Clementine

Because the fact was, he didn’t want to fire the Rattler for the very same reason that the rest of the reasonable crowd-members had holstered their firearms. The hydrogen was everywhere, and the Rattler was exceptionally difficult to aim when he carried it alone.

A moment of stillness fell as all eyes landed on the captain.

He was a frightful sight. Six feet even and broad as a Clydesdale, scarred, straining, pumping, and flushed with rage-with a two hundred pound gun humming and spinning its massive wheels beside his head, only inches away from his ear.

Everyone was frozen. He’d confused them, and no one yet understood that he planned to make for the Valkyrie.

Except for Simeon and Lamar.

They both understood, and their arms and wrists and guns retreated slowly back inside the craft while the attention had been drawn to the captain…who then, aiming the Rattler low enough that it would mostly strafe the ground, flipped the switch that allowed the machine to open fire.

The Rattler kicked dozens of shots a minute into the dust, into the crowd, into the air when even Hainey was startled by its volume and power and he lurched-almost losing control, and regaining it enough to keep turning the crank. He teetered and leaned, firing as if his arm was automatic too-as if his elbow were a piston.

The crowd broke under the onslaught. Half a dozen men went down, and were maybe dead on the spot. The rest ran like hell, except for a few security men who huddled in a pack and made a point to draw. Hainey swept the Rattler to spray them, since they posed the most imminent threat; his shoulders lurched and leaned as the gun’s kick pounded against his balance.

If he didn’t start moving, and moving swiftly, he’d never be able to hold the Rattler upright more than another few seconds.

His scar-crossed cheek was scalded by the friction and firearm heat, and his wool coat smelled of burning where his arm held the gun into position. He staggered forward, struggling to plant one foot in front of the other and then he hobbled, forward, not fast but steady; and he quit turning the crank-letting the last of the wheel’s inertia throw out another six shots, but otherwise abandoning the lever. It was too much to concentrate on, operating the gun, and holding the gun, and keeping the gun from hitting anything that might explode…while lurching forward under its considerable weight.

Upon nearing the folding steps of the Union warbird, he pivoted on his hip with a heave and assumed a defensive position-aiming the amazing gun out at the crowd, as what was left of it warily circled, understanding now that Hainey was one of the thieves, hell-bent on taking the ship.

Above and behind the captain, Lamar’s voice hissed out. “Sir, give me cover to close that hatch, or we might never make it out of this lot,” he said.

Hainey’s ears were ringing so loudly that he heard only part of it, but he got the gist and reached again for the Rattler’s crank. He turned it, and flipped the switch to feed the last of his ammo into the gun, and it exploded out from under the ship with a rat-a-tat-tat to wake the dead.

Lamar leaped over the steps, landing with a grunt and a slide on the ground beneath it; he recovered immediately, and took a mallet to the pried-apart rivets that affixed the panel into place. Soon the hatch was sealed and he was back up onto the steps, saying, “Sir, stop firing and hop inside. Simeon’s got the stair lever and we’ll seal ourselves up. Do it fast,” he begged.

Hainey tried to say something back, but he didn’t think he could make himself heard so he gave up, quit firing, and almost fell backwards on the steps-his weary muscles collapsing under the gun.

Simeon caught it in time to keep it from crushing the captain or knocking him back down into the service yard unarmed; but he yelped when his hands touched some overheated part and the sizzle of burning skin and hair made the cargo hold smell like a charnel house. Lamar helped the captain lift himself up the last few steps, and no sooner had the stairs retreated and the bay doors closed than a trickle of bullets came fired afresh at the hull.

They pinged as if they were being shot at a very big bell.

“Sir, are you all right?” Lamar demanded.

To which Simeon said, “I’ve burned my hand!”

“And I never call you ‘sir,’ now do I?” the engineer said as he patted down a place on Hainey’s jacket where an ember was glowing, eating its round, black way through the fabric. “You’ve set yourself on fire!”

“It’s…the…Rattler,” he wheezed, hoping he’d heard everything correctly. His ears were banging as if someone was standing behind, smashing cymbals together over and over again. He waggled his head like he could shake the residual sounds out of it, and he climbed to his feet. “Simeon, your hand?”

“I’ll survive,” the first mate said unhappily, examining the puckering pink of the burn as it tightened and wrinkled across his otherwise coffee-dark skin.

“Find something and wrap it up. We’ve got to fly this thing, we’ve got to fly her out of here, before those idiots out there breach the hull, or blow up our neighboring ships-or scare up some help. If we can get airborne now, we can shake or bully our way past the security dirigibles…if they’ve even got the balls to chase us,” he added as he stumbled into the bridge, leaving the Rattler lying steaming on the cargo hold floor.

“Way ahead of you,” Simeon said. He’d already opened one of the packs that Hainey had thrown aboard, and taken out his only clean shirt. Using his teeth and his one good hand, he tore off the sleeve and began to bind himself. Lamar helped him hold it, and tied off the makeshift bandage.

“This bird is loaded up to the gills, ain’t she?” the captain asked with wonder.

After they’d braced the bay doors from the interior, Simeon and Lamar joined him on the main deck, looking out through the windshield where the sheriff and a pair of deputies were joining the fray down front.

“She sure is,” Simeon agreed. “Between the three of us, I think we can fly her all right,” he said.

“We’d better be able to, or else our goose is cooked,” Hainey observed.

Then, from behind a door that no one yet had opened, came a strangely calm voice-the kind of voice that’s holding a deadly weapon, and is fully aware of how it ought to perform.

“Your goose is cooked regardless, Croggon Hainey.”

All three men turned and were stunned to see her there, standing on the bridge with a six-shooter half as long as her forearm-but there she was, Maria Isabella Boyd, Confederate spy and operative for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

The captain recovered fastest. He let the unscarred side of his mouth creep up in something like a slow smile, and he said to her, “Lady, mine and yours, and everybody within a half-mile of this bird…if you don’t put that thing down.”

She ignored the warning. “Disarm yourselves. Immediately. All of you, or I’ll shoot.”

Hainey held out a hand that forbade his crewmembers to do any such thing. He said, “If you shoot, we’re all dead. You don’t know the first thing about these ships, do you?”

Maria faltered, but not much, and not for long. “Maybe not, but I know plenty about what happens to a man when a bullet sticks between his ribs, and if you don’t want the knowledge firsthand yourself, you’d better set your weapons aside.”

“You see,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her, “We’re surrounded by hydrogen-three quarters of this craft is designed to hold it, and this bird is all full up right now. Do you know what happens when you start firing bullets around hydrogen?”

He could see by her eyes that she could guess, but she was unconvinced. “Those men outside have been firing at you for fully five minutes now. Nothing has exploded yet.”

“This is a warbird, lady. It’s armored on the outside, to the hilt. Inside, everything is exposed-there’s not much to protect the interior from the tanks, because ordinarily, the people who hang around in the bridge know better than to yank out their guns and make threats. And did you notice,” he added, because the clouds that covered her face were unhappy with understanding, “how careful they were? All those men down there-all those guns. Between them, they didn’t fire twenty shots total. Do you know why?”

She hesitated, then said slowly, “The other dirigibles.”

“That’s right,” he confirmed. “The other dirigibles. No armor. Not like this bird.” He kicked at the floor, which rang metallically under his feet. “One bullet and they could be blown sky-high.”

“What about that…that…” a word dawned on her, and she used it. “That Rattler? You could’ve set off a chain reaction, killed hundreds of people instead of merely the ten or twenty you’ve otherwise dispatched.”

He shrugged. “I was lucky, and they weren’t. And my men were all right, inside this bird. Even if the yard