The Guns Above Read online

  As she was climbing down, Bernat asked, “Who’s going to keep a lookout here?”

  “If the captain wants one, she’ll send one up,” Grey said, already off the ladder and scrambling down the girders toward the engine.

  “Doesn’t seem very prudent,” Bernat said as he climbed mindfully down, always thinking of the gigantic luftgas bag immediately below the crow’s nest. Jutes had explained that, if he fell into the fragile bag, he would fall through the edge of the envelope and out the bottom—if he was lucky. If he was less lucky, he would go straight down the middle and land on the keel. If even less lucky, he would fall through the top of the bag, land inside it, and drown in the unbreathable luftgas.

  “Anyway, don’t fall,” Jutes had told him, before he went up. “It’ll be a pain to patch the leak.”

  He was at the end of the rope ladder now, and within leg’s reach of a longitudinal girder. He put his foot on it and swung out to grab another with his hand. Once he’d transferred himself, he climbed slowly down, girder by girder, always taking care not to step on the delicate struts holding them together. All the way down, the bulbous gas bag pressed into his back and pushed his front against the ship’s fabric skin.

  It was damn irritating, but he finally made it to the keel. On his way to the companionway, Martel waved him over.

  “If you’re heading to the deck, would you mind releasing her, my lord?” Martel asked, handing Bernat a perfectly docile little pigeon. “Here, just hold her like that, so she doesn’t get loose in the keel, and let her go at the rail. She’ll do the rest.”

  The bird cooed at Bernat as he went clumsily down the companionway. It was somehow comforting, holding this delicate, warm little creature in his hands. He stepped to the rail and gave her a toss to help her on her way.

  He frowned when he saw which way she was going. The airship to starboard had broken free of the clouds. The pigeon was heading right toward it.

  “I’ve heard they do that sometimes,” Kember said, stepping to the rail next to him. “Curiosity, maybe.”

  “She isn’t going to land on that ship, is she?”

  “I … don’t think so, my lord.” Kember’s voice was strangely sympathetic. Bernat watched as four puffs of gun smoke appeared off the enemy’s hurricane deck.

  Bernat could just make out the pigeon as she fell, a tiny dot spiraling downward. He pointed an accusing finger at the enemy ship. “They shot my bird!” His head whipped around to stare at Kember. “Can they do that?”

  Ensign Kember cleared her throat. “I believe they just did, my lord.”

  He watched the bird dwindle and then disappear against the background of the forest below. He slumped against the rail and said, “But she was unarmed.”

  Kember turned crisply to the captain and said, “We lost the bird, sir.”

  “Run up and send another,” Josette said.

  Bernat was perfectly aware of how silly his grief was. He’d shot hundreds of birds in the woods around Kuchin, but the death of that brave little pigeon seemed deeply unfair somehow.

  He walked slowly back to stand next to the rifle rack. Josette noticed his expression and said, “War is hell.”

  He looked about the deck for anyone who might commiserate, but his search was interrupted by a sudden stab of smoke from the nearest enemy airship, the same ship that had shot his bird. Something screamed past below as the booming sound of the cannon finally reached them. “Aren’t we going to do something about that ship?” he asked.

  “I’m more worried about the ship they’re herding us toward,” she said, staring not at the ship that was firing but into the wall of clouds ahead. “There’s probably a two-gun chasseur cruising around in there with only its crow’s nest poking above the clouds, waiting for us to pass so it can come in from behind and rake our tail.”

  “But we can outrun it, yes?”

  “Not without a tail.”

  He remembered what a single shot of canister had done to that poor scout over Durum. The memory gained an even sharper clarity when he heard a crash behind him and turned to see splinters of girder erupting in a spout from the port side of the keel, amidships. The ship to starboard had them zeroed in.

  He looked to Josette, who had her eyes closed and her hands on the girders above her head. She opened her eyes and gave him a reassuring look, seconds before Jutes shouted down, “Sprung two longitudinals in frame four, sir. Chips is reinforcing them just in case, but Mistral’s taking it like a champ.”

