Pilfering a corpse wasn’t how she envisioned the first week of her honeymoon. She smiled. It was much better.
Near death experience aside, or perhaps because of it, she felt more alive than ever. And grateful to whomever it was who dispatched the rutty revolutionary. Guerrero, most likely. She would need to thank him for watching over her so closely.
The attack had reopened the knife wound across her palm, and the pain had crept up to her elbow. Bleed together, fly together, die together, Monty had said on the ship. In precisely that order? Amelia wondered, trying to resecure the bandage around her hand. She crept along the rocky face toward the jumble of boulders obscuring the cave opening. Men clamored and crouched behind boulders trying to stay out of sight. They must have returned from chasing Pell and Gavin while she stripped the body and donned her new wardrobe, she thought. The guard that had ducked behind the cart when the attack began received a ghastly bullet hole in the forehead for his pains.
She followed the steep but stable path between the boulders down into the dim cave. She hadn’t progressed more than six feet when a crack of gunshot inside the cave left her ears ringing. She dove behind a rock outcropping for protection. Hearing furious shouts, she peeked around the side of the rock to see the hostage kicking and stomping on her immobile captor’s head.
“Good for you,” Amelia mumbled, impressed. An angry hostage with a gun changed the equation in their favor. She stepped from behind the rock.
The woman whipped the rifle up, ready to fire.
“Oh, no, no! I’m on your side!” Amelia implored with empty hands, then pulled off the hat and let her hair fall. It wouldn’t do to be shot by the person she’d risked her life to save. “I’m here to, er, rescue you? But you’re doing a splendid job on your own. Bravo. Can you even understand me?”
The woman eyed her with a mixture of wariness and skepticism, but lowered the gun. “I don’t need your help,” she said.
“Evidently not,” Amelia said, taking in the guard’s bloody and mangled visage and holding down the urge to wretch. “But I’m here nonetheless, and I have an airship ready to take you home. That is, if you’ve finished here.”
Muttering in derision, the woman landed one last solid crack to the man’s head with the butt of the rifle before scrambling up the ramp. The man groaned.
“Wait,” Amelia hissed after her, following as quickly as her clompfy boots would allow. She found the woman crouched behind a boulder. Rebels shouted and scattered as cannon fire bombarded the perimeter, splintering trees and blasting boulders into projectile shards. Above it all, the chopping drone of an airship.
“That is yours?” the woman asked.
Amelia cringed. To say the Gamut looked like a floating wreckage would underestimate the impression. It looked like a floating patchwork of several wreckages held together with creative riveting and dumb luck. “That explains the blindfolds,” Amelia murmured.
A hand gripped Amelia’s arm and she froze. Astonished by the sight of the FrankenGamut, she hadn’t paid attention to her surroundings, allowing one of the miscreants to sneak up on her. Again. Did she learn anything from the attack in the woods?
Refusing to become a defenseless victim for the second time in one hour, Amelia jerked her elbow back into the man’s face. He released her arm and bellowed.
“My wife has trained you well,” Pell said, holding his bleeding nose. “Follow me.”
Amelia grabbed the woman’s hand and guided her after the colonel.
“Eckhart, you idiot, cease fire!” Pell screamed into the BRIC. He pulled Amelia and the woman into the woods, holding their heads down. “Maniac!”
“Did I miss this part of the plan?” Amelia asked.
“I think we all missed this part,” Pell replied. “Eckhart, we have the hostage! Quit pommeling the rebels and meet us at the rendezvous.”
“Have you seen Guerrero? Or Gavin?” Amelia asked.
Pell shook his head.
“CAPTAIN BRINKLEY, COLONEL PELL,” an incredibly loud Eckhart boomed from the sky. “MY COUSINS AND I WOULD LIKE TO WELCOME YOU TO OUR HUMBLE HOME. WE HAVE YOUR CREW.”
Amelia and Pell cursed.
“We’ve been double-crossed,” Pell said.
