Tool of War

by Paolo Bacigalupi

Nita’s dagger boat eased up beside the wharf and docked, Talon at the helm.

  Talon. Another augment.

  Was he family?

  A friend?

  A slave?

  The last of the ExCom honor guard was being shipped up. Nita watched as the passenger capsule rose toward the belly of the war machine that loomed over them all.

  “I’ve done the best I can,” her father sighed. He looked tired. Older suddenly.

  Now, seeing Mercier’s combat command ship looming over them, she understood, finally, why he had been so terrified when this company came calling.

  It was like staring up at a dragon, waiting for it to take notice of them and attack. The underside of the dirigible bristled with missile tubes and drone catapult launches. She watched as a pair of returning strike drones glided into the maw of the dirigible’s hangar deck. So many troops. So much weaponry. And this was just one of Mercier’s ships.

  The passenger cranes swung back from the dirigible and the ground crews began the process of unlocking anchor clamps from the huge iron loops that were embedded in the concrete of the floating platforms, preparing to release the dirigible to the open winds.

  Nita gazed out over the waters, holding her father’s hand, not sure if she was comforting him or herself with the human touch.

  Out on the water, she could just make out a small fishing skiff. A young man out on the gray water, guiding his sailboat through the chop of the Seascape’s inner bay.

  Small and vulnerable, the sailboat looked like a tiny toy in comparison with the massive dirigible floating overhead. The skiff handled nicely, she thought. Its sailor even seemed to be enjoying himself as he played the little boat across the wakes of larger, faster vessels, not far from the dirigible’s anchor pads.

  “We should be prepared for the worst,” her father was saying, watching as the Annapurna’s anchor cables began to be unhooked.

  “I used to think so,” Nita sighed. She looked out at the sailboat again. The young man was standing up, taking down the sail. If she squinted, she thought she could see the whorls of his ship-breaking tattoos.

  “I used to think that I had to live in fear of what others would do to us. But sometimes, others help us. And they do the right thing.” She gripped her father’s hand. “You taught me that. Sometimes, it’s better to trust.”

  She tugged her father away from the anchor pad as the last of the dirigible lines unhooked.

  Above them, the dirigible’s turbofans were spinning up, a rising roar, a scream of power. Winds lashed the airfield as the Annapurna pushed her bulk up and away from the Seascape.

  A longshoreman’s bark of surprise echoed over the noise of the turbofans.

  Nita gripped her father’s arm and kept walking toward their launch, but she couldn’t resist a quick glance back.

  The Annapurna was lifting off, anchor cables reeling inward faster and faster, like tentacles being pulled up into the belly of an octopus.

  And clutched to the end of one of those anchor cables, swinging wildly in the winds and rising rapidly—

  Tool.

  Climbing into the sky.

  37

  TOOL CLUNG TO the anchor cable. Winds whipped around him. The anchor cable sang with tension as it spooled upward. Tool spun and twisted, dangling beneath the dirigible, rising faster and faster. The behemoth loomed above, filling his vision.

  A hatch came rushing up at him.

  Tool leaped. He caught hold of the hatch edge as the anchor hook whipped inside, wrapping tightly around the spool. Another second of delay and he would have been sucked in and crushed by the heavy cable. Instead, he dangled from the lip of the hatch, swinging wildly, scrabbling for adequate handholds.

  A thousand meters below, the Seascape spread, gray and white-capped, ringed by the docks and developments of the city.

  The dirigible continued to rise.

  It had been madness to seize the anchor cable. He recognized that now. But in the final moment, submerged beneath Nailer’s skiff, forced to watch his enemies on the verge of escaping once again, he had been unable to restrain himself. Like an animal rushed by instinct, he had lunged out of the waters after his fleeing prey, and seized onto the just-detached anchor cable as it was starting to spool inward.

  Madness.

  He peered into the cable compartment, looking for some place of rest, but there wasn’t enough room to fit.

  The hatch door began sliding shut.

