Sky Song: Overture (3 page)

III. Falling

T
he thirst came upon us, but our Skye stores ran low due to shortages throughout Elsace. Skye, the fermented concoction of gray bubbly, made a man feel like a supreme being, awake and full of spirit. It numbed all kinds of pains: toothaches, illness, hunger, homesickness and the boredom that blanketed the hours and days between raids. The crew always jested an airship needed two kinds of Skye, Skye for the balloon and Skye for the men. It wasn’t that original of a pun, as the latter had been named after the first. Regardless, if we ran dry, Captain Dirk would have a lot more to worry about than a marriage deal with Emperor Perceval.

A few days without the drink made men irritable and derisive to authority, but the captain said we were on too tight a schedule to visit a port, and so we flew on upon a flat plane of cloud-sea that extended into the horizon. Along the way we sighted a shadow lurking just beyond a thick mist. A dirigible soared not far off our course. Determined to replenish our supplies, we hunted her.

The navigator pinched a spyglass to his eye. The rest of us stood clenched in ready position as we waited for his call. Wind pummeled our flight shirts. “Cruiser,” he said. “Should have plenty of Skye.”

“Rich folk, I’d wager, which means good Skye,” said Captain Dirk. There was a general murmur of approval. “She’s a big girl, so we’ll have to operate tactically and make her think we’re bigger. Hawks! Suit up!”

The Hawks were our first wave of offense, an elite team of twenty-five of Dirk’s fiercest. They infiltrated before we could be seen and assessed; this offered the target’s crew a chance to surrender peacefully. If they yielded their valuables, we would leave them unscathed. If they refused, the Hawks would signal for support, and a hundred grappling hooks would latch onto their ship. Sky pirates crazy with the thirst would flood in, spilling blood until we were wading ankle deep in it. We would take what we could carry in our packs, and once we cleared her, the gunners would blow her balloon. Due to Captain Dirk’s reputation, I had only twice seen a ship forgo surrender. It was an ugly bit of business, but we lived in an ugly world.

I looked to my friend at my side. Baker stepped into his leathery wing suit. I buckled the straps around his wrists, ankles and throat. The fledglings had to squire a Hawk their first year. My year was finished and the men no longer called me ‘birdie’ or ‘chickadee,’ but I had not yet received a new job assignment. Inspecting Baker’s equipment was my duty, and simple enough, but every time I dressed him before a raid, my heart pounded in my chest as if I were the one about to ride the wind.

Baker turned to face me as he adjusted his crimson goggles. His dynamite’s outline was visible just left of his heart. If anything went wrong, it was protocol to threaten total annihilation. Blowing the ship up from within was a last resort if the Hawks could not signal for assistance.

Although I had never seen any man use his boom stick, it still disturbed me to see Baker strapped with an explosive. “What’s wrong, friend?” he asked.

“Just jealous,” I said nonchalantly, examining all eight pistols on his chest. I inspected the grappling hook mechanism on his forearm and the dagger strapped in under his boot. “Have fun.”

“Hey, now that you’re all chummy with the captain, he’d probably let you ride the wind if you asked. Maybe he’ll even make you his boatswain.”

“Bugger off,” I said, giving him a shove. Baker laughed, silver tooth winking in the sun. He backed up to the rail and spread his arms like a swan. With a salute, he said, “See you topside, Clikk,” and tipped over backwards, plummeting headfirst. I ran to the railing to watch as he dived and spun and glided on the air. The other Hawks soared at his side. The Wastrel descended upon the cruiser and circled, settling just twenty yards above the aircraft. She was a beauty. Her elongated balloon had to house at least half a dozen gas cells. The gondola ran along the bottom of the envelope in two levels, having enough room for at least two hundred passengers, not including crew.

The Hawks grappled onto the base of the cruiser’s envelope, zipping up to the rigid framework. They climbed down and kicked the round windows with their steel-tipped boots, swinging their bodies inside.

We waited for the white flag to appear in the window. Ten minutes passed without any signal.

“What is happening in there?” I heard the navigator whisper.

