Jonathan took the pistol and belt. The holster was of the style he’d grown up with, called a Texas jockstrap. He took it as a good omen and buckled it on over his vac suit. He wouldn’t be able to speed-draw in the bulky outfit the way he could in regular clothing, but if he pulled off a glove, he’d be able to shoot as well as ever. He grinned at Phinneas.
“I feel pretty dashing, but I expect I look ridiculous.”
“Ye look like a pirate, lad. Look to yer scope and sing out when we get inside of a mile.”
Jeron backed out of the tube that terminated in the observation bubble at the Ethershark’s prow. “She’s rabbiting, Captain.” He held up some small smoked glass plates of different degrees of tinting. “Her radiators have gotten about thirty percent brighter in the past ten minutes.”
“They’ve spotted us,” said Phinneas. “Orbital, are we still faster?”
“Aye.” Jonathan felt giddy with the anticipation.
“Well, let’s see if we can’t close the range a wee bit quicker. Sebastian, do we still have the solid fuel boosters?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Light ‘em off and hold onto yer hat. All hands, brace for acceleration.” Phinneas winked at Jonathan. “That rocket weren’t nothin’ compared to these babies.”
Sebastian pulled a handle attached to a tube straight out of the helm controls. He twisted it ninety degrees and Jonathan saw the textured edge along the side. When Sebastian shoved it back down forcefully, a stink of sulfur and black powder filled the bridge. The rushing, popping sound of fuse cord burning sent shivers up Jonathan’s spine as he realized that Sebastian had essentially set off a bomb beneath them.
Then the rocket boosters fired, and Jonathan forgot to be afraid.
The noise was fantastic, louder than anything he’d ever heard. The sudden acceleration was like being kicked all over. The Ethershark vibrated so hard that the bulkheads sang. A valve whistled, then burst, sending a jet of steam across a crewman. He howled and rolled around on the deck, clutching his burned arm in agony.
“Shut off that line,” shouted Phinneas over the racket.
Jonathan was closest to the pressure shunt. He yanked on the lever and the steam jet cut off as quickly as it had begun. “See to that man,” he called. Two other crewmen jumped to obey his order.
Sebastian’s tinny voice counted down seconds until the boosters exhausted themselves. “Two . . . one . . . mark!”
The weight lifted off Jonathan’s chest and the noise ceased, leaving behind only the ringing in his ears.
“Cut the boosters free, lads,” shouted Phinneas. “They’re just dead weight now.”
Crewmen scrambled to obey, turning wheels to release clamps holding the rocket boosters onto the outside of the hull.
“Mister Orbital, report.”
Jonathan looked down at the telemobiloscope. One of the display plates was cracked in half, and all of them were blank. He slapped the side of the casing, as if he might jar it back into function, but no luck. He glanced beneath it and found several snapped wires dangling from out of the conduit. “Telemobiloscope’s out, Captain. The boosters must have shaken it apart.”
“Bloody newfangled technology. Jeron, get to the bubble.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Phinneas stared into the scope for a full minute. “We’re close, lads,” he decided. “All gunnery crews, stand by to fire rockets. Your target is the Ibrahim’s radiators. Machine gunners, watch for incoming rockets. Forward cannon, I want a chain load. Sound off!”
Eyes were pressed against targeting reticules. “Number One tube ready!”
Hands grasped firing levers. “Number Two tube ready!”
“Number Three tube ready!”
The two cannoneers spun the wheel that drove the shell belt around until a chain load was queued up. “Cannon ready!”
“Fire all weapons!” cried Phinneas, and the Ethershark rang once more as the cannon thundered out its load and the rocket engines ignited.
Without an immediate duty, Jonathan threw himself against a bulkhead and gazed out of an auxiliary observation bubble. Rocket trails lanced away from the Ethershark toward the bright spark of the Ibrahim’s radiators. He couldn’t see the twisting, writhing chain as it also flew toward the fleeing Fulton. The chain would tear and shatter aft components—steam pipes, control linkages, cables.
The shooting stars that were the rockets converged upon the Ibrahim and shattered the other ship’s radiators. “Direct hit!” shouted Jeron from the forward bubble. “All three rockets. Her radiators are gone, Cap’n!”
