Skyjackers - Episode 3: The Winds of Justice (Skyjackers: Season One) Read online

  “You’ll never take me alive, you wretched lawman,” Misty screamed, cutting her bedroom to ribbons as Jonathan ducked and swayed to avoid her.

  “I’m not capturing you, I’m trying to—” Jonathan swiveled at the hip to let the unfortunate lampshade beside him meet its gruesome end.

  “You tricked me, you red-coated devil.” Misty put all her might into a forward stab. The blade slid between Jonathan’s ribs and his arm and buried itself inches-deep in the wallpapered plaster behind him.

  Jonathan stepped away unharmed. A scarlet thread unraveled itself from his jacket, caught in the blade. “Madam. Please. Calm down and come with me. You’ll die up here unless you let me help you.”

  Misty’s sword was stuck fast. She stopped trying to yank it out and let her hands drop to her sides. Jonathan went to the door and beckoned her to follow. When Misty came over, she threw a left hook that caught him on the jaw and sent him staggering. She began to pummel him, as relentless with her fists as she had been with her lips.

  Jonathan found most of the blows unpleasant, but Misty wasn’t so strong that they were unbearable. He crouched and threw the girl over his shoulder, carrying her down the hallway as she writhed and screamed and pounded. She cursed him, but Jonathan persevered until she was safely aboard the Maelstrom and under guard. After searching the remainder of the house and finding it empty, Jonathan was satisfied he’d saved everyone, and gave the order to leave.

  Misty proved a trying passenger. Jonathan had no grounds to hold her against her will, even though she was a Caine. By the time the Maelstrom made landfall outside Roathea, Misty had bitten two marshals, cut down half a dozen rigging lines, doused the bunks in the crew’s quarters with engine oil, and fired off no fewer than three of the cannons, much to Jonathan’s surprise and bewilderment. No one was seriously injured. Misty leapt over the railing before the Maelstrom had even touched down, and ran off into the woods.

  Chapter 17

  Junior Caine didn’t like the look on his father’s face. He had a feeling Benedict was about to ask him to do something he was uncomfortable with.

  “People in this fleet seem to enjoy keeping secrets from me,” said Benedict, stroking his mustache as he reclined in the cushioned armchair at the corner of his cabin.

  Gertrude, the third and only other person in the room, flicked her eyes at Junior. “What makes you say that, Ben?”

  “A competent radioman is hard to find these days,” said Benedict. “A loyal one, harder still. It’s bad enough second-cousin Poleax has been playing tricks on me. Now I hear your Duncan Trice has been chattering over the bluewave regarding our whereabouts.”

  “Duncan would never do such a thing,” said Junior. “He’s as loyal and competent a radioman as I’ve ever had aboard the Stratustarian.”

  Benedict raised his eyebrows. “Is he? Then I wonder why my new bluewave operator, Iain Bolliver, has been telling me otherwise.”

  “Haven’t the slightest,” Junior said. “You, Mother?”

  “What would I know about such things?” said Gertrude. In fact, Gertrude did know about such things. Quite a lot about them, in fact. For the past few months, she had been planning a surprise birthday party for Benedict with his old shipmate Archibald “Greenbeard” McCracken. Gertrude had instructed Junior’s radioman, Duncan Trice, to keep Greenbeard informed of the Caine fleet’s movements so he could give Benedict a proper bushwhacking in honor of the occasion. Now that Benedict had found the radioman out, Gertrude thought perhaps she’d gone too far.

  “I can’t very well send the traitorous Mr. Trice to the Moonmist,” Benedict was saying. “I transferred my own radioman there after that debacle at Bixbury Manor. I’ve a different punishment in mind for Trice, and I want you to carry out the sentence.”

  Junior gulped. “What would you have me do, Father?”

  “A radioman’s livelihood is his tongue.”

  Junior’s face went green. “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes, June Bug. It’s about time you got over your squeamishness. Don’t come back unless it’s with that slimy pink organ betwixt your fingers.”

  Junior left the cabin in a stupor.

  “Don’t you think that’s on the harsh side of things, dear?”

