by Ryan Dunlap
“And The Collective has avoided them…I’m probably the first one they studied,” Ras said
“Probably,” said Elias, “Some day I’ll have to tell you how your mother and I actually met.”
Off in the distance a ragtag fleet filtered into The Wild through the main pass, well beneath the Illorian fleet, maintaining a healthy gap. Mixed in with airships bearing The Collective’s insignia were maroon and black painted vessels, making the fleet look about as far from uniform as one could expect of the biggest force in Atmo.
The Dauntless brought up the rear, dwarfing the rest of the vessels.
“What is Bravo Company doing here?” Elias asked.
“Hal thinks they’re just another arm of The Collective,” Ras said, “and right now I’m not inclined to disagree.”
“I guess they didn’t want to risk The Halifax.”
“They don’t have The Halifax to risk. Callie sank it. Sort of,” Ras said with a shrug.
“You’re going to have to tell me about that one later,” Elias said, “Looks like the war’s about to start.” He brought The Brass Fox to an idle and tapped the fuel gauge. “We can’t afford to fly blindly,” he said. “They probably took Callie higher than we can climb.”
Ras left the bridge and began descending the stairs to the deck.
“Where are you going?” Elias asked.
“Well, I promised her I would keep her safe, so I’m staying here to find Callie so you can get back home and I won’t waste fuel.”
“How?”
“I’m taking the jetcycle,” Ras said.
“Mom let you buy a jetcycle?” Elias asked before receiving a look from his grown son.
Ras began climbing down into the hold, but stopped before disappearing entirely from Elias’ view. “You accomplished your mission. Maybe Hal will pay for Verdant’s engines for that.”
“Erasmus Veir,” Elias said, making Ras feel ten again. “Not fifteen minutes ago I was reconciling myself to the idea of never seeing you or your mother again. What would I say if I came back without you?”
Ras returned to the deck, standing tall. “Mom needed you, not me. Verdant needs you, not me. All of Atmo, for that matter,” he said, sweeping his arm around. “If I hadn’t led The Collective here, this war wouldn’t be happening, and I think we can all agree that either side winning that war means Atmo loses. I have one chance, however small, to make a difference to one person—who wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me—and whether The Collective freezes us all or The Elders rip apart Atmo, I owe it to her to try.”
The two men stared at each other for a long moment.
“Tell mom I love her,” said Ras, turning to climb down to the hold.
“Ras.”
“What?”
“I’m proud of you,” Elias said, tossing his son the grapple gun.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Incoming!” Ras pointed to two Collective gunships in the distance as they opened fire.
“Hang on to something!” Elias brought the ship into a dive along the cliff wall. Shots blasted into the rock face, raining debris down onto The Brass Fox’s balloon and deck.
The Brass Fox had already sustained enough damage that it didn’t respond as quickly as it used to, and Ras felt like apologizing for each sluggish response to his father’s commands. The Silver Fox it was not, but Elias made no comment and focused on the task at hand.
One of the larger gunships dropped low to engage the wind merchants, lining up to release a salvo.
“No gun on this thing, huh?” Elias asked.
“Mom wouldn’t even let you have one.”
“I thought I’d ask,” Elias said, “I need you to man the anchor!”
The shots rang out from the gunship as Elias pulled back on the throttle. One of the shots clipped the nose of The Brass Fox.
“You need me alive, remember?” Ras shouted at the gunship as he ran over to the anchor crank.
“When I say, release it!” Elias shouted, pulling back hard on the fragmented wheel. The Brass Fox rose above the larger gunship, overtaking its sluggish opponent. “Now!”
Ras threw the lever, dropping the anchor onto the front of the balloon. With a shudder, The Brass Fox pulled back as its anchor raked across the canvas from bow to aft, forcing the gunship to dive under its own weight.
The gunship’s engines attempted to overcompensate for the lack of lift, only slamming the ship harder into the ground. The impact ripped up the cracked soil, leaving a scar in its wake. The anchor caught on the metal frame of the gunship, and jerked The Brass Fox down until the chain snapped.
