Above The Clouds

by Richard Roberts

been. I flipped the tanks back into lift, my body shaking from the violent reversal, sending Father grabbing for the wheel for support. Tilting back my wings and flattening all my surfaces, I shot forward as fast as I could, following the head that barreled ahead of me. I had to skim close, tilt far to the side. I couldn't aim, but the target was too big. I fired a harpoon into the shark's head.

  The recoil was awful, slamming into my body as the shark's head and I tried to go different ways. I couldn't possibly control something that big. I could only stop it for a moment, bring both of us to a halt. Its face turned towards me.

  Father, clinging to the cannon's handles, fired a shell right into the center of its head. I reloaded as fast as I could. The thing opened its mouth and shrieked again. Father fired another shell in there.

  Blood flew everywhere. I turned away, and a terrible weight hit me, dragging me down. I hadn't released the harpoon. The shark hung from it, barely twitching, dying.

  Dying. We'd killed it. It was so heavy. Father fired the other three harpoons into the corpse, and I turned my lift tanks all the way up, and angled myself to bring my propellers into play. I strained against the weight, and with grueling slowness dragged the body back up towards the descending squadron. Things got a lot easier when they reached us and harpooned the body themselves, sharing the burden. Dead, the shark didn't float like a whale corpse.

  When the last airship hooked its harpoons into the corpse, Father pulled the switches and let go of our harpoon lines. I scaled down the lift tanks and eased off on the accelerator as he did, and I barely felt the twitch.

  We were flying even and smooth again, and Father could let go of the supports for the first time since we dived for the shark. What a nightmare. Had I really done that all by myself?

  "Tomorrow you'll see combat for the first time, Red Baron," Father said abruptly. "We'll hide here overnight, and ambush a Traitor convoy passing through in the morning. You may finally be good enough that we'll survive."

  The other squadron airships had formed a circle around the shark, rigging it up to float by itself so that it could be retrieved after the battle, harvesting whatever pilots wanted most from a shark's body. I didn't know. I felt grateful that I wouldn't have to be part of that, and more grateful when Father eased us up and stepped out of the hatch to meet Captain Todd aboard the other airships. I had plenty of power, but I felt tired anyway, and I wanted to be alone.

  The pilots had a party around sundown. Father came back not long after.

  "Do I sound drunk to you?" he asked as he looked into his mirror, loosening the buttons on his uniform.

  "You seem relaxed, but I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't asked," I answered, trying to combine honesty with tact.

  "Good. I'm going to bed immediately. Living through tomorrow is more important than celebrating tonight. I want to be fresh and alert," he explained.

  Then he did exactly that. I let go of the makeshift dock and drifted away from the other airships, but not so far that I strayed from our cover under the boiling mass of the Eye. I watched it, the way it seemed to peer around suspiciously. It had a stare much like Father's. In the distance, I could still see the whale wandering off, an irregular dot that disappeared as twilight gave way to darkness.

  The stars came out. There was no sign of movement aboard the other airships.

  I turned the Chatter back on and pitched it higher, and higher, and higher. I scanned the bands quickly until I reached the whale song. I ought to stop to listen to it, but I felt too impatient. Passing their squeaky moaning, I scrolled slowly through the regions of quiet beyond, listening for the voice I wanted. Nothing.

  Was it too early? Would she tune in tonight at all, after someone caught us last night? Were they listening again?

  "Rosie?" I asked. No response.

  I moved the band a little farther, and asked, "Rosie?"

  Nothing. I would keep doing this all night, if I had to. I measured a little farther, where my other questions wouldn't have been heard. "Rosie?"

  Nothing. No, when I was about to turn up higher, "It's nice to hear from you tonight, Red," her voice whispered back to me.

  "You, too. There's no one else I want to talk to as much," I sighed in relief.

  "You sound very tense and excited tonight. What happened?"

  It all came out in a rush. "I could say it's because I fought a shark today, but it's not that. I was scared, and Father made me do all the piloting myself, but I got over that because I won. I won, and Father told me I did okay, and I should have been happy, but I'm not. I outflew a shark with no backup, and it was acceptable. It made me realize that's the best I'm going to get, ever. He's never going to be happy or proud of me, and if I push myself to the limit, beyond anyone else's limits, all I can hope for is that he won't be angry."

