The Immortal Storm (Sky Chaser Book 1) (26 page)

58
The Arrival

“Beaufort, halt!” the Corrector said, stumbling backward against the cabinets. She held up a desperate, shaking hand. “Halt I said. Beaufort, no don't -”

The Umbrella Man's giant hand closed around the Corrector's throat. He lifted her and shook her like a doll. The mempod jumped from her grasp and clattered on the tiles. Seeing the Corrector rendered powerless and afraid, satisfied some dark streak in Kite. Why shouldn't the woman suffer for all she had done?

The Corrector's metal nails slashed at the Umbrella Man's sleeve. She kicked and clawed, but there was no escaping the automechanical's crushing grasp. Soon she was gurgling for each precious breath, eyes rolling in their sockets. Seconds of life left.

Kite frowned. “Ember, let her go,” he said, realising if Corrector died he'd never find out where Fleer was being held.

The Umbrella Man twisted his head, wheezing in confusion.

“Leave her,” said Kite. “She's not worth it.”

Metal fingers snapped open. The Corrector crumpled into a gasping, shuddering heap. She crawled away, finding a corner to huddle in, clutching her red-raw throat.

“Where's Fleer?” Kite demanded, pushing by the Umbrella Man.

The Corrector croaked incoherently, sucking in lungful breaths.

“Tell me!” Kite said.

The door to the Corrector’s office clattered open. Soldiers piled in, three of them at least. A Sergeant amongst them blurted out, “Corrector, the Admiral sent us to -”

A stunned, horrified pause.

Then the men went for their weapons and Kite knew what would happen next. The Umbrella Man grunted and swung about, smashing aside the table and chair. Like a five-ton fist the Umbrella Man came down on the soldiers. He smashed in their heads. He snapped their arms. He stamped on them like toy soldiers broken in a moment's rage.

Kite wanted to throw up. Hot blood and metal stained the air. The Umbrella Man stood blood-speckled and motionless in the grim aftermath. Was Ember silently puzzling over what she had done? Did she even care?

Then Kite spotted the horrified face of an officer in the doorway. He staggered away from the scene, hollering for reinforcements. More soldiers would come now. More men would die. Somehow Kite had to get Ember away from here before she could kill them all.

Out of the corner of his eye Kite spied movement at his feet. The mute Corrector, grasping for the mempod. Messily Kite kicked it from her fingertips.

“The Cloud Room, Ember,” he shouted, snatching it up. “We go together, just like we promised.”

The Umbrella Man lurched back to life, taking a moment to retrieve his high-hat and umbrella. Kite wondered if some dormant sense of programmed Weatheren decency remained, stopping him from leaving a room incorrectly attired.

Going first Kite edged out into the corridor. The Ember-controlled Umbrella Man followed him in long unsteady strides. Kite might have laughed at the absurdity of it had he not had to step over the butchered bodies on the way.

“Arms!”

A knot of soldiers were shuffling down the corridor toward the Corrector's office, taking aim and spitting warnings.
Fwumph!
The umbrella opened into a wall of black armour. Kite ducked behind it, instinctively covering his head. Low-voltage bolts smacked harmlessly against its shell, spraying hiss-hot sparks in all directions.

Shielded him the Umbrella Man ushered Kite across the way and into an empty stairwell. A silver door beckoned at the top. Kite scrambled up the steps only to find the door locked with a keypad, the white buttons labelled with meaningless symbols. Kite couldn't read them. He panicked, but the Umbrella Man pushed himself and stood, staring meaningfully at the keypad.

With a click the door unlocked itself.

Kite dashed through, finding himself in a cold passageway. The Umbrella Man dipped his head to squeeze through after him and the door locked itself again, sealing them both inside.

For a moment at least it seemed safe. Storage rooms and racks of boxed-up equipment stretched in either direction. There was no sign of the soldiers. But Kite knew that would all change soon enough. The distant flutter of alarms told him the whole airmachine was on high alert now.

“Can you get these off, Ember?” Kite said, holding up his handcuffed wrists.

The Umbrella Man's black lens eyes focussing with busy
zhip-zhip
noises. Then he made a clumsy grab for Kite's wrist with a hand big enough to crush his bones.

“Watch it!” Kite said, wrenching his hands away. “I don't want to end up like those soldiers.”

The Umbrella Man stamped his boot. Kite didn't know where the Umbrella Man ended and Ember began, but the combination of the two frightened him no end. Then, with surprising precision, the Umbrella Man nimbly pinched the handcuffs between a giant finger and thumb and snapped them apart.

“I know it's tempting, Ember,” Kite said, rubbing his wrists. “But try not to kill any more Weatherens.”

A hollow snort. Kite hoped that meant 'yes'.

“Fleer's here somewhere, Ember,” he said. “She's hurt. She needs our help. Do you think you can find her?”

But the Umbrella Man had fallen silent. His great head was craned back, listening to something Kite had only just begun to hear - the shape of an ominous new sound. A clamour of industrial noise, rising to smother the alarms. Pistons and propellers and mechanical things in motion. The drumbeat of a structure so extraordinary large and immensely powerful that it seemed to be swallowing the
Vorticity
whole.

