The Wind Merchant (27 page)

“What in Atmo!” Ras said. He only belatedly recognized the voice as his own; the words sounded hollow as they rang in his head.

He glanced around the room devoid of any motion, still unable to wrap his head around it quite yet. Looking down at the brass orb in his hand, he asked, “Did you do this?” He fought the urge to shake it, thinking it might accidentally reverse the thing possibly keeping him safe. “Some sort of time bomb?”

He was exiting the door when he noticed something familiar: Elias’ grapple gun, loaded up with cabling and charges to make it look more authentic in its display. Walking up to it, he pulled the old friend from its wall mount with a little bit of effort.

“What else?” he asked himself as he surveyed the walls for things he might need to save Callie.

Ras burst into the hallway looking like a museum thief. His father’s grapple gun adorned his left arm; a leather satchel filled with gadgets, goggles, and old dueling pistols was slung across his chest; and an antique sword led the way in his right hand. He was worth a small fortune but it was pointless if he couldn’t find Callie and get off
The Halifax
.

Retracing his steps as best he could remember, he passed by halted crew members on his way back to the brig.
Two lefts, then a right?
He got turned around more than once, but time was on his side. He wondered how he was going to move Callie in a frozen state, but brushed the inconvenient thought aside.

Upon his successful return to the brig, he saw Dixie sitting on the floor of her cell with her arms wrapped around her legs. Just on the other side of the bars, a guard with a thick key ring dangling from his belt stood conversing with another man.

Ras didn’t dare touch either of them, but he used the tip of the long, thin sword to try to lift the keys. They were stuck firmly on the guard’s belt.
Interesting
. He had been able to remove the items from Foster’s walls, but then again, he had personally picked them up.
Was that the trick?
If so, he’d probably need to avoid touching anybody.

He decided to chance reawakening the guard and reached out carefully to grab the large keyring. This time it came free. Then he reached his arms through the bars and tossed the keys toward Dixie, but they froze in place after leaving his grasp.

Satisfied with the result, he then pulled one of the antique dueling pistols from the leather satchel and soon it hung alongside the keys. Ras had no clue if the gun would even fire, but if Dixie kept her head, she’d know better than to expend its single shot and waste the intimidation value of a loaded weapon.

“Advantage, Dixie. You’re welcome,” Ras said, leaving the brig.

From there, Ras had no clue where to go next. He would occasionally catch updates via portholes on the growing number of cannon balls frozen in a radius around
The Halifax
. It began to concern him.

He followed a corridor that forced him to snake around an obstacle course of men in lab coats before it led him to a hallway filled with doors running along either side. Peeking through the windows, he saw large, burly men strapped down, looks of agony plastered on their faces as they received injections of some sort.
Soldiers?
Ras saw room after room of strapping young men, all somewhere in the process of being injected.

Ras made it to the door at the end of the hallway and found what he was looking for.

“Callie!”

He threw himself into the door but did little more than budge it open and dig the grapple gun into his shoulder. By leaning his weight into the door, he forced it far enough open to be able to slide through into the laboratory.

Based on the tearful expression on Callie’s face, Foster had lied about stopping the testing. Surveying the room for a way to free her, he saw the two scientists standing behind their vast array of knobs and levers. He didn’t even know if he could find the one to lift the glass dome, or if pressing a button would be too indirect an action to work on the frozen ship.

Looking back at Callie’s state, he couldn’t handle her being in pain when he could finally do something about it. Enraged, he ran up to the dome and swung the sword with all of his might at the glass. With a sharp snap the blade left the hilt, flying back over Ras’ shoulder, just missing him. He looked back. The broken blade hung just above the floor a few feet behind him. As Ras stepped over to the blade, it clattered to the ground.

All right, that makes no sense
, Ras thought.

Still, there was no time to consider the oddness. He had to see Callie. Up close, he noticed her eyes no longer looked blue, but violet. He took note of it, ran back to the entrance to fish out a pair of old goggles from his newly acquired satchel, and strapped them on. A display winked, showing a green glow etched in lines all about the room.

