“We need to find the Porter brothers,” said Jonathan. “And then continue with the original plan. I don’t suppose there’s any law to report the robbery to.”
Gusarov laughed. “Only law here is that of Nikola Tesla, and he never leaves his quarters. They say he is crazy as brickbat out here. You are on your own.”
The subtle change from we to you wasn’t lost on Jonathan. “So we’ll be parting ways then, comrade Gusarov?”
The legless man shrugged. “You paid me to bring you here, nothing more. I will not even charge extra for knock in head. I wish you best of luck, Gospodin Orbital, but I am anxious to get Condor out of here and back into—”
The room shook and a low ringing sound echoed throughout the Albatross. The conduit Jonathan clutched threatened to shake itself out of his grasp, and his ears popped. “What was that?”
Gusarov’s eyes widened in fear. “Bozhe moy! A collision! We are venting air! Move your ass, or you are going to be permanent fixture.”
He sprang from the bulkhead and flew across the room to land beside Jonathan. “Hatch is straight above us. Quick!”
The two men jumped to the hatch, but Jonathan threw his hands against the wheel to keep Gusarov from spinning it open. “Wait, listen!”
From beyond the door, both men heard the pops of gunfire, clangs of ricochets, and screams of victims.
“Sounds like war out there,” said Gusarov. “Space Guard might have finally had enough of these bastards.”
“We’ve got to find the Porters.” Jonathan struggled to keep his panic at bay. This was all going horribly wrong.
“Sorry, my friend. If they are alive and they get back to Condor before me, I will gladly take them aboard, but I am not going to stick neck out and die in depressurizing hull. Now move it or move aside.”
“I’ll come with you.” Despite all his reservations, he knew dying aboard the Albatross wouldn’t help anyone.
“Stick close, because I’m not going to stop and wait if you fall behind.”
They opened the hatch and saw a Fulton had crashed into the leaded glass windows at the top of the huge bay and forced itself partway into the chamber. The panes held except where the ship came through, but Jonathan feared they might explode out into space at any moment. Air whistled out past the edges, and debris swirled up toward the cracks, in some cases blocking them shut but in others, enlarging them.
The Fulton’s nose had opened, not from collision damage but by design, and men in armor-plated suits with rifles spewed from the hole. They shot at every denizen they saw without discrimination. Bodies living and dead spun through the air, some leaking globules of dark blood, others screaming as they were pushed toward the vacuum by the air currents. The unnatural breeze stank of blood, kerosene, and cordite.
“Where’s the Condor?” Jonathan wheezed and coughed. The soldiers were firing faster than the air leaks could clear the gun smoke, and the air was hazy and difficult to breathe.
Gusarov looked around to get his bearings. “There, across bay. We must go right under that monster’s open mouth.”
Jonathan shook his head. “Edges will be safer and darker. Maybe that’ll keep us from getting shot.”
“Da.”
The two men began a zig-zag route around the perimeter of the great bay. Smoke and steam from ruptured pipes made the air thick and hot, and the perpetual whistle of escaping air punctuated by gunshots made a constant reminder that they were in terrible danger. The Albatross shuddered again and the deck rushed up at Jonathan and Gusarov.
“Khristos, I think damn thing is about to come apart around us,” shouted the legless man over the din. One of the bulkhead support beams snapped in two, ringing like a church bell. Razor sharp shards of iron whistled past the men to embed themselves in the stained wooden paneling beside them.
A soldier in his battle garb emerged from the smoke, rifle held in both hands across his waist. He spotted Gusarov and raised the weapon.
“Look out!” cried Jonathan.
Gusarov whirled around and threw something shiny at the soldier. It hit him in the face and the man fell backward, his feet still stuck to the floor by his heavy magnetic boots. His rifle spun away. Jonathan dove at the soldier, ready to fight, but stopped short. The hilt of Gusarov’s knife jutted out from inside the man’s mouth. Blood burbled outward from the man’s eyes, which had already gone glassy.
“Bozhe moy, did I do that?” said Gusarov in unabashed wonder.
“I don’t think this guy is Space Guard.” Jonathan took in the man’s olive-hued skin tone and shining black hair. “Almost looks Mexican or one of the Indian tribes, maybe. Lot of them around Houston.”
