Last year, I decided to halt my fiction writing dark ages by contributing this story to Write, Wrong or Otherwise, a two-week short-story challenge. It's hosted by Nat 1 Publishing every year and gives writers a chance to peer review, receive professional edits from the team, and get their stories published in an anthology. Participants also get cool goodies like posters, stickers, and a copy of the anthology at the end. It was an awesome experience, but I was still a coward about publishing this on my site for others to read. After some feedback from friends and family, and with Nat 1's permission, I'm re-publishing this story right here.
Kee perched high on one of the many hangar windows, studying the magnificent craft below. She gripped the cedar sill with two scaly feet, each ending in sharp, clawed toes, stretching her downy, silver neck out to get a better look. Kee was what the flightless off-worlders called Wingfolk. It was more polite than bird, anyway. Despite the most basic similarities, it was a reduction to be associated with the tiny animals inhabiting off-worlder skies. Her iridescent green feathers shimmered as they shifted, her wings fluttering to maintain balance. She was excited—more than excited—she was eager. Almost two years of studying and hard work had built up to this moment, now she finally got to flex her skills as part of this momentous project.
Below, the great vessel hung mesmerizingly still; it floated in place without swaying or beating wings. The rounded, tapered nose widened and stretched out to the other side of the open hangar, where it met four tail fins. Its ribbed midsection and sparkling metallic surface made it look like some great silvery fish. Its slippery smoothness was punctuated by three cars mounted slightly below and away from the hull: one central and two peripheral. Each car was truncated by a screw pointed with twisted wooden blades. Slung low along its belly was an enclosed, stamped aluminum gondola dotted with round portholes along the sides, which widened in diameter until they met a large, wrap-around windshield. Therein, the bridge of the gondola glowed with warm incandescent light.
The Aerie was an airship, or as some off-worlder designers called it, a dirigible. It was the product of a joint venture with the off-worlders. Conceived by the Cooperative of Scientific Communities, its mission was to explore and document the whimsical matter and physics in Kee’s homeworld skies and extend the range of shorter wings-on-your-back flights. It was the most technologically advanced piece of machinery she had ever seen. Despite only being considered a fledgling mechanist, she knew the ins and outs of the engines, pumps, dynamos, and the maze of structural girders holding the ship together (at least in the shop). Her long, thin beak pointed to and fro as her dark eyes scanned every gleaming surface of the mechanical marvel, completely assembled for the first time.
With a whoosh and the click of slender pink toes, a tall and lanky figure alighted on the sill beside Kee. It was Eudo, and he had a talent for being annoyingly just on time for everything. Eudo folded his stark white wings back, gestured his curved orange bill down at the ship, and beamed his beady eyes at Kee. “Really something, ain’t it?”
“You’re late,” Kee reprimanded and cocked her head sarcastically at Eudo.
He coiled his long neck. “No later than you at this rate. ’Sides, we ain’t leaving until you wipe the drool off your beak.”
Eudo was a rigger. He would be working high up in the ship’s hull, maintaining the canvas covering and the wire supports throughout the ship. The two fledglings spent countless hours tinkering together over the past year, Kee with engines and Eudo with construction materials. On more than one occasion they managed to sneak into the shop where they had been taught to get in a few hours of practice without the rest of the group or work on a few pet projects. It wasn’t hard for Kee to imagine they’d both be going on the Aerie’s first voyage together. There wasn’t anyone else she trusted to do things right. And Eudo was always good for a laugh.
Kee hoisted her pack up, tucked in her short arms, and spread her violet, bladelike wings across her back.
She turned to Eudo. “I gotta prep, no idea where the last egghead left the carburetors. Probably need to redo everything.”
“Alight, Surly Kee the Talon, but promise you won’t stick your beak where it doesn’t belong this trip? I’d like to avoid a run-in with the chief.”
Ignoring Eudo, she lept off the sill and fluttered down to the gangplank aft of the gondola where the flock of crew assembled. Further behind the gondola, large bay doors opened to the belly of the ship. Eudo wafted his long, flowing wings and caught up to her. The Talons—the ranking officers of the Wingfolk expeditions—were there calling roll and dishing out orders. They were responsible for navigation and control of the ship, as well as carrying out the mission. Kee and a few others were Wings; the mechanists, riggers, stewards, and other assorted task doers. Kee wouldn’t have it any other way. Flying was something they all did, Kee admitted; getting around in the air was a crucial job, sure, but it wasn’t a new or interesting one. Kee was going to be working on the ship itself.
She approached the Talon taking roll. “Kee Sylph, fledgling mechanist,” she chirped.
The Talon looked down at Kee and clacked his blue bill, “Kee Sylph, starboard engine, first shift. Make ready for takeoff.” Still holding his list, he gestured with a ruddy wing at Kee and then up to the gangplank.
A few paces behind him stood the captain, arms crossed and wings furled. He regarded every new crew member intensely with bright yellow eyes from behind a hooked, raptorial beak. Kee recognized Captain Rhirr; he was present during the selection of every crew member just a few weeks prior. His old, mud-colored feathers faded to a grayish white along his nape and wing tips.
