Abominations (44 page)

      “Curly here, she can do it. Charged a one-eighty earlier for the thruster we had down in less than twenty minutes, Cap. Full from dead. A side-step conductor will be slower, but I think she can do it.” She shook her head. “Sir... Circumstance dire. We have to do what we can to help, even at the risk of our own lives. Those people are civilians. I know that no pilot's going to love the idea of trying to hold a docking position while turning like that, but...” Palms went up, one of them holding the copper strip she'd been working on.

      The man turned to Gwen then and stared for about fifteen seconds. After a while a bemused look came across his face.

      “So, uh, Curly, do you think you can do this? I know how terrified you are of heights...”

      Gloria looked at her, surprised, but didn't say anything.

      Right, Gwen thought, that fear of heights that Katherine had. Not her fear, not that she loved the idea of dangling from a string thousands of feet in the air either, but she could do it. She hoped she could at least. It looked like she'd have to, unless someone came up with another idea.

      “Yeah. I'm not claiming I won't need a change of underwear when I get back, but I'll do it. I know that I'll be scared. I won't freeze though. Not when so many lives depend on me. Not even if it means I die trying. But, you know, let's avoid that if at all possible. I've done enough almost dying to last for a while. Plus, let's ask if they have anyone that can do it first, before sending me...” She gave them a grim smile. “So, how do we get me there if it comes to that?”

      It turned out that all they needed to do, other than dangle her over the side of the other ship, was approach, match the other vessel's speed and turn, holding a steady distance, then deploy a docking bridge, kind of like a rope ladder that you could send a few people across, though the oldsters and kids on the other ship probably couldn't make it across safely, she might be able to, if she were careful enough. This kind of maneuver was actually pretty normal, what they'd planned originally when the call came in three odd hours before. Without trying to match a turn while doing it of course.

      The operation went more smoothly than they could have hoped with the docking. Beth took the helm and the Admiral crossed the perilous bridge with her, amazed at how well she did. She let him see her start to shake, which she didn't have to fake. She noticed that she'd started to sweat enough that it showed through her clothes, under her arms. Once across she walked to where Katherine's uncle stood talking to a man in a nice, but slightly overdone, Captain's uniform. Gold braid on the shoulders and shining gold buttons on a deep blue jacket with white pants. Smitty followed right behind her. The second she got off the bridge. They explained that two people walking on it at once would be a very bad idea, but didn't say why. She just trusted them on the point. If it could break under the weight or something, she didn't really want to know until she had both feet on the ground again.

      “We have rope ready, and men to raise and lower it, is this the volunteer?” The Captain said with a thick accent, pointing at Smitty, who'd walked up behind her, having crossed the bridge much faster than she had.

      “No, Kate here's going down, no one else aboard can charge the crystal fast enough to get you landed before the storm hits, and you said the same is true of your own people here?” The Admiral looked proud. “She's terrified of heights, so I think we'd best do this fast, don't you think?”

      The crew of the Merriment may have worked for morons that took too many shortcuts, she thought, but they had more than a rope ready, a complete harness rig on a winch set up. The men hesitated to touch her at first, which she understood, because everyone had always done that. Then she remembered where she was and shook herself. They weren't avoiding contact because she looked ugly, but because by the rules here she was unchaperoned as far as they knew, so none of them would touch her and this airliner, while it may have women working on it somewhere, didn't have any of them there to get her tied in.

      Stupid rules given the situation.

      “Uncle Thomas! Come stand here so these men can tie me in.” He turned and jogged over, leaving the Captain hanging mid-sentence. She didn't have to explain the problem to him. His culture, so they were his rules too.

      The Merriment's Captain walked over, muttering something about her being the Admiral's niece. She didn't listen, trying to rehearse what she needed to do in her mind, like she would a fight in practice if she had time, or breaking a board with her hand or foot. See it first, then do it, she reminded herself, something she used to say quite a bit to herself.

      Once they could act the men had her harnessed and ready in about thirty seconds. Smitty took twice that long checking and then rechecking each part of the rig including making sure the line and the winch were also tied down. They were, but it did make her feel better to know for sure.

      She climbed over the rail and went down slowly, being lowered rather than having to climb under her own power. The twist of the rope started to turn her toward the side of the ship, she stopped this by simply putting her right foot out and dragging it as they lowered her, it left a faint line as her sole slid, but if anyone wanted to complain about it later, after they landed, they could. It would be a lot easier to wash the side of the huge airship than to bring people back from the dead. From the deck to the thruster wasn't too far, only about twenty feet. From the thruster to the ground, about four thousand, true, but she tried to keep her focus on the task at hand. After all, she mused a bit darkly, if she fell off the damned thruster, she'd have plenty of time to think about it before she got to the ground. Plus, she was tied in. It was safe. Probably safer than just walking around on the deck even.