“No, I do not think so.” Gusarov pulled his knife from the soldier’s mouth and wiped the blade clean on the man’s collar. “Looks more Egyptian or Ottoman to me.”
“Well, whatever he is, he won’t need this anymore.” Jonathan removed a holstered pistol from the dead soldier’s belt. “May as well hang onto it. We might need it to get to the Condor.”
“Are you any good with gun?”
Jonathan smiled. “I’m a Texan, Mr. Gusarov. I learned to shoot before I learned to walk.”
“Jonathan!” A feminine shriek drew away Jonathan’s attention. He whirled to see Cecilie Renault and a strange man escorting her as they flew low across the floor. Both looked terrified.
Two armored soldiers pursued them, guns raised.
Chapter Ten
Cecilie had managed to spit out her gag, and Phinneas struggled to maintain his grip on her arm as she tried to worm away from him. She screamed some nonsense he couldn’t hear over the racket as precious air swirled away around them. Light bulbs dimmed and flickered, and he knew the place could go completely dark at any moment. “Yer flailin’ about is goin’ to get us both killed. We need to get outta here now.”
Sounds of gunfire filled the room. Two shots sounded close enough for Phinneas to feel them in his bones. He looked behind him to see two armor-clad Arabs spinning away in the gale, blood bubbling in steady streams from fatal wounds in their foreheads. Below them, a baby-faced git in a dirty, but expensive suit clung to a cable for stability with one hand and brandished a pistol with the other. He must have been the shooter. From the look of him, he’d lost his shoes and a good bit of his dignity somewhere along his journey. A legless man, a full-time spacer judging by the texture and hue of his skin, clung to the cable beside him. He looked familiar to Phinneas, but he didn’t have time to worry about that just yet.
Cecilie lurched toward the shooter. “Jonathan! Help me!”
She knew him?
Phinneas reached up and snagged a pistol from one of the dead soldiers before it could get away and pointed it toward the fancy gunslinger and his friend.
The boy advanced toward them, gun outstretched and wild flames flickering in his eyes. “Let her go! Let her go now!”
Phinneas cocked the hammer back with his thumb. “I don’t think ye’re in much of a place for makin’ demands, lad.”
The legless man spoke. “Da, he is right, Gospodin Orbital. This one is crazier than sack of marmots. Believe me, you do not want trouble with him.”
Phinneas glared at the old spacer and it dawned on him. “Gusarov,” he said. When Phinneas stowed away on a high-altitude dirigible following his prison break in Barbados, it was Hannibal’s Bride that picked him up. He worked for a year to buy his way off that tin can, and wouldn’t ever forget the drunken Russian bastard that helmed it. “Yer a little shorter than I remember.”
Gusarov nodded. “You are not pretty yourself, Phinneas. I heard you are busy pirate these days. Did not know you dealt in kidnapping.”
“I won’t be after this.”
The Albatross shuddered and groaned around them as another support beam bent. Plaster along the walls shattered into powder and wood paneling into splinters.
Jonathan gripped the cable tighter. “You two can have Old Home Week some other time. Hand over Miss Renault, and I won’t shoot y
ou.”
Phinneas laughed. “Ye’re mad, and clearly losing yer hold on that cable.”
Jonathan struggled to pull it closer to him. “I’m from Texas, pirate. You’re a giant target from this range. Let Cecilie go.” He glanced past Phinneas’s shoulder. His aim shifted an inch and he fired. Phinneas flinched. He hadn’t expected the earthworm to take a shot and had been caught staring. He glanced behind him to see another dead Arab spinning head over heels and trailing blood from his throat. Phinneas snagged the man’s pistol and leveled it at Jonathan.
Gusarov began to maneuver away. “It looks like you found your girl, Gospodin Orbital. It was lovely making pleasantries with you, Phinneas. I will head back to ship and be on way now.”
Phinneas and Jonathan both pointed their guns at the Condor’s captain. “Stop right there,” they said in unison.
Gusarov raised his hands. “Chert voz’mi.”
Just then, Cecilie screamed. “Jonathan! Behind you!”
