Born Hero

by S A Shaffer

  David nodded. “Chain-guns and chemical throwers. Good for killing crew but not so good at taking down airships.” He puzzled at that. It didn’t surprise him that the sides of the ship were stacked with short-range weapons, but if they meant to take the ship, why hadn’t they swept the deck with chain-gun fire? Taking Blythe alive, then. “Any others?”

  “There’s a pair of guns sticking out of the front, but I can’t see anything other than the barrels. They’re … large.”

  Some sort of heavy cannon. Something like that could bring down an airship, and it could do it from a long way off. But guns like those had limited maneuverability, and if the Sunbeam could gain some elevation, they might be able to avoid them. David looked back. The first Prowler had finished its clumsy turn and was even now careening toward them. He only had a few more seconds until it caught up. Then it happened: the first shot of the engagement—but not from the second Prowler. The hot-tempered captain of the first one had burned through his limited supply of patience in the first maneuver. The shot went wide, exploding a hundred fathoms in front of the Sunbeam.

  “Incendiary rounds … great,” David muttered.

  He looked for something to level the playing field. He hadn’t much time before things would get messy. He couldn’t flee, and he couldn’t climb if there was a ship above him. But he had another option, one that made him grin.

  David dropped the ship’s elevation, a move that appeared foolish when pitting a Sunbeam against a Prowler. He flew so low that the bottom of his keel kicked up dust from the ground, and he angled directly toward the wreckage of an old behemoth-class mining vessel.

  “Try using sails in here,” David mumbled as he speared his narrow ship between two steel ribs of the wreckage while rotating the turbofans into full reverse.

  Mercy shrieked as the Sunbeam passed through the space with only a fathom to spare on either side.

  David spun the wheel hard, placing the ship in full reverse and narrowly missing several rusty girders and a partially intact cargo bay door. He looked behind them, breathing a sigh of relief when the second Prowler did not pursue, choosing rather to fly above the wreckage. As the Sunbeam rounded a bay door, David saw the entire length of the old mining ship, the Sunbeam floating along its keel. The whole wreckage looked like it might collapse in a light breeze, rust and time subduing metal.

  The Sunbeam entered at the middle of the oblong ship. The old girl’s disintegrating top deck acted as a kind of ceiling, shading the rest of the ship from the desert sun. Here and there hundred-fathom shafts of light speared through the top deck and illuminated fine dust particulates. The bow of the old miner had disintegrated away, perhaps decades earlier, leaving the front as a gaping hole that cast a shadow onto the sand beyond. That’s where the second Prowler had most likely gone. At the stern of the old ship, a jagged crack slashed at an angle across the hull, a rift probably caused when the vessel impacted against the desert sands.

  After taking stock of his surroundings, David did what all excellent captains do: he gambled, hedging his bet off a momentary glimpse at a hot-tempered man.

  He put the ship in full reverse and rotated his turbofans. The Sunbeam spun 180 degrees along its axis. The belly of the mining vessel clouded as cycles of undisturbed dust filled the air. He halted the Sunbeam in the shadow of the rusted cargo bay door. From his vantage point David saw the space between the ribs where he’d entered the wreckage. There, David waited, counting off seconds in his head.

  “David, what are we doing?” Mercy asked.

  “Something stupid.”

  “What?”

  But David didn’t explain any further, for the moment he’d expected had arrived. The first Prowler plunged through the same gap in the miner’s ribs, the heated captain throwing caution to the wind. His wider ship fit through the gap, but not as clean as the Sunbeam. The Prowler’s right side scraped along a steel rib, bending the barrels of the port-side guns. A loud screech reverberated within the wreckage, each echo gaining volume.

  David didn’t waste any time as he pushed the turbofans to max power, accelerating the Sunbeam along a collision course. The captain of the first Prowler didn’t have time to maneuver away from him; in fact he probably didn’t even see him. The hot-tempered man had entered the wreckage at twice the speed as David and had to place his ship in emergency reverse before he smashed into the miner’s opposite side. The Prowler stopped directly in front of his course.

