Shooting Birds (1)
An airship can be hard to spot, and Captain Avventura knew that more than most other pirates of the skies. Land machina can shoot you down easily, like shooting birds from the sky, but when you can barely see the target without squinting then you’re pretty much free with the sky. The only bad point with it being the lack of air, so the crew had to stay indoors at all times, which was a damn shame with the beautiful sights from the deck. But they were tough feskers with lungs the size of mountains. They could handle it. They had gotten news of a rich family, possibly royal, that were flying through this area of sky and they were not expecting visitors. Avventura was going to give them some. ‘How far off are they?’ he asked. ‘Five miles,’ replied Gotoo who was staring at the sensor screen where a large – far larger than the Redfly – airship was blinking at the corner. It was nearly here. ‘Good,’ Avventura said, and twirled around in his arrogant captain’s chair, biting through the Tumpik stick loudly. This was a common sight for the Redfly crew but he was never this excited, he was just mellow with happiness usually. But today, ah, it was a wonderful day. The cira was shining in the sky and he was getting some action that he hadn’t had in weeks, and he was ready for it. And to be this wealthy, that was different. Their cellar was stuffed with gold and silver, and all kinds of currency, but this ship coming near to their location was extra special. This was a big ship with big amounts of money to fit his big expectations. He loved money, he loved spending money and owning things. He loved – really was obsessed – with gold. Much of his clothes were gold and silver, depending on his mood. His ship, for it was his ship now, was draped in jewellery of gold and silver, to look like the enormous metal ship version of himself, of the great Captain Avventura. His chair was gold and there was little that wasn’t gold. The Redfly wasn’t red, and no one knew why it was called that, but they reallt didn’t care anyway. Images of all the jewellery he would have from this invasion, necklaces and rings hanging from him as he laughed and laughed. He was drooling just thinking about it. He finished his Tumpik stick and told little Peps to get him a drink, and she ran away quickly. Avventura laughed. It would be a good day. He was wearing his special suit he’d ransacked from some ship years ago, the one he’d been so proud of; the silver one with fur around the collar with the matching wide-brimmed hat. The one he looked damn sexy in. ‘Thank you,’ he said to Peps who waddled off somewhere, Avventura didn’t care where the crew headed as long as it wasn’t in his direction where he would have to constantly see them over and over again until his head exploded. He preferred his crew invisible. ‘Can you tell them to hurry up?’ he shouted. ‘Sir, I can’t,’ said Gotoo watching the ship blink. ‘Ah, damn, I just want to get on that ship and take it apart.’ ‘But we’re not taking the ship itself?’ ‘Nah, don’t need it. Easily spottable anyway, a ship that size and if it is royal we’ll have all the forces you can think of up our ass.’ ‘Very good sir.’ ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’ At the cargo bay the fiercest crew members, many with weapons, stood in a group, ready to fight if so needed. They’d done a fair few of these and it was never meant to end up as a fight, but it always did. The general consensus was that Captain Avventura just liked fights, and they were certain this was going to be another one. Guns clicked and swords were swished through the air as they were getting prepared for the invasion. ‘Do you think we’ll die?’ asked little Meanie, who was visibly shaken. ‘No, I shouldn’t think so. I’ve done this a few times,’ replied Denkon. ‘It’s as easy to do as easy is to do.’ ‘I’ve never done this before.’ ‘I know, and I’ll tell you this: don’t be scared, little guy. You can fight, I’ve seen that, and unless you pussyfoot around then you’re going to have bodies lying left and centre.’ Meanie looked up into the grizzled, weary-looking face of Denkon. They had been apprentice and master for a while, unofficially, but everyone who was standing in the bay knew that. Denkon had been teaching the kid the way of the world, supplanting information into his little head that he seemed generally thrilled to learn, unlike most of the sky pirates who were getting ready to lob off some heads. Denkon was the most knowledgeable person on the Redfly and he knew it, but the only person who would listen to his stories, which he could take hours to tell if he so wished, was Meanie – and he listened with open ears and wide eyes, and never once, not ever as the hours passed by and Denkon’s voice got hoarse and he was starting to drift into sleep, did Meanie drift into sleep himself; he would urge Denkon to keep on telling the story, urged him many times, and Denkon would snap out of his unconsciousness and finish the story. And then Meanie would be happy. Sweat could be seen coming out of his trouser legs but no one said anything. They had their helmets on as the door creaked and opened, revealing the air and sky ahead of them. Clouds didn’t move because neither were they. They were going to be still until the rich ship came under them, then they would pounce. ‘People,’ the tanoy screeched in the theatrical voice of Captain Avventura. ‘The ship is about to be under our position and I hope you’re all ready ‘cos the parties about to begin. Folks, get your electropacks ready and your helmets on tightly ‘cos five, four, three, two, one…it’s time to dive, dive, dive!’ They all jumped from the skip into the sky in series of twos, and Meanie and Denkon were the last two. He rubbed the boy’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, kid, we’re going to be rich beyond your wildest dreams,’ and pushed him out of the hatch and into the piercing air. ‘Electropack on!’ shouted Denkon. Meanie switched the pack on and floated in the sky, the wind suddenly stopped smacking against his face and he lay in the air. It felt incredible to him, like when he was a kid and his dad threw him into the air again and again, constantly catching him as he fell. It felt like that but…he was staying in the air, as if time had frozen. He wasn’t moving and the sky wasn’t moving but he could see that the other pirates – or Skyrovers as they were preferred to be known as – were going down into the clouds. He could see his breath on the glass in front of his face, the fading. He floated in the air. He didn’t know how to go down. Training had consisted of being told to shut up when it was shut up time and do as you would do. He hadn’t been taught a thing except the morsels from Denkon, and that hadn’t really included much on the subject of electropacks, which he really should have brought up before he jumped out of the ship so high above the ground. He felt the back of the pack, feeling for a button of some kind. The other Skyrovers were making their way down to the unseeable location of the rich ship, as was Denkon Hypoluxo. He didn’t want to ask; it wasn’t good to ask simple questions when you were meant to know what you were doing, and it could get him in trouble if he did so. He’d heard stories of sky pirates (although they were convinced that they were not) killing recruits for not knowing these things already. You had to be fully qualified for this sort of thing, apparently. He faced himself, tracing where he was in the air and where everyone else was. They were way ahead. ‘Denkon, are you there?’ ‘Yeah, kid, what is it?’ ‘My electropack, I don’t know how to move with it.’ ‘Kid, you don’t. You move yourself.’ Meanie thought about it. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Move yourself…you know, like swimming.’ ‘I’ve never swam before. I’m an urban kid.’ Meanie could hear him sigh through his communication valve. ‘Well, urban kid, pretend to swim. You know how to do that, don’t you?’ ‘Yeah, sure. I can guess’ ‘Alright, then swim down. It’s sometimes hard to tell which way is which when the electropack is on but all you have to do is look at your compass thing and go from there. Got it?’ he didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Good. Now, don’t call me again. I need silence.’ It clicked out and Meanie straightened out, and swam down through the clouds. On the airship Hannibal, royal airship to the Metusi family, the new sensors that they had been persuaded to install despite the utter conviction from Lady Metusi that they didn’t need one, was blinking with small shapes steadily making their way from up above, straight towards the Hannibal. Alert was sounded. Cannons were being fixed up from the deck for the very first time, the dust covers being taken off. The machina was being set up too, deployed and set out into the sky to track and capture, not kill, the airways intruders. The cannons would be used just in case. Lady Metusi was being told by her defence expert, a Talarian called Lechim Faber, about the intruders and that he was dealing with it. She nodded and Faber went away, his coat bellowing behind him; you can always tell a Talarian by the coat and glasses as well as a weapon in hand, or hands, or even hidden. Faber held a six-barrel gun, automatic reloading through electro pulses. And he had a feeling about the intruders – he didn’t know what it was, but he knew it meant something. His gun was full. Captain Avventura seemed to be using his chair as a propeller and was trying to fly away. He was wonderfully jovial, like a child with more power than he really should have. He’d sent a probe along with the Skyrovers so he could see all the action that would be coming, of which he would have no part. He was not a fighter; neither was he a lover. He was Captain Avid Avventura. There came a time in his life when he decided, not without regret, to give up the normal life of actually working – or what an average person would call working – and go into the business of sky robbery. A fine profession with a wonderful history, and he enjoyed it hugely, and the pay was a bit above average wage. He sat in front of the screen and, swinging his legs, watched the action he’d been craving for so long now. Meanie floated onto the deck of the airship and was shocked at what had gone around him. There were bodies everywhere, falling past him as he went straight down, as fast he could manage. People he knew could be seen falling down and down into small specks past the clouds as they were shot out of the air, blood circling around and screams inside his helmet, puncturing his eardrums. He could see the cannons on the deck and the machina flying around as they were targeting the Skyrovers, and shooting them as if they weren’t alive. Like birds. He could see himself falling to the deck to the direction of the cannons and he