The Airship Aurelia (The Aurelian Archives) (10 page)

             
Gideon grunted, “Just hang on.”

             
Po gasped as he shifted into a higher gear and swerved recklessly between people, wreckage, and automobiles stopped mid-journey. Campus smeared by them. That wicked black ship seemed to leer down at The Owl, firin’ more frequently, like it knew its every shot chiseled away at their chances.

             
The museum suddenly reared up between two distant brick buildings, a giant glass bulb. Gideon gathered up a silent mental scream’a willpower and unleashed it at his bim, beggin' it just to go a little farther, a little faster…

             
He felt it in the road a split second before the bomb hit—a ripple, like a small wave precedin' a breaker. The buildin' to their right burst apart in a blast’a angry fire. Bricks and debris dropped as if from an avalanche in the sky. Po screamed, and Gideon barely dodged a slab’a wall landin’ in the road before them, veerin' onto the pedestrian walkway between lampposts and benches. Flecks’a rubble carried in a rush'a hot hair sprayed them, stung them.

             
They had dodged the blast this time, but he had a gut feelin' this was just the first’a the rain. Luckily, the museum was only a few blocks away, and by the looks’a it, Reece hadn't left yet.

             
Right on cue, the face’a the museum exploded outward in a million tiny pieces’a broken glass. Gideon braked with a curse, his rear tire fishtailin', and stopped the bim from tippin' by plantin' a leg. Po clung to him so tight, he should'a been able to feel his ribs nudgin' his backbone.

             
Much as this wasn't the time to sit and stare like a ginghoo, Gideon couldn't make himself move for watchin’
The Aurelia
crawl outta the broken dome like a hibernatin' monster leavin' her cave, his hand raised against the whirlin’ dust and snow. The ship revolved quietly in the air, the air at her aft ripplin' with heat. Campus had never looked so small before.

             
“No matter what happens after this,” Po said quietly. “We've done somethin' great. Just look at her.”

             
Gideon
was
lookin'. Right at the rear cargo hatch that was turnin' to face them. It hung open, its ramp danglin' over the empty street. Whether by design or because Mordecai couldn't figure out how to close the back door, that open hatch was their ticket on board. Gideon revved the bim and twisted back on the gas, and the bim violently jumped forward.

             
“What are you doin’?” Po squealed. “We'll never make the hatch!”

             
Another buildin' erupted behind them. Gideon lurched away from the hailstorm’a rubble, the sweat on his face burnin' in the cold.  “We'll make it.”

             
And it seemed like they would, for a minute.

             
“Gideon, the ship—it's gettin' further away! They're leavin'! They're leavin' us!”

             
Level though the ship was with the road, it was started rollin’ forward, its wings knockin' lampposts and trees hither and thither. The metal ramp sparked and scraped against the road, whinin'. It seemed Reece was outta time.

             
“We'll make it,” Gideon said again, leanin' over his handlebars. Po dug her face into his coat and didn't reemerge.

             
They came up on the ship, drivin' only a little faster than it was flyin'. The ramp bounced and jerked treacherously. Shiftin' one last time, Gideon pulled back on the gas with all his might and forced the handlebars steady. The bim zipped up the ramp, and they squeezed through the hatch, their elbows and knees within a few meager inches’a the metal doorframe. Instantly, Gideon downshifted and braked. The bim spun out its momentum in two complete circles before it careened to a stop against the wall, puttered, and died.

             
Po immediately jumped off the bim, stumbled, and threw herself against a lever on the wall only to drop her knees as she pulled it down. The ramp folded up and the hatch slammed shut.

             
Someone overhead groaned. Gideon looked up from lockin' his bim down beside Reece's and felt his stomach squeeze. Mordecai was layin' face-down on one’a the mesh bridges, his hand swingin' limply to the fitful jerkin'a the airship. Takin' the stairs to the bridge three a time, Gideon knelt beside his grandfather and rolled him over carefully.

             
Mordecai opened an eye; the other was swollen shut. “Bleedin' bogrosh,” he muttered. “I got a headache the size’a the sun.”

             
Gideon leaned back on his haunches and let out a breath. “What happened?”

             
“Not a clue. You couldn't'a been gone more than a few minutes when somethin' or someone clubbed me on the back’a the skull.”

             
“Someone?” Gideon repeated, hand goin' to his holster.

             
Mordecai leaned up and shrugged. Aurelia jumped, and the bridge trembled noisily. “Might'a been tumblin' cargo.”

             
Glarin' over the edge’a the bridge, Gideon frowned. There wasn't much cargo to speak of that wasn't locked up tight in the crates, and it wasn't like any’a
those
were small enough to just knock a man unconscious.

             
Suddenly, Reece's voice buzzed through the cargo bay, distorted by echoes. “Mordecai, if you can hear me, get locked down
now
!”

             
Gideon jumped to his feet and thundered back down the rickety stairs with Mordecai in tow. Po was already at the log interface in the corner, puttin' a square speaker com up to her mouth.

             
“Cap'n, it's Po! We made it!”

             
After a pause, Reece's tense voice came back, “Well buckle the bogrosh up! I'm having trouble with the levelers sticking…this is going to be rough!”

             
Po sharply turned in the direction’a the Afterquin. “I can fix that, Cap'n, just give me forty seconds to—”

             
The world seemed to rip apart. There was roarin', screamin', and crashin', and all the lights went black. Gideon couldn't make sense’a anythin'. The floor had dropped out from under him, and he was flyin' but fallin', upside-down or right-side-up, he couldn't tell. Then he landed on his side, hard, his revolver pokin' his hip like a fat metal finger. Somethin' brushed by him, and thinkin' he felt the warmth of another body, he flailed and found Po's wrist.

