Skykeep (32 page)

#

“Cap’n, did you see that?” Coop cried,
dropping the latest armload of weapons from Gunner’s personal
collection. With his “repairs” complete, he now resumed arming
Gunner with whatever he could find.

“I got my eyes open, Coop. I don’t know what
it was they just shot at us, but I don’t want to take a chance of
being hit by one. I’m taking her back down below the surface.”

“Damn it, Captain! I can’t get a clear shot
if you keep taking us down into that soup!” Gunner said. “And I’m
scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to small arms
ammunition!”

Heedless of the complaints, Mack angled the
ship downward. The wind-whipped shroud of purple fumes washed over
the ship, renewing the bright glow of the scattered leaks in its
envelope. Behind them the trailing scout ship plunged down after
them. It had it’s own smattering of leaks, but neither ship had
taken damage enough to force it from the sky.

Gunner fired a handful of shots from an
elaborate rifle of his own design, punching three more holes in the
enemy envelope. He threw the weapon down for Coop to collect and
reload while he pulled up the next weapon.

“Coop! Tell me this isn’t the last
long-barrel you found.”

“That’s it, Gunner. You packed away a mess of
your stuff in the stash to make room for that fugger stuff you like
tinkering with.”

Gunner looked down at the last weapon. It was
one he’d been working on intermittently for weeks. It had the
overall look of a rifle, but based on the fittings, it seemed more
like part of the steam system of the ship, and even on the surface
the thing had the lingering smell of fug and phlogiston. He’d never
been able to get it to do much more than spray phlogiston from a
small canister, which didn’t seem like a terribly useful function
for a weapon. He was about to toss it aside and wait for his rifle
to be reloaded when he noticed a glow coming from within a
compartment at the base of the barrel. He pulled it open, revealing
a brilliant, painfully bright light.

“Of course… it was designed in the fug. It
must only work in the fug!” Gunner said.

“I don’t know what you’re on about, but if
you don’t start harrying that scout, we’re going to have more holes
than Nita will be able to patch!” Captain Mack said.

Gunner began to attach the fittings of the
canister and dashed for the back of the ship.

“Coop, you might want to give me some room.
I’m not entirely sure what is going to happen.”

“Way ahead of you!” Coop called from a hatch
leading to the lower decks.

When everything seemed to be properly
affixed, Coop raised the weapon and pulled the trigger. At first
nothing happened beyond the hissing release of gas and a strange
whining sound. Then, gradually, a dim shaft of light began to shine
forth from the barrel. It was perfectly straight and barely
diminished at all as it sliced into the mist around them.

“What the hell is it?” Coop called out.

“I don’t know… It doesn’t have any recoil at
all. Doesn’t seem to be doing much good, either!”

He kept it trained on the envelope of the
trailing ship, and the brightness of the beam grew steadily more
intense. A forward cannon on the scout fired. It missed the
Wind
Breaker
, but the attack was close enough to its target that the
whole crew could hear it whistle by.

“Quit toying with that thing and get the
scout off our tail!”

Coop took a hand off the weapon and grasped
one of the valves, spinning it open. The shaft of light flashed
brighter than lightning, and the barrel began to quickly sizzle in
the rain. The enemy envelope peeled open where the beam struck it,
releasing a wave of escaping phlogiston. As the weapon’s canister
emptied, the beam sputtered and died away, but not before the
damaged ship quickly descended out of sight.

“Any idea what you just took that ship down
with?” Mack asked.

“No, but if the fuggers have many more of
these, those cannons down there are going to be the least of our
concern.”

“I’m taking us back up. You boys get ready to
drop down on the deck of that drifting prison. I’m all for setting
the rest of those prisoners loose, but I’m getting our girls off
there first!”

He spun the wheel and pushed the
Wind
Breaker
to full speed. Ahead of them, deep thumps, spiraling
trails of light, and bright flashes were erupting from the deck of
the prison just above the surface of the fug.

“And we’d best hurry before they destroy the
place.”

