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  Jorson reddened slightly, perhaps embarrassed that he had not thought of this angle or perhaps irritated that a young woman—even his future ruler—dared to lecture him on military matters. This was my first time working with Jorson and he’d shown himself a competent commander thus far, so I chose to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  “I am just frustrated at the time it will take our messenger to reach the nearest Federation consulate, Your Highness.”

  “I share your frustration, Captain. That is why I want you to send a ship right after dinner. The sooner the message is away, the sooner it arrives.”

  Jorson flashed a brief smile and stood. “My thoughts exactly, Princess Callan. By your leave, I’ll make the arrangements now.”

  Callan nodded. “David will record a message for your ship to carry.”

  I pulled a small message capsule—allowable technology as only someone with an implant could read from or record to the device—from a pocket and handed it to Jorson. “Already done, Captain. This has everything we know about the situation right now.”

  Callan looked around at her officers. “We’ll gather back here once the ship is away. I’d like to begin our search tonight, if possible.”

  The senior officers nodded and returned to their own ships to prepare for the search. Within seconds, only Marlow—conveniently assigned as Callan’s attendant in camp—remained with us. Lost in thought, the young man missed his cue to clear away Callan’s dinner. At a nod from my wife, I gathered our plates while she watched the young man. Only when I took Marlow’s plate did he break from his reverie with a start.

  “Oh my goodness! My deepest apologies Your Highness!” He leapt up, reaching to take the plates from me. “I’ll take those, Captain Rice.”

  Being quite capable of handling a little cleanup for myself, I was tempted to argue with the lad. I also knew the Ensign would face some form of discipline if his commanding officer learned the young man didn’t do this himself.

  As I handed the plates to Marlow, Callan asked, “What were you thinking about just now, Ensign?” A gentle smile lit her face. “Perhaps thoughts of a special young lady back home?”

  The young man blushed. “No, Your Highness, there’s no young lady waiting for me. Not yet, anyway. I was planning the most efficient search pattern for the local terrain.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at Marlow. “You were doing this planning without any charts?” Marlow nodded and my other eyebrow rose to join the first one. “Have you travelled this area before?”

  “No sir.” Marlow shook his head. “I just pictured the charts in my mind.”

  That’s when Captain Jorson and his ship’s officers rejoined us. One of the escort ships rose into the darkening sky as the charts were spread on the table. I kept an eye on Marlow as the officers debated the best way to perform the search. The Ensign did a good job of hiding his opinion, but I saw he wasn’t impressed with the plan. Callan saw it as well.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen,” she said, “but I’d like to hear what Ensign Marlow has to suggest.”

  Jorson and his officers jerked upright in surprise at Callan’s suggestion. I caught just the hint of a smile on the lips of Captain Wright. I had no doubt Wright was Marlow’s commanding officer and knew what was coming.

  Marlow swallowed visibly under the glares of the gathered officers, but at Callan’s nod he stepped between two stiff lieutenants and up to the table. He stammered when beginning his explanation but, once into the details, spoke with calm and conviction. A minute later, the skeptical officers were nodding at each point the Ensign presented.

  “Well done, Ensign,” Jorson said before looking at the gathered officers. “Are there any questions?”

  When there weren’t, the men reported to their ships. Jorson assigned three airmen to assist Callan and me. It would be our task to act as messengers between the three searching vessels. Minutes later, all four ships ascended. We waited, circling above the remains of the research station while the other ships split up and began their search.

  Flying under the light of the planetary ring should have been quite romantic, but sharing the deck with three airmen rather ruined the ambience. It also made for a boring several hours as we waited for a signal from any of the searching ships. Finally, the ship to our southwest—the Vanguard—fired off a flare. Relieved to have something to do, I pointed our small ship southwest and off we flew.

  I didn’t notice the wind at first, attributing it to the simple fact that we were finally underway. Within a few minutes, it was obvious we were flying into an increasing headwind. I still didn’t give the wind much thought. These things happen when you’re aloft, after all. Fifteen minutes later, that all changed.

