Free-Wrench, no. 1 (9 page)

“We’re survivors. Sometimes being a monster
is what it takes,” Captain Mack said.

“Why didn’t you
tell
me that if you
decided I wasn’t worth the risk you’d just kill me?”

“Well, because then you wouldn’t have given
us the money and come aboard,” Lil said. “Even
I
know
that.”

“Ms. Graus. No one wants anything to happen
to you, but the crew is my family. You’ll do anything to help your
mother, and I admire that, but I’ll do anything to protect my crew
just the same. Any way you see fit to feel about us is pretty well
justified, ma’am, but here’s the truth. If we were murderers, you’d
already be dead. If we were thieves, you and your friends would be
picked clean and cursing our names back down where we met you. We
are all as good as this world will let us be. I mean to keep my
side of the deal for you. I’ll see those fuggers and I’ll try to
get you your medicine. But now you know the risk we’re all taking
to bring you aboard and the length we’re willing to go to live to
regret it.” He holstered his weapon. “Now get some food in you, and
we’ll get back to discussing matters.”

Lil released Nita’s arm but kept her weapon
handy. Coop did the same. Neither one of them had even once let
their cheery expressions dim.

“Eat up. That stuff’s not half as good when
it’s cold,” Coop said.

Nita’s heart raced, and her mind was flooded
with conflicting demands to flee or fight, but she tried to wrestle
the panic under control and reason with herself. She knew there
would be dangers, and what they said was true. They could have
easily killed her already if that was their plan. What could she do
now? Wrestle the weapon away? Demand to be taken where she needed
to go? She needed them now, but considering the full basis for
trusting her hosts hinged upon the fact that they hadn’t decided to
kill her yet, the relationship wasn’t likely to be a strong one. So
she took her seat and shakily spooned up more of the stew.

“We’re planning a straight shot to Keystone.
The trip’s just shy of fifty hours, if we keep this speed. Once
there we’ll unload our goods, resupply, and I’ll see if I can get
you a face-to-face chat with our supplier down in the fug.”

“So we’ll only be in the air for two days?”
Nita said. “Surely
anyone
can avoid being a liability for
just two days.”

“Like I said, Ms. Graus. You’re not going
home for a month.”

“But you could leave me in Keystone until it
is time to take me home.”

The captain gave a grim chuckle and took a
sip of his ale. “You don’t know Keystone. Leaving you there isn’t
much better than heaving you overboard. As I was saying. We ain’t
never got ourselves any medicine, not real stuff like that. Most
folks have to go down there in the fug to get anything from their
doctors, but with Ms. Graus, that might be different.”

“Why’s that, Cap’n?”

“She’s Calderan. Two things fuggers like.
Making money and finding new ways to make money. They’re going to
want to talk to her, to see if the time’s finally come and the
Calderans are ready to start opening trade with the fug folk like
everyone else is. If anything’ll get them to pry open the vault and
let us get some of the good stuff, it’s that. Hell, if we’re lucky,
we’ll convince them to sell us enough to spread around a bit. Maybe
get some worthwhile stock in the local hospitals, so we don’t have
to send so many people down there.”

“That’d be nice. It costs an arm and a leg to
get them folk to part with anything important,” Nita mused.

“Let’s not get our hopes too high. Anyways,
if we get lucky and the fuggers offer to sell us your medicine, Ms.
Graus, then naturally you’ll have to agree to pay whatever they
ask. I hope you’ve got enough in that bag to afford a pretty dear
price on top of the box of trith and the jewelry you agreed to pay
us to take you there.”

“I’ve got plenty,” she said.

“Glad to hear it. Then that’s our chance to
get what she wants. If the fuggers aren’t so obliging, or the price
is too high, then I’m afraid that’s as far as we can take it. They
aren’t the sort to change their mind, and we haven’t got the pull
with them to chance getting on their bad side.”

“What happens to me then?” Nita said.

“We keep you on the crew until our next trip
to Caldera and send you on your way, less the money it took to feed
you and such.”

“Assuming I don’t turn out to be too much of
a burden along the way,” Nita said.

“Naturally,” Lil said.

“That all sound acceptable, Ms. Graus?”

