((A little short story I put together after playing Guns. I welcome any commentary or critique. Hope you enjoy it!))
A western wind whipped through the captain’s drawers where they hung from the forward tie. Daniel smiled: their hold was full, the skies were empty, and the captain’s drawers were fluttering in the breeze at the fore of their ship. That was pretty much as good as it got.
The engines groaned in their deep voice, grumbling like old men over their labors. The ropes and planking creaked back in time with the motion of the ship against the wind that was an ever-present background whisper. To Daniel it all sounded a bit musical. Like listening to a terrible children’s choir, where no one knew what key they were supposed to be in or what the words were; they just knew they were supposed to sing, and they did so with gusto.
Daniel listened to the uneven chorus and began to whistle along in a low melody.
“Don’t ruin it, son.” Captain Narrid stood amidship, watching the sun rise over the mountains. “Nothing in your apprentice contract says I can’t toss you over the side.”
“Just enjoying a beautiful morning, sir,” Daniel said with a grin.
“Enjoy the silence.” The captain drew in a deep breath, and Daniel emulated him. The cold stung his nose, but the air was sweet. High over the dust and dirt, away from the gas fumes of the cities - he imagined this was what air tasted like before the world burned.
“Are those my drawers on the foreline?” the captain asked, curious.
“I can’t vouch for them being yours, sir, but they do appear to be someone’s drawers.”
“Seryn! On deck!” The captain’s voice overrode the cacophony of the Runaway and sounded throughout the ship. No one answered, and Daniel sat quite still beside the captain, looking out over the horizon. Narrid stood with his hands clasped behind him, face into the wind. Minutes of awkwardness followed, and Daniel wondered if it was safe to whistle again.
Then the door to the mess flung open, and Seryn poked her head out into the cold new sunshine, eyes squinted nearly shut against the light and the forced awakening. She had her goggles perched atop her forehead, and her mass of wavy black hair was tied back in a tail. “What do you want, you old bastard?”
“Did you hang my drawers from the foreline?”
Seryn’s eyes opened up and she chuckled. She scrubbed her face with her grimy sleeves as she remembered. “Sure did, captain. Seems a right noble flag to fly under, if you ask me.” Her freckled cheeks bunched up as she smirked. The captain looked down at his engineer, arms still clenched military fashion behind his back.
“I agree.”
Daniel giggled for a moment before he caught himself. He’d learned swiftly that an apprentice was not allowed to mock the crew as they did one another. At least not yet.
But the captain turned towards him, eyebrows drawn together in the same stern look all old men gave to younger men when they were out of line.
“You don’t think so, Daniel?”
Daniel stuttered a few “Umm”s as he thought. How respectful was one required to be of the captain’s underwear?
“Let’s see a salute, sailor,” the captain said, voice full of the weight and power of his station, while Seryn cackled like a witch behind him. The captain turned to her and said, “You too, Seryn.” She quieted to a chuckle, and snapped her best salute at the undergarments flapping the in breeze.
The captain turned to Daniel and stared. Daniel stood up off the railing,
brushed off his pants, and slowly saluted. The captain nodded and followed suit.
Big Zhen poked his head through the door and looked at them for a moment. He scratched at this scraggly beard then said, “Breakfast is ready.” The three at attention didn’t respond. “It’s porridge.” Still nothing. “All right, come get some whenever you stop being strange. Try to hurry; I can’t promise I won’t eat it all. I’m quite the porridge-chef.” The door closed behind him, and the wind whistled over the plains and the planks of the Runaway.
“They’re a damn good pair, son. Make sure they get down safe.”
Zhen’s porridge left much to be desired, but it was made with real oats and boiled in water. Seryn had told him that some captains used piss to save water, but he didn’t know if she was lying or not. He had never flown before boarding the Runaway.
Zhen had already finished by the time Daniel and Seryn got the captain’s drawers down safe and got to the mess, so they didn’t have to pretend the oats were a banquet.
“I think he puts dirt in these,” Daniel muttered around a mouthful that wouldn’t moisten properly.