  She looked to Bernat. “Rather different from being shot at with pop-guns, isn’t it?”

  He nodded and said, “Speaking of which, aren’t we getting rather close to that ambush you mentioned?”

  The cloud bank ahead, which had seemed blanket-thin from a distance, now towered above them, a cliff face of solid white. “Now that you mention it,” she said, “I think we are.” But she ordered no change of course.

  “What does one wear to an ambush?” he asked. “Is it a formal affair? I ask only because I can’t seem to decline the invitation.”

  Josette glanced at him and said, “You’re fine in what you have on.”

  “Wonderful,” he said. He picked up a rifle, checked the flint and the powder in the pan, and held it at the ready.

  He scanned the sky behind them. The Vin rearguard ship was directly aft now, but couldn’t seem to close the distance and come into firing range. The high altitude scout was somewhere above them—he couldn’t see it through the envelope—but no one seemed worried about that. And then there was the ship to starboard, firing away while they sauntered past its single cannon.

  Another plume of smoke hid the starboard ship’s hurricane deck, and a moment later a cannonball tore through the envelope above Bernat’s head, its screaming wail turning high-pitched as it passed through the number-seven luftgas bag. Bernat ducked reflexively, though the ball came nowhere near him. It would have been too late anyway. The cannonball was already falling away to port before he even got his head down.

  Ensign Kember was just coming down with a fresh bird. This one did better than the last, ignoring the enemy ship and flying southwest, right into the cloud bank. He was contemplating how the bird could even see where it was going in there, when the ship to starboard fired again. It was a shell this time, not a cannonball, but it exploded short, sending smoky trails arcing under Mistral’s keel.

  Still Mistral did not reply, her single cannon pointing uselessly at the clouds ahead. Those clouds filled the sky now, fluffy white cliffs so tall and so close that Bernat could no longer see where they ended, above or below. A flash to the right caught his eye, and he saw the reedy trail of smoke from a shell coming toward them. He crouched behind the rail in time to miss seeing its explosion, but the sound of it hit him in the chest hard enough to make him gasp.

  When he put his head up, the ship was already passing the smoke from the shell, but he thought he saw more smoke coming from the envelope itself. He clipped on, slung his rifle, and leaned over the edge. He could just make out an orange glow.

  “I, ah, I do believe we’re on fire,” he said, in as mild a voice as he could manage.

  Josette joined him at the rail, leaning out even farther than he did, despite her shorter height. “It’s only a little one. Jutes! Have the riggers put out the fire in frame four, starboard, please.”

  Bernat could see the silhouettes of riggers against the bottom and side of the envelope, their shadows cast onto the canvas by the glow of the fire. They put it out just in time to receive the next shell, which exploded twenty feet off the starboard side.

  The keel bent inward in front of the blast, then snapped back like a released bowstring. The hurricane deck rocked below Bernat’s feet, sending the rail into his stomach and flinging him back.

  Then the screaming started. It came from one of the riggers fighting the fire and sounded like a baby’s cry: a long, high-pitched wail, a quick gulp of air, then the poor bastard was wailing again.

  Jutes calle
d down, “Damage to the condenser. Grey is patching it up. Gears got a blast of steam to the arm, and Private Bashir’s been hit in the gut.”

  Bernat saw red embers clinging to the perforated canvas where it had been pierced by the shell fragments. They grew brighter in the wind, and suddenly burst into life. “And we’re on fire again,” he said.

  He heard Jutes calling aft, “Fire in frame five, starboard!”

  “When will I have full power?” Josette asked.

  Bernat hadn’t even noticed it until now, but the kinemeter had dropped below thirty knots and was still falling.

  “Grey says three minutes.”

  “God damn it,” Josette said.

  Bernat looked at those clouds ahead, which had seemed so close until just now.

  “My lord,” Josette said, “if you would be so kind as to kill the men loading their cannon. This next shot will be another shell, but the one after that will be canister, which we do not wish to receive, as it would ruin your clothes for the ambush.”

