Balanced on the Blades Edge #2 Deathmaker (14 page)

“They want to destroy it?” Cas slumped. She wasn’t surprised—there were standing orders not to let the power crystals fall into enemy hands—but that had been her ride home. If they blew it up, she wouldn’t have a way to escape.

A bomb landed on the building next to hers. It exploded on impact, and rubble flew in a thousand directions. Cas dropped to her belly, throwing her hands over her head. As the squadron swooped across the outpost, bullets and explosives laying waste to the structures and docked ships, she stopped worrying about escape and started worrying about surviving. To the fast-moving fliers, she had to appear as nothing more than one more pirate to be exterminated.

The locals had found their posts, and the booms of cannons and explosives roared above the buzz of the propellers. Guns fired from the decks of the individual airships too. The fliers weaved, making hard targets, but their maneuverability was limited between the envelopes and the building-filled outpost itself.

More shrapnel clattered down on Cas’s rooftop. She didn’t know where it was coming from this time, but staying up there wasn’t safe.

When another wolf-nosed craft streaked in her direction, she rolled to the edge and scrambled down into the street. It didn’t fire near her though; it was aiming toward the salvaged flier. The seaweed- and grime-covered craft had already been damaged with that first explosive, and its cockpit lay torn open like a flower shredded by the wind. Yet a glow came from its engine compartment. The crystal powering it must have survived even after years in the ocean. Cas grimaced again, knowing she might have been able to get the craft working and flown home. It was too late now.

In an impressive feat of piloting, the flier weaved between the gunfire of two deck-mounted artillery weapons, dropping a pair of hooks on cables as it flew. The pilot was going to pluck out the energy source—or try anyway. Those crystals were securely mounted into their slots.

Cas leaned to the side, squinted, and was finally able to read the numbers stenciled on the side.

“W-83?” she blurted. That was Colonel Zirkander’s flier.

Was he back? Or was someone flying it for him? The pilot wore a helmet and goggles—it was impossible to tell from a distance, but that craft
was
weaving and dipping in his style of semi-controlled recklessness.

The hooks missed on the craft’s first pass, scraping the surface of the crystal but not finding purchase. By now, the gunners were aiming at it almost exclusively, despite two wingmen flying nearby, trying to take out the nearest artillery weapons. A cannon fired, the black ball blasting past W-14—Captain Crash Haksor—and heading straight for 83. It skimmed across the cockpit.

“It’s getting too hot,” Cas whispered. “Get out of there.”

The squadron might have taken the outpost by surprise, but that was wearing off now. More than that, the pirates seemed to have recognized what the 83 meant too. All of the cannons and guns on that side of the outpost were locking in on Zirkander’s craft. Two of the launched airships were moving away from their berths and veering in that direction too. A pair of large doors, or perhaps sliding panels, had opened at one corner of the outpost. A thunk-clank sounded and a bulky machine rose from the compartment, some giant cup-shaped apparatus holding netting. It almost looked like an old-fashioned catapult. Whatever it was, that netting was more sophisticated than the hammock Cas had tossed over that kid’s head. A big enough net hurled at a flier could be trouble.

The streets were deserted around her now, with all of the pirates manning a station or back on their ships. With her pistol in hand, Cas ran toward the catapult. She had some vague idea of helping by disabling it. More than that, she wanted Zirkander, or whoever was flying his rig, to
notice
her helping. There wasn’t room in a flier for a second person, but she would jump on the back and cling to the top of the cockpit if it would get her home.

She hadn’t run more than two blocks before a gang of pirates stalked out of an alley with bags and chests balanced over their shoulders. They all carried swords or pistols too. She tried to veer around them to continue past, hoping that in the chaos they wouldn’t notice her, or at least wouldn’t identify her as anything other than a fellow pirate.

But one pointed at her and yelled, “Witness. Get her!”

Witness, what?

