Peacemaker (The Flash Gold Chronicles, #3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

way back to the SAB. As they walked back, she
gave the skies one last glance—and, yes, maybe it was a wistful glance.
She didn’t expect to see anything, but a dark shape stirred the
clouds. Kali froze, mid-step. She blinked and the disturbance was
gone. Her imagination? Or simply an unusually shaped storm cloud?
No, it had been too angular to be a natural part of the
sky.
    “ I saw it,” Cedar said
with another nudge for her back. “Let’s get out of here before they
decide your contraption is something they’d like to
steal.”
    “ Good idea,” Kali
murmured, hopping on. Though she and Cedar had taken down a ship
before, it had been luck that they’d had the right supplies. She
hadn’t brought any kerosene for the trip to the Hän camp, although
she did have her weapons, including a couple of—
    “ Go,” Cedar urged. He
pointed toward the clouds.
    The craft had come into view again, its
shape distinguishable this time. Like a marine vessel, it had an
open deck, but instead of having sails above that deck, a vast
oblong balloon hovered overhead, dwarfing the ship with its size.
At either end of the deck, enclosed weapons platforms rose like
castle turrets poised over a moat. Open cannon ports ran along the
wooden sides of the ship. Its size promised room for a crew of
thirty or forty with plenty of room to spare for cargo—or stolen
goods.
    “ Going is good,” Kali
said. She shoved the lever that controlled acceleration, and the
SAB surged forward. Cedar hung onto her with one arm around her
waist, while he held his Winchester with his free hand, his torso
twisted to watch the sky.
    The airship was heading downriver, while
Kali and Cedar were heading upriver. If it didn’t change its
course, they had nothing to worry about.
    “ It’s coming about,” Cedar
said.
    “ Figures.” Kali yanked her
driving goggles over her eyes and pushed the engine to full speed,
with a vague notion that they’d be safe if they reached the tents
and cabins of Moosehide. At the least, the Hän would have weapons
to help fight off intruders.
    The wheels churned, slinging mud in every
direction. She could get twenty miles an hour out of the engine on
flat, even ground, but the Yukon River shoreline rose and fell,
with the glacial rock beneath the dirt making navigation a
challenge. The trail never ran more than ten meters without turning
around a boulder or tree. Fog still hovering over the hallows added
to the challenge.
    “ Are they after us?” Kali
called over the breeze whistling past.
    A boom cracked the air, and something
slammed into the earth five meters ahead of them. Dirt and rock
flew, and Kali jammed her heel against the brake lever to keep from
careening into a newly formed crater.
    “ Yes,” Cedar
said.
    “ Thanks, I got
that.”
    He fired a shot, though Kali was focused on
steering the SAB around the ditch and did not see if it did any
good. The river flowed past fifteen feet below, and they tilted and
wobbled as she maneuvered past the crater. A big, black cannonball
lay in the bottom.
    “ The artillery man is
protected inside the turret,” Cedar yelled, “and I can’t see
anybody else up there from this angle.”
    Kali increased the speed again. It was only
two more miles to Moosehide. Maybe they could—
    Another boom sounded. This time the
cannonball tore a hole in the riverbank, and the trail ahead of
them disappeared in a rock slide. Dirt and stone sloughed into the
river, and Kali had to brake again. They’d be lucky if they could
climb past that. Driving was out of the question.
    She stopped the bicycle and jumped off.
    The airship had descended from the clouds,
and Kali could see people in the turrets now, though the window
slits protected them while allowing them to fire out. A few pirates
scurried across the deck, though they were careful not to remain in
sight for long. From the ground, the angle was poor for shooting at
anyone up there. That didn’t keep Cedar from trying to keep