Death Drop (The D-Evolution)

by Sean Allen

  ***

  Booktu ignored the forward machine guns and tracked the Ghost with the deck cannons from the moment it broke off course. He wasn’t interested in rattling off thousands of rounds at the nimble craft in hopes that a bullet might strike something flammable or breach the hull. The cannons would do maximum damage, and he was lethal behind the firing controls.

  “Fire at will!” Rilek bellowed as the Ghost stormed down at them with her guns afire. The top of the deck ripped open in a streak of meandering holes that punched up and over the armored hood covering the plenum of the cannons and nearly split it in two.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  The big barrels were unharmed and responded eagerly as Booktu mashed down his thick forefingers on the dual triggers, gnashing his teeth and growling fiercely as he twisted the forked yoke to arc the barrels in time with the passing target. It took a trained eye to see it—an eye that had scoured air and space thousands of times in search of the smallest trace of a hit—and Booktu smiled as pieces of the Ghost’s hull glinted in the starlight, twirling like phantom charms in a non-existent wind.

  An instant later, the glowing readout next to the helm informed Rilek of the damage.

  Booktu swept his hand across the panel in front him as the Ghost appeared dead ahead, followed closely by the Maelstrom. Switches clicked and lights flickered as four large rectangular doors on either side of the bow slid open and locked into place with a reverberating kathoong. The forward cannons were primed and ready to fire, but the Ghost was already out of range and the gap was widening with each passing second as the Zebulon craft outpaced both its pursuers.

  “He’s running?” Otto said.

  “Snort!” Malo expressed his distaste for the Mewlatai’s cowardice.

  “Mr. Booktu’s either damaged his ship or he’s leading us somewhere to even the field,” Rilek said, as if he and The Ghost had been flying together for years and regularly consulted each other on tactics and strategy.

  “Where could he possibly be going?” asked Otto. There were literally millions of possibilities, and Otto mistook the admiral’s silence as contemplation; but Rilek already knew what was coming and he waited for the navigator to answer the major’s question.

  “Admiral,” Ensign Nori said, “he’s headed for The Cloud of Lost Kings.”

  “The Cloud of Lost Kings…I’ve heard terrible things about that place.” Otto wasn’t a sailor or a pilot, he was a grunt, and he preferred to fight his battles on foot or in the drink. Flying through haunted patches of stardust was not on the top of his list of fun things to do, and it made him more than a little nervous. “Have you ever sailed through stardust, Admiral?”

  “We’ll lose visibility and our navigational instruments,” Rilek said with little concern. “Mr. Booktu, once we’re inside, use our current course as your reference, one hundred kilometer diameter off the point of our bow, five shells per quadrant.”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral!”

  “Captain Saraunt, fall back and take cover position.”

  “Admiral, I think I can catch him if I just”

  “Captain,” Rilek said firmly, “your instruments will go dead as soon as you enter the cloud, as will mine. We need to enter together and maintain our speed and heading or risk shooting each other down. You’ll get your chance on the other side, Captain. Fall back!”

  “Aye, Admiral.”

  “How do you know he won’t loop back once we’re all inside the cloud?” Otto said.

  “Because that’s what he’ll expect me to think, Major.”

  “Why not leave Captain Saraunt on this side just in case?”

  “That’s a sound strategy, Major,” Rilek said, looking over his shoulder and fixing one gold-ringed eye on Otto, “but I don’t think Saraunt is up to the challenge of taking on a pilot like The Ghost without help.” Otto squirmed a little in his chair. Rilek seemed like a patient man, but Otto could tell his foray into fleet battle tactics ruffled the admiral’s feathers a bit, and his face flushed with embarrassment. Questions were speeding through his mind as fast and as dangerous as gunfire, but he dared not voice his concerns. He sat quietly and tried to switch off his brain, but the most troubling questions kept breaking through his weak attempts to subdue them. “How will we know if we destroy him inside the cloud? What if we end up on the other side and he’s not there?”

  “The chances of destroying him,” Rilek said, as if Otto’s questions were floating in glowing letters next to the helm, “are slim. I have a feeling that Mr. Booktu has damaged his ship, and his destination lies beyond the cloud. I think he’s headed for atmosphere.”

