by Nathan Long
My brain was screaming. I’m going to miss it! I’m going to drop right past!
Suddenly I could see the netting and the seams in the skin in the balloon, zooming-in like I was looking through a telephoto lens. I threw my arms up and tucked. I smashed into the flank of the balloon, elbows first. Fireworks exploded behind my eyes.
If I’d come in straight I would have broken my arms and neck. Luckily, I hit at a shallow angle, so all I got was a major case of rope burn and Excedrin Headache Number 1006. That was the good part. The bad part was that I glanced away again.
What was it my science teacher said? The angle of something or other is equal to the angle of some other shit. In other words I bounced off at the same angle I hit, away from the balloon. The city and the sky whipped across my vision, then something hit me hard in the guts and I folded up like a wet rag over a laundry line. I heard a crack. My ribs? I couldn’t tell. Everything hurt.
I slipped off the hard thing and fell again. Something white flew up in front of my eyes. Something else caught my shoulder. I jerked to a stop. I wasn’t falling anymore, but I didn’t know what was happening either. The pain in my stomach and my shoulder and my head was making me fade in and out like a light on a dimmer switch. Where was I? My whole world was white. It was all I could see. Was I in heaven? I never thought heaven would hurt so much.
The white flapped forward and hit me in the face. It was cloth, heavy and stiff, like canvas. Canvas!
There was a rope under my armpit and a thick spar of wood over my head. The steering sail. I’d hit one of the ship’s steering sails. I was safe.
Safe-ish. An arrow ripped through the sail next to my head and dangled there. Shit! “Don’t shoot! It’s me! It’s Jane! Stop!”
I heard voices below me. “Show yourself.”
I was hung up. I reached up and grabbed the spar. I groaned. Every muscle in my body ached. I pulled up and slipped my other arm free of the rope. The pain almost made me black out. Every joint in my body screamed. I needed a masseuse and a chiropractor, stat.
I inched my way to the balloon, then grabbed the rigging and climbed down. Every move was like getting poked by blunt needles. When I got under the curve of the balloon the whole deck was looking up at me.
Kai-La cracked a smile. “Quite an entrance, lass. You might have joined us in the lock-up and saved yourself some trouble.”
Burly and another pirate helped me down to the deck. My legs buckled under me and I slumped against the rail. “Not here to join you. You gotta join us.”
One of her eyebrows arched. “Join you? What mean you?”
I pointed up. “Help us take that ship.”
Kai-La and the pirates burst out laughing. Kai-La folded her arms. “I may be called the Mad She-Skelsha, but I’m not as mad as all that. That’s Kedac’s flagship, pride of the Oran Navy.”
I shook my head. “It’s not crewed-up. He was going on his honeymoon. Only a squad or two.”
Kai-La chuckled. “Most reassuring. We will defeat Kedac only have the entire Oran Navy after us for the rest of our lives. My apologies, girl, but tempting as it is to teach the blood-thirsty vurlak a lesson, I’m afraid I still decline.”
I waved a hand. “Wait. Listen. Kedac’s gone renegade. Tried to overthrow the Aldhanan. He’s kidnapped Wen-Jhai. We gotta stop him before he raises the whole navy.” Kai-La stared at me. I dropped the other shoe. “You pull this off, you save the country. Probably get a goddamn medal. At least a fat payoff.”
Kai-La and Burly exchanged a glance. Kai-La kneeled beside me. “Is this true?”
I held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
Kai-La looked at Burly again, then crossed to him. They whispered back and forth. I raised my voice. “Hurry it up, will ya? They’ve already started dropping. My pals are gonna get poked full of holes.”
They talked for a second more, then Burly turned and started shouting at the crew. “Drop ballast! Turn about! All hands prepare for boarding!”
Kai-La grinned down at me, as cold as a freon enema. “You had best be telling the truth, Lass.”
I showed her my three fingers again. “Scout’s honor. Scout’s honor.” Then my head flopped back and I closed my eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
VENGANCE!
Somebody was shouting. I opened my eyes. It took a second for my brain to claw through the fog and figure out what was going on. Kai-La. Ship. Lots of pain. Okay. Up to date.
