Take Back the Skies

by Lucy Saxon

  ‘We can talk to Harry about it at lunch,’ Matt suggested, pulling his pocket watch from his waistcoat. ‘But for now, we’d all better get to work. Except you, Cat. It’s rest and recuperation for you,’ he ordered. He and Ben got to their feet, slipping into quiet conversation as they left the galley.

  Cat was aware of Fox following her as she made for her bedroom, intent on taking a bath to clear her head, but didn’t acknowledge him until they were outside his room, when it became clear he wasn’t going to leave her alone.

  ‘Did you want something?’ He didn’t rise to the bait.

  ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ he said instead. ‘This isn’t one of your little fantasy stories where everything has a happy ending. People could die. We could die.’

  ‘People are already dying,’ Cat retorted. Whether the children were in the tyrium mines or elsewhere, they certainly weren’t likely to be alive and well. ‘Something needs to be done. I’m just surprised you’re agreeing with me.’

  ‘Like you said, something needs to be done.’

  Cat paused, taking several moments to get the words out.

  ‘Are we all right, then? Last night you all but hated me!’

  Fox’s gaze fell to the ground, and he scuffed the toe of his boot against the floorboards.

  ‘Last night I found out that not only are you a girl, but you’re a government girl. Excuse me for reacting badly to that information,’ he said quietly, walking past her to enter his bedroom.

  She followed. She wasn’t going to let him escape that easily.

  ‘The others managed to react just fine,’ she said, sticking her booted foot in the doorway as Fox tried to shut the door on her.

  ‘I’m not the others. I’ve not met a single government brat who wasn’t an arrogant, egotistical scumbag.’ His posture was tense, his shoulders hunched. He looked like he was preparing to either run or fight.

  ‘You’ve met me!’ she argued, bringing a snarl of rage from his lips.

  ‘I don’t know you!’ he exclaimed, taking a step forward. ‘I can’t know you, because everything I thought I knew about you was a lie. I … I don’t know what to believe about you, Cat.’ His voice was a tight whisper.

  ‘Believe what you’ve learned since you met me,’ she pleaded, resting a hand on his arm. ‘I’m Cat. Not Catherine Hunter, government brat, and if I have my way I never will be again. Just trust me, Fox. Would any of the other government brats you’ve met ever plan to infiltrate the compound?’ she pointed out.

  ‘I’ll give you that one,’ he conceded with a snort. ‘That definitely makes you one of a kind. Still … I trusted you, and you were lying to me the whole time. I don’t appreciate that.’

  Cat bit her lip guiltily.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I thought it was best … boys are more useful than girls. No one wants a silly little girl around, unless there’s some cleaning to be done,’ she said with a wry smile.

  Fox’s brow furrowed in a frown.

  ‘You’ve proved rather useful so far,’ he told her. ‘And regardless of whether I trust you or not, you’ve got guts … for a girl.’

  Cat scowled, glaring at him.

  ‘I never pegged you for a chauvinist.’

  He blinked. ‘A what?’ he asked blankly.

  ‘Sexist,’ she explained, making him laugh.

  ‘That wasn’t being sexist, that was being truthful. Now, if you don’t mind, you’re in my bedroom …’ He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Right,’ she muttered, feeling her cheeks burn. ‘If and when you decide you can trust me …’

  Shutting the door on her way out, she sighed, shaking her head.

  ‘Boys.’

  Cat spent most of the morning in her room, thinking. She did, at one point, venture down to the engine room, but Matt wasn’t there, and she wasn’t confident enough in her own abilities to start working on anything without supervision. Still, by early afternoon, she itched to do something productive. Wandering restlessly through the ship’s corridors with no real destination, she bumped into Alice at the corner that led to the galley.

  ‘Hello, dear. Bored?’ the older woman asked knowingly.

  Cat nodded.

  ‘Matt’s with Ben and Harry up in the control room, Fox is being … Fox. Is there anything I can help you with?’ she queried.

