Tin Swift

The hawk did indeed see them. Hink knew it because she lit up like a bonfire, torches on long rigging poles, on cannons, on heavy artillery arrows caught like a hundred fireflies suddenly warming up at once. The familiar angle of her prow, built just like an anvil, came into view and he knew exactly which ship they were up against. The Bickern.

“It’s the bloody Bickern!” Mr. Guffin said. “We’re gonna die.”

“Where’s your faith in the goodness of my decisions?” Hink yelled.

“You ain’t no angel, Captain,” Guffin said.

“Damn straight I’m not. For that you can thank your lucky cards.”

They were so close to the ship, Hink could make out the full shape and bulk of her. Three times the size of the Swift, she was an old northern war vessel revamped for hunt and scavenge. Carried two boilers, and a long open-deck wooden hull that resembled a sailing ship and would do just as well to land on water as on the ground, with that big balloon above her.

He’d heard she’d gone ironsides, but he was close enough to see the nails in her hull, and knew it wasn’t true. Wasn’t a man who had found a way to put wings on an ironside and get it off the ground.

Still, she was a beast of a ship, and likely carried fifty crew members. But that didn’t mean she was slow.

Or that she was a bad shot.

The Swift shuddered and rocked as arrows shattered against her skin. The tin- coated canvas wouldn’t easily catch fire, but if they shot for her underbelly, here where the cabin was made of wood, they’d be smoking like a ham in a smokehouse.

And if they let loose those cannons, the Swift would be in a world of hurt. She couldn’t hold up to many direct hits.

Captain Hink ran her straight for the Bickern, fast as she would fly. And the Swift was the fastest ship in the western sky.

“Mr. Seldom, Mr. Hunt,” Captain Hink yelled. “Ready the fire.”

Hink pulled hard back and the Swift’s nose shot straight up, exposing her belly to the hawk as he yelled, “Guffin, Ansell, hard to port!”

Guffin threw the levers, pulling in the wing sails, and Ansell hammered gears and valves to change the speed of the fans.

A blast of cannons cracked apart the night.

Hink hollered out a whoop. The Swift was still in one piece, still flying, turning such a sharp angle toward port that everything not strapped down slid hard across the floor and slammed into the walls.

“Mr. Seldom!” he called. “Fire!”

The ear-breaking racket of the twelve-pound Napoleon filled the ship.

“Hard starboard, hard starboard,” Hink yelled as Guffin and Ansell hurried the levers and gears and Hink muscled the wheel.

The Swift, that beautiful, graceful ship, spun like a ballerina on toe-tip, cresting the top of the Bickern, and leaning down to put the port-side cannon in range.

“Fire, Mr. Hunt!”

The captain glanced toward the man to see if he would follow orders, but needn’t have worried. Mr. Hunt handled the gun like a veteran of the field, and the blast and roll of smoke that filled the cabin proved it.

“Right on target,” Guffin yelled. “Two direct hits.”

“That’s all we have time for, boys. Let’s bat the stack off her.” Captain Hink shot the Swift straight up again, counting on speed to get her out of the Bickern’s reach.

But the ship rocked like she’d been slapped.

“We’re hit!” Hink yelled. “Seldom?”

Seldom was already running, his breathing gear in place as he took the mid-ladder to the top hatch. The slim man scampered out for a climb to get the best look at where the damage was done and if the envelope of air and steam above them would hold.

Hink had his hands full keeping her out of a free fall. “Losing power to the port fans,” he yelled. He hit the bell for Molly to beat her on the back—they needed to slow, and slow fast. The ship stuttered as the starboard fans stalled.

“Sails, Mr. Ansell!”

Mr. Ansell had moved from humming to singing. He had a deep, operatic quality to his voice, which Hink would have appreciated if they weren’t plummeting to their deaths.

The ship shook as the sails unfurled. Hink clenched his teeth, waiting for the horrifying sound of the sails ripping under the strain of their fall.

Another cannon blast roared out.

Not what they needed. Not at all what they needed.

The Bickern pounded up behind them. And so did the Saginaw.

The sails held. They could glide her down, but they’d be dead under the other ships’ guns before they touched earth.

There had to be a way out of this, a card he hadn’t played.

“Looks like we’re going to have to finish this fight on land, ladies and gents. Strap in tight, and I’ll try to put our back to a wall.”

The hills were coming on fast, darkness in the darkness, as he struggled to keep the Swift’s nose up and into the wind. He’d come out of worse situations with his bones in order.

Okay, maybe not.

The trees were rushing up awful fast now.

“We need lift,” he yelled.

Seldom squirreled down the ladder and hooked gear to the overhead. “Envelope’s torn up, so’s the rudder and port engine.”

“What does that mean?” Cedar Hunt asked.

“It means you’d better start praying for miracles.” Captain Hink didn’t have time to say more. The ship was making a pained wail, her voice mingling with Ansell’s song as she dove toward her final meeting with the Almighty Himself, hot enough to burn feathers.

Cannons shot off again, searing the sky with an explosive round. The Bickern didn’t want to scrap them, she wanted to end them.

And then the woman, Mae Lindson, stood right up beside Captain Hink, boots spread to take the tilt of the ship, no harness, and not holding on to anything. Just standing there like a copilot looking out across a calm sea.

She was glassy-eyed, as if caught in a fever, half whispering, half singing some kind of prayer as she stared out the windows.

Folks all have a different way to say howdy to death, he supposed, but he’d rather kick death in the eye than go out singing a little ditty.

“Mrs. Lindson, you’d better hold on—”

She reached up and clamped her hand on his shoulder. With a harsh word that wasn’t made of the King’s English, she wrapped her other hand around the overhead bar. A shock of lightning whipped through him.

Then, all he could hear was the woman’s prayer, lifted and harmonized by a dozen women’s voices. All he could see was her eyes, soft, brown, warm as the earth turned on a summer day. He tasted wildflower nectar on his tongue, smelled rich honey.

And then he somehow fell all apart and was strung back together by that prayer. He found himself stretched out in a familiar shape, wearing wings and an engine with tin skin that feared no storm nor sky. He wore the Swift as if he were a part of it, as if he were the beating heart to a machine that trod the air.