Skies of Fire (4 page)

Leaning over the side of the boat, she fired at the soldiers below. The ether rifle’s kick knocked her back slightly, but she steadied herself and continued to shoot. She’d never fired a weapon from a moving airship before. The men and buildings below looked deceptively small, as if this was nothing more than a child’s game.

The enemy’s two heavy guns were no toys, however. Soldiers pointed them at the boat, and loaded shells into their barrels. The marine manning the swivel gun in the prow of the boat fired at one of the large weapons. It tumbled onto its side, a smoldering pile of metal.

The second cannon boomed. Louisa hunched low as Christopher banked the jolly boat hard, just avoiding the hurtling projectile. Had his skill been a fraction less, everyone in the boat would have been blown from the sky.

As the gunnery crew hurried to reload, Louisa took aim. She winged the soldier loading the shell, chambered another round, and then put a bullet in the leg of the soldier attempting to pull the cord that released the firing pin. The two soldiers went down. By the time back-up soldiers arrived to man the gun, the boat had flown out of range.

As she released the spent cartridge from the chamber, Louisa caught Christopher’s terse but approving nod. It oughtn’t gratify her, yet it did. He probably didn’t think highly of her as a person, and a woman, but he could respect her as an operative.

She only permitted herself a sigh of relief when they were well and truly away from the village—the site where she might have died, had it not been for Christopher. Yet she kept her rifle across her knees, easily accessible if she needed to call it back into service.

With the village and heavy guns behind them, they sped on through the sky. Treetops and jagged mountains below, endless blue vaulting overhead, and wind across her cheeks. The sensation filled her head with lightness. She blinked as the rushing air drew tears from her eyes.

One hand on the tiller, Christopher pulled something from an inside coat pocket, and with a nod in her direction, pressed it into the closest marine’s hand. From soldier to soldier, the object made its way to her.

A pair of goggles. Of course Christopher had a supplemental pair on him. He’d always been attentive to the details. In every aspect of his life.

She slipped on the goggles, adjusting the leather straps to get the fit right. They were men’s goggles, and a little large for her face, but the relief from the biting wind was immediate.

“Thank you,” she shouted above the wind.

His response was to curse with the depth and creativity only a sailor possessed.

She scowled. He might not care for her, but he didn’t have to be so sodding rude.

Then she saw that he wasn’t looking at her. His gaze remained pinned on something behind her. Twisting around, what she saw made her swear, as well.

An airship skimmed the horizon. Even at a distance, she recognized its unique lines, with two ether tanks mounted on the underside of the hull. Not a British airship. Hapsburg. A jolly boat with a small ether tank could never outrun a massive ship of the line. Within minutes, it would be on top of them.

The jolly boat dipped, and suddenly they were just below the canopy of the forest. The overhead branches formed a thick covering.

Christopher steered the boat close to one of the trees, finding a wide enough gap in the branches to bring the vessel right up against the trunk.

“Take the tiller, Mr. Farnley.” Christopher unstrapped himself from his harness and stood. Facing the tree, he gripped the trunk, then nimbly leapt onto it. In a moment, he disappeared, climbing up the tree as though he was part cat.

She hurriedly unbuckled her harness and rose.

“Ma’am,” one of the marines said. “I don’t—”

She lifted a finger to her lips, and the marine silenced himself. Carefully, she picked her way down the length of the boat, using the men’s shoulders for stability as she moved toward the tree.

Like Christopher, she gripped the trunk, then leapt onto the tree. She climbed upward, weaving around the branches. Just above her, she spotted his boots.

“Get down,” he growled, “and stay with the boat.”

She continued to climb, until she reached the very top of the tree. Christopher held to one side, and she remained on the other. The tree narrowed at the top, so that a distance of only a foot separated them.

“Damn it, Louisa.” His eyes were hot with anger behind his goggles. “You want my help, then you do what I say. Get back to the jolly boat.”

“I need this vantage.” She nodded toward a nearby range of hills to the north. “The splinter faction has an enclave up there. If the soldiers from the village head toward their position, the whole mission is sunk.”

“What
is
the damned mission?”

