Captain Gravenor’s Airship Equinox (Steampunk Smugglers) (14 page)

They reached the first ladder. Brecon pushed her at it, then
fired the stolen heater at the first tie line. She climbed as the airship
rocked against its moorings, wondering what she’d find when she reached the
deck.

Nothing was moving when she peered over the railing. Strange,
since the airship appeared to be ready to take off. Brecon started climbing
just below her.

“Anything to concern you?” he asked.

“Not exactly.”

“We need to move. Gentle, now.” He pushed her over the railing.

She somersaulted to the deck. Feeling foolish but unharmed,
she righted herself, straightening her skirts. “Everything seems eerily silent,
like it is the dead of night instead of daybreak.”

Brecon jumped down far more elegantly. She admired the long,
muscular legs that allowed him to do so. And the trousers. A married inventress
ought to be able to wear unconventional attire, if she survived her wedding
day, correct?

“They haven’t fired the engine.”

“Where is everyone?” she whispered.

“In quarters, I expect. They board the enslaved men on the airships
unless they aren’t going to be flying anytime soon.”

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at a dark shape at the
end of the deck.

Brecon pulled out his heater and tucked her behind him, then
crept forward.

Soon, she saw it was a man. A man in a common crew uniform,
not moving. He stood with a coal bucket in one hand. An eye was half closed as
if he’d been in the process of winking or blinking when he was frozen.

“Bloody bastard,” Brecon swore.” Doesn’t even let them get
to quarters. Just freezes them like this. Inhuman.”

“Ethan was only taking command today,” she ventured.

“He’s responsible for this, even if he didn’t freeze them
this time. He brought your inventions to the Blockaders. What a damnable mess.
We’ve got to destroy the Man Immobilizer device and find the man management antenna,
then get the airship moving before Ethan and his friends get here.”

“It’s impossible.”

His eyes were wild. “I’m going to fire on all the tie lines.
We’ll float up naturally, and we should move out over the Channel, even though
we won’t have any power. That will get us out of firing range.”

“What if the men revolt?”

“Find the captain’s room. I’m sure there’s a spare uniform.
I’ll wear the jacket as camouflage until we get safely away.”

“Right,” she said, not sure where to start. She’d never been
aboard an airship.

“Go down the first ladder you can find. The captain’s room
will be to the left of us, in the front of the airship. Where the largest
windows are.”

“Will do,” she said, wondering if they would be airborne by
the time she came up the ladder. She ran down the deck and pulled the ring on
the first hatch she saw. A ladder led into the dim space, but she tucked up her
skirts and climbed down, then ran in the direction he had indicated.

All the doors were closed along the corridor she traversed.
She saw signs for crew quarters and the mess. No frozen men lurked in the
corridor, a good thing since it was so narrow. At the end, she found an
imposing door with a brass plate that read “Captain’s Quarters.” Would she need
to pick a lock?

No, it opened easily. She supposed when you had the power to
freeze men, there was no need to protect against them.

She stepped in, her pupils constricting as the light from
the bow windows hit her. She ran to them and peered out. Men were streaming
onto the field. She started counting and hit twenty before she realized she
needed to move.

Glancing around the room, she saw a bunk, desk, chests,
dining table, and maps framed on walls. The wood was some gorgeous tropical
confection, polished to a high sheen. The Gravenors were certainly talented
airship refitters. At the end of a short aisle created by the table and the
desk, she saw a pedestal, topped by a brass, silver, and iron spider. The limbs
were covered in blinking white lights and she realized what she was looking at.
This was the heart of the fence built around the airship.

She pushed toward the wall and saw she could walk around the
thing. The wiring had to be built into the pedestal. When she glanced at the
floor she noticed the wood flooring between the pedestal and the wall was a
different color than the rest. It had likely been pulled up and replaced.

She moved away and ripped open chests until she found a
spare BAE uniform tunic. The jacket wasn’t there, but this would have to do for
now. The airship jerked, nearly throwing her into the chest. Had Brecon cut all
the moorings? She ran back down the corridor and climbed back up the steps,
wishing she could wear a crewman’s uniform herself.

At first she could find him nowhere, then saw him just above
the captain’s cabin, leaning over the railing. A moment later, the airship slid
sideways again, but then a tree off in the distance moved. They were going up!

A roar came from the field as the Blockaders realized what
was happening. She raced to Brecon.

“Here’s a tunic,” she wheezed, holding it out to him. “It’s
all I could find. And I know how to disable the Brass Hands’ fence. The
mechanism is in the captain’s cabin.”

“What about Dr. Castle’s Man Immobilizer?”

She winced at the name. “I don’t know. Hopefully, the one
device does both things.”

“We’re going to die if I can’t get the men working. I can’t
fire the engines from the wheelhouse.”

She stared over the rail, saw ever tinier men pushing
cannons on wheels onto the field. When she pointed, Brecon shrugged.

“Mrs. Gravenor, for now the field is yours. I will steer as
best I can, but that’s all the control I have.”

“The cannons?”

“Take at least two men to fire.”

“Fine.” She gulped.

“But first, a kiss for luck.” He bent his head to hers and
gave her a quick peck, then deepened it into a tingling kiss. “I shall save the
better kisses for later.”

Her cheeks heated. “Truly?”

“I can think of no more pleasant activity.”

“Me either. It will have to wait,” she sighed, and lifting a
hand in farewell, she ran for the ladder.

“Wait!” he called.

She turned. He bent down and placed the heater on the floor,
then kicked it to her.

“To destroy the Man Management device.”

“Thank you.” She picked it up and felt the comforting heft
of metal. She hadn’t touched a heater since she was beaten for disassembling
her father’s unit a decade ago.

