Free-Wrench, no. 1 (22 page)

“Whoo-hoo! That’s one down!” Lil crowed. She
rushed to the speaking tube. “Listen, Cap’n. We gotta get lower.
Gunner and Nita figure the best way to do this is to hook the gig
hoist to that cart thing there. After that we can haul the whole
thing away.”

“Were you planning on consulting with me
about this?”

“That’s what I’m doing now, Cap’n. You reckon
we can do it?”

There was a brief and potent silence. “I
suppose we’ll find out.”

#

“Ha
ha
! That’s one down!” Gunner
echoed from below, watching as the patrol ship collided with a row
of empty buildings. The cart veered, nearly knocking him off.
“Perhaps you should slow this thing just a touch, so that they can
lower down the winch chains.”

“Slow it down…” Nita said, glancing at the
dizzying array of controls. “I think this one might do that.”

She pulled a lever that instead gave such a
surge of acceleration the front wheels nearly left the ground.

“I said
slower
!”

“I don’t know
how
to make it slower,”
she said, hastily resetting the lever and at least bringing them
back down to their original speed.

“But you insisted on reading through that
manual.”

“Yes, to learn how to
start
it.
Stopping it is another matter entirely.”

A row of fléchettes whistled through the air,
tracing a line across the road and sweeping toward the cart. Nita
pulled hard on the stick she’d been able to determine was
responsible for steering. The cart skittered across the
cobblestones, fishtailing slightly before straightening again.

“Not so sharp on the turns,” Gunner cried,
holding tight to one of the ropes lashed over the pile of goods to
keep them in place.

“Look, do
you
want to drive?” she
snapped, veering again to avoid another string of fléchettes.

“Just don’t kill us before the patrol does!”
he said. Still clutching the rope for stability, he reached into
his jacket, drew a long-barreled pistol, and tried to level it at
the second patrol ship, which was firing one gun at them and the
other at the
Wind Breaker
.

The patrol ship maneuvered nearly on top of
the
Wind Breaker
, its shots striking the envelope with
enough force to stick in but not yet puncture it. He squeezed off a
shot, failing to hit anything vital but certainly giving the crew
something to think about.

“Here come the chains! Keep ’er steady,
Nita!” Coop said.

“I’m not making any promises!” Nita said.

The chains reeled out more and more, then
suddenly stopped, having reached their limit with a dozen feet to
go. Nita eyed the looming buildings on each side of the street. The
city obviously wasn’t designed to have an airship touching down in
its avenues. From rooftop to rooftop there was room enough for the
gondola to fit, but with mere feet to spare on either side. To get
close enough, the ship was going to have to thread a needle at top
speed while being shot at. It was something a sober, thoughtful man
would never attempt. Captain Mack, on the other hand, eased the
nose of the ship right in.

“Almost!” Coop said, reaching out for the
swinging chain as the gondola scraped off window boxes and tore
free flagpoles from the fronts of houses. The first of four hooks
was just inches from Coop’s fingers now, but he couldn’t reach it
without letting go of the strap he’d been using to brace himself.
Being Coop, the solution was simple enough. He let go. “I got it!
Uh-oh…”

He barely managed to get his fingers firmly
around the hook when Mack had to pull the ship upward to avoid a
balcony. The motion pulled the chains five feet into the air, and
Coop right along with them.

“Coop, you idiot!” Gunner growled, scrambling
over the mound of loot and reaching for his dangling crewmate’s
foot. “Nita, bring us
gently
to the right!”

“I ain’t so worried about gentle so much as
fast
!” Coop countered, his voice a bit more steady than it
ought to be for a man racing over the street hanging from an
airship.

Nita feathered the control stick and managed
to move the cart in range of the steadily lowering Coop without
dislodging Gunner. When the deckhand had been successfully hauled
aboard again, the pair guided the hook down and looped it around
the support above one of the wheels. The
Wind Breaker
loomed
over them, inching the other chains into reach.

“Boys, could you hurry it up?” Nita said,
nerves fluttering her voice.

“Doing the best we can,” Coop said.