#

Nita curled up against the base of one of the
central tower’s support pillars as unguided ordnance poured out of
the upper platform. Most of the rockets sprayed out into the
darkness and detonated above. The remainder either exploded
immediately—reducing the platform to burning splinters—or rained
back down on the deck. When the explosions died away, there was a
pair of smoking holes blasted into the planks. The largest of the
holes represented the smoldering remains of one of the corner
towers. The anchor point of the nearest support balloon had been
badly damaged in the bombardment as well.

Somewhere below the ringing in her ears and
the pounding of the rain, Nita was able to distinguish some
crackling above her. She looked up to find Lil dangling from the
former railing of the tower’s lower catwalk. It had pivoted out,
and she was a few feet above the deck. From the look on her face,
the pyrotechnics had left her a bit disoriented. She reluctantly
opened an eye, saw how near the ground was, and dropped shakily to
the deck where she quickly stumbled and fell.

“Lil, are you all right?” Nita asked, rushing
out to help her to her feet.

“I’m okay… I… kind of overdid it up there, I
think,” Lil said. “Where’s the
Wind Breaker
?”

“I don’t know. I think I saw a flash of
phlogiston a moment ago. An envelope must have let go under the
fug.”

“Well it couldn’t have been—”

Whatever Lil had been preparing to say
suddenly became a distant afterthought as a long, rumbling creak of
breaking wood signaled the release of the damaged balloon anchor.
With the loss of the balloon, the corner of the prison began to
tip. Wind caught the deck and forced it down, causing the whole of
the facility to tilt dangerously.

Lil and Nita ran back to the tower. Nita held
tight to the support and offered her hand to Lil, who grasped it
gratefully. The two remaining gunmen were not so lucky, just a few
steps too far away from the tower to reach it before the angle of
the deck and the slickness of the planking began to force them
toward the lagging edge. One of them managed to grab the railing
around the stairs leading inside. The other slid out and just
barely grabbed the railing on the edge of the platform.

The tilting of the platform seemed to reach
its maximum and the prison was losing altitude, dropping down below
the surface of the fug. The first of the gunmen reached out to his
partner. Then a new figure emerged from the stairway. Before the
gunman could react, the newcomer tore away his rifle and bashed him
with it, then shoved him free of the stairwell to slide off the
edge. He then fired the rifle at the man dangling off the edge and
turned toward the center of the platform. It was Ebonwhite.

From the sound of the cries coming from
within what was left of the central tower, Nita and Lil were not
the only ones to notice the new threat. Shots began to ring out
from within the tower, likely the assistant warden putting his
pistol to work, but all it managed to do was convince Ebonwhite to
fire back. It was doubtful the inmate had ever fired a weapon in
his life. He managed three shots before he was struck in the arm
and took cover, but the final shot intended for the shooter in the
tower instead grazed Nita’s arm. She cried out and lost her grip.
Lil, Nita, Wink, and Nikita slid helplessly along the soaking wet
deck.

Lil struck the post of the railing, her
flailing arms just barely finding their way to Nita’s ankle as she
slid by. It took every ounce of strength she had, but she managed
to keep Nita from flying off the edge. She began to slide forward,
but a wild kick of her leg hooked the railing itself. Now folded
over the post with her leg wrapped around the railing, she held
tight and fought to regain her breath.

“You okay, Nita?! Where’d you get hit?” Lil
called down.

“I’m okay. I’m okay. It was just my shoulder.
I… I lost the gun. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to pull
myself up,” she called back, sputtering as she hung upside down in
the rain, water seeping through the vents of her mask.

“Don’t worry. I got you. I won’t let you go,”
Lil said.

Nita looked up, trying to steel herself for
an attempt to grab Lil’s wrists with her hands, then froze.

“Lil!” she cried out.

Lil looked up to find Ebonwhite standing over
them, madness in his eyes. He had one foot on the post of the
railing and the other on the deck. The rifle was in his hands, its
barrel practically pressed to Lil’s back.