             
She squeaked, “It feels like the generated gravity projector is fluctuatin'…we gotta get into seats!”

             
“Here!” Mordecai's voice scraped from the darkness. “I've found 'em! Follow my voice!”

             
Gideon and Po, unsteady in the disorientin' darkness, clambered after the sound’a Mordecai's echoes till their knees nudged the seats set in a cove cut outta the cargo bay wall. Gideon batted at the darkness and came up with a handful’a tangled safety gear. He thudded into the seat beside Po and stretched the harness over his chest, bucklin' it with some difficulty.

             
Not a second later, Aurelia took off.
Really
took off. Gideon's stomach got left behind by the sudden jolt’a the airship shootin' forward and upward. His face felt like it was meltin'; the gravity pushin' down against him glued the flats’a his boots to the ground. Po whimpered, and even that was riddled with vibrato, though the shushin' sound’a steam soon drowned her out.

             
After about a full minute, the pressure dissolved. Gideon was left with only a too-light feelin', as if some’a him really
had
been left behind. He realized belatedly he was pantin', and swallowed. He could feel the swallow in his ears.

             
With a whirr’a energy, the lights in the cargo bay sputtered on.

             
“Not so fast, Po Girl,” Mordecai said softly, stoppin’ Po as she started undoin’ her safety gear. “Just wait.”

             
Gideon looked at him sharply, unsure what to make’a the old man's expression. He'd call it wary, only it kinda looked like he was rememberin' somethin’…like he'd done this before and didn't like what he knew to expect.

             
Leanin' across Po, who squeezed herself back into her seat, Gideon demanded, “What?”

             
Mordecai's eyes locked onto his and held them without blinkin', and Gideon flinched. With his eyes all cold and serious, he looked like Micajah, Gideon's da.

             
“I've gotta feelin',” Mordecai said.

             
Gideon clenched his jaw.

             
Tsssshhhh
, static echoed over the com system, and he, Po, and Mordecai looked up as one at the sound that sounded like heavy breathin'. The auxiliary lightin' fitfully flickered as the ship gave a violent shiver. Several somethin's drummed against the hull in quick, violent succession.

             
“What's goin' on out there?” Po wondered in a whisper, huddlin' in on herself, as if she'd gone cold.

             
“Think they'd let us get away that easy?” Mordecai asked dryly. “This is war, now. War's never easy.”

             
Po exclaimed, “They're firin' on us?” and moved again to unbuckle herself, but Gideon trapped her hands together. She looked down at them, exasperated. “What if they knock out our life support? Our thrusters? Reece needs me in there!”

             
Suddenly annoyed, Gideon snapped, “Cap'n won't be happy if we get you blown up this early on. Could you give it an hour, at least?”

             
With a scowl, Po crossed her arms and looked away, mutterin' somethin' he was probably better off not hearin'.

             
The deep bass drummin' against the hull went on, like The Kreft were knockin' to get in.

VI

Problems with Pudding

             
The Voice of Space. The thick, velvet blackness between stars that stretched infinitely, dark and beautiful. Reece stared out the canopy window at it, and more than anything, was struck by how quiet it was. Not quiet like he'd known on Honora. There was no buzz of photon energy here, no distant grumblings of locomotives, automobiles, or airships. And the silence wasn't muffled; it was crisp, sharp,
clean
. It felt weighty and vast and frightening.

             
Thump thump
, Nivy tapped her mouthpiece, grinning at him.

             
He grinned back wordlessly and set to adjusting their course. The Euclid Stream was on the other side of Nix, not a stone's throw away, by space travel standards. The green moon slid across the canopy window as Reece eased the yoke to starboard, and the stars far out in space appeared to reorient their positions around Aurelia, spinning away from her.

             
They were on their way.

             
An alarm started tweeting in Reece's ear, and he winced at both the noise and what it meant. That was a proximity alert. They weren't alone. A quick glance at the green graph radar showed a worrisome blip heading their way, and fast.

             
“They're following us. Good.” Nivy looked at him as if wondering whether or not he'd been throwing back shots of burnthroat when she wasn't watching, and he explained, “They would've torn Atlas and Honora to shreds looking for Aurelia. This is better.”

             
Aurelia's hull rumbled as something impacted the port side of the ship.

             
“That was a warning volley,” Reece growled, pumping the bar across his feet. Aurelia responded; steam coughed through the pipes overhead, a rush of moist air. “They want Aurelia whole.”

             
Thump
, Nivy tapped, affirmative. Then she pointed, and a second later the tip of the long black vessel Reece had seen over Atlas nosed into view, blocking them from the Euclid Stream. In the soft green glow of Nix, the ship looked to Reece like half of a black pinecone, spiked, ridged, and nasty on its topside, smooth and flat on its belly.

             
Snapping her fingers to get his attention, Nivy nodded at a blue button that had lit up on the com box near Reece's ear—the button that meant the com was receiving an outside log. The Kreft were hailing them. He stared at the button for a moment, contemplating.

             
“Nivy, open up a log wave. Please.”

             
Nivy shot him another look and then toggled a few switches that initiated a burst of static. Air silence. Reece said nothing, waiting, his hands sweating on the yoke, and imagined that the muffled crackling coming through the com could almost be alien whispers…