The Immortal Storm (Sky Chaser Book 1)

by Wilkes, S. D.

  With all his strength Birdy spun the wheel and the hatch thumped open. Rain crackled against Kite's patchcoat. He hauled the stormwing out onto the gantry, staggering against the hard-edged wind. With a rubbery thump the hatch smacked shut against his back.

  For a few disorientating seconds Kite found himself staring into an oil-black nothingness and a shocking silence filled with the thump-thump-thump of his throat-trapped heartbeat. Then lightning slashed with elemental fury and thunder crunched into his numb ribs. Quickly he tried to get his bearings. Torrents of silver rain glistened on the Phosphene's armour above and to his left. Turbines chopped the heavy air against his back. He was on the starboard side, facing the bow.

  Kite unfolded the wings, hands slipping on the rain-slick metal. All the while he tried not to think about what might be happening beyond the hatch. Planting his boots on the stormwing's deck he got himself ready. Goggles, scarf, rebreather mask. Everything was snug and in place. He had to go. And go now.

  Kite started her up. At once the stormwing leapt off the gantry. He hurtled backward, the awesome power from her four corpusants catching him off-guard. Banking the wings he managed to clear the turbines, the turbulence hitting him like a wall. For a furious moment the stormwing spun out of control, but Kite doggedly regained control and brought her level.

  In the lightning and rain Kite watched the Phosphene's battered hulk slowly vanish into the thunderheads. He thought of the friends he'd left behind and wondered if he’d ever see them again. Soon the stern lights were nothing more than ragged smears on his vision.

  Kite wiped the rain from his goggle-glass. He still had Welkin's compass watch in his patchcoat pocket. As he opened the case, the lightning lit up the dial and the golden eye gleamed in the dark like a beacon.

  The Corrector's words came back to him then. The eye always pointed to Fairweather she’d told him. Kite quickly realised the terrible significance of that speck of knowledge.

  Shelvocke had sent Fleer south-east.

  South-east to Fairweather.

  54

  Metal Skies

  The Undercloud flickered on the edge of dawn. A thin, metallic light had begun to turn the slumbering clouds armour-grey. Kite shivered, feeling tiny as a rivet in the shadow of these steel giants.

  For five hours he'd been flying south-east, with only lightning and the eerie glow of the hidden moon to guide him. Already he was exhausted. His spine twinged from keeping his feet on the pedals. Pins and needles prickled his fingers. The hot rubbery airworker suit burned in places he'd rather not think about at fifteen hundred feet. Flying long distance was torture.

  Kite undid the rebreather mask and sipped from the water can. Quickly he folded a strip of Clinker's jellyroot and shoved it between his teeth. Soon the sweet bitter water flooded his veins, giving his senses a keen edge. The rations wouldn't last him a day at this rate. What was he going to do without food or water?

  More than once Kite'd tempted to land, if only to rest his muscles, but the risk was too great. Especially with his landings. What if he crashed and couldn't get airborne again? What if he was spotted by a Weatheren patrol? The odds stacked against him seemed impossible. If Fleer was out here it was going to take a miracle to find her.

  On and on Kite flew, glancing at the compass watch to keep the Foundation’s eye on his cloud-covered horizon. Soon he began to snatch glimpses of the world beneath. An ash-coloured wasteland, tattooed with the geometric ghosts of houses and roads. Long-dead towns and phantom settlements. This far south it could only be the Scar. The wasteland where all those years before Murk had been crushed from existence. But the Scar was known to be vast. Four hundred leagues across, running northeast from Port Howling to Iron Hill. Kite knew could be lost anywhere in between.

  Then Kite heard engine noise.

  His heart beat faster, pumping adrenaline through his tired muscles. Below and to his left. Not the bright whirl of a Helicoil but the mechanical chop-chop of twin turbines. A liftship. This far inland it had to be a Cloudguard patrol or one of the Weatheren's surveycraft. He accelerated and, ascending a little, scanned the low clouds for sign of the airmachine. Nothing. All he could hear was a strange rushing of wind, getting closer and closer...

  Without warning the clouds thinned and Kite was flying at a mountain of dirt streaked rock. He slammed on the airbrakes. He'd never seen anything so vast. The top was lost in the clouds and the base vanished from sight into the mists of the Scar below. Kite drifted closer, starting to pick out fortified watchtowers on jutting platforms, blinking with warning lights. Crimson toy soldiers moved silently along walkways.

