The Perilous Journey of the Not-So-Innocuous Girl (21 page)

She tried to recall the image of the room filled with small boats stacked on top of one another. If they could fit eight persons per boat they might have a chance, but she wasn’t positive. Just then Outil appeared in the doorway holding a limp body.

“Is she alive?” Marguerite’s heart swelled just a bit.

“I’m afraid not, miss.”

Silence filled the void.

BOOM!

Outil nearly toppled over.

Marguerite came back to the moment. “Let’s take her to her sister. Vivienne will be all right for a moment.”

The pair rushed back to the room containing only three girls. They pushed open the door once again and Marguerite called out: “We found your sister.” She spoke as cautiously as she could. “I’m afraid she did not make it through the blasts.”

“No!” the young voice cried in anguish.

As the girls sprang up to meet the unhappy news, Outil laid the body down on a now vacant bottom bunk.

“I’m so sorry,” Marguerite whispered. “We need to take that parachute.”

“She can’t be dead! She can’t be!”

Outil felt under a bottom bunk and pulled out a small package, then spoke in her soft mechanical voice. “You should all get your parachutes out and have them at the ready. We do not know which way this battle will turn, as of yet.”

“No!” The other girls wept and murmured while one felt her way to retrieve her chute.

“Do you have it?” Marguerite turned to Outil. The ship seemed to drop out of the air a few feet and everyone was slammed up against the side of one bunk.

“Yes. Let’s go.”

“We’ll come back for you! I promise!” Her declaration was met with only sobs.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” The voice was cracked and barely scratching through the broken communication pipes now. The lights still hadn’t come back on and the ship was almost constantly lurching. “We have experienced a hull breach. This is not the same level of emergency as it would be with a sailing ship, but it does cause an aership to lose speed. We are requesting that all passengers bring their parachutes and make their way with much caution to the dining hall to await further instructions.”

Marguerite and Outil huddled together with Vivienne in the storage room, one chute between them and no idea what was happening above.

“What do you think they mean to do with us?” Marguerite was still racking her brain for something to do, some way to help.

“I imagine they finally realized what we are dealing with down here and have decided to relocate us to a more stable level of the ship.”

“Can you carry Vivienne? No one is going to be able to see but us, we’ll have to guide them all.”

“I can manage Miss Vivienne easily.”

“Good. You go ahead and light the way as best you can for the others. Can you activate my cricket for me? I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before!”

“Yes, miss. You can activate it yourself. Just press the buttons simultaneously on its underbelly. I have a floodlight I can project for those following me.”

“Good, let’s go.” Marguerite paused. “Outil, take the chute for Vivienne and yourself. I’ll find another one, hopefully two more.”

“Miss, I am not comfortable with that plan of action.” Outil’s voice was lined with concern.

“It doesn’t matter, it’s an order. Take it.” She shoved the chute between the bot’s chest and Vivienne’s limp body.

“Yes, miss. But I formally state my objections.”

“Noted. Now go!”

The hallway was already filling with distraught and disoriented passengers trying to feel their way through the debris and guess the direction they should be going. Outil stepped into the throng with Vivienne in her arms then activated her light.

“Oh!” A cry went up from the crowd.

“Please follow me.” Outil’s voice was steady and strong. The girls complied willingly.

Marguerite took the cricket out of the front of her dress and felt for the two buttons, pressing them firmly, and delighted as the eyes filled with a beautiful light, bright blue through her goggles.

She stepped into the hall as well and motioned for girls to move in the direction Outil was heading as she forced her way against the flow and checked each room for glowing red forms.

She paused at each doorway, admonishing them to hurry and pointing the way that they should go.

“Be sure to get your chutes!” she cried over and over again.

Once she reached the end of the passage she recognized a familiar sign on the wall. There was a stairway and the sign for the bridge pointing up. She looked for a moment toward the stairs and then back down the hall filled with girls slowly picking their way toward the dining hall. Every room had been checked, it would only take a moment.

Just a few minutes and I’ll be back,
she thought.

Marguerite extinguished her cricket and tucked it safely back into her dress then bounded up the stairs two at a time, holding her skirts just as she had when she was a child. At the top, she realized she was in familiar territory again. Jacques had taken her this way on their tour. She turned left and headed toward the bridge.

A cold wind hit her face, signaling another breach. She could hear frantic shouts ahead.

“About! Turn her about again! Where are the bots? Get them to the hold and make sure those good-for-nothing stewards are armed and ready!”

“Jacques!” Marguerite turned the corner and beheld a scene of complete chaos. People and bots were jumping from one station to another; Jacques was in the midst of them all, barking out orders to someone on a talking device and to those in the room.

“I’ll be hanged if I’m going to let a bunch of thieving pirates take my first commission!”

“Captain, another grappler has landed on deck!”

“Well shoot the bloody thing down! Why can’t we get a hold on these bastards?”

Marguerite took two steps back to retreat. Clearly there was no place for her here. She would be in the way if she interfered. But she was too late.

“Sir, behind you!”

A bot had spotted her and drew a weapon; she ducked behind a wall. Why was the fool thing aiming at her?

The goggles. She must look like a lady corsair! She slid them to her neck just as Jacques rounded the corner, pistol drawn and cocked.

“Marguerite?” He holstered the gun immediately. The look of shock on his face was priceless.

“I … sorry, I … ”

“What in blazes are you doing here? You should be in the dining hall with the other women!”

“I just came to see what was happening. We evacuated the women from the bunks below. They should all be assembled in the hall now.” She paused then, thinking of the poor girl in the mangled washroom.

