Whispers of the Skyborne (Devices of War Book 3)

by S. M. Blooding

  “The storm, sir,” Suzu said, her blue eyes wary. “We’re still too close and it’s still too strong. It will shred us before we can do anything.”

  Synn had been able to fly the Layal in a storm like this. “Then, take us around to the west and down, Suzu,” Ryo roared. “If it is safe enough for the Shankara to bomb the people of Kiwidinok, it is safe enough for us to be in it.”

  Suzu pinched her lips together and issued soft commands to her co-pilot.

  Ryo set his hand on Yawara’s shoulder. “Battle stations. Ready all long guns and cannons.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ryo took three steps to the back wall. He released the one of the two latches. A door sprang up next to his feet. He crouched and dangled his feet in the compartment below. “Let’s remain alert. We target Shankara and stop the bombing.”

  “Yes, sir!” Suzu shouted before muttering something he couldn’t hear.

  Ryo let it go. Suzu and he didn’t agree on a lot of things, but she was a damn good pilot. She’d escaped Ino City months before, when he was still healing.

  In a glass encased dome below the control room rested one of his cannons. A long barrel plasma gun with a one hundred eighty-degree radius. There were several others like it along the body of the Basilah, and one on top of the control dome. He sank into the seat, leaving the door open. He slipped his feet into the toe controls, and spun the cannon around, checking his range.

  Suzu had shifted the Basilah’s course to the west and was in the process of bringing her through the storm. The bright daylight winked out and was replaced by the dank press of storm clouds.

  He waited, eagerly searching the skies at his feet for a target. Anything.

  The cloudbank dissolved into a deluge of rain so thick he could barely make anything out through his window panes. Fires lit the darkness to the south, too far south for them to be of much help. That’s where Neira’s forces were. Where was Shankara?

  A glowing massive lethara reigned supreme in the rolling ocean off the coast.

  “Do you see it?” Ryo shouted.

  “I see it, sir,” Suzu shouted back. “Are we sure about this storm, sir?”

  Ryo could feel the winds grab hold of the ship. “If the El’Asim can do it …” He let that thought drop, knowing Suzu’s thoughts on his brother’s abilities.

  The Basilah sucked back into the storm, leaving only the belly exposed, and flew towards Shankara City.

  He would finally have the opportunity to seek vengeance on his mother. He’d make her pay. And if that meant taking out her supporters in order to get back at her, then that’s exactly what he would do.

  CHIE RAN DOWN THE TURQUOISE-TILED corridor and stopped at a door.

  We were on one of the family floors. I’d been here once before, with Ino Yotaka, my teacher. How long ago had that been? It felt like years.

  Months. Only months.

  She turned to us. “It’s in here.”

  Hitoshi held up a hand and moved her aside. His sword in hand, he opened the door. Shaking his head, he relaxed his stance and entered the room. “Where is everyone?”

  I followed. The room was expansive and empty save for one pedestal. A gray box stood atop it.

  Chie rushed to it. “She knew we were coming.”

  “Likely.”

  “How?” She pressed a series of spaces on the door.

  Kenta pulled her away before she could open it.

  She stumbled backward, her hands raised. “What are you doing?”

  Kenta’s face showed no expression. He stood behind the door, tying a piece of his belt sash over his mouth.

  I glanced at Hitoshi who took a step back, grabbing Chie’s hand. I held my arm over my face, shielding my mouth and nose with the crook of my elbow.

  Standing behind the small door, Kenta opened it.

  A cloud of white powder exploded outward and rained down on him.

  He bent down to peer inside, then straightened and shook his head.

  I stepped backward outside of the cloud. “What is that?”

  “The same poison I used to kill Oki with.” Ino Nami stepped into the room, looking a lot older than the last time I’d seen her. Her hair hung in long chunks from the maze of knots she typically had on top of her head. Her kimono was smudged and blackened in spots. Her lipstick was smeared along her lips.

  I turned, lowering my arm.