As she click-clacked her way up into the gondola, Kee caught the captain stretching his left wing gingerly, his right hanging limply and at a poor angle. Any crew member paying attention knew, without a doubt, Captain Rhirr was crippled. A long past injury never healed properly, rendering him incapable of flying. Kee knew this, but she didn’t know what trauma brought the captain to this low state. She also knew better than to speak of it while aboard. The captain was here because he knew the sky better than the rest; he knew where they were going and how to get there.
Kee glimpsed the bridge at the head of the gondola before fluttering up a hatch into the ship's hull. A few Talons were inspecting the rudder and elevator wheels, laying out charts, and testing various equipment. In the hull along the keel was an immensely long catwalk stretching all the way to the stern of the ship, above the vast expanse swallowed by enormous lifting gas bags tied in place with wire. A haughty crew member with orange feathers and a green tail bumped into Kee as he half-hopped and half-flew along the corridor. Other crew members scurried here and there, loading supplies and equipment or doing final inspections.
Eudo popped up through the bay doors and grabbed onto the nearest ladder. He puffed out his chest and called, “‘Eudo Irriss, gas cells, first shift,’” in her direction and saluted with his right wing. “I’ll find you first rotation if you’re not married to the engine yet.”
Kee watched Eudo disappear into the bowels of the ship in a narrow shaft between two gas cells. She shuffled down the length of the catwalk and out across the starboard ring from which hung the engine car. Before the end of the path, a tawny wing flipped out and blocked her way. The obstruction’s face was dark with a black, almost conical beak. His cheeks wrapped into a brown nape, each side punctuated by a white spot directly behind the eye. Kee bowed slightly for the surprise introduction as he regarded her with a cocked head.
“Kee Sylph, fledgling mech—”
“You’re my mechanist? For the starboard engine?” he interrupted with beady eyes.
“You’re the chief? Er, I mean, yes sir, that’s my assignment.”
“Chief Halihk, although I don’t know why I need to tell you. I was expecting someone else,” he mumbled, reviewing his paperwork.
You’re not the only one expecting someone else, Kee thought. She didn’t recognize Halihk at all. Worse yet, this jerk wasn’t anything like Llyr, the chief she trained under. Chiefs were finicky about how you did things on a good day. At worst, they were a huge pain in your tailfeathers about every little thing.
“Fine, prepare for takeoff. Throttle down, or you’ll blow something up before we’re in the air. Don’t break anything.”
Kee stayed silent and bowed again as Halihk lowered his wing and gave access to the engine car. He looked down his beak at her as she passed.
A ladder ran down from the hull's interior to the car itself. Kee hovered briefly in the air and dropped down into the car with a clank. She was going to grumble something obscene under her breath at Halihk but forgot it an instant later.
She instead marveled at the cathedral of brass and iron cramping the rest of the car. The cold engine block squatted on stringers in the center of the compartment. Six monolithic cylinders stood in formation, topped with a spider-like valvetrain. Pipes for coolant, compressed air, and fuel wound their way around like blood vessels from their dormant heart. The mechanist dropped her pack and set to work. She went over every inch of the engine, checking fluids, adjusting valve lash, and inspecting moving parts for wear. What any other engineer would consider overkill for a hunk of metal, Kee carried out dutifully. She did it not because Halihk told her to but because she loved doing it.
As preparations for the voyage were completed, Captain Rhirr gave the order to lift the ship from the hangar.
The wide cedar roof parted and retracted, exposing the great argent fish to the bright sunlight. A few dozen standby crew grabbed hold of hempen lines along the ship’s length and took to the air. They beat their wings and tugged at the rope until the neutral airship began to rise out of the hangar’s roof. Kee gazed out of the engine compartment porthole as the shady hangar walls were replaced by Yonder—that beautiful blue shade of sky where all of the Wingfolk soared freely and breathed fully.
Being in the wide open air was the default state of being. Landing was just a distraction; a respite or a meal or a place to work before leaping back into the endless breeze. It was obvious even for an off-worlder to see why. The world of the Wingfolk was uninhabitable on the surface—the entire planet covered in sharp, rocky crags that sliced and choked out the life of anything stubborn enough to try and grow there. Colossal, pitted stone columns drove up out of the surface and rose all the way to the cloud layer. On top of each pillar was a Shelf; a mostly flat surface that collected precipitation and fostered vegetation and fauna. Some Shelves were vast bowls supporting lakes the size of seas. Others boasted the nests of enormous settlements of Wingfolk and looked like huge cities constructed of stone and woven tree limbs.
Here, on this small, remote Shelf, far from the concentrated flock of civilization or the bountiful pastures and hunting grounds, Kee looked down on the hangar from her engine car.
Ti-ti-ti-ting, the engine order telegraph rang. On the wall of the car was a cable-driven bell with a dial indicating the bridge’s intent. The rounded face displayed basic fractional speeds, direction, and status conditions for the mechanists to follow.
“Idling, brake off,” Kee confirmed and moved the response lever on the telegraph to match the bridge order. She quickly began to open fuel lines and air valves. Finally, she yanked the starting valve.
