The Wind Merchant (35 page)

Four finally worked free the musket/wrench and aimed it at Ras.

“Do you honestly think shooting the pilot is a great idea right now?” Ras looked up to gauge how many moments remained before the front half of the dreadnaught crushed them.
 

Too few.

He spun the wheel hard to port as
The Brass Fox
limped off perpendicular to the collapsing warship.

“C’mon!” Ras yelled at the console, smacking it. The ship lurched forward, spurred on as the dreadnaught’s front came crashing down, crushing half of the boneyard under its mass and narrowly missing
The Brass Fox.

The impact shot out smoke and debris in a gust that sent
The Brass Fox
swinging violently side to side underneath its balloon.

A scream from Callie and the absence of Four alerted Ras to a severe problem. He set the ship’s controls to continually gain altitude and dashed down the steps to enter the Captain’s quarters, but ran into a locked and jammed door. He threw his shoulder into it repeatedly until it finally gave.

Inside, he found Callie half hanging out of the porthole.

“How do I detach this?” she screamed.

Ras ran up and hugged her around her waist, catching a glimpse of Four dangling below from the wrench on the other end of the cable. He braced a leg against the wall and pulled her fully back into the room. “Middle button! Reel him in!”
 

Callie pressed the button to start spooling in the cable as Ras grabbed it and began to pull hand over fist.

“Help me pull!” Ras said with a grunt.

Callie heaved back on the cable with Ras until Four’s arm swung into the frame of the porthole.

Ras grabbed the arm and stuck his head outside to see the ground disappearing beneath them into fog. He reached down and pulled something tucked inside Four’s belt.

“What are you doing?” Four demanded.

Ras examined Dr. O’s engine disabler, ignoring the question. He turned to Callie, grabbed her wrist, and worked the mechanism to cut the cable. “
That
is how you release the cable.” He looked coldly at Four. “And this is how you release the man that killed your father.”

Before Ras could act, the ship shook violently, causing Four to lose his grip on the porthole, and he disappeared with a scream and a whipping trail of cable.

Ras and Callie ran back to the deck and surveyed the night sky. They cleared the cloud level to find half a dozen Collective ships in hot pursuit.

“We’re so close!” Callie said.

“Close to what?”

Callie pointed to a set of cliff faces off in the distance. “The Wild.”

Another cannon salvo rocketed past the ship from behind. The explosion in front of them gave the full picture as three silver ships without balloons or biplane wings flew toward them. Their shiny metal hulls gleamed in the night’s light as they returned fire with a series of rat-tat-tat blasts. Dozens of small cannon balls whizzed past
The Brass Fox
, and many collided with the pursuing Collective vessels, sinking one of them.

“You don’t think…” Ras said.

“Elders,” Callie said.

The Collective ships overtook
The Brass Fox
, engaging in a clumsy dance with the nimble silver fighters.

The smaller ships darted about with pinpoint proficiency, firing their small repeater cannons at the medium-sized Collective ships. Thankfully they didn’t appear to have taken much note of the wind merchant vessel as a target yet.

Ras pushed down on the wheel, dropping altitude until they once again fell beneath the cloud level and out of the battle.

A loud series of booms erupted behind them. The Collective dreadnaught lost her engines, but still had her teeth and her mission.

Spinning the wheel starboard, Ras drove the ship into what evasive maneuvers she could muster. “We’re going to have to go back up!” Ras said, hefting back on the wheel.

“It’s worse up there!” Callie said.

“I’ve only got one engine down here. Up there I can kick on the Helios engine.”

Dixie began to stir, and Callie moved over to check on her.

“Callie, I really don’t know where I’m going without you right now,” Ras said. “There’s not much we can do for her.”

The Brass Fox
once again lifted above the clouds and into the clear sky, rejoining the fray. Several blind shots from the downed dreadnaught ripped through the clouds far to port.

Ras focused his attention on the newest part of his dashboard. He flipped three switches to prime the Helios engine and pulled back on a knob to start it. A whining noise hummed to life below deck for a moment and then died.

Another two Collective ships, larger than their mini-cannonball riddled predecessors, joined the battle.