“IN OUR TERRITORY, WE DON’T APPRECIATE THIEVERY. SO TO PROVE WE’RE MEN OF HONOR, WE’LL RETURN GRAVES AND GUERRERO TO YOU WHEN YOU HAND BACK THE WOMAN YOU STOLE. YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE TO COMPLY OR WE’LL START TESTING SOME OF THE KNIVES ON YOUR DEFENDER.”
Another round of merriment from the camp. A blur of movement beside her caught Amelia’s attention and she turned. The hostage was gone.
Does nothing go according to plan?
***
Captain and First Mate stepped into the small camp, empty hands visible. A pair of smirking colonials confiscated the BRIC and their weapons to hearty applause. Another tied Pell’s hands behind him and spit in his face. Aside from the initial flinch, Pell remained stoic.
“I wish to speak to Mr. Eckhart,” Amelia said, voice more wobbly than she liked. Ropes dug into her wrists and she grimaced.
“Keep wishing, bitch,” the man fumed in her face.
Hygiene, gentlemen.
“WHERE IS THE HOSTAGE?” the Gamut thundered. A rebel held the BRIC to Amelia’s face. An earsplitting screech emitted from the Gamut’s speakers.
“You wanted to talk,” the man smirked. “So talk.”
“She escaped while you were making demands,” Amelia said into the device.
“Jackson, see that she’s found,” Eckhart replied.
A man in a pre-Imperial military uniform took the BRIC. “My pleasure, cousin,” he said, looking at Amelia with a sneer. He gestured to a few nearby men, who disappeared into the woods.
“This is quite a dilemma, isn’t it, captain,” Eckhart’s tin-boxy voice from the BRIC still dripped sarcasm. “You killed their men and released their hostage. That can’t settle well with them. And we both know that the Council won’t raise a finger for your rescue. So, you should pray to whatever gods hear your pathetic whimpers that Jackson’s men find the woman within the hour. Otherwise, these fine gentlemen can deal with you.”
The men, who had gathered close to listen, leered at their potential playthings.
***
It was fitting recompense, Amelia supposed. She had stripped her dead attacker in the woods; it was only fair that the clothes should return to his comrades. Though she may never wash the stench off.
Claiming to be a gentleman, Jackson prevented his men from removing all Amelia’s garments, however, leaving her tied up on the cave floor in corset, half-shredded bloomers, and grubby stockings.
She imagined Gavin would relish chronicling this particular turn of events.
The man who had spit in Pell’s face received the great honor of guarding the new captives. He leaned back in a chair in front of them, rifle on his lap, raking his eyes up and down Amelia’s exposed skin for a while. Every so often, he looked at his clobbered compatriot lying in agony and vowed recompense. When the silence dragged on long enough, though, he dipped into a doze.
Something Monty said the night before puzzled Amelia.
“Monty told him not to crash ‘this one,’” she whispered to Pell. “What was he referring to?”
“I’m not familiar with details, but Eckhart crashed during a mission. There were…casualties. It happens quite often, really.”
“And he’s our pilot?”
“None of us except Guerrero meet the Council’s standard for the ‘Nauts.”
“Not even you?” Amelia asked. “I find that hard to believe.”
“I’m married,” he replied. “But my appointment as your First Mate is temporary, until we find a suitable replacement. I gave Elenor my word.”
For what must have been the hundredth time since the previous evening, Amelia wondered what Alexander must think - or fear - about her sudden disappearance during initiation. She imagined Alexander remaining in a strange house, no matter how fine, not knowing what danger befell her and when or whether she would return. “She must have iron nerves,” she said.
“That she does,” Pell said. “She’s the strongest and bravest woman I know.”
The scrape of boots on the path announced visitors. The guard snuffled to consciousness.
Eckhart and Jackson swaggered up to their prisoners.
“Ah, Brutus,” Amelia said. “How kind of you to descend among us. Have you killed your crewmates already, or will you stab us in the back simultaneously?”
“Your hour is up, and the native woman can’t be found,” Eckhart said. “Now, I made an agreement with these fine men, and the Code demands that I keep my agreements. Ladies first, of course.” He gestured to the guard.
