The Aeronaut's Windlass (25 page)

“Sire,” Grimm said, bowing his head slightly. “This is my XO, Byron Creedy.”

Creedy mumbled something Grimm couldn’t understand, and shook the Spirearch’s hand with a kind of numb shock on his features.

“Well,” Albion said, “I know how tired you both must be, so sit, sit, and I’ll be as succinct as possible.” They sat, while Lord Albion rested a hip against the edge of his desk, looking down at them with calm assessment clear in his eyes. “I’m afraid you made a serious mistake today.”

“Sire?” Grimm said.

“You proved yourself extraordinarily capable, Captain,” Albion said. “I can hardly let something like that go unremarked.”

“I don’t understand, sir,” Grimm said, frowning.

“Captain, your clarity of thought in the face of unexpected disaster is a rare quality. It’s a poor reward for such heroism, but I’m afraid that I must insist upon continuing to use you for the good of my Spire.”

Grimm was quiet for a moment. He wanted to sink into a tub of hot water and soak away the violence and fear of hours of skirmishes with Auroran Marines. He wanted to sleep. Hadn’t his men given enough?

“Sire,” he said in a measured, quiet voice. “I have already offered such skills as I have in the service of Albion. The Spire made it quite clear to me that I was not needed.”

“The
Perilous
incident, yes,” Albion said. “I’m familiar with what happened. Or perhaps I should say, I am familiar with both the history of what happened and with what actually transpired. You didn’t have to accept your discharge quietly, Captain. But you did.”

“It was what was best for the Fleet, sire,” Grimm said.

“An arguable point, I think,” Lord Albion said. “But your sacrifice was without doubt a good thing for the Fleet, if not for you personally.”

“I didn’t join Fleet to serve myself, sire,” Grimm said.

“The best never do.” Albion gave Grimm a faint smile. “But your previous difficulties are irrelevant, Captain. The Spire Council is, as we speak, voting to declare a state of war with Spire Aurora. The Spire needs every capable commander it can get.”

“I hardly think the Fleet will welcome me back in any capacity, sire,” Grimm said in a voice that came out diamond-hard, though he hadn’t meant it to. “No one wants to work with a proven coward.”

“I do,” Albion said. “I’m not talking about returning you to the Fleet, Captain. I want you for myself.”

Grimm blinked. “Sire . . . what I did today was what any competent, professional commander would have done in my place. It does not qualify me for a position in your personal service.”

“Perhaps, Captain, judgments about what qualifies a given individual for the Spirearch’s service might best be made by the Spirearch,” Lord Albion suggested, his eyes sparkling with quiet humor.

Grimm shifted in his chair uncomfortably. “Sire . . . I’m no diplomat, so with your leave I’ll just say it, and beg your pardon ahead of time if this comes out sounding unpleasant or disrespectful.”

Creedy’s eyes widened slightly, but he stayed as silent as a stone.

Albion arched a brow. “Oh, by all means, Captain, speak.”

“I don’t like it here. Spending more than a few weeks in this dreary old mausoleum makes me feel as if I can’t breathe. I don’t understand how any of you can stand it day in and day out. I’m an aeronaut, sire, living on a deck since I ever could remember. I belong in the sky. I belong on my ship. It’s the only place that feels . . . right. Thank you for your offer, but I don’t want another job.”

“I understand,” Lord Albion said. “But you proceed from a false assumption. I don’t want your service as an adviser on my staff, Captain.” He folded his arms and narrowed his eyes slightly. “I want an airship helmed by a captain I can trust.”

Grimm and Creedy traded a surprised look. “Sire?”

“I have need of a ship to serve as transport and support for a mission for my Guard,” Albion said. “I’ve decided that I want
Predator
, along with her captain and crew, to fill that position.”

“What if they don’t want to do it?” Grimm asked.

Creedy made a choking sound.

“I can be a very persuasive person,” the Spirearch said.

“You have no legal authority to do that,” Grimm said.

“You’re right. But I mean to see it done all the same.”

Perhaps it was the fatigue, but Grimm found himself growing genuinely angry. “Sire,” he said stiffly, “
Predator
is not for sale.
I
am not for sale.”

That brought a wolfish flash of a smile from Lord Albion. He pointed a forefinger at Grimm and leaned forward slightly. “
Exactly
, Captain. Exactly. You’ve served Albion as a privateer for eighteen months now. This would be no different.”

“That’s . . . very generous, sire,” Grimm said cautiously. “Perhaps, though, you have not been made aware of
Predator
’s state of repair. She’s in need of refitting. It may be some time before she’s skyworthy.”
Decades, perhaps
,
Grimm thought. “She’s running on nothing but her trim crystals.”

“I’m not an aeronaut, Captain,” the Spirearch said apologetically, “or an aeronautical engineer. What does that mean, precisely?”

“She can only go up and down,” Creedy said in a helpful tone. “And she has to do it very slowly.”

“Ah,” Albion said, brightening. “As it happens, that is precisely what I need your ship to do.”

Grimm narrowed his eyes. “Meaning what, exactly?”

“I’m sending a team to Landing,” the Spirearch replied. “It needs to be done quickly—before dawn, if possible. I’m sure that your ship is adequate to—”

Grimm rose, his heart pounding harder and louder as his anger grew. “Sire,” he all but snapped. “With all due respect, there is ample transport to Landing. Send them down in a barge or a windlass.”

Lord Albion’s head drew back slightly, his eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Captain, I am not sure why the idea upsets you so.”