A quartet of soldiers dropped to the heaving deck from above, their heavy boots making the metal floor ring. Phinneas and Jonathan whirled and fired in unison, taking down the men with fatal shots.
“Who are these people?” Cecilie cried.
Gusarov grabbed one of the dead ones by the ankle and reeled him in. He pulled a folded slip of paper from the man’s hand. His eyes went to Cecilie. “They are here for girl.” He turned the paper over to reveal a daguerreotype of Cecilie. Phinneas realized with astonishment it was the same one he’d been given to help identify her on the train.
Cecilie’s eyes darted between the three of them. Phinneas recognized that look of borderline panic from the first time she’d seen the stovepipe.
“Jonathan, I’m frightened.” And what was her attachment to this boy, anyway? Phinneas felt a hot flicker of jealousy.
Gusarov pointed toward a large steel girder, noticeably shaking where it was bolted to a bulkhead. “Very tiny problem. If main support beam over there goes, so goes Albatross. And us. I say we put this nonsense on hold and save our asses while there’s still asses to save, da?”
Gusarov had a point. If they could get off this junker, his options would improve. He grabbed Cecilie by the arm. “Fine, let’s get out of here, then.”
As he turned to go, Phinneas felt a sharp jab in the middle of his back. He turned to see the rich boy pointing the gun at him. “Not you. Release her.”
Phinneas’s hands flew out in a blur and grabbed Jonathan by the collar. Without magnetic boots to hold him down, manhandling him was simple. He pulled the whelp to him until their faces were close enough for him to smell the youngster’s fear-filled breath. He placed the barrel of his own pistol against Jonathan’s waist.
“Next time ye give me an order, ye’re gonna find yer guts floatin’ round on the outside.”
“We do not have time for this!” cried Gusarov. “I see more of those Ottoman bastards floating around in shadows.”
“All right,” said Jonathan. “You’re with us, then, pirate. Consider yourself lucky I don’t just put a bullet in you and be done with it.”
Phinneas smiled. “I’ll not forget ye said that, lad.”
“Khristos, let us go before someone steals away my ship!” Gusarov launched himself down the passage without waiting for the others. Jonathan and Phinneas glared at each other for a second longer before they followed after the legless pilot, Phinneas hauling Cecilie under his arm like a stack of books. Jonathan pulled himself along a cable with one hand and kept his gun at the ready. The long, spidery limbs of terrified spacers scrabbling to escape the crumbling bay brushed and smacked against him. Shards of floating glass and bent metal scraped his face and hands. Arcs of blue electricity and the smell of ozone filled the air from live wires knocked loose either by gunfire or the slow disintegration of the Albatross itself. Burst steam pipes filled the air with tiny water droplets, which mixed with a miasma of blood and sweat that slapped his face as he ran. He wished he hadn’t lost his goggles.
More screams sounded nearby. “There she is! The French girl!” called an accented voice from behind them. Phinneas tucked Cecilie against him in a protective hold. More gunfire filled the bay, and he felt white heat bloom on the side of his head as one bullet grazed above his ear. Jonathan turned around and fired three shots in rapid succession. The fourth time, the pistol only clicked. “I’m empty.”
Phinneas ducked low and turned around. Five more soldiers bore down on them. With only two bullets left in his gun, he couldn’t get them all. Then his eyes went to one of the high-tension metal cables running along the side of the wall, which many of the escapees clung to for guidance through the passage. He screamed back at Jonathan,
“Let go of the bloody cables!” Phinneas aimed at it and fired.
The bullet severed the wire, which sliced through the air like a deadly ribbon toward the advancing soldiers, cutting them and a few unlucky bystanders in half before it twisted itself into a knot and floated like a water snake above them.
He looked at Jonathan, who had a begrudging look of admiration on his face. “Hell of a shot, Phinneas.”
“C’est horrible!” Cecilie pulled her face into mask of anguished dismay.
Gusarov laughed. “You should have seen when I lost my pegs, girl. Condor’s up this way.” They arrived at the Condor’s airlock to find other people attempting to board the craft. “Ubiraysya, you scavengers! My bird!”