      Her left foot hit the thruster, the metal thinner than she'd thought, even after touching the one earlier, it popped a little and bent under her weight as she settled onto it, a leg on either side. Pulling out the flat edged screwdriver from the back of her belt where it had been secured she started prying the plate off of the thruster housing. It tried to stick a little, but she'd been warned that might happen and told to go ahead and rip into it if she had to. It came free after being worked back and forth for about a minute.

      Now she just had to get the copper piece wedged between the metal of the crystal's end cap on the charging end and the housing itself, so that there would be a solid connection. This meant, Gloria had shown her, that she's need to get a full inch of metal into a very tight space. She'd marked off an inch on the metal with a small etched line for Gwen to use as a guide, rather than trying to just guess.

      Inserting the piece carefully, it stopped about half an inch too short and no amount of wiggling seemed to get it to go any further in. She tried hitting the copper piece with the wooden handle of the screwdriver, but that just dented the handle and didn't make the metal do anything at all. Finally, she took the housing plate she'd pried up, currently held under her right leg, and put it flat on the top of the copper piece. Then, steeling herself, she began pounding with her fist, trying to hit through the metal plate, just like she would have if it were a set of pine boards or bricks.

      On the tenth hit, her fist bruised on the side and wrist aching, the whole thing went down several inches suddenly. Pulling the plate away, she saw that the copper had bent. The scratched-on line had vanished though, meaning it had gotten deep enough, she hoped it had at least. She put the now bent and dented plate cover back under her leg to hold it in place and focused on a single spot of copper, just where it bent, hoping that the stressed metal wouldn't change the flow rate somehow.

      She lost herself in the attempt to push power into the crystal, even forgetting that she sat on a flimsy feeling metal tube hanging high in the air. When she came back to herself, she guessed that enough time had probably gone past and called for the men to winch her up. Gwen carried the cover plate with her, because it wouldn't fit back over the crystal now. It would have to be replaced. Oops.

      The rest would, at least hopefully, take care of itself now.

      Back on deck, her uncle and Smitty got her out of the harness quickly. Luckily the Admiral knew what had to be done then and reminded the Captain, who he treated politely even if the man had been responsible for the situation the ship found itself in at the moment, of exactly what needed to happen next and in what order.

      First they'd go back to their own ship, drop the bridge on the Merriment's side, break away from the larger ship so that it could engage the now charged thruster and straighten out. Then they'd re-dock, and transfer the crystal that had been loaded for the passenger craft. Easy.

      This went awry almost instantly, as the First mate of the Merriment decided to try out the thruster Gwen had just charged for some reason, possibly forgetting the two craft were connected by the flimsy bridge. That or the moron was too stupid to be allowed to pilot anything larger than a tricycle. The huge ship began to right itself immediately, pulling the bridge tight. Both the Captain and Uncle Thomas went white, and some of the crew members began yelling, a few even screamed, though in a fairly manful way. A good, deep sound register out of them, Gwen noticed.

      The Peregrine readjusted perfectly, letting the bigger ship gain a better course and simply matched it, almost as if they were one ship. Once it had pulled straight, the big ship started rocking back and forth, a side to side wiggle it felt like to Gwen, but each time, the smaller ship merely matched it without hesitation. After six or seven of these the big ship found a stable position, finally just hanging in space.

      They hurried back, the Admiral taking Gwen with him to the bridge, after explaining that the piloting they'd just seen had been technically impossible, and that he'd left Beth in charge. When they got there the Westmorland sat unmoving, barely blinking, hands ready on the controls.

      “What's wrong with her?” Uncle Thomas asked softly.

      “One of her work states. If you could take the con?”

      Pulling a large metal and wood lever, he locked the controls in place, explaining what he did, then stood back.

      “Bethany? Would you return to your normal state now?”

      She did, smiling up at Gwen. Standing suddenly, she gave Gwen a small hug and told them what had happened.

      “Everything was just fine until the Merriment started the thruster you charged. Then I had to trigger my intuitive state to handle it. Since we're all still here, I take it that worked? Good work by the way! I wasn't sure you could manage a charge sitting out there, to tell the truth. That kind of focus in a novel or fear inducing situation is rare. This was both.” Bethany gave her a look that spoke of respect and pride. The Admiral's expression looked similar when Gwen glanced at him, feeling odd and not knowing how to respond to open praise.

      Gwen impulsively gave Beth a hug in return and then mentioned that she should get back to the loading dock, since they still had to get the crystal pack over to the other ship and while she didn't know what her part in that would really be, they were still facing the same deadline as before. Beth threw her a salute and said dismissed, so chuckling a bit, feeling a little giddy from the excitement, Gwen left.

      The loading dock was a flurry of activity, everyone moving quickly, obviously knowing what they were doing, so she stood back, waiting to help if needed. The cradle they used before had been engaged, not to move it out the back, but onto a rolling cart, to which it was tied down quickly. When secure, Gloria looked at her and grinned.

      “Curly, Smitty, push this rock for us. Meter you're up in lead. Everyone else follow onto the stairs and get ready to catch at the top.”