“Where’d you learn that?” Ras called back.
“Just made it up!” Elias laughed manically, then noticed the second gunship taking a ranged approach. “Got any other tricks?”
“Get above that one!” Ras shouted as he ran down to the hold entrance. The dark room chimed with every twist and turn as the shattered glass sloshed around the belly of the airship. He descended the ladder and carefully gained a foothold amidst the shards. Tiptoeing and nearly falling with each evasive dip, dodge, and juke of his ship, he managed to extract a large wrench that clung to the magnetized tool bench.
He heard his father call from above. “Better hurry! We’re above ‘em, but not for long!”
Ras hauled himself back up to the deck and loaded a spike into the grapple gun. Motioning with the wrench, he said, “After I rip the balloon, buzz back and I’ll grapple back!” In a fluid motion, he attempted to swing the wrench into his holster, but missed. The heroic moment evaporated, and Ras appreciated his father’s missing of the botched attempt. He slid the wrench into the holster with a bit more care.
Elias smiled. “Good idea.” It was a relatively safe plan, which was what Ras assumed his father particularly liked about it. It kept Ras out of the line of fire and even if it didn’t succeed in ripping the gunship’s balloon, he had an exit strategy.
The Brass Fox slipped into a hard turn to port, and Ras held himself upright by the rope rigging, looking down at the gunship. He lined up a shot and ripped through the airship’s generous balloon to connect, but a quick bump in The Brass Fox’s altitude yanked Ras overboard.
The fall wasn’t far, but Ras wasn’t entirely certain he wouldn’t have passed out from the height in his Verdant days. He plummeted, reeling in cabling so he couldn’t fall beneath the body of the gunship after sliding from the envelope.
He hit the canvas atop the airship, bouncing a bit before pulling himself back to the puncture point by the cable. Unholstering the wrench with his right hand, he swung down to rip at the canvas below, opening up a big enough hole in the envelope to see inside.
He loaded up another charge and fired off the spike grapple again, targeting the forward ballonet. The spike pierced the bladder, then continued onward to strike the deck below. “Let’s see you climb without that,” Ras said, chuckling at his clever little plan.
Shouts of Collective crew erupted, and before Ras could cut his cable and his losses, he was pulled arm first into the balloon. Bouncing off the bladder of the faltering forward ballonet, he threaded through the puncture like a large needle.
Falling inside the Energy-filled ballonet was an easy way for a Knack to die, and Ras always wondered what its innards looked like. The bland interior left his childhood curiosity sated yet disappointed as he fumbled for the cable disengaging mechanism. Another heave from below caused him to once again follow his arm through the puncture to the deck.
What concerned Ras more than nearly falling onto his own spike were the half dozen Collective midshipmen he fell onto before landing awkwardly onto the deck. They grinned over their prize of a saboteur.
“Hi,” Ras said in a groan from the fall. For a moment he wished he had prepared something witty, but in hindsight he appreciated that the swift kick to his midsection he promptly received would probably have been far worse if he had done something along the lines of insulting one of t
heir mothers.
“It’s the Lack!” one of the men called up to the officer on deck. “The idiot came to us!”
“Then who is flying his ship?” another man asked.
“Doesn’t matter! His ship don’t have guns, right?”
A rat-tat-tat issued from above, lending uncertainty to that assumption. Small cannonballs ripped through the gunship’s balloon, impacting onto the deck and sending the crew running for anywhere they assumed wasn’t about to receive a projectile.
Ras balled himself up to lower his profile and reeled in the cabling as quickly as possible while loading up one of the magnetic charges. He knew the sound of an Elder fighter’s weaponry, and it sounded like his ticket to the Elder fleet.
He scrambled over to the railing and scanned the skies for the fighter when he heard a click of a musket hammer being pulled back behind him. “If we’re going down you’re going down with us.”