One of the stowaways stepped toward Gusarov with a knife in hand. He was tall and reedy, with bluish-black skin, a bald head and a bulging tumor clinging to the side of his face, which pulled one side of his mouth down in a perpetual frown. His eyes glared bright blue and his few teeth were displayed in a vicious snarl. Like so many of the full-time spacers, he’d let himself go to pot in this nowhere outpost where people looked less human every day. The man gestured toward the Condor with his knife. “I has a preggy wife in there, aye. Her and my ma headin’ Earthwise. We gotta no room for you.”
Phinneas leveled the gun, intending to shoot the tumor from the freak’s face the second he made a wrong move. “Shove off. This ship’s ours.”
Gusarov moved a little closer to the man, his face betraying no fear. “Do you even know how to pilot one of these? Stovepipes very tricky. This one in particular will give you no end of trouble. I am with her many years, and from time to time she still reminds me who’s boss. Why don’t you let me and my lot join you? I fly ship and be sure you and your soon-to-be rebenok make it safe.”
The spacer didn’t seem convinced. “Aye, you got no deal from me. You go and find your own ship, aye.” He raised his blade. Then his creepy eyes found Cecilie and narrowed. “Those men, they had pictures, aye. You look like those pictures. They come for you.”
Cecile was shaking her head. “N-no.”
“I give you to those men, they give me money, aye.” He advanced with the knife outstretched.
Phinneas stepped into his path. “Take yer filthy eyes off the lady before she catches yer disease.” Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Jonathan moving in as well, despite no longer being armed. The lad had some kind of spunk, to be sure.
The spacer’s gummy grin grew wider. “You fight hard to protect your woman. So I do also.” He looked over his shoulder. “Zara! Come here.”
A few seconds later, a dark-skinned woman with a cap of tight curls on her head emerged from the airlock. She wore a big dress, beneath which bulged a pregnant belly. From behind her floated an older woman and a young girl that Phinneas guessed to be about five or six. Her skinny legs drifted useless behind her, as they did on most children who developed outside gravity. They almost never learned walk. Pregnancy in space was dangerous and unpredictable, and Phinneas knew that the unborn one in this woman’s womb had as much a chance coming out a mass of jelly as it did coming out fully formed. If the mother made it to Earth, the baby might fare a better chance of surviving, but it was likely the whole family—particularly the little girl—would die if they
didn’t get help right away. Hell, even their best chances were minimal, but he didn’t feel comfortable depriving them of that chance.
“Bloody hell.” Phinneas lowered his weapon and looked at the others. They seemed just as resigned to letting the Condor go. Even Gusarov nodded and said, “Get on with you then, before I change my mind.”
They turned their backs and made their way farther up the corridor in search of something, anything that would get them off this dying hunk of metal. Behind them, people screamed and rioted. Every so often a gunshot or explosion would punctuate the panic. There were still soldiers out there.
The four reached the end of the line. Gusarov peered out a porthole and shook his head. “We have to turn around and get to other side, past breach. There is Fulton at this end, but we would not make hundred miles in it.”
“How can you tell?” Jonathan asked.
“Trust me, comrade, I know. It would be gone already if it were worth shit.”
“But we can’t go through that mess again,” Cecilie said. “Those soldiers are back there.”
Jonathan put his hand on her shoulder. “I don’t think we have much choice, Miss Renault.”
The horrific state of the main bay made even Phinneas’s jaw drop in shock. Dead bodies, pieces of dead bodies and their belongings, and sticky clouds of bodily fluids swirled around them. The air smelled of piss, blood, and gunpowder. While a few brave souls had sealed the gaps in the glass around the rogue ship’s hull with tarry foam, it likely wouldn’t hold long against the bending structure of the failing Albatross. The main center support beam had sagged to the left and looked like a piece of melting wax. Phinneas could hear the groan of bending metal and cables snapping like over-tightened mandolin strings all around him. He prayed Tesla’s creation would hold up just a little longer.
They had nearly reached the site of the breach when Phinneas felt the impact of hard metal on the back of his head, not hard enough to knock him out, but he lost his grip on Cecilie. Just as he reached out to grab her, a leather loop attached to a pole slipped around her waist and snagged tight to snatch her away.
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