by Sean Kennedy
“Then why do you do it? Do you want to be a martyr?”
“It’s not for personal glory that I do it.”
“Bulldust,” Ezra scoffed.
There was a fumbling in the dark as Icarus sat up. “You think I’m lying?”
“To yourself, yeah. I think to keep on doing what you’re doing there must be a little bit of self-glory in it.”
“Self-glory?”
“Knowing you’re doing a good thing,” Ezra explained, “seeing the looks on folks’ faces when you hand them food or money. They look up to you. They’re singing songs about you. One man in a bar we met was ready to make an army for you.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“You’re not a god, you’re human. There would be a part of you that likes it.”
Icarus lay back down on the cot. “I’m not arguing with you about this anymore.”
“You tell me, then. Why do you do it?”
“Do you think there’s some big reason behind it? Well, there ain’t. Now shut the hell up.”
Ezra was now more than aware that he should drop it. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I said shut up, Kneebone. Or you can crawl back out through that damn hole and freeze out in that desert for all I care.”
Ezra knew he wouldn’t do that—after all, Icarus was the moral outlaw. But he decided not to test his patience, and closed his eyes. Sleep was a fickle friend that night.
THE cave grew colder with each passing hour.
Ezra was now shivering, and keeping his jaw clenched in order to stop his teeth from chattering. He wrapped his arms around himself in an effort to conserve body heat and drew his knees up to his chest. It seemed to do little to help.
Icarus was silent over on his cot; not even a snore escaped from him. Ezra envied his easy sleep.
The wound on his thigh itched. He wished a slight infection would bring on a fever that would at least allow him the illusion of body warmth. But his body temperature remained constant and malleable to that of the external forces of nature.
He shifted again, this time on to his right side, which faced Icarus on his cot. It was too dark for his eyes to adjust—the other man was just a vague shape in the dark.
“You’re cold,” Icarus said suddenly.
“Hope I didn’t wake you,” Ezra said gruffly.
“You did,” Icarus replied, but did not sound unduly upset by it.
“I guess it’s just the limestone rock. Ordinary rock probably wouldn’t be as cold.”
“We’re in the middle of the desert,” Icarus reminded him. “You’d most likely be cold regardless.”
“Don’t mind me.”
Icarus shuffled in the dark, and there was the sound of something being thrown aside. “Get in here.”
“What?”
“Hurry. The cold’s getting in. And bring those blankets.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. And you’re making me cold just listening to you.”
“I’m—”
“Stop fighting me on this,” Icarus said impatiently. “Are you worried I’ll kiss you again?”
“No!” Ezra protested. He was amused by his own vehemence. It sounded almost like horror at the suggestion, and Ezra honestly knew that horror would be the last reaction he would have if Icarus were to repeat his actions upon the mesa that long week ago.
“Should I be worried you’ll try kissing me?”
Icarus sounded amused, and Ezra felt like he was being made fun of. But he decided to fight back by getting up without a word and fumbling his way in the dark over to the cot.
“Might be a tight fit,” Icarus said, in the same amused tone. “But we’ll make it work.”
The cot was small; there would be every violation of any rules on personal space. Ezra crawled in beside Icarus; the other man kept his back to him, and Ezra founded himself molded along the curve of his spine, his chest flush with the ridges that he longed to run his hand over. Icarus’s skin was warm and smelled still of the sun, along with a slight undercurrent of sweat that was pleasantly masculine and made Ezra’s pecker want to sing with delight. He shifted slightly so his arousal would not be felt by Icarus and immediately worried that the damn thing would rear its head again in the unguarded recesses of sleep.
But he was now warm, and he felt comfortable despite the cramped quarters.
“Better?” Icarus asked.
The words rumbled through his skin, and passed through into Ezra’s chest. Ezra closed his eyes and let the sensation was over him.
“Much better,” he said, and wondered if Icarus was now feeling the same, almost sensual, movement between them.
“Good,” Icarus said. “Maybe now we can both get some sleep.”
Before Icarus could slip away into dreams, Ezra cleared his throat. It sounded like thunder in the darkness. “I thought you didn’t care if I froze to death or not.”
“Just be glad you’re no longer cold, Kneebone.”
Ezra took a deep breath. “I just wanted to let you know some things.”
“Shoot.”
“You may want to know why I was doing what I was doing.”
“Own it, Kneebone. Abducting me.”
“Fine,” Ezra said, trying not to let his irritation come out in his tone. “I was trading you for money. But it was for me and Jazz, so we could set up our own business.”
“Really?” Icarus snorted. “That makes it all okay, then!”
It was maddening to be fighting with Icarus and yet lying so intimately with him at the same time. “Jazz wanted nothing to do with it, but I forced her.”
“From what I’ve seen of her, she doesn’t look like the kind of woman who can be forced into anything.”
“Well, she was pressured. She’s my friend. I guess it came down to the lesser of two evils.”
“Glad that’s sorted, then.”
Ezra gave a frustrated sigh that stirred the hairs on the back of Icarus’s neck. “You know how the other day you were talking about Jazz knowing what it was like growing up in a town like Settler’s Pass?”
Icarus nodded, his hair brushing against the tip of Ezra’s nose.