She released a shaky breath. “I suppose I
don’t have much of a choice.”

“In this world, most folk don’t. Good that
you’re figuring that out so quick. It puts you two steps ahead.
Saves you the time of hoping for better. Now enjoy your meal. Once
you’re through, we’re going to have to see what it is you can
do.”

Nita nodded and tried to oblige, but finding
out one’s fellow diners wouldn’t think twice about killing you has
a strange way of putting a damper on one’s appetite. Instead she
nursed her meal and reminded herself that this was for her mother,
and there was no other way.

After dinner, Captain Mack
sent for Gunner and had Lil take Nita to the boiler room for her
first official task as a crewman: feeding the boiler. The young
crewwoman led the way to the storage in the belly of the ship,
chatting along the way.

“You still seem jumpy, Nita. Why’s that?” Lil
asked.

“Are you serious? I’ve had my life threatened
by all of you. You pointed a gun at me!”

“Had to make sure you didn’t do anything we
all might regret is all. No harm meant, and no harm done.”

“Is this really so common for you that you
don’t see how horrible it is to hang something over someone’s head
like that?”

“It’s just the world, Nita. Just the way
things are. Besides, you’ll be fine as long as you lend a hand and
don’t cause any trouble. Ah, here we are.”

She slid one of the heavy doors aside to
reveal a room crowded with coal bins, as well as a stack of
cloth-wrapped bricks of what looked like clay.

“Every hour we take four big buckets of coal
up to the boiler room and dump them into the firebox, and one of
these here bricks,” Nita explained, pulling down the first of four
buckets from their hooks on the wall and scooping it full.

“What is the brick?”

“It’s… uh… well, to tell you the truth, it’s
got this big, fancy name, all sorts of chemicals and like, but we
just call it burn-slow. You toss it in with coal and it—”

“Makes it burn slowly?” Nita ventured.

“Now you’re gettin’ it! These things cost a
bundle. The fug folk make ’em, just like everything else these
days, but we got to buy ’em anyways. With one of these in the
firebox, we only need four buckets an hour. Without one, we’d need
to shovel the stuff pretty much without rest. Couldn’t hold
nearly
enough coal to get this ship to Caldera and
back.”

“Who
are
these fug folk who seem to
have achieved such wonders?” Nita asked, scooping some coal into
her own buckets.

“They’re just a bunch of these twisty folk
who live down in the fug. Real smart bunch, but not the friendliest
folk. Real pale skin, skinny, tall, always hunched over. Probably
smelly, too, livin’ down in the fug and all.”

“What is the fug?”

“You really don’t know much, do you?” Lil
said. “The fug’s this deep purple stuff that’s choked out most of
the lowland in Rim. Nasty stuff. Can’t breathe in it for more than
a minute before you stop breathin’ altogether. When Cap’n goes down
to buy stuff, he wears this big mask, but even with that, you can’t
spend more than a day or two in the stuff before… well, before
it’ll make you wish you hadn’t.”

“It sounds horrible. Where did it come
from?”

“Who knows? Before my time, but they say when
it showed up, it took almost all the people from the lowlands with
it. It ain’t all bad. There’s some fug in these lights here on the
wall. You run some phlogiston through fug and it lights up good and
bright. We call these phlo-lights. Even so, I hate the stuff. It’s
half the reason I’m out here in a ship. Good fresh air. Of course,
the problem is Cap’n Mack takes such good care of his crew that I
don’t figure I’ll ever get to move up higher than deckhand.
Deckhand’s just a fancy word for a person who does
everything
.”

“Where I work, they call people like that a
free-wrench. That was my job.”

“So you and me are pretty much the same then.
I feed the boiler when Gunner’s on watch. I clean up the galley
when Butch is sewing someone up. I…” Lil trailed off, her eyes
turned aside as she listened. “Wailers.”

“What?” Nita asked.

“Wailers! You’ll hear them in a minute. We’ve
got to get on deck!”

The pair dropped their buckets and rushed to
the nearest ladder. Before they reached it, the ship changed
direction suddenly and forcefully enough to throw even Lil against
a wall. A steam whistle began to blare and the captain’s voice
bellowed out. “Wailers on port and starboard! All crew on
deck!”

