by Sean Kennedy
Ezra ran his hand over his console lovingly. “Every time we go up in the air.”
“Here comes the Bubulcus,” Jazz yelled, interrupting his reveries.
Harding’s ship looked even more monstrous as it emerged from a roll of fog. Its weapon banks were still smoldering. Ezra expected retribution to rain down from Harding, but the Bubulcus maintained a steady position, keeping both the train and the Lilliput within its sights.
“As far as I can tell, as much as the readings are accurate because of this damn fog, there are no other ships here yet.” Ezra frowned. This was seeming too easy so far, although he doubted it would remain that way.
“Harding did tell you he wanted Icarus all to himself.”
“Yeah, maybe nobody else had the sources we did.”
“Source, singular,” Jazz reminded him.
“One’s all you need as long as the intel is right.”
“It must be, if Harding is here. Plus he seemed pretty pissed that Bart found out.”
“He doesn’t like anybody swimming in his—” Ezra broke off. “We have movement on the train.”
The train was now lifting off the track again, ready to depart, steam pouring out from beneath the undercarriage.
It felt like a nest of snakes was gnawing on him in his belly. It was all systems go now; at any moment Icarus would reveal himself and all hell would break loose.
Jazz gently lowered the Lilliput into place to follow the train as it began to pull away from the station. Ezra continued to monitor the sensors, and frowned when he saw the Bubulcus begin to do the same, even though he was expecting it.
Ezra tuned into the frequency that the train comms operated on, but there was no chatter at the moment. All seemed well.
“We’re only thirty clicks from Waulkham Hills,” Ezra said. “He’s running out of time.”
Jazz remained silent, but pulled her goggles down over her eyes. She was all business now. “Opening the windows.”
He knew she was preparing for the fact that they could have to effect a rescue of Icarus again and drag him back into their cabin, and he silently thanked her for it.
The speakers on their consoles squawked into life. It was a garble, as many people seemed to be talking over each other, but the excited tones of their voices gave it all away.
“Take us closer,” Ezra instructed.
“On it.”
The Bubulcus was mirroring their movements, but Ezra was distracted by the door of one of the carriages below them bursting open, and a winged man standing on the small platform at the back of the train.
Icarus.
You damn fool. You should have stayed away.
He obviously wasn’t intending on sticking around. He jumped free of the train and took to the skies. His style seemed even more sluggish than usual, and zooming in on him on the console, Ezra could see the moneybags attached to his harness. He had overloaded himself, and the wings were under strain.
It’ll only make it harder for him to get away.
Suddenly, the Bubulcus was diving down, aiming for the man Ezra was pretty sure he loved.
“Get in there!” he yelled at Jazz.
Smaller, faster, and a definite pain in the ass for Harding and the Bubulcus, the Lilliput maneuvered in between Icarus and the larger ship. If the Bubulcus had still had weaponry, Ezra was sure that the Lilliput would now be crashing toward the ground with her body wracked with bullets. Harding was certainly determined to claim Icarus as his bounty.
But then something surreal happened. Below them, on the train, the back doors opened once more and another six winged men appeared. Moving in unison, they threw themselves up into the air and took flight, moving in toward Icarus.
“What the hell?” Jazz breathed.
“Get in behind them, Jazz.”
He had no idea what they were planning to do from here, but he knew they couldn’t let Icarus out of their sight. The others would be a distraction, but it was still Icarus who was in the most danger. If they could stay on him, Ezra knew Harding could as well.
No sooner had the Lilliput maneuvered behind the men than they all took off in different directions. “Stay on Icarus!”
“I’m on it!” Jazz yelled back.
It was as if the fog were churning, between the frenzied flight patterns of the winged men and the airships that were desperately trying to follow them once they decided upon which one to target. Ezra opened up the comm channel again to hear Harding barking orders and knew they had to act fast.