“What are these?” He flicked at her goggles and turned back to shout another command at the bridge.

“Night vision … never mind. It’s pitch-black down there. No one can see. You think they’d design these bloody new ships with emergency lighting or some sort of skylight pipes for lower decks. Outil and I had to help them make their way. There are beams down everywhere and … ” She was starting to sound hysterical. She took a deep breath before pronouncing her next sentence. “A girl is dead.” She choked on the words and sputtered a bit, trying to catch her tears before they spilled over. “Crushed by a beam.”

Jacques pulled her to him quickly and held her so tightly she couldn’t breathe.

“My dear Marguerite, you are worth a thousand of these bloody sailors.” He pushed her back, holding both shoulders, and looked in her eyes. “Listen to me, we are going to be just fine. I need you to go back to the dining room.” He turned and yelled back into the bridge, “Marshall! Get me another talkie!”

A bot sprang from its seat and retrieved a small black speaking device from the wall and handed it to Jacques.

“Set this to channel fourteen and listen for me. I’ll give you instructions as things progress. If anything happens, meet me by the evacuation pods.”

“All right.” Marguerite was shaking slightly but took the talkie and held it firmly in her hand.

“We’re going to be just fine. Trust me, I’ve done this a thousand times. Corsairs are no match for the Triumph.”

“Yes.” She sounded ridiculous agreeing with him out loud when her heart was screaming:
No! We aren’t going to make it!

“Captain!” A cry from the bridge broke their gaze.

“Go, Marguerite! Go! This way is faster!” He pointed down the hallway to her now demolished room and gave her a little push as he jumped back to the helm.

Marguerite didn’t waste any time. She pulled her goggles back onto her eyes and ran into the darkened hallway. As she passed her room she paused for a moment, wondering if there was anything she should take now that she had the chance.

“The parachutes! Of course!”

She ripped open the door and was blasted by cold air and light. She paused at the entrance. The hole where her window had been was no longer open to the endless blue sky, another aership was flying close enough beside them to almost block the opening completely. The wood was old and weathered. There were no openings and no leather shields, but she saw dark metal machinery in the form of strange concentric circles that could only be an air cannon. She dove between the two beds, hoping not to be noticed and started scavenging for the emergency packets.

She took both packets in her arms and crouched behind the beds, carefully peering at the corsairs’ rough vessel one more time. From this angle she could see the deck of the ship. It was swarming with activity. Men were throwing ropes toward the Triumph and fighting against the wind to stay balanced. She shut off the night-vision feature and moved the dial on her goggles slowly so that she could get a better view.

As her vision cleared and zoomed she realized they must be Barbary corsairs from the looks of them. Marguerite had read many a news story and journal entry about these tyrants of the Atlantic airspace. Their faces were covered with dark beards, their clothing woven with rich patterns and seemed to be thick, but pliable enough for them to move quickly during an attack. Their heads were wrapped tightly with some sort of white cloth and fastened with gleaming jewels in front. One man in particular had a large ruby brooch holding his turban on. It was at least the size of a child’s palm and glistened in the bright sunlight like blood. He was pointing and spewing at everyone around him. Marguerite figured he must be the captain.

All at once she heard heavy
thunks
above her and the captain cried out in his native tongue what seemed to be a countdown. At the end, the men lined up on either side of him charged away from the edge, pulling the two ships together. The Triumph was coupled by the pirate ship with a resounding
THUD
that blocked Marguerite’s view completely.

“This cannot be good!” Free from the pirates’ view she charged forward with her two precious packages and ran with all her might toward the dining room. All the way she could hear more bangs and thumps coming from the deck. They were being boarded.

As she made her final sprint to the door of the dining hall, a man in a white turban came around the corner in front of her. She screamed unwillingly and dove for the handle. He charged at her as she fumbled with the knob, trying not to drop her parachutes or the talkie. Suddenly a loud
CRACK
filled the hallway and his heavy body fell like a large oak. A serving bot with a pistol was standing a few paces behind him, reloading.

“Thank heaven above!” She wrenched the door open and slammed it behind her. The room was dimly lit by a few bots standing here and there. Marguerite pushed her goggles up to her brow and started looking for a way to bar the door. She cried out to the nearest girl, “Help me! We must bar this door! They are coming!”

The girl looked at her with large pale eyes for a split second before they rolled back in her head and she keeled over, not unlike the dead corsair.

“Oh for heaven’s sake! Someone come help me!”

A familiar red bandanna appeared then.

“Déja! Help, please, is there anything—a chair? Anything?”

“Right then,
m’lady
.” She shoved Marguerite hard to the side. “Why don’t you just get out of the way and let someone do the work who knows how.”

One of her cohorts came with a piece of rope. Marguerite wondered where they could have found it as she watched them loop it through the handles and expertly tie it off.

“There are other entrances we have to secure. Mary, Josephine, you check the kitchens; Louisa, get the left-side servants’ entrance.” It was clear Déja had decided to take over command and Marguerite didn’t mind at all. She crawled to her feet and started scanning the room for Outil and Vivienne. They were standing near the stage. She ran to them, parachutes in hand, glowing from her success.

“I got them! I have two more from our room! So we all have one. Here. Let’s put them on. The corsairs are already onboard and attacking the bots.”

“Yes, m’lady.”

As they fitted themselves with the vests others around them started to do the same. Marguerite peeled back the blankets on Vivienne and Outil helped her fit the vest over her nightclothes.