“What are wailers?” Nita asked, following Lil
up the ladder.

“You’re about to find out. Do you know how to
use a rifle?”

“No!”

“Well, then you’re on hook detail. They’re
going to shoot grapplers at us. Don’t let them get on board! And
keep your head down!”

They scrambled onto the deck just as the
captain heaved the ship into another tight turn. A distant moan
filled the air, drawing nearer every moment. It sounded like a low,
continuous howl. Coop and Gunner were already on deck, each with
firearms. Coop had a hunting rifle, but Gunner’s weapon was truly
massive, with two stout barrels and three lenses arrayed along
their length.

“There!” Gunner called out. “Two on the port
side, heading this way.”

Nita pulled down her goggles and looked to
where his weapon pointed. She spotted two shapes approaching faster
than seemed possible. As they drew nearer, she could make out some
details. They were airships, but vastly different from the
Wind
Breaker
. They were tiny, the gondolas little more than metal
tubes just large enough for two riders. The envelopes above each
were thin, shaped like flattened pills. Behind the gondolas, single
propellers spun fast enough to produce a terrifying wail, no doubt
the source of their name.

Gunner fired his weapon with a thunderous
blast. The force of it threw him from his feet, but his aim was
true. A cloud of shot shredded the balloon above one attacker and
sent him spiraling into the sea below. Coop tried to level his
weapon at the second attacker, but a sequence of dull thuds sent
him into a wild retreat. A row of five-inch nails traced their way
forward.

“Behind the barrels, Coop. Behind the
barrels!” Lil yelled, taking her own advice by sliding behind the
relative safety of a trio of lashed down barrels on the deck. Nita
dove after her.

“What are they? Pirates?” Nita cried.

“No, raiders,” Lil said, drawing her
revolver.

“What’s the difference?”

“Pirates rob you and kill you, raiders kill
you and rob you.” She readied her weapon. “It’s a
big
difference, trust me.”

Another row of nails, fired from a
vicious-looking contraption mounted on a third wailer attacking
from the starboard side, peppered the deck.

“They’re trying to kill
us,
not attack
the ship. We just have to hold them off for a few minutes. Those
little ships run out of steam real fast.
Down
!” Lil
commanded.

A blur of hooked metal hurled through the
space previously occupied by their heads, then tumbled across the
deck. Lil planted a foot on Nita’s back and heaved her out of the
way in time for the grappling hook to reach the end of its rope and
scythe back toward them. It bit into the barrels and tore them
free, then splintered itself into the deck and held firm, yanking
the ship lightly to one side.

“Get that hook out!” bellowed the captain as
he maneuvered the ship into another sharp turn that caused one of
the other attackers to score a glancing blow with his hook, rather
than a direct one.

As the turn straightened out, a powerful
thump sounded from below decks and the ship began to lose speed.
The intensity of the moment gripped Nita, and suddenly the thinking
part of her mind once again gave itself over to the acting part.
There wasn’t time for fear or reason, just the task at hand.
Whatever that sound had been could wait. The hissing salvos of
nails were a distant concern. The only thing that mattered right
now was getting the grappling hook free. She slid to a stop where
it had lodged itself into the deck, yanked one of the cheater bars
from her belt, and wedged it beneath the rusted iron of the hook.
The barbed thing was well planted, but she’d had more than her
share of experience fighting with stubborn valves and levering
sections of pipe into place. Three good heaves tore it free and
sent it skipping up and away.

“There’s still two of them! And keep your
eyes open for the main ship, if these things are still buzzing this
fast, the mother ship has
got
to be nearby,” Gunner called
out. He planted himself and unloaded the second barrel of his gun,
but failed to catch either of their remaining attackers. There
wasn’t any time to reload it, but for Gunner that wasn’t a problem.
There was always another gun where that came from. He threw open
his coat and pulled two pistols with barrels nearly as large as the
shotgun.

The deck was in utter chaos. Whatever had
slowed the ship had cost them most of their maneuverability, and
without the speed and turns to keep the wailers constantly
readjusting, their attacks became more frequent and more accurate.
Dagger-sized nails cut through the air from both sides as the tiny
crafts strafed the ship. Coop cried out as one of the spikes
slashed across his arm.