Clementine (The Clockwork Century 1.10)

13

“Well I’ll be damned,” the captain said from the bridge of the Free Crow. “That crazy little woman made it out in one piece. ” He pointed down at the flat-roofed outbuilding, and the woman with the child on her hip. “That must be the boy she was talking about. Look, she’s sending him off. ”

Simeon said, “Still no sign of Brink. Where’d you lose him?”

“Down there someplace. ” Hainey swung his hand around, using his fingers to point out a general area to the east of the outbuilding. “He can’t have gone too far. I winged him, I’m pretty sure. ”

“What bit of him did you wing?” Lamar asked.

“Shoulder, I think. ”

The first mate shrugged and said, “He might run quite a ways with just a scratch on him. You should’ve aimed lower. ”

“I was running,” Hainey groused. “Through a bunch of trees. You’ll have to pardon my lack of precision. ”

“No one’s criticizing it,” Simeon said. “I was only saying, a winged kneecap would have dragged him a lot better. ” He jammed his feet down on the pedals and slowed the craft, letting it pivot almost in place, the windshield scrolling a panorama of the scene.

The captain grumbled, “Too many goddamned trees. Too many goddamned leaves. I can’t see a thing on the ground except for her,” he cocked his head down towards Maria.

“Speaking of her,” Lamar said, drawing down a lever that would aim the engines at a slightly different tilt. “It looks like they’ve got her cornered. ”

“Where? Who?” he asked, even as he spotted the blue uniforms scuttling out of the woods. “Oh hell. ”

Simeon said with a small degree of pleasure, “They’re going to shoot her. ”

“Or arrest her,” the captain halfway argued. “She’s been arrested plenty of times before. Maybe that’s all they’ll do. ”

Then, as she turned tail and ran, even up inside the Free Crow he could hear the soldiers open fire.

“Well shit,” Hainey swore.

“Captain,” Simeon said warily, “You’re not thinking…”

He said grouchily, “Yes, I’m thinking. Lamar, how are the front swivel guns?”

“Um…” the engineer squinted at a set of gauges and said, “Mostly full. Not totally full, but mostly. We’ve got enough shot to give her some cover, if that’s what you want. ”

He struggled with something for a minute, then said, “Yes, that’s what I want. Strafe the strip behind her—keep them in the clearing, let her get a lead on them. ”

“But sir!” Simeon objected.

“I asked her for one favor in parting, and she paid it. She turned Brink loose for me when she could’ve shot him and saved herself a little peril. The least we can do is cover her getaway while we look for the thief. ”

“Fine,” Simeon sulked, and he pulled a panel with munitions controls into his lap. “Left front-gun, stable. Tilt forty-five degrees, set. ”

Hainey yelled, “Fire!”

And the Free Crow gently bucked as its front gun strafed the clearing floor behind Belle Boyd, who was now nothing more than a pale streak dashing between the trees. One soldier went down immediately, caught in the path of descending bullets; and another dodged in time to fling himself on the grass and cover his head.

“Where’s she going?” Hainey asked no one in particular.

But Lamar answered, “She’s running toward the sanatorium. At least, she’s running in that direction. ”

From their sky-high vantage point Hainey could see that this was going to work out poorly for the woman. The sanatorium was buzzing with activity…and with soldiers, yelling orders and herding each other out into a defensive formation. The spy was running straight for them, though none of her other options looked any good either. Behind her, the captain spotted a contingent of Union reinforcements coming up over the hill; they were fanning out as they closed in.

“She’s a dead woman,” Simeon observed.

Below, she stopped as if she’d heard him.