A secondary cloud of debris appeared around the Ibrahim as the chain struck. Steam blew out from several areas, sending the other Fulton into an uncontrolled tumble. “She’s down, Captain. Venting steam and spinning,” called Jonathan.
“Ha!” cried Phinneas. “Harpoon crew, stand by to stabilize the Ibrahim. Sebastian, bring us alongside. Boarders, stand by with the muncher. Let’s earn our pay, gentlemen!”
The harpoon crews needed two shots to halt the Ibrahim’s spin. Sebastian shouldered the Ethershark alongside of the Arabs’ Fulton, spun her neatly on her axis, and pushed the muncher directly against the other ship’s hull.
Pirates sealed their helmets as magnetic clamps locked onto the Ibrahim. The carbon-steel teeth of the muncher started to spin, filling the Ethershark with sparks and smoke as the saw inexorably chewed its way through the Ibrahim’s hull. The noise was tremendous and Jonathan wished he’d had the foresight to shove some cotton into his ears beforehand. In only a minute, the other ship’s hull had been breached and a smoking circular section of bulkhead collapsed into the muncher’s entryway. Two of the pirate crew sprayed the edges with thick tar to seal any leaks.
Pirates flooded into the Ibrahim, axes and swords at the ready. Jonathan and Phinneas were right behind them. The combat was fast, furious, and bloody, and the outcome was never in question. Jonathan never had a chance to fire off a single round from his pistol; nor did Phinneas ever dirty his Bowie knife. The battle appeared to Jonathan as a series of static images of violence—daguerreotypes of an age where men fought one another with blades of steel instead of at a distance with rifles. Here was Feng, upside-down and slicing a man’s throat. There was Jeron, cleaving a skull in two even as the man’s scimitar stuck deeply into his shoulder. And there was even young Sebastian, howling like a banshee as he stabbed a man twice his size.
The sheer brutality of the close combat penetrated into Jonathan’s fog of war and made him feel queasy. Even the battle at the Clays’ farmstead hadn’t equaled the violence of the pirates as they decimated the Ibrahim’s crew. He wondered, just as he had after he’d taken his own share of lives, how many of the dead men left wives behind who might never know their husbands’ fates. Then his jaw took on a firmer cast and he quashed those feelings. These men had known the risks of their charge, and they’d killed hundreds at the Albatross.
The last two Arabs fought fiercely, each taking one of the pirates’ lives before falling. After they collapsed, Phinneas ordered the remaining pirates to loot the bodies and then space them. “But where is Cecilie?” asked Jonathan. “I hope we didn’t just attack the wrong vessel.”
Phinneas shrugged. “We’re pirates, lad. There’s no such thing as a wrong vessel. Nevertheless, I suspect this is the right one.” He raised his voice. “Search the ship from prow to stern. The man who finds Mademoiselle Renault or evidence that she was aboard receives a full extra share.”
The men rushed to do his bidding, spreading throughout the Fulton, tearing open supply crates and cabinets. It was Sebastian who found her, with a cry of surprise when he opened one of the coke drawers near the boiler. Not only was Cecilie within it, but so was Jefferson Porter. Both were smudged from the coke dust but otherwise seemed unharmed.
“Well done, lad,” said Phinneas, and ruffled Sebastian’s hair in a fatherly sort of way.
Jonathan threw his arms around Cecilie. “I feared I would never s
ee you again,” he whispered. She stiffened at first and then gave into his hug.
“You came so far, Jonathan. I never imagined you would make it after everything that happened.”
“I refused to rest until we found you, but I couldn’t have done it without Phinneas.”
Phinneas and Cecilie regarded each other for a moment, the pirate standing with his arms folded across his chest. There was a look of suspicion on his face that Jonathan didn’t like.
“Aye. The fool has the heart of a besotted knight, I’m afraid. He would’ve run headlong into a roarin’ boiler to rescue ye. What do ye make of that?”
Cecilie glared, but didn’t say anything. Something passed between the two of them, but now wasn’t the time to deal with it. He turned to his butler instead. “And Jefferson, you old dog. When did the bastards capture you?”
Jefferson cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. “At McKinley Tower, sir. I’d hoped to spirit Miss Renault away from under their noses, but I’m afraid they got the best of me.”