  She walked toward me with a limping, clonking cadence. Her eyes narrowed and flared. “Why can I not enter your programming?”

  My programming. I must be talking to the other programmer. “I was struck by lightning.”

  “Your Mark is still there.”

  I shrugged. “I can’t use it, which means you can’t use me.”

  I recognized the light of the programmer in my mother’s eyes as he met my gaze. Did she even know she was being used? That they intended to kill her and all of us along with her?

  The programmer pursed my mother’s lips. “But your Mark remains. All I have to do is reprogram them.”

  I tipped my head to the side and advanced. “I don’t know anything about your ‘programming’.” I was sick and tired of playing this game. “Or your nanites.”

  He widened my mother’s eyes as he retreated another step.

  “But I can guess that if you were able to do that.” I stopped, my hands held wide. “You would have already done so.”

  Chie glanced at Hitoshi, flicking her gaze to the door. If the nanites weren’t there, she had one more idea where they might be.

  Hitoshi gestured to Kenta and then led the way out of the room.

  Once in the hallway, Chie took the lead.

  “Where are you going?” Hitoshi asked.

  The hallway in both directions was empty. Chie headed toward the left. “Ino Nami might not have noticed me, but I watched her. She keeps all of her important items in one place.”

  Hitoshi changed the grip on his sword. “Let’s be quick.”

  Chie stopped in front of a blank wall. Nothing on this wall looked any different than the rest.

  Unless you knew what you were looking for.

  The swirls in the tile. That’s what she was looking for. She touched her fingers on the swirls in the order she’d memorized after watching Ino Nami open this wall innumerable times since they day Oki and Chie could walk.

  The tile wall slid backwards then, making a grinding noise, slid to the right.

  The room that opened up to them was dark. Chie called on her Mark. It slithered out from underneath her sleeve and snaked out a sliver of light.

  There in the center of the room sat a large glass bowl filled with a silver liquid.

  Hitoshi stopped, crouched. He tipped his head one way, then the next, listening. He flicked his hand to the bowl. “Be careful.”

  She knew the booby traps. She stepped carefully, watching for the tiles that were just a shade off from the others. Kneeling down, she stared into the bowl, not knowing what to do with it.

  Hitoshi knelt where he stood and captured her gaze. “We destroy it.”

  After dropping her bombs on top of the square, the mountain became unstable. It was almost as if Rose had hit a delicate paper structure.

  “Wa-sna-win,” she shouted. “Tell Haji to get out of there! The whole mountain’s coming down!”

  Jake buzzed in front of her, cutting to the left. “He’ll need some ground cover if he’s going to make it to the extraction.”

  He was right. “Bullet guns.” She dove, pointing her guns at the lines and lines of enemy soldiers hiding behind the rise Haji and his metal men were about to go over.

  A boom sounded to her right, pushing her to the left.

  “Bettie, find that cannon and take it out!”

  “You got it, Captain!”

  They just had to make it long enough for Haji’s men to get out of there. As the mountain crumpled, it took the Han’s men out with it.

  Yes. The mountain was doing a better job destroying the Han’s f
orce than their bullet guns could.

  “Found the cannon,” Bettie called, “and it’s out of commission.”

  “Good job.”

  “Wasn’t me.” She sighed, buzzing over Rose. “The mountain folded right on top of it. The bird knew what she was talking about when she told us what to bomb, sir.”

  The chaos down below was hard to make out. The mountain convulsed, folding and erupting in intervals. The Han’s men were in the thick of it, with no way of escape.

  “Stop shooting. There’s no sense in killing ‘em twice.”

  Haji’s team ran just ahead of the destruction, somehow, miraculously as if the hand of something far greater than them were assisting. They leapt onto the Layal right before the land disappeared beneath their feet.

  The Layal shook as if the disappearance of the land had left an impact on the air as well.

  The storm wall shook, shriveling becoming less of a wall and more a storm.