Vvvfff-Boom, the engine erupted with sound and motion, valves ticked and pistons thrummed as the carburetor throats emitted a vacuous sucking sound. It was loud, and it smelled like fuel and oil. Kee was giddy. Her chest puffed up, and her feathers ruffled with glee. She stamped in place momentarily, ecstatic with the moving mass of torque-generating metal she cared for so much. She peered out the car porthole and cocked her head this way and that as she heard two more engines start-up behind her.
The telegraph rang again, Ti-ti-ti-ting.
“Ahead half,” Kee declared aloud to herself.
She pulled the massive clutch lever, and the long wooden blades of the propeller swung in time with the idling engine. She slowly stepped up the throttle and increased the revolutions. The thrum of the pistons escalated into a cacophonous drone, and the propeller blades all but disappeared as they carved through the air like thin, slicing wings. Without any sensation at all, the ship pushed through the atmosphere.
Kee marveled at the soft motion produced by the orchestra of shuffling metal. It was magic, this new way of progressing through the already familiar sky. It was not like being grounded at all. This revolutionary mechanism could mean staying aloft indefinitely, an enticing prospect for any Wingfolk.
After a short test flight, the telegraph rang and indicated cruising speed. Kee made the necessary adjustments and tinkered with the carburetors, keeping them synchronized and adjusting the mixture to keep everything running smoothly. The ship was pitching ever so slightly into the clouds now, and Kee leaned through the porthole to watch as the hangar they left behind shrank comfortingly into a small dot. Before long, the great Yonder stretched out in every direction; that endless cool blue expanse inviting Kee to let the breeze run through the feathers on her arm, coaxing her to leap out to catch warm thermals under her wings and savor the currents. The ship ruddered onto a new course.
The fledgling mechanist wasn’t distracted long before a pair of pinkish talons worked down the ladder into the engine car. When the whole figure alighted on the car floor, Kee looked into Halihk’s dark eyes. Kee bowed again and opened her beak to speak. Halihk seemed to anticipate this and cut her off. “Shift is over; you’re on rest and then standby canvas with Irriss,” he squawked over the droning pistons and ticking valves.
Kee’s feathers bristled. There was no way her shift was over yet. The crew worked equal rotations: one third of their time was spent on watch, the second resting, and the third on standby watch with less arduous tasks. Kee felt the ship had only just lined up with its intended course. This jerk was relieving her early.
She thought of meeting up with Eudo. She didn’t want their first conversation to be about mouthing off to the chief, so she regained her composure.
“I set the mixture just a few dives back but we haven’t gained much altitude since then.” Halihk began to shuffle between Kee and the intake manifold. “Oh, and before we set out, one of the number five exhaust values was almost a hundredth too—oof!”
Halihk forced himself between Kee and the engine, pushing her up against the hull of the car with his wings. He interrupted, “Not to worry, I’ll take it from here,” and set to work checking fluids and mixtures and resetting the throttles.
“I wasn’t worried; I was just giving a report.” Kee mustered her strength by focusing her eyes on the rocker arms. “Respectfully, chief, I’m not fatigued yet. I could stay and give you a hand here.”
“You want to help? How about you flutter around the empennage and lubricate every pulley you find?” As he said this, he mocked two tiny wings with his fingers and waited for Kee to react. It was a dare, an opportunity for Kee to make her life aboard much worse. Halihk searched Kee’s face for a retort or any hint of defiance.
Kee stared directly into his beady dark eyes and gave a short, rushed bow. She spun around and climbed up the ladder to the hull, the wind rushing through her down as she passed briefly out of the safety of the car and into the ship.
“That one is wet shit,” she thought as she stamped her way to the stern close to the tailfins.
Kee’s rest shift was as far from restful as one could stray. She diligently traced the rudder and elevator control cables through the ship’s tail, inspecting and lubing every tensioner, pulley, and gear that allowed the Talons in the gondola to steer and control the ship’s pitch. She started the work with clenched fists, but after a while, the exertion smoothed out her frustration. Satisfied with her work and comfortably distanced from the chief, she searched for Eudo.
She bumped into him amidships on the axial catwalk. The passageway ran centrally from nose to tail in the center of the gas cells, equidistant from the keel catwalk and the highest point on the ship.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Rest’s almost over, thought you fell out of the engine car or something!” Eudo blurted, spreading his arms and wings in irritation. He cut his chafing short when he got a good look at Kee. “You look awful.”
Kee’s feathers were sooty and greasy. They looked matted and unpreened, abnormally so. It wasn’t uncommon for Eudo to see Kee get lost in her work and forget some basic hygiene, but this was far more extreme.
Kee took a deep breath. “I guess I didn’t get along so good with the chief,” she started, and before Eudo could finish craning his neck for an I-told-you-so, she finished, “It wasn’t my fault! That wet shit has it out for me, has since we set out! He cut my shift short and sent me to lube the chains!”
Eudo stayed silent. This was one of those times Kee needed a friend instead of a buddy. After a few silent moments, he cawed, “Come with me; I got something to show you.”
“We’ve got canvas inspection,” she reminded.
“Then that’s what we’ll say we’re doing, c’mere.”