  “A traitor must be punished in accordance with his crime, glitter-britches.”

  Gertrude didn’t want to give away the surprise. Benedict was a hard man to fool, given that he was always suspecting people of things—whether or not they had anything to hide. She may have been immune to his suspicions, but the people she’d enlisted to help her were far from it. “Did this Bolliver chap happen to mention what these transmissions were about?” she asked.

  “That’s the worst part of it,” said Benedict. “Trice has been relaying our movements to… dare I say the name… Greenbeard. I should’ve known that old salt was after my fortune.”

  “You’re taking Bolliver at his word, are you? Despite that he’s new?”

  “I’m taking him at his word for that very reason. That he’s new in my employ gives him less reason to mislead and more to impress.”

  “Still… don’t you think you ought to check into it a little further before you go ordering a man’s tongue out?”

  “Junior won’t go through with it,” said Benedict. “He’s weak. Hasn’t got the stomach for it.”

  “Don’t be hard on him. He’s only a baby.”

  “He’s a young man.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “He was a moment ago. Could be now that I’ve given him a man’s task, he’ll change sex like he did in the womb.”

  “I obviously didn’t mean that,” said Gertrude. “I meant are you sure Junior won’t go through with it?”

  Benedict shrugged. “Either way, I’ll enjoy watching what happens.”

  “You sound as sadistic as Misty.”

  “Where do you think she gets it from?”

  Gertrude did not respond. They sat in silence for a time, she knitting and Benedict plotting. The fleet was at berth in the bay of Kailodos—all except Vivian’s Dawnhammer, which Benedict had dispatched to retrieve Misty. The sound of water lapping at the ship’s hull was foreign to them both, and it served as interference for the tension between them.

  When Misty walked into the cabin covered in dirt and blood, both Benedict and Gertrude stared at her in disbelief for a moment before rushing over and throwing their arms around her. Apologies were made. Tears were shed. Mostly on Benedict’s part.

  “Thank goodness Vivian found you,” Benedict said. “Where is she? Your sister has saved the day.”

  Misty’s expression darkened. “Vivian? What’s she got to do with saving me? I hope she’s not taken the credit again for something she didn’t do. I was apprehended by the handsome and daring Captain Thorpe, who swept me off my feet and out of my knickers for a lover’s rendezvous.”

  “Young lady,” Benedict shouted. “This is quite unacceptable.”

  “You haven’t let me finish, Father. Thanks to my incredible resourcefulness, I managed to take a nice meal in the city, despite some terrible elderly man who kept whining about the patients needing their lunch. Then I got some new clothes from a woman who seemed to think it was my fault she’d left them hanging out where anyone could take them. And I borrowed this sword from a man in a blue overcoat and a tall puffy hat who was standing outside the gates of some spooky old chateau. Then some sailors refused me a ride in their vessel, so I made my way here alone.”

  “You look as if you’ve been through the ringer, darling,” said Gertrude. “I’ll fetch the doctor.”

  “How did you know where to find us?” Benedict asked.

  “Simple, really. I asked Greenbeard.”

  “Greenbeard,” Benedict muttered under his breath, spitting out the syllables. “Bloody bognobbler.”

  “What’s a bognobbler, Daddy?” Misty asked.

  “Hush. Your mother’s right outside. You mustn’t ever repeat that. Do you hear?”


  “I think Mum is a bognobbler,” Misty said aloud.

  Benedict cringed. “For the love of periwinkle… pipe down, will you?”

  Misty laughed and laughed.

  “Greenbeard is an uncultured lout. Always doing rubbish things like battening hatches and shivering timbers and other such piratical nonsense. It’s chaps like him who’ve given us respectable swashbucklers a poor go of it. And now he’s after the family fortune. It’s a wonder he didn’t hold you for ransom when you contacted him.”

  “He seemed very cordial to me,” Misty said. “In fact, he asked whether I might pass along a message to you.”

  Benedict was intrigued. “Really? What sort of message?”

  “Oh, I can’t recall, exactly. Something about it having been too long, and how you and he shall have to get together sometime soon.”

