Bravado's House of Blues (6 page)

“We gotta swing this ship around,” the lead engineer shouted. “We’re catching all the wind.”

“Prepare for increased torque,” the captain said. “On my count.”

“Hold her steady,” Marta broke in. “Just give us a few more minutes.”

Angry static filled Marta’s ears as lightning flared around the dirigible. Sensors showed the safety webbing bleeding off the electricity at an alarming rate.

“Robert, man the towfish line! Now!” Mitch broke in through the retreating static.

Marta flipped to Mitch’s camera. He had moved again, and suddenly. What was he doing?

“We’re losing him,” Mitch shouted into the channel. “Fuck. Robert, give me five more seconds, then you let that line out at maximum tolerance.”

Marta flipped through cameras. Steve plummeted the last fifty meters from the ship; his body hit the water with a splash. Seconds later, Mitch splashed down in a more controlled descent. He’d hooked his vest to the towfish cable and had dived in after Steve.

What were the odds that Steve survived that splashdown? The water was pretty choppy with all the wind, so surface tension should be lessened. His EVA suit was self-contained for surviving in extreme conditions. Mitch had insisted on the extra protection, just in case. So, what did they have? Forty minutes of oxygen? An hour? They’d been out for thirty minutes already. Or was it more?

The migraine exploded behind her eyes. Marta twisted away from the console and lunged out of her chair, flinging her headset off, and landed on all fours, vomiting. Pain blurred her vision. She squeezed the bridge of her nose. This one was fast and extreme. There were meds in her kitbag, in the back of her chair. Only trouble was getting up off the floor.

The tinny noise of conflict and shouting leaked out of the headset, but she couldn’t worry about that now. Her world narrowed to getting to that bag. Every movement sent shards of glass through her brain. Retching hurt, breathing hurt, blinking hurt. She turned her body carefully, crying out as a sudden sharp pain blossomed behind her left eye. Then her sight failed altogether.

She managed to get her bag out of the storage compartment in the back of the seat and found the syringe by feel. She’d never given herself this shot blind before, but she had no choice. She’d black out soon if she didn’t do something. The plastic tube felt too small in her hand, but she knew it was the right one. She pulled the rubber stopper from one end and slowly pulled the hypodermic from the case. She sat back on her heels and carefully negotiated the tip of the hypo to her thigh. Her left index finger triggered the auto-inject. She lay down beside her workstation as the morphine-enhanced cocktail surged into her bloodstream, dropping a heavy, wet blanket over the raging fire of the migraine.

A large explosion rocked Marta back to awareness. Lightning split the blackness all around her. Blinking back afterimages, she rolled over onto her stomach, pushed herself up onto hands and knees, placed one hand on the control console, and pulled herself upright. A few deep breaths and she struggled to her feet. The room spun as the narcotic swam through her system.

A sudden movement caught her attention. The vid-screens showed a struggle in the aft engineering bay. She leaned over the console and tapped through images. The tow cable still hung in the water. How much time had passed? She couldn’t remember how much oxygen Mitch had.

The lightning paused for a moment, leaving her ears ringing. In the sudden stillness, she heard the sounds of conflict from her headset. She lifted the set from her chair, flopped down, and pulled on the headphones. Shouting and scuffling came through in loud and painful clarity. Susan was screaming. Marta tapped through the vids and found the second camera in the engineering section. Robert lay on the ground, blood pooling around his head. Susan stood over him with a large wrench, swinging it wildly at someone lunging at the towline control.

“What the hell’s going on?” Marta shouted into the commlink. She winced at her own volume.

“Marta,” Susan grunted as she swung the wrench. The meaty thump that accompanied the swing indicated that someone was hurting. “The bastards tried to disengage the cable. Fucking crew bastards hit Robert with a fire extinguisher. He’s breathing, but bleeding pretty bad.”

“Hang on, Susan,” Marta said. “I’m on my way.”

She threw the headset on the console and staggered toward the door. How the hell had this gotten so out of control?