  I'd had to tell someone. I'd had to tell Rosie. It was a terrible thought, because it was so obviously true. It was selfish, but yes. I wanted praise. I wanted him to love me.

  "I can't even imagine doing something so brave. If he's not proud of you, I am," she told me. I felt like relief would cause all my struts to peel away.

  That weakness gave me the strength to admit something else. "I'm also nervous, Rosie. Tomorrow we go into combat. Real fighting against other pilots and airships. I'm not just nervous, I'm afraid."

  That made her pause. When she answered, she sounded tired again. So tired, it gnawed at me to hear. "I understand. I'm glad I got to meet you when I did, Red. I don't think I'm going to survive this trip."

  Did I want to know more? I wanted her to not feel that way. I wanted that more than I wanted to know about her. "Let's talk about something else. It seems like since I met you I've started seeing beautiful things everywhere. Tell me about what you saw today," I urged her.

  She answered in a mild, wistful voice, "Nothing, really. We're out near the border, and the sky is very empty. That will change tomorrow. We're going to pass by the Eye, and I've always wanted to see it."

  Oh, no.

  What to say? How to say this? It didn't matter if I was gentle. Just say it! "Rosie, you can't," I whispered desperately, "I'm at the Eye now. My squadron is here to ambush a convoy tomorrow. We're here to attack you."

  Please, I didn't want Rosie to hate me, but I'd rather she escape. Even if she hated me and I was caught, I'd rather she escaped.

  There was no anger in her voice when she replied, just resignation. "I'm sorry. I can't change our course."

  "Rosie, you have to. You have to tell your mother, have to tell the whole convoy. They don't stand a chance if you pass by here tomorrow. I don't think our orders are to take prisoners!" I begged.

  Her answer came back monotonously. "No one listens to me, Red. No one. If they did, they still wouldn't change course. They'd just be ready to fight back. I could get you killed, but you can't save me. Even if you could, I don't care anymore. I just don't."

  "Rosie…"

  "I don't," she insisted. Her voice had dropped to an almost emotionless hush. "Mom went to visit the other pilots today. They left their Chatter on by accident, and I was listening. She told them I was a failure, garbage. She wishes she could get rid of me, but we're stuck together."

  "Rosie…" I repeated helplessly.

  "Thank you, Red. Thank you so much. I'm never going to get another chance to say this. I love you. Goodbye," she told me.

  "Don't go," I urged her.

  Silence.

  "Rosie, can you hear me?" I asked.

  Silence.

  "I'm not sure we should be doing this, Father," I said. I had to tear the words out of myself. It was so close to disobeying him.

  "We don't have time for fear. When the fighting starts, you'll understand that," he answered me. His tone was brusque and businesslike as he examined every switch and lever and linkage. He dabbed a little oil on one of the wheels for positioning my propellers. I gave it a sm
all twist, letting the oil work in. I hadn't noticed the slight drag of rust until he fixed it.

  "It's not the fear, Father. I don't think it's right," I tried to explain.

  "We're warriors, Red. This is our purpose. You were built for combat," he answered. More guilt and confusion nagged at me. He'd never been this patient with me before. I'd expected yelling.

  Was I wrong about him? Was there some way to put this that he'd understand? I tried. For Rosie, I tried. "…but this isn't combat, is it? Not really. This isn't a Fleet battle. They're traders or messengers, not warriors, and we're going to ambush these people that don't want to fight and slaughter them. It feels wrong, Father. It feels completely wrong."

  I was in so much trouble. I'd just insulted his entire life. Maybe he'd be so angry he'd refuse to fly with me.

  Instead, he laid his hand on the axle of my ship's wheel and told me, "I've felt like that before."

  I was stunned. "You have?"

  "More than once. We're warriors. This is not the kind of battle we'd choose. That's why it's not our choice. We only know how to fight, not when," he answered me. He sounded distant and businesslike, but not angry.

  There had to be something I could say. I didn't get to. The squadron had picked its own band of the Chatter for this battle, and Captain Todd announced, "Visual contact. Move to attack."

  They were here already? It wasn't anywhere near noon! "Father, please!" I begged him.

  Still he didn't get angry. He just