Perilous Journey of the Much-Too-Spontaneous Girl (16 page)

Ha! Take that you goggle thief!
She thought.

She kept her hands behind the pole and shimmied back to standing while she began to calculate her options. Three men in front of her, a good ten feet between the two ships, ropes, bits of debris—she could do this.

She took a deep breath, tried not to think about the pain in her head, shoulder, and leg, and now hand, and charged forward with every ounce of strength she had left.

The first clue that Marguerite’s plan wasn’t going to work was when she grabbed the rope in front of her at full speed, and her shoulder and hand exploded with pain. As small as she was, the weight of her body was too much for her injured arm. The crew of the
Renegade
saw her attempt and cheered while the men around her flew into action.

She slid lamely off the rope and held her shoulder with her good arm trying to find another way to get back to her ship. A pirate ran for her with both arms open, but she easily ducked under him and grabbed a board with a nail in the end left from her wreck. Swinging wildly with her good arm at anyone else attempting to come near, she made it to the port side. Trouble now was that she knew she wasn’t strong enough to jump the distance between the ships, and she couldn’t take her eyes off the pirates in front of her long enough to even climb up and ready herself.

Someone on the
Renegade
tried to throw her a rope. She snatched at it with her injured arm while shaking her board with the other, but missed, allowing the pirates to jump back in the fight. She swung her board as hard as she could and connected with the beefy man wearing her goggles, but it wasn’t enough to stop him. He grabbed her weapon and threw it over the side of the ship as if it were as easy as plucking a sweet from a baby. A smaller man grabbed her from the other side and spun her around so that her back was pressed up against his belly as he pressed a knife to her throat. The crew of the
Renegade
cursed and shook their arms as she was dragged back, away from their reach.

Marguerite’s heart pounded in her chest, her whole body hurt now, and the edge of the blade was scraping at her skin, cutting a little here, a little there. She couldn’t help the fat tears that began to roll down her face as she watched the
Renegade
’s helpless crew watching her.

What had she done? How could she have been so foolish? She thought of her earlier anger and childish thoughts of revenge. She wished she could take them all back. Of course, Jacques hadn’t behaved himself either, but her blunders far outweighed his heavy-handedness.

Just when she thought it couldn’t get worse, a familiar face in a captain’s hat pushed through the crowd to the edge of his ship. He walked purposefully, probably on his way to meet with the pirate captain. She watched him go, wishing she could call out to him, but knowing he wouldn’t hear. And then someone from the crowd grabbed his arm and pointed him in her direction. He stopped and looked directly into her face.

Jacques’s expression was a mixture of sorrow, anger, and fear. It hurt her heart more than anything to see him looking at her that way. She tried to convey with her pleading expression and tears how sorry she was to have caused so much trouble. She was so close to being with him, and she realized she did want to be with him. Not just on the
Renegade
, but actually with Jacques. And now she couldn’t reach him, and he would have to risk his life to reach her. All she could do was continue to walk backwards and cry.

Jacques turned and spoke to the man next to him. The man ran into the throng, and Jacques continued to stare at her for a few more moments, his eyes large and fixed, his jaw clenched as the pirates tied her arms and legs and forced her into a sitting position in one of the catapults facing the
Renegade
. She knew him well enough to know that he was very angry, and not just at her. He was about to do something rash to the pirates holding her.

The dish she sat in was deep, and her legs stuck out at an odd angle. There was no way to wiggle out without free arms. A small, nasty looking man with rotten teeth grabbed a bucket of the sticky looking liquid they had covered the debris in, and climbed onto a crate just behind her. The men in front of her began to yell and shake their fists as Marguerite felt the first drops of cold liquid hit her head and run down her face leaving a film of sludge behind.

Jacques balled his fist and slammed it on the railing. Then he cupped his hands over his mouth and called across the void in English, “You damage one hair on my aerman’s head, and I will skewer all of you personally.”

His aerman. Was he trying to hide exactly what she meant to him, or was he letting her know her place? At least he didn’t tell them to go ahead and burn her, that she’d caused him more trouble than she was worth.

“Keep your knickers on!” The little man yelled back, “We’ll wait on Captain Douleur’s answer. And then we’ll burn her!” He laughed maniacally and waved the torch over his head, coming dangerously close to Marguerite’s now flammable body. The man Jacques had spoken to earlier was back at his side, and Jacques nodded as he spoke. Then he turned to Marguerite again and mouthed the words
je t’aime
, before he moved back through the group on his deck and disappeared.

I love you.

He’d said it. He still loved her. She felt a flash of hope, before it instantly turned to second-guessing herself. He could have said a number of things that looked like je’taime. Things that would make more sense, like I hate you, you ruin everything, why did I ever think we could marry and live a happy life together, or you are a disaster. All of which made more sense than him loving her right now. He was gone, she could only assume to meet with Captain Douleur, and she would just have to wait to learn the outcome of that meeting.

The wind blew relentlessly as the minutes turned into an hour. Marguerite’s thoughts drifted from worry to complete despair. She rallied a few times with thoughts of escape, but there was no freeing her arms this time. Her injuries and the extra tight binding kept her stuck in her misery. The sludge she was covered in smelled strongly of chemicals and eventually began to sting and burn her skin. Her arms were at such an angle that the pain in her shoulder was constant, almost unbearable. Marguerite was close to wishing they would just finish her off and be done with the whole ordeal. She sat with her eyes closed, wishing for her father, and her soft bed back in Montreal, not daring to wish for Jacques, when a familiar mechanical voice cried out from the
Renegade
.

