"All batteries weapons free," she ordered. "Navigation do we have lift?"
"Negative, Ma'am," came the response. "The isolator is still offline. The only helium we have is already in the ballonets."
"Then get the turbines spinning," Stockbridge said. "We're not about to sit still and invite them to dinner."
"Aye, Ma'am," the mechanical station said. "Turbines are online and spinning to speed."
"Ahead full," Stockbridge ordered and leapt back to the command station. The ensign repeated the command and slid the chadburn lever forward to signal the engine room. Steam hissed through the pneumatic tubing that spanned the airship, and the dull thud of shifting pistons rattled through the hull. The pace increased, and the whine of the engines rose higher. The relation of the Dreadnaut to the dropships changed, and Stockbridge watched while two sailed past the stern.
"Helm, bring us to port, ninety degree declination." Stockbridge barked.
"Aye, Ma'am," the helmsman replied. "Coming to port, ninety degree delineation."
The airship listed sharply to the right. An avalanche of small items, not properly stowed before the engagement began, slid across the consoles and floor. Stockbridge bent her knees to account for the motion.
"Starboard batteries fire free," she ordered. Whatever dropped those pods waited above them, and she intended to bring it down. Moments later the booming of cannons sounded in precise measure and marched along the airship from the bow to the stern. The squealing of gunnery trucks and the clanging of spent cycling casing echoed through the bridge.
"Captain," aeronaut Hajek called from tactical. "The quarter deck hatch is breached. We're getting reports of fighting within the officer's quarters."
"Seal the bridge," Stockbridge said. Her stomach tightened. The enemy stormed the halls of her home, and she knew their purpose.
They came for her.
She knew this moment would come. The sins of her past, however sanctioned by her king and commanding officers, could not be forgiven. The fear she expected to feel evaporated. In its place a calm acceptance lingered. She lived with the crushing anxiety for so long that its absence surprised her. For years, she wallowed in trepidation, knowing she remained the single greatest target on any battlefield. She expected an assassin's knife behind every greeting. She prepared herself for it in so many ways; she rebuffed any attempt at friendship or community, against the day they should be used against her. And now they called in her debt.
"Correct the ship's azimuth," she said, her voice controlled. "Beckett, you have the comm."
Lieutenant Beckett left his post by the helm and stepped onto the command dais, while another aeronaut took his place.
"Ma'am?" he said when stood next to her.
She understood the simple question. Her post during every engagement remained right here, and she never relinquished it, even when injured.
Until now.
Her crew was the closest she had to a family anymore, and she would not let them pay for her crimes. The Aeresian zealots would not stop. They would continue the assault until they had her, and they would cut through any who stood between them and their target.
This she could not allow.
Her people would not die to protect her.
She did not explain any of her reasoning, however. The words did not form, although she raged at herself to utter them. She wanted to say goodbye at least.
Solara Stockbridge glanced around the bridge and took in the faces watching her. She saluted them, tapped her fist to her chest, extended two fingers and swept them outward.
Without another word, she drew her rapier, and walked off the bridge to meet her fate.
Shadows
The fighting inside the corridors devolved into a hand-to-hand melee. Crew members fought with the weapons available, and found themselves unprepared for what awaited them.
Smoke filled the corridors, a mixture of cordite from the cannon and fires sparked by the ordinance exchange on deck. The scuttles opened on the sides of the airship to draw out the worst of it, but a lingering haze remained. The red emergency lights cut through the darkness and reflected off the dull gray metallic walls in a hellish cast. Shouts and screams overlapped; a chaos of echoes that drifted ghostlike along the corridors.
Captain Stockbridge paused at the top of the ladder to gain her bearings, her rapier held at the ready, and her pistol half raised. Her thumb ran over the delicate runic Zenzil inscribed on the hilt, and she drew comfort from them. The glyphs of Iyre, harmony and perseverance, lay next to Wodel, peace and inner purpose to create a reminder of her intention. The glyph Erus, the Creator, surrounded all. In the center rested Oun, the self. These were radials of the Eightfold Path, and over the years her fingers wore them more than the others.
The blood staining her hands kept her from touching Gaien, correct intention that focuses action. That radial she could never walk, though she yearned to do so. King Daen proclaimed her slaughter of Brae Head to be so, but she knew better. The Zenzil possessed no glyph for wrath, but the flesh of her chest held one burned into it above her heart. A reminder of how her second life began; a life without Warren, a life without joy or purpose.
"I will see you soon, my love," she whispered, though she knew his spirit did not exist here anymore. He moved on to the next life. Her flagship remained too far away when the mob overtook him, and his spirit already fled when she reached his corpse.
She had nothing left but his memory.
She pushed aside the ache of grief and refocused her mind to the matter at hand. The enemy occupied her ship, and they killed her crew. She needed to end the bloodshed.
Stockbridge moved along the orlop deck at a steady pace. The hatch leading above stood a few yards away, and would put her on the forecastle. From there, she would be at the enemy's back.
A door at the end of the corridor opened, and a pair of Aeresian legionnaires appeared. Both wore the blood red uniforms crossed with white baldrics, and each held an elongated cutlass. They saw her, and paused in surprise.
