“Two black eyes? You always were an overachiever.”
Sophronia grinned and then stopped. It hurt too much. “It’s a gift.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
Sophronia grunted. “Activate the soldier mechanicals and fire on the ship.”
“Not a very complicated plan. How about we turn on all the gas in the hallways as we go up? More explosive that way.”
“I like the way you think,” said Sophronia before she realized what she’d said.
“I always hated this school.” Monique wrinkled her perfect little nose. “Spent a lot of time imagining ways to destroy it.”
“Now I see why you wanted to come aboard.”
“Pure joy of it,” finished the blonde with a sneer. “Let’s get to it, then.”
“What’s in the carpetbag?”
“Options.” Monique was annoyingly mysterious.
Sophronia didn’t know what to think about that. Was Monique to be trusted? Probably not. But some things must be taken on faith. She probably did want to destroy the airship. Monique was simply a hard guardian angel to swallow.
The two girls made their way swiftly through the halls of the dirigible. They worked unfortunately well together—settling into a pattern. Sophronia would take one knee, and Monique, who was taller and uninjured, would stand on Sophronia’s bent leg with a hand to her head for balance, knocking out the gas valves and fixtures in the hallways with a closed fan. They got good at it, like some weird acrobatic dance. They left behind them the redolent smell of gas and the fallen remains of knifelike chandeliers and parasol-shaped light covers. Dangerous indeed.
Professor Braithwope was nowhere to be found. They had no time to figure out where he had gone. Sophronia was, as a result, unexpectedly grateful for Monique’s company, even though the older girl rarely said more than two words in a row. At least Sophronia had someone with her at the end.
She tried once to start up a conversation. “How long has Felix Mersey been working for your hive?”
“Long enough.”
“Did you recruit him?”
Monique became all enigmatic, but she didn’t outright deny it. That was confirmation enough.
“What are you after, Monique? What have you been instructed to collect?” The carpetbag wasn’t empty, but it was suspiciously floppy. Even so, Sophronia was careful not to let the girl out of her sight, and, because she was no fool, not to let Monique get within fifty paces of the record room. Perhaps it was her imagination, but Sophronia was certain that frustrated the blonde.
Together they attained the forward squeak deck. Sophronia ran to the small brass box affixed to a railing on one side. She opened it with the gold key from Mademoiselle Geraldine, reached inside, and toggled the switch exactly as the headmistress had instructed.
A loud bell began clanging—a bell with hundreds of sister bells throughout the airship. Now, if the Picklemen knew anything about the workings of the ship, they would know Sophronia’s location. This squeak deck was the only place that particular alarm could be activated.
Sophronia turned to watch. The soldier mechanicals were stored in the rear upper deck, but she’d never seen them emerge before. Tracks telescoped out from the side of that deck. The soldiers made their way not through the ship, as she had always thought they would, but out onto the rear squeak deck and onto these bridges as if into nothingness, the tracks forming under the first mechanical’s wheels as it moved. They rolled across the middle squeak deck and then over a second set of telescoping tracks that arched in over the railings and split into the multiple tracks inset in the wood under Sophronia’s feet.
At each stage, a set of mechanicals stayed behind, so that the tops of all three decks were ringed with soldiers by the end.
In a synchronized movement, the mechanicals all settled back onto their rear wheels, locking down to each deck with a clunk. Hatches opened in the chest area of their carapaces, the whole upper torso sliding back. Each ejected the barrel of a small cannon. Then, in one smooth motion, they all swiveled and pointed their little cannons at… her.
Sophronia had been expecting it. After all, she held the tiny crossbow, and the bolts to go with it, but it was still unnerving.
Monique stared at her with mouth open.
“Never witnessed this, did you?”
“I was always inside as ordered. I knew the school had protections in place, but these are remarkable.”
Sophronia took a deep breath. “Here we go.” She slipped out of her arm sling. Her shoulder screamed in protest, but she did have some dexterity and mobility on that side. She would need both hands from here on out. Besides, her shoulder could always be fixed later, if there was a later. She pointed the small crossbow at the back balloon. Do three bolts mean that each mechanical has three cannonballs? Or that only one-third of the mechanicals fire at a time? Either way, she had to aim carefully.
Sophronia fired. The bolt whistled and thunked. A half dozen cannonballs all shot out at the same time. Right, that’s one-third for each bolt, two shooting from each deck. Still, even with only a few shooting, Sophronia and Monique were surrounded by smoke and the smell of powder. The noise was deafening. If that didn’t get the remaining Picklemen’s attention, nothing would.
The six balls tore through the back balloon of the airship, leaving it in tatters, outgassing both its air and its helium. That end began to sag downward, the school now dangling from only the two front balloons. There was no explosion, but there were hot-air compartments, and the fueling mechanisms for these fell to the deck and caught fire. Not a very big fire, but it was a start.
Now Sophronia knew why the soldier mechanicals clamped down, because the deck on which she stood was tilting. She and Monique slid toward the rear side until they each came to rest behind one of the soldier mechanicals.
The deck wasn’t overly steep. They could still brace themselves and stand.
“Now what?” wondered Monique.
Sophronia pointed her second bolt at the inside lowest visible part of the back section. It wasn’t an easy shot. The bolt had to fly between rigging, but it hit where she hoped, about a third of the way down the gondola of the school proper.
As one, the soldiers swiveled, cannons pointing downward. Six of them fired again.
They obviously had no protocols against self-destruction. The two on the rear deck fired at their own feet. It was a good thing the airship was tilted, or the one on the far side of the deck from Sophronia might have hit her. As it was, the ball zipped directly over her head. Monique watched in delighted awe as the wood of the back section splintered while catch lines and belay ropes flapped free. The flames licked higher, provided with scraps of aged, lightweight, oiled wood to consume.
Because Sophronia wanted to keep Monique away from the record room, they hadn’t liberated the hallway gases in that section, so this was nothing more than basic destruction. But as the gondola there crumbled—shedding weight as mechanisms, furniture, rigging, and other items fell—the whole ship began to bob about.
“Look.” Monique pointed up. “Shearing wind.”
The ship was no longer floating safely within a breeze. Instead, the surviving balloons had caught in one wind, while the broken section and gondola were in another. Under normal circumstances, there were mechanisms, balance devices, ballast, and sooties to keep this from happening. Now these were failing or gone. As a result, the surviving balloons were caving in on one side and the whole ship was beginning to spin.