Betrayal

Everything was quiet aboard the Griffin. Her cruise engines purred as the airship sailed the skies, the skull and crossbones proudly waving astern.

Axea knew the guards would be having their late night meal, which today was soup and rice, and only those with outer hull duty would be really alert. Her route wouldn’t take her near those. She clicked her cabin’s door closed, and started towards the entrails of the ship.

How long had she been part of the crew? She still remembered the day when she had joined. Stranded in Tortuga, no money in her bag, she had wandered the streets of the free skyport for months. She had learned some very valuable survival skills there, she had to admit. And some tough facts about life, a few of which she never forgot, and many she’d prefer not to remember. Alas, it was not to be.

Those days she survived only with what her backpack would hold. And her satchel was already an old affair then. She shuddered. She had killed for the first time for the contents of that satchel.

And one day the Griffin had moored on Tortuga, and her second mate Mr Jackson had put up a notice by the Dancing Lion door asking for sailors to join her crew. Axea had seen her chance to leave Tortuga and find a new life for herself. That’s what she had always wanted: sail through the rainbow beyond the mountains in search of treasures, follow a cryptic map to an uncertain goal. That night, standing before Jackson and Captain Smyth herself Axea had tried to hide her trembling hands. She still didn’t know what Smyth had seen in her, but she had been accepted.

Somehow the memory spurred her resolution, and she plunged ahead, stepping silently through the Griffin’s corridors. She paused here and there, listening for any trouble. Her keen ear heard the sounds coming from the galley, where the night guard ate, so she hurried along. It was doubtful she’d be questioned if she was found: after all, she was a crew member and had all the right to be anywhere in the ship. But Axea didn’t want to answer any questions.

Axea passed by the emergency parachute rack and turned left, then she climbed down several decks. It still amazed her that routes to the bridge, infirmary, engineering and galley were indicated with arrows in every deck, but she found it useful when she found herself in a corridor where the night lights had broken down. She dared to switch on her hand torch for a second, and there it was, the arrow she needed.

The door to engineering was locked. Axea remembered the teachings of her old friend Marcus, the street magician, back in Tortuga, and produced her lock pick. A moment later, the lock clicked. Inside, she located the ship’s aetherographer.

The communication device was unmistakable: it looked exactly like she had been told. working under the light of her hand torch, she opened the service panel behind the device. Axea found the frequency crystal and pulled it off. Then she took off the pendant she wore and slid the chain off. She replaced the aetherographer’s crystal with the gem in her pendant.

Axea sat at the keyboard and composed a message, then hit send. She sighed. It was done.

The lights of the engineering room went on. Axea turned round to face Captain Smyth holding her favourite weapon, the Wand. It crackled with blue-white energy, making the sailor look like a mad witch.

But the worst was the look in Smyth’s face. Axea read anger and betrayal, and possibly something else she couldn’t really identify.

“I can’t believe it,” Smyth said.

“You don’t understand,” Axea said.

“I don’t need to. I didn’t want the traitor to be you, yet here you are.”

“There was nothing I could do!” Axea said. “They’ve captured my daughter.”

~~~~

This is my accompanying entry for the Weekly Writing Exercise: August 7–13, 2017 at the Writer’s Discussion Group on Google+. I am responsible for creating the prompts for the Exercise, so I don’t take part, but I still like to write a story each week.

This week I wrote my entry really late. I took a week off and it showed. Still, for some reason I put off writing the story and didn’t work on it. This morning I looked at the photo (participants had to write their stories using some or all of the Story Cubes results) and somehow almost all the images started clicking in place, the story forming in my head as soon as the cogs screamed steampunk at me. And here it is.