by Taven Moore
Sharp chittering broke the silence behind him as Hackwrench entered the room. Hank turned to see the little shonfra, piloting the melon-sized aircraft he used to fly after his wings had been destroyed. “I told you it would work.” Though the machine’s translation of the shonfra’s speech was monotone, Hank imagined he could hear the smugness anyway.
Behind Hackwrench flew another shonfra—this one with wings intact. Mosley, the black and purple shonfra sent by Remora to ask for help from her prison, buzzed into the room on sets of fairy wings, landing on a nearby console.
Hank ignored both of them. “Bones, you’re up! I’m on my way. I expect that hull breached before I arrive.”
“If you are too slow, I will simply board the ship without you,” retorted his first mate.
Hank swore, swinging out of his seat. “Don’t you dare!” he shouted at the mouthpiece, but Bones didn’t respond.
“Hackwrench, you have the helm.”
Hank barely heard the translated reply, “Well, I hardly thought you’d give it to Mosley. He’s not even a member of the crew.” Hank ran for the door, checking his leather-holstered alchemist gun with one hand while the other ran fingers along the array of ammo vials on his belt.
“Hang on, Remora,” he muttered. “We’re coming.”
6. Goggles
Hank reached the slender Jefferies tube connecting the Nest to the starboard Sparhawk, setting his boot heels against the metal railing on either side of the ladder and sliding down the shaft at speed, one gloved hand against the ceiling of the tube for balance.
The shaft emptied into the open port hatch of the Sparhawk and Hank landed with the grace of long practice, his free hand flicking free the fasteners of his leather holster, just in case any unfriendlies were nearby.
He needn’t have worried. The Sparhawk’s interior was empty. He ignored the pilot’s seat and control panels and focused instead on the open external hatch. The Swan had been reeled in, meek as a lamb, and Bones had already extended the Sparhawk’s thin plank through the few feet of empty space separating the two airships.
A sizeable hole gaped in the Swan’s exposed side, the metal peeled back in angry, jagged shards. Hank scowled, looking at it. He’d told Bones time and time again to use an alchemist gun to blow the hole. Sure, just tearing the metal was faster, but it made boarding the ship more dangerous for anyone with skin that needed protecting. Just because his first mate didn’t have to worry about things like gangrene and bleeding to death didn’t mean the rest of the crew shared his lack of concern.
Gripping the oshi bar above the Sparhawk’s door, Hank stepped out onto the plank, letting his balance adjust to the buffeting of the wind. Most folks didn’t get a second chance to learn the lesson that the air pressure inside the ship was a lot different than that on the outside.
The wind plastered his loose cotton shirt against his arms and sent his shoulder-length hair into a stinging halo around his face. His goggles danced on the end of the leather loop around his neck. A breathless moment suspended over miles of open air with nothing but cloud vapor between him and a messy death, and he was through the jagged opening and into the belly of the Swan.
Just as Hackwrench had said it would, the Gefion injector had knocked out all power on the Swan. She dangled from the Sparhawk’s grappling hook like a fish on a line, her silent engines sending a pang of guilt through Hank. He placed a hand against the inside of the hull, feeling the shape of her metal through the worn leather of his gloves. “Sorry about this, old girl. We’ll be gone and you’ll be back in the air before you know it.”
“I have mentioned my distaste for your senseless anthropomorphism when speaking to ships.” Bones’s voice rang out from the dark, dry and emotionless.
“You have,” said Hank, peering into the gloom of the unlit ship. With no power, the Swan was reduced to a lightless catacomb. A pair of lights broke the darkness in one direction, two orbs spinning, color shifting between blue and red. Bones’s eyes, and a color combination that Hank associated with his first mate being troubled.
“You are aware they have no consciousness.”
“I am.” Hank lifted the goggles from around his neck, fitting them over his eyes and tightening the strap to seal the broad yellow lenses across his own eyes. Immediately, his view altered, showing the dim glow of residual heat from the now-dim lamps lining the room. A shimmering white light appeared where Bones’s chest would be, light indicating the heat wafting from the ticker’s cogsmithed Source.
