The Mighty Airship Kaede. (The Mighty Airships of Earth. Book 1)

by Gary W. Feather

  "Don't be rude to my grandmother," Charlotte said with an evil glare. She went back to stand politely by Madam Chung.

  "Now I will speak to you again," Madam Chung said. "I run things here! I wish your friends to pay me very well for your safe return! I will keep you here as long as you don't try to escape! You will be fed and given plenty of water to drink! If you disobey me, you will be punished! Do you understand?"

  "Yes, Madam Chung." Momiji rubbed her belly, so she wouldn't touch her face. She didn't want them to see her pain. She was sure there must be a mark for it burned. "I understand."

  "Good! I will go now."

  The three of them left her alone.

  #

  Hirohira lay in his bed staring up at the ceiling and thought about the little girl he had seen with Sheiko.

  My child. My little girl. I have a daughter named Hiroko. Wow!

  The door opened. Paul Red Badger walked in with an old Indios man. The man was dressed in traditional Indios clothing with what Hirohira guess were religious objects like the large leather bag that he carried. He also wore a strange hat made of cattle or bison fur with two horns on top. Paul was now dressed in traditional clothes too, not the white man's clothes that he had been wearing.

  "Hello, Hirohira," Paul said. "This is my grandfather. He is a great medicine man among my people. He had a vision of you and that you need his help."

  "What?" Hirohira said.

  "I am Thomas Whetstone," the man said. "I was a powerful and respected chief among the Nez Perce people until I came to live here with my wife among the Ojibway people that my daughter, Paul's mother, had married into. Even still, like many among my people, I get visions from the great star people!"

  "What does that have to do with me?" Hirohira said.

  "The young are so impatient," Whetstone said, with a disappointing head shake. Hirohira chose to say nothing more.

  Whetstone began to chant and Paul beat a small drum he took from the leather bag.

  "He he he ya ya! The Star People came to me in a vision!" Whetstone continued his story. "They told me of a great warrior who had been wounded by his enemies and he must not die for the world needs him. They told me your name and that your people would come to my grandsons for help in finding an English girl. They said they had left great medicine of the star people that would cure you of all the injuries. It has little spirit creatures inside it that stay inside you even after you are healed and make you an even great warrior than you were before! Thank you, Great Spirit, for sending the Star People to heal this great warrior! He he!"

  Whetstone shook a wand over Hirohira's injured body, focusing on the most injured areas.

  Whetstone pulled a glass storage jar out of his bag and opened it. He chanted. "Drink the sacred medicine of the Star People!"

  Hirohira could do nothing but drink from the jar. The strangest thing about the liquid was that it actually changed colors. Blue one minute and green the next. Then orange, yellow, and red. But the taste that he feared would be awful was not even there. It had no taste. Nothing. He swallowed it as Whetstone chanted over him.

  "It is done!" Whetstone shouted. Paul hit his drum real loud.

  The door opened and Doctor Miller burst in along with a marine.

  "What the hell is this nonsense?" Doctor Miller said. "This is my patient on my airship! Who are you?"

  "I am Chief Thomas Whetstone of the Nez Perce people," Whetstone acquired the stance and look of a leader. "I had a great vision from the Star People to heal this man with their sacred medicine!"

  "What?" Doctor Miller replied in disbelief. "Corporal, throw these fools out of my sickbay!"

  "Yes, sir!" the corporal said.

  Before the corporal could act, Hirohira screamed and sat up in bed with his eyes clenched shut. He skin was glowing a blue color. Then it changed to a green color, then an orange, yellow and then blood red. After a minute, Hirohira's skin went back to normal and he opened his eyes. Hirohira found that he was still sitting up, but this time nothing hurt. He felt his teeth with his tongue and it seemed as if they were all there…undamaged. He touched his ribs; they were unhurt. He raised his arms over his head.

  "Don't do that, Lieutenant!" the doctor shouted.

  "I think it worked," Hirohira said, much to his own amazement.

  "Of course, the Star People's medicine is very powerful," Whetstone said.

  "That's ridiculous," Doctor Miller said.

  The corporal, who had his arm on Paul's looked as if he didn't know what to do.

