The gondola shuddered with the vibrations of bone gears clunking solidly into place and they dove down, the Roslyn Dawn shaking as it hit different streams of air, lurching this way and that.
“We’re heading into the storm.”
Fear beat its drums within him. Not again, David thought. All this running, and every time it’s something worse. He glanced over at Kara Jade. She had not looked this afraid when they were in the Roil.
Now she was frantic. Her and the Roslyn Dawn both.
“We’ve weapons to assault airships, even other aerokin, but nothing for an iron ship.”
He watched her check over her control panel – sweat dripping from her ashen brow – fingers dancing across the board, coaxing more power out of the bioengines, while trying to keep the Dawn calm.
“That’s as fast I dare push her. And I’m going to descend another five hundred feet. Maybe this iron ship will be afraid of all that lightning.”
David doubted that, but he knew he was terrified of it.
Margaret’s wan face gleamed with sweat and her eyes stared too brightly down at her hands, as though she did not know what to do.
“What’s wrong?” David asked.
“Everything,” she said. “David, I think they’re coming for me. That ship it’s my mother’s design, I know it. It’s looking for something. If it just wanted to kill, it wouldn’t have bothered ramming the gondola. Those weapons are powerful enough to destroy an Aerokin in minutes.”
“Nonsense,” David said. “You’re safe here. Well, safe as anywhere.” He couldn’t even make it sound convincing.
The iron ship veered towards them, obviously intent on proving him wrong.
Cadell stood in the aft of the Roslyn Dawn, watching the fast approaching ship.
“Margaret,” he said. “Could you join me please?”
They stood in quiet conversation for a moment. Margaret shook her head.
A blast of flame shot past the Aerokin. Kara returned the fire but her assessment of her weaponry was accurate. The Roslyn Dawn was not a battle craft, and her tiny ordnance bounced off the armoured airship to little effect.
“So what are we going to do about it?” Kara shouted back at them. “We’re an easy target.”
“Without a doubt,” Cadell said. “The very definition of an easy target.”
Kara Jade looked over at Margaret. “Should I just shoot him now?”
Margaret shrugged. “No need to waste the bullet,” she said quietly.
Cadell reached for a coil of rope by the doorifice, he gripped a loop of it with both hands and tugged it tight with a snap of his wrists – it cracked but did not give. “This strong?”
“It has to be. Light and strong: it’s for work in the air. The mothers wove that, they did.”
“Then it will serve.”
Kara Jade’s eyes widened, Cadell had managed to get under the bombast. “No… you’ve got to be kidding.”
“What?” David asked.
Kara shook her head. “He means to go out there,” she said.
Cadell tied the rope around his waist. There was a metal karabiner at the end of the rope. He attached it to a sturdy bar by the door and yanked. Satisfied, he touched the doorifice: it opened.
A cold wet wind blasted the interior of the cabin, papers scattered and the exhalation of the engine nacelles was suddenly deafening. The air, part engine, breath and storm, burned David’s lungs. Ice crystals formed against his skin.
“You can’t mean to do this,” David yelled. “It’s madness.”
Cadell’s shoulders slumped, and David had never seen him look so tired. “Madness is all that’s left to us,” he said. “Up here, the cold is on our side. It need only breach the iron ship’s defences for those ships to fall, and I intend to breach them. Kara Jade, you must keep us above that ship and if not above then as close as possible, closer than ever would be wise. I doubt they’ll trade shots with you, I should be something of a distraction.”
“I’ll do my best. Good luck, Old Man.”
“The ship’s almost below us,” he said. “I must go, now.”
Cadell, looked at David one last time, took a deep breath and leapt into the air: out in an arc that started gracefully and all too quickly became a tumble.
David watched horrified as Cadell plummeted. The tails of the Old Man’s morning coat lashed at the air. Cadell pulled himself into a ball then, at the last moment, he straightened, gained a modicum of control and landed on the roof of the ship.
Cadell crouched there a moment, David could see his lips moving, as he scrambled towards the window.
The iron ship fired another round. The Roslyn Dawn shrieked and began a slow dip.
“We’re too close,” yelled Kara Jade.
“We have to be!” David said. The Roslyn Dawn dropped.
“Are we falling?” David clutched at a rail by the window. Holding as tightly as he could, he peered out the open door. Bad idea. He couldn’t even see the ground, just darkness and wisps of cloud.
Kara grinned briefly. “Aerokin float, they do not fall. That was just a gust that caught us off guard,” she said. “Still, my darling’s wounded. I’m going to have to take a walk outside.”
Kara glanced over at Margaret. “You’ll have to put down your weapons.”
She dragged Margaret over to the controls and quickly showed her how to work them. “You said anyone could fly one of these, now’s your chance. Keep her steady, keep her calm, if it gets too rough I won’t be able to do anything.”
“I’ll keep her steady,” Margaret said. “You just get out there.”
Kara Jade snorted and grinned. She grabbed a mask, filled a bucket with some gel from a storage growth at the heart of the gondola, and dashed out the rear doorifice of the Roslyn Dawn. David watched her clamber up the side of the Aerokin with all the grace of someone who simply didn’t care they were thousands of feet above the ground. And as she climbed the iron ship rose too, until it was level with the Dawn.
Cadell had reached the scarred window of the ship, the rope a long umbilicus dipping between the Aerokin and the Old Man. David could see where he had bound the rope to the ship with ice. Then the ship plummeted and was lost to sight for a moment. The Aerokin shook and dropped to the left, throwing David to the floor.
He looked back at Margaret, hunched over the controls, cursing.
Someone was calling him. Kara Jade. He ran to the doorifice, Kara’s rope had tangled.
“What’s that pallid slip of a girlfriend of yours doing?” Kara shouted.
David was about to shout back that Margaret was not his girlfriend when a steel ball exploded in the air behind Kara. Kara Jade crashed forward, striking her head on one of the main linking struts. She tumbled backwards, held to the Aerokin only by her rope, and hung limply in space, blood spilling from her skull.
David stared wild-eyed down into the abyss of the sky. All he could see were clouds, and even they looked like they were a long way down. Such a terrible, terrible drop. Still he grabbed a rope, connected it to the rail and linked it to his waist, hoping that he had done it correctly.
He slipped on a mask. It was heavy, yanked at his hair and smelt faintly and ridiculously of onions. Kara had said they contained enough oxygen to last around half-an-hour. Surely more than enough, the idea of staying out there for longer than five minutes terrified him.
David crawled through the rubbery doorifice, and warmth gave way to cold.
Twice, the Roslyn Dawn dipped and fell, he held on so tightly that his knuckles were in danger of popping out of his hands. Rope or no, David doubted his chances if he lost his grip. And, with every rise and fall, his ears popped painfully, no matter how often he cracked his jaw.
He grabbed a fist around Kara’s rope, and tugged it towards him, pulling her close. Kara Jade, blinked at him groggily.
“Good to see you,” she said, right into his ear. “But this is hardly the time or the…”
David winced at the blood streaming from a shallow wound in the side of her head.
“We’ve got to get you back inside,” he shouted.