A few days later, I was working in the dockyards like normal. There had been no follow-up from my mafia adventures, so I was beginning to hope that would be the end of it. I was pulling down a dirigible from San Antonio when I heard a familiar voice.

“Hey! Eddie! It’s me, Summer!”

I struggled to keep my grip—it was really surprising to have a pretty girl like her suddenly show up and surprise me! But sure enough, there she was, her long blonde hair as dazzling as ever.

“It’s great to see you again,” I said. “What brings you here?”

“I came to see you.”

She said that without a trace of hesitation. It really made me happy to hear that from her. Summer was by far the nicest person I’d met in this world. Everyone else who helped always had some sort of ulterior motive. I felt like Summer was someone I could really become close with.

“Actually, there is something specific,” she continued. “I need to make a trip soon, and I was hoping you could go with me.”

“What kind of trip?”

“My company is hoping to start a trade deal with a place in Fresno. We’ll send them farming tools, and they’ll send us produce. Mostly raisins, I think. But first I need to go there with a sample of our merchandise and negotiate the details.”

“That sounds like quite an important job!” I said. I meant it—I really hadn’t imagined Summer negotiating business contracts like that. It made me realize that, despite her kindhearted seiso appearance, Summer was was also working hard in the business world.

“Thanks!” She beamed at my complement, and then continued. “I’ll need an airship and crew, so I thought I’d ask here. I was hoping you could come with me.”

I was happy that she had thought of me, but also embarrassed, because I didn’t think I could do it. “Well, I’ll try, but you know I’m still just an apprentice dockhand…” I explained. “I’ve only flown on one once, and I didn’t get to do much… Basically all I do is haul ropes to land the airships.”

At this moment Vera decided to butt in.

“Haha, that’s right! A meathead like you is only good for hauling rope! Well… and maybe pushing rope…” she stuck her tongue out at me.

Summer ignored the stupid joke with great grace. “Why don’t you let him copilot this time?” she said. “He’s supposed to be getting flight time here, too.”

***

And so, a few days later, I found myself on board a medium-ranged airship for the first time. The gas cell was 50 yards long, roughly half the size of a city block—still huge, but not nearly as big as the zeppelin we rode to Japan. It was bound for Fresno, with a small load of farming tools. The only crew on board were Akari and me, with Summer riding along as a passenger. Vera stayed behind to run the ground crews.

We had just taken off, and were floating over the bay when Summer waved me over to talk to her.

“Um… I couldn’t help but notice something weird as we were getting ready,” she said quietly. It seemed like she didn’t want Akari to hear us. Luckily she was busy handling the ship as it ascended, so she didn’t notice us talking.

“What is it?” I answered her back, just as quietly.

“The crew for this mission was supposed to be just you and Akari, right?”

“Well, there’s also the dockies. But we’re the only aircrew, yeah.”

“But the dockies just load cargo, right? Do they do anything with the ship itself?”

“No!” I grumbled. Until recently, all of my work was as a dockie, so all I was allowed to do was handling cargo and hauling cables. They never let me touch the airship itself. I guess they were afraid I’d break something.

“That’s why I thought it was strange… I noticed that one of the dockies was also doing some work on the ship. He kept going back and forth—dropping off a crate, then doing something to the ship, then going back for more cargo. And, maybe it was just my imagination, but…” Summer paused and fidgeted a bit before continuing. “He had this really shifty look on his face while he was doing it.”

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“That does sound weird. What did he look like?” Call me unsocial but I don’t like weird people with shifty eyes doing weird things.

“He was a short, skinny guy, with dark greasy hair and these weird bulging eyes.”

Unfortunately, I did indeed know that guy. The description perfectly matched the Dragon Gang henchman who had threatened me the other night in the Tenderloin—Smiley!

“Summer, this is bad. I think we might be in real trouble. From the way you described that man… I’m pretty sure he was up to no good.”

“Oh no! You know him?”

“I’ve seen him with a group of bad guys once,” I answered briefly. I didn’t want to tell Summer that I had been hanging out at a mafia speakeasy or doing shady work with Vera and Akari. “I think we need to tell Akari about this.”

“Do we have to? To be honest, I don’t completely trust Akari.”

“Me neither but… we’ve been through a lot since I started working. She’s already saved my life at least a couple times. So I’ll take her over that creep you saw.”

“Wait, she saved your life twice? What on earth are you doing that’s so dangerous???”

I didn’t have time to explain, so I ignored her. I walked over to bow where Akari was controlling the ship, and explained the situation to her. Just like me, she jolted as soon as she heard Summer described the man’s appearance.