  He swung from the edge of the hatch and grabbed the lip of the door as it slid past where his fingers had been. Dangling from the closing door, Tool scanned for salvation. He caught sight of a hatch release lever, and made a desperate clumsy lunge. He snagged hold with one hand as the hatch door clanked shut.

  Worse and worse.

  The dirigible continued to rise, breaking through moist, cool clouds. Two thousand meters now, he estimated.

  It seemed the ExCom was not immediately returning to Los Angeles. They were heading out over the Atlantic, bearing north. From where he dangled, the whole of the world was open to his view, the curve of the earth, and now, as they broke out of cloud cover, wide-open blue cumulus skies.

  Far below, sun glittered off fragments of ocean. The dirigible kept rising, likely seeking the high-altitude winds of the jet stream. They were above three thousand meters now, moving north and out to sea, still rising.

  Tool felt himself becoming chilled.

  Winds tore at him as the dirigible began to pour on power. Tool reached up with his free hand, tried to squeeze both his hands on the tiny manual handle that had been built for puny humans. There was no good fit. With a grunt he pulled himself up, let go, switched hands, caught the handle again, and let his weight settle onto his other arm.

  How many times would he be able to switch hands successfully, before he slipped and fell from the dirigible?

  He had put Nailer and Nita into too much difficulty, first by wedging himself back into their lives, and then by encouraging them to force the diplomatic meeting that would bring all the ExCom within his reach.

  The plan he had arranged with Nailer and Nita had anticipated that he would be able to use the distraction of ExCom’s arrival ceremonies to steal aboard the dirigible. With Nailer’s sailboat to provide cover, he could get close. But Mercier’s security had been too effective, and so he’d been forced to linger beneath the surface of the Seascape waters, watching as supplies and fuel were put in place, and as Mercier’s leadership prepared to leave. Mercier was a many-tentacled monster, but he had finally baited the head close. It was too good an opportunity to allow to slip away.

  Now he dangled from his fingertips beneath the belly of this behemoth, mere meters away from enemies, and yet unable to reach them.

  The dirigible continued to rise. Six thousand meters. Oxygen was thinning. The icy northern sea spread below.

  A long way down.

  Tool could feel the cold seeping into him, chilling his muscles and weakening his fingers. Whether he succeeded or failed, he sensed that this would be the end for him. He would not have a second chance to attack his old masters. This battle would be his last.

  The air was cold, nearly ice. Tool hung on, considering his few options.

  They would have protocols for defending the main compartments of the dirigible, and as long as they were within the reach of the Seascape, they would be on high alert. But after a time, they would lower their guard.

  He imagined the airship’s crew, guiding their great battle platform up to cruising altitude, and then, finally, relaxing as they left the reach of the Seascape, and cruised north, high above inhospitable waters.

  If he was to succeed, he would have to wait.

  Icy winds clawed at him. He hauled himself upward again, made the fast switch of his hands, was pleased to discover that his fingers were not yet too cold to hold on. He shook out his exhausted left arm.

  I have climbed into the sky, he told himself as he fought exhaustion. Though I will die, all will kn
ow that I never faltered, and never failed. The cold will not fell me. My enemies will not escape me.

  Tool hung grimly on.

  They will sing songs of how I slew my gods.

  Frost formed on his muzzle. His breath misted as crystals. His fingers were blocks of ice.

  Patience.

  He had always known he would die, eventually, in battle. He had been brought up knowing that death would be his greatest glory. To die in battle, at war, drenched in the blood of his slaughtered enemies.

  He stared down at the darkening seas.

  He would die. But he would not fail.

  The Annapurna nosed eastward into the cold arctic night.

  Beneath the belly of the behemoth, Tool began to move.

  38

  ON THE BRIDGE of the Annapurna, a pair of warning lights began to flash, shifting from green to amber, and finally to red.

  The officer of the watch noted the change and began running diagnostics. As required by Mercier operating procedures, he also notified the captain and the chief engineer.

