by Foxx Ballard
“There are always casualties in war, but they are minimizing them. They’re going to stop slavery, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“By enslaving everyone themselves?! That’s not okay, Chais!”
Rusty looked over in the direction of the hives, and could now just make out the shapes of the dots with his eyes. He didn’t need to use Buck’s scope anymore. They were still closing.
“Look, we can escape, let them do their thing—”
Lais cut her off. “They’re killing innocents!”
“Yes, but like I said, they are minimizing that. The Chakran have a plan, and it has been working so far.”
There was a patter on the balloon above, as if a large spray of raindrops had struck it, and then the crack of repeated ancient gunfire reached their ears, coming from the hives. Lead balls rained around them on the deck as they failed to penetrate the rock-spider silk of the balloon above.
“We being shot at!” Rusty shouted. He ducked behind the low rail of the airship even as bullets struck the ship as well as the balloon. He risked briefly peeking up over the rail using Buck’s scope and saw a row of Chakran with muskets loading and firing. Swinging the scope side to side showed other hives and battle-decks with more rows of Chakran gunmen.
“Full speed!” he yelled at Synth-E-Uh, but he didn’t need to tell her. She throttled to full even as he spoke.
A projectile ricocheted off of Synth-E-Uh’s armored shell and she didn’t even acknowledge it, but when one struck next to Jack, the ad-bot jumped with a start. “I’m not bullet-proof!” He cranked the infrared heater to maximum so the airship would rise on its own and spun his treads so fast he skidded on the deck until it shot him past Mogul into the open cargo hold with a crash.
“Ow, I’m okay!” he called out. Angel joined him, jumping into the hold as well, although with far more grace than Jack had.
Lais stood out on the deck and so did Mogul, both of them unfazed, even as bullets smacked off them. One hit Lais on the side of her forehead. Rusty watched as the torn skin reformed, understanding why she wasn’t afraid. Pieces of metal bounced off Mogul like he was a concrete wall. Rusty wouldn’t be so lucky though, so he remained below the railing as a continuous staccato of bullets struck the balloon and wood of the ship, and the occasional one his invulnerable friends. So far, the silk of the balloon appeared impenetrable, and the wood was fairly thick, but it couldn’t take this forever. Another bullet struck Lais in the chest and the lump of squashed metal fell at his feet on the deck before rolling away in the sway of the ship. Synth-E-Uh maneuvered left and right at random intervals, trying to make them a more difficult target.
“Can I engage the enemy now?” asked Buck. “They seem beyond the point of negotiation.”
Rusty looked up at Lais questioningly, and she, in turn, glanced over at the cargo hold. “Can you hear me Chais? Your friends are shooting at us! Which one are you in?”
“Our hive is in the middle of the pack, just a minute, I’ll see what I can do.”
“They’re getting too close, may I?” Lais held her hands out and Rusty handed up Buck to her. It wasn’t safe for him to poke his head up anymore anyway, as two more shots bounced from Lais’s silk-leather clothing.
A shot next to him penetrated the wooden rail, and he decided to risk looking through as there was a loud VRAMP! and a broad beam of white light lanced through one of the gigantic worms carrying a hive.
“Direct hit!” chimed Buck even as the second female voice said the weapon was cooling. “Penetration of target’s full length, 23%. Wound estimation: Serious.”
Rusty didn’t think it had made a difference, but then slowly, ever so slowly, the hive started to tip forward and lose altitude, sinking below the level of the others as it lagged behind the rest.
The rain of projectiles against the airship didn’t stop, and the hives were gaining ground.
Several seconds later, Buck’s cooling message stopped, and Lais fired again. VRAMP! A second hive slowed. And then a third, but there were too many of them, and with all the bullets striking the ship, eventually the structural integrity would fail. Something had to give. More holes appeared through the rail now, and Rusty was forced to crawl to the hold and hide behind the sacks of goods to join Angel and Jack, who both looked fearful.
