Flying Free- voyages of The Maidens Liberty

[Prof. Isambard Ravenwood]

Captain Darian Rolston looked up at the stranger in front of him, and at the three men standing about ten feet away, then the large bolt action in his savior's hands.
"Take a hint?" he said, looking at his assailants.
"the man looks serious, don't think he looks like he cares making a corpse out've you"
he recognized the rifle as soon as the stranger walked up- it was rebel standard issue- this man was a browncoat.

[MWBailey]

Silas nodded at the man's words. "He's right. I don't care a whole heap o' hell who I shoot, so c'mon, boys, ya gonna shoot or whistle the Gallows Jig?"

Hands twitched, faces went slack with fear, and one fellow wet himself visibly; these bravos weren't used to kine who bit back. All but one, the short, crazy-eyed fellow who suddenly jumped out  in front of the others from around the corner they had just themselves rounded, and shouted upward,"Git 'im, Jake!" Silas needed no further indication of how to handle the situation; he simply fired the rifle point-blank into the middle of  crazy-eye's selfloading pistol, sending parts, handle fragments and blood droplets flying, then drew and cocked the Lemat, glancing upwards with one eye while letting the other slip out of alignment and train on the trio now scrambling to either draw of dive to one side or the other. He shot the shotgunner on the landing of the back stair above, the pattern from the shotgun's discharge hitting the wall at Silas' back just an instant before he fired, knocking the man through the opposite railing, as he simultaneously drew the other Lemat from it's shoulder holster.

"DON"T try it," he said, deadly serious, and the the first three froze. "Chief, help up our friend, will you - ? Aha." The Chief Engineer lay dead, the shotgun pattern picked out in bloodspots on his shirt. "Well, that's inconvenient," he muttered. "Kin you stand, Mr...?

His attention diverted, the three bravos fled from the alley and the deadly confrontation there, two of them screaming in terror.

"Might wanna hurry, that shout'll bring t' others quick, I reckon."

[The Corsair]

Everything in his body heaved and pulsed as he stood, like his muscles demanded to be set free of his skin. His vision pulsed and burned with his limbs. The light itself seemed to scour through his eyes into the back of his brain where it bounced about his head in a dizzying swirl. All he could think to do was look down at his hands, as though that would somehow ground him and end the violent rhythm. They sat like clubs on the ends of his wrists, lame, blunt instruments drifting in and out of focus. They just didn't feel right. Nothing did. He took a step.

He stumbled, his foot hitting the ground long before he felt it should have, like when a limb falls asleep and you misjudge its dimensions. His hand shot out to the wall beside him to steady him and came away covered in brick dust. His gaze drifted to the spot on the wall where his hand had been. He'd left a handprint. He'd left a handprint in a solid brick wall. The wall became the sky. The air behind him became the ground. Upright became sideways. His vision went black.

[Prof. Isambard Ravenwood]

"Yeah, I think you're right on that one. I've got a ship docked at bay 34- The Maidens liberty. we should be safe once we get back there. Your a browncoat, aren't you? I got a feeling the safest place for us now, is together and on the move."
Taking one last fleeting look at the poster, and he ran down a back alley.

[Fairley B. Strange]

Master Arani, Senior Guildsman of the Gigoli, looked out over the bustling grime that was the port. In the distance, over the grinding of machinery and the hubbub of trade, shots could be heard but were overwhelmingly ignored.
His well manicured fingers that had been reflectively stroking his neat beard absently moved to brushing imaginary dust from the intricate tonal ochre embroidery of his long tunic before hefting his leather case and settling its strap over one shoulder.

'Well,', he thought to himself, 'if circumstances now forced him to seek his clients among the ladies of the outer rocks, at least they would be suitably appreciative of a respite from such uncouth types as plied these airways.'

He adjusted his ceremonial dagger at his hip and set off to find a suitable ship.

[MWBailey]

Ain't got to tell me twice," Silas responded, holstering his pistols and scooping up the rifle and working the bolt and ejecting the spent round and loading the next as he loped along after what he figured might as well be his new shipmate. A shame about the chief, but he'd settle with the gang soon enough. If they came after this new captain, well, that just made it a tidier package, he told himself in a cold sort of inner voice.

