Choose Omnibus (Choose: An Interactive Steampunk Webserial Book 3)

by Taven Moore

  They had left Helion.

  “Please, Jinn. This will be a very long trip if you do not talk to me.”

  “There should not be a trip at all,” he growled. “I put you in danger.”

  “No, Jinn. This is not your fault,” she said. “If I had not run off in the street—”

  “Yes, this is my fault,” he replied, his voice lower than she had ever heard it. “Stop talking to me, now.”

  After a half hour of begging and cajoling, she finally stepped away from the grate. Perhaps he would be more receptive later.

  After all, it was a very long trip. She sat next to the now-awake Snow and gestured, “More. Please?”

  Hank had better come up with a good plan to rescue them. She would become very frustrated with him if he did not.

  “Teach me the gesture for ‘pastry.’”

  24. Peacekeeper

  Hank gritted his teeth and wondered if all Shinra’ere were this impossible to work with or if he were just blessed with an abundance of cloth-wrapped idiots wielding arcblades.

  “I said it before and I’ll say it again, lady. We’re just waiting to pick up some cargo, then we’ll be out of your hair.”

  “You’ve been waiting an awfully long time,” said the Shinra’ere, leaned casually against the Miraj’s guardrail.

  “Yeah. Believe me, I noticed,” he replied tersely, his own back to the thick metal of the Miraj’s mast. He hadn’t wanted the Shinra’ere to board his ship, but she was Shinra’ere. It wasn’t like they asked permission.

  Speaking of Shinra’ere, where in the seven Roith’delat’en hells were Jinn and Remora? He’d sent them on a grocery run, for Starbirth’s sake. It wasn’t as if he’d dropped them off in the middle of a warzone. He would have been unsurprised for Remora to buck their meeting time, but Jinn hadn’t even wanted to land here. Surely the black-wrapped Shinra’ere would keep her in line.

  He rolled his eyes. Right. As if anyone could keep Remora in line.

  “You know who else waits for an unspecified cargo but can never quite seem to find their cargo manifest?” This new Shinra, a woman who’d introduced herself as Nolan, may have been twice as pretty as Jinn, but she was only half as delightful. Since Hank despised and distrusted the other Shinra’ere warrior, that wasn’t saying much.

  Hank spread his hands. “You think we’re pirates? Search the ship all you like.” He paused. “Of course, I’ll need to see a warrant. Good luck getting that, seeing as how we aren’t doing anything illegal sitting here.” Hank shaded his eyes to scan the roads leading into the dock area. Where were they? Remora was probably just wasting time, haggling over a necklace or a flux capacitor or something. Whatever it was cogsmith girls wasted their time on. That was probably it.

  His gut disagreed. Trouble, it told him. And with Remora at the center of it, that trouble might be terrible indeed.

  Nolan scoffed. “Nothing illegal happening right now, no, but your ship bears some interesting battle scars. You’ve seen trouble, and not long ago. How do I know you’re not in my city to cause trouble?”

  “You give every passing ship this much attention, or are you flirting with me?” asked Hank, almost reflexively turning an easy smile her direction.

  She scowled at him. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m just doing my job as a peacekeeper. I just need to make sure we’re all legit here.”

  Hank flashed her a wink. “Oh lady, we’re all legit here.” He drew a solemn X over his chest. “Captain’s honor.”

  She snorted. Her reply was cut off by the sudden and unexpected arrival of something small and dark zooming just over their heads. Both Hank and the Shinra ducked as it passed, a trail of high-pitched chittering in its wake.

  Hank scowled; he recognized that sound. Reaching up to the comm box hanging from the mast, he grabbed the horn-shaped receiver with one hand and pulled the alarm lever with his other. After a pause, he spoke into the end of the receiver. “Hackwrench, we got company. Looks to be one of your lot. Get your fuzzy tail up here.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he replaced the receiver and looked up to see that Nolan had dropped her hand to her weapon. Shinra’ere didn’t just grab at their weapons—touching their hilt was as good as declaring intent to kill. She was certainly wound up all of a sudden.

  “If it comes back for another pass, grab it,” she commanded tersely.

  Hank watched her closely. “They don’t really get tangled in your hair, you know. That’s a myth.”