Several guns were aimed in her direction. Her instincts took over, and she threw herself into a roll, angling toward the closest cover: a street lamp. Guns fired, and bullets skipped off the pavement around her. She lunged to her feet, firing as she ducked behind the post. It wasn’t that thick, but she wasn’t that thick, either. Besides, there were no other options nearby. Aiming by instinct, and years of experience, she leaned out slightly and fired three times in rapid succession. They fired back. One of their bullets clipped the lamp fixture, and glass exploded over her head. All she did was lean closer to the post and shoot around it twice more.

“Cover,” one of the men yelled, “find cover.”

She thought this was a reflection of her marksmanship—three men were writhing on the ground, after all—but the buzz of propellers hammered her ears as a flier roared over the nearest building. The pirates stopped firing at her, dropped their burdens, and ran for an alley.

As much as Cas would have liked to jump on and get a ride, she doubted the pilot would recognize her. Who was that? Lieutenant Sparks? Smoke combined with the fog to turn the air a soupy gray that made it hard to see more than fifteen meters. She waved anyway, glancing over her shoulder, as she ran. The craft laid down bullets, obliterating the bags and boxes the pirates had abandoned—and obliterating some of the men she had injured as well.

Cas gulped and lunged into the alley—on the opposite side of the street from the pirates—and raced for the next block. Only when she glanced back to check for pursuers, did she notice the gold coins and small treasures that had spilled out of the dumped cargo. Those men must have been taking advantage of the chaos to loot. From their own people. What heroes.

Cas reloaded her pistol and started toward the catapult again. The side of the landing pad and the railing marking the end of the outpost platform were visible at the end of her street. The net-weapon, if it hadn’t already fired its load, would be off to the right. A couple more blocks, and she could reach it. And help her comrades—and maybe be noticed by her comrades. She wasn’t ready to give up on the idea of rescue.

Before she reached the end of the street, a great explosion thundered not fifty meters away from her. The ground—a floating platform thousands of feet above the ocean, she was reminded—heaved like a wave, nearly hurling Cas into the nearest building. Shrapnel pummeled the pavement, some pieces so large they could have killed a man. She ducked into a doorway for protection. A head-sized piece of black pavement slammed down two feet away, its ragged edges smoldering. More chunks hammered the street. The whole platform seemed to tilt downward now. What had they blown up? More than a building that time.

Cas poked her head out of the doorway long enough to look toward the landing pad.

“Oh.” The landing pad was gone. The whole open area she had been aiming toward was gone, too, including at least one of the giant propellers that helped the outpost remain aloft. For the first time, she worried that the squadron might succeed in utterly destroying the floating city. “Not a goal I’d normally object to, but now...” She eyed the six giant balloons above.
They
at least seemed stable still, some coating doubtlessly protecting them from the bullets. She was surprised any of the fliers had carried explosives powerful enough to destroy the landing pad and the surrounding platform. Then another, “Oh,” slipped out of her mouth. The power crystal. If the colonel hadn’t been able to extract it, he might have blown it up. Yes, she had seen one destroyed before. That had been in the air rather than on the ground, but the explosion had sent a shockwave that she had felt, flying far behind the lead craft.

After the debris quit hammering the street, Cas slipped out of hiding, changing her plan. In case the platform
was
on its way into the ocean far below, she needed to get to one of the ships. As much as she loathed the idea, that might mean returning to Captain Slaughter. He wouldn’t be tickled to see her after she had started that fire, but where else could she go? She wouldn’t be able to sneak onto anything now; all of the pirates would be aboard and fighting. She didn’t even know if any of the ships were left in dock. She halted, groaning as she remembered that Slaughter’s ship had left to deal with the fire.

“Nice job, L.T.,” she grumbled to herself. “Sabotage the ship you need to get away in.”

She jogged in the direction she had last seen it anyway. Or started to. Another explosion came from that side of the outpost. It wasn’t as violent as the last one, but it filled the sky with more black smoke. It was one of the smaller airships, one that was—she snorted—flying a yellow-and-blue Iskandian flag. Or at least it had been. That flag, its pole shattered, was fluttering to the pavement where what remained of the craft was berthed. What remained wasn’t much. Little more than a charred, smoking husk. No less than six fliers sailed away from the destroyed craft, their mission apparently accomplished.

