Captain Gravenor’s Airship Equinox (Steampunk Smugglers)

by Hiestand, Heather

  “Bloody bastard,” Brecon swore.” Doesn’t even let them get to quarters. Just freezes them like this. Inhuman.”

  “Ethan was only taking command today,” she ventured.

  “He’s responsible for this, even if he didn’t freeze them this time. He brought your inventions to the Blockaders. What a damnable mess. We’ve got to destroy the Man Immobilizer device and find the man management antenna, then get the airship moving before Ethan and his friends get here.”

  “It’s impossible.”

  His eyes were wild. “I’m going to fire on all the tie lines. We’ll float up naturally, and we should move out over the Channel, even though we won’t have any power. That will get us out of firing range.”

  “What if the men revolt?”

  “Find the captain’s room. I’m sure there’s a spare uniform. I’ll wear the jacket as camouflage until we get safely away.”

  “Right,” she said, not sure where to start. She’d never been aboard an airship.

  “Go down the first ladder you can find. The captain’s room will be to the left of us, in the front of the airship. Where the largest windows are.”

  “Will do,” she said, wondering if they would be airborne by the time she came up the ladder. She ran down the deck and pulled the ring on the first hatch she saw. A ladder led into the dim space, but she tucked up her skirts and climbed down, then ran in the direction he had indicated.

  All the doors were closed along the corridor she traversed. She saw signs for crew quarters and the mess. No frozen men lurked in the corridor, a good thing since it was so narrow. At the end, she found an imposing door with a brass plate that read “Captain’s Quarters.” Would she need to pick a lock?

  No, it opened easily. She supposed when you had the power to freeze men, there was no need to protect against them.

  She stepped in, her pupils constricting as the light from the bow windows hit her. She ran to them and peered out. Men were streaming onto the field. She started counting and hit twenty before she realized she needed to move.

  Glancing around the room, she saw a bunk, desk, chests, dining table, and maps framed on walls. The wood was some gorgeous tropical confection, polished to a high sheen. The Gravenors were certainly talented airship refitters. At the end of a short aisle created by the table and the desk, she saw a pedestal, topped by a brass, silver, and iron spider. The limbs were covered in blinking white lights and she realized what she was looking at. This was the heart of the fence built around the airship.

  She pushed toward the wall and saw she could walk around the thing. The wiring had to be built into the pedestal. When she glanced at the floor she noticed the wood flooring between the pedestal and the wall was a different color than the rest. It had likely been pulled up and replaced.

  She moved away and ripped open chests until she found a spare BAE uniform tunic. The jacket wasn’t there, but this would have to do for now. The airship jerked, nearly throwing her into the chest. Had Brecon cut all the moorings? She ran back down the corridor and climbed back up the steps, wishing she could wear a crewman’s uniform herself.

  At first she could find him nowhere, then saw him just above the captain’s cabin, leaning over the railing. A moment later, the airship slid sideways again, but then a tree off in the distance moved. They were going up!

  A roar came from the field as the Blockaders realized what was happening. She raced to Brecon.

  “Here’s a tunic,” she wheezed, holding it out to him. “It’s all I could find. And I know how to disable the Brass Hands’ fence. The mechanism is in the captain’s cabin.”

  “What about Dr. Castle’s Man Immobilizer?”

  She winced at the name. “I don’t know. Hopefully, the one device does both things.”

  “We’re going to die if I can’t get the men working. I can’t fire the engines from the wheelhouse.”

  She stared over the rail, saw ever tinier men pushing cannons on wheels onto the field. When she pointed, Brecon shrugged.

  “Mrs. Gravenor, for now the field is yours. I will steer as best I can, but that’s all the control I have.”

  “The cannons?”

  “Take at least two men to fire.”

  “Fine.” She gulped.

  “But first, a kiss for luck.” He bent his head to hers and gave her a quick peck, then deepened it into a tingling kiss. “I shall save the better kisses for later.”

  Her cheeks heated. “Truly?”

  “I can think of no more pleasant activity.”

  “Me either. It will have to wait,” she sighed, and lifting a hand in farewell, she ran for the ladder.

  “Wait!” he called.

  She turned. He bent down and placed the heater on the floor, then kicked it to her.

  “To destroy the Man Management device.”

  “Thank you.” She picked it up and felt the comforting heft of metal. She hadn’t touched a heater since she was beaten for disassembling her father’s unit a decade ago.

  Back in the cabin, she rushed to the automaton spider and stared at the flashing lights. She had to find the antenna. She placed the heater on the table and reached instead for a screwdriver she’d seen in one of the chests. Gingerly, she unscrewed the bolts holding on the back of the spider. Inside lay a mess of wires and a cylinder she recognized as an antenna. But at the opposite end of the belly was another cylinder of a peculiar silver metal she’d never seen before. Could this be the Man Immobilizer? If so, it must use the aetherial component somehow.

