A Lady of Integrity

by Shelley Adina

  “Seven, vanes full vertical. Nine, full lift!”

  The deck pressed against Lizzie’s boot soles as the ship gained altitude so fast that her ears popped, too. And then Tigg spun the wheel and brought Athena into full retreat northward, heading for the city at twice the speed with which she had approached.

  “That was close,” he said at last, clearly forcing himself to speak casually. But Lizzie wasn’t one bit fooled.

  “It’s a good thing we were expecting trouble,” she said. “One bullet through the fuselage might not hurt us, but one straight into the engine would.”

  “Did you see anything of that wreck? Could you identify it?” Tigg asked.

  In her mind’s eye, she saw it again, and now that they were safely out of range, her brain finally acknowledged what her sick stomach had known for long moments already. “It was the Lass,” she said. “That poor old gondola was nearly all gone, but Four’s chest and the Lady’s power cell were both burning merrily. It looked dreadful—sad and horrible and—” She choked, unable to go on.

  Claude slid an arm around her waist and squeezed. “She’ll be all right, old girl. We know our Maggie has resources. She and Alice will turn up, you’ll see.”

  But there had been no sign of two female figures anywhere on that deserted graveyard of a field. There had been no sign of life at all save for the men shooting at them and a lone boatman on the narrowing beach, standing as though waiting for someone.

  Maggie, her heart cried. What happened? Where are you?

  But her only answer was the singing of the wind in the ropes as they floated once again over the city.

  She choked back tears and squeezed Claude in thanks, then did her best to sound like a grown-up instead of a little girl they had to soothe and protect. “Maggie and Alice unaccounted for … the Lady and Mr. Malvern still underwater … what are our options, then? I don’t much relish going back to the airfield and waiting when it’s clear we’re needed.”

  “We simply have to figure out who needs us the most, and where they are,” Tigg agreed. “You don’t suppose that undersea dirigible has run back out to sea, do you, and taken the Lady and the others with it?”

  “It’s going to eventually,” Claude pointed out. “Pity those hummingbirds of yours don’t operate underwater.”

  “There’s no reason they couldn’t, if they—”

  “Tigg! Claude!” Lizzie, standing at the forward viewing port, beckoned rapidly with one hand. “Come look. What on earth is that?”

  “Not a burning airship, I hope,” Tigg muttered as he and Claude joined her. “Nine, decrease speed by half and hold our course.”

  The three of them gazed down as Athena floated lazily past a church spire and over the Giudecca Canal, the wide one close to where they had been staying. A little tourist balloon scudded out of their way, its cheerful round fuselage narrowly missing a bump by Athena’s shabby but majestic nose.

  Down in the canal, something was disturbing the water—not quite a whirlpool, but not quite a waterspout, either.

  “That dirigible we were just speaking of,” Claude murmured. “It wouldn’t be surfacing there, would it?”

  “No—not a dirigible—my goodness! Look!”

  Out of the thrashing, frothing water came a long tentacle, fast as a whip, curling and plunging and sending up a plume ten feet high.

  “Kraken!” Tigg exclaimed. “A ruddy great kraken—and those are men, trying to escape!”

  Then, out of the maelstrom shot a figure—straight up—up—

  “It’s Mr. Malvern!” Lizzie shrieked. “Quick! We must—”

  “No, it isn’t.” Tigg grabbed her. “That bloke’s got prison togs on. But that’s the breathing globe Mr. Malvern was wearing—and the rocket rucksack.”

  “What’s it doing on a convict? Where’s Mr. Malvern and the Lady?”

  “Never mind—get back to the basket and we’ll grab him,” Tigg ordered. “I want some answers.”

  But before they could move, or even tell Athena to drop her altitude, the rocket rucksack seemed to reach the apex of its mad vertical flight. The convict flailed in the air, clearly trying to stay aloft, but alas, the rucksack had done all it could. As his fall back to the water began, a lazy, curling tentacle reached up, wrapped itself around the man’s leg, and yanked him out of the sky. Water erupted as he fought the creature—tentacles writhed—and with a splash that wet the fronts of the nearest houses, the creature sank into the canal, its prey secure.