A bullet spanged off of a timber near his head, slightly before the report of a rifle was heard from a long ways off; somebody's a passable sniper! he noted absently as, out of long habit, he noted the shape and apparent direction of the the impact point just as it passed out of his field of view, and triangulated between that and the direction the report had seemed to originate from, swinging the rifle around in mid- stride, stepping from his right foot and spinning around  on the ball of his left, bringing the rifle up to bear on a distant figure aiming a rifle similar to his own in his direction. Silas and the sniper fired simultaneously, and Silas felt the wind of the bullet past his cheek, again just before the report of the rifle, a split second after his own rifle spoke, and then the railing at the sniper's waist exploded in splinters and the sniper went down howling and clutching at his midriff, just below his lowest rib on the left side.

Silas turned and strode away after the captain again, seeing him duck around a corner just up ahead. He broke into an easygoing lope as he replaced the two rounds in the rifle and twisted and snapped the bolt home, then broke into a ground-eating  run with the rifle at hip-port, rounding that same corner just in the nick of time to see his hoped-for benefactor turn another corner just beyond which jutted the prows of several Aerium ships.

[Fairley B. Strange]

Walking briskly through the throng of hawkers, traders, stevedores and general miscreants, Arani made his way along the left-most arm of the dock, away from the where he had heard the gunfire, enquiring along the way with a freight-agent of reasonably reputable appearance for vessels sailing outbound that day. Following those directions, he found himself at the gangway of a tired but passable ship.

Bowing with full court graces, he hailed the Crewman leaning on the ship's rail.

"Good day to you, Sir. I seek passage to a number of assignations I have contracted across the islands. My name is Arani, and as you may see from my dress, I am a Senior Guildsman of the Gigoli, an ancient and honourable profession. I understand that your vessel is setting forth this day and would like to make an arrangement to exchange either metals or my services for my passage. Apart from the obvious skills of my Guild, I am an experienced negotiator, spy, diplomat, and a skilled and cunning linguist."

He placed his case, heavy with his extra clothing and accoutrements of his profession, down upon the dock and waited calmly for a reply.

"Captain ain't be here yet," the fellow replied, spitting off the rail into the clouds below the dock, "We do be sailing today, but, you'll have to wait, Master Giggoller, until he gets here for any bargain you might make."

Arani hid his displeasure with practiced ease.

"And when might the Captain be expected?"

[Prof. Isambard Ravenwood]

"just about right now"
said Rolston, running down the gang way, the blood leaking from his nose flying behind him as he went.
"I think it's just about time we got off this rock"
He punched in the unlock code on the type writer keys that locked the ship to the dock. the heavy iron gang plank to the cargo hold came slowly down on its hydraulic lifts.
"okay, everyone in, we can discuss matters later, right now, i'm slightly eager to get away from the mad gunman chasing us..."

[MWBailey]

"Make that three gunmen," Silas said as, hot on the captain's heels, he ducked in to the shelter of the main hatchway. "I killed one, two're left." Looking  back at the Gigoli hierarch, he said a bit loudly, "You wanna live, git under cover, less'n you kin kill with that frogsticker 'thout losin' it!"

He drew both Lemats, and poked his head out just as two rifle bullets from slightly different trajectories struck the hatchportal's edge. "DAMN!" he said succinctly, and shoved both pistols over the lip and discharged two rounds from each, then stepped out and fired once more at the two figures who had stopped short and slid to their arses in the mud of the dock front. The pair scrambled up and fled the scene when they saw Silas, and disappeared back into the crowd. "Amateur trash," he spat after them, and turned around and headed back into the ship, holstering his pistols. "Silas Banamadter, Formerly Marine 2nd Lieutenant, Raiding Sortie 17, Independent's Navy," he said, extending his hand. and shrugging his rifle's sling further up onto his shoulder. "An' yeah, th'imperials want me specifically for somethin' or other," he added with a wan wolf's smile.