Back in the cabin, she rushed to the automaton spider and
stared at the flashing lights. She had to find the antenna. She placed the
heater on the table and reached instead for a screwdriver she’d seen in one of
the chests. Gingerly, she unscrewed the bolts holding on the back of the spider.
Inside lay a mess of wires and a cylinder she recognized as an antenna. But at
the opposite end of the belly was another cylinder of a peculiar silver metal
she’d never seen before. Could this be the Man Immobilizer? If so, it must use
the aetherial component somehow.

Under normal circumstances, she could spend weeks dissecting
and researching, but now, she had to stop the spider from working. Could she do
that without destroying it, so they could discover its secrets at some safer
time in the future?

She knelt down and searched for bolts in the pedestal,
breathing in the familiar smell of oil and metal. Outside, she heard the
percussion of the cannons, but they didn’t affect the airship so they had to be
out of range.

There, another panel. Quickly, she unscrewed the bolts and
lifted out the door. She found two thickly coated wires, nothing more. Clearly,
these were for the fence. With a sigh, she took the heater, adjusted the ray
strength, and pointed it at the wires, firing a short burst that cut through
both of them, leaving a small hole in the outer casing of the pedestal. She
stepped around the back and saw the ray had cut into the wall of the cabin, but
only part way. She’d judged well.

Cautiously, she crept to the open cabin door and peered out.
All was silent. She was right that nothing but the fence had been affected by
her actions. Back at the bow windows, she saw they had moved, not over the
water as Brecon had hoped, but over the city of Cardiff. To the west, she saw
men boarding more airships. They might have only minutes before the large
aircraft were in the air and operational.

With a sigh, she pointed the trigger at the silver antenna
and pulled. Nothing changed when the ray hit it. Not one dust mote stirred.

With a scream of frustration, she started rifling through
cabinets built into the walls. She lifted seat cushions, tore clothing and
books from chests, poked at the walls. At the bed, she pulled up the mattress
and looked in the storage compartment underneath. Nothing she recognized as useful
revealed itself. Then she realized there was a shelf built in, above where the
captain’s head would rest. And on that? A small automaton spider, just like the
other one, but with no pedestal attaching it to anything. She picked it up and
ran to the window.

Two airships were in the air now, close enough that she
could see cannon bays opening on the sides. With a sigh of frustrated
scientific inquiry, she turned the heater up to a higher level, set the small
spider on top of the captain’s bunk, and fired down onto it. As the rays carved
up the small arachnid, she heard rustling, then men’s voices. She left the
smoking thing and the destroyed bed, running for the corridor and the ladder
above, just ahead of doors opening. The ladder slowed her down, but when she
reached the deck, she screamed at the first man she saw, the winker.

“Fire the engines or we’re going to die!”

Brecon’s voice sounded above the noise. “You are now the
free crew of the Owler
Equinox
. Fire the engines, man the cannons. For
freedom!”

Philadelphia waved her hands at the crewmen as they poured
out of the hatches, shooing them toward the coal burners. None of the officers
were aboard. They weren’t enslaved, and these men weren’t used to being
self-governing. But they hadn’t always been slaves, and when one of the men caught
sight of the BAE warship
Defender
behind them, he began to call out
orders.

She turned, weaving her way through the men to reach the
wheelhouse, feeling the deck vibrate as the engines started up. Cannon shot
fired over the balloon, a warning they scarcely needed.

The BAE officers gave orders over their megaphones, both
airship captains shouting to be heard over the others, but she ignored them, a
smile on her face as she climbed.

Brecon took her hand and pulled her to his side, wrapping
one arm around her while his brass hand deftly controlled the wheel. On the
other side, another man called out coordinates and a third shouted into the
megaphones lined up, giving precise instructions to the engine crew.

Out the wheelhouse windows, she could see the gray-blue
waves of Cardiff Bay, steadily approaching.

“We’re going to make it,” she marveled, as one of the men
pushed the lever that increased the airship’s speed.

“Good lad, MacKenzie,” Brecon said. “Set course for Lundy Island.”

“What about the Red Kites? And One?”

Brecon grinned, and for a moment, Philadelphia clearly saw
the pirate in him. “I think they have other concerns today. They won’t trouble
us. As for One, without hostages, he’s not going to be able to steal an airship
from my family. I expect he’ll go back to the captain and spin a tale about
trying to recapture us.”

“They’ll never find out he helped us. You’re right.” She
leaned her head against his shoulder as another cannon shot arced harmlessly behind
them. The men aboard the other airships were doing their best not to hit the
Equinox
,
it seemed. Maybe they sensed the lucky crew of one BAE aircraft, at least, was
finally free.

As for her, she had found her home, and her love, and a life
she’d never dreamed of having. Soon, she might finally understand aether, a
life’s work for sure.

Brecon smiled again, in his element. “Does a honeymoon in
France suit you, Mrs. Gravenor?”

She nodded, too full of emotion to speak, just touched her
free hand to her lips and blew him a kiss. “Does that mean we’re going to have
a real wedding?”

“As soon as we can call the banns.”

She laughed, shaking her head at the absurdity. “I was just
testing you. We’re already married.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “I love you, Delphie. That was the
best imprisonment a man could ever ask for.”

“Or woman. I love you too.”

~
*~

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Heather Hiestand is the author of many novels, novellas and
short stories. She is an Amazon Romance Anthology Bestseller and an Amazon UK
Romance Short Stories Bestseller. She lives in Washington with her husband and
son. Find Heather Hiestand online:

Website:
http://www.heatherhiestand.com

Blog:
http://blog.heatherhiestand.com

Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/hahiestand

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Heather-HiestandAnh-Leod/24271017921?ref=ts

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MORE BY HEATHER HIESTAND

Anthologies:

“The Burro” in Murder Across the Map

“Victoriana” in Holiday in the Heart