The Atomic Sea: Part Five: Flaming Skies

by Conner, Jack

  He spilled out onto a broad platform, a sort of terrace that overlooking a great drop-off. Wind howled over the lip. Still sick and trembling, Avery moved to the edge and stared all around. Above and to the sides, dirigibles and helicopters flew from level to level, some ferrying troops to repair damage, some looking for the culprits of the attacks, some trying to rescue trapped victims, others simply trying to escape.

  Where were Layanna and the others? Surely she would sense him, sense the Device. All he had to do was stay put. He scanned the void in all directions, seeing terraces on the other side. He saw fire and billowing smoke, teams rushing all around. Avery was impressed. Vun Cuvastaq had told them he knew the processors well, more than well enough to assist in sabotaging them. And Layanna, who had helped design many of them, was more than an able saboteur herself. Janx and Hildra, proficient at small arms and home-made bombs, had likely proven useful.

  There!

  A shape glided down from the skies toward him. It was the colonel’s vessel. Avery recognized its smooth curves and lines even from a distance. Avery whistled and waved his arms frantically.

  It angled toward him, gliding, majestic ...

  A sound behind him.

  Avery turned, instantly alert. For an awful moment he feared it was Uthua. The great near-Elder had found him, would destroy him and activate the Device at last. All was lost.

  Panting, Sheridan staggered out of the corridor

  Her hair fell in disarray and blood caked one side of her head. Her uniform was ripped and rumpled, and she walked with a limp. A pistol dangled at her side, but she did not raise it. Her chest rose and fell in labored breaths.

  Her eyes settled on him. Tiredly, she nodded a greeting.

  He pointed his gun at her.

  “What do you want?” he yelled across the distance. Wind howled and roared all around him, whipping embers and debris.

  Wearily, as if about to fall over at every step, she crossed toward him. She fought for breaths, and Avery could tell she was ready to collapse. Soot plastered one of her cheeks. Blood stained the front of her uniform.

  “I want ... to come with you,” she said, struggling to speak.

  He cocked the pistol. “You’re not coming anywhere with me.”

  Wind against his neck. The creak of wood and canvas alerted him that the yacht was drawing nearer. The sounds were faint yet.

  “Please,” she gasped.

  “Just tell me how to cure Ani. I’ll let you go. Perhaps we’ll meet again some other day. We’ll go our separate ways.”

  She shook her head tiredly. Avery wanted to turn his head to see the yacht coming but dared not take his eyes off Sheridan. He had trusted her when their goals had seemingly aligned, but all bets were off now.

  “How did you get here?” he said. “You were arrested.”

  “I was. But then the chaos started. I guess that was your people.” When he said nothing, she seemed to take that as confirmation. “I thought as much. I knew you would betray me. It’s all right. I understand, although I honestly didn’t think you’d get this far. In fact, I took steps to prevent it. Anyway, I was able to escape in the confusion, so I suppose I owe you for that. I knew you would be stealing the Device, so I came looking for you.”

  “Why? You can’t activate it now. The Collossum would win! Don’t you get it? Your side has lost! The Red Hand is dead!”

  She just seemed weary. Wind fluttered her hair. “It’s too late for the Red Hand to win, you’re re right. But I have to escape, and the only ones that can help me are you and your people. I can’t crew a ship by myself, and I’m a traitor to Octung now, so that’s out. Please ... Francis ... help me.” It was only among a handful of times that she had called him by his first name. “Please,” she repeated. She sounded very fragile. “Help me and I’ll cure Ani for you. Surely you know I would love nothing better.”

  He studied her. Behind him canvas crackled.

  A rough, familiar voice said, “Ahoy there! Want me to shoot her for you?”

  Half smiling, secure that he was covered, Avery turned to see Janx grinning at him broadly from over the side of the yacht gunwale. The big man looked a little tattered, and part of his face, neck and side was covered in soot, but otherwise he appeared healthy and in good spirits.

  Hildra, leaving the forward gun to stand at Janx’s side, looked just as good, with Hildebrand running happily along her hook arm, but she glared daggers at Sheridan.

  “What’s the bitch doing here?”