“Makes em go further, he says,” Seryn replied as she wolfed hers down. Her sister, who had a name which Daniel didn’t know because he’d only ever heard her referred to as Doc, sat beside Seryn and ate slowly, small bites that wouldn’t get stuck in one’s throat. Doc was smaller than Seryn, fair and frail, with hair that fell straight towards the earth, opposing Seryn’s wild mane. Doc had her goggles on, and was studying the table intently as she ate, some problem simmering behind her green eyes.
The captain sat at the head of the table, and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying his bowl of oats and dirt. But then, the man had a reputation for being at least mildly addled. Didn’t make him any worse of a captain, in Daniel’s eyes at least. This close to the sun, everyone melts a little bit.
“How’s the cargo coming along, Doc?” The captain asked, startling Doc out of her thoughts.
“Oh, well I think. Hard to tell, really. The color is a bit off, and they seem to be lacking nitrogen and several other key elements, but they’re alive.”
“Keep em that way. If I’m going to steal from the Yeshans, I want something to show for it.”
“Turn the gears, friends, we’ve got incoming!” Zhen’s voice blasted through the doctor’s answer, and everyone sprang towards the door, conversation and breakfast forgotten in a clatter of spoons and chairs falling to the floor. Daniel, for just a moment, wished he had time to finish his dirt and porridge.
“Seryn, get to the engines and keep them up!” The captain was slinging orders before Daniel was all the way out the door.
“Aye, Captain!” Seryn’s hair flew behind her as she dashed across the deck, wrench in hand.
“Zhen on the stern cannon, but hold your fire. I want to see if we can’t outrun these Yeshan bastards.”
“Aye, sir,” Zhen nodded calmly and walked back to his post.
“Daniel, you’re my eyes!” The captain pulled a spyglass out of his worn military jacket and tossed it over to his still unmoving apprentice, then turned to the wheel and threw the throttle full forward.
Daniel stared down at the spyglass, polished to a shine and carved with a delicate swirling pattern. The first real tool of a captain. He hefted the weight in his fingers, fearing that he might drop it.
“Look through the damned small end, son!” Runaway was rising quickly, and the wind picked up pace as she sailed through the sky. Daniel extended the delicate instrument and placed it gently against his eye. It was cold and smooth to the touch, like clean water.
To the west, the horizon jumped up to meet his vision, the sun from behind him touching distant mountains with its morning reach. Daniel could see the shadows shrinking and the clouds slowly melting away before the might of a new day. And out of those melting clouds, the prow and banner of the Yeshan Pyramidion broke out into the sunlight.
“One Pyramidion! Seven o’clock, maybe two hundred feet above us!”
“What for arms?” the captain bellowed in response as he wrestled with the levers and dials at the helm.
Huh? Daniel thought. “Huh?” he said.
“Her guns, idiot, what’s she going to hit us with?!”
Daniel squinted through the glass and focused. “Looks like one rocket, one rifle on her fore!”
“Seryn, rifle fire incoming! Doc, we need a hand out here!” the captain yelled into the now-roaring wind. The doctor yelled something back, but her words were taken by the thunder of the engines and the whipping wind. Through the spyglass, Daniel saw their gunner loading his rifle and peering down the scope, looking right back at him.
The deck splintered beneath him where the rifle bullet hit. A second later, Daniel heard the biting crack over the wind and he felt the wooden shards piercing his leg. Daniel screamed and collapsed onto the deck, clutching the captain’s spyglass to his chest. He could feel the shrapnel stuck in the muscle; pain struck every time his beating heart forced blood in and around the wound. He clenched his teeth and looked down.
A hand’s length of jagged oak stuck out of Daniel’s right leg, and smaller shards had punctured around it and in the other leg. Blood seeped around the dark splinters, and came out in spurts, expelled by his frantic pulse. The deck jerked underneath him as the captain spun the wheel; the engines groaned and Daniel rolled over as the Runaway slid sideways. The movement pulled another scream out of Daniel, hands still clutched around the ornate spyglass. A whistle, followed by the crack of the rifle, but the bullet hit nothing but the air where the Runaway had been. Daniel’s ears were full of sound, but he heard only confusion, all the noises running on top of each other. The captain’s roar, the groan of the engines, the snarl of the wind as the Runaway raced her hunter towards the sunrise.