“When my uncle finds out you killed my
brother, and that I killed you, I’ll have my—”

In an act that illustrated both their loyalty
to their crew and their lack of respect for dramatic speeches,
Nikita and Wink scurried up along Lil and Nita to attack Ebonwhite
before his crazed proclamation was through. A pair of aye-ayes
can’t do a lot of damage, but they can certainly make their
presence known. As they put their teeth to work, he dropped the
rifle and tried desperately to pull them free. He got his hand
around Nikita’s neck, but Wink crawled up and sank his teeth into
Ebonwhite’s wrist. He howled in pain and released her, then tore
Wink free.

Wrapping both hands around Wink’s neck, he
tried to strangle the beast, but a hand reached out from behind him
and grasped him by the front of his shirt. His assailant spun him
around.

“Warden Linn!” Ebonwhite yelped.

The warden grasped both of Ebonwhite’s
shoulders and pulled him forward into a devastating head-butt that
forced the inmate into unconsciousness. He muscled the now
motionless man back to the stairs and heaved him inside while the
inspectors scattered to what they perceived to be a safe distance,
watching him warily.

“Ms. Cooper? Have you got a firm grip on Ms.
Graus?”

“I got her… but… I don’t know how much
longer,” Lil said.

Linn turned and released a piercing whistle.
Anthus padded up to him, a pronounced limp indicating the collision
with the door and the resulting partial collapse had not been
without consequence. Linn pulled the leash around and lowered it
down. Nita grasped it, and Linn and Anthus pulled her up. Linn
clicked a manacle onto her wrist, the other on his own, then pulled
Lil to the safety of the stairwell.

The pitch of the prison was such that the
stairs were nearly level. The inmates, the hound, and the warden
moved far enough along the steps to be out of the rain. Wink and
Nikita crawled in shortly after.

“Why’d you help us, Warden?” Lil asked, once
she’d recovered enough to do so. “And I never would have figured
you to be a head-butt man.”

“I’ve said many times, I am not an
executioner. You’ve done an adequate job of that yourself.”

“We’re not sunk yet, Warden. We don’t want to
kill no one that didn’t try to kill us,” Lil said.

“Nor do I. Which is why I suggest you do not
attempt to escape. Ms. Graus is manacled to me. If any of you
attempt to do anything foolish, I will be forced to take
regrettable action.”

Lil ignored the threat and turned to Nita.
“That arm of yours all right? You need to rest it?”

“It will be sore tomorrow, but I’m well
enough,” Nita said.

“You figure you and me can get this thing
sorted so it don’t tear itself up before it touches down?”

“I’ve never landed a prison before, but in
theory we could release the balloon on the opposite side. We’ll
descend a bit faster, but we’ll level out, which should take some
of the stress off.”

“A theory that will not be tested, as I’m
afraid you girls won’t be going anywhere. You’ve both lost your
weapons, and you are my prisoners. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve
made your bed, and it is my job to see to it you sleep in it.”

“That don’t make much sense, Warden. You make
your bed after you sleep in it, not before.”

Outside the stairwell, the drum of rain on
the planks was joined by the hum of engines.

Lil smiled. “And that sound means it isn’t
bedtime, regardless.”

She paced forward and stuck her head out in
time to see the
Wind Breaker
drift over the pitched deck of
the prison, nestling itself down between the envelopes. A rope
ladder hit the deck, and not two seconds later Coop touched down. A
rope was fastened around his waist, the slack held in one hand.

“Coop!” she cried. “Over here!”

“Lil!” he called back.

Like a mountaineer, he fed out the slack and
worked his way down the sloped deck, stepping toward the
stairwell.

“Lil, where’s Nita! I don’t know how long the
cap’n can keep the ship close enough to this floating death
trap.”

“She’s right here, brother!” she proclaimed,
tackling him with a hug when he was finally near enough.

“Dang it, you two! You know how worried you
had us?” he said, throwing an arm around her and squeezing her
tight. At the sound of his voice, Nikita climbed his leg and
snuggled between him and Lil, taking her rightful place in his
jacket. “Did they hurt you girls?”

He turned, for the first time noticing both
Linn and Anthus, as well as the manacle tying Nita to the former.
This was particularly impressive considering the massive hound had
been growling viciously since his arrival and would have attacked
if not for the cautioning hand of Linn.