Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “The clouds are thinning out,” Kenan said.

  “Yeah. So let’s plan to follow the coast as long as we can see it and turn south when we’re closer to Ejido.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Taziri liked that. Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. Kenan wasn’t a perfect pilot and he was barely useful as an engineer, but he was a good officer with a strong work ethic, and she was sure with a little more work he would make a good flight officer. One day.

  They were barely half an hour out of Palma when Kenan tapped the window to his right. “I can see a city. It’s pretty big. I think it’s Valencia.”

  Taziri checked her map. “If it is Valencia, what does that tell us?”

  “We’ve reached the coast of España?”

  “It means we’re too far north because you’ve been bearing west instead of south-west. You need to keep one eye on the compass at all times. We’ve been over this, Kenan. Kenan?”

  “I swear I did, captain. It must have been a crosswind.” The lieutenant pressed his face close to the window to peer down at something at an uncomfortable angle. “Captain? I think you should take a look at this.”

  “At what?” Taziri stood up and looked over his shoulder. “Where?”

  “See the sandy point that looks kind of like a duck’s tail? With the lighthouse? Okay, follow the coast inland toward the city and there’s a big black building between two jetties. See it?”

  She squinted at the toy-like shapes on the ground. There were the jetties and the building, which seemed to extend well out into the water away from the beach. She followed the line of the building across the water and saw another, larger gray shape. It was a ship, rounded at the rear and slender at the bow, but she couldn’t tell what was scattered across its deck. “Nothing special, Kenan. Just a boat.”

  “Right. But captain, it’s huge.”

  “What?” Taziri looked again and saw a few flashing specks nearby that might have been fishing boats. The trawlers were pale dots beside the whale-like creature sitting at anchor beyond the long black docks. “It is huge. Wake the major. I’m going to go down and make a pass over it.”

  Taziri took the controls with a hot flush in her palms. She didn’t know much about ships except that the old steamers used engines almost identical to the old airships, and when they exploded the crews drowned instead of falling hundreds of feet to their deaths. And she had grown up in Tingis, watching the Mazigh ships chugging in and out of the harbor. She knew how large a cargo ship should be, and this ship below them was much, much larger.

  Kenan dropped back into his seat as Syfax shoved his head into the cockpit and squinted out the windscreen. “What’s up, Ziri? The kid’s acting all squirrelly again.” He tousled the lieutenant’s oily hair, glared at his hand, and then wiped the grease on Kenan’s jacket sleeve.

  Taziri had already brought them down several hundred feet and circled around to approach the strange ship from the east. “Take a look at that boat. Notice anything?”

  The major nodded and drawled, “It’s freaking huge. What the hell is on the deck? Those pointy things there and there? They look like cannons.”

  “We’re about to find out. I can only make one pass before we need to get back on course, or we’re going to run into fuel troubles. Kenan.”

  The lieutenant blushed and nodded and went back to his charts and calculations.

  “Is everything all right, captain?” asked Nicola. “I see that we are quite close to the water now. Is that Marrakesh just up ahead?”

  “No, this is still España. We’re just taking a quick pass over Valencia before continuing south,” Taziri called back over her shoulder. “If you look out your window, you may see some of the famed Espani cathedrals.” She saw the amusement in Syfax’s eyes and muttered, “I had to say something.”

  The large gray ship was very close now, only a quarter of a mile ahead and five hundred feet below them. Taziri tried to keep her eyes on her instruments, but the closer they came to the ship the more she glanced down at it.

  “Holy hell, that’s a big ironclad.” The major crammed against her shoulder to get a better look over her head. “And those are guns on the deck. Big ones. Six in front and four more in the back. Artillery. Machine guns.”

  “The entire housing is mechanized. Look how they swivel,” said Kenan.

  Taziri saw them swiveling all too well. One pair of the huge cannons was rotating toward them and they were close enough now to see the men scrambling across the deck, rallying around the smaller gun batteries. “I’m pulling up. We’ve seen enough.”

