Through the Clouds

It was all Kane could do to stop the eyeroll. Damn the fickle fortunes, they were evil bitches and that’s all there was to it. He was a air ship navigator, trained by the best to be the best, yet nearly every day he wondered how the hell he ended up here. He'd been so naive when he graduated from the Academy. The lure of good money too strong. The glamour of moving in the circles of the wealthy.

He'd been an idiot, and now he was bored. Bored with a boredom that beggared belief. In fact, staring across the table at his boss, he was finally ready to acknowledge how much he hated his job.

‘Are we clear Kane?’ Mayor Tamantha Newfield was staring at her employee as though he'd just grown a second head.

Kane mentally kicked at his thoughts and searched for an appropriate answer. ‘Yes Ma’am. Your son and thirty of his closest friends pleasure cruising to celebrate his eighteenth birthday, what could possibly go wrong?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ she said.

Kane thought a swear word that was not at all acceptable in polite company. Maybe he was losing it, he hadn’t meant to say that last bit out loud. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it Ma’am, I’m sure everyone will be on their best behaviour.

‘Of course they will be, they are our future leaders.’

There was a depressing thought, but one Kane managed to keep to himself this time. Barrett Newfield was a self indulgent tosser, who got a kick out of indulging in taking unnecessary risks. Adrenaline junkies they were calling themselves. It had become increasingly clear the Mayor had blinkers on when it came to her son, Kane had only once tried to inform her about Barrett's none to brilliant activities, only to be not so politely informed that it was ‘none of his business, her son had an adventurous spirit, and boys liked to experiment'.

He really hated his job right now. His own family had been so proud when he had told them he'd been offered a contract for the Newfield family. He thought he'd be set for life. Little did he know. Working for this family had turned out to be anything but exciting. If anyone asked, he’d tell them it was more soul destroying, but who'd believe that.

Still distracted Kane walked up the gangplank of the Misty M, stopping only to see who was blocking his way. Even with his head so full of troubling thoughts Drea could bring a smile to his face. A few years younger than he was, Kane had been more than a little put out when she'd been put on his vessel without any notice. Drea's large build matching his almost six feet, her strong shoulders showed she wasn’t afraid of heavy lifting and her dark brown hair was always pulled back into a tidy, practical tail. Sensible, reliable and not at all stupid with it. He’d come to appreciate her smart mind, observant nature and cheeky tongue.

Standing in front of him, arms crossed firmly across her chest she said, ‘You know this is going to suck, right?’

‘On so many levels,’ he agreed.

Stepping to the side, she fell in with him as they proceeded up the gangway. ‘Look there's something you need to know.’

‘Am I going to want to know?’ he asked, thinking there were already enough issues with this trip.

‘Probably not,’ she admitted.

Kane stopped mid-step, ‘This feels like it’s something you should’ve told me a while ago.’

‘Not that long ago, and I dealt with it, sort of.’

‘Just spit it out,’ he said, not liking the sound of the ‘sort of’.

‘Last trip, Barrett hit on me. I turned him down cold.’

Her eyes never left his and he knew it had been hard for her to tell him. Drea was a firm believer in dealing with her own issues. In this case though it could’ve gone badly, something he really didn’t want to think about. ‘As I would expect,’ he tried to make light of it, but inside he was seething. ‘I’d have been terribly disappointed to discover your taste was that bad.’

‘Well, that’s only part of it.’

Kane felt a tension headache creeping in.

‘He wouldn’t let it go. Even once I’d made it more than abundantly clear. Only the arrival of that dizzy blond with blue tips, saved it from getting physical.’ This time she did look away.

‘You mean the one with a different hair colour every time we see her?’

‘Yeah,’ she met his gaze again. ‘She saw us and he leapt away as if I was contagious. Started making out I’d been putting the moves on him.'

‘I’ll keep an eye on it.’ Kane felt the driving desire to punch Barrett and break his face.

‘Appreciate it. While I’ve got you though, what’s on your mind? You look...’

‘Annoyed, pissed off?’

‘I was leaning more towards the ‘wanting to strangle someone’ look.’

Shaking his head Kane said, ‘It’s nothing, I jsut need to focus on the job that's all.’

‘One you no longer want to do.’

‘Sometimes you have to put your dreams aside, and get on with it. There are plenty of people in worse positions than me. At least I have a job.’

‘And a hot girlfriend,’ said Drea.

‘Well I wouldn’t go that far.’

Stopping her forward momentum she turned to glare at him.

Kane raised his hands in surrender, ‘Not disagreeing with the hot bit.’

‘So just the girlfriend bit? You still that phobic about commitment?’

‘It’s not the commitment, it’s the word ‘girlfriend’, it sounds so...’

Leaning in, she gave him a quick kiss, before walking off.