  Captain Ambrose was a thirty-year veteran of Mercier. He was experienced flying in nearly every environment on the earth. He had survived war zones and hurricanes, had conducted refugee evacuation operations and low-altitude insertions, sliding between the ragged teeth of the Andes and the Himalayas. And yet nothing prepared him for the conversation he found himself having when the night duty officer and his chief of engineering woke him.

  “Captain, we seem to have a leak in Aft-Twelve holding compartment. I’m registering helium loss.”

  “Helium loss?” The captain blinked sleep from his eyes. “That’s impossible.”

  Chief Engineer Umeki shook his head. “I’ve never seen it before, either. But it’s definitely helium loss.”

  “Could it be a sensor malfunction?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not… No. I don’t think so. We’re registering a loss of lift. Creeping up on three percent. It’s definitely a leak.”

  “This is a contained leak?” Ambrose prompted him. “We have it contained?”

  “Yes, sir. We’re still airworthy. But I’ve never seen a containment rupture before. The holding tanks are quite tough, except… well, if we’d been hit by a missile.” He shrugged. “But we would have felt the explosion. And we’d have a whole host of other damage reports coming in. This is just the one holding tank.”

  “Aft-Twelve?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ambrose rubbed his eyes. “Fine. I’ll be up on the bridge shortly.”

  “I don’t think it’s necessary, sir. We’ve pumped extra sealants into that chamber. It seems to be holding now.”

  “No.” Ambrose rubbed his eyes, trying to clear the sleep. “I’ll come up. We’ve got too many important people all in one ship for me to get shut-eye now. The last thing I need to do is be the famous captain who ignored a warning light and wiped out ExCom. People still remember the captain of the Titanic.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll be up in five.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A few minutes later, Ambrose reached the bridge. He found the situation quiet, except for his concerned chief of engineering, leaning over his diagnostics systems.

  “What’s the status, Umeki?”

  “The tank definitely lost containment,” he said. “Some kind of rupture. Ideally we’d set down and send some crews out to examine the leak, but…”

  “We’re pretty far out to sea,” Ambrose said doubtfully. But his engineer’s expression of concern made him reconsider. “All right. We can be back over dry land in six hours.” He pulled up navigation charts, scanned them rapidly, calculating wind patterns and strength against the Annapurna’s own maximum speed. “Or we’ve got a few arctic drill platforms. We could anchor there, for repairs. ExCom won’t like it, but…”

  “Sir?” A junior engineer spoke up. “I have another leak. It’s forward. Fore-Six.”

  “What?”

  Ambrose felt a cold trickle of something that almost felt like fear. He rushed over to study the diagnostics boards. Another leak? He suddenly deeply regretted his invocation of the ancient Titanic, lost amongst the icebergs of the Atlantic. A superstitious part of him wondered if he’d summoned the disaster just by saying the name.

  “It’s not an error?” he pressed. Umeki joined him, both of them peering over the shoulders of the junior, examining the warning lights on the boards.

  “No, sir. We’re losing lift, sir. We are definitely losing lift. We’re down more than five percent now. Six…” She leaned forward. “Aft-Twelve is leaking again, too.”

  “That’s not possible!” Chief Engineer Umeki protested. He was going over the junior engineer’s boards, rechecking her numbers.

  “Shift surplus power to the starboard turbofans,” Ambrose ordered, trying to keep his voice calm. He briskly returned to his navigation screens. “Reorient starboard fans to docking position. Prepare the Annapurna for maneuvers, shift bearing east-northeast.”

  “Are we trying for land, sir?” his navigation officer asked.

  Ambrose frowned as he studied the spinning of the ship’s altimeter “We might not make land,” he said grimly. “It’s possible we’re going swimming.”

  “Sir?” The junior navigation officer was young. Just out of the Mercier academy.

  Ambrose placed a calming hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. She may not fly, but she’ll certainly float. Send out the distress call, and launch our locational beacons.” He was checking the maps, running calculations in his head. “Notify ExCom that they’ll need to be evacuated before splashdown, and nonessential crew should stand ready for evac as well. Send up the distress beacons.”

