Chapter 1 AMS Predator, Colony Spire Dependence Captain Francis Madison Grimm, commander, AMS Predator, strode down the length of the deck, doing what an airship''s captain all too often found a necessary duty-waiting calmly. The ship''s crew had gone to general quarters in predawn, nearly eight hours before, with breaks for no more than two men at a time, and those only for biological necessity. Mists hovered thickly over the ship, for it was barely more than a thousand feet above the lithosophere-that elevation where the growing things of the hellish surface world reached out branches, tendrils, and various other structures that could threaten a ship''s physical integrity. Grimm could scarcely see from one end of Predator to the other, much less what might be happening to the armed away team of the Spirearch''s Guard currently deployed to the colony Spire below. Grimm climbed the steep ladder to the bridge and strode over to where the ship''s pilot, Mister Kettle, leaned easily back against the pilot''s brace, his wrists draped over the ship''s steering grips, fingers hanging loosely. He was relaxed despite the hours of waiting. Kettle was a brawny, bearded veteran aeronaut. The skin around his eyes was permanently a bit lighter than the rest of his face where his goggles had shielded him from the glare of the light of the open sky far above.
His forearms looked like ham hocks, and he wore his fleece-lined cold-weather aeronaut''s coat unbuttoned and open in the warmth at this altitude. Sweat had run tracks down his face and neck. "Skip," Kettle drawled easily as Grimm approached. "We should have seen or heard something from the team by now." In response, Grimm calmly, deliberately removed his pocket watch from where it resided in his waistcoat, and he consulted its face before polishing it, closing it, and returning it to its pocket. "They''re barely outside the mission window, Mister Kettle," Grimm said. "I think we shall not wail and gnash our teeth quite yet." "Aye, Skip," Kettle replied.
"But beggin'' the captain''s pardon, I''d be happier if Sir Benedict had sent up a rocket by now." "I''m sure if Sir Benedict had need of us, he would have done so," Grimm replied. "Meanwhile, I''ll not leave us sitting fat and happy on an unguarded docking platform. Any Auroran who ran a patrol past it would blow us to splinters." "If they could see us in this soup," Kettle growled. A boarding ax, his weapon of choice in most ship actions, hung from a loop on his belt, and on his left hand he wore a gauntlet-a cage of copper wire wrapped around a heavy leather bracer and connected by straps and wires to the heavy leather strap that held the weapon crystal against his palm. "If the enemy comes close enough to see us in this, we''ll be biting one another''s noses off before anyone can aim a cannon." There was a sudden hiss, followed by a swift trilling sound that seemed to embrace a rapid series of sharp clicks in its volume.
Something flashed by in the mist off the ship''s prow, a lean, sleek mass almost five yards long supported by an impossibly fine-looking webwork of glittering wings. Its body trailed a pair of long, fine talons beneath it. Kettle''s breath exploded out of him in a huff of surprise, and his gauntlet came up so he could track the creature''s path as it glided by through the mist-and was gone. Other trills echoed those of the first creature, somewhere out of sight, hauntingly sourceless in the endless grey. "That''s the fourth time that one''s come by," Kettle said, his voice pitched low. "And I''ve seen half a dozen more, one of them even bigger. Skip, if we''re down this low when it gets dark, we''ll lose a dozen men to mistsharks." "We''ll be back in the aerosphere in time to see the sun set," Grimm assured him.
"XO to the bridge, if you please, Mister Kettle." "Aye, sir," Kettle replied firmly. He leaned over to one side to swing a copper-clad speaking tube to within range of his mouth so that he could bawl, "First officer to the bridge!" In less than half a minute, there were firm boot steps on the main deck and then the sounds of the XO coming up the staircase to the bridge, at the prow of the ship, where the pilot could see the most sky around the vessel. Predator was a light, armed transport outfitted a little more heavily than the average Aetherium Fleet destroyer. Swift and agile, she was equipped with both an etheric web and wind sails for running outside the main etheric currents-and her guns could speak with an authority that could have challenged the batteries of a minor colony Spire like Dependence. Even now her own guns were trained down in the general direction of the colony, and they had been for hours, their crews waiting suspended in a state between fear for their lives and utter boredom. Grimm noted several members of the gun crews nervously tracking the XO''s progress with their eyes instead of doing their duty, and he scowled them back down to their posts as the heir of the House of Lancaster came clomping up the stairs, her boots striking the deck beneath her far more sharply than was strictly necessary. Gwendolyn Margaret Elizabeth Lancaster was a petite woman who had acquitted herself ably in a trade where few females tried their hands-yet were always about in small numbers.