  ‘So long as you don’t do anything strenuous, with that head of yours. You could help me sort lunch out,’ Alice suggested. ‘The boys have sped things up a little, so we’ll be landing the day after tomorrow. It’s safer to stay away for a while, after the little incident in Siberene.’ Cat blushed, making the woman roll her eyes. ‘It’s not your fault, lass.’

  Having followed Alice into the kitchen, Cat hopped up on the table – both chairs were currently housing crates of food – her legs swinging slowly.

  ‘At least I managed to keep the purses I stole,’ she mused. ‘What do I do with those, by the way?’

  ‘Give them to one of the boys, they’ll put them downstairs with the rest. I’d recommend Harry – Matt and Ben won’t be in the best of moods, now Ben’s started thinking about poor Sophie again. And Fox, well …’ She trailed off, and Cat stifled a smile.

  ‘Won’t want to talk to me right now,’ she finished. ‘Why’s Matt like that? With Ben, I mean? I get that they’re best friends, and have been for years, but … It always seems like Matt’s protecting Ben, never the other way around.’

  Alice smiled, knife swiftly peeling potatoes. ‘They’ve always been that way. From what they’ve told me, Ben was rather scrawny as a sprog, and got picked on quite a bit at school. As you can imagine, our Mattie has never been a small lad and has always protected Ben. It used to annoy poor Benny, but I think he’s rather used to it now.’

  ‘I think it’s sweet,’ Cat admitted.

  Alice met her eyes and winked.

  ‘Isn’t it? Poor Ben, bless him. Matt’s just showing he cares. Here, slice this for me, would you, dear?’ She gestured to a knife and a loaf of bread and Cat nodded, hopping off the counter to take up the knife.

  ‘And what’s Fox’s story? You said he’s been with you for years. What happened before that?’ she questioned tentatively.

  Alice frowned deeply.

  ‘I think you’d best wait for him to tell you that, sweetheart. He isn’t one to bandy his business about. Keeps himself to himself, does Fox. He shouldn’t have been so rude to you, though.’

  ‘It’s fine. I don’t think he meant most of it.’

  Alice frowned, stirring the stew somewhat more forcefully than usual.

  ‘Regardless of that, he shouldn’t have said the things he said.’

  Cat held her tongue; she didn’t want Fox thinking she had complained about him.

  Alice began to plate up, and Cat moved to help, carrying some of the food through to the galley. Just as she was setting the plates down, the door opened and Fox slunk in, face like a thundercloud. When he saw her, he got that unreadable look in his eyes that infuriated her.

  ‘I thought you said women weren’t only good for being in the kitchen,’ he muttered as he sat, dragging a plate towards him.

  ‘I did. But that doesn’t mean I won’t help Alice. It would be mean of me to leave her to carry all those plates herself when I have two perfectly good arms of my own.’

  Fox held his hands up in surrender, rolling his eyes.

  ‘All right, fine. Have you spoken to Harry yet?’

  Before Alice could answer, the man himself walked in, accompanied by Matt.

  ‘What’s this I hear about you sparking a rebellion on my ship, young lady?’ the grey-haired man asked Cat with raised eyebrows, his words light but his face serious. ‘You’ve got some nerve, I’ll give you that. But if you say you can get us in, I’m all for it.’

  ‘It’ll take a bit of planning, but I can do it,’ Cat replied confidently, glad Harry was on board. She had memories of sneaking about the government compound with Prince James, she’d been doing it fro
m such a young age.

  ‘Then we’ll get started as soon as we’ve landed. If we’re going to be doing this, we need to go big. It’s not enough to get evidence to shut the government down – we’ll need to do it manually too,’ Harry told them, and Cat watched as a large smirk crossed Matt’s face.

  ‘Benny’s going to love what you’re implying there, Captain,’ he remarked, making Harry chuckle.

  ‘Too right he will, the little pyromaniac. We need to reduce the building to rubble when we’re done with it. A fresh start is exactly what this country needs. We can’t go back to the old ways, but maybe we’ll get close to how things were with some new ones.’ Cat gaped, about to protest, but shut her mouth abruptly. Yes, it was perfect. The government couldn’t smooth things over if their whole building was dust and debris.

