Song of Ramona (Book #1 in Pirates of the Cloudsea Trilogy) (Teaser)

VIII. A Crying Shame

I was harnessed to the back of the gondola, frozen cold from the windchill of the dismal morning. A canopy of gray clouds loomed overhead, requiring me to shine a utility light from the front of my flight cap. I shuffled my spanner as I balled my hands in and out of fists. Fitz guided me through a routine engine inspection, a procedure I knew well.

The engines were about the only things on the ship maintained at a high standard. Our balloon had the face of a much-beloved rag doll, covered in gray stitched patches with sloppy weatherproofing painted across the envelope. Many steel cables between balloon and gondola were frayed and being reinforced by rappelling rope. Our engines held our pride. They were high-speed cloud-munching machines.

"All done! Everything is handy dandy," said Fitz, wiping the grease off his hands.

"Good," I said through chattering teeth.

"Wind making ice blocks of your bollocks?" Fitz brayed, juggling his spanner with one hand.

His flight specs, a steel plate with horizontal slits, gave him the appearance of a deranged cyclops. He was wiry like me and made a good mate for arm wrestling because he could make anybody look good. Nobody messed with him, however, for three reasons: the first, that he was also friends with Baker; the second, that he was our best mechanic; and the third, and most crucial, that he could muster the most horrid shriek. The bloke was off his rocker. I personally did my best not to excite him.

"Are we nearly done?" I stuttered, exhaling hot breath over my exposed fingertips. "I'm freezing."

"Invest in a pair of thermal trousers, boy. It's only summer yet." He smacked my posterior and used his pulley to scale the side of the ship. He was right, of course. Though we wintered closer to the equator above the hot sands of the Wastes, there were always difficult weeks in autumn and spring. The spring prior, I had worn a hole in my gloves and nearly lost a finger to frostbite.

Equipment was a regular expense. With the deck open to the elements, we had to acquire appropriate gear: goggles, flight caps, and gloves. My own cap was fashioned of cotton twill. It had rain guard flaps that fell over each side of my face. Flight shirts had to be both utilitarian and elegant. The cuffs were fitted to the forearm, but the sleeves hung loose for better mobility. Laces up the front of the tunic could be drawn tight to the throat or given slack down to the navel, as the weather warranted. We kept three shirts: a black one for labor, a white one for sleeping, and a red one for raiding. When it came to flight jackets, crewmen owned only one, made of wool-lined leather. Trousers varied, depending on whether a man preferred agility to insulation.

Upon returning to the deck, Fitz and I discovered our captain pacing, his brow clenched in frustration. With each shift in his walk, his hip scarf whipped about like a tail.

"Clikk!" he shouted, pointing at me. "There you are. I need to see you." I blinked in disbelief, glancing around deck to see if there was another man named Clikk. When there wasn't, I stepped forward and followed my captain into his chambers. He shut the door behind me, locked it, and then circled me in a slow, predatory fashion, sizing me up.

"Yes. It's just as I thought," he said, tilting back his flask and exhaling a groan.

"Captain?"

Dirk took a seat on a luggage trunk, resting his elbows on his knees. He sniffed, took another slurp of his liquor, and smirked at me. "Oh, Clikk. Poor, sweet Clikk. There is something that I've known about you from the start, but I put up with it because you can manage a sword and you fixed my puzzle wheel. It is time we addressed it."

This couldn't be happening.

"Addressed what?" I asked.

"Don't play daft! I know you're a woman."