Druid's Descendants

by Mark Philipson

  After securing the anchoring talons, Poormina reached under the pilot’s seat. From a compartment under the chair, she removed a tubular rod fitted with a cog on one end and a circular disc. She placed the tools in a holder on her belt and adjusted environmental settings on her flight skin to match conditions outside of the cockpit.

  Poormina sat down and leaned her head back, connecting the input port on the back of her neck to the Coreglass fiber network. She siphoned off a charge and diverted it to the hind legs. Ankles above the talons straightened as Coreglass reinforced ceramic tendons, received the power surge. The knees followed, bringing the ship into an upright position.

  Captain Kalapedia set a timer to end rigid landing mode in five minutes. After double-checking the wireless transmitter located inside the ear layer of the flight skin suit, Poormina activated the timer and opened the door of the cockpit.

  Poormina looked up. She lifted the disc off her belt. Distance and velocity calculations scrolled on the surface of the disc. Poormina tossed the disc skyward when the figures stopped. A cable unwound and streamed behind.

  The disc climbed, reached the cliff’s edge, and hovered in place. A set of blades sprang out from the circular edge as the disc fell. The blades penetrated the ice. Spurs extended from the tips, locking the disc into place.

  The captain reached out, grabbing onto the dangling cable, she adjusted her skin suit to reduce its weight and pulled herself clear of the ship’s shoulders. Poormina braced her legs and began the hand-over-hand ascent to the top, keeping her weight backed off by by two-thirds.

  At the top, Poormina pulled herself over the ledge. She peered over the side. The Scout, now relaxing in normal landing mode, hung upside down on the face. Tons of ice shielded the airship from incoming southbound sonar waves.

  Captain Kalapedia stepped away from the snowdrifts near the ledge. Where the ice became solid, she dropped to one knee and removed the tube. Poormina turned the tip downward and twisted the cog on the back. Flame blasted out of the front end. The captain dialed the fiery tip into a glowing pinpoint and then plunged it into the the ice. Poormina traced a square. When the last edge was ascribed, the captain extracted a block of ice and put it in an insulated sleeve on her suit. She picked up the cutting tool and returned to the ledge.

  When the Coreglass network received the transmission to resume upright landing position, the Scout’s hind legs stiffened and rotated, facing the ship’s belly to the ice wall.

  Poormina, grasping the cable, scaled down the ice wall and stepped onto the bat airship’s shoulder. She climbed back into the cockpit. From the arm of the pilot’s seat, the captain slid out a drawer and set the ice sample in it. Jets on the inside of the drawer sprayed a fine mist, keeping the shard frozen.

  The captain accessed the landing gear interface, backed out the talons, deployed the air bubble, and ignited the jet pods. When the tips of the claws cleared the ice, Poormina engaged forward thrust. The ship climbed.

  At 10,000 meters, Captain Kalapedia guided the airship into a roll, banked, and then leveled off.

  Poormina activated navigation control and plotted a reciprocal heading back to the equator and Hyderabad airport.

  28

  ON THE GATO Kujira Maru, Captain Kamura peered at climbing power level indicators populating the ship’s display screens. After mulling over an idea, he messaged Mission Specialist Sato:

  — Calculate how much power will need to be diverted to execute this strategy? See attached file.

  Sobuku read the message and then opened the attached document. The Captain wanted to use the recently installed head gun as an ice cutting tool. He outlined the plan in the document.

  Sobuku opened the ballistics directory. Scrolling through the armament definition index, she stopped at an entry marked Continuous Fire. The mission technical specialist reasoned that a constant rate of fire, adjusted to spray a diluted stream, would probably serve the purpose. Once she had the technique pinpointed, Sobuku ran power drain and consumption diagnostics. She messaged:

  — Program is ready.

  — Compile.

  — Aye, Captain.

  Sobuku executed the initial iteration. On the first run, the program failed. She studied the code blocks and set breakpoints at what she determined to be critical junctures. After adjusting a mathematical formula, Sobuku ran the program again. It compiled past the first break-point to hang up two down.

