Free Her Majesty's Western Service by Leo Champion Page A

same way. One of them had already jumped, his parachute opening.
    “ You're pirates? Boarding us ?”
    “ We're not the Air Marines your ship, quite conveniently, is presently without. Now, if you would please?”
    The woman detached – her rig from the safety cable – and looked, again, uncomprehendingly at Ahle. Then she checked the bracings on her parachute, ran to the side and took a flying leap from the airship.
    The top of the gondola was corrugated aluminum, broken up by the big steering vanes. Ahle ran hunched along them, her rubber-soled boots gripping the surface well, despite the thirty-mile-an-hour backwind and a crosswind. You learned, after a while.
    Ronalds and Klefton had already found a hatch; Klefton, a lean man with an assault rifle and a number of ropes, watched as Ronalds jimmied it open.
    “ Drink, boss?” he asked, pulling a silver hip flask.
    “ Don't mind if I do,” Ahle said, and took a swig of the rum. She passed it to Ronalds, who took a swig and returned the flask to Klefton.
    “ Time, boss?” Ronalds asked.
    Ahle checked the chronometer on her left arm. The clock was ticking up to the minute. “At the sixty.”
    “ Hooked in,” Ronalds said. “I'll go first?”
    “ I'll go first, Ronalds,” said Ahle, and connected the rope.
    Below, a pair of missiles streaked out at a ship a couple of hundred yards away, less than 4-106's own length. One missed, and the other exploded near its aft.
    “Sixty. Go!” Ahle said, and leapt down into the gondola.
    Inside were structural braces and vast helium sacs. The thing was seventy-five yards in diameter; seventy-five yards down, the height of a twenty-storey building to the cabin area. She rappelled in short bursts, dropping three or four yards at a time. Fore of her was a huge structural brace, a double-triangle shaped like a Jewish star, with big brown helium sacs on either side. A ladder ran through the center of it. Behind, secured in place with narrow girders, were more helium sacs.
    Drop, pull, drop. The rope swayed hard, kicking her around as the dirigible accelerated, slowed, turned. Every so-often she caught hold of the ladder to steady herself; every so-often her swinging rope slammed her into the ladder, or into one of the sacs.
    After one of the ladder's rungs collided hard with the small of her back, she decided that she preferred the sacs.
    A curse came from Klefton, as something like that happened to him. Well within the minute, their footing was stab le. A passageway; a door marked ‘Medic Bay.’
    Ahle un-hooked herself and drew her pistols. One long revolver, in her – dominant – left hand; in her right hand was a pressure-pistol with special ammunition.
    “ We go in. Klefton, you come with me to the bridge. Ronalds, go through the gondola and link up with Mackinaw at the stern. Boyle's team will be in the engine room. Kick out anyone you see along here. Understood?”
    “ Got it, boss,” said Klefton. Ronalds touched two fingers to his temple.
    “ This is a beautiful ship,” said Ahle, as she kicked open the door to the medical bay. Her guns covered the place, but – as she'd expected – there was nobody inside. She turned back to Ronalds. “Let's make her ours, shall we?”
     
     
    “ See that one over there? The one firing pressure-guns into that Allied Freighting bird? Helm, take us closer. Weapons, missileers to port and we'll show the gentleman what real gunnery looks like. That should put fear of the law into the last of his friends, too.”
    “ Sir,” said Martindale and Swarovski.
    “ Belay that order, please, Vice-Commodore,” came a female voice. The accent reminded Perry of upper-class Southern, although terser and less-twangy than the usual drawl.
    He turned. As did Swarovski and Martindale, and the others on the bridge.
    A woman in brown, with a complex rig, was standing at the entrance, a pistol in each hand. Brown hair tied in a ponytail, a face that was a little too square to be beautiful,