I wrote this story in direct response to a conversation at PDX GearCon in Portland, Oregon the summer of 2011. What is our relationship to technology? Is it a tool making our lives easier? Or have we become so dependant upon our gadgets that they rule us and modify our behavior? Think about it next time you jump to check your smart phone or how lost you feel when it goes through the laundry and no longer works.
The White Swan
Irene Radford
Above the seas around Indonesia: 1842
“Captain, black envelope, Ho!” Jimmy Seaforth reported, maximum telescopic lenses atop his goggles; five layers of glass piled on top of each other from smallest to largest. Reverse the order and he could see tiny objects close up as if they were as large as his fist.
“Distance?” I barked back, flipping four layers of lenses over my goggles. Even with correction in the goggles themselves I couldn’t see as far or accurately as my young communications officer. But I loved the new technology, and took time to learn the intricacies of each new innovation so that I could work with it.
“One hundred miles, east by northeast, headed this way.” Jimmy’s Australian accent clipped and drawled in odd places, forcing me to listen more closely to him. My own French Swiss lilt had faded over the years since running away from the farm to go a-pirating. A profession I was much better suited to than being wife and mother to farmers. The only thing I’d kept from my old life was my name, Trudé Romanz. That and a sporadic line of communication to my sister, a spymistress in London who billed herself as the bastard daughter of a Gypsy King with the sight.
No such pretense for me. I was who I was, a pirate captain with a need for rebellion against authority. My tools enhanced my ability to keep any one company or government from controlling everything. Controlling me.
I picked out a dust mote in the sky beyond the envelope of my own dirigible, the White Swan.
“We got here ahead of them,” I sighed with relief, then grabbed the speaking tube to the engine room and whistled a warning into it. “Take her up to seven thousand feet, Mr. Arbuthnot.”
Dead silence filled the bridge until Mr. Forbes the navigator coughed delicately. Embarrassed heat drove further thoughts from my head. “Gods, I miss you Buthy,” I whispered, not really caring who heard me.
We’d lost the grumpy old man who kept our boilers and engines working at peak efficiency and near silently in a clash with a Hudson’s Bay Cargo battalion a month ago. First Officer Reginald Singe had gone in the same action. I hadn’t the heart to officially replace either.
“Whoever is running things down there, you heard me, take her up to seven thousand feet. I want that slaver to see our white belly and not know they are looking at anything but sky!” I snapped at the entire crew. I knew they all listened even if they had other duties. The next tool I bought would do something to make communications less public aboard my ship. If I wanted to speak to the boiler room, I wanted to speak to the boiler room, not the weapons bay or the mess hall.
“Increase speed to thirty knots. We want to meet them over open water, not close to land.” Close in, the men who bought slaves from the bastards ahead of us and sold those slaves to Chinese warlords could launch their own ships in defense of their human cargo.
“Priming steam cannons, Captain,” Forbes said briskly. Thinking ahead of me. Again. He had a few things to learn about protocol and obedience as well as prudence and diplomacy. I needed him to earn his promotion to first officer. He deserved it. Most of the time.
In this case, having the cannons ready before we encountered the slave ship was wise.
“Hold off, Mr. Forbes. Arm them too soon and we lose steam while waiting.” In my mind I traced the passage of hoses and gears, gauges and dials. I knew how long each cannon could hold enough pressure to discharge a silent salvo.
“Ninety miles, Captain,” Jimmy spoke. I knew he was as anxious to take down that filthy ship as any of us aboard. His parents and two sisters were among the cargo. Prisoners. “Coming fast and trailing black smoke. She’s burning everything she has to reach port in Shanghai ahead of the authorities.” His voice wavered a tiny bit.
“They may outrun the Hudson’s Bay Corvettes. They won’t outrun us. Bring us in over top of them, Mr. Forbes. We’ll take a bit out of their ballonets with the Gonne and force them down.”
