The Lost Star's Sea

by C. Litka

  01

  'Step up to the bridge and have a look, Chief,' said the Captain from the com.

  'Right up,' I said. They had shut down the main propellers, so something was up.

  A minute later I was standing on the bridge wing deck, glasses in hand, studying the passage out of the Shadow Sea. Or rather where the passage had been. It was now clear what the Dragon-people had been up to while we'd been waiting for them to show an interest in our trade goods. There were thick tree trunks entangled in a web of heavy vines now floating in the passage, as deep as we could see.

  'Looks like we've some work ahead of us to clear the passage. Still, I wouldn't think it's blocked the whole length. A couple hundred meters at most.'

  She continued to stare ahead. 'Ideally we'd send the launches ahead to cut the vines and haul the trees off to one side. Seeing as we're shorthanded, and vulnerable to attack once the natives notice we've gone, I'm going to use rockets to try to blow the blockage loose enough to push through. Not ideal, but we may be pressed for time.'

  She wasn't asking for my advice, but was, I think, giving me an opportunity to object. Considering what I'd recently witnessed, my feeling was that the sooner we'd clear the Shadow Sea the better. 'Could work. It'd be a long hard job to cut our way through since we don't have ten thousand hands to call on to do the job. Worth a try.'

  She turned to ValDare standing next to her. 'Dare?'

  'Given a running start, I don't see why we can't just bull our way through. The ol'Lora Lakes should be able to build enough inertia to shear those vines and brush the trees aside. She's a solid built ship.'

  'The bow may be able to take the blows, but I plan to be up on the bridge. Care to join me?'

  'Ah, yes, I see,' he admitted with a grin. 'Use your rockets.'

  She nodded, 'TeyLin, get the forward launcher set up. DenToy, bring up two crates of rockets from the magazine.'

  I stayed on the wing deck to watch the show, as the Captain joined TeyLin at the rocket launcher mounted on the bow of the ship. DenToy and another hand brought up the two metal cases of rockets.

  The rockets were only one half meter-long, but they packed enough of a punch that when they exploded against the trunks of the great trees they sent them bounding about in a cloud of splinters - a hit or two tore them free of the web of vines they had been entangled in.

  When the last two rockets of perhaps two dozen shot through the passage to explode beyond sight, the Captain called up from the rocket launcher, 'We'll give it a try. To your stations.'

  Before going below, I paused for a last look back, down the gut of Shadow Sea. I could just make out through the faint shafts of light that crisscrossed the sea, the peak of that strange, ancient, and eerie metal ruin, faintly highlighted by one of the shafts of light falling from one of the many gaps in the island. Driven by necessity, I had thrust aside my memories of what that mountain of metal contained and that bloody dance around that twisted, not-quite-slumbering - Thing? - of soul stones.

  I'd only managed to escape its power, thanks to Hissi. But it still existed within that mountain of ruin, and having seen its power and felt its menace, I felt that it needed to stay lost, as did these islands. Lost forever. I was absolutely convinced that whatever secrets these islands held, they were secrets that the humans of the Pela would be wise to steer well clear of. I knew the power of a single stone - what sort of harm could a hundred thousand of them bring to the Principalities, if that great black - Thing? - was sacked for its stones? I had the distinct feeling that they weren't for humans. That their full name, dragon soul stone, was far more significant than just a more colorful description. But keeping these islands secret was unlikely now, given the siren call of the dragon soul stones.

  But yet there seemed more to my fears than just that. Something deeper still.

  I didn't know for a fact that the Dragon Kings of legend existed. And I didn't know how humans fit into the full scheme of things in the Pela. But I had crossed orbits with perhaps real Dragon-people and perhaps a ship of the Dragon Kings. The dragon-people were not likely the Dragon Kings, so I couldn't absolutely say the Dragon Kings existed, or that they were a danger to humans, but I was convinced they - and their works - should be avoided if possible. Let sleeping dragons lie. There was nothing good in that mountain - in that vast ruin of a machine - for the humans of the Principalities.

  And with that thought, while staring out across the Shadow Sea, at the shafts of light slashing down I felt - in a fleeting instance - something like a cold hand squeezing the breath from my chest, for it suddenly occurred to me what this island might actually be.

  What if it was not an island? What if it was a ship? A 15 kilometer long ship, that in legend was capable of brushing islands aside in its flight? Was that metal mountain, and all the others as well, the decayed interior structures of a vast wrecked ship? What if the shore of the Shadow Sea was not made up of hundreds of small islands tied together by vines, but was actually a single shell - a ship's hull, partially ripped open, and now encased by vines and overgrown with jungle? Since many Pela's plants draw their substance from elements in air, it was perfectly possible that, given eons, the great vessel would take on the look of an island. I'd known bottle-blown asteroids, this size and larger. In the Fist Worlds they circled their suns as giant cruise ships. It was possible. Anything was possible in the Pela. And where there is smoke, there is fire - where there are myths and legends?

  And as I took one last look down the possibly rotted-out guts of this vast vessel, I'd a strong feeling it wasn't quite dead. Not entirely dead. And certainly not something that should be stirred up. But now, it may've been too late.

  The siren on the smokestack above me let out a loud warning screech. I looked back to see the passage looming, and decided that, aye, I best be going down to my place in the engine room. The bridge wind deck wasn't going to be very comfortable with all the splintered debris still floating in the passage.