  “Captain, there’s another leak!” Umeki exclaimed. “Fore-Eight. It’s venting!”

  But Ambrose didn’t need to be told this time. He felt it. The whole great floating platform of the dirigible was slowly rolling, listing to her side.

  “All power to starboard turbofans! All power!”

  “All power, sir! Shifting all power!”

  The Annapurna continued to list to starboard, but stabilized. More warning lights flipped from green to amber to red, and stayed red as helium kept venting.

  Warning klaxons started to sound on the bridge as the airship lost stabilization.

  The chief of engineering was dashing from control board to control board, trying to understand what was happening. “It’s not possible!” he kept saying as his team pumped sealants into the leaking helium chambers. “Are auto-sealants working, or not?”

  “We’re pumping, sir. We’re just not closing the leaks!”

  “It’s not possible!”

  More emergency alarms began to wail.

  It might not be possible, but it was happening. The malevolent red lights of lost pressure containment shone brightly, and the Annapurna’s altimeter was spinning down. Their descent had slowed somewhat, now that Ambrose had realigned the turbofans to help keep them aloft and counteract the loss of lift, but still they were descending. And still they listed to starboard.

  “Is someone shooting at us?” Ambrose asked his weapons officer. “Are there attack drones? Anything?”

  “There’s nothing on radar, sir! There’s nothing.”

  “What about stealth?” Ambrose demanded.

  “We’d have felt an explosion,” the chief engineer pointed out. “Nothing could hit us and do this much damage without us feeling it.”

  The Annapurna continued to tilt, the deck listing so much under Ambrose’s feet that he had to reach out and grab on to his captain’s chair to stay upright.

  There hadn’t been any explosions. But the situation was clear to him. He’d been in too many combat situations to dismiss the possibility.

  “Evacuate ExCom. Priority One,” he said. “We’re under attack.”

  Tool clung to a starboard service ladder of the Annapurna, ripping at metal. He drove his claws under the seam of armor that encased the dirigib
le’s helium chamber, then pulled. His muscles strained, bulging. He grunted with effort. Strained. Pulled harder…

  Metal squealed. Rivets popped like bullets and the armor sheeting pried loose, all along its length. With another grunt, Tool tore it free entirely, and heaved it away from him. The armored sheet fell, spinning and flipping, a silver leaf in arctic moonlight, plummeting for the icy, dark Atlantic far below.

  Tool returned to his task. His claws, chemically bonded and sheathed in carbon lattice, hard as diamond, sharper than a katana blade, shone briefly in the arctic night. He plunged his fist into the heavy rubber bladder that held the dirigible’s helium. Ripped through. His claws sank deep into the Annapurna’s now vulnerable innards.

  Sticky green fluid spattered out, auto-sealants that would have stopped small leaks from becoming catastrophic ones. He tore deeper, plunging his arm as deep as his shoulder. Thick, gooey fibers that would have formed a mesh for the sealants to adhere to came out, clinging wetly to his arm. He shook the gunk off and drove his arm back into the hole, ripping more, ripping wider.

  Tearing, shredding, gutting…

  Suddenly it was done. Auto-sealant fluid gushed out in great green luminescent blobs. Clots of tangling fibers burped out with it, and, invisibly, the helium gas that provided buoyancy.

  The Annapurna tilted subtly as she lost more stabilization. Tool kept tearing at the dirigible’s wound, ensuring that the hole would never reseal itself, then made his way along the maintenance ladder to the next helium containment chamber.

  Beside him, a small panel snicked open, revealing a dark port. There was a soft whump, and something exploded from the hole, trailing pale smoke.

  The projectile flared, rising, a fiery red magnesium beacon, arcing high above the dirigible, and then fell, faster and faster, burning bright and unmistakable as it plunged for the seas.

  More flares followed, multiple ports opening up all along the length of the behemoth airship, emergency beacons blasting into the night sky. Shooting stars of alarm, calling out to every dirigible and clipper ship within a hundred miles, a cascade of signaled distress announcing that the Annapurna was dying.