“Well, I knew too. I grew up dirt poor. In a town worse than Settler’s Pass.”
“What town?”
“Daneen.”
He could feel Icarus stiffen against him. “You’re right. That’s a bad town.”
“It didn’t seem so, growing up there. It was all I knew. And it wasn’t all bad.”
“It wasn’t?” Icarus asked.
“No. I remember my folks taking me to a skyshow once. It seemed like everybody in the town went. It was the early days of airships, and they seemed like something out of a fairy book. It was then that I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.”
“A bounty hunter?”
“Ah, forget it.” Ezra tried to turn his back on the man to put some distance between them, but the size of the cot made it impossible. He ended up floundering uselessly, and remaining on his side with his chest against Icarus’s back again.
“I’m sorry,” Icarus said. “Look, it’s a nice story.”
“Nice?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Actually, I don’t. Must be your holier-than-thou attitude screwing up the transmission.”
Icarus twisted and turned, and effortlessly now faced Ezra. “I don’t mean to be holier than thou.”
He was so close that Ezra could make out his features in the dark. And even though it made him uncomfortable, he wouldn’t drop his gaze. “Can we just not start from scratch? I think we’ve been through enough now.”
Icarus stared at him, but didn’t answer.
Ezra took a deep breath. “Look, I just wanted to let you know… things have changed. I know it looks much better from your view than mine, now that the tables have turned, but even if they were to change again… I’m not out to turn you in anymore.”
Icarus shifted, and Ezra he
ld his breath as their bodies were now even closer—which had seemed impossible mere moments ago, but a chasm had been breached nonetheless.
“Kneebone,” Icarus said, laughing. “You can be a gentleman of the skies, after all. I knew it would happen eventually.” He paused. “Now I’ll tell you something. I may have grown up in a town like Settler’s Pass, but I wasn’t one of the poor ones. I just saw what poverty could do to people, and knew that others could help them but chose not to.”
Part of Ezra was angry—after all, it just made Icarus another rich kid who slummed probably to make their daddy filthy mad. But Icarus had an honesty and earnestness to him that made it more than apparent he believed in the cause he had signed himself up for.
He waited for Icarus to elaborate, but instead there only came a slight snore. Ezra closed his eyes and waited for sleep to come to him as well.
IN THAT surreal state between dreaming and waking, Ezra felt as if all his senses had been kicked up a notch, like Jazz hitting the throttle on the Lilliput. The natural scent of the man lying next to him was invading and enveloping him, and the blood that worked beneath his skin to heat it was part of a river that threatened to suck him in and whisk him away from shore. He rested his cheek against Icarus’s warm back—he must have turned again during sleep—and couldn’t help but be reminded of the time he took Lee while imagining it was the man he actually wanted. He could feel his unrepentant cock hardening, and he shifted the lower part of his body away from Icarus so that the other man wouldn’t feel it.
He pressed his thumb into the inflamed flesh above his bullet wound, and bit on his tongue so that he wouldn’t cry out. The stab of pain that followed made the part of his body with its own will calm down, and he wiped away the sweat that had just started beading at his temples.
Icarus muttered something in his sleep and burrowed in closer to Ezra.
Nothing I can do about it, Icarus thought. He rested his forehead against the hollow between Icarus’s shoulderblades, and quickly fell asleep again.
JAZZ woke with an uneasy feeling. Bart lay beside her on the floor, her arm draped across Jazz’s waist. All seemed quiet, but Jazz knew to trust her senses. And they were telling her something was coming.
She jumped up, reaching back down for her trousers and shirt. The sun glinted off her winged brooch and the jade heart sparkled, filling her with a new joy that she had to quell quickly. Barefoot, she padded over to the console and fired it up. The sensors hadn’t detected anything yet, but she had set them on a lower range because of the power they would chew up. She couldn’t afford the engines to die out on her before they managed to make the ship airborne again.
She recalibrated the sensor array, and it immediately squealed a proximity alert.
Bart immediately sat up. “Jazz?”
“Get dressed,” Jazz told her. “We have company.”
Bart was on her feet before Jazz finished speaking. “And we don’t even have any refreshments to offer them! What kind of hosts are we, to be caught out so?” As cool and collected as ever, she stepped into her own clothes. “I suppose there are some benefits to not wearing a corset.”
“It does make it difficult to fire a rifle,” Jazz agreed.
Bart reached into her bag and produced her laser pistol. “Which is why I always pack my own. Although it never hurts to have two.” She opened the weapons grille next to Ezra’s chair and pulled out a rather rusty-looking model. “And wearing a corset never seems to impede my prowess with a gun, but I must admit I’m glad I’m without it on this occasion.” She frowned as she checked the reserves. “This needs powering.”
“Damn that Ezra,” Jazz fumed. “He’s meant to keep stock of that. I fly the ship, he handles the weapons. Is it that hard a concept for him?”
“I’ll be fine,” Bart told her. “I’m an excellent shot. I won’t need that many chances at taking down our aggressors.”
“I love your confidence in yourself.”
Bart swiftly crossed to her and gave her a passionate kiss. “You man the ship’s guns. I must go and prepare Albert.”
