Aethosphere Chronicles: Winds of Duty

by Jeremiah D. Schmidt

  Safe for the moment, the ensign leapt out the hole in the wall as the other men rushed to obey orders. Running for the ladder up to the quarterdeck, Bar found Skyman Frasier—a northman from the gun deck—standing wobbly and shell-shocked, but moving to block his way. “Stand aside,” he ordered the man without slowing his stride. “And find your post!” he reminded Frasier after pushing him out of the way. Tearing open the bridge hatch, Bar blundered inside to discover Gryph manning the helm. The rest of the compartment lay troublingly abandoned. No one was manning the resonance stone, the radio, weapons systems, or even the voice tubes.

  “You napping in here, Gryph!” hollered Bar, causing the small pilot to turn a wild eye to his direction. Gryph just managed to gasp out the ensign’s name in fear before throwing his arms up defensively. “Oh, piss off,” grumbled Bar as he rushed into the compartment and took to the command station, “I ain’t here to hurt you, you dimwit.”

  The pilot raised a wooly gray-brown eyebrow in skepticism, even as he maintained a defensive posture. “Even after I told the Finnies you sided with the captain?”

  “Hell…” Bar grinned ruefully. “It was the truth when you were dragged away, but it didn’t much last long after that, so let’s forget the whole sordid affair and focus on the problems we got now…like how come you ain’t engaged in any evasive maneuvers yet? Did the blast damage the engine—the flaps?”

  “Nothing like that,” admitted Gryph meekly, his rosy eyes flashed with guilt above the thick black bags of weariness hanging beneath them.

  “Then what?”

  “I…I don’t know what to do. I ain’t never flown a strata-frigate in combat before… I’m just a fighter pilot…”

  “I don’t give a wyvern’s-ass what you are, Gryph! If you’re a damn fighter-jock then just start flying this ship like it’s an accursed spitshawk, you keen? Else we’re nothing but an easy target for those imperial gunners!”

  “A spitshawk…aye,” agreed Gryph, nodding with a newfound enthusiasm. “I’ll fly her like my old, Serendipity that I will.” Bar wasn’t sure what he meant by that; he just hoped it involved getting them the hell out of the line of fire.

  Suddenly the Chimera lurched beneath him; banking hard—harder than Bar had ever thought possible. Swooning under the sudden increase in g-force, he grabbed hold of the command counsel just in time as loose items; pencils, paper—a coffee cup—clattered or broke as it all tumbled to the floor. Beyond the view port the world slid away in a blur, and then turned dark in an instant. Water spots followed, blossoming over the glass as rain pattered like marbles against the ship’s bronzsteel hull. They’d found shelter, and in a storm cloud no less, but the hunter-killer’s gunfire followed them in, unwilling to abandon the hunt so easily.

  Though the sightless shots whistled harmlessly into the wind, Bar knew this sanctuary for what it was; temporary and useless. In the dark their atmium core was like a landlight beacon in the black, and in no time the imperials would use its azure glow to home in on them. Lockney always said clouds were good for a quick diversion…a moment’s reprieve, but it brought the danger of complacency.

  “Change your heading and altitude every minute, Gryph,” ordered Bar as he took up station at the resonance table. He delved back into all those memories of watching Captain Lockney work his magic on the bridge. There were a few tricks Bar had witnessed as an apprentice, played out during minor skirmishes with pirates and bandits; actions to fend off aggressive wyverns and ill-tempered dragons; and on one occasion, a spat with a territorial mist-crawler while performing a rescue within the folds of the Abyssal tide. In later years, he was even on bridge during some of the more harrowing moments of the Endasol Engagement, and in battles fought in the Giedi Cluster Theater.

  “Let the able-bodies fire the guns. I want you up here, boy, learning all there is to learn.” Bernard Lockney had once explained as they trailed an Iron galleon into a dense cloud bank, some ten years prior. “Keep your eyes open for the smallest of details, ‘cause sometimes a fight’s not won with simple firepower, you keen? But with guile and spirit, and sometimes a bit-o-luck.” Thinking back on it, it seemed Captain Lockney had been grooming him for greater things even back then.