  "Look, doctor!" Hirohira opened his mouth.

  Doctor Miller grumbled but checked Hirohira's teeth.

  "My God!"

  Doctor Miller examined his collarbone and ribs. He checked Hirohira's testes. He looked for cuts and bruises on Hirohira's body and found none. Everything was as if nothing had happened to him. "This is impossible! How?"

  "I told you," Whetstone said.

  The chief handed Doctor Miller the jar.

  "Here, you may examine this, I no longer have any need for it since it has been used."

  "Thank you, Mr. Whetstone," Doctor Miller said. "Corporal, let go of him."

  "Yes, sir!"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Seige of Pete's Piss.

  Petty Officer 1st class Miles Jeeves looked up at the new windows they had just set into the port side of the HMS Kaede. There were some men and a couple of women polishing the windows under the watchful eye of Petty Officer 3rd class Nakatomi Kenta.

  That's the last of the damn windows, Jeeves thought. Luckily the undercarriage took most of the damage and held pretty well. The engineers had gotten everything working again, but now they seemed to have lost Doctor Sakura. Of all the people to lose. Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

  "Excuse me, sir?"

  Jeeves turned to see an oriental man. Judging from the long, braided ponytail, the man was Chinese, not Japanese or Korean. Jeeves didn't care much for the Chinese. Their dying country was a free-for-all banquet for other nations and to hell with them!

  "That's Mr. Jeeves to you," Jeeves said. "I'm a petty officer, not a commissioned officer. I work for a living, fool. What do you want?"

  "I-I have a letter for your captain, Mr. Jeeves." The Chinese man held out a letter. Jeeves waited for a second looking at it in the afternoon sun and was surprised to smell opium on the man. Jeeves snatched the letter. "It’s from Madam Chung, Mr. Jeeves."

  "What does she want?" Jeeves said.

  "I'm just a messenger, Mr. Jeeves. I'm supposed to wait for your captain's reply and deliver it to Madam Chung. That's all I know, Mr. Jeeves."

  Jeeves let out an ear-bursting whistle. "Ishihara! Ishihara!"

  After a few minutes, a giant of a man raced up to them, his huge former-sumo leg muscles propelling the big belly towards them.

  "Airman 1st class Ishihara, Mr. Jeeves!"

  "About time you got here, Ichihara," Jeeves said. "This messenger brought a message for the captain. I'm going to deliver it, so make sure this man stays here! Understood?"

  "Yes, Mr. Jeeves!" Ichihara replied.

  Jeeves tried not to smile at the cowed look on the Chinese man as he gazed up at the giant. He gave a chuckle as he climbed one of HMS Kaede’s ladders. Once inside Jeeves nodded at airmen who passed by in the corridor. He also saluted and bowed to the officers. It still seemed utterly bizarre that a few of those airmen and officers he passed were women. It was beginning to seem almost normal, but still gave him an odd feeling in the back of his head. He tried to push it out of his mind to get back to business. He decided to try the bridge first tried to walk into the bridge a marine sentry challenged him as was standard practice. Jeeves stood at attention. He delivered a salute and bow towards the officer on watch, Lieutenant Cotton.

  "Petty Officer 1st Class Jeeves, with a message for the captain!"

  "At ease, Private! At ease, Mr. Jeeves," the lieutenant said with a couple of nods. "Captain Parsons is in his cabin and you are dismissed, Mr. Jeeves
!"

  "Yes, sir!" Jeeves saluted, bowed, and left.

  Jeeves walked over to the captain's cabin and nodded to the marine sentry there. He told the corporal what he had for the captain. The corporal knocked on the door.

  "Yes?"

  "It's Mr. Jeeves, sir," the corporal said. "He says that he has a message for you."

  "Thank you, Corporal Dodger. Let him in."

  "Yes, sir!" he said. The corporal opened the door and stepped aside.

  Jeeves stepped inside to find the captain at his desk looking over papers. The languages were both in English and Japanese, or so he guessed. While Jeeves had been educated enough to read English, he couldn't read Japanese, though he could speak it. This was the case with most British NCOs. Jeeves saluted and bowed.