Because once Harding saw the Lilliput taking after a certain man, he began changing his orders. Ezra knew Harding wouldn’t assign the Bubulcus to follow a fake Icarus, because he was counting upon Ezra to know which man Icarus truly was—after all, he had spent actual time in person with him—and as the Bubulcus was still weaponless, he would get another ship to follow them so that if worse came to worst he could blow either the Lilliput or Icarus out of the sky and still guarantee himself the reward money. For Ezra knew there had to be other ships waiting in the vicinity; Harding was smart enough to have planned for this very situation, even though he would hate to be taken out of the major play.
As if on cue, he was justified in his thoughts.
“The Kagu is following us,” Jazz informed him.
And so it was. Sleek, dark and ominous looking, although nowhere as big as the Bubulcus, both Ezra and Jazz knew the captain of the ship by reputation. Gerard Frailden was a fighter, having trained in the aerial army before deciding to go into business for himself.
“This is not good,” Jazz said.
“Just stay between him and Icarus,” Ezra told her.
“I guess dying is an option today,” she muttered.
Ezra began firing up the guns, knowing they would have to be used sooner rather than later. Just make sure you stay out of his way as well, Tobias.
Funny how he was now starting to see him as Tobias, rather than Icarus. Icarus was a legend, a story pieced together by snatches of folk legend and tales of heroic deeds. Tobias was human, a flawed individual running from his own past and refusing to see the reasons behind why he did the things he did. Tobias had potential to live up to; Icarus’s days were numbered.
He just hoped he got to call Tobias by his real name again. The events of today were taking a turn for the bizarre—as all things went, this would have been the least expected scenario he could have thought might happen today.
“Decoys,” he said, finally. “But how did he arrange it?”
Jazz didn’t bother answering him. She had other things to worry about. The other ships were now visible through the fog, and obviously answering orders from Harding as they lined up with the Bubulcus to create a “net” around the flyers that would be difficult for them to escape.
Icarus was flying in a zigzag pattern, dangerously swerving in between the ships that were pursuing him, obviously hoping that they wouldn’t fire upon him if he were using them as a shield. He would soar up on pockets of air and then just as recklessly plummet from them in order to lose altitude and keep his movements unpredictable.
Ezra was suitably awed by his skills of flight, and wondered what Tobias would be like behind the throttle of a dirigible, when he showed such grace and daring with only a set of man-made wings strapped to his back.
A voice crackled through the comm speakers. “Ezra Kneebone, can you hear me?”
Jazz shot him a look, and Ezra pressed to reply. He already knew who it was, but did not speak his name in order to protect him should anybody else be listening in. “Yes.”
“Is this a secure channel?”
He made it so, linking their signals and then dampening them with static so that Harding and his cronies would have trouble listening in. It wasn’t foolproof, but it would give them a little bit of time at least. “Make it quick—they’ll be able to break it soon enough.”
“Is your offer still open?”
Ezra couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What had happened over
the past few days to change Tobias’s mind? However, he was wasting precious time by stopping to debate this stroke of good fortune. “My offer is always open to you. I just fear you’ll never take it.”
Offer? Jazz mouthed at him, but he waved her off.
“Never say never,” Tobias replied.
Through the cockpit window, Ezra could see him still, ducking and weaving through the darkness of the fog and the shadows of the airships following and dwarfing him.
“I just had to plan it right,” Tobias continued.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m declaring this to be Icarus’s last flight. Such as this is, anyway.”
Although a flood of emotion was tearing through him and threatening to destroy the barriers erected against it, Ezra only allowed himself to close his eyes for a moment and say, “What do you need us to do?”
“Just get me to safety. At least, away from my new friends. Lose them for me.”
“The Bubulcus has no weapons,” Jazz butted into their conversation, her expression telling Ezra that he was wasting airtime that would be far more valuable discussing strategy.
“So you have nothing to fear from it,” Ezra added. “But watch out for the Kagu. It’s fully armed and operational.”
