“Oh, the colonel would never forgive himself if anything bad happened to you. And if you take much stock in what your friend said about it, anyone should have been able to see through it.”
“Yes, well…” she added “Not everyone did see through it. And Simon…” the man perked up and reined over towards them. “Simon can be a little anal retentive about such matters.” He looked shocked and turned back away.
Sergeant Tess laughed.
“I’ve sent paperwork back to Benayle to have your enlistment conditions changed if you don’t mind.”
“My Lady,” Sergeant Tess began, “He’s a crusty old tyrant, but I actually don’t mind working with the colonel that much…”
Sajani laughed long and that stopped the young sergeant from saying any more. “I didn’t mean that at all. Colonel Lahnk is a dear.”
Sergeant Tess looked embarrassed and Sajani quickly added, “…and a crusty old tyrant. Does he know you call him that?”
“Oh, it’s not just me. Everyone around here calls him either Crusty or an Old Tyrant. He knows, he just…”
“No I suppose he wouldn’t care.” Sajani said with a laugh still in her voice. “I’ll have need of some rather… specialized talents in the near future. I can’t talk about it just yet…”
“Oh!” Sergeant Tess exclaimed. “The privateers Benayle is commissioning?”
It took a moment for Sajani to take that in. “Yes…them. And you knew about this how?”
“It’s hardly a secret my Lady. You spoke to the Drtithen Council and Riteyai Lords just last week about it. And the colonel wouldn’t shut up about how it would leave us with no standing army.” She altered her voice to sound impressively like the colonel “I thought I taught her better than that.”
Sajani laughed again. She tried and mostly failed to imitate Colonel Lahnk, “But that’s alright, I’ll defend the capital myself…”
“With nothing but this saber, my rifle, and my wits.” Tess finished in the colonel’s voice. The two laughed some more.
“That’s pretty impressive,” Simon said, moving his mount a little closer to the two. “Just a professional curiosity, mind you, but is there any arcane behind that?”
“No.” Sergeant Tess said, a little in awe that he’d ask that. She then slipped into a decent imitation of his voice and added, “So long as there’s something distinctive about the way a person talks, I can imitate it and add sufficient flare through speech patterns to fool most.”
“What a remarkable talent!” Simon said with true enthusiasm. Sergeant Tess smiled at the praise. “And truly useful.”
“It entertains the troops sometimes at least.” She said. “I walked into the control center a few days ago and said, ‘What’s going on in here’ in the Sergeant Major’s voice. The duty officer nearly passed out.”
“You do Sergeant Major Fallow as well?”
Sergeant Tess changed her voice to what sounded like a very old vykati, “What’s going on in here?” She then placed one hand over her heart and said in a very believable version of Benayle’s voice: “Panic and despair are not parts of the vykati mind. We can be aware of the terrible tragedy that has befallen our friends in Zenache, but we will react with the courage and mental strength that has been the tradition of our race for all of our recorded history.”
Sajani applauded and probably would have startled her horse if it had not been battle trained. “Excellent. Well, I’m not sure how I will make use of that talent directly, but I can use someone like you on my staff. Benayle will not take long to have your orders redirected, I’m sure…”
“…and Crusty will have to go along with it.”
“We’ll be spending at least a week in Xahusha.” Sajani told her. “You should be able to meet up with us there.”
“Don’t you ever repair this thing?” Sajani asked Simon, brushing her hand over a well-worn rune near the boiler. The rune came to life instantly and steam began escaping from a nearby valve.
Simon motioned over the same rune quickly to turn it off. “What maintenance I can’t do myself, I have done in Zenache at least twice a year, thank you much my Lady. But I’ve found that bandits who think it’s actually well maintained, put a higher premium on stealing it.”
She looked over at the broken gangplank. The bottom three feet of it had broken off when they had tried to climb it. No one was hurt, but the incident seemed to bode ill. “And the gangplank?
“Things do break Lady Sajani, no matter how hard you try to maintain them.” The gangly human was moving quickly all over the small airship making minor adjustments.
While the Will o’ Wisp was not an impressive ship, not like the huge dirigibles of Zenache or the colorful blimps of Jzianrhun, it was owned entirely by Simon and, she had to admit, very much loved by him. Unlike traditional blimps and dirigibles, the Wisp mostly made use of runes to maintain its lighter than air buoyancy. Like any airship made in the last few years, it also made use of runes to heat the water that drove just about everything else.
It looked a little like the gondola of a large blimp. The craft’s roof was even inversely curved like a large balloon was supposed to go immediately above it. Looking a little closer at it than she’d ever looked at it before (she’d never been a passenger on it before) she realized that what she thought was rust was actually paint. Even the blackening where open flame would have supposedly heated the boiler, if it wasn’t done by runes, was painted on, giving the appearance that the ship was completely non-magical and stripped of the helium storage it would need to fly. You could house maybe three people in the passenger area, plus one at the helm. Much more than one passenger up there and the pilot would be rather uncomfortable. There were two propellers on each side.