  Lizzie whirled, staggered into the galley, and was violently sick into the washing-up basin.

  “Nine, circle this spot on a tight radius. Claude, keep an eye out for Ministry men.” Tigg came in, wet a cloth, and tenderly wiped Lizzie’s face. “All right, Lizzie-love? I’m so sorry you had to see that.”

  She would not be a mewling baby. She would not force Tigg to look after her when she was perfectly capable of cleaning up her own messes. “Yes,” she said, doing her best to straighten her spine. “That poor man. We don’t know what he’s done, but no one deserves to come to his end like that.” Swiftly, she rinsed out the basin and her mouth, and took Tigg’s hand. “But I’ve just thought of something.”

  At the viewing port, she pointed to where the kraken had gone under, the water still roiling and waves crashing over the fondamente and into people’s little gardens. “That man had to have stolen Mr. Malvern’s rig. He also had to have been in a diving bell. So one minus one equals—”

  “Mr. Malvern and the Lady in a diving bell, somewhere under there,” Tigg said, his eyes aglow with admiration.

  “Which helps us how, exactly?” Claude wanted to know. “Or helps them, I suppose I should say?”

  “We have to let them know we’re here,” Lizzie said urgently. “If the Lady is alone—or if by some miracle Jake and Captain Hollys are with her—she’ll be able to do something if only she knows she has help.”

  “Can you shoot the kraken if she does a flyer?” Claude asked with interest.

  “I have the lightning rifle,” Tigg reminded him. “I can shoot anything that would harm a hair on her head, kraken and Ministry men included.”

  “Oh, I say, well said,” Claude said with admiration. “So then how will you tell her you’re up here?”

  Tigg and Lizzie looked at each other.

  “Bombs,” they both said at once.

  24

  Alice’s lungs inflated after what seemed like an age of agony, and, flat on her back, she dragged in breath after breath of blessed air. If this was how the crushing burden of no oxygen felt after only a few moments, how must those poor devils in the diving bells feel? How could you bear it—the cramped space, never being dry, the knowledge that your air came at the whim of your captors, with fathoms of water between yourself and freedom?

  She wished she’d never come here—never brought poor Jake—never let herself be tempted by easy flying and good pay. She had been stupid to fly a cargo into the Levant, innocently believing that the Famiglia Rosa ran their business the way the powers in other countries did. Nothing in the Duchy was the same as in other countries.

  Especially not the dispensation of justice.

  “Alice, we must move,” Maggie said urgently, rolling to her knees. “They may have seen us fall.”

  Well, since there was nothing else to do now, she might as well humor the girl. She rolled over and, on hands and knees, crawled after Maggie toward the distant goal of the dorsal vane in the stern. But it didn’t matter. “We’re not going to get away, you know,” she called to her. “They have to know we abandoned ship.”

  “Perhaps,” Maggie said over the bag still on her shoulder. “But they mayn’t know precisely where. We can hide until dark.”

  “And then what?” she asked curiously, though really, there was only one answer: They would have to surrender.

  “I don’t know,” Maggie said. “Honestly, Alice, buck up. We’re alive, and that’s more than we can say for some we’ve seen on this voyage.”<
br />
  “Lot of good that will do us,” Alice told her, stung. “We’re alone on an island in the middle of the sea with a team of marksmen who saw us go down. You tell me how long it will take them to find us.”

  “About half as long as it will if you don’t stop moaning and put that famous brain to work!” Maggie snapped. “Here is the dorsal hatch. Get yourself down there and be quiet if you have nothing useful to say.”

  Alice’s temper, buried in the ash of grief and loss and hopelessness, stirred with a spark of annoyance. “You sound just like Claire.”

  “I am delighted you think so. Move.”

  Grumbling, Alice scrambled down the ladder to the coaxial catwalk inside the fuselage, and before she could even release the last rung, one of the bags landed on her head. “Ow! Watch it!”

