By Fire Above_A Signal Airship Novel Read online

  Her sudden interest in the oilcloth-wrapped package rivaled only her surprise. It was too short to be a sword, the usual gift for accomplishments in the army. She pushed some papers aside on the desk, laid the package down, and unwrapped it.

  It was a pistol, and a finer pistol than any she’d ever used. It had a rifled barrel nearly a foot long, with which it would fire more accurately than any smoothbore pistol—more accurately than a musket, she supposed, though only within the pistol’s shorter range. Examining the lock, she found that it took the new percussion caps, which were said to fire reliably in all weather. Grapevines and stags were engraved on the finely stained wooden handle, and hidden among them were the initials of the master craftsman who had made it.

  “He gets you,” Major Emery said, grinning at her.

  “I dare say he does.” She found that she couldn’t look away from the weapon.

  Emery produced an envelope from his jacket. “This is for you, as well. Your orders.”

  “Thank God,” she said. “I’ve been going mad, stuck on the ground.” She frowned. “But why are you delivering them?”

  He shrugged. “The fellows at the ministry gave them to me when they handed me the pistol. They said the orders might as well come through me, since none of your goddamn orders ever come through the proper goddamn channels, anyway. Their words.”

  As she opened the envelope, she said, “Just as well. They’re probably only ordering me to escort your battalion up to the Meat Grinder.”

  Again, he looked wistful. “I promise I’ll try not to look too envious, as I stare up at Mistral from the train.”

  But the orders did not send her to the Meat Grinder. She sat down on the edge of the desk, and nearly knocked the pistol to the floor in her distraction. “Good God,” she said.

  “I take it you won’t be escorting us?” he asked.

  She turned the orders around, so he could see them. “I am escorting you,” she said. “To Durum.”

  “Durum?” he asked, as if it were the last place he expected his battalion to be going. “Who the hell decided that?”

  She laughed softly and said, “The king.” In response to Emery’s confusion, she added, “I had an audience, and asked him to send a battalion there. My mother lives in Durum, you see.”

  He was quiet for a second, then said, “I suppose I do see. But good heavens, Dupre, the king himself? That’s as far outside the chain of command as you can go, without appealing directly to God.”

  She grinned at him and said, “Next time.”

  *   *   *

  THEY WERE FOUR days out of Kuchin, and just keeping pace with the troop train, when it disappeared into a fog bank in the middle of the night. Not long after, Josette had gone to bed with no more admonition to Lieutenant Hanon than, “Watch for signs of the wind shifting, and correct our course as best you can.”

  Bernat, not tired in the slightest, had remained on the hurricane deck. Lieutenant Hanon, for his part, had waited half an hour before he lit a cigarillo and went to the forward rail to smoke it.

  Bernat couldn’t help but feel a certain sort of admiration, for he’d rarely seen a man so casually risk death, whether by accidentally blowing up the ship—now filled with inflammable air in every bag—or by being caught and pummeled into oblivion by Josette. There were only three other crewmen on deck, one at lookout and the other two on the wheels. Bernat couldn’t see who they were, though Hanon must have gained their silence by some means or another.

  As Bernat approached the rail, Hanon pulled the cigarillo from his mouth and was ready to throw it over the side. When he saw that it was Bernat, he stopped and put it back between his lips. “Lieutenant Hanon,” Bernat said.

  Hanon said, “Please, please, call me Egmont.”

  Bernat nodded, unsure whether the gesture could be seen in the darkness, but not caring very much either, for he was distracted by a sight below. A thousand feet under the keel, there was a beautiful halo of moonlight shimmering off the top of the fog, as iridescent as the inside of an oyster shell. It took him a second to realize that the dark spot in the middle of the halo was Mistral’s own shadow. Looking more carefully, he could even see the tailfins in crisp silhouette, surrounded by a ring of pale white light. There was another shadow, a speck near the edge of the halo, which would have been hardly noticeable if Bernat had not been entranced by the entire phenomenon and studying it with all his attention. He didn’t know what caused it, but perhaps Hanon would. “Have you ever seen anything like that?” he asked.

