Steamed (29 page)

I swore under my breath as I half ran, half slid down the stairs. Two more crewmen raced past me, none of them giving me a second look. “I’m from the
Tesla
,” I yelled after one of them. “What’s happening?”

“Who’re you?” he asked as he bolted for the stairs, pausing long enough for me to answer.

“Captain Pye, from the
Tesla
.”

“Well, Captain Pye, we’re in the middle of a Moghul attack. Bronson! Get the prisoners out and bring them aloft! They can man the cannons with us. Your ship’s being fired on, as well, Captain Pye. I’d advise you to see to her and leave us to defend ourselves.”

Two more muffled explosions had my stomach clenching in fear. I stood indecisive for a moment, torn between trying to rescue Hallie and saving my crew. If the prisoners were being forced to man the cannons with the crew, I would never get her free. Not without more sedatives.

I hauled myself up the stairs, calling for Jack.

“Here! Tavy, they’re shooting the
Tesla
. Did you get Hallie?”

He pulled me up the last few stairs, looking expectantly beyond me.

“No, I couldn’t. They’re using the prisoners to man their aether cannons. Jack, we have to get across now, while we can, or we’ll be stuck on the
Aurora
. And the
Tesla
will go down.”

“I’m not leaving without Hallie,” he said grimly, trying to push past me to the stairs.

“We can’t get to her! The first blast broke my syringes, and you don’t have enough left to disable the remaining crew.”

Another explosion sounded. I grabbed Jack’s arm and dragged him toward the door. “Jack, we have to go now!”

“But Hallie!”

“This ship is well armed, and the Moghuls appear to be targeting the
Tesla
now. Hallie will be fine. We’ll just have to rescue her at a later time.”

Jack hesitated, pain lacing his face, but in the end he saw reason and jerked open the door, taking me with him as we slid down the tilted deck to where the basket waited.

The
Tesla
was listing heavily to the port side, toward us, causing the rope that tethered the two ships to hang slack. I pulled it tight while Jack held out the basket for me.

“Get in,” he ordered.

“There’s no time for two trips,” I said, stepping into the basket. “We’ll have to go together.”

“Will it hold us?”

“It should.” A flame appeared briefly in the forward-most envelope. I grabbed Jack by his coat and hauled him into the basket, kneeling beside him as he fed out the line that pulled us across.

I fervently hope I never again have to make such a journey as the one from the
Aurora
to the
Tesla
. Both ships continued to tilt, the
Tesla
starting to roll over on her side. Blasts of aether from the
Aurora
’s cannons split the air, sending the basket rolling. Jack yelled something as I clutched the side of the basket with one hand, and him with the other, praying fervently all the while that the line hold just long enough to deposit us on the deck of the
Tesla
.

It did, of course. It even held a good two minutes after we got there, but once Jack and I had managed to get inside the ship, release the crew, and order a very shaken Mr. Mowen to open up the boilers, the
Tesla
was beginning to show the effect of taking several broadside blasts of Moghul aether cannons.

“Mr. Christian, set a new course twenty-five degrees to the north. Jack, can you help Mr. Mowen with the boilers? We’ll need maximum speed immediately. Dooley, go with Mr. Ho and see to the envelopes. I must know how badly damaged they are. Mr. Llama, would you likewise assess structural damage in the frame?”

“Captain, what’s happenin’?” Mr. Piper asked, limping after me as I dashed down the hall. The rest of the crew scattered, their faces pale and strained. “Who’s attackin’ us? Why did ye lock us in the mess?”

“Moghuls, and no time to explain now. I smell smoke! Mr. Francisco, you come with me to the forward holds while Mr. Piper deals with the aft.”

Another explosion ripped into the ship, this one causing the floor to shake horribly under my feet. A rush of air and a long, inhuman scream warned me that yet another envelope had suffered damage. I shoved the pressurized water cylinder we kept for fires into Mr. Francisco’s arms. “Put out any fires you see in the forward holds. I must go aloft and see how many envelopes are intact.”

“I will not leave you alone, my glorious
capitán
of the hair!” he said stoutly.

I shoved him none-too-gently down the corridor, and took off, deaf to his shouts and demands that he be allowed to save my hair. I scrambled up three flights of stairs to the repair balcony that ran the length of the airship, gasping in horror at the sight. Of the seven envelopes, four were damaged, two collapsed upon themselves, with the other two sagging inward at a fast rate. “Dear God in heaven. Why are they doing this to us?” I asked, clutching the railing as one of the three remaining envelopes suddenly shuddered and began to lose its form.

The ship was going down. I was staring straight into the face of disaster, and there wasn’t anything I could do to save the
Tesla
.

“Abandon ship!” I bellowed, throwing myself back down the stairs to the floor below. The
Tesla
had rocked over about thirty degrees onto her side, making it impossible to walk on the exposed upper gangways. I made it down to the main floor, falling down the last half of the flight, just in time to see Jack race past yelling my name.

“Octavia! The ship is—”

“I know. Help me get to the mess. No, it’s all right, I’m not hurt seriously. We must sound the alarm and get everyone off the ship before she lists any more.”

“Matt says the boilers will explode,” he said, half-carrying me down the corridor. “How are we going to get off the ship? Have parachutes been invented yet?”

“Of course they have. Do you think we would conquer the skies without having a method of getting down in the case of an emergency?” We reached the mess just as Dooley and Mr. Ho came barreling down the corridor, yelling at the top of their respective lungs.

“We’re abandoning ship,” I called to them, then jerked down on the emergency cord just inside the doorway.

A loud Klaxon horn sounded, adding to the confusion. “Help me pull up the floor,” I commanded, and kicked back the small rug that covered a panel in the floor.

