buildings exploded as the hoverfrigate shaved off their gables on its way down.

  The ship struck dirt and rolled, crushing the Overlook Restaurant before it tumbled off the side of Seskamode and plummeted out of sight. It was a long way to the Churn. Long enough that we may never know what fate befell that ship. As for the fate that was about to befall any operatives still aboard mine, it was a grim one.

  I commanded the Evelyns to take the rest of the operatives hostage, then ran over to where Sable lay. “Help me with her.”

  Thorley took her legs while I picked her up by the shoulders. Together we carried her into my quarters while Chaz covered our approach. The Evelyns were making such a wreckage of my poor boat that it was all I could do not to stop them before they’d dealt with the last few operatives.

  We laid Sable in my bed. I told Chaz and Thorley to find Dr. Ditmarus while I went outside to mop up. The remaining Evelyns lined up in front of me, holding their captives. Fewer than a dozen of my precious robots remained; Maclin’s operatives were no lightweights when it came to combat. There was only one operative left who had the wherewithal to talk, a big bald-headed grunt with muscles on his muscles. Even he was beat up pretty bad, with a bloody slash across one thigh, a bruised cheek, a split eyebrow, and two laser wounds in his right side.

  “I need to go get something,” I told the operative. “When I come back, you’re going to tell me why you’re here and who sent you.”

  He said nothing, so I kicked him in the stomach and rounded up what remained of my crew. My parents were fine; Blaylocke and Irkenbrand were a little dinged-up, but they’d fought well and were otherwise okay. So were Eliza Kinally and Ezra Brunswick. When I told them about Sable, they both ran to my quarters with Dr. Ditmarus to see her.

  The damage to my Ostelle was significant. Laser burns marred every surface. Splintered wood and twisted metal peppered the deck. All things considered, Mr. Sarmiel had done an excellent job leading the crew in the ship’s defense. There were plenty of casualties, but they’d held out against the operatives longer than I would’ve thought possible.

  I hooked myself to the rope winch and told Mr. Sarmiel to have the crew haul me up as soon as I tugged on the line. Constables and bystanders were already gathering in the streets, so I had to move quickly. I leapt off the boat and let the rope unwind, carrying me downward in a slow fall. When my feet hit the roof, I found that the generator had come to rest on the canvas bag with all the money inside.

  Setting my shoulder against the heavy metal box, I gave it a nudge. It rocked a little before returning to its place. I shoved harder. Someone shouted at me from the street, an ardent voice that sounded like it belonged to a smarmy law-lover.

  “I’m not leaving without the loot,” I mumbled, giving the generator another shove.

  “What was that, Captain Jakes? Okay, pull him up, boys.” It was Sarmiel.

  I had forgotten about the eavesdropper, still turned on and wired up. The rope jerked, pulling me off my feet. “No, no. Stop. Stop. Put me down,” I said.

  “Never mind. Let him down,” I heard Sarmiel say.

  I landed hard, but got right back to work. Move, you stupid thing, I thought but didn’t say, as I tried to rock the generator onto its side. It had taken four men to lift the genny onto the platform earlier, so my chances didn’t look good, even though pieces of it were now scattered across the roof.

  I heard a thud behind me and whirled to see a Civvy constable step forward to stick his landing. I turned off the eavesdropper. “Thank goodness you’re here,” I said. “Quick. Give me a hand with this.”

  “Don’t move,” he shouted, leveling his standard-issue revolver at me. “Hands up.”

  “Please,” I wailed. “You have to help me. She’s trapped underneath.” The female night guard was long past dead, but the mop of caramel-colored hair splayed out beneath the generator seemed enough to convince the constable she wasn’t.

  “Help,” I said. “Help me.”

  The constable ran over and put his shoulder against the genny beside mine. Together we pushed, both grunting as we exerted ourselves for the sake of the poor dead night guard at our feet. The machine shifted onto its edge and began to rotate. The Civvy got a grip on the underside and lifted with his legs, raising it a good two feet off the ground.

