Sexy Steampunk Babes: Chapter Seventy Eight

The concept behind the Shrieker was not new.

How could it be? Mages in maneuver suits already made use of bursts of aether as a means of propulsion. It was aether they produced themselves rather than from a core, but the concept stood. If anything, the notion of simply firing aether out the back of a Shard as a means of propulsion was actually a more intuitive leap than the propellers and ballasts had been.

No, the idea of an aether-thrust propelled Shard was not new. It was proposed at the inception of the Shard concept, and a number of times since. Traditional Shard craft even had maneuvering thrusters.

However,each time the concept of a pure aether-thrust Shard ran into the same issue; that a shard-core couldn’t produce enough power to generate sufficient thrust to make the idea practical.

The solution to that issue was, of course, obvious.

‘Install a bigger core.’

And that was just as obviously impractical.

No family, no matter how wealthy, would be willing to risk losing an entire airship core by putting it into a frame as flimsy as a Shard. And even if they were willing to take the risk, no Shard would ever be potent enough to justify not simply building another airship instead.

At least until now, Karla thought as her own far more conventional Shard lifted off from the Indomitable. All because somehow, airship hulls have become more valuable than airship cores.

A state of affairs that would be entirely temporary. Whatever windfall the Queen had secured by raiding Kraken nests for gathered mithril, those nests were still ultimately finite. The war might delay it some, but eventually the supply of airship hulls would catch up with – and ultimately surpass – the supply of mithril.

The current imbalance would be over in a blink as far as history was concerned.

But while most people – herself included if she were honest – were still caught up in the old and future paradigm of mithril scarcity, William hadn’t hesitated for a moment to take advantage of this new state of affairs.

To justify building the most insanely wasteful Shard the planet’s ever seen, she thought as she watched her law-son shoot straight up towards the clouds in a maneuver that would have seen her own craft stalled out almost immediately.

He’d wanted to use two airship cores! Two!

Fortunately, the twins had somehow managed to talk him down to just the one.

Because even with just one airship core powering the thing, Karla had no idea how any conventional Shard could deal with it short of taking a head on approach or using another Shard as bait.

Ignoring its speed, its climbing ability was an issue unto itself.

Oh, she could inflate her ballasts and achieve the same heights the Shrieker could. She could even use the same approach angle. Just pitch her nose up and let the aether-ballasts do the rest.

She wouldn’t though – because it’d be practically suicide in a contested airspace. Speed was life in a Shard fight and unlike the Shrieker, her own Shard would be reduced to little more than a balloon on the wind as it floated upward. An easy target for any pilot worthy of the title.

…Still, she thought. It’s not exactly subtle is it?

At nearly thirty five kilometers away, the Shard had been little more than a speck in the distance to her when it and she took off – just as the distant Apple River and Plumgarden Shards currently were – but she could pick it out easily now by the long blue-green trail it left in its wake.

Perhaps if we had blue skies it might be camouflaged a bit, but it’s overcast, she thought.

And if the Plumgarden and Apple River pilots had half a brain, they’d have already figured out something was afoot just from that clue.

…If they had more than that, they might have even worked out how the Shrieker was moving.

Again, the aether trail was not subtle and the notion of an aether-rocket craft was not new either.

Unfortunately for them, there’s still fuck all they can do about it even if they have figured that out, she thought.

Because at his current altitude William was essentially untouchable. Unless either of the other two opposing Shards were willing to pitch straight up for him and turn themselves into sitting ducks like she’d mentally warned herself against, they’d need to wait for him to come for them.

Unfortunately for me, there’s still one person they can come after, she thought as she watched the two distant dots turn almost as one.

They were coming for her.

“So this is it,” she murmured.

She’d thought she was ready – yet the hammering of her heart revealed that to be a lie.

She was terrified.

But she didn’t change course.

“Karla, it seems we were right. Both Apple River and Plumgarden are working together and they’re coming for you,” Janet’s voice crackled in her ear courtesy of the new ‘radio’ William had installed into her Shard…somehow

Where he found the time while building an entirely new Shard, she wasn’t sure, but he’d done it. Which was doubly impressive given that while aether-propelled Shards had definitely been conceived of before, none had ever gotten past the theoretical stage once the thrust issue became obvious.

Yet somehow, a total lack of blueprints or plans to work from hadn’t slowed William down at all. He’d just… drawn some up in an afternoon. Invented an entirely new airframe like it was nothing.

As if he was reading off blue-prints in his head, she thought with a frown.

She shook her head. She didn’t want to dwell on what that meant… On what she privately suspected;

William was Harrowed.

Though she’d never breathe a word of that theory aloud. Nor would any member of the family – of those others that suspected. And she knew there were others, even if they never spoke of it.

The boy had invented too much too quickly. There was genius and there was… what he was. The only reason the rumours swirling around him hadn’t translated into action was that the Queen would never allow it.

Not while she needed him.