“Be careful,” Jazz told her, even though it didn’t have to be said.
“I know you’ll have my back,” Bart said, and slipped over to the door. It slid open, and she ran out in her bare feet to the carriage outside.
Jazz grinned. In her pants, with her shirt unbuttoned so that a fair amount of bosom was showing, and her unshod feet—not to mention the rifle in her hand—Lady Bart had never looked so alluring.
But it wasn’t the time to be thinking of that. Jazz, lit by the green glow of the console, watched the approach of the men on horseback. It was too dark, and they were still too far away, to make out their features, but she would have bet on a high hand that they were the same men she had driven off earlier. The cowards had decided to come back in the dead of night, thinking they would pick off a lone female.
They would soon think differently.
She swung the cam around to focus upon Bart. Albert was now climbing out of the carriage, looking less than regal in his faded longjohns, and Jazz hoped she would have the opportunity to rib him about it later. She was also glad that the horses were around the other side of the ship, so that they wouldn’t get caught in the line of fire.
“Bart,” she said, speaking into the mouthpiece connected to the external comms, “you and Albert come inside.”
“We’re setting up a frontline here,” she heard Bart reply through the static.
“No, you’re not,” Jazz said firmly. “Get in here.”
“Darling, you can’t make me do what I have no intention of doing.” Bart deliberately kept her back to the cam, which infuriated Jazz.
I guess I do have to have her back, then. She’s as stubborn as Ezra.
She bit on her lip to stop thinking of Ezra, and it was only at the first taste of her own blood that she stopped.
The riders began to fan out, hoping to cover a larger area. They had obviously noted the presence of the carriage by now and knew that she either had company or that somebody else had come along to finish her off and therefore they had competition for the rights to salvaging.
Jazz could only just imagine Bart pursing her lips and saying, “How mercenary.”
Indeed.
Bart and Albert were positioned by the carriage, using it as a small fort to cover them. Even though the power on one of the pistols was low, Bart still had an advantage over her butler. He was using a traditional rifle and would have to reload with lead bullets, while Bart could consistently keep firing.
But that was where Jazz would come in. The riders were now in range to hear the external speakers of the Lilliput. She activated them, and announced clearly, “This is the Lilliput. I suggest, once again, that you withdraw. This is your first, and final, warning.”
Their response was a volley of bullets that scraped along the Lilliput’s bow.
“Those damn Yeggs!” she cursed. And after she had just patched up the hull!
Bart and Albert were already returning fire. Jazz swiveled the cannons on the port side of the ship and let loose. On the console, she could see dirt kicked up in the air and the horses rear up. It was what she wanted; she would hate to see fine horses killed for the sake of their rapscallion owners.
They were persistent, that’s for sure. Their numbers were even, and Jazz and her cohorts had the might of a ship’s arms behind them. The attackers would probably be hoping to dodge them long enough to dry up their weapons and then come in with their own fully loaded. Jazz knew Bart was cluey enough to realize this as well—after all, she hadn’t come to be Lady Bartholomew through looks and luck alone.
Jazz held off firing, and silence fell across the desert again.
The men regrouped, having turned in a circle to fall behind a short distance again.
Jazz leaned in to the speaker mic and whispered, “Hold off fire as much as you can. They’re trying to make us run out of bullets.”
She saw Bart and Alber
t nod tersely. Bart was probably rolling her eyes at the fact Jazz thought it necessary to tell her. But this wasn’t a time for miscommunications or hurt feelings.
Then there was the thundering of hooves across the sandy floor again. They were coming.
Guns remained quiet on both sides. The silence was the most threatening part of their attack.
Until Jazz watched Bart leap onto the step of the carriage and rest her arm against the roof while aiming the pistols in both hands in one fluid motion. She fired and one of the men fell from his horse, which subsequently took off in the opposite direction.
With pride in her heart for her talented lover, Jazz watched the other men drop back warily. Now was the time to end this once and for all.
“Gentlemen,” she said into the mic, “you have no hope of taking this ship from us. I will allow you to pick up your fallen comrade and retreat. You have exactly one minute. After that, we will fire upon you all without regret. You can see my friend here means business.”
And at that, Bart fired a warning shot into the air. It couldn’t have been more perfect unless it was rehearsed.
There was no word from either of the remaining riders. One trotted forward to pick up the groaning man Bart had shot, and throw him haphazardly over the back of his saddle. Then the would-be salvagers faded away into the darkness of the night.
The strange new crew of the Lilliput remained on alert for a few more minutes, however, just in case their words weren’t heeded. When Jazz was satisfied, with extensive checking of the sensors, that they had gone, she crossed over the floor of the ship and reopened the door.
“All clear,” she announced.
Albert only now seemed to realize he was clad in just his underwear, and blushed like a schoolgirl, which made Jazz laugh. Bart jumped down from the carriage and ran to her, drawing her up into a passionate kiss.
“Wasn’t I positively daring?” she asked.
“You were wonderful,” Jazz agreed.
“I could have picked off the rest, easily.”
“I’m sure that you would, had we needed to.”
Bart kissed her again. “I’m disappointed that I didn’t have to. It was fun.”