KnackVisions
. He was using Foster Helios’ original pair of KnackVisions as safety goggles.

“Here goes nothing,” Ras said, taking off into a dash toward the glass. He knew the collision would hurt, but he didn’t realize how much until he crashed through the glass dome, creating a Ras-sized hole. Shards of glass flew everywhere, nicking and cutting him up. Pieces that flew over a foot away simply hung in midair.

He slowly picked himself up from the glass on the floor, shaking a few pieces from his hair. He placed the KnackVisions atop his head and moved to start unstrapping Callie from the gurney.

The sound of cracking and shattering glass was the first indicator that the spell was broken. Time appeared to finally catch back up.

Chaos erupted.

Ras threw himself over Callie to shield her from the collapsing dome, and her continued scream of anguish almost drowned out the rest of what was going on aboard
The Halifax.

The lab erupted in sparks, splinters, and flying debris as two cannon balls ripped through the room.
The Halifax
shook violently under the stress of hundreds of cannonballs as they finally found their mark.

Ras undid the last strap and Callie collapsed into his arms, sobbing.

Another cannon ball careened through the room as warning klaxons blared. Ras could no longer hear the shouts of the scientists. Looking back, he noticed the control panel bore the brunt of the latest blast. The level above them groaned, ready to collapse upon them.

He scooped up Callie and carried her out of the lab. It was every man for himself in the corridors and nobody took much notice of the escaped test subjects.

“How did you get here?” Callie asked, nuzzling into his shoulder.

“I
really
don’t know.” He shifted her slightly in his arms.

“Where are we going?” Callie asked.

“As far away from here as we can,” Ras said. “Can you put my goggles down on my face for me?”

She slid them down and the structure of the ship fell into view, highlighting the framework of Energy pulsing through the ship. He couldn’t imagine how his grandfather got around seeing every breeze and power line without going mad. The Energy patterns of the ships docked on the underside of the behemoth showed where Ras needed to go.

The flow of people jostling and elbowing their way to safety made it apparent to Ras that the crew either had never drilled for such an evacuation or hadn’t taken training seriously.

The Halifax
jerked, and Ras almost dropped Callie down a flight of stairs as an Energy surge far below blew apart one of the engines. The explosion left the flagship limping at a slight angle.

A scuffle at the base of the stairwell backed up foot traffic. From halfway up the stairs, Ras could see a small white-haired figure launch herself onto the back of a guard. She viciously slammed the butt of a pistol into the top of the guard’s head and disappeared from view as she rode the toppling man to the ground.

“At least she’s making good use of it,” Ras said.

“What? Who?” Callie asked as if stirred from sleep.

“Dixie!” Ras shouted. The jam cleared and Ras saw her once more. “On your six!”

The white haired girl popped up and whirled around as Ras approached her. She beamed as she shouted back a greeting. “Ras!” She spun and smashed the butt of the antique dueling pistol squarely into the jaw of another guard, dropping him. “You got a plan? Mine involves more violence than escaping, but I like having options,” she said as she slung a duffle bag over her shoulder.

Ras caught up with her and stepped on the back of one of the guards who was attempting to pick himself back up, eliciting a groan. “We’re heading to the docks.”

“To the docks! Lovely plan. Is she okay?” Dixie asked before stooping down to pick up the unused musket of the downed guard and rejoining the flow of the crowd.

“I don’t know yet,” said Ras. The ship shuddered again, rolling slightly and forcing everyone to stand half on the floor and half on the wall to their right. It made for awkward progress as they shuffled down the last corridor to the docks.

The wind howled beneath
The Halifax
as the mob spilled out onto the hanging walkways leading to the docked ships. Sky pirate biplane fighters zipped by, taking potshots at escape vessels.

Ras blanched slightly when he saw the grated metal walkway with nothing but sky underneath it. The ship shuddered again, and several men in front of them fell screaming over the railing and disappeared beneath the clouds.

The tilting flagship made carrying Callie a challenge. Ras scooted along the handrail and surveyed the docked ships until his eyes fell upon
The Brass Fox
.