He strutted down the axial corridor closer to the center of the ship. Kee lagged behind with drooping tailfeathers. More work didn’t sound like the best medicine at the moment. After clacking along the corridor for a spell they arrived at the central shaft; a tall ladder rose from the cargo bay doors below to the observation platform at the ship’s peak. Eudo grabbed hold of two bundled lines and started to climb up the ladder. Kee begrudgingly gripped the rungs and followed.
At the top of the shaft, Eudo turned and opened a hatch. Fresh, cool wind rushed past the opening. He tied off the two lines to rungs on the ladder and then fastened the other end of one line to his ankle. He tossed the free end of the other line to Kee and climbed up and out of the hatch. When he passed through, Kee could see it was night already. She tied the line around her ankle and finished climbing onto the observation platform.
Wind rushed past Kee’s face and slipped through every feather on her body. All around her, the Yonder was a deep shade of cloudless indigo; the black envelope of darkness sliced only with bright, radiant moonlight, which made her emerald feathers gleam. The rush of noise drowned out the faint humming of the engines which normally proliferated the ship.
“You gonna join me or what?” Eudo squawked down from above and behind her. He was flying, or at least soaring. The ship was sluggishly cruising directly into a headwind. That meant it was moving slowly, but the wind across the hull's surface was stronger. Without flapping his wings he was able to catch and shape the wash around him to stay aloft. He rolled left to right almost lazily, savoring the current while the safety line kept him attached to the vessel.
Kee almost forgot about the rest of her day. She faced forward and spread her violet wings across her back. Steadying herself, she pitched her flight feathers and lifted off. The sensation was delightful. She buzzed her wings occasionally to maintain balance but felt the draft doing most of the work for her. She allowed herself to hover a little farther away from the platform. The cool night air channeling around her body was rejuvenating.
“Not a bad way to spend your shift, huh?” Eudo finally said, dipping his wing to fly alongside Kee.
“I gotta hand it to you, this is better than I thought,” she returned. rotating her head and pointing her slender beak at Eudo. “You riggers do have it pretty good up here.”
“When you’re doing inspection or repair, it’s not as fun. You and another pair of wings tryna sew a big patch in? That can get kinda annoying. Not as annoying as what you had to do, though.” Eudo always knew how to turn the conversation back a few turns.
“You jerk, you’ve got me in therapy right now.” She squinted at Eudo, who just smirked at the corners of his orange bill. Kee continued, “Well, I don’t think the chief thinks I’m up for it. He acted all surprised when I showed up like I wasn’t on his list or he didn’t approve of me. You’d think the damn chief would know who’s working for him.”
“There were a couple of last-minute changes on the riggers too,” Eudo offered. “And some of them think Llyr got switched out for your buddy as chief. Wonder if Captain had anything to do with it.”
“I don’t know. But he’s gonna make being on this balloon miserable for me; I just know it. I just want to be a part of this project. And I know I have something to offer. Think about what life would be like out here all the time,” and she did a small roll, washing away her feelings with more sensation.
“It’s still a shakedown flight for everybody, even the Talons. When we land you can always let them know what’s up. But for now, stay out of trouble. In the meantime, you can lend a hand with inspection whenever you need to cool off,” and he winked a beady eye at Kee.
After another hour of soaring, Kee was invigorated and determined again. She started to get antsy about the actual inspection they needed to do, so the two alighted on the platform and clambered down the hatchway. For the rest of the shift, they split off in the ship’s interior, tracing the accessible portions of the outer cover and looking for ripped or loose sections.
At the finish of standby, Kee was back in the starboard engine car, relieving a puffy crew member with great horned eyebrows and wide, yellow eyes who barely fit in the engine compartment. He was polite and gave her no trouble as he climbed back into the ship. Kee set to work with adjustments and cleaning the obviously ignored air screens. She enjoyed a trouble-free shift servicing her great iron cathedral, still thrumming away, twisting the propeller.
The next several rotations were not completely without incident, but Kee did her utmost to avoid talking back to the chief. Sporadically, he would come and relieve her early, making snide remarks about her ability or stamina or some other reason why she couldn’t do the job she was confident with. To cool off, she would explore other parts of the ship. Kee often used the extra rest to actually sleep or eat in the galley and meet the other crew. When she got particularly frustrated, she spent an hour on the observation platform with Eudo, recharging in the wash of the Aerie.
For three days and nights, the voyage passed much the same, and Kee felt it was a rhythm she could sustain, even if it was not ideal. After the third night, the Aerie was officially halfway complete with the trial voyage and homeward bound. The next morning Kee hummed along the catwalk down to the starboard engine car. When she dropped into the droning, ticking space, she was face to face with the chief again. He was busy fussing with the carburetor altitude settings.
“Don’t need you this shift,” he chirped over the noise. “Go find Cleekiirk and inspect the dynamos.”
Kee’s beak hung open in shock and disbelief. This insufferable egg-smasher was going to push her away for her entire shift.
