Free-Wrench, no. 1 (18 page)

The captain was still preoccupied with the
revelation. “I saved your
life
! They were going to give you
the knife. You are a member of my
crew.
”

The little beast was the picture of shame.
Tap.

“Look at me. Look at me!”

Wink reluctantly faced him.

“You will never,
never
report on this
ship again. Understand?”

Tap.

“And will you report on us again?”

Tap, tap.

“I ain’t through with you, but I’ve got other
things need discussing. You get back there and sit down!”

Wink obeyed, climbing up to the hammock and
continuing to wear the most heart-wrenchingly forlorn face Nita had
ever seen.

“I think—” Nita began, but the captain’s eyes
were distant.

It was clear that the revelation of how he’d
been watched had brought with it a flood of opportunities to his
mind. In short order, he seemed to come to a decision.

“You would do anything to get them drugs for
your mother?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re serious about making things
square with us for what you done?”

“I am.”

“Well… what I got in mind ain’t quite enough
to make us square. You’d still have a punishment coming, but if
this is going to work I’d need you working pretty near nonstop for
the next few days. Tell me, you want a bit of payback against them
fuggers?”

She flashed a devilish smile. “I do.”

He leaned down and pulled a bottle and two
glasses from a low cupboard. He placed them down and poured a
splash of strong-smelling brown liquor into each.

“I really don’t drink that sort of—”

“Ms. Graus, there are some conversations that
can’t be had properly without a pair of strong drinks in hand.” He
handed her a glass. “You and I are about to have one.” He settled
back in his chair. “The fug folk will never sell you that medicine.
That just leaves you the one way to get it.”

“You’re proposing we steal the medicine?”

“Not just the medicine, Ms. Graus. The toys
and trinkets they let us buy to spread around are nothing compared
to what they keep for themselves. There isn’t a day that’s gone by
I haven’t thought of it. Every time they smacked me down with a new
rule or tax or fee. I’ve thought about it plenty. I’ve been to the
storehouses. I’ve seen what they have.”

“They let you see where they store their
valuables?”

“Some of them, anyway. And why shouldn’t
they? Until now, if anyone were to even discuss this sort of thing,
their little spies would have passed along a warning. The good news
is what Mr. Ebonwhite said was true. There aren’t many fug folk.
The storehouses aren’t well guarded, but they
are
well
defended. They’ve got some mighty deadly gadgets. Not only that,
but these are the people who make the airships. Believe it when I
tell you, they keep the best for themselves. But I think this crew
has what it takes to pull it off, because we’ve got the one thing
they never expected anyone to have: surprise.” He puffed his cigar.
“Of course, the thing to remember is that once we do this, that’ll
be it for my dealings with the fug folk. At least the sort of
dealings where we aren’t trying to kill each other.”

“So no more trading goods… and no more
repairs.”

“You said you could fix this ship. And you
showed you could. You figure you can get the whole steam system
patched up in two days?”

“With some help, I think so.”

“Well, all right. Here’s the long and short
of it, then. If you really want to get that medicine, and you want
to make up for what you done, then I think we can storm the gates
and make out like proper bandits. But in exchange, you’ll need to
stay on as my engineer at least until you can train the others to
do what needs doing. What do you say?”

It was an enormous question, likely the most
important one she would ever face. In just a few days outside of
her home she’d been thrust into situations far beyond her control.
She’d nearly been killed, and she’d watched herself slip further
and further toward a person she’d hoped never to become. He was
offering her both the final step toward becoming a lawless
scoundrel and the chance to both redeem herself in their eyes and
gain what she’d traded so much of her innocence to attain. It was a
question that warranted hours of contemplation, days even. Instead,
her answer came with the next breath.

“When do we start?”

He smiled and held up his glass. She clinked
hers to it and both drank. The victorious moment was spoiled
somewhat by her sudden and violent coughing fit. He laughed.