Hank lifted a hand, holding it over the open air. Bones took it and placed it on his shoulder, then immediately turned and led the way down a nearby hallway. Hank’s hand tightened once on the ticker’s skeletal frame beneath the oversized leather trench coat his first mate always wore. The feel of Bones’s ticker body always made him think of someone frail and sickly, though the ticker’s metal frame was far sturdier than his own flesh and blood.
Hank noticed three pools of color, swirling red and blue, off their right. “Three bogies, not moving, about ten feet ahead and to the right,” he said. Not moving was good—it meant the second effect of the Gefion injectors had also held true to the little shonfra’s promise—everyone on the ship had been knocked unconscious. For how long, Hank couldn’t be certain, but it was certainly useful right now.
“Why do you talk to them?” asked Bones.
“Talk to who?” Hank scanned the ship around them, looking in all directions, including above and below. How was he supposed to know which of the unmoving heat signatures belonged to Remora, and which to enemy crewmembers? He and Bones had done this before, but usually they had some idea where their target was. Rescue missions were not their usual goal.
“Ships,” replied Bones, clearly irritated.
“Bones, do you really think this is an appropriate time for—”
“You are correct. Forget that I asked,” Bones clipped, then fell into a silence so sullen that Hank imagined he could feel the ticker’s displeasure even through the trench coat and gloves.
What was he so morose about? What difference did it make if Hank chatted up every empty piece of metal he came across? It wasn’t as if he had any personal . . . Damn. Hank grimaced. Of course his ticker first mate cared why he talked to soulless machines. Bones was a machine.
“I talk to the ships because it makes me feel better, and sometimes I feel like I have a personal bond with them. I know the Miraj will never be like you, capable of reason and emotion, but sometimes I think it makes a difference. It’s like . . . comparing a houseplant to a family member,” he said finally.
Bones was silent for a moment and Hank wondered if he’d said too much. “I am a creature of logic, not emotion,” said Bones.
Hank bit back a disbelieving bark. Bones, who had spent the past two days cleaning spark barnacles off the Miraj’s hull just to keep himself from worrying about Remora—not a creature of emotion? Still, it would do no good to argue with him. He was as stubborn as any machine once his mind was set on a thing. “I think—what’s that?” Hank stopped abruptly, forcing Bones to stop as well.
Above them and to the left, two vivid pools of light, far larger than the other, duller pools around it, glowed a brilliant red.
“What is it?” asked Bones.
“Something that makes absolutely no sense,” said Hank, “which makes it a likely place to start looking for Remora. Up one level and to port.”
“Anyone between here and there?” asked Bones.
“Nobody moving,” replied Hank.
“Good,” said Bones, then set out at a swift pace. Hank had to break into a jog to keep up with him, lest he lose his guide through the darkness of the ship. His goggles may show him heat signatures, but without Bones to lead him around, he’d be utterly blind in the Swan’s corridors.
Not that Bones would leave him. Probably not, anyway.
Hank stepped up his pace.
One flight of stairs and two hallways later, Bones finally spoke. “We’re comi
ng up on the escape pods, Hank.”
Hank nodded, even though Bones wasn’t looking to see the gesture. An odd place to keep a prisoner. “Mind the bodies,” Hank said. The hallway ahead of them was filled with pools of unmoving body heat.
“Armed guards,” said Bones, skirting one of the people carpeting the floor ahead of them. “None wounded.”
The Swan hummed, something felt through the soles of his boots more than it was heard. The emergency lights lining the halls flickered to dim life. “Roith’delat’en luck,” he muttered. “We need to hurry. That’s the backup generator. If the ship’s coming back to life, her crew won’t be far behind.”
He dropped his hand from Bones’s shoulder and the ticker bolted forward, Hank not far behind. Hank could make out the outlines of bodies and walls now easily enough without a guide. They rounded the corner into the final room and Hank stopped sharply when he saw the carnage within.
Through the goggles, Hank could see the sources of the two pools of brilliant scarlet light he had seen before, surrounding the prone bodies of Remora and Jinn.
In the unsteady light, the room looked as if it had been accosted by a madman with a can of black paint. Hank’s heart froze. That wasn’t paint.