“I’m grateful they didn’t simply kill you.” Jonathan pumped his friend’s hand.
“As am I, sir, most whole-heartedly.”
Jonathan felt something on Jefferson’s finger and looked at his valet’s hand. On it was Frank Grant’s ring, the one his father had made him out of his revolutionary plastic. How had Jefferson gotten it? Jonathan was certain Cecilie had returned it to the young man, but it looked like she’d reacquired it at some point, possibly during the battle at the farm, and then given it to Porter. Cold unease trickled into Jonathan’s gut.
“Where were they heading?” asked Phinneas.
“I’m afraid I don’t know, Captain,” said Jefferson.
“They did not tell me, either,” said Cecilie. “All I know is they have my father.”
Jonathan frowned. “They kidnapped the professor, too? Christ, why didn’t I foresee that?”
“It is all right, Jonathan. We will get him back.” She shook out her hair and it fluffed up like a show poodle’s topknot in the microgravity. “I assume they meant to rendezvous with another vessel. Perhaps a middleman, oui?”
“Could be,” said Phinneas. The frown hadn’t left his face, and Jonathan couldn’t take it anymore.
“What is it, Phinneas?”
“Nothing, lad. Just have a feelin’ in me bones. All of this was far too easy. But I think we best get back aboard the Ethershark and head for home space.”
“Captain!” cried Sebastian, who was standing by a porthole. “There’s another Fulton out there. My God, it’s the largest I’ve ever seen!”
Phinneas launched himself across the engine room to peer out another porthole. Jonathan joined him a moment later. The nearby Fulton was indeed gigantic, enough even to dwarf the Space Guard’s cutters. To Jonathan’s knowledge, only the Albatross had ever been a larger vessel than the one nearby.
Curlicues of Arabic script decorated the vessel’s flanks, and all her gunports were open. “Bloody hell, that’s a giant boat,” whispered Phinneas.
Jonathan watched as the other ship reeled out a stiff wire with semaphore flags upon it. He glanced over to see Phinneas mouthing words as he translated the message. “What does it say?”
Phinneas grimaced. “Surrender.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Phinneas knew from the minute Cecilie and the butler stepped out of the coke drawer that something wasn’t right. Orbital wouldn’t have noticed because of his feelings for the girl, but Phinneas had taken enough prisoners in his time to know what hostages look like, and aside from a little coal dust on their skin and clothes, these two didn’t have so much as a scratch on them. They also weren’t bound and gagged, and his memories of having Cecilie as a prisoner not too long ago were fresh enough to remind him that both had been an all-out necessity. She was feisty and didn’t go down easily.
But it was too late to ask questions, especially with them staring down an Arab dreadnaught that could have easily housed about five Ethersharks. He couldn’t even imagine the money and resources that had to go into building such a monstrosity. What sort of operation were they running over there in the desert? Phinneas hadn’t conducted much business at all on that part of the globe, but the greedy pirate in him very much wanted to find out.
“Looks like we’re about to have a meetin’ on the ‘Shark, whether we want to or not,” he said. “Muncher crew, disengage that bastard. Sebastian, puff us away from the Ibrahim a few dozen yards. Go easy, lad, so they don’t think we’re tryin’ to rabbit ourselves. Orbital, swing open the outer airlock door. May as well let ‘em know we’re inviting them in so they don’t get trigger-happy. Jeron, get on the flags and send the signal that they’re okay to board.” He led the party back to his ship.
“What do you think they want, Captain?” asked Jonathan in a low voice.
Phinneas snorted. “I’m sure they’re just checkin’ to see if we’ve got a bit of tea and crumpets to spare. What do ye think, Orbital? They’re after her.” He nodded toward Cecilie, whose remarkable behind was making its way through the muncher back into the Ethershark. The trouble that arse had caused him took away any urge he had to admire it.
With clunks and bumps, they disengaged from the wrecked Ibrahim and Sebastian tapped the steam jets gently so they wouldn’t be in any danger from the drifting wreckage. The giant dreadnaught grew larger and larger in the portholes until it eclipsed the entire arc of space. Phinneas whistled as he watched it. The CR seemed almost quaint in comparison to this level of ambition.
