Aethosphere Chronicles: Winds of Duty (6 page)

“That will be all, Ensign. Now if you’d be
so kind as to direct the next crewmen in as you leave, that would
be greatly appreciated, thank you.”

Only a few hours separated Bar from his
interrogation, and the experience left him shaken. His marine
escort said little on the trip down the ladderwell afterwards, only
offering a thinly veiled warning when he stated, “You’re to remain
in the mess until otherwise instructed; is that clear…sir?”
Thinking back on it, Bar thought the inclusion of ‘sir’ a rather
trite afterthought. Sitting in the galley, watching the world fade
to a black velvet curtain, punctured liberally by a host of
glinting stars, left him wondering if he’d answered his questions
correctly, or convincingly enough.
Or am I now in Moore’s secret
prison?

Al’s culinary assistant eventually emerged
from the compartmentalized galley stowed away in the stern of the
level. In one hand he carried a steaming bowl of what turned out to
be baked pudding sprinkled liberally with Moon Fall raisins, and in
the other, a cup of water flavored with diluted lime. Bar picked
away the raisins as his thoughts drifted to Alabrahm. The old cook
was nowhere to be found and that spelled certain trouble. Al wasn’t
the sort to abandon his duties lightly, and that left him worrying
over the old man’s fate, until what little he’d eaten over the
course of the evening threatened to come back up on him.

Others eventually joined Bar at the long
dining table running lengthwise down the center of the mess, but
they all looked as browbeaten as the ensign felt, and not a one of
them ventured to speak, especially with that grim-faced marine
standing guard between the hatch to the cargo deck and the door to
the ladderwell. The bolt-action in his hands was held a little too
“at-the-ready” for Bar’s comfort.

Time brought little in the way of answers,
instead, only more tribulations. Exhausted, all Bar wanted was to
crawl into his hammock and sleep off this terrible day. Maybe
morning would bring a return to sensibilities—explanations, and
good-tidings…but that was not to be… Nothing could bring Hastings
back from the dead, or McVayne out of his coma in the infirmary.
And as for resting, as soon as Bar’s meal was finished, he was
directed to the bridge under orders to man the ship’s resonance
stone.

“You are familiar with its operation?” asked
the captain tepidly.

“I am, but I never received a ranking,
sir…where’s Resonance Technician First Class McGalloway, this is
his station—”

“That’s none of your concern,” barked the
master-at-arms, speaking on the captain’s behalf.

And Bar suddenly recalled that McGalloway
was from one of the northern kingdoms, Frostrise or Cloudvale he
believed—though it could have just as easily been Winterforge. “Of
course, sir,” the hapless ensign replied obediently. Truth was,
though he wanted answers, the last thing he wanted was to stir up
trouble. On the bridge, everyone seemed ready for it…expecting it
almost, and the shadow of the captain’s scrutiny did little to put
that notion at ease. Even when Moore retreated to his cabin, his
sense of impending doom seeped out from the seams of the aft
stateroom door like a dark cloud; like the ones hanging along the
eastern horizon, flushed full in the moonlight and promising to
press the
Chimera
between a raging storm and the black
curtain of the Barrier Shoal rising to the west.

After the quiet hour of midnight had come
and gone, Bar’s weariness overrode his sense of dread and he
ventured to look away from the stone orb and its mesmerizing blue
pulses. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, the phantom waves
still playing in his eyes as he took stock of who was manning the
bridge. The ship’s standard pilot had been traded out for one of
the newer crewmen, a short man—in truth a dwarf—rumored to have
been a fighter pilot in the Kingdoms War. For which side he fought,
Bar couldn’t remember, but seeing as how he was on Moore’s bridge
lent to reason he was probably from one of the southern kingdoms—if
not King’s Isle herself. Staring over his shoulder, seeing the oil
lantern painting the older man’s gray-brown hair a wavering orange,
Bar remembered his name was Gryph something-or-another, and that’s
about all he recalled of the replacement, besides the frequent
japes concerning his height.

Bar took note that someone had seen fit to
drag out a small shipping crate for the pilot-elect to stand upon,
but even then his chin barely cleared the wheel.
The pilots too,
seem to have failed interrogation…or have yet to be put to the
question, not if a dwarf, who can barely see over the wheel, is
piloting the ship.

