Steena gathered the pleats of her skirt as she followed the odoriferous trail levitating behind Pannel’s cadre of press-ganged ruffians to the undogged airlock, tipping her head aside at her last stride, austensibly to secure the tuck in her ink-black chignon against any unpleasant soiling of her tresses, but more to the point, to indulge one final discreet waft of unsweated air before the hatch battened her in to that noxious company of men. Had she in fact been the bilge rat her captor accused her of being, her face would like to have born a placid and fresh laxity for the aroma rather than the grimacing shockalarm posture that contorted her features presently, which forced her naturally creaseless eyelids to spawn lines of stress, and the high arch of her eyebrows to collapse into the lifeless lines of an ungassed dirigible. The four men were uniformly naped in woven mid-back braids, bore bandanas faded and bestriped of sweat-pressed creases, albeit in a motley array of colors; and woolen stockings insufficiently covered by underlength brown, or possibly incurably soiled grey canvas breeches, those stockings themselves failing to cover an untold negligence of a lavatory. A particularly squat fellow fronted the crew – a wrenchman by his dressage – steamwork goggles draped lazily around his thick, sweaty neck and cocked slightly to starboard. He bore a pernicious grin below steel grey eyes unabashed in their absorption of her predicament – as well as of her adornment. Eyes which knew too well that the only vacancy afforded in the lock was the narrow space immediately in front of him, leaving her with not a choice of having some sort of airflow between she and himself, but only a choice of which side of her body he would soon become intimately connected to. A leather vest obviously acquired from someone even more vertically challenged than himself failed to shut up the gentleman’s significant girth, and a baldric carried over his left shoulder bore his revolver to the side where it was clearly unable to sway out of place even in a hurry due to the staying power of his abdominal appendage. All aboard the lift, the door began to shut them in.
Steam pistons hissed in compliance to their duties in swinging shut the heavy door, bearing its greasy facade of bronze and iron gears and shafts, and she soon became uncommonly aware of the augmentation which necessarily accompanied a woman of her curvaceousness who has gained the necessary support provided by an armored tegu leather corset; for as the massive airlock door found alignment along the knife edges, the actuating pistons paused in their suffocating retort only to be followed by a new hiss signaling that the six locking dogs, interconnected through those various gears and shafts, would be drawing the door in for its last inch of seal. Uncomfortably close in front of her, teeth of intermeshed gears bit into each other in a whirring, clacking – and advancing cacophony.
“Watch yer fingers, missy.”
The gruff voice came from behind her, in that space where she could not help but conjecture what perverse imaginings were now being conceived, and at a vertical distance which genuinely made her wish that he were even several inches shorter, or taller, such that she could turn her less pronounced backside to the approaching mechanisms, and in consequence present her softer assets to something other than that beast’s lascivious senses. As it were, her fingers were already busy pressing her skirt tight against her thighs out of dreadful fear that the door is in cahoots with the horrid little troll, hungrily scheming to disrobe her for his amusement.
It was this last inch, unfortunately, which were not allowed by that accoutrement which protected her midriff so handily. The air in her lungs already burning from holding her breath, she consigned to meter it out through pursed lips such that she could hope to accommodate the approaching menace with a narrower pronouncement. Her eyes fixated on the large central gnashing metal gear screwing itself toward her prominence, eventually forcing her into retreat. As she did so, a warm and disturbingly soft pressure cupped her backside, enticing her to now imagine what organ was pleasing itself with her bottom parts. In an unwelcome calculating measure of reason, she was forced to accept, with a shudder, that it was a distended and mead-filled belly now supporting her posterior, and likewise endangering her frontside by preventing further retreat from the advancing metalloid monster. Presently, when the whirring gears had just brushed up against the taught cotton fabric of her blouse across her breasts, the door finally stopped.
Mere seconds of reprieve were afforded before her knees bowed to advise that the airlock was now ascending up into the ship. She did not enjoy that someone was enjoying the soft, sweaty massage on her rump. A temptation arose to lean directly into the gears of the door as the lesser of two horrible fates, but nothing in the chamber suggested when they would reach their destination and the grinding machinations would resume again to unlock the door. In this fashion, with every of her senses assaulted in a most awful manner, Steena Sparly prepared for her audience with the most ruthless pirate of the Caribbean skies. Every sense, that is, except her ears.
“Cap’n says we gots to bring you to the Premier Salon.” A deep, velvety voice on her right shoulder announced, in a clumsy lowbrow accent which in no manner was befitting to the orator. “That’s on the starboard gondola, so we’ll need to pass through the athwartship passageway. We don’t want no funny business while yer outside the skin of the ship. Besides, air here ain’t no different than what’s outside yer pretty city of Tulsa. You’ll be a dried piece o’ American jerky in 30 seconds if ye jump ship.”
