Aetherial Annihilation (23 page)

They had me penned in tight.

A wide, muddy field outside the forest offered no concealment and would make me an easy target. Troop transport trucks stopped on a road several hundred yards away, and more soldiers piled out. The rustling sounds of pursuing troops served a stressful reminder that I couldn't dilly-dally here all night.

A thrumming noise sounded overhead. I looked up at the silhouette of another airship just before the massive globe on its underbelly flickered on.
These people don't play around.

I heard more armored vehicles to my left, and imagined there were more somewhere to my right. I couldn't go forward or backward, and unless I learned how to dig like a troll, I couldn't go down. That left only one way to go, and it wasn't diagonally.

Drawing upon my demon side, I grew sharp black claws from my hands and feet. "There goes another perfectly good pair of shoes," I lamented as my new toenails punched holes in the leather. I found the thickest, tallest pine tree and scaled up it like a giant, furless squirrel. When I reached the top, I found a possible escape route.

Using a hand to counter the glare from the light globe, I spotted a mooring rope hanging from the side of the airship. Unfortunately, it was about twenty feet above my head. Under normal circumstances, jumping that distance wouldn't be hard, but with an injured leg and a wobbly branch beneath my feet, my chances didn't look good.

I looked around for a taller tree, but nothing nearby rose higher. The airship's cockpit wasn't visible from my vantage point, but the outline of something metallic above the light ball hinted its location. In other words, the pilots probably couldn't see me when I was directly beneath them.

A gust of wind raced through the trees. I grabbed hold of the trunk and held on tight as it swayed to the side. Something cracked, and I prayed it wasn't the branch I stood on. The turbines on the airship whined faster as it fought to maintain position. It lurched higher and the rope went hopelessly out of reach.

The wind died down and shouting soldiers caught my attention. I looked down and saw my pursuers combing the forest. The airship turbines engaged again and it began to move lower over the trees, probably to give the soldiers below better vision.
God bless the black little soul of whoever gave that order.
The rope drew to within ten feet.

I couldn't risk waiting another second.

Bracing my feet on the thin branches, I bent my knees and jumped. My left leg overpowered my injured one, and I sailed upward at a bad angle. Desperately, I flailed and barely caught the rope by the tips of my fingers.

I dangled precipitously for a moment then swung my other arm up to grasp the rope. "One day I'm grabbing ropes on a boat. A few days later I'm doing the same damned thing on a blimp." I pulled myself up hand-over-hand, keeping an eye on the area where the cockpit should be. I couldn't see anything through the glare of the light globe, leaving me little choice but to climb as quickly as possible.

Finally, I reached a point where the light from the globe cut off, revealing a large reflective dish over the top part of the lamp that directed the glare downward. It also gave me a clear view into the windows of a large cockpit. Two men stood at the opposite end from me looking out the front window. A third man stationed in front of a large microphone on the side, stared down at a pad of paper. If he glanced to his right, he'd see me. The struts supporting the turbines driving the airship angled down from the sides, hanging just over the mirrored dish for the light globe.

I clambered up the rope until I was right at the bulge in the side. Instead of ascending to the top, I looked down at the side of the cockpit. If I used one of the other mooring ropes in the middle of the blimp, I might be able to climb down to a window and burst inside.

Taking over the airship, however, wouldn't grant me a ticket to freedom. The minute I made a run for it in this lumbering whale, they'd know something was up and shoot it down. Bracing my feet on the side of the airship, I climbed all the way to the top and sat on one of the metal girders so I could consider my options.

Pitch black engulfed the land around the blimp aside from the mountain slope where the airships cast their brilliant lights. If I escaped the perimeter of tanks and soldiers, where would I go? I could probably use my phone for navigation, but how long would it take me to reach the border, and how would I cross it?

I slid out my phone and opened the maps app. Thankfully, it didn't need an internet or aethernet connection to work, and calculated a distance of nearly a hundred and seventy miles from my location to the border. Without an injured leg, it might take me three or four days. I didn't have a passport or any form of identification on me, so I doubted the South Koreans would let me cross even if I made it through the minefields with all my limbs intact.