  David adjusted his aim, increasing altitude and squeezing the bars of the wheel so hard that even his mechanical knuckles turned white.

  He flicked on the ship-wide intercom. “This is David Ike. Brace for impact.”

  “Oh no!” Mercy said, closing her eyes as she laced her arms around the control tower railing.

  David held his breath, adjusting his altitude one last time and praying he was accurate in his approximation of the keel’s length. The Prowler disappeared from David’s view as the Sunbeam passed over it. For a moment David wondered if he’d missed. But then the Sunbeam bucked, throwing him against the wheel. It felt as if the air around the Sunbeam had changed to tar and the vessel struggled to break free of the viscous substance. When he heard the tear of cloth and the hiss of aerosol, he knew his aim had been true.

  He’d sliced the top of the Prowler’s balloon with the Sunbeam’s serrated keel, its tip piercing through the heavyweight fabric, catching in the fibers, and ripping it apart. David laughed and shot Mercy a half grin, but his expression vanished when the Sunbeam pitched forward. His feet slid on the deck as he fell hard against the wheel. He looked up and saw the sand rapidly approaching. He hadn’t accounted for their keel catching in the fabric of the Prowler’s balloon. The Sunbeam’s turbofans, which had previously been directing them forward, now propelled them nose-first toward the dirt and what would be a very messy impact. He reached for the gyroscopic controls and spun them to the reverse position, halting the Sunbeam’s glass observatory mere fathoms above a dusty demise.

  As the ship righted itself, he heated the balloon and propelled the Sunbeam up and away from the first Prowler. The ship moved sluggishly, so he added more power, and then more power. He was about to throttle up a third time when he realized the problem: the Sunbeam’s keel was stuck fast. They were dragging the Prowler through the air by the sinews of its own balloon. The danger was that if the Prowler ripped free, David risked smashing into what was left of the miner’s top deck before he could throttle down.

  In retrospect, if David could have seen the sight of a Sunbeam with its keel stuck fast in a Prowler filled with angry Outlanders while hovering in the middle of a rusting old miner wreck, he might have paused to admire the airmanship. As it was, his hands moved in a blur as he did everything he knew to keep them airborne. As he reminded himself to never again underestimate the tensile strength of a Prowler balloon, he decided one more gamble was in order. Jeshua had smiled on them so far; perhaps He would see them through.

  David cut power to the turbofans, vented the balloon, and waited as gravity reached up and tugged on the airship. A moment later—once he’d felt a familiar tingle in his stomach—he reheated the balloon and directed the turbofans straight down at full power. The Sunbeam jerked, and he heard a tear as the Prowler balloon ripped free. He leveled off the Sunbeam’s balloon and directed their craft forward, narrowly avoiding the miner’s top deck. As the Sunbeam lurched toward the miner’s stern, he chanced a glance backward. He watched the first Prowler fall at an angle, one half of the balloon still providing lift, and then collide with a steel beam. He smiled as he heard the impact echo through the ship—until he realized that it wasn’t an echo, but rather secondary impacts as the weakened state of the mining vessel protested the abuse. Sheets of metal as long as the Sunbeam fell from the deck above them, sending up great clouds of dust as they thudded on the sandy floor. The old vessel groaned, admonishing the brawlers who dared to disturb its peaceful slumber. Then a chain as thick as David clinked as it swung mere feet
from the Sunbeam’s prow, wrapping around a massive I-beam. David looked back at the bow of the old miner and saw the second Prowler hovering in front of the gaping hole. Even as David watched, the miner’s ribs and crossbeams snapped as the middle of the ship crumbled upon itself, the collapse working its way toward its outer ends. The Sunbeam had moments before it would join the miner in its final death, sharing in its dusty tomb. They had one chance of escape.

  David eyed the rift that split the back of the miner’s hull, tilting his head to match its angle. It just might be big enough. He slammed the ship’s turbofans into high power. The Sunbeam careened toward the crack, the miner’s collapsing deck giving chase. He looked at the switches Captain Arold had mentioned earlier, the ones that inflated keel balloons and rolled the Sunbeam. He flicked one on and prayed as the deck shifted and the ship matched the angle of the rift.

