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“Ha ha! That’s one down!” Gunner echoed from below, watching as the patrol ship collided with a row of empty buildings. The cart veered, nearly knocking him off. “Perhaps you should slow this thing just a touch, so that they can lower down the winch chains.”
“Slow it down…” Nita said, glancing at the dizzying array of controls. “I think this one might do that.”
She pulled a lever that instead gave such a surge of acceleration the front wheels nearly left the ground.
“I said slower!”
“I don’t know how to make it slower,” she said, hastily resetting the lever and at least bringing them back down to their original speed.
“But you insisted on reading through that manual.”
“Yes, to learn how to start it. Stopping it is another matter entirely.”
A row of fléchettes whistled through the air, tracing a line across the road and sweeping toward the cart. Nita pulled hard on the stick she’d been able to determine was responsible for steering. The cart skittered across the cobblestones, fishtailing slightly before straightening again.
“Not so sharp on the turns,” Gunner cried, holding tight to one of the ropes lashed over the pile of goods to keep them in place.
“Look, do you want to drive?” she snapped, veering again to avoid another string of fléchettes.
“Just don’t kill us before the patrol does!” he said. Still clutching the rope for stability, he reached into his jacket, drew a long-barreled pistol, and tried to level it at the second patrol ship, which was firing one gun at them and the other at the Wind Breaker.
The patrol ship maneuvered nearly on top of the Wind Breaker, its shots striking the envelope with enough force to stick in but not yet puncture it. He squeezed off a shot, failing to hit anything vital but certainly giving the crew something to think about.
“Here come the chains! Keep ’er steady, Nita!” Coop said.
“I’m not making any promises!” Nita said.
The chains reeled out more and more, then suddenly stopped, having reached their limit with a dozen feet to go. Nita eyed the looming buildings on each side of the street. The city obviously wasn’t designed to have an airship touching down in its avenues. From rooftop to rooftop there was room enough for the gondola to fit, but with mere feet to spare on either side. To get close enough, the ship was going to have to thread a needle at top speed while being shot at. It was something a sober, thoughtful man would never attempt. Captain Mack, on the other hand, eased the nose of the ship right in.
“Almost!” Coop said, reaching out for the swinging chain as the gondola scraped off window boxes and tore free flagpoles from the fronts of houses. The first of four hooks was just inches from Coop’s fingers now, but he couldn’t reach it without letting go of the strap he’d been using to brace himself. Being Coop, the solution was simple enough. He let go. “I got it! Uh-oh…”
He barely managed to get his fingers firmly around the hook when Mack had to pull the ship upward to avoid a balcony. The motion pulled the chains five feet into the air, and Coop right along with them.
“Coop, you idiot!” Gunner growled, scrambling over the mound of loot and reaching for his dangling crewmate’s foot. “Nita, bring us gently to the right!”
“I ain’t so worried about gentle so much as fast!” Coop countered, his voice a bit more steady than it ought to be for a man racing over the street hanging from an airship.
Nita feathered the control stick and managed to move the cart in range of the steadily lowering Coop without dislodging Gunner. When the deckhand had been successfully hauled aboard again, the pair guided the hook down and looped it around the support above one of the wheels. The Wind Breaker loomed over them, inching the other chains into reach.
“Boys, could you hurry it up?” Nita said, nerves fluttering her voice.
“Doing the best we can,” Coop said.
“Well, do it faster! We’ve got two problems! We’re running out of road!” she said.
“How can you see that in this soup?” Gunner asked, struggling to secure the second hook.
“That’s the other problem.”
Ahead, the street that had thus far been mercifully straight approached a T-junction that would put their forward progress to a sudden and catastrophic end. Illuminating that hazard was a pair of additional patrol ships answering the distress whistle of the one they had blown out of the sky. The distant ships focused primarily on the airship, though at their extreme distance the fléchettes scattered in an unpredictable cloud of razor-sharp darts. They clanged off the cart’s hefty boiler, punctured pipes, and whistled by the exposed crew.
