Clementine (The Clockwork Century 1.10)

They walked into the woods as quietly as they’d emerged, and then they were gone.

Hainey hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath, but he had, and he let it out to say, “That was strange. ”

His first mate sniffed. “Brink must not be much of a captain. Or maybe he’s all right to his white men, and not the rest. ”

“There’s no telling,” Hainey said, with a tone that said he didn’t give a damn one way or the other. He strained under the weight of the Rattler, which was hard enough to balance when he was moving about—and as a stationary load, it was even worse to hold. “I wish we could’ve asked them about who else was on board, though. ”

/> “They’ve got the one beat-up fellow outside. He won’t give us too much hassle,” Simeon said.

“Shot up,” Lamar corrected him. “And Brink, and probably a first mate. It might be three against three. ”

“Four against three,” Hainey said, and he patted the Rattler. “Let’s go. ”

The three men sneaked back behind the airship and then, on the captain’s signal, they rushed down the last of the hill and into the landing zone.

Simeon had his revolver up, loaded, and ready to fire; Lamar held a rifle that was poised to blow a hole in the first something or someone that got in his way. Hainey’s footsteps were twice as heavy as usual, and his shoulders screamed as the Rattler dug into them hard, jarring sinew and bone with every stride.

The injured Mr. Guise heard the oncoming rush when Hainey was still ten yards out; but bound in his bandages as he was, there was little he could do except yelp for his captain.

“Brink! Captain Brink!” he shouted.

“What now?”

“Company—” he said, though the last bit of the concluding “y” was sliced off by a bullet from Simeon. The bullet went straight through Guise’s throat and his head snapped back. His body toppled onto the hard foundation and bounced there, and except for the gurgling and the spreading blood, it didn’t otherwise make a scene.

“Jesus Christ!” a man declared from within the belly of the Free Crow. “Hold them off, I’ve almost got it!”

“They won’t shoot—not in here, not with the hydrogen!”

But outside, the Rattler was warming up. Its telltale whirring hum was cranking up to a faster grade and a higher pitch, and it would take nothing but the squeeze of a trigger to pepper the craft and all its occupants with bullets as long as a man’s palm.

“It’s Hainey!” someone announced, and through the front window glass, the captain spied a meaty, dark-haired man with a glare in his eyes and a deep frown cut into his face.

“Who else would it be?” said someone else, presumably Brink. “Draw up the bay stairs!” he ordered.

But Hainey wouldn’t have it. He said, “Help me, Sim. Help me aim,” and he guided the man with his eyes.

The first mate caught on fast, and braced his back against the captain’s. “Got the back end, sir. You point it, it’ll hold steady. ”

And the captain squeezed the flat, wide trigger. A stream of ghastly firepower gushed in a line that strafed the bay stairs, cutting them into pieces—and then, on a second pass, tearing them altogether from their fittings. Over his shoulder, Hainey said, “We can fix that later!”

Above the din of the Rattler they heard the Free Crow’s engines hack to life. Brink had given the order to take off if they couldn’t hold their ground, but the ship was still moored and there hadn’t been time to manually disengage the hooks. The craft tried to rise but only lifted itself a few feet before the hitch squealed an objection, and the pipes leaned against the force of the engines and their thrust.

Like an unhappily snagged balloon, the craft lunged and heaved—doglike, at the end of a leash; it yanked with the fury of a horse strapped into an unwanted bit.

“Those docks won’t hold!” Lamar shouted.

“They’ll hold long enough!” A man swayed at the edge of the bay docks and caught himself on the edge, half out, and half inside the bucking ship.

“Sim!” the captain screamed, and the first mate braced himself, and he braced the Rattler, and the captain began firing again.

The burst took off part of the man’s arm and tore through his torso; when he fell he landed with a splat, not far from the body of Mr. Guise. Whoever he was—and Hainey felt certain that this was Parks, the first mate—he wasn’t dead and he even tried to rise enough to run. He hadn’t fallen far, only ten or twenty feet, and an arm was only an arm…though his side gushed with gore as he struggled to stand and move.

Hainey was having none of it.

A second carefully measured burst blew the man off his feet and sent him sprawling over the edge of the landing pad, no longer alive enough to bleed or run.

“Felton Brink!” Hainey roared.