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  Driftmetal

  Segment Five

  Cloudscape

  J.C. Staudt

  Driftmetal is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 J.C. Staudt

  All rights reserved.

  Edition 1.0

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  1

  All through the night, the long guns were booming.

  I lay awake, listening to the distant pops and thuds of high-caliber weaponry, the only sounds breaking the rainy silence. Sable lay next to me, fast asleep in the enormous bed that had belonged to my parents until only a few days ago. She was exhausted. Her grief had worn her out, along with the ordeal of crash-landing the Highjinks into the forest outside Roathea, thereby saving the collective bacon of everyone in the control room.

  I watched her sleep for a while. Tell me I’m creepy. Whatever. I was just finding it hard to believe a woman like Sable could ever go for a guy like me. It’s a strange sensation, feeling like you’re not good enough for someone. Especially when you’re as awesome as I am. But in this case, it felt like the truth. Not because I knew she could do better, but because I deserved much worse.

  I kept thinking maybe it was the grief that had driven her into my arms, and not the fact that I’d bathed three times that night to get the sewer-stink off my skin. After all, the first time I’d ever held Sable was after Landon Scofield died. The deaths of Neale Glynton, Dennel McMurtry, and her Uncle Angus hadn’t improved her state of mind. Maybe I was just a convenience. Maybe I was just… there.

  For a while, I’d been happy being just there. If that was all I could do for her, I wanted to. But doubt had begun to creep in. This is why I’ve never been able to handle the maze-like struggles of human affection. I over-think things. I defeat myself before I’ve started. Unlike everything else in my life, where I start before I think about the odds stacked against me. Relationships are like a paralysis to me. Lying there that night, I couldn’t have felt any more paralyzed.

  She woke up. “What are you doing?”

  I looked away. “Can’t sleep. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “That’s okay. Come here.” She pulled me close by the shoulder blade.

  I pulled away, not wanting to give her the wrong idea.

  Her playful grin turned sour. “What’s wrong?”

  What was I supposed to say? That I thought her being here was a huge mistake? That I had my doubts as to whether she was in her right mind, and I wanted to caution her against making rash decisions that were rooted in her grief? I couldn’t say any of those things, so I kept quiet.

  “Do you want me to go?” she asked.

  “I’ll go,” I said.

  “Don’t bother.” I heard her rise, snatch clothes off the floor and put them on. She padded toward the door in bare feet, snatching up her boots on the way out.

  I had a sudden pang of conscience then, and sat up. “Sable—hold on.”

  She was already gone.

  The door clicked shut. I breathed a heavy sigh. I wasn’t exactly an expert at this stuff. Sure, I’d had my fair share of flings. But I’d always sailed away into the blue afterward. I’d never stuck around long enough to deal with enigmas like love or loss or heartbreak. If there’s anyone in the world who isn’t scared of falling in love, I’d like to meet them and find out how that works.

  I knew even back then that Sable wasn’t just any woman. But I didn’t know yet how rare people like that are. I was a terrible person, and she put up with me anyway. That alone should’ve been enough to clue me in from the start, but I was too stupid to see it.

  I got out of bed and put something on, the left shirt sleeve scratching across the cast Doctor Ditmarus had put on my injured arm the evening before. My mind was racing, spinning through all the loose ends of the past few days. Maybe that was the medallion talking again.

  For a second, I actually felt shaken. I mean really, truly in crisis, like I didn’t know who I was anymore. I’d always been so sure of myself, but the deeper I got into this whole mess with Maclin and Pyras and the Regency, the more my uncertainty began to cripple me. My doubts about how to solve all the other problems in my life were poisoning my attitude toward Sable. I had no idea how I was supposed to save a city and prevent a dying race from meeting its end, and I couldn’t imagine trying to engage in a serious romantic relationship—yet another endeavor I had no clue how to handle—while so much else hung in the balance.

  What I did know was that I had plenty to get done. Now I had Chaz by my side again. If I could find the chest full of money I’d buried on the Kalican Heights, he’d be able to install a host of new augments for me. My days of being a near-primie were about to come to an end. So instead of going after Sable and apologizing and telling her what was on my mind, I did the manly thing and remained firmly entrenched within myself, determined to fix my problems on my own.

  I went outside and stood on the deck, watching the forest, waiting for dawn to come. Sable wasn’t there, as I’d somehow already known. She’d either gone below to find a spare bunk in the crew’s quarters, or she’d left the boat and gone on a walk. Distant light flashed through the trees, riding on rumbles of cannon fire that signaled the ongoing fight for Roathea, but I didn’t see Sable’s silhouette amongst the pines.

  The Lady Regent and her children had left with Kupfer and the Civs earlier that day—all but twelve-year-old Maxwell Baloncrake, Jr., whom I’d dubbed Mini-Max. Thomas Smedley and Lafe Yingler were locked in my brig, and I’d given strict orders that Rindhi be kept away from them at all times. Blaylocke was getting treatment for his laser wound in the ship’s infirmary. As for Nerimund, he was either alive or dead. Either way, he was still wooden.

