Talis didn’t want estates and servants and finery. Well, maybe a little finery. But she didn’t want anything that would strip her of what Wind Sabre provided. The skies. Just being out here. Running sometimes, well, sure. At least she was free to run.
She yanked off the helmet and let it fall to hang from its tether on the shoulder of her suit. Breathed in the cold clean air. Smelled the wood and oil and tar of her ship.
Dug, tall and dark-skinned, and Sophie, petite with a freckled honey complexion, made an odd pair as they met her at the lower transom to help her climb back aboard.
“We need to get moving,” Sophie said. Her eyebrows were wrinkled under the messy fringe of short dark hair that framed her round face. The younger woman kept nervously glancing overhead as though she could see through the mass of their ship’s hull to the two new arrivals up above them.
Talis put a hand on her shoulder, both for comfort and to support herself as she started to yank off the descent suit.
“Ain’t that always the way,” she said, and grinned.
If Talis had any sense, she’d have been frightened. And she had been at first, as the winch brought her up from flotsam. But with the ice fields safely below her and the run ahead of them, she decided she was feeling lucky. She tugged on her prayerlocks in thanks now that the helmet was out of the way, sending a silent request to Silus Cutter that their luck would hold. She had the ring. One tiny object in all that desolate mess below, and they’d found it. Easy as that. For now she ignored how ‘easy’ wasn’t always a good sign. They had their prize. Time to trade it for a payday and keep her ship in the air for a good while longer.
“We do not believe they have seen us,” Dug said. Always formal. Always on business. Or at least so long as their enemies were out of range of a fight. “The Yu’Nyun ship arrived first, but the Imperials followed behind them a short time later.”
“And which one of them was following us, do you suppose?” Talis, free of her suit, tossed Sophie the ring in its drawstring bag. “Stow that, please.”
Sophie caught the bag in cupped hands and flashed Talis a triumphant grin before gripping it tight and running off. They’d been promised a bit of a vacation once their client paid up. And this job promised the coin to make it a good one.
Talis could certainly use a vacation. And if they spent all the spare cash they made on this trip, beyond what they needed to resupply and repair, that would keep her crew content enough to stay on for the next contract. With Sophie especially, Talis did whatever she could to delay the inevitable.
A stiff breeze made Talis’s damp skin prickle, and the sleeveless thermal shirt and twill cotton pants she’d worn under the suit did little to ward off the chill. She stuffed the cumbersome gear into the deck box near the descent line’s winch. It would be smarter to air it out on deck before stowing it, but they needed to move, and she didn’t want it flapping around in their way. She had no doubt she’d regret that the next time she smelled the thing.
“Okay, Dug,” Talis said to her first mate as she yanked her boots back on, cinching the laces tight and tucking their loose ends into the tops of the calf-height leather uppers. She pulled her hair loose from the ponytail that had kept it out of her way under the helmet and felt the cool air hit her scalp. More goosebumps. She’d pay a ransom for a hot shower. Or at least for that coffee they were supposed to have saved for her.
Lines creased Dug’s face, puckering the scars around his left eye. He held out her worn leather jacket, which she gladly accepted. It slipped on and settled immediately into place, matched to the contours of her strong shoulders and arms. She buttoned it up against the wind.
“Imperials,” was all he said as they battened the external hatch and headed for the main deck. Both with disgust and with an almost frightening eagerness. A feral smile shone white like stars against the darkness of his skin.
The expression brought new chills. She delighted in how fearsome he was. It came in handy when she needed to make a show of force, especially considering that there were only the four of them on Wind Sabre. He could make just about any Cutter person think twice about whom they were dealing with. Most Cutter could go their entire lives without ever seeing one of the goddess Onaya Bone’s towering people. Schoolchildren were taught about them as part of the general history of Peridot, but none were ever really prepared for the sheer intensity of the slender, muscled warriors. Even their spiritual leaders were dangerous. Beneath the wool jacket Dug wore to protect against the cool air, he was a tight coil of steely fibers, begging for combat.
Unfortunately, the Imperial airship up there outmatched their cannons five to one. She had full faith that Dug could take down every bastard on the ship if he could make it onto the railing with his knives drawn, but she wasn’t looking to get the entire Cutter Imperial fleet after them. If they could sneak away without being seen, she’d like