“This is bad,” Akari said. “That man you described is named ‘Smiley’. Well, that’s not his real name, but that’s what everyone calls him. He’s one of Morgan’s crew, the one he calls on for especially sneaky jobs that require more than just some violent goon. What did you see him doing?”

“I couldn’t see much,” said Summer. “All I could see was him fiddling with the gas cell above the ship.”

As soon as she heard that, Akari went into overdrive. She pulled out a dizzying array of gauges, dials, and sensors, and began taking measurements all over the ship. As much as Akari annoyed me with her coldness, I couldn’t help but admire her expertise at a time like this. Summer and I just stood there watching while Akari crawled over the whole ship, taking its readings like a doctor giving a physical.

She returned with a scowl on her face. “Something is definitely wrong with the ship. We’re losing gas, fast. At this rate we won’t last long enough to clear the bay!”

“Can’t we drop ballast?” I suggested.

“I already did. It’s not enough!”

“Why don’t you dump some of the cargo?” asked Summer. “My company will be mad, but it’s better than us crashing into the bay.”

“We can’t!” yelled Akari. “Your merchants insist on sealing the cargo compartment so it can only be accessed from below. There’s no way to get in there while we’re flying, unless you have a way to chop through the hull!”

“We didn’t bring an axe,” I said. “What are we going to do?” I felt completely powerless.

Akai yelled again: “We need to increase engine power! We need to reach land before we crash into the bay!”

“We can’t, it’s already at maximum!” I said. The engine power gauge was pointing far into its red zone.

Akari gave us all an order: “All of you, get to the front of the ship! The very front, outside the railing!”

“Are you crazy!” I said. “That’ll make us tip over!”

“Just do it! Trust me!”

We did as she asked, standing outside the railing as far as we could. It made for a terrifying feeling, leaning out with no guardrail. And with our weight all at the front, the ship pitched down alarmingly. But I noticed that the speed did pick up a bit.

“When we’re sinking, and pitched down like this, it creates forward momentum. Like angling the sail of a ship,” Akari explained. “As long as we stay like this… I think we’ll just barely have enough momentum to reach land.”

“And then what?” I asked.

Akari turned around and stared at me with a wild look in her eyes. “Then you will have to jump off! You’re dead weight anyways, so make yourselves useful as disposable ballast”

“Are you crazy! I’m not going to jump off!” I said.

“You’ll be fine! It’s a nice soft sandy beach down there! Fold your legs and roll when you land!” She drew her knife and pointed it at me. “Now get going!”

She started jabbing the knife at me, and I backed up until I hit the edge. “Wait… let me lower a rope at least! And take some supplies!” I understood the logic of the situation, but I still didn’t want to just leap out like someone jumping off a bridge to suicide.

“Ugh… fine! But get going! We’re only ten feet up now, and we’re dropping fast”

“I’m coming too!” said Summer.

“Good! That will get more weight off this thing.” Akari shoved a pack into my hands. “This should be enough for you to survive. Now go!”

“What about the rope!?” I asked.

“There’s no time for that!” she screamed. “Look!” I looked down, and the ground was disturbingly close, only about 5 feet down below the ship’s bottom.

Akari started poking me with her sword again. “Get going!” she yelled.

I still felt nervous though. The height wasn’t too bad, but with the speed of the ship and the additional height of the basket, it was still pretty dangerous. It was, after all, jumping out of a moving aircraft! But there didn’t seem to be any choice. I swung myself over the side, lowered myself as much as possible, and let go.

I tumbled over a few times, and felt something scrape my leg, but it wasn’t too bad. I survived, and nothing was broken.

…Until I felt something heavy crash into me, a few seconds later. Something warm, heavy, and female. Summer.

“Oof… what? Why are you here? And why did you land on me?”

“Heh, sorry! Akari let me use a rope. I didn’t mean to hit you so hard, but you made a good landing target.” I looked up and saw a rope flying away, attached to the airship which was now rising once again.

Akari was hauling it back in. she stopped for a second to wave her knife at me and yell, “Thanks for the lift! Please try not to die!” and then she turned back to her work on the ship. It appeared that losing our body weight was enough to stabilize the ship, because it was once again rising. I was annoyed at Please for forcing me off, but I was still glad that she and the ship were OK. It probably wouldn’t be good for my career to crash an airship on my first flight as co-pilot.

The next task: find a way for me and Summer to survive. We weren’t that far away from the city, but we were stranded on the other side if the bay, with no one in sight and nothing except a small pack of food to help us survive. We were still in a precarious situation.