“Something’s not right,” said Jonathan.
Phinneas snorted. “Just now figurin’ that out, are ye?”
“Look, I may not know a lot about Fultons in general, but I know space construction. The design of that ship, the size of the plating, the framework. There’s no way they brought all of that up from Earth. It would have taken a hundred middlemen a hundred trips, and we’d have heard about a project of that magnitude at Roosevelt. You can’t keep something this big a secret.”
“How else would they have done it?”
The Ethershark’s hull clanged as the dreadnaught closed against it. Airlock clamps engaged and everyone’s ears popped as pressure equalized between the vessels. “They built it in space. They had to.”
“Ye mean, they assembled it?”
“No! They built it. I bet they’ve got an asteroid out there somewhere with a mine and smelter and manufacturing facility. There’s enough iron in even a small asteroid to give you all the raw construction material you’d ever need. They could do that in secret and nobody would ever know.”
“It bears lookin’ into, I suppose,” said Phinneas. “But that’s neither here nor there now, lad. Look sharp, men. Prepare to be boarded. Anybody who starts a fight without a direct order from me gets spaced, no questions asked.”
The crewmen arranged themselves around the hatch door. Phinneas kept his hand on the haft of the Bowie knife just in case there was an ambush. Orbital had one hand on the butt of his pistol and his other wrapped around Cecilie’s arm. Phinneas noticed something else that nearly made his eyes nearly pop out of his head. Her opposite hand was brushing against Porter’s with the kind of intimacy that belonged between secret lovers. What game was she playing?
The lock to the hatch spun, and a few seconds later the door popped open.
The first two men who came through were dressed in the same vacuum suits he remembered from the Albatross battle, but the man who stepped onto the ship in their wake wore what was immediately the most lavish, ridiculous, and enviable suit Phinneas had ever seen. It was a spectacle of pure white gilded in gold threading and jewels. An ornate golden tiger was woven right into the fabric and it had rubies for eyes that were big enough to choke a camel. Phinneas, who knew jewels the way ranchers knew cattle, estimated that the suit would be worth millions. It was a foolish thing to wear in space given all of the soot swirling around, not to mention the hungry pirates standing within a few feet of him, but there
wasn’t a smudge on this man that Phinneas could see. He probably had enough peons in his charge to wipe off every errant speck of coke dust.
“I’m Captain Greaves of the Ethershark. Ye want to tell me what all this bloody nonsense is about?”
One of the Arabs in gray stepped forward. His expression was thunderous. “Silence, infidel! How dare you address Sultan Abbasi this way?”
The Sultan raised his hand. “That is enough, Bakir. Our ignorant friends in the West don’t know better. Besides, I am afraid we are not very well met, are we?” He bowed his head forward a precise quarter of an inch—just enough for Phinneas to know the Sultan respected him as a fellow captain, but not a whit more than that. “I am Sultan Abbasi al-Suwaidi of Al-Hasa. My vessel is the Seyf Alelh, which you would call the Sword of Allah. I bid you greetings, but wish the circumstances could be better. All of this violence has weighed quite heavily on me.”
Phinneas sneered. “I bet. Was that before or after ye destroyed a space station and killed hundreds of people to gain one?”
The Sultan’s grin appeared genuine enough, but his eyes told another story. Phinneas knew the look of a sadist, and this man was one. “Let us not dwell on the past. We have a simple transaction to make and we will be on our way. We have Mademoiselle Renault’s father, and we plan to hand him over in exchange for the girl and her servant.”
Orbital spluttered. “I’m sorry, what? First off all, Cecilie isn’t going anywhere. And Jefferson Porter is not her—”
The butler moved so fast that Phinneas barely saw him. He thought maybe Jefferson was going to pull a gun on the Sultan, but when he finally understood what was happening, it was too late. Porter was pointing a six-shooter at Jonathan Orbital’s face, and in the commotion, Cecilie had pulled out a small pistol of her own and trained right on Phinneas. The look of satisfaction on her face reminded him of a cat who’d just caught the mouse. Nobody moved, not even the pirates who were within striking distance of the two, to their credit. The risk of pistols firing inside the Fulton was enough to give everyone pause. Besides, Phinneas had made his orders about starting fights quite clear.
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