Abney Park's The Wrath Of Fate (19 page)

We were standing on a deck that ran like a porch around the middle of the hull. Everything here was dingy old wood. Rotting and in ill repair, like an old school-yard fence that had stood too long after the school was abandoned. Oddly, there was nobody to greet us. No bold crew of pirate-thieves to fend us off.

“It’s a trap, Capt’n!” Mongrel growled. “Let’s go in and wake ’em up!” For anybody but Mongrel’, these two statements would contradict each other, but he was the type that liked to take things head-on. He was six feet of scabs, built like a leather oak tree, so he could take the brunt of a misstep in stride. He stepped toward the nearest doorways, but before we could open them we were engaged!

Leaping from windows before us came men. Or say, young men, brandishing swords. The narrowness of the walkway meant only one of our large pirates could fight them at once, although our narrow opponents had no trouble finding room to stand three abreast. They had neither strong thrusts, nor parries, and it was easy to push all three back, even though it was only me fighting with them. In the blinding sun light above the clouds, I couldn’t get a good look at them.

While I fenced with them, the windows above us opened, and we were splashed with water! The water was neither hot nor cold, so it didn’t do more then surprise us. There were also books, and little pieces of wood, puzzle pieces, and sticks thrown on our heads. Again, it didn’t hurt, it was just – strange! Finally, I disarmed one of the young men, kicked another to the ground, and all three ran through the large doors that had opened behind them.

We followed them in. It was much darker inside, and as our eyes grew accustomed to lack of light I stepped on something soft. Bending down, I picked up a small rag doll.

“Seriously, what the fu….” I started to say, when I was interrupted by the sound of gun fire! Specifically, machine gun fire. We jumped back outside, miraculously nobody had been hit, and we stood around the corner, out of harm’s way.

The gun fire stopped, and an equally abrasive voice came from around the corner, “I’m afraid you’re out of luck.” said the gravelly voice of a lady in her sixties, who sounded like she’d spent her last thirty years making very hard choices. “We’ve got nothing much left to steal, so I’m afraid you’ve wasted your shots on us. Food’s nearly out, too, and we don’t carry any money,” she said, “and honestly you should be ashamed off yourself fighting with children!”

Children? What the hell is going on?
I was beginning to think we’d got another case of our heroics backfiring.

“I’m not here to take anything that’s yours. I just want the haul you stole this morning!” I replied.

“It’s like I said,” she replied, “You’re wasting your time, pirate. These children didn’t steal any haul this morning,” she said with a pitying laugh. “This morning we were moored at Isla Aether. We haven’t hardly left port when you started hunting us down like we were a Navy cargo ship. A silly, pointless thing to do, but you’re not the first silly pointless pirate to think you were going to find hidden treasure here. Now, lay down those kitchen knives, before I turn you into Swiss cheese!”

Wow. This wasn’t some strange
Lord Of The Flies
airship crew. It was a god damn orphanage in the sky!
Aw, what the hell,
I thought. This was painfully embarrassing.

I quickly considered my options. At this point we could:

A: Run at her with swords drawn, and get a face full of post-apocalyptic tommy gun.

B: Run back to our tethers, and try to swing back to the
Ophelia,
while likely getting shot in the back by the afore mentioned post-apocalyptic tommy gun.

C: Command the gunners aboard the Ophelia to fire, who’d possibly hit us, but definitely making the ship on which we stood less flight worthy.

Or D: Lay down our swords and pistols, and accept our embarrassing fate.

I chose D. I now firmly believed we were way off target, so we laid down our weapons.

There stood a comical, yet intimidating sight. Ten or more small to teenage boys and girls, surrounding one Catholic nun. She was old and tanned like saddle leather, grim faced, and pointing a sling mounted six-barreled repeater! This was one tough-ass grandma. If she had whiskers and a cigar in her mouth, it would have not surprised me. She spoke condescendingly to us from under her tattered but clean habit. “Now, explain to me again why you are putting holes in my orphanage.”

“Yeah, about that,” I stammered. “Last night we made friends with a caravan tribe. Neobedouins. This morning as we awoke someone had air lifted one of their supply trucks. We were trying to recover them, when we saw you carrying off something heavy, obscured in the clouds.”