  “Sir!” Simms, the airman at the bow called. “The Vanguard looks to be in distress!”

  “I don’t have your night sight, Simms. What do you see?”

  “She’s being tossed all over the place, sir. Like she’s trying to ride through a huge sandstorm. It must be some kind of freak storm coming off the mountains over there.”

  “Can you take the wheel for a minute, dear, so I can take a look?”

  Callan took the wheel and I joined Simms in the bow. The man tried his best to point out the floundering airship, but I still couldn’t see it. Then something else caught my attention. Far above the ground—on the side of a mountain, no doubt—something flashed in the darkness.

  Pointing toward the flashing, I asked Simms, “What can you make out from that flashing?”

  The man peered in that direction for a few seconds. “I never seen anything like it, sir. It looks like a bunch of little lightning bolts shooting off in all directions.”

  A chill ran down my spine and I ran back to the controls yelling, “Land the ship now! And attach your safety lines!”

  One wonderful thing about working with the Navy is the men don’t stand around asking questions. The airmen leapt to their stations, venting gas from the envelope and operating ailerons to tilt the ship down.

  Before taking the wheel, I fastened safety lines to Callan and then myself. Then I shoved the throttle forward and started a power dive for the ground. We were still five hundred feet in the air when a wall of wind slammed into us and capsized our airship.

  I just managed to grab hold of Callan before we fell off the tilting deck of the tumbling airship. We fell for twenty feet before our safety lines snapped taught, stopping our fall with a painful jerk. I did my best to cushion Callan from the effects of the drop, but I felt the breath go out of her.

  The wind howled around us as I tried to see what was happening. We hung between the airship’s hull and its envelope, but that wouldn’t last long. Even as I got my bearings, the envelope spun out from under us as the airship tried to right itself. More by luck than anything else, I was facing in the right direction as the ship’s wooden hull spun out of the darkness at us. I just managed to bring my legs up so they took the brunt of the impact and kept the hull from smashing into Callan and me. One thing was certain—we would get battered to death if we couldn’t secure ourselves somewhere.

  “I need my hands free,” I yelled at Callan. “Can you hold onto me?”

  She nodded, tightly wrapping her arms around me. Once she was secure, I hauled hand-over-hand on my safety line and walked up the side of the hull. The airship continued tumbling as I did this, but the spinning actually helped me maintain my footing on the side of the ship.

  Just as I reached the railing, the ship plunged straight down for a few seconds and we found ourselves dangling again. I didn’t lose my grip on the safety line, though, so we found ourselves hanging five or six feet from the deck. Once again, the envelope pulled the ship back around and we crashed to the deck. Even as my breath blew out in a whoosh, I grabbed an inner railing. Holding us in place with one arm, I wrapped the other around Callan and pulled her to the railing, also.

  The world continued spinning and the air was filled with flying debris. A belaying pin bounced painfully off of one
of my kidneys and the tattered ends of broken ship’s lines whipped at us, but at least we weren’t out in the middle of it all.

  Then Callan yelled, “David! Look aft!”

  Rising flames lit the back of the airship and I realized the fire in the boiler had spilled free. I felt sure we’d be smashed into the ground before the fire reached us, but that wasn’t exactly a comforting thought. I needed a chance to get my bearings so I could concoct some kind of plan, but the world was moving too fast for me to do that. So I decided to slow it down.

  Boost!

  My implant flooded my body with adrenaline and it was as if time slowed. All about me, bits and pieces of the airship flew as the ship continued its uncontrolled tumble, driven toward the ground by the raging windstorm. The fire, hungrily devouring the dry timber of the hull, cast illumination into the deep darkness of the desert. The ground was no more than a hundred feet below us and rushing up fast. But, if the ship kept tumbling the way it was, the envelope should hit first and cushion our landing. If I timed things just right…

  “Grab onto me again!” I yelled at Callan as I drew a knife.

