The Baskerville Tales (Short Stories) (18 page)

Falkland’s head snapped back, and Striker twisted out from under him, driving the heel of his hand into the man’s nose and hearing it crunch. Falkland flopped over, moaning thickly even as he tried to get his feet under him one more time.

With a filthy curse, Striker nailed Falkland with a ball of blue energy, knocking him unconscious. He lay in the dirt facedown, one arm flung out as if he meant to drag himself forward even then.

Shakily, Striker got to his feet. The dog crowded close, wriggling anxiously. “I’m all right,” Striker said. “Thanks to those teeth of yours.”

And then he heard a grinding noise that filled him with alarm. He spun to see the bay doors of the hangar spiraling open. They weren’t ordinary doors that swung open on hinges.
Striker had designed overlapping panels that slid back into a circular aperture, opening right at the edge of the cliff so that the pilot could dock the steamspinner directly inside the hangar.

The ship was braced on pairs of legs that projected from the keel, giving it the appearance of a gigantic caterpillar. They folded away when the steamspinner was in flight, and each was fitted with tiny thrusters that enabled the ship to glide forward along the ground. Once the bay doors were open, the ship would simply float out over the ocean and away.

Striker ducked beneath the ship, stooping only slightly since the legs raised the bottom of the hull a good six feet from the floor. Then he jogged forward, the dog at his heels. The gondola was attached to the front third of the steamspinner’s keel, and the helm would be at the very fore of the vessel—but entering through the gondola would tip off the Black brothers. There was a trapdoor farther back, normally used to load cargo. A moment with his pocket knife, and Striker had it open. He grabbed the edges of the opening and hauled himself up. The dog whined and pranced, clearly unhappy to be left behind.

“Sorry,” he said softly, and got to his feet. A wave of guilt and worry dragged on him, heavier than his trademark coat. He swallowed as the mutt stared up, eyes huge in its pointed face. “I’ll come back for you, all right?” Then he turned away, feeling like an idiot, and got back to the business of saving the day as the dog’s whines tugged at his insides.

Two walkways ran the length of the ship. The one inside the keel, where Striker stood, was the domain of steam engines, propellers, and weapons bays. The keel joined to the axial corridor by ladders at several points. Up there, one could see the complex system of cells filled by the greenish gas from aether distillate, as well as four sets of complex apparatus that separated the aether from the surrounding atmosphere. Their glass double-helix shapes glowed unearthly green, shedding the light down the vent shafts like spears of lime-colored fog. These two
passages and their ladders were the framework of Striker’s kingdom. After all the time he’d spent calibrating the machines till they purred, there wasn’t a bolt, spring, or wing nut he didn’t know personally.

Striker had lived in many different places, but they had always been rooms owned by someone else and rented by the week. This was the first place he’d ever built with his own hands, and he would be damned before anyone stole it away. As he passed the weapons room, he paused. There were lockers of guns, knives, and explosives, and even bows and arrows. There were hot harpoons, stopwatch beetles designed to paralyze a ship, and payloads for air guns and regular cannons. And then there were Striker’s experimental pieces—aether guns and blunderbusses with clustered barrels and something that looked rather like a tuba that shot streams of distillate meant to float the enemy to places where air simply didn’t reach. Striker was already armed, but he took the time to strap on a few more choice pieces.

He heard a shift in the thruster engines that said the steamspinner was getting ready to move. He could force a shutdown from the engine bays, but not without damaging the ship’s control systems. With a curse, he ran the rest of the way to the hatch that separated the keel walkway from the back of the gondola. It was locked, bolted on the inside.

A blank, blind rage assaulted him. This was his ship—and a door was simple to fix. Ignoring his limp, he slammed a booted foot against the door, aiming his heel right over the lock. He heard the wood splinter and felt the damage as if it were his own flesh splintering. He slammed again, and again, giving up any pretense of sneaking up on the thieves.

The door burst open, and he lunged forward. The back of the gondola was crew quarters. He charged past them, scanning for a drawn weapon or leaping foe as he went. He’d be running into fire, but that was a risk he had to take. There was no time for sneaking around.