“Yup,” she laughed. “Its like I thought. You guys are idiots.” That hurt. “Get out of my school, while I’m still laughing at you,” she said.

We did as we were told. Back to the railing, and over we swung.

Later that week I sketched out these lyrics in my notebook:

Airship Pirates

Our fires high and the airbags tight

Food’s low but the skies are bright

Props spinning all through the night

We’re low on cash but we’d seen another target

Goggles down and the cannons up

My blood starts pumping as I drain my cup

I give the wheel a spin and I turn this girl around

We’re way above ground but we’re closed in on our target

Flying Jib is filled with air

East India ships filled with despair

We even up, her broadsides bare

Our cannons flair but it’s just a show of muscle

Steady on, she doesn’t need to burn

She tries to flee and she tries to turn

Grappling fire, we latch her hull

She’s starting to roll, but we’ve got her on a leash

With a crew of drunken pilots

We’re the only airship pirates

We’re full of hot air and we’re starting to rise

We’re the terror of the skies, but a danger to ourselves now

Expendable crew starts to reel her in

Our swords are sharpened and we’re ready to sin

I’m three miles up, we’re about to swing aboard

My tether’s made of leather so I’m not about to fall here

A swish of air and my boots hit deck

No cash, no fuel, no not a speck

Our grape shot’s made this bird a wreck

And a glance below deck shows a crew of nuns and orphans!

Chorus

With a crew of drunken pilots

We’re the only airship pirates

We’re full of hot air and we’re starting to rise

We’re the terror of the skies, but a danger to ourselves
.

A MINOR REDEMPTION

When the boarding party climbed over the railings of the
HMS Ophelia
, we were greeted by baffled looks. “What happened? We heard a lot of gun fire, are you okay?”

“We’re fine. Wrong ship is all,” I mumbled, avoiding eye contact with anybody. I strode to the aft deck and pulled open my spyglass while the rest of the boarding party explained to the crew what happened. As Daniel explained the situation I tried not to think the stifled laughter was at my expense.

Gazing through my tarnished scope I could see what I thought we were looking for. There was a familiar cigar shaped gasbag and gondola combination – very similar to the
Ophelia’s
design – hoisting the brightly painted gypsy haul that had been lifted from the Neobedouins camp as we slept this morning. We had been looking in the wrong direction.

“Come about!” I yelled to the acting pilot, as I ran forward to the helm. And I added to the crew, “To the guns! Prepare for battle!” And once again the crew was in motion. My ears were filled with
clop-clop
of heavy boots, the sound of the rigging straining as the ship came about, and the now wind-muffled sounds of men yelling to each other.

The deck was still moist with dew, but I was now warm with my morning exertions, and the cool breeze worked wonders to drive the embarrassment of our botched attack from my mind.

I took the wheel from the acting pilot, and throttled up the props. It appeared that our new prey was flying by wind power alone, so catching them would be no problem. In fact, trouble would not begin until we came within firing range. At that point, we would be put to the test. This will be our first combat against another airship that had actually been outfitted for aerial combat. Until recently all our fights have been ground targets or sea targets, and we always held a huge advantage over them. Their shots had gravity working against them, whereas I could practically drop my boot over the railing and expect at least someone would get hurt.

There was also the problem of the cargo we were trying to recapture. A ten-ton, three-story, semi-truck sized haul hanging by ropes six thousand feet above the ground did not sound like an easy grab, but I was formulating a plan. Still, with all our misadventures lately, I was not walking into this without some apprehension.

“So, what’s the plan, Captain?” Daniel asked.
Possibly a touch sarcastically?
I wondered.

Now, the picture in my head of how the plan was to work made sense. It would work, but it did sound like things might get a little shaky, and it wouldn’t work if the whole crew was doubting me while we tried it. I decided not to divulge the details just yet, since the crew still lacked confidence in me, so I said, “We’ll just go up there and get’em!”

“Get’em? That’s your whole plan?”

“Hey, have a little faith!” I said, not sure if I did.