  Egmont’s voice betrayed little animation as he said, “Now and again. Not as often at night, I suppose.” He took another pull. “More common in the day.”

  “It’s beautiful.” Perhaps it was only the wine from his supper, but Bernat was becoming a little misty at the heavenly sight.

  “There’s a word for it,” Egmont said, his voice not searching but matter-of-fact as he waved his cigarillo about. If he made any effort to recall the word, no one else could have known. He sniffed. “How am I supposed to tell if the wind shifts at night, with this fog?”

  Bernat wasn’t sure how one was supposed to tell the wind had shifted without this fog, so he only shrugged and said, “She does expect rather a lot from her officers and crew, and from whatever handsome young gentlemen might happen to be aboard.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realize you two were…”

  “Just friends,” he said, cheerfully.

  Egmont remained cautious, nevertheless. “Well, it’s the other one that’s the real problem. Probably got that scar falling off a ladder.”

  It was only this last speculation that let Bernat know who the “other one” was. “I believe, in fact, she was shot in the neck.”

  Egmont laughed. “Is that what they say?”

  Bernat, who was there when it happened, answered, “It is what they say. Though, of course, the truth is so elusive in these cases. Who’s to say, amid all the smoke and noise and confusion, whether a ladder wasn’t somehow involved?”

  “If she got shot in the neck,” Egmont went on, seeming to think that Bernat was on his side in the matter, “how come there are scars on her face?”

  “Quite, quite.” Bernat was in too far to back out now. Besides which, he was rather enjoying himself, for reasons he couldn’t quite put a finger on. “On reflection, the story of that scar is not nearly so watertight as it first appears.”

  “I’m supposed to take my cues from her?” He pointed two fingers at Bernat, the cigarillo wedged between them. “Some pretentious little girl, whose tits have only just come in the mail?”

  Though Bernat desperately wished to inquire further into Egmont’s notions of human biology, for they seemed truly fascinating, his attention was caught again by the speck of shadow at the edge of the halo in the fog below. Having watched it now for several minutes, he thought it was moving, ever so gradually, from left to right across the top edge of the glow. Pointing it out, he asked, “Is that typical, in the nature of this phenomenon?”

  It took some time for Egmont to find what Bernat was talking about, so subtle was the shadow. But when he did, he only stared at it, peering intently, with the burning end of his cigarillo reflected in his eyes. “Shit,” was all he said.

  “What is it?”

  Egmont didn’t answer him, but only tossed the burning cigarillo over the rail and called aft, “Wake the crew! Rig for battle!”

  *   *   *

  JOSETTE WAS NOT a light sleeper. She did not possess that slumbering awareness that many airship captains had, which allowed them to note every change of the watch, every alteration of trim, and to wake in an instant if anything was the slightest bit out of the ordinary.

  But even as she struggled up into lucidity in response to the bustle in the keel, she knew something was amiss, and when she noticed the steep upward inclination of the ship and heard the rudder turn hard over, she knew exactly what it was.

  “Where away?” she asked the cre
wman who’d come to wake her.

  “Astern and above,” he said.

  “Thank you, Private. Carry on.”

  She had gone to sleep half dressed, and now only had to put on her jacket, harness, and boots. She worked on the boots first, and gave orders as she laced them, “Douse lanterns. Everyone clip on and watch your step.”

  She had to hold tight to her hammock ropes as the ship’s inclination reversed, coming out of its climb and going into a dive instead. The ship went dark, and for a while it seemed that the bustle along the keel had abated, though it was only the crew taking extra care.

  Josette laced up her boots and went forward, buttoning up her jacket as she walked, her safety harness slung uselessly over her shoulder. She was still fussing with buttons when she reached the hurricane deck and trotted carelessly down the companionway in the darkness. She heard Jutes’s distinctive walk behind her as he took up his station at the top of the steps.