  The yacht drifted closer, gently now, and butted the railing. Avery shoved his pistol away and caught the rope that Janx threw down. With one hand still gripping the rod, Avery grabbed the rope, held on as tight as he could, and allowed Janx to haul him up, hand over hand. He bumped against the side of the yacht with every heave, but it was a welcome pain. With a sense of joy, he scrambled over the side and planted his feet on the deck.

  “Don’t touch the rod,” he warned.

  A warm, firm shape barreled into him, nearly knocked him over. Laughing, he glanced down at Ani. She had locked her arms about his waist and buried her face in his belly. He realized she was crying. He kept the lance well away from her.

  “It’s all right, honey,” he said.

  “I never thought I’d see you again,” she said, peeling her face away. Tears coursed down her cheeks.

  “Well, you have.”

  Behind Ani, Layanna stood, hands folded across her chest. A warm expression touched her, but she seemed quite conscious of their situation. She was obviously relieved to see Avery and the Device, but they had urgent matters to attend to. Frederick was at the wheel and vun Cuvastaq was staring out at the chaos with a telescope. There was no sign of the three crewmen.

  “What about her?” Hildra demanded, pointing a gun over the side.

  Avery returned his attention to Sheridan. She peered back, weary and desperate. It was perhaps the most human he had ever seen her.

  “Drop the gun,” he said. “Do that and you can come with us.”

  Sheridan dropped the gun.

  “Fuck no!” Hildra said. “Are you insane? It’s Sheridan.” She said this as if the name alone should inspire terror, and perhaps it did. “You know what she pulled, bones? Soon as you two left for the ceremony, we were about to head out to plant bombs when that bitch’s buddies show up and hold guns on us.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right,” Janx said. “They said they were under orders from Sheridan to keep us until she returned.”

  “Yes,” Avery said, nodding. “She said she took steps to prevent us acting out. She knew we meant to betray her, that we never would have gone along with aiding the Red Hand’s coup. How did you get away?”

  “Coov,” Hildra said. “He was still out scouting. He returned and bailed us out. So you see, she can’t come.”

  “She was just protecting an investment,” Avery said reasonably. “Besides ...” Ani still embraced him around the waist. Avery flicked his gaze down at her significantly.

  “Still,” Hildra said.

  “It’s the only way,” Avery said. “Either Sheridan comes or ...” He didn’t have to say the rest.

  The fight drained out of Hildra. Janx looked like he was ready to pursue the subject, but just then a great roar shook the air and the whole platform trembled. A psychic scream pierced Avery, and he staggered against Layanna, Ani with him. They nearly fell in a tangle.

  Uthua, great and swollen and awful, burst from the hallway Avery had emerged from, a huge, malignant mass channeled into a long, worm-like shape for easy navigation of the halls. Pseudopods and tentacles thrust out of the worm-shape’s flanks and front. Uthua saw Layanna and the Device. With an enraged bellow, he rushed across the platform.

  “Grab on!” Avery shouted to Sheridan.

  She leapt for the netting that dangled from the gunwale, caught a fistful and hauled herself up even as Uthua thundered toward her, battering them all with a psychic assault as he went. Frederick,
unprepared for it, clutched his head and fell away from the wheel. Avery sprang to it and turned them away, even as Hildra and Janx saw to crewing the ship, twisting dials and trimming ropes. Layanna accepted the rod with a phantasmagorical tendril. She didn’t bring her other-self over completely, only the tendril.

  The yacht shot away from the platform as Uthua reached it. Roaring in fury, he lashed the air with his many limbs. Some whipped out shockingly far. Gobs of acidic substances flew toward the ship, but Avery steered them sharply to the side, and all missiles hurled harmlessly past.

  They were away.

  Chapter 8

  They had the Device, but they were still firmly in the middle of the Over-City. It was a long way to freedom, and a longer way to activating the Device. Avery’s legs and back ached, and his knees creaked in protest from jogging up the stairs. His lungs, eyes and nostrils still itched from the harsh air of that other world. He stank of the strange gases there, something like formaldehyde mixed with lye. He wanted to ask Layanna about what he’d seen, but now wasn’t the time. Us’gu’thun! Us’gu’thun! He shuddered at the memory.