  I started thinking about my parents again. I’d been cruel to leave them on Grimsley, I know. But I was glad I’d kept them out of danger. Once we were airborne tomorrow, Grimsley was the first place we’d go. Just to make sure they were okay.

  About an hour before dawn, I finally started to get tired. Tired of cycling through the same dead-end thoughts over and over again, mostly. I returned to my cabin and crawled into bed, thinking maybe I’d get some sleep.

  What felt like two seconds later, someone was rapping on the cabin door. I took that deep waking-up breath and tossed the covers aside to find pure golden daylight streaming through the windows. My head was murky with the memory of a bad dream. Oh yeah, I remembered, glancing at the empty bed. That wasn’t a dream. Sable’s gone. I looked out the window. Not only was it well past dawn; the rain had stopped.

  So, too, had the guns. I opened the door, shielding my eyes against the startling sight of Leigam Irkenbrand, his wrinkled face edged in sunlight. He was holding the list—the list of crewpersons, divided into two columns, who had either supported my dear old dad in kicking me off the boat, or hadn’t.

  I snatched the paper from his hands without waiting for him to speak. He stood in an open-mouthed stupor and waited for me to read it.

  “This is garbage,” I said, crumpling the paper into a ball and tossing it to him.

  “What? But… this is the list you asked for.”

  I yawned as I walked past him onto the deck, where puddles of ra
inwater were drying in the sun. “That’s not the list I asked for,” I said. “On the list I asked for, one side contains the name of every double-crossing maggot on this crew. You know what that leaves on the other side, Mr. Irkenbrand? A whole bunch of blank white nothing.”

  “Not everyone voted to remove you from command,” Irkenbrand said. “Some of the crew wasn’t in that meeting.”

  “How many of them raised a finger to stop it from happening? How many spoke a single word against the idea? Those are the people who belong on the other side of that line. Those people don’t exist.”

  “I must implore you once again,” he said. “The men were only acting out of the need for self-preservation. Give them a second chance.”

  “You know what happens to captains who give disloyalty a second chance? Mutinies.”

  “There won’t be none of that here, Captain Jakes. You have my word on it.”

  I gave him a one-eyed squint. “Consider yourself lucky, Irkenbrand. Because I have a lot of crap I need to get done, and I don’t have time to search the stream for another crew this size. So in a little while, everyone in the old crew who’s still on board is going to help me with one such task. I want them on deck in half an hour, ready to go on a little excursion into the woods. Also, I’m making a new rule. One sign of betrayal, and the offender goes overboard, whether we’re parked or airborne. Understood?”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “Make sure the crew understands it too.” I walked away from that exchange feeling like the biggest rube who’d ever sailed the stream. These bunch of bootlickers were soft and floppy, like a pancake left too long in its own butter. By keeping them on board, I was just asking to get stabbed in the back—probably with a fork.

  As I crossed the deck on my way to the galley, where forks were plentiful, I was accosted by my second supplicant of the day, a man of both darker complexion and fewer years than Leigam Irkenbrand. Rindhi took my forearms in his hands and knelt, pulling at me like a street beggar.

  “Please, if you will release Thomas. It would be very grateful to me.”

  “Rindhi, say that in a way I can understand.”

  “I am sorry. I am nervous to ask you this. Let Thomas go. He did nothing wrong.”

  “Who told you that load of baloney? Tom set a bunch of motorized retirees loose in the Highjinks, resulting in my near destruction. I doubt you would’ve lived either, for the record.”

  “He does not deserve to die, Muller.”

  “Who said I was going to kill him?”

  Rindhi brightened. “You’re not?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  His shoulders slumped. “Why must you torture me so?”

  “The truth is, I’m still deciding. Ask me again in a few years.”

  “This is not fair,” he said.

  I yanked away from him. “What isn’t fair is that people think I’m a prick because I choose not to surround myself with traitors. I’ve made an exception for Chaz and Blaylocke because Chaz is smart and Blaylocke showed up with him. I also just now decided to make an exception for the entire crew of this boat. I’ve therefore exceeded my daily good deed limit by one. I don’t have the willpower to go any higher. And I don’t have the patience for backstabbers. Especially backstabbers with as little to offer as Tom. At least the crew knows how to do useful things. I don’t even remember why I keep that guy around.”

  “Because he is a good friend?”

  “Sorry, Rindhi,” I said, sidestepping him on my way to the hatch. “I might’ve believed you two days ago.”

  Below, I snagged a quick omelette from Eliza Kinally. It was the best food I’d eaten in recent memory. Then I went to the infirmary to pay Blaylocke a visit. Chaz was sitting in a chair beside his bed, Dr. Ditmarus standing at the foot.

  “How is he, Doc?” I asked.

  Ditmarus scratched at an itch within his thick, curly gray hair. His eyes made mechanical whirring sounds as they focused on me. Last time I’d seen him, he’d worn glasses. I guess the privateering business had been good to him. “I’ve never examined a primitive before,” he said.

  “Don’t be alarmed if Blaylocke’s got some weird stuff going on downstairs,” I said. “We were all expecting it.”

  “Shut up, Muller.”

  I laughed and went over to him. “Chipper as ever, I see. Back to your old self already?”

