Chenda and the Airship Brofman

Chenda and the Airship Brofman

 
Emilie P. Bush

EmitoneB Books

Norcross, Georgia - 2009

Copyright © 2009 by Emilie P. Bush

All rights reserved.

ISBN    
1449542549

EAN-13    9781449542542.

Designed by Emilie P. Bush

Printed in the United States of America

 
To Tony, Saralyn and Eleanor.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Hail and Farewell    

Chapter 2 - The Stones that Sing

Chapter 3 - Captain Maxwell Endicott  

Chapter 4 - The Fire and the Flight 

Chapter 5 - The Dead Walk Away

Chapter 6 - The Crew of the Airship
Brofman
 

Chapter 7 - A Stick in the Eye 

Chapter 8 - When Morning Came

Chapter 9 - Atoll Belles 

Chapter 10 - Eastward 

Chapter 11 - Keep Talking Till They Hear You 

Chapter 12 - Finding the Tjalk

Chapter 13 - “Tugrul Aquaba”

Chapter 14 - Resistance

Chapter 15 - Pranav Erato  

Chapter 16 - Decisions 

Chapter 17 - Investiture 

Chapter 18 - Run

Chapter 19 - Departures

Chapter 20 - Due West 

Chapter 21 - Crider Island

Chapter 22 - The Welcoming Republic 

Chapter 23 - Amends 

Epilogue 

Chapter 1

HAIL AND FAREWELL

Chenda Frost sat perfectly still. She balanced, immobile, between a desire to run in panic and the urge to vomit that accompanies the shock of desperate grief. As the short line of cars followed the hearse into the churchyard, Chenda steeled herself for her first, and last, public appearance with her husband. She realized that this was the first time she had been to town with Edison, but she couldn’t find the strength to contemplate the irony that this would also be the last time she would travel to Coal City with him. After today, she would never see him again. Forever. She couldn’t pull her eyes away from the car carrying his casket, tried not to even blink for fear of losing any part of her last few moments with him. Chenda’s driver opened her door, and she stepped out into the misty morning to the sound of flashbulbs and the shout of rabid newspapermen. She raised her dark eyes to focus on the front door of the church, her goal. More flashes sent sparkles across her vision. She ignored what she could of the shouted questions and kept her pale face as placid and unmoving as possible. As quickly as her legs would carry her, she escaped into the cool darkness of the ancient church.

Her eyes anxiously searched the interior of the sanctuary, and she relaxed slightly as she saw Edison’s casket arriving through a side door. He was there. She was, at least for a few minutes more, with him again. Even in death, his presence calmed her. Chenda followed the funeral director as he wheeled Edison to the head of the aisle and opened the casket. The assembled visitors hushed for a moment as they gandered at the deceased, then the hurried whispers began again. Chenda found herself cringing away from the stares, positioning herself at the end of Edison’s casket, partially hiding herself behind the extravagantly carved lid.

Chenda glanced around at several of the assembled guests. She recognized very few. For the most part, it looked to her just a faceless sea of dark suits and military uniforms. The people to whom she could place names were either dignitaries she had seen in the newspapers, or a smattering of her former teachers or companions – all hand-picked by Edison – none of whom had she seen in years.

Chenda listened as two of her former tutors gossiped about a delicately built blond woman in the second pew, a woman Chenda had never seen before.

“Fancy
her
coming here. I never would have taken Professor Candice Mortimer as a curiosity seeker like these other gawkers,” the first said.

“Perhaps she reads the tabloids for fun,” the other said. “There’s not a front page in the city that doesn’t say ‘Death of the Recluse Hero’ in the headlines. Besides, she’s such a serious person. She has to get her kicks somehow. Perhaps funeral crashing is her thing.”

The gossiping women wandered away, having quickly lost interest in the professor, who simply sat gazing remorsefully at Edison in his casket.

Candice Mortimer wasn’t sure why she had come to Edison’s funeral. Truly, sadness filled her as she looked at Edison’s scarred face, coldly encircled with pale flowers in the casket. He had changed so drastically from the handsome young officer in her memory. Candice counted the years back to the last time she had seen Edison. Twenty-one years felt like yesterday in some ways. He’d been so dashing then in his Republic Airship Service uniform.
A
ll
the R.A.S. men were dapper to some extent. Strong and brave, each was ready to defend the Republic's coast against Tugrulian attackers. A generation of handsome young men volunteered. Thousands never came back. Too many came home like Edison, broken, disfigured and aged well beyond the intervening 12 years of the war.

Candice cried when Edison’s airship, the
Valiant Eagle
, was reported lost. She rejoiced when she heard he had miraculously returned alive. More than once, she tried to see him, but he never accepted visitors and refused all correspondence. Each of her letters returned unopened. Rumors swirled that he was a spy, or had been on a secret mission to corrupt the Tugrulian Empire. Edison never spoke publicly about any of it.