“That seems to be everything,” Simon said, taking a break from his constant movement. He then touched a set of runes near the helm and the Wisp floated up slightly from the ground. He sat in the chair before the helm and using pedals and the nautical wheel before him, he maneuvered the ship up and away from the dock where it’d been moored. The ship rose to a fairly high altitude and cruised along softly for quite a while.
They talked about some of their previous adventures, back when they were younger and less responsible.
“I always thought you’d fly something that was more pretentious. The Wisp seems rather tame for someone like you.”
Simon smiled. “I don’t want much attention usually when I’m travelling to or from somewhere.”
That made sense. “I see,” Sajani said thoughtfully. “Is that why it’s called the Will o’ Wisp: because people never know where it came from or where it’s going?”
Simon’s countenance glowed as he reached for and pulled a lever near his seat. A huge green lamp burst to light immediately over the open gondola. Its glow cast a green hue to everything around him, even in the bright daylight. Simon then moved the lever back into place and the light vanished. “Of course, not being able to make use of something, and not wanting something at all, are two entirely different things.” They both laughed.
Sajani was just thinking that they were making really good time when a small red light started flashing near the helm.
“Blast it.” Simon said mostly to himself. “As much as I love it, it is so unlucky to use it.”
“Did it break something?”
Simon reached down to a handle to the right of his feet and pulled on it. With a burst of steam, a console rose up on a telescoped pedestal. Simon touched the base of the console and a lid flipped back from over the portion that was facing him. There were several lights flashing. He twisted a dial and moved a lever.
“No, but it looks like someone is tracking us now.”
“And that box? It controls the ship’s weapons?”
Simon was quickly turning another dial with one hand and throwing the lever back up with the other. He sounded somewhat strained when he answered, “We have no weapons Lady Sajani. We’ll be relying entirely on yours.”
“Well, that’s great, you old gong farmer,” she answered with noticeable sarcasm. “I planned on picking up weapons, crew, and gear in Rhidayar. What little I have is packed. Can’t your little box of whirly lights help at all?”
“Tin head,” Simon swore. “Don’t tell me you don’t at least carry a dagger at a state dinner. How could you not have any weapons?”
“Because I don’t go to a state dinner where at least a platoon of fully armed undercover soldiers aren’t present,” she retorted back. “And what good is that box anyway?”
“It’s trying to stop the scrying, but it’s not working. I’ll have to bring the Wisp down low in case they fire on us.”
“Fire on us?”
“Yes. We’ll be more likely to survive the fall.” An orange light began flashing on the console.
“And that means?”
Simon’s face went very pale. “That they fired on us.” He began turning the helm to the starboard and pushed down with both pedals. The Wisp listed slightly as it began its downward spiral.
“You stupid gong farmer!” she shouted again. “You’re going the wrong way!” She grabbed at him, pulled him from the helm, and forced him to release pressure off the pedals. The Wisp began rising. The hissing sound of a rocket was heard just before the explosion. Simon covered himself with his hands and let out in unintentional whimper.
“You filthy dog!” he shouted, but Sajani didn’t listen to him. Instead, she was checking out where the rocket had hit. The aft portion of the passenger compartment now had a decent sized hole in it, but both engine propellers still functioned. That meant, based on what movement she could be sure the Wisp had made, the person who had fired the rocket must have fired from the port side.
Simon tried to get back in the helm, but she got seated first and blocked him. “Take care of that fire.” She said pointing at a small stack of books that had caught fire. She heard Simon gasp. Odds were if they were books on the Wisp, they were books he valued. The man began casting a quick spell, but she didn’t pay any attention to him.
“What’s our altitude?” she shouted. She knew it had to be displayed somewhere near her seat, but she couldn’t make it out in the smoke.
“About 140 meters before you nearly got us blown out of the sky you wicked wolf woman you.”
She found a set of rotating numbers that currently read 18. The set of numbers next to it read 45. So the Wisp wasn’t as accurate as a military vessel. That had thrown her off slightly. The compass had been obvious at least.
The orange light began flashing again. Simon tried to force his way back to the helm, but she held fast and began turning the ship again to the starboard. She pressed down on the pedals and the Wisp tilted slightly down.
It was a little bit of a risk that the person firing the rockets was basing the target on the center of the ship’s mass and not on a precise part of the ship. Exact targeting would have been easier for Simon’s archaic console to remove.
The second explosion sent Simon flying almost off the ship and the blast temporarily blinded her. When she could see again, she realized that she had guessed correctly. The rocket had hit the upper front of the gondola, where no critical systems were housed.
“How does this piece of trash control its elevation?”
“The yaw controls it.”
“That’s pretty slow isn’t it?”
“This isn’t a military airship!”
“Wake up, you fool! Those are military rockets! Is there any way I can control the elevation more quickly?”
Simon was working his way over the rubble that now littered the passenger area. There was smoke pouring through the area from a smoldering flame at the front. The man’s right arm was hanging uselessly at his side. “She can’t handle those kinds of maneuvers.”
The orange light began flashing again. Sajani checked the compass heading. “She won’t handle that rocket any better!”
