Alistair Raven and the Stormtrooper in Stilettos (Book 1)

Part 3 - Chatter 15

Delilah strapped herself in to the pilot's seat. She looked out the cockpit window as Rocket and Flash untethered the mooring ropes. Out the corner of her eye, a sensor picked up movement at the terminal doors, she craned her neck to see Chelsea aiding a stumbling Julian out on to the icy, windswept pier.

"Rocket, look!" Delilah directed over the comms.

"On it," Rocket replied, sprinting down the pier as Chelsea and Julian limped out of the passenger hall toward the Saskatoon. Rocket skidded along the deck and supported Julian on to his shoulder.

"What happened?" Rocket asked Chelsea, shifting Julian's weight and dragging him along as they lurched for the airship.

Col Rose waited at the hatch and Chelsea bound up the gangplank and jumped in to the arms of her father.

"We have to go back for Alistair," Chelsea shouted over the Saskatoon's engines as he carried her aboard.

"Why isn't he with you?" Col Rose argued as Rocket handed over Julian to Roxanne's care; she took the stricken man and secured him in a cot at the rear of the cabin. Impatiently, Delilah pushed off and Flash dived aboard as Rocket secured the cabin door.

"We can't abandon Alistair," Chelsea implored, disentangling herself from her father. "Where's his grand-dad? Oi, you, tell them to stop!" she demanded when she saw the old man.

"Let me at 'em," Archie growled, forming fists, but Rocket and Flash held him back.

"The whole building is rigged to go," Rocket argued.

The Tommies, beaten and bruised, stared at Chelsea and Archie with tired expressions.

"No!" Chelsea moaned as her father physically restrained her, preventing her from running to the hatch. "Don't leave him!"

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"Snooze you lose," Alistair challenged as he cunningly zoomed around the Agency of Change, pushing Alice out of his way. Leaning, he scooped up his injured friend as he whizzed past and skimming to a halt, he flipped his board 180 degrees and hovered on the spot. Undeterred, Alice blocked his exit and reloaded a fresh bullet in to the chamber before aiming her revolver at Alistair, coaxing him towards her. Her impulses ensured the synapse controlling her itchy trigger finger didn't snap.

"Give me that crown," Alice sneered. "And I'll defer your termination until you're a lobotomised vegetable so you don't feel a thing."

"No thanks," Alistair snorted brazenly.

"I did warn you this would all end in tears," Alice reminded, before waving her gun again. "Do you think just because your grandfather is the Ravenmaster anyone is going to care if I exterminate you or not?"

"You didn't scare him," Alistair responded, thinking back to the stolen footage. "And you don't scare me now!"

"If he's so brave," Alice asked, "why isn't here saving you now?"