  Kite went cold with fear.

  This was the Dreadwall.

  Suddenly klaxons clattered menacingly. The Weatheren sentries kicked into action, flustered by the sighting of the intruder. Instinctively Kite dive for land. A blue-white searchlight slashed out from one of the platforms, trying to snare him for the gunners. He dodged the pale beams scissoring his path and accelerated at the black earth. He levelled out at twenty feet and banked to head south, skimming the wasteland scrub and dodging broken-tooth boulders.

  When Kite'd put two leagues between him and the Dreadwall he ascended again. Up and up, circling his own vapours and increasing his altitude. Only when the clouds closed around him, did he dare to slow. Anxiously Kite waited, catching his breath and listening out for engines. He checked the pressure gauge, making sure he was still in safe limits. Then he waited some more. He didn't dare let his guard down, not this close to Fairweather.

  Then Kite spotted the other stormwing.

  Tiny as a moth the stormwing glided swiftly between the clouds half a league or a so away. Kite switched the radio on. His earphones crackled with static.

  “Valkyrie, this is Sky Chaser, respond, over,” he said.

  The other stormwing began to slow. Soon it was drifting, matching his altitude across the gap in the scudding clouds.

  Kite licked his lips. “Valkyrie, I know you have Ember, over.”

  Again, no response.

  This time Kite decided to try a different tactic, one he knew would get a response.

  “Fleer, your mother sent me, over,” he said, picking his words carefully. “She wants me to take you back to the Phosphene, over.”

  Nothing. Not even a twitch. Kite frowned. He'd had no trouble provoking Fleer in the past. Something wasn’t right.

  Slowly Kite bent his knees, maintaining an even weight on the pedals. A few seconds later Fleer crouched too. Next he leaned to port, allowing the stormwing to yaw a little, and sure enough Fleer followed his move.

  What was she up to? Mimicry wasn't her usual tactic. She was by far the better pilot. She could easily outfly him. A sense of unease and panic began to rise through his tired veins.

  Suddenly the other stormwing began to fly toward him.

  Kite froze. He recognised his own patchcoat, with its weighted hood, and his too-large goggles and the battle-damaged stormwing buffeting under his own scuffed boots. This wasn't Fleer at all - it was a mirror-image!

  Storm clouds churned behind his reflection, knitted together with the real Undercloud. He raised his arm and the other Kite followed, delayed by only a second now. Reaching out he pressed his gloved palm against the mirror surface. Immediately Kite snatched his hand away. He could feel the unyielding cold of a dense metal surface and behind it, the vibration of powerful machinery.

  Foundation machinery.

  In an instant the Undercloud segmented into a dozen silver panels. Kite’s own shattered reflection folded away on hinged arms. Behind lay battle-black armour, towering over him with decks and portholes and rows of fat shockcannon turrets. The monstrous hull of an airmachine ten times the size of a fulgurtine. An ascender. The Vorticity.

  Kite slammed his boots hard on the pedals. The booster thumped. The jolt of sudden acceleration stung his ribs and the velocity stole his breath. He dived for the cover of the low clouds, weaving back and forth hoping to throw off th
e ascender’s crew from tracking him.

  The Vorticity's machinery thundered overhead. Kite knew the ascender's Maelstrom engines could easily outmatch the stormwing's delicate Helicoil, but not its manoeuvrability. The little engine roared, giving him forty knots or more. If he could just reach the low clouds...

  A hot shadow fell over him. The Vorticity covered the sky. Descending like a murderous ceiling of armoured skymetal with an underbelly of rippling blue fire. A column of furnace heat rippled his vision, drawing wisps of steam from his damp patchcoat sleeves. A dizzying rush threatened to swamp his senses. Unbalanced Kite leaned on the airbrake, slowing the stormwing to a vulnerable crawl. He felt horribly sick, like his insides had been hard-boiled.

  Something flashed high overhead.

  Swift black wings, leaving an slash of pale vapour expanding across the angry roof of the Undercloud. A stormwing piloted with deadly grace, cutting a line for the Vorticity's top deck.

  Fleer.

  The sight of her slapped Kite out of his stupor. He rolled the stormwing, forcing her into a dangerous dive. Twenty knots. Thirty. Mist was a speedline blur. Then he angled his body and lifted the stormwing into a spinning ascent, drawing vortices from the wing-tips.