  Her eyes never stopped scanning the air around them. “Cute. I have orders to capture a black shonfra.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “And something about our ship made you think it would come here? I’ve been called a lot of things, but this is the first time I’ve been accused of being part of an underground skyroad.”

  “No, it’s not—” she cut herself off. “That’s none of your business. You capture it and I’ll see you get a reward.”

  A reward? Hank’s eyebrows lifted even further. She wanted that fuzzbutt caught pretty badly if she was flinging out promises of cash to sky captains she’d half-accused of being a pirate.

  The black blur dropped down from above. Hank jerked away, but the shonfra didn’t attack. He landed on Hank’s shoulder, something heavy held in his tail. The little guy was exhausted, wings drooping and ribcage heaving like a tiny bellows. Along his sides, vivid purple rectangles marched from his eyes to his tailtip. Hank lifted his hand to push the guy off—he was no perch!—but the beast gulped enough air to chatter urgently at him before dropping the box into his hand.

  “Hand him over, McCoy,” said the Shinra’ere, voice low.

  The shonfra chattered angrily at her from Hank’s shoulder, two tiny hands gripping Hank’s hair for balance while the other two shook tiny impotent fists at her.

  As much hassle as Nolan had given him, Hank wasn’t terribly inclined to obey. Besides, the shonfra had carried that box and delivered it to him for a reason. Before he’d met Hackwrench, maybe he wouldn’t have been so open minded, but their newest crewmember had won his loyalty in the past few days. The least he could do was give this new shonfra the benefit of the doubt.

  “Don’t be silly,” he said to the Shinra, turning the box over in his hands. “You said a black shonfra. This one is mostly purple.”

  “This is no time for tricks, you disreputable— “

  Whatever else she had been going to say was lost in her surprise at Hackwrench’s entrance.

  Hackwrench, driving his helmet-sized cogsmithing ship, whirred up through the open port hatch. Bones followed, his floppy brown hat firmly smashed down on his head, the wide brim shading most of his ticker face from view.

  As Hackwrench neared, his ship began to translate the black shonfra’s voice.

  “You take EXPLETIVE DELETED wrappings and hang yourself! EXPLETIVE DELETED harpy! You try. Take a swing at me! I bite you! So hard! I bite you on—”

  Hank cleared his throat, and the little shonfra fell silent, probably realizing for the first time that he was being translated.

  “Now that we can all understand each other, how about some introductions?” Hank smiled, gesturing to each person in turn. “I am Hank, the harpy across from me is Nolan.” Her brows drew in dangerously at the introduction, but he smoothly moved on. “The blue shonfra so kindly supplying the translation is Hackwrench, and my first mate in the hat is Bones. Who are you?”

  The shonfra straightened, clearly pleased at being addressed directly. He chittered, and Hackwrench’s ship translated. “Mosley. This is my name.”

  “They can TALK?” Nolan burst out, jaw agape.

  “How perceptive of you,” said Hank. He wasn’t making any friends with that Shinra, but something about this situation set his teeth on edge. “Mind telling me why you’re here, Mosley?”

  “The box. Red girl gives me box, she tells me deliver it. Grand battle. Many of us escape. Grateful. You push button. You see.” Mosley spoke in the clipped sentences used by the free shonf
ra, but Hank didn’t have time to wonder about his history. The “red girl” sounded an awful lot like he might be talking about Remora. Hank scanned the docks again. Still no sign of her.

  “What do you think, Hackwrench, is it safe to ‘push button?’”

  “Just hand over the shonfra and the box, McCoy, and we can leave it at that. I won’t even mention your HH-class airship in my report,” interrupted Nolan, hand still gripped on her weapon hilt.

  “Oh, come on,” wheedled Hank. “Aren’t you even a little curious?”

  She scowled, but pulled her hand away from her weapon.

  Hackwrench chattered. “I don’t believe he lies, Hank. It should be safe. Besides, if it was a bomb, he wouldn’t be staying on your shoulder.”

  Well, that was incredibly comforting. Hank lifted the box and pointed one corner at Mosley. “This thing explodes and I live, I’m going to make sure you regret it.”

  In response, the black shonfra began to groom his ears. Clearly, he was not worried about an explosion.

  Hank pushed the button.

