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Part 12: STORM FRONT
The constant cloud cover was a drag for both landlubbers and airmen alike, Maira knew. While those on the ground never saw sunlight – unless they were lucky enough to live near a spear – the folks who plied the skies had to navigate via bright beacons of expensive light, or try to keep a log of dead reckoning to their destination, watching the compass point closely and keeping a steady hand on the wheel.
The advent of radio had been a boon for the skyfaring captain. Now radio signals could pinpoint the way, and radar beacons giving off unique pulses allowed a savvy airman to triangulate their position with unerring precision.
Maira thought about this as the Fallen Star surfed the crest of the clouds. There was nothing but dense jungle and the occasional light beacon for days, and between the last refuge and Medicine Leaf it was practically a straight shot to the docks. She locked the wheel in place and left the helm.
Outside the wind whistled by, demonstrating the pace of the ship. It tugged at Maira’s hair, tied back in a ponytail, and whipped up the hem of her jacket. She looked around as she walked – nothing but grey cloud in sight.
She made her way to the captain’s quarters and stared out of the rear-facing window; the bell took up the top third of the view, almost alive as it rippled and moved in the breeze. Below that was the engine bay, where Ham and Lance were talking.
Despite his reservations, Ham had eagerly taken Lance on as an apprentice engineer. Maira watched as they discussed readout valves, fuelling the engine, and changing the light canister for the light engine; she felt an ache in her chest as her mood soured.
She sighed and turned to the desk. Glancing briefly at the magnetic disk on top, she knelt and rooted around in one of the drawers; at last she pulled out a square travel-case, cheap and much-used. Its once-white leather outer was now closer to cream in colour from sun-bleaching, and much of the hide had worn away or flaked off to reveal the cheap cardboard it covered. She opened it up – it was one-third full of stoppered bottles, each bearing a measure of dark red liquid. Plenty to last until Medicine Leaf. She took one and replaced the box, carefully closing the desk drawer. She pocketed the bottle and took it back with her to the helm.
Little had changed in the forward view when she took hold of the wheel again and unlocked it. As it shifted slightly with the warping bell she compensated, and there was a gentle lurch which she grimaced at – Ham was sure to radio about it. Sure enough, it crackled to life and a worried voice asked, ‘Everything okay, captain?’
Maira locked the wheel again and moved to the radio.
‘Just fine, Ham,’ she said. ‘Still getting used to the steering.’ She rolled her eyes as she clicked the radio off. She unlocked the wheel again, this time bracing stiffly, only for the wind to roll it the other way – the ship lurched the other way and Maira staggered as she tried to pull it back.
‘I can send the kid up if you want,’ Ham’s voice suggested. Maira swore; she locked the wheel again and stomped over to the radio.
‘Keep him down there,’ she said. ‘I want to see you at the helm.’
‘Yes captain,’ Ham replied meekly. The radio clicked off and Maira immediately felt terrible. But she sighed and returned to the wheel. It gave another little lurch and she kicked the old wooden support.
She glanced out of the window – through the haze of irritation she saw a twist of cloud rising up over the usual banks of grey. Something looked off about it…
‘You wanted to see me, captain?’
She glanced back. Ham stood in the doorway, looking mollified and slightly hunched, and Maira reminded herself privately that he was a lot more experienced in the air than she was. She sighed again.
‘I need you to lay off, Ham,’ she said. ‘You told me you wouldn’t give me any more advice, but comments like that over the radio undermine my authority.’ Ham shrugged helplessly.
‘Maira, I’m looking after the safety of the ship,’ he said. ‘A lurch like that at the wrong time, it could send us careening into the ground!’
‘I know!’ Maira snapped. She huffed a sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘I know,’ she continued, holding out a placating hand, ‘but I’m used to the little cargo barges – this thing steers like a cow by comparison, and it doesn’t have all those assistive mechanics the newer ships do. It’s pure brute strength to steer it, Ham.’ Ham approached, put his hand on the wheel softly, almost fondly.
‘I’ve steered her plenty in my time, Maira,’ he said softly. ‘Why don’t you go down, coach the kid on engines some? I can take over here.’ Maira gritted her teeth, hands on hips. The sky darkened outside.