[Prof. Isambard Ravenwood]

"I thought i knew you from somewhere. yeah, the imperials want me for something too, honestly- i genuinely can't remember what. them and almost every crime leader from here to the capital island. i think we can add this to the list of towns i'm never coming back too."
He said, shaking Silas' hand.
"And uh, you too, Arani, was it? yeah, you want to travel with us? it's a bit risky- since their are about 12 arrest warrants in my name- not sure about my friend here, but i think we can round it up to at least twenty."
He walked over to the guilds man, and eyed him over.
"And I think that we can count out taking out your passage fee on your trade- " he turned his head,
"Unless you are so inclined, Silas? anyway- I think Gideons will cover it, if you can pay. we are a couple of crew members short, i'm gonna need an engineer, and a couple more folk, but i think we can just about make it. We need to stop off on the next island over anyway, so i can deliver a shipment of goods to a client, so if you'll get on board, Then we'll hit the clouds."

[Fairley B. Strange]

Master Arani's head swivelled to take in all the noise erupting around him.
One of these two brawlers scrambling for fighting positions around the gangway was the Captain of the vessel. Ahead of them all were the rest of the chain of islands. Behind them were whoever they had been fighting, and presumably shooting, with - who might be slightly miffed if they reached the dock to find their quarry gone, and a lone Gigoli stranded in their place...

He hefted his case, sending it over the gap and the rail onto the deck.

"I understand, Captain, that this ship sails for the outer islands, and I wish to secure passage to -", he looked over his shoulder, "- well, at least the next island, at this stage. I carry no pistols, but this may assist our departure."

He struck a flintstick against his iron boot-tip as he knelt behind a coil of oiled rope, then in a swift forward swing, rolled it back down the dock towards the two shooters taking aim from behind a large bale of potentially flammable goods.

[MWBailey]

Silas strode back out and drew both Lemats, firing through the smoke as he went, drilling one bravo through the chest. The other took off for other regions in a hurry. Silas whipped out the rifle's sword bayonet from its scabbard on his belt, stuck it in the smoking, flaming oakum, and swiped it away into a nearby water trough. It sizzled and went out amid a cloud of oily steam and smoke. He walked back aboard them, holstering and scabbarding his weapons and shaking the soot from his cap as he came. "Fiery feller, ain'tcha," he said to the Gigoli.

"I know gunnery and pilotin'," he said to captain Rolston. "I can force an engine to work, but it won't survive for long with me workin' on it. "

[The Corsair]

The world erupted around him, waking him with a start. Somewhere through the haze of his thoughts was an awareness that he was a person, but it was pure animal instinct that drove him in that instant. He heaved himself upright with a roar, leaping up and slamming his feet on the ground. The wood snapped beneath him, but it didn't matter. He charged forward, unsure if he was getting closer to the cacophony or fleeing from it. It didn't matter, all he needed was movement, and he had that in droves. His feet pumped away at the decking below him, muscles bulging with raw strength as they propelled him. Boom, boom, boom, he pounded as he hurtled through crowds who only panicked at his passing long after he had left them behind. He barreled into a haze of smoke, seeing flashes of light around him. The sounds of projectiles whizzing past him rang dully in his ears, but none of it so much as slowed him. He barged onwards, hurling a body out of his way as it was thrown backwards into him, until he leaped forward with a roar and collided with a living person, slamming them into the ground and sending the two of them skidding across the cold floor of wherever he was.

His head snapped up, mouth in a snarl, breathing heavily. That tiny human at the back of his mind fought its way forward, struggling through the choler of instinct, taking control of his larynx for one crucial second.

"Help."

[Prof. Isambard Ravenwood]

"woah, there fella, calm down... just hold on a second"
He pulled his gun from its holster and fired two shots, both hitting one of the men in the gut.
"Now tell me slowly, what do you need help with? I can get you off the island if you want- for a price..."

[MWBailey]

"DAMN!" Silas swore with a roar as he whirled and drew -- only to have the job already done in front of him. He almost shot the newcomer in sheer frustration, but held off while the analytical side of his brain took over, assessing this fellow. "I dunno, Cap'n, this here fella looks to be kinda... clumsy?" He took in what he'd seen so far and what was transpiring, and added,  "I don't think he was necessarily runnin' from them two, though; here, boy, pull yerself up on this," he shoved a welded steel hogshead barrel over next to the... kid?. He wasn't sure what clued him in to the fellow's relative mass and current mien, but the dents the guy'd left in the deck, and his overall desperate, animistic behavior might have had something to do with it, plus the dock timbers shattering under him.