Steena’s eyes widened, she barely contained a gasp. The urge to turn around and confirm her ears was maddening. Can that possibly be Chase? She had no idea how he could have escaped the troops at Berlin, but she could certainly not mistake that cooling voice which drove her nuts at the Governor’s ball. A wave of relief flowed over her, and then a resolve and redound courage overcame her. She took a long, steep draw of the stench through her nose to replenish her oxygen, newly encouraged by the understanding that the foul odor is ultimately blessed with impermanence. And it was at this time that her own gears began turning.
No, wait. This will not do. She had to resolve first that she had an ally aboard, one with the strength of character – and of body to be sure – to rest her hopes upon in the face of such grave an enterprise as what she is now to consider. As if by omen, an itch tickled her right cheek. The annoying little touch of a disobedient bang coming loose from the bindings in her hair, could be blown away quickly, or tucked back into her tresses; but instead, she took opportunity to glance to her right while scratching the annoyance with her shoulder. It was a split second of discomposure, yet carried to her such a valuable treasure of illumination.
The man to her right was far more scruffy than what she would have recognized in the ever-genteel Chase Standers, however that roman nose which carried his youthful and vibrant physiognomy to a mark; a clear tawny forehead dressed in ink-black awns of meticulously level brows, not scornful or dispassionate at all, but instead, inducing a peace of the wisdom hidden behind his deep eyes; was unmistakable at such close quarters. His garb was impoverished enough to pass as any desperate dreg who would employ themselves in piracy, even if such employment were given some ersatz legitimacy through the privateering incorporation professed by the likes of Captain Pannel. But it was only from her perspective, it would seem, that a glint of radiance betrayed itself from some charm hanging about his neck, above the vee of his sweaty cotton sark and below the neck wrap of his tunic. It was certainly gold, and certainly unfitting for such employment. This was indeed no other than the wayward son of the Guard who won her freedoms once before at Berlin. This certainly was the gallant Chase Standers.
Starboard gondola? She thought, newly encouraged. This dirigible has two gondolas? Of course! I am boarding the legendary catamaran sky ship Lomonosov! And that explains how Pannel could cross the kilnderness in only two days. She’s a skysail steam hybrid – he simply did not refuel! I read all about the Lomonosov in Ancient Navigation. While she is a fairly new build, Steena recalled, she incorporates ancient technologies and serves as the ultimate example of efficiency and performance. Her two envelopes support a central deck, which is mounted with three sail masts and a keel. She can cross vast expanses without spending any fuel at all. Any modern airship engineer would echo the mantra of powered flight, that any airship without power is a baloon with great durability as long as your destination is always downwind. That would be true enough, but early pioneers had acquired some nearly mystical ability to “see” cross-currents in an airstream, and with enormous keels, could skew and tack along the airstream boundaries in nearly any direction they pleased. It was a time when fuel was less abundant, and airborn society had needs to overcome great expanses without it. Without the weight of tens of tons of hartshorn or nitre she can also outmaneuver most steamships, as long as she’s in a Leeward tack. But still, she remained puzzled at the events which brought Chase Standers into this company. The question burned within her as a breath of kilnair would billow the sails of Lomonosov. All the same, she knew there was a plan if such an incongruous situation as what has now befallen her, has indeed been manifest. She had only to find an opportunity to get him alone so she could hear this plan.
It then dawned on her that whatever the plan may be, it may not be completely borne out. Does he have some crazy notion to jump the ship while crossing between the gondolas? We will be over 80 feet above ground, and we would be cooked in the thick kilnair before we even hit the ground anyway, unless we take time to don silica suits. The inseparable nature of her femininity, which leaves members of her sex never at peace with the fitment of any apparel on the best of days, now put reasonable apprehensions in her head – they certainly didn’t conveniently have one in my size laying about, She reasoned. This detail was added to her to-do list as the hoist slowed in preparation for an end to her short journey into the ship.
As the airlift reached the docking level and came to a halt, signaling the door will soon be opening, she resolved to do this her way this time. She stared at the door intently.
“Watch yer fingers, mister!” she said, directed to no obvious audience.
She quickly unfurled lengths of cloth from around her wrists and wrapped her hands in them, then reached her arms out to press against the searing door jamb on both sides, fingers pulled back from the hot metal structure. With this new leverage she thrust her body back from the mechanical menace just before it began its greedy mastications. Her bottom thrust into the offending spherical belly behind her, choking out his breath and evoking a muffled grunt. The troll reflexively reached his hands up to grasp the hips which were snuffing out his air, and clenched onto her belt. He seemed to enjoy this ever so briefly, until it was interrupted with a cry of pain. As Steena was preparing her hand bandages, she also had decided it fitting to unlatch the spring-loaded utility clasps on her belt, which previously had held her tools and weapons. Fingers, it would appear, are also remarkably well fit for making fast in such clasps. The door began the whirring and ka-lacking necessary to unsecure the dogs of the massive door, and Steena Sparly was newly prepared to face the menace of Captain Bram Pannel on the other side, with her fresh catch of miniature pirate whimpering in tow.
Science Fiction
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