Skyjackers: Episode 1: A Proper Nuisance (Skyjackers: Season One) Read Free

Captain.”
    Jonathan lifted his hands. “There’s no need for bloodshed,
madam.”
    She smirked. “Not mine, anyway.”
    “I could never hurt a—”
    Vivian’s blade flashed.
    Jonathan leaned away, avoiding a cut to the face at the last
instant.
    “That was smart,” Vivian said.
    “ That was a dirty trick,” said Jonathan, drawing his
rapier.
    “I tend to prefer that sort,” Vivian said, before making a
low cut that sent Jonathan hopping backward a step.
    Around them, Vivian’s pirates began to engage Jonathan’s
marshals.
    “I’ll have you know you’ve just assaulted an officer of the
law,” he said, looking around. “Several, in fact.”
    Vivian smiled. “That has a nice ring to it. Feel free to
recount my other misdeeds as they occur.” She lunged, but Jonathan knocked her
blade aside.
    “I would prefer it if the misdeeds stopped now.” Jonathan
defended himself from another series of swings before going on the attack.
    “You fight well,” Vivian said. “I’m beginning to think you’re
not as green as they say.”
    “Who says I’m green?”
    “Never mind,” she said, nearly running him through with a
stab.
    What a strange and uncivilized woman , Jonathan
thought. “You’re rather cheeky, aren’t you?”
    “That’s what my father says. Though you hardly know me well
enough to make that determination.” She grunted as their swords met and skidded
off one another.
    “I don’t know you at all,” Jonathan admitted. “I do know your
father has robbed these innocent people, however. So I’m afraid I’ll have to
ask that he not… do… what he’s doing right now.”
    Caine’s ship was lifting off. A man with a paintbrush was
dangling from a rope at the stern, screaming up at the crew about something.
Vivian’s next swing came in low, forcing Jonathan to forget about the fleeing
ships for the moment.
    They began to battle in earnest, and Jonathan soon found
Vivian to be more than a match for him. The way she danced, returning his every
stroke with one of her own, reminded him more of a ballroom than a battlefield.
Theirs was a delicate repartee, around tables and through clusters of
overturned chairs. Jonathan couldn’t help but be captivated by her.
    “You’re wrong about three things, Captain Thorpe,” Vivian
said. “First, my father is a good man. Second, these wedding guests are far
from innocent.” She paused, breathing heavily.
    “And the third?” he asked.
    “The third, Captain Thorpe, is that you shall never take me
or any member of my family alive.”
    “I’m afraid that’s where you are wrong, my lady. The
moment you are disarmed, I will have you clapped in irons and locked in my
ship’s brig, woman or no.”
    She frowned. “What’s being a woman got to do with it?”
    “Nothing at all. Though I will say—” Jonathan retreated a
step, then advanced again when Vivian stumbled over a downed folding chair, “—I’ve
never met a woman so…”
    “Skilled?” she finished.
    “I was going to say impertinent .”
    Vivian knocked away Jonathan’s next two blows, then stepped
forward to drive a shoulder into his chest. He fell backward and landed on the
table behind him, tipped it over and slid head first to the ground on the other
side, legs flopping over him. “Nor have you ever met a woman so strong,
apparently,” she said.
    Jonathan could only grunt, wincing at the kink in his neck
and the scrunched feeling in his abdomen. He opened his mouth to speak, but the
ground began to shake so violently it almost knocked Vivian off her feet.
Guests cried out and curled up in little heaps on the ground. There was a
piercing report, like thunder racing through the earth. Next Jonathan knew, the
grass between him and Vivian was splitting apart, a jagged crack that spread
across the field and began to open into a yawning chasm.
    Jonathan watched Vivian slide away from him on the shifting
ground. Tables and chairs and wedding guests tumbled into the fissure