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“Look at them out there,” he told her, using his gun to briefly point at the windshield, and the sheriff, and the deputies, and the reassembled gathering that was picking up the wounded and t
he dead, and hauling them away. “They’re losing their reason. You know what that is, out there? I bet you don’t, Belle Boyd, but I do, as plain as I know you’re too smart to shoot. That out there…that’s not a crowd. ”
“It’s not?”
“No. It’s a mob. And it doesn’t have half the brains of two men together, and they are going to kill anybody who tries to come out of this bird, lickity-split. So here’s what’s going to happen now,” he said, and he changed his mind, and put the gun back in its holster instead of pointing it at the woman in the doorway. “Me and my men are going to lift this Valkyrie up, fly her off, and if you don’t make any trouble for us, maybe we’ll set you down safe. ”
“How chivalrous of you. ”
“We’re gentlemen through and through, we are. ”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. Her gun didn’t believe them either.
Outside, hands and hammers were beating against the Valkyrie’s hull, hoping to pull it apart a piece at a time if it couldn’t be breached. Hainey heard this, even through the buzzing in his ears, and he said to the spy, “Call it professional courtesy if you want, or merely my personal desire to surprise you. But if we don’t move this ship somewhere else, and fast, not a one of us is walking away from it. Do you understand me?”
He nodded his head at Simeon, then at Lamar, who cautiously stepped away from him and went to the consoles where they might best make themselves useful. Hainey said, “Keep your gun out if you want, I don’t give a damn. ”
“You don’t?”
“No, I don’t. Because now you know you’ll die down here with us, if you don’t let us fly. And once we’re in the air, you’ll die if you cut down any given one of us. So keep your gun out, lady, if that’s what makes you feel better. Leave it out, and leave it pointed at me, if you please. I don’t mind it, but I think it makes my crewmen nervous—and nervous crewmen can’t steer worth a damn. ”
8
Hainey swung himself into the captain’s chair and snarled when a hail of bullets struck the windshield—chipping it here and nicking it there, but barely scratching the foot-thick swath of polished glass. He found the thruster pedal and pumped it with his foot while his hand searched all the logical spots for a starter switch. His fingers fumbled across the console, feeling into the nooks and slots where such switches tended to be located, and finally he found a red lever so he pulled it, and the burners fired at top power, and top volume.
Behind the dirigible someone who had been standing too close to the engine mounts screamed and probably died as the craft howled violently to life.
Simeon adjusted himself in the first mate’s chair and reached overhead for the steering and undocking levers; he tested the former and yanked hard on the latter, and somewhere beyond their hearing a hydraulic clasp unfastened and began to retreat into the body of the ship.
Lamar busied himself by bounding back and forth between two secondary crewmen’s chairs, adjusting settings and turning dials, and the captain asked him, “We ready to fly?” to which the engineer said, “As ready as we’re going to get. ” And he cast Maria Boyd an anxious glance.
She held her position by the crew quarters door, but her gun was at her side now and she caught him looking at her, she met his stare without a waver. But no one had time to stare, really. On the Valkyrie’s underbelly men were taking kerosene torches to task, trying to find a place to cut where the metal would split enough to do damage. And the hammers were joined by crowbars, and by pipes, and by anything else hard and reckless, and the sound against the hull was like hail.
Maria said, “They really will kill us all, won’t they?”
And Hainey replied without taking his eyes off the console, “Sure enough. They’ll never give you the five minutes you’d need to explain yourself; they’ll pull you out of the bird and pound you flat, just for being inside it in the first place. Now take yourself a seat. ”
“Is that an order, Captain?”
He said, “It’s a suggestion you’d be wise to heed. We’ve never flown a bird this big before, and it might get rough. ”
“You’re asking me to trust you enough to quit holding you at gunpoint. ”
Before Lamar had time to point out that she’d already lowered her weapon, the captain said, “No, I’m asking you to trust that we’re too busy to pay you any attention. ”
With the back of his hand, he swiped at three parallel switches and the howling hum of the engines leaped to a keening pitch. “Here we go,” he announced.
Behind him, Maria slipped into a seat beside the nearest glass gun turret and reached over her head, pulling the safety straps across her chest. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said.
“Don’t worry about us,” Simeon said to her. He rubbed his injured hand against the top of his thigh and reached with his good one for a row of buttons. “And don’t interfere with anything we’re doing, you understand?” he demanded, and in his haste, pain, or excitement, his island accent was more pronounced than it often sounded.
“I’ll stay out of the way,” she swore.
“And be quiet,” the first mate added. Then he said to the captain. “Steering checks out. ”
Lamar said, “Thrusters and primary weapon systems check out. Engines are at full power. Throw the arm and let’s lift her up, Captain. ”
“Here goes the arm,” Hainey declared as he pulled on a floor-mounted lever, drawing it towards his chest with all the smoothness he could muster and all the speed the ship could handle. Fuel coursed to the engines and the thrusters beneath the ship rotated in their slots, aiming at the ground and pushing away from it—nudging the Union warbird into the air with a hop that was cleaner than anyone had expected.