A blast rocked the body of our ship. Clouds of fire erupted from the cruiser, bursting from its gondola. Debris and carcasses spilled out of the hole, including one of our Hawks, unrecognizable beneath all the soot and blood that caked his scorched head. A man wearing a militant blue uniform fell out as well. There were Blue Dusk on board.

One of the cruiser’s gas cells began to deflate in the middle of its balloon. Passengers jumped of their own volition, some with parachutes, others without. My lips and fingers went numb and a screeching whistle filled my head. In the thickness of this physical terror, I heard Captain Dirk as he said, “Abort. They are lost.”

“No!” I growled, my voice as raw as rough stone.

Captain Dirk’s eyes flashed with rage. He never had to explain his orders and would throw men to the clouds for insubordination. “Their chance to grapple back on board has passed.”

“Captain, we can go under and catch them.”

Dirk snagged me by my collar and yanked me in so close I could see the sun freckles under his eyes. “Did you not see that uniform?” he whispered. “If we let a single man leave that ship alive, the emperor will cancel the wedding and have us hunted to the ends of the world.” He shoved me into the rail and turned to address the crew. “We cannot rescue our men without risking our going down with her! The Hawks have been compromised! Send that ship to Tartarus, gunny!”

The mechanisms vibrated beneath my feet as our guns aimed at the cruiser. Captain Dirk didn’t need the Hawks. He could train new men and have new wing suits fashioned in the Wastes. But there was something he had clearly forgotten. If he wanted his deal with the emperor, he needed me.

I didn’t think. I didn’t give myself time to be afraid. I threw a rope ladder overboard.

“Clikk?” said Dirk behind me. And then, as I stepped up on the railing, and climbed over, he was screaming it. “Clikk!”

The Wastrel was in motion and the ladder pulled more and more in the wind as I went farther down. The cruiser was moving too, tilting over as it lost altitude. It dawned on me that when I made my jump for it, I might miss and spend the next several minutes or however long it took, falling to a certain death. I made sure to catch the cruiser’s blimp with my eyes and visualize my descent. Then I let go of the ladder.

I’ve had nightmares of falling. Up and down mean nothing anymore. There is only vertigo permeating every bone and fiber in the body. The fall is synonymous with dread, for all falling ends either awakening in a sweat or confronting the incorporeal mystery that awaits all men.

I felt like I was flying, like I had complete control. I belly-flopped against the rigid framework of the cruiser’s gasbags and clung hard. Pain throbbed in my ribs, but to my amazement, nothing felt broken. I climbed down the side of the balloon. The cruiser fell slow as if sinking in water. The shadow of the Wastrel lifted from off my back and the hot sun beat down on me. It reflected off the balloon’s metallic shell and I had to squint as I dropped into the window of the cabin below.

I landed in the vessel’s dining hall where chaos had taken hold. Tables were strewn about on their sides. The chandeliers leaned, their crystals clinking. As I moved through the cabin, I stepped over silverware and broken glass. A Duskman opened fire on me and I jumped behind a long overturned table.

Observing my surroundings, I saw Hawks and Duskmen slain by gunfire. This place had been a battlefield. Civilians ran amuck, fighting over the last parachutes, all human decency abandoned. A mother and her young son clung to one another while the so-called gentlemen resorted to communicating with their revolvers.

As soon as I saw his dreadlocks splayed out around his head, I knew I had found Baker. I crawled towards him and rolled him over. He was concussed, his cheek swollen and cut. I smacked him until he opened his eyes. “Clikk?” he mumbled. “What are you doing here?”

“There’s no time to explain.” I snatched a pistol off his chest and used it to shoot at the Duskman who had us pinned down. I missed and ducked as shots fired our way. When they stopped, I used a second pistol from Baker’s holsters and hit the Duskman while he was reloading. My blood pounded in my veins and a rush of vigor gave me the strength to lift Baker to his feet.

We crouched and ran between overturned tables. I reached into his holsters one by one, firing off the rest of his weapons as Duskmen popped out from behind their barricades.

We found another unconscious Hawk behind a pile of chair legs and other split wood. I nudged him with my boot, but this one would not wake.