As she waited for the ceremony to start, Candice's sadness turned into disgust. All of those strangers staring stupidly into Edison’s casket. How rude! True, she must look as much a voyeur to them as they did to her, but Candice knew who she was, and what Edison had meant to her all those years ago, so she felt no reason to explain herself to anyone. She turned her gaze to the shy woman at the end of Edison’s casket, The Widow Frost as all the papers were calling her. Candice’s first thought was this girl couldn’t possibly be his
wife
. She was young enough be his daughter. Candice bristled and focused on Edison’s unmoving form.

Chenda, a receiving line of one, found the assembled crowd respectful and solemn as they filed by, but not particularly grieved. She could feel their eyes on her, judging her, and she heard all the whispered remarks.

“… lucky, I guess. She’s the richest widow in the whole Republic.”

“… bet it was suicide. Who lives that way? Apart from the world for all those years….”

“… I hear she is a bubble-headed fashion monger, I mean look at her, I’ve never seen so much expensive silk and satin on
one
dress….”

“… good grief, she’s just a child! I guess Frost liked ‘em young….”

“… Gee, if he never left his estate, I wonder if
any
of these people ever actually knew him?”

No
, Chenda thought,
just me
.

The funeral went on as so many do: prayers to all the gods, kind but generic words from a gray haired priest who laments the death of a man he has never
actually
met, poetry about salvation and songs that move too slowly. Finally, the time came for Edison’s casket to be closed for the last time. Chenda stood by herself for one long moment, her hands resting on Edison’s casket. She felt fractured and wondered, when she exhaled next, what it would be like never to breathe back in again. She wanted to die, too. The center of her world had vanished, and she now drifted alone, frightened to her core.

Where do I go from here, Edison?

With her emotions momentarily paralyzed, she mindlessly followed the congregants out of the weathered stone church and into a dim, drizzling afternoon. Dozens of flashbulbs again blinded Chenda as she appeared on the church steps. In her turmoil, she had forgotten to prepare herself for the gantlet of reporters in the churchyard. People pressed in on her, trying to sneak a peek at The Widow Frost. The shoving and clamor kept her unsteady. Her field of vision was clogged with a jostling crowd of reporters and spectators, and, losing her footing on the slippery steps, Chenda started to fall. Suddenly, someone caught her by her elbow and she felt another hand reach around her waist, pulling her back to standing but also maneuvering her sideways, out of the heart of the crowd.

Chenda looked up into the plain, young face of her driver, Daniel Frent. He kept pulling her along, using his hip and shoulder to part the throng of people. When they reached the car, he quickly pushed her up and into the raised passenger area, snapping the door closed behind her. Daniel vaulted himself into the driver’s compartment. The motor whizzed to life, and the clutch of reporters and onlookers, sensing the show was over, retreated slightly. Daniel pulled away from the churchyard and they were gone in an instant.

Daniel opened the small window between the driver and passenger compartments. “I’m sorry to have placed hands on you so, ma’am. You’re not harmed, are you?”

“I’m fine,” she said limply. “Thank you for catching me.” She turned her face to the gray window and watched the droplets run together and roll down the pane. She sighed.

Daniel coughed politely, and quietly added, “I can see this is a trial for you, ma’am. I’m sorry for that.”

“It’s kind of you to say,” she replied.

Daniel went on, “Did you know, ma’am, that my old man served with Mr. Frost on
the
Valiant Eagle
?”

“No,” Chenda said. She truly knew very little about Daniel, as he was the most recent edition to the estate staff and had been Chenda’s driver for a few scant weeks. “Was he amongst the crew when
the
Eagle
was lost?” she asked, unable to think of anything to say.

“Sadly, yes, ma’am” he answered, and then said nothing more.

Chenda bore this new layer of loss in silence. The car traveled quickly through the heart of Coal City, past so many of Chenda’s favorite shops and museums. For years, Chenda held out hope that someday Edison would have acquiesced and journeyed into town with her. He never did, and now it was too late. The pattern had developed between them early on that she would go into town and explore, bringing back trinkets and gifts for her husband, and they would spend hours talking about what she had seen and done. As money was no object, the sky was the limit as far as Edison was concerned. Chenda happily brought the world home to him. Now, as the car entered the Frost estate and gently stopped at the grand house’s front door, Chenda had nothing to share, and no one to share it with.

Daniel helped Chenda out of the car and opened an umbrella over her, sheltering her from the rain until she stepped into the foyer. Throwing her damp coat into the waiting arm of the housekeeper, she walked into Edison’s study, closed the thick paneled doors behind her and collapsed on the floor, weeping. Finally, hidden away from the prying eyes of Coal City and the house staff, she unfurled her grief.

Edison’s study seemed the perfect place for her collapse. This room, this intimate space where this unlikely couple shared their stories, was now both a sacred memory and a crime scene. Detectives had long since finished investigating here. They found little evidence besides the unusual knife that was buried deep in Edison’s chest, a knife with two points like the forked tongue of a snake. There were no other clues, they said.

“Had Commander Frost been depressed?” they asked.