Then the doctor was over him, green eyes shining behind her goggles and a small smile on her face. She cut away his trouser leg around the worst puncture with her scissors, the steel shining in the sun. She reached into her coat and pulled out a small glass vial, then placed it up against Daniel’s lips as the Runaway swerved back to the right. He groaned at the movement, but she held them both steady.
“Drink this,” she said, quietly but clear over the noise. Daniel did as she bid, and the noxious liquid choked him the moment it touched his tongue. He retched, but nothing came up, and his stomach twisted in on itself. Three more attempts to void, and his stomach relaxed. He looked up at the doctor, horror and betrayal in his eyes. She held the jagged shard of wood in her hand, and smiled at him.
“Sorry. Wrap that up and stay here. You’ll be fine.”
His heartbeat slowed, and the pain faded, though he did not know whether it was from the absence of the shrapnel or some effect of the nauseating medication. Daniel pressed his cut-away trouser leg against the puncture to stop the already slowing bleed. With his other hand, he clutched the captain’s spyglass. Back against the rail, he watched.
They were pulling away from the Yeshan Pyramidion. Mountains rose ahead of them, and fog lay on and between their peaks like a scarf. Clouds lay low, reaching down to touch the smoke before the sun found its full strength and burned everything away.
A horrid screeching came from the stern, underneath the deck. It was followed by the crack of the rifle and Seryn’s voice yelling, “Son of a bitch!”
A few choked sputters and the roaring of the Runaway’s engines grew quieter.
“Captain! Central turbine is down, and it’s not coming back up any time soon,” Seryn stuck her head out onto the deck, face red and splotched with black grime. She looked ready to tear the sniper apart barehanded. “Lucky scorching shot.”
The captain thought for a minute, jaw working beneath his two weeks beard. “Rerout as much fuel as you can to the port and starboard engines. I’m going to smoke them.”
“Aye captain,” Seryn threw a quick salute as she ducked back into the cabin. Daniel could hear her wrench clanging off of metal syncopated with some choice profanity.
“Zhen, ready the Hwacha, full powder, Doc, jump onto the port side gatling and hold on. This is gonna be bumpy,” the captain said as he grinned.
“Aye sir,” the other sister nodded and pulled her gloves tighter..
The captain then cut the engines, and pulled a lever down below the helm. A bit of metal squealing, and great gouts of black smoke spurted out the back. Daniel could hear Seryn coughing through the walls and over the wind.
The rush of the wind slowed as the Runaway lost some momentum, and the choking cloud behind them grew. The captain watched over his shoulder, hands on the wheel, muttering to himself. Daniel couldn’t hear, but he appeared to be counting, slowly. He pushed the lever back into its home position, and the belching black smog ceased, leaving a thick cloud blocking the horizon behind them. The world quieted for a moment as the pyramidion ceased its fire and the wind died down. The grumbling engines fell still as well, and no one spoke. The creaking of the rigging and a soft eastern breeze were on the only sounds; except, barely, the captain’s counting.
“Three. . . two. . . one. . . Mark!” The captain threw one throttle forward and pulled back on the other, whipping the wheel to his left. The engines screamed, but they responded to his commands, with Seryn’s help. The Runaway cut and shuddered as if she’d caught the side of a mountain. Daniel slid across the deck, leaving a blood smear like a slug’s trail behind him. The painkillers had numbed him past the point of noticing a little extra agony, and he lay there, watching as the pyramidion broke out of the smoke. The forward ram shone fiercely in the morning sun, the burnished steel bright and wicked.
As soon as she was out into the light again, the pyramidion opened fire. Rifle fire punched holes in the hull, and a barrage of rockets followed, slamming into the armor plating and exploding in a vicious rhythm. The Runaway slid further sideways, and Doc returned fire from the gatling. Red hot shells ejected out into the air as the bullets tore at the enemy’s forward armor. Daniel could see the pyramidion’s captain shouting orders, but over the renewed roar of engines, wind, and now gunfire, whatever he was saying was lost.
