Free Project Enterprise by Pauline Baird Jones Page B

to the urge to flee, she turned, just as more dark shadows fell across her. Only this time, it wasn’t a flying train, but two of the automatons.

    â€œ H ow did you take down the ’ton?” Chance asked Miss Everly, raising his voice to be heard over the chug of the airship engine. Calling her that helped separate her from his Ani—and she’d insisted on it, much to his amusement. Clearly her life had been different from Ani’s, though her father was still a nightmare, since he was willing to force her into marriage to settle a gambling debt.
    They’d tied him up in the engine room, and then launched the airship, since they needed to reach Marfa before dawn. Thankfully this one traveled at a good speed. They should reach Marfa shortly after Ani, hopefully in time to keep her from being mistaken for Miss Everly. She’d briefed him on the layout of the town and the nature of the opposition. A ’ton outlaw gang was a new twist.
    â€œRoberto told me about the flaw in the design. Doc doesn’t know about it, or he’d have killed Roberto before now.”
    â€œFlaw?” Flaws were good. Flaws in automatons even better.
    â€œThe latch on the back of their heads is weak. You just bang it real hard, it opens, then all you need to do is grab a handful of wires and pull. The trick is reaching the head, cause they’re tall and if you don’t get it right the first time, well, the ’ton has time to turn around. I stood on a rock and just banged him as he went by, but that ’ton isn’t too bright. My father bought it before Doc came or he’d not have had it. Now no one gets a ’ton unless Doc says so.”
    This one talked a bit more than his Ani, her accent more refined.
    â€œDoc Smith.” Chance hesitated, but he’d put the question off, not sure he wanted to know. Now he needed to know. “Is he a big man? Ugly? Compelling eyes and plumy voice?”
    â€œI thought you said you hadn’t met him?” She started to puff up again.
    â€œI was hoping it wasn’t the same man.” Or hoping it was? He needed to be careful, keep his thoughts cool, focused. If he let his anger loose, his longing for revenge off the leash—could be bad for Ani. This was a rescue mission. And if he got a chance for some closure, well, he wouldn’t say no.
    She subsided some, though retained an air of suspicion. He mulled telling her more, but she wouldn’t believe him. He didn’t believe this most of the time and he’d lived it.
    â€œThere it is,” she said, her voice tightening with tension.
    The sun was more than a bit above the mountains behind them, the light creeping across the desert toward Marfa. Still too murky to spot Ani. Hopefully she’d made it to the hotel by now. Above the settlement, an airship train chugged toward what was supposed to be a train depot. It was an odd sight, even factoring in all the odd he’d seen. Looked like they’d connected about ten airships, as if the notion of a train persisted but with a twist. It was fortuitous though. He steered them toward the rear, not coming down until they’d cleared the windmills that provided water for Marfa, and followed it in, using it to get the lay of the land below.
    â€œThey’re prepping the gallows.” Her voice broke a bit. She looked at him, hope and despair warring for supremacy in her eyes. “Looks like he’s got all his ’tons on duty, too.”
    Chance eased their airship down a short piece from the depot and shut the engine off. “If you told folks how to take down the ’tons, would they do it?” It would be a good diversion and even the odds a bit. “Anyone you can trust to fight back?”
    â€œEveryone hates him, even the men who’d usually help him, since he replaced them with ’tons. Don’t have to pay them, you see.” She frowned. “Roberto’s got friends. If they knew