Terror of the Shadow

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The view from all the way up there was absolutely beautiful. It was like nothing Laban could have ever imagined. His whole life, he had been down there, wandering over those dunes, looking up at the clouds. Now the clouds were below him, and he was looking down at the sand. It was breathtaking. He realized that this was a sensation that no Malkuth had experienced in at least a hundred years, maybe more. He was the first Malkuth flyer in generations.

    Laban shivered. He was glad he brought the jacket. They had found out that the life support system wasn't entirely functional. There was no way for them to fix the heating function with the parts they had. But Laban never would have imagined that it would be this cold up here. That was an entirely new sensation to him, as well. He removed his mask briefly and blew into his hands to warm them.

Laban checked the computer to ensure the autopilot was still functioning. He had given it the proper heading and the ship had started flying itself from there.
Looking down, he started to notice some of the features and landmarks that he had seen on the map. He must be headed in the right direction.

The computer gave a soft bleep. Laban looked at the screen that started to blink. A tiny yellow dot had come into view and was approaching fast. He was getting close. He needed to be able to get a better look at where he was going.
Laban grabbed the control stick and pushed the nose down, perhaps a bit too forcefully. He was thankful that the seat straps were there to prevent him from breaking his head on the top of the glass cage. When his stomach had finally settled back down into its proper position, he had another good look at the readouts in front of him. He was only a few minutes away now. He put the computer back on autopilot so that he could focus on looking around outside. Finding the mouth of the cave wouldn't be easy. Thankfully, the glass bubble surrounding him provided an extraordinary view of the landscape.
The computer beeped at him again, informing him that he had reached his destination. Laban looked around, but there was no sign of the cave. If only they had been able to get the radar scanners back online...

Laban took control of the ship and banked it hard to the right, curving the bullet's trajectory into a wide loop. He kept his eyes peeled, scanning the floor of the Outland for any inconsistencies that might be the opening of a cave.
But there was nothing. There was only flat, burning sand as far as he could see.

He did another loop, this one wider than the last. Then he did another. Then another. He flew as close to the ground as he felt comfortable doing (which was really not very close). He circled around and around in the sky like a vulture circling what would soon become its lunch.

Something caught his eye. There was a beaten path winding in between the sand dunes. Laban pulled back on the throttle, slowing down so that he could follow the path back to its origin. He let his altitude drop even further. He hovered so close over the ground that he could nearly make out the individual footprints in the sand.

There. Two tiny black figures scurrying away in the distance. War'acks.
The men must have heard the noise of the bullet craft's engine, because they turned to see what was approaching, then immediately began to run the other way, back towards the safety of their cave.

Laban flipped a switch. Mechanisms whirred somewhere behind him to deploy the massive barrel of the hypervelocity cannon. He moved the safety cover away from the trigger with his thumb. He used his left hand hook to change one of the computer displays from navigation to targeting. He lined up the crosshairs.

"This is for you, Torreck," Laban whispered to himself. "You War'ack bastards can go to Hell."

He squeezed the trigger.

The craft shuddered slightly. Half an instant later, the ground ahead of the bullet's nose exploded in a cloud of dust and smoke, streaked with spatters of red. When the dust settled, there was nothing left but a charred crater.

    Laban held his breath. His heart skipped at least two beats as he realized that he had just taken human life.

    Laban swallowed hard and blinked away the tears. He laid on the throttle again. After all, he thought to himself, this is what he came here to do.

The black maw of the cave appeared over the horizon. It was approaching fast, open wide and ready to swallow him whole. And Laban was ready to bomb it straight to Hell.

    He armed the bomb bay. He hit the trigger. Two small spheres, each about the size of Laban's head, dropped out from the underside of the craft. The orbs plummeted through the air, dropping silently through the open mouth of cave and disappearing into the darkness.

    The bullet craft soared over the cave entrance before the Outland was illuminated by a flash of light. The shockwave hit a moment later.

    Laban turned the craft around to see the smouldering crater that he left behind. A part of the cave had collapsed, billowing smoke and dust like an angry dragon.

    The bullet craft suddenly shook. The engine coughed. A red light flashed on the console. Laban checked the fuel indicator. It was still full. After only a few seconds, the alarms turned off and the engine resumed its usual, rumbling purr. So, Laban ignored it. After all, this machine was old and reconstructed by people who weren't actually engineers. There were bound to be a few hiccups.

    Now the War'ack soldiers had begun to pour out of the damaged cave, flashing their knives and their rifles in the bright sunlight.

    Laban was finding it difficult now to move the craft in such tight maneuvers. With some practice, he would probably be able to develop a fair amount of skill behind the control stick but right now he only half-knew what he was doing. He performed several very wide loops around the War'ack cave before the nose of the craft finally lined up on its target. The soldiers were huddled in a tight mass, hundreds of feet below him. They didn't look much more than black ants, scurrying around in the sand.

    Bullets began to ricochet off the hull of the craft, bouncing off with a small metallic ping. Laban knew the hull was thick; nothing as weak as a rifle could penetrate it.

    When the craft was close enough to the army that he felt confident enough to not miss, he pulled the trigger.

Again, the desert sand in front of him erupted in a cloud of smoke and dust. Those bodies not caught directly in the blast were thrown into the air. Limbs were ripped from their sockets by the sheer force of it. Red mixed with the black soot and golden sand.