“Well, do it faster! We’ve got two problems!
We’re running out of road!” she said.

“How can you see that in this soup?” Gunner
asked, struggling to secure the second hook.

“That’s the other problem.”

Ahead, the street that had thus far been
mercifully straight approached a T-junction that would put their
forward progress to a sudden and catastrophic end. Illuminating
that hazard was a pair of additional patrol ships answering the
distress whistle of the one they had blown out of the sky. The
distant ships focused primarily on the airship, though at their
extreme distance the fléchettes scattered in an unpredictable cloud
of razor-sharp darts. They clanged off the cart’s hefty boiler,
punctured pipes, and whistled by the exposed crew.

“Almost got it,” Coop said, straining against
the final chain to get enough slack to hook it in place.

“Hey! You all stop messing around down there!
Cap’n says you’ve got to the count of ten before he pulls up! And
he’s up to five already. Four. Three. Two…”

“Just… a touch… more…” Coop groaned.

“Time’s up!” she yelled.

The ship jerked upward, punching the hook
through the side of the platform rather than hooking under it.

“That’ll do her, I guess,” Coop said,
scratching his head.

The chains groaned against their load, but
for a few moments the cart continued to trundle along the
ground.

“The
Wind Breaker
can
lift this
thing, can’t it?” Nita said, eyes widening as the details of the
approaching wall of buildings became more distinct.

“It can lift us,” Gunner assured her. “It can
lift us.” Upon repeating, it sounded strangely like he was trying
to convince himself.

Finally the wheels began to stutter and skip
on the ground, then the whole cart was hoisted into the air. As it
rose, it rotated, crashing through hanging store signs and wooden
shutters. Nita, Gunner, and Coop watched silently as they drew
closer to the end of the street, each mentally comparing their rate
of ascension to the remaining distance and not liking the results
of the equation. Worse, the closer they came to the patrol ships,
the more on target their weapon fire was.

“We’re not going to clear the buildings…
We’re not going to clear the buildings!” Nita cried.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll kill us
with them darts before we hit the wall,” Cooper offered.

“You all need to hold on and cover your ears.
We’re just about lined up!” Lil called down from above.

Nita salvaged just enough of her panicked
brain to obey, wrapping an arm around one of the winch chains and
plugging her ears. She watched through squinted eyes and dusty
goggles, the buildings and patrol ships nearly on top of them. Then
came the sound, a roaring blast that made the detonation of the
warehouse wall sound like a whisper in comparison. Captain Mack had
fired both sets of forward cannons simultaneously. Their
scattershot load tore effortlessly through the envelopes of the
enemy ships, one with a direct hit that caused the gondola to
plummet a short distance to the vacant houses below, releasing its
load of phlogiston in one glorious green plume of light. The other
strike was a glancing one, yet it pulverized the propeller on one
side to send the ship in a slower but more erratic path.

The kick from firing the cannons cut the
ship’s forward speed drastically, causing the dangling load of crew
and loot to swing forward. Nita, Gunner, and Coop hung on for dear
life, time seeming to slow to a crawl as their suspended cart
lurched forward and strained at its chains. Though the slowing
effect of the cannons was enough for the ship and the payload to
clear the roof, they didn’t do so cleanly. The cart bashed like a
wrecking ball through a stout chimney, dusting the crew with
shattered masonry and nearly knocking them loose.

“Is that it? Was that all of them?” Coop
asked, shaking his head. “I hope so. If anything else sets us to
spinning I’m going to end up making an offering.”

Nita scanned around them as the winches began
to draw them closer to the ship.

“It looks like there’s two left,” she
said.

The air split again with another cannon
blast, this time to their rear. It knocked the pursuing patrol ship
from the sky and sent the cart on another pendulous swing.

“Make that one,” she corrected, holding
tight.

They turned to the final pursuer. The craft
could easily have been the
Wind Breaker
’s sister ship. Its
overall shape was the same, and it had a similar—though
considerably bulkier—turbine configuration. Notably absent was
anything resembling armaments. In place were large grappling
cannons on either side of the deck.

