A door creaked open behind her. Damn, shehad forgotten about that pirate.
He had found shoes, and he wore his weaponsbelt around his waist now instead of between his teeth. He hadalready extracted a six-shooter from it, and he pointed it at Kalieven as she pointed hers at him.
“Who told you that youcould come out?” she growled, putting all the steel she couldmuster into her voice, knowing that, without the flame gun, she didnot have as fearsome a weapon with which to cow him.
“Put down your guns,girls,” the pirate said.
Keitlyudee dropped her weapon and pressedher back against the wall, though she was farther down the corridorand not the focus of the pirate’s attention.
Kali flicked her gaze toward the stairwelland lifted a hand, as if Cedar had appeared and she was beckoninghim for help. For a split second, the pirate’s eyes shifted. Kalifired.
Anticipating a return shot, she droppeddown, almost landing on the unconscious man. The return fire cameamidst curses, the bullet zipping over her head so close it stirredher hair. It clanged against metal behind Kali.
Her bullet had clipped the pirate’s ear, andblood streamed down the side of his head. It had to hurt, but hewas lowering his gun to fire again. Still on her back, Kali shotfirst, this time leaving a smoking hole in his boot. The man howledand dropped his gun. Kali kicked it down the corridor and trainedher weapon on the pirate again.
“I said, who told you to come out?”Yes, she was flat on her back, but she would shoot him again, in amore vital spot, if he didn’t back off.
Hopping on one foot, the man gave her a wildglare. Had he not expected a woman would actually shoot him? Aftera long, considering moment, he stumbled back into his cabin.
Kali yanked his door shut and scrambled toher feet.
“Stand here and watch thisone,” she told Keitlyudee, then stepped over the unconscious pirateand returned to the mechanical room. “Shoot him if he getsup.”
“You’re not afraid of themat all, are you?” Keitlyudee asked.
Kali’s heart, still pounding after havingthat gun pointed at her face, belied that notion, but all she saidwas, “I’m sure I would be if I’d had your night.”
She focused on the levers, on/off wheels,gauges, and pipes running from floor to ceiling in the cubby andscowled. Not only were there two holes in one of the pipes, but shecouldn’t identify which gas was flowing out from them. The labelplaques were in…“Persian?” she guessed. Her father had had bookswritten in European languages, but he had never taught her how toread any of them, and everything inside the machine room wasgibberish to her. “Why couldn’t these oafs steal an American orBritish airship?”
She leaned close to one of the leaks andsniffed, though she promptly rolled her eyes at herself when shedidn’t smell anything. Both oxygen and hydrogen were colorless andodorless, so what had she expected?
“The holes are good,aren’t they?” Keitlyudee had edged closer. “We wanted to sabotagethings, didn’t we?”
“We want to bring down theship. If the air supply is leaking, that’s not going to happen. Weneed to make sure they run low on hydrogen up there, but I’m notsure which one is which. How’s your Persian?”
The girl gave Kali a blank look.
“That’s about what Iexpected.” Kali picked up the alcohol bottle. Only the neck hadbroken, and the body appeared to be intact. “Will you get me thematches in Sparwood’s chest?”
Keitlyudee paled, probably not wanting toreturn to that foul room, but she whispered, “Very well,” andheaded down the corridor.
Kali drained the remaining liquid from thebottle. Gunfire sounded somewhere overhead. She wondered if anyonein navigation had noticed the pressure drop on the gas boardyet.
“Here.” Keitlyudee handedher a couple of long wooden matches with bulbous phosphorousheads.
Kali lifted her hand, but paused. “Betternot do it in here.” Her dead father would cringe with embarrassmentif she blew herself up by lighting a match in a closet full ofhydrogen. “Wait for me by the stairs. I’ll have you light one overthere.”
“All right…”
Kali decided not to explain the dangers ofher little experiment. They would only worry the girl. She turnedthe alcohol bottle sideways and pressed the jagged opening as closeto one of the holes as she could. Gas whistled past, cooling herfingers, and she hoped enough of it got into the bottle for herexperiment.
When she judged the bottle to be as full asit would get, Kali plopped her hand over it as tightly as shecould, given the jagged glass lip. “Light the match.”
She jogged up the corridor and placed thebottle on a step near the exit, hoping enough cool air was swirlingdown from above that they didn’t need to worry about hydrogen inthe corridor. Keitlyudee lit the match. Kali took it and, wishingfor goggles, slid the flame over the bottle opening at the sametime as she removed her hand.
The flame was sucked into the bottle with apop.
“That’s it,” Kali said andran back to the closet, tearing tin snips out of her pocket as shewent. As soon as she reached the leaking pipe, she went to workbroadening the holes so the gas would flow out morequickly.
“Uh?” Keitlyudee said fromthe corridor. “What did we just prove?”
“This is the hydrogenline,” Kali said. “That pop we heard was the sound of the gascombusting really fast and the pressure equalizing inside andoutside of the container.”
“Oh,” Keitlyudee said, notsounding any more enlightened than before.
Kali worked on the pipe until she’d nearlytorn it in half. “There,” she murmured. “That ought to bring thisboat down.”
A shot fired in the corridor.
“Are they coming?” Kalistuffed her tin snips into a pocket and stepped out.
The smell of black smoke tinged the air, andKeitlyudee stood, looking at her gun. “No. I mean, I thoughtsomeone ran past the top of the stairs, and I fired. They weren’tcoming down though. I guess.”
Kali rubbed her face. The girl was as likelyto shoot an ally in the back as an enemy. “Let’s go up and see ifthis hole is causing a problem for the navigator yet.”
Before they reached the stairs, the scent ofsmoke came to Kali’s nose. At first, she thought it might belingering from her experiment or the gunshot, but it was waftingdown from the deck above. She hoped Cedar wasn’t running around,lighting things on fire up there. She still had hopes for claimingthe ship.
Kali eased up the steps, her revolver at theready, and poked her head out. Darkness blanketed the stern of theship, but toward the bow firelight pushed back the night andhighlighted bodies-at least a dozen-littering the deck. The flamesdanced around an enclosed cabin where Kali could just make out thewheel of the ship and a bank of levers through windows reflectingthe fire. Navigation. If any pirates were still inside, shecouldn’t tell.
Her eye followed those flames upward, andshe swallowed. If the fire grew a few more feet, it would bebathing the bottom of the balloon. If it burned through the outershell and ignited the hydrogen, the fiddling she’d done with thepipe wouldn’t matter an iota.
“Cedar,” Kali groaned.“What have you been doing up-”
An impact jolted the ship, hurling Kalibackward, amidst cracking wood and groaning metal. She tried tocatch herself on the stairs, but her heel slipped off, and shetumbled to the bottom, landing in a painful heap. Shudders ranthrough the vessel. They must have hit something. Were they intown? Or on a mountaintop somewhere?
The ship groaned and scraped, pulling awayfrom whatever it had struck.
“Are you all right?”Keitlyudee asked.
Kali waved the question away and scrambledto her feet. “I’m fine, but I need to find Cedar. I want you to getoff as soon as possible. If we can find his rope and grapplinghook, maybe-”
Footsteps pounded toward the entrance abovethem. The navigators finally coming down to check on what hadcaused the hydrogen to vent?
Kali dropped to one knee and braced herwrist for a steady shot at whoever burst into sight at the top ofthe stairs.