“Noted,” Tobias replied. “Now—”
Communication was cut out as the Lilliput was struck from behind. As sirens sounded and the comms were giving conflicting readings, Ezra couldn’t tell if they had been hit by bullet fire or rammed by an actual ship.
“This damn fog!” Jazz yelled.
The Lilliput shuddered again as she fell victim to attack. Ezra could see fire spreading on the port side and leapt out of his chair to reach for the extinguisher.
“You can’t go out there!” Jazz yelled. “In case you didn’t notice, we’re in the middle of a war zone!”
There was nothing else that could be done, and he was about to say that to her when he was knocked to the floor as the Lilliput sustained damage once again. It was already two strikes too many, and Ezra was torn between the need to put out the fire or to start firing upon their aggressor so obviously hellbent on wiping them out of the skies.
He dropped the extinguishers and scrabbled back to his seat. The fire would have to wait for now.
“We have to put it out somehow!” Jazz said.
“We have to stop them from making it worse,” Ezra replied bleakly.
Jazz ran her finger over the sensors, bringing up fresh information and readings. “Hang on, I’m going to try something!”
But Ezra was too distracted, and when the Lilliput tilted steeply to the port side, he almost tumbled out of his seat, but managed to hold onto the arm and right himself.
“I told you to hang on!”
He watched with wonder as the fires on the side of their ship struggled to stay alight in the sheer force of wind now fighting against them. The problem was, they were now heading away from Tobias—and the Kagu was closing in on him once more.
If it wasn’t one damned thing, it was another! No plan ever went smoothly, but this one was truly cursed.
One thing he was thankful for was that the Kagu had fired upon them first. From here on in, anything that happened could stand up in a court of law as natural self-defense. If Harding didn’t pay off the judges, that was. Or if they even survived to be charged, then had to defend themselves.
Lining up the target, Ezra focused in upon the Kagu’s weapons array and fired. The ship took on a noticeable lilt. Definite contact.
“Nice work, Boss,” Jazz said appreciatively.
“Nice flying, Jazz.”
The meeting of this mutual appreciation society had to remain brief. Jazz looked down upon the side of the Lilliput and grinned to see that the fires were out, reduced to little more than smoldering embers floating away like blazing petals on the wind produced by their kickback.
“Good work, team,” Ezra laughed.
Now it was the Kagu that had fires to contend with, and they dropped off their pursuit of Icarus, falling back and unwillingly allowing the Lilliput to pass them while the Bubulcus still tried in vain to catch up with them both.
“Get to Tobias!” Ezra instructed. “We’ll bring him in through the cockpit. If he’s telling the truth about this being his final flight, we’ll finish it here and now.”
Tobias? Jazz mouthed, but remained silent, leaning on the throttle. The Lilliput accelerated and dipped down to settle in behind Icarus. Ezra started scanning the comm frequencies, trying to locate Tobias on the wristcuff he had given him. All he found was static.
“Maybe the comm is damaged,” Jazz suggested. “We’re not going to know exactly what damage we took until we get to land and go over everything.”
The Lilliput was finally within range of Tobias, and Ezra was starting to climb out of the cockpit and onto the roof when another airship suddenly appeared before them, rising into what had previously been beautiful, empty sky.
“Quick!” Ezra yelled, looking back down at Jazz in the cockpit. He hoisted himself up and onto the roof, latching his belt onto the safety line. He grabbed onto it as the Lilliput lost altitude at a sickening rate in order to avoid crashing into the other ship.
But even from his view on top of the cockpit, Ezra could see it was too late. The Lilliput might avoid collision, but Tobias was in danger. He was trying to fly in a pattern which would stop him from being targeted by sensors, but he had also been taken by surprise, and the movements of the wings were still to sluggish due to the extra weight of the moneybags stolen from the train.
Over his headset, Ezra yelled to Jazz, “Get between them!”