  “Can you get her?” he asked.

  “Sure can,” I said, letting go and dragging the bag out from underneath.

  With my other hand, I turned on the eavesdropper. “Haul me up now, Mr. Sarmiel.”

  The constable, blue-faced and straining, tried to say something. I was rising in two-foot spurts as the crew hauled me up. As soon as the Civvy dropped the generator, I was ready with a well-placed pulser burst.

  Problem was, now his cohorts on the ground could see me rising above the roofline with a gun in one hand and a heavy black bag in the other. I heard them scrambling up the building’s side on trac-cleats and gripskins, moving like a swarm of red-jacketed monsters. I twisted my body and spun on the harness, blasting Civvies off the balustrade as they reached the top.

  I couldn’t keep up. Some managed to spring toward me on their hydraulic legs, and I discovered that shooting them at this point was a bad idea. When they landed on me, the pulser bursts still tingling through their bodies transferred to mine. Stiff as boards, they fell away and landed on the roof, but not before knocking me into a slow pendulous motion at the end of my rope.

  Soon I thought I’d risen out of reach, but a middle-aged Civvy with dual solenoids shot up at me before I could lift my weapon to stop him. He caught me in a flying bear hug. The crew faltered in their pulling, thanks to the extra weight. The Civvy knocked the pulser pistol out of my hand and tried to shake the bag loose, but I wasn’t letting go.

  What are you trying to accomplish? I wanted to ask, but was too busy getting molested by a sweaty stranger to try. His groping made me angry, but I did exactly the opposite of what I felt like doing: I relaxed every muscle in my body. Except my fingers, which were still grasping the canvas bag’s carry handle. I shook like a wet towel until the Civ lost his grip and plunged to the roof.

  The second I was on board my Ostelle,
I took a short break from gasping for breath on my hands and knees to shout to Mr. Sarmiel that the engines needed firing up and this boat needed moving. We were at least a dozen crewmembers short, so everyone had to pitch in. It was a big production getting a streamboat this size moving, even when it was in prime condition. The way she looked now, we’d be lucky to beat a three-legged dog in a foot race.

  I sent Blaylocke and Irkenbrand to do a damage assessment of the whole boat, then returned to my quarters to see how Sable was doing. Dr. Ditmarus had bandaged her temple and moved her into a comfortable position. He, Eliza and Ezra all looked up when I came in.

  “I’m afraid it’s not good,” Ditmarus told me before I could ask. “She’s in a coma.”

  Like Nerimund, I thought. Too bad the little guy can’t make people get up and walk around the way he can with little wooden sticks. “Is there anything we can do?”

  Ditmarus shook his head. “Not at this time. She’s stable for now. With your leave, Captain, I should be getting around to tend to the other casualties.”

  I knew he was right, so I didn’t argue. “Can I help?”

  He blinked at me, surprised. “Uh… right this way.” He scooped up his bag and headed for the door.

  “Take good care of her,” I told Eliza and Ezra.

  Eliza nodded.

  Ezra just glared at me.

  I recruited Thorley to help us with the casualties. The boat was moving now, Mr. Sarmiel barking orders from the quarterdeck. Chaz was in charge of the canvas bag, and of making sure no one saw what was inside it until we’d had a chance to take a count. I was already adding up the figures in my mind, trying to discern how much the ship’s repairs were going to cost.

  Merton Richter, my favorite coal shoveler, was dead. So was Norris Ponting, the perpetually drunk gunner who was still a better shot than most men were sober. In all, we’d lost seven crewmembers. Six more were hurt.

  “Where we headed, sir?” Mr. Sarmiel asked when the casualties had all been treated and moved to the infirmary.

  “Lose some altitude,” I said. “Hang out above the nearflow for a while. As to our heading… well, that depends on Cueball, here.” I approached the bald-headed operative, who hung limply from Evelyn Seven’s arms. “You got an answer for me, Curly? Who sent you, and why are you here?”