With knife clamped between his teeth, the guard loomed over Amelia and started unbuckling his belt. “I’m gonna take my time, gents,” he said. “But she’ll be alive when I’m done.”
Pell tried to lunge at him. “Touch her and you die.”
“You’ll get yours soon enough,” the man said.
Amelia tried to scoot back, but met the wall. “You killed your other crew, didn’t you?” she blurted at Eckhart’s back as he walked away.
“Shut your mouth, bitch,” the guard said, backhanding her across the mouth.
Amelia tasted blood. Tears stung her eyes, but she willed them back, furious. “You crashed a ship,” she continued in a rush. “Your crew died, and everyone blames you. ‘Don’t crash this one,’ Monty said. That’s what he was talking about, isn’t it?”
Eckhart shoved the guard aside and crouched in front of his captain, his face a mask of fury. “Aren’t you a brave, clever girl?” he sneered, tracing the top of Amelia’s breast with a fingertip. “But these men can make you cry and they’ll enjoy every pump. That’s why a woman can’t lead the ‘Nauts. Men like breaking you.”
“You will never break me,” she seethed through clenched teeth.
He winked. “I certainly hope not.”
In an instant, Eckhart slit the ropes around Amelia’s ankles, then pivoted up to plant the blade under the guard’s chin. Wrists already free, Amelia grabbed the guard’s rifle and passed it to Pell, whose previously severed bonds fell away. Pell pressed the barrel of the rifle against Jackson’s head as Amelia returned the small serrated blade to its hiding spot inside the back of her corset.
Eckhart tied Jackson’s hands behind his back and wrenched him toward the cave entrance. “Shall we, cousin?” Jackson sputtered and fumed up the ramp.
Daylight stung Amelia’s eyes when she stepped out and she shaded her eyes with a hand. Jackson’s remaining men were iron-bound hand and foot in the shot-riddled carcass of the cart, along with their dead comrades. Guerrero aimed two large revolvers at them to prevent tomfoolery while Gavin stood guard just outside of the cave mouth.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Monty boomed from the Gamut’s speakers. Amelia waved her reply.
Eckhart changed Jackson’s ropes for proper iron shackles and added him to the cart, mouth tied to stanch the flow of vitriol.
Amelia stopped her pilot as he walked by. “I apologize if I said anything cruel back there.”
An expression flickered across Eckhart’s face. “Part of the mission, captain. I wasn’t exactly gentle, either.” He started to pat her on the shoulder, but hesitated, awkward. “Or appropriate. We should find some clothes for you.”
“I don’t know,” Amelia said, rolling her shoulders and swinging her arms. “I rather like the freedom of motion.”
“It definitely provided distraction,” he replied.
“Indeed,” she grumbled. The memory of the guard’s leer made her stomach heave. “And the hostage?”
“She would distract them as well dressed like that.”
Amelia shook her head, amused despite herself. “I meant, we need to find her.”
“We already have,” Gavin said. “While you and Pell were lazing in the cave. She’s aboard the Gamut with Monty.”
“Bad idea,” Eckhart muttered.
“I HEARD THAT, AIRHEAD,” Monty replied from above.
“How can that…” Eckhart muttered.
Pell held up the BRIC. Monty’s low, mocking laugh rolled out of the speakers.
“Well, then, what shall do we do with them?” Amelia asked, looking over her shoulder toward the rebels.
Jackson and his men spent a leisurely quarter hour at the points of Guerrero’s pistols aboard the Gamut before falling upon the graces of the local Pax magistrate. Eckhart elected to remain on board while Amelia and the rest of the crew turned in the prisoners via an obliging farmer’s wagon and team of donkeys and a bit of paper and ink.
We trust you know what to do with these. Regards, The Argonauts
“We aren’t officially Argonauts yet,” Gavin said.
Amelia held up her thrumming, bloody-bandaged hand. “I believe we are. Bleed together, fly together, die together, right?”
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