Fall of Sky City (A Steampunk Fantasy Sci-Fi Adventure Novel) (Devices of War) (40 page)

The scream she let out could have shattered glass.

Yvette watched with a frown, but the only trouble she had was with her feet as she scrambled for a moment to remain upright. She finally just quit fighting and leapt into the air.

If she wasn’t half fish, she’d have made a pretty decent airwoman.

Haji had his eyes closed the entire time.

Ryo had a wide grin on his face.

With everyone on the other side, I swung across. The feel of emptiness under my feet, the knowledge that airships were all around me felt euphoric. I couldn’t stop smiling as the rain pelted me. I was downright soggy.

“I sometimes thought Mother chose the wrong child,” Ryo said as we all headed toward meeting rooms and cabins under the quarter deck. “I think I could be quite happy up here.”

I grinned and clapped his back. “I would agree most cheerfully. You are a natural up here.”

He smiled, his teeth showing through his beard and mustache.

I pushed to the front, opening the door that led to a wide passageway. Directly in front of me was Father’s room, and beside that, mine. I turned to the left and was almost immediately met with a stair that let down. It was open, leading into the largest room on the ship, the meeting room. Windows surrounded us, made of a light and pliable glass. A large table dominated the room with dozens of chairs all around it.

Keeley let out a screech and pushed me into the rail to get past me.

Joshua looked up, his face splitting into a smile as he stood and met her almost halfway, gripping her tightly, extreme happiness filling his features.

I walked toward his papers, pushing chairs out of the way. “We need a plan of attack.”

That immediately threw us into a very loud discussion on the issues we were facing.

When we’d exhausted ourselves, we stood staring at one another.

Joshua leaned on the table, his hands flat. “What do ye want ta do, Synn?”

I didn’t even blink. “I want to take out Sky City. I want to take the fight to them, make them think twice before killing a
lethara
or filling the oceans with poison, or destroying cities under their protection.”

“The Great Families will not support this,” Ryo said. “We need to be cautious.”

I shook my head. “We’ve been entirely
too
cautious, and that’s why we’re here. Mother said we would have to make the kinds of decisions they could not. This is one of them.”

We were quiet for a long moment.

“Can we even do this?” Keeley asked, playing with her thumbnail.

I took in a deep breath and nodded. “I think so. I was thinking about what you saw on your radar at Egolda City.”

Joshua frowned and shook his head. “What?”

“You said there was something large in the sky, larger than a queen ship but smaller than Sky City.”

“Oh.” He blinked and stood up. “I’d forgotten about tha’.”

“You’ve been busy. Anyway, I think it’s a refueling station.”

“A what?” Ryo asked, puzzled.

“A refueling station.” I opened one hand. “Think about it. They burn their fuel without a way to replenish it. With all their ships—even with Sky City—they need a way to keep them up in the air. What’s the best way of doing that? A station with the fuel they need.”

Everyone shifted in place as they thought about that.

“So,” Yvette said, her violet eyes gleaming, “there should be bi-planes—”

“And other aircrafts,” I injected, “like the ones with the flapping wings and the weapons.”

That got everyone’s attention.

“We can just destroy the station and take the planes.
Baleze!”

“Now, hold on a minute, Yvie,” Joshua said, holding up a hand. “This isn’t fantastic.”

Keeley leaned in. “If we destroy the station, how do we refuel?”

Haji shook his head, making a slashing motion. “How do we take this station? We have a water-bound
lethara
and airships that show up on their ra-dar. We are out gunned, out maneuvered, and would be shot down.”

That was a very valid point.

“We need this station,” I said, peering at everyone through my eyelashes. “Sky City is housed in an altitude we can’t achieve in an airship.”

Keeley sat down.

Haji took in a deep breath and leaned in. “But I was on an airship. That is how I arrived at Sky City.”

I shook my head and picked up a teardrop shaped vase, watching the milky liquid shift inside. “Sky City only allowed airships on certain days and at certain times.” I set it down on the table along the wall. “It makes sense. This is the reason we were never able to find it, why we never trip across it.”

Yvette crossed her arms over her chest.

Joshua glared at the plans on the table.

Ryo was lost in thought.

“In order to take out Sky City,” I said, rising to my full height, stretching my back, “we need to disable the city’s weapons, destroy their reserve of gas, take their—”

“Without their gas,” Joshua said, standing up, “the city falls. There are innocent people in tha’ city.”

“No more innocent than the people they destroyed,” Yvette growled.

Keeley rubbed her arm. “We’d be no better than them.”

I nodded. “True, true and true. So we need to devise a way to take out the gas at a slower rate, bringing Sky City to the water.”

“Or land.” Haji narrowed his eyes, tipping his head in thought.

“But what land mass is big enough for the city?”

He nodded absently. “There are a few.”

I shook that off. “It doesn’t matter. It will land where it is, and we need to see—” I motioned to Joshua, “—if we can find a way to save as many of the citizens as we can.”

“The only ruddy way ta do tha’ is ta take control of the blasted refueling station.”

I nodded. “Agreed.”

We all sat in silence as the thought worked its way to feasibility in our minds.

Joshua looked up first. “We’ll have ta destroy the laboratories in Sky City.” He glanced at Keeley. “The Librarium.”

Ryo chuckled and relaxed. “Maybe not. I might have an idea.”

I nodded, content. Finally. A plan that might be worth something.

Well, if we succeeded.

But that’s why they called them plans.

CHAPTER 36

WHIRRING MOTORS

It took
us about a week of gathering information and dialing down a plan of attack that would work, one of which was taking the
Suhayl Samma
and removing all her markings. It was going to be dangerous, traveling without a fleet, but we knew that was the only way we’d get close enough.