It was hopeless. He was still yelling his order when the lasers struck Tobias, and smoke and fire exploded from his wings. Tobias began to fall immediately, and Ezra’s yell turned into a guttural scream. The Lilliput jerked below him as Jazz changed course to follow Tobias down, and hope sorely stabbed in his chest as he watched a silk chute unravel from Icarus’s back—he was obviously conscious enough to instigate emergency procedures.
As the Lilliput came dangerously close to the other ship, Ezra drew his pistol and fired. It was the equivalent of using a peashooter against the hide of an elephant, but it made him feel good for all of two seconds.
He recharged the pistol and shoved it back in his holster, pulling his goggles over his eyes and focusing upon the man he loved. He could see Tobias trying to ride the wind with directional hand-pulleys, guiding himself to a nearby mesa.
“Jazz,” Ezra spoke into his headset. “Get me to that mesa. At eleven o’clock.”
“Got it,” she replied in his ear, and the Lilliput changed direction.
Ezra couldn’t focus closely enough on Tobias’s face to see how injured he was, or if he was in any kind of pain. He had turned into a dark shadow against the sun, still twisting defiantly in the face of all odds.
Coiling a rope in his hand, Ezra latched the safety clip onto it. Below him, the mesa was looming up, and Tobias hit it with a cloud of dust billowing out from under him as he crumpled into the dirt.
As soon as he could see the ground of the mesa directly below the Lilliput, Ezra threw himself off the cockpit roof. His stomach was in his mouth, and the force of the wind was threatening to rip his ears off, but Ezra determinedly let himself free fall, the rope unspooling in his gloved hands. If they had been bare, the rope would have stripped skin off down to the bone—even with the gloves, he could feel the heat of friction. Rappelling down the side of his ship, he ran out of rope and dangled at the bottom of it for a moment before trusting himself to the fates and releasing the safety.
Like Tobias, he hit the ground too fast and lay sprawled, stunned, trying to catch his breath back. He slowly rolled over and gingerly checked himself for broken bones; he seemed okay and intact, so he stumbled to his feet, still breathing heavily and erratically.
He lumbered over to Tobias with the grace of a newborn foal.
“Kneebone?” Jazz asked in
his ear, and he realized she had been yelling at him for quite some time, probably ever since she had watched him jump off the Lilliput. “Are you okay? Speak to me!”
“Fine,” he managed to grunt. “Land as close as you can.”
He heard the engines of the Lilliput kick back in as Jazz moved off.
Tobias was trying to move as Ezra finally reached him, but the wreckage of his wings had practically caged him. It was proving difficult for him to extricate himself from them, and Ezra fell to his knees beside him.
“You’re alive,” Ezra said with relief.
“Barely.” Tobias grinned, and Ezra was alarmed to see that one of his teeth had been knocked out in his fall and blood was now pouring down his chin.
“You’re hurt,” he said gently.
“You’re not looking that great yourself,” Tobias said, running a finger along a deep cut on Ezra’s arm. “But you look pretty good to me.”
Ezra kissed him fiercely, and despite the blood, the sweat, and the grime—all of this coppery-tasting mud that he could taste—Tobias had never seemed sweeter. It was life and hope that embodied those warm lips now pressed against his, and that inviting mouth that welcomed him in.
Tobias reluctantly pulled away and gestured to the wings. “Help me.”
With hands that threatened to shake on him, Ezra began ripping at the leather and metal that covered Tobias’s back and chest. “I take it you want the money safe?”
“Of course,” Tobias laughed. “There are still people it has to get to.”
The horrendous sound of metal scraping against metal distracted them, and they looked above to see the Lilliput and the Kagu locked in combat together, the former trying to stop the Kagu from getting to them.
“I’m sorry,” Tobias breathed. “I should have known this time wouldn’t be so easy. I thought I had everything planned—”
“We’ll dust up about that later,” Ezra said, yelping as his finger ripped open from nail to knuckle as he finally managed to free Tobias from his damaged wings. They fell to the ground with an ominous clank, and Tobias began to gather the bags.
“I’ll leave the wings here,” he said. “They’re really of no use in that condition.”