  She did as I asked without question. Meanwhile, I threaded my left arm through the railing, more or less maintaining the hold anchoring us to the deck, then grabbed both of our safety lines with my now-free left hand. With a quick glance at the ground—no more than ten feet below the envelope by this time—I sawed through both safety lines.

  Then the envelope hit the ground. The lines connecting the hull to the envelope—previously held taut by the spinning, slackened as the hull dropped and the envelope bounced up. I dropped my knife, jumped to my feet, and wrapped an arm around Callan. I dove for the outer railing and caught it with my right hand. With Boost-assisted strength, I swung the two of us over the railing and away from the tumbling, burning airship.

  We plunged fifteen feet to the ground below. Boost gave me plenty of time to right ourselves, catch Callan with both arms, and land feet first. Letting my knees buckle—not that I really had any choice—I dropped and we rolled. And rolled. And rolled. My back smacked into something hard and rough. A few sharp points scraped my skin through my shirt.

  Dropping Boost, I pulled my head back and examined Callan—only to find her doing the same thing to me.

  “Are you okay?” we both asked and smiled in response to each other.

  Sand and dust blew all around us, but we had managed to end up sheltered by the rock painfully jutting into my back and a small rise behind it. Grit still scoured our exposed skin, but it was nothing compared to the flaying we’d get if we moved away from our rock.

  Through Callan’s wildly blowing raven hair, I saw the last of the lines holding the hull to the envelope break. Freed from the weight of the hull, the envelope quickly swirled into the sky and out of sight. The hull continued rolling across the ground, scattering flaming wood all across the desert. Within seconds, our little airship was reduced to scrap.

  We were stranded in the desert without food or water and hundreds of miles from the nearest city.

  Callan and I huddled into our bare shelter from the slashing wind, hiding our faces against each other’s chests. The gale shrieked so loudly talking was all but impossible. And then, it was gone, leaving behind an eerie quiet.

  After a few seconds, I dared to look up. Dust slowly settled all around us, but that was all. “Let me take a quick look around, Callan. Stay down just in case the storm resumes.”

  “Stay close in case it does.”

  “You know me, dear—I never take chances.”

  Callan’s snort turned into a cough as she cleared dust and sand from her lungs. Once I was certain Callan wasn’t choking, I stood cautiously and stepped out of the small shelter afforded by the rocks. Light from the planetary ring lit the sky and shone down upon us, turning each dust mote into a tiny diamond sparkling in the air. Under other circumstances, I’d have found it beautiful.

  “It’s safe to get up,” I said to Callan.

  I brought my gaze back to the desert around us, searching for signs of other survivors. Burning timber lay scattered along the path our tumbling airship had taken. A much larger fire burned far off to my right. I felt certain that fire was the wreck of the Vanguard.

  Callan put an arm around me. “What happened? I’ve never seen anything like that sudden wind nor heard tales of such.”

  Slipping my own arm around her, I said, “That’s because it wasn’t a natural storm.”

  Callan stiffened. “We don’t have any weather control devices on Aashla. Our treaty with the Federation forbids them.”

  “We didn’t have them—until two researchers killed the rest of their team and ran off with all sorts of high-tech equipment. I saw a small control sphere on the mountain just before I ordered the ship to land.”

  “Aren’t satellites used to control the weather on Federation planets?”

  “Yes, but you can also find smaller devices like the sphere. They’re usually reserved for farm lands and other places with special weather requirements.” My gaze returned to the distant fire. “And now they’ve been used to crash airships.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to put a stop to it—and God help anyone who gets in my way.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Chris

  “Did you really plan this search pattern, Chris?” Ensign Richie Parnell asked, his glass sweeping the area ahead and to starboard of our course. “And at the specific request of Her Highness?”