Off to his right, Lieutenant “Tiny” Sam
Briggs manned the radio, nothing unusual in that. It’d been his
department for full on five years now, and seemed likely to be his
into perpetuity. Tiny had been stationed there for so long his ass
had assumed the shape of the seat, wide and flat and starting to
spill over the edges. It didn’t help his expanding physique that he
loved pastries almost as much as he loved fiddling with the
radio…and he was forever fiddling with that copper-sheathed
contraption.

Occupying Bar’s regular station, at weapon
systems control, stood Cecil Temberly. Since the near-fight below
decks, neither man had spoken to one another, nor did the fire
control technician seem inclined to over the hours. As far as Bar
knew, Cecil never once turned from his station.

The last man standing middle watch, and
manning the command panel, was the ship’s humorless boar himself,
Chief Master Stowe, diligent to a fault as he stared out into the
silvered wash of the Shrouded Abyss. Since the incident on deck
earlier, he’d seen fit to wear a clatterbolt rifle slung across his
back, like some sort of pirate scofflaw, and that did little to put
Bar at ease. Captain Lockney had once said there was seldom a need
to arm the command staff…not if they were doing their jobs right
anyway. Rather:
“When master and mates start arming themselves,
that’s a clear indication to the crew that dire troubles are soon
on their way. It’s bad for morale, and it crushes hope, if there’s
no apparent reason for such armaments.”
But Bar, he just wished
he was armed right now, like Stowe…like the marine guarding Moore’s
cabin door down the aft passageway.

When middle watch ended and no one came to
relieve him, Bar knew he was in for a long morning. Middle watch
was hard enough; the hardest; but to pick up the morning watch
right after was excruciating, and left the ensign swooning with
exhaustion. In front of him, the resonance stone, with its steady
blue pulses, hypnotized him into seeing double signals—even triple
on occasion—and then when the sun came slanting in through the port
window, throwing its harsh yellow light in his face, all the
resolve slid from his eyelids. Slowly they came creeping down.

“Bazzon!” boomed the captain’s throaty voice
and Bar nearly toppled over. Somehow he’d managed to fall asleep on
his feet and now Moore was mere centimeters from his nose, spraying
anger and spittle into his face. “I should have the skin on your
back flayed from their bones for such negligence!”

“Sir, I…” mumbled Bar as he forced his mind
up to speed, but Moore’s burning orange eyes—rimmed by fiery red
capillaries—turned him into a gibbering idiot. “…just…”

“I think we’ve got her, Captain.” The radio
operator’s interruption was a blessing, and Bar sighed in relief as
Moore turned away. “I’m receiving an automated transponder reply.”
Drowsily, Bar looked to his station. Not only was the
Chimera’s
signal radiating down the orb, but another signal
had joined it—near to his right hand as it braced the table.

“Are you sure that’s her?” barked the ship’s
totalitarian master. “I’ll not be chasing phantoms or decoys from
one end of the Erie Expanse to the other. I mean to do this
business quickly and return to the fleet with good tidings.”

Tiny rotated in his chair, the metal pivot
screaming under his weight. Now facing the expectant captain, he
nodded, setting his sagging jowls to bounce and sway beneath the
button of his chin. “Civilian: designation
Torchlight
,
registry confirmation number: three-four-two-one-nine
echo-sierra.”

“Excellent!” The captain gritted his teeth
and hammered his fist on the resonance table. “That’s the exact
registry provided to us by the Admiralty. We got those traitorous
bastards now. Pilot, set an intercept course. Ensign, calculate the
time to intercept?” But Bar failed to notice the captain had issued
the order to him. Instead, Bazzon stood there—blank faced—as a
single question plagued him.
What’s this ship Moore’s
hunting?

“Bazzon!” Hearing his name screamed in his
ear blew all thoughts from his mind. “Time to intercept, you
useless base-born fool.”

Bar shook himself and maneuvered to the
navigation station, at the front of the stone’s table. He focused
on the resonance reading, the blips and waves, as he laid out the
chart. “I’ve got her along the stone’s equator…on a bearing of
two-hundred and seven degrees.”

“Time to intercept! Give it to me now!”

