“Problem?” Kaliasked.
Cedar fired the revolver twice. A salvo ofreturn gunshots thundered through the corridor. He ducked back intothe cabin a split second before a bullet hammered into thedoorjamb, sending shards of wood flying.
He slammed the door shut. “I thoughtshooting that giant burned man and decapitating a couple of otherswould make them pause. Not long enough it seems.”
“You killed Sparwood?”Kali asked.
“Is that who that was? Iwondered. Yes, shot him square between the eyes.”
“Good,” Kali saidgrimly.
Cedar took a closer look at the modifiedshotgun in her hands. “Are you the one who…”
Kali swallowed and forced herself to nod andacknowledge her actions. Admittedly, she didn’t feel that bad aboutcausing Sparwood such pain. The other pirate…. She hoped he hadcommitted heinous crimes of his own, so there might be somejustification for torching him. Her insides still twisted at thememory of that flesh, seared and melted like candle wax.
“Good work,” Cedarsaid.
Kali winced, not wanting praise formutilating people, but Cedar had turned toward the corridor anddidn’t see her face. He yanked the door open, leaned out for aheartbeat, fired twice, and ducked back inside. A scream and astring of curses bombarded the corridor. Return fire came, but toolate. Cedar was already back inside, though he left the door openthis time. He fished bullets out of his ammo pouch and reloaded thesix-shooter.
“They’re on the stairs,”he whispered. “I think I can hold them at bay, but only if there’snot another way down here and they can’t come at us from bothsides.”
At that moment, clangs came from the hatchin the corridor floor. Eyes wide, Cedar started to lean out, butKali caught him before he could risk his head.
“After I escaped from theboiler room, I left a couple of men down there,” Kali said, “butthe hatch is locked. I don’t think they’ll be breaking out any timesoon.”
“Ah. Excellent.” Cedargrinned and grabbed her for a one-armed hug made awkward by theweapons in his hands. He planted a kiss on her temple, surprisingher, mostly because that was the last thing on her mind, but he hadan adventurous gleam in his eye again, like he was having a goodtime. Crazy man.
“There’s a pirate in hiscabin a couple of doors down though. I convinced him to go backinside-” Kali twitched her flame weapon, “-but he might decide tocheck on things at some point. I suppose there could be otherscowering too.”
“Understood.”
In the corner of the cabin, Keitlyudeestirred, peeking over her shoulder to look at them. Cedar liftedhis hand, as if to tip his hat, but seemed to remember he had asword in it. He lowered his arm and simply said, “Ma’am.”
The girl shrank back into herself. Kalicouldn’t imagine that she’d want anything to do with a man for along time. “That’s Keitlyudee. She’s Han. I want to drop her off atMoosehide after we take over the ship.” Kali glanced at the girl,but she had her head buried again. “I reckon her kin will take bestcare of her.”
“Take over the ship?”Cedar asked. “When did that become the plan?”
“Recently. I was thinkingI’d just grab her, and we’d escape, but then the reinforcementsburst in.”
Cedar’s eyebrows rose. “Should the wordreinforcements be plural when there’s just the one of me?”
“There’s you, thesix-shooter, and the sword,” Kali said. “If you and your team of weapons theremanaged to cut off the captain’s pants, then taking over the shipshould be a simple matter.”
“I see. What do you needme to do?”
Something in the corridor drew Cedar’sattention, and he went down on one knee and leaned out to shoottwice. The return fire came instantaneously, but it pounded intothe jamb where his head had been the first time. He’d thrown themoff by firing from a lower position, and he withdrew before theycould hit him.
Gasps of pain followed the gunshots alongwith the sound of someone tumbling down the stairs.
“Is there any chance I canget to navigation without being shot?” Kali said.
“It’s out in the open, ina little room with windows on all sides.” Cedar leaned out andfired again.
“Oh, so even if I couldget inside up there, I’d be target practice for pirates on accountof all the windows.”
“Essentially.”
Kali drummed her fingers on the barrel ofher weapon. If not navigation, maybe she could take control fromthe engine room. If she could manually control those fans, thepirates would be at her whim. Of course, she wouldn’t be able tosee where they were going, but-
“Can you do anything fromthat machine closet at the end of the hall?” Cedarasked.
“The what?”
He waved toward the corridor, at the endopposite from the stairs. “I took a wrong turn during my previousvisit and ended up in there. Had to fight my way out. There were abunch of pipes and controls.”
“What’d they say?” Kaliasked.
“There was a passel ofpeople shooting at me. Perusing the wall literature wasn’t foremostin my mind.” Cedar leaned back out, pistol at the ready, to checkon the situation.
Kali chewed on her lip. Pipes leading fromthe bowels of the ship to somewhere up above. Could they behydrogen and pressurized air lines that fed the balloon? If so, shemight be able to force the ship to land.
“He’s just one man,” camea voice from the top of the stairs. “If you don’t get your blightedasses down there to shoot him, I’ll have you walk the plank on topof Mountie Headquarters.”
“He’s got a gun,” adissenter cried.
“You’veall got guns. He’ll runout of ammo eventually.”
“I haveplenty of ammunition,”Cedar called back. “I came prepared. Show your heads down here onlyif you want them blown off.”
He ducked back inside before the answeringshots were fired.
“Are we still above thecity?” Kali asked.
“Yes, above the TraplineHotel when I came up. I ran into Lockhart and almost didn’t makeit. I was busy looking for you, and he caught me by surprise.”Cedar gave her a significant stare, and Kali lifted a hand inapology.
“Sorry about that. Ishouldn’t have gone off without telling you, but I was hoping Icould explain things to Lockhart and that he’d realize you weren’tresponsible for those murders.”
“Yes, and how’d that go?”Cedar asked sarcastically.
“Poorly. He waved his gunat me and told me only your death would bring peace to those whowere murdered.”
Guns fired, though they sounded far away.Down below them somewhere. Cedar cocked his head but dismissed thenoise. It filled Kali with hope. Maybe Mounties were even nowtrying to figure out a way to eliminate the pirates. If she couldbring the craft down, there might be an armed force waiting to takeon the criminals that had been plaguing the claims along the YukonRiver. Of course, landing in the city would be a problem,especially if she was steering from a closet. The citizens mightnot be happy with her if she crashed the ship into one of thepopular saloons.
“Wait until you see what’sin the closet before making plans,” Kali told herself.
“What?” Cedar asked. Hewas checking the corridor again.
“Nothing. Just thinking.How’d you get from the hotel onto the ship?” Kali didn’t see anyspecial climbing gear on Cedar.
“After I evaded Lockhart,I circled back to the saloon, grilled some of the patrons, learnedabout the kidnapping and that you’d been there. I saw the ship andhad a hunch you’d be up here too. I made a grappling hook, ranacross the rooftops until I could get close enough, threw it overthe railing, and climbed up.”
“Sounds like a lot ofwork. I appreciate you coming.”
“I figured you could useme for…. What’s the plan again?” Cedar pressed his ear to the door.“They’re being quiet. That can’t be good.”
“I’d like to check thatcloset you mentioned, see if I can give the pirates some trouble todeal with. Can you distract them long enough for me to run to theend of the corridor and shut myself in?”