“Just surrender!” shouted Chais’s voice through Jack’s speakers.
Lais made a motion to Synth-E-Uh to cut the feed. “Don’t pass this on yet, because I’m wondering if we should surrender?!” yelled Lais over the din. “I’m having a hard time hitting the worms, we’re rising above them! Plus, I keep getting hit, it’s knocking my aim off, and the ship is starting to sustain damage.”
Splinters of wood rained about them as shots were now coming from below, and the three hiding in the hold had to move back up onto the main deck of the ship for cover. The ship itself was groaning like a whale that had been harpooned, its weakened frame creaking and whining like it was going to fall apart any minute.
They all looked at each other in hopelessness. Lais doubted she would survive a fall from this high up onto land. It seemed inevitable they were all going to die if they didn’t do something soon.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Lais: Southeast coastline, Farrun
It was hopeless. Lais didn’t want her friends getting killed. And it seemed like the ship was going to break apart any second. Shots chewed up the wooden hull below deck, and a few even punched holes through the main deck, though most of the time they just made dents.
“I think we’re—” she started, as the deck suddenly and violently jerked beneath her feet. She quickly clamped a hand down on the rail and Mogul did the same beside her as there was a screeching and crunching sound below them, followed by a deep groan and then a snap. Lais looked over the rail to watch the entire bottom of the ship below the main deck tear free and fall with all of its contents. The food, water. The beds, all the cargo crates. Everything. Wind whistled past her now as what remained of the airship rose at a breakneck pace, and she felt the weight of it in her legs. The force was too great for the ship’s main structure as the bullet-ridden pontoon supports also broke free, jerking the ship left and right, and now it was rising even faster. Jack managed to hold tight to the support for the flap strings, and Synth-E-Uh was attached to the propeller, so they weren’t going anywhere, but the rest of them were forced to latch onto the railing or be thrown overboard. Angel was actually thrown free, but her wings steadied her and with a couple of quick flaps she was back to wrap her arms around Synth-E-Uh.
After Jack had steadied the ship again, Lais leaned over the rail and with one hand and easily aimed Buck at a hive as she stared through the scope.
“I spoke too soon. If I’m patient, I can still get a line on them and they can’t shoot this far easily.”
VRAMP! Cooling… VRAMP! Cooling…
As they rose, fewer and fewer shots were striking the airship, until there were none and the hives were back to being dots beneath them.
“Like shooting fish in a barrel…” Lais said, firing another blast.
And then a lancing light from the hives below speared through the silk balloon above her. She leaned out over the rail and could clearly see a hole in the balloon. It wasn’t big, but enough shots would bring them down and they had no way to repair them until they were on the ground. They had just gained the upper hand and now they were going to lose it.
Lais quickly adjusted the scope to where the shot had come from and, although the view was shaky at this distance, it was clear.
“Chais, why?!” she called out.
“You just have to trust me. You and I think the same, remember?” Her voice seemed sincere, but echoed hollowly in her thoughts as she listened to Chais speak through Jack.
“Like hell we do. Maybe we did at one time, but we sure don’t anymore.”
There was another VRAMP! and Chais yelled back through Jack. “What do you think you are doing?!”
; “You started it…”
Another spear of light pierced their balloon above. And then again. Lais ignored them and fired again as soon as Buck was able.
“You have no idea, look we can—”
“Cut her off, Jack,” Lais interrupted. Jack complied. “And tilt the nose up again. It will limit the profile of the balloon until we can get beyond her visual range. Synth-E-Uh, take us a hard left into those clouds. They will provide some cover.”
The airship angled sharply left and up as another light lanced through the balloon, but this one just about missed. If she had calculated correctly, these small holes weren’t going to be enough to overcome their buoyancy. They could patch them later.
“She is swearing at us. Do you want me to relay the message?” Jack asked, still pulling the flap string that was angling their nose up.
“No, and don’t communicate with her anymore, I don’t want her following your signal.”