Stockbridge leveled her pistol and fired. The blast of the cycling chamber filled the corridor with a spectral red light and a clap of sound. The soldier on the right caught the charge in the chest and it passed through him to impact the bulkhead. He fell dead without a sound. The second legionnaire charged before she could reload the weapon. She cast it aside, and met him halfway down the hallway.
She slipped into the flow state, and her thumb depressed the Oun glyph on the hilt. As a result, a blue glow encased her rapier. She felt the magical energies of the Kal flow through her, for the gesture activated the cascade of the Creator's might through her. She became the conduit for the divine light.
She met the soldier's slash with an easy parry and stepped to the side before raking the tip of her blade across his arm. He yelped in pain and stumbled back. His cutlass slipped from his useless fingers to the deck. If she allowed him to live, he would never regain the use of his arm; she severed the connection between his spirit and his body at the brachial node. In time, she knew, the flesh beneath the injury would shrivel and darken with necrosis.
Stockbridge did not give him time to contemplate such a horrific future. A precise lunge sent her blade through his chest to his heart. His soul departed before he hit the deck. She watched while the currents of the harvesting chamber on the prow of the Dreadnaut latched on and whisked his soul away.
She retrieved her pistol from the floor, and cradling the blade in her arm, she reloaded it with another cycling chamber. She remembered a time, ages ago, when she first learned what powered the little silver devices. The revelation horrified her. That the temples sanctioned such a desecration drove her from their embrace and into her husband's.
When she passed the corpse of the first fallen soldier, none of her previous revulsion remained. She learned the Sharikeen ways, and she would use every weapon at her disposal to send her enemy to crowd the halls of the Sur.
Stockbridge slipped out of the hat
ch connecting the orlop deck to the forecastle. Pandemonium met her.
Large oval dropships littered the deck and hung suspended in the rigging. Many burned, a testament to her crew's proficiency. Bodies covered the span, and blood coated the deck. It dripped off the sides like a red river to sprinkle the sky with a crimson rain. The black uniforms of the Dreadnaut's crew spread at random among the red coats of Aeresian legionnaires. The charred remains of Zephyrs resided among the fallen, their armor smoking and cracked.
Her crew still fought with an abandon born of duty and loyalty, and their cycling weapons blasted through swaths of the enemy. The sheer numbers they faced, however, rendered their advanced weaponry ineffective. On the poop deck, three ranks of aeronauts held position and rained devastation into the opposing forces. In undulating waves, they held against a line of swords and fought to hold back the press.
Shadows moved and bulged through the ranks of her crew. The darkness moved as if alive, and dark clad figures stepped out of its embrace to slice into the crew with blackened swords and knives. The shadows wreathed them, and they disappeared. Tendrils of night flailed about, only to grab an aeronaut and pull them into the abyss.
Stockbridge's breath caught. This not an ordinary raid; not an ordinary foe. Pure fear locked her limbs immobile.
The Ogun Den were upon them.
Creatures of legend and myth, the Ogun Den walked through the annals of history like specters of death and destruction. The experts said they lived in the shadows, and moved without impediment. Walls did not stop them. Armor did not defend against them. The ancestral enemies of the Sharikeen order, tales of the Ogun Den kept the novices awake at night contemplating the tales of their horror.
Where the Ogun Den walked, death bloomed.
Stockbridge managed to draw a breath through the paralysis that gripped her. They killed her crew. She was their captain. She refused to give them over without a fight.
She raised her pistol and fired at the nearest shadow.
The cycling blast passed through the darkness and slammed into three Aeresian legionnaires in succession. She reloaded, and targeted another black shape. Again, the shadows moved too fast, and enemy soldiers fell in their stead.
A coil of darkened mist coalesced in between Stockbridge and the melee while she struggled to reload. A figure formed from the tendrils of night, a black cloak hanging down its back, and its face obscured by a mask. Blue eyes looked out at her from the shadow, and it raised its blackened blade toward her. From the mass of chaos more shadows flowed toward her, and took shape in the center of the deck.
Twelve Ogun Den stood before her, their blades held before their faces in ritual salute.
Stockbridge slammed the cycling cylinder home and fired off a shot.
The specter flowed out of its path, and the beam ricocheted off the deck to strike a quartet of Aeresians.
As one, they glided forward.
Stockbridge tossed her pistol away and raised her rapier. Her thumb caressed the Erus symbol, and settled on Oun. The Kal flowed through her body and into the blade. Its surface glowed with a purplish light to reflect the energies called forth.
She readied herself, and they fell upon her. Stockbridge slashed and bit only air. She spun and lunged, and again missed her target.
A tendril of darkness shot forward and wrapped around her. It pinned her arms to her sides and crept across her chest. The cold of death slipped across her chin and up her face. Her vision failed her, and her rapier fell from her hands.
Silence engulfed her, and Solara Stockbridge was lost.
The Weight of a Name
Robert raced along the citadel's docks, heedless of those in his path.
Word of the Aeresian assault on the Dreadnaut reached the Keep, along with the casualty report.
Half of the crew dead or missing.
