Free-Wrench, no. 1 by Joseph R. Lallo

attackers to score a glancing blow with his hook, rather
than a direct one.
    As the turn straightened out, a powerful
thump sounded from below decks and the ship began to lose speed.
The intensity of the moment gripped Nita, and suddenly the thinking
part of her mind once again gave itself over to the acting part.
There wasn’t time for fear or reason, just the task at hand.
Whatever that sound had been could wait. The hissing salvos of
nails were a distant concern. The only thing that mattered right
now was getting the grappling hook free. She slid to a stop where
it had lodged itself into the deck, yanked one of the cheater bars
from her belt, and wedged it beneath the rusted iron of the hook.
The barbed thing was well planted, but she’d had more than her
share of experience fighting with stubborn valves and levering
sections of pipe into place. Three good heaves tore it free and
sent it skipping up and away.
    “There’s still two of them! And keep your
eyes open for the main ship, if these things are still buzzing this
fast, the mother ship has got to be nearby,” Gunner called
out. He planted himself and unloaded the second barrel of his gun,
but failed to catch either of their remaining attackers. There
wasn’t any time to reload it, but for Gunner that wasn’t a problem.
There was always another gun where that came from. He threw open
his coat and pulled two pistols with barrels nearly as large as the
shotgun.
    The deck was in utter chaos. Whatever had
slowed the ship had cost them most of their maneuverability, and
without the speed and turns to keep the wailers constantly
readjusting, their attacks became more frequent and more accurate.
Dagger-sized nails cut through the air from both sides as the tiny
crafts strafed the ship. Coop cried out as one of the spikes
slashed across his arm.
    “Brother!” Lil screamed, rushing heedlessly
across the deck to her stricken sibling.
    “Another hook, ready to fire!” Coop yelled as
Lil helped him to the shelter of the stairs to the captain’s
quarters.
    Nita turned to see a hook streak across the
length of the deck and drop across the other side, pulling taut and
chewing into the side of the boat. Even from her vantage point,
Nita knew the hook was well out of reach. She wouldn’t be able to
dislodge it from the hook end of the rope. As the attacker
continued on his strafing path, the rope swept across the deck,
sliding along the top of the railing and catching her across the
stomach before she could drop below it. She was dragged backward
across the deck until the rope struck some of the rigging that held
the gondola to the envelope, bringing it to a sudden stop and
sending her sliding along the deck until she struck the next strut
along.
    The blow dazed her, but not enough to knock
the sense of purpose from her head. She rushed back to the rope and
fumbled for her knife. In the steamworks there wasn’t much call for
it, so she didn’t keep the short blade in any of the more
accessible places. As she fought for it, she noticed a regular jerk
and vibration to the rope, and looked aside to see that the wailer
ship was reeling itself in on a small winch. It gave Nita her
closest look yet at the craft, revealing two pilots seated one in
front of the other. The pilots were nothing like the crew of the Wind Breaker . Rather than dressing in what was very nearly a
uniform, the two men were dressed in layered and mismatched
clothes, heavy on buckles, leather, and improvised metal armor. The
only things they both wore were padded leather helmets with
built-in goggles, and maniacal bloodthirsty grins. The one in the
rear seemed only to have the flight controls to worry about, but
the foremost raider had a mounted grappler on a pivot, and a
chain-fed spike gun in an immobile, forward-facing mount. As the
grappler reeled in, the spike gun drew toward her.
    She finally managed to pull her knife free
and slice the rope just as the gunner fired his first shot. The
brief burst