He looked up at me with hope in his eyes. I said, “Yes, you’ll get your chance to fly a dragon.” A grin split his face. “I’ll take the lead aeroplane,” I told him. “Mr. Seaforth, you can take the other flank.”
“If you don’t mind, Captain, I’d rather stay aboard and fire the cannon that sinks those stinking slavers. Not an honest pirate among them.”
Pirates and thieves we might be. But we also held to a loose code of honor: no murder of hostages, no rape of women or boys—though I’d been known to take a semi-reluctant man to my cabin upon occasion—always leave the crew a life raft and supplies. Independent traders had nothing to fear from us. Too much trouble for too poor a cargo. The HBC though dreaded spotting the White Swan in the skies above them. Especially if they carried otter pelts. I’d made five fortunes selling those to Chinese warlords. The bales of luxury furs in my cargo hold now were in reserve, in case we had to ransom the slaves in the hold of that black monster, now only eighty miles away.
I didn’t intend to let that ship get close enough to any port to sell those slaves.
“Seventy-five miles, Captain,” Jimmy said. A grim determination firmed his chin and made him look taller than his skinny five feet seven inches. I topped him by half a head and a good fifty pounds.
No one, not even the husband I’d kicked off the ship last year, considered me a weak female who needed protecting or to be told what to do.
“Prep the dragons!” I looked around the bridge as men scrambled to do my bidding. “Lieutenant Margaret,” I didn’t know her last name, didn’t care. She was a damn good pilot. I’d make her first officer in a heartbeat but she’d turned me down. This job was only temporary for her. When she’d earned the price of a farm in the Oregon Country, she planned to leave our crew and my ship.
“Yes, Captain,” Margaret snapped a salute. Tall and whipcord lean, she had a scar from her right temple to the center of her mouth that pulled her face into a perpetual grimace. The missing tip of her nose completed the off-center gruesome mask. We never knew what she was thinking, or where she got those scars. From her fierceness approaching this battle, I guessed she’d escaped a similar slave ship.
“You take the dragon on my left flank. Forbes you will be on my right.”
“The Gonne, Captain?” Jimmy reminded me.
“You, Mr. Seaforth will have the honor of taking that ship down.” I yanked a purple crystal from its lanyard around my neck. It glinted prettily in the bright light of the South Seas. A lovely bauble from India that belied its more deadly qualities.
Forbes gasped a little. He’d heard of the wondrous powers of pure Yuenite, but he’d never seen it. Mostly I used the less powerful blue Kenjite crystal in the Kinetic Galvatron—affectionately known simply as The Gonne.
“Well, stop staring and unrack her, Mr. Seaforth,” I commanded. His jaw closed with an audible snap.
Mutely he strode to the brass-framed glass case to port of the forward view ports. He paused before the magnificent weapon mounted on a series of clips that held it in place through bad weather and battle. Pristine polished brass and blued steel proclaimed its value in both price and the care we took of this rare weapon.
“It won’t bite you as long as you point it at the enemy and not yourself.”
“Of course, Captain.” He swallowed deeply and opened the glass. The Gonne practically jumped into his hands the moment he release the clips.
I don’t believe tools and machines have souls or intelligence, but sometimes . . . sometimes I have to wonder if the care we put into crafting, maintaining, and understanding them gives them something more. Call it a personality. Every machine has i
ts quirks and preferences. The Gonne more than the crankiest boiler.
Jimmy went through the powering up routine carefully, following each step precisely to hook it to a steam hose, check all the dials, vials, and gauges, and shoot a small stream of hot compressed air out the muzzle, then a second stream to clear air pockets out of the system. My entire bridge crew and a few select others knew the procedure and drilled often. I let them practice with the Kejite crystals, learning some the Gonne’s quirks, how she pulled to right, how she burped with the second dose of steam. But only I controlled the Yuenite crystal.
I slapped the purple gem as big as a quail’s egg into his palm. Gingerly he fixed it into the brackets atop the barrel and pulled the switch that converted steam to light that would pass through the crystal. Almost reverently he propped it onto a tripod by the forward porthole. Margaret cranked open the glass window for him.
