Madam Butterfly and the Lady Pirate

Long, long overdue, I present the origin story of the Pirate Ship Unstable, and the initial meeting of First Mate Tannis Ray and Captain Aisling O'Reily.

Mrs. Hanson left the newspaper on the counter when Mrs. O’Connell entered the shop. If I hadn’t run out of black thread at just that moment and walked past it on my way to the store room, I never would have known. I wouldn’t have gotten the only warning the universe had seen fit to give, wouldn’t have those few words to tell me why my life was about to be turned upside down. I don’t know if it was coincidence or a sign of things to come that I saw the paper that morning when I generally disregard it.

“Lord Charles Perril Dead of Heart Attack; Airship Community Stunned by Loss.”
My father, one of the foremost experts on air travel and the inventor of the Aetheric Engine now standard on every commercial vessel flying in Europe, was dead.

Secretive about his work and generally cold in his personal life, we hadn’t been close since I was old enough to take more interest in lace collars and the latest fashions from Paris than in figuring out the complex puzzles he built in his workshop, fitting this spring into that space to create the desired movement. Though I’d enjoyed the experience, machines and engineering were not things I had a talent for nor much of an interest in now that I was an adult.
He’d wanted a boy, of course, and with mother dead there had been no one to stop him from treating me as he wished or grooming his only child to take over his business regardless of her gender. At least, not until I was old enough to express an opinion and develop interests of my own, much to his chagrin.

When he couldn’t make me into the partner he’d dreamed of, he settled for marrying me of to the one he ended up with. Thus, I found myself locked in the ivory tower that was London society, with no escape. Finally, when polite entreaties failed to do what simply packing a bag and boarding the fastest train out of the city could, I ran away. He put a reward up for my return and sent some of his men after me--his business was large, and worth millions. His list of contacts was rivaled only by the Queen and were generally much less scrupulous.

Every time I tried to settle down, another would appear. Once, they brought me back to London, but no amount of pleading with my father or my fiancé did anything to change their minds; I had become their prisoner. Once again, I escaped, this time forsaking England completely for the greener shores of Ireland and the Hanson Family Dressmakers of Exchequer Street.

I’d had peace for three months now. Twelve weeks I’d been in the same city using the same name. I’d gone from attending balls every week to sewing the dresses other ladies wore to such events.

But news did not travel quickly and Father had been dead for two of those weeks.
I tried to find comfort in the knowledge that no one in my new country of residence knew my origins, despite my rather poor approximation of the local accent.

Though I had just lost my last relative, my life marched forward and I felt only brief sorrow that there had been no opportunity to repair our broken relationship. We had not been family for so
long, I hardly knew the man I should have missed.

That spring day was lovely, however, and I put it from my mind. When I left for dinner, I decided to take my modest meal of bread with thin slices of roast beef and cheese out of doors to eat on the green. Trees shed their blossoms in the light breeze with young lovers canoodling under their branches, and children chased butterflies on the grass. It was a picture.

I observed it all as I ate. When one of the butterflies landed nearby, I smiled.

But then there was another.

And another.

One landed on my skirt, and I saw for the first time that these were not what one might consider to be “normal” insects.

A handful of the vicious beasts converged on me, latching on to my clothes and hair with rabid tenacity and refused to let go. Tiny wings fluttering madly, I felt myself being lifted against my will to my feet as more and more joined in.

I screamed, swatting at them, much to the amusement of several young men nearby. By now, there were at least a dozen clinging to any available square inch of my person. One landed on my nose. With eyes crossed, I watched tiny brass legs fasten to my skin, gears the size of those found in watches whirring and clicking to make a soft buzz, not unlike that of a bee, and a miniscule needle tipped with God knew what shot out and embedded itself under my skin.

I screamed again, whacking it with my lunch pail.

The butterfly escaped unscathed. My nose wasn’t so lucky.

The other butterflies began ejecting their own poisoned needles. They pricked my skin like so many thorns and I couldn’t rip them away fast enough.

The people around me didn’t understand what was happening. Was I insane? I wasn’t sure anymore. Why else would I be attacked by butterflies?

I grabbed at them, hurling them to the ground and smashing them under my heel.

Something sparkled in the sky, and I knew that more were coming. I ran, shoving my way through the crowded streets of Dublin in a manner most unbecoming. My vision was going blurry; my limbs, increasingly unresponsive.

I pulled off the last of the bugs, crunching it with my boot as I stumbled into the open park the airships used for landing and resupplying.

The world tipped under me and I fell against the still propeller of one of the ships. My head buzzed with the sound of the mechanical butterflies. I needed shelter. More would follow and I couldn’t run any further.

