Devon Monk - Tin Swift

Mae had a satchel stuffed and slung over her shoulder, her coat on, and a hat securely in place. She was grabbing up the blankets they had brought in from the ship.

“We need to go. Now.” He rushed over to where Rose was sleeping and gathered her up as carefully as he could into his arms.

“What’s happening?” Mae asked as she hurried to the door.

One thing about Mae, she knew how to ask questions on the go.

“There was a signal set off. A flare. Captain Hink thinks someone is coming here. Either for us, or for the people aboard Captain Beaumont’s ship.”

“Who?” Mae asked. “Who would be coming here for us?”

“I don’t know,” Cedar said, “but the captain says that light was fired last night, and whoever’s on the way will be armed.”

Mae didn’t say anything more. They jogged through the tunnel until they hit fresh air.

The landing pad was a study in chaos. Beaumont’s crew hauled supplies into their ship, as did Hink’s men. Great gouts of smoke filled the air above, blocking what sunlight there was and making the entire scene more confusing.

Wet flues coughed up so much smoke and steam that the landing area and all those working or running about on it were obscured.

Wil ran straight for the Swift , not needing his eyes to know where she was anchored. Cedar and Mae were right behind him.

Cedar was glad Rose was unconscious. He could get her to the ship quickly or he could get her there painlessly. And they didn’t have time for painless.

The rumble of turbines and fans firing up clogged the air along with the shouts of voices, and banging of metal, rope, and wood as the ships prepared to fly.

But above all that, up in the sky, a high whine was growing louder.

Cedar wasn’t the only one who heard it. Seldom paused and tipped his face skyward. Captain Hink was nowhere to be seen, though Cedar could hear him cussing out Old Jack somewhere back toward the doors to the living area.

Whatever ship it was coming in above them, whatever threat it might bring, Cedar wanted Rose and Mae out of the line of fire. He stepped up into the Swift .

“You think the hammock, or should we strap her in?” he asked Mae.

“Better strap her in. Here.” She spread one of the blankets out on the floor, and then shook the harness loose from its place attached to the wall where they had last sat.

Cedar got on his knees and eased Rose down onto the blankets.

“Hold her up a bit,” Mae said. Cedar did so, listening to the ruckus outside while Mae slipped Rose’s arm into the straps and buckled the harness over her chest.

The crack of a gunshot rang out, and the repeated shots of return fire.

“Hold tight,” Cedar said, “and stay with the ship.” They needed the crew on the ship, in the ship now, giving her fire to put her in the sky. Molly was aboard, back behind the blast door trying to drum up the boilers. But the rest of the crew were outside.

Cedar ducked out the door, intending to hunt Hink’s men and haul them in by the scruffs of their necks if that’s what it took to get this ship out of here.

In the short time he’d been in the ship, the chaos of people rushing about had turned into a standoff.

Old Jack and all his men were lined up behind the rock blind, near the doors to the living chambers, guns drawn. Up on the top of the cliffs, his men were scrambling to man the cannons. If they fired those cannons on them, or worse, on the ship, they would cripple her and strand them all here.

Captain Hink, Ansell, Guffin, and Seldom stood side by side in front of the Swift as if their bodies alone could shield the ship from harm.

Standing behind them were Miss Dupuis, Mr. Theobald, and Miss Wright, weapons the likes of which Cedar had never seen before, drawn and facing off Old Jack.

“You snake-belly, backbiting pissant,” Captain Hink yelled. “Who did you sell me out to?”

“Ain’t yours to know. Yet,” Old Jack yelled back.

The big boilers and fans of the Coin de Paradis caught hold and puffed out steam. Then the fans picked up and threw so much wind and dust and smoke around, it was impossible to see half a foot in any direction.

“Fire!” Old Jack hollered.

Jack’s men powdered the air with shots, bullets lost to the sound of the fans angling for the climb. Hink and his crew fired back, taking scant cover from the few crates of supplies still scattered out on the field.

“The ship!” Captain Hink yelled. “Seldom, Guffin, Ansell. Out, out! Get her out before they fire the cannons.”

The men ran for it under the clamor and god-awful racket of the Coin de Paradis ’s slow launch. Cedar didn’t know why the ship was so loud. But what he did know was there was an ax strapped next to the Swift ’s door.

He grabbed the ax, stuck it in his belt, and drew his gun, wishing for his rifle. He jumped out of the Swift , Wil right beside him, and fired at Old Jack and his boys so the crew could make the ship.

But Captain Hink, Miss Dupuis, and her companions were pinned against one side of the landing pad, concentrating their fire at the cannon stands, to keep Old Jack’s men from firing on the crew and ship.

“Get to the ship!” Cedar yelled. “Dupuis, Theobald, Wright. Get to the Swift. ”

But Miss Dupuis and her crew did not budge. “We stay with you,” she said.

Captain Beaumont’s ship cleared the landing pad, lifting up straight at Old Jack and his boys. Old Jack used the ship as cover, and by the time the last board on the ship’s hull had scraped the wall of rocks, Old Jack was gone.

But his men had made the cannons, and let loose a blast straight at the Swift . It missed, but not by much.

Cedar ducked behind the corner of stone where the captain and others were huddled, just as Captain Hink ran out into the middle of the landing pad, waving his arms and airing his lungs in full shout. “…backstabbing devil! Don’t you go hide in that hole of yours and leave them out here to fight for you. And you!” He yelled up to the men on the cannons. “Stop shooting at my ship!”

Through the dense shifting smoke, another shadow loomed over the field.

Cedar looked up just as a new gout of gunfire ricocheted off the cliff walls, throwing sprays of dirt and rock like someone had tossed dynamite.

Hink ran for cover. “Fly!” he yelled, throwing his hands up twice, as if by will alone he could push the ship into the air. “Get the hell out of here!”

For a moment, Cedar didn’t think Ansell, Guffin, Seldom, and Molly were going to do what the captain said, didn’t think the Swift would take to the air. She had a few holes in her, but hadn’t yet been hit by a cannon.

“That’s an order!” Hink added.

And then, so fast that Cedar had to suck in a hard breath, the ship was up and screaming over the edge of the cliffs, rocketing to the clouds.

The looming shadow passed across the landing pad, and as the smoke cleared, Cedar craned his neck to see the sky. A ship was coming in for a landing.

Easily as big as the Coin de Paradis but built with a closed deck and plenty of portholes with cannons set to fire, she rose up from the cover of the mountain peak, turned into the wind, and bore down on them.

Old Jack’s signal must have reached its intended party.

“It’s Les Mullins’s boat,” Hink said as he, Cedar, Miss Dupuis, Mr. Theobald, and Miss Wright pressed their backs against the rock wall. Wil was there with them too. Not a lot of cover, but it was either stand out in the open flat with an armed ship homing into view, or take a chance in the mazelike tunnels of Old Jack’s place. Tunnels Jack and his men knew like the insides of their eyelids.