  The other rifleman joined Bernat at the rail, the loaders standing ready. He watched the Vin chasseur bearing down on them, its single gun like a cyclops eye. The range made it a very long rifle shot, even for Bernat, but he thought that he might at least send a ball past their ears to rattle them.

  He chose the cannon itself as his target, fired, and was rewarded with the crisp plink sound of a bullet hitting metal. As the smoke cleared, he saw a man on the deck of the enemy ship holding on to his leg. The bullet must have hit him on the ricochet. “Ha!” Bernat said.

  A loader took Bernat’s rifle and slapped a fresh one into his hand. As he aimed his second shot, the enemy’s hurricane deck disappeared in cannon smoke. For a fraction of a second, Bernat hesitated, but he still had a clear picture of the cannoneers’ positions in his mind, and he found it somehow easier to shoot at men through smoke than to stare at them while he fired.

  He squeezed the trigger and knew immediately he’d hit his man. And when the smoke cleared, there he was, slumped over the forward rail of the enemy ship, his rammer still halfway into the cannon.

  Mistral’s other rifleman fired and missed. Bernat stole a glance at the kinemeter. It had dropped to twenty knots and was still falling.

  “Focus,” Josette said from his other side. She had come up on his left while he was shooting and had taken a rifle of her own.

  Something cracked overhead, and a shower of splinters rained down on the hurricane deck from the keel girders. When Bernat looked, he saw a hole in the catwalk above and another in the deck below. “What the hell was that?” he asked.

  “Cannonball from the rearguard ship,” Josette said. “Now that we’ve slowed, she’s catching up to us.”

  He’d forgotten all about the ship behind them. He tried to forget it again as he aimed for the flanking ship, straining to keep his focus.

  A trio of shots rippled down the line of rifles. No shot hit anyone aboard the enemy ship, but the cannoneer who’d ventured out to grab the rammer ducked and slunk back, afraid to expose himself.

  “Keep it up,” Josette said. “They’re no danger if they’re too afraid to load their gun.”

  On the enemy hurricane deck, Bernat could see one of their officers—their ensign, he thought—run forward to grab the rammer himself. Bernat was drawing a bead on him when he suddenly realized the brave little lad was no older than thirteen. He paused, trying to work out what he should do.

  While Bernat hesitated, Josette shot the boy through the head.

  “Condenser’s back up, sir!” Jutes called. “We’re at emergency power!”

  Bernat hardly registered the news. He only stared at Josette, mouth agape. Before he could say anything, the world went white, then gradually darkened as they slid deeper into the cloud bank. Soon Jutes called down, “Stern is inside the cloud, sir.”

  Josette handed her rifle to the loader, patted Bernat’s arm even as he continued to gape at her, and said, “You did well, my lord. If they’d managed to put a shot of canister into our steamjack, we’d never have made it. Thank you.” She looked out into the cloud. “Now all we have to do is avoid being ambushed.”

  “Is that all?” Bernat asked.

  * * *

  “DECREASE POWER TO three-quarters,” Josette said. “Ensign, worm out that cannonball and reload with canister.”

  As Ensign Kember set her gun crew to work, Josette could only wait and hope the ambushing ship would mistake Mistral’s speed. If the trick worked, they would never realize she had decreased her power, and they’d fire too far ahead. But if Mistral decreased power too much, the ambushers would hear the difference in the pitch of her steamjack and make the proper adjustment.

  Behind Mistral, two cannons fired in quick succession. The first shot missed cleanly, but the second sent scores of musket balls tearing through Mistral’s forward frames. Josette looked forward in time to see the envelope ahead of the hurricane deck burst open in a gout of splinters and sawdust, sprung girders sticking out at odd angles. Josette didn’t need a damage report to know that the number-eight bag was a total loss, already hemorrhaging luftgas.

  But it was not a fatal wound. Already, the riggers were shifting ballast to compensate. Josette reached above her, found the pull-ropes for the forward emergency ballast, and put all her weight on them. In response, water cascaded from ports in the bow. She could barely see it through the cloud, but she could hear it, and she counted off four seconds before releasing the ropes to stymie the flow.

