Page 24 of Stalk the Sky
Fieran’s grin was so wide it nearly hurt. “A gift from Weezer.”
“Weezer?” Pip’s eyebrows rose at that.
“My sister Louise.” Fieran laughed at the look on Pip’s face. “When she was born, Adry and I couldn’t pronounce her name. Louise ended up Wo-weez, then just Weez. And from there everyone started to call her Weezer, and the nickname stuck.”
“What a nickname.” Pip shook her head. “That makes Pipsqueak—my brother’s nickname for me—seem normal.”
“Pipsqueak, huh?” Fieran nudged her, still grinning.
“Yeah, don’t get any ideas. I’ve been purposely not telling any of you flyboys that tidbit.” Pip scowled at him, then gestured at the crate. “What did your sister send?”
“Well, technically it’s from my Uncle Lance.” Fieran patted the crate. “Radios for our aeroplanes to test out, along with compasses that have been shielded so they won’t be thrown off by the magi-magnetism of the engines.”
“That will be handy for navigation.” Pip attacked the first crate with the crowbar. “I’ve been worried about you flying off and getting lost somewhere out there in the wild blue yonder.”
As she pried out the nails, Fieran levered the boards the rest of the way off. “No worries about me or Merrik. But Stickyfingers still can’t seem to get his calculations right. I won’t be sending him off on any patrols by himself.”
Pip gave a shudder before she pried at the next nail. The crowbar glinted with her magic, and Fieran guessed she was sending her iron magic down the crowbar into the nail as she pried it off. While her magic flowed directly like an elf’s, using it in conjunction with a tool like that was a very dwarven way of going about it.
Once he and Pip had the lid off, the two of them peered inside the crate. A row of what looked like metal boxes with a few switches on the front and wires curling from the back rested inside, padded with sawdust to keep them from shifting.
A paper lay on top, and Pip picked it up and opened it. “A diagram of the radio and a brief explanation of how it works. A few suggestions on how and where to install it, but it seems some of that still needs to be figured out.”
“Perhaps once the teams have put together a few aeroplanes, you can shift to figuring out how to hook up the radios and install the compasses.” Fieran tilted a radio to inspect first the face, then the wiring at the back. It appeared to need power from the magical power cell to operate.
A part of him wanted to put everything aside to fiddle with it and figure out exactly how it worked.
But no. He was the flyboy here. He’d leave this to Pip’s capable hands.
Pip glanced first from the schematics to the radio before finally lifting her dark brown eyes to meet his almost shyly. “Perhaps we could do it together? Apparently the radios work using both radio waves and a magical resonance, and that’s more your area of expertise, given it’s your family’s magic powering it. If we could find a magical power cell fueled by your magic, that would be even better for our initial testing.”
“I’d be happy to help.” Fieran met her gaze, something like excitement filling him, though it was warmer and deeper than merely that.
He hadn’t wanted to step on her toes. She was the chief mechanic for his Flight, and she had a great deal of experience. She could install this herself easily enough.
But if she asked for his help, then he’d gladly give it.
With eight teams of flyboys and mechanics working on them, the aeroplanes took shape far more quickly than Pip had expected, even if more than a few of the flyboys grumbled about having to build their own aeroplanes.
At least they’d been sent the very latest T-05 Soarwings. Those were worth the wait.
Pip had her head down in the engine compartment, her toes barely touching the top of the ladder, as she positioned the radio box behind the engine. “How’s this? Do your knees hit it?”
Fieran, sitting in the cockpit of one of the nearly finished Soarwings, shifted as he worked the rudder bar. “No, I think that’s good now. Neither my knees nor my shins knock into it.”
“Good. It will be easy to wire the power in this way.” Pip used her magic to secure the box into place. She’d have to work out some kind of bolting system later so that the other mechanics could get the radios in and out as needed, but this would do for now. “I can wire the channel and talk toggles onto our new front panel.”
“Would it be possible to put the talk toggle onto the control stick instead?” Fieran folded himself in half so that he could peer at her. “Until someone figures out how to rig the gun firing mechanism on the control stick, we’ll already have to let go to fire the guns.”
“Good idea. Yes, I can do that easily enough. Perhaps a button that you can press and hold to talk instead of a toggle?” Pip worked her way out of the engine compartment and more firmly onto the ladder. “I was thinking we would wire the receiver and earpieces into your flying caps. If I add a connector built into the aeroplane about here”—she tapped the side of the aeroplane’s frame near Fieran’s elbow—“you could just plug in the wire there. Perhaps it could even run under your coat down your back. That would keep the wire from getting in the way of your hands.”
“Another good idea.” Fieran grinned at her, wide and open.
The expression had her grinning back, an effervescent kind of bubbling in her chest. There was just something more about working with Fieran like this. He saw her skills, appreciated them, and didn’t just dismiss them because she was a female.
She didn’t feel like she had to prove anything with Fieran. He let her carry the heavy stuff, do the mechanics, and expected her to know what she was doing. And that was awfully nice.
After sticking her head and upper torso back into the engine compartment, Pip uncoiled the heavy gauge wire that had come with the radio. The connection to the magical power cell’s terminal was, at least, easy and already thought-out for her. Fieran’s sister or the inventor Lance Marion must have designed that connection while they were building and testing the radios.