“We can talk ourselves hoarse. Later. I’m not discussing covert intelligence at the top of a spruce.”

Gripping the tree with one hand, she tugged her goggles up onto her forehead. She reached into one of the many pockets sewn into her skirts, then found the object she sought.

The brass spyglass snapped open, and she held it to her eye, gazing toward the hills. “I need to see if the enemy advances on the enclave. If they do, I’ll need to warn the splinter faction so they can disperse.”

From her high position, she saw the edge of the village and the road that the soldiers would take if they marched toward the hills. Thus far, the road remained clear.

She offered the spyglass to Christopher.

“Don’t need it.”

Here was more proof he had changed. She stared at him for a moment as he looked toward the village. Same face, same memories. But a very different man. One who could see half a mile away without the assistance of binoculars or a spyglass.

She brought the spyglass back up to her eye. As she continued to watch the road out of the village, Christopher exhaled.

“Enemy airship’s turning away. We’re in the clear.”

“Not quite.” She wouldn’t let herself feel relief until she was certain the splinter group was safe. Continuing her surveillance, she looked toward the other end of the village, where the road continued, leading away from the hills.

The bedraggled remnants of the soldiers assembled there. They hauled the remains of the heavy guns behind them.

“Appears as though we’ve scared them off,” she said. “They’ll be heading back toward the nearest cantonment, which is about ten miles south.”

Lowering the small telescope, she discovered him watching her. Her heart kicked.

It was peaceful up here. Deceptively so, with the wide green canopy spreading around them, and the wind rustling through the boughs. One could almost pretend there wasn’t a war happening, and danger lurking behind every cloud. With Christopher so close, close enough for her to see the reddish gold of his incipient beard and the curve of his lower lip, she was inundated by a rush of hungry yearning she had no business feeling. Not the way she’d left things between them.

He opened his mouth as if to speak. Then shut it.

“The
Demeter
will be coming for us,” he finally said. Without another word, he began to climb down the tree.

She pocketed the collapsed spyglass and followed. Anything she felt for Christopher had to be ruthlessly shoved aside—including the way in which his unrelenting coldness made her chest ache.

He was already sitting at the tiller by the time she reached the waiting jolly boat, and watched with detached reserve as she clambered back into the vessel. At the least, he waited until she fastened her harness and put her goggles in place before guiding the boat out of the trees.

They moved toward a rocky outcropping. An airship’s prow and figurehead emerged from behind the crag. She tensed, until more of the ship emerged. The top-mounted ether tank proclaimed her to be British.

They approached the airship. Though she was no stranger to the vessels, the sight of these flying ships never failed to stir her. The
Demeter
, as the name upon the hull proclaimed her to be, was a sterling example of the Her Majesty’s Aerial Navy. The ship followed the standard British design, with a large ether tank mounted on a central support beam, just beneath the curved wooden dorsal fin running from prow to stern. Smaller ether tanks were also mounted on the fin. A pilot house stood in front of the ship’s secondary battery, situated in the aft, and this connected to a massive turbine. All Man O’ War ships carried full compliments of weapons, and the
Demeter
had guns both topside and poking through gun ports belowdecks.

As part of her duties, Louisa needed to know the workings and layouts of all naval vessels, including those that flew. Yet, for all her knowledge, the sight of a massive ship of war hanging in the sky still widened her eyes with amazement. And the
Demeter
wasn’t simply an unknown Man O’ War’s ship. It was Christopher’s.

She glanced back at him, to find his wary gaze upon her. They both knew precisely the symbiotic nature of his relationship with the ship. It was, in essence,
him.

“She’s bonny,” Louisa said above the wind.

The lines bracketing his mouth lessened. “The crew keeps her trim and orderly.”

Judging by the cannon-sized holes in the hull, the
Demeter
had been in a firefight not so long ago. Perhaps even today, since the holes hadn’t been patched. He’d said nothing about being in combat, but there hadn’t been much time for conversation back in the barn.

As they approached the ship, crewmen gathered at the rail and peered from portholes. Doubtless they were curious to know who their captain had just rescued.

