Star Veil

by E J Kitchens

  “Gentlemen, Miss Abigail Andrews, our guest until Calandra, is bravely joining our fight today.” Davy stepped to her side, not in the protective way her father often had, but in a comforting way, his manner declaring she could trust his men. “Miss Andrews, allow me to formally introduce my men, the crew of the Dawn Singer, the fastest, highest flying airship in the skies.”

  The pride in his voice made her smile. The tightness in her chest eased, until she met his gaze and noted the caution there. Could his men trust her? it asked. What had she done to deserve that look?

  Amid the chorus of welcomes, someone cried, “Let her do it. She’d get us a good one. She’s a lucky gal, I can tell.”

  The captain’s eyes shuttered, and a shiver raced down Prism’s back. “Would you like to do the honors, Miss Andrews? You claimed marksmanship skills earlier. Here’s your chance to prove them.” He gestured to the harpoon gun.

  “What would I be aiming at?” Prism looked past the grinning sailors to the clouds cloaking the ship approaching on the port side. Slight shadows altered the grays and whites of the cloud, its edges growing. An airship was nearing them and fast.

  “The pirate’s ship, of course, or rather one pirate in particular, whichever one happens to be in the right spot on the deck.”

  Prism cast a look of horror at the harpoon gun, its merciless tip still hidden. “That’s barbaric.”

  “My dear Miss Andrews, need I remind you that these are pirates? That they’re about to attack us? That you agreed to help defend the ship?”

  “If we made ourselves easy to find, what does that matter?” An airman laughed.

  “But they can’t even see you!” Prism protested. “It would be like stabbing a man in the back. And with a harpoon! I repeat, that’s barbaric.”

  “They’ve been hunting us, Miss Andrews. If we choose to strike first, what of it? It is part of my duties as an airship captain to protect the skies.” He led her by the elbow toward the harpoon. “Choose your target wisely. Chance hasn’t failed us yet.”

  Prism planted her feet and crossed her arms. “I’ll not use that.”

  He pointed to the darkening area she’d spotted earlier. “The ship’s just through the clouds there.”

  “I’ll not use it.”

  Davy shrugged, and she almost thought a corner of his mouth was trying to twitch up. “The lady refuses Second Chance, lads, though I’ve always considered it my best invention. Colin, it’s up to you. Strike fast, for they’ll be upon us soon.”

  “But, Captain—” she began. Davy took a firm hold of her arm, and she shut her mouth.

  Colin lost no time in stepping to the harpoon and sweeping off its cover, but Prism refused to look at its tip, focusing instead on the blond airman. He aimed toward the growing shadow, bent his head as if in prayer, then released the harpoon.

  Prism’s stomach twisted as the rope uncoiled loop by loop. A man’s scream tore through the fog. And grew louder. And full of curses and threats.

  “Watch your heads, men,” Davy cried as a black mass bound with ropes and netting hurtled over the bow and sank into the starboard clouds.

  As the men raced to the side, grumbling that they couldn’t see for the clouds and guffawing about something, a moan and a hair-raising screech ripped from the very heart of the airship. Prism gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

  Davy patted her shoulder. “There, there, Miss Andrews. It’s nothing for you to worry about, just a Banshee we’ve tamed.” His lips twitched, the earlier caution in his eyes having given way to a teasing twinkle.

  “Don’t ‘there, there,’ me.” Prism shoved him away. He rocked back on his heels, then took a step back, grinning. “Circus performers aren’t the only ones who deal in illusions, I see, Captain Bowditch. That person dangling over the side is alive, I take it? That wasn’t a harpoon but a net.”

  He shrugged. “If one of your fellow pirates vanished from the deck as if grabbed by a spectral hand, and then you heard such a moan and wail through the mist, would you not be tempted to tuck tail and run?” His grin turned smug. “We hardly have to fight at all.”

  “Yes, but you could have told—”

  Boom!

  Davy pulled Prism down beside him as a projectile barely missed the port bow.

  “Tuck tail and run, Captain?” Prism said shakily as Davy helped her to her feet.

  “I did say hardly.” Davy yelled across the deck, “Parachutes, men! Prepare for action.”