Then I left with my two fellow pilots.
“Say your prayers, slaver,” I muttered. “This is the last sunset you’ll see.”
In the weapons bay, I checked and double checked my dragon. The little aeroplane only held enough steam for short range and brief flights. What we lacked in time and power we made up for in maneuverability. Buthy had been working on a method of self-propulsion for these valuable weapons (two of those five fortunes in otter pelts had purchased them). No one else aboard understood his notes and half-complete models. For now we had to make the best of their limitations.
I counted on the slaver not having any dragons of his own.
Slavers could make a lot of money in their disgusting trade. Still, few of them invested in perpetuating their “careers.” First Officer Reginald Singe had direct communications with the dragon factory in Madras. Until his death severed that connection, I had not heard of any other captain in the region commissioning dragons. They all went to my greatest enemy, the Hudson’s Bay Company.
But that was six months ago, before this black-sailed, black-hulled slaver started raiding farms in Australia to feed the ever hungry market for human laborers and front-line soldiers.
Slave owners wore out their property. Cheaper to replace a slave than invest time, money, and understanding in tools and machines that could perform most of the same jobs cheaper and longer.
Forbes gave me a thumbs up in the bay to my right. The elegant and curving nose of his aero edged closer to the exit hatch. He understood the need to fly inherent in the machine and gave it just enough steam to keep it from leaping out too soon. Margaret on my left also gave me the signal, keeping firm control of her dragon.
We were ready. I waved my hand at the Seabees. Three men jumped to lean heavily on the lever that propped open the wooden portal a quarter the length of my ship.
I had a clear view of the black envelope five hundred feet below and half a mile west of us. Forbes held his hand over the thruster, as eager and anxious to move forward as I. We had to wait.
“Now, Mr. Seaforth,” I whispered, willing him to fire.
Twenty heart beats later a streak of deadly purple light traced a line across the top of the black fabric, just to the starboard of center, avoiding the solid strut along the ridgeline. A breathless moment later the envelope sagged from loss of invisible air contained in a full row of ballonets.
She had enough air left to stay aloft, but not as high. The dirigible dropped a thousand feet. I imagined I could hear the screams of the human cargo at the sudden loss of elevation.
“Now!” I screamed as I signaled the launch of the dragons.
My stomach clenched as my little aero dropped free of the White Swan. I counted to ten and opened the retractable wings. Another drop until they caught air and stabilized.
We swooped and spun, maneuvering to the far side of the ship and the most vulnerable part of the hull nearest the boilers. We had to take out the engines and force the ship down.
The slaver had painted a red dragon’s head on the bow. The eyes gleamed white. Gun ports. A flash and roar. Cannonballs powered by gunpowder sped toward us, faster than sight. The flash had betrayed them. All three of us pushed our aeros out of the way.
As I swept past the bow toward mid-ship the name of the vessel painted in red lettering that seemed to drip blood registered in my mind. Black Hawke.
I faltered in dread.
A cannon ball whizzed past my tail.
Margaret took out the cannon from the port eye with her steam musket. A missile shot straight up the barrel exploded on contact with the powder pan.
Ten square yards of hull disappeared.
I recovered and signaled with hands and flashing lights to change targets.
The captain of the Black Hawke would put his human cargo between the hull and the boilers. We dared not shoot the boat itself. We had to target the upper decks and the envelope.
If I were one of those captives I’d prefer death to slavery—especially if a Chinese Mandarin or warlord owned me. What remained of the short life of a slave was dreadful and painful. The reason the markets were always hungry for new slaves was that none of them lived more than five years. None of them. Even the children. Young boys as well as girls were sent to brothels. Anyone between the ages of five—FIVE!—and fifteen were highly prized by their new owners.
I shifted my target to the bridge on the bow above the cannons.
One, two, three shots from our steam cannons. Forbes and Margaret knew the Black Hawke’s captain almost as well as I.