She stumbled up the ladder to the crew quarters, her vision swimming in shades of red. The hallway loomed, long and unwelcoming, as her eyes struggled between the migraine and the drugs. She kept one hand on the left wall and staggered past the crew’s quarters. Empty. Her people bunked at the end of the hall in two separate rooms. Mitch, Robert and Steve shared one room, she and Susan another. She dashed into the men’s quarters, unknown territory. Mitch’s bunk stood out—so neat and under control. Something she envied about him. She grabbed the locker at the foot of his bunk, palmed the lock, and keyed in her override code. Mitch would kill her when he learned she had all their security locks compromised, but if she didn’t act, he would be dead anyway.

She rifled through his clothes, books, and personal effects. In the bottom, under his shaving kit, was the pistol he had been forbidden to bring onto the ship. She knew he had it, or at least had suspected it, but holding the heavy, cold weapon in her hand sent a shaft of anger through her. Once again, he had obeyed the rules he thought were important. She stuck the pistol in her waistband, closed the locker, and hurried out of the crew section.

Her vision had mostly settled by the time she slid back down the ladder and raced toward the aft engineering section. She slowed as she neared the door, pistol in hand. No one was in the doorway. She poked her head around; two of the dirigible’s crew held Susan. Robert lay on the floor, as did two other crewmembers. A fifth member, Captain Bretherton, was just moving toward the control panel. She hoped the last member was on the bridge, especially in a storm like this.

Marta fired the pistol into the room. The bullet ricocheted off the steel bulkhead, whining as everyone screamed and fell to the floor, their arms wrapped around their heads.

“Get away from that control panel,” Marta yelled.

Susan stood up. One of the crewmembers made a grab at her, but she kicked his hand away.

Marta strode into the room, giving the supine forms a wide berth. She held the pistol with both hands and aimed it directly at the captain.

The captain, on his knees, put his hands into the air and glared at her. “You stupid bitch! Are you out of your mind? Guns are prohibited on airships.”

She pressed one palm over her left eye and waved the gun with the other. “Get away from my crew.”

The two men who had been holding Susan crawled away. The captain didn’t budge. If he lunged, he could conceivably drop the tow cable, but the gear was theirs. He’d never used it. She could read the hesitancy in his eyes.

“We’re a huge lightning target, you realize,” he said reasonably. “Dragging that cable in the water is suicide in this weather. If we get a direct strike, we’re all dead.”

Marta heard the pleading in his voice. She’d won. She edged around the captain, toward the console. “Susan, check on Mitch.” The captain looked at the control panel again, a moment of desperation in his eyes. She waved the pistol again. “Oh, please make me shoot you!”

With a sigh, he turned away.

“You’ll pay for this,” he growled as he moved.

“You struck down Robert first,” Susan said through her tears.

“Just check on Mitch, okay?” Marta asked. “Captain. There will be an investigation when we return. The fact that this storm came on us so fast is no one’s fault. The welds on the superstructure failed and my guys were fixing it. Also no one’s fault under these conditions. The fact that I have two men in the drink, that
is
our responsibility and we are getting them out. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal,” the captain said. “You two.” He pointed to the standing crewmembers. “Get our guys out of here.” He turned back to Marta. “We’re leaving. Whether you get your men up that line is no longer my concern. I have this ship and the crews’ safety, mine and yours, to think about. What good would it do if we all died? Sometimes you need to cut your losses.” He strode out of the room as the others dragged their comrades through the doorway.

Susan had a headset on, flipping through comm channels. “Mitch? Come in, Mitch.”

Marta looked around the room. She bent over Robert. He had a pretty good gash on the side of his head, but the bleeding had stopped, and he had a pulse. He’d probably live.

She walked over to Susan, flipped the readings up and let a quiet gasp escape her. “When did Mitch run out of air?”

“Not sure,” Susan said. “Not long, I think.” She started crying harder.

“We need . . .” Marta started.

“Robert,” Mitch’s voice crackled across the speakers. “Get me the hell out of this soup.”

“Oh, God,” Marta sobbed, leaning against the console. “Lucky sonuvabitch.”

Susan typed furiously on the keypad. The winch whined to life.

