“A cog on the ground confirmed the train in question has passed the last way station stop on the schedule,” Anya said in greeting when Blaine approached the gangplank. She frowned at the person trailing in his wake. “Crew is complete. Who is this?”
“Our captain,” Blaine said calmly as he glanced over his shoulder at Honovi.
It wasn’t his husband’s face staring back at him. The veil Blaine had logged out of Lore’s personal stores ensured Honovi looked Ashionen. The flight uniform was familiar, even if it lacked the fur-lined leathers E’ridians preferred. Blaine wore something similar, and the wool wasn’t quite as soft as he was used to.
Anya crossed her arms over her chest. “Really, Tristan? I wasn’t informed of a personnel change.”
Blaine was well used to responding to the false name he’d been living under for several years now. He plucked a folded piece of paper from his front pocket, passing over the message Lore had written in code. An order given by Mainspring herself wasn’t one to be ignored. Anya’s displeasure was written clear on her face, but she, like the other cogs on this mission, weren’t ones to disobey an order.
“You’re informed now,” Blaine said.
“Caleb won’t appreciate being demoted.”
“He can take it up with Mainspring, then.”
They and their crew were the only ones in the hangar, which was why Blaine could speak so openly of things usually not given voice to in public.
Anya jerked her head in Honovi’s direction. “What are the bloke’s credentials?”
“More than your current captain’s,” Honovi replied evenly.
Veils couldn’t change a person’s voice, but Honovi had spent two years learning to lose his accent when necessary. He sounded Ashionen enough to pass, but it still made Blaine twitch.
“I’ll believe it when we’re in the air.” She turned on her heels, gesturing for them to follow her up the gangplank. “Let’s get this done.”
Blaine’s background as an engineering professor dovetailed neatly with the applicable skill he’d acquired in E’ridia. His inclusion in the mission hadn’t been questioned, but everyone seemed to question Honovi’s.
“This is ridiculous. I’m perfectly capable of flying the airship,” Caleb snapped after Anya passed along Mainspring’s order.
“Mainspring changed the lineup. We will all abide by it,” Blaine said.
The entire crew of the airship consisted of those needed to get it flying and those tapped to handle the extraction of the package from the train. The cogs assigned for that hailed mostly from the Ashion army, soldiers who’d been heavily vetted by Mainspring and Fulcrum for their loyalty.
One of the cogs carried a wand hanging from a slender case on their belt. She was a magician, one who gave Blaine an intensely odd look when he arrived on board, but said nothing when Anya introduced him as the one in charge.
Everyone on the ship had been slotted into Blaine’s chain of cogs for this mission, and that included the package they aimed to retrieve. He outranked everyone and was backed by the people who were in charge of the Clockwork Brigade. None of the crew members were of a rank to argue their orders, and they all knew what was at stake. Caleb gave up his spot at the controls with a scowl and a muttered curse but no further arguing.
Honovi stepped up to the control panel in the flight deck, eyeing the buttons, levers, and steering mechanism. It wasn’t quite the same setup that E’ridians used, but similar enough it wouldn’t pose a problem. Blaine had gone over the airship’s specs with Honovi on their way to the airfield. The airship was small on the keel and balloon, but what it lacked in size, it more than made up for in a modified engine.
The make of it was all Blaine’s creation, designed for low altitude, steep dives, and quick takeoffs. The outside decking had been cleared of unnecessary gear, providing space for the soldiers who Mainspring had promised were skilled in jumps. Blaine could only take her word for it, and he hoped they wouldn’t lose anyone tonight.
But Honovi was one of the most skilled night fliers Blaine knew. If anyone was going to fly an airship in a nighttime raid on a moving train and make it back into the air in one piece, it was his husband.
“Let’s get in the air,” Honovi said as he took his seat at the controls.
Blaine went and took his place by the engine controls. Caleb took up a post near the navigator, the flight deck crowded with four people. When they were cleared to launch, Blaine set the engines for an ascent, and Honovi guided them out of the hangar and into the night sky.
Navigating by stars was second nature to him and Honovi. Following a ground route through the dark was far more difficult. The railroad tracks weren’t marked and illuminated, but the towns and way stations were. All they needed to do was follow the tracks heading south and hope the navigator assigned was up to the job of figuring out where their target was.
Honovi took charge in a way only a captain could, in his element barking out orders to the crew. Blaine adjusted the engines as needed, keeping an eye on the gauges that indicated air pressure in the air balloon. The thrum of the engines was something he’d missed during his time on the ground.
Honovi flew them northwest first until Amari was a dim glow on the ground, barely visible by the crew on the outer deck. When he judged the distance far enough, he steered the airship back around, banking east and then south back toward Amari.
Before the city came into view again, Honovi reached for a set of switches on the control panel. “We’re running dark until we put Amari behind us.”
The lights in the flight deck went out, plunging them into darkness. Thankfully, the engine gauges weren’t affected, backlit so they could still be read. Honovi called for an adjustment in power, and Blaine manipulated the engine to help them ascend a little higher.
Amari was a sprawling sea of lights through the windowpanes of the flight deck as they flew around it. Honovi didn’t switch the running lights back on until they’d lined up with the train tracks, heading south, the city behind them once more. The triangulation of their route on the navigator’s map against the stars and a sextant was all they had to rely on to guide them.