  The captain looked up and nodded. "What is it, Mr. Jeeves?" Captain Parsons said. "How're the windows going?"

  "Excellent, Captain. All are in place and Mr. Nakatomi has the men--er, people making those windows shine pretty for your inspection. But this local Chinese man approached the airship and gave me a letter for you."

  "What?" Captain Parsons took the offered letter and looked at it and looked up at the petty officer.

  "I left Airman Ishihara to keep an eye on him," Jeeves said.

  Captain Parsons nodded and opened the envelope to read the letter. Then he read it again and he laid it on the desk.

  Jeeves saw that it was in Japanese not English. The captain turned and looked at an official black and white photograph of the Queens, or Empresses, of the Imperial Union that was handed out to most airship/seaship captains and admirals. Victoria II on the left and Noriko on the right. The photo was in a metal frame that was attached firmly to the wall by his desk. He picked up a paper and checked it. He made a call to someone on the intercom and ordered Ensign Montgomery to come to his office.

  While he waited the captain worked on a letter, which he put into an envelope. Soon the ensign stood in front of the desk. The captain told the ensign and Jeeves to personally deliver the message to the messenger.

  "Yes, sir." Ensign Montgomery saluted and bowed, as did Jeeves. Jeeves opened the door for the ensign and followed her through. "Go ahead, Mr. Jeeves. Show me where this Chinese messenger is."

  "Yes, miss-uh ma'am," Jeeves said.

  Jeeves led her to the spot where Ishihara and the messenger waited. Ishihara stood at attention, saluted, and bowed to the ensign. The ensign gave him a nod.

  "This is a letter directly from Captain Ian Parsons to Madam Chung," Ensign Montgomery said. "Is that understood?"

  "Yes, sir," the messenger said. "I will deliver it."

  #

  Commander Matsuo Sumiko led her men to a spot in front of Pete's Piss. Captain Parsons had let her take Major Cooper, Chief Gray and a marine squad too. Two of Cooper's largest marines carried a newly designed weapon called a machine-gun between them. The marine sergeant and a private worked to get the gun set up and loaded. It was smaller than the old Gatling guns on the Kaede and was powered by steam instead of a hand crank. One just pulled the trigger and the bullets flew.

  A man opened the door to Pete's Piss to shout out. "What the fuck do you want?"

  "Hand over Doctor Sakusa!" Commander Matsuo said.

  "Why, bitch?"

  Commander Matsuo looked over at the major and nodded at him. Major Cooper gave an order to a marine private 1st class. The marine aimed his rifle and shot the man in the ear.

  "Marines don't miss," Commander Matsuo shouted at the man in the door.

  "You dumb glutton!" The man ducked back inside, while holding his ear.

  "If you don't mind, Commander," Major Cooper said. "I'd like to send a couple of men to other side of the building just in case they can get out a back door."

  "I concur, Major," Commander Matsuo said.

  "Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am," Major Cooper said.

  #

  Jeremiah Klein heard the crack of the rifle and George yell. “Dammit! They shot me in the fucking ear," whined George Donaldson.

  "What do you except by sticking your ass out like that?" Klein said.

  "Well, it hurts." George poured some of his drink on his ear.

  "What are we going to do?" Abbie said. "If they find out we don't have her, will they let us go? What if we told them real nicely?"

  "Shut up, Abbie," Klein said. "Stupid whore! They'll hang or shoot the lot of us if they find out. So keep your mouth shut!"

  "What do we do, Jeremiah?" George said.

  "Shut up and let me think." Klein scratched his head. He thought of every trick he had used to run from a posse, or every game of poker he had played in his life. Nothing! Nothing! He paced back and forth. Then something popped into his crazy head. He told George to help him get Pete's headless body. They shoved it against the door. He retrieved the old broken musket that Pete had been planning on getting fixed one day. The barrel was off it. Abbie handed Klein some rope he had asked for. He tied the barrel to Pete's arms and then lashed the rope to the inside doorknob to hold it up. He opened the door and stuck the barrel out of the opening.

  "Will that work?" George said.

  "Do you have anything better?" Klein said.

  "No," George said. "But how do we get out?"

  "There's a window up there," Klein said. "Maybe if we had something to get up there we could climb down."

