The
story so far…
Tom Cain rescued sisters Nikki and Willow Keats
from psychotic Draggers and a Mist infestation with the help of sharpshooter
Agatha West. They fled Milton on the apparently deserted airship Hecate.
Hecate has a mysterious stowaway, a young woman
named Ishara, who rarely comes out of hiding. Last episode she helped a vertically
challenged mechanic called Shorty to rescue the crew from a crime syndicate in
the town of Havenvale, then disappeared, back into the bowels of Hecate.
Now the crew is looking for honest work, but
finding that honesty is not always the best policy.
Episode 3
Chapter
1
“It’s too bad about the gold though.” Shorty
straightened up from behind the lathe, brushed some metal shavings from his
sleeves and pulled a brass queen from the machine’s metal jaws. Even standing
full-upright he only came up to Tom’s chest.
“What?” Tom was impressed by the skill Shorty had
shown. He’d built a beautiful chess-set in a couple of days in Hecate’s simple
machine room and he seemed to know everything about engines. What’s more he
actually knew how to cook.
“The gold? Must have been worth a serious fortune.
How did you come across such a haul?”
“Whoa, back up a minute… Gold?”
“Yeah.” Shorty brushed the brass to complete the
finish and set the queen down on the newly created board. “Ishara told me those
bars you had in the hold were just coated in a thin layer of lead. Were you
smuggling them?”
Tom felt like he was about to pass out. He took a
deep breath. “Wait… solid Gold?”
Shorty nodded. “Yeah, under a thin layer of lead to
disguise them.” He looked at the chess board and wrinkled his nose. “I need
some of those engraving tools we talked about.”
“Five tons
of gold?”
“Well, more or less, yeah.”
“Real gold?”
Shorty rolled his eyes. “Yes Tom, real gold. Oh and I need a miniature file set too.”
“I had my hands on five tons of gold?”
“Yes Tom, gold. It was gold in the hold. The hold
was full of gold, or so I was told. Perhaps the gold was cold?” Shorty smiled
wryly. “I’m a poet.”
“She was certain?”
“Yeah, seemed to be. What’s the deal with her
anyhow? She doesn’t spend much time ‘round the rest of you.”
“I really dunno Shorty…. Like I said before, she
was stowed away when we found Hecate. Far as I can tell from the logs she’s
some bigwig from Atlantis. You’ve seen more of her than I have. How’d she know
it was gold?” Tom didn’t know which was worse, the thought that he’d held a
massive fortune in his hold and lost it without ever knowing, or that Charkart,
double-dealing lowlife, now had his hands on it.
“How’d she know you guys needed help, or that you
were on that rooftop?” Shorty shrugged. “She just seems to know things. You
think she’s one of those Atlantean witches? That’d explain how she’s been able
to hide.”
Tom raised an eyebrow. “Those are just stories, an’
even in the stories they never leave the Inner Precincts.”
“Would explain the funny way you said the Mist
acted around Milton.
“You think she wiped out her own crew?” Tom shook
his head. “That’s cold…. Nah, like as not that was just coincidence.”
“Maybe… she’s a bit peculiar if you ask me though.”
There was a growing list of questions Tom had no
answers for, but he did know one thing. Shorty had a gift for understatement.
#
They’d sat like dead-weight for a week in the
Johnson City port. Nobody trusted such a junior crew to care for their cargo,
and trying to find passengers had proven hopeless.
Tom hit the portside saloon, Harlequin Jack’s with
Nikki, as he had every day. That was where the majority of the port’s airship
business was carried out.
“Cheer up Tom, maybe today we’ll get a job.”
“It’s not that Nikki… not entirely.”
“The gold?”
“Yeah, if we had that gold we wouldn’t have to
worry about work. Ever.”
Nikki put an arm across his shoulders. “It’s gone
now Tom. Let’s focus on earning some business.”