  Lieutenant Hanon’s voice came out of the pitch black of the hurricane deck. “They almost had us in the dark, but I spotted them in time. We’ll get them now.” She wasn’t sure whether he recognized her coming down the companionway and was making a report, or if he was continuing some conversation started before she arrived.

  “Was she a scout or a blimp, Lieutenant?”

  Her eyes still hadn’t adjusted enough to see him, but she heard Hanon shift his position, as if startled. “Don’t know,” he said. “She could be a chasseur. We didn’t get a good look, before she dove into the fog.”

  She stepped toward his voice, and found him leaning over the forward rail with Bernat beside him. “A chasseur, finding itself above and behind us, would not dive for the fog,” she said. “It would make us pay for our lack of attention.”

  “A scout then, I suppose. We’re lined up on where she disappeared. We only have to follow her in.”

  She cut him short with an order to the elevatorman of, “Level us off.”

  Below, the moonlight was reflecting off the fog in a luminous glory, but there was no sign of the other ship. Hanon cried out, “You’re letting them get away!”

  Josette was glad of the darkness, so the crew couldn’t see her look of disdain. It wouldn’t do to let them know what she thought of her first officer. “Thank you, Mr. Hanon. If you have nothing else to report, please take your station in the tail.” She took her own station at the middle of the deck. “Ensign Kember?”

  “Sir.” Kember’s voice came out of the darkness behind the port gun.

  “Keep an eye on that fog. Report any change.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hanon, meanwhile, had followed Josette and was whispering as he went, speaking only loud enough to be heard over the steamjack. “I ought to stay here. I’m wasted in the tail. You’ve already messed this up enough. You obviously need me here.”

  “Mr. Hanon,” she said, “your station is in the tail. That is the first officer’s station. It is placed as such so that, should the hurricane deck be lost, this ship will still have an officer aboard, such as he is.”

  Hanon lingered much longer than he ought to have, but Josette took care not to notice; for, if she had noticed, she would have been obliged to bring him up on insubordination charges. Her capacity for not noticing him had almost been expended when finally he stepped up the companionway, pushed roughly past Jutes, and went back along the keel.

  “My apologies, sir,” Jutes said, with what Josette thought a superhuman degree of respect.

  “I think it’s turned three points to port,” Kember said from the forward rail. “Hard to be sure.”

  “Three points to port,” Josette ordered. “And hope they’re within sight when the fog burns off in the morning.”

  Damn Hanon. They could have doused lamps and come smartly about with a chance of catching the scout as she dove past, if he hadn’t turned Mistral straight at it the moment he became aware of its presence. And then to dive after it? Did he think he’d be able to see them any better from inside the fog? Did he have any idea how deep it was, and whether a ship as large as Mistral could fit into it without hitting the ground? Did the fool think he was still on a blimp?

  *   *   *

  ENSIGN KEMBER WATCHED the sunrise from the forward rail, saw it burn off the fog, and was the first to spot the scout ahead of them.

  Too damn far ahead of them.

  The light of day showed it to be an older, slower scout, and running for the safety of clouds to the east. Steam spouted diagonally in two jets pointing down from the enemy ship’s keel, evidence that the crew of the scout had disconnected her secondary condensers to squeeze as much speed as possible from their antiquated turbine.

  The captain wasn’t willing to do the same, wary of the weight of ballast water that would be lost as steam. Nor was she willing to risk fire by running her steamjack above two-thirds power. Mistral gained, but so slowly that she likely wouldn’t close the distance in time.

  Kember wasn’t sure she would have made the same decision, though with the benefit of time she had come to the conclusion that it was the right one—not least of all because Lieutenant Hanon had come forward several times, suggesting they go to full power against the mechanics’ advice. If that goddamn blimp jockey thought it was a good idea, it had to be a bad one.

  But good God! Didn’t Mistral and her crew deserve this kill? Shouldn’t they take a little extra risk, and hope fate could be equitable enough to make up the deficit?