"Somethin' tells me we'd have hell pickin' you up."  Silas holstered his pistols yet again, but his hands stayed close to their handles and curled in the typical manner of a gunman who's not sure when the next target will attack, just that it will do so soon, given recent past experience.

[The Corsair]

His frantic breathing slowed, snarl sagging into a confused frown. His vision cleared as the taint of choler receded from his mind.
"I..."
he panted between words
"I don't know. I'm... s-... something's wrong. I'm wrong... something's wrong with me. I can't see, I can't think right, everything's pulsing. It's like... it's like a headache all over."
A word clicked in his mind, something someone had just said to him. Price.
"Money... um... I don't have any money. I uh... I'm uhhh."
The crucial word was missing. His mind failed him. The world went black again as he hit the metal floor.

[Prof. Isambard Ravenwood]

"OOF... god you're a heavy lad... come on..."
he shifted out from under the hulking mass.
"come on, silas, we've gotta get him on board, he obviously does need help..."

[MWBailey]

"This ship hauls cargo, don't it? You got a crane -- ah, OK, there it is." Silas grabbed the steel-constructed t-frame crane with the chain block and tackle and swung the thing out on it's gimballs, then yanked teh long arm around, grabbing a twin-strap leather  hoisting rig and hanging it om the hook attached to the chain tackle*. He slipped a strap under each of the fellow's armpits, and and after makeshiftedly cinching one around his waist, began hauling away on the pullchain, slowly bringing the monstrously heavy man to a semblance of uprightness; the crane groaned slightly, flexing but not - quite - bending under the weight of the fellow. 'Kay, somebody, you and you," he gestured at two crewmen who stood nearby, "help me swing 'im over there, and set 'im on that stack o' pallets, maybe they'll hold 'im, lean 'im 'gainst th' bulk'ead, there..."

[Fairley B. Strange]

"Here, you need to roll him like this...  ... before he swallows his tongue or chokes on vomit or suchlike."

Arani stepped back after the semi-conscious lummox was safely turned, and regarded his new companions' surprise with a shrug.

"It's simple leverage. Sometimes a larger client with a doubtful heart will still request one of the more dangerous techniques, like 'Thousand feather strikes' or 'Gates of Hercules', for instance, and collapse under the shock of all that ecstacy at once. Rather bad for the Guild if they roll back and choke to have to return the body to the relatives still all trussed up. Now, if you can get those harness straps under him -here- and -here-, we should be able to safely hook him up like 'The spin of Castrella'."

[MWBailey]

"Spinna castor oila--" the first crewman stammered

"Castratella, you drutte!" the other crewman snapped

"Never mind, you two," Silas said, "Just truss 'im up like the man said. No, not like that, cross it like--" he half-sighed, half snarled wordlessly under his breath, then said, "here, lemme at it." He took the final strap segment in hand and put it in place as instructed. "Not too diff'rent from the torture starp master Ringold taught back at... harrumpf." he added, "Let's just say you ain't th' only person with a ... yoo-neek, say... upbringin'. Mine was just a mite more lethal, y' might say."

[Prof. Isambard Ravenwood]

"aye, that i bet it was, now the rest of you, on board."
climbing through the ship was like some form of submarine, narrow corridors with pipes and valves running along the sides. they got to the cockpit and saw to the side, the ladder that led to the turrets. He sat down, and clicked in the ignition codes, and stood up to face them.
"this is the cock pit- where i'll spend most of the time, the cabins are down the corridor on the left and right, behind is the galley. what we have is basic, but you are welcome to it, next meal is at approximately 19:00. other than that, the engine room behind you is off limits."

[Fairley B. Strange]

"Right, well there's no hope of getting the big guy down through here into a bunk. I'll grab a mattress from here and get him squared away in the cargo hold. I'll keep him suitably restrained, of course, wouldn't want him blundering about again until we - or even he, I suspect - can work out what he's on about."

He pushed open the flimsy door into one of the indicated cabins and selected one of the two equally lumpy palliasses. The closest one would do, as they probably both had the same colonies of bedbugs, and dragged it out into the narrow corridor. Rolling it into an irregular tube, he hefted it onto his head with a slight grimace and set off back along the way they had come.