  The Vorticity was turning in the dead air, starboard shockcannons targeting Fleer's arrow-straight vapour trail. She was flying directly for it.

  “Valkyrie, this is Sky Chaser!” Kite shouted into his radio. “Respond, over!”

  Mosfire lit up the grey sky. Fleer rolled her wings, dodging the first bolt, but the second tore into the stormwing's underbelly, flipping her into chaotic stall. Bleeding purplish smoke the tiny stormwing spun like a candle-scorched moth, down to the Vorticity's top deck.

  “Fleer!” Kite cried. “Respond, respond!”

  But there was no reply.

  55

  The Final Flight

  Kite hurtled by the Vorticity's colossal hull, weaving in zigzag to throw off the gunners. Unseen forces tugged at his muscles, sapping vital energy. His vision juddered. His teeth rattled in his skull. Where was she?

  “Valkyrie, respond, over!” Kite called again, cutting into the foul smoke left by the shockcannons. “Valkyrie, this is -”

  Wreckage was strewn across the long 'V' of the Vorticity's top deck. A mangled wing and a scatter of gear cogs and wiring. Kite froze with fear. Fleer was near the railings, lying still in a rippling puddle of silver rainwater.

  Kite plunged through the forest of signal masts and radar dishes. Black shockcannon turrets tracked him like silent sentinels, but didn't discharge. Kite didn't have time to think of why. Lining up with the railing he made for the quarter of the deck where Fleer had fallen. For once he nailed the landing. The stormwing slapped down with a metallic clang, skidding a short distance on icy deck. He stumbled off the pedals, his numb legs having a hard time remembering how walking worked.

  Fleer was a mess. Her mask had been torn off and her goggle-glass cracked. Her flying coat had been torn open, singed in places where the mosfire had burned. Underneath the airworker suit was ripped, a livid gash beneath spat black blood on the wind.

  Kite grabbed Fleer under the shoulders and dragged her clear of the puddle. “Fleer can you hear me?” he said, snatching off his rebreather mask and pressing it to her purple lips. “Please, Fleer, answer me.”

  Fleer's eyes twitched under her blue veined eye-lids. Her breathing came in irregular hard-earned rasps. Helpless Kite shook her shoulders, trying desperately to rouse her.

  “Fleer, come on, wake up!” he said, slapping her cheek gently.

  Muffled alarms bleated from behind the hatches behind them. Kite panicked. A behemoth like the Vorticity must carry hundreds of Weatherens in its metal belly.

  Kite pushed the rebreather mask aside and leaned over, pressing his mouth to hers and breathed hard. Fleer's eyelids snapped open. She struggled beneath him, sinking her teeth into his lip. Kite pulled away, mouth soured with the taste of warm iron.

  “You've ruined everything!” Fleer cried, his blood bright on her lips.

  “Why? Why are you here?”

  Kite wiped his mouth. “I...your mother sent me,” he mumbled, unable to think of anything else to say.

  A hatch slammed open behind them. Half a dozen Weatheren soldiers tumbled out to a klaxon warning, hooking safety-lines onto their harnesses.

  “Quick, I can fly for both of us,” Kite said, reaching for her arm.

  Fleer knocked him back and tried to crawl toward the Weatherens, but her injuries swiftly overcame her and she doubled over gasping and hugging her wound. Then Kite saw she was clutching the mechanikin in her other hand.

  “Y-you can still get away,” Fleer said, meeting his gaze. “Go, Nayward.”

  So that was Shelvocke's plan all along. Deliver Ember to an ascender at any cost. Even if meant Fleer throwing her precious life away in the process.

  “Please, just go,” Fleer begged him.

  The Weatherens were edging down the metal steps to the deck now. Kite looked at the stormwing. Maybe Fleer was right. Maybe there was time. Seemed pointless both of them losing their lives. Only a fool would throw away a chance of escape...

  “Not without you,” he said.

  Fleer stared at him, her expression changing. Anguish and shock but not from pain. She scrunched her eyes shut, spilling silver tears down her cheeks.

  The Weatherens were closing around them. Faces hidden by mirrored visors. Shockguns trained on them. Kite knew he'd just condemned them both but he was far from helpless. He looked at the mechanikin again. There was one thing left to do.

