Broken Wing: A million deaths were not enough for Cassandra!

by Konig, Artor

  “Right; I know the place. It has a round bed and whole lot of office gear and all that.” June assented. We came out into the nest; there were only three Wrens there. Simon nodded to number Four, “Log us out please, will you, Cassandra?” He strode to the craft, June trotting at his heels. I walked into the control centre where Ronald was studying the radar.

  “What’s up, who’s doing what?” I inquired in a friendly tone.

  “Ship in distress,” Ronald told me morbidly, “I don’t know if you’ll be able to help. It’s been caught by some strong currents washed by the storm; some coral reefs directly in its line of drift and all four engines out of commission. It’s a rather tall order; the craft is huge. They’ve been having engine trouble all the way so far and they need a bit of time to fix things up; time that they don’t have.”

  “We’ll do our best. I’m sure we’ll think of something on the way over.” I replied.

  “Who’s with you?” Ronald asked.

  “The love birds.” I replied tersely.

  “Ho-ho, that should be lots of fun. But Miss Laser is certainly the person to ask; maybe she can figure a way of blasting the reef or something.” Ronald chuckled.

  “Or something, more than likely.” I told him firmly as I logged the craft out.

  The rotors were almost at flight velocity by the time I had dashed across to the craft. I strapped myself into the dark blue couch, tumbling the gist of the problem out to the other two in a welter of words. They seemed to grasp what I was on about. I pulled down my visor while Simon guided the craft out through the convolutions of the passage. The rain was thick just outside but there was a fierce up-draught that Simon had to compensate for almost savagely. The Wren was nevertheless flung up quite sharply; the tail narrowly missed striking the roof of the tunnel.

  “That was rather close.” He told me cheerfully as he deftly compensated for the rough conditions.

  He hurled the craft into the black sky above the crag, turning the Wren on her tail and heading southwest. He was tramping the pedals in a frantic fugue of motion, the stick in his hands fluid and flickering almost faster than the eye could follow. His mind was seamlessly merged with the living nature of the craft, guiding her shearing nose again and again back into the furious crosswinds. She leapt aloft, fell in a plummet almost to the wave-tops, surging up on the draughts and crosswinds. He had his visor down; there was nothing to be seen through the windscreens but his hand was edging the throttle carefully forwards. As the craft gained forward speed it became more stable, but the plunges when they came were that much more sickening. There was nothing to be seen of his face beneath that featureless grey helmet; it was as if the Wren had fused herself to him by that means and it exercised its will over both the craft and the pilot.

  My visor was down as well; June had her visor up as she fiddled with the controls behind us. I cast out the radio-seeker, fighting with the massive interference caused by the storm, seeking the trace of the ship in distress. The sound surged and receded, a ghost tripping over the seas. The telescopic tracer did a better job, the nosy little microwaves prying through the cloud as if it wasn’t there. Far away the vision unfolded for us, showing the liner lying broadsides to our approach. She was still keeping her nose into the current but she was being forced backwards by every passing wave. She was a good long way away and the Wren was going as fast as she could, considering that the weather and altitude precluded Simon from engaging the wing-wrack. For all of that trauma she was trotting along at a fair pace.

  “What’s the plan, June?” I asked, throwing up the map of the local currents for her to have a look at. The ship was clearly marked as were the reefs she was being forced onto. The reefs were sparse, but dense enough to be a real hazard. The water but for the reefs was deep enough to allow the liner safe passage. I focussed the screen on the reefs themselves at her instruction while her hands played rapidly over the keys before her.

  “We don’t have much time.” She mused, “And they’re over a thousand miles away, yet. Simon love can’t you go a bit faster?”

  “I can’t.” He replied tersely, “I daren’t kick in the rams this low and the crosswinds are not predictable enough for me to chance a wing-wrack. I’m not reading the winds quickly enough and the Wren is almost at her limit as she stands. We’re at seven-thirty; surely we can make it?”