  “Carry your own,” came the voice from above as Maggie closed the hatch and descended swiftly.

  The nerve of the little minx. Alice pressed her lips together and jogged forward away from her, her burst of temper—and maybe the smack of the bag landing on it—clearing her head a little.

  “This is a military vessel,” she said, noting the numbers stenciled every so often on the supporting ironworks. She took a good look at one as they passed. “Hey.”

  It couldn’t be. What a horrible thought if it were. But clearly it was.

  “What?” Maggie passed her and reached for the forward hatch, and they stepped directly into the deserted crew’s quarters. It was cold in here, and dusty, with cabin after cabin neat as a pin despite their state of neglect.

  “Look.” In the small canteen, Alice pointed to a framed portrait over the door. “The Kaiser. This is a Prussian military vessel. And you know what else?”

  Maggie shook her head, and Alice felt a moment of triumph that she knew something Miss Bossy Britches didn’t. “The numbers we’ve been seeing? Those tell me it was made by the Zeppelin Airship Works five years ago, and in fact this is a B2 long-distance airship. The first transoceanic model the count ever made.”

  “We saw one of these in Santa Fe,” Maggie said immediately. “The Texas Rangers were testing it, weren’t they, because it was so fast. And then it shot at us.”

  “The question is, have they stripped it and disabled it?” Alice thought fast. “Maggie, run back astern, to the bombing bay. See if there’s anything left in there, and release both lines while you’re at it. I’m going to try to fire her up.”

  Instead of jumping to it, Maggie planted her feet and stared at her in challenge. “Alice Chalmers, we’ve been shot out of the sky once already this morning. Are you really going to quit whining and try again?”

  “Gloating is a very unattractive quality in a young lady,” Alice retorted, nettled. “The Ministry men are probably on their way over here to investigate while we stand here blabbing. If they’re not in that tower with a clear shot, and if this old girl has anything left in her, then, yes, we have a smidge of a chance to get away. Now, go!”

  So much dust. So little maintenance. But if Alice knew her onions, the B2 ship came with two beautiful Daimler 954C engines. She’d read all about them, back at home in Resolution, when they’d first come out, never dreaming that she’d actually get the chance to see one, never mind fly a ship powered by one.

  The thought of those engines blew away the last of the ash, and she bade farewell in her mind to the faithful Lass. Maybe the old girl had had a trick or two left in her as she died—and dumping them on the B2’s fuselage had been her way of giving her captain a parting gift. Having never been the recipient of a dying legacy before, Alice was not about to waste this one.

  She took in the B2’s flight console in one sweep. It was a lot more complicated than that of the Lass—and more organized, too, since it hadn’t been pieced together with parts from wrecked ships. Vanes—thrust—ignition—all here, coming easily to hand under a curved front viewing port so that one man could fly the entire vessel while the others were engaged in attack and defense.

  Outside, Maggie swarmed up the mooring mast and released the rope. Then she vanished below the gondola.

  “Bless you, Count von Zeppelin,” Alice murmured, her hands busy on levers and switches. There was no time to do a pre-flight check, so she had no idea if there was even oil or water in the chambers. If there wasn’t, they might float for a little before they were shot down. But that was better than sitting here like a stone and simply waiting to be discovered.

  The ready lamps came on. That was good. The needles tilted to the right. So there was fuel, and water pressure. A miracle. Please—please—

  Her hand hesitated over the ignition lever, and then she set her teeth and drew it down.

  Under her feet, the great Daimler engines coughed, still waiting for the water in their boilers to heat. Part of the reason for the B2’s speed was its sleek fuselage, but the other part was the superheated coils inside the boilers that brought the water to steam pitch faster than any engine had done before. The floor vibrated, shaking Alice to the knees. You need a tune-up, don’t you, darling? Well, if you get us out of here, that will be the first thing I do to say thank you.

  The needle in the last gauge slammed over to the right, and Alice rammed the vanes full vertical. Through the viewing port she saw half a dozen figures in the distance, rapidly closing in on the Lass’s position.