‘Ham, I don’t know engines! I need you down there to teach him, and I need to be up here steering. This is a milk run – I doubt we’re gonna hit anything to shock us out here, and it’s practically a straight shot to Medicine Leaf. This is the best time for me to get a handle on the steering, figure out how this thing reacts to the winds and learn to compensate. Now: do you have any tips for me, or should I send you back to the engine bay?’ Ham sighed and rolled his eyes.
‘Maira, you’re-’
‘It’s captain!’ Maira snapped. The wheel creaked, and she glanced at her hand, which was gripping a spoke with enough force that her knuckles were turning white. She realised she was pulling against Ham’s hold and released – the wheel spun against him and he grunted as it twisted his wrist, before catching it in his other hand and hauling it back to true. For a moment her eyes widened – she wanted to dart forwards, to make sure his arm was okay. But Ham glowered at her.
‘What’s the big idea, Captain?’ Ham cried, practically spitting the title. ‘You could’ve broken my arm with that!’
Any semblance of sorrow evaporated. Maira fixed him with a dark glare, then turned to the radio.
‘Lock the damn wheel and get back to the engines,’ she ordered, holding the headphones up to one ear. ‘I need to make sure we’re still on course, this wind is pulling us every which thundering way!’
She listened carefully, using the tiller to alter the angle of the aerial and pick up the signals from the nearby radio towers. ‘Stupid damn thing, who put it in this dark corner,’ she muttered to herself, squinting at the map as she tried to pinpoint the beacons. Ham sighed, deflating once again, and locked the wheel.
‘As you say, captain,’ he said. He paused in the doorway, and turned back to add, ‘you know, Maira, you’d do well to learn how to speak to your crew.’
Maira let out a noise that was all anger and frustration, throwing down the headset, and she was on the verge of unleashing a tirade on Ham, when the crew radio crackled into life.
‘Uhhh, Captain?’ Lance’s voice quavered through. ‘Not to impugn your expertise or anything, but I’m seeing a thunderhead coming over the top of the ship – do we have any plans on landing this thing?’
‘Thunderhead?’ Ham asked. He and Maira shared a glance, and then looked at the wide front window.
There, framed between the two forward cannons, an enormous thundercloud reared up in the direct path of the Fallen Star, casting a shadow deep into the helm. It twisted up like a tornado, the winds spinning it like a top.
‘Shit!’ Maira yelled, grabbing the crew radio and yanking off the comms table. ‘Ham, get down to the engines and make sure the kid’s roped up – radio me as soon as you’re tied on and the turn the damn thing off and stay away from it! As soon as you radio we’re going down into the storm.’
Ham started, then nodded, breaking into an asthmatic sprint. He disappeared from the room as Maira set the radio by the wheel. She set herself, taking a rope from across her chest and wrapping it around her waist. Then she tied it to the wheelpost, grabbed the wheel and kicked the lock free – the wheel groaned as the rudder tried to follow the bell but she forced it on a straight path, allowing the winds to buffet them towards the storms western edge. As it approached the ship rattled, and for a moment it looked like they were going to breach the cloud – but the radio crackled into life.
‘We’re roped in captain!’ Ham’s voice came through clear and urgent. ‘Do what you need to do!’ It clicked off, and Maira took a deep breath and let the wheel go.
The ship groaned like a dying whale as it span suddenly into the wind, travelling with it. Maira kept her eyes open, watching the storm front as they turned away from it. The wheel was spinning fast – too much of this and it would set fire to the post, or simply break the rudder – there was only one thing to do…
Maira remembered the instruction she’d been given the first time, from that captain on whose ship her father had got her work: when you do something like this, you’ve gotta go all in. There’s no half measures – you just bloody your knuckles until you learn to get it spot on…
Maira had never had the time to learn fully. She sucked in a breath as the spokes cracked against her knuckles, but she avoided broken fingers from the next spokes slamming into them, instead catching them and going with them just enough to slow the spin…
She sighed as she levelled the rudder back to true, and there was a lurch – though this time not from the wind or the wheel, but from the ship descending into the clouds.