Marta leaned down to the mike. “I thought you were out of oxygen, you bastard.”

“I am,” Mitch replied, “but Steve wasn’t. Too bad he didn’t need it.”

“He’s dead?”

“Yeah,” Mitch said. “Suit sensors show him flatlined. I’m sorry.”

Marta collapsed into one of the operator chairs. Steve was dead. Tears flowed unbidden down her cheeks. Steve was dead and Mitch was apologizing to her? He never apologized to her in the five and a half years they’d worked together. Not once.

“I got him hooked to the line with me, though,” Mitch said over the link. “At least Beth can bury him properly.”

“Yeah,” Marta said. Mitch and Steve spun lazily on the vid screen as the line came in. The lightning continued to flash around them, but nothing touched the ship. When the winch stopped and Susan helped swing Mitch and Steve away from the access door, Marta called the captain. “Get us the hell out of here,” she said, overwhelmed. “This mission is over.”

Susan tended to Robert, who had regained consciousness. Marta sat with her head in her hands, the pistol in her lap, when Mitch walked up to her.

“That my pistol?” he asked.

“Can’t be yours,” she said. “Regs prevent firearms on dirigibles. Since I know you aren’t one to take risks, looks like it’s my pistol.”

“Whatever you say, chief,” Mitch said, patting her on the shoulder. “Thanks.”

Marta smiled. Another first.

The dirigible broke out of the storm system. They would reach the bio-station at Long Night Bay in six days. Robert, Mitch and Susan began packing the equipment.

Marta pretended to be working on her after-trip report, but the implications of all that had happened kept interfering. She finally gave up and walked over to where they were packing.

“There is a strong chance we will lose the remainder of this contract,” she said.

They stopped working. Robert leaned against the crate they had just stored the towfish in. Susan sat on her haunches and leaned against the crate.

Mitch folded his arms across his broad chest and cocked his bushy head to the side.

“We’ll get paid for the data we’ve gathered so far,” he said.

But will that be enough? Marta thought.

Robert and Susan remained quiet, deferring to Mitch it seemed.

“On one hand, I faced the final death of my father’s dream,” she said when no one spoke. “You know the Cofi group has been stalking us for the last two years.”

“Fuck ’em,” Mitch said. “Worse comes to worse, we hire out as a merc crew. If someone else gets this contract, which I’m not believing,” he said with a grim smile, “they’ll need someone to do the work. Nobody knows this rock better than you. So what if there’s a different company logo on the uniform?”

Marta’s eyes filled with water. She pulled her shoulders back. Only a small sniff betrayed her.

“Besides,” said Susan. “Nobody’s gonna take this contract once they hear about poor Steve. This planet’s a deathtrap.”

“No shit,” Robert chimed in.

“And I think we have a good case against the ship’s crew over this mess,” Mitch said with a steely squint. “If we play our cards right, Walsh Corp. could own this damn boat by the time the legal horse-trading is through.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” she said with a smile. “Start with getting the gear stowed. We’re low on replacement parts, as I’m reminded, and we can’t afford for anything else to go wrong.”

“You heard the lady,” Mitch said, waving his arms. “Robert, pull the memory module out of the fish before you seal that canister. Susan, let’s start running the data we got before the fish hit that reef and see what we can salvage for our customers.”

Marta left them to their work. She looked back from the doorway, at the crew, then at Steve, lying strapped to a loading pallet, still in his EVA suit. They might survive, even become a real crew, Marta thought, but she wished the cost hadn’t been so high.

HOW JACK GOT
HIS SELF a WIFE

N
ow, don’t be thinking you know the littlest rind of Jack’s legend. There’s more to the tale then many a folk realize. I’ll grant ya he’s a handsome fella, but the trouble with Jack is his tendency to high off on some fool adventure. Don’t get me wrong, he’s give as good as he’s got, but sometimes the telling is a lot taller than the deed.

