The cutter's five starboard cannons fired, and slammed into the enemy's flank. Two barreled into the rigging, while two smashed their way inside the gunner windows. The fifth bounced off the metal hull and fell away. Thirty seconds later, the shells exploded. The eruptions ignited the powder in the gunner cells, and the areas blew outward. Smoke and fire bellowed from the windows, but the other cannons remained unaffected. The enemy ship rocked to its side and pulled away, before it corrected course and drew back alongside.
The Zephyrs launched their grenades, and detonations peppered the hull and rigging. Robert clipped his lifeline to the gunwale beside the cannon, and drew his braces. He targeted the port engine, and fired. A bolt of red energy lanced forward and speared the turbine. The spinning blades refracted the blast and twirled it into the gears. The turbine erupted in a deadly rain of metal.
Robert fired his second pistol at their main span, the gear assembly that positioned the wings. The impact blew off the cover, but did not affect the mechanism within.
With one turbine belching smoke and fire, the destroyer fell away, but not before the forward three batteries fired. The enemy crew corrected their previous mistake, and the shortened timing fuses allowed the shells to detonate on impact. The aft took the brunt of the assault, and the rear cannons and crews exploded into a twisted mash of metal and flesh, and the aft sails fell away. Screams from the bridge announced more damage to the command crew.
The remainder of the enemy fleet increased speed and barreled ahead of the ground force.
The invasion began.
Robert rushed to the bridge. The mechanical aeronaut and the navigational Ensign were both dead. Winslow slumped against the helm, one arm missing and the other clutching the wheel. He eased her away from her post, and laid her on the deck. Aeronauts took the helm, navigation and mechanics while Robert assessed her condition. A jagged hunk of steel pierced her sternum.
She grabbed at him, and seized his neck. Blood foamed around her lips, and bubbled when she tried to speak. Robert rested his hand alongside her cheek and held her gaze. He willed her to communicate, to share with him her last words. She stared into his blue eyes, and he watched her life slip away. He laid her head down, and drew the eight-pointed figure of the Zenzil on her brow.
Dive lower, Winslow's voice said to him. Take the Albatross lower. Skim the waters.
Robert looked up. Winslow's ethereal spirit stood above her body, but she did not notice it. She watched her ship. Even in death, her love for the Albatross held fast.
"It's too tight down there." Robert returned his gaze to her blood-stained face. "I can't pilot the ship the way you can,"
I will help you steer.
"Do you know what you're offering?" He ran a finger along her cheek. "I was trained as a Demortgal in the Temples. If you do not leave now, you will be bound to me the rest of my days."
I will save my ship.
"Very well." Robert kissed his fingertips, and laid them on her lips.
"I have the helm," he told the aeronaut at the wheel.
Possession
The helm responded with sluggish, jerking protestations. With the top gallant wing damaged, the wheel bucked against Robert's direction and shuddered in his hands. The muscles in his arms tensed and his back strained with the effort of steering through a series of evasive maneuvers.
The distant report of cannon reminded them of the enemy's presence. With each volley, the detonations drew closer.
Go lower, Winslow's ethereal voice said. Skim the water.
"Drop in elevation," Robert ordered. "Bring us down to five hundred feet."
The aeronauts stationed on the bridge did not reply, but turned a shocked and troubled gaze on him instead.
"Do I need to repeat myself?" he said through clenched teeth.
"That's too close to the deck sir," Lindstrom, the new navigational aeronaut said. Several years Robert's senior, he had an easy, confident demeanor. But now, with an enemy fleet bearing down behind them, the fear sparkled in his rounded eyes.
Robert knew the sensation well, for the terror of the situation gnawed at his intestines and tested his fortitude. He held command, however, and refused to let his inner turmoil show in the facade he presented the crew. The Sharikeen spent years teaching him poise and comportment for his future within the Temples. Whether a priest or a mage, a representative of the Sharikeen order presented a calm facade. As a master of the world around them, they led their people along the path of right action. Their tutelage schooled his face into a grim, stoic mask with a singular purpose. The sailors needed to see him calm, measured and resolute, so he projected what they needed to see.
