The man ran on, stumbling a few times in the mud. After leading them down a narrow corridor he stopped, extracting a ring of keys from his tunic, and opened a heavy iron door. Leaving the key in the lock, he rushed inside. A marine sprinted to catch up with him, lest the door be shut and dogged from the other side. He froze for an instant, a step from the doorway, aglow with the lamplight spilling out, and was cut down by a volley of rifle and pistol fire. Farley swore, raising a hand to halt the rest of the party.

“Against the wall on the right, straightaway!” he commanded, moving himself until he was pressed tightly to the pipes and rotten wood.

“Advance now, single file,” he went on. The sailors and marines slunk down the corridor until they were next to the frame of the fatal door. Farley mimed firing into the room, then directed the remnants of Boyle’s force to the opposite side of the door frame, adding in a whisper: “not until I open fire.”

Farley pointed his shotgun blindly into the room, taking a single shot. As its pellets sewed chaos among the Bexarians, Boyle’s men rushed to the opposite side, taking no fire. There were now two lines of roughly equal length on both flanks of the doorway. Shouting rose from the room but it did not seem to be directed at them. Farley shut his eyes a moment, then drew a shell from his sling and fed it into his gun, replacing the one he had spent pinning down the Bexarians.

“Right, right, we will go in simultaneously, the first two men in each line, watch where you level your muzzles, I’m not about to be shot in the back.”

Boyle nodded, he passed his carbine down the line of men behind him, whispered something, and a revolver was passed up to him, “ready sir.”

Farley crouched slightly, took another blind shot into the room, then burst in. Boyle did the same, though with far less speed, on his side of the broad door. Each man was followed by another from their line, a marine sweeping in after Farley and a young sailor nearly leaping behind Boyle. The initial volley of opposing fire was concise and simultaneous, the next, after several barks of the shotgun, was quieter and came off unevenly, a few shots early and many late.

“The rest of you! Now!” Farley bellowed. Bethany found herself at the head of her line, found herself drawing her 4.5 line automatic and lunging into the room. A rifle shot cracked past her head, an old Bexarian revolver flashed, filling a corner with white gunsmoke. She fired at the latter, not knowing if she had hit until, on her third shot, a fountain of blood cut through the smoke. Farley, in cover behind an overturned bunk - the room was evidently a barracks - sprung up and began to advance. Some Bexarians moved forward, others fell back. Three were cut down by him at once. Farley took aim at a fourth but found his gun was empty. He kept hold of the pump with his left hand but released his right from the stock, reaching for the Bexarian automatic at his waist. The first shot came as soon as the pistol was clear of his belt, striking the enemy, now but an arshin away, in the stomach, the second was keenly aimed and found the head.

A Bexarian shouted what had to be an order and the remaining handful of men in the room made for the rear door. A marine killed one, a sailor another, but the rest got clear.

“After them, come on!” Farley insisted. They did so, entering the widest corridor so far. The fleeing men were completely exposed and were killed when they turned to fight.

Panting, Farley fell against a mining cart, sitting in the mud. Bethany saw that his left temple was bleeding, grazed, and there was a spreading bloodstain near a hole in his tunic’s right sleeve, just below the elbow.

“A count, please, let’s get a count,” he stammered.

Boyle and Bethany looked about, Bethany struck by the fact she did not know how many they had begun with. Boyle reported, “two dead and near as makes no difference every man’s wounded now. Two shot, the rest caught bayonets or clubs.”

Farley braced himself against the cart and stood, taking a few steps down the corridor.

“We need to keep going, they were making for that door,” Farley urged, pointing to an iron double-door at the end of the corridor.

After resting and dressing a few more wounds the party moved slowly toward the twin doors. As they approached them, one opened just enough to allow a man through. An officer stepped out.

“Stop there! We may talk!” he began in a heavy accent.

“Surrender this fort, your garrison outside is dead, everyone we have come across so far inside is dead, we can do the same to you!” Farley shouted, taking several strides toward the enemy officer.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“That may well be true. Perhaps. Sirs, I offer you this, a surrender on certain terms, you may disarm us, but you may not make us your prisoners, no Bexarian man will ever accept chains.”

Bethany looked the officer up and down, he was a far cry from the Bexarians they had fought so far, many of whom were still in their nightclothes. He was smartly uniformed, a sword on his hip, his boots and belt mirror polished. Something glinted behind him, through the cracked door. Bethany stepped to the side and looked closely, to see a fire rising from a tabletop in the center of the room. She approached Farley, whispering in his ear: “they are burning something in there, it’s not a stove but an open fire, it looks very wrong.”

Farley jerked forward, clear of her, drew his service revolver and shot the officer in the leg. He ran the length of the corridor, the rest of the party falling in behind him. He grabbed the edges of the open door, hauling it open as a Bexarian from within tried to shut it.

They found a large, roughly round room filled with short desks and cabinets. At its center was the fire - a map table had been heaped with charts and files and lit, a Bexarian tossing another armload of papers onto it even as Farley pointed his revolver at him. There were ten men in the room, half armed, the other half military in dress but not bearing, clerks of a sort.

“Bring me their officer!” Farley snarled. Boyle and a sailor lifted the bleeding Bexarian officer and hauled him to where Farley stood.

“Order them to surrender,” Farley demanded, “damn your terms, I will kill you here and now.”