  A distant metallic chatter echoed under their feet and they saw the first faint flashes from the muzzles of the mechanized rifles along the deck railing. The heavy cannon were still turning, turning, turning, and rising to follow the climbing plane. And then they fired. Taziri was looking down at just that moment when the two enormous barrels vanished behind a flash of fire and blossom of smoke. She pushed the yoke to the right and felt the Halcyon slice off to the side far out of the ship’s firing solution, and she exhaled, momentarily relieved at having cleared the first disaster.

  And then the shells exploded.

  Both shells detonated less than thirty yards behind them and the plane bucked and juked as the shockwave struck the tail. Taziri wrestled with the controls, stomping on the pedals, and cursing the brace on her left arm that kept her hand from bending and twisting the way she needed it to. The engine roared on without a sputter and she almost thought she had the clumsy bird level when a hailstorm of shrapnel tore through the rear of the cabin. The passengers all reflexively curled into balls, covering their heads and trying to huddle down in their seats. Tiny pin pricks of sunlight pierced the cabin in a dozen tiny rays from the holes in the walls.

  Taziri could barely breathe around the weight in her chest. “Is everyone all right? Everyone say something!”

  “I’m fine,” Shahera said, her hands still clasped over her head.

  “As am I,” said Nicola, straightening up and peering back at the holes in the plane.

  “Goddamnit, woman, what the hell is going on!” snapped Dante. “Are you trying to kill us all? Do something!”

  “Shut up!” roared Syfax.

  Through all the shaking of the frame and the whistling of the wind through the holes, Taziri managed to focus on the fuel gauge. Please stay full, please God save the fuel. She counted to ten, then twenty, then thirty, but the fuel gauge stayed high.

  “We’re all right,” she said. “We’ll bear south and be back on course in a few minutes. Everything is fine. Kenan, give me a heading for Tingis.”

  “Bearing…two-three-zero. Repeat, two-three-zero.”

  Taziri nodded and turned the yoke as she pressed the pedals to make the turn. The Halcyon banked left, but did not turn. She held the controls for a moment, but the plane only shivered at its precarious angle, still bearing due west. She kicked the pedals, and again, and again.

  “Captain?” Kenan looked down at her feet.

  “We’ve lost the tail. I can’t turn.”

  “What do we do?”

  Taziri straightened the yoke and the plane leveled out. The city of Valencia spread out below them, and beyond the church spires and watchtowers lay the snowy fields and hills of España. “We’ll have to land. Somewhere.”

  “What do you mean, somewhere?” Syfax pointed at the broken landscape below. “Look at that.”

  “Maybe we can find a lake or a river.”

  The major glared. “It’ll be frozen.”

  “It’ll be fine.” She pressed her lips tightly and didn’t say, As long as it happens to lie east-west directly below us.

  For half an hour they cruised west, slowly slipping lower and lower so Taziri could study the ground below. An entire country frozen in ice and snow, and not a single strip of water to land on? They passed a high ridge with a second one just ahead, and between the two crests she saw a flat white expanse below. “There!”

  Kenan frow
ned at the frozen lake. “It’s running to the north-west. We won’t have much space to put down.”

  “It’ll have to do.” Taziri tightened her safety harness. “Everyone, we’re going to land in a minute. Please hold on. This might be a little rough.”

  Syfax went back to his own seat, pretending to stumble by Dante to slap the Italian in the head as he passed.

  Taziri eased back the throttle as she brought the plane down, and the engine purred softer and softer.

  “Captain?” Kenan tapped the air speed meter. “We’re close to stalling.”

  “I see it,” she snapped. The entire plane was shivering now as the crosswind from the valley began driving them south. The soldier pines studding the lower slopes snapped into focus in the clear afternoon light. The sun’s glare had the entire frozen lake blazing with sparkling white light and she hastily clawed her goggles down over her eyes. Taziri lifted the nose and cut the throttle, and the Halcyon fell out of the sky.

