by Steve Rzasa
Greer whipped Miss Plank across the back with the stock of his revolver. She cried out and staggered against a desk. Greer planted the gun at the small of her shoulders…
Lysanne lined up the sight. Deep breath. Steady hands.
She pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit Greer square in the shoulder. He careened back into one of his men. Both went down over the top of a desk, sending papers and pencils flying.
Lysanne hurried to Miss Plank. “Are you all right?”
“A fair sight worse than usual.” Miss Plank smiled wryly.
When the dust settled, three of the intruders lay dead. The rest sat in one corner, bereft of their weaponry, hands folded behind their heads. Except Greer—he held a rag to his wounded shoulder. One of the Hangar Zero armed workmen had been shot, and two of the hostage technicians had been wounded.
“We have some questions for you,” Lysanne said to Greer. “Where is Condor?”
“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, woman.” Greer spat. “Ain’t no use askin’.”
Miss Plank put her gun to Greer’s forehead and cocked the hammer. “Reconsider.”
Greer blanched. Lysanne hadn’t the foggiest whether Miss Plank would pull the trigger or if it was a mere threat. Nothing seemed mere about her…
“Archive room,” Greer sputtered. “Back down the other hallway.”
Miss Plank gestured at the safe. “What is in there?”
“Blueprints.” The technician started to say something more but closed his mouth.
“Classified?”
He nodded.
“Ah.” Miss Plank prodded one of the armed workmen with her gun. “Keep these men secure. And lock the room if need be.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The guard grinned.
Miss Plank smiled. “Mrs. Sark, come along.”
• • •
They returned to the T intersection of the main hallway. Miss Plank paused there—gunshots and shouts echoed down the corridor that led back to the brick building. They were so distant that they were but faint sounds to Lysanne.
Soon they were face to face with a metal door so thick Lysanne could not get her hand across its width. It was cracked open wide enough to admit a person. Miss Plank idly spun the tumbler wheel, a larger version of what was on the safe in the other room. “Listen,” she whispered.
Voices raised in argument filtered out the doorway. Lysanne peered in. All right. There were four rows of metal shelving that ran thirty feet to the opposite end of the room and towered perhaps the same distance up. Ladders reached to the uppermost levels. A few drop lights flickered, casting bizarre shadows across the shelves and the frames holding them upright.
Rebekah Hawes stood against a shelf at the far end. JD Borman faced her, his Thundercloud Asp levergun held steady at chest level.
Miss Plank nudged Lysanne. “Go up the middle. Talk to him. Keep him occupied.”
She started through the door. Lysanne, her heart pounding, seized her arm. “What will you be doing?”
Miss Plank arched her eyebrow. “Play your part. Don’t fret about mine.”
She slipped into the shadows at the back of the room like a badger into its burrow.
Lysanne kept the carbine against her chest. Allfather, save us. Was Winch all right? Were her children safe? What of her father?
As she walked closer to Borman and Hawes, she could make out more of their words.
“Tarnation, Rebekah! Yer going to dig out those specifications for me or there’s blood aplenty for me to spill!” Borman snarled.
“You’ve given me no guarantee of survival if I do, JD, and I’ll be blamed if I give up my secrets to Trestleway.” Hawes gestured to the door. “Even with your army at my door.”
“I don’t know whose jo-fired idea that all is.” Borman scowled. “Quiet-like is how I prefer things. ’Cept if I have to shoot you—that’ll be loud. But I’ll make the exception.”
“Mister Borman!” Lysanne raised her carbine. Great clouds above, what was she doing? “Put down your gun, if you please.”
Borman gaped. His weapon didn’t waver. “What? Don’t cut shines with me, little lady. You back down with your iron, or I’ll riddle Miss Hawes here with enough holes to let in fresh air.”
“Sir, you’d best surrender now.” How would Miss Plank handle this? Obfuscate? Possibly. “Our militia are on their way, and you’ll be arrested.”
“Ha! Good joke.” Borman grinned, but it was a bitter expression. “Not likely, with all them Trestleway troops pounding at the door. Do you think I’m about to give up my one chance to stick Hunt-Hawes in the trash heap? They’ve run roughshod over everyone else. And if you don’t like it, they make your business pay, believe you me!”
