Imprudence (The Custard Protocol #2)(96)
Rue said, “Willard, to aft. Give Bennie a hand. Spoo, Virgil, man the Gatling. Tasherit, patrol the perimeter. Everyone, I want line of sight on the other two ’thopters.” She made a mental note to evaluate the weight allotment and see about installing a second gun starboard.
Spoo dashed by, making for the gun.
“Spoo! What’s the name of my eyes up there?” Rue gestured with a thumb to the boy dangling near the crow’s nest.
“Nips, Lady Captain!”
Rue winced. Unfortunate name. Plus “Lady Captain” was quite the mouthful under adverse conditions. “Sir will do for now, Spoo.”
“Yes, sir!” Spoo ran to the gun.
“Nips!” Rue shouted up. “The others? A location if you would.”
“Out of sight, Captain. I think they’re below us. Can you have a sootie look out the boiler hatch?”
“Good idea. Percy, get Aggie on the tube. Have her people check.”
Percy was occupied with navigation and just as unwilling to deal with Aggie as Rue, especially when engineering was without Quesnel. Nevertheless, he did as ordered.
“Aggie says you’re a blowhard doxie and they’ve two in sight, one heading up port, the other fore and starboard slightly.”
“Spoo!” Rue took the information without acknowledging the insult. “Ready to shoot a deterrent blast on my mark. One pass, don’t waste bullets. Just keep them from boarding your side. Put the fear of death into ’em.”
“Yes, sir!”
“And don’t kill anyone we like.”
“’Course not, sir. I ain’t sloppy!” Spoo’s tone was offended, but Rue worried the gun was an awful lot to handle. Spoo was small for her age.
“Tasherit, one’s coming up fore and right. Get ready to give them hell, but don’t get yourself captured, for goodness’ sake. Decklings with crossbows, back up the lioness.” Repelling an invasion was harder than it looked.
Another few shots rang out. Loud bangs reverberated through the night, attackers firing on them. Then came the answering rat-tat-tat of the Gatling. Mixed in was the twang of crossbows and the hiss of an angry werecat.
Rue went to support her decklings aft, dealing with the first attacker. She flipped her parasol, opening it for acid emission. It was silly to waste lapis solaris on a mortal, but it would, hopefully, eat into the canvas of the aircraft’s wings. She reached the railing. The ornithopter was close, a graceful two-seater with one man piloting and another shooting. The decklings were busy loading and firing crossbows as fast as they could. It wasn’t easy and most of their shots bounced harmlessly off the engine.
Rue took position, gave them a feral smile, which the decklings appreciated. She held her parasol by the tip and tilted it over the railing. She dialled in the emission and pressed the release button hard, spraying acid upon the attackers.
One of them screamed.
Another shot rang out. A hole appeared in Rue’s parasol. Wonderful, now it’s even uglier.
Rue felt an icy pain in her right arm, worse than shape change, which she hadn’t thought possible, and red liquid appeared where her sleeve used to be. I’ve been shot, she thought inanely. Fortunately, she was possessed of enough gumption to pull her parasol back to safety before she began blacking out.
“Tasherit,” she called weakly.
The next thing she knew, her bones were breaking and re-forming and she was shaking golden fur and feeling the might of immortality in her bones. The extrusion of the bullet from her foreleg, fortunately not silver, was an odd, awful sensation. Her rapidly healing body simply ejected the shrapnel out of the muscle as if passing wind.
Rue should have considered her dress. How many times had she shifted form, and yet she always forgot to consider her dress. Worths are wasted on me. She tried to extract herself from the tangle of skirts, hat, and petticoats without tearing anything.
As if agreed upon ahead of time, Tasherit reached in, pulled out Rue’s petticoat, and slipped it on. She pulled it up and tied it across her chest, leaving her lower legs bare but otherwise establishing some modesty. She immediately began striding around barking orders. Since these were basically the orders Rue would have given, Rue left her to it. Tasherit had been running drills with the deck crew for months. They were accustomed to obeying her in matters of defence. Rue supposed she’d have to formalise the arrangement – if they survived this journey and Miss Sekhmet stayed aboard.
Percy hauled on one of his nobs and the propeller kicked in. The Spotted Custard put on a burst of speed. He puffed them up twice in rapid succession. The Custard farted with the exertion but it got them away. A two-man ornithopter with a good pilot could match a dirigible for speed and lateral course correction but hadn’t much vertical manoeuvrability.
Tasherit noticed this fact and ordered two more puffs. That put them quite high, not yet in the aetherosphere but close. Everyone’s ears were popping. Judging themselves mostly out of danger and giving the decklings and deckhands strict instructions to stay on the alert and fire on anything that closed in on them, Tasherit turned to Rue.
“Should we go into aether cover? I’m assuming they can’t follow us there. You’ll lose me to sleep, and you’ll be mortal again.”
“No!” yelled Percy. “It’s uncharted, could be an immediate twister or worse.”