  “David!” Mercy shouted. “We won’t fit—not with the turbofans.”

  David didn’t answer, mostly because he knew she was right. As the stern neared, debris started falling all around them. A metal pole bounced off the Sunbeam’s deck, scoring the polymer. The vessel leaned at thirty degrees, which was David’s best approximation of the rift in the miner’s stern. He waited until the last possible second, until he had squeezed every bit of acceleration out of the remaining distance, before he cut power to the turbofans and initiated the docking sequence. He didn’t know how long it took for the fans to fold against the sides of a Sunbeam, so he just based his timing off all he had and prayed it was enough. The ship floated along the same path, speeding toward the rift as the fans folded in at a lazy rate, mocking the impending collision.

  Now that the fans were off, David could hear Mercy—and others below—screaming and shouting above the racket of the collapsing miner. He wanted to close his eyes, but he figured that it wouldn’t be a good thing for someone to do while piloting. Debris fell all around the ship, each fragment threatening instant death for the Sunbeam and all hands. The air sparkled with dust as the light pouring through the rift clouded.

  Then the front of the Sunbeam passed through the rift, the unscathed glass observatory reflecting in the sunlight. David could almost taste the free air, but the turbofans were not quite folded. He decided to join the others and let out a loud shout.

  At the last possible second the fans clicked into place and the Sunbeam skidded through the crack, sparks flying as a few jagged scraps of metal scraped the ship’s gilded surface. It was not a moment too soon, for as they burst into the sunlight, the last of the mining vessel’s skeleton collapse into the sands behind them, sending up an enormous dust cloud.

  David wasted no time. He righted the Sunbeam and superheated the balloon. The ship shot into the sky as its turbofans extended from their cradles and reengaged. He looked back at the miner’s wreck. He couldn’t see much beneath the cloud of dust, but as he watched, the Prowler with the dual prow rose out of the billowing sands, like a submersible rising out of the ocean. It didn’t pursue, not now. The Sunbeam had the advantage of altitude, and the Prowler needed to search for survivors from their unfortunate counterpart.

  David slumped against the wheel and wiped the sweat from his brow. He’d had enough excitement for one day, and his adrenaline was plummeting, leaving a nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  He looked over at Mercy, who stared at him with wide eyes before asking, “Where in the Fertile Plains did you learn to fly like that?”

  ROMANCE OR ESPIONAGE?

  David breathed a sigh of relief and rested his head against the wheel. He wanted nothing more than to curl up on the floor and fall asleep. Luckily an engineer came from below deck and relieved him. David hobbled down the stairs, mind in a daze before he collapsed into one of the many sun chairs. He felt hot and cold at the same time, sweating and nauseated. He rested his head in his hands and took long, slow breaths. He jumped when someone touched his back. He looked up as Mercy sat beside him and rubbed his tense shoulders. She knit her eyebrows but didn’t say anything.

  He closed his eyes and rested his head back in his hands. He heard heavy feet stomping up the stairs. Blythe and Johnson barked out questions, but it sounded far off, like an echo underwater. David looked up and tried to stutter out a reply, but his addled mind only muddied thoughts and slurred words.

  That was when something very unexpected happened: Mercy came to his aid. She actually hushed them—two of the most powerful men in Alönia … and she hushed them. After which, in a far more subdued tone, she explained what happened, how the captain got squeamish and David saved them all. Only the highlights penetrated his mind. He worked his mouth a few times, but gave up and let Mercy explain for him, nodding along.

  Blythe and Johnson listened to her story, their expression changing from anger to surprise to shock. Evidently the two men had observed the whole episode from safety restraints in the glass observatory and wanted to know why the blazes David was piloting the ship in the face of such danger.

  “But the captain? He actually jumped ship?” Johnson kept asking.

  Blythe walked forward and squeezed one of David’s shoulders, saying, “Well done, lad. I do believe you saved all our lives. However, in future, let’s avoid running into other airships. Now, Mr. Johnson, would you be so good as to lend me a fresh pair of trousers and then direct me to the nearest washroom so I can change into them?”