  ‘We’ll need blueprints, then,’ Matt told the older man, easily balancing two bowls of stew on top of each other. ‘I’ll have a chat with Ben, and see what he can make on such short notice.’ With that he disappeared, and Alice rolled her eyes, spooning out stew for the rest of them.

  ‘Honestly, those boys and their explosives,’ she muttered fondly. ‘We never should have taken that job clearing rubble in Mericus, it’s spawned an addiction.’

  Harry winked at his wife. ‘They had the addiction before that, we just perpetuated it.’

  Alice shook her head, exasperated. ‘Come on, Cat, eat up, you need your strength. And let me check over that head of yours.’

  ‘Isn’t blowing the whole place to kingdom come a bit … drastic?’ Fox said, lips curled in a frown. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the destruction of government property, but not everyone in that building is government scum. There’s cleaning staff and whatnot.’

  Cat bit her lip; he had a point. Moreover, her father would likely be in the building. Yes, she hated him, but she wasn’t sure if that extended to wanting him dead. ‘But if we don’t, they’ll worm their way out of punishment. If we time it right, we can do it at maintenance shift change. I’ll write the times down later and we’ll work something out.’ Knowing when the maintenance staff were off-duty had been one of the first things she’d learned as a girl. It was much easier to sneak around when they weren’t there. And as for her father … even if he wasn’t involved in Collections, he was guilty of plenty of other heinous crimes. If he happened to be in the building when it blew, then that was the will of the gods, and Cat would rather not dwell on it.

  Fox still didn’t look happy, but he kept silent through the rest of lunch, obviously aware of how little choice they had in the matter. Excusing herself quietly when she finished, Cat left the room. She didn’t quite feel like she fitted in yet, and the rift between her and Fox was only exaggerating that feeling.

  Remembering how horrid he had been to her recently, she scowled, asking herself how she could find him attractive.

  ‘Physical attractiveness has nothing to do with actual personality,’ she muttered, sitting on the workbench in the engine room.

  ‘That’s true, yes, but I have known people to find Fox’s personality attractive in the past. Storms know why, the boy’s as prickly as a hedgehog.’

  Cat squeaked, falling off the workbench, her face as red as a tomato as she looked towards the door to see Matt leaning in the doorway. Picking herself up, she glared at him.

  ‘Don’t you make any noise when you walk?’ she asked, and Matt snickered, scratching at his goatee where it was beginning to grow scruffy.

  ‘I was hardly quiet – you were just thinking too hard.’

  Her scowl deepened, and then she registered his earlier words.

  ‘You knew?’ she asked simply, not needing to elaborate. The large man shrugged apologetically.

  ‘You weren’t particularly discreet. I don’t think anyone else has noticed, not since we only just found out you’re a lass,’ he assured her.

  She sighed in relief, then looked up at him suspiciously.

  ‘You thought I fancied him before you knew I was a girl?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s not unheard of, you know,’ he replied. ‘But no, I just thought you were shy and suffering a bit of hero worship. Then the other night happened, and it clicked.’

  Cat bit her lip, and sighed, running a hand through her short brown hair.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me it’s fruitless. I already know. It’ll pass in time, though,’ she insisted, wondering which of them she was trying to convince. ‘So, what needs doing?’

  ‘Are you cleared to work, then?’ he asked, eyeing her in concern.

  ‘Fit as a fiddle, promise,’ Cat vowed. ‘Alice said I could help so long as I didn’t do anything dangerous.’

  ‘Excellent. You can crawl under there and see if the bolts are as rusty as I think they are,’ Matt instructed, pointing to a large cog tower raised about two feet off the ground.

  Cat obligingly dropped to her back and slid into the small gap the best she could, yelping when Matt playfully tugged her ankle. A small smile played at her lips as she set about examining the machinery. At least some attitudes hadn’t changed.

  Chapter 10

  Cat fell out of bed as the ship rocked violently, waking abruptly. Scrambling from the floor and out into the hallway, she stared at a calm-looking Fox just outside her door.

  ‘What in the name of storms was that?’ she asked, alarmed.

  ‘It’s called landing. It happens every now and then,’ Fox replied drily, leaning against the wall.

  Cat’s eyebrows rose.