But I do love him, the scoundrel, since the first time I laid eyes on him. You shoulda seen him rollin’ over the hill that fine spring morning, wrastlin’ a bear for the sheer love of fightin’. I’d been sleeping under a tree when I heard what sounded like somebody swinging a sack full of polecats. You never heard such spitting and crying—and don’t get me started on the cussin’. His momma would have been plum ashamed of the way that boy used the king’s English. By the time he and the bear noticed me standing there under a tree with three loaded sacks at my feet, the sun had swung up over the horizon, flashing the pink and purple of her bloomers across the sky.

Man and beast ceased their feuding long enough to look me up and down once or twice. Jack, well right away I can see he’s sweet and funny, and a little bit on the lecherous side, by the grin that stole across his face. The bear didn’t take as much notice of me, except for the fact I’d been recently dipped in honey by a giant before I’d made my escape.

“What’re ya’ll starin’ at,” I asked the two of ’em.

The bear just let out a low rumble and licked his chops.

“Who might you be and why in blazes are you standing there drippin’ honey all over my sleepin’ clover?” Jack asked, puffing his chest out and hooking his thumbs in his suspenders.

“Name’s Molly,” I said with a brief curtsey. “I don’t see no posting, or notices that claim the ground under this oak tree belongs to you, nor mister bear,” but I likely figured the bear had the greater claim.

“Name’s Jack,” Jack said, striding right up to me and holding his hand out like as to shake my own.

The bear grumbled again, raising up on his hind legs and showing off every inch of his eight foot length.

“Big bear,” I said, impressed.

“Purt near a hundred stones,” Jack said with a smile.

“So, why are you boys tearing across the greenness of God’s good earth and depriving a tired girl a chance at some decent sleep?” I asked, giving him my best withering stare.

Jack, he just grinned like a fox in a hen house, all teeth and meanness. “Why, for the fun of it.”

Typical answer from a man, I reckoned. “And what does the bear get out of it?”

The bear fell back down on all fours, pawed at the ground a couple times, and sorta roared in my general direction.

“See,” he says to me.

I just shook my head. “You want to go acting all a fool, please do it someplace else. Killing giants and witches makes a girl tired. I need a bit of shut-eye.”

Jack and the bear both fell to the ground laughing. I stood, showing the three bags at my feet, watching the two of them, rolling around in the first flashes of the brand spankin’ new day.

When they finally were quit of their merriment, Jack stood again, and faced me square. “I can see you’ve got three bags at your feet.” He paced around me to the left. “What’s in ’em?”

“Why, gold of course,” I said as sassy as I could to cover the lie. “I just told you I killed a giant and a witch, weren’t you listening?”

I turned slightly, keeping him to my front, but trying to keep an eye out on that ole bear.

“But how do we know it ain’t just full of laundry you were supposed to be taking down to the river to pound rocks with?”

The bear chuckled, which put me a little to the side of angry, cause of course he was mostly right—one small bag of gold, a sack with a crust of bread and a rind of cheese, and a large bag of laundry I was supposed to have washed for my mistress before that old witch snatched me up from the river. “And why is it any of your business, jack-n’ape?”

That sure knocked the grin off his face.

We stood there, eye-balling one another, waiting. The light of the rising sun settled across the open ground, pushing the shadows off the grassy hillock and across the stony field below the oak.

“I believe you might want to be more polite to your betters,” Jack snapped.

Then it was my turn to laugh. “Betters?” I asked. “Why, all I sees is a boy in short pants playing with a smelly old bear.”

Both Jack and the bear stood up straight, heads back like I’d just slapped ’em, which I think they deserved at that point in the conversation.

“I’m tired, and hungry. If you think you are so high-and-mighty, why don’t you fetch me some breakfast?”

“Now, why in the whole wide world would I go and fetch vittles for an ornery girl who tells tales and insults strangers?”

“Oh, well,” I said, shuffling my feet and glancing at my toes. “If you think it’s too hard, I guess I’ll just eat this here bag of gold instead.”

They laughed a might until I reached down and pulled a bit of yellow cheese from the second bag, rattled a few coins in the smallest bag, and popped the cheese into my mouth.