  After the men walked away, David opted to lie down on his back in the sun chair, gazing up at the expanse of clear blue sky. Golden rays of sunshine warmed his face. He never remembered falling asleep.

  When he awoke, he wore a blanket. The weather had soured, a sure sign they were nearing the island portion of Alönia. He sat up and looked around. Blythe and Johnson spoke at the front of the airship, Blythe telling some elaborate story while using his hands to form buildings and mountains and airships. Devin hovered behind them, facing Johnson, but all the while looking at David. While David might have been groggy, he still thought that strange. He thought about waving when he discovered Devin wasn’t actually looking at him, but rather at something behind him. David shifted on his sun chair and saw Mercy, red hair whipping in the breeze as she walked toward him, a steaming mug of tea in each hand. At some point during the day’s adventure, she’d lost her sailor’s cap, but he couldn’t remember when.

  “Feeling better?” Mercy asked as she neared.

  “Yes, much.” David accepted one of her cups with a smile. “I didn’t know I was so tired.”

  “Everybody was a little drowsy after that episode—everyone except Mr. Blythe and Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson even had the chefs prepare a second lunch, and Mr. Blythe hasn’t stopped talking since.”

  David chuckled at that, looking back as Blythe executed the punch line of some exciting tale.

  Mercy sat across from him with her own steaming mug and continued, “You probably felt it most of all, given the fact you bore the lives of the whole ship on your shoulders.” She took a sip of her tea, eyeing him over the brim of her mug before she said, “You never did tell me where you learned to fly an airship like that.”

  David looked into his own mug, eyeing the tea as it swirled. “My father taught me. He was an exceptional airship captain himself. His father taught him.”

  “And they’re … gone?”

  David nodded. “Dead. My father died saving my mother and me. That’s where I got this.” David wiggled his metal fingers. “My grandfather died a few weeks later. He was old, and the shock of losing his only son was too much for him. Now it’s just my mom and I.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mercy said, and she looked it. She looked in pain, like the conversation hurt her. “Sometimes Jeshua works in ways we do not understand.”

  David shrugged and searched for something else to talk about. He didn’t like talking about Jeshua. He and his parents used to be religious Sanctuary folk, but times had changed for him. Jeshua had turned away, and he had to help himself now. “Perhaps … but it was a long time ago, an
d, all things considered, life’s been good to me. I’ve got a great job. Mr. Blythe helps me out with my housing costs and my mother’s medical expenses. I know I lost a lot, but look how much I have. I look around at everyone else in the Houselands and I think, I’ve got it pretty good.”

  Mercy smiled at him. She was gorgeous. David had seen a lot of things this trip. He’d seen the sun rising over Capital Bay. He’d seen the Alönian mountains shrouded in their heavenly mists. He’d seen the rolling House Floyd farmlands and the unruly Desert Maw. But none of it struck him as deeply as that smile. It was more than beautiful; it was pure, heartfelt, intelligent … sincere.

  “Nothing dampens your spirits, does it?” Mercy said.

  “Would I be any better off if they were?”

  “That’s a good point. Most Alönians would tell you yes, but it’s a lie.”

  “Everybody has something to complain about, but I think if anyone was to sit down and think about it, they could see how much worse life could be. After my father and grandfather died, the only thing I could think about was how happy I was that I still had my mother.”

  “Counting your blessings?”

  “Yes, I suppose I was.”

  At that moment the first mate announced over the ship-wide intercom that they were approaching the Landings and would be descending momentarily. By the time David and Mercy finished their tea, airmen had tied the ship off along the sky dock.

  “Let me get you a taxi home,” Mercy said. “It’s the least I could do to thank you. If it weren’t for you, I might have been captured by Outlanders and sold into slavery.” She put her hand over her mouth in mock surprise.

  David smiled and looked down. “Well, all right, but I’m paying you back as soon as I get that raise Mr. Blythe keeps mentioning.”

  “Of course. I’ll add it to the bill.”

  “David,” Blythe said as he and Johnson approached. “How are you feeling? You looked pretty pale earlier.”