“JD, you’re a fool,” Hawes snapped. “Your woes aren’t any of mine. Try laying off use of the swill you pour down the gullets of every man that walks through your doors so you can rob them blind.”
Borman pressed the revolver forward. “Shut up. Shut—up. Give me the files.”
Hawes crossed her arms. “No.”
“I will end you, woman!”
Lysanne gestured with her carbine. She stood fifteen feet from them both. Where was Miss Plank? Lysanne didn’t dare look around for her. “Put the gun down, Mister Borman.”
He lowered the weapon. “You ain’t gonna resist me long, Rebekah. Them soldiers get in here, you’ll cooperate.”
“Don’t think it’s likely.”
“Fine. We’ll do it this way.” Borman whipped the gun back up.
Miss Plank plunged from the shadows. Lysanne caught a flicker of steel and a slash of red, and Borman hollered. He dropped the gun.
Hawes backed away.
Borman dug into his vest pocket with his left hand, but Miss Plank put her hand to his throat and slammed him against the shelving. “Leave it,” she said.
He hesitated.
That was the opening Miss Plank needed to slip her fingers snakelike into his pocket and pull a tiny Bay sidehammer pistol out. She flung it aside without looking.
“Well, are ya planning to interrogate me?” Borman sneered.
“No.” Miss Plank creased his brow with her pistol’s muzzle. He fell in a heap. “Perhaps later.”
• • •
Hawes led them back out through the hidden hangar. Pilots scrambled up into their aeroplanes, pulling on their goggles and some extra face wear—a strange mask of leather and metal. Lysanne frowned when Hawes handed a similar model to herself and Miss Plank. “Protection against the gas we had to use.”
“Gas?” Lysanne donned the mask without further hesitation.
The lead aeroplanes fired up their engines. The engines were surprisingly quiet, much quieter than Cope’s aeroplane. Steam shot from exhaust pipes and brushed against the floor. Hawes went to a set of levers set into a box against the wall. She cranked down hard on the largest brass lever. Lysanne watched in amazement as the entire wall of the hidden hangar seemed to collapse—no, it had split in half, rent from floor to ceiling, and was swinging open and inward. The exterior Hangar Zero—the one everybody could see from the road—was plainly visible beyond.
A greenish haze drifted across the floor. Perch militia and Hangar Zero workmen milled about, moving sacks across the floor. Wait. Not sacks. Lysanne’s hand flew to her mouth. They were bodies. Dozens of Trestleway militiamen, in tan uniforms.
“They’re not dead,” Hawes said. “It’s an irritant gas. Attacks the soft tissues of the eyes and mouth. That, and you feel terribly ill. When they recover in a few hours, they’ll be safely locked away!”
Lysanne could see now that many more hunched against the sides of the hangar. They clutched their sides and rubbed furiously at their eyes. The ones dragged away by the Perch militia moaned in pain.
Lysanne and Miss Plank followed Hawes through the hangar. She took care not to step on any of the unconscious soldiers, lying everywhere as if they were toys discarded by her children. The workmen had al
ready cleared a wide enough path to walk through the largest concentration.
The bright light beaming in the mouth of the exterior hangar made Lysanne blink. When her eyes adjusted enough, she could see that the fighting had moved down the ridge road, away from the hangar. The Hunt-Hawes men of Hangar Zero, supplemented with volunteers streaming out of town on foot and branterback, kept up a persistent fire. Lysanne couldn’t help but notice many of them carried Torino rifles that gave them extra range on the Trestleway militia’s carbines.
It didn’t take long for the remnants of the force to surrender. Cheers went up from the Perch partisans as the seventy or so Trestleway troops laid down their weapons.
The dirigibles were off to the west, headed back out to the valley. Explosions shook the slopes. Plumes of smoke rose Perch—they were bombing the city. Lysanne was simultaneously horrified by the violence and relieved she had sent her children north with her mother. She heard cannons pound away at them—probably those at the aerodrome. Bursts of black smoke dotted the sky like flies on a window in the summer. Strips of fabric tore off the dirigibles as they lifted higher.