  In those seconds spent hanging from the pull-rope, she had not been idle. She’d been plotting the likely angle and distance to the ambushing ship, working from the assumption that they meant to fire one shot at her steamjack and put another through her hurricane deck.

  Judging from the distance they’d missed by, they were close enough to recognize the error, or at least know they’d made one, since they could plainly hear that Mistral was still flying. They only had to correct their mistake, and their next volley would bring Mistral crashing down.

  “Ensign, you have the deck.” She leapt up the companionway ladder and ran, the wicker catwalk flexing under her feet. “Be ready to rig for hard braking,” she told the mechanics on her way past the steamjack. She continued on to Martel’s station, all the way back in frame three. “We never did complete our trials,” she said.

  “No, sir,” he said.

  “That’s unacceptable.”

  He looked at her strangely.

  “I will tolerate no excuses, Mr. Martel. I want you to prepare for the braking trial immediately. Best we do it before they reload their guns, as I don’t anticipate having the time after.”

  He grinned, suddenly understanding. “Right away, sir.”

  She ran forward, past the wounded Bashir, who was mercifully quiet now; past Gears, wincing as he saluted with his bandaged right arm; past the riggers, stretching new cloth over the fire-damaged sections; past Grey, still working on the condenser.

  None smiled. All saluted her, though this wasn’t required or expected when rigged for battle. All of them wore blank, cold expressions as she passed.

  What the hell did it take to please these people? An hour ago, they’d been disappointed when Mistral had passed up the chance to make a suicide run on a Vin column. Now they were sulky because they’d been roughed up a bit? She wished for whatever quality Captain Tobel had possessed that gave him the ability to get the crew on his side. Whatever it was, she seemed to have the opposite talent. She could earn their ire no matter the circumstances.

  She stopped at the top of the companionway, where she could keep an eye on the deck and on the preparations with the steamjack. Jutes didn’t salute her, thank God. If he had, she wasn’t sure she could resist the urge to push him down the companionway ladder, gimpy leg and all.

  “Morale’s a little low,” she said.

  His expression didn’t argue the point. “They’ll perk right up when you put your plan into action.”

  She arche
d an eyebrow. “How did you know I have a plan?”

  He smiled and stood even straighter. “Can’t imagine a world where you don’t, Cap’n.”

  She grinned as she looked back. Gears and Grey had abandoned their previous tasks and were prying the cover off the gearbox. Martel was visible near the boiler. He gave her a thumbs-up signal.

  “Rig reverse gear! Steamjack to full power!” she shouted. She shot Jutes another grin and went down the companionway. On the hurricane deck, everyone stood at their posts, looking into the impenetrable fog of cloud all around.

  The gearbox made a rattling, grinding sound as the entire ship shimmied. The steamjack’s whine increased to a truly painful volume, and the hurricane deck became a swirling vortex of airscrew wash. Josette counted the seconds, watching the kinemeter needle swing left, until it dropped to zero and sat hard against the pin.

  By her best estimate, she was now moving backward at a little under twenty knots, closing distance with her erstwhile ambusher at a combined speed of almost a mile per minute. Visibility was zero, but she only had to close her eyes to see the ship, plain as day behind them. Accounting for the time it took to brake and the probable reaction time of the enemy, she would pass under their keel in just about …

  “Elevator fins up full!” she ordered. “Steamjack to emergency power! Everyone hold on!”

  The elevator steersman spun the wheel, hand over hand, as fast as he could. The stern began to rise, at first so gently that the ship’s inclination went unnoticed for want of a horizon. Then the back martingales creaked in their anchors on the taffrail. An unsecured wrench slid forward along the catwalk. The slope of the ship was impossible to ignore now, for it threatened to pitch the entire deck crew over the forward rail and out into the white nothing below.

  “Make sure those rifles are secure,” Josette said. She held on to the girder above her with both hands as the tilt of the ship took the deck right out from under her feet. She held on, her legs rocking farther and farther forward along the deck, until her toes were pointing down at the cannons and railing.