"Their airships are too big to follow us, and we are too small to engage them," Robert said, his words precise, but his tone curt and clipped. for the helm required a great deal of his attention. "The only way we're getting back is to outrun them and avoid their cannons."
"But the hoodoos, sir," Lindstrom said. "The turns are too tight around the spires."
Robert gave an absent assent. The towering spires of stone concerned him too. The numerous pillars provided excellent cover from the enemy ships, but their haphazard spread along the river's course created a substantial danger. Robert possessed little experience steering around such tight corners and turns.
"Five hundred feet, Ensign," Robert repeated. "I promised Chief Winslow I'd save her ship and crew, and I intend to keep my word or die in the attempt. I need your help to do so."
"Aye Sir," Whelan, the boatswain said. He carried a black, ironwood stick with a rounded, bulbous tip, which he rapped against the railing. "You heard your orders, lads. Drop us to five hundred feet. Time to get our feet wet."
The crew fell to their assigned tasks, and the nose of the ship dipped toward the river below. As the senior crewman on the boat, the aeronauts obeyed the boatswain's orders without question. Robert caught his eye, and dropped his chin in thanks for his support. Whelan saluted with his stick, grinned a secretive, knowing grin, and stomped off. He called for the riggers to give the port wing slack and twirled the stick through his fingers.
Adjust your bearing two degrees starboard, Winslow whispered, though Robert heard her above the rush of the wind. The ship vented steam and increased in speed with its descent. A series of five markings spanned the wheel between the rungs, and corresponded to the small bronze directional arrow on the cross brace. Robert moved the wheel two notches to the left.
Level off. Prepare harpoons.
"Five hundred feet," Lindstrom called out from navigation.
"Level off," Robert ordered. "Prepare harpoons, starboard and port."
We only need the port, Winslow said. Her voice strengthened, and her presence beside him firmed. He felt her essence settle against him in an intimate embrace while her soul bound itself to him.
"For now," Robert told her, though he no longer needed to vocalize his words.
A hoodoo loomed before them, the sides of the towering rock worn away by water and wind, to present a mushroom shape.
"Obstruction ahead," Vilaster, the new navigator called out, his voice tight and full of concern. The hoodoo raced to fill the fore.
Six degrees starboard. Robert moved the wheel, but overcompensated and tracked to nine degrees. The ship listed to the side. Loose items skittered across the deck. The hoodoo moved to the left of the cutter, to reveal another half a mile behind it. Correct back to port. He swung the wheel back, but overshot again by two degrees.
The Albatross slid against the side of the stone tower, and a spray of sparks shot up from the metal hull scraping the quartz. Robert corrected his course, and cursed himself under his breath. A voice called for sand, and the crew dumped buckets onto the burgeoning fire that erupted near the middle cannon.
The ship's speed and trajectory sent it barreling toward the second hoodoo. A vast field of towers spread out before them.
"Fire port harpoons," Robert called, echoing Winslow's mental commands. The three guns s
ounded in succession, the harpoons slammed into the stone surface, and the metal cables pulled taut. Robert dialed the helm to port. The cutter shuddered, and swung around the hoodoo, back to the river.
"Cut the cables," Robert ordered. A series of popping explosions released the harpoons from their moorings.
Behind them, the scream of twisted metal preceded the roar of an avalanche. The crew shouted a cheer.
"One destroyer down," Vilaster reported. "It was too wide to make the turn. The hoodoo collapsed on top of it."
Robert straightened their course, and aimed for the space between the next set of pillars. Winslow laid her spectral hands over his and guided his movements. He allowed the intrusion, and put his trust in her expertise. Winslow's memories drifted across his awareness, and he let them wash over him. He accepted her possession and sifted through the most intimate details of her life while she steered the ship with his body. The cutter skimmed above the river and around the towers with precision. The shadow of the larger battleships blocked the sun, and the explosions from their artillery peppered the surrounding canyon. Under Winslow's expert guidance, they evaded the perils. The Albatross' cannon and machine guns fired with a steady rhythm, and sprayed spent brass across the metal deck.