“This stuff is really something, huh? My
brother makes it. Got a bit of a broken-glass front end. Maybe a
poison-ivy finish?” He grimaced a bit and puffed on his cigar. “I
used to have a bit of a drinking problem. That’s when my brother
gave me this stuff. It was so awful I couldn’t stand a second
swallow. I figured stocking nothing but a few bottles of this was a
good way to avoid pickling myself. I do still soak my cigars in
black-cherry brandy though. What can I say? A man needs a vice. Now
go. Gather the crew. We’ll figure out what needs to be done.” He
turned to his hammock. “I’ll have a word with the spy.”

Nita stood at the prow of
the airship, recovering from the past few hours of work, as the sun
set two days later. It would have been nice to suggest that much of
the preceding forty-eight hours had been spent sketching out a
detailed and nuanced plan. Such was not the case. The entirety of
their brilliant plan came in the form of the captain announcing,
“We’ll drop down when we’re scheduled for repair, hit them fast,
take anything it looks like they don’t want us to take, and if
anyone tries to stop us, we’ll discourage that.” The rest of the
time had been spent preparing the ship for the worst.

For Coop and Lil, that meant scouring the
ship and the local supply houses for all of the wood and envelope
material they could get their hands on, first to repair and then to
reinforce the gondola hull. They slopped a layer of tar onto the
envelope to provide a measure of self-sealing, then stitched on an
extra layer of material in the most vulnerable spots. Glinda had
made a few trips to Keystone’s market district to stock up on
medical supplies in expectation of casualties. The captain spent
his time testing various repairs and literally keeping Wink on a
short leash. Now that the little scoundrel’s secret had been
discovered, it quickly became clear that he was far more
intelligent than anyone had suspected. Whether it was out of
genuine shame or simple self-preservation, the aye-aye had proved
himself quite willing to render whatever aid he could.

With the rest of the crew otherwise occupied,
that left the most crucial aspect of the preparations to Nita and
Gunner. Their time was entirely devoted to reconfiguring the boiler
into something fully functional and adding in some other
accessories. Gunner, after some initial reluctance, grew rather
enthusiastic about the endeavor.

“So this valve keeps the pressure from
reaching the pipe you’re repairing, right? And this chamber builds
the pressure?”

“Yes.”

“Well, this boiler nonsense isn’t so hard
after all. It is just heat and pressure. Not so different from a
bomb, really. Just a bit slower.”

“Once again, I wish you would stop comparing
the boiler to something that is supposed to explode. Explosions are
what we are trying to avoid.”

“If I’m ever going to bridge my skills, I’ll
need to start from some common ground.”

“Just so long as you don’t start getting them
confused,” Nita said. She applied a torch and some solder to a
final permanent joint and stepped back. “Turn on that valve and
let’s see how it holds.” He did so, and after a shudder and hiss
failed to reveal any leaks, she brushed off her hands. “That’s
everything.”

The repairs had consumed almost every piece
of the salvaged wailer, and they had repurposed many of the
seemingly needless odds and ends that the fug folk had included.
She looked over the pressure gauges.

“It isn’t pretty, and we’re running a little
lower on pressure than we were when it was purely as designed by
the fug folk. Maybe two notches, but I’ll bet with a bit of tuning
we can get that back. I’d also like to do some firmer connections
down in the—”

“If you stay on this ship long enough, you’ll
learn that pursuing perfection does nothing but steal time from
things that desperately need work. The policy of this ship is ‘Good
enough is good enough.’ You try to do any better than that
and—”

The captain’s voice bellowed over the
speaking tube: “Time is up. I’m seeing full pressure on the
turbines. It is time to head out. Coop, Lil, lines in.”

“You see? Now, mask on, and stay below
deck.”

The
Wind Breaker
shuddered and pulled
away from the dock. Nita and Gunner moved out to the hall and found
their way to the nearest porthole. It was strange, but listening to
the turbines above hum with the healthy rhythm she’d heard when
they first left filled her with a flash of pride. After only a few
days, she’d come to feel rather protective of the little ship. It
had already been responsible for the greatest adventure of her
short life, though the next hour was likely to eclipse every danger
that had come before.