“Now wait one little minute,” Jack said and strode up the hill. He and the bear put their heads together and talked for the longest time. When they was done, Jack looked down the hill at me and clasped his arm over the bear’s broad back. “If we promise to go off and fetch you a bite, would you be willing to trade us for that bag of gold you was so willing to eat?”

“That’s fair,” I said, sitting down under the oak again. “You run off and fetch me a roast goose with some plum sauce, a loaf of fine baked bread, and a bit of good sweet cream, I’ll hand you this here sack of gold.”

At the call for goose, Jack began to bristle and sputter. Just as he opened his mouth to protest, I nudged the smallest of the bags over and gold spilled out. The way the sunlight sparkled off all those shiny coins must’ve mesmerized Jack. He stood with his mouth open for the longest time, a bit of spittle rolling off his lower lip. The bear swatted him upside the head, sending Jack into a full somersault. When Jack got back on his feet, he rubbed his head and glared at the bear. “All right,” he huffed. “You didn’t have to whack me in the head.”

The bear grunted, sat down on his back-side and yawned.

“Goose it is,” Jack said, stomping back to the bear. “Fresh-baked bread and sweet cream.”

“Don’t forget a knife and fork,” I said as he and the bear ambled over the hill. He tossed back a look that set me to laughing.

I pushed the gold back into the sack, tucked the three bags deep into the roots of the oak, and curled up besides them to sleep. Three days and nights I slept under that oak, eating a bit of bread, and drinking from the nearby crick. Before you know it, the sun was dipping toward the west of the fourth day when I heard the sound of bells.

I sat up, yawning, and rubbed the honey out of my eyes. Across the hill came Jack leading a small wagon loaded with food. The bear was harnessed like a goat, pulling the contraption, and as about as disgruntled about it as one could get.

The smell of roast goose flowed down the hillside and perked me right up.

“Why, Jack,” I said, standing and stretching. “Time for a late lunch?”

“Time for you to give over one of those sacks of gold,” he said sourly.

“What happed that it took you so long?” I asked, scooping a bag out from amongst the roots.

“That old fellah a ways back the road made me clean all his stables before he’d give me the first whiff of food. Spent two days di-verting a quick running stream into the stables, and out towards that yonder valley.” He pointed to the west with pride. “Cleaned the stables and fertilized the land thereabouts at the same time.”

The bear grunted, and sat down. The cart nearly tipped over and Jack blanched. “We woulda needed to cut all the hay in his fields to get the use of a pony,” he grumbled. “But we worked it out.” He unbuckled the bear from the wagon and bowed in my direction.

I strode up the hill to inspect Jack’s work. The wagon was full of barrels and boxes, buckets and bags—each holding all kinds of good food, from goose and bread wrapped in brown paper, to tubs of sweet cream, sacks of apples, salted pork, a barrel of pickles, and three types of cheeses. “Mighty nice work here,” I said to him, slipping an apple from a sack and hefting it in my hand. I set it back down in a puddle of honey.

“Better’n you asked for, I do believe,” Jack said with a bit of pride in his voice. “So how about that gold?”

I thought about it for a moment, then shook my head, walking away from the wagon. “I’m near drowned in honey, and that ain’t no way for a woman to be.”

The bear nodded and licked his jowls again.

“If you were any kind of gentlemen, you’d fetch me a kettle for a bath.” I sighed heavily, swooning toward the side of the wagon. “I need a good hot bath before I can even think about eating a fine meal. “I batted my sticky lashes at him. “You wouldn’t want me to do a disservice to your fine deed?”

The bear moved to the cart and began snuffling around the spilt honey.

“Bath?” Jack asked, flummoxed.

“Yes,” I said. “A nice hot bath, plenty of fire under a big kettle of water. You understand.” I held my hands out in front of me, the honey dripping in great dollops.

“Where am I going to find a kettle big enough to put you in?”

I knew right where to get such a thing, as a matter of fact. That old giant I’d just killed, and the witch he lived with, had a kettle you coulda easily fit me inside, seeing as I was almost their supper a few days before.