  Ten minutes later, he pushed the button again, turning off the recording. The mood on the deck of the ship had gone from serious to deadly.

  The look of shock on Nolan’s face told him she was just as surprised by what she heard as they were. Hank pocketed the device. “All this going on under your nose—kidnapping, threats of murder, intent to sell a free human into slavery—”

  “And free SHONFRA,” said both Mosley and Hackwrench at the same time.

  Hank nodded, “AND free shonfra. You’re not very good at this peacekeeping thing, are you?” Nolan’s eyes widened, clearly unused to being attacked. “What do you plan to do about this?”

  Nolan took a step back. “I need to talk to my boss.”

  Bones spoke for the first time. “Your boss dictates just how much peace you keep? That seems illogical.”

  Hank smiled and added his own jab. “Would this be the SAME boss who told you to come to our ship and catch a black shonfra, by chance?”

  Nolan took another step back. “I thought it was just some rich guy’s pet, gone loose. I thought you’d been seen with it.”

  Hackwrench spat over the side of his ship. It landed on the deck of Hank’s ship, but he allowed Hackwrench the commentary. A similar sour taste was in Hank’s mouth.

  Nolan shook her head. “I just need to clarify the situation, that’s all.”

  “You do that. We need to get going. Some of us get to pick up the slack left by peacekeepers, make sure innocent people aren’t killed. Don’t worry, I know how your kind feel about us dirtsiders anyway. We’ll be getting out of your hair.”

  “No, you should stay. I may need to ask more questions.”

  Hank ignored her, barking at his crew. “Finish the repairs on those Hawks we just picked up. Looks like we’re going to need them.”

  Nolan strode forward, hand on her hilt. “Did you hear what I said? You can’t leave.”

  Bones went very still at the threat. If this went bad, Hank had never had better backup.

  Hank smiled, baring his teeth. “Lady, if you’re planning on detaining me, I’d appreciate if you’d make it clear right now. I don’t want any trouble, but it looks like I landed right in the middle of a steaming pile of it. I aim to clean up this mess, and I need to know just how messy you want to make it.”

  Nolan took a deep breath, then removed her hand from the weapon. Bones relaxed.

  “I still need to find out what is going on,” she said.

  “Good luck with that,” said Hank.

  Nolan leaped over the railing to the docks below.

  Mosley called after her, “You tell your boss! You tell him I said EXPLETIVE DELETED himself!”

  “A message from the entire crew of the Miraj,” added Hank.

  He waited until Nolan was out of sight before depositing Mosley on the comm box. “Let’s get going, boys. I want us in the air five minutes ago.”

  “Aye-aye, captain,” said Bones, sliding back through the hatch to the lower decks.

  Hank stood on the deck a moment longer, looking up at the sky as if he might see the airship she was on. Hold on, Remora. We’re coming for you.

  Extra Content

  The following adventure was written without polls, to explain just what Hank, Bones, and Hackwrench had gotten themselves into while Remora and Jinn were finding a whole box full of trouble in Helion. Turns out Hank can find trouble just fine, even without Remora’s help.

  Enjoy!

  1. Loggerhead

  Fog floated atop the ocean’s surface, tall enough to tower over a ship and dense enough to carve itself into deceptive landscapes. “Handsome” Hank McCoy stood on the swaying deck of the Miraj and kicked at a clinging tendril of mist foolish enough to spill on deck, scowling as if the heat of his displeasure might somehow dissipate the fog.

  For the umpteenth time, he pulled the leather-bound compass from his vest pocket and checked its shivering needle. Still straight ahead, the compass assured him. Even standing on deck rather than relying on the limited view of the window from his captain’s chair, “straight ahead” could fall off the face of the earth as easily as it could lead to Loggerhead Isle.

  The Miraj’s nose sliced through another dense bank of fog and Hank’s jaw clenched as he pocketed the compass.

  Whoever had decided to build these Roith’delat’en secret islands on the back of giant cogsmithed turtles needed to be hanged. That was, assuming the thrice-damned fool wasn’t dead already. Bad enough the outlaw islands protected themselves with near-impossible weather patterns, the cursed things were near impossible to find even for someone in possession of a leatherback compass. Which he had, and which wasn’t doing him a lick of good while he pushed his ship blindly forward.