Behind the propeller was a small opening. With no other options, I crawled in.



I woke some time later, curled up on the floor of an unfamiliar engine room with the comforting sounds of machinery surrounding me. Judging by the gentle sway of the floor, we were either airborne or I was still under the influence of the mystery drug.

Blinking slowly and rubbing sleep from my eyes, I spotted a butterfly perched on the controls, one wing broken and the other flapping slowly. I reached for a wrench from the tool kit at my feet and smashed it.

No one came running at the noise, which I found odd. From my brief glimpse, I knew the dirigible to be a C-class, which required at least three people to operate smoothly--a pilot and two engineers. A full crew of nine was recommended for long flights, and there was room for at least five passengers. Someone should have heard the noise.

Of course, it was hard to hear anything over the clanging noise the compression coil was making. It was on its last legs, throwing off the tension and bouncing around in its housing. Without it, the port side engine would fail.

I found a scrap length of ribbon in my apron pocket, and tied it around the top of the coil. It wouldn’t hold for long, but it helped correct the tension and would buy the ship a few more hours in the air.

And here my father thought he’d never managed to teach me anything.

There was one door out of the engine room. I followed the corridor upwards, trying to recall the blueprints I’d studied as a child. The pilot’s cabin should be to the front of the ship, and if nowhere else, there should be someone there.

Everywhere I turned was rust and dirt; the poor ship was in bad need of repair. Broken hinges on nearly every door, and what looked to be claw marks and blood decorated the main salon. I hurried quickly past, feeling ever more frightened. Perhaps I would have been better off trying my luck with the butterflies.

At last, I reached the door marked “Crew Only” and pushed it open with no small amount of trepidation.

What greeted me was a female pilot of average stature with a red top hat of above average stature and a feather that bordered on ostentatious stuck in the brim. Her garb was a mixture of European and Oriental. Her sleeves were decorated with badges and around her waist was an Oriental sash tied in a bow that rivaled the hat.

But that’s not what I focused on.

“Oh, you have tea!”

Because you can take the lady out of England, but you can’t take the English out of the lady.

The pilot whipped around so quickly she upset the hat.

“Who be ye? What are ye doin’ on me ship?”

“I’m very sorry. How rude of me. My name is...Tannis,” I improvised, taking the name of my former Employer’s daughter. “Tannis...Ray. I--I was being pursued, and I was just trying to hide, but then I fell asleep--”

“Well, no matter that. If yer not an engineer or lookin’ to join up with ta best pirate crew in the skies--which I doubt ye are, goin’ by yer accent--then I’m droppin’ ye at the next port. I got no time for passengers, ‘specially those that can’t pay. Ye can’t pay, can ye?”

“I--well, no.” I had little enough money from my position at the dressmaker’s, but it had been left behind. Theoretically, I’d inherited my father’s fortune, but to claim it would be suicide. I was penniless.

I was about to offer my services, meager though they were, when I spotted it. There was another one. It landed quite calmly on the wheel as if it had every right to be on the ship.

Reflexively, I screamed. The next thing I knew one of the spokes of the wheel was on the floor with the crushed remains of the butterfly, and I was holding a map weight in my hand and gasping.

I met the captain’s wide eyes over the wheel. “Please don’t make me leave. The butterflies will eat me,” I pleaded. It was not my most eloquent speech, and I was about to elaborate that they weren’t real butterflies (though somehow, I doubt that would have helped) but something must have touched The Captain.

“Fair enough. Can ye cook?”

“Not as such.” One skill I had not mastered in my time on the run. “But I can sew. And I know Morse code and how to operate a telegraph machine.” One of Father’s inventions had been a wireless telegraph which could be operated from the air. “Oh, and I fixed your compression coil. Temporarily.”

Her eyebrows raised, then narrowed. “Do ye swear loyalty to Captain, crew, and ship, to forever shirk the law and to pilfer the holds of whatever bloody English ship crosses our path and to serve crown and country until the day ye die?”

“Ah...yes?”

She clapped me on the back hard enough to make me stumble. “Welcome aboard then. Captain Aisling O’Reily, at yer service. The telegraph room be there, and I’ll show ye to yer quarters once we land. You’ll meet the rest of the crew soon. Soon as I hire ‘em.”

“What is the name of this ship, by the way?”

“This? This here’s the Unstable. There might be birds nestin’ in the engines, but we still manage to stay afloat. And now that Snappy the alligator is gone, you’ve got nothin’ to worry about!”
What had I gotten myself into?