  The engineer continued, combing through and fixing logical errors. When the last break-point was reached and the last error resolved, Sobuku uploaded the final compiled version of the program to the Coreglass network and then messaged:

  — Program loaded.

  Captain Kamura plugged in, searched for and located the program Sobuku named Burnout and loaded it onto the simulator display. Kenshin studied the parameters associated with the procedure. The captain adjusted the ship’s ballast, submerging the whale until water lapped at the upper sides of the head.

  Accessing the main power supply, Kenshin isolated one-third of available power and assigned it to the Burnout program. The head gun came online. The captain set the cross-hairs on a point well beyond the bow of the ship. When Kenshin activated the trigger mechanism, a beam of light burst out of the barrel and carved a hole in the ice shelf.

  Kenshin continued, spraying the beam in a semi-circular pattern. Ahead of the watership, huge shards of ice melted, filling the dredged channel with water.

  The Gato swam into the first canal. Kenshin continued cutting a path through the ice. The watership followed the beam as it plowed a trench across the shelf.

  At the perimeter, where the shelf dropped into the ocean, Kenshin burrowed a hole down the vertical face of the cliff. Pushed by tons of melting water, the Gato worked its way down the interior of the ice wall.

  At 50 meters above sea level, the captain elevated the barrel and directed the blast beam at a 90° angle. Water pushed the Gato out of the hole. The whale fell in the resulting waterfall and dove beneath the surface.

  Captain Kamura waited for the damage report. A series of gouges had ripped the whale’s underbelly as the ship passed over the break in the ice wall. Kenshin diverted battery power. Massive abrasions fused, healed over, joining hundreds of scars sustained in battles with giant squid.

  In the open water, when the ice berg field had been cleared, Kenshin stayed on the calm surface and brought the ship to three-quarters of full speed.

  Sobuku studied power output levels. The raw Brahmantium deposits in the material used to manufacture the gun, when merged with the ship’s Coreglass power pack, gave the watership a range of 40,000 kilometers. At this rate, the Gato could make the return trip to Hirokawa four times before refueling.

  In Hyberadad, Director Varma received a message from the commander of the air force:

  — Military Intelligence has reviewed Captain Kalapedia’s mission outline. Deploying another long range airship to intercept and destroy watership Gato Kujira Maru currently deployed in the polar region.

  The director wasn’t aware of the flight. There were some things that were above his station, and this was one of them. He could see the members of the counsel all perceiving the changing weather patterns at the north pole as a threat to the established way of life under the glass dome.

  From the airport at Hyberadad, hangar doors opened. A long range airship, a pair of torpedoes attached to its abdomen, spread massive wingtips to 100 meters and soared skyward into the clouds.

  On board the Gato, Kenshin emitted the enhanced sonar signal. As the wave accelerated to Mach 4, the captain waited, listening intently for the first incoming ping.

  As the watership neared the latitudes where the calm polar seas ended and merged with the wind-blown waves of the World Ocean, Kenshin noticed a variance in the tonal pitch of a returning sonar wave. He passed it along to Sobuku for a visual render.

  On the research deck, the visual interpreter snapped a wire-frame grid to a winged object. The ship’s dat
abase cataloged the approaching object as a Raider class bat-airship and put its predicted course on an intercept with the Gato.

  The airship homed in on the Gato’s sonar pattern and accelerated. Kenshin messaged:

  — Armed?

  — Two ceramic torpedoes tipped with explosive warheads.

  Captain Kamura brought the Gato into a vertical dive and routed sonar wave transmission through the head gun barrel and into the deep water.

  Returning pings from the fanned-out signal revealed a system of canyons cutting into the bottom. As the Gato beat its tail and plunged downward, the airship continued to accelerate and close the distance. Kenshin messaged:

  — Speed?

  — Mach 2 and climbing.

  In the open water, engulfed in liquid space, the whale-watership was vulnerable to attack from a homing missile. If the captain could get in the cover of the underwater crevices and fissures, he’d be able to use the topography to his advantage.