  Bar planted his hands on the table and stared into the resonance stone set in its center. The device pulsed with a blue light. The ripples washing over its surface looked like waves across a lake, sweeping from the stern forward. The imperial hunter-killer was somewhere behind them now, in pursuit. If nothing else, at least it was good they weren’t chasing civilians. Gunfire thundered behind them, screeching in from a distance. Either they could see the hazy blue of the core through the dense cloud cover, or they were just fishing for a lucky hit.

  “This is Tolle,” murmured a faint voice, and Bar felt his spirits rise at the sound of his friend echoing through the intercom. “Is anyone hearing this, copy?”

  Bar rushed to the counsel. “Copy that,” he yelled into the tubes, not knowing which in particular harbored Tolle’s voice. “Tolle, you’re alive!”

  “Bar? Bar, you little scamp, that means you made it! We’d thought you had to be dead after what went down. It’s damn good to hear your voice again, mate.”

  “Yours too… are you on the gun deck?”

  “Yeah… but it’s a real mess down here, and a shame too… so much for all the hard work we spent cleaning this deck.”

  “What’s the status of the guns?”

  “Not good, Bar, near as I figure we’re down to one—maybe two—that still might fire. Both in the rear; the one in the port side’s still gleaming like new, but the stern tri-barrel is a little worse for wear.”

  “It’ll have to do then. Get them both ready regardless. You’ve got fire control.”

  “Ah, so what? Cecil’s not one for playing nice yet?”

  “Cecil’s dead.”

  “Well, this is really upsetting…”

  Bar baulked. “Thought you didn’t like him?”

  “What…? Oh Cecil? Yeah, no, I hated that stuck-up prick…I was actually talking about this tear I found in my uniform…you know how hard it is to get Supply to find you an extra-extra-extra-large?”

  “Tolle,” Bar muttered blandly into the comm, “in case you haven’t noticed we’ve got a hunter-killer on our tail.”

  “Oh…is that what all that racket is, mate? Awfully rude of them to interrupt all the fun I was having down here. Think I’m gonna designate that Iron bastard the I.E.S. Prick; you know, in honor of our dearly departed friend, Cecil Temberly.”

  “Sounds good…oh, and Tolle…?” He hated to ask the next question, lest he hear a discouraging answer. “Who else you got down there with you? Who else made it out of the cargo hold?” There was a pause, a long pause, too long to be comfortable, and Bar’s heart sank. How many more of his friends were dead this day?

  “Sorry, Bar, had to take care of a minor fire at hand…running a bit close to a keg of powder for my liking. We already have a nice gaping hole, might make a decent viewport down here… if we survive. But to answer your question; everyone from the port hold is still kicking, if that’s what’s got your knickers in a bundle. Looks like we took the hit in the forward starboard section.”

  “Fantastic news, Tolle,” Bar was beyond happy. After so much tragedy it was good to hear that everyone from the port hold had survived.

  “I wouldn’t get too overjoyed. I think that hunter-killer means to prove me a liar, the rude bastard.”

  Outside the clouds were beginning to thin, and the cover of darkness was fast turning to the burnt twilight of an open sunset. When they broke cover, Bar estimated they were twelve kilometers off the Barrier Shoal. The tangled briar of its obsidian branches stood stretching into the upper atmosphere, scraping at even the high-altitude cirrus wisps shimmering like prisms in the cold. In the reef’s clutches lingered the dying sun, with only fingers of its light allowed to escape as intense orange rays.

  “Give us altitude,” ordered Bar, “as m
uch as you can muster… All hands, brace for high-altitude…respiratory protocol red!” he yelled into the comm station.

  Almost immediately the Chimera nosed up, pointing its forward spar to the Widow’s Star. The horizon fell from view. Gryph wasn’t just giving them altitude, he’d put them on a near vertical plane. As a field of stars appeared twinkling in the purple velvet of an approaching night, Bar felt his feet slide out from under him. Looking down between his dangling legs he could see the resonance stone pinging with the imperial contact. She was directly beneath them now and Bar twisted back to his station, yelling into the comm tubes, allowing his voice to be carried into the furthest reaches of the aiship, “Tell me when you got visual contact, Tolle.” Bar’s ears filled with pressure. He heard the reply as a faint echo. “You realize I’m standing on the bulkhead, right?”

  Outside, the propellers could be heard struggling in the thinning air. Inside, the bridge grew steadily colder, and Bar watched tendrils of vapor escape from his gaping mouth with each laborious breath he took. His ears popped.