  “It’s got to be O’Connor,” one of the airmen yelled. “Only he’s ornery enough to drop an airship without taking the cargo.”

  “The pirate whose men were in the parts store?” Prism asked as she ran with Davy to the parachutes. Even she’d heard about the pirate Cavan O’Connor.

  “He doesn’t care for me,” Davy answered quickly.

  “Captain Bowditch stole his best gunner from him.” An airman guffawed as he tossed Davy a parachute.

  “Who also happened to be his only son,” another chimed in. “Snatched him right off the deck and let him be presumed dead.”

  “What?” Prism tried to read Davy’s face, but he kept his head down as he strapped a parachute on her.

  “This is no time for explanations. Peter, is the Escaper ready?”

  “Yes, Captain.” He handed Davy a parachute.

  “Right. Colin O’Connor’s in charge here. Miss Andrews and I are going over. We’ll be back shortly.”

  “Going where?” Prism asked as Davy dragged her into the bowels of the Dawn Singer, down corridor after corridor until she felt the weight of the entire vessel above her. “The pirate ship?”

  “Where else would you suggest, Miss Andrews? If pirates are boarding your ship, naturally, the safest place to be is on their ship.”

  Prism pursed her lips. Teasing man. “So you’re abandoning your crew to fight alone? I’d thought better of you than that, Captain Bowditch.” She barely managed not to bump into him as he spun around.

  “That’s not—” He caught her gaze, which was a touch impish. Frowning, he tugged her forward again. “We need something from the other ship, and I’m the best one to get it.”

  “That’s not much of an answer.”

  “I’m saving my breath for speed, as you should.”

  He led her into a hold made narrow by the miniature airships filling it. With a bottom like a wooden boat, each Escaper had two benches and a small shelf in the back, enough seating for five men. It had a propeller in back and a glass windscreen in front protecting the control panel. A folded leather topper padded the craft’s sides, ready to be pulled up at need to make a closed cylinder of the ship. A steel beam arced over the craft, forming a spine for a pair of wings, folded and as brightly smeared with color as an oil sheen when the sky crystals were at full glow. The Escaper sat on wheels, making it seem like the decorated toy wagon of a boy who dreamed of flying.

  Prism turned her attention back to the hold. Shelves lined one wall, large red buttons the other. Davy grabbed a box labeled “PullLine” off one of the shelves, drew out a metal-and-leather gauntlet and harness and fastened the gauntlet around her arm, leaving her to secure the chest harness. He snatched a crate off the bottom shelf, and Prism spied another of the small machines with the phonograph horn, a few pairs of odd shoes, and a baseball in it before he urged her into the copilot’s seat in the craft.

  She buckled herself in and kept her hand well away from the controls in front of her. “I’m quite competent as a trapeze artist, but I’m a touch rusty on piloting.”

  “Hopefully, you won’t need to brush up on it. Hold tight.” After stowing the crate under his seat, he handed her the ping reader and hurled the baseball at a large red button on the wall. The baseball depressed the button and fell into a basket below it. The floor underneath them dropped away.

  The familiar thrill of a plunge surged through Prism, and for one moment it was the circus’s sandy ring below her, her partner’s outstretched arms, and the awed gasps of
the crowd around her. Then the cries of Chance’s victim—and a recording of what sounded like Holy Scripture—blasted her out of her pleasant dream of being at home.

  They dropped about thirty feet before wings stretched themselves wide and propellers whirred into motion and sent them through the thick clouds toward the belly of the pirate ship.

  “Wind up the ping reader using the crank on its side and watch for it to indicate we’re under the pirate ship. I don’t want to fly too far past it.”

  Prism did as requested, though she was able to see the ship’s influence on the grays of the cloud cover as well as the reader could detect it. She pointed out the ship just as the reader pinged, earning her a strange look from Davy. He piloted the Escaper just portside of the pirate ship. Taking one hand off the controls, he launched a line from his gauntlet, attaching it beside a porthole, and then did the same with a line attached to the Escaper’s bow. He dove back down, directly under the pirate vessel, and docked the Escaper against the hull.