  “At that speed, we’ll be exactly twenty-three minutes too late; they’d be on the outer reefs and then this would simply be a rescue mission.” June responded tersely, “We have an hour in which to get there before they’re beyond our help. Is there nothing you can do to jump up the pace to mach one?” She asked plaintively.

  “There’s nothing I can do.” Simon responded. Then he turned to look at me.

  11. Ship

  Without a word I took over the controls, feeling at once the terrible fury of the storm. There was no answer to the might of the tempest as it stood, not with the super-stage disengaged. I slammed up the visor of my helmet; it was all very well to see through the storm at where we wanted to go, but if I wanted to fly the storm I had to see it. I dipped the nose down; crossing into a vortex and feeling violent downdraughts swirl around the silver flanks of my craft. I crossed the stick over again, feeling the play of the wind, the sudden lift. In a moment I had the pattern and I began counting through each pillar of violent air. I rode the pattern for twelve seconds until I was perfectly sure of it. Reading the winds as they howled past, I commanded, “On my three engage the ramjets directly. Starting from now; one, two,” I felt the surge of instinctive protest, felt it swamped and suppressed almost as it had sought expression. Simon’s hand flew up to the two ramjet-sequencing buttons. My thumb was already tight on the super-thrust button on the stick; as he made contact the jets would be activated.

  “Three.” I hauled the stick back, slamming the craft’s nose into the clotted heavens, turning her in a long helix into the up-draught I knew was there. The ramjets kicked to life behind me, their fury hurling us back into the seats. Through the core of the up-draught we hurtled, to be ejected from the peak of the cloud into the blazing white of the sky, then into the dark of near space. The rotors were disengaged; had been the moment the fierce drive had kicked in. I levelled the craft out, not bothering to use the wing-wrack as we howled through the tenuous upper reaches.

  I glanced at the monitor, placed the craft with surgical precision and then dumped the stick almost to the floor. She dived back into the furious tempest, falling down towards the ship almost twenty miles below. I collected the craft in a gut-twisting torque, back into the fury of the storm. Below us, looming unreally clear through the monitor, lay the ship. Almost a mile and a half behind her tail the first of the reefs waited hungrily.

  “Firing posts.” I snapped, “June, map the targets and monitor the progress of the operation. Simon, fire at will.”

  “Heavy u. v. barrage, macro system nano-pulse full-feed engaged.” June responded swiftly, “Multi-axis alignment forward and below. Do your stuff, Simon love.”

  “Lord, you girls frighten me at times.” Simon responded, snapping down his visor and resting his hand on the firing buttons on the war-system dash beside him. The plummeting fall took the nose of the craft across the target range; his fingers tensed on the trips. The sea boiled, pieces of coral could be seen hurtling from that witch’s potion into the sky. I hauled back on the stick, levelling the craft out and killing her fiendish velocity. We were flying directly into the wind; the most prevalent of the gusts provided by the storm and I had to keep the afterburners on to brace the craft against its power. I kept the throttle low, keeping pace with the ship that was creeping up behind us. Our speed was not fast, but we were going too fast for the lasers to keep ahead of the job. Burst after burst Simon fired into the heaving water, the ultra-visible lances of hellfire slicing through the tough material of the reef. It was the deeper bits which were slowing us down; the lasers did not retain enough power at that depth to cut through the relativel
y much larger pieces of coral. Simon called for more power; June shook her head negatively.

  “We can’t use the X-lasers here, love.”

  “Phase in the masers.” I said sharply, “They have higher penetrance.”

  “Right, captain.” She responded quickly. I concentrated on holding the craft level and steady, reading the progress of the burn from the corner of my eye. Simon was rock-steady beside me, absolutely the only movement he made was that finger on the trips, pushing, releasing and pushing again. I studied the chart, seeing the lasers chopping as crudely as an axe into the tough fabric of the reef. The stone at twenty fathoms glowed white as that huge composite beam ate into them. The u. v. lasers riding on the higher carrier energy of the masers, delivered their searing photons swiftly and accurately, heating the stone until it exploded.