He found trouble as he left the cabins behind and reached the mess area. Like the rest of the ship, it was spare, bright, and functional. Tom Black had turned over the large table, using it as a barricade, and fired as Striker barreled toward him. The bullet slammed into his side with a bruising wallop, knocking him back, but once again the metal-plated coat stopped it from doing worse. Striker rolled, getting to his feet, and fired the aether gun. The table disappeared into a haze of crackling blue energy. Tom leaped backward with a roar of dismay as the energy—attracted by metal—sizzled through the air to light up his gun. He flung it aside, shaking sparks of blue from his arm and cursing in pain.

Striker could see outside the tall windows on either side of the mess. The hangar was starting to inch past as the thrusters gained momentum. With a lurch of panic, he plunged through the mess hall, hoping to make it past the map room to the bridge. He was out of time to stop the ship.

The windows wrapped around the bow, giving a breathtaking vista. Striker caught a glimpse of the open sky, which meant the bay doors were fully open now. Alfred Black was at the controls, his face crumpled in concentration as he inched the ship forward. Here was Striker’s real target.

“Stop!” he roared.

Alfred glanced up, obviously aware that there was trouble but pushing ahead anyway. Maybe he believed that getting the ship afloat would solve everything—until he saw Striker’s face.

The next moment, the world reeled as Tom brought a chair crashing down on Striker’s back, knocking his aether weapon out of his grasp. Striker didn’t try to resist, but let himself fall, snatching at Tom’s ankles and coming up behind him as he toppled, grabbing for his throat. He’d
been sloppy, leaving an enemy behind him, and he wasn’t going to make that mistake twice.

But incredibly, Tom twisted away, dodging free. Alfred was reaching for something, presumably a weapon. Striker wasted no time, but scrambled up and vaulted forward, slamming his forearm into Alfred’s throat. The man went down like a sack of spuds, breath coming out in a whistle. Alfred was a big man, but Striker was just as big and a lot more experienced when it came to fighting with fists and elbows. Alfred tried to lash out, landing a heel on Striker’s shin, but the blow was muffled by Striker’s thick leather boot tops. Striker pulled Alfred up by the front of his jacket, only to flatten him again with a cracking punch. Alfred flopped like a fish, trying to return the blow but flailing wide. Then Striker rolled Alfred onto his stomach and wrenched one arm behind him, at the same time planting a knee in the small of the man’s spine. Alfred stopped moving. All of Striker’s weight, and that of his metal-clad coat, hovered ready to ram against Alfred’s shoulder joint. Just like that, Striker had taken complete control. Quick, brutal violence was what it meant to be a streetkeeper.

“I could have shot you,” Striker snarled, “but I’d have made a mess all over the control panel.”

Alfred made a sound something like “Nrrggh,” but he obviously got the point. With relief, Striker felt the ship, untended, slow to a stop. For a fraction of a second, he’d won. Of course, Tom was still loose. Striker drew his sidearm and put it to Alfred’s head, betting on brotherly concern.

“Stop right there!” Tom barked, both hands wrapped around Striker’s aether gun.

“Take your own advice,” Striker returned, shifting so that Tom could see the muzzle pressed to Alfred’s head. “Put down
my
weapon or you’ll see firsthand what happens to thieves and traitors.”

“You won’t kill my brother,” Tom said. It was hard to tell if he meant it as a fact or a plea. “You’re a hard man, Striker, but you’re not the kind to murder in cold blood.”

“You’re wrong there,” Striker said. “And you’re a fool if you think I won’t protect this ship from mutiny.” Heat flared under Striker’s skin, the poison of disappointment and outrage leaving him slicked with sweat. He should have been used to such things by now, but he’d grown soft among the airmen. He’d come close to trusting his fellow men, for all that they were pirates. “We took you in and gave you a place on our crew. Nick’s crew. Now you’re stealing his ship.”

“Just hear us out. Please.” Tom’s blunt face was pale beneath the fringe of his dark hair. “We’re more like you than not. We loved our ship. We love our captain. The difference is that we know where he is. Wouldn’t you move heaven and earth to save Captain Niccolo if you could?”

Fury surged through Striker, hot as one of the blue bolts from his gun. His lips drew back from his teeth. “How can you even ask that?”

“Of course you would,” said Tom quietly. “We know that.”