Kai-La’s rat-faced third in command was standing at the rail, dressed in a kir-dhan’s uniform and calling to Kedac’s ship. “Ahoy, the Triumphant. Are you in need of assistance?”
I looked around the deck. Half a dozen pirates were also standing around in airmen’s loincloths and officers’ uniforms, but most of them were hiding below the rail, grappling hooks in hand.
Good plan. The pirates had a navy ship. Why not use it to get as close to Kedac as possible before pulling off their false moustaches and shouting “Boo!” Last thing they wanted was to exchange artillery fire with a ship five times their size. Kedac had four huge, telephone-pole-lobbing, super-crossbows running down each side of his ship. We had three total and they were toothpicks compared to the wood Kedac was packing. He’d turn us into sawdust and red paste.
I peeked over the rail. We were fifty feet straight out from Kedac and drifting closer. I looked up, worried, but Sai and Lhan were still poking the balloon with their swords, and the marines were still watching them like coonhounds under a treed possum.
Now we were thirty feet out. A kir-dhan from Kedac’s ship shouted back. “Give the code of the day, kir-dhan!”
Rat-Face put on a puzzled look. “We already gave the code. Did you not hear it?”
Kedac’s kir-dhan started to look suspicious. “Repeat it or come no further.” Kedac stepped to the poopdeck rail, looking at us.
Rat-Face nodded. “Certainly.” He turned to a pirate dressed as an ensign. We kept drifting closer. “Ensign, the code of the day.”
The other pirate saluted and stepped to the rail. “Yes sir, the code of the day.”
Kedac’s kir-dhan was looking back and forth between them. The marines behind him were starting to mutter. They knew something was wrong now. Kedac’s kir-dhan waved his hands. “Back! Stay back.”
Kedac barked from the poopdeck. ““Turn them away, kir-dhan!”
The ensign-pirate grinned. We were in range. “The code of the day is... attack!”
Like a squad of jack-in-the-boxes, the pirates popped up from behind the rail. Half of them chucked grapples at Kedac’s ship, the other half shot arrows into the marines. Only a few grapples hit, but they were enough. The pirates hauled on the ropes and the gap between the ships got smaller.
Kedac’s marines started screaming and shouting and running around like crazy, caught off guard. Half of them were still in the rigging, hemming in Sai and Lhan.
Kedac stayed calm though. He called orders from the poopdeck like a waiter reading off his ticket to a cook. “Arbolasts, hole their envelope. Marines, clear those grapples. Crossbowmen, return to deck and fire at will.”
It worked like magic. With orders, Kedac’s crew started moving like clockwork. Marines jumped forward to hack through the ropes. Crossbowmen dropped to the deck and lined up behind the marines. Four details broke off and started prepping the big crossbows, swinging them up at our balloon and cranking back their wrist-thick bowstrings.
The pirates came back with a barrage of arrows, picking off marines and brushing them back from the grapples.
The gun-crews were protected though. The humongous crossbows were so big the pirates couldn’t get a bead on the guys working them. If we could close the gap fast enough, we’d be able to overrun the crews, otherwise we’d be heading south PDQ.
The marines returned fire, mowing down half the pirates who were pulling us closer to Kedac’s ship. We were going to lose the race. The marines would fire their big guns and sink us before we got to them. At least they wo
uld if Mrs. Carver’s little girl didn’t get off her freckled pink ass and do something about it.
Up ’til then I’d been trying to decide if I wanted to sit this one out. My heart wanted in on the finish. If I didn’t get a piece of Kedac this whole trip would be for nothing, but my body was telling me that I needed a breather, maybe even a short stay in hospital. The cut Kedac had given me had stiffened up my arm so much it felt like I was wearing a concrete cast, and the rope burn where the sail-rigging had caught me felt like somebody had got after my armpit with a belt sander, and I was pretty sure I had a broken rib.
Take a break, my brain said. You’ve already done the impossible. You got the message to the pirates. Let somebody else take it from here. But nobody else could do this. If I didn’t go, they’d pop our balloon and we’d freefall to pavement.
The gun-crew to my right was getting closest to ready. I got into a crouch. My muscles told me to lie down again. I told them to fuck off. I had to shout.