Granted, most of them were warriorborn and outcasts from society in the first place, but Gwen had thrown herself into the work with a will, starting two years ago, after Predator''s role in the capture of the Itasca, the storied Auroran battlecruiser now rechristened the Belligerent in a clear signal to her former masters of Fleet''s intentions toward Spire Aurora. Miss Lancaster wore an aeronaut''s leathers that matched Grimm''s own. The pattern was based upon the Fleet officer''s uniform but rendered in black leather with silver skull-motif fittings rather than the dark blue and gold of the Fleet. The garments made her look like something out of a melodrama-and she had, in fact, been portrayed as a melodramatic heroine of Spire Albion in a number of productions about the opening conflict of the current struggle. One that hovered precariously upon the brink of open war. Miss Lancaster attained the bridge, came to attention, and snapped off a proper Fleet salute to Grimm. As per usual, there were smears of engine grease upon one of her cheeks-even after her elevation into the illustrious ranks of the aeronaut officers'' corps of Albion, she was frequently to be found arguing with the chief of engineering, Journeyman, over Predator''s systems. "Captain.
We''ve had reports of mistsharks circling the ship from all quarters now, and the ship''s glass makes it less than an hour to sundown." "I''m aware," Grimm said calmly. "I''m going to consult with the etherealist, XO. Take the conn." Lancaster braced to attention. "Aye, Captain, I have the conn." Kettle glanced back at them both with naked skepticism. "Problem, Mister Kettle?" Gwen asked.
"No, ma''am," Kettle drawled. "It''s just that every time you''re on the conn, things seem to get interesting, Miss Lancaster, ma''am." "I beg your pardon, Mister Kettle," Gwen said sweetly. "But what exactly are you saying?" "Just saying we didn''t have to go in on those pirates at three to one, ma''am," Kettle said. "We might have tried another way." "I said, ''Take me down their throats, so I can blow their guts out,'' and that''s precisely what we did," Gwen replied firmly. "Usually, it''s ships what got all that armor that do such things, ma''am," Kettle retorted. "Since if the pirates had been a bit faster to get back to their guns, or the shroud had failed, we''d have been blown to tiny glowing pieces at that range.
" "But they weren''t faster, and it didn''t fail," Gwen said. "And we all made out like bandits on the salvage of the two that didn''t explode, and here you are complaining." Kettle looked back and grinned. He''d added more gold teeth in the past few years, one of them set with a tiny lumin crystal that glowed like a star, and the gold hoop in one ear had gained a red gemstone the size of a baby''s eye. "There, now you sound like a proper officer, ma''am." "Eyes out, tongues in," Grimm said, giving Kettle a glance. "If the away team has encountered the enemy and been unable to signal us, then the enemy could know of our presence and could be in the process of hunting for us. Let''s not make it easy for them.
" Lancaster frowned. "Do you think that''s what''s happened, Captain?" "It is one possibility," Grimm said, and lowered his voice pointedly. "One easily enough ensured against, eh?" He put a finger to his lips and climbed down from the bridge. The temperature had dropped noticeably, and through the mists, the quality of light had become warmer as the sun headed for the horizon. Night would not be far away, and the ship would need another thousand yards of sky beneath her to climb up out of the regions where the aerial predators of the surface world cruised. That distance would carry them out of range of the signal rockets of the away team. Grimm would be willing to leave the team overnight if he could be assured of their safety, but the communication would have to happen before night fell. Otherwise, he''d have to assume that nothing had gone terribly wrong.
And that was an assumption that Grimm would rather not make. He knocked at the door of the passenger cabin, waited a beat, and then opened it enough to say, "Miss Folly, a moment of your time?" "Oh,.