“They won’t get very far, not with these on their tails!” Hawes sounded quite cheery about the prospect. She waved the pilots of the silver biplanes out into the open. The unconscious Trestleway soldiers were stacked like cordwood on both sides of the hangar. Several workmen busily tied their arms and legs.
An explosion caught everyone’s attention. One of the dirigibles was afire. Smoke and steam mingled in a billowing cloud.
Lysanne stood back as the aeroplanes rolled out of the hangar, onto the road, and positioned themselves for take-off. Men and branters scurried from their paths. How they managed such a swift take-off in such limited space Lysanne didn’t know, but when she watched them get aloft, she had a feeling they were almost as skilled fliers as Cope.
“You acquitted yourself well, Mrs. Sark.” Miss Plank reached out her hand.
Lysanne smiled. She extended her hand to shake. “Thank you. My family has a tradition of fighting when the need arises.”
“And we are all the better for it. Perch is in your debt.”
Lysanne blushed at that.
“We can only hope your husband comes through the fighting just as well.”
“I do more than hope, Miss Plank.” Lysanne looked off to the north, where black smoke billowed from several blazes. “I pray.”
• • •
Cope was bleeding.
The bullet wound in his shoulder wasn’t that bad. He was certain the bullet had passed straight through—sure as shine didn’t feel like it was in there. Jo-fired pain made it feel like his shoulder was on fire and hurt even worse when he banked the plane.
Which was a lot.
The TAB fighter before him twisted left. Cope turned opposite, dipping down below the enemy fighter, then turning back after him and rising up from underneath his tail. Cope fired his Keach gun, spraying the fuselage. The TAB twisted in an attempt to allow his rear gunner a clear line of fire. It was a case of too little, too late.
Cope’s shots ripped through the right wings of the enemy biplane. Its lower wing ripped completely off. The pilot and his gunner managed to get into the wind. Their skysails opened as they dropped rapidly toward the serene valley and the Cobalt River below. “Best of luck, fellows,” Cope murmured. He tossed them a salute. They were good adversaries.
Now, these Free Fliers—Cope growled under his breath as a Perch fighter came apart in mid-spiral. The Free Flier triplane in pursuit turned back around after its wounded prey. The Perch pilot managed to leap out of his cockpit. Cope gunned his engine. The machine strained, but he knew it would not be fast enough.
The Free Flier zeroed in on the falling pilot and riddled both his skysail and body with bullets.
Cope swore. The triplane looped around with sudden grace. Clouds above, they were quick on the twist if not as fast as him! Cope matched his maneuver and stayed tight on his tail. Thankfully he had no rear gunner.
A flicker of light caught his attention. He watched, horrorstruck, as a shimmering sphere struck one of his fighters. The impact ripped the wings off and sent the aeroplane tumbling. Cope saw no skysail deploy.
He twisted in the cockpit. It had come from a Trestleway aerocraft. The same biplane launched another sphere. A second biplane did likewise. “Confounded cythramancers!” Cope banked around to bring them into his gunsights.
Another shimmering sphere broke a Perch fighter in half. Thankfully, it wasn’t Daisy’s or Tread’s. Cope fired upon the biplane that had launched the sphere but couldn’t score any hits. His bullets bounced off nothing, much as they had when he’d shot at Reardon Ray in that confrontation at the crash site.
Cope chewed his lip. He needed a plane. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Daisy’s and Tread’s aeroplanes tag-team a triplane. Their combined attack reduced it to flame.
Brilliant.
Cope spun their way. He wagged his wings. Daisy caught his signal and formed up. Cope made a pincer with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Daisy grinned and gave a thumbs-up.
Atta-girl.
Daisy’s biplane swooped up high. Cope went hunting for one of the biplanes crewed by a cythramancer, and found one launching a sphere at a pair of Perch fighters. It missed but succeeded in breaking up the duo. Cope smiled grimly. He settled in on its tail and opened fire.
Bullets caromed off air, as he expected. The biplane braked, and Cope took the bait. He raced ahead until the biplane was on his tail. Bullets ripped through his upper left wing. Steam sprayed and hissed from his engine. “Any day, any day,” Cope muttered. “Don’t fancy shaking this one off all by my lonesome.”