I couldn't sneak into Pyongyang and hijack a plane or helicopter. Even if I knew how to fly, one side or the other would surely blow me out of the sky. Swimming down the coast might possibly be an option, but the chilly climate promised frigid waters. It was doable, but not preferred.

No, my safest, fastest option home would be to somehow return to the crystoid and remove the steel plate covering it. Hopefully, Elyssa could reopen a portal and rescue me before I was discovered. The best way to achieve that goal meant blimp-jacking this thing and flying it back up the mountain. Hopefully, all the soldiers were at the base of the slope searching for me, along with the snipers.

Before I enacted this daring plan, I decided to give myself a few moments so my leg could finally start to heal. I lay on the girder and looked at pictures on my phone. Without a connection to the outside world, I retreated back to the fantasy world I'd lived in for the past few months.

The first pictures of Elyssa’s travels and mine were in Venice, Italy. I grinned at the image of a selfie we'd taken with a gondolier during a cruise around the canals. Another picture showed the two of us at the top of one of the tall Venetian towers we'd scaled one night, just because we could. I'd good shots of the people below, and then several of me kissing Elyssa.

The next album took me back to Switzerland where we'd toured the gorgeous countryside, hiking the Swiss Alps and skinny-dipping in azure lakes. I snorted at the pictures of us dressed in lederhosen when we'd gone to Germany. I'd jokingly told Elyssa we had to wear the local garb, and she'd surprised me by doing just that.

"God, we look ridiculous." A tear stung my eye, but the cold wind dried it up before it could journey down my cheek.

Elyssa and I had gone so many places, seen so many wonderful things, and had so much fun. Thailand hadn't been the last in the list, at least not until the meteors changed everything. Being with my true love every day had been a gift and a remedy for the brutal war against the Brightlings. It hadn't totally healed me—nothing could do that—but it had made me remember how wonderful life could be. Those who gave up their lives had sacrificed themselves so the rest of us could enjoy this life.

"I just want peace." I squeezed shut my eyes. Regret twisted its cruel fingers around my heart. I'd wanted peace so badly I'd stopped fighting at the earliest opportunity. Instead of taking an unstoppable force to wrest Tarissa from Cephus, I'd let Ketiss go with only his people and whoever volunteered to accompany them.

I'd promised him I would return and help him, but I'd liberally interpreted that to mean after I returned from vacation. Deep down inside, I knew the truth. Once I'd tasted peace, I hit the road with Elyssa and planned to never look back. My vacation would have gone on and on while I let Ketiss take care of his own problems.

It made me realize all the more that the problems of one realm would eventually spill over into the other ones. Seraphina had to be pacified. Cephus had to fall, and the Brightlings and Darklings needed to settle their differences and finally unify.

If I kept running and ignoring the ugly truth lurking in the shadows, I'd only end up stranded on top of a blimp in North Korea.

"Ain't nobody who deserves that fate," I muttered.

The skin on my injured hamstring pinched and spasms ran through the leg. Excruciating pain burned the muscle. I gritted my teeth and held out as something hard slid through my flesh. I tried to ignore the pain by looking at more pictures and only partially succeeded. At long last, I felt something pop from the skin. I jiggled my pants leg, and a slightly dented bullet fell from the bottom.

Though I still bled, my leg felt much better. I stood up and walked along the girder, keeping a grip on a rope in case I lost my balance. My leg wasn't in perfect shape, but it was good enough to do what needed doing.

Time to commandeer a North Korean airship.

Chapter 19

I chose the middle rope on the left side of the blimp to begin my assault since the radio operator should still be facing the opposite way. With my recovering leg, it didn't take long to rappel down the side of the nacelle and reach the mission-critical phase of the operation. It was only when I saw the cockpit that I realized how difficult it would be to swing myself on the rope with enough force to break into or even reach the window. If I didn't have enough momentum, the suction from the wind turbines might draw me into their blades and shower the people below with Justin stew.