  Under normal circumstances, she could spend weeks dissecting and researching, but now, she had to stop the spider from working. Could she do that without destroying it, so they could discover its secrets at some safer time in the future?

  She knelt down and searched for bolts in the pedestal, breathing in the familiar smell of oil and metal. Outside, she heard the percussion of the cannons, but they didn’t affect the airship so they had to be out of range.

  There, another panel. Quickly, she unscrewed the bolts and lifted out the door. She found two thickly coated wires, nothing more. Clearly, these were for the fence. With a sigh, she took the heater, adjusted the ray strength, and pointed it at the wires, firing a short burst that cut through both of them, leaving a small hole in the outer casing of the pedestal. She stepped around the back and saw the ray had cut into the wall of the cabin, but only part way. She’d judged well.

  Cautiously, she crept to the open cabin door and peered out. All was silent. She was right that nothing but the fence had been affected by her actions. Back at the bow windows, she saw they had moved, not over the water as Brecon had hoped, but over the city of Cardiff. To the west, she saw men boarding more airships. They might have only minutes before the large aircraft were in the air and operational.

  With a sigh, she pointed the trigger at the silver antenna and pulled. Nothing changed when the ray hit it. Not one dust mote stirred.

  With a scream of frustration, she started rifling through cabinets built into the walls. She lifted seat cushions, tore clothing and books from chests, poked at the walls. At the bed, she pulled up the mattress and looked in the storage compartment underneath. Nothing she recognized as useful revealed itself. Then she realized there was a shelf built in, above where the captain’s head would rest. And on that? A small automaton spider, just like the other one, but with no pedestal attaching it to anything. She picked it up and ran to the window.

  Two airships were in the air now, close enough that she could see cannon bays opening on the sides. With a sigh of frustrated scientific inquiry, she turned the heater up to a higher level, set the small spider on top of the captain’s bunk, and fired down onto it. As the rays carved up the small arachnid, she heard rustling, then men’s voices. She left the smoking thing and the destroyed bed, running for the corridor and the ladder above, just ahead of doors opening. The ladder slowed her down, but when she reached the deck, she screamed at the first man she saw, the winker.

  “Fire the en
gines or we’re going to die!”

  Brecon’s voice sounded above the noise. “You are now the free crew of the Owler Equinox. Fire the engines, man the cannons. For freedom!”

  Philadelphia waved her hands at the crewmen as they poured out of the hatches, shooing them toward the coal burners. None of the officers were aboard. They weren’t enslaved, and these men weren’t used to being self-governing. But they hadn’t always been slaves, and when one of the men caught sight of the BAE warship Defender behind them, he began to call out orders.

  She turned, weaving her way through the men to reach the wheelhouse, feeling the deck vibrate as the engines started up. Cannon shot fired over the balloon, a warning they scarcely needed.

  The BAE officers gave orders over their megaphones, both airship captains shouting to be heard over the others, but she ignored them, a smile on her face as she climbed.

  Brecon took her hand and pulled her to his side, wrapping one arm around her while his brass hand deftly controlled the wheel. On the other side, another man called out coordinates and a third shouted into the megaphones lined up, giving precise instructions to the engine crew.

  Out the wheelhouse windows, she could see the gray-blue waves of Cardiff Bay, steadily approaching.

  “We’re going to make it,” she marveled, as one of the men pushed the lever that increased the airship’s speed.

  “Good lad, MacKenzie,” Brecon said. “Set course for Lundy Island.”

  “What about the Red Kites? And One?”

  Brecon grinned, and for a moment, Philadelphia clearly saw the pirate in him. “I think they have other concerns today. They won’t trouble us. As for One, without hostages, he’s not going to be able to steal an airship from my family. I expect he’ll go back to the captain and spin a tale about trying to recapture us.”

  “They’ll never find out he helped us. You’re right.” She leaned her head against his shoulder as another cannon shot arced harmlessly behind them. The men aboard the other airships were doing their best not to hit the Equinox, it seemed. Maybe they sensed the lucky crew of one BAE aircraft, at least, was finally free.

  As for her, she had found her home, and her love, and a life she’d never dreamed of having. Soon, she might finally understand aether, a life’s work for sure.

  Brecon smiled again, in his element. “Does a honeymoon in France suit you, Mrs. Gravenor?”

  She nodded, too full of emotion to speak, just touched her free hand to her lips and blew him a kiss. “Does that mean we’re going to have a real wedding?”

  “As soon as we can call the banns.”

