As she climbed, Bethany could not think of the fact that a Bexarian might shoot her in the back at any time, dared not consider that if she slipped she would surely dash herself on a beam or fall from the airship altogether. Instead, she thought of Clotilde. Bethany hoped she was in some dark place, unable to see the corpses and screaming men dropping from the airship. Or, better yet, she was unconscious. Asleep would be ideal but fainted was fine. She needed to be unaware, she deserved to go peacefully.
Badrine stopped above her, pushing open a narrow cloth-covered hatch. It led into a sort of vestibule, on the outside of the airship but set into it, out of the wind. There were brass rings for attaching safety lines, though no lines. A speaking tube ran, presumably, to the bridge. The bleeding sailor swore down it and received a response in Bexarian.
“If only we had a bomb narrow enough to roll all the way, that’d be a fine surprise for them,” he quipped.
Badrine referred to his drawing again, “forward, along the gangway, near the nose, there is another chamber like this and a ladder to the living quarters and on to the bridge.”
“Right sir, let’s keep up the pace,” a marine acknowledged, climbing out of the vestibule. He stumbled, smacked by freezing wind, but pushed on. Another marine followed him with Bethany going next. The sky above was cloudless, fringed with dark blue, as if night had already fallen there. Bethany drew her carbine, as the marines had done. Badrine and the sailors exchanged a look, finally readying their own weapons. An acrid smell rose around them from the burning envelope but diminished as they moved away from the tail. The flexing of the airship, its back broken, was terribly evident. The gangway, stretching before them until it disappeared with the curvature of the envelope, waggled back and forth.
“That’s no good,” Badrine observed, “you see there’s a rhythm to it, a repetitive fracture is in the cards and soon.”
“Is there any good we might do with that information, Mr. Badrine?” Bethany asked.
“Other than flee, impossible of course, no.”
“Then do not share it.”
A Bexarian shout came from near the nose, another answered it. A sailor dropped to his belly, as if to take a firing position, but the marines broke into a run down the gangway. A heavy metal clatter broke the shouts and the Bexarians came into view. Three men and one repeating gun. The latter was slung by a rope, evidently lifted from the bowels of the ship. A short, tripod shaped mount was slammed down onto the gangway, the gun onto the mount, and an iron shield around the barrel, protecting the gunner but leaving a small slit to see the sights.
As this happened Bethany and the others had all dropped flat, on or around the gangway. The gun started up, missing low, cutting a straight line of neatly space holes through the airship’s skin like a sewing machine. With a grunt the Bexarian crew adjusted their fire and the shots resounded off the metal gangway. A sailor stood, shouldered his carbine, and was cut down at once, the bullets moving steadily upward from his groin to his forehead.
“Fire at them but keep down!” a marine barked.
“We’ll miss!” the bloody-headed sailor protested.
“So shall they!”
A broken volley passed over the gun, one bullet managing to wing off the shield. That gave the gunner pause, his firing ceased and Bethany began to rise but fell flat again when the firing returned. Beneath her the airship trembled and more wires could be heard snapping. The Bexarians went on firing over their heads but stopped abruptly. One shouted to another and they began to paw at the action of the gun. Bethany got to her feet and set off toward the emplacement, a marine following.
A neat click emanated from the gun. Rounds ripped down the length of the airship.
Bethany felt a sharp pain in her right arm, another in her chest, a bullet battering against a rib, felt another below her shoulder and heard breaking bone - a snap amid a wet thud. She stopped running and hung upright for a moment, then tottered forward. She landed on her uninjured side but did not catch herself and rolled to port, down the sloped hide of the airship. Bethany had closed her eyes after the first hit, she could not open them, would keep them closed, yes, all the way to the water.
A sharp tearing filled her ears followed by the clang of metal to metal. Her left hand, grabbing reflexively at the airship’s slick hide, found purchase on her rapier. Wreathed in moldavite it jutted from the envelope, pinned against a skeletal beam. The blade was as dull as raw iron and gripped her as much as she gripped it. She tried to put her right hand on it but could not move that arm, it dangled as if it was a hunk of meat stitched to her shoulder. She looked about and found herself a quarter of the way down the airship’s side, steeply sloped but not yet vertical. There was enough give in the envelope that she could press her boots into it and partly stand, so long as she held onto the rapier. Carefully, she drew the sword out and planted it an arshin further up, half climbing and half lifting herself with her good arm, she advanced up the side of the airship until she was nearly level.
The gun still chattered away though her example had kept the men from advancing on it further. She could barely see the emplacement, standing below where she had fallen from. The gun traversed, but never came near her. A weak volley broke against it.