Coop looked. “Aw, that’s just a tow ship.
What could that thing do?”

As an answer, a thump echoed as a grappler
was launched in their direction. It traveled in a low arc, crashing
down on the aft railing and beginning to reel in.

“What have I told you about tempting fate?”
Gunner growled, slapping Coop on the back of the head.

Captain Mack pushed the engines hard, tearing
the ship free of the tow ship’s grip at the cost of most of the
rear railing.

“Now would be a good time to get in here,”
Lil called from above as the cart drew in as far as the winch would
bring it. The crew scrambled up through the gig hatch. “Cap’n says
Wink is hopping up and down something fierce. I think we’ve got
something worse than a tow ship on the way.”

The
Wind Breaker
breeched through the surface of the fug at full speed, dragging
lavender streamers behind. Their mission in the fug had taken them
far from the city center of Keystone, but not so far that the local
mountaintops weren’t speckled with homes, workshops, and
lantern-topped mooring posts. Night had fallen while they were
below, but families sitting down at the dinner table were treated
to quite a show as Captain Mack turned his prow toward the
mountains while the tow ship burst from beneath them.

“Is that cart of yours secure? If we lose
that loot, we’re through,” he barked into the speaking tube.

“I’m on it, Cap’n,” Coop replied.

“Gunner and Nita, I want you on deck. Lil,
reload all cannons.”

The crew stowed their masks in the gig room
equipment chest and jumped to their tasks. Gunner climbed out onto
the deck first, Nita close behind. It had not fared well. Lines of
fléchettes crisscrossed the deck, splintering struts, severing
ropes, and turning the envelope into a veritable pincushion. The
gummy layer of self-sealant and a few strategically placed
reinforcement patches had kept it reasonably intact despite the
assault, but even so a few leaks still faintly fluoresced from the
residual fug.

“Nita, I’m hearing some steam escaping, and
the second starboard turbine is feeling sluggish. Get on that,”
Captain Mack ordered.

Nita nodded, looking to Mack.

“Oh my gosh! Captain, are you all
right?!”

The captain had not fared much better than
his ship. A long, bloody wound ran across his left side, presumably
where a fléchette had brushed him, and a crooked metal dart stuck
out of this thigh. Butch was already by his side on one knee,
applying a bandage while the captain continued to guide the ship.
Wink cowered at his healthy leg.

“It was a ricochet. It’s nothing. Get on the
repairs!”

She lingered for a moment more but forced her
concern aside and scanned the darkness for venting steam.

“Gunner, I don’t want another grappling hook
taking any more of my ship. Get that tow ship off our back. I think
it’s time we broke out a ‘telescope.’”

“With pleasure,” Gunner said, running to the
railing and pulling free one of the blankets concealing an
installed and operational fléchette gun salvaged from the
wailer.

“I’ll swing around. Make quick work of it,”
the captain ordered.

The engines labored and the ship slowly came
around. Gunner’s eyes gleamed as he leveled the weapon at the
moonlit tow ship. “Let’s see what this can do.”

He pulled the trigger and sent a string of
stolen darts at the enemy. They swiftly disappeared into the night,
none seeming to have hit the target.

“A bit difficult to aim at night,” he said,
furrowing his brow. He adjusted and fired again, this time
receiving the reward of a distant patter of impacts. Another string
punched a large enough hole in their pursuer’s envelope to prevent
it from maintaining altitude, and it disappeared back into the fug,
where the escaping gas lit up the cloud like green lightning.

“Good work, Gunner,” the captain said. “How’s
the repair coming, Ms. Graus?”

“Won’t be a moment. It was just a pipe
puncture,” she said, clamping a cuff onto a pipe. “I’ll do a more
permanent repair when I can.”

“Okay,” Coop yelled from the hatch. “Loot’s
all hooked up. You folks know there’s a sleeping fugger down
here?”

“Ignore him. Just get up here and keep your
eyes peeled. Wink still seems a bit concerned.”

He climbed up, a look of disappointment on
his face. “You mean you already took out the tow ship?”

“Indeed. The new gun worked like a charm!”
Gunner said like a proud father.