Invasion

Chapter 21

"Prepare to planeshift!" Gerrard called, kneeling with his arms around Hanna.

The navigator lay unconscious just beside her console. Her stomach wound wept blood.

Orim worked diligently over her, laying hands on the site. Silvery sorcery enveloped her fingers.

"My magic hasn't worked before on this plague, but…"

Sisay stood nearby at the helm. She steered the ship through Rath, up and away from the Phyrexian troops they had just bombed.

"We need a navigator to planeshift."

"Damn," Gerrard growled. He flipped open the speaking tube above Hanna's desk. "Karn, lay in a planeshift back to Llanowar." "It'll take him time," Sisay warned.

"Stay high, then, and let's hope these bastards haven't got any airships close by."

"Ships spotted!" Tahngarth shouted from the starboard bow gun. "A squadron of fighters-perhaps two score!"

With back-swept wings and blazing ray cannons, the Phyrexians came on. Deadly shafts of energy ripped out from the converging fighters and flashed all around Weatherlight. One beam tore through the starboard rail just beside Tahngarth. It gouged a groove across the forecastle, vaulted through the air amidships, and clipped the helm.

"Evasive!" Gerrard called.

"Yes, yes! Of course, evasive!" Sisay snapped. She rolled the wheel hard to starboard.

Weatherlight listed. Rath's sultry winds crashed against the turned keel and spilled up both gunwales. Her manifolds sucked hot air. Engines struggled to grip the wind. Another volley of ray fire flashed past. A bolt caught the hull just beneath the main engine, burned through the bilges, and boiled a barrel of wine in the hold. Had it not been for that merlot, the beam would have cracked the power core. As if sensing its near demise, the engines surged, hurling Weatherlight back the way she had come.

The ship vaulted angrily up from the turn, finding herself in sudden and lethal company. Phyrexian fighters swarmed her. They jagged, their wings as sharp as claws. Squee at the aft gun flung ray fire at them. Most of the glowing flack slid past, tumbling in air. One fighter was too slow. Squee blasted it. The ship skipped and flared. It plunged to cut a long furrow in the flow-stone below.

The Phyrexians returned fire. Their guns blazed, Rays leaped after Weatherlight, eating through the skin of her airfoils.

"Tuck those things, Karn," Sisay shouted, "while we've still got them to tuck!"

The wings folded with an angry snap like ladies' fans. The engine roared to keep the ship aloft. It rocketed above Rath's rolling rills. For a moment it left behind the swarm of ships.

The sudden jolt of speed made Tahngarth growl in his traces and cling to his gun. Wind ripped at his eyes. The bull-man gave a whuff of breath. He gazed blearily beyond the rail. The plague portals flashed past. They still rained bombs down on the Phyrexian troops. Tahngarth's lip curled into a sneer, which disappeared a moment later.

"They're not dying!" Tahngarth shouted in the speaking tube. "They're not even being eaten away. The plague has no effect on Phyrexians!"

Sisay's voice rang irritably through the tube. "No more bad news, Tahngarth!"

The minotaur's eyes grew wide. "Bad news, Sisay! More ships. A whole armada. Dead ahead."

Sisay stared beyond Weatherlight's thundering bow. There, ships spread in a thick blanket above the ground. They rose gradually into a great black shaft. The flying machines seemed a horrid tree joining the red ground to the coiling heavens. There were tens of thousands of ships.

"Gerrard! I need you at your gun!" Sisay shouted.

Still crouching beside the navigation console, Gerrard replied, "Hanna needs me here. Turn the ship!"

"Yes, yes, evasive!" Sisay retorted through gritted teeth. She muttered, "You try evasive action with folded airfoils and no navigator." A dark smile spread across her teeth. "Here's your evasive action!" She shoved the helm forward.

Weatherlight dived above the ragged hills. Her pursuers closed in at her flanks. Red shots ripped her hull. Heedless, the ship clove into a narrow trench in the hillside.

The fighters swarmed down after. The lowest ship miscalculated. A gnarl of stone rose fistlike to smash against its belly. The craft bounced. It spun, spitting sparks, and cut through a neighboring fighter. The other ricocheted off rock, impacted the far side of the ravine, and rattled back and forth for a mile more. The remaining ships, thirty-some, crowded into the turbid slipstream of Weatherlight. Bolts of cannon fire charged the air. They tore struts and wing panels and glass from Weatherlight.