For a brief moment, his memories surged forward and Hank stood in a different room under the same dim lights, the blood splattered in a different pattern.
“Remora?” he heard Bones ask, and the spell was broken. Shaken, he rubbed his hands across his arms. This was a different ship, a different woman. This one, he could save.
“She okay?” he asked, his voice harsh.
“Unconscious,” replied Bones, and Hank let out a breath, scanning the rest of the room.
Jinn lay in the center of the room, a spreading puddle of black under his prone body. Two dresl, one male, one female, also lay in the room. The female lay next to Remora, almost protectively, while the male lay just inches from Jinn, one clawed hand outstretched. The other clawed hand lay on the other side of the room. Hank didn’t look too close. Some things, a body never really got used to seeing.
“Get Jinn piled into one of those escape pods,” Hank directed. He’d never be able to lift the massive Shinra’ere.
“If he bleeds on me and I rust, I will hold you responsible,” said Bones, scooping the unconscious man under one arm and moving him to the nearest pod. “Disgusting,” the ticker muttered, Jinn’s feet dragging on the ground behind them.
“Don’t forget his sword . . . thing,” Hank added, moving to lean over Remora. He scanned her body, noting that she had an angry row of scratches across one cheek and was oddly shoeless, but otherwise seemed unharmed. “Remora?” he said, lifting a hand to her face and leaning close. Dark circles traced her eyes and the skin pulled over her cheeks seemed paper-thin.
Her eyes snapped open, and Hank had a brief moment of confusion when he noted that her eyes were gold, and seemed to glow, before she shrieked at him, one knee lifting just as her tiny fist slammed forward into his unprotected nose.
Pain, from his nethers and from his face. He reeled back, torn between cupping one injured body part or the other, and she fell upon him, her balled fists pummeling into his side.
“Remora!” he shouted, dizzy with pain. “Remora, stop! It’s me! It’s Hank! God’s teeth, stop!”
The hail of tiny blows finally ended, and Hank fell to his knees, wheezing.
“Daniel?” Remora’s voice sounded, tiny and uncertain.
“Hells yes, and stop calling me that,” he growled, peering at her through tear-filled eyes to make sure she wasn’t going to attack him again. Whatever he thought he’d seen in her eyes was gone—she looked at him with the same brown eyes he was used to seeing. The poor lighting must have tricked him into thinking the gold flecks in her eyes were bigger than they actually were.
“We were trying to rescue you. Though now, I’m not so certain I want to,” he added, removing his goggles and prodding gingerly at his nose. He hoped she hadn’t broken it again. The last break actually lent it a rakish tilt. He didn’t want to look like a brawler.
“Why on earth would you rescue me wearing such ridiculous goggles?” Remora asked. “Why, you could have been anyone. You’re lucky I only punched you in the nose! You could have been seriously injured!” She peered down her nose at him. “Really, you’re making an awfully big fuss out of this.”
Hank gritted his teeth and found his feet, trying to pretend his gentlemanly regions weren’t on fire. “I see you’re feeling better,” he muttered.
She caught sight of the male dresl and gasped. “Oh, dear!” she cried, rushing to his prone body.
“He a friend of yours?” Hank asked.
“No, not at all. He tried to kill Jinn,” she said, reaching under her skirt and yanking at one of her petticoats. She freed a scrap of the garment and gingerly lifted the tom’s stump of an arm, wrapping it gingerly.
“Yes, well, I always worry about the health of my enemies, too,” said Hank uncertainly. Granted, he usually wanted them feeling worse rather than better.
He averted his gaze as she tended the dresl’s wound, and his eye fell on the female dresl. “What about this one? She the one who scratched your cheek?”
“Really, McCoy, what sort of judge of character are you? Of course she didn’t. She’s a friend. What sort of rescue operation are you running?”
“What sort of . . . now see here, missy. I’m given a garbled recording telling me that you’ve been kidnapped and a foul-mouthed black shonfra to help me find the one ship you happened to be on. I take out the ship, which, by the way, is more than twice as big as the Miraj, thanks for making it easy. I find you on said ship, and manage to do all of this without spilling a drop of blood until you get all slap-happy. I’d say I’m running a pretty good rescue operation!”