“You kidding me? We’ve been in port a week. Portmaster
came looking for his moorage fee again today. If we don’t find something soon
we’re going to have to sell off more of our gear.”
Nikki elbowed Tom in the ribs and hissed, “Try not
to scare off any potential clients. And whatever you do, don’t come off as too
eager.”
He looked up and saw two rough looking men
approaching them through the near-empty saloon. One, broad-faced with a thick
black beard, and the other thin as a whip and ginger-haired.
The bearded one cleared his throat. “I hear you’re
lookin’ fer work.”
Tom nodded. “Passengers or cargo?”
“Bit ‘o both. Can you an’ your crew keep yer noses
to yerselves?”
“’Course we can. It’ll cost extra though.”
Beardy smiled. “Then I think we can work together.
M’name’s Jim Smith, an’ this here is John Brown. There’s three more of us, and
a small parcel headed for Aetheopica. I got five-hunnert guilders to pay now, same
again when we arrive safe. When can we set off?”
Tom shot his hand forward and shook with the men.
“Gentlemen, you have a deal. Our ship is the Hecate, in landing-bay nineteen
and we can leave the moment you’re ready.”
#
“What was that all about?” Nikki frowned at Tom as
they passed through the crowded streets.
“Got us a job didn’t I?”
“You know they’re up to no good.”
Tom stopped and held Nikki by the shoulders. “Of
course I do, sure as I know their names are not Smith and Brown. I just
don’t care. We need this, and a thousand guilders will keep us out of debt for
a while.”
“Dealin’ with people like that…. Just watch your
back. We’ll be lucky if we get to keep the five-hundred up front without
trouble.”
“It’s no problem Nikki, I’ve got it handled.”
#
Agatha was less impressed than Nikki. “You gave our
cargo-hold over to a bunch of criminals?”
“Now Agatha, we don’t know their business.”
“No, ‘cause you promised we’d keep our noses out of
it. What do you think, they’re bible salesmen?”
“’Course not.”
“An’ what if the Atlanteans search us comin’ in to
Aethiopica? Odds-on that’s some form of contraband they’re smugglin’.”
“Sometimes you gotta take risks.”
“You’re risking all of us landing in an Atlantean
jail, or shipped off to the inner precincts as slave labour! Shouldn’t we have
a say in that?”
“I’m protecting you! All of you.” Tom took a
breath. “We can’t cannibalize Hecate for parts to sell. If we go down that road
where does it end? She’s our home.
Where would you go if we lost her?”
Agatha shrugged. “Dunno, don’t have any place I
guess.”
“Well neither do Nikki an’ Willow. Shorty might
find another job if he can get someone to take him serious. I could get another
berth on a trader, but it wouldn’t be the same. Hecate is our home and I’m not going to lose her
because we’re having trouble finding work. If we can manage to save a bit we
can buy and sell our own cargo. We’d
be independent. Nobody could tell us what to do.”
Agatha nodded. “Makes sense Tom, but I still don’t
like letting these thugs on board. They won’t even let me in the hold, they
barred the door. What if there’s an emergency?”
“A cargo
emergency?”
Agatha grinned. “Yeah, maybe not, but we don’t know
what it is. Could be dangerous.”
Tom laid a finger aside his nose. “That’s why I’m
gonna have Shorty climb through the ducts and have a li’l peek tonight.”
#
“Get Willow to do it, she’s smaller.” Shorty
crossed his arms.
Tom raised his hands. “Willow is thinner, I’ll give
you that, but your engineering know-how might come in handy.”
“You’re just picking on me ‘cause I’m short.”
“If you don’t wanna, I understand.”
“I don’t want to go.”
Tom picked up the finely detailed model of Hecate
Shorty was working on. “We could use some of the money from this job to get
those tools you wanted.”
Shorty hesitated.
Tom grinned. “Throw in a first-rate salmon dinner
in Aetheopica.”
“Oh all right, but you owe me some new clothes if
these get ruined in there.”
“Done.”