  “Aside from this guy having the touch of a gorilla and the bedside manner of a curtain, my chest feels like it’s about to cave in,” Blaylocke said.

  “He’s sustained severe hepatic trauma to the liver,” Ditmarus said, “which, for a primitive, is pretty serious.”

  “That sounds serious no matter who you are,” I said. “You’d better take good care of this guy, Ditmarus. If he doesn’t survive, I’m finding a new doctor. One who knows how to handle primies.”

  Ditmarus gave a derisive chuckle. “Where are you going to find someone like that?”

  “I know a place where primie doctors are about as common as doctors aboard this boat who fail to take good care of my friends and get hammock-tossed overboard in their sleep.”

  Chaz and Blaylocke shared a look.

  “That’s right, scumbags. I’m taking you home.”

  Ditmarus was lost, and understandably so. We left him in the dark, fearing for his job, and continued our conversation.

  “How are we going to find it?” Chaz asked. “It’s probably moved ten times by now.”

  “If you had the right technology, you could find it. Right?”

  “Yeah. We’d need a scanner that could detect cloaking fields at long range. Not an easy thing to build.”

  “When have you ever not been able to build a machine to solve our problems, Chaz?”

  “Well, I’d never be able to replicate that medallion from scratch. Also, there was the time… oh. I guess there haven’t been any other times.”

  “Exactly. So grab a circuit board and some wire and work your magic. You’ll have us walking those lovely cobbled streets in no time.”

  “The whole city’s cloaked, Muller.”

  “Yeah I know. I visited one time, if you recall.”

  “The whole point of a cloaking field is to hide what’s inside it.”

  “So build something that can find what’s hidden,” I said.

  Chaz gave me a disbelieving look. “You don’t really think it’s that simple, do you?”

  “Chaz. You’re the guy. You are The. Guy. You know the old song that goes, ‘he’s our man, if he can’t do it, no one can’? That’s you. The people who made that song were talking about you.”

  Chaz smiled. “I’m flattered.”

  “Stop it. Be inventive. We’re headed to Grimsley first. You have between now and then to draw up some ideas. When we get there, we can pick up whatever supplies you need to build the thing. Also, I need a crap-ton of new tech. I’ve got a few ideas of my own, but sketch me up some concepts. I’m talking revolutionary stuff. Give me your craziest, most off-the-wall ideas. I want to hear them all. I know you weren’t twiddling your thumbs back on Maclin.”

  “Muller, I—”

  “The next words out of your mouth better be the working title of some sweet new augment you’re cooking up. Otherwise, I don’t want to hear it.”

  Chaz shut up.

  Blaylocke looked at him. “You’ve got to do this, Chester. If we don’t get home, I don’t know what I’ll do…” He stopped, gritting his jaw. His eyes went moist. Next thing I knew, he was sucking bursts of air through his nostrils, his cheeks running wet. Yeah, I couldn’t believe it myself. Blaylocke was crying.

  “Dangit, Chaz… you broke him. What’s he doing?”

  Chaz gave me a harsh look. “He’s been away from his wife for months.”

  “I’ve been away from her just as long. Just kidding, Blaylocke. Geez, lighten up. I’m leaving everything in your hands, Chaz. Either you succeed, or you don’t get home. We have a few stops to make before we leave the stream, so you
’ve got time to figure stuff out. Money’s no object. If there’s any other way I can help, figure it out yourself. Or hey, ask Ezra. He’s pretty good with a wrench.”

  “Where are we stopping?” asked Blaylocke.

  “Grimsley. The Kalican Heights. And I figure we should pay old Alastair Gilfoyle a visit, too, wherever he is.”

  “Gilfoyle? Why?”

  “A few reasons. The first being I owe him an apology. Yingler screwed us both over, and if we’re going to save—” I stopped myself, realizing Dr. Ditmarus was still in the room, “—if we’re going to save your home, we need connections, not enemies. Also, I kind of punched Gilfoyle’s face a lot. I feel bad.”

  “You… feel bad…” Blaylocke said, eyeing me with suspicion.

  I held out for a few seconds before throwing my hands in exasperation. “Alright, fine. I don’t feel bad. I want to know where he got the medallion.”

  “So you don’t really want to apologize,” Blaylocke said.

  I snorted. “That factory reject tried to kill me. I’d punch him in the face every day for the rest of eternity if I could.”

  Both Blaylocke and Chaz eased, as though they had just gotten to the bottom of some unexplained mystery. Dr. Ditmarus excused himself quietly.

  “You also stole all that gravstone from him,” Blaylocke reminded me.

  “It was a drop in the bucket for that guy,” I said. “Maybe a splash. That thing I said about making connections was true. If Gilfoyle doesn’t turn out to be interested, or he’s still really pissed or something, we’ll just leave. We’ll find some other long-term buyer for your city’s product. Or several of them.”

  “So we’re back to square one, doing the same thing we set out to do all those months ago,” said Blaylocke.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “If even one of the synod members who was on the Highjinks is still alive in the woods back there, everything changes.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything? I thought we were leaving Roathea.”

  “Oh, we are. But not before we learn every unit name and call-sign in Maclin’s army that we can.”