“Almost got it,” Coop said, straining against the final chain to get enough slack to hook it in place.
“Hey! You all stop messing around down there! Cap’n says you’ve got to the count of ten before he pulls up! And he’s up to five already. Four. Three. Two…”
“Just… a touch… more…” Coop groaned.
“Time’s up!” she yelled.
The ship jerked upward, punching the hook through the side of the platform rather than hooking under it.
“That’ll do her, I guess,” Coop said, scratching his head.
The chains groaned against their load, but for a few moments the cart continued to trundle along the ground.
“The Wind Breaker can lift this thing, can’t it?” Nita said, eyes widening as the details of the approaching wall of buildings became more distinct.
“It can lift us,” Gunner assured her. “It can lift us.” Upon repeating, it sounded strangely like he was trying to convince himself.
Finally the wheels began to stutter and skip on the ground, then the whole cart was hoisted into the air. As it rose, it rotated, crashing through hanging store signs and wooden shutters. Nita, Gunner, and Coop watched silently as they drew closer to the end of the street, each mentally comparing their rate of ascension to the remaining distance and not liking the results of the equation. Worse, the closer they came to the patrol ships, the more on target their weapon fire was.
“We’re not going to clear the buildings… We’re not going to clear the buildings!” Nita cried.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll kill us with them darts before we hit the wall,” Cooper offered.
“You all need to hold on and cover your ears. We’re just about lined up!” Lil called down from above.
Nita salvaged just enough of her panicked brain to obey, wrapping an arm around one of the winch chains and plugging her ears. She watched through squinted eyes and dusty goggles, the buildings and patrol ships nearly on top of them. Then came the sound, a roaring blast that made the detonation of the warehouse wall sound like a whisper in comparison. Captain Mack had fired both sets of forward cannons simultaneously. Their scattershot load tore effortlessly through the envelopes of the enemy ships, one with a direct hit that caused the gondola to plummet a short distance to the vacant houses below, releasing its load of phlogiston in one glorious green plume of light. The other strike was a glancing one, yet it pulverized the propeller on one side to send the ship in a slower but more erratic path.
The kick from firing the cannons cut the ship’s forward speed drastically, causing the dangling load of crew and loot to swing forward. Nita, Gunner, and Coop hung on for dear life, time seeming to slow to a crawl as their suspended cart lurched forward and strained at its chains. Though the slowing effect of the cannons was enough for the ship and the payload to clear the roof, they didn’t do so cleanly. The cart bashed like a wrecking ball through a stout chimney, dusting the crew with shattered masonry and nearly knocking them loose.
“Is that it? Was that all of them?” Coop asked, shaking his head. “I hope so. If anything else sets us to spinning I’m going to end up making an offering.”
Nita scanned around them as the winches began to draw them closer to the ship.
“It looks like there’s two left,” she said.
The a
ir split again with another cannon blast, this time to their rear. It knocked the pursuing patrol ship from the sky and sent the cart on another pendulous swing.
“Make that one,” she corrected, holding tight.
They turned to the final pursuer. The craft could easily have been the Wind Breaker’s sister ship. Its overall shape was the same, and it had a similar—though considerably bulkier—turbine configuration. Notably absent was anything resembling armaments. In place were large grappling cannons on either side of the deck.
Coop looked. “Aw, that’s just a tow ship. What could that thing do?”
As an answer, a thump echoed as a grappler was launched in their direction. It traveled in a low arc, crashing down on the aft railing and beginning to reel in.
“What have I told you about tempting fate?” Gunner growled, slapping Coop on the back of the head.
Captain Mack pushed the engines hard, tearing the ship free of the tow ship’s grip at the cost of most of the rear railing.
“Now would be a good time to get in here,” Lil called from above as the cart drew in as far as the winch would bring it. The crew scrambled up through the gig hatch. “Cap’n says Wink is hopping up and down something fierce. I think we’ve got something worse than a tow ship on the way.”