To reach the objective, I'd have to propel myself from the side, slide to the end of the rope, and then swing beneath the curve of the airship. Physics informed me that this would be pretty hard to pull off from this position. Physics then promptly chided me for my ignorance and told me exactly how I might pull this off. I didn't like it one little bit, but finally agreed it was the best way to make this happen.

Science for the win.

I climbed back to the top, tied a loop in the end of the rope, and gripped it with both hands. I looked out at the pitch black and imagined the rocky terrain far below. "This is crazy."

Crazy, yeah, but I had no choice.

Before I could chicken out, I took a long running start and leapt off the side. The rope jerked and I swung down, air whistling past my ears. As I rounded the curve of the nacelle, I realized that the rope might not be quite long enough to reach the window. My enhanced senses took over my reflexes, and time seemed to slow. The radio operator's back faced me and the two pilots were at the controls.

The rope went taut. Several feet remained between me and the window, but I saw a ledge and took a chance. Momentum carried me toward my goal. I reached out. My fingertips grasped the ledge—and slipped. I plummeted. My crotch saved the day, meeting the support bar for the propeller. Somehow, I held in a high-pitched scream of pain and my legs locked together. I spun upside down and conked my head on the light reflection dish.

The last thing I wanted to do was move. The propeller whizzed to full speed. If not for the housing around it, I probably would have gotten a free haircut. Fighting the sick feeling in my guts, I pulled myself upright and grabbed the ledge beneath the window just as the propellers went silent. I looked up and my stomach knotted. Three shocked faces looked back at me.

Adrenalin and endorphins, the cocktail of the gods, rushed through my veins. I rammed a fist through the window and sent one of the operators smacking into the bulkhead on the other side. The others turned toward the radio. I ripped out the safety glass and pulled my torso inside. One man drew a gun from a holster on the wall.

I grabbed his wrist and squeezed hard. Bones cracked. He screamed and dropped the gun. I caught it in my other hand and threw it at the man reaching for the radio mic. It smacked him on the back of the head and he went down in a boneless heap. Shoving the gunman aside, I pulled myself through the window and rolled onto the floor.

The gunman continued to scream and hold his wrist. The other two were down for the count.

"Can you fly this thing?" I zoomed my hand through the air like a plane. "Fly." I pointed toward the mountain. "There."

The pilot was too busy screaming to listen.

I picked up the pistol and chucked it out of the window then dragged the unconscious people to the aft section of the cabin where they'd be out of the way. I turned to examine the control panel. The controls looked a bit like a plane's. A joystick protruded from a panel in front of the left and right seat. Several mysterious levers and switches were on a panel between the pilot and copilot's seat.

"Looks easy enough," I told myself, but I wasn't fooling anyone. The joystick might be the answer to everything, but I might also crash us right into the mountain.

A stern voice crackled on the radio and I wondered if this airship had just received a command. Someone else answered the voice and I relaxed. The last thing I wanted was for the person in charge to get suspicious if nobody answered our radio. I didn't know how long I had before a command like that might come through, so I went to the controls and gave them a test.

Moving the joystick to the right caused the left propeller to spin and turned us in the desired direction. I oriented us toward the mountain. We were well below the crest. I pushed forward gently and the airship glided forward. Unlike a plane, or a flying broom, pulling up and down on the control stick didn't control the yaw, or the side-to-side pitch for that matter. I really didn't want to turn this into a literal crash course so I released the joystick and examined the other controls.

Two levers looked like they might do something useful, but I was afraid to touch them. I heard rustling and turned to see the injured pilot trying to open a cabinet. I grabbed him and waggled my finger.

"No." I shook my head then pointed to the controls. "Up." I pointed up.

He looked up.

I groaned and shook my head. I pointed at the controls then pointed up. "Up!"

The pilot clued into my request, but didn't look cooperative.

I pointed to his other wrist, then held up my hand and clenched my fist tight enough to crack the knuckles. His already pale face turned a shade of green. Jabbing a finger at the console, I repeated my demand.