Perilous Journey of the Much-Too-Spontaneous Girl (29 page)

She motioned with the gun for all of them to move back, as she stepped in the room and Boots closed the door behind them. “I knew
you
were not to be trusted from the start,” she pointed at Jacques with the barrel of the pistol. “Honest eyes, tell no lies. I was certain when I saw the way you looked at my girl here, then proceeded to lie about knowing her. You even called her a wench. Tsk tsk. It only turns tacky when you lay it on too thick.”

Lucy took a step closer to Marguerite, and Douleur drew her other gun with her free hand and pointed it at her. “You are pretty, but I can already tell you are useless—only good for menial labor, at most. Possibly fetch a price in the Jamaican slave market, but your skin is much too dark to get any real money out of you there.” Marguerite reached down for Lucy’s hand and squeezed it.

“The bot is extraordinary, and I can deal with her programming. I especially like her voice. Very nice, feminine touch. You must let me know where you picked her up. I’d take a ship full of bots like her, much better than this old bag of bolts.” She indicated Boots with the nod of her head.

“So that leaves you, Marguerite.” Captain Douleur smiled a strange smile. It seemed to be full of nostalgia and sadness, but there was still cruelty underneath. “You grew up very, very fast. I’m under no delusion that we can sail off together, the happy mother and daughter pirate team, but there must be another way to deal with you besides killing you. No?”

Marguerite was as fast as lightning. She pulled the little gun from her pocket and fired straight at Captain Douleur without a moment’s hesitation. The captain fired as well, but her two guns were half a second behind Marguerite’s. As the blast of electricity from her tiny pistol struck Douleur between the eyes, the balls from the pirate’s pistols found purchase in Lucy’s arm and Outil’s head.

The bot fell helplessly to the floor, and the girl stumbled to her knees as the pirate captain crashed in a heap. “No!” Marguerite didn’t know who to turn to first. Lucy was bleeding, the red liquid dripping on the ground caught Marguerite’s attention first. She jumped to the drawer still open in the bureau, grabbed a silk camisole, and pushed it onto her friend’s wound.

“I’m alright. She just grazed me a bit,” Lucy said between tears. “Check Outil!”

As Marguerite turned to the ruins of her dearest friend, Jacques was already in action. He had Captain Douleur’s hulking automaton, Boots, by the arms and was trying to wrestle him down. A useless move for a human to make against a bot of that size, but he tried nonetheless.

The lead ball had hit Outil in the left eye, tearing off half of her lovely face and rendering her circuitry completely dead. As Marguerite stared at the amazing network of gears and cogs that made up her friend’s inner workings, she began to sob fully. She was so overcome she didn’t register the robot voice behind her.

“Master Jacques. There is no need to subdue me. I am not a threat to you.” Jacques let go cautiously and looked at Boots who stood still over his mistress laid flat on her back on the floor. A black mark was seared across her forehead. The bot lifted up one foot and kicked her hard in the ribs. Captain Douleur groaned but did not wake up. “How do you like this useless bucket of bolts now?” he asked in his monotone voice.

“Jacques!” Marguerite wept. “She killed Outil.” She lay her head down on the bot’s hard metal chest and let her whole heart spill out in tears and sobs.

“Marguerite, it’s not too late. We can get her to Claude. We can do this; we can save all of us. What on earth did you shoot Douleur with?”

Marguerite gasped through her tears, “I don’t know, just something Claude gave me.” She handed the weapon over to Jacques. “He told me not to point it at anyone I liked. I couldn’t think of anyone in the world I liked less than her right now, so I just shot her.”

“You did well, my love. This is going to be alright. We are going to make it. Just stay with Outil. Boots, can you help me?”

“Of course, Master Jacques. But only on one condition.” Jacques looked surprised at the bot. “What is that?”

“You call me by my real name, Bradley.”

“Excellent. Bradley it is. Let’s tie this pirate lady up and get her ship back in the air.”

Because the
Dragon
had such a terrible reputation, they had no problems flying north along the coast. Any ships they passed steered far away from them, and none questioned their path. A few Chinese rockets went up from New Amsterdam as they flew past, but nothing that was a serious threat. Marguerite guessed the new governor wasn’t as friendly to pirates as he’d been made to sound.

Jacques and Bradley successfully repaired the engines and had them flying with a loyal skeleton crew of now ex-pirates who were more than happy to see Douleur bound and gagged in the brig. They steered the
Dragon
away from land until they reached New France. Then he ordered the French flag flown high, and they sailed up the Saint Lawrence River to Montreal where they took a sharp turn to starboard and sailed on to the northern forest.

Marguerite spent the entire day and a half voyage in a cabin far away from the Douleur’s awful captain’s quarters. Outil lay on the bed and Marguerite lay next to her, her head on Outil’s lifeless chest. Only as they began to drop out of the sky in sight of their destination, did she rise and look out the porthole. The thick pines of the north were there to greet her once again. She continued to gaze through the trees until she could make out the shapes of Claude’s empty barn and humble cottage. She pulled her goggles down and adjusted for distance. Claude stood in front of his house, wearing his own goggles and looking back up at her. He waved up at the ship in welcome. She assumed someone had hailed him from the deck or sent a wireless telegraph or pigeon. She wondered what had become of Hector, the little Spanish swallow.