“Run back over to the next holler away south,” I said. “Past that knobby hill that looks like a porcupine, you’ll find a mean old house tucked in the shadow of the hill. In it you’ll find a black pot big enough to suit a bath.”

Jack looked up over the hills to the south. “How far?”

“No more than a night’s walk,” I said, striding back to the oak.

“A night’s walk,” Jack said, the anger rising up his neck to his cheeks. He was as cute as can be, that’s for sure, but he tended to anger and rashness.

“A bath before I’ll take a bite, it’s the only lady-like thing to do.”

The bear lapped at the honey pooling at my feet. I giggled when his great raspy tongue tickled my toes.

“And why wouldn’t I just be taking my gold now, and going on about my business?” Jack asked, watching the bear lick my left ankle.

“I’d surely add another of them sacks for you to have, if I could get a bath,” I said.

At the thought of another sack—notice I never said gold—Jack began to pull all the food out of the back of the wagon. “Come on, fool bear. We gotta go get this here woman a bath.” He spent the next while hooking that great big bear to that wagon again, climbed up on the buckboard, and pulled it around to the south.

I blew a kiss off my palm toward Jack, who blushed all a sudden. “You may just save my life, young Jack.”

“Come on, bear,” he called, snapping the reigns. The bear snatched his head to the side, nearly pulling Jack from the wagon. No bit or bridle, but the reins lead to the back of the halter.

“Thank you, mister bear,” I said, holding my hand out toward the great beast.

The bear took a long swipe from my palm with his tongue, and he took off at a gallop. Jack had an odd look on his face as he rolled off the wagon and onto his back. He stood up, brushed the dust from his britches, smiled at me one bright time, and took off running after the bear.

They were gone for three days. I ate the crust and cheese from my pack, and drank the cold, sweet water from the crick that ran nearby. Each night I’d count the stars and think about Jack’s sweet smile.

I was picking flowers on the west side of the hill when I heard the jangling of bells, and the halloo of Jack and the bear coming up out of the holler.

In the wagon was half a cord of wood and that giant’s big stew pot.

He stopped the wagon at the bottom of the hill and stood with his arms spread wide. “You failed to mention the giant had a brother,” he said, holding up a bloody sack. “Didn’t know I’d have to take his head, to take the pot. What say you now, honey-girl?”

I stood and clapped, tossing daisies into the wagon at Jack’s feet. “You done fine, good Jack. Fine as can be. Toss that old thing over by the oak and let’s get me a bath. My hero.”

Jack beamed, chucked the bag with the giant’s head to the base of the oak, and began to unload that big pot. He stacked the wood for a fire, but stopped when I coughed thrice in his direction.

He stiffened and stopped as he was striking a flint to the stack of wood. “Is there a problem, milady?”

I sighed at his sweet words. “As you are a gentleman,” I said with a demure smile, “you’ll understand that you need to build that fire atop the hill yonder.”

Jack looked up the hill he and the bear had first tumbled down and swore under his breath. “And I’m sure you have a good reason why that’s so,” he said, a hint of bitter herb in his voice.

I blushed. “Why, it would be unseemly for you to be able to look down into my bath, now don’t you think?”

He thought on that a moment, and it was Jack’s turn to blush. Without nary a word, he had a big fire going at the top of the hill, and was carrying buckets of water up to pour into the big kettle. He carried one bucket, and the bear carried a second in his teeth. The bear must’ve been growing tired of the honey, or the game, because he growled and snapped at something Jack said. Jack dropped the bucket of water and launched into the bear. They both tumbled down the hillside and crashed into the stony field at the bottom. Both of them cracked their heads and sat dazed.

I fetched a large brown paper wrapping from the loaves of bread, soaked them in the vinegar brine from the cask of pickles, and wrapped each of their heads. I carried the last pail of water up the hill and brought the water to a near boil before banking the fire and slipping around to the back.

Jack and the bear watched the sunset, their heads in their hands, as I climbed into the hot bubbly water of the bath, clothes and all.

As I could peel each piece of clothing from my sugar- crusted body, I flung it down the hill. After a bit, I was pink and clean as a whistle. Only I was naked as the day I was born.