I hopped onto the rail and kicked off into a somersault dive over the closing gap. A couple of crossbow bolts zipped by. I landed off-balance on the stock of the giant bow and swung lamely at the crew with my sword. I missed by a mile, but they jumped back anyway, surprised.
Then I had a thought. Taking out the gun crew wasn’t going to do much. New guys would just take over as soon as I jumped to the next one. What I needed to do was to put the crossbow itself out of commission.
Nothing easier. I backhanded the heavy crossbow string with my sword.
Stupid!
The cable split no problem, but I forgot about the recoil. When it parted, that baseball bat-thick rope snapped back like a whip and cracked me across the thigh and ass-cheek.
Nothing has ever hurt worse—swords, clubs, gunshots, ditching my Harley naked—don’t ask—nothing. It hit me like a club, knocking me off the crossbow and bruising me down to the bone, but worse, it laid me open like it was made of barbed wire and broken glass. I fell down under the nose of the bow, writhing and screaming, my leg covered in blood and greasy sweat.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” The pain just kept coming. It felt like my ass had been napalmed.
Shapes were moving above me. The gun crew, working their way around the bow, trying to get at me with their swords. I could barely see them through the tears in my eyes. I had no idea where my sword was. Hell, I didn’t have a real good idea where my hands and feet were.
A crew man swung at me. I tried to roll and kick. I have no idea if I connected, but the fact that I’m telling this story proves he missed. The rest were closing in. Their swords went up.
I’d like to tell you that my life flashed before my eyes and I apologized for all the crappy things I’d done, but all I can remember thinking was, “Well, shit.”
Then one of the guys was twisting and screaming, and the rest were turning. The screaming guy flopped on top of me and the arrow sticking out of his back poked me in the tit.
The other guys fell back as a wave of pirates came over the rail, swinging steel and screaming bloody murder. They’d made it.
I wanted to get up and help, but my parts weren’t talking to each other yet. My leg and ass were giving off too much static.
Something blocked out a big chunk of the sky. I thought it was another marine and groped around for my sword. It was Burly. He laid my sword across my chest and patted me on the shoulder. “Smartly done, lass. We’ve cleared the other ballisti. Join us when you’re ready.”
Ready, hell. A gang of marines were stabbing at us right now. Burly knocked one sword aside with his armored sleeve and kicked another guy’s legs out. I fumbled my sword up in front of my face in time to stop another guy’s chop an inch from my nose. Ready or not I was in the fight.
I grabbed my attacker’s ankle and pulled. He fell into the guy next to him. Burly skewered a third guy and stood. I tried to join him. White-out again. I fell against the big crossbow, blind with pain. Marines dropped from the rigging. Burly fought them off. I couldn’t help. I was too busy heaving.
When the bile stopped rising, I swung my leg a little and put some weight on it. The pain jacked through me again, but I was ready for it this time. It only made me scream.
“Goddammit!”
There was no time for this. Burly was getting swamped. He had a cut over his eye. I stabbed with my sword and gutted one of his attackers, fighting another blackout. Two more turned on me. Less for him to worry about, but too much for me. I fought ’em off through a haze of agony. The pain made everything else harder to focus on, like having a woodpecker tapping on the back of my skull.
With Burly’s help I cleared two guys and we took as quick look around. Things weren’t so good. The pirates had the marines outnumbered two to one, but these were Kedac’s crack troops we were talking about here. They were his elite personal guard. Not only were they better fighters, they were more organized. We had some seriously tough hombres on our side, but they didn’t work together like marines. A cold sweat of panic made my palms slick. We couldn’t lose it all now. There had to be some way to level the playing field.
I looked around for Kedac. If I could take him out of the fight, that might take the fight out of the marines.
He was up on the poopdeck fighting with Kai-La and the rat-faced pirate, but as I watched, Rat-Face spun away from Kedac, spraying blood everywhere, his throat cut to the spine. Kedac turned his full attention on Kai-La. She backed to the rail, sweating like a whore on dollar-day. And she wasn’t the only one. We were getting our asses handed to us all over the deck.
Wait a minute! Level the playing field?