She chose her words carefully, “Chief Halihk, respectfully, it would be my preference to remain on starboard engine duty this shift. Perhaps if my skills are lacking, I can observe and train under you, giving our entire crew a greater advantage in the shared experience.” And she gave as much a bow as she could in the cramped compartment.
Halihk bored into Kee with his beady eyes. His chest buffed out, and his wings untucked, giving him a much larger appearance. “Respectfully? Respectfully! Why don’t you respectfully listen to orders? Why don’t you respectfully buzz off when I tell you to? How about respectfully letting me run this ship exactly as I please and intend to without sticking your beak into everything? It’s against my wishes for this crew and vessel that you be here respecting me. You’re lucky some Talon somewhere thinks you’re cut out for this, or we would have left you back on that Shelf where you belong! Now, why don’t you respectfully climb out of my engine car and make a nest somewhere where I won’t see you.”
Kee fumed, and she clenched her fists. Her head swirled, and she felt as though the entire compartment lurched, digging the claws on her scaly feet into the slippery aluminum deck of the compartment for support. She stretched out her neck and puffed her down, the grease and soot parting to reveal stripes of cleaner, iridescent layers of feathers beneath. At full posture, she was still about a foot shorter than the chief, but she would do her utmost to make a nest out of his tail feathers.
The car’s center of gravity reversed before either of the Wingfolk could catch themselves. Halihk, on the tips of his toes, fell backward against the car's frame, bumping his head. Kee realized too late that the compartment swaying wasn’t her rage and toppled beak forward onto the floor.
Ti-ti-ti-ti-ting, the engine telegraph rang.
Kee whipped around, ignoring the aching pain growing at the front of her skull.
“Stop engine, brake on,” she repeated to no one, certainly not the chief, still trying to make sense of what had happened. She responded on the telegraph and stalled the engine before grabbing the brake lever and yanking it, quickly stopping the propeller's rotation.
“What did you do? What happened?” Halihk slowly came to his senses.
“I followed orders. Something must have happened forward.” Before Kee could complete the thought, the telegraph rang again. It read report. “Bridge wants a report.”
Halihk sobered quickly, and his subdued anger started to rise again. “You love reports so much, go give the lame wings at the helm a damn report and get out of my sight. Respectfully.”
Kee was halfway up the ladder before Halihk finished. She sensed something had gone wrong, probably dangerously so. Definitely more dangerous than the chief anyway.
She hopped along the catwalk and arrived at the ladder to the gondola. She dropped down and clanked on the floor. The Talons shuffled to and fro, some calling out readings from indicators along the control panels. A white Talon with a heart-shaped face and dark eyes bumped into Kee carrying rulers and compasses while others unrolled new charts on the navigation desks. Everyone was hopping and flitting and causing a stir except the captain. Arms crossed, he stood with his back to the helm, listening carefully to Eudo and two other mechanists, probably on watch in the other engine cars. Through the windshield Kee saw the cool, blue Yonder, punctuated by scattered clouds and—Kee’s heart skipped a beat—a wall of floating green masses stretching out on all sides.
The Wingfolk called it a Vork migration. Vork were bunched up, inanimate blobs suspended in the air. The world of the Wingfolk was full of these curious, jelly-like collections of elements held aloft by some unknown principle. Predicting their drift was challenging, and only top researchers could speculate on their origin. Many variants were harmless: orbs of atmospheric water sticking together and floating wherever the wind carried them. Others were deadly amalgams of chemicals wafting along and burning pockmarks in stone as they collided with Shelves. Both variants were huge risks for flying Wingfolk. Kee was stunned. She had never seen a migration this expansive before.
Eudo finished giving his report, and the captain noticed Kee staring across the gondola.
“Where is Chief Halihk?” he asked in a high, gravelly voice, piercing Kee with sharp, yellow eyes.
Kee bowed. “The chief sent me forward in his stead, Captain. Starboard engine is fit for duty.”
The captain almost imperceptibly raised one brow. The crew continued to survey charts and instruments, occasionally getting distracted looking forward at the Vork wall. All the while, the captain continued standing calmly. After a pause, he spoke up again, stretching his left wing as he did. “Your attention, please.”
The commotion in the car halted abruptly and all eyes fixed on the captain.
“As you are well aware, our current course has us met with a Vork migration. From the looks of it, it’s a pretty nasty one, drifting in our direction as we speak. Four minutes ago, we narrowly dodged a caustic Vork mass concealed by cloud cover, thanks to the quick reaction of our helmsman. Eudo informed me that the strain from our extreme hard rudder has severed control cables, which will take a nontrivial amount of time to repair. With no steerage, we’re in a bit of a situation. I asked the mechanists to come forward to help find a solution.” The captain surveyed each of the engineers in turn. “I suspect the only way for us to navigate to that solution is by using the port and starboard engines for steerage. What do you all think?”
The mechanists from the other engine cars nodded, and the larger one spoke, “Yes, with full reversal on the starboard engine and full ahead on the port, we should be able to rotate 180 degrees while hovering. Then, we could fly in the opposite direction while rudder repairs are made. When we turn to face the wall again, we can navigate through it.”
The Wingfolk from the other engine car chimed in, “Why can’t we turn 90 degrees and navigate around the migration?”