  “Atmosphere?” Otto said as he considered what that meant exactly, and then he had it. “That means that…” He trailed off as a surge of hope coursed through him. All of a sudden, Otto felt emboldened. He wanted nothing more than to end this perilous mission by charging in and catching The Ghost before he entered the cloud.

  “The cooling system for his guns is damaged,” Rilek continued. “He needs air molecules to carry the heat of his barrels away or they’ll melt. He’s defenseless, and the closest planet with an atmosphere is on the other side of the cloud.”

  “Clara 591,” Ensign Nori confirmed.

  “So you see, Major, he’s not going to turn around or deviate course, nor is he a coward, Lieutenant Schunkari. He needs the atmosphere on Clara 591 to stand and fight.”

  “How do you know all this?” Otto said.

  “Crystallized fluid floating with the debris after Booktu’s cannon fire struck the ship. It couldn’t be from the engines, since they’re obviously still working, and given the proximity of the shells’ impact, the next logical conclusion is coolant for the guns. Besides, Major, The Ghost turned and attacked two ships in open space—a move that would suggest he felt more than confident he could win the battle in spite of the odds—but then ran immediately after he was struck by cannon fire. My instincts tell me his guns need atmosphere to continue the fight.”

  “Crystallized cooling fluid?! We could’ve hit the toilet for all you know, and it was crystallized pisswater!” Otto screamed inside his head, but then he slowed down and considered Rilek’s take on the situation—and his reputation. The admiral’s logic was sound, he decided, but Otto couldn’t have argued even if it wasn’t—Rilek accentuated the finality of his word by turning back toward the bow and gripping the throttle. It was already pushed to all ahead full, but he pressed it against its stop as if his desire would will the engines to pull harder. As they dashed toward the burning cloud, Otto thought that the four thundering cones flanking the bow answered their master’s call and glowed just a little brighter with the effort.

  “Captain,” Rilek said as the Maelstrom pulled alongside, “hold your course and cease firing until we’re out of the cloud. We’re about to lose all communications.”

  “Aye, Admiral.”

  “Rilek out.”

  The com crackled and hummed as the strange gas closed around them. Once inside, the plum vapor smothered the clear panels of the conning tower, and the only proof they were still moving forward was the constant grumble of the engines. Rilek was as solid and silent as a stone at the helm as Booktu moved the yoke in front of him and squeezed the triggers on the forked handles in a steady rhythm. Nori was busy scribbling in the air, his calculations floating magically among the glowing stars hovering in front of him. Malo sat entranced, and with The Guardian stowed in the armory on the admiral’s orders, he held his battle hammer across his lap and flexed his big fists around its worn handle over and over again.

  Otto, as he had often done since boarding the Lodestar, was considering the admiral again. He wondered what Rilek was exactly and where his people came from. He held up his hand and studied it as he flexed his webbed digits. Otto had been given the tools to be an incredible swimmer, and he smiled inwardly at the thought of water rushing past his sleek figure before looking again at the back of the mysterious figure standing at the helm. The man was covere
d in feathers, but he doubted the admiral’s arms, shaped much like everyone else’s aboard, could launch him into flight. Although Otto wasn’t an expert on biology or physiology like Blink, he thought Rilek’s body seemed unsuited for any environment. “Maybe his kind once flew the skies but started walking too much and lost their wings. What a horrible tradeoff,” he thought. Rilek was the most peculiar and captivating person he had ever met in his travels, and his insatiable curiosity wanted answers he knew he wouldn’t get—and the thought gnawed at him.

  The muzzle flare from the deck guns lit the gas in front of them, and Otto counted the flashes as the monotone drum of the engines and the cool blue glow of the instruments lulled him into a dream-state. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five,” he ticked the bursts off in his head. There was a momentary pause as Booktu aligned the guns in the next quadrant, and then Otto’s tally began again. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Pause, reposition the gun. One. Two. Three. Four-five-six-seven-eight-nine?!”

  Otto sat upright in his chair, every ounce of relaxation brought on by the soothing rhythm of the flight replaced by knotted muscle and terror. He looked at Booktu, who had glanced briefly over his shoulder at the helm and then returned to his duties when Rilek didn’t respond. “What the hell was that?” Otto said, turning his head from Booktu to Rilek and back again.