  "Like a rope?" Abbie asked. Klein hit her. "Why did you do that?"

  "Shut up! That old rope is too rotten hold us and there ain't no more. It wouldn't work."

  Abbie picked up a bottle of whiskey and drank down what was left of it. She kept quiet as Klein paced the floor.

  "Shit," Klein cursed and threw up his hands. "That's it. All we can do is surrender."

  "You're giving up?" George said.

  "Yup," Klein said. "For now. I've broken out of jails and prisons before. Won't be too hard with your help, George."

  "Well," George said. "Okay."

  "What about me?" Abbie said.

  "You just keep quiet," Klein said. "You can probably convince them you're just an innocent bystander who just works here as a whore."

  "That'll work?" Abbie said.

  "I don't know. I got other problems."

  #

  "Yes. Yes, miss," Sergeant Smithy, the mounted policeman or "mounty" as they were called, said. There were two other mounted policemen with him wearing their circular hats. "Your papers look official, but if this is a kidnapping then this is a police matter. You should have gone to the proper local authorities."

  To Matsuo, the sergeant and his men looked way too clean and well groomed. Not that she saw anything wrong with the standard spit and polish that any respectable civil servant should have, but they unnerved her some reason. She couldn't figure out why.

  "I understand your concern, Sergeant," Commander Matsuo said. "That's why my captain sent a liaison to the head of your people in Toronto. This is a top secret matter of utmost importance to the security of the Imperial Union."

  "When exactly are you leaving with this top secret airship of yours?"

  "As soon as we get our people back and it is repaired, Sergeant," Commander said. "As I stated before, we came here to repair our airship in friendly territory."

  "Yes, miss," Sergeant Smithy said.

  "It's Commander, Sergeant," Commander Matsuo Sumiko said with cold glare. "And I'm married."

  "Sorry, Mrs.--uh, I mean Comman--"

  "Sorry to interrupt, Commander," Major Cooper said. "But someone in the building is waving a white flag out the door."

  "Thank you, Major," Commander Matsuo said to him with a smile and turned back to the sergeant. "It looks like we'll have this settled very soon, Sergeant."

  "Very good, Commander."

  Major Cooper's men brought two men and a woman outside to meet with Commander Matsuo and Sergeant Smithy. The marines also found Pete's body and head, but no Doctor Sakusa. Jeremiah Klein claimed that she had been kidnapped from the kidnappers and he glar
ed at Commander Matsuo. The same ones killed Pete somehow in his office and left his grizzly head on top of the desk for them to find. It all seemed kind of improbable.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Belle Meets Seraphine.

  Belle Starr took a sip of her late afternoon tea, alone at the moment because Jesse James had gone to a nearby outhouse. Jesse's cup was sitting across from her and getting cold. The little café was called Jacob's and run by Polish immigrants, but owned by an English gentleman.

  "Well, it seems I'm not the only lady here without a companion to talk to."

  Belle looked to her left to see an pretty woman dressed in the latest Parisian fashion; regardless of what some people thought of her Belle kept up with latest fashion just like any other Southern bell. The strips of fur hanging from the sides of her lovely hat were borrowed from a hat that Martian women wore. Belle had bought herself one earlier this year, but it looked better on this lady.

  "Oh, you surprised me," Belle said. "I don't believe we have been introduced, dear. I am--"

  "Belle Starr," she said. "Wife of a well-to-do Cherokee gentleman plantation owner and lady with an occupation like my own."

  "Occupation?" Belle Starr said. "I'm just a simple Southern Lady and patriot of the Confederacy."

  "Of course," she said. "My name is Seraphine Julie Le Trosne. My dear husband is the French ambassador to Canada."

  "Sounds exciting," Belle Starr said.

  "Actually it's very dull," Seraphine said. "Spying for France on the side is much more fun."

  "Oh?"

  "May I sit with you?" Seraphine asked. "I'm sure they'll give use another chair."

  "Yes, of course," Belle said.

  Another chair was brought by waiter along with Seraphine's cup of tea and saucer. Seraphine smiled at Belle once she was seated between Belle and the chair that Jesse had left.