The Talon with the heart-shaped face answered in his customary shrill voice, “We estimate the wall is too wide. It’s not very dense but has extraordinary breadth, like the Vork are in square formation. Changing our course so drastically will add many miles to the journey and diminish our remaining supplies.”
“We can patch up the rudder controls in three days at quickest,” Eudo reiterated. “Maybe we can find a safe Shelf on the map to do that on and resupply at the same time.”
The captain listened carefully without consenting or refuting any of the options presented. When the other mechanists were finished, he fixated his eyes on Kee again. “Engineer Sylph, what do you think?”
Kee was visualizing the alternatives. In her mind, she followed the journey carefully, painting a mental picture of all of the shifts and work she would need to do back the way they came, whether they’d have to land and take off from a Shelf, and what it would be like following the line of the caustic wall for an unknown amount of time. After careful consideration, she gave her answer.
“Fuel and oil.”
“Fuel and oil,” Rhirr repeated. “Could you elaborate?”
“We flew into a headwind for much of the voyage, consuming more fuel and oil. We left with a surplus for four extra days of flying, but I bet we’d only have enough for two extra days now. Even if we find a Shelf to restock on, we won’t be able to refuel. If the migration is as wide as we think, we’ll definitely fall short of reaching the hangar. In either scenario, we’ll end up adrift.”
“I see.”
“But we could steer through it. Use the engines to steer through the migration.”
All eyes were on Kee now. A few of the crew rustled their feathers thinking about the risky maneuver she suggested. One miscalculation and corrosive Vork would eat away at the ship, gluing itself to the sides and consuming the canvas. If it ate through the fragile gas cells, the ship would be lost.
The back of Captain Rhirr’s beak, where his cheeks met, lifted ever so slightly. He was smiling. “Exactly what I was thinking. The wall isn’t too dense for us to pass through. We were already planning on steering through it, my concern was whether we’d have enough control of the engines through the telegraphs.”
Kee felt determined again. A little sick with fear, sure, but too enthusiastic to act on that fear. If anyone understood the risks here, it was the one crew member who couldn’t get away from this if things flew south. The captain’s courage was energizing, inspiring Kee. She wanted to make the plan work, just like for countless days and nights she sought to make machines work. More than anything she wanted to be a part of some grand solution with her crew.
She continued working on the problem as the Captain spoke. That’s when she said, “You wouldn’t have enough control with the telegraphs. But you can see the gondola from just beneath the engine cars. If you open the gangplank hatch, you could signal someone flying beneath the ship to relay more exact throttle settings to the port and starboard cars.” Kee didn’t think twice before adding, “I volunteer to fly orders.”
Eudo’s beak hung open. All around the bridge the crew cocked their heads and blinked. Many of them leaned or stepped away from their post for a better look at the small Wingfolk with the fluttery wings and iridescent green feathers who just volunteered to put herself in harm’s way for her crew.
The captain didn’t look surprised for even a second. “You accept the risk, I presume, just as we all did embarking on this voyage.”
“I do.”
“Then let’s get to work. Sylph, go aft and inform the starboard engine watch. Then get into position.” He turned to the other crew and continued, “You three return to your stations. I need everyone on the bridge to be on watch. Yaia, you’re on the elevator, and Qriil, you’re signaling my course corrections to Sylph.”
The gondola was a flurry again as the Talons returned to their stations, and the mechanist Wings hustled up the ladder into the ship. Kee removed the safety chains from the aft gangplank hatch and started cranking it open. Sunlight poured into the gondola as the bridge became exposed to the Yonder. Kee took a deep breath, spread her violet wings, and leaped into the air. She didn’t notice Rhirr give a small salute as he watched her go.
Kee beat her wings and buzzed along the ribbed, silvery belly of the Aerie. She dropped low enough to see the three engine cars slung along the tapering rings near the stern. She altered course and hustled up the starboard car. She grabbed hold of the porthole edge.
Halihk was leaning up against the side, arms crossed. He jumped when Kee pushed her head inside. “I’ll be mobbed, Sylph this is the last—”
Kee cut him off, “There’s a Vork migration ahead. We’re going to navigate through it. There was evasive rudder damage so we need to use the engines. I’ll relay orders from the bridge.”
Caught off guard, Halihk lost his original reprimand. Instead he said, “No way are we going to be able to steer this ship through a Vork wall. It cannot be done. I refuse.”
The telegraph rang. Idling, brake off. There wasn’t time for this.
“The captain gave us our orders, now let’s get a move on!”
“If that grounded old egghead wants to go out in a blaze of glory then let him, I’ll see myself out and find some Shelf to watch you all kill yourselves for him from there.”
Kee let every bottled-up emotion from the voyage go all at once. “Listen here, you wet shit! You’re gonna do what I say here and now, or this ship is going down. And you might not give two shits about what happens to it or to the Captain, I can’t change that, but before you smash a few eggs and fly this nest, remember one thing—you’re gonna wind up on that remote Shelf. And when you think you’re safe and this pile of twisted metal is lying in a heap on the surface, I’m gonna come find that Shelf. We’re gonna be best buds while you tire your wings out as I chase you around and pluck every last one of your shitty feathers, reminding you what a useless sack of plumage you are ’til we’re both dead. Ya got that? Now start that damn engine!”
