Skye City: The Darkness of Emmilyn

Change of Plans

 We We are sitting around a table in the company of the captain who is telling us all about his Rebellion days with Sydney Anguson. This reminds us these men have already fought a world war. They understand better than most what we are facing or rather why we are fleeing. Careful not to say anything too explicit, Anguson mentions they met inside an inn where pleasure droids entertained the customers. This being a detail my little brother and I did not need to know. He explains they later joined forces in Medio where they plotted against San Teria and launched attacks on infrastructure, slowly building up to this devastating war. Like the last one was not devastating enough.

'What I don't understand is how you could've been a rebel when you were so famous,' Vytali says to Anguson who has drunk quite a few beers.

'Well, me and Taiwo were in this pretty much from the start. My fighting career was interrupted by conscription, just when I was reaching the point where all my dreams were coming true...' Anguson waffles about the story of how he was shipwrecked and Nelson seems captivated.

'... So yeah, I befriended a bunch of 'em at the inn Taiwo mentioned, The Swine Inn if my memory serves me correct. It turns out these swines hadn't completely given up on the war effort so much as switched sides. When I joined their movement they kept me hidden in Anatolia until the war was almost over. I rarely ventured out in public, changed my appearance when I did. Grew a beard, dyed my hair grey so I looked older, too old to fight. Still some fucking San Terian Guard recognised me and I was arrested for going AWOL. Thankfully the dumb fuckers knew nothing about my Rebellion involvement. I was given a lenient sentence because of my popularity and sent to the workcamp until not long after the war ended.

'I resumed my fighting career, but maintained my relationship with the Rebellion, on and off. It was never a good idea for me personally, but I couldn't stand to see what San Teria were doing. I couldn't help using my platform to speak out. I tried not to go too far but kept criticising the justice system, the aspiration system, the poverty–'

BANG! The airship jolts, toppling glasses and an alarm goes off, provoking flashbacks of the Camari evacuation, but I doubt there is any evacuation procedure on an airship which does not involve safely landing first. Fuck knows where we will be stranded if it comes to that though. I really should have expected complications because when do things ever go right? The passengers exchange glances and settle their startled gazes on the captain.

'What the hell was that?' Anguson says.

'I'd better get back to the control room,' the captain says and he flees for the winding staircase. Everyone on deck, including us, rushes towards the windows but I am unsure what we are expecting to see in the clouded sky. The noise was not loud enough to suggest imminent catastrophe but clearly cause for major concern – either a small explosion or an impact with a flying mutant perhaps. Please be the latter.

'We seem to be descending,' Mother says and she is certainly correct. We are not exactly plummeting from the clouds, but the details of the ground are getting clearer with each passing second.

'What do you think it was? A malfunction?' I say.

'Or we were shot. We could be haemorrhaging gas,' Nelson says and I suspect he is correct. If the airship loses enough gas, we surely will plummet to the ground and that could mean one hell of an impact.

'Can we evacuate?' I say, even though I already know the answer.

'I doubt this thing has escape pods. Best hope for a gentle landing,' Anguson says and I look around for guidance but no-one is offering safety instructions. We stare out the windows as the hills grow larger until soon they look like mountains and our descent appears to be speeding up. Nothing in sight looks like it would make for a comfortable landing spot.

'This could be one heavy landing. Brace yourselves,' someone yells and I scan the deck but see nothing stable to grasp so I grab my mother and brother, stepping away from the window and we wait agonisingly for the inevitable.

And yet as others sob, the fear I feel is minimal, like after surviving so many situations and finding lost loved ones who matter so much, I simply cannot and will not believe this might be the end. The precious boy pressed against me has far too much living to do, and he will be given the life every child deserves in a world that does not even exist yet. The love we share is stronger than whatever fate thinks it has in store.

CRASH! SCRAPE! THUD! THUD!

We tumble across the shuddering floor so fast I lose grip of Mother and Kyan, helplessly thumping and flailing and hurting. Objects are crashing, smashing as the chairs skid and tumble and we hit people in front, then we are hit by people from behind in a painful and suffocating human pileup. The airship settles, tilted forwards and the alarm is still ringing as I struggle to breathe in the pressure and heat. I am trapped beneath squirming bodies and barely able to make out a damn thing, other than crying, but that must be a good sign, right? Better than silence anyways...