Baker began to get his bearings. “The ship was full of Duskmen,” he whispered. “They would not yield to pirates. They killed Johnnie. Samson lost it and blew his dynamite.”

“Can you travel?”

“Aye.”

A hoarse screech punctured the air. It was the sound a hawk makes. I looked and located four of our men behind the marble-countertop of the bar: Pierce, Henry and the cousins, Caleb and Nicolas. We darted towards them and crouched behind cover. The hard floor behind the counter was covered in shattered crystal and liquor that made my boots stick.

“What do we do?” Pierce asked Baker.

“Clikk?”

“The Wastrel will pass underneath us. We have to jump for it,” I told them.

“You’ve no grappling hook,” Baker noted.

I shook my head. “There was no time.”

“Right. You’ll hold onto me then.”

We came out from behind the bar. Most of the Duskmen were dead, but a few stragglers tried firing their revolvers at us. We slid behind tables. A Hawk called Flynn came out of hiding behind a fainting couch.

“Brothers!” he shouted.

Baker grabbed the concussed man we had seen earlier and shook him madly. The lad came around at last, waking to Baker’s command. “Move! Move!”

The wind pressure near the blast zone raged like a tempest. The ship continued to lean into it, and soon we were clinging to the floor so as not to fall in until we saw our rescue. Dirk would not forsake me. He could not. But I had put him in an impossible position of choosing between his entire crew and me. Perhaps he had no choice now but to abandon his scheme. Time had run out; escape seemed hopeless.

Then a magnificent patchwork bubble appeared below. The Wastrel had come for us.

I jumped on Baker’s back as gravity pulled us down. Together we fell into an open sky. This time, my fate was in another’s hands, and I felt all that dread and vertigo I’d missed before. Baker aimed his arm at the Wastrel and released his grappling hook. It cast out and zipped like a fishing line. Its metal spokes punctured the railing of the Wastrel and gravity yanked us out from under the sinking cruiser. We swung like a pendulum and shot upwards, wind cutting our faces. A terrific feeling teemed inside of me as the Wastrel carried us with her upon ascension.

“Knew the captain wouldn’t leave us behind!” Baker cheered.

“He almost did!”

We vaulted ourselves on board. The other six remaining Hawks had made it back safely, but nobody was celebrating the rescue. They were all staring off behind us. Some of the men even bowed their heads out of respect. I turned to see what they were seeing, and watched with them as the cruiser sank beneath the clouds. A feeling of grief for people I didn’t know overwhelmed me. The Blue Dusk’s refusal to surrender had cost all those passengers their lives.

A hand clutched me by the strap of my flight cap. Captain Dirk pointed his dagger at the center of my scar.

Baker started shouting, but his brother Hawks held him back from intervening.

“You disobeyed my direct order,” said Captain Dirk. “You forced me to endanger all of our lives for the lives of a few. I’d cut your throat here and now, if I didn’t deem you to be the bravest sky pirate I ever met.” At first I thought I’d misheard him, or that this was the beginning of a twisted joke that ended in me getting an ear sliced off, but Dirk lowered his blade and pulled me in under his arm. “Men! Clikk here just went overboard without hook or parachute and saved seven of our brothers.” A hush of awe and wonderment fell across the deck. In Dirk’s eyes, I saw nothing of esteem or reverence. He was making this up as he went. This was all a pretty show to explain his not throwing me overboard.

Dirk went on, “Clikk is a true sky pirate, a man with no fear of heights or gravity. From this day forth, he will be called Falcon!”

A great roar exploded from the crew, a sound louder than all the engines and wind put together. They needed something to cling to in this moment of profound horror. We had hunted the cruiser for something as trivial as Skye, and as much as I wanted to believe the disaster was not our fault, I knew why the Hawks carried dynamite, and why Dirk did not allow transgressors to go free. We were criminals.

I’d seen death before. I’d killed men on merchant vessels and supply ships. This had been my first cruiser. Thinking of that young child and his mother made me sick. They knew what it was to fall. They felt the falling nightmare in their final moments of life, and for them, there would be no waking upon impact.