Burly saw Kai-La getting slammed and started forward. “Captain!”
I stopped him. “I’ll go. I’ve got an idea for you. What would happen if you dropped some ballast on the little ship?”
Burly’s eyes clouded as he thought it through, then he grinned. “Brilliant, lass. I’ll get some lads on it and spread the word.”
“Aces.”
I turned back toward Kedac and almost swallowed my tongue. Kedac was turning Kai-La into Swiss cheese. She was bleeding from a handful of cuts and he had her bent back over the rail, making gnat’s-ass parries.
There was a deck full of brawling bodies between us. I’d never make it unless I took the highroad. My leg was still burning like I’d soaked it in battery acid, and cramping so bad I could barely stretch it out straight, but it would only get worse if I stood still.
I jumped and kicked off the shoulder of a marine, ruining his swing at a pirate, then sprang off another super-bow and arced toward Kedac, raising my sword overhead. “Death from above!”
I snagged something with my sword and stopped dead just as I cleared the poopdeck rail. I crashed to the boards. The pain of jumping was nothing compared to the pain of landing on my leg. Jet engines roared behind my ears.
When I could think again, I looked up to see what I’d hit. There was a two yard rip in the underside of the balloon. The edges were fluttering as the levitating air escaped. Oops!
I pulled myself up, hissing through my teeth, and stepped toward Kedac, but somebody jumped in front of me—a huge, bullnecked son-of-a-bitch in a deckhand’s loincloth, his eyes shining like a street crazy’s. “I swore vengeance upon you, demoness, and the Seven have delivered you to me at last!”
He swung a sword at me. I fell back. Who was this guy? What was he talking about? Then I remembered. He was the dude I’d lifted over my head at Kedac’s shindig, the guy who Kedac had busted down to deck-hand, Lut-Gar. I hardly recognized him without all his medals.
I groaned. Not now! Kai-La was halfway over the rail and losing blood like a sieve. I tried to knock Lut-Gar aside and get to Kedac, but even though he was dressed like a deckhand, he still fought like an officer. He dodged my blade and lunged. I had to twist sideways to miss getting poked.
I swung. He parried, binding my blade. Fucker was strong. He stopped me cold. I kicked him in the chest. That worked, though I almost fainted from using my
leg. He bounced off Kedac’s back, jarring his sword arm.
Kedac glanced back, glaring. “Mind your swing, curse you.” Then did a double take when he saw me. “You!”
Kai-La swung at him, but even distracted, Kedac was too fast. He blocked, but at least she managed to stagger clear of the rail and reset herself.
Lut-Gar stepped between me and Kedac like a jealous boyfriend at a highschool dance. “I have her, Kir-Dhanan. I have her. Fear not.”
Kedac looked like he was going to say something, but Kai-La swiped at him and he had to get back to work.
I blocked Lut-Gar’s swing and chopped at him, but again I underestimated him. I was so worried about stopping Kedac I wasn’t thinking about the fight I was in. Lut-Gar punched me in the temple. My knees sagged. I saw double.
He beat my blade aside. It bit into the rail and got stuck. I tugged at it, but my brain was a million miles away from my hand. Lut-Gar raised his sword, eyes glowing in triumph. “At last I am avenged! At last I make recompense for the indignities you have suffered upon me!”
If he’d shut up he might have got me, but suddenly the deck tilted—a twenty degree sideways list. Burly had come through. Dropping ballast from the little ship had shot it higher, pulling Kedac’s ship up on one side by the grapple ropes. Lut-Gar stumbled backward, downslope, tripped over Rat-Face’s body, fell against the siderail, and flipped up and over, ass-first into the wide blue yonder. Dignified to the end.
I staggered up and turned toward Kedac. The tilt had taken him by surprise. Hell, it had taken me by surprise and I knew it was coming. He was pulling himself upright. Unfortunately it had caught Kai-La off guard too. She was on her knees, clutching her bleeding forehead. She’d brained herself on the rail. Kedac moved in.
I dove forward, sword first, and shouldered Kai-La sideways as Kedac’s blade shot out. His steel screeched off mine and passed a quarter-inch to the right of Kai-La’s ear. She was too gone to notice.