Worry crept into Robert's soul. The Sharikeen forbid this practice for a reason. He possessed no recourse, for he saw no other way through. Still, the order would hold his actions anathema, and he struggled to quiet the protests of his conscience ingrained in him since childhood.
"The spirits of the dead crave life," he remembered his mentor, Gal'Preston say. The memory came complete with the sting of a horsewhip upon his back, the preferred method of instruction in the Temples. "You must never let them possess you." Another strike impressed the lesson in his flesh. "Once you accept their control, they will never give it back to you." The bite of the lash punctuated the words. "They will become the principal, and you the shadow."
The scars on his back tingled with the recollection.
He preferred possession to capture. He held a duty to protect the ship and its crew. Those who entered Aeresian prison camps never left. The liberation of the prison camp on the eastern Helonshore imprinted those memories upon his psyche to the same degree as the Temple.
Explosions sounded around and above the Albatross, but the bombardment created a distant distraction. The tenor of the artillery changed. They lacked the screaming whine of an incoming shell. These sizzled in the air and left behind a discharge of ozone.
Cycling chambers, Robert thought. He knew the sound well, for it haunted his dreams. He forced his way to the fore of his consciousness and looked through his own eyes, though his vision darkened. The citadel of Sharil's Forde loomed before them and straddled both banks of the river. Beams of light lanced upward from the battlements and eviscerated the airships they touched. The high energy blasts ignited the helium in the enemy ballonets, and sent the ships crashing to the river in fiery arcs.
Thank you, Robert said to Winslow. You saved the Albatross.
She did not respond, but gripped the helm tighter to deny him purchase back to his body.
Winslow, he said, and cloaked his words in sympathetic tones. You saved your ship and its crew. Your time has passed. I must return to the Dreadnaut.
Robert felt his fingers unfurl from around the rungs of the helm. Winslow's embrace lessened.
I thought, for a moment... she said.
I understand, Robert said. His vision cleared, and Winslow stepped away.
A glance behind him showed the enemy fleet slow and drift into a blockade formation. The Albatross pulled ahead and raced along the river to the citadel's docks. Robert flexed his fingers, grateful to once again control his body. Winslow's ghost stood to his right.
I didn't beat you enough, boy, his former mentor Gal'Preston said. The old man's emaciated ghost stood to Robert's left, the perpetual sneer wrinkling his features. I shouldn't be surprised you're taking on renters. You've always been a snot nosed little prick. She should have taken you and been done with it. She'd be doing the world a favor.
"Nice to see you again," Robert said to the shade, though the spirit ignored his sarcasm. Robert did not anticipate the reappearance when he allowed Winslow to attach herself to him. In hindsight, it might have been a poor choice.
Save your cheek, Gal'Preston said. I'll never understand...
Robert let the petulant ghost drone on. Maybe he should have allowed the enemy to take him after all.
The Guns of Sharil's Forde
The Aeresian fleet approached Sharil's Forde and brought the thunder of cannon with it. Their great gathered mass crowded out the sun and cast a pall across the landscape. Before them ran the cutter, which dodged with unpredictable dips and turns in a desperate attempt to evade capture. Tiny, single manned crafts detached from the battleships and swarmed like angry bees around the Albatross. The cutter's machine guns raked dotted tracer lines across the enemy trajectories. Where the bullets hit, the fliers folded upon themselves and plunged to the earth below. The great battleships hung at a higher altitude, while the smaller, more agile destroyers coordinated the pursuit.
The gunnery units atop the citadel opened fire.
Artillery filled the canyon with a barrage of shells and energy beams. Detonations echoed along the river's length, and rolled across the water. Destroyers burst into flames and fell from the sky; the white smoke of their cannons a counterpoint to the roiling black plumes from the conflagrations they became. Their fuel spilled in dripping tongues of fire across the sheer canyon walls and banks, alighting the stone and water.