"Dat no good. Squee show you turds!" Squee shouted.

He fired. The beam sank directly into a fighter's forward intake and was sucked into the engine. It produced a sudden burst of speed, ramming the craft into the fighter before it. Both fighters blew up from the inside out.

At the helm, Sisay smiled. She lofted Weatherlight over the sudden terminus of the rift. Phyrexian fighters impacted the rock wall-one, two, three, four. Admiring her handiwork, Sisay steered the ship across the plateau beyond.

Weatherlight soared beneath the Phyrexian fleet. There was little room between the cruisers and the rumpled ground. Had Weatherlight's airfoils been extended, they would have scraped ships and soil both.

Some score of Phyrexian fighters pursued her into the gap. The tight confines forced them to fan out in Weatherlight's trail, bringing them into range of the amidships guns. Bolts jabbed back. Twice, plasma stole Phyrexian ray fire from the air. A third time, the energy smashed into a fighter, limning every console of the ship and igniting the bones of its pilot. They glowed through muscle and shell until the cooked monster slumped in its seat. The ship plunged. The fighter's wing man, distracted by the fireball blossoming below, steered too near a cruiser's landing spine. The massive metal rammed through the cockpit and scooped its pilot out in mush. The fighter spun around that pivot thrice before falling and exploding.

Most of the small ships clung tight to Weatherlight's stern. Their fire stabbed viciously outward. It punched holes in the stern castle, vaporized sections of hull, and tore away lengths of rail. A particularly well-placed shot destroyed the starboard gun amidships.

Sisay hauled hard on the helm. The prow angled toward the ceiling of Phyrexian cruisers. They were stacked to the skies. It was precisely the sort of obstacle course Sisay needed. She stood the ship on end. Weatherlight spiraled in her ascent. She roared past the starboard hull of the first cruiser. Weatherlight's port gun amidships flared, cutting a line up the superstructure.

Engines shrieking, the fighters followed the rocketing craft. Half of them did not survive that first swerve, impacting the black belly of the cruiser. Eight explosions in a line gutted the hull there. Even as the cruiser dipped, spewing soot, the other fighters vaulted past, higher into the stack of war vessels.

Among massive hulls, Sisay steered. The ship climbed with furious speed. Fire and black mana awoke from Phyrexian cruisers. The shots were late, missing Weatherlight but blanketing the fighters in her wake.

Screaming, Weatherlight shot to the top of the column. En route, she scraped away another five fighters. As Sisay rolled the ship into a level orientation, she smiled.

"Not bad flying, if I do say so myself." She sent Weatherlight in a stooping dive, falcon-swift, pulling clean away from her pursuers.

"Dem big ones comin' behind us!" shouted Squee through the tubes.

Cruisers drew away from their aerial stack, edging into Weatherlight's trail.

"How's that planeshift coming, Karn?" Sisay called.

The silver man's voice rumbled like distant thunder. "Planeshift whenever you are ready."

"Wait!" Orim shouted suddenly where she tended Hanna. "First take us low. Strafe those Phyrexian troops!"

Gerrard stared incredulously at her. "What?"

"I've got an idea for a cure. I've got an idea to save Hanna."

"Take us low!" Gerrard commanded.

Her healing magic could not combat this damned plague. Spell-work had only fizzled hopelessly from her fingers, unable to sink into the wound and purge its blackness. Still, she had tried, clinging to stanchions and seats as the ship rolled through her courses. How like the Phyrexians to devise a contagion that destroyed all flesh but their own.

"All flesh but their own," Orim had whispered in realization as she hunched above Hanna and Gerrard. "All flesh but their own!"

If she could only harvest some of that Phyrexian flesh, immune to the effects of the plague, she could extract from the monsters' blood the immunity factor. She could distill it, make of it a serum that would grant immunity to anyone.

"Planeshift whenever you are ready."

"Wait!" Orim shouted suddenly where she tended Hanna. "First take us low. Strafe those Phyrexian troops!"

It had taken little convincing to win Gerrard over, only two words-"cure" and "Hanna."

