*
Theo rocked up and down on his toes, reassessing, wondering if there was anything more that could be done. Smoke rose from the crash site, marking a tattered line across the pale blue morning sky. To his right, a flock of crows cawed from their perch in an enormous fig tree.
Thick roots at the base of the tree spread across the rock at the edge of the cliff. Below, deep at the bottom of the narrow ravine, ran the torturous Yang River. The airship crew were lucky they’d not crashed a few yards farther west. Bouncing off the cliff walls would have made survival impossible.
What a mess. He coughed and spat to clear his throat of the sludge from the smoke. His hands were gray from moving pieces of the airship, and he was sure his face was no better. He eyed the wreckage. Though it had come down in one piece apart from the nose, fire had destroyed the section that lay a few yards away.
“Found another survivor?” he yelled.
Dankyo stalked toward him, the holster of his Gerwelt pistol slapping against his crisp gray trousers, his flattop of shaven black hair cutting across the sky like a steam ship across the ocean. Trust Dankyo to find time to dress formal on an emergency mission in the wee early hours. Though Dankyo was originally a refugee from the Greater Asian Monarchy, Theo had never regretted making him head of his personal security.
From the position of the sun, it was past nine. Theo put a hand to his stomach, sorely missing breakfast. He tugged out his gold pocket watch. Close. Forty-two minutes after eight.
“No, sir. Still only five survivors.” Dankyo saluted. No matter that Theo had been out of the air fleet for two years, the man insisted on military manners.
“Cause of the crash?”
“Well.” Dankyo rubbed his chin. “We’re smack on the border here. A Pancontinental Mexican Empire airship with multiple blast holes and the front section blown away by maybe an electro rocket? We didn’t do it, that’s for certain.”
“The Brito-Gallic League.” Theo sighed. “Once the PME find out, we’ll have another flare-up of the war, and just when things were calming down.” The PME was touchy to say the least.
Dankyo shrugged his immense shoulders then asked, “Can I hope, sir, that you might reactivate?” Despite their long years together, in the air corps as well as outside it, Theo still found himself startled at times by the Englishness of Dankyo. It was as if a butler had morphed into a Sumo wrestler.
“No. You may not. I’m headed for politics as you well know, man. The horrors of war can be another’s worry from now on.”
Horrors of war indeed. Too many men had lost their lives in the name of war. Lunacy. When he’d seen betrayal of fellow countrymen become the norm, he knew there were better ways to spend his life.
A uniformed arm waved from the smoking mound of black and twisted metal. One of his house guards had found something. Above the man’s head, emblazoned across a slope of undamaged metal, was a yard-high white and orange eagle—all that remained of the PME flag.
“Hoy! Sirs!” the guard yelled. “Another one! A woman!”
“Come, Dankyo.” Theo set off jogging across the disheveled landscape, hopping here and there to clear small piles of debris. A lone crow took off, flapping and cawing, as he approached the man who’d waved.
At his feet lay a slender woman, blonde hair still partly pinned into a chignon, the diamantes on her wine red evening gown dulled by smears of dirt. One strap had slipped from the shoulder, revealing the upper curve of her breast. Near the jagged hem of the dress, three deep yet neat cuts had bled and left red trails along the outer curve of her thigh.
The unexpected sight of womanly flesh among all this blatant destruction was as jarring as a rose floating in a swamp.
He slipped off his leather jacket and squatted to cover her. Her eyes snapped open—polished amber irises full of pain and confusion. From the rubble by her side, her arm swung weakly up; a broken metal strut tumbled from her hand.
“Uh-uh.” He easily intercepted her wrist. Those big golden eyes slowly closed. A spirited one. Her arm flopped back above her head, jolting her breasts.
She’s barely conscious. Having me looming over her must have frightened her. Casually his gaze traveled up to her shoulder, around the curves of muscle, up to her wrist…and he imagined her with both arms tied that way.
He shook his head. “Where’s the doctor?”
“Coming.” Dr. Eastway crunched across to them, his boots slipping on the loose earth. The last few strands of gray hair straggled across his forehead, and his black medical case swung from his hand.