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  His head was turned, so she couldn’t see his features, but Nandi was beginning to see why he would cause such a commotion. This was no emaciated scholar that spent his evenings with dusty tomes and a hot water bottle. Their new boatswain’s muscles were clearly defined beneath his tight uniform. The firm cut of his backside begged for a friendly pat. His hair was still damp from a recent shower. The texture and pattern of his waves reminded Nandi of her lusty fisherman.

  She shook her head at that comparison. The fisherman had made quite an impression on her if she was seeing him everywhere.

  “Bugger me!” Nandi whispered, as the boatswain finally turned his head.

  She had to be mistaken. Perhaps she was more hung over than she thought. Surely she could not be seeing correctly—because directly in front of her, in the crisp uniform of a boatswain, stood her fisherman…and he was staring directly at her.

  His face didn’t give anything away. Anyone else would assume he was merely inspecting his shipmen for the destructive influence of shore leave, but Nandi was not fooled. She could feel his bemused gaze burning into hers, though she forced herself to look straight ahead and not make eye contact.

  What was her fisherman doing onboard her ship, and in an officer’s uniform? Was he a spy? If so, for which side?

  Perhaps he was like Nandi and had been in the mood for a little R & R before they sailed, but then why would he introduce himself as a fisherman? And when had she started thinking of him as her fisherman?

  “Come on, then,” Ken tugged Nandi’s arm, anxious to get back up in the rigging. She stared at him blankly, having missed almost the entire general debrief. “How much did you drink last night?”

  She blinked and pulled herself together. Whatever game the boatswain was playing, it was none of her business. What could she say against the man anyway, that he dressed like a local when he was on leave? That was hardly a hanging offense. She gave Ken her most lecherous smile.

  “Sorry, my fisherman kept me up all night.”

  “Did he?”

  Nandi froze. She recognized that voice. It had sent shivers down her spine, whispering naughty things the night before. She didn’t think he would dare approach her once he discovered they were on the same ship—she certainly intended to avoid him. Nevertheless, her fisherman—and their new boatswain—stood directly beside her, studying her with a frown.

  “Sir!” Nandi snapped to attention with a salute. Spiders were notoriously crude, but she knew to watch her language in front of an officer.

  “I understand you were nearly late for roll,” said Knightly. At least Nandi remembered his name from Ken’s earlier gossip.

  Nearly late? Since when did an officer berate a subordinate for something they almost did?

  “I’m sorry, Sir,” she replied. “It won’t happen again.”

  Was he studying her for some hint of recognition? He wouldn’t find it. She realized that he could be in as much trouble as she would be if the affair was discovered. Fraternizing was strictly forbidden between ranks.

  “See that it doesn’t,” Knightly replied. “I am new to The Virginia, but not to command. I expect my Spiders to be attentive and disciplined at all times. If you are not early, you are late. Do you understand?”

  “Aye, Sir!”

  “Good.”

  With that he turned and left Nandi to stare after him in confusion.

  “What was that about?” asked Ken. “Do you know him?”

  “Of course not!” she scoffed. “He’s a toff.”

  “Then why are you staring at his backside?”

  “I am not staring at anything!” Nandi angrily averted her gaze. Why couldn’t she have stayed aboard last night like a sensible woman? There was some devil in her blood that constantly encouraged her to seek out adventure every time they stopped at port. It was why she was so good at risking her life in the rigging of an airship. Her adventurous spirit had gotten Nandi into some interesting situations in the past, but nothing as bad as this. “Come on, let’s get to work.”

  #

  “You’re staring again,” Ken shouted above the hiss and clank of the steam engines. They were far below the deck, repairing one of The Virginia’s many weather panels.

  “I’m not staring,” Nandi lied. She knew her eyes followed Knightly every time he appeared on deck, but she was powerless to stop herself. There was something odd about him, an indefinable air of mystery that had her watching him to see what he would do next.