59
No Way Back

The
Vorticity
had arrived. Docking. Mooring. Coming into port. Whatever it was ascenders did when they stopped ascending. And much like Kite's own disastrous attempt at landing it was noisy and violent: a great shuddering and grinding of metal on metal and sovereign clangs like teeth chomping into her hull.

Far beneath his feet the Maelstrom engines began to wind down and Kite's eardrums pinched with a sudden sharp air pressure change. He swallowed three times to chase the discomfort away, wishing all the while he could do the same with his fears.

“I don't think Fleer's this way, Ember,” Kite said, looking at the hatch they'd come to. The hatch was like the ones on the
Phosphene
and he was certain it led to the outer hull. “We should go back.”

Once again the Umbrella Man ignored him. The automechanical seized the wheel-lock and with one mighty twist it spun free and the hatch door seal sucked apart.

Retina-burning light poured in. Kite shielded his eyes, while a discordant noise, like a thousand turbines all beating out of a sync, rushed at his ears mangled with alarms and urgent announcements.

The Umbrella Man pointed eagerly.

“Didn't you hear me?” Kite said, squinting. “We have to Fleer first.”

But the Umbrella Man's new mistress was cruel and impatient. Out there was the Cloud Room. Nothing was going to hinder Ember's mission now. The Umbrella Man seized Kite's arm and shoved him painfully through the hatch and into the blinding light.

For a moment Kite couldn't see a thing. He blinked furiously, chasing away the white and silver blobs in his eyes. And slowly he began to focus on thousands of hexagons shimmering with an intense glow. A great dome, arcing over a perfect ocean of ivory clouds.

How high was he? Leagues and leagues above the Undercloud that's for sure. Higher than any Askian or scavvy had been before. But that boast that gave him little comfort. Moored next to the
Vorticity
were the aft sections of
three mighty Cloudguard ascenders, all lined up like silver cliffs with sterns extended over the sea of clouds.

Kite took a step forward, but the stupid rubber shoe slipped on the slush covering the gantry. He reached for the rail to steady himself and immediately snatched his hand away. The metal burned, cold as...

...Cold as ice and dry as fire.

There was only one place Kite could think of this far above the world. He'd seen it once on a flickering screen in Shelvocke's dingy cabin. Even then the sight of it had stolen his breath. The weather machine - the Ether Shield.

And somewhere down there, beneath the perfect clouds lay Fairweather. A deathly chill crawled across Kite’s skin. He dug the mempod from the boiler suit pocket, its soft pulse warming his palm. All he had to do was toss it over the rail. End this madness now. Why should he be the one to still carry this burden?

Klunch.

The Umbrella Man secured the hatch, buckling the metal frame around it like he was merrily crimping a pastry. The answer was there. Without Ember Kite was powerless. He'd never find his way back to Fleer alone.

The gantry shook as the Umbrella Man stamped over. Kite quickly hid the mempod. “Well, I hope
you
know they way, Ember,” he said.

The Umbrella Man nodded stiffly and gave him an impatient shove. Kite let himself be ushered to the bow, negotiating the scaffold of gantries to a ladder that took them to the top deck where pools of melt-water sparkled in the white light. The climb had been mercifully short but the effort sapped at his energy. The air was thin. His muscles seemed frayed at the edges, like they were coming undone. Ember didn't seem to understand the limits of the human body. She kept urging him on, pushing and shoving him carelessly. And soon they reached the bow.

Kite took in the Ether Shield’s vast sky harbour. Cranes and hoists cluttered the wharf, swinging palettes of equipment and stores. Loading bays stacked with white shipping containers, all arranged in perfect rows, spread like a settlement to the foot of a cliff-high control tower. Uniformed crew and longshoremen scattered like coloured beads between them. It was a city itself.

A silver light flashed in his eyes.

A jangling clump of Weatheren soldiers were shuffling along the
Vorticity
's top deck toward them, sunlight reflecting off their immaculate armour and giving them away.

Without warning Kite was plucked off the deck and dropped on the Umbrella Man's back. He had barely enough time to lock his hands around the metal neck before the Umbrella Man broke into a lumbering run.

Kite clung on, his legs kicking the air. Each giant step a jaw-numbing shock. The dome see-sawed, blurring with rows of nodding harbour cranes beyond the bow rail. Panic bubbled in Kite's belly. The bow rail was getting closer and closer. And the while the Umbrella Man's stride was growing longer and longer. He wasn't going to stop. Kite tightened his grip and hoped Ember knew what she was doing.

With a pneumatic crunch the Umbrella Man sprang over the rail. For a moment Kite was weightless. Then his stomach lurched and he was falling, cool air rushing by his ears.

Krang!
The Umbrella Man landed on a harbour crane's narrow boom. The jolt unlocked Kite's fingers and slid sideways but the Umbrella Man caught him and hoisted him on his back once more. Kite glanced down and immediately wished he hadn't. A hundred feet, maybe more. Down to the wharf, in the shadow of the
Vorticity
's anvil bow, where the harbour workers gawked and dozens of armoured Weatherens had been mobilised.