Ras slowly lifted his arms to the sky and turned around to see two men with their rifles mounted. “What?” he asked. “It’s not like I’ve got anywhere to go.”
“We know how that grappler works. We ain’t dumb,” said one of the crew members, oblivious to the Elder fighter lining up a strafing run far behind them.
“I’m not saying you aren’t, but if there’s one thing you’re ain’t, it’s perceptive,” Ras said, nodding to the rapidly approaching bogey.
The gunship blared its cannons and the Elder ship spun in a corkscrew maneuver, lithely dodging the incoming fire. Ras mouthed a countdown as the fighter approached a grapple-able range with its cannons blazing.
Four, three, two—It buzzed over the top of the balloon and Ras adjusted his already raised left arm, firing into the air where he expected the Elder ship to pop out on the opposite side.
Connection.
Ras jerked away from the deck, his grunt alerting his former captors. They spun back around and fired inaccurately at the now moving target.
As Ras watched the Collective gunship sink, The Brass Fox chased after the Elder ship but was absolutely outclassed.
The nosedive of the fighter cut short any of Ras’ mental celebrations for being on the path to find Callie. “No! What are you doing?” Ras shouted into the howling wind. “No! Up! Up!”
Deaf to Ras’ instructions, the pilot continued his descent, slowing his ship’s speed. Ras found a small amount of solace in the idea that The Brass Fox now stood a chance to catch up and that if he had to face an Elder, he wouldn’t have to do so alone.
Ras touched the ground first and he quickly cut the cable before the ship could drag him along. He loaded up a magnet grapple charge as the fighter landed and wheeled around in a semicircle to face him.
The cockpit hatch popped open and a large machine man exited. He stood at least seven feet tall and kept a constant gait toward Ras, who aimed his grapple gun as menacingly as possible.
“Drop your weapon,” the machine commanded in a low tone.
“So you can beat me to death?” Ras asked, letting the machine get a bit closer so he wouldn’t need to aim quite as much. He glanced, The Brass Fox flew toward him, but it looked like the Elder would reach him before Elias. “I’m…I’m warning you! This thing is electrified! And you…really…don’t want that,” he said.
Without giving the machine a chance to respond, Ras squeezed the hand trigger and the magnet flew at its intended target, clipping the top of the Elder’s head, but the metal hunk stuck. In an attempt to throw his opponent off-balance, Ras flung himself backward with the taut cable.
Ras expected to feel a tug instead of falling straight to the cracked ground with a cloud of dust.
“What have you done?” a man’s voice called out in a decidedly non-robotic tone. The “head” lay on the ground between Ras and the Elder, revealing a familiar face.
“Carter?” Ras asked, “What are you—”
“Stand back! Illorians can’t be this low—AAARGH!” he screamed, falling to his knees. His eyes glowed purple before he froze into place.
The Brass Fox finally caught up with gangplank already lowered.
“Hurry up, get in!” Elias said.
Ras noted that Carter’s bubble didn’t extend far enough to encompass The Brass Fox or Elias. “It’s all right, I got this.”
“Be careful.”
“I’ll be right back,” Ras said. He strode up to the helmet while spooling in the cable before cutting it, leaving the magnet and small clip of cabling sitting atop the metal headpiece like a tiny hat. Scooping it up, he placed it over his head and turned back to his father. “How do I look?”
“Like the stuff of nightmares?” Elias asked, uncertainly.
Ras walked up to Carter and placed his hand on the Illorian’s neck.
After a moment, Carter’s frame loosened up and he jerked to look at Ras. He grabbed the helmet from Ras’ head and slid it quickly over his, sealing it in place.
“What? How did—? I thought I was gone,” the mechanical voice said with more relief than Ras thought possible from a giant robot.
“I’m full of surprises,” Ras said, smiling. “Well, one surprise that I keep having to use again and again.”
“You reclaimed me.”
“Re-what now?” asked Ras.
“You’re The Reclaimer!” Carter said emphatically.
“I like the sound of that a lot better than ‘The Lack.’”
