‘Let me sink this into your heart. It’ll be quick and almost painless. That’s a professional courtesy.’
Commodore Black groaned as she advanced on him a second time, close to exhaustion after the battle against the claw-guards. Their blades slashed back and forth in an intense, intricate and brutal exchange of fury that might have lasted minutes or hours.
As the first lieutenant backed him up against the airship hull, her arm struck out in a blur and the knife sank into the thigh of his left leg, only its hilt visible as he fell to one knee, yelling with the shock of the blow.
‘One last secret to tell, lass.’
‘Valuable enough for me to drag you to an interrogation cell rather than taking your head for a trophy?’
‘More of an admission, Maya,’ coughed the commodore.
There was a curious look on the first lieutenant’s face as she drew her sword back ready for the killing strike. A look that turned to confusion as she began blinking peculiarly, her feet stumbling over one of the overturned supply bales as if she hadn’t seen it lying there.
‘It’s not sleep those beautiful green eyes of yours need, Maya — it’s a fresh shot of the womb mages’ blessing against the dark curse of their Forbidden City. A dose that wasn’t cut with so much water by me.’
She sliced out blindly, but the commodore had already rolled out of the way, removing the bloody knife from his leg and sending it spinning across the harbour. Screaming in frustration, the first lieutenant carved her blade through the air, missing the commodore and the landing rocket launcher he was pulling over the side of the airship by a couple of feet. It was Westwick’s last cut before the commodore triggered the large metal tube he was hefting, the landing rocket impaling her leg and sending her flying back towards a rack of expansion-engine cylinders.
The commodore ignored her wailing oaths as he tossed the empty launcher aside and hauled himself into the pocket airship’s gondola. ‘Don’t be too mad at me, lass. The secret police down here will need a new head to gather together all of your survivors. I’m sure the State Protection Board will prefer a known quantity like yourself in that office.’
Westwick swore and sent her sword spinning blade-first into the hull of the airship.
‘Out by a foot or two,’ said the commodore. ‘You know, you were right all along, lass. I thought I was getting too mortal old for all of this. But I am still good for it.’
The commodore fired up the airship’s twin expansion engines, a rotor on either side of the small packet spinning into life. Lighting up his mumbleweed pipe, he puffed contentedly as the richly appointed airship lifted away from the tower’s harbour moorings.
EPILOGUE
‘Now then, laddies,’ said the gruff lieutenant on the desk at the front of the queue snaking across the airship field. ‘Being two nice honest boys, I am sure you both have your state work records with you.’
Handing over the tattered punch cards, the eldest of the brothers shifted uncomfortably in his boots. ‘I thought the navy took anybody on.’
‘Did you now?’ said the lieutenant, his voice half a growl as he fed the cards into a portable transaction engine and inspected the results rotating across the beads on his abacus-like screen. ‘Well, you’re not on the constabulary’s wanted list, which’s a start. But I see a lot of concerns’ names on your cards. Aye, can’t settle down to a trade, eh? What makes you think you can settle with the Royal Aerostatical Navy, I wonder? Good scores on your letters, but it’s not clerks we need. Not now the Cassarabians have found a new way to produce those little arse-farting gas monsters of theirs without offending the great sky gods or whatever fancy they’re worshipping this month. We need men-of-war; we need Jack Cloudies. You two lanky laddies think that’s you?’
They nodded in a non-committal way.
The lieutenant stamped their punch cards with the official navy recruitment pattern, jerking a thumb towards the airship hangars where a short steamman appeared to be addressing the assembled crewmen. ‘Over there to take the oath and look lively about it. Master Cardsharp Shaftcrank is officiating today and if you slouch like that in front of him, I can guarantee you laddies’ll be stuck stoking in his transaction-engine chamber for the first six months of your service.’ They went to walk over, but the lieutenant stuck an arm out first, blocking their passage. ‘Being such fine readers, you two no doubt peruse a copy of the
Again the pair nodded in a non-committal way.
‘Are the pensmen still writing about the youngest captain of the fleet’s latest exploits; you know the one, boys, the hero of the Battle of the Mutantarjinn Flats?’
The oldest brother grunted in the affirmative.
‘I thought they might be.’ The lieutenant dropped his arm. ‘On your way, Messrs Alan and Saul Keats. Welcome to the Royal Aerostatical Navy.’ He glanced up at the next man in the queue, a grizzled old sailor with a wooden leg. ‘Pete Guns. I had an inkling you might have been more than a wee bit deceased by now. Has the navy, by chance, stopped paying you your pension?’
‘Not dead yet, Lieutenant McGillivray. Maybe another tour might do for me — if not, living on the admiralty’s pauper generosity surely will.’
The lieutenant stuck his hand out for the sailor’s work record, punching it through with the recruitment code. ‘Aye well, nobody could tie a fuse quite as well as you, Mister Guns. Welcome back to the Royal Aerostatical Navy.’
Coppertracks curiously trundled to the front door of the tower-like mansion that was Tock House. One of the sage steamman’s drones had reached the door before him in answer to the chimes of the bell pull, and Coppertracks hadn’t recognized the image of the black-suited gentleman on the steps sent back by the drone, the man’s stovepipe hat held ever so tight in his hand.
‘Can I help you, dear mammal?’ asked Coppertracks.
‘This is the residence of Jared Black?’
Coppertracks hesitated before answering. This softbody looked like a parliament man. From the Customs and Revenue Department of the civil service, perhaps. They were always probing and poking into the poor old commodore’s esoteric sources of wealth. Items such as the ridiculously expensive large ivory wheel that the steamman had helped transport to the auction rooms the summer before.
‘That is correct,’ said Coppertracks, a little loop of energy circulating through the crystal dome topping his head as he dismissed the opportunity to dissemble. ‘Are you perhaps calling from the treasury?’
The dark-suited softbody inclined his head and then stepped aside, revealing a pile of wooden crates scattered along the lawn as if someone had tried to lay a path with them. He tapped the nearest box with a smart silver cane. ‘Indeed not. Foreign and Colonial Office.’
Coppertracks thoughtfully scratched the side of his skull dome. ‘This is most irregular.’
‘On that, sir, I believe we can concur,’ said the official, tipping his hat before replacing it on his head. ‘For the commodore. Good day to you.’
‘And these crates?’ spluttered Coppertracks.
‘What passes for diplomacy these days, courtesy of the Cassarabian embassy,’ called the official, walking briskly back through the steamman’s gardens.
Coppertracks’ artificial servants had just levered the lid off the nearest of the crates when the commodore came to the door and, rushing down the steps, seized a bottle from the drone’s metal fingers before it could attempt to brush off the wood shavings that had come out of the box.
‘Jared,’ said the steamman, ‘could you kindly explain what this is?’
The commodore gleefully held the bottle of red wine up to the sun, running his hands lovingly over the elaborate alien script of the label. ‘As rare a vintage as has ever graced a Jackelian’s table. From the sultan of Fahamutla’s private estate unless my poor blessed eyes are mistaken.’
‘This is all wine!’ The steamman’s voicebox trembled somewhere between astonishment and annoyance. ‘There must be the best portion of a vineyard’s worth littering our lawn here.’
‘What’s the matter, old steamer, have you never seen the gratitude of kings before?’