The Fallen Star rattled and rumbled as it passed through the clouds, the glass suddenly spattered with rain which drove against the windscreen and lashed across the catwalks, thudding over the bell like the report of a gunners’ battalion. Maira hardly dared blink, even as lightning flashes lit up clouds and scattered weak light across the darkness, giving depth to the shadows. For long minutes she listened to the groaning wood as the ship twisted and buffeted in the wind, only the darkness of the clouds and the drumming of the rain for company. She did not let go of the wheel, allowing it to turn a little to keep within the path of the cyclone winds, but always driving onwards, past the storm, trying to put it behind her and her ship.
Maira gritted her teeth, knuckles white, as the frame creaked and the warp of the balloon drove them down and to port, beginning a dive out of the clouds; and almost at once she saw the rainforest, coming up too fast, rain-lashed trees bent almost double from the wind. She dug her heels in and span the wheel hard a-port, leaning into the dive in an attempt to arrest their descent or at least to slow it enough to soften the landing, and as she did so a lance of lightning lit up the landscape ever so briefly.
Her eyes caught the distant sight of the port, still more than a day’s flight distant; but between here and there, close to – perhaps just close enough to reach in this precarious flight – was a rough circle in the trees, a hollow of clear ground.
A clearing.
Maira levelled off and grabbed the radio.
‘Ham!’ she called. ‘Ham! Dammit, engines!’
No response. The wind was picking up, lifting the ship away and up, threatening to rip the bell from its moorings. Maira looked around desperately for any way to signal to the engines.
Another lightning flash. Maira’s eyes lit upon an old brass-barrelled gun set in the wall hooks by the radio station. It was considered vital equipment on any airship – one shot only, but it was the last shot you were going to take. How long had it sat idle here? Would it even work?
Maira cut herself loose, stumbling with the ship’s movement, and locked the wheel before lurching over to the map table. Catching herself on it, she groaned and pulled the gun from its place, running for the door.
Out in the doorway the rain drove sideways, plastering her coat and hair, the wind threatening to rip the gun from her hand. It was impossibly loud out here – along with the warping wood and the howling wind, the metal of the gangways was groaning and rattling, and she could hear the whip and the snap of the thick wires which held the bell in place. There was one attached to the ship a dozen paces back – Maira started as it gave way, whipping across the catwalk and knocking it loose of its moorings in several places. She grabbed the rail with her free hand as the plates beneath her feet juddered, aiming at the sky forward of the bell – it was important this didn’t hit the canvas, or somehow disappear inside the balloon, because it could burn the canvas to nothing in minutes.
Maira remembered a story from her father’s time, one of those dramatic ones where they were dodging corpo cops left and right, and he’d resorted to this when the ship’s communications were hit. But that time they’d had time to discuss the plan before they tried it, and he’d been captaining for more than a decade and he knew the ship intimately; this time she was shooting on the spur of the moment, with two crew who’d had no time to pre-arrange signals.
She only hoped they’d remember the story she was thinking about.
She pulled back the hammer, aimed skywards, and fired.
Instead of the harsh red light she’d expected, the gun launched a ball of blackened smoke which almost blended with the thunderclouds. Maira stared at it in shock and panic, and hopelessness set in; she’d been so sure! This should’ve worked! But that flare gun had been sitting in that rack for decades and she and Ham had barely looked at it, hadn’t even considered if flares have use-by dates. Maybe the gunpowder had gone off, maybe the powders they used to get the specific strong, long-lasting red light had leaked out – anything could’ve…
She was admonishing herself for such a terrible plan for about the third time when the projectile reached its zenith, and the powder burned down enough to break the ampoule concealed within the flare. The world exploded in a burst of hot, bright light, as bright as the sun and burning as hard, high above the bell of the ship. Maira blinked and stared at it, until that and the rain burned her eyes and she looked away hastily. She shook. Her legs felt like they would not keep her up because her plan had worked after all, it was going to work! She let out an involuntary chuckle, which devolved into helpless, relieved laughter, and she leaned on the railing for support.
The signal had worked!
It didn’t even occur to her that either Ham or Lance would have to understand the signal until the ship gave one final, desperate lurch, the woodwork crying out in anguish, and dropped like a stone towards the forest floor.