HEDY LAMARR<br/><br/><strong>"Give it to me straight, Joe."</strong>I didn't even look up from the mass of papers across my desk.<br/><br/>Joe coughed. I looked up. He looked troubled, he turned his engineers canvas hat around in his hands. It was not like him to be reticent. I sat back from my desk, and pushed back my leather padded captain's chair. I uncrossed my silk-clad legs and stood up. In my small lounge-office it was just three paces to the liquor cabinet and the choice was down to that dreadful French liquorice stuff that poof from Avignon had sold me, calling it 'French-brewed white whiskey' and the last few inches of some half-decent Tennessee bourbon. I picked up the bourbon and two shot glasses. Handing the glasses to Joe I poured half the bourbon into each then selected back the glass with slightly less in it. The bottle went back in the cabinet to join six or seven other similarly empty comrades.<br/><br/>I lifted my glass.<strong>"I said straight. As straight as it comes."</strong><br/><br/><strong><em>"Well, now... retainin' helium pressure is the problem."</em></strong>Joseph Bell was Irish and when he was tired, overworked or nervous his accent came out clearer. He was the best engineer the company had which was why I'd hired him to run the fleet flagship.<br/><br/><strong><em>"On the port side, bays 11, 12 and 14 got punctured the worst with bay 10 starboard nearly as bad. I has the lads patchin' away but there's only so much we can do to make mend. Bay 12 really needs a whole new gasbag. O' the power pods the ones that got hit worst were on the port quarter an' all, numbers 5 and 7. Seven is a no-hoper, a cannon slug went right through the crankcase and took the heads off two cylinders. I can't machine replacements from what we have on board. It needs a new engine, though I can strip down number seven and cannibalise 'er which will help the lads fix the misfire issues we have on four and six."</em></strong><br/><br/>The<em>'Blue's'</em>engine pods were numbered from one to ten, odd numbers down the port side, evens to starboard. The worst damage was, along with the perforated gas cells, abaft the 'spoke' (the giant plane launcher derrick) that sat between bays 10 and 11 and to port where the worst of the attack had come from. The gas bags (or 'bays') were numbered in sequence from nose to stern and went right across the ship in fat discs, like slices of bread in a loaf. Technically the 'bays' were the spaces between the duralinium girder-ribs that made up the skeleton of the<em>Blue Ridge</em>and kept her in a rigid cigar shape and not a round blob like a kids balloon. The gasbags filled the bays and were tethered to the girders by straps to stop them surging about and rubbing as the helium in them swirled like an invisible liquid.<br/><br/><strong><em>"On the bright side the self-sealing fuel tanks is still doing what it says on the tin and the electrics is sound, water purification plant can use a new filtration tank, but... we've pretty much worn out every machine gun barrel in 'er."</em></strong><br/><br/><strong>"All of them? They all need replacing?"</strong><br/><br/><strong><em>"If you want to hit anything over 100 yards and moving faster than a barn, yes."</em></strong><br/><br/><strong>"No spares in the armoury?"</strong><br/><br/><strong><em>"Ah... Ma'am... these were the spares..."</em></strong><br/><br/>Damn. Twelve new fifty calibre barrels,<em>and</em>spares would cost a pretty penny. I'd have to cut back on my pilot hire budget if we were to repair our defences.<br/><br/><strong>"Alright, Joe, thanks. Please get one of the men to do a full inventory of what's in the stores, both engineering and armoury. If we haven't used it this side of twelve months I'm selling it. I need to free up as much cash as I can. And Thomas and Westy will have to go. Thomas is too new and he's learning too slowly. Since Westy had that injury over Milwaukee he's been too slow in the rigging and a rigger's job is all he knows. I have to make cuts."</strong><br/><br/>I drained my glass. Good bourbon was expensive too.<br/><br/><strong>"Get back to me by ten tomorrow morning. I'm going into town to recruit some pilots. I am not going to sit back and take this from Mortensen. He'll think we're finished or if we're not, then badly enough spanked to never risk getting back at him but I'll show him. We start small and hit him hard and fast on the outer limits of his runs where his resources are stretched. There's just our one ship now, so we'll always be concentrated, Mort will have to spread his defences thinly and that's how we'll hurt him."</strong><br/><br/><strong><em>"You're... not giving in?"</em></strong>Joe Bell sounded incredulous.<br/><br/><strong>"Give in? Are you serious? 'Course not. If I can find a gasbag in this hell-hole of a port that'll fit into our skeleton can you cut up bay twelve's bag to repair the others?"</strong><br/><br/><strong><em>"Aye, I kin do that."</em></strong><br/><br/><strong>"Good. I'm going out. Please place standard non-combat watches. And tomorrow night if you get the bags repatched the men can have the last of the beer. Not sure when I can restock and right now it's just useless extra weight."</strong><br/><br/><strong><em>"Aye-aye, Ma'am."</em></strong><br/><br/>* * * * * *<br/><br/>I retired to my small private cabin, undressed, freshened up and put on a practical evening dress of dark blue silk with a matched wide brimmed hat and a beaver fur wrap. I went into town with Benson lurking a few paces back watching over me. You never knew what sort of people you might meet in a place like Haven.<br/><br/>I entered the bar as it was getting dark. It wasn't even half full, not that it was possible to see through the thin haze of cigarette smoke.<br/><br/>Passing the board I saw some tags up. People for hire. I noted the ID's and found a table. Benson hung back in the shadows. At six foot four and with a face as black as the ace of spades he has trouble merging in usually but in a place like this, with a flow of the roughest and baddest characters 'Free' Colorado has to offer he vanished into the scenery, only the glints of his eyes showing me he was there, keeping an eye out.<br/><br/>A waiter came over.<br/><br/><strong><em>"Evenin', Ma'am, what can I getcha?"</em></strong><br/><br/><strong>"If it came from a Tennessee still, I'll have bourbon. If it came from anywhere over a hundred miles from Memphis, you can dump it in my ships bilge tanks with the rest of the sewage and I'll take a water. With ice. Oh, and tell the barkeep a ship is hiring pilots. If he has anyone with tags on the boards who is looking, I'm hiring. Tell him it's the lady in blue."</strong>