Marguerite helped Jacques push open the gate; then they carried Outil’s body out together. Marguerite burst into a new fit of tears when she saw Claude approaching.

“Can you save her?” she wept.

“Of course I can.” He motioned for Jacques to carry her to the makeshift smithy forge in his barn. Marguerite felt a warm arm around her shoulders. She turned to see Louisa smiling with concern at her.

“If anyone can fix something he already dreamed up and built, it’s Claude,” she said in low voice.

Marguerite sniffed a bit as she watched the two men with the lifeless metal form. “You’re right.”

“I have someone I want you to meet if you can spare a minute.” Marguerite nodded, grateful for the kindness, as Louisa led her to the house. There in a cradle in the back bedroom lay the most lovely baby girl, all peaches and cream skin, with a perfect little nose and dark lashes brushing pink cheeks. She was sleeping soundly, dressed in a white eyelet gown. A blanket of soft wool was tucked around her in the handmade bed.

“She’s just lovely,” Marguerite whispered. It felt wrong to talk louder than that, almost like she was in church.

“She is strong and healthy; we couldn’t ask for more,” Louisa said as she smiled down at her baby.

“Outil would have been completely fascinated by her.”

“Will be,” Louisa corrected.

“Will be,” Marguerite echoed, barely audible.

A knock at the door made both women jump. Marguerite moved first. “I’ll get it. You stay with your baby,” Louisa nodded, and Marguerite left to see who was there. A very tall, highly decorated aerman stood in the door flanked by four officers of equal pomp and circumstance.

“Lady Marguerite Vadnay?” the man boomed, a harsh contrast to the sweet sleeping baby.

Marguerite answered as she stepped outside and closed the door, “Yes, that is me.”

“I am Admiral Auboyneau and I hereby accuse you of high treason, obstruction of His Majesty’s orders, theft of an escape boat …” He continued to list several other crimes Marguerite was fairly certain she had committed. She sighed and held out her arms waiting for someone to chain them again.
This is becoming too much of a habit,
she thought. But they were not bound. Instead, the admiral kept talking.

“We have also been informed that you have helped to complete a mission of great importance to His Majesty and have not only discovered the technology behind the pirate ship the
Dragon
but have brought the ship to our aether along with its infamous pirate captain. Because of these special circumstances, I, Admiral Auboyneau, by the power vested in me, do hereby drop all charges against Lady Vadnay, under the condition that she never again volunteers for duty in His Majesty’s Royal Aerforce or any other branch of the French military, and that she hereby be released from her services with a dishonorable discharge.”

The Admiral then leaned in and whispered in her ear, “We had to issue some sort of punishment or they’d have our heads. We felt this fit the crime.” He stood back and returned to his full height. “This concludes your service to King and Country. We thank you for your efforts, your success, and your willingness. Godspeed.”

With that, the admiral bowed low and then stood in a more relaxed fashion. “Now, where is this Douleur? I can’t wait to get my hands on her.”

“She is locked in the brig of the
Dragon
. I think you’ll find ample evidence in the captain’s quarters to hang her.” Marguerite couldn’t quite believe she would ever speak of hanging someone in her life, much less her own mother. Then again, she hadn’t had time to really think about the fact that suddenly she had a mother again—and a pirate mother to boot. She wondered if she should get to know her a bit better, find out why she left. Was it really because she just wanted to see the world? Or had something more sinister happened? And why hadn’t she let Marguerite know she was alive all these years?

It was a lot to take in. She was definitely going to need a soft bed, warm tea and a few nights of good sleep before she would be able to sort this mess out.

“Marguerite!” Another voice called to her from where the military ship had dropped lift. “Dearest!”

She looked past the admiral and his men who were now heading for the
Dragon
and saw her father scurrying toward her on the dirt road. It was almost a comical sight. His cane flopped out of rhythm as his short legs hopped along at a much faster pace than he was used to. His perfectly pressed dress trousers were covered in dust, and his monocle bounced right out of his eye and flopped on his chest. Marguerite made her own quick move toward her father, and they met in an embrace.

“My dear girl, they told me all that has happened. I couldn’t be more proud of you. I mean, that is to say, you could have gone about all of this in a less haphazard fashion, but I’m so grateful that you’re home.”

“Thank you, Father. I am very glad to be home as well.” And the tears sprang to her eyes again. She stopped trying to fight them. She cried whenever she felt like it now. She’d cried for Outil all the way home. When she wasn’t crying for Outil, she cried for Jacques’s safe return. Last of all, she cried for herself. She reached into the pocket of her flight suit and pulled out the bundle of letters tied in red ribbon and handed them to Lord Vadnay.