  Kember spent a long time watching the scout grow slowly larger as they closed the distance. As Mistral eased nearer to a mile from them, their closing speed was so low that she had ample time to prepare her shot.

  “Sergeant,” the captain called up the companionway ladder as they closed with the enemy, “rig a fearnought screen over the companionway, to be opened only when bringing powder forward. Close the air scoops, and every port along the keel. Leave no opening for an ember from the guns to get through to the bags. And let’s wet the martingales again, just in case. I’d rather that little scout didn’t return home with an unlikely story about sinking a Garnian chasseur.”

  As the crew rigged the fearnought screen, Kember’s mind positively itched to fire. They could get a long shot in even now, if they pitched the bow up far enough. So far she wouldn’t be able to see the target when she fired, now that she thought of it, but that hardly mattered to the flight of the ball. In the end, it was all only math.

  But after endless moments, the screen was rigged, the scoops were closed, and the martingales were more thoroughly wetted. “We’ll only get a couple of shots, so aim them well,” the captain said. “Fire when you’re ready.”

  Kember rechecked everything, and when she was certain that the gun was as perfectly aligned as it could be, she pulled the lanyard and the cannon recoiled with a thunderclap, spitting a spear of fire under the bow and filling the hurricane deck with smoke. The smoke swept aft as Kember ran to the rail and watched the scout. She could just see the momentary, ghostly blur as the roundshot passed to starboard of the scout’s envelope.

  “Miss,” she said. “But not by much.”

  “Fire starboard when ready. I believe this is the last you’ll get before she’s in the clouds, Ensign.”

  As Kember moved to the starboard gun, its swabber was busy putting out the little embers that clung smoldering to the envelope and martingales ahead of the deck. He was in her way, but she didn’t resent his thorough attention, with the bags filled with inflammable air.

  She spun the elevation screw on the gun through a quarter turn, to account for the small distance closed in the time since the previous shot. “Stand clear!” she shouted, for the swabber was still working on the martingales.

  He stepped briskly away as Kember pulled the lanyard. Again she ran forward through the smoke and watched for the fall of the shot.

  She saw nothing, for in that moment the scout disappeared. Kember had just resigned herself to misery, when a splintering crack sounded from wi
thin the clouds. She’d hit the airscrew, or at least sprung the boom it was mounted on, and the results must have been devastating, with splinters flying out like canister shot.

  She waited and listened, expecting at any moment to hear a boiler explosion, a turbine disintegrating, a keel snapping in the middle—any sign that fate had intervened to make up for the aerial kill it had so capriciously taken from them.

  Nothing. The scout had lost an airscrew, and maybe a few crewmen, but that was all. It was crippled but alive, and safe now in the clouds, unless Captain Dupre chose to hunt for her.

  “Well done!” the captain said. She seemed to mean it, too. It had been a damn fine piece of gunnery, Kember supposed.

  “Thank you, sir,” she answered, hoping the next order would put them in the clouds, there perhaps to finish the stricken quarry.

  But alas, it wasn’t to be. The captain decided to turn back and make their rendezvous with the battalion.

  “Sorry about that,” she said privately, coming to the forward rail to explain her decision. “Even crippled, we’d have been hours poking around in that soup, trying to track them down. Not worth it, to kill a scout that’s likely to be retired soon anyway. But she’ll be heading back to base, which means the battalion will have a clear run to Durum without being observed. They owe you thanks for that.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kember said, trying to hide her disappointment. “I understand. It’s the same decision I would have made.”

  Or, rather, it was the same decision she was supposed to make. But in all truth, she knew that if it had been up to her, Mistral would now be groping blindly in the clouds for that scout, and the battalion be damned.

  *   *   *

  FOR ALL THAT, they might have spent as long as they liked hunting the scout, for they arrived at the rendezvous location to find that the battalion hadn’t moved an inch. Bernat stated as much, and Josette replied with a nasty look and a comment of, “Well, I’m not a goddamn fortune-teller, am I?”