Christopher guided the jolly boat beneath the ship’s keel. A cargo gate opened, and the boat rose up until it hovered inside the
Demeter
’s hull. Once the boat was inside, a man wearing a first mate’s uniform pulled the lever that closed the gate.

The moment the gate closed, Christopher took the rifle from her hands and leapt out of the boat, his movement light and powerful as a lion. When she’d last seen him, he had been exceptionally fit, but now he had a strength that was literally inhuman. He pulled off his goggles and began talking in a low, quick voice to the first mate.

She unbuckled her harness and stood. Disembarking from a hovering jolly boat proved to be more challenging than anticipated, the vessel unsteady beneath her feet. Louisa cursed as she toppled forward.

And found herself snug in Christopher’s arms. They pressed chest-to-chest, her hands braced on his shoulders, his palms splayed on her back.

God, he was so warm, his sharply handsome face so very much the same. They had embraced just like this many times, though always in private, for they had each been protective of their careers and reputations.

He shifted his hold to clasp her with one arm. She felt the brush of his calloused fingers over her face, a gesture so oddly tender it made her heart flutter. Her gaze flicked down to his mouth. It didn’t matter that a complement of marines and the first mate stood nearby. She just wanted to feel him again, taste him . . .

He moved his hand yet upward, and tugged. She blinked. He’d simply taken off her goggles. No tenderness there, only the removal of some gear.

Yet as he lowered her to the ground, his movements were slow. Deliberate. She slid down the length of his body, aware of every inch of solid muscle beneath his uniform. As he seemed aware of her body, his fingers briefly clasping her waist before releasing her.

He stepped away. Turning to the first mate, he said, “Mr. Pullman, escort Miss Shaw to my quarters.”

“Aye, sir. This way, if you please, miss.”

Louisa faced Christopher. “Where will you be?”

“Consulting with my navigator,” he answered. “We’re deep in enemy airspace and need to find someplace safe to make repairs.”

“I’ll come with you.”

His gaze frosted. “It’s safer in my quarters.”

“If I wanted safety,” she replied, “I would’ve taken that clerical job at Admiralty headquarters. You know that. Besides,” she added as he began to object, “I know this territory. I can tell your navigator where the least inhabited and patrolled areas are.”

He narrowed his eyes. For a moment, the cargo bay was silent, save for the humming of the engine. The marines and first mate looked back and forth between her and Christopher, watching the silent battle. The mess would hear some enthralling tales tonight.

Without a word, he turned on his heel and strode from the cargo bay. She hurried after him.

As they moved up through the ship, she noticed lengths of copper tubing running along the bulkheads, like metal veins. From studying airship schematics, she understood that the tubes carried ether from the batteries mounted throughout the ship. The ether was an accidental, but important, byproduct created as the batteries transformed Christopher’s energy into the means to power the ship. He wasn’t merely the ship’s power source, but also its way of staying aloft.

The first time she’d met a Man O’ War, she had been leaving a debriefing at Admiralty headquarters. Captain Daniel Kerrick had been walking in just as she was exiting Admiral Porter’s office. Even though she was difficult to rattle, she’d been awed at the size of Captain Kerrick, and how he seemed to radiate barely leashed power.

Since then, she’d encountered others of the man-machine hybrids. There was always an element of danger surrounding these men, a sense of the uncanny. After all, they weren’t ordinary men, but men who had telumium implants grafted to their bodies, who had strength and sensory capability far beyond that of normal humans. They commanded and fueled airships. Difficult not to think of them as monstrous.

But she had met those other Man O’ Wars only after they had undergone their transformations. She had known Christopher, in every possible way, when he had been simply a man.

Though Christopher had never been
simply
anything.

Don’t think about that now. Don’t think about what you walked away from. All that matters is the mission.

She repeated this over and over as she followed him and his astonishingly wide shoulders through the ship. Curious crewmen appeared, giving her respectful salutes and murmurs as she passed. But they weren’t curious simply because of her gender or her role as an operative. She could see their speculation. Wondering what her relationship with the captain was, or had been. Shipboard gossip moved faster than a hurricane.