Jack put on a sad emoji. She could only assume he was complying.
“I’ll monitor the frequency, but I won’t communicate on the channel,” offered Synth-E-Uh. “Funny, she’s sending a file…”
“Shut it down!” Lais almost screamed. “Delete it! No more listening! You too Jack! Turn off your wireless! She can send viruses to take over your command processes if you access the file. It was how she took over Chang to get the body she has now. I don’t want her wiping either of you two out. Promise me, no wireless, not even between you two. And that goes for you too Buck, we don’t need her taking you over either.”
“I promise,” said Jack sadly.
“Done,” Synth-E-Uh confirmed.
“Acknowledged,” Buck added.
They were still rising quickly as Jack managed to level the ship out.
“Air thinning,” Angel mentioned as she hopped off of her perch on Synth-E-Uh and moved in close to Jack to glean some heat from the infrared heater.
“Cold,” Rusty added, sucking in a long breath and yawning as he got up from the floor and stood by Angel.
And they were still rising.
“Pull all the flaps you can, Jack,” Lais ordered. “We need to slow our ascent. We can’t go much higher.”
Jack did as he was told. Synth-E-Uh still had the propeller buzzing at full speed, cruising them up the coast, but the land was far below now.
There also didn’t seem to be any more lasers cutting through the balloon. They might be safe, for now, but what the hell were they going to do?
“They not shooting anymore,” Rusty noted.
Lais handed Buck back to him, and she was about to answer him when Buck chimed in instead. “Primary target transportation disabled, last observation, losing altitude. Life form expected survival, 46%.”
Lais sighed. Everything was falling apart. The airship. Her rescue for Chais was turning out to be pointless, and she had no way of hearing from Keena to know if the young woman was okay with all this. She had been the inspiration to free the slaves of this world, after all. She had to stay true to that purpose, to herself. Otherwise, why was she here?
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Rusty: Southeast Coastline, Farrun
Rusty put one arm around Angel’s leg, being careful to avoid the whip-like chain-blades that hung off the rear of her belt, and enjoyed the warmth from the infrared heater. He hadn’t seen her use the weapons in real life, but he could recall her fluid dances as they snapped around her when he perused the memories she had shared with him. She rested one hand on the side of his head, affectionately stroking him behind his ear. He could smell the dust in her feathers, her pheromones, the wood dust from the damaged craft itself. He enjoyed having a moment to relax and take in the scents. Finally, they had a moment of peace and safety.
“Take us down!” Lais shouted over the airship propeller. “We need to go back once we’re on the ground.”
Everyone turned to face her, including Rusty, confused. They had nearly lost the ship and their lives. What could possibly be worth returning to risk it all again?
“We’re going to negotiate?” Jack clasped his hands together in glee and put a smile emoji on his face. His chest monitor displayed pictures of the magnetic crates popping open with fireworks and the contents showing a 50% off sigil in bright gold lettering.
Rusty folded his arms. “Crates drop out bottom of ship, lost in forest, probably broken.”
“Oh no,” Jack replied, as if Rusty couldn’t have been more wrong. “The padding of those crates is superb. I doubt any of them were damaged. We would have seen the explosions. No, no, no, they are 50% off because there’s no delivery. Purchasers will have to find and deliver the package to themselves. I’ve kept a full inventory.”
Rusty opened his mouth to reply, but had no answer to refute Jack’s logic in any way that mattered right now, so he was thankful when Lais decided to take the conversation in a different direction.
“Night is falling. We need to land while we can still do it safely. Even now they’ll have difficulty seeing us and us seeing them. We are close enough to where Chais’s flying worm-hive went down. They will probably need to do repairs, or heal the thing, or whatever they do with them. I think we should risk sneaking in and see if we can find Keena. If it looks safe enough, anyway.”
“And maybe Chais…” she added tentatively. Rusty understood Lais’s reservations. Were they even on the same side anymore?