“Ras?” Callie pointed to the Elder ship diverting its attention from its battle with the Collective to
The Brass Fox
.

Ras whipped his head over, seeing the vessel while he furiously flipped the three priming switches once more. Again the Helios engine purred and died.

“Why?” Ras shouted, slamming the dash. The Elder’s mini-cannon roared to life behind them as Ras began evasive maneuvers. Several shots ripped through the hull behind them, forcing them to dive as chunks of wood and splinters flew through the air.

Ras helped Callie stand and once again hefted on the wheel. “Work!” he ordered, cycling the truant engine once more. The whole ship hummed, vibrated, and then roared ahead with a new vitality.

“Good girl!” Ras laughed. He pulled the wheel to port to avoid the next salvo from the Elder fighter and to assess the battle.

The two larger Collective frigates brought their full arsenal to bear, firing and connecting their deadly green beams with an Elder fighter. The vessel was incinerated, sending the rest of the squadron into evasive maneuvers.

A well-aimed shot from the other frigate clipped the Elder fighter trailing
The Brass Fox
, sending the remaining half of the small ship plummeting.

Ras surveyed the area, trying to regain his bearings. He felt a hand on his shoulder and saw Callie pointing to a specific point along the cliff wall. Ras nodded and jammed the throttle full ahead, leaving the heat of the battle, but not unnoticed.

Two of the Collective ships comparable in size to
The Brass Fox
broke off as the frigates concentrated on the last Elder fighter.

“Hal said the path is a maze. If we can lose them they won’t know where to go,” said Callie.

Ahead, the cliffs loomed and Ras saw dozens of canyon entrances of various sizes. “Which one?”

Callie stepped away from him, moving with a graceful, ethereal quality. Her blue eyes took on a slightly purple hue as she surveyed the different entrances. She pointed slightly starboard as she continued down the steps to the deck, walking toward the bow of the ship.

Ras corrected his course until her arm pointed directly in front of her.
The Brass Fox
entered the canyon Callie had selected, and moments later The Collective ships followed in its wake. Framer’s Valley came to mind, but Ras shunted the lingering memory as far away as possible.

The walls of the canyon started out wide enough for one of The Collective ships to pull alongside Ras’ starboard. It slammed against
The Brass Fox
, almost crashing it into the opposite wall.

“Ras!” Callie shouted. Up ahead the canyon split and Callie pointed to port.

Ras pushed against The Collective ship as they approached the fork in the path. Wood creaked and splintered as the vessels collided again.

The positioning plan worked, as
The Brass Fox
and The Collective ship separated to avoid smashing into the stone fork.

One ship was off course, but the other Collective ship, which had hung behind, still followed
The Brass Fox
as the path curved and twisted.
 

Ras shoved the wheel forward to dip below a rock bridge connecting the canyon walls. The Collective ship careened into it, but even this did little to deter it aside from creating a more generous gap between the vessels.

Callie pointed starboard as another fork approached, then port.

Port.

Starboard.

Port.

Port.

The intricacy of the canyon’s splintering architecture path amazed Ras. He looked behind him for a moment to see if his pursuers had lost their way.

They hadn’t.

“Port!” Callie shouted, bringing Ras’ attention back again to piloting just in time for him to see the rapidly approaching fork. The curve ended with a straightaway that led to the end of the canyon. “Dive!” She pointed to a cave entrance along the floor of the canyon.

“But we’re—”

“Dive! Now!” she shouted.

Ras shoved the wheel, descending sharply into the maw of the cave. The Collective ship continued straight and Ras heard a horrific crunch and series of explosions echo through the cave as pieces of a crumpled Collective ship rained down behind them.

Blind, Ras throttled back to a stop. “What was that?”

“Painted wall. Time is streaming out from this cave,” Callie said as she approached the bridge.

Ras grabbed the KnackVisions to see if they would provide any clarity. The Energy level in the cave was nearly nonexistent. He swapped them out for the green minion goggles and the vast expanse of the cave nearly took his breath away. “Callie, come look.” He then thought better of it as he propped the wheel and began walking over to her to prevent her from stumbling around the deck.