Captain Stockbridge's name headed the list of those missing in action.
Already, two cutters cast off to offer what aid they could. Robert intended to be on the next airship launched.
The battle ended, with the Aeresian forces dispatched. But one term haunted him and gave fuel to his steps.
Ogun Den.
The assassins of legend fought on the side of the enemy. Remorse and guilt whipped him while he ran. He enjoyed a leisurely dinner with an old friend and what he considered a well-earned sleep. And all the while, his crew fought for their lives against denizens of all the hells. He should have been with them. He should have fought by their side. He should have protected his captain.
"Slow down," Whelan called from behind him. "You'll be no use to anyone if you kill yourself on the way."
Robert did not reply. He raced ahead, as if he could outrun the castigating self-recrimination. The remains of the Albatross' crew followed close behind them.
He pounded up the gangplank of the nearest cutter and ordered it to shove off.
"Hey now," the aeronaut closest to him said on his arrival. "What's all this?"
The tip of Robert's sword pressed against his neck silenced any further objections.
"Cast lines and shove off," Robert said, his voice soft and low. "Now."
The airship's crew noticed the turmoil and rushed over, pistols and knives at the ready. The crew of the Albatross drew their weapons and spread out in a circle around Robert. The airship's captain shoved his way forward, but pulled up short at the sight of the swords, pistols and rifles aimed at him.
"What's going on here?" the captain said. "Why are you on my airship?"
Whelan raised his hands and stepped between Robert and the aeronaut.
"Forgive my overly dramatic friend here," he said. With his stick, he pushed Robert's sword away from the other man, and held a folded parchment aloft. "We have orders from the acting Captain of the citadel, Lyle Rassnaeren, to commandeer any airship in our efforts to return to our battlecruiser, the Dreadnaut."
To cement their understanding, Whelan pointed to the sky above them. The captain scowled at them, and Whelan held out the parchment. "Rassnaeren has a way with words," he said.
The captain snatched the note and read the orders within. He handed it back with a nod.
"Pull the gangplank," the captain ordered. "Power up the turbines, and ignite the isolator. Prepare to cast off."
The crew of the Albatross gathered together in the center of the deck. Robert stood apart and watched the preparations with ill-concealed agitation. The mood of the crew darkened, and they adopted his impatience while the airship pushed off from the dock and rose into the predawn sky. Like him, their kept their weapons at the ready.
The hulk of the Dreadnaut drifted several miles south of its previous position, and the rising sun illuminated the cloak of trailing smoke it pulled behind it. The battlecruiser listed to starboard. Robert watched both sets of the double-barreled bow guns shift toward the smaller airship.
"Run the flags," the captain said. "Tell them we have relief supplies and crewmen before it blows us out of the air."
The cannon never moved off target as the airship pulled alongside the Dreadnaut.
"Get yourselves to your duty stations," Robert told the crew when they leapt over onto the battlecruiser's deck. "Help where you can."
He continued toward the bridge. After a few steps, he noticed Whelan kept pace with him.
"I gave you an order, boatswain," he said without slowing.
"Aye, Sir," Whelan said, "yes you did. And I'm following those orders."
"Your station is on deck."
"Not without knowing the situation, Sir," Whelan said. "I don't want to countermand orders previously given."
Robert kept his opinion to himself, and continued to the bridge.
He banged on the secured metal hatch with a balled fist. The sliding view port did not open, but a mechanically enhanced voice demanded identification. They waited through a second identification process, which required each to speak their authentication codes. At last, they gained permission to cross the bridge.
"Good to see you, Lieutenant." Beckett signed the paper, and handed it off to the aeronaut at his side. "You missed all the fun."
"What happened, Sir?"
"We got caught with our pants down," Beckett said, "and the enemy laid on the hurt."
"What about the captain?" Robert said. "What do we know?"
Beckett sighed and motioned Robert toward the replica of the airship, and turned a dial on console. The field expanded, and a miniature destroyer lifted off its pad to take position by the Dreadnaut.
"Trepidation," Beckett said. "It's fully operational and undamaged."
"Where's Hellion?"
"Lost." Beckett spoke with a lack of emotion. "The enemy assaulted us, but left the destroyers alone. The bloody Ogun Den ripped through us, up until the captain made an appearance on deck. Once they saw her, they left us alone. She tried to fight, but she didn't stand a chance the way they swarmed her. They rolled over her, and then disappeared, leaving her on the deck. The Aeresian troops snatched her up, and stole the cutter Salvation. The entire operation was designed to get their hands on the captain."
"What of the Hellion?" Whelan said.
Beckett looked at him, a haunted expression on his countenance.
"It gave chase," he said, "and overtook Salvation beyond Caliban's Crossing. But the Aeresian battleships opened fire. She never stood a chance. Last we saw of Salvation, she was tethered to the enemy flagship."
"So the captain is alive?" Robert said.
Beckett shrugged. "We have no confirmation of life, but we also have no confirmation of death either."
"The Ogun Den revel in bloodshed," Whelan said. "If they killed the captain, there would be no doubt in your mind. She was alive when taken aboard Salvation, I guarantee it."
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