Kane hoped like hell he wasn’t blushing. Drea bought out the best and sometimes the worst in him. Their relationship was still so new, and unlikely to be approved of. There was nothing written anywhere that Kane could find forbidding it, but experience told him, one or both would be fired at the very least.

Maybe there was more than one reason to look for a new job. The trick would be finding one well away from the influence of the Newfield’s. If they could find somewhere together then maybe... He pushed the thought aside, getting through today’s job was his first task, then he would serious look at what his options were.

In next to no time, the rowdy voices of Barrett and thirty of his nearest and dearest (which Kane translated to mean those who thought they could get something from him) could be heard approaching.

Forcing a smile onto his face, determinedly relaxing his hand that seemed involuntarily making a fist at his side, Kane stepped forward to greet his boss for the day. Theoretically the navigator on a pleasure cruiser airship was the boss, the wealthy though, didn’t bother with such niceties, in Kane’s experience they considered themselves above such petty concerns. If you weren’t one of ‘us’, you were one of ‘them’ and thus not worthy of actual courtesy.

Barrett strode up, getting right in Kane’s face when he spoke. The thought of how satisfying it would be to wipe that smarmy look off his face, darted fleetingly through Kane’s mind.

‘There's been a change of plans, we’re going to see the old man.’ Barrett didn’t even wait for Kane to acknowledge this, before turning his back on the help and addressing his friends. ‘The silly old bugger turns however ancient today, he can’t last forever, then I’ll come into some serious scratch.’

Drea’s hand rested on Kane’s bicep. ‘Breathe,’ she whispered.

‘Scratch, does he seriously even know what he is saying.’

‘I doubt he understands what a fool he looks and sounds like,’ she said.

‘Scratch!’ Kane was indignant. ‘He has never had to scratch for anything, anywhere, in any way. Never has he had to do anything to get anything. Bloody chicken shit. Smarming up to the old man just waiting to get his money. I hope the old fella lives for a good number of years yet.’

‘Breathe and just do your job.’

‘Yeah the job, sure,’ Kane grumbled. ‘Bloody pointless job it is.’

‘Someone woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning.’

‘Does a hammock have a wrong side?’

‘A question worth investigating at some time when we can truly give it the consideration it deserves,’ Drea smiled cheekily. ‘And maybe a practical test.’

Kane reached out to her, she slapped playfully at his hand. ‘Not here.’ She noticed one of the men looking askance at them and twitching his head in the direction of Barrett. The birthday boy was standing, hands on hips demanding to know why they hadn’t started moving yet, his voice rising above the volume of the music that had just started.

Drea stepped back as Kane hissed, ‘Even his stupid voice is annoying.’

‘Everything is loaded and we're ready for cast off Navigator.’ She saluted smartly at him. Kane’s only reply was to roll his eyes before signaling the engineer to start the engines.

The salute, and formal words before cast off, had been the mayor’s idea, as were the ridiculous uniforms. When he'd first started Kane was convinced someone was pranking him. Purple with red brocade and gold buttons. It was ugly and so over the top he thought it couldn’t possibly be true. He'd said as much to the mayor’s PA who promptly informed him the matter was not up for negotiation as Kane himself had signed the contract containing the uniform clause.

He’d recognised it as a battle he was unlikely to win so decided to knuckle down and get on with it. At the time he'd really needed a job and this one should've been a good one. The uniform was just some fabric, he told himself he'd get used to it. For the most part he had, it no longer felt as uncomfortable as when he first put it on, but lately it had begun to feel more like a clown suit.

Pushing those thoughts aside Kane took his post at the helm. He'd been doing this so long he was sure he could steer the vessel out of dock with his eyes closed, not that he’d ever actually tried it. The crew worked smoothly as they always did. The air currents pushing and pulling them a little more than expected, but the air forecast could be a tricky thing. The mana engines held up well though, that was at least something that could be said for the wealthy, they looked after their equipment. Shame of it was they tended to care more about things than people.

The catering staff worked efficiently to ensure everyone had food and drink. They always put aside a platter for the crew. It wasn’t budgeted for, but everyone knew plenty of food would be thrown away so it wouldn’t be missed.

The journey to the estate proved uneventful which was all he hoped for these days. Eventful meant reports and stupid meetings with people who thought meetings helped. They pulled into the airdock at old man Newfield’s estate and offloaded the passengers.

Kane wanted to give his crew a break but knew they wouldn’t be docked for long. He dismissed those he could, sending them below decks to avail themselves of the refreshments. He left enough people in place so they could cast off with little more than a moments notice. Drea bought him food as he was unwilling to leave the helm and she stole a kiss in return.

‘Stop it,’ he admonished.

‘No-one who can see us cares,’ she replied.

‘I care,’ he said. ‘You never know when these kids will come back, I don’t want you getting into trouble.’