[The Corsair]

He was vaguely aware of the physical world around him, objects were pressed against him as he seemed to swing somewhere above the ground. He could think clearly now, without the lights and sounds of the world assaulting his senses. He was different, very different to whatever he had been before. And as he tried to conjure up a memory he realised he didn't actually know what he had been before. He understood he was a 'he', and was aware of the fundamentals of being a physical being, but all sense of identity was gone. Where had he been before he woke up on those planks? Planks which he now realised must have belonged to a docking complex. A port, he thought to himself, feeling his lips twitch wordlessly. Where was he now then? And why couldn't he properly remember how had got from the dock to here? There's only two ways to leave a dock, he supposed, you either walk to dry land or you board a ship. He remembered noise, and the clanging of feet on metal. Land tended not to be made of metal.

A ship, he thought.

I am on a ship.

[MWBailey]

A passing crewman saw the monstrous fellow who'd stumbled aboard before, swinging slightly in his harness as twitched and seeming to be whispering to himself, perhaps working it all out as to why he was where he was.

"Cor, so you's comin' round, are ye?" the crewman said as he stepped just close enough to not have to yell. You never could tell with people hangin' inb slings, some were right fine folk, others, well, best not to get too close. "anythin' you might be a-wantin'? I gots me own chores, but you seem in a strait patch tae me. You want I should go an' get the Cap'n or the Gigoli man, or maybe that gun'appy feller?"
----

Silas walked into a small alcove in which a hatch was located, a brass plate beside it reading "Cabin 3." He pushed on the latchwheel and the just flat didn't move. Latched and  unmoving. Ship's sound enough for the cabin hatches to seal right and proper, he thought. he gripped the lever behind the wheel, set into the same shaft, and pulled it to the left, then spun the wheel to the right. The long rods radiating from the latchwheel main assembly pulled their respective bolts from the top, bottom, and sides of the hatchcover. He pushed, and the hatch swung forward, pivoting at the top, revealing a ladder stair leading down into a veritable walk-in closet of a cabin. and just enough space between threshold and door-bottom to walk down normally as long as one was careful where their head was at.

On the far bulkhead, presumably the hull of the ship or at least the inner of several hulls, a porthole just barely big enough to poke his shoulder out of stood with the inner and outer covers closed. The battening and latching levers looked like they had been worked many times, which seemed to indicate teh porthole had been opened recently and often. A bunk was built into oen side of teh cabin, the mattress and bedding rolled up and bagged in a duffle, revealing the rope supension net that hung to the bunk frame from tiny coil springs.

A counter was built into the opposite wall and the chair that fit under it indicated it could be used as a desk or worktable if necessary. the bulb over the desk appeared to be the only light source in the cabin other than (possibly)the porthole. Silas put the rifle on the hooks that seemed tailor-made for it above the hatchway, and checked his reflection in the small polished steel mirror bolted to the wall over the desk. there appeared to be one of those newfangled hailer boxes mounted behind a small grille beside the door, and a well-worn and polished-looking brass switch below it. Below it a was a cabinet door with a handle at the top that Silas pulled open to reveal a rudimentary fold-out head*. it didn't smell fresh, but it didn't exactly stink, either, just sort of smelled metallic and not new. Silas closed it with a huff. He climbed back up into the alcove and closed the hatch, raising the tiny red tag on the brass number plate to show that the cabin was claimed, and then went back toward the bridge to report to the captain.


------------
*head: maritime term for a toilet or restroom facilities. Sometimes they include bathing options, but in Silas' cabin's case, not.

[Prof. Isambard Ravenwood]

"How do you like The Liberty? ha, don't worry i'm not psychic- I heard you coming. you wanted something?"
He remained fixed on the rolling scenery in front of him. there was nothing all around them- except a few tiny pieces of land, meters across, slowly drifting by. The dark blue sky above was filled with stars and large luminous planets the two moons were out, one vast, taking up most of the sky in front of them, the other smaller, in front of the first. He clicked a flashing red button, pulled one of the great brass levers and turned to face Silas.