  The metal pontoons crashed into the ice and screamed across the frozen lake. The wheels underneath whistled and squeaked as the plane raced toward the far bank. Taziri slammed the flaps down and the wings roared in the wind as the elemental forces of air and ice clawed at the poor metal bird.

  Over the shaking console, Taziri watched the line of trees on the far bank grow closer and closer. The plane was slowing, but not slowing enough. “Get down!” She grabbed Kenan’s head and pushed him down below the height of the console just as the Halcyon struck the tree line. A leafless branch speared through the windscreen and into Kenan’s shoulder and the lieutenant cried out. The passengers shouted and screamed, and a handful of small objects flew forward into the cockpit. Dante’s cigarette case. Shahera’s headdress. The bags stowed in the rear compartment. All of them pelted Taziri’s arm and head. And then it was over.

  As soon as the ground felt solid under her feet, Taziri grabbed Kenan and inspected the wooden shaft in his shoulder. Without a word, she chopped her left arm down on the branch, smashing it to icy splinters with her medical brace and letting the young pilot slip to the floor.

  He grabbed his bleeding shoulder and looked up at her. “Is this what it was like, captain?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you crashed the first Halcyon?” He smiled a little.

  “No.” She shook her head. Looking back, the fuselage of the plane appeared mostly intact and all of the passengers were groaning and moving. “Trust me. You picked the right crash to be in.”

  Chapter 4

  As soon as he was sure that he was still in one piece, Major Syfax Zidane unlatched his safety harness and began checking the passengers. All were groaning and shaken, and complaining of aches and pains where the harness straps had dug into their shoulders, but there were no broken bones and no blood to be seen. In the cockpit, he saw Taziri and Kenan were already busy poking around their equipment so he lumbered up behind them. “Hey, what’s the word? Is this thing still able to fly or not?”

  “Probably, yes,” Taziri said. She sat up on the floor of the cockpit and wiped the sweat from her face. “I need to take a look outside.” She led her co-pilot out the hatch and Syfax watched them circle around to the nose of the plane where they had to climb up the icy embankment to examine the engine.

  “Would someone please explain to me what is going on?” Nicola said sternly, staring up at him.

  He shrugged. “We spotted a military ship, they shot off our tail, and Ziri saved your butt by landing on this lake. We’re all alive, and hopefully they can bang this tin can back into shape so we can get back in the air soon. Any questions?”

  “Tell me about the ship.” Nicola folded her hands in her lap. Her blue and silver suit had been a bit crushed and crumpled, but still shimmered gaudily in the early afternoon light.

  Syfax thumbed his nose. “Not much to tell. Big fella. Lotsa big guns. Never seen anything like it. Back home, the steamers are probably half its size, even the navy boats. This big boy is something new.”

  “Are the Espani known for their steamships?” The tall woman plucked at the hem of her jacket. “Because in Italia, they are not. Their sailing ships, perhaps, are worthy of note. But my reports describe the Espani military as being nearly a century behind the latest trends in weapons and ships. No one takes them seriously anymore. Not at sea, anyway.”

  “I dunno, lady. When I was in the army, I was mostly shooting at Songhai and Ahaggar rangers. Didn’t see many boats in the Atlas Mountains.” He glanced out the forward windscreen, but Taziri and Kenan were still puttering with their engine.

  “What if they can’t fix it?” Dante asked quietly, his eyes fixed on the white nothingness outside his window.

  “They’ll fix it,” Syfax said.

  A minute later, Taziri poked her head in and waved Syfax outside to talk. When they were standing by the nose of the plane, she pointed out the damage as she said, “Well there’s lots of good news. The propeller isn’t bent. The wings aren’t damaged. The pontoons aren’t water-tight anymore but the wheels are still on. Nothing seems to be leaking from the engine. I think we got lucky this time.”

  “So what’s the bad news?”

  She pointed back at the tail of the plane. “The rudders are gone. We can’t fly until we get that fixed.”

  Syfax glanced around the wooded slope above them. He knew the trees were probably frozen solid, but a little fire could go a long way. “Can we patch it up or not?”