  He flew them down the canyon of steel and canvas and aluminum, hoping, praying that they could make it out in time. He found a cross-canyon and veered down it, wanting to put some corners between them and Uthua. Surely the Collossum would alert the air forces soon if he hadn’t already. Avery doubted they would be taking prisoners. The Octunggen had wanted the Device intact, but they could not risk Layanna restoring it and activating it. They would shoot the yacht down if they could.

  Ani’s eyes were huge as she stared back in the direction she’d last seen Uthua in, as if unable to believe it. She may have observed Collossum before, but she’d never seen anything like the near-Elder.

  Sheridan scrambled over the side of the gunwale while Janx and Hildra watched on warily, not helping. She fell to the deck, breathing in and out.

  “Do we have everything we need?” Avery asked Layanna, who still stood beside him holding the rod.

  She nodded. “Guns, bombs, pills, environment suits. Everything we could grab.”

  “What about Ani?” Avery said, indicating the girl at the gunwale who watched the city scroll by with wonder, though she was more familiar with it than anyone here save Sheridan. “Any suits small enough for her?”

  “They do make children’s suits, you know.”

  That was something, at least. But he didn’t want Ani out on the deck. It was too exposed, and soon there would be danger.

  “Ani, get below,” he called gently.

  “But Papa, please. I wanna stay.”

  “Don’t argue.”

  She glanced to Layanna for appeal—Layanna had automatically become a mother figure, if Hildra a big sister—but Layanna said, “Mind your father.” Ani crossed her arms across her chest and stomped off.

  Avery allowed himself a smile. It felt good to be a father again. No. It felt great. With the wind in his hair and the sun on his face, shining down on him through the channel of the canyon above, and the Device on his back, he felt that all was right with the world.

  With a grunt, he shrugged the backpack off and set it carefully down. As if they both had the same thought, he and Layanna looked at it.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, “it’s the right one. I can feel it. You did it, Francis.” She kissed his cheek. “Well. I’d better set to work. It will take some minutes to undo what Uthua’s done to it, to restore its original functions.”

  “Hurry.”

  She brought her other-self over, all pink and purple-limned pseudopods jutting out like starfish limbs, bristling with long curling tendrils from a whitish sac. Her human self floated in the midst of it all, head high, eyes closed; she saw through other eyes now. She opened the trunk and removed the Device with her long, eerie limbs, took up position in the center of the deck and proceeded to plunge her tentacles through the silvery sphere, there to work on some other plane. With one slender tendril she still held the rod. Others gripped the gunwale, stabilizing her.

  Sheridan approached Avery, looking haggard but relieved. Vun Cuvastaq stormed over, telescope clutched in one hand, his face a tight scowl. He clearly didn’t like Sheridan being so close to his goddess, other-self drawn about her or not.

  “Who is this?” he demanded. “This is my ship and I have not authorized this person!”

  Sheridan drew herself erect. “Col. Jessryl Sheridan of the Octunggen Army, at your service.”

  “Of the Army,” he said, as if repeating the phrase would make it make more sense.

  “Intelligence,” Sheridan clarified.

  “She’s a spy,” Hildra called from somewhere. “A traitorous bitch.”

  “Wait a moment,” vun Cuvastaq said. “I know you. A hero of the realm! The one who ...” His eyes went to Layanna, then back to Sheridan. “But you’re an enemy! You must leave this ship at once.”

  “You tell him,” said Hildra, obviously meaning Avery. “He won’t listen to us.”

  “She’s not going anywhere,” Avery said. “She can save my daughter.”

  “I know nothing of that,” said vun Cuvastaq. “But I know that one malicious person on a ship can do no end of damage.” To Sheridan, he said sharply, “You must leave. Now. We have parachutes. And I offer you one of those only out of respect for this doctor.”

  “You object to me for being a traitor,” Sheridan said slowly. “You, an Octunggen officer. A colonel, as am I.”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “Her Ladyship has shown me the True Path. Those pretenders I served all my life were just that. She is the Savior of Humanity. And you are a pretender, like them. A traitor and an enemy.” He seemed on the verge of grabbing her and hurling her over the side. Avery knew that without Layanna there was little he could do against the colonel, and Layanna was occupied.