  “I’m certain he’d enjoy that,” said Benedict. “Probably so he can slit my throat and run off with your mother. He’s always been fond of her. The scoundrel. Say… if Viv didn’t find you, I wonder where she’s got off to. She should be back by now. The Justice will be underway in a few hours, and she’ll be all the harder to sack without the Dawnhammer at our disposal.”

  “I’ve brought you a vessel, Daddy,” said Misty. “I told you that before.”

  “That’s grand, poppet. Thank you. But Daddy needs a big ship. One like the Dawnhammer, so he can strike fear into the hearts of the marshals.”

  “It’s pretty big,” Misty said.

  Gertrude cracked the door and poked her head into the cabin. “Ben. You’ll want to see this.”

  “See what? We’re in the middle of something, bunny-button.”

  “Ben. Come outside. At once.”

  Benedict followed her.

  Misty followed him.

  Moored to the Cloudhopper was an airship twice as large, armed with dozens of cannon on three separate decks. Banners fluttered from the tips of flagpoles atop the inflated gasbags. Benedict drew his cutlass, assuming they were under attack. Then he noticed his crew staring at the vessel in silent awe. He stood beside his wife and daughter, taking in the sight. The big airship was empty.

  “Mum?” Misty said. “Are you a bognobbler?”

  “Wherever did you learn a word like that?”

  “Daddy said Greenbeard was one.”

  “Daddy has a vulgar tongue, and you’d do best not to imitate him.”

  Benedict scratched his head. “Misty… I thought you said you made your way here alone.”

  “I did,” she said. “Those nasty sailors told me I wouldn’t know how to sail an airship if it were hanging from a batch of birthday balloons.”

  Benedict turned to look at his daughter. “What did you do, poppet? What did you do to the sailors?”

  She smiled. “I showed them they were wrong.”

  ***

  “Where the devil are you, Thorpe? The Justice is a third of the way to Cardemere, and the Maelstrom is nowhere to be seen.”

  Jonathan’s detour to Azkatla and his subsequent trouble with the Caine girl had put him severely behind schedule. He had the Maelstrom’s engines running at full steam in an attempt to intercept the Justice’s pre-planned route, but at this rate the journey would be half over before he arrived. “I apologize sincerely, Admiral. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  “No, you can’t. It would require more time than is available to you.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “You had best be, Captain. I should like to meet with you aboard the Endeavor when you arrive. Goodbye.”

  When Jonathan handed the receiver to Vin Harlow, the radioman’s look was dour. “What do you reckon that’s about, Cap’n?”

  “I reckon he’s going to sack me, Harlow. Scratch that—I know he is. What am I going to do? He must be at the end of his rope with me.”

  “Don’t take it so hard, Cap’n. The Admiral is no easy man to please. Why, he once gave a man the lash for eating on the job.”

  “That doesn’t sounds like an outrageous punishment to me.”

  “He was a chef.”

  “Oh. Well, whatever the Admiral’s policies, I must adhere to them from now on. I’m afraid I’m at perilous risk of receiving a demotion.”

  “Mr. Manchester will like that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind, sir. Forget I said a thing.”

  “I can’t be demoted, Harlow. I need this command.”

  “Best do as the Admiral says from now on then, Cap’n.”

  “Right.”

  ***

  Aboard the Stratustarian, Junior was having second thoughts about the task his father had assigned him. And third, and fourth thoughts as well. He steeled himself with a deep breath before entering the ship’s radio room.

  Duncan Trice looked up from his work. “Why, hello there, Captain. This is a pleasant surprise.”

  “I’m afraid it isn’t, Mr. Trice.”

  “What can I do for you, sir?”

  “You can start by telling me what all this nonsense I’m hearing is about.”

  Trice gulped. “Nonsense, sir?”

  “About you betraying us to Greenbeard.”

  “Betraying, sir?”

  “Are you deaf, man? Yes, betraying. I’m told you’ve been relaying our coordinates to the enemy.”