  More than once, he’d found occasion to be thankful for these impossible-to-find cities. Today, however, he wanted this trip to be short. Starshards only knew what trouble Remora could get into when left alone in a strange city and told to buy groceries.

  A normal girl, under the protection of a Shinra’ere warrior? He wouldn’t think twice. Remora, on the other hand, he suspected of not only seeking trouble, but tugging on its ears and yanking its tail to see if it yowled. If this “grocery” trip didn’t end up somehow causing him more problems than it solved, he’d eat his boots.

  The fog thinned. Probably. He’d thought the fog was thinning at least five times now, and he’d been wrong each time.

  This time, though, he was right. The faint outline of a shrouded bulk drew itself against the ceaseless gray backdrop. Hank grabbed the receiver of the comm box and pulled the alarm lever. “Hard to port, Bones! Loggerhead ahoy! We’ll be awful red-faced if we slam into the side of it as a hello!”

  Beneath his feet, the Miraj shuddered and heaved, the metal groaning as the unhappy airship maneuvered in the water. He patted the fog-dampened mast. “We’ll get you refilled soon, darlin’. I know you miss flying. Swim for me just a little bit longer. We’ll be airborne before you know it. Promise.”

  It was probably his imagination, but the metal groaning seemed to quiet. “That’s my girl,” he said, giving her a final pat before moving toward the hatch. They’d need clearance to dock, and for that, he’d need to be back in the captain’s room.

  Just before his head ducked belowdecks, an airship whipped overhead, barely skirting the Miraj’s outstretched sail arms. The rush of its passage unbalanced the Miraj, causing her to dip deeply to the side. “Hey! Watch your altitude, rustbucket!” he shouted at the reckless airship, despite knowing the pilot wouldn’t be able to hear him.

  The airship was sleek, all sharp edges and immaculate black-and-blue paint. Clusters of alchemist bombs clung to its belly like burrs in a dresl’s tail.

  A racer. Not too surprising. Loggerhead was Bricktop’s domain, and Bricktop ran most of the black-market airship races.

  Hank frowned and decided to keep an eye out for that paint job. Good racers—or at least, rac
ers with money—painted their ships so the crowds could identify them. Not many could read, but most fans knew their pilot’s colors. The Miraj hadn’t been touched, but he didn’t appreciate being buzzed by some hotheaded young racing pilot.

  Hank’s irritation quickened his steps and occupied his thoughts all the way to the captain’s room. His mood was not improved at the sight of his First Mate. “Bones, I told you to stay out of my chair!”

  The ticker didn’t bother with his hat when on the ship. The copper plating of his skull gleamed in the gaslamp light and his eyebeams flickered. Green, for irritation. “This is the most suitable location for me to control the ship. It is only logical that I sit there when piloting the Miraj.”

  Hank shooed the ticker from the chair and took his place. The seat was cold. “That may be, but you’re also damn heavy and I can’t exactly visit the factory to get another chair if you ruin this one.”

  “Do not exaggerate. My weight is well within the chair’s capacity.”

  Hank scowled, crossing his arms. “It’s also the captain’s chair and I’m the captain, not you. Stuff your Roith’delat’en logic and stay out of my chair.”

  Bones sighed—a hollow, metal sound.

  It wasn’t exactly enthusiastic agreement, but it would do.

  Hank spun to face the table, flipping a switch on its underside. A series of gears spun and a plume of steam mushroomed from the exhaust to the side. A square of the table’s top flipped upward, revealing a curved glass screen and control panel. Hank flicked the power switch, causing the screen to fuzz with sepia snow, then held down the large red button to the left side of the screen. “This is Captain Hank McCoy of the Miraj, requesting permission to dock at Loggerhead. Please advise.”

  Almost immediately, the screen cleared. They must have known he was coming. Not a surprise.

  What was a surprise, however, was the face that greeted him. Instead of a control-tower lackey, the flat haircut and square jaw of Bricktop, de facto leader of all Loggerhead Isle, filled the screen. Bricktop hadn’t aged a day since the last time Hank had seen him. Even, white teeth bit down on a fat cigar. Even though he couldn’t smell it, Hank’s nose wrinkled from the memory alone. Bricktop’s taste in cigars was worse than his taste in barbershops.