To Do One's Duty

   It had been twenty-four years since she'd last seen it, but the place looked exactly the same. Untouched and untrammeled by the vicissitudes of time. She stared disbelievingly at the heliotropes and thaumaturgic flywheels of the conveyance. She went into the captain's quarters and found the maps, the logbook, even the captain's heavy drome-hide leather coat was still hanging on the wooden wall peg. The windows were just as clean as she remembered. She moved to the bowsprit and saw the figurehead of Lady Sophia and each side of her to the larboard and starboard were the dwimdamps that angled the ley line energy through the conduit, a hole bored through sagitally near the bottom of the keel. "Like thread through a needle's eye," she heard the old captain tell her twenty-four years ago, "That's how we sail through the clouds and the Blue."

   One of her aerines approached her and informed her that they found Captain Harmoza in the Captain's mess. 

   "Secure him but do not harm him. I will come with you to speak to him." she commanded.

   Soon, she was led to the Captain who was seated at a chair before the dining board, dressed in civilian clothes and manipulating a harmonica in his right hand. There were three other aerines surrounding the board when she climbed down the ladder.

  "Simone!" cried the Captain, "I wondered what ever became of you. I see you are a power unto yourself as I feared you would be. Many said you were dead, but I didn't believe them. I knew the girl well who slapped the yardsman aside to rescue Cabin Boy Duff from that aerwhal."

   Simone smiled and removed her tricorn hat festooned with badge and ribbon of office. "Some would like to see me dead. No doubt about that, skipper." She grabbed a chair and seated herself opposite Captain Harmoza. "The Admiralty sent my deplorable skiff out here in the Widdershins to investigate what happened to you." She looked down at the table then added, "Where is the crew?"

   "Taken." he said matter-of-factly.

   "Taken? By whom?"  

   "Aerodules. I know not whence they came. There were over thirty of them by my bosun's count. They came down with their cla--"

   "Aerodules, you say? We haven't seen aerodules in over a hundred years. Where are the slain?" She curtly interrupted.

   "We didn't slay a single one of them." he murmured diffidently.

   "Where are the slain crew?" Simone asked.

   "They didn't slay a single one of them."

   There was a pause. "Do you mean to tell me that the entire crew compliment of this vessel was carried off without a single casualty? On either side?" she asked.

   The Captain frowned and leaned forward toward Simone, "They were injured, sure enough, but none fell. They were swift. They has us at advantage. From the sun. They just swooped in and managed to take every one of us. It happened so fast." His eyes slowly wandered to the table.

   "But they didn't take you." Simone remarked, "Your crew numbered twenty, you said the aerodules--"

   "Eighteen!" Captain Harmoza bellowed then regained his composure, "There were eighteen of us at that time. We lost Rej and Burke to the scurvy four days prior..."

   "You are making my point." Simone said. "There were more of them than of you. How did you escape their clutches?"

   Harmoza shook his grey tousled and grey bearded head. "I know not. I just remember shaking my cutlass at them as they took them away screaming. Towards the west. Deeper into the Widdershins. How can I explain the minds of aerodules?"

   "Do you not have muskets onboard?"

   "And what if I hit my mark cleverly and the creature dropped its burden? They would both sink into the Blue and you would have no evidence and I would have no succor."

   "Better the Blue than whatever the aerodules have designed for him."

   The Captain grumbled and lowered his gaze to the board. He heaved a laborious sigh.

   Simone clasped her hands and gave a stern glance at the Captain. "Captain Harmoza, I have been sent here by the Admiralty on a mission of grave import. We know you went into the Widdershins seeking exile after the Admiralty Court condemned you for high treason to the Scorian Crown. You stole the Sophia to make your escape and ended up here. I don't know what happened to your crew but you will have to stand before the Court and make your case--"

"What case?" Captain Harmoza screamed and leapt up from his chair. The surrounding aerines unsheathed their cutlasses. "Do you think I have any chance to make my case? They have already consigned me to the Cage. This is a 'fait accompli' as the officers of Clerval say."

"Nevertheless," she said as she rose from her chair, "I am regrettably placing you under arrest and I will see you safely transported to Scoria. So please--"

At that moment, Captian Harmoza in a rapid maneuver had a flintlock pistol under his own throat, the hammer cocked. The other aerines were amazed to see such a quick and fluid motion in such a haggard, old man.

   Simone screamed out, "Do nothing! Put your swords away!"

   " I served admirably for me whole life under the Scorian flag. What I did, I did on behalf of my conscience and the salvation of my soul." he said.

  "I understand what you had to do." Simone whispered to him, remembering the years she served with him as a youngster.

   "You understand me not." he said, "You knew the Sophia like the back of your hands, but you never understood me or what I was about."

   "What do want me to do, Cap'n." she stammered out.

   "My only blessing is that I got to see you again. That you were the last thing these poor, old eyes have seen. Now. Witness." he said plaintively.

   "NO!" she cried as Captain Harmoza pulled the hair-trigger of his flintlock and he fell in a mist of pink gore and grey smoke.

   After the grappling cables were secured to the Sophia, they reversed the engine and the dwimmer plates gathered enough energy (it was difficult and time-consuming in the Widdershins) to get the vessel moving again.

   Commodore Simone Agravaine watched from the forecastle as they towed the Sophia astern. She wondered how it all came to this. But her duty was done...and that was all that mattered.