Simon fell over before the helm and began pulling on a single lynch pin at the base of the wheel. Sajani leaned the ship at an angle and had just enough time to warn Simon. “Brace yourself.” The flash again briefly blinded her, but it didn’t take long to realize her guess must have been a little off this time. The ship pitched violently to the starboard. A quick glance verified her guess: a starboard engine was completely gone.
She reached down and quickly removed the lynch pin Simon had been painfully working at and slammed out the restraining bolt. The wheel moved forward and the ship pitched precariously downward before she regained control. Altitude showed at 35. She could just hold in the yaw control enough to keep them mostly on their heading.
“Can you shut off one port engine?” she shouted.
He sat up and slapped the wall next to him with one hand. At first she thought he was just reacting angrily to her request, but as the yaw adjusted slowly back to normal, she realized that he must have hit a rune on the wall.
“We need to fly lower,” the man gasped. “The protective spells won’t save us more than 35 meters from the ground. My Wisp…she’s not designed for this.” He began coughing from the smoke that surrounded them
The orange light began flashing again.
“Damn” she said out loud. She pulled the wheel as close to her as she could. The ship groaned with the effort of rising so quickly.
“Not up!” Simon screamed.
“Trust this tin head my most favored gong farmer,” Sajani said calmly.
The rocket impacted directly aft, but managed to miss the boiler and remaining propellers.
She leveled off the controls and stared briefly at the port propeller. “All out of safe places for them to hit,” she muttered to herself. She changed the ship’s bearing yet again and then asked, “What’s your ship’s weight and top speed?”
“Safe?” the man mouthed to himself. Simon was shocked by the random question, but knew better than to argue. “14 tonnes. Up to 65 knots.”
There was no way she could do the math in her head, but the numbers at least gave her some idea. She set the throttle to 25 knots and angled the ship downward. The smoke made it too difficult to see what she was looking for.
“I need you to take the helm!” she shouted to Simon.
“I’m not sure I can.” He coughed, but he got up anyway and inched his way to the chair.
“Hold this bearing!” she shouted.
“We’ll crash!”
“There’s no way to avoid that. Pull up when I tell you.”
They exchanged places and she worked her way forward and low crawled to the very edge of what was left of the gondola. From there, she could just make out the trails of smoke from the previous rockets. “Move slightly to starboard!” she shouted. The ship moved slightly. “That’s good.” She shouted back. She saw the flames starting up as a rocket before them got ready to launch. Not the timing I was hoping for, she thought.
“Angle down just a little more,” she shouted.
“A little more?” came Simon’s panicked reply. But he angled the ship down anyway.
She could see the glow of the orange light as it started flashing again so didn’t need to ask what his worried, “Uh, Sajani…” meant.
“Ready?... Now! Pull up!”
About the time that the ship clipped off the turret the rocket had launched from, Sajani realized that the “25 knots” she’d set the ship to was not the same strict definition of the words that she was used to. It probably didn’t take into account such irritating things like momentum, mass, friction, and other complicated units of measure used in physics. The ship was not pulling back up as fast as she hoped.
“This…is…not…one…of…your…military…airships!” Simon shouted, straining to pull the ship up with his one good hand.
That’s when the last rocket hit. It had to have been thrown off at least a little, because it impacted somewhere away from the boiler. As a result, they weren’t scalded to death when the ship disintegrated around them. She could feel protective magic surround her as s
he was blown away from the edge she’d been barely able to hold earlier. The spell slowed her descent, but took a little longer to reduce the momentum from the ship’s explosion.
What remained of the ship continued forward unabated and crashed into the ground with a long and painful sounding screech that she was sure would make Simon both cringe in pain over the tragedy and puff out in pride over how loud and dramatic it sounded. Sajani braced herself for an explosion, but none came. She could see steam escaping from several places. They couldn’t all be at safety valves, but at least the pressure was being let out gradually. Basic runes created for just such a contingency would have shut off the heat at least. She risked looking down. The ground was approaching faster than she would have liked.
She attempted to tuck and roll, but the spell played with the physics and instead of landing mostly on her feet, she ended up falling soundly onto her rear and rolling forward to stop on her face. Her teeth managed to nip the tip of her tongue—that seemed to be the only place she was bleeding from though. She absently rubbed the blood on her mouth and got to her feet.
She looked around for Simon, but couldn’t see him. Next time, she thought sarcastically, remember to see if he has a flare gun, so you don’t have to use the whole ship as a projectile. She was sure they had taken out the rocket platform, but its occupant was another story. Now that the ship was gone, they’d have been better off the other way around. I could have planned that better, she realized, but we’d be worse off if I’d done nothing.
Chapter Three:
Gearing up
The stack of reports was no larger than usual, but it seemed especially huge to Sergeant Tess. She had planned on being in the military for life, so often laughed at “short timer’s syndrome:” that sort of useless melancholy that befell soldiers when they got close to the end of their time in service. Now that she knew she was only days away from being reassigned, she was beginning to understand.
Wolf's Pawn (Sajani Tails Book 1) Page 3