Jack and I hauled up the panel, bracing ourselves when the ship groaned and leaned even farther over. “Go to the gangway off the forward hold,” I yelled over the sound of the Klaxon and the noise the ship was making as she died. “Jump from there.”

Jack yanked up an armful of canvas bags, shoving one each into the arms of Dooley and Mr. Ho.

“I can stay and help—,” Mr. Ho started to say.

“Go! Get out while you can!” I yelled back, lying on my belly to grab the remainder of the parachutes from their storage locker under the floor.

By the time the rest of the crew appeared, the ship was listing at a forty-degree angle.

“The boilers won’t hold much past forty-five,” I told Jack, helping him buckle on the harness of the parachute. “I don’t suppose you would jump without me?”

He gave me a chastising look. I summoned up a grim smile. “I didn’t think so. I wouldn’t leave you, either. Where’s Mr. Mow—thank God, there you are. You’re injured!”

A blood-drenched Mr. Mowen staggered into the room, Mr. Christian holding grimly on to his arm. “I found him on the gangway above,” Mr. Christian said. “He’d been knocked out.”

“Get into your parachute and jump,” I told him, shoving a parachute bag at him before grabbing up another one. “Mr. Mowen, can you hear me? Do you understand what’s happened? Here, Jack, help me get this on him.”

My fingers were slick with Mr. Mowen’s blood as we frantically buckled the harness straps around him. He said nothing as we did so, his eyes glazed and unfocused.

“Should I wait—?” Mr. Christian said, hesitating at the door.

“Go,” I ordered, shoving him. “We’ll see to Mr. Mowen.”

“Godspeed,” was all he said before sliding his way down the gangway.

“You take one side, and I’ll take the other,” Jack said, shoving his shoulder under Mr. Mowen’s arm. I did likewise, and we started our perilous journey down the gangway. “We’ll never get him down the stairs at this angle without killing ourselves.”

“No. We won’t need to. There’s an exit hatch ahead. It’s small, but we should fit through it.”

“Will he be able to open his chute in this state?” Jack asked as he kicked open the door to one of the storerooms.

“Open the chute?”

“Pull the cord to open it. I don’t know that he’s aware enough of what’s happening to do it in time.”

“There’s no cord, Jack. You simply open the bottom of the sack and the parachute comes out while you fall.”

“Oh, God. That sounds horribly unsafe.”

I shoved aside a crate and grasped the metal crank that would open up the emergency hatch. “I’ve never had cause to use one before, but I understand that they have saved many lives. We’ll put him through first. If you can lift his legs, I’ll ready the parachute, and we can slide him through.”

“You don’t think it would be better for me to hold him?” Jack asked, his face pinched and white.

“That would be disastrous. Your parachute would tangle with his, and you would spiral down to your death. Ready?”

We got Mr. Mowen’s lower body through the opening. He moaned, and feebly moved his arms, but didn’t seem to understand what was happening. “You’ll be all right, I know you will,” I told him before Jack released him. Mr. Mowen slid out of view.

I leaned out, relieved when I caught sight of the black silk twisting, fluttering, and then opening into an umbrella shape.

“You next,” I told Jack.

“Right,” he said, grabbing me about the waist and stuffing me headfirst through the hatch. “Octavia—”

“I know,” I said, kicking my feet as I looked over my shoulder at him. “I’ll see you below.”

My emotions as I was cradled by nothing but the air were tangled together in a mess that was hard to sort. I felt relief when my parachute opened, jerking me upward for a few feet as the canopy caught the air. Even more relief followed when I looked upward and saw Jack, silhouetted against his parachute. From my vantage point below her, I could see just how badly damaged the
Tesla
was, and wondered that she’d stayed aloft as long as she had. Almost her entire starboard side was in flames now, the envelopes tattered and charred, and as I watched, she gave a hiccuping lurch; then a roar exploded down the length of her.

“The boilers,” I said softly, feeling wetness on my cheeks. Whether it was from tears or moisture in the air I didn’t know, but I felt a profound sadness as my ship, my first and probably only command, died before my eyes.

Beyond her and above, the
Aurora
sat, her guns now silent, bearing scars of the attacks against her, but I noted that she had suffered little in comparison. Hallie and the others would be safe.

Jack yelled something, his arm jutting out to point behind me. I craned my head to look. The Moghul ship was moving away, but my breath caught in my throat when I counted the aether cannons that bristled out of her. She was small and fast, a ship clearly built for one thing—to destroy. Even as my dazed eyes counted the cannons, she maneuvered a tight turn, gained altitude, and left the scene of the carnage, evidently not wishing to tangle any further with the bigger, and better armed,
Aurora
.

“Why?” I asked the ship, the wind snatching away my voice. “Why would you do that to us?”

 

“
I
f I was to kiss you right here, what would you do?” I opened my eyes and looked at Jack as he hovered over my left knee. “Probably moan.”

“Would that be a good moan, a ‘he’s kissing his way up my legs and will soon sup at the gates of my own personal paradise, making me squirm and writhe and become a true believer in the power of oral sex’ sort of moan, or a bad moan, a moan that indicates you’re in pain and just want to be left alone to sleep?”

“Unfortunately, it’s a bad moan, although I don’t want you to leave me. And indeed, I don’t have time to sleep.” I made an effort to sit upright in the rather uncomfortable inn bed, and swung my good leg over the edge. My wounded knee protested at the very thought of moving, but I steeled my nerve, gritted my teeth, and pulled it over the edge, as well.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Jack said, gathering my legs and putting them back on the bed. “If you’re not well enough for me to make you writhe, you’re not well enough to get up.”

“I’m not injured seriously, just a little bruised,” I said, struggling against him for a few seconds before giving up and slumping back against the headboard. “Jack, I have many things to see to. I know you mean well, but you must let me up.”