He glanced back. The sphere of shining light formed around the Trestleway biplane. If it launched at this range, and he couldn’t shake them…
Daisy’s biplane dove down like a raptor, Keach gun flashing. Cope looked back, saw the smoke and flame. The Trestleway fighter dropped off his tail like a wounded teratorn.
Daisy’s aeroplane raced by. He caught a glimpse of her waving at him. Cope signaled back: Form up.
She rose onto his right wing. And here came Tread. Where in the great blue skies had he been? A quick glance at Tread’s sour expression, not to mention the steady stream of smoke and steam sputtering from his right exhaust pipe, told Cope he’d had his own troubles.
Cope glanced about the sky. Fighters swarmed everywhere. Far too many of them were the enemy. By Cope’s count, he was down nine pilots. Maybe more.
The dirigibles continued their 50-mile-per-hour march through the air toward Perch. Cope’s defenders had taken note of his counterattack against the aeroplanes bearing cythramancers. He grinned as they ganged up in pairs on the offending biplanes.
Cope signaled the attack on the dirigibles. It was up to them now. He zoomed up into an almost vertical climb, Daisy, and Tread staying sharp on his wings. At the crest, he put the nose down straight for the nearest dirigible. His gaze flicked to the lever for the Hinohama rockets, the new models tucked safely into his biplane’s fuselage. “Better work,” he said.
The planes dove in a tight trio. Within moments anti-aero fire burst all around them as the nearest dirigible caught them in its sights. Daisy and Tread held their place on his wings until the bursts came ever close. Abruptly they veered off, each toward a separate target.
Cope power dove hard, then yanked up on the control stick, his arms quavering. Tarnation, they burned! He brought his biplane on a nose-to-nose course with the dirigible, leaving the anti-aero guns firing in vain for a target. They had no nose defenses.
Cope grinned. Two more for you, Jesca. He cranked the lever hard twice.
The rockets fell a spell before their nozzles erupted in flame. They raced out in arcing lines that were far more direct and less of a corkscrew than any rocket Cope had seen. He whistled.
The first hit the envelope of the dirigible and ripped right into it. “Doggone fuse failed!” Cope holl
ered. He punched his console.
The second rocket exploded in red and yellow fury just under the nose of the dirigible. The explosion lit the skin aflame. Suddenly a second explosion, a quarter of the way back from the nose, blew a massive gout of fire and smoke out the right side and top.
Cope cried out in alarm and wrenched his biplane low, racing under the firing guns, the thundering engines, and the burning fuselage.
“Second one blew further in.” Cope shook his head. “Hate to be those poor spikers back in there…”
His word trailed off. Wait. That dirigible hadn’t dropped any fighters earlier. And it still wasn’t launching now. Why in the jo-fired…?
“Tarnation!” Cope pushed his engine to the red line. The steam billowed from the exhaust pipes. He had to get out of there fast. Before the whole infernal thing—
Too late.
The dirigible exploded in a monstrous conflagration that washed his plane in heat. Smoke smothered Cope. He coughed. Scarf. Cover your mouth and nose! He did his best with one hand. The Vigilante dipped and weaved as he struggled for control.
More explosions. Shorter and faster ones, like firecrackers. Long booming ones that rattled the very air.
It’d been a bomber. He should have known. The Free Fliers had it painted in the same livery as an aero-carrier. Cope could only hope Daisy and Tread managed to hit the other…
More explosions. Cope pulled his biplane free of the smoke, up into the blessed clear sun and blue sky. Two more dirigibles burned. Check that. One burned, the other plummeted headlong in a mass of fire and metal frame that no longer resembled the oblong graceful lines of a dirigible. Explosions tore it apart in mid-fall even as Cope watched.
“Score two more!” Cope whooped and spun his plane in a circle as he cheered.
His cheers cut off abruptly when he saw the flaming skeleton of the dirigible he’d downed fall smack onto Ridge Road. On the plus, it was directly behind the scattered motorwagons and soldiers of the Trestleway invasion army.
On the minus, the fire quickly spread to the forest.