  “Not.” Taziri sneezed. “I mean, it’s not complicated, but it has to be done right or the wind will just rip it right off and we’ll be stuck flying in a straight line again. Or worse.”

  Syfax squinted into the cold wind whipping at his face. The two ridges on either side of the frozen lake weren’t too high or steep, but the trees only stood on the bottom third of the slopes and there was no sign of a road or town in the valley. “How far are we from the coast? From Valencia?”

  Taziri turned to her co-pilot. “Kenan?”

  The young lieutenant blinked and frowned and began rubbing his bare hands and blowing into his cupped palms. “I’d say, maybe, a hundred miles or so.”

  “All right,” Syfax said. “Assuming they don’t have anything faster than horses, they won’t get here until the morning after next.”

  “Who?” Kenan asked.

  “The guys who shot us down, kid. I don’t think they liked us sniffing around their new toy very much. And if they cared enough to turn those big guns on us, then they’ll care enough to send a handful of soldiers to look for us. The good news is they don’t know where we are. The bad news is that anyone who saw us fly past will point them in the right direction. Ziri, do you think you can fix this bird in two days?”

  The captain’s stare hardened. “No, major. I wasn’t kidding. The new rudders have to be properly hinged and attached to the cables for the plane to fly safely. We’re going to need Isoke, one of her fabricators, and a set of spare parts from Tingis. Halcyon isn’t flying until we get a team up here to fix her.”

  Syfax chewed on that for a moment. “All right, then we need to quit jawing and start walking.” He went back to the open hatch called inside, “Everybody grab your gear and get out here.” He paused long enough to yank the survival packs from the rear compartment but not long enough to hear their objections. Then he got Kenan to follow him up into the woods to find a couple of small logs and large branches to throw up across the plane’s wings and fuselage. “There. That should be good enough. With all the glare on the ice, no one should see it here until we get back. Kid, how’s the arm?”

  Kenan shrugged. “Just a big splinter, really. It’s sore, but not bleeding much. Captain wrapped it up for me. It’s okay, I guess.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He looked up and saw Taziri fooling with the engine again. “Hey Ziri, I thought we weren’t going to fix this thing until later.”

  “I’m not fixing it.” She stepped out of the shadow of the plane with a black box in her hand that trail
ed half a dozen cables. “I’m stripping the battery and leads. This way, even if the Espani find it, they can’t possibly use it.” She shoved the battery into her survival pack and shouldered the bag.

  “Fair enough. All right, let’s move out!” Syfax started walking away.

  “Move out?” Dante shouted from the side of the plane. “Where exactly do you think you’re going? I’m not walking the length of España in the dead of winter, you idiot. Get back here and fix this damned machine!”

  With his tinted aviator goggles shielding his eyes from the sun, Syfax trudged across the thick powder on the ice with a sharp grin on his face. Taziri and Kenan quickly fell into step behind him and a moment later he glanced back to see all three passengers marching after them.

  Yeah, that’s what I thought, jackass.

  Stumbling along at the rear, the Eranian girl in purple motley was moving slowly and seemed uncertain about every step in the knee-deep snow. Syfax grimaced. She’s not dressed for the cold, or even for walking. I’m going to end up carrying her, probably. Unless we find some horses. And I’m not that lucky.

  As they climbed the eastern ridge at the mouth of the valley, Taziri quickened her step to come alongside him. “Major? What’s the plan?”

  “I saw a road a few minutes before we went down. We backtrack east, find the road, find people, and head southeast. We’ll try to hit the coast south of Valencia and hitch a ride back home. If we’re quick about it, we should be out of the country before any soldiers come looking for us. And if we’re quiet about it, you might even get back here with Isoke and get the Halcyon flying again before anyone finds out about it.”

  “You really think so?”

  “If we’re lucky.” He grinned. “And you know how lucky we are.”

  When the slope leveled out they saw a muddy road in the distance running back east to Valencia and angling northwest to God knows where. They had just begun descending the hillside when Kenan stopped short and pointed at the road. “What’s that?”