  “All right, Miss Andrews,” he said, strapping on the odd shoes. “Here’s where you earn your keep. Guard the Escaper. If I’m not back before the battle’s won, well … there’s a manual on how to fly this thing in the box under the seat.”

  “But—”

  He yanked twice on his PullLine, scampered up the Escaper, and jogged up the side of the pirate ship, using the PullLine to reel himself up. His long blue coat flying out behind him, he disappeared around the curve of the hull.

  Another boom concussed the air, and Prism got the feeling the captain was walking into more danger than he’d bargained for. And that he had a good reason for doing so. But what was it?

  7

  Davy loved climbing. And sneaking into pirate ships. And the fact that pirates didn’t bother to guard the bridge and its automaton.

  He hoisted himself through the bridge porthole and looked around. The pirate’s automaton—programmed with the flight path of whatever merchant vessel they chose thanks to hefty bribes and threats to Time Keeper Station clerks—sat at the controls.

  He’d have to explode it before leaving so the pirates couldn’t follow them. If he exploded it now, would he be able to find useful parts scattered about the room when he came back through after getting the pirates’ parts chest?

  “If you’re here for an automaton, I’d suggest searching the captain’s cabin for ones stolen from captured ships.”

  Davy spun around, drawing his revolver.

  Standing six feet away, hands on her hips, Prism smirked at him. “The highwaymen we’ve encountered like to keep automatons. I figure pirates are the same, always hoping to discover the automatons’ secrets to find a way around paying the bribes.”

  “What are you doing here?” Davy exclaimed in a shout of a whisper. “You’re supposed to be safe in the Escaper!”

  She held out a folded piece of yellowed paper. “I found this stuffed into the extra pair of shoes in the box. It smells of nectar, sickeningly sweet. Like a faerie trove. Like that gunnysack Marianna and Bertram guarded so carefully. You’re trying to build something for navigation, aren’t you?”

  In a shoe … then maybe she is innocent. He frowned to repress the stupid smile that threatened. It had been harder than he’d cared to admit to keep up his guard against her the last two weeks, especially with Philip always trying to drag him into conversation with her. “Are you sure you didn’t place it there after ripping it from a priceless book in my quarters?”

  Both shock and anger flitted across her face. “I don’t make a habit of visiting gentlemen’s quarters, Captain, or ripping pages from books.” She thrust the page at him, and he took it, noting the dried rice grains stuck to it, which brought another wave of relief. “The question should be why you hid this in a shoe.”

  What would this spunky young woman look like—awake—without those goggles? He shook himself. “Later, Miss Andrews. Now, you must choose to either break a habit or return to the Escaper.” Davy spun around and jogged to the door, cautiously opening it.

  Seeing no one about, he eased into the hallway and ran lightly down it, both pleased and terrified to hear his co-conspirator’s footfalls behind him. Bring us both safely through this day, Lord, especially her.

  Davy sought back in his memory for the plans of the various ships his family had designed, and especially to the one O’Connor had stolen years ago. He found the captain’s cabin in his mental map and guided them in that direction. He slowed before the hallway to the cabin, gunfire and yells drifting down to them from the deck.

  “There’ll be a man guarding the captain’s room. You distract him”—he tapped her PullLine, and Prism nodded—“and I’ll take care of him. Go.”

  They darted around the corner, and Prism launched her PullLine at the pirate pacing in front of a door and yanked it back as soon as it attached to him. He crashed to the floor. Davy raced to him and cracked him on the head with the butt of his revolver. He shot the lock and kicked in the door.

  Empty. No one even opened the door to the inner chamber to take a shot at him. Strange.

  Motioning for Prism to stay outside, he crept to the room’s center, glancing around. No pirates or chests, only a wardrobe. He waved Prism forward and strode toward the inner chamber. The wardrobe door cracked open. A gun barrel edged out.

  “Look out!” Prism yelled. Davy spun around, then lurched back as a bullet pierced his arm. His gun hit the floor as a pirate sprang from the wardrobe. Prism sent her knife into the pirate’s shoulder and lunged for the dropped revolver.

  “Leave it.” The command came from behind. A burly man with a wrist tattoo stepped from the inner chamber. Another entered from the hallway.