Halihk’s beak hung wide enough for Kee to see down his gullet. He gathered his composure and chirped to clear his throat. Without another word, he switched the arm on the telegraph to idling and loosed the brake. He quickly set the throttle and yanked the starter, the cathedral of pistons booming to life again as they sucked in air and pumped out torque.
Kee pulled her head out of the porthole and dove back from the car to swoop under the belly of the ship. She positioned herself in front of and below the central engine car, spotting Qriil’s brilliant heart-shaped face staring back at her from the gondola. She gave him an okay signal with her fingers, and he responded with the same.
From the central car, Kee heard the faint ring of the telegraph sound out. The engine RPMs increased, and the propellers started to drone in unison as the ship advanced. Kee kept pace with the ship, which must have been powered to only half speed ahead.
The Vork migration before her was getting closer, and she could make out the rough size and shape of the lifeless blobs better. They were asymmetrical and rippled with small waves across their surface as if they were algae-coated ponds wrapped into spheres. More uniform in their size and distribution, most were about twenty feet across at the widest, although some must have been double that. Kee remembered the Aerie was approximately sixty feet in diameter at its widest point. The wind carried a slight acrid smell.
Ahead of her, Qriil held out two red flags. With one flag, he indicated direction, with the other, he circled and stopped at a point in the circle to give an approximate degree of rudder change.
“Left, ten degrees,” Kee echoed to herself. She rolled and ducked over to the port engine car, and caught hold of the cables fixing it to the hull. She called into the porthole, “Idle down to 550 RPM!”
The bulky mechanist nodded and flattened his horned eyebrows as he brought down the throttle.
Kee flew across the underbelly of the ship to the starboard car. She caught the porthole rim and yelled, “Full ahead, 1700 RPM!”
“Full ahead,” Halihk echoed, and the great motor surged to cruising speed.
Kee returned to her position ahead of the central engine car. She felt the ship rotating away and she corrected her course to keep up. Her wings were buzzing quickly enough to be invisible to anyone watching. The Vork blob the bridge must have been dodging passed by a good three hundred feet away from the starboard of the ship. Kee made a mental note that she likely turned too sharply and left too wide a berth.
Qriil must have thought the same thing because he signaled a course correction: Right, 20 degrees rudder.
She rolled back to the starboard engine. “Idle down to 800 RPM.” Halihk echoed the order, and the droning dropped as Kee kicked off the engine car and hummed across the gap to the other car to shout, “Rev it up to 1300!” The exhaust from the tail of the car coughed black smoke before the engine powered up. Kee shoved her head in the porthole. “Lean it out a little; she’s rich!”
At this point, the ship was surrounded by the Vork on all sides and the air was heavy with the acidic smell, making Kee’s eyes water. She beat her wings to return to the ship’s centerline and stay ahead of the aft engine car. From her vantage point, she could see more of the swarm ahead. They weren’t out of this yet.
Qriil held both flags in parallel to signal steady as she goes, and Kee hummed over to Halihk to pass the message, “Get it up to 1300!” No sooner had she returned to her spotting position the bridge ordered another right, twenty degree rudder. The orders kept coming as Rhirr navigated through the field of deadly masses.
Left fifteen degrees. Right twenty degrees. Steady as she goes. Right thirty degrees. Left twenty-five degrees.
Clearly the bridge couldn’t steer as well with the engines as the rudders, so their movements were more sudden, and there was lots of correction. Kee felt the slight strain of fatigue growing in her wings now. She could stay aloft for hours or even days if she could find thermals. But keeping up with the ship’s engines like this was exhausting. Still, after a few more turns, she got into a rhythm. Her translation was getting more accurate, and the bridge didn’t call out course corrections as frequently, focusing only on steering side to side to avoid incoming Vork.
The ship began to climb slightly. Kee registered they must be pitching the elevators to gain some altitude. She hoped that meant they saw an opening and were pursuing it. Qriil continued to signal and Kee translated, learning how her engines responded to her commands and adjusting her orders to be more precise.
Right fifteen degrees, port throttle up to 1500 RPM. Steady as she goes, starboard throttle up to match. Right twenty degrees, port half power. Left fifty degrees, starboard full speed ahead. Steady as she goes, both engines half ahead. Left twenty-five degrees, port idle, starboard full power.
Kee cut back and forth through the wind, desperately trying not to cough at the pungent, bitter smell—shouting over the prop wash and exhaust made her throat rough and scratchy. She thought then and there that she’d give every last one of her secondaries to taste fresh Yonder. The Vork passed closer to the sides of the ship. She had no idea what it was like up on top of the hull, but along the rudder fin behind her, there were some close calls as the gelatinous acid floated within twenty feet of the disabled tail. It was as if the deadly orbs weren’t just drifting on the wind but attracted to the ship itself.