Doc spent her clip as a rocket crashed into the armor surrounding her turret. She fell backwards onto the deck, goggles askew and blue cloak splayed out beneath her, but immediately began to pick herself up. The captain was leaning on the wheel, holding it as far as it would go. Enemy rockets crashed onto the deck, throwing splinters into the air, and the captain grinned.
Runaway pivoted to face the pyramidion. The enemy’s gunners were reloading as their pilot turned to keep up with their agile prey.
But Zhen already had them in his crosshairs. The lionhead’s roar shattered the morning, deafening Daniel and drowning out any other sound. The barrage of rockets lit the prow of the Runaway brighter than the rising sun behind them, and Zhen hit his target. The syncopated explosions rocked the pyramidion, shredding armor and equipment and hull. The shriek of steel, crack of splintering wood, and the bass drumbeat of detonation filled the air, followed by a ringing in Daniel’s ears.
The ringing faded, and then nothing. The pyramidion drifted, fire spreading across her deck and a gaping hole in her side. Armor and shredded hull tumbled through the air to crash into the dust far below. Captain Narrid spun his wheel back towards starboard and watched over his shoulder as the pyramidion drifted away. Their balloon was still intact, but they made no move to pursue.
Doc was picking small bits of shrapnel out of her arms, and Zhen had his eyes closed, still in the gunner’s seat. The captain watched forward, and Daniel’s ears started to work again. There was nothing but the wind and the rigging and the rumbling of the engines.
Seryn came out of the hold and began walking the deck, looking at the damage her ship had taken. Doc went down below, wrapping her arms in bandages. Daniel hefted himself up, the effects of Doc’s painkiller finally loosening its grip. He walked slowly up to the captain, wobbling and unsteady with the movement of the ship.
“Here.” He handed the spyglass back, and Narrid placed it gently back inside his coat.
“Doc said you’ll be alright?”
“Yes sir.”
“Try not to get shot next time.”
“Yes sir. Will there be more?”
“Eventually. They don’t like being robbed, but they won’t find us again soon,” the captain said, and he spat over the side. Daniel noticed a bit of blood dribbling out the corner of his mouth. “Seryn, how’s the engine?”
“Scrap metal, until I can get into a decent port. Bastards.” She grimaced, and Daniel noticed cuts and blood running down her body as well. He looked down at his own wound and the bloody trouserleg wrapped around it. It wasn’t running anymore, and didn’t look much worse than what everyone else had. He looked up at his crewmates dripping blood on the deck as they continued to work.
“Is everyone ok?”
The captain looked down at him and gave a smirk. “Aye, everyone’s gonna catch a bit of shrapnel. Explosive weapons are hell on bystanders. But you’ll get used to it. I hope Doc kept hold of the piece of Runaway that stuck you. Good luck to keep your first splinter.”
Seryn laughed, not looking up from the blast hole she was studying. Zhen still hadn’t moved from his seat at the prow.
“What about Zhen?” Daniel was worried - Daniel had never seen him without a smile on his face.
“He’s fine. Just don’t bother him,” the captain frowned again, working his jaw. “A Yeshan was gunning where Zhen hit. So now he’s praying.”
“But they shot at us first. I don’t understand, ” Daniel said.
“I doubt he cares whether you do or not,” the captain replied.
Daniel watched the horizon, the sun now well into the sky. It was warm, even with the wind. Doc came back out of the cabin, the door clacking against the wall. She had her hands cupped together and a smile across her face.
“Cargo is secure captain, healthy as ever. I thought you all might enjoy a little sample.”
Daniel, Seryn, Captain Narrid, and even Zhen, done with his prayers, walked up to the doctor. In her hands, she held five bright red desert strawberries; they were small, but the plants they grew from were hardy, and could survive with very little water. A better prize than gold by far.
Daniel bit down on his and felt the soft flesh give way between his teeth. Sweet and sour, cool from the darkness of the hold, but brightly flavored. He sighed, and focused. The taste of a strawberry should not be forgotten.
