Joseph Lewis - Halcyon

The propellers flipped back down and the Halcyon roared, cavitating violently as the engines chewed through their own downwash, and then the tires thumped down on the pier, which creaked and groaned beneath them.

Taziri winced at the noise. “Now we just need to hold still for a bit without breaking the pier and falling into the water. How about it? Think you’re up for a little parking management?”

Ghanima nodded and quickly took the pilot’s seat as Taziri slipped back into the cabin and spun the hatch wheel to unlock it. “Kenan, I think I might need that gun of yours again. May I?”

The marshal paused, his eyes fixed on the hatch, his hand resting on his holster. With a sigh, he came to life again and pulled out the revolver. “Keep it out of sight, if you can.”

“That’s the plan.” Taziri shoved the gun into her jacket’s inner pocket and ducked out the hatch onto the pier. There was no one nearby, only a few fish in a bucket beside an abandoned net and pole. She jogged up the pier toward the shore, toward the small crowd of gawkers gathered at the edge of the street near the harbor master’s office. As Taziri neared them she scanned their faces, young and old, light and dark, hair and hats and…there they were. Two men shouldering their way through the crowd. The two heavies from the lighthouse, the same pair from the airfield a few hours earlier.

For a brief moment, their eyes met. Then the two men pushed out of the crowd and strode down the pier.

Taziri stopped just beside the carousel, her hand going to the metallic lump inside her jacket. Her mind raced for options as her gaze came to rest on the little wooden airship on the carousel beside her and she frowned. The toy’s design was all wrong, distorted to create a space for a child to sit in the middle of the balloon.

The heavies reached the far side of the empty amusement ride, their weapons held low. They were muttering to each other.

Taziri closed her hand around the gun in her pocket. “Are you working for Ambassador Chaou?”

The men snorted and exchanged another look. “A little slow, aren’t you?” The taller one shouted over the low huffing of the carousel engine.

“So it is her.” Taziri called back, “Where is Major Zidane?”

“Is that what you came back for?” The shorter one with the gun shook his head. “God, Medur must really hate you by now. Coming back for a Redcoat. How stupid are you? You got away, and then you came straight back here for him?” He grinned. “Girl, you are just begging for a bullet.”

“Where is he?” Taziri thumbed the revolver’s hammer.

The two men sauntered around the carousel. The tall one with the knife called out, “I think he’s a few miles back that way.” He pointed at the canal. “Don’t worry. Chaou will keep him company. In fact, she sent us to keep you company, too.”

That little old woman is holding the major? That’s ridiculous, unless… “Is Zidane still alive?”

“Chaou’s got him.” The tall one shrugged. “That little bitch is pretty tough, what with that thing in her arm. I bet she’s zapped the marshal a dozen times by now.”

“Zapped? You mean electrocuted?” Taziri’s mind raced as the fragments of conversation slowly fell into place together.

Wait, what did Hamuy say about Chaou? The doctor did something to her, and it’s in her arm. And it’s something that can electrocute a man as large as the major? A powerful electrical device housed inside a human body. The voltage needed to injure a person would require far more energy than could be stored in any conventional battery. She felt her stomach plummeting into oblivion and her numb fingers suddenly felt cold. She could only come up with one explanation.

“Yeah, she did it to me once.” The tall one winced. “Or twice.”

“Stop right there.” Taziri drew the revolver and leveled it at the two men. “Just get out of here. Walk away now or I start shooting.”

The knife man said, “Take it easy, flygirl. I think we both know you’re not going to shoot anyone. In fact, I’ll bet that’s the first time you’ve ever held a gun, isn’t it?”

“Actually, it’s the second.” Taziri swung the weapon to the center of the carousel and started firing. Bullets pinged and thumped against the engine, and one of them burst the oil pan into a small fireball, and another shot ruptured the boiler. The metal barrel tore apart and a roaring gust of steam rushed out directly into the rising curtain of flaming oil. The burning wave swept across the carousel, igniting the rotating dais and all of the tiny wooden ships on its rim.

The men’s eyes went wide as the crimson flare painted their faces in red and yellow. They dove over the railing to plummet into the harbor below as the flaming thunderhead rolled across the pier and set fire to the rail. Taziri threw up an arm to shield her face from the heat as she stumbled back down the pier. She paused to watch the little wooden airships crackle and snap, bathed in flames and spitting cinders. Then she put the gun away and jogged back to the Halcyon.

She leapt into the cabin, ignoring Kenan’s demands for his gun and the doctor’s mad sputtering in Hellan. Taziri crossed the cabin and put her boot on Hamuy’s crusty black hand. “You said before that they did something to Chaou. They put something electrical in her, didn’t they? When did they put it in her? When? ”

Hamuy grimaced and looked up through heavy lids. His face shone with sweat and his eyes twitched. “Four or five years back, maybe?”

Taziri straightened up and backed away. Without looking at the marshal, she handed back the warm revolver. In the cockpit, she took the pilot’s seat and slowly draped her scarf across her face as she took the controls.

“Taziri?” Ghanima leaned over her shoulder. “What was that all about? What does it mean?”

“It means this is my fault and I have to fix it.” She shoved the throttles forward and the Halcyon rose off the pier to the very soft droning of its propellers. The view spun quickly to the left as they turned toward the walled canal. Taziri kept her eyes on her instruments. The view below shifted slowly from the sparkling blue of the harbor to the gray tiled roofs of the city to the green fields that lined the canal, while above them a white sun baked the sky into a vast and colorless expanse.

Ghanima tapped softly on the engineer’s console. “How exactly is this your fault?”

“Not everything.” Taziri tensed. “Or maybe everything. I don’t know. But the major is in danger because of me.”

“All right. And that has something to do with the shock gizmo in Chaou’s hand, I get that. But what does that have to do with you, exactly?”

“To incapacitate a big gorilla like Zidane, you would need a huge shock. So that device must have a high-capacity battery.” Taziri swallowed. “And the only person who’s published a design for a high-capacity battery in the last five years is me.”

“What? How do you know?”

“You don’t follow the journals, do you?” Taziri frowned and ran her tongue around her teeth. “Do you know what happened to the Silver Shearwater?”

“It exploded over the Tingis harbor. Some sort of engine problem.”

She smiled sadly. Close enough. “I was just finishing school when it happened. I was studying electrical engineering. For my final thesis, I wrote a paper proposing a new type of high-capacity battery design. It got shouted down in the journals by several big names at the university, but a few weeks later I got a letter from Isoke Geroubi, captain of what was left of the Shearwater. She read my paper and wanted me on the team rebuilding her ship. After the primary construction was complete, she dismissed the rest of the crew, and she and I built the engine by ourselves.”