  “Why? Do you think Lieutenant Anderson made that bit up to make me look good?” I asked in return, keeping my glass trained ahead and to port.

  Richie snorted at the idea a ship’s officer would do anything to make a mere ensign look good. “You’ve got me there. And the officers didn’t get upset?”

  “I don’t think they were particularly happy at first, but they don’t put idiots in charge of ships-of-the-line.” I completed a sweep of my search arch and began the return scan. “They quickly recognized the superiority of my pattern. Captain Jorson even said ‘good job, Ensign’ when I finished.”

  “A captain complimenting an ensign—what is the world coming to?” Richie’s voice held amusement, but also a little respect for my achievement. “And what about Princess Callan—is she as beautiful up close as she looks from a distance?”

  “More beautiful, Richie. She is achingly, take-your-breath-away, gift-from-God, and put-angels-to-shame beautiful.” I remembered catching her as she fainted. Without thinking, I added, “And very soft.”

  In my peripheral vision, I saw Richie look at me in surprise and awe. “You touched her?”

  “She fainted right into my arms.” I couldn’t keep the smug tone out of my voice. I also left out that I suspected her swoon was really feigned to draw me away from the grisly grave. “I assisted her to a seat in the shade and, on Dr. Mach’s orders, catered to her every need until after dinner.”

  “Damn me, Chris, your life will never get any better than today,” Richie said, giving a low whistle of appreciation. “You might as well retire now because your Naval career has already peaked.”

  “I’d like to think I can make some small contribution to the Navy in the future,” I said. “Besides catching swooning princesses, that is.”

  “Right you are, Ensign Marlow,” Lieutenant Anderson said, his voice right behind me. “Ensign Parnell, get your eye back to that glass or your next contribution to the Navy will involve potatoes and a peeling knife. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Aye aye, sir!” we both barked.

  “Have either of you spotted anything?” the lieutenant asked.

  “No, sir,” Richie said.

  I saw movement on the side of the mountain ahead of us. When I realized it was just trees blowing in the wind, I almost dismissed it. But the trees were bending very sharply, so I spoke up.

  “Check the side of the mountain, sir. By the look of the trees, a very strong wind is blowing over there.”
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  I heard the snap as Lieutenant Anderson opened his own spyglass. “Good eye, Ensign Marlow. Prepare the crew for rough weather. I’ll inform the Captain.”

  Richie and I scrambled aloft, calling, “Prepare for rough weather. Attach safety lines!”

  Up and down the ship, the officers and senior airmen took up the shout. I lost sight of Richie as we approached our duty stations on opposite sides of the envelope. I looped my own safety line through the rigging and tied it off. As the airman to my left double-checked my line, I did the same for the airman to my right.

  “Prepare for high winds, men,” I called over the already-rising gusts. “I think we’re in for quite a blow.”

  The words were barely out of my mouth when the full force of the wind struck our side of the envelope. The Vanguard heeled to starboard so sharply we found the side of the envelope beneath our feet. I heard cries of surprise and fear from the men up and down the envelope.

  Two men were too slow fastening their safety lines and were blown from their perches. One of them was lucky—two of his mates caught his safety line and pulled him back to his post. The other poor soul tumbled across the envelope and over the edge. Mercifully, the howling wind covered the scream as he fell to his death far below.

  After that, we were busy watching for rips in the envelope and patching them before they could widen and threaten the entire ship. Despite the horrific conditions and the wildly swinging envelope, the men maintained discipline and performed their jobs admirably.

  I alternated watching for rips with watching the Vanguard’s progress as the Captain struggled to bring her safely to the ground. After what felt like an eternity, the ground appeared and rushed toward us with frightening speed.

  I shouted at the top of my voice, hoping the men heard me over the wind. “Prepare to cut safety lines! The Captain will release the envelope as soon as we’re grounded, so drop off as soon as you’re free.”

  Carefully gauging the time until we grounded, I waited as long as possible before shouting, “Cut lines!”