  “Do you remember the first time Kellie dropped towel in the showers?” Ken inquired. “I swore I wasn’t staring. You didn’t believe me then, and I don’t believe you now. You’re practically obsessed.”

  “I am not obsessed; I just think there is something strange about him.”

  A few days had passed since her first encounter with Knightly. She told herself to forget it, but she couldn’t stop herself from wondering what else he lied about. Had he pretended to be a fisherman for entertainment or did he have another agenda?

  “Where does he disappear after his shift? I saw him once wandering the ship, looking for God knows what.”

  “It wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility for an officer to inspect his ship,” Ken replied. “This is his first tour with us. Maybe he is checking to make sure everything is working right.”

  “After his shift? He wasn’t looking about; he was walking with a definite purpose. I think he’s doing something below decks, something he doesn’t want anyone else to know about.”

  Ken swung around, sliding along his cable until he hooked himself onto Nandi’s belt and hung a mere inch from her nose. “Stop following him. You’ll only get yourself in trouble. Why are you so interested in him? This isn’t like you.”

  “I love a mystery.” She unhooked Ken from her belt and gave him a not-too-gentle push, sending him flying across the bow. “Don’t you think he’s strange?”

  “ You’re strange.” Ken replied. “Have you seen something that made you suspicious? He singled you out that day for no reason that I could see. If something happened, you would tell me, right? I’ll stand by you, even against an officer.”

  “I know that.” Nandi wished she could tell him the origin of her suspicions, but it wasn’t worth the risk.

  Captain Wilson was a strict disciplinarian. If he discovered one of his officers had fraternized with one of his subordinates, they’d all be in trouble. “I’m just making up excuses to stare at his behind.”

  Ken shook his head sadly. “You give us Spiders a bad name.”

  A warning horn sounded from the deck of the ship, cutting off her laughter. It was the emergency alarm, calling the Spiders aboard. Nandi looked up to see several small dots on the horizon, approaching fast.

  From the direction they traveled, and their formation, it had to be the Ottoman air force. They were officially allies, but that hadn’t stopped minor skirmishes from breaking out as Britain sought to strengthen its position in the east. Whatever caused their arrival, from their fighting formation, Nandi knew they weren’t coming for tea.

  “Let’s bring it in!” Nandi called. She checked to make sure her lines were untangled, and then tugged on the release. Instantly her line retracted, pulling her back to the ship with dizzying speed.

  The deck was pandemonium. Officers were listening to the ship’s phones and barking orders at the same time. Without having to be told, Nandi ran for the emergency lockers hidden directly below the decks and took out a battle suit. The thick armor wouldn’t protect her from a missile, but it should stop a bullet—she hoped.

  “You there!” Nandi looked up into the determined face of the boatswain. He was already in battle gear and looked ready to slay an army singlehanded. “Take me to the hangar deck.”

  “A…aye, Sir!” Nandi stuttered, astonished that he had chosen her. Since that first day, he had avoided her like the plague. She never expected to be singled out by him in the middle of battle. “Hold on, Sir.”

  She carefully hoo
ked him into her harness, turning until they were spooned together like the lovers they pretended not to be.

  Around them, Nandi saw others doing the same. It was definitely safer to travel through the protected inside of the airship, but nothing was faster than swinging along the side. During a battle, every second counted.

  “On three,” Nandi shouted above the cacophony. A spray of bullets peppered the deck next to them, sending many of her shipmates running for cover, but she ignored them. She couldn’t run with the boatswain attached to her back and there were faster ways to get away. “Three!”

  She yanked on a cord and felt Knightly’s arms grip her waist. She often forgot that some people hated the feeling of being pulled through the air with nothing but a rope to support them, but to Nandi, this was life. It was the greatest expression of joy to hurdle through the air like an acrobat. If Knightly hadn’t been holding on so tightly, she might have added a flip or two, but she didn’t think he would appreciate the levity.

  “Which hangar?”

  “Alpha Niner,” Knightly screamed into her ear. He sounded like he had just run a marathon—or orgasmed, Nandi remembered fondly.