  Rose narrowed her eyes as she buzzed low one more time just to make sure. The whole point of this mission was to not have to do this again later after these people had a chance to regroup, rearm, and try again.

  The Han was decimated.

  The programmer tipped my mother’s head to the side as he stared at me in wonder. “What are you?”

  I didn’t know what to tell him. I didn’t know how long it would take for him to fix his weapon against us, how long it would take for him to regroup, to “hack” us, to get “into” Bob’s code.

  Nix stepped into the room.

  What was she doing there?

  Chie had disappeared with Hitoshi, and I hoped she was going after the nanites. All I had to do was keep my mother—the enemy programmer occupied long enough for them to do what had to be done.

  But what was I supposed to do with Nix?

  She looked at me and widened her eyes, jutting her head forward a little, her hands wide.

  What did that even mean?

  “Who am I talking to?” I demanded.

  The programmer jerked, my mother’s gaze flitting around the room.

  Had he noticed Nix?

  “Who am I talking to?” I demanded again, louder this time.

  “You seem to know a lot more than you should. Who do you think you’re speaking with?”

  “The programmer.”

  He raised my mother’s eyebrow, returning his full attention to me. “And what do you know about me?”

  “That you intend on killing us.”

  The programmer smiled and chuckled softly. “Well, well, you have been getting quite a story, haven’t you?”

  I raised my chin. If I had control over my Mark, I could call upon it and smite her where she stood. No. I would kill my mother. The programmer was somewhere else.

  But he had used her to destroy my tribe. If I could remove one of his game pieces, a key game piece, then maybe I could gain an advantage, one that might buy us more time to end this war once and for all.

  I reached for my Mark before I realized what I was doing.

  It rose, but differently.

  Nix’s Mark rose from her shoulders, underneath her clothing, and swayed above her head like two dueling cobras.

  My Mark slid out from underneath my clothes, from my collar, my cuffs, and somehow, it managed to find a path through the tops of my boots. It oozed like molten lava crawling over obstacles.

  But my clothes remained intact.

  The programmer stared at me, eyes wide.

  I widened my arms, orange mist rising around me. The air grew thick with humidity. I could barely breathe. I was lifted off my feet.

  Nix floated behind my mother, her brown eyes wide, her head thrown back, her arms open.

  I fought to breathe, struggled to determine what I was supposed to do.

  I straightened, my head rising. I knew exactly what I was supposed to do. I needed to crack his code. I needed to override his program. I needed to destroy his nanite technology.

  But with this information came other bits. Star maps. Knowledge on how our solar system worked. Where we were in the galaxy. Where our galaxy was in the universe.

  Where their planet was.

  Gathering up every ounce of will I had, I pushed my Mark forward. It enveloped first my mother’s feet, then rose in liquefied waves up her legs. Mist rose around her, but she didn’t cry out.

  The programmer stared at me, the muscles in my mother’s neck standing out as he fought me.

  No. Fought Bob.

  I could feel him. Another presence in my mind. He wasn’t using me as much as he was leaning out of the window of my mind and tapping into my mother’s.

  She wouldn’t survive this.

  I didn’t care.

  I provided the power he needed to finish what he was doing. I stopped trying to follow him. I couldn’t keep up. Couldn’t understand anything he did. Programs. Code. The words sounded familiar, but the context were beyond me.

  Nix released a gasp and floated to the floor. She collapsed, her eyes closed.

  I hung there, waiting for Bob to complete what he needed to do.

  My Mark traveled up to my mother’s neck. The programmer continued to stare out at me.

  And then, as if flipped off with a switch, he was gone.

  My mother stared at me, her eyes filled with knowing and acceptance. She nodded once and whispered in Adelic, “Finish this.”

  Bob’s presence disappeared, his job done. At least, I hoped it was.

  My feet found the floor. My Mark retreated back to my flesh, still without destroying my clothes.

  Mother drooped to the floor. Her skin should have been charred, but it wasn’t. She’d been healed.

  But she was beaten.