Captain Mack took the ship into a steep dive,
plunging quickly down into the fug. It flushed through the ship,
forcing itself through cracks between boards and belching through
hatches and halls. A wave of purple fumes rushed over them,
instantly stinging their eyes and chilling their skin. Nita looked
closer to the porthole, her heart beginning to pound. There was
nothing but darkness. Even after the dense surface of the fug was
above them, there was nothing to see. The captain must have
selected a route that would keep them far from any of their
facilities and structures.

“I’ve had to stay with the ship once or twice
during repair runs,” Gunner said. “It’s a shortest-straw sort of
situation. They only allow ships to come down for handing over
goods, picking up goods, and getting repairs. All three are handled
by the Fugtown Lower Docks, over on the other side of town. We’re
not supposed to be here. There
will
be patrols.”

“What happens if they see us?”

“Then the shooting starts early.”

“How does the captain plan to avoid
them?”

“The captain doesn’t plan. He just dives
in.”

She smirked. “I
thought
there was
something about him that seemed familiar. I do the same thing.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

The thump of footsteps came from above, then
Coop and Lil joined them in the hall. Lil was rubbing at her
eyes.

“Hoo-wee. I forgot how much that smarts. This
is only the second time I been in the fug, you know,” she said.
“Last time was back when Cap’n Mack rescued us.”

She was still rubbing her eyes when she came
upon Nita in the narrow hallway, bumping into her.

“Sorry, I—” She looked up. Her face hardened
a bit. “Oh, it’s you.”

Aside from the initial gathering of the group
to announce the plan, Lil and Nita had been kept apart by their
duties, but even so it had been clear that she felt a good deal
more betrayed than the rest. Gunner glanced up to see the tension
between the two of them. He then turned to see Coop picking at his
ear and generally being oblivious to the pregnant silence.

“Coop,” Gunner said. “Maybe you and I should
go down to the gig room.”

“What for?” he asked, digging a little deeper
and rolling his eyes in something between ecstasy and
irritation.

“Just come with me, you oaf,” Gunner said,
snagging his arm.

The two men vanished down the hall. Lil
crossed her arms.

“You gonna apologize?” she asked.

“Will it do any good?” Nita replied.

“Worth a shot.”

“I wasn’t thinking about you or anyone else.
I just wanted to do what I could to save my mother, and I ended up
doing something foolish, disrespectful, and wrong.”

“And you did it on
my
watch.”

“Yes. I’m sorry for all of it. I don’t know
if it is forgivable, and frankly I won’t dare expect you to forgive
me. We’ve got a big job to do right now, though, and so if you
can’t accept my apology, perhaps we can at least call a truce.”

Nita held out her hand. Lil looked at it
thoughtfully, then knocked it aside. “Aw heck. Truces and
handshakes are for politicians and such. Come here.” She threw her
arms around Nita and gave her a hug, thumping her on the back
before stepping away. “You did something stupid that you thought
you’d get away with. I of all people can’t fault you for that. And
the way I figure it, no matter how low he busts me, I was already
at the bottom of the ladder before you showed up, and he’s gonna
have
to bust you lower, so we’re back where we left off. I
ain’t got time to stay mad anyway. We got a job to do that could
kill us. I’d hate to go to my grave holding a grudge. So I’ll
forgive you, but on two conditions.”

“What are they?”

“First, you gotta let me try that dress
on.”

Nita smiled. “Tough but fair.”

“And second, don’t you go doing something
stupid like that again.”

“Of course not. We’ve got a much stupider
situation to deal with.”

“You’re darn right, so let’s get to it.”

#

The
Wind Breaker
drifted low to the
ground, nearly brushing the tops of the buildings that made up the
sprawling and deserted cityscape. This far from the active part of
the city there were no lamps to light the way. Captain Mack was
forced to navigate by the dim glow of two large phlo-lights built
into the prow. Combined with the low visibility, it was more a
matter of luck than skill that they hadn’t been dragged across the
spire of a particularly tall building, but not a whisper of concern
showed on his face. The captain stood firm at the helm, the wind
rustling his hair. Wink languished at the end of a short length of
rope. He wore a hastily fashioned harness and had his eye trained
on the darkness ahead. As a creature of the fug, he breathed well
enough in the stuff. Even with only one eye, his vision was sharper
than any other crewmember in the darkness, to say nothing of his
hearing.