Strange. What had been on that ship that had demanded such attention? Cas had assumed the salvaged flier was the main mission—keeping it and its crystal from being sold to the highest bidder for study—but perhaps that had been a side mission, or even a diversion?

The pirates had marshaled their forces now, and four airships, cannons and guns blazing, chased after the six Wolf Squadron pilots. Smoke drifted from the wing of one flier and from the engine area of another. Cas clenched a fist, silently willing them to get out of there. She couldn’t tell whose craft those were through the smoke and the distance, but she didn’t want to hear of any of her comrades going down.

They seemed to be done with their mission, though, and were forming up to fly away. Smoke notwithstanding, all twelve fliers were accounted for. The pirate ships sailed after them in pursuit, but couldn’t match their speed. One after another, the fliers disappeared into the fog.

A lump formed in her throat. They were going home... and she wasn’t. Had anyone even noticed she was here?

Someone grabbed Cas from behind, pulling her off her feet and toting her toward an alley. She tried to wrench herself free even as she lifted her pistol to aim over her shoulder. A hand clamped down, pinning hers in an awkward position, her finger off the trigger.

A shot fired, but it wasn’t hers. A bullet smashed into the corrugated metal corner of a building, a building she had been standing next to seconds before. Standing and staring, without paying attention to her surroundings.

“It’s me,” spoke a familiar voice in her ear. “You’re about to be the most wanted person on this station. What remains of it.”

Cas stopped her struggles, though she wasn’t sure Tolemek was an ally after what she had done to his ship. Hells, she hadn’t been sure he was an ally before, either. Someone she was using in the same manner as he intended to use her, perhaps. Still, he had just pulled her out of the line of fire.

“I don’t suppose you have a suggestion on how to deal with this new problem?” she asked.

For the first time in she didn’t know how many minutes, the noise was fading around them—the cannons had stopped booming and the guns still firing were on the ships flying after the squadron, their noise muffled by distance and the fog.

“Yeah,” Tolemek said. “Hide.”

“Hide?” Fleeing had figured more prominently in her mind.

“The captain will need time to repair the ship, which was damaged even
before
the attack.” His face was next to hers, since his arm was still holding her against his torso, so he couldn’t glare at her, but he was probably trying to anyway.

At least he didn’t seem furious about the fact. But then, he could be hiding it. Cas had seen him vent frustration, however briefly, in that empty library, but when it came to dealing with people, she had a feeling he was the type who could be utterly furious with a person yet never show it... until it was too late for his target to respond.

“I won’t be able to protect you, either,” Tolemek went on, “not after your squadron just laid waste to half the ships in dock. Hells, they’ll want to lynch me when they find out I brought you here. Unfortunately, we can’t leave until the captain does some repairs. So, yes. Hide.”

“On the station, or off? I only ask because I’m questioning the air worthiness of this outpost right now.”

“It’s not going to drop out of the sky. I’ve seen the blueprints; there’s a lot of redundancy built in.”

“Did you by chance have a hand in designing it?” Cas asked.

“Just some of the defenses. Like the fog. Which didn’t fool your people one iota today. If I thought you had any dragon blood, I’d suspect you of calling out to them somehow.”

Cas shuddered at the idea of having witch blood, or even being accused of having it, but she forced a sarcastic indifference into her tone. “If I could do that, I would have called out for them to take me with them, don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

“Now that we’ve settled that, would you mind putting me down? And letting go of my pistol hand?” She had another pistol and could reach it with her left hand, but wasn’t inclined toward shooting him at the moment.

Tolemek let go of her weapon, and the arm around her waist loosened. She slid down him, her toes touching the debris-littered pavement.

A pirate jumped around the corner, pointing a pistol into the alley. Cas cursed—of
course
the man who had shot at her would try again. She reacted on instinct again, firing a split second before Tolemek dragged her toward refuse bins against the wall.

“Damn,” he whispered, stopping in the middle of his lunge. Cas’s shot had taken the pirate in the forehead. “That’s uncanny.”

No, that was having a dad who had been training her to follow in the family business since she had been old enough to toddle. She wished he hadn’t taught her so much indifference when it came to drilling people with bullets, but perhaps it served her in this situation.