Aethosphere Chronicles: Winds of Duty (19 page)

Bar wanted nothing more than to be this hero
his mentor was praising, but he just couldn’t bring himself to buy
into it. A nagging truth, left unsaid, still festered within the
shadows; a truth that even Lockney couldn’t suspect; a truth that
made all those inspiring words sting like shards of broken
glass…

Having ordered his battered crew to rest, Bar felt
like doing so himself. The wounds spread across his body sang a
symphony of pain and discomfort, but he still needed to get to the
bridge, still needed to order Gryph to set course for Ragnarok
Cloudfortress. He staggered to the ladderwell, instincts having
robbed him of remembering it was nothing but a broken pit. So when
he reached the edge and found devastation, he was momentarily
confused, looking down into a blackened void.

The ladder, that’s right
. Bar laughed
it off. It was funny he could forget something that not long ago
had almost claimed his life. But he was tired and things like that
happen when you’re tired. He began to turn for the hold, but
something caught his eye. He stopped, knelt down to examine this
curiosity lurking in the shadows. Stowe’s clatterbolt took shape,
hanging by its shoulder strap from a jagged piece of wood. Bar
reached out, rescued it, and found the metal still warm to the
touch.
Stowe’s terrible weapon
, he thought holding its
weight. It was heavy—as heavy as you would expect a machine capable
of spewing out such rapid death.

“What’cha got there, mate,” asked Tolle, and
when Bar turned with the gun in hand, the hefty Candaran frowned.
“You should pitch that thing off the side of the ship. It’s too
terrible a weapon to exist…and I’m the weapons officer.”

“Aye,” murmured Bar in agreement. He’d
watched the master-at-arms shoot too many good men with it.
Rat-tat-tat-tat
. It was as though it still held the souls of
those it had claimed, locked in the heat of its surface. “Listen
up. We can’t tell the Admiralty the truth of what happened here.
Too many good men would be sentenced to death if we were.”

“Aye, my thoughts exactly,
Captain
.
What should we tell them? We’ll need a damn good story to explain
this mess away.”

“Well, the imperial attack took care of most
of the explaining. We’ll figure out the details later. But right
now, I got to get to the bridge. Get some rest, Tolle.” Bar slung
the clatterbolt over his shoulder and continued on through the
hold.

On deck, the night air was crisp and cool.
The sun had retreated behind the reef complex and now the endless
stars were out of hiding and winking down at him. Some of the
horror had faded in the darkness. The damage etched across the deck
blotted out by heavy shadows or at least softened in the subdued
light of the core. Even the blood stains appeared to have faded…
almost like this terrible day never happened.

“You think your lies will save you?” husked
a voice from the blackness behind him. It was low and raspy, edged
in pain. “I heard you talking to that villainous rabble, and I’ll
not let you spin this treacherous fantasy…not to the good people of
King’s Isle, Bar Bazzon.” Captain Moore staggered from the shadows
into the blue glow of the atmium core. He was a horror to look
upon. The explosion had seared away half his face, turning it into
something like blackened bark. Corrupted blood oozed thickly from
the seams and the cracks in his flesh. One eye gleamed out from the
ruin like an over-boiled egg, while the other glared out through a
hemorrhage. He shambled towards Bar.

“Moore…” was all he could manage to say as
he backed away. The good part of himself wanted to help his
captain, duty demanded it, but another part…a darker part still,
ruled by anger and fear, lingered on the man’s threat: ‘
I’ll not
let you spin this treacherous fantasy.’
“Things happened,
Moore,” Bar tried to argue reason, “terrible things, but these
men—the men left here—well, they saved this ship; you, me…us all,
Captain. We found our peace.”

Moore’s seemly undead corpse shuffled
closer, trailing a mutilated leg. “I am the master of this ship. I
give the orders, and not a one of you followed them. Our mission’s
ended in failure, Bar. You’re all traitors, one and all…”

“That’s not what happened,” decried Bar, but
sweat broke across his body as it flushed hot with guilt. In the
strictest sense, Moore was right. As captain he gave a wartime
order, and not a one of them carried it out. They’d let sentiment
and personal opinions drown it away. And worse still, they took up
arms. Feeling as though the world were weighing down on him,
everything vanished except the captain’s ruinous form, and the
weight of the clatterbolt held slack in Bar’s hands.

“I’ll see that every last one of you is
hanged,
godsdammit
!”

Bar averted his gaze; found it filled with
tears as he looked down at the rifle held in his own hands. “Moore…
are you sure I can’t talk you out of this….”

“There can be no peace outside the King’s
authority…”

Bar raised the weapon to the
Chimera’s
rightful captain. The weight of it a terrible
thing. Orders were orders…that was simply the truth of the
military. It really didn’t matter what had occurred after to unite
the crew, the fact remained that a mutiny
had
occurred, and
military order had been shattered. There could be no simple
forgiveness for that.

“Hand it over,” urged the ship’s master
greedily, his breath coming in almost lustful wheezes as he waved a
clawed hand in anticipation. “I’ll see to it that you’re spared if
you do—”

“I’m sorry…” muttered Bar softly, thinking
of Al and the men in the hold. Too many lives now depended on him,
and right, wrong, or indifferent, he was in command.

The trigger was a light-pull, so slight.
Six, maybe seven shots barked from the gun in an instant, lighting
up Moore’s already-battered body with round after round. Sprays of
misted blood blew back over Bar, and he staggered away under recoil
and repulsion; his lips sticky with the captain’s vitae. After, as
the sulfurous smoke drifted away on the wind, the world became a
darker place. Perhaps it was merely a result of the sudden burst of
light, but reasons really didn’t matter. Bar could feel the
darkness now; hear it ringing in his ears and twisting around his
heart. “…but I’m… for the ship, Captain…”

He dumped Moore and the gun overboard.

From Aethosphere

Book 1: Coalescence of Shadows and Light

From the Aethosphere Chronicles

Storm of Chains

And Coming soon!

Aethosphere: Book Two

Aethosphere Chronicles: The Rat Warrens

www.aethosphere.com

Follow me on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/aethosphere

Like me on Facebook:
http://facebook.com/aethosphere

Favorite me at Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Lockdale

Contact me by email at:
[email protected]