Steven Harper - The Doomsday Vault

“Ready for this?” Tom asked.

Gavin tried to wet his lips but had no spit. “Ready as I can be. You scared?”

“Yep.” He gave a nervous smile. “But I’m not going to let them take our ship.”

As if on cue, the flock of gliders rushed silently upward past the gunwale, out of range of the big guns and toward the netting gaps. Still clinging to the netting with one hand, Tom drew his pistol and fired down at them, but the shot went wide. An airman a few yards away-Stanley Barefield-fired more carefully, and one of the pirates went limp. His glider yawed and veered away. The Juniper continued to rise, which meant the gliders appeared to be dropping toward the gunwale. The gliders needed enough altitude to gain the gaps in the netting and land on the deck before their air bottles gave out.

Gavin drew his pistol, fired, and missed. The ship’s guns spoke one more time, but Gavin doubted they did any good. More than two dozen gliders were swarming like wasps around the Juniper now, and the enormous bulk of the privateer airship was less than half a mile away. Its design was similar to the Juniper ’s, but its envelope was thinner, built more for speed, and painted blue to blend in with the sky. It was also larger than the Juniper , and no doubt better armed. Air pistols hissed, and glass flechettes zipped through the air. When the pirate ship got close enough, she would send a full force of fighting men to overwhelm the crew and capture the Juniper entirely. Gavin swallowed.

“We’re in trouble,” he said.

“I know.” Tom’s face was pale. “But we can win this.”

A glider whipped close to Tom and Gavin. Tom brought his pistol around, but before he could shoot, the pirate fired his own weapon. The shot caught Tom in the forehead, and Gavin saw the shiny flechette exit the back of his friend’s skull in a burst of blood that spattered across the netting. Tom didn’t make a sound. He simply fell away from the netting and vanished into the blue void below.

Gavin heard a terrible scream and only vaguely realized it was coming from his own throat. He didn’t remember dropping his pistol or drawing his cutlass, but he leapt from the netting and his blade swept a gleaming arc. He had a tiny moment of closeness, when he came eye to eye with the bearded pirate. He smelled fish on the other man’s breath and heard him swear in Welsh. Then Gavin’s cutlass took the man’s pistol arm off at the elbow. The pirate howled in pain and veered away in a scarlet spray. The guy rope Gavin had grabbed earlier swung him back toward the ship, but another glider was already speeding toward him. Gavin tightened his gut and bent himself upward into a tight ball just in time to let a barrage of flechettes pass beneath him. His arm, the one holding the rope, burned, and his shoulder felt ready to come apart. He slammed into the netting and managed to get his feet into it, release the rope, and grab the netting without losing his cutlass. He sheathed the blade and climbed, trying not to think of Tom’s spattered blood or ruined head.

Although the airmen had managed to fend off a few, most of the pirate gliders had dived through the gaps and down toward the main deck. Cursing the loss of his pistol, Gavin flipped over the top of the netting, grabbed another guy rope, and slid down as fast as he could. All around him, the rest of the crew followed suit, sliding down ropes like pale spiders to defend the decks.

The pirates disengaged from their gliders. They wore mismatched, ill-fit clothes, and a few were barefoot. Most were unshaven. All were armed with glass cutlasses and air pistols. And the huge dark bulk of the pirate airship was barely two hundred yards off the starboard bow, not quite within firing range. The airship had also taken altitude, remaining level with the Juniper .

Gavin landed near a group of airmen that included Old Graf, and suddenly he was very busy. The world dissolved into a whirlwind of glittering glass blades, hissing air, screams, blood, and severed limbs. He became aware that he was standing beside a group of grim-faced airmen. The deck was overrun with pirates and discarded gliders. Bodies lay everywhere-some still living; some dead. And less than forty yards away loomed the bulging blue shape of the Welsh airship. Gavin could hear her propeller engines buzzing over the sounds of combat around him. His arms were growing tired, and he was panting now. He swung at the pirate in front of him. The man laughed and ducked.

“You’re a fine, pretty lad,” the pirate shouted in a Welsh accent. “I’ll teach you some tricks with my blade.”

There was a heavy thud, and a crash shook the Juniper. Everyone stopped fighting for a moment. The pirate ship had fired an enormous barbed harpoon. The tree-sized spear had penetrated the Juniper ’s hull, drawing with it a hawser at least a foot in diameter. A faint cheer went up from the pirate ship. The two vessels were now joined like beads on a string.

The fight started again, but something had shifted. The Juniper ’s airmen were losing. Gavin saw Captain Naismith standing at the gunwale, a foot-long crossbow in his grip. A yellow flicker danced in his hands, and Gavin’s stomach went cold at the sight of a small open flame, the absolute bane of every airship in existence. The captain lit the end of his crossbow bolt and raised it, but no crossbow that small had the range to reach the pirate ship. A nauseating horror swept Gavin as he realized that the captain was aiming not at the pirate ship, but at the Juniper ’s own envelope.

The distraction allowed the pirate to swat Gavin’s cutlass. Pain stung Gavin’s hand, and the glass blade spun away, distorting light as it went. Gavin jumped back in time to avoid the pirate’s second swing, then fled. The airmen who fought beside him, caught in fights of their own, barely had time to give him a glance.

“Come back, love!” the pirate yelled. “You need to dance for me!”

Gavin all but flew across the deck to Captain Naismith. Already he could imagine the blazing bolt piercing the envelope, ripping into the ballonets of hydrogen to create a fireball that would incinerate the ship and drop the charred remains into the ocean. The detail was sharp-Gavin could see Naismith’s finger tense around the trigger. Heart pounding from both exertion and terror, Gavin lunged and grabbed Naismith’s arm.

“Captain!” he shouted. “No!”

“Let go my arm, Master Ennock,” he said through gritted teeth. “They won’t take my ship.”

“We can’t get revenge if we’re dead,” Gavin said.

A dull clanking noise vibrated the deck beneath Gavin’s boots. The pirates were operating a winch that pulled the two ships closer together. Fear fought with pale determination in Naismith’s expression.

“It’s ransom or slavery for us, Master Ennock,” he said. “I can’t condemn my men to such a life.” He wrenched his arm free and raised the crossbow again. The dreadful little flame flickered like a demon.

Gavin hesitated, uncertain. It would be so easy to let him. Naismith was the captain, and Gavin was duty-bound to follow his orders, orders that would destroy Tom’s killer. But Gavin wasn’t ready to die, and burning to death was the secret horror of every airman.

In that moment of hesitation, Naismith’s finger tightened on the trigger. Then he made a small sound and collapsed face-forward to the deck. The crossbow fell also, the bolt extinguished. An enormous scarlet stain spread across the back of the captain’s blue coat. Behind him stood the pirate Gavin had just been fighting, air pistol still in his hand. He holstered the weapon.

“Looks like I reloaded just in time, love,” he said with a grin. “Got me a captain.”