Kite swore loudly. He trusted Ember, he had no choice, but he didn't see how she could possibly fight a whole army. Even with the Umbrella Man at her command.

Then they were moving again. This time Kite was ready. He knotted his arms and dug in with his knees, but riding the Umbrella Man was worse than flying a stormwing in a crosswind. Arms out like a demented acrobat the Umbrella Man inched along the boom. Guy lines twanged under their combined weight. Then the Umbrella Man nimbly jumped to the crane's cabin and clambered down its supports, descending to rows of containers branded with the Foundation’s watchful eye.

Kite watched the Weatheren army tracking their descent. Among them he spied the Corrector. She’d gotten her sharp voice back and was putting it to use, barking out commands, ordering her men to keep their distance.

Don't target Beaufort.

Don't use shockguns.

Kite guessed her strategy. The Corrector wanted Ember. She didn't want to risk damaging the mempod with an electrical charge. Despite everything she still planned to take it for herself.

Another weightless plunge and a jaw-crunching landing and they slammed onto the containers. Kite held on for dear life. He had a giddy flashback to that last day in Dusthaven, chased across the container tops. Only this time instead of fleeing from him he had the Umbrella Man on his side. Then as now the Umbrella Man didn't stop. He’d set his sights on a gigantic tunnel, one leading off into the bowels of the weather machine.

Suddenly an ear-thumping siren shattered the air. Warning lights spun wildly, dousing the harbour in amber light. Kite realised what was happening.

“Ember, the doors!” he said, pointing.

From the tunnel walls huge blast doors began to shunt together. At the last container the Umbrella Man dropped to the deck, thumping down in front of a wall of armed Weatheren soldiers.

“Beaufort, stop!” the Corrector said, hobbling to the front of her men.

The Umbrella Man halted.

Kite began to panic. Had some deep part of the automechanical's brain, a part where Ember hadn't penetrated, recognised the Corrector's voice?

“Get a grip, Ember,” Kite whispered.

Slowly the Umbrella Man straightened his back. Kite's arms took the strain. Then, when he couldn't hold on any longer, he let himself and drop and hid behind the Umbrella Man.

The Corrector stepped closer. The Umbrella Man didn't react.

“Beaufort, you must come with me,” the Corrector said hoarsely, holding out a shaking hand. As she spoke Kite realised she wasn’t talking to Beaufort…she was talking to Ember. “That place you are seeking...you know the one...I can take you there...I know what you want...just come with me...”

Kite glanced at the blast doors sliding closer together. Soon they’d be sealed inside, at the mercy of the soldiers eagerly waiting for the order to shock him to death.

“Snap out of it, Ember!” Kite said. “The doors remember?”

The Umbrella Man let out an indignant snort. He bent his knees and charged, slashing the umbrella like a sabre, and Kite ran with him. Giving desperate squeak the Corrector leapt out of their way while the Weatheren soldiers scattered. But one of them panicked and let fly with a bolt. It exploded against the containers, spitting blue fire in all directions. Kite covered his head and stumbled though the smoke and stink of mosfire.

“Cease fire, you morons!” hollered the Corrector, waving her men back. “We'll trap them in the tunnels.”

The blast doors had almost closed. The huge metal teeth were grinding together. The Umbrella Man nudged Kite aside and wedged the umbrella in the gap and with his enormous strength prized the teeth apart, enough for Kite to dash through and into the tunnel beyond.

The Umbrella Man widened the gap further and tried to squeeze himself through. First a spindly leg, then a spindly arm. But all the while the pistons in the walls were whistling with tons of pressure building behind them and the umbrella was starting to rattle and bend.

“Hurry, Ember!” Kite said, pulling on the Umbrella Man's arm.

With a snap the umbrella burst free and scythed over Kite's head.
The blast door's teeth crunched together, chomping on the Umbrella Man's leg, trapping him. But the Umbrella Man seemed more annoyed than in pain. He tugged furiously at the trapped limb, trying to wrench it free. Cables popped and fabric ripped and the mangled limb tore off below the knee, leaving a stump of twitching wires. The Umbrella Man hopped madly on his one leg, gyroscopes all unbalanced and fell pathetically against the blast doors.

Kite couldn't help but feel sorry for the crippled machine. He hurried over to the warped umbrella and tried to lift it but the thing weighed a ton so he had to dragged it instead.

“Use this, Ember,” Kite said, helping to wedge it under the Umbrella Man's arm.

Once again Ember was impatient to be on her way. But in her haste she misjudged the Umbrella Man's handicap and he toppled sideways again.

“One step at a time,” Kite said encouragingly, but wisely he kept his distance. “This way, come on.”

Thump-scrape.

One tentative step, then another.

Thump-scrape.

Lumbering off down the tunnel, bleeding black oil all over the deck, the Umbrella Man began to move. Kite didn't know how long the thing was going to last in that shape. Long enough, he hoped, to find a way out of this metal maze and back to Fleer Nightborn.