  Section after section of the reef, working at the lowest level Simon could reach, exploded beneath the waves, sending gouts of steam and stone high above our heads. Bits of busted coral rained down around us, clattering noiselessly onto the windscreen and rattling through the sweeping rotors. My feet danced, holding the tail of the craft steady. The ship behind us was gaining all the time, but we slowly got into the swing of things. June was mapping and feeding new targets faster and more efficiently as she learnt the best way to undermine the reef. The images flicked and changed for Simon as he followed her tenuous trace; each time her trace and the crosshairs corresponded his finger would tense on that button, sending another burden of fire down into the boiling ocean.

  I scanned the reef ahead, seeing that there was a patch of open water beyond; a precious half a mile of free water that would allow us to get ahead of the ship. I was also reading the feed and maintenance levels; the Wren was working at a dangerously high level. I cut off the afterburners, raising the throttle to compensate. The air in front looked calm through the visor, but I was seeing the real image of the storm as well, reading each gust and eddy as it came by.

  June found another reserve of laser power, apparently feeding the infra-web into the network already operating. Simon sat stoic and calm, his entire energy focussed through that destroying finger. We burst through the first section of the reef. At once I lined up the next section of destructive coral in the sights, following the predicted line of the ship’s drift. June at once began targeting on the new section, seeing this new spell to be longer than the one before. The ship was already at the mouth of the opening we had made in the previous reef. Simon was already firing as I took the craft a bit lower down, closer to the next wall of calcite and apatite.

  I quietly asked for the ship’s radio frequency, listening dispassionately to the garble they were spewing out over the emergency band. They seemed to be a superstitious lot; it seemed rather as if they thought we were benevolent spirits of some description as they could not trace us with the radar but could almost clearly see us through the weltering storm. At least they could see the damage to the reef; the silver of the Wren’s hull made her nearly impossible to see through the hurling rain and fog. It lightened the mood in the cabin to be perceived as some sort of friendly ghost, but we kept our attention on the gruelling work we were asking the Wren to do.

  The reef exploded; June fed another target, Simon’s finger tensed and released, my feet stamped on the pedals, my hand twitched on the stick. It was a dance across the ocean; the tide, the reef, the ship and the Wren, dancing in the fury of the tempest; a dance with Death. Death this time was pledging his hand against us; this time he was not dealing his blows with the blaze of our lasers and then gently; now he was simply waiting to see if we would fail. This Danse Macabre he danced; his face was that of Father Time. But we were faster, we concentrated our entire energy to that task, to cut and blast and blaze our nearly sentient fire into the sea, even as the unforgiving water and stone burst and fountained, the fire and water too much for its obdurate and stubborn nature. The sea washed through each gap as we cut it, thrusting the debris out, into the deeps beyond the maze of poignant stony webs.

  I heard the sound of June’s fingers on her keyboard suddenly loud; almost a distraction. Brutally I thrust the thought away, turning my whole attention to the wild task of providing Simon with a stable platform from which to wield his blade. The second section of reef fell open, the wide and deep trench we had cut through the coral reef ready for the ship when it came. And it was coming almost swiftly behind us. At once I headed the Wren away beyond the range of curious eyes on into the gloomy dark where we were conducting our secret and dismal spiritual business. The ship lumbered towards the second deadly section of reef, her tail shifting to the prompting of the helmsman. They could see the section we had cut and were taking the trouble to ensure they passed exactly through the gap. I read the map again, finding the next obstruction, seeing that there was another beyond. The last two sections were closer together but a lot narrower.

  They were further away from the second section, meaning that there was a bit more guesswork about exactly where the ship would pass through. Only it would pass through the gap we made if we made it in the right place. If it wasn’t in the right place then the ship wouldn’t pass through and our labour so far would be wasted. And there would be far more effort to follow. I focussed June’s attention on the next section, here less than a hundred feet wide. Most of the guesswork was done by the onboard system monitoring the currents, leaving us with very small margins of probability to work within. June got her teeth into this new lacy wall of sharp stone, her movements fluid and in synch with the rest of us. The next reef was cut deeper, the lasers chirping each time contact was made. The invisible beams blazed, June carefully monitoring the energy being consumed. That particular meter was well into the red, but not yet far across to set off the reactor overload alarm. I watched in relief as the last bit of that reef exploded and sank into the deeper water just beyond.