Forbes and I each had one shot left before we needed to refuel. I used mine on the strut connecting the boat to the envelope. Clean shot, through and through the strut. My little dragon responded to my touch like a teammate. I don’t know many who could make that shot. I trusted my eyes, my hatred of the captain, and my experience to shoot straight and accurate. The strut cracked and splintered. The weight of the hull weakened it further.
The bow separated from the envelope, leaving five remaining struts in place, all straining with the increased load.
Dirigibles are tricky things. They depend upon finely tuned balance as well as steam and hot air to stay aloft.
With the sagging bow below and the loosened envelope above, the black ship drifted downward in an uncontrolled spiral.
Then miracle of miracles, Forbes took out both aft cannons with a single shot. Jimmy must have recharged the Gonne for a second purple-rayed sweep along the side of the envelope.
I nudged my dragon back into the White Swan on its last gasp of steam. Inside the weapons bay, Markos, a swarthy Greek from the engineering crew with an engaging grin and a leering eye, passed conventional weapons to every crewman aboard.
Jimmy still cradled the Gonne. He relinquished her to me with a sigh. “She’s too much for me to handle more than once. The power… it’s too awesome.” He shook his head and patted the butt. “Got a full head of steam, Captain. Use her well.”
I nodded, understanding his desire to relinquish responsibility for such a weapon. And authority over the ship and crew. He was a fine communication’s officer and lookout, but not first officer or captain material.
“Captain,” Markos called me with that blinding grin creasing his face. “Heard tell that the Hawke bought one of those new IDjinn valve regulators out of Persia. If you can salvage it, our Gertie would be forever grateful.”
“Gertie?”
“Boiler number two. Number one is Mabel,” Forbes whispered into my ear.
“We’ll look,” I called across the bay. Then sotto voce I said to Forbes with my body half-turned away from the others. “When we get back, remind me to promote Markos to chief engineer.”
“Why not do it now?”
“If I don’t make it back, your new captain may have other ideas.”
Forbes looked at me strangely.
“This is the Hawke we’re dealing with.”
“You kicked his butt off the White Swan once, all by yourself. This time you have the whole crew at your back.”
“He has his entire crew as well.”
Forbes cocked an eyebrow at me and gathered the crew, dividing them into two squads. Margaret headed up a team of twelve to liberate the prisoners and get them back aboard the White Swan safely. Forbes and I led fifteen a piece to secure the decks before accosting the Hawke.
I knew no other name than Hawke for the devilishly handsome man I’d married in a haze of lust. Thirteen months later, I now fully believed the black-hearted devil must have drugged my wine. Aphrodisiacs were common and cheap in Dakar. How else had I been so stupid as to stand before a tribal shaman and declare my everlasting love, devotion, and obedience to him?
One month later I had found myself bound, gagged, and on my way to a brothel in New Delhi while he took command of my ship. I’d escaped, of course. I’d feigned insensibility all the while working at the hemp ropes around my wrists with the skinny blade tucked inside my sleeve. My other blades, a single-shot gun, and a barbed garrote had removed all further obstacles to my escape. At the time, I had desperately hoped that Hawke knew about all my weapons and had expected me to escape. I’d wanted to believe that he needed me out of the way only long enough to steal my ship, that he truly had intended me no lasting harm.
I’d found Margaret awaiting me on the dirigible dock with a hot air balloon. We had followed the White Swan for three days, fortunate that the wind held.
By the time I had lashed the basket to the upper decks and held a knife to Hawke’s throat, the entire crew was welcoming me aboard, disgusted and appalled at his concern for no one but himself. Many crewmen sported bloody lash scars on their backs and missing digits from their hands. My men had refused to convert their lucrative pirating to running slaves just because he had said they could make more money.
I’d been too generous in giving him the hot air balloon—even if it did leak.
This time I had no intention of being generous. Or respectful. Or considerate.
Steampunk Voyages Page 4