Bethany inspected her arm, it trembled, though she could not feel it doing so, and bled terribly. The blood coming from the hole in her coat and shirt was a trickle in comparison, though when she breathed she felt something, perhaps the point of the bullet, jab her. That one or more of them was still in her was disgusting and she coughed, as if to expel them. She only doubled over in greater pain than ever. Recovered, she moved at a crouch down the length of the airship. By sound and occasional glances upward, she proceeded to and behind the gun emplacement. She left trail of blood, smeared by the wind it showed brightly against the off-white hide of the airship.
She climbed until she stood a few arshins behind the gun crew. Deafened by their own fire, their eyes fixed on the enemies in front of them, they did not stir. Bethany sheathed her rapier and fumbled for her 4.5 line automatic. The safety was not meant to be operated with the left hand and fought her. With it finally disengaged she took aim at the man behind the gun. She meant to strike his head but caught the top of his spine instead. He was immobilized but his companions rose at once, one drawing a revolver, the other beginning to take his rifle down from his back. The former died first, without getting off a shot, but consumed the rest of Bethany’s magazine. The rifleman fired without shouldering, his aim was poor but he did not miss entirely. The bullet passed above her left ear, nipping off the flesh at its top and taking a lock of hair. Bethany dropped her pistol and went for next one but could not reach the holster without the use of her wounded arm. Her rapier came out of its sheath just as the Bexarian worked his rifle’s bolt. Bethany charged him, he fired but missed very low, piercing the airship’s envelope. With no chance to work the bolt again he flipped the rifle around, intent on using it as a club, and counter-charged. Bethany slapped him across the face with her rapier’s thin blade. He fell on his back, blinded in one eye and screaming. He might have pleaded, he certainly raised his hands. Bethany pressed the point of her rapier into his neck until he went quiet.
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At the bottom of the ladder Bethany collapsed into a puddle of her own blood. Badrine and a sailor lifted her and held her up until, after hanging from them with her eyes shut for a long while, she pulled away. They were now in a part of the vessel that did not look as if it belonged on an airship or a proper ship, for that matter. It resembled a rail car, narrow with a central aisle. There were seats that could be made into bunks, and some were. Beyond it lay a small mess, a few meals still sat out, though all had been knocked to the floor. It all seemed comfortable enough; in the mess there were broad windows running to the floor, allowing the dining officers to view the sea beneath. As they advanced they found no men, reaching the thin steel door at the end of the corridor unopposed. The bridge was on the other side and voices could be heard.
A marine rapped on it with the butt of a revolver and Badrine shouted, “give up the ship! We’ve a fleet down there that will shred you.”
The reply came in their language, with almost no accent, “step back, please, the hatch opens outwards.”
They stepped back but took cover, leveling their weapons.
The hatch was swung open, whoever had done it retreated back into the bridge unseen. Both marines entered first, one sweeping to port, the other to starboard. No shots were fired.
“Come along, they’ve no weapons,” a marine reported.
Bethany stepped down into the bridge. Its floor and walls were glass supported by a web of steel. There were five men, four sitting on padded stools near certain controls and one standing in the center of the room. He wore a Captain’s dress frock coat but beneath it was a plain, working uniform. A sword on a belt was buckled askew, high at his waist, around the coat. He was short, equal to Bethany and smaller than all the men there. When he doffed his peaked cap she saw that he was partly bald.
“Sirs... madam,” he began. He had been the one at the hatch, for certain, the flat, educated voice was the same, “step forward, please, we are under a truce now. If I may speak with the officer in charge, only, please.”
Bethany approached him, he was ruffled but composed himself smartly.
“Quite good,” he intoned, “I am going to draw my sword so that I may present it you, do not fire on me, thank you.”
The Bexarian Captain drew his sword very slowly, keeping the point directed at the floor. At last he gripped it at the top of the blade, offering the pommel to Bethany.
“In my country this is a bond, I trust by accepting it you accept my surrender, which is offered unconditionally, and will treat me as an officer and gentlemen, with due honor.”
Bethany reached for the sword but did not touch it. Her face, twisted by pain, grew sourer still.
“Honor? It’s easy enough to talk of honor in defeat,” Bethany said, bitterly, “but where was it in your victories?”
“Pardon me, madam?” the Captain cooed.
“The ships you sank, the islands you razed, where they given warning, did you rescue survivors?”
The Captain began to speak, Bethany advanced on him and interrupted, “you did not, I know you did not.”
Bethany took his sword, wrenching it from his hands, and immediately stabbed him with it. It was not a fatal wound, the next was. Her rapier entered his heart, she pushed until the tip touched the glass floor beneath.
A Bexarian officer rose from his stool, his accent was poor but his voice boomed, “I suppose you think that mattered!”