  “Aye, Sir!” She paused with her legs braced against the side of the ship and hooked herself onto another cable.

  “One, two, three.” She pushed back, releasing her cord, and letting the momentum swing them toward the correct hangar. “Ready to land? We’re coming in fast.”

  Despite his death-grip on Nandi’s waist, Knightly did an admirable job with the landing. She’d seen seasoned Spiders do something stupid at the last second and go tumbling with a twisted ankle or worse.

  “Come with me,” he ordered as Nandi unhooked them.

  She shivered as he stepped away, missing the warmth at her back. It was pure luck and basic knowledge of ship design that brought them to the correct deck on the first try. She thought she knew every inch of the massive ship, but had never been to A9. It seemed to be always under construction, though none of the crew would admit to working there. She looked about with wide eyes, knowing she would never be able to relate what she saw there.

  The Virginia wasn’t a battleship, it was a cargo vessel. From the secrecy surrounding A9, Nandi suspected they carried some very controversial freight.

  A man with wild black curls like a dark halo ran to Knightly, wringing his hands anxiously.

  “This doesn’t make any sense!” he cried. “We weren’t expecting an attack. They shouldn’t know I’ve left yet.”

  “It seems our intelligence was wrong,” Knightly replied. “Or someone tipped off the Turks.”

  “But that’s impossible!” replied the man. “No one knows about me. Oh God, what if they take me back?”

  “Joseph, you know I won’t let that happen. Allow me to introduce Nandi Magoro. She is one of the best Spiders in Her Majesty’s fleet.”

  Nandi looked at Knightly in shock. Had he decided that before or after they slept together?

  “Nandi, this is Doctor Joseph Hanan, an advisor from Beirut. But you already know that.”

  She blinked. There were no advisors from Beirut, not with the current political climate between the Ottoman and British empires. They were in an arms race for dominion of the east, along with Russia and Japan. Joseph was most likely a defector—a man important enough to bring the wrath of the Turks down upon their ship.

  “Magoro?” Joseph enquired, taking in her dark skin and shaved head.

  Nandi was so used to the multi-ethnic ship that she sometimes forgot how unnerving her appearance could be to outsiders.

  “Are you African?”

  “Ashanti.” Nandi’s chest puffed out as it always did when she spoke of her ancestry. From the widening of his eyes, Nandi knew Joseph had heard the gruesome tales from her homeland, stories of fierce battles and bands of female warriors. She grinned.

  The boom of cannon shook the deck, sending them all scrambling for footing. The Virginia was responding with heavy cannon to their pursuers. That meant the enemy fleet was fast approaching.

  “Where is it?” Knightly grabbed Joseph’s arm and pulled him to his feet.

  “This way.” Joseph opened a small cupboard, unveiling what looked to Nandi like a mechanical backpack.

  “What is that?” she inquired.

  There were the usual straps that looked like her regular harness, but that was where the similarities ended. Instead of the normal, thick cord she was accustomed to, made of coated metal cables, this was a synthetic material that looked like a new type of rubber. It was much thinner than what she used, barely the size of her thumb. To a Spider, it looked like death.

  “This is the future!” Joseph began excitedly pushing buttons, displaying his invention. “Until now Spiders have been tethered to their ships. You must be. The ropes only reach so far, and they are too heavy to move. So you swing from rope to rope along the side of the ship like monkeys in a jungle. This invention will change everything.

  “Imagine a cord so light it can be carried with you. It is so small that meters of it can be easily stored on your back. It is impervious to the extreme temperature fluctuations that cause so many of our current cables to malfunction. The attached gun can propel the rope up to 100 meters, and like a grappling hook, it will latch onto any surface.”

  “This will completely change the way we fight,” Nandi surmised. Airships generally fought from a distance. They were carriers for smaller airplanes that engaged in aerial dogfights while the ship-bound crew supported them with heavy artillery.

  If Spiders could leave their ships, they could do all sorts of mischief to the enemy nearly undetected. Sabotage or assassination of senior officers could be done by a single fighter.