“Help me stand and it will be done, I will not give such an order on my knees,” the officer spat. Farley nodded to Boyle and the officer was raised, haltingly, to his feet. He surveyed the room as it quickly filled with smoke and, after an age, gave the order to stand down.

The surrendered men were led out of the room, it was too choked to occupy, disarmed, and sat in the mud just outside. “Guard these curs, I must see what I can get before it all goes up,” Farley instructed before returning to the command room, a fire bucket in hand.

Bethany and Boyle stood over the men until the latter sat wearily on a pipe.

“Do you have enough men?” Bethany asked.

“For what?”

“To sail the ship.”

“Oh, aye, nearly enough, I may have to press some of these scoundrels, if they won’t go, then we will make do.”

Bethany began to speak but turned to the sound of running through the mud, for an instant she thought it was Farley, but the footfalls could not be that of a booted man. A drooping, feminine form appeared and picked its way carefully through the prisoners. She was, surely, an officer’s wife or laundress.

“Halt! You there stop!” Bethany commanded. The woman abruptly raised a revolver and, before Bethany could draw her pistol, shot the Bexarian officer in the back twice. In a quick, trembling motion she then put the weapon beneath her chin and pulled the trigger. The hammer dropped with a sharp click, Boyle rushed at her, falling on her and wrestling the revolver away. The prisoners dispersed, shouting, and some stood. Bethany took aim at them, “keep down! All of you!”

Boyle rose, hauling the woman up and off her feet. For the first time she looked away from the ground. Her face was feverish, gaunt, and dirty. Her eyes met Bethany’s.

“I prayed you would come, and you did, you did but much too late,” Clotilde sobbed. She took a faltering step forward, toward Bethany, and toppled. Bethany and Boyle caught her at once. She had fainted, and hung limp between them.

Farley appeared in the doorway of the command room, revolver drawn, “who’s firing!”

The Bexarians chattered, Boyle shouted over them: “the girl, sir.”

“Esterhouse?” Farley demanded, advancing.

“No, no, the Luft girl I think.”

Boyle released Clotilde, leaving her to Bethany, who dropped to the mud with her in her arms. Farley, puzzled, rushed to the scene. Arriving, he stared at the dead Bexarian officer.

“None of you shot this man? Do you really mean to say that wretch did?” Farley huffed.

“Yes, twice, in the back,” Bethany intoned.

“You said Luft, Mr. Boyle. You cannot mean Luft as in Florian Luft?”

“Miss Esterhouse would know better, but it appears it is.”

Bethany gently turned Clotilde’s face so the men could see it clearly, “I have no doubt it is her.”

Farley’s look soured, “if she made it there must be others. We were right to leave them but they shan’t forgive us.” He pivoted, stepping toward the Bexarian officer. With the toe of his boot he probed the slumped corpse, “he’s quite dead. Dammit, dammit. We took this place in hope of interrogating just such a man...” the marine paused, wiping blood from his face, and surveyed the rest of the prisoners.

“Any man that owns to speaking our language and cooperates will be treated as a guest, not a prisoner, and will be given the option to leave the ship in neutral waters at his leisure,” Farley announced, looking from man to man. The Bexarians talked amongst themselves until one stood, stating “a little, I speak a little.”

“How did you come to know it? Will you swear you are not a spy, you must,” Farley replied.

“No spy, sir, my uncle was born in Don-Chipping.”

“Very good, alright,” Farley nodded, extracting a document from a tunic pocket. It was charred, clearly recovered from the command room. He indicated it, slowly asking “this is a roster, is it not?”

“Sir, it is,” the prisoner replied.

“Point out to me the name of the chief engineer,” Farley instructed.

The prisoner did and Farley loudly read out, “Nikolaj Reutemann” to the Bexarians.

“He is dead, well, you say you killed everyone on the way, if true, he is dead,” the prisoner whispered.

“Are there any engineers, any technical men here now?” Farley returned.

The prisoner pointed to a lanky man at the fore of the gaggle of Bexarians, “Stanislaus, engineer’s mate.”

Farley fixed on him, “Stanislaus, stand up!”

The engineer’s mate heard his name and looked about but did not rise. After a moment, the defected prisoner translated the order.

“Tell him to come over here at once,” Farley went on. This was translated and Stanislaus approached. Farley conferred with the two Bexarians quietly for a while, then ambled to Bethany and Boyle.

“Mr. Boyle, take the wounded and Miss Luft to Fletch, inform Mr. Badrine that he is to come here at once, you may send a sailor to guide him if he asks, we are going to inspect the works here, the mechanisms that serve the airship, he must be present so he may lend his expertise. Command of the ship will fall to you in our absence.”

“What of Miss Esterhouse?” Boyle inquired, “would the ship not be hers?”

“It would be, were she going, but she must stay here...”

“No,” Bethany protested, “Clotilde may well be dying, I cannot leave her.”

“If she dies it will not matter, if she wakes you will be there soon enough. I know I cannot order you to stay, but I counsel it, strongly, you are the least injured person here, there is no guarantee this rat’s nest is empty of enemies, I need your arm. If there was a proper surgeon here I would be ordered on a stretcher, understand, I am asking your help.”

Bethany looked down at Clotilde, she was still unconscious, but her breathing was even enough. She appeared more feverish than she was, though she was clearly sick, she was not as far gone as she had seemed when she had fallen.

“I will see her back to Fletch, then I will return here, I can show Badrine the way as well, save a sailor that trouble,” Bethany announced.