Airship Desire by Riley Owens

Captain Clementine Fowler surveyed the boarding party with a critical eye. Every man and woman in this group had been selected carefully for their bravery and skill—still it was a roll of the dice if they would succeed. She lived for such moments normally, but now there was too much at stake.
    She glanced over her shoulder, adding in the other equation—their prey. The Heavenly Soul was only a few hundred feet from their portside, and they were closing on her with every moment. It wouldn’t be long until they found out exactly the makeup of her crew. For days they had been chasing their prize, striking and harrying it, letting it feel the teeth of their cannons.
    She eased her grip on her cutlass and narrowed her eyes. The sway of the Deadly Miss under her feet was slight, but she knew every creak of rigging and groan of wood better than she did any noise coming from her own body. Its guns were still smoking, but the warning incendiary shots over the Heavenly Soul ’s bow had only been that; she did not want to risk damaging what she hoped very shortly would be her new command vessel.
    Securing a second airship would be the making of her, both in reputation and in combative abilities.
    The wind made a brave attempt to pull her hair loose, but the braid was tight, and secured with a rakish scarlet bandana. Still she tugged on it reflexively. It wouldn’t do to be blinded at this point.
    Instead, she turned to face her crew. They were a small group, but thankfully rather fearsome looking. Still, they needed a little fire in their bellies.
    “If we can take that,” Clementine yelled as she pointed over the gunwales at the looming bulk of the Heavenly Soul , “we’ll have made our name, fortune, and got ourselves our next ship.”
    The clouds below could have been waves, but there was no salt spray to splash in their faces, only a bone-chilling wind. Clementine grinned into it like a maniac. This was living.
    They had not let the other ship rest, and it badly needed fuel. The efficiency of the Deadly Miss and her engines were their real advantage, because they had not let their prize rest. Without being able to refuel its engine with coal, it would become merely another balloon very shortly.
    As Clementine watched, a mad grin on her face, the larger airship was slowed, came about, but did not fire on them. Something had been damaged perhaps.
    As the Deadly Miss began to close the distance, Clementine felt her heart racing in her chest. The battle would have to be quick and deadly. If they didn’t take the ship fast then her crew would be overwhelmed by the larger force, and—
    “Captain!” Bonnie, her First mate, was shouting and pointing; not in the direction of the spot where the two airships would meet, but rather towards the stern. For a moment Clementine didn’t quite comprehend what she was seeing.
    The crew of the H e avenly Soul were leaping from the deck, embracing the sky and clouds. It was as if it was their natural habitat, and they had wings. She observed calmly, that they in fact did not. No parachutes or ornithopters magically appeared to slow their descent.
    The final person, the captain by the look at cut of his uniform, turned and looked in her direction. His face was burned into her memory in that instant; sallow skin pulled tight over bones as if he’d been starving for weeks, and eyes that were as dead as stones.
    Then he turned and leapt after the rest of his crew.
    Clementine shook her head, baffled by what they had just seen. She had no terrible reputation to inspire such fear in her opponent’s heart—at least not yet. Unlike Captain Raincloud Menzies, she let the prisoners she took, off the airships. Nor did she, like Captain Zephyr Bertrand, hang her victims over the bow in a display of gruesome decoration. She’s never done any of these terrible things—so what could inspire such drastic actions from the former crew of the Heavenly Soul ?
    Confused, she nonetheless gave the order for