It was said of Cap'n Cath Turnheel that she could fly like an angel and swear like the devil. Right now she was doing both. Druthers the gremlin was small as a mouse and pale as a wisp, watching from the aft stow hole as the dirigible crew scrambled to obey her orders. Their airship was yawing hard out of the wind and losing altitude no matter how hard the winders worked. Under any other captain, a workaday kite like the Pinny would have pounded nose first into the grasslands long since.
"…We're going to have to put this kite down," Cath concluded. "You, Tuppence. Get the Sail Wright in."
The Opinicus was one of the smallest class of dirigible with a crew of just five, and one of those a gracie child who counted for half-rations and quarter pay. The newest member was Lieutenant Farthing whom she called Tuppence as a reckoning of his real worth. He was late a prisoner of the Sky Pirates of Feast, and scion of the Mercybridge Dynasty. Also about as much use as tits on a bull, but he did manage to crank up the blower and call for Memry Potts to get in off the ropes.
The Pinny's wooden boat, handing under the great almond-shaped balloon, was bucking like a wild beast in the sudden squall. Everyone was keeping on their feet, but collecting a lot of bruises along the way. Jock and Happy were trying to crank the screw that kept them tacking into the wind, but it was resisting their every effort. With dusk coming close, they could easily lose their way and come down hard, or in the sea, when it was dark.
Godammit Tuppence, didn't you grease the screw when I told you to?" Cath snapped.
Farthing stammered, "I did. I did it just this morning!"
Memry came down the aft pop-hole. "What with--fer Zepur's sake. Show me what 'cha used."
A hard jog sent Farthing bouncing against Jock's burly back. "That, right there," he said with a flailing gesture.
Memry scowled. "The one on the left, or the one on the right?"
"The left one."
"Like hell you did. This crank is clearly fouled with gripping wax!" Memry the Sail Wright snapped.
"We're going to have to put her down."
"Didn't I just say?" Cath muttered, spinning the wheel widder-ways and jerked the rudder trying to get them over a pummeling gust. Then she bellowed. "Pull in every sheet and clamp every rudder and trim her heavy in the aft. If she's coming down hard, I don't want to bloody her nose. Her ass might just be strong enough to take it."
Memry made a sound of disgust and agreement, and went topside again, sprier than most men his age could dream of.
"Crank as hard as you can, and pray even harder!" Cath shouted.
"Aye, Ma'am!" the two men called back as they bent to their task.
"Posey!"
Posey, the cabin girl, leaped to eager attention.
"When they drop the lines you get your foolish self off first."
"Aye, Ma'am," the girl agreed, keeping most of her disappointment out of her voice.
Posey had a mind to be a hero of the skies, the first gracie to get a command. But she was not yet ten years old and barely two thirds the heft a sapie would be at the age. She knew better than to even look like the disobeying sort, or Cath would have her off at the next port. The captain didn't really hold with the tradition of cabin girls and boys but had been hard put to refuse an orphan homo gracius girl without much in the way of other prospects. Outside of a ship post, she could hope to be a chimney sweep with luck. More likely something much worse for men who liked a woman who would never look like much more than a preteen girl.
Druthers crept along the rafters, feeling the beam beneath her shiver close to breaking. The screw just wasn't turning fast enough, and the flywheel was sluggish at best. The gyroscope would not hold true, and the boat started to bounce and shake.
"Fuck it; we've hit a resonance," Cath muttered. It was about the worst thing that could happen, when the wind and the heart of a boat vibrated in disagreement for reasons no one really understood, and often just shook apart from it.
Druthers clasped the wood, squaring her paws on the rafter, and let her form grow out a bit. Pushing her back up against the spine-beam of the boat. The gremlin had been the silent sixth crew member on the Pinny for almost ten years now and was damned if she would see the Pinny go down peaceable. She picked a third note that harmonized the boat and rejected the wind and sung it up into the beam with all her might. The green motes of the deep wind hummed through her and the song pushed down through wood and brass and even up the hands and arms of the captain. Together they all but willed the Pinny slowly down from the sky.
"Steady, steady…" Cath whispered. "Ah."
The keel of the boat just brushed over the tops of the towering tussock of the wild lands. Happy popped the aft hatch and threw down the soft anchor, the one that pulled across the ground and slowed the boat without catching firm. Pulling against the trailing line the Pinny bobbed up again, but Cath'd know that was coming. She pulled in the reserve elevation rudder and settled her back down as Happy threw out the hard anchor and jumped down after it.
True to her word Posey shimmied down the line. Jock levered the boat side of the anchor line leeward against a new yaw. The pressure on the wood came screaming hard.
"I have never put a boat down nose first," Cath said to herself. "And I am not going to start now."
Jock ran and threw down the fore-rope, but it was whipping in the wind. Happy was still fighting to firm the hard anchor. Posey made the mistake of running for the fore-line, but the sandbagged end just slapped her out of the way.
Druthers could tell, they weren't going to tie Pinny down. She was too wild, too gone in the storm. The lines between the boat and the balloon started to snap, with sharp, high rending screams.
"All off! All off!" Cath bellowed.
They all knew what that meant. All crew off meant there was a good chance the boat would get away. Druthers could see in Jock's eyes that he doubted Cath would get off. But he did as he was told, and Memry went after.