Maledictus Aether (14 page)

In five paces I a
m at
the guardrail, just as the beast’s head clears the bar. Its jaws
are wide, fangs glistening as it shrieks at me loud enough to make
my teeth hurt. I use the rail as a booster with my left foot
planted firmly on the bar, pushing myself into the mercy of the air
and my hands reaching for one of those spikes as it clears inches
from the Aether sails. I grab one, making the creature veer away
sharply from my ship in its rage at my presence.

Somehow I manage to pull myself
onto its back, the hoods filling and contracting as it breathes,
the smell of helium almost unbearable. I cough, holding onto that
spike with my right hand and lifting my left to cover my mouth.

I feel the heat coming from my hand before it even touches
my skin, and I look a moment to the scorching brass – the metal
steaming and...
Melting, by
the looks of it. I look down to the creature, and to my legs as the
horrifying truth dawns on me.

My feet seem fine, but the knees of my prosthetics are
steaming as well – the pain of the heat making the creature shriek
in agony and making my heart lodge in my throat. I did not want to
cause it pain, merely stop it – and as we soar along, the serpent
skirting around the ship as
if it understands the reason I have mounted it, I realise
that its skin is covered with a thin sheen of...
something
that affects metal but does not affect
skin.

Its skin can
melt
metal.

I quickly jump onto my toes on its back, trusting my boots
to protect the prosthetics better than my pants did, and tear off a
scrap of the fabric around my left leg to make a makeshift
g
love for my left hand. Once
I have managed to make one that protects my prosthetic from the
slick liquid, I begin pulling myself towards its head.

We skirt by the helm as the creature soars in the air, the
wind whipping at me and threatening to pluck me off into the void
of the sky below. The ship slows as commanded, dropping a handful
of thousand feet as the ship’s power is directed to the cannons. I
reach the head of the serpent, grabbing onto two protruding spikes
on the top of its head and pulling in the
direction of the airship it has just
cleared.

As if by design the serpent
reacts to this silent command, turning sharply towards the ship. We
pull towards the mass of wood and metal and I press my heel into
the spine of the beast, where it then quietly slips to a halt.

I can see them scrambling
inside, Lucian giving out an order that makes them all pause and
protest – but the man persists, throwing his hand to the side and
gesturing in my direction. He seems to have won, for the deck hands
run off to do as he says while he slips away.

A moment later there i
s a very furious-looking man peering out from the top
hatch, the one that allows us to access the antenna if something
goes wrong.

The ship stalls, hovering there
at around fifteen thousand feet and a few inches from the beast and
I. It hovers here quietly, almost as if having accepted me as its
superior.

“
I ought to shoot you
myself
!” Lucian
shouts over the howl of the wind. Even from here I can feel the
heat of his glare. “On which planet was this a good idea,
Kennedy?”

“
Open up the
loading bay!” I shout back, and here he reels a little, pulling his
head back and shaking his head.

“
In the
sky
? There is
no
way-!”

“
Lucian!” I
snap, cutting him off. The creature bristles beneath me, and I
tighten my heel on its back, digging it a little deeper. “Trust me
on this.”

He stares at me a moment, frown
etched deeply on his face. I can see the crew in the helm staring
out the windows, peering cautiously.

“
You’re out
of your Goddamn mind, Kennedy,” he informs me, and I nod. The man
peers down the hatch, barking out an order that makes the men
protest and makes him ignore their cries. “Get that beast in here
so I can make it eat you alive.”

I smile at him, nodding my thanks and removing the pressure
of my heel. With a shriek the creature begins flying anew, and I
steer it towards the back of the ship as smoothl
y as I can considering the position I am
in.

When we reach the loading bay,
the chains are stretching from the hull to the door hanging in the
air, fighting against gravity. The crew members here take one look
at the beast and hastily try to close it again, but thankfully
Lucian jumps down from the ladder and barks out at them to hold
their positions.

I coax the beast into the bay,
where it settles against the wooden surface without a protest. I
dig both heels into its back and the creature descends, those hoods
deflating to almost nothing, moving only slightly. After barking
out the order for them to shut the bay, I carefully dismount while
keeping a hand on the beast’s snout.

Once the wind has subsided and
the bay is secured, I pull off my goggles and rest them on my head,
my right hand still against its nose. Those small, snake-like eyes
of his are about the size of my palm and are a vivid green,
watching me attentively.

Lucian walks right up to me and
presses his finger over the very spot my mechanical heart is,
making me wince.

“
I should have you beaten – what in the
hell
happened to you?”

I look to where his gaze is
riveted – my knees or, better yet, what’s left of them. The brass
shell has melted, exposing the wiring that’s an inch away from
short-circuiting. My hand is in better condition, and only needs to
be worked a little.

“
The beast
has some sort of liquid that makes metal erode,” I explain,
gesturing with my head to the serpent. It licks the air curiously,
but remains docile. “I can fix this, but that can wait. I assume
you seek an explanation?”

“
Putting it
mildly, but yes, I’d like one,” he tells me, looking at me with an
eyebrow arching. He looks more relieved than actually
furious.

“
When we fight this battle and put an end to it,” I begin,
looking from the creature to my Quarter Master, “we need all the
power we can get. Firepower will only get us so far –
we need something that they do not
have.”

“
Beasts,” he
states, and I nod, grinning.

“
Exactly.
These creatures are unpredictable, yet can be tamed. They have
skills we could have never hoped for and are as dangerous as they
are terrifying. They are our greatest asset.”