Most of the crew had gone back to their work, a few stayed to watch Marguerite and her ruthless captors, and in the middle of them all, Outil appeared, shining as bright as the day she was built.

“Be strong, aerman!” the bot called out in French.

Marguerite was surprised by the informal address, at first, and then she realized that the pirates had no idea who she was, and if they did, it could turn the tables on negotiations in their favor. She tried to smile at her wise robot friend, but the chemical gasses burned her eyes, and she had to close them again. She heard shuffling and rumbling all around her, along with complaints, cusses, and thumps. Occasionally someone would poke or prod her or whisper something lewd in her ear. She ignored them all and kept her eyes shut tight against the fumes.

Suddenly she felt pressure at her ankles, and her eyes flew open. A man bent over her, cutting her ropes. Another was at her wrists cutting there. She clenched her eyes against the pain.

“You are one lucky lady, aerman. Quite the bargain struck for you. Must be a favorite of the captain. Eh?”

He poked her belly, and she swatted at him with her now free hand. She dared to ask in her broken English, “You are letting me go?”

“Oh, yes, lovely. We are letting you go. But we are still coming out on top.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what they meant. Once she was cut free, she started to try and climb out of the catapult, but they shoved her back down. “Now, how do you suppose she thinks she’s going to get back, Jo? Can’t fly, can’t even hold a rope.”

Marguerite looked up to the man wearing her goggles on his head as he said, “Only one way for it.” He leaned in to trip the trigger on the catapult, but before he could, Marguerite reached out and snatched her goggles back, pulling his head down with them. His forehead smashed into the bucket of the catapult as it launched Marguerite and her goggles high into the air between the two ships.

For the second time that morning, she found herself flying helplessly through the aether, thousands of feet above the Atlantic Ocean. Marguerite decided she wasn’t sure this particular type of adventure suited her at all. Maybe Jacques was right. Before she could finish exploring that thought, she landed with a painful crash onto the deck of the Renegade. A cheer went up, and battle broke out.

She kept her eyes glued shut, listening to the clang of grappling hooks hitting the opposite deck, the crack of gunfire, and the thudding of running feet. She tried to blink quickly to see where she could crawl for safety when familiar cold metal arms gathered her up from behind and carried her through the fray to the decks below.

“Outil!” she sobbed.

“Do not worry, m’lady. We have clean water at the ready. You’ll be good as new in twenty minutes.”

“I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean to cause all this trouble.”

“Hush now. It is time to rest. Let the men fight, and the automaton clean.”

“Where is Jacques? Can I see him? I need to apologize.”

“If my guess is correct, m’lady, he is still aboard the other ship. I’m sure he’s busy battling Captain Douleur.”

“But, Outil, I’ve been so horrible. I caused this whole skirmish, and now he’s in mortal danger,” she sobbed the words out as best she could, but she couldn’t finish. Outil opened the door to what must have been the washrooms. A blast of steam hit Marguerite in the face, and she could smell the strong lye soap.

“We’ll have plenty of time to talk once we get you cleaned up. Hold on, this might be a bit hot,” Outil said. Marguerite felt the bot take her goggles and pull her boots off her feet then lift her up and over the lip of one of the giant brass wash tubs.

She cringed and prepared herself for a scalding, backside first. But the air roared with explosion and the Renegade rocked dangerously from side to side. The water in the tub sloshed up to meet her prematurely, and Outil slipped and dropped her in. Marguerite had been so cold from sitting on the deck of the pirate ship, covered in wet who-knows-what, that she felt she might actually be on fire when the hot water hit her. Her whole body went under in the giant tub, and every nerve ending threatened to burst from the sudden heat. She pushed herself up to the surface as best she could, coughing and spitting soapy water.

“Oh, dear. I am so terribly sorry,” Outil said as she climbed back to her feet and handed Marguerite a bar of soap.

“Gears and goblins!” Marguerite cried. “It’s as hot as the river Styx!”

“Yes, and I have prepared a solvent that should do well to get the tar, and whatever else is in this mixture, off,” Outil said. “Just keep your eyes closed, miss.”The ship rocked again, and the sound of battle raged on above them. They heard the Renegade’s secondary engines roar to life and felt the ship lurch and sway back into movement.

“I need to get these clothes off,” Marguerite ordered as she took the rag soaked in fuel and scrubbed furiously at her face. “We need to help.” She winced with pain as Outil pealed the ruined flight suit off her injured shoulder; then she carefully removed everything else as best she could.

“I’m afraid your arm may be dislocated, m’lady.” The bot carefully took Marguerite’s favorite pink underwear and hung them in front of the drying ovens.

“Yes, I would agree. But this lye soap seems to be doing the trick.” She used her good arm to reach up and rub the cake all over her head. “Oh, Outil, I don’t even want to see a mirror for at least a month! Help me get this through my hair. Would you?”

The two continued to work on Marguerite’s hair and body as the battle raged on. Being with her bot and safely able to scrub the events of the morning away was helping Marguerite recharge. She was considering all her options and determined to actually help this time. “At least this ship seems to have a bit more staying power than the
Triumph
did,” Marguerite noted. By this time in the battle with the last pirates they’d encountered, the
Triumph
had been bursting to pieces.

“I’m fairly certain that the Renegade is doing most of the firing, m’lady. Officer Vuitton and I have been preparing rigorously the past few days. I found him to be a very intelligent commander. I can only assume he would be as intelligent in battle as well.”

“Oh, Outil, I’ve made such a mess of things,” Marguerite rested her head in her hands as the bot continued to work the knots and goo out of her hair.

“M’lady, you haven’t done anything to intentionally hurt anyone. These are unfortunate circumstances. You could possibly—” the bot stopped short.