  I glanced down at the map again, seeing the position of the ship; she was almost ready to tackle this new hole we had made for her. The margin was cut very fine; I sped the craft immediately to the next section of reef. Simon gave a small sigh; there was no sound from June as she threw herself to her plotting once again. Holding the craft steady, I listened to what the folk aboard the liner were saying. It seemed as if they were on the verge of getting power again, as if they had finally sorted out what was wrong with their engines. They were discussing the idea of putting the old anchor down; but the captain wasn’t going to have that, not with the chance of one anchor not taking causing the ship to swing onto the reef that was only too close by any perception. I cheered the fellow silently under my breath; at least there was one intelligent fellow on board.

  We dug into the last section of reef; a thin strip barely forty feet wide. Simon was trembling slightly. June was trying to shake perspiration out of her eyes beneath her visor. My muscles ached and twitched as I fought the fury of that terrible storm. The ray darted out once more, the already hot water of the sea surging and boiling beneath each hammer-blow as it fell. June was counting and muttering under her breath, reeling off depth and distance readings, targeting, focussing her Will and her senses on the information the Wren was tracing for her. Her hands flew over the keyboard and then to the feed-sources, adjusting each beam as it worked under the hellish load the reactor was still supplying without complaint.

  I watched the progress of the cut on the monitor, feeling the aggression of the storm increasing. Behind us the ship slowed up for a few moments, surged, slowed again, its nose turning slightly in the current as the engines struggled to engage. The rear of the ship was less than a quarter of a mile away, but they didn’t try to slow her up again. Maybe they couldn’t; maybe they didn’t dare in case the nose of the ship was forced aside and the craft dashed broadside onto the reef.

  Simon worked quickly and calmly, knowing full well that the huge craft was bearing down on us. I began to edge the Wren to one side so her tail would not be fouled by the wall of steel bearing down on her. It was in silence that we wa
tched the last section of the reef collapse.

  “Mother Mary, thank you, angels of God.” A voice with an Italian accent came loudly over the radio as I disengaged the war system and took the Wren up into the towering storm.

  “Any time, Captain.” I replied politely watching as the ship eased through the gap we had made, into the open sea beyond. We hovered above the craft sufficiently high so we could not be seen, watching intently as the ship found her feet and began to trot slowly away from the reef. We followed her limping progress for a while to determine whether or not she had fixed her engines properly, before I took the Wren above the height of the storm and headed her for home.

  “Good show, June, Simon; thank you.” I told my crew softly as I watched the power main-feed gauge sink slowly down from the overload region.

  “It was one way of spending a sunny afternoon, I suppose.” Simon mused. But his appearance belied the lightness of his tone; his head was thrown back, his arms and legs limp and slack as he sagged against the couch. June wasn’t much better; she had passed clean out and was immobile, her head lolling to one side. Only the magnificent thrust of the Wren prevented her from sagging forwards onto her straps. I turned my eye to the monitor, seeing the beacon of Black Crag looming before me.

  “Bloody good show, that.” Ronald told us, “Bit of seaweed tea coming up; that boiling water mustn’t go to waste after all.”

  “As long as it’s waiting for us when we land,” I told him, “And don’t you be selfish with the sugar.”

  “Right away, Cassandra.” He agreed amiably; he could laugh; he knew there wasn’t any tea in the Nest. I angled the craft down, her plane of descent compensating for the wild vagaries of the wind and storm. I gently lined the craft up to the entrance of the Nest, easing her through the dangerous up-draughts. The Wren sank down to her little spot; the only empty bay on the cavern floor. The others were back. I glanced back at June; she was awake again though she looked dazed. I shut down the systems, unhelmed, and poked Simon thoughtfully in the ribs. “We’re home. Help that bird of yours up the stairs and put her to bed.”