  “Some sort of electrical discharge from the stardust or…” Rilek said.

  “Or what?” Otto said.

  “Or,” Rilek said as he glanced over his left shoulder at Booktu, “I’m wrong about The Ghost’s guns and he’s firing cannon shells in his wake.”

  “I thought you said we’d damaged his guns,” Otto questioned.

  “I said my instincts tell me his guns are damaged. There aren’t any guarantees, Major, but don’t worry, I value my ship and the lives of everyone aboard too much to take unnecessary risks. I’m almost certain the extra flashes are from the cloud itself.”

  Otto let out a deep breath as he turned to Malo. The Moxen was strangely silent, sitting erect like a carved statue and staring straight ahead. Only his hands were moving as they continued to grip and release the handle of his hammer. “What’s the matter with you?” Otto thought. “You’re acting like you’ve never been in battle before—of course there are no guarantees. Soldier up!” Otto had just reined in his fear when Booktu glanced over his shoulder as he repositioned the guns.

  “Or King Draoncul and his phantom armada are shooting at us,” Booktu said with stone-cold sincerity, then turned back to his task with a roguish grin that curled around the jagged tusk on one side of his mouth.

  Otto had heard the stories of King Draoncul, and his eyes filled with fear to the point of exploding as he looked from Booktu to Rilek in search of confirmation by personal experience, but none came. Instead, the crew of the Lodestar let the greenhorn major stew in his own wild imagination for several agonizing seconds before Booktu, no longer able to contain his amusement, broke the fabricated morbidness with a gut-wrenching laugh.

  Booktu’s obnoxious crowing was irresistible. “Damn sailors!” Otto said, shaking his head in embarrassment and then chuckling coyly at himself. Nori joined the fun as well, and he was clutching his sides in silent, comedic spasms. Otto thought that he even saw Rilek’s shoulders shake slightly out of the corner of his eye, but the movement was gone when he looked up, so he wasn’t exactly sure. But if he had been able to see Rilek’s face, the amused smirk resting under the admiral’s hooked nose would have confirmed Otto’s suspicion—the man did have a lighthearted side after all.

  Otto was still chuckling at Booktu’s prank as he looked to starboard, when the fear returned with a mind- and body-numbing vengeance. The fur from the back of his skull to the tip of his thick tail bristled and stood on end. He wasn’t imagining things this time. To the starboard side of the Lodestar, revealed by the extraneous flash of the mysterious cloud, was the unmistakable outline of a ship. “What the hell? What side was Saraunt on when we came in? Could it be The Ghost? Somebody else?” he thought. Otto didn’t know what to do. Even if Rilek and the others believed him, they couldn’t exactly go looking for the strange vessel. “Whoever it is, they have to be just as blind as we are in here, right? So, they can’t possibly pose a threat, right? Unless…it’s Draoncul!” Otto was driving himself crazy again with questions, but given the recent joke about the phantom fleet of the lost king of Rulunsk, he didn’t dare say anything to Rilek. He was certain that if he suggested there was a ship that could be helmed by wraiths floating off to starboard, it would earn him a one way ticket to the infirmary and a nice dose of sedatives. Rilek would never fully trust him if he couldn’t keep his wits about him in battle. Otto was in agony, torn between saying nothing and possibly being attacked and reporting his findings to the crew and being ridiculed and deemed unreliable by a superior officer and revered warrior. The major couldn’t take it anymore and decided that it was better to be wrong and labeled a kook than keep quiet and wind up blasted to pieces.

  “Admiral Rilek?” Otto said. “I think I just saw”

  POOF! The haze slipped around the sides and top of the conning tower like a celestial magician pulling away his cloak to reveal his illusion to the universe. The navigational instruments whirred to life and showed the Maelstrom steady off the port side stern in cover position. Otto gave an audible gasp as he saw the blue glow of one of the Ghost’s engines spinning wildly in front of them. Booktu had managed to hit the other engine while they were inside the cloud, and Rilek wasted no time capitalizing on their good fortune.