  I knelt beside her, leaning one arm over my knee. “You killed Zara. You killed Oki. You nearly killed Ryo. My tribe? Who else? And for what?”

  “It was the only way,” she whispered, her voice strangled and bitter. “To keep us safe.”

  I ground my jaw and bowed my head. “Killing us kept us safe?”

  “Killing a few.”

  “You murdered thousands!”

  “A few.” She raised her hand to grip mine. “To save hundreds of thousands.”

  I shook my head and stood. She didn’t know, then, that her programmer was going to kill us all. “There are better ways.”

  She closed her eyes. “I hope you find them.”

  Blinking, I stepped back. Now was the time to kill her. I could end her life, and there was no one and nothing stopping me.

  But she was defenseless. I couldn’t kill her, even with as much horror as she’d caused in our lives. I couldn’t.

  Raking my lip with my teeth, I turned to Nix and scooped her up in my arms.

  My mother grunted behind me.

  I turned.

  She cradled the handle of a knife she had stabbed into her chest. Blood tricked from the corner of her mouth. She slid all the way to the floor, as her eyes fluttered closed.

  A part of me felt relief. Another part of me felt guilt for feeling relief.

  Swallowing, I carried Nix out of Ino City to the sounds of the city falling apart all around us.

  A symphony if ever I heard one.

  The old ways were done.

  We couldn’t go back. Not now.

  Najmah: Rose

  “CAPTAIN!”

  Rose jerked her head up, searching the docks for the person who’d spoken. The Najmah continued to rock with the shelling going on around her, though, through some miracle, there had been no direct hits. At least, she didn’t think so.

  A young woman in the coveralls of a mechanic ran to her, her braids bouncing with each step. She waved to Rose, her dirtied face folded in panic. “Captain!”

  Rose stood and met the woman part way. “What’s wrong?”

  “Bennen, sir.” The woman stopped, her chest heaving. “He’s down.”

  Rose’s heart stopped.

  “He’s down,” the woman repeated, her eyes unfocused a
s if she was having a hard time believing the truth of her own words. “They need you.”

  Blinking, Rose turned to Jake.

  He lowered his gaze, but tugged his flight cap out of his back pocket. Putting it on, he shrugged. “We all know it’s going to happen one day, Captain. Today was just his day.”

  Rose turned to the mechanic. “Do you know how many he lost?”

  “Eight,” she whispered back, her voice curdled with emotion.

  Eight out of three dozen. What more could her squadron offer?

  Bennen had preferred the still wing and hadn’t incorporated the copper lacework onto all his planes because it added too much weight. He’d opted to install more weapons instead.

  Meaning, his planes had been vulnerable to lightning guns. “I’ll need the Najmah’s communication channel.”

  “Of course. I’ll switch you.” The mechanic spun and raced off, flagging down a few of her fellow compatriots.

  Rose stalked to where the rest of her pilots sat, everyone except for Rich who sat by himself. He normally did. “Listen up.”

  Everyone looked up at her. Even Rich, who wasn’t that far away, turned to her.

  “Lt. Colonel Bennen has been shot down along with seven of his men. We’re being called out.”

  “That’s a lot of fire power lost,” Ethel said, glancing at Doris.

  Doris shrugged. “We’ve seen our share of shit, sir. We get called out, I say let’s go.”

  Rose wasn’t sure why people were starting to call her “sir.” She’d always thought that was a term for a male leader. “I know you’re all capable, but I need you to do one more thing for me.”

  Reuben’s thick brows furrowed together. “You’re not going to get all sentimental on us, are you, Cap?”

  She raised her eyebrow. “And if I did?”

  The corners of his mouth turned down as he shrugged.

  “That’s what I thought. Shut it.” She took in a deep breath. “The storm. We’ve never engaged the enemy or run maneuvers this close to a storm like this. You keep your enemy in your sights, but you keep the storm in your purview.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain!” Bettie said, saluting. She turned and headed for her plane without anything further being said.