  “Maggie,” she said into the speaking horn above the console. “Where are you? Are we cast off?”

  The speaking horn clacked, as though someone had dropped something into it. “All clear!”

  “Do we have bombs?”

  “No! Just the ones we brought with us.”

  “Good enough, then. Up ship!”

  The engines coughed again, and then caught, and the ship rose gracefully into the sky.

  The figures below took aim, but Alice set the vanes full horizontal and pushed the engine controls into forward position. They began to make way, like a bird that has been injured and isn’t sure if the air currents will hold it up.

  “Come on girl,” Alice urged. “You can do it.”

  But something was wrong. The B2 should have been halfway to Venice by now, but she was inching through the sky as though still tied down, her decks shaking in earnest under the strain.

  Should have taken ten seconds for a pre-flight check. Alice snatched up a length of rope and tied the manual helm easterly, then dropped like a monkey down into the engine compartment.

  “What’s the matter, ladies?” she crooned to the hulking Daimlers, both shuddering with the effort of moving again. “Something holding you back?”

  She levered herself into the gearbox between the two engines and saw the problem immediately. Like a stove whose flue has been closed, oxygen was not getting in and already the heat levels were too high for comfort. She tore off her shirt to cover her hands, and grabbed the long lever that opened up the air intake to full.

  Immediately the vibrating stopped and the sound of the engines changed to an altogether different hum—the hum of a dedicated, well-designed machine getting down to business. Something pinged and ricocheted off the metal below her feet, and Alice scrambled back up into the navigation gondola, tugging her shirt on as she went.

  “Maggie?”

  “I got one!” came a shriek. “Two!”

  But there was no longer any need for their gaseous capsaicin bombs, for in the time it had taken Alice to climb out of the engine room, the lovely sleek ship had left the Lido behind and was already out over open water.

  “You beautiful thing,” Alice told it, her heart swelling with love and gratitude. “You’ve saved us.”

  “And not a moment too soon,” Maggie said, coming in with her bag, her face alight with the hungry, predatory expression of a woman whose aim has been true. “Is she truly able to fly?”

  “Like a bird.” Alice patted the wheel. “She had a little trouble getting off the ground—someone had closed the oxygen vents to keep the rats out who knows how many years ago, and she couldn’t bre
athe. But listen to her now.”

  “Swans are like that,” Maggie said.

  “What, as silent as our beautiful engines?”

  “Well, that—but they have a hard time getting off the ground. Once they’re in the air, though, it’s like watching a poem to see them fly.”

  “And this has what to do with anything?” Poor girl, the shock of evading death by a hair was finally catching up with her.

  “A ship has to have a name—even a stolen one,” Maggie informed her. “We should call her Swan.”

  “Swan,” Alice repeated thoughtfully. “Her fuselage is blue, and not white, and she’s spent more time surrounded by water than any ship should, but you’re right about that takeoff.” She looked up into the cabling. “What do you say, girl? Would you like to be called Swan instead of ZAW-eighty-nine-dash-three?”

  The ship purred through the air, as sleek and comfortable in the sky as though she had never left it.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Alice said, and smiled at Maggie. “Swan it is.” She leaned toward the starboard viewing port. “Now, chances are they’ve already sent a pigeon to the commercial field, so if we try to land, we’ll have a welcoming committee armed with rifles and an arrest warrant. But I need to check her water pressure, and we need to find out what’s happening with the others. Any suggestions?”

  Maggie peered down as well. “There are a lot of little islands in this lagoon,” she said. “We could land on one just long enough to be sure we aren’t going to fall out of the sky. I already checked the communications cage—there isn’t a single pigeon there. That was probably the first thing they confiscated so that no one could send for help.”

  Alice nodded. “Inconvenient, but first things first. Let’s set down on that little island there, with the tree. At least the acqua alta hasn’t swallowed it up yet. And I think the two of us could do with some of that lunch, don’t you?”

  25

  Claire and Andrew hung from the harness inside the diving bell, as limp as a pair of wet sheets on a line.