He scowls at me, clearly displeased and as if
h
e is trying to figure out if
he would benefit from throwing me off the ship before I do
something else equally stupid, before he sighs and cards a hand
through his dark hair.

“
You are the
craziest man I know,” he admits, and with a laugh I pat the
serpent’s nose a moment before carefully removing my hand. The crew
around the beast tense as it looks around carefully, eyes taking in
every detail and hissing almost too quietly to hear. It then curls
up and seems to go to sleep.

“
I will be in the maintenance wing,” I inform the man in
front of me, rolling my right shoulder. Despite the pain in my
right arm it doesn’t seem to be dislocated, which is a
reli
ef. “Get us back on
course – we are a week away from our destination.”

I leave the loading bay behind, crossing the vast room and
the recipient of the bug-eyed gazes of my crew. Once the door is
between them and I, I breathe out a sigh of relief and use the wall
of the hallway to hold myself up as I make my way towards the
maintenance wing. The scent of wood and metal is still
fresh despite the few weeks we have
been travelling already, and I pass no soul all the way to the
final door at the end of the hall and push my way
inside.

The room is not as vast as the loading bay, for obvious
reasons, yet still holds all that is needed to care for the
shi
p and repair prosthetics.
There is a good amount of the variety of supplies needed – ranging
from brass to Aether sails, all stored in separate piles – and
ample enough space to work. The sound of the lightning in the ESD’s
one room over hums in this one, the sheer power of the contained
beasts making the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

I make my way over to the drawing board,
where a design for something I have
had little chance to work on is displayed, the specs for said
instrument still escaping me. Beside the board is a table littered
with the tools I need to fix my prosthetics as well as replacement
ones should a specific task require more time than I can give it
presently. Once seated on the stool and in position, I begin with
my hand.

For the hand, I simply have to
take a filer and file down the rough edges, smoothing out the sharp
corners and replace a few wires and screws. The task of fixing the
prosthetic’s hand takes perhaps two hours, using the spare
prosthetic so that I can work with both hands.

Lucian drops in as I finish,
and I ask him to reconnect the prosthetic to my person before I
begin working on my left leg – the process requiring I remove it to
properly work. I don’t bother using the spare, my Quarter Master
handing me tools as I request them and watching me work.

The
knees require
more work. There are two pipes that are heavily damaged and
leaking, the liquid having gotten into the wiring and damaged those
in turn. It is severe internal damage and I realise that I need to
replace the wires entirely, as well as the pipes and the brass
shell. The pressure valve suffered as well, as did the tank where
the liquid is stored in the first place.

As I
realise the
severity of the situation I hold my forehead in my hands, eyes
riveted to the prosthetic as I sit there, trying to figure out how
I am going to do this on a moving airship with limited supplies. I
never expected to need to repair them with such heavy
damage.

My companion’s still watching
silently, seeing my internal struggle.

“
If you can’t
fix it,” he begins, startling me. I look up at him, “why not design
a new one? Isn’t that what you do, anyways – take something good,
and make it better?”

I lift my head up from my
hands, watching him. An eyebrow arches over his pale blue eyes.

“
The man I’ve come to serve to the point of lunacy has never
struck me as a quitter,” he informs me, leaning back in his stool
and watching me with a grin. “Besides, if those plans still on
display there are any indication,” he continues, gesturing with his
head to the design plans of a mechanical heart, “you don’t quit
easy and you take an impossible task, making it
possible.
”

We stare at one-another, umber
on ice-blue eyes.

I break the gaze first, looking
to the prosthetic and sliding my index finger over the melted brass
that has covered most of the wiring, making it nearly
unsalvageable. My mind goes back to the moment when I was
straddling that beast, and how willingly it complied to my requests
– the way a horse does when you mount it.

Orin slithers onto the table as
I begin coming up with the idea, slipping up Lucian’s arms and
resting on the Irishman’s shoulders. Man and beast watch me as my
fingers pause on the metal, and the man grins slightly as I
pause.

I turn in my stool and reach
for the rolls of blank design graphs, spreading it over the other
design and securing it to the drawing board. Then I take a moment
to measure the circumference and the length of the prosthetic,
writing the specs at the very top of the white parchment, and begin
sketching out the design for another prosthetic.

The design takes me nearly an
hour, and the moment I have it completed I rattle off a list of
parts I require to the Quarter Master, pulling out another sheet
briefly to sketch the design for the riding gear. He has all the
parts required on the table to my right while I finish up, moving
the prosthetic to an empty surface so I can work.

Unfortunately, I have to call
it a day before I can begin building the prosthetic, and put up
with the spares for now.

• IX
  –
  Asius, the Forgotten
  Skyland
  

It takes four days to construct both limbs, from the shell
to the wiring itself, but by the fourth day I walk around smoothly
with them, and mayb
e even
better than before, if I am honest.

The riding gear takes two days, the toughest part being
measuring the lengths themselves as it agitates the beast – who,
upon a bit of research, we
realise is part of the many species that have yet to be
discovered, so we start calling it Volaguis instead (or Gus,
because none of us can really be bothered to say the whole thing) –
and safely protecting the metal from the liquid seeping naturally
from the beast.

I also get some of the crew to
collect what falls from the creature, an idea brewing in my
mind.

When it i
s finished I
sit back in the stool and wipe my brow, smiling at this
achievement. I have it in my right mind to take a break, but Lucian
informs me that a land mass has been spotted over the Rockies, and
that I should get to the helm as soon as possible.