Elias called out from the bow of The Brass Fox, “Ras, do you know an Elder?”
“I’m not a true Elder,” said Carter. “My great-grandfather was. This was his suit. The Elders were only around during the war with the Outsiders…or frozen in the cities, waiting to be saved by The Reclaimer,” he said. “This is perfect!”
“Hold on now, I’m just trying to find Callie—”
“Yes! Callie!” His tone turned grave. “You must come with me, now.”
“You know where she is?”
“I’m afraid I do. She is being used as the last weapon against the Outsiders and it’s going to kill her.” Carter looked back at Elias. “Your brother is welcome to come.”
Inside the enclosed cockpit, three of the four seats were occupied. Carter looked like the parent, escorting the two undersized children who filled half of their seats. Ras’ eyes were fixed on the scene ahead.
Two fleets hung motionless at different altitudes. Even from here, their intentions were obvious: they were engaged in silent negotiations, each one underbidding the other in an effort not to go down in history as the instigator of the Second Clockwork War.
“I don’t understand how you’re flying this thing,” Elias said. “There’s barely any Energy out here.”
Carter huffed in amusement. “Our engines don’t run on Energy,” he said, “The friction of Time is sufficient.”
“How can she be used as a weapon? All she can do is freeze the area around her,” Ras said.
“Maybe the rest of the Illorian fleet wants to be preserved to prevent a war,” offered Elias.
“Hardly,” Carter scoffed. “We would never let Outsiders have the Time Origin. It’s an Elder’s sacred duty to protect it at all costs.”
“All right, but how does Callie—” Ras stopped as the two fleets off in the distance suddenly launched their opening volleys. Tiny flecks of fighters poured in from either side, and the advantage definitely went to the Elders on that front, but when it came to the capital ships, The Collective mixed with Bravo Company heavily outnumbered the last Illorian battalion.
“If Callie is the weapon that will ‘save Illoria,’ why are you bringing us to her?” Ras asked.
“The Elder Council voted unanimously against using any form of Time against our adversaries in the last war, even at the cost of losing,” Carter said. “The Outsiders shut us in, secluding us with Time and preserving our cities until someone like you could unfreeze our people.”
“Is that the deal, then? You trade Callie for me unfreezing all of Illoria?” Ras asked.
“No, t
hat is your choice and yours alone,” Carter said. “However, I would mention that Fleet Commander Archer would be far more likely to offer up his only weapon in exchange for freeing his long-frozen countrymen to aid him in battle.”
“But it is his choice,” Elias said as though there were still an option.
“The Outsiders have finally opened the main gate, letting Time once again spill out to the rest of the world instead of bottling up here, but it will not thin the air nearly enough for the Conduits to be reclaimed.”
“I reclaimed you, so are you a Conduit, Carter?” Ras asked.
“Every Illorian is to one degree or another when brought too close to the Time Origin, but Callie is a true Conduit…sensitive enough to be set off and power the weapon,” Carter said.
Ras looked about the Elder fleet. There were no obvious leading ships. “How do we know which one she’s on?”
A Collective frigate shot a green beam at one of the Elder’s larger vessels, disintegrating a quarter of it, and it began to falter.
“What in Atmo?” Elias exclaimed.
“We must hurry,” Carter said.
Every Elder ship simultaneously launched its volley back at The Collective’s fleet. The beam-firing frigate received only one of the dozens of cannonballs. The ball impacted on the surface, then stuck.
The frigate halted immediately, along with a couple nearby biplanes.
“They’re using it!” Carter said. “I don’t think she’ll be able to handle too many uses.”
By now they had entered the radius of the battle. The initial beam strike from the frigate had been merely a warning to the Illorian fleet, but since the Elders had something that posed a true threat, The Collective’s full assault began.
Beams filled the skies, decimating Elder fighters and airships alike. Several Illorian ships huddled around one ship in particular, providing cover as another set of volleys froze a cluster of smaller Collective ships.