Bones’s voice called out from the rescue pod. “Sorry to interrupt your monologue, Captain, but we’ve got trouble. I’m hearing some chatter on the lines. The Swan is waking up and they are not going to be happy to find us aboard.”
Remora put her hands on her hips. “Oh yes, a masterful job,” she said.
Hank scowled at her. “You were supposed to get groceries. How did that go?”
She pursed her lip at him and he decided to call it a win. “Your chariot awaits, my lady,” he said, gesturing her to the escape pod.
She sniffed once before moving to the open hatch. Her back turned, Hank allowed himself one grimace of pain as he hobbled to the open hatch himself. Just a punch in the nose, indeed.
In the room behind them, the sound of waking voices called out, along with one ear-splitting feline yowl. Time to make their exit.
“Out of my seat, Bones!” he barked. The ticker moved out of the pilot’s chair and Hank eased into the molded metal seat, eyes running over the instrument panel.
“You can’t just leave her there!” declared Remora.
“Leave who where?” Hank asked, running his hands over the instrument panel and finding all the primary gauges and switches. Looked pretty uncomplicated. He could fly this.
“Snow!” Remora gasped. Hank cocked his head, not understanding. “The dresl woman!” she clarified.
Hank glanced around the tiny escape pod. With himself, Remora, Bones, and Jinn, they nearly filled the tiny vessel. If it weren’t for whatever cogsmithing magic allowed starshards to enforce a state of weightlessness on the airships, they’d never be able to get the pod in the air, even without accounting for Bones’s excessive ticker-weight.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered.
“We are not leaving her behind!” Remora declared, “And that is an order. You are still under my employ, Daniel McCoy, and I am ordering you to rescue Snow.”
Hank opened his mouth, then closed it, too hard. “Bones!” he barked.
His first mate didn’t ask for details. The ticker leaped from the pod, scooped up the slowly-waking dresl woman from the floor, and managed to fold himself and the cat woman into the
tiny amount of space left. Hank found one white-furred hind leg thrust across his arms and an absurdly fluffy white tail covered the viewing window of the pod.
“Door!” Hank bellowed, flicking a row of switches overhead and hearing the pod’s tiny engine thrum to life.
Without turning around, he heard the door clang shut. Immediately, he began the launch sequence. As the engine hummed to life and couplings above and below the pod detached, an ominous banging sounded from the now-closed rear hatch. Definitely time to leave.
Hank thrust the tail aside with an impatient hand, hearing a feline screech in response. “Sorry, ma’am, no time for pleasantries,” he said and punched what he hoped was the little pod’s engine system. The ship gave a high-pitched wheeze before launching itself out of the Swan’s belly.
Ha! They were free!
The craft’s engines whined and the comm system sputtered to life in Hank’s hands, hissing and spitting static. A familiar gravelly voice sounded over the speakers. “Do I have the pleasure of speaking to the pirate who just ransacked my ship?” asked the man who had earlier identified himself as Mack Craft.
Hank pushed the ship a little harder, lifting the speaking tube to his mouth. “Indeed you do. It was a pleasure working with you. I’ll be sure to commend your ship to all my friends.”
“Next time I see you, I’m going to kill you,” said the voice.
“Well, that don’t seem neighborly at all, threatening your guest,” Hank remarked, shoving the dresl’s tail aside so he could check the ship’s fuel supply.
“Oh, that wasn’t a threat. That was a promise.”
Hank cut the conversation short, changing the channel to the Miraj’s private line. “Hackwrench, this is your captain speaking. Release that bird and find us. We’re in an escape pod filled with three too many people, and we’re coming in hot.”
“Aye, Captain,” he heard Hackwrench reply. “I see three deployed pods. Which one are you?”
“The one being chased by the other two!” Hank growled, pushing the engines a little harder.
Remora’s voice sounded from behind him. “I am so very happy to see you, Bones! Thank you for rescuing me, though as you could see we had nearly rescued ourselves when Captain Crankypants here barged in.”