  “I got her, Bar, just breaking cloud cover. Give me about two degrees to port and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Gryph gave the wheel a slight correction in response, and Bar waited for the Chimera’s guns to fire. But when nothing immediately happened, he began to wonder if the hunter-killer broke course—the 75-millimeter tri-barrel cannon suddenly barked. Even through the layers of decking between them, the explosive belch was unmistakable, trembling through the Chimera like an anxious shudder.

  “Aye, sorry, Bazzon, but the shot went wide.”

  Bar couldn’t say he was surprised in the least. It’d been a long shot by all accounts, but he felt betrayed by the gods nevertheless. Right now they needed all the help they could get.

  “Can’t maintain,” muttered Gryph breathlessly, and Bar knew what he meant. He was beginning to feel light-headed and dizzy himself. The headache, pushed aside over the last few adrenaline-fueled minutes, returned with a savage vengeance. Hypoxia was beginning to take root, and the world was growing flat and strangely blurry because of it. In a haze of growing delirium, Bar heard the Chimera’s tri-barrel sing out again, screaming as it split the very air with its deadly intention. The ensign was struck with the notion that never before had such power stood behind a single shot, gravity would wash away any ballistic trajectory, turning it into a straightened lance of burning lead…into the very hand of Syre. And by the gods, if it found its mark, that shot should ring true with all the wrath this royal strata-frigate could muster. And ring it did…

  Bongggg!

  Even on the Chimera’s bridge they heard that mighty impact as though someone had just struck the world’s largest gong; but then that’s all it was, noise, and nothing more. The most awesome concentration of the Chimera’s power was reduced to little more than a nescience…some ringing in the ears, perhaps, on board that hunter-killer.

  That’s it. Fighting to stay conscious, Bar struggled to make the words out in an environment lacking air. “Take us…down Gryph…below the line.”

  The Chimera had lost its advantage, but then she had had no real advantage to begin with. Bar was beginning to realize that as he ordered one hopeless maneuver after another, trying desperately just to stay ahead of the hunter-killer and her guns, but her front mount was on a pivot, and no matter how much the Chimera zigged and zagged, that turret followed her relentlessly. The propellers whined, the ship rocked and shuddered as the engine moaned, threatening to quit on them entirely at any moment.

  No matter what they tried the imperial was on them like a hawk; rising, falling, banking right, then left, and right again. Shots continued to roar by, each closer than the last as that boundless adversary honed in on the growing predictability of its query. Simply put, Bar had exhausted the evasive maneuvers he’d learned over the years, finding the antiquated tactics ill-equipped to handle the caliber of this killer. That imperial devil was relentless and better armed, and far superior to the old royal strata-frigate in every way but maneuverability, and that was rendered useless by the pivoting gun-turret. Bar was flushed with anger and frustration. Three more shots tore open the Chimera, one to the port hold, another through the galley, and the final one into the old airbladder housing above. The beleaguered captain’s mind began to cloud as the future foretold of eminent demise. It blinded him with mounting panic, causing his mind to race, his nerves to coil inside his belly and quiver in despair; his whole being festering with the rot of doubt. It was hard to look beyond the event horizon of his own impending failure—beyond his approaching death—to anything that might be true and just in Aethosphere.

  If only someone else were here to take charge… McVayne, he was a good leader.

  One cloud bank after another became a temporary refuge, but ultimately brought false safety. The hunter had them scented, and hiding in an airy cloud did little more than obscure its bloodlusted-vision for a moment. Bar’s resolve cracked even further, his orders issuing like cold oil, without spark, growing less ingenious until he was on the verge of caving completely. Each minute brought them closer to oblivion. The ship’s engine continued to thunder and screech, hammering and shuddering with the effort of keeping to flank speed. And very soon, with no one down there to monitor the equipment, it was simply a matter of time before it too gave way to the stress of this doomed flight.

  Captain and ship failing as one. Bar Bazzon found something acrimoniously poetic in that. And then at last, they said goodbye to the clouds. They’d been flushed into the open, hemmed in and trapped between the hunter-killer and the Barrier Shoal; now not more than a kilometer away. Embittered, disappointment cascaded through Bar’s heavy heart. When Gryph asked him what course they should take, he was powerless to respond. Every option only delayed the inevitable. Tears broke through the amateur captain’s stoic disposition, blurring his vision, turning that blistered hell of storms—spitting and growling angrily all along the horizon—into a curtain of smoke and fire.