But the junior officer’s mind raced under
the captain’s impatient fury, numbers and
considerations—geometries, once learned but now forgotten, spiraled
just beyond his reach. “A moment…to finishing calculating,
sir.”

“Bazzon!”

“Almost, sir. I just…just need to finish
correlating the present wave reading with the last…and the radio
return signal…” Not to mention the wind speed and direction—too
many considerations to keep straight in his present state of
mind.

“I swear to the gods!”

“Indefinite, sir,” Bar blurted in surrender.
He’d lost his concentration and the calculations slipped completely
away, and all he could do was stare at the navigational chart in
defeat. What little he had to go on was in the weakness of the
resonance reading and the quick dispersion of its light waves… The
fact remained that the aura seemed to maintain a consistent
strength along the stone, which hinted they might be flying at
similar rates of speed. “By best estimate we’re matched in
velocity.”

“Stowe, get on the engine action telegraph
and order us to three-quarter speed. We should gain on them…maybe
overtake them before nightfall without putting the engine in
jeopardy…”

Time passed, marked by the click of the chronometer’s
gears and the journey of the sun westward, over mist and cloud. The
Chimera
was soaring through the heart of the Erie Expanse, a
broad region of tempest skies stretching like a lonely desert
between the endless curtain wall of the Barrier Shoal and the
distant arc of the Ascella Cluster, with nary an isle within
six-hundred kilometers of their position. It was a dismally lonely
place to fly, made only worse by Hastings’ haunting death, and the
unease Bar felt over Moore’s growing tyranny. Then there was the
matter of this ship they were hunting down? Bar was certain it
couldn’t be Iron; the transponder, the secrecy; there was more to
it, and that just made these airs all the more inhospitable.

The fear of being caught falling asleep
again drove away most of the fatigue that earlier crippled him, and
now Bar settled into the wakeful drudgery of a man skirting through
consciousness by sheer will alone. He knew if he was to sit, even
for a moment, he’d nod off, but as long as he was standing—staring
at that resonance aura forever at the edge of the stone—he knew he
could manage until Moore relieved him. Bar had reason to hope.
Moore’s inquisition had ended just before Al appeared with his
noon-hour meal in hand, and word came with him that most of the
officers had been cleared, and were scheduled to return to duty
later that day. Bar hoped the change would come after the afternoon
watch. As it stood he’d almost made the full rotation, but he’d no
aspirations to actually pull it off.

“
This is…civilian…Scarlet
Cloud……requesting…assistance…combat…”
a static-filled voice
burst over the radio, startling everyone on bridge. At the control
panel Tiny nearly dumped his seat over as he tore the earphones off
and scooted away from the noise with his hands covering his
ears.

“Lieutenant Briggs!” hollered Stowe,
bristling. “Why the devil is the audio-level cranked so high?”

“Sorry, Chief Master, I…I was tracking what
I thought was a phantom frequency when the emergency broadcast
kicked onto the externals…thought I might have heard Dunshule being
spoken earlier—”

“The Empire,” interrupted Bar,
concerned.

Stowe stormed across the bridge and spun the
audio dial down, even as the
Scarlet Cloud
repeated her
initial distress call. The broken voice faded to a pleading
whimper. “That doesn’t sound like Dunshule to me, Mr. Briggs.”

“No…no, sir,” agreed the plump radio
operator. He put his earphones back on and turned to his station,
adjusting the knobs and switches scattered in front of him. The
distress signal cleared and sharpened within the overhead-mounted
speaker system.

“
This is the civilian airship Scarlet
Cloud, bound for Glenfindale, requesting immediate assistance from
any combat vessel. We have come under attack by an Iron
hunter-killer and have sustained damage to our rudder, limiting our
capacity to maneuver.”
Bar felt his heart turn to ice and a
lump of coal form in his stomach. The Empire was in the Sargasso,
and now they could strike out anywhere in the Ascella Cluster. That
put the whole of the Unified Kingdoms in jeopardy, and if the
rumors of the northern defenses were true…. “
Our current
position is forty-two degrees, forty-three minutes,
fourteen-point-five-one seconds north; by eighty-two degrees,
twenty-one minutes, thirty-point-two-five west; on a heading of
north by north-east, forty-four-point-zero-one degrees; current
speed thirty kilometers per hour.”