Again, it helped that he seemed normal. Normal enough that sometimes Karla doubted her own suspicions.

…It made sense though. Too much sense.

For years now William had been the most awful combination of helpful, kind, reckless and disobedient. To a frankly… insane degree. Looking back, she now wondered if the start of his erratic behaviour was a result of harrowing.

He changed after we told him of the betrothal, she thought as she idly adjusted her heading.

Prior to that he’d been quite well behaved. Almost unnaturally so. Then he seemed to change almost overnight. At the time they’d put the change down to simple youthful rebelliousness. Now though, Karla wondered if maybe, after it was made clear he wasn’t getting out of his betrothal, William had done something… foolish.

He’d hardly the first boy to react poorly to an unwanted engagement, she thought. Nor would he be the first to seek aid from an unfortunate quarter.

Glancing at the two oncoming Shards, still little more than dots, she sighed.

“I guess I won’t be finding out one way or another,” she muttered. “Still, if it is the case that my law-son did Harrow himself and I just never noticed, then that’s just one more sin I’m paying for now.”

The radio crackled again – though not in response to her words, as she’d not pushed the button to ‘transmit’. Which she thought was way better than communication orbs, which were always on when they connected to each other.

“Karla? Is this thing working?” Janet asked, sounding panicked. “Both Plumgarden and Apple River are heading towards you. Can you hear me?”

“I hear you. I just didn’t see much point responding, given you’re not telling me anything that isn’t blatantly obvious,” she said after finally hitting the button,

Under different circumstances, she knew those words would have garnered her a tongue lashing – and not the fun kind.

“Right,” Janet responded without a comment on her own words – which was in some ways worse. “Well, we estimate you’ve got about six minutes until they enter engagement range. Maybe a little more if they move to link up more closely.”

Which they definitely would.

“Got it,” she responded, before taking her thumb off the button. “Six minutes to live, huh? Why does that seem like way too long and not nearly long enough at the same time?”

The pilot ignored trepidation building in her chest as she-

A muffled thump rang out through her Shard, sending vibrations through the frame and her. Suddenly, the throttle in her hand went slack.

“Fuck!” she hissed, desperately pulling the now slack stick back and forth as she glanced out searching for any kind of threat.

The skies remained clear though.

“Karla!? Are you ok!?” Janet’s voice squawked through the radio. “There’s aether spilling from your craft.”

“I’ve lost throttle control,” the pilot hissed. “I’ve got no pressure. Throttle’s entirely gone. Where’s the aether spilling from?”

“The bottom of your craft – though we can’t see any holes from here.”

What? How?

She pitched slightly to the left as she tested the controls. “Flaps are fine. Controls are fine. I can still sense the core, so it’s still producing aether. I think the main aether-pipe is leaking though.”

Her props had already died. The ballasts were already emptying.

“Did you see what hit you?” Janet asked.

“No! One minute I’m fine, the next… this,” she grunted. “It’s possible Plumgarden or Apple River have some kind of new long range weapon.”

Just because Indomitable couldn’t see a hole didn’t mean there wasn’t one. Something punched a hole through her pressure system!

“You need to warn William!” she continued.

“We already did,” Janet told her. “He said he’d… take it under advisement.”

“What!? No! Tell that brat to take this seriously. Super-Shard or not, he’s not immune to being punched full of holes!”

She was still searching for what might have done this – and a few moments later, Janet responded.

“I did. He said he will. He’s also advising you to bail out.”

“Bail out?” Janet coughed as aether had now started leaking into the cabin. “What about the plan?”

“He said he’d be fine,” Janet repeated, her voice decidedly dead. “And if you truly have lost power, I don’t see that you have any other option.”

And that was the truth of things.

Still, Karla scowled and cursed as she wrestled with the throttle, trying to get pressure back in her props or her ballasts. Nothing happened though – beyond more aether filling the cockpit.

“Do you have an earth charge you could use to fix your craft?” Janet asked.

“No!” Karla responded.

Most pilots knew a little mage-crafting for situations just like this, but she’d not prepared any charges of it. Mostly because she hadn’t expected to live long enough to need to make repairs.

She’d brought all lightning charges instead.

“Karla?”

The pilot slammed the dashboard, before pushing the button.

“I’m bailing out. William’s on his own.”

And hopefully his super-Shard would be able to defeat whatever she’d just been hit with.

————

“Am I crazy or is the Ashfield Shard going down!?” Pellin heard over the orb in her cockpit.

And wasn’t that a kicker. Her Gryphon didn’t normally have an orb in it, but the big lady had insisted on it for this fight.

So she could work with her temporary ally and hopefully have a contemporary to the Whitemorrow and Ashfield ‘radios’.

Whatever the fuck those were…

The sailors they’d managed to bribe or threaten into talking over the past week hadn’t known much. Just that the radios existed on their ships and that they functioned like communication orbs.

And that the Corsairs on the Jellyfish had them too.