  He was tired of running.

  From below, the Chimera’s gun rang, a final desperate yelp in the face of its pursuer. She was backed into a corner with her hackles raised, lashing out however she could. That desperation only drove home the realization that after everything he’d been through, standing up to Moore, the fighting on deck, the harrowing climb up the hull, his charge up through the ship…his attempt to rescue the Chimera and those onboard was all ultimately doomed to failure now, And to death.

  “Captain,” asked Gryph softly. It seemed, from his tone, the pilot had struck upon the same cord of realization. “What are your orders?”

  They were both just going through the motions now, waiting to die. And damn it, didn’t that make Bar mad. “Put us into that godsfearing reef, Gryph!”

  “Pardon, Captain…”

  “You heard me.” Bar pounded on the command panel with his fists. Spittle flew from his lips as he accented his frustrations. “Let’s just see how badly they want us! Let’s see them follow us in there.”

  “Tis suicide, Captain…”

  “And let’s hope,” he roared. “Rather die dashing into a reef than give those imperial bastards the satisfaction of etching a hash-mark on their hull for sinking the Chimera!”

  “Aye…aye it’s a glorious afternoon to meet our makers!” Gryph tossed back the white scarf draped over the collar of his service jacket. Adjusting the thickset rims of his glasses and furrowing his face into a mask of wild abandon, the dwarf laughed, and Bar joined in. Together they howled into the precipice of madness. If they were to welcome death, they’d do so as a friend…and a good one at that.

  With a jolt, they passed into a soup of writhing clouds gathered at the reef’s edge, plunging into a nightmare quagmire of tortured sky. The very air reeked of it, of rain, sulfur, and ozone. The ship rocked and shuddered, twisting, rising and falling with the tempest thermals. Objects that had already fallen on the floor were tossed about now, and Bar stumbled like a drunk trying to
keep his footing. The viewport transformed into a portal to the abyss, black as jet one moment, bright as the sun the next, framed and split by forks of wandering lighting. By the gods, more lighting then Bar had ever been witness too. It crashed and thundered, rent and tore the sky, flashing, burning, blasting away pieces of the Chimera, sending her scorched hull rolling across the main deck in a flood of embers. A deluge of rain came soon after—sheets of it—pounding against the windows, spitting and spraying through missing panes of glass. The thunder of that tempest had finally drowned out the imperial guns, and Bar hoped for a time that the Iron hunter-killer had turned in the face of his insane course. But an impact into the stern dashed that hope. This imperial is as crazy as we are!

  Straight as an arrow, they plunged deeper into the Barrier Shoal.

  Dead ahead, a reef tower came out of nowhere, materializing from the very storm like a giant’s arm reaching out to snare them with its blackened fingers. “Hard to port!” cried Bar as the glassy-rock filled the screen, its smaller branches already scraping and screeching against the hull. “Now starboard!” The ship suddenly leaned and Bar leaned with it, feeling the Chimera’s strength in his legs. She wasn’t ready to give up either—not even in this tangled hell—and that reinvigorated him. He laughed out loud once again, feeling the joy of life beating in his chest. Nekros, Marak, and the rest of their reapers would just have to wait a couple more minutes until Bar was done having his fun dancing through the menacing shoal.

  Off the port appeared another pillar of stone, and then another off the starboard…and then came the densely packed branches that weaved between them. Too late to change course—too thick to fly under or over—they crashed headlong through it all. Obsidian shattered like glass and bronzsteel and wood tore away in groans. Bar was surprised when the main hull held, and something about this wonton destruction stirred his satisfaction. Smashing forward like this, like a powerful creature escaping through the branches of a dead forest, made him feel not quite so helpless anymore, and perhaps…just maybe they could lose that imperial bastard in all this mess. They continued to weave a course through the volcanic snarl, finding thinner patches to punch through. Bar looked to the compass to get a sense of their course, but it only spun in useless circles; confused by a magnetic field driven mad. Even the resonance stone was of little use; its surface having taken on a hazy red as though burning from within.