  “FIRE!” he wailed as the Ghost leveled out in front of them. Booktu grimaced as he squeezed the triggers on the firing controls, and the big tubes on the deck shrieked death: the forward lengths recoiling and sliding into their larger diameter bases only to extend again in time for the next salvo. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  The shots sailed wide of the target as The Ghost banked his ship sporadically back and forth. “Bastard!” Booktu spat. The gunner could taste victory—he was close to destroying the mighty Ghost—but Otto was surprised to see that instead of opening fire in a random blanket of shells, Booktu finessed the yoke back and forth, tracking the haphazard movements of his prey and waiting for his moment to strike. And then it came. BOOM! BOOM!

  “Good shot!” Rilek hollered as the portside engine on the Ghost flickered and died. “Captain Saraunt, covering fire—we’re going in!” The sound of the rattling vibrations caused by the Maelstrom’s machine guns through the ship thrummed over the com before Rilek was finished with his orders.

  “Aye, Admiral!”

  Rilek overtook the wounded Zebulon star freighter with ease. He pulled the battered flank of his ship alongside and stopped so the deck guns were in line with where he thought the fuel tanks would be. It wouldn’t matter if he were a few meters off in any direction, the ordnance fired by the cannons would tear another ship in two at this range, but Booktu was precise and he was taking his time dialing in his shot. After all, there was no threat of retaliation—he could take as much time as he wanted.

  AAHOOUGA! AAHOOUGA! AAHOOUGA!

  Rilek turned at the helm just in time to see the silver bow of a ship, crackling with bolts of blue electricity, appearing off of their portside bow and turning parallel to their course. “BRACE YOURSEL”

  KABOOM-KABOOM-BOOM-BOOM-KABOOM-BOOM-KABOOM!

  The ship was shaking so hard, Otto thought his head was going to be snapped off of his shoulders. His arms and his legs flailed beneath the straps of the harness that secured him to his chair, and a guttural moan of fear and surprise howled from his mouth. He didn’t know who had fired on them, but he was sure the worn hull of the ship couldn’t withstand such a brutal onslaught, and he waited to be wrenched into space or incinerated. Much to his surprise, the ship stopped shaking and he wasn’t dead, and even more perplexing, Rilek was still standing at the helm. The admiral was flipping switches, pulling levers and shouting orders as the Lodestar and its crew prepared to do battle on
ce more.

  “Shutters!” he shouted.

  “Shutters, aye!” Nori responded, and the clear view from the conning tower was reduced to a row of small rectangular windows that encircled them as plate armor slid from the seams of the big panes and locked into place.

  “Evasive action!” Rilek bellowed as he spun the wheel hard to starboard. The Lodestar danced over the top of the Ghost in a barrel roll that pinned Otto to his seat and nearly crushed the breath from his lungs. At every turn, Rilek never failed to amaze, and something happened during the roll that fanned Otto’s fascination into a raging inferno.

  He was wondering how the admiral had managed to stay upright when they were attacked and as such, his eyes were still trained on Rilek when they began the maneuver. It all happened so fast, but Otto thought—no, he was certain—he saw Rilek stop the spinning helm and grip it, not with feathery hands, but with talons. If that wasn’t odd enough, he was sure that something had moved beneath the backside of his coat, like a thick cable, which wrapped around the bottom of the helm and held his lower half securely on the deck. Otto stared at the admiral, scrutinizing his limbs like a confused animal. He knew what he had seen, but now that they were flying level again and the ship wasn’t shuddering wildly from cannon fire, there was nothing there: no talons locked on the wheel like vises, no strange device attached to his waist, just feathery hands at the helm and boots planted firmly on the ground.

  Otto turned and looked at Malo, hoping that he, too, had witnessed Rilek’s baffling trick, but the Moxen was unaffected by the action around them. He was still sitting bolt upright in his chair, gripping the handle of his battle hammer and staring, trancelike, straight ahead. Otto knew that Moxen usually sang to alter their mood—their own form of meditation—and he wondered if Malo had figured out a way to sing to himself to get the same effect. Whatever it was, it made the major uneasy. Malo’s huge eyes were blank, like his soul had seen the outcome of the battle and, knowing they were all going to die, had started its journey to the next realm early, leaving the empty shell of the Moxen’s body to face its fate alone. Otto opened his mouth to call to his friend, but the bruising force of his harness pulling against his torso snatched the words away.