From aft came a wave of whip-cracks followed quickly by the groan of failing steel. The bridge bucked, through the glass they saw a torrent of debris fall toward the sea, much of it on fire. The officer sat, folding his hands. Several panes of glass beneath and beside them cracked, the bridge twisting in its mount. With a shriek the bolts and wires holding it to the disintegrating structure split and the bridge fell free.
Bethany saw Clotilde standing above her. She felt shards of glass and steel bite her back, and tried to stand. Clotilde put out her hand, reaching for Bethany’s right arm. She touched it and recoiled. A sailor barged in front of her and picked Bethany up by the waist, carrying her away from the wreckage of the bridge, which lay warped across Fletch’s forecastle. He propped her against the gunnel and wandered off. Bethany looked over, hoping to see water. She did, but it was still a verst away. Above her the airship continued to come apart, its skin mostly burned away. The skeletal structure was bowed and vast sections were missing. Gas bags, visible now with the hide gone, burst in rapid succession. Bethany felt Fletch sink, her stomach in her throat.
Clotilde found her again and sat beside her. She looked quite serene, her tired eyes shined. She reached for Bethany’s left hand and squeezed it. She did not speak until a young sailor, standing upright on the remains of the forecastle, began to read from The Holy Writs. Clotilde mouthed the wards, saying some before he reached them.
Farley limped up to the reading sailor, silently gripping his shoulder. The front of the marine’s uniform was split by the line which he must have slid down quite violently. Badrine paced from fore to aft, taking occasional sightings of the airship with his glass and pausing to note things down.
The first line snapped, Fletch pitched down, held only by her beam and aft lines now. At last the airship split entirely at its middle and all began to fall. There was enough gas left to arrest the descent but it would never stop it. A marine took a few steps past Bethany and Clotilde, looked over the gunnel, put his revolver in his mouth and fired. The sailor put down The Holy Writs and lay on the deck, looking skyward.
Clotilde let go of Bethany’s hand and raised herself from the inside of the gunnel to the rail, her back to the sky. She closed her eyes and leaned back until she gently slipped off the ship. Bethany shot to her feet and reached over the gunnel as if to catch her, though she had fallen so fast as to disappear.
Another line failed, Fletch bucked, and Bethany fell.
The wind turned her on her back, she saw Fletch’s hull, stained with rust and specked with sea growth. Why had the little ship survived so much and so long, to what good end; her deck planking was stained with the blood of the best men she had ever known. Fletch and Bethany had grieved them together, Bethany had felt agony and determination seethe from every bulkhead and rail. At least they would grieve no longer. Bethany pitched over again, praying she would strike the water first, could that mercy be afforded, at least? It rushed toward her, the wave tops making Fletch’s growing shadow undulate as they churned bodies and bits of planking which had already made the descent. A sheet of hull plating scythed toward her, on the same journey, as it came near enough to split her skull Bethany reflexively reached to shoo it away.
Its approach ceased, Bethany seemed at first to be falling with it, but the maelstrom below was suddenly fixed in size, no longer rushing to meet her. She hung from it with both hands, pinned in the air as if on a wire. Fine specks of moldavite glinted about its edges. She perceived that she had stopped it, and not it her. The observation rang in her mind. Fletch hurtled past. She lunged toward the ship, desperately, as if to throw herself upon it. The hull plating would not let her go. Instead, moldavite rose like fire from Fletch’s hull.
Fletch seemed to slow. Unsteadily, Bethany released both hands from the bit of hull plating. It let her proceed but still seemed to cradle her. Bethany extended her arms toward the ship as it neared the surface of the water, gathering swarms of moldavite about Fletch and herself.
Threlfall stepped from it in a shining dress uniform. He was clearly visible one moment but the next flicked out of existence, returning again in a haze of moldavite.
“Again, as when we were sinking, you will not let me die,” Bethany whispered. “Are you my tormentor?” She added, brokenly. The rushing wind was silent now.
“I am not doing anything, you two are,” he replied, indicating Fletch, “raise your hands and look only at her, as if you were viewing her at anchor and you safe on shore.”
Bethany did so, Threlfall winked away, but the moldavite beneath remained. It surged outward, swaddling the ship and her surrounds, falling men plopped into it like a feather bed and were held aloft.
The rush of wind returned, and, though the moldavite encircled her, Fletch and her crew fell again, just as fast. Bethany threw her arms wide, grasping toward Fletch, but nothing changed until, with the ship’s keel less than an arshin above the water, progress again stopped. Bethany felt something vast extend from her, all of the heat of a long fever expelled in an instant. Everything about her looked unreal. She was mad, at last, surely. Bethany closed her eyes and let herself fall toward the strange tableau, she could feel blood all over her. She fell until she was level with Fletch. Her limp body pierced the sheet of moldavite. It dissipated at once, dropping her and her ship gently into the freezing water.