The Castle in the Sky

Chapter 1

1986

You could hear the whirring of the giant aircraft from a mile away. Up high in the dark of night it flew. Shadowed by the clouds. The hatch on the bottom of this particular aircraft, named The Tiger Moss, opened, and out buzzed four speeders. Each holding two people. Their faces covered with goggles and ski masks, concealing their identity. Though, everyone knew who they were. Pirates.

Now, before you think pirates on the sea, think of it this way. These pirates were not pirates of the sea, but pirates of the sky.

The speeders had four giant pink wings. Two to a side. It seemed that the first three carried two men, (most likely in their twenties) but the fourth speeder, the fourth speeder carried a man and a woman. The woman, most likely was in her sixties, her voice raspy. Dull pink braids stuck out of each side of her ski mask, sticking out like Pippi Longstocking braids. She was quite plump, while they rest of the men were skinny.

The four speeders zipped and zoomed together toward a much bigger aircraft. Way bigger then The Tiger Moss. That aircraft had a dining hall, a kitchen, and may bedrooms and bathrooms. A regular hotel in the sky. On that aircraft, sits a girl at a window. That girl was about the age of fifteen years old. She had chocolate brown hair tied back into two straight braids. Her bangs stuck out of her red headband.

Her hazel brown eyes could stare daggers into your chest if they wanted too, but also showed compassion, kindness. She wore a simple blue long sleeved dress, with brown slippers. She sits in a chair by the window, sadly looking out of it.

A man with dark sunglasses and a dark suit came up to her, and offered her food. The girl turned her head away, refusing the food. The man offered her the food again, and when the girl still refused it, looks back at the man sitting on the couch. The man on the couch had orange-brown hair, with dark sunglass concealing his eyes as well. He wore a black suit with a pale yellow ascot tied around his neck. His name, Muska.

Muska had the personality of a rock. His voice was deep and menacing. Muska had the aura of evil, as he sat there on the couch making calculations in his notebook.

The man offers her food one last time before shrugging and walking out of the room. The girl looks outside of the window, the moon just becoming visible through the thick clouds.

Suddenly, she noticed something unusual. Four dark shapes moved across the sky- towards the airship. She could hear the loud buzzing of the pink wings as they drew near.

The girl's eyes widened and she gasped. "Pirates."

The speeder with the large woman on on it, drew near her window, and the girl stood up, and took a step back. The speeder hovered by her window for a moment, before it sped off to the front of the airship.

The woman pulled out a handheld cannon gun and shot at the window to the main control room.

"May-day, May-day!" One of the crew members shouted as smoke filled the area. He covered his mouth, coughing, unable to say more.

The four speeders circled back, buzzing around the roof of the airship. Each speeder dropped off one of its passengers on the roof, three guys and the woman. Two of the crew members stuck their heads out of the hatch on the roof, and fired a machine gun at the oncoming pirates. But it made no difference. The pirates charged forward, pushing their way into the hatch.

They crashed down into the main room and fired their own guns as the crew members fled. They ran down staircase after staircase, through hallway after hallway- looking for the girl.

Some of the crew members put up a fight, but were no match for the pirates.

They busted through a door, only to be met by bullets. They dodged them, hiding back behind the door, and yet they still shot their own guns.

Muska and his two men fired at the pirates, before Muska slowly retreated back into the room.

"Hold them off!"  Muska shouted to his men as he shut the door closed.

"Sheeta." Muska said to the girl. "Stay out of the way and you won't get hurt."

Muska ran over to the briefcase on the floor. Kneeling in front of it, he opened it, putting together some sort of communication device. Muska pulled out a set of headphones, and putting one to his ear, he sent out a call for help. Sheeta, seeing that that had Muska's full attention, let out a small whimper and went to grab the glass wine bottle that lay on the floor. She clutched the bottle with both hands and raised it above her head-

The woman pirate pulled out her cannon and blasted the table Muska's men had put up as a shield. The force pushed the table back, knocking the men unconscious.

"Come on! Come on!" One of the men pirates', Charlie, said as he and the other pirates rushed towards the room.

Muska, now unconscious on the floor, was helpless as Sheeta knelt beside him. She quickly reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out a necklace with a black stone pendant, a series of white scribbles engraved into the stone.

Hurriedly, Sheeta stood up and clasped the necklace around her neck.

There are a series of loud pounds on the door as the pirates attempted to break it down.

Sheeta ran to the window, grunting as she struggled to get it open. As the window opened, she poked her head outside- the wind tousled her braids this way and that. Sheeta looked outside, then hastily climbed out of the window, barely holding onto the edge of the window sill. Her feet hardly found a good grip on the outside of the airship. Sheeta shrieked as she got a glimpse of the fall down.

The door got blasted open and the pirates barged in. Searching the room for Sheeta.

"Where is she?" Duffi said, another one of the pirates as he went to the open window. He looked out the window, and looking to the left he found Sheeta already halfway across to the next window.

"No!" She shrieked as she was spotted.
"Hey!" Duffi yelled back to the pirates. "I found her! She's hiding out here!" The woman pirate, Dola, stuck her head out next to Duffi's.
"Don't let her get away!" Dola croaked as Duffi reached out to grab Sheeta.

She cried out, moving farther away.

"Grab her, quick!" Dola continued to shout. "Don't let her escape!" Duffi reached out too far and nearly falls to his doom, but Dola grabbed him.

"Don't let me go, Ma!" Duffi yelled. "Don't let me fall!"
"I gotcha you big baby." Dola growled, hauling Duffi back up into the window.
Sheeta finally made it to the next window, getting a slight better grip on the ledge.

"AH!" Dola yelled. "She's got the crystal! Don't let her escape!" She directed that command at Louis, a plump pirate. His mouth totally concealed by a brown bushy mustache and beard.

"I want that crystal!" Dola shouted after Louis as he disappeared from the window and ran to the next room.
Sheeta struggled to pull herself into the window in the next room, and she looked inside the room, she saw the door bust down, Louis run aggressively toward her.

Sheeta gasped at his sudden appearance, losing her grip on the ledge. With a cry, Sheeta fell backwards, screaming as she fell through the clouds.

"Oh no!" Dola shouted. "Not my crystal!" Dola made horrible sad noises.