  “It took years to convince Joseph to defect to Britain. I promised I would keep him safe and I have no intention of breaking my word.”

  Nandi looked up to see Knightly holding a small pistol in his hand. It was loaded and aimed at her heart.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded, trying not to panic. No one knew where she was. Knightly could throw her overboard and no one would be the wiser.

  “Stop playing innocent!” he snapped. “I know our initial meeting wasn’t an accident, not after you showed up on The Virginia. Were you hoping I would lead you to Joseph before we sailed? Too bad he was already safely aboard by then. I wondered how far you would go to complete your mission. I must say, you are very good at your job.”

  “You’re insane,” was all Nandi could reply.

  Did he really believe she was a spy for the Turks? That was crazy. If she was pulling in a second income she would definitely own some better boots.

  “I’m not the spy—you are! You pretended to be a fisherman when we first met, and then transformed into a boatswain. You disappear for hours…”

  “I have my duties to the crown,” explained Knightly. “There is no point in pretending. I will never let you take him back to Beirut.”

  “I don’t want to take him anywhere!” she protested. “I didn’t know he existed ten minutes ago.”

  “Then why are the Turks here?” Knightly asked. “No one else saw me before we sailed. No one else has been watching me aboard The Virginia. It has to be you.”

  “I am not a spy!” Nandi cried in exasperation.

  “There is another possibility,” called a voice from the entrance.

  Nandi spun around to find Ken standing there, holding a pistol.

  “I told you to let it go, Nandi. You should have listened to me.”

  “Ken?” she asked in shock. “What are you doing here?”

  “I followed you, of course,” Ken replied. “And it’s a good thing I did. I knew that as soon as the Ottomans arrived he would have to make sure Doctor Hanan was safe.” Ken stepped forward, ignoring the gun in Knightly’s hand. “Nandi, bring me the device.”

  “No!” Nandi refused to move an inch. “You knew Knightly was up to something, but you let me think I was a fool.”

  “I was trying to
protect you,” Ken protested. “Empires don’t care about people like us. They crush us as easily as they would real spiders. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Bring me the device. With it we can have whatever we want.”

  “What I want,” Nandi replied. “Is to be a Spider.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Ken brought his pistol to bear on her chest. Years of friendship vanished in an instant, unable to compete with the promise of gold. “I really was trying to protect you from this.”

  He squeezed the trigger. For an instant she froze, hearing the bang of the discharge and expecting a mortal wound. Then she smiled and shook her head at Ken’s mistake.

  “That’s why I always score higher than you in combat drills,” she taunted. “What kind of Spider doesn’t account for wind?”

  Ken rushed forward, spraying them with bullets. What he lacked in accuracy, he made up for in brute force. They dropped to the floor, hiding behind whatever objects they could find. Unfortunately, in the sparse hangar, there wasn’t much. Nandi ended up behind the same overturned table as Knightly.

  “Do you believe me now?” she demanded.

  “What was I supposed to think? You seduced me!”

  “ You seduced me!” Nandi countered. “Smelling like fish.”

  “That was part of my job,” Knightly snapped. “I had to be a convincing fisherman to smuggle Joseph into port.”

  “And you wonder why I watched you! Give me your gun.”

  Knightly straightened his back and glared at Nandi in consternation. “I am a sharpshooter in Her Majesty’s Secret Service. I know how to fire a pistol.”

  “Have you ever tried to shoot straight in a hurricane?” Nandi inquired. Spiders were the most mobile of an airship’s crew and needed to be able to adapt to any situation, including combat. “Up here you’re in a different world.”

  “I still don’t know if I should trust you,” Knightly grumbled, but he reluctantly handed over his weapon. “This isn’t exactly procedure. Be careful. It has a bit of a recoil...”

  Nandi aimed and fired, hitting Ken on the barrel of his gun and sending the weapon flying. “Got it,” she replied sarcastically. “Thanks for the warning.”