“It’s a deal then…. Say, Tom, I was meaning to
mention it. I’ve been familiarizing myself with the engines and such, and I
found an odd thing.”
“Good or bad?”
“Good, well, seems to be good anyhow. To a casual
inspection they’re all standard old, reliable Wharburg Mark Fives, but on the
inside’s a different story. The machining is too perfect for Wharburgs, a few
things are just a little off, and they all have a dial to adjust the fuel-mix,
which is certainly not standard.”
Tom stared blankly. “So?”
“So I think you could sacrifice fuel-efficiency for
power, if you wanted to get two, maybe almost three times as much horsepower
out of ‘em.”
“Will that damage the engines?”
“No, these things… they’re works of art Tom. Even
overheating the one like you did coming in to Havenvale didn’t do any lasting
damage.”
Tom took a breath, every time he thought he had her
figured out, Hecate threw another mystery out. “Good work Shorty. Wait ‘till
three or so to check our guests’ package, they should be well asleep by then.
Wake me when you go, so I can be ready in case you get in trouble.”
#
“Why did I ever agree… Damnit!” Shorty skinned his
knuckles as he tried to unfasten the last bolt holding the air-vent’s grille in
place. Outside the ducts the five thugs slept on rough blankets, their cargo
was just out of Shorty’s sight against the bulkhead.
He applied some oil and gave it a minute to sit and
tried again. The bolt gave a loud creak then came away smoothly. Inside the
hold one of the men stirred, rolled on to his back, and started to snore.
Shorty let out his breath. Carefully he picked the
grille up and set it aside. He crawled out silently and got to his feet.
“Hi Shorty!” Ishara greeted him, nearly making
Shorty jump out of his overalls. She sat there like a child, cross legged,
playing with something in her lap.
“Shhhh!”
“Look what I found.” Ishara held up a crystal
skull.
“Shhh! You’re going to get us caught!” Shorty put
his finger to his lips.
The snoring tough grumbled something sleepily.
Ishara put a finger to her lips and giggled. “Is
this a game?”
“No, you’re going to get us both killed!”
Ishara laughed aloud. “Too late.” She paused
staring into the distance, then held up the skull again. “Know what this is?”
“A crystal skull?”
“No, nonononono… well yes, but not just a crystal skull.” She leaned close as if
revealing a great secret. “One of the Decatria.”
“What’s that mean?”
Ishara frowned. “Ooooh, I know this one…” She
thumped a fist repeatedly against her forehead and rocked front to back. “Ah!
It’s a crystal skull!”
Shorty sighed. “I know that. Is it worth
much?”
“To the right person, it’s worth a fortune… a
fortune of fortunes… inconceivable
wealth.”
Shorty’s eyes went wide. “Thanks. I gotta tell the
Captain. You’d better scram too, before one of them wakes up.” He turned to go.
“Just one problem.”
Shorty stopped. “What?”
“It’s broken.” Ishara pointed to a hairline crack
running through the skull.
“Are you…” Shorty clenched his fists and stood
there breathing heavily. It was like trying to have an intelligent conversation
with a parrot. No point getting angry with her. “What does that mean?”
“Someone might buy it… but not for a fortune.”
One of the men started to cough and Shorty
scrambled for the vent. He slipped the cover back in place just as the man
roused and looked around. Shorty held the grille with his fingers. Any moment
there would be a shout and the men would jump Ishara. Shorty would be left to
help and probably get killed himself, or get the others and likely arrive too
late to save her.
“Who left that out?” The tough got up and paced
towards the corner where Ishara had been a moment before. He picked up the
skull, laid it back in the box and closed the lid. Then he returned to his
pallet, lay down and shuffled in under his blankets.
Shorty let his breath out, quickly refastened the
grille and went to report to the Captain.
1 comment:
Interesting development. At first I had Ishara pictured as this dark loner sort of character. Very humorless. It's fun to have that image turned on its head now that we're seeing more of her.
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