“Dixie! That one!” Ras shouted over the battle.

“The junker?” Dixie asked, prompting an angry look from Ras. “Got it!” She scurried down the metal pathway toward the ship. She didn’t have the keys, but Ras suspected she wouldn’t need them.

Callie looked around her and realized exactly where she was. She jerked and tightened her grip around Ras’ neck, causing him to stumble and almost fall.

“Easy, easy, I got you,” Ras said as he watched Dixie board
The Brass Fox
and run up to the helm.

Although faltering,
The Halifax
still volleyed green beams, wreaking a swath of havoc on three pirate ships swarming around it.

“Veir!” a deep and menacing voice shouted behind Ras. A small escape airship pulled up underneath
The Halifax
. Foster Helios III stood at the ship’s railing beside his entourage of bodyguards, who were preparing to leap over to Ras. “The girl, if you will.”

Ras attempted to hobble down the scaffolding, but couldn’t move quickly without being able to use his hands freely. He looked around for another option. There was only one. “Callie,” he whispered, pulling her closer. “I’m sorry, but hold tight and don’t let go.”

The bodyguards jumped from Foster’s getaway ship onto
The Halifax
just as Ras conquered every sane impulse in his body and leaned backward, falling over the railing and into the abyss.

It took Ras a moment to spot
The Brass Fox
in a dive of its own, smoke billowing from its port engine. Extending his left arm, Ras fired a grapple shot at the ship. The cable whirred madly until the spike connected to the deck. Both parties continued to plummet toward the cloud layer until
The Brass Fox
began leveling off, causing Ras and Callie to swing wildly inside the clouds.

Ras struggled to work the mechanism on the grapple gun to begin pulling them toward the free falling
Fox
. As they burst through the stormy clouds, Ras felt the sensation of a downpour of water, soaking him through.

Below them, a Convergence whipped wildly about on the winds over the dark ground, which billowed in a constant state of motion.

“Callie! What’s happening to the ground?”

She peeked one eye open then both eyes shot wide. “We’re over an ocean!”

“A what?” Ras exclaimed. The cable pulled them closer and closer to
The Brass Fox
. A strike of lightning illuminated the skies, followed by a deafening peal of concussive force that shook Ras to his core. “Pull up!” Ras shouted to the white haired figure on the bridge.

They continued to fall.

The roar of the Convergence grew and Ras realized he was on a collision course with the sphere. He cursed himself for not having done something differently to alter his path, although he didn’t know what he could have changed.

“Hang on!” Ras squeezed Callie tight as the Convergence screamed toward them. He knew he would be safe, but hoped he wouldn’t watch the girl he loved evaporate away in his arms, lost forever.

Everything moved so quickly that Ras struggled to comprehend it all. Over the screams of the Convergence, he heard the engines of his ship engage. He felt a tug on his arm pull his center of gravity toward the ship, but the shift in momentum wasn’t enough to swing away from the ball of Energy.

Ras braced himself for impact as the heated air fought to steal away his breath. Once he pierced the exterior of the Convergence, the roar of the green fire dampened. He gripped Callie so tightly he feared he was hurting her.

Green flame engulfed them. Swirling figures made of light danced around, but kept their distance. Within moments he shot through the bottom of the sphere and was once again doused by the crying skies.

Ras realized Callie was still clinging to him as their fall leveled off just above the spray of the ocean. He wiped away the wet, matted hair from his face and saw
The Halifax
burst through the cloud cover, its fiery engines struggling to keep it aloft.

An updraft took the Convergence soaring to meet the flagship, but the sphere began to fluctuate and lose stability along the way.

The Brass Fox
pulled to a stop, and Ras found himself seesawing underneath his ship before the retraction of the cable dragged him and Callie over the side railing to the deck. Ras decided he had earned a moment to just collapse into a heap with Callie and rest.

Dixie bounded down from the bridge. “I don’t want to interrupt…anything, but that ship might come falling on our heads any second now, so…yeah,” she said, glancing over her shoulder.