"Stay with her here," Orim said, giving Gerrard's hand a squeeze. Her fingers left a bloody print on his knuckles. "She needs you. I can't help her here, but up there," she nodded toward the prow, "I can."

Weatherlight dipped into a steeper dive, bringing Orim easily to her feet. It felt as though some divine hand lifted her, urging her to the fore. Clutching the bridge rail, Orim found her way out onto the deck. Beyond the glassy confines of the bridge, Weatherlight's plunge was a dizzy thing. The crimson sky sucked its muscular belly up away from the roaring craft. The scarlet ground swelled up to engulf it. All across the heaving world, Phyrexian troops waited, rank on rank, prepared to march.

Behind Weatherlight, massive war cruisers broke into pursuit.

Leaning into the terrific motion of the craft, Orim strode from amidships to the forecastle. With each step, Weatherlight dropped away beneath her. She felt she was lunging forward across a cloud. She reached the starboard bow gun and the irate minotaur strapped to it.

"I need you, Tahngarth. Hanna needs you."

He tossed his hands up in submission. "Yes. I can't draw a bead on ships behind us." Yanking at the buckles and straps, he disentangled himself from the harness. "We ought to be shifting any moment now."

Orim shook her head, wind jingling the coins braided in her hair. "Not until we perform one task." She motioned him to follow. They came to the capstan. "We've got to release the anchor."

"Release the anchor?"

"Just a big fish hook, and we're trolling for big fish," Orim said. "I need to get some Phyrexians. They've got a cure for this plague in their blood."

Without another word, Tahngarth shoved the locking lever.

The capstan whirled. Chain paid out. Weatherlight's weighty anchor plunged from her prow.

Orim watched as it dropped. Fifty feet, a hundred feet, a hundred fifty. "Good!"

Tahngarth threw the lever. Cams squeezed the capstan wheel. Ratchets clicked, slowing and stopping the chain. The anchor jolted to a halt, swinging above the ranks of Phyrexian troops.

"Excellent," Orim amended as Tahngarth came up beside her. She turned, signaling Sisay to ease the ship lower. Weatherlight dipped gently, bringing the anchor down into the enemy army. Orim signaled to hold altitude.

The anchor skimmed just above the heads of armored scuta. Beyond them stood Phyrexian troopers. The anchor struck one of their heads and spattered it. Bell tones followed as the rest of the contingent were struck. The arms of the anchor dragged parallel lines of destruction through the ranks, but no beasts caught on its flukes. The impacts drove it back on its chain.

"We've got to go lower," Orim said.

"If we grip land, the ship will rip in half," Tahngarth noted.

Orim scanned the fields ahead and then signaled Sisay lower.

Weatherlight swooped down. The anchor trailed under her keel. It twirled about its shank. The flukes spun like drill bits. Into the troops they descended. It ripped into them, stabbing, cutting, grinding, macerating. Hundreds of Phyrexians were torn to tatters by the spinning thing.

"Quite a weapon," Tahngarth approved.

"I need whole bodies," Orim said flatly.

The stock cracked against a boulder, flinging the anchor up to clang against the belly of Weatherlight.

"This isn't working," Orim growled.

"Wait," Tahngarth said, "look."

Striking the ship had stilled the anchor. With slow, easy motion, it swung down into the Phyrexian troops. Its bills impaled a pair of Phyrexians, driving the flukes through them and out the other side. The two beasts squirmed on the throats of the anchor while a third and a fourth were impaled.

"Pull up!" Orim shouted, motioning to Sisay. "Pull up!"

Weatherlight soared up from the tumbled plains. The anchor followed it skyward, bringing four impaled Phyrexians. Tahngarth shoved a pin into the capstan and leaned against it. Orim set her own pin and lent her back as well. Two other crewmembers saw the need and helped.

A massive bolt of black mana soared overhead, narrowly missing the ship and crashing into a hillside below. The charge ripped a deep chasm in the land.

Five cruisers pursued Weatherlight. The foremost ship sent another mana blast.

A barely perceptible wave spread from Weatherlight's bowsprit through the air. The jump envelope enwrapped her and the four Phyrexian captives jolting up her side. It spread from stern to stern and closed just before the black mana blast arrived. Rath folded up and slid away, leaving only the hissing space between worlds.