“My ship isn’t a barge. And she’s bloody well no windlass,” Grimm snarled. “And while I’m alive she never will be. Not for the Fleet, not for the bloody Spire Council, and not for you, sire. Thank you for the offer, but I cannot help you. If you will excuse me, please. I must see to the needs of my wounded and dead. Creedy.”

Grimm turned to leave and Creedy lurched up out of his chair to follow, his face pale.

Albion sighed audibly. Just as Grimm reached for the door, he said, “That’s a shame, Captain. I wish we could have worked something out. Do you perhaps know someone in the market for new lift and trim crystals for a ship
Predator
’s size? It seems I’ll have some spares on my hands.”

Grimm froze with his hand on the doorknob. He tilted his head and then turned slowly, inexorably back toward the Spirearch.

Albion gave him a feline smile. “Do this work for me, and you’ll be making the trip down to Landing with top-of-the-line replacements from the Lancaster Vattery. I’m told your engineer can have them installed and calibrated within a week.”

“You . . . would do that?” Grimm breathed. “In exchange for
what
?”

“This job,” Albion said. “One job. Take my team to Landing. Provide whatever support you can for them while they are there. Bring them back here when they’re done.”

“One job,” Grimm said.

“Frankly, Captain, my hope is that you will see the advantages of my offer and will be inclined to work with me on an ongoing basis. But if you want nothing to do with me after this, so be it. Keep the crystals and go your way.”

“If I did, you’d be throwing away a fortune.”

Lord Albion shrugged. “I prefer to think of it as an investment in the future, Captain Grimm. What say you?”

Grimm exhaled through his nose. The anger was still burning, but smoldering alongside it was . . .

Hope.

Unattainably valuable replacements for
Predator
’s damaged crystals, waiting to be installed. His ship rising above the mists again, to sail in the blinding light of the sun. His crew’s livelihood secured. And yet
Predator
would be bound to no one but her captain.

Freedom.

Grimm realized with a sudden shock of purely mental impact that nothing on earth could convince him to turn down such a deal.

“I say . . .” Grimm began, slowly. Then he sighed. “I say that you are a manipulative son of a bitch, sire.”

“Each and every day of the week,” Lord Albion replied, nodding. He met Grimm’s eyes. “And I don’t turn my back on
my
people, Captain.”

He hadn’t said,
The way that Fleet does
,
but it hung unspoken in the silence after his words.

Albion lifted his hands, palms out, as if signaling the end of a bout, and regarded Grimm with a frank gaze. “It’s as simple as this: I need you, Captain. The Spire needs you.”

Grimm clenched his right hand into a fist for a moment, and then relaxed. “Mister Creedy.”

“Captain?”

“Return to
Predator
. Inform Engineer Journeyman that he has work to do. Make ready to sail to Landing.”

Chapter 19

Spire Albion, Habble Landing

M
ajor Renaldo Espira, Auroran Marine, walked calmly through the cramped, crowded streets of Habble Landing dressed in local clothing, carrying a crate marked with the logo of one of Landing’s water farms. Though there was much excitement and the buzz of talk and rumor in the habble, evidently the authorities of Habble Landing had not yet realized the extent of his battalion’s incursion into Spire Albion, and no checkpoints or patrols had yet been established. He could still move about in relative freedom.

The initial assault had come off with as much success as any combat mission could reasonably expect. He had yet to hear from the assault teams striking Habble Morning, but his Marines’ months of training in the precision maneuver of parasails had paid off handsomely. Already better than four hundred of the five hundred men under his command had made contact and begun to concentrate, and there had been reports of fewer than twenty men who had failed to target one of the Spire’s many ventilation ports properly.

It looked as though, barring bad luck, he would have more than enough men to attain his objectives, and if he was able to see the most daring raid in the history of any Spire to completion, his fortunes in Spire Aurora would be secured for life.

Espira wove his way through the hectic streets of Landing. Most habbles in every Spire had modified the original spaces as designed by the Builders, adding in fortifications, additional housing, more vatteries, whatever was needed—but the inhabitants of Landing had done so to an extent that was little better than madness. They had actually divided their habble’s vertical space in half, in effect creating two duplicate levels of the same habble, one stacked atop the other. It meant that the normally spacious ceilings of a basic habble had been turned into close, looming things, and they made Espira feel as if the ceiling were slowly coming down on top of him.

If that madness was not enough, they had then filled both of those spaces to overflowing with more masonry and wooden construction than Espira had ever seen. The streets had turned from broad walkways into cramped, narrow affairs, where no more than three men could have walked beside one another. Houses and businesses were pressed together wall-to-wall, and the doorways were by necessity narrow ones. One literally could not walk twenty steps on the streets of Landing without brushing body-to-body with a fellow pedestrian.

This wasn’t a habble. It was a warren for rats.

And yet . . . there were expensive wooden doors on nearly every home. In places, entire homes had been constructed of wood—and they did not look particularly lavish, either, being built with a sturdy, bland functionality that suggested the residences of craftsmen and tradesmen. Yet the amount of wood that went into building a single such residence would have sold for enough money to keep a man in food and drink for a lifetime.

Rats, indeed. Greedy, gnawing, thieving
rats
.

Let them flaunt their wealth. Things would change.

He stalked through the narrow streets and wound his way down an alley between two buildings to an old, rotting wooden door. He paused to knock at it, three measured strokes followed by two quick ones, and it opened at once.