The moon was bright enough for her to assess the damage as she crept through the underbrush. It wasn’t pretty, but it also didn’t look fatal. Some splintered wood, a balloon or two damaged, rigging dangling free.
She kept getting distracted by the fact that her chest area was freezing. Her stupid dress was too full and too low for clandestine activities not involving seduction. She fervently wished for a nice set of breeches and a man’s shirt. In the end she settled for shedding her top petticoat and constantly tugging up on the neckline. The liberated petticoat she tucked under a gorse bush, where it sat like some sad forgotten fluffy creature. In one respect, she was grateful for the dress—dark red with black brocade was perfect for fading into the heath.
She shifted Bumbersnoot to lie across her back. The little mechanimal stayed silent but for the faint tick-tock of his tail. As she inched closer, she checked to make certain her carnet de bal and bladed fan still hung securely from her waist. She was as equipped as a ball gown allowed. She stripped out all the pretty frills and fripperies from her hair and used a ribbon to tie it tightly back and out of her eyes.
No Picklemen were in sight, but there were sooties everywhere, busy making repairs. Two greasers yelled instructions, one from the midship squeak deck and another from the balcony above boiler room level.
Two of the balloons had lost a great deal of helium. Despite the resulting limpness, they were solid enough to withstand the weight of sooties crawling over them, applying slap patches. That was causing the airship to straighten, like a student caught slouching and chided into proper posture. Still, the school wasn’t floating anywhere without a refill, and that was going to be a challenge so far from the train tracks.
If anything, the whole operation was going suspiciously well. The attackers never intended to cause permanent damage, but instead to force a grounding. Did they want an evacuation also?
Sophronia almost slapped her forehead with her hand, she felt so stupid. They are after the airship itself! They want the school, and they’ve wanted the school all along. That’s what the pilot’s bubble infiltration was all about. They were surveying the darned thing, learning how it worked, determining whether it would fill their needs. They weren’t after war airships—they were after our school. It’s the biggest dirigible in the country.
Sophronia scanned the surrounding landscape. She gasped—quietly, of course. For riding low and coming in fast toward them were three flywayman airships… big ones.
ABANDONED SHIP
One of the sooties noticed the incoming ships and shouted, pointing. There was nothing they could do. They were sitting ducks. Or more precisely, one great big huge sitting duck.
At that moment, three large men appeared, one on each squeak deck. They held fierce-looking guns, which they swung around, pointing from one sootie to the next.
The sooties reacted instantly. They were not fighters and had no cards in this game. They were merely laborers, and the lowest of those. Grunts in the boiler room. They, quite rightly, thought only in terms of saving their own skins. Most of them froze where they climbed, then turned to face this new threat.
One sootie panicked and jumped off the lower deck. He ran off across the moor, fortunately away from Sophronia’s hiding spot.
The forward deck Pickleman took aim and fired.
The sootie cried out and fell dead.
The man who had shot him raised a speaking tube to his mouth and shouted through it, loud enough for Sophronia to hear. Even though the leaking helium caused his voice to squeak, there was no mistaking the menace in his words. He sounded like a very angry mouse.
“And the same to any others who run. Now, you six, finish the repairs. The rest of you, prepare the fizz tube. We’re bringing in helium. Greasers, you’re with the boiler contingent. Don’t even think about plotting to countermand my orders. You work for us now, or you die, simple as that. Prepare the boilers to burn up. I’m with you to keep you on track. Do as ordered and you may even be rewarded for your troubles. Now move!”
The sooties—street-smart and blood-wary—did as instructed.
The man with the speaking tube vanished below. The two others stood firm, weapons at the ready to ensure no others broke for freedom. No other sootie tried.
The six chosen sooties dutifully finished up repairs and assembled amidships, shoulders hunched and movements cautious.
Sophronia wanted to go to the fallen boy on the moor, but she did not doubt the Pickleman’s aim. The boy’s path had no cover under the moonlight. That poor lad was likely beyond what little aid she could offer. The living needed her now.