Through the flames pushed the vanguard of the infantry ranks along both roads.
The first wave of airships collapsed before the strength of the onslaught, and the remaining fleet took position just out of range. The Albatross barreled from the chaos, and pulled contrails of steam and smoke behind it. It held a straight course and hugged the river, but quivered on occasion from the damage it sustained. The injured craft strained to remain airborne. The flier's weapons punched holes in the cutter's hull, and the punctured helium lines of the inverter hissed in aggravation. What remained in the ballonets kept them afloat, but it raced away to join the atmosphere. Smoke poured from the aft turbine, and damage decorated the canvas wings and rigging.
Robert saw the Citadel's docks. He counted the gunnery units entrenched on the battlements and earthen works before the walls. The sight heartened him, but he knew the distance prevented a homecoming. Crippled, the Albatross could not reach the safety of the Keep.
"All hands brace for impact," Robert called from his position at the helm. Vilaster helped hold the wheel to his left, and Bayliff grasped it to his right. Their lifelines attached to the single wheelhouse mount. The three of them fought the vacillations of the rudder and kept the compass arrow within the bezel, but their muscles approached the threshold of exhaustion.
"Three hundred feet and dropping," Lindstrom reported from tactical. "Starboard turbine is redlining."
"Angle turbines thirty-five degrees," Robert repeated Winslow's orders aloud for the crew to hear.
"Angling thirty-five degrees," the boatswain, Whelan said. The groan of shifting metal followed the command, and the prow of the ship straightened.
"Ease the wings."
The canvas billowed with the easing tension, and caught the wind. The cutter bucked and its speed plummeted.
"Full stop." Robert called, and the boatswain repeated the order. The turbines slowed with the clank of the chadburn and the forward velocity ceased. The Albatross glided through the air, and shook with the first impact against the water's surface. It took to the air again, but did not stay aloft. It bounced several more times, before it settled into the water. The vessel's momentum carried it against the current, and the trio at the helm steered it to the starboard shore.
The rasp of the hull scraping against gravel sounded when the airship beached on the bank.
"All hands abandon ship,"
Robert ordered. He unclipped Vilaster and Bayliff's lifelines before releasing his own. "Lindstrom, how long until the enemy vanguard is on top of us?"
The navigational aeronaut scampered over to the tactical console, and searched among the gear stowed there.
"Where's the glass?" he said.
"Two miles behind us," Whelan said from his perch atop the railing. "And closing fast. We have less than a half hour."
Robert did not stop to ask how he arrived at the assessment without the aid of a looking glass. Instead, he unslung his riffle and pointed to the three corpses laid out at the rear of the wheelhouse.
"Break out the terra-track," he said. "We're not leaving them here. Pull whatever armaments and ammunition you can fit, especially the cycling cannons and charges. No point giving supplies to the enemy. We're probably going to need them before too long, anyway."
"Sir," Whelan said from the bottom of the wheelhouse steps. "If I may be so bold?"
"Speak Boatswain," Robert said. He pulled the log and code books from the Chief's station and stuffed them into a haversack that he threw over his shoulder.
"Whelan, sir," he said. "I have no need for titles today."
"What's on your mind, Whelan?"
"I'd like to leave a little present for our guests," Whelan said. "We both know they'll swarm over the Albatross looking for what pickings they can find. Wouldn't be very gracious of us not to leave them a little something to remember us by."
Robert looked up while stuffing the signal flags into the sack.
"How long do you need?"
"Five minutes." Whelan waved his stick with a careless gesture. Robert studied him, weighing the proposal. Unlike the other aeronauts, his long black hair formed a bun on the back of his skull. He wore his immaculate uniform with a rakish attention to flair. The man had an arrogance about him, a quiet sureness that went beyond mere confidence. The easy, effortless smirk showed eagerness, as if he enjoyed himself.
"Five minutes, then," Robert said. "Do what you can, Boatswain."
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