The most difficult thing was rearranging the ecosystem.

The
Samma’s
ecosystem surrounded our falcons and the air jellies. I knew of other tribes of airmen, but none of them had spitfyre falcons. They had other creatures, yes, but none quite so temperamental. However, in return, the falcons kept a lot of the parasites off of our ship.

The first thing we had to do was to remove anyone with a falcon and the actual birds themselves. Then we flew around the surrounding area, collecting parasites, foreign wind stars, flatworms and other creatures so that whoever manned the refueling station couldn’t tell the
Suhayl Samma’s
origin. This took weeks.

I didn’t know how the other airmen did it, keeping their air jellies alive without the protection of the falcons. It was exhausting keeping the poisonous worms away from our air jelly. As it was, we had to borrow additional blue dragons to syphon off the accumulating toxins our jelly was excreting. It was a very dangerous situation. The blue dragons were everywhere, able to hide in shoes, bedding, clothes, cups. Several on our crew came down with the jelly sickness.

Luckily, no one died.

The other thing we did was install lightning cannons to her hull and along her wale, creating a battery of weapons. No one knew that the El’Asim had a new weapon, so it was unlikely that we’d be discovered that way.

Joshua kept an eye on his radar, watching the sky. The refueling station stayed fairly close to our location. We maintained an altitude just out of radar range, at least by Joshua’s calculations. How that was possible when we were watching them was beyond me. The only thing I knew for certain was that we remained undisturbed.

Watching the ground beneath us over the passing weeks was interesting. People lived down there along with several other creatures. Keeley showed only mild interest because the observation area made her squeamish. It was underneath the keel of the ship. In order to properly observe, she’d have to leave the ship. Once on the
Yusrra Samma,
she wasn’t getting off.

But it was time.

The
Suhayl Samma
was ready. The red sails and worms were gone. The sails were now white, the worms a spiraled blue and green. Her hull still had a few blue feather stars, but for the most part, she was covered in red wind stars. She no longer matched the sky from underneath. It was a sad sight to see. The people who called that ship home had removed most of their belongings. The children had been relocated to other ships.

All that remained were warriors, those that were ready to take a stand, knowing there was a very good chance they’d never make it back.

Ryo, Keeley, Yvette, Joshua and Haji joined me on the quarterdeck. It had taken a lot of encouragement to get Keeley to join us. I’d even asked her to stay behind, but she’d refused, saying we would need her. We would.

She’d be an airwoman yet.

We took the
Suhayl Samma,
now called Glory Sunrise, out of port. Joshua plotted a course that would take us up in elevation so that we’d be higher than the station before connecting to it. If the mission failed, we could claim we didn’t know they were there. Easy enough. We’d even devised a way to conceal our radar if we were boarded.

The only thing we hadn’t quite figured out was how to get on the platform. We knew we could outmaneuver the ungainly refueling station. It, however, had planes that if launched would succeed in shooting us down.

The sky was quiet.

Everyone was on high alert.

Gradually, whirring filled the air.

The crew didn’t even flinch, all eyes forward, watching the growing black dot.

Planes hit the air like sphynctor bugs on wings. The crew watched their progress, wary and ready.

We needed to get closer.

The planes swept over and around us in a long, roaring rope, leading us to the platform.

Maybe the question of boarding would be solved for us.

I motioned for Keeley to get below decks. She could shield us from the airship. Yvette and Joshua were already in the rigging where their Marks would work best. Joshua was a lot lighter on his feet now than he had been, and Yvette had taken quite a liking to the ship. They would work best with their Marks up there, where they had a bird’s eye view of the fight.

I nodded, breathing in through my nose, shaking out my hands as we lowered in elevation. We were outnumbered, out-gunned, and they could fly better. We had no hopes of winning.

But we had to.

Ropes with metal hooks latched onto our rail, bringing us down. “Trim the sail,” I ordered, before going down to the deck.

On the platform stood a high ranking officer in the colors of the Swords, blue military pants and silver trench coat, his black top hat harboring the light of the sun. Beside him was a lackey, a clipboard in hand. “Are you the owner of this vessel?” the officer asked in clipped Handish.

I nodded.

“State your name and business.”

I hadn’t thought we’d be interrogated and hadn’t prepared for this. “Anik Rampal.” I don’t even know where the name came from, but I continued in clear Handish. “We’re on our way to pick up cargo in Salgon City.”

The officer clasped his hands behind his back and hopped a bit. “Salgon City is no longer available as a destination, Anik Rampal.” He glanced at the clipboard his assistant held. “You look very familiar.”

I smiled tightly, my hand almost going to the scarf tied loosely around my neck. I’d grown accustomed to it. It was better than having people stare at me because they could see my Mark.

He stepped to the side. “Would you mind joining us?” He met my gaze significantly. “Please.”

That didn’t sound like a light request. I paused only briefly before leaping over the rail. “Is there something wrong, Knight?”

His eyebrows raised and a slight smile grew along his lips. “Your Handish is impeccable.”

I shrugged. “We’ve been trading with the Hands for nearly as many turns as I’ve been alive, sir.”

He nodded once, his gaze never leaving mine. “Then how is it that I’ve never heard of the Glory Sunrise or of Anik Rampal?”

My heart leapt. I really wasn’t good at lying on command. “I just recently took the ship over from someone else.”

His eyes gleamed. “And what was the name of the ship before you took it over?”

I knew I was done. He knew. I raised my chin and took his dare. “The
Suhayl Samma
.”

He stood still for a long moment. “This day has been long in coming, Synn Primus.”

Damn it. “And what day is that?”