  Kite dashed forward and wrestled the mechanikin from Fleer's grip. The jittery Weatherens responded with a clatter of hasty targeting. Kite ignored the danger and staggered to the railing, the mechanikin held above his head. An ice-hard wind slammed cold against his chest. Iron-wool clouds rubbed against the Vorticity's hull far below.

  Suddenly Ember's face flashed unwanted into his thoughts. The lost girl from the photograph. The Starmaker's daughter; flesh and blood and alive. The mechanikin wavered in his shaking hands.

  “Away from the railing!” a Weatheren Sergeant yelled. “Do it now!”

  Kite tried to flush that thought from his mind. Dr.Nightborn had been right. The mechanikin was a weapon. And if that weapon took over the Vorticity? Carnage he couldn't even begin to imagine. If nothing else he couldn't let Shelvocke win.

  Kite took a slow breath and hurled the mechanikin at the storm. The little body spun in the updraft for a moment, dead eyes staring back at him. Then it whipped back and shattered against the hull and the bits scattered on the wind like dust.

  “Sorry Ember,” Kite whispered.

  Seconds later the Weatherens were on him. He was slammed against the railing, arms yanked pulled back. Metal handcuffs chomped into his flesh. If he wasn't shivering from fear Kite would have laughed at the irony. An Askian trying to save Weatheren lives! He doubted even one of these faceless bastards would thank him.

  “Her too,” the Sergeant said.

  “She's hurt,” Kite said, as the soldiers shunted him toward the hatch. “She needs help...a doctor.”

  But armoured men didn't care for Fleer’s wounds. They dragged her to her feet and restrained her, even though she was smeared in blood. Yet Fleer didn't struggle or fight. Her head hung low, her despair hidden by her filthy fringe. That defiant Askian spirit all but crushed out of her.

  “I surrender,” Fleer said, weakly. “I surrender...just take me aboard...”

  56

  Deadly Games

  They held Kite in a cell at first. A white metal cell with ten horizontal lightning bolts for bars, buzzing and flickering, burning the sterile air. Even huddled in the corner, the heat from the mosfire prickled Kite's bruised skin. Drawing his knees to his chest he shivered as if his body had been chipped from ice. There was no escaping this new prison.

  High in one corner a red eye silently observed him. How long were they going to keep
him here? How long until they tortured him? Any minute now he expected them. The interrogators. Silent creatures in surgical masks and white lab coats. The ones who had stripped him to his vest and shorts and left him to stew. Any minute now they'd return to cut out the information their masters wanted.

  Kite didn't care what the Foundation did to him. But fear of what these bastards might do with Fleer began to cut into heart like blade made of ice. He wanted to be strong, wanted to stand up to them, but he knew how weak that fear made him...

  He heard a distant voice. Or was it a cry? A scream?

  Fleer.

  Kite scrunched his eyes shut. Anything but that. His swollen lip throbbed. The metallic tang of blood still lingered on his tongue. How could Fleer do this? Just throw her life away for Shelvocke?

  A heavy door opened in the black room beyond his cell. Boots padded heavily on the hard tiles. Kite shrivelled into the corner. One by one the mosfire bars retracted, leaving horizontal ghosts on his vision. Slowly his eyes adjusted. The bulky frame of a Weatheren soldier filled the cell door.

  A ruffle and a bundle of unfamiliar clothes slapped on to the tiles. An orange boiler suit and rubber-soled shoes.

  “Put them on,” grunted the Weatheren.

  Kite didn't move. “W-where's Fleer?” he said.

  The visor stared back. Kite watched out his own tiny, pathetic reflection shivering in the mirror-bright skymetal. “Now!” the Weatheren yelled.

  Shivering Kite pulled on the boiler suit and wriggled his feet into the too-small rubber shoes. The Weatheren made him put out his hands and he snapped those hard, metal handcuffs on him.

  “W-where are you taking me?” he asked.

  The Weatheren said nothing. He dragged Kite from the cell and into a corridor of black unmarked doors, each one locked with a keypad. The air stung of disinfectant and harsh chemicals. Muffled cries leaked out from places unknown. Kite shuddered violently, his imagination twisting with cruel and terrible images. Was Fleer imprisoned behind one of these doors? Would they show her mercy because of her injuries?