  Sheridan seemed to sense it, too. “I can help you.”

  “How?” The word came out harshly, staccato.

  She sucked in a breath. “In addition to being an honorary Octunggen colonel, I am an actual admiral in the Ghenisa Navy. Whose waters we are just about over. I happen to know, because I am privy to intelligence briefings, that there is a Ghenisan Navy battle group not far away. If we aimed in that direction I could contact them, gain their aid.”

  “But you’re a traitor to their government.”

  “They don’t know that. As far as they know, I’m a prisoner of war. And there are no Ghenisan spies left alive in Lusterqal that could tell them otherwise.”

  Vun Cuvastaq rubbed his face, mulling on it. He glanced at his goddess, then Avery. Avery allowed his own surprise to show. His hope. Until now he and the others had more or less considered their task a suicide mission. Avery only told himself it wasn’t, that they had a more-than-ridiculous chance at not only success but survival, because he didn’t know if he could take thinking he led Ani to her doom. But in his heart, as with the others he was sure, he privately suspected that even if they managed to fire the Device they would be killed shortly thereafter. But if what Sheridan said was true, then their chances at life had just increased greatly—if she were allowed to do what she claimed she could.

  “The battle group ...” Vun Cuvastaq said. “Yes, perhaps ... Fine. Give me their coordinates, if you have them, and I will send for you when we near them. Till then, you will be in the hold. I cannot let you wander around freely.”

  Sheridan nodded. “Very well.”

  “Wait,” Avery said. He heard a sudden brittleness in his voice. He cleared his throat. “You said you would cure Ani.” The three vials containing the cure, if administered in the proper order, had been taken aboard the ship, along with the vial containing the so-called treatment. Various other items had also been brought aboard, such as the three long black extradimensional shock-sticks that Janx and Hildra had recovered from Sheridan’s troops.

  “And I will,” Sheridan assured him. “As soon as I’m safely deposited somewhere neutral. Until my safety is assured, Ani’s cur
e remains my secret.”

  Avery bit back a curse, but there was nothing he could do about it at the moment. Sheridan gave vun Cuvastaq the battle group’s location, and Janx and Frederick escorted her below, presumably to lock her in the same small space the three crewmen had once been locked in, while Avery piloted them out of the Over-City and the colonel kept watch, occasionally giving directions. Hildra crewed the ship by herself for the moment.

  It was taking forever to clear the Over-City. The place was huge. Still at the helm, Avery passed the bulk of a processor, then swept above a great factory. Its enormous chimneys vented smoke in a thick cloud, and the dirigible drove straight through it. The smoke blinded Avery for a moment, and he hacked and coughed, his already-sore lungs protesting at the exertion. When the smoke cleared, he saw four military dirigibles bearing straight for him.

  “Gods below,” said Janx, who had just emerged onto the deck. Frederick was not in evidence, and Avery supposed he must have stayed to guard Sheridan’s door—a waste of manpower, Avery thought. Sheridan was an ally.

  The dirigibles drove toward them. They were smaller than the yacht but each was equipped similarly, with forward and stern-mounted machine guns as well as various extradimensional weaponry. But these were attack ships, fast and nimble, with black envelopes emblazoned with the Lightning Crest and crisp-uniformed soldiers striding their decks.

  Avery swung the yacht down a tight channel perpendicular to the one he’d been in, nearly scraping the underside of a crane that whipped above like a great metal arm. He shot them down a tunnel whose ceiling was all too close. Legions of bats had taken to roosting among the zeppelins that composed it and in the perpetual night of the tunnel they swarmed the air, thick as ink, hunting the misshapen moths and other bugs that plagued the Over-City. The yacht barreled straight into their midst, and bats shrieked their high-pitched, almost inaudible wail as they flapped against gunwales and beat dents into the envelope. One hit Avery in the face, then cartwheeled away. He wiped his cheek in disgust, glad Ani wasn’t here.