And there it was—everything Striker didn’t want to see, because they
were
too much alike. It was the reason he hadn’t given Falkland a chance, and why he’d been willing to take down the Black brothers now. Yes, they were stealing the ship, but it was far worse than that. They were changing his world. The crew had been cloistered in Killincairn, healing and keeping vigil for Nick. Striker didn’t want to take his eyes off the road where his friend might still appear, but the steamspinner was ready to fly. Captain Roberts’s crew saw that, even though it was a truth he desperately wanted to deny.

Every one of Striker’s instincts screamed to keep control of the situation, to shoot the brothers before they could do any more harm. Brute force was simple and reliable—but there
was something in Tom’s face that reminded him of the dog gazing up through the trapdoor. The man was pleading. If it had been him stealing a ship for Nick’s sake, Striker would have pleaded, too.

And maybe it was the lightning strike or Poole’s divine forces at work, but something caught his attention, almost like a tap on the shoulder. The situation swiveled around in his mind and pointed the other way, like a weathercock in a shifting wind.

And he hated it. This fresh possibility was a monumental hurdle, something unfamiliar to clamber over. He had to make a decision: he could put the Black brothers and Falkland squarely in the box marked “enemies,” or he could do something else. He cursed under his breath, wanting the clarity of a killing fury.

But anger wasn’t logical. He didn’t need more enemies. Their shattered crew couldn’t afford them—and Nick, with his quick wits and instincts for persuasion, would have found a way to make Roberts’s crew his friends. As Nick’s second, it was up to Striker to carry on in Nick’s spirit.
Bugger
.

Bitter surrender flooded him, leaving a sour taste on his tongue. He didn’t want to move on, and he didn’t relish a world he didn’t understand, but he rarely got his way. Nick would just slap him on the shoulder and tell him to choke it down like a grown-up pirate—and for some reason, Striker would refrain from breaking his face.

With an amused snort, he holstered his gun. As he did so, Tom lowered his weapon, a puzzled expression rumpling his features.

“Mostly I don’t care about what happens on other ships,” Striker said, his voice surly. “But your Captain Roberts can’t be altogether a bastard if he’s got men willing to brave Devil’s Island for his sake.”

“You’re right,” said Tom, his voice shaking. “Men dread him, but to us he’s the best there is.”

There was a sudden clatter and Digby came crashing through from the mess, wobbling on his long legs. His red hair stood up in tufts, as if he had combed through it with his fingers. He looked awful. Poole was a step behind, wide-eyed and carrying a brace of pistols. Tom drew back, raising the gun again.

“Put up your weapons!” Striker ordered.

“What’s going on?” Digby demanded, swaying slightly. “Bloody hell, Striker, what did you do to Falkland?”

“It’s a mutiny,” Striker growled defensively.

“They’re only three people.”

“
We’re
only three people.”

“Then let’s not have a mutiny,” Digby said reasonably. “It’s embarrassing without at least a dozen to a side. It lacks the proper … 
je ne sais quoi
.”

Striker wasn’t sure what that was, but in the interest of peace he let Arnold up and stepped back, keeping his hand near the butt of his gun. He was willing to grant a crumb of trust, but he’d draw his revolver again if either Black so much as sneezed.

Then he faltered, not sure how to go about turning the situation around, and still not sure he wanted to. But he understood saving a man from trouble, so he stuck with that. “Roberts is not my captain, but I don’t begrudge you wanting to find him.” He flexed his fingers, the leather gloves creaking. “That doesn’t change the fact the steamspinner’s not yours to take. You should’ve asked. Then we’d have given you the crew as well as the ship.”

He heard Poole’s intake of breath, and wondered what the lad was thinking. To his
surprise, he realized that he cared—and had for a while. He wanted to do right by all of the
Red Jack
’s crew. They were as close—closer, even—than the rogues he’d ruled as streetkeeper for the Gold King.

Arnold narrowed his eyes. “You’d help us? After pounding us into the deck?”

“You earned that pounding. You crossed a line,” Digby said dryly. “Friends don’t steal.”

“But would you help us now?” Tom asked in his quiet voice. “Now that you know?” There was a thread of hope in the words that would have broken the heart of a softer man.

“We’d vote on it,” Striker said. “That’s how we’re doing things until Nick gets back. And even if we let you borrow the ship, nobody”—here he let his words plummet to subterranean tones—“touches my engines but me.”