  Trice feared Gertrude’s wrath a great deal more than Junior’s, so he kept his mouth shut about the surprise birthday party for Benedict. “Why, I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

  “Have you, or have you not leaked information about the fleet to one or more individuals outside the Caine organization?”

  “Forgive me for saying so, but… you’re looking awfully sharp in that jacket today, Captain.”

  Junior smiled. “Oh. Thank you. Wait a minute. No distractions, Trice. Now… what were we talking about?”

  “Your exceptional sense of style, I believe.”

  “Right. Wait. No. It was about the radio.”

  “No, Captain. It was your outfit.”

  “Stop it. We were talking about your betrayal. By which I must admit I’m rather shocked. Anyway, it’s time I gave you your punishment. Do kindly stick out your tongue and lay it on the table.”

  “Sir?”

  “You heard me, Trice. This is happening. You’d best accept it like a man.”

  “You’re going to cut out my tongue?”

  “It’ll be good for you. Your teeth won’t rot so quickly.”

  “Did Commodore Caine tell you that?”

  “Why does everybody think I hear everything from Father?”

  “You know what would be a more fitting punishment, sir?” asked Trice.

  “What’s that?”

  “Tickle torture. I am extremely ticklish. I burst into senseless laughter at the slightest provocation. Furthermore, I’d learn my lesson without any permanent damage having been done.”

  Junior considered this. He had to admit, it did sound like the best of both worlds. What he didn’t know was that Duncan Trice wasn’t the least bit ticklish anywhere on his body. He was very good at pretending, though. “Very well, Mr. Trice,” Junior said, plucking the feather from his tricorn. “Take off your boots and tunic. Let the punishment commence.”

  ***

  Vivian and the Dawnhammer were on their way to the attack point where Benedict had been planning to intercept the Justice. She hadn’t had time to fly all the way back to the Kailodean Archipelago, so after abandoning Misty in Azkatla, Vivian had decided to meet the rest of the fleet there instead. When she arrived, however, she found an intact dreadnought with a full complement of Regency airships to escort it.

  Vivian followed them for a time, keeping her distance so as not to appear suspicious. To her horror, the Maelstrom soon joined the ranks of the Regency cavalcade. She saw them make a personnel transfer between ships, but there was no other activity. After several hours, there was still no sign of her father or any of the Caine fleet. She went t
o the radio room and called the Cloudhopper via bluewave radio, but no one answered.

  “I will most certainly not assault a battle group of that strength on my own,” Vivian said to Cork Buffner when she came topside.

  “Nor would you be wise to, Captain,” said Buffner.

  “Keep following them. Go no closer than we are now. Maintain your pursuit until nightfall, then break off for Kailodos.”

  “Aye, mam.”

  Chapter 18

  The gigantic airship Misty had stolen was named Intrepid. Benedict had heard of it, being that there were so few active ships of its size in existence. He thought he may have even robbed it once or twice. It was a privateering vessel which, judging by the papers in the captain’s quarters, was currently in the service of a Roathean trading company called Clemens & White.

  As best Benedict could tell, Misty had come upon the ship while the bulk of its crew were away on shore leave. How she had dealt with those remaining and managed to fly the thing on her own, well… that was anyone’s guess. Benedict hadn’t been able to get a straight answer out of her on the subject.

  “What are we to do with the blasted thing?” Benedict asked his family and officers while pacing the floor of his cabin.

  “Let’s blow it up, Daddy,” Misty offered.

  “We may have received a stroke of luck, Commodore… if you don’t mind me saying so, sir,” said Curtis Cosgrove, back from his stint aboard the Hummingbird.

  “How so?”

  “The Intrepid is a ship in good standing; well-known, well-liked, and most importantly, trusted. The Justice and her convoy may see us approaching and never suspect a thing until it’s too late.”

  “Use the Intrepid to conceal our true intentions, you say. Hmm. I’ve stolen many things and used them for many ill purposes, Cosgrove. I’ve never stolen an airship and used it as camouflage. It’s a dastardly idea. I love it. We’ll have to pull crew from other boats to sail her. After the attack, we’ll scuttle the thing and leave her derelict somewhere.”