She walked slowly, gracefully. “I can see, Ras. Time is thick here.” She spoke at a slower rate that caught Ras off guard.

“Like KnackVision?”

“Yeah, purple KnackVision, but with headaches,” she said.

Ras moved quickly to her. “Better?”

“Yeah, my head isn’t throbbing now, but I can’t see anything,” she said with her usual cadence. She squinted and held up a hand to keep the green glow of Ras’ goggles from bothering her. “A worthwhile tradeoff.”

Ras led her by the hand back up to the bridge. A funny noise came from the one working Windstrider engine.

“What is that?” Callie asked.

“Energy is so thin down here, it must not have enough to scoop.”

“I guess The Wild has been blocked off for so long, not much Energy could make it in,” Callie said.

“Callie?”

“Yeah.”

“You led us into The Wild.”

“You
flew
us into The Wild,” she said, embracing him. “I knew you could do it.”

“Oh, you two are so cute it’s enough to make a girl barf,” Dixie said, sitting up.

“You all right?” Ras asked.

“All that flying made it hard to sleep. What happened to whats-his-number?” she asked.

“Not onboard, and that’s all that matters.” Ras took a moment to study an almost endless flat cavern, then removed the green goggles and handed them to Callie. “Make sure she’s all right, okay?”

Callie donned them and made her way over to Dixie. “I’ll let you know if anything comes up, like a cave wall or giant monster.”

“That’s a fun thought,” Ras said.

Callie knelt down by Dixie, who stuffed something small into her pocket. “You okay? Is there anything I can get you?”

Dixie held her head, touching the sticky matted hair by her temple. “There’s something in my bag down in the hold that I could use.”

“Sure, what is it?”

“If you could just bring the whole bag, I’ll find it,” Dixie said.

Ras watched Callie’s bobbing green goggles disappear into the hold. He pulled on the KnackVisions to have some semblance of sight.

“So, looks like you made it to The Wild after all,” said Ras. “I bet all of your friends will be jealous.”

“Yeah…why are you talking so fast?” Dixie asked, her speech slurred.

“I’m not. You’re talking slow.”

“That’s the first time anyone’s accused me of that,” she drawled.

“Must be the Time in here,” Ras said. “Doesn’t affect me.”

“Lucky,” she said. “Hey…I’m sorry about what happened back there.”

The thrill of the escape had all but erased the time in the boneyard from his mind, and he felt ashamed for letting something that important lapse. “You shouldn’t feel responsible for fake family members, right?”

“I guess,” Dixie said with a shrug. She tried to stand but failed.

“I just can’t believe how close my dad got. I mean, the cliffs couldn’t have been more than ten miles from the boneyard. I have no idea how he would have made it through the maze, though…Maybe he had a map or something.” He looked over at Dixie, who stared blankly into the darkness, evidently finished with the conversation.

Callie climbed back up from the hold with a bag and returned to the bridge, depositing the duffle next to Dixie. She removed the goggles and handed them to Ras, then wrapped her arms around his left arm and leaned against him. “Headache.”

He extracted his arm from between hers and placed it around her shoulders. Her head nestled against his chest and he feared for a moment she would notice his heart pounding.

The smallest hint of morning light peeked through the mouth of the cave, spilling in to fill the cavern. Ras noted they weren’t moving nearly as fast as his instruments indicated, and he tapped them a couple times in an attempt to jar the needles into the correct positions. They stayed.

“Why are we moving so slow?” he asked himself.

“Hold on,” Callie said as she took a step away from Ras, noting her surroundings, then laughed.

“What?”

“The ship sped up,” she said with a slowed voice. “No, wait, I slowed down.” She lifted her eyebrows as she turned to Ras.

“That part I get.”

Callie returned to him. “And now we’re back to crawling. You must have some sort of equilibrium around you.” She hugged him tight once more. “It’s just more noticeable now that the Time is thick.”

“Oh. If you want to take a step away so the trip doesn’t take as long, I won’t be offended,” Ras said.

“I’m good.” She pointed to his watch, then the clock on the dash. They were already a few minutes off from one another. “Think of it as a super power.”