Drea smiled at him, ‘I can handle a little trouble, but if it makes you feel better I'll go back below.’

Watching her leave Kane chuckled at the exaggerated swing of her hips and the sassy kiss she blew him from the doorway.

The second shift had just gone below when the guests returned. Kane had enough crew at post to get underway, knowing as soon as they started moving the rest would return to their positions. Before giving the signal to depart he conducted a quick headcount, believing it always paid to cover your arse. Two bodies were missing. One was Barrett, the other was his damn shadow, who went by the name Pluto, or something equally ridiculous.

Before he could decide whether to go after them himself or send someone else, Bethany, Barrett’s on-again, off-again girlfriend approached the helm ‘Navi, Barrett has instructed you to take the vessel to these co-ordinates,’ she handed him a piece of paper.

He gave it a cursory glance. ‘Why would I be wanting to do that?’

‘Because he's your boss.’

‘His mother is my boss,’ Kane managed to maintain a polite tone, it was bad enough Barrett spoke to him like he did, now his friends were.

‘You really think she won’t fire you on his word?’

‘Maybe, but she will fire me if I return without him.’

The look she gave him was dismissive and full of distain, ‘Just do what you’re told or I’ll say you did something you shouldn’t have.’

If there was a way for Kane to walk away from the conversation and ignore her, he would have, job or no. The problem was they were stuck out on the clouds and whilst he was coming to understand just how little of a damn he gave about the Newfield family and their guests, he still firmly believed in his responsibility to his crew. Kane could only wonder at what kind of harebrained scheme Barrett had conjured up this time.

Holding in his annoyance Kane gave the signal to cast off. Although part of him knew it was petty, he really wanted to head the vessel home. He didn’t, he manned up, taking the ship precisely to the co-ordinates he'd been given. With no idea what Barrett was up to he called his crew to look out stations. It took a lot of effort to keep a sky ship relatively stationary. There wasn’t anything to anchor to and air currents didn’t care about precise co-ordinates.

Kane was starting to get a little concerned with how long they'd been waiting, when one of the party goers shouted, ‘It’s them.’

Kane and his crew followed the pointing finger to a speck in the sky.

‘What is that?’ asked Drea.

Kane swore, ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.’

‘That can’t be them,’ she said.

‘It bloody well is.’

‘Where's he planning to land?’ she asked.

‘Where do you think?’

‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,’ she echoed his earlier sentiment. ‘The wind currents in this area...’

‘I know.’

‘It’s unpredictable at the best of times.’

‘I know.’

‘And today is clearly not ideal conditions.’

‘I know, stop stating the obvious and keep your eye on them. I’m going to need clear and exact directions if we're going to make this pick up work.’ Kane was becoming increasingly annoyed. Picking up the horn to communicate with his chief engineer, he muttered under his breath, ‘Didn’t want this job anyway.’

He'd just about finished listening to the engineer swearing at the stupidity of the young and privileged when Drea’s call alerted him to something potentially disastrous. Looking to where he marked the men should be, he swore again, this time using only his internal voice as he watched the upper currents sweep the men in two different directions. ‘If we can only get one it has to be Barrett,’ he shouted.

‘How do we know which one is Barrett?’ shouted Drea.

‘This isn’t going to end well,’ Kane heard Mika, an old deck hand, mutter. ‘It’s been nice working with you boss.’

‘Shut up and tell me where.’ Kane turned his attention to the gauges at the helm. He focused only on two voices, Mika directing him starboard and port and Drea doing the same with fore and aft. Kane studied his gauges and listened, applying pressure as needed. Vaguely he became aware of someone screaming, he pushed hard to block it out. A delicate touch this way and a gentle thrust that way.

An ‘oh bugger…’ from Mika was cut off by the sound of a dull thud hitting the deck. Followed closely by more screaming. Blocking it out, he focused on the one remaining flyer.

Drea’s voice remained steady, rising over the wailing. Mika’s on the other side joined hers again, his tone letting Kane know what had happened. Mika’s final ‘Fuck it!’ was almost drowned out by the screaming of Barrett’s name. Kane looked up from the gauges long enough to see a body being swept upwards from ten feet above the deck. It went up and before being pushed sideways and slamming down through the clouds fifteen feet from the port side of the deck, right through the soft grey of the cumulous nimbus.

Leting out a pent up sigh Kane hit his head on the helm. There had been no way to make that catch.

‘Oh hell no!’ Mika’s exclamation causing him to look up again. Drea was standing on the railing, a rope fastened around her waist. ‘No!’ he shouted, letting go control of the helm, resulting in the boat turning sharply. If Drea hadn’t had a firm grip she’d have gone over before she was ready. He raced across the deck, she turned smiling and blew him a kiss.

He sprinted to her side. ‘You can’t.’

