The Tawa
A shot passed beneath her bow. The Princess Tawa was ducking and weaving through a latticework of artillery and plasma cannon fire. The three pirate airships had picked them up just past the Vurindainian ursad. Normally the Tawa would easily outpace them but one of the engines that drove the coils was playing up. Arthur was doing his best to outmanoeuvre the fire coming from the other craft. Now he was not the captain, officially it was Roland, but he was on leave and Arthur, being a more experienced pilot, replaced him. Colonel Paul Phoenix outranked him but he was instead on the left-hand cannon and shooting back as best he could. The Colonel thought he had hit one of them and was so excited that he let out a, “Yes!”
“Did you get one?” asked Lizzie McBean from her position at the rear cannon.
Just as she asked the Tawa was rocked by another shell hitting the underside. She steadied herself by grabbing hold of the cannon’s grip and mistakenly let off a few shots that traced off up into the air, hitting nothing.
Arthur decided to make his way into cloud cover and started to ascend. He corkscrewed it towards the nearest cloud.
Lizzie could now see one of the pirate ships in her sights, sort of. She felt quite sick as the Tawa spun upward but let out a trail of plasma cannon fire at the closest of the three trailing craft. It was difficult but she managed to turn her gun in synchronisation with the spiralling Tawa. A hit, then two, then more bounced off the lead ship’s hull. A bolt smashed through a broken window and must have hit the Captain for the craft began to veer to one side then down towards the canopy of trees below.
“That’s how you do it!” she screamed in an excited high voice. Another shot from the second closest ship struck her cabin. This knocked her out of her seat because she had been showing off and she had let go of her gun. From her position on the floor she looked back to see Paul and John aiming their side guns as far back as they could to try and get the pirates. Pulling herself up on her seat she was again rocked around by turbulence. As she fell to one side a bolt from the enemy craft shattered her window and struck the seat she would have been sitting on. Seconds later she fell back on the seat and felt quite sick. A few more stray shots bounced off the hull then they were within the safety of the cloud cover. At last, she also sighed in audible relief. Looking at the tatters and mangled metal of her seat she realised just how fortunate she had been.
Paul was still aiming his gun to the rear but Simpkins came to see how she was. The first thing he saw was the state of the seat, “Lizzie?!”
She wobbled over to him and fell into his arms.
“Are you alright?”
“Just a bit dizzy, I wasn’t in the seat when the shot hit it.”
He looked down at her, “Dizzie Lizzie, I think that’s going to be your new nickname!” He stood her up properly then they both went forward to see how Arthur was doing.
As they got onto the bridge Paul also came to see what was happening. They were flying one short, really they needed a five-man crew. Professor Wagstaff sometimes helped them out, but he was too valuable an asset to lose. Paul had asked if Gunby, the half giant, could join them but Captain Reena of the Queen Isabella didn’t want to lose one of her best fighters.
This was why they were flying to Moarfo base to collect Gunby and a new artefact that had been found in the forest.
Victoria base, as it was called for now, was going to be the new British colony on Thera. It had been carved out of an area abandoned by the giants an aeon ago and now it was the wild beasts and green plants that had claimed it. A few hundred years before some humans had tried to colonise the area but without the protection of an electric shield the settlement had come under attack from both monsters and giants together. Only a few survivors made it out to bring back horror stories of death and destruction.
Simpkins nudged her out of her thoughts.
“... lucky I say.”
“What?” she mumbled as Arthur looked her up and down.
“Not even a singed lock of hair.”
As he finished saying this she pulled the hair out of her eyes with her hand.
Paul also came in to see what had happened.
“Aye, aye,” commented Arthur as he noticed an unusual sensation in the deck plates, “she’s playing up a bit, I’ll have to look at the coils, one of them might be slightly misaligned.”
Now this could be deadly, if the coils were not evenly matched then the ship would fall out of the sky and crash into the trees below.
“Do you need some help?” asked Simpkins as Arthur lifted the hatch to access the housing room. Those things in the cabin that were not nailed down started to float towards the roof. Both Arthur and Simpkins had to grab onto the rails to pull themselves down. Lizzie, who was standing behind the hatch, pushed it down and turned the catch to keep it closed. Everything that had started to float up to the roof fell back down with a clatter.
The temporary captain was glad of John’s help because it would have been quite difficult to work in the housing room without somebody else holding him in position. Arthur could see the problem some of the shots from the pursuing craft had loosened two of the bolts holding one of the coils in place. This was causing the coil to rattle slightly on its mounting. Arthur grabbed a spanner that had been stuck to the ceiling by the effect of the coils. “We’re lucky, another few microns and we would have been free falling. Boom,” he slapped the spanner into his other hand to stress the point.
John looked at the mechanism that converted the lift of the coils into thrust. “You know it’s amazing,” he commented, “that reflection plate up and down, left and right, bouncing the energy off it, makes the floating ship go forward.”
“Or backward. I’m not amazed by it any longer, been here too many years.”
Simpkins gave Arthur a steely gaze, “Why did you become a pirate?”
He made a funny face as he tightened one of the bolts, “After I escaped from the slavery of the Andacians I was picked up by the pirates. It was a lot better being a pirate than a slave. We were free and attacked only the hated Andacian trade ships to begin with.”
“What changed?”
“Leegan sought us out, became our leader. Then we started to attack everyone and anything. There were quite a few of us who were unhappy, but he was a violent man. He had those killed who disagreed with him, he even hunted those who tried to leave.”
“You were well out of it then.”
“Yes, especially when more Gites started to join the group, they were worse than him, picking fights with human pirates, killing them for small transgressions against their supposed honour.” Arthur’s face hardened as he remembered the harshness of pirate life. After a second or two he tapped the final bolt with his spanner after he had tightened it to show that he had finished. Simpkins let him go and he floated back up to the hatch.
When they got back onto the bridge Arthur checked the controls. “She’s fine,” he said looking at Paul.
Understanding what Arthur meant Paul ordered, “Let’s be underway then Mr. Penn.”
Lizzie felt a little uneasy. What if the pirates are still hanging around?
Simpkins noticed her concern, “The Tawa can outfly them.”
Arthur also commented, “We’ll fly through the cloud, they won’t know where we are.” Slowly he pushed the steering wheel forward and eased the ship through the clouds.
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