The muscles in her wings were starting to burn, and Kee could feel her speed dropping as she continued climbing to keep with the ship’s rising attitude. The bridge pushed the nose up through the migration, forking left and right to dodge the Vork. One passed beneath Kee, and on its slick surface she could see the reflection of a great silvery fish punctuated by a small emerald dot flitting to and fro. She pushed harder.
Left ten degrees, right five degrees.
Kee panted as she flew orders into the engine portholes now, just pushing out enough words to convey the message. Her heart was pounding out of her chest, and she almost slipped reaching out for the port car’s support strut.
Right fifteen degrees, left twenty degrees.
The surrounding Yonder brightened. The Vork began to dissipate.
Right thirty degrees, left twenty degrees. Steady as she goes.
Just as Kee called her last order for the starboard car, she heard the telegraph inside ring, and the engines in all three cars surged. The wind was raking through the feathers on Kee’s face. It tasted fresher. The ship rose rapidly; the bridge must have applied a hard elevator. Ahead, Kee saw ballast water being discharged from the bow, providing the ship with emergency lift. She dodged the brunt of the spray as the wind caught it and threw it back at her.
Her face, arms, and chest got drenched regardless. Kee cleared her eyes to see a fifty-foot diameter Vork dead ahead and she was flying straight toward it at breakneck speed. She couldn’t grab hold of the ship; it was climbing too quickly.
She tucked her wings and dove, plummeting almost vertically across the surface of the Vork. The tips of her toes stung, and she screwed her eyes shut to stop the burning. She swore the tips of her primaries tingled, but the sensation subsided.
Eyes open again, she saw the Vork overhead and spread her wings, clenching her muscles and holding fast to the onslaught of air she caught. She pulled hard, and with every fiber of her body, she managed to level herself. Her plummet turned into upward momentum. She felt the blood rush out of her skull, and her vision tunneled as she rocketed back up into clear, blue Yonder. She extended an arm to the glinting argent whale floating a few hundred yards out of reach before the darkness swallowed it.
Sharp, clenching pain in her arms thrust Kee to her senses. Her vision was blurry but bright, and she felt like she was swaying side to side in some void. As things cleared, she realized she was still in the air, but her wings hung limply on her back. Something tight tugged on her upper arms again, and she cocked her head up to see a pair of white, downy legs ending in thick, sharp talons gripping her tightly. Qriil’s broad wings undulated as he carried her through a Vork-less sky.
Qriil turned his heart-shaped face down to Kee. “That was some dive, I didn’t think you could fly like that.”
“Well, obviously I can’t, wet shi—er, I mean… sorry.” It was all the still-woozy Kee could muster.
Qriil laughed in his shrill, shrieky voice. “Hey, I think it’s well-deserved. We’re the ones who dropped the ballast after all. In our defense, if we hadn’t we definitely would have hit that last Vork.” He made for the wide-open cargo bay doors. When they passed through the opening, he managed to set Kee down somewhat gently on the aluminum deck.
As the bay doors shut, the noise of the wind ceased, and the low background humming of the engines droned on. Kee got her footing, giving half a flutter to ensure her wings still worked. They were sore but intact.
Before she could get the rest of her bearings, she was surrounded by crew; Wings and Talons alike gathered around, cheering her on and slapping her on the back with their wingtips. The entire cargo bay was an uproar of shrieking, squawking, and chirping. Eudo parted the crowd and punched her in the arm.
“You know you didn’t need to make more work for us out there,” he admonished, although his cheeks were grinning. Kee stared dumbfounded until he finished, “A piece of Vork didn’t completely miss the upper fin; now we need to patch it!”
Kee smiled involuntarily and punched him back. “Jerk.” Eudo put up his hands in mock defensiveness.
The chief steward arrived with hot rations, which he offered Kee as another crew member covered her back and violet wings with a dry towel. Captain Rhirr clacked his way across the bay and approached Kee. The boisterous crew quickly settled down and formed some semblance of order.
He wasn’t distracted in the slightest by the rowdiness; eyes fixated on Kee, he said, “Engineer Sylph, I can say without a doubt that from today onward I am in your debt. You ensured not only the success of our maiden voyage but also the safe return of your fellow crew members. At great personal peril, you served this ship at the peak of its need, and I commend you. You, more than any of us, understood the risks we took venturing out on this new machine. We thank you for your quick thinking and courage in service.” The captain bowed low, and the crew mimicked his praise.
He spoke again, this time to the crew at large: “I think we all agree Engineer Sylph has earned a break after that magnificent flying, but we’re not home yet. I must ask you all, once you’ve finished your congratulations, to cover her watches as we begin repairs. We don’t want to be without our steerage any longer than we have to, I’m sure. We’ll celebrate properly when we’re home.”
Halihk, upstaged behind most of the group before now, stepped forward to interject, “With respect, Captain, Engineer Sylph is needed promptly on starboard engine watch once her rest shift is over.” He eyed Kee with his beady, dark eyes and gave a shallow nod.
Captain Rhirr glanced at Halihk and turned back to Kee, cocking one brow.
The small fledgling mechanist with the iridescent green feathers and long thin beak, still soaking wet and stained with grease, smiled and quietly nodded before answering—
“Yes, sir, I am needed on starboard engine watch.”