‘I have to.’

‘I’ll lose you.’

‘We don’t know that,’ she insisted.

‘Yes we do, no-one has ever come back.’

‘I have to try, if I don’t I’m going to lose you anyway.’ She kissed him and gracefully dived backwards into the clouds.

He watched as she cut through the fluffy surface. His heart skipped a beat when she momentarily appeared again close to the spot Barrett had plummeted through. Presumably being buffeted by the same winds Barrett had been caught on, which was probably what she'd been counting on.

Kane held his breath, without realising he was doing it. He saw nothing. No further sign of either person. Reaching out to the rope tether he gave it a tug. There was still some resistance, giving him hope. He pulled harder, as if his life depended on it, for in that moment it felt as though it did. Suddenly the rope went slack. He stumbled back and a now shortened length of rope flipped in over the edge of the boat.

Drea was gone.

Still staring at the rope in his hands, fists started pounding on his back. Pushing to his feet, and turning in one smooth motion, he was ready to retaliate. Pulling his punch only when it registered that his attacker was Bethany. He could see her mouth moving, she was saying something, but the words could not be made out over the ringing in his ears.

Looking around he saw Mika manning the helm. A hand touched his shoulder. Flinching, before recognising the person as a member of his crew, their name momentarily escaping him. ‘Get her off my deck,’ he instructed, before slowly making his way back to the helm.

Kane couldn’t say how he got them home, but he did. For all intents and purposes he'd been navigating blind. Steering the vessel on autopilot, barely registering what the gauges told him.

The young people disembarked, the mood far more somber than when they had departed. A couple of the girls needing to be helped. A few of the men carrying Pluto’s body. Abstractly Kane wondered whether the boy was dead or alive, but realised he really didn’t care. He stood, staring at nothing, acknowledging no-one. He had no idea how long he'd been standing there when he felt a poke in his ribs.

It was Mika, ‘Hey boss,’ he said barely above a whisper, ‘Ma’am is on her way.’

A nod was the only response Kane could manage. Stepping away from the helm he had almost reached the gangplank by the time the Mayor reached the deck.

‘What is going on,’ Mayor Newfield demanded, ‘Where is my son?’

Kane looked at her rather blankly. ‘I’m sure someone has already explained it to you.’

‘What I know is you are employed to look after my assets and my son was on this vessel when it left the dock earlier today and you've returned to the estate without him. You will fire this machine back up and you will retrieve him. Then you will need to find another job.’

Something in Kane finally snapped. ‘Your idiot son is never coming home,’ he hissed stepping forward. ‘Did you somehow fail to teach him that clouds are bad?' He jabbed a finger at her chest. 'It’s the only thing that makes sense, because otherwise why would he think jumping off a cliff face, with a flimsy pair of homemade wings, and trying to land on the deck of a sky ship, was a good idea?’

‘Who allowed him… How could you?’

‘Please, oh please explain to me in which world was he ever going to listen to me?’ Kane was on a roll and the fact she was his boss wasn’t about to stop him. ‘You treat your staff like crap and allowed him to do the same.’

‘You have no…’

‘I have every right,’ he said, riding the frustration. ‘Before you start laying the blame anywhere but the feet of your son, you might like to consider the person who followed him in his foolishness. I’m sure to you, his life counts for more than that of the brave woman who entered those very clouds trying to rescue him, even though she knew it was futile.’

‘At least she knew her place and tried.’

Kane didn’t even think, he simply barged passed the mayor.

‘You cannot walk away from me,’ she shouted. ‘I own your contract.’

He spun back to face her, ‘You don’t want me to stay, if I do I might end up doing something you will surely regret. Me… not so much, it’s not like you can take anything else of value away from me. Owning my contract doesn’t mean owning me or my free will. You can take your job and shove it. I have a family to inform of a loss.’

‘You will never work again…’

The threat followed him off the boat, but he didn’t turn back.

Kane quickly packed his few personal belongings and was at the gate of the estate when Mika caught up with him. ‘You'd best move it. She has just issued a warrant for your arrest.’

Kane shook his head. ‘For what? Does she really…never mind of course she does. Thanks for the heads up.’

‘Look Kane. Drea made her choice.’ Mika put a hand on his navigator’s shoulder.

‘She shouldn’t have had to make that one.’

‘No, she shouldn’t have,’ he agreed. 'You’re a great navigator, it was a pleasure working with you.’

‘Come with me,' suggested Kane.

‘I can’t, I still haven’t paid off my family debt.’

Kane understood, even though it grated on him. ‘Look me up when you can.’

‘Where?’

Kane didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. They both knew anywhere safe was not anywhere familiar. Kane clasped the other man’s hand firmly, before setting out to avoid the law.

He guessed his parents wouldn’t be too proud of him now.