  ‘We’re here?’ she queried, and Fox nodded.

  ‘We are indeed. Harry sent me to wake you up, but I see that’s not necessary … though you may want to get dressed properly first.’

  Cat looked down at herself, blushing when she realised she’d run from her room in the undershirt and long cotton shorts – which, admittedly, were almost trousers on her – that she slept in due to lack of real nightwear.

  ‘Uh, yes. Right. I’ll … get dressed,’ she agreed, attempting to stay casual. The widening of Fox’s grin told her that she’d failed. Retreating back into her room, she let out a long wail of despair, cursing under her breath.

  ‘I can hear you, you know!’ Fox called from the other side of the closed door, obvious amusement in his tone. Cat cursed even louder, causing the older teen to laugh as he walked away. Willing her cheeks to return to their normal colour, she dressed for Anglyan weather, wrapping a scarf around her neck. It was nearing winter and the weather was unpredictable around this time of year, though a glance out of her small porthole confirmed it wasn’t currently raining.

  Arriving in the galley, she sat beside Matt.

  ‘Good morning, girlie. Ready for some sneaking and subterfuge?’ he said perkily.

  She laughed, nodding.

  ‘Not so fast, young lady,’ Alice cut in with a frown. ‘You’re not going anywhere with that head of yours. Besides, Harry wanted you and Fox to do a bit of maintenance. We had a rough journey over, pushing her as fast as we did.’

  Cat glanced over at Fox, who was ignoring her and eating his breakfast as if he couldn’t even hear the conversation. She had to spend the whole day with him?

  ‘I rested all of yesterday, and I feel fine,’ she insisted, though Alice didn’t budge.

  ‘Captain’s orders, brat,’ Matt pointed out. ‘Shame I can’t join you, the old girl really does need some work. But Ben and me are heading to the shipyard pub. A fair few men who are now working on government ships also work guard shifts at the compound, and some of the traders used to be in masonry and might know where we could go about getting the blueprints. After a bit of liquid persuasion, of course,’ he told her with a wink.

  She looked at him in disbelief.

  ‘You’re going to a pub at this hour?’ she exclaimed.

  Ben snorted.

  ‘It might be early but that won’t stop the men; they’ll want a pint or two before setting off,’ he told her.

  When Matt and Ben had finished eating
, they bid the rest of the crew goodbye and went off into the city in good spirits. Despite Harry’s orders for them to both work in the engine room, Fox disappeared soon after Matt and Ben left, so Cat wandered down on her own to begin work.

  It was strange being down there without Matt, and she was reluctant to touch anything for fear of breaking it. She wandered over to the large furnace in the centre, checking the tyrium levels inside. It always amazed her that just one of those small cubes of bright purple rock could power an entire skyship for several hours. That was why Anglya had controlled an empire at one point, she supposed; if there was one thing everyone needed to trade successfully, it was tyrium, and Anglya had it in abundance.

  Sighing to herself, she left the furnace how it was and got to work cleaning some of the propeller belts where they were sticky with grease deposits. Maybe Fox would give her a hand, once he returned.

  Cat was glad to get back on track the next day, her head healed over and Harry having no excuse to postpone things. Matt and Ben had been successful in finding blueprints – she’d hardly seen them since they’d returned from the pub, tucking themselves away with the papers in Matt’s room – so now they just had to figure out which of the four government entrances was the best to use. That was where she came in.

  Dressed in fairly respectable, clean clothing, Cat met the rest of the crew at breakfast in the galley.

  ‘Alice is going with you, brats,’ Harry told her and Fox over breakfast. ‘Just in case the Collection crews come acalling. I know you could probably escape, but we don’t want to risk anything. Especially not with you, Cat.’

  Cat bit her lip nervously, but nodded, glancing at Fox, who was staring back.

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on you, shortie, don’t worry,’ he assured her quietly.

  She smiled in relief, glad that even in his foul mood, he understood how bad it would be for her to get Collected. He was probably too old to be taken; though Cat didn’t actually know his age he looked possibly seventeen, maybe eighteen if he hadn’t shaved. Almost a grown man.