  The Gato swam harder as it raced to the bottom.

  The Raider accelerated to Mach 3 as it descended and lined up in a firing position.

  The watership reached the bottom, entering a walled canyon at the same moment the pilot of the airship launched the first torpedo.

  29

  IN THE COCKPIT of the Raider, the pilot merged the bat’s sonar emissions with the spinning gyroscopes and meshing cogs housed in the torpedo’s guidance system.

  Compressed sonar signals broke the surface, struck the diving Gato, and pinged back. The descending torpedo splashed down and locked in on its intended target.

  In the conning tower, Captain Kamura noticed a tonal difference in a set of returning pings. As the duration between sounds drew closer together, the captain brought the ship hard to starboard. The chasing sonar waves wavered for a few seconds and then zeroed in on the fleeing watership.

  Kenshin messaged:

  — Give me a fix on the warhead?

  — Sonar guided - Tip packed with one gram of weapons grade artificial Brahmantium - Armed by proximity fuse set to detonate 10 meters from structural analysis of intended target.

  — Blast radius?

  — Maximum effective range of shock wave extension is 100 meters.

  Kenshin’s studied incoming sonar, his mind worked desperately to decipher the contours of the bottom. The wide entrance to the canyon narrowed, forking out into a winding network of deep gorges.

  After ingesting the incoming data, Captain Kamura executed another maneuver: the captain ascended toward the top of the narrow gorge, raking the ship’s flanks across the sharp-edged ravine walls. Shards of skin, padded with layers of fat, sunk downward.

  Kenshin turned hard to port, re-centering the watership in the shaft. The torpedo realigned, tipping as it centered the explosive-tipped warhead on the beating flukes.

  From the torpedo, a sonar signal confirmed the object directly ahead matched composite structure of the intended target. When the piece of skin and blubber drifted to within 30 meters of the approaching torpedo, the warhead detonated.

  A flash of white light burst and then expanded to the edges of the gorge and deflected off the walls. A line of compressed water radiated from the epicenter of, corkscrewing upward and showering downward.

  Captain Kamura invoked full-power. The Coreglass battery, enhanced from merging with the raw Brahmantium of the head gun, pushed the Gato beyond 60 kilometers per hour.

  The outer edge of the approaching shock wave reached the watership’s flukes seconds before the bow broke the surface. Upward rushing water peeled away long strips of flesh as the Gato jumped clear of the mounting swells rolling across the surface.

  The pilot of the Raider got a visual fix on the watership as it turned and executed a 90° dive. The pilot locked onto submerging tail flukes and released the second torpedo.

  The Raider descended, circling the coordinates of the diving ship-whale and guiding the torpedo toward touchdown.

  On the Gato, Kenshin kept the bow pointed down, plunging the watership into the dark depths of the submarine canyon.

  The head gun rotated and projected sonar signals in a 360° pattern.

  The torpedo slammed into the crest of a wave and disappeared in the depths as it drilled down into the trough.

  Angling toward the bottom, the torpedo leveled upon reaching the coordinates set on release and then turned on its nose to give chase to the target.

  Captain Kamura waited. He messaged Sobuku:

  — Set projectiles to turbulent seeking mode.

  — Aye.

  Sobuku ran the ammunition profiles, altering the basic projectiles guidance gyros to locate and lock-on to changes in water density.

  On the second sweep of the head gun, when the incoming ping established the trajectory of the approaching torpedo, the captain locked the cross-hairs on a flashing dot.

  Kenshin closed off the sonar sweeper and armed the forward-mounted rifle. He fired a three round volley, brought the Gato around 180°, and powered at full-speed toward the surface.

  The projectiles detected minute variations in water pressure, confirmed the predicted dimensions of the incoming object and fanned out to match the circular shape of the target.

  The pilot continued circling, guiding sonar waves toward a living object on a vertical climb. He swerved to avoid an incoming projectile that exploded beyond the stern. The torpedo arced upward as a second projectile passed below.