  Prism stood slowly, raising her hands. Davy pressed his fingers against his wound, stemming the red flow, his nostrils flaring as he forced himself to breathe through the pain.

  The pirate waved his gun between Davy and Prism. “Bandage his arm. We don’t want blood all over the floor. In here.”

  Prism did as directed, using her handkerchief. Davy met her gaze. I’m sorry. She gave him a weak smile.

  The man from the outer doorway collected Davy’s dropped gun from near Prism’s feet. Davy pulled Prism to his other side with his uninjured arm, away from the staring pirate.

  “Poor Captain O’Connor said you’d come.” The burly man pulled Prism’s knife from his companion’s shoulder and handed the man his handkerchief. “It would’ve pleased him to know you’d get to see your ship go down before we made you walk the plank—without a parachute. But maybe not the girl.”

  The blood drained from Davy’s face. Prism stiffened beside him, and he cursed himself for not making her return to the Escaper, or at least giving her her own gun. It had more shots than her little derringer.

  A weight on his belt came to his attention, but it was on his injured side. He slid his arm from Prism’s shoulder to her waist and tapped her hip. She edged away. “Even if you don’t care about my men,” he pleaded, “surely you want our cargo. Keep the airship afloat long enough to get it. That’ll give my men time to escape. Please.” He tapped Prism’s hip again. This time, she slipped her arm between his shirt and jacket and around his waist, feeling for the gun he’d hidden there. “You have no quarrel against them. Keep me, but let them and Miss Andrews go.” Please let them escape, Lord, and Philip with the clock and … book.

  “Wait! Let me speak with O’Connor. I have something on board he’ll want to know about—I’m working on a machine to help us navigate ourselves.”

  The pirate’s face darkened. “The airship goes down, a funeral pyre to our captain and his son. You think yourself so righteous, Bowditch, but you killed them both before the fighting had even begun. There’s no honor in that.”

  “O’Connor’s dead?” Davy sucked in a breath. “Second Chance! Your captain’s not dead. He’s—”

  Prism slipped the gun from his belt and kicked him behind the knee, sending him to the floor. Shots rang out above Davy as h
e crawled for the gun the burly pirate dropped. Before he got to it, three pirates lay on the floor, each with a shoulder and leg wound.

  Prism stepped around him and snatched up the gun as Davy gaped.

  “We’re … um … going to have to work on your aim, Miss Andrews.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my aim, Captain.” Prism held out her hand to him, a smug twist to her lips, and Davy almost forgot to take her hand. A bolt of pain when he finally did reach with his right arm did wonders for his focus.

  He struggled to his feet, collected his gun, and grabbed Prism’s hand. He turned to the pirates. “Captain O’Connor’s alive. If you want to keep him that way, stop the bombardment of my airship. Otherwise, he’s going down with it. Colin too.”

  He and Prism sprinted back to the bridge.

  “What about the automatons and parts?” Prism asked.

  “No time. We’ll have to bargain with O’Connor once we stop the fight.” Davy locked the bridge door behind them. “We can grab this one though.” He and Prism yanked the automaton from its chair and strapped it to Davy’s back, then climbed out the blessedly wide porthole.

  “You’re horribly pale,” Prism said as they dropped into their seats in the Escaper. “What do you need me to do, Captain?”

  “Please call me Davy. You’ve more than earned it.” His hand trembled as he wiped sweat out of his eyes and took hold of the controls. “As for what to do, watch the ping reader. We’re going just past the airship and picking up O’Connor.” He released a lever on the control panel, and the Escaper dropped with a rush.

  They leveled out, then rocketed up and over the airships to avoid falling projectiles, then dipped beyond the Dawn Singer. “Miss Andrews,” Davy said as they slowed and hunted among the clouds for Chance’s prize. “I apologize if I was rude and hurtful when discussing your father. I’m building a Star Clock to keep accurate time so we can know something called longitude. That’s treason to the Time King and a treasure to those who’d want to replace him themselves. When you had nothing to help with the Star Clock, I feared I’d been duped, that you were a spy, and when that page went missing, I feared you’d taken it. I don’t now. There’s a mostly reformed old pirate-turned-cook on board whose eccentricity is to steal things and hide them in shoes.