“And I can provide a distraction,” suggested Synth-E-Uh. “I should be able to keep the majority of them busy and focused on me. I don’t think there is much they can do to harm me.”
“Me help distract,” Mogul offered.
Rusty was about to suggest surely if their friends were still alive, they didn’t need rescuing after all this time, but the tiniest whiff of ash, gone the moment after, was like driving a needle into his brain. The Boss. All the loss he had experienced came rushing back unexpectedly. Angel immediately knelt and hugged him, and he felt her calming influence inside his mind, taking the edge of the anger and sadness, but not drowning it out.
He glanced up and caught Lais looking at him with a curious expression on her face.
“Me just smell The Boss, make me think of family.”
Immediately, Lais expressed a look of understanding and gave him a reassuring smile. She turned away to stare in the direction where the hives had been as Synth-E-Uh spun the ship around.
Everyone was silent as the airship descended, outwardly anyway.
We have a few minutes… Angel suggested with a mischievous grin.
Rusty almost snorted, but closed his eyes and did his best not to blurt out any noises as she wrapped her wings around him.
#
Angel had left his mind a minute ago, giving him time to calm and catch his breath. No one else seemed to notice their antics. Or they were being polite, more likely.
Night had fully descended, there was no glow over the horizon now, and they were approaching the ground. With only a sliver of one moon, there was very little light. This didn’t bother Rusty, but he wondered how well the others could see. He filtered through the scents of the air but there were no surprises, nothing he hadn’t already detected.
Below was a forest of the blade-leafed trees, with no meadows to land in, but Lais just heaved the anchor over the side until it caught a thick tree trunk. She took up some of the slack by holding the anchor rope tightly and controlled letting it slide through her hands with her feet braced against the thick rail, but even slowed, the ship jerked to a halt when she reached the end of the rope and had to release what slack remained. The anchor hole creaked with the strain, but it held despite the damage the ship had suffered. With no keel or lower weight to the ship, the deck tilted somewhat, but everyone held tight and there were no accidents. The sheer size of the balloon above them was helping maintain some of the upright stability.
Synth-E-Uh detached herself from the propeller and while she was re-engaging her treads, Rusty climbed down the anchor rope and swung down throug
h the tree branches, avoiding the sharp leaves. The bark was thick and broken where the anchor had torn into it before catching, so he plucked several fat grubs he found squirming, exposed to the air, and then descended. He had a higher metabolism than the rest; he was feeling the hunger. Insects were plentiful, so food had rarely been a problem in his lifetime. Now water was another thing. He hoped they ran across a stream at some point. He was starting to get thirsty.
Angel dropped to the forest floor beside him after negotiating a space in the trees above. She was squinting and held out her hand in front of her. He took it to help direct her. What little light was provided by the sliver of moon and the stars was diminished when below the trees. There had been some clouds in the sky too, darkening the land further. Angel hadn’t complained, but Rusty suspected she was hungry and thirsty by now, too. She looked down in his direction and smiled at him, so he held a hand up with a grub in his fingers, and she rolled her eyes. Even though she couldn’t really see him, she immediately knew in his mind what he was doing.
“Nice try, you know I like plants.”
“Maybe me convince you one day…” He instead popped the grub into his own mouth and then overheard Lais speak in the ship above.
“Look about below! We’re coming down!”
Rusty pulled Angel off to the side. A moment later there was a cracking and crashing through the branches above and Lais, Synth-E-Uh, Mogul and Jack all thudded to the ground heavily. Lais took the momentum by bending her knees and punching the ground as she landed. She made it look easy. Synth-E-Uh simply landed hard, shaking the forest floor beneath her metallic bulk as did Mogul beside her, the giant’s thick legs sinking deep into the loam as he landed with straight legs. Jack didn’t fare as well. He landed on his face, and when he righted himself, his chest monitor had a crack in it. The monitor still worked, showing a “Rusty Incorporated” screensaver that was only slightly skewed when it passed over the damaged area.