  The third projectile met the nose of the torpedo. The massive explosion following the collision and the resulting shock wave dissipated before catching up with the Gato’s tail flukes.

  The Raider class bat airship, stripped of its primary weapons payload, circled back around. The pilot activated twin 40 millimeter cannons, each mounted beneath the tips of the wing segments.

  The pilot had made the decision to remain in the area and verify a prospective kill. Seeing the submerging tail and hearing the ping-back at the same time, he fired a volley when the center of the gun sights indicated a target.

  One round struck the Gato’s starboard fluke, penetrating through layers of fat and ripping through the hide in a shower of blood and blubber.

  With its tail disabled, the watership ceased its dive, drifting slowly toward the bottom.

  The captain messaged:

  — Set rounds to detonate on heat signals.

  Sobuku, not acknowledging the captain’s command, ran the program to the head gun firing mechanism.

  As the Raider closed in, Captain Kamura waved the Gato’s pectoral fins until the whale-watership righted itself and rose toward the surface.

  From under the water, the captain lined up the head gun’s sights on the incoming bat and held the stream of projectiles to full automatic. Each round locked onto the temperature of the gun barrels and set a trajectory directed to that heat signal.

  As the pilot of the Raider returned fire, incoming rounds fired from the watership’s head gun greeted outgoing rounds blasting out of the airship’s wing cannons.

  The Raider’s wings split at the impact site and then burst into flames. The body of the bat, no longer airborne, dropped and then tumbled as it skidded across the surface and sank beneath the waves.

  On the research deck, Sobuku received a message from the bridge:

  — Damage report.

  — Aye, Captain.

  Sobuku, now that the encounter was over, clenched her fists to stop trembling hands and wiped dripping beads of sweat off her forehead with the back of her wrist.

  30

  ON THE RESEARCH deck, Sobuku leaned back. After plugging in, she accessed the Coreglass mainframe and then deployed a status scan. The report came back:

  Port tail fluke penetrated as a result of direct hit - Thrust capabilities disabled - Fourteen rows of maxillonasalis muscle torn - Sonar operation reduced by 40 percent - Fracture running entire length of lower jaw - Setting healing parameters -

  Once Sobuku delivered the report to the bridge, Captain Kamura initiate
d the healing procedure.

  The captain kept the ship level as the Gato Kujira Maru attained negative buoyancy and sank into the depths. Kenshin guided the ship to a clearing and eased it onto the sand.

  From the bridge, the captian plugged in and ran the healing program: parameters defined in the damage report allocated energy resources from within the cores of the enhanced Brahmantium battery and distributed the healing procedures equally to the affected parts of the ship.

  Layers of fat on the ragged edges of the wound accepted a series of energy surges. Threads of blubber expanded, merging halfway across the gaping hole. When fat cells fused, healing energy bursts, following directions outlined in the program, migrated into neighboring skin cells. Sections of the hide inched away from the borders of the wound, replicated themselves, and came together as one piece.

  Status feedback indicated tail fluke repair 100 percent complete and thrust capabilities restored to maximum levels.

  The torn muscles came next on the healing program. Energy bursts concentrated on the rips and separations running through the thick muscular fibers. As tissue mended and swelling eased, the displacement pressure pushing the liquid in the massive oil sack decreased until sonar normalized.

  Program directed Brahmantium bursts zeroed in a split beginning at the upper part of the mandible terminating at the tip of the lower jaw. Replicated bone marrow cells expanded, hardening when reaching the broken edge of the bone and bonding the fracture back together. The Gato would be able to feed and refuel.

  The captain messaged Sobuku:

  — Entering silent run.

  — Aye, Captain.

  Kenshin closed off the connection from the head gun base to the Gato’s hide. Keeping a few meters off the bottom, Captain Kamura guided the watership dead slow under limited power. By doing this, the captain hoped to decrease the whale’s sonar footprint and at the same time move away from the coordinates where the encounter with the Raider class airship took place.

  In Hyderabad, Captain Kalapedia descended through a layer of clouds and swooped the Scout bat into the open bay doors of a waiting hangar.