  She laughed, shaking her head at the absurdity. “I was just testing you. We’re already married.”

  He squeezed her shoulder. “I love you, Delphie. That was the best imprisonment a man could ever ask for.”

  “Or woman. I love you too.”

  ~*~

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Heather Hiestand is the author of many novels, novellas and short stories. She is an Amazon Romance Anthology Bestseller and an Amazon UK Romance Short Stories Bestseller. She lives in Washington with her husband and son. Find Heather Hiestand online:

  Website: http://www.heatherhiestand.com

  Blog: http://blog.heatherhiestand.com

  Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/hahiestand

  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Heather-HiestandAnh-Leod/24271017921?ref=ts

  Thank you for purchasing this Coffee on Sundays Press publication. For other books, please visit our website at www.coffeeonsundays.info.

  For questions or more information contact us at heather@heatherhiestand.com.

  Coffee on Sundays Press

  http://www.coffeeonsundays.info

  MORE BY HEATHER HIESTAND

  Anthologies:

  “The Burro” in Murder Across the Map

  “Victoriana” in Holiday in the Heart

  Looking Forward, Looking Back and Other Stories

  “The Bachelor” in Cupid Gone Wild

  Novellas:

  Victoriana Adventure

  Steampunk Smugglers 1: Captain Andrew’s Flying Christmas

  Steampunk Smugglers 2: Captain Fenna’s Dirigible Valentine

  Steampunk Smugglers 3: Captain Gravenor’s Airship Equinox

  Novels:

  Cards Never Lie

  One Juror Down

  Gunshot Grange

  Two on the Hunt

  In Flight

  Read an excerpt from Heather Hiestand’s first Steampunk Smugglers novella

  Captain Andrew’s Flying Christmas is available now, as is Captain Fenna’s Dirigible Valentine

  CHAPTER ONE

  London, December 24, 1892

  Linet Fenna shivered in her attic bedroom as she stared out the open window. Downstairs, all was merry and bright with evergreen branches, mistletoe and handmade garlands festooning trees and mantles. Under the eaves here, wind blew through a crack in the undecorated wall and rustled in the chimneys above.

  A fever had made the first housemaid take to bed just after breakfast and Linet, the second housemaid, had been run ragged all day by her demanding mistress and her ever-arriving family. Now, finally done with work, she just wanted to stare at the stars and dream.

  “Close the window,” Ann-Marie said, coughing from her iron bedstead in the darkest corner of the room.

  “In a minute.” Linet took one last breath of chilly air and had her hand on the sill when she heard a metallic chugging in the distance. The sound came from outside, and wasn’t likely to be Father Christmas.

  The automen who secured England for Prime Minister Gladstone had yet to master the skies. Linet had once known the world above the streets well, as daughter of the famed smuggler Rhys Fenna. Some had called him a sky pirate, and his neck had been broken on a gibbet three Boxing Days ago. She had become a maid of all work to support herself in the aftermath of his death. This position in a larger home had seemed a blessing at first until she realized she’d moved into a house owned by an automen manufacturer. The factory, only steps away, belched smoke and steam into the air at all hours, and it kept the brass fist of authority ever alive in her mind.

  As Ann-Marie coughed behind her, Linet pulled at the tight high collar of her black dress and leaned forward into the open window, looking for the source of the sound. She darted back a step instinctively when something pinged against the glass above her head. A bird? Surely none were about at this late hour.

  When she looked up, the astonishing sight took her back three years. No wonder she’d heard chugging. “A ladder?” she whispered.

  “What?” Ann-Marie croaked.

  “Nothing, go to sleep.” Linet hurried to the washstand by the sick girl’s bed and blew out the candle. “There, that’s better. You need to rest. I can’t manage alone with all these guests.”

  “Do you want to go to sleep so soon?”

  “Of course. That will make Father Christmas come all the sooner.” She felt the girl’s forehead. Not dangerously hot, thankfully.

  “He doesn’t come for the likes of us,” Ann-Marie muttered. A rustling told Linet she had turned over.

  Linet dashed back to the window. Yes, a rope ladder, just like the ones she’d climbed thousands of times to her father’s dirigible, the Christmas, dangled outside, a little lower now. Ladders had been the staircases of her life until she was seventeen, carrying her from earth to sky, larceny to freedom.

  Who had found her? Her father had enemies, to be sure, but no enemy would be visiting her on Christmas Eve. No one from her old life had crossed her path in all this time. Perhaps her sister Terrwyn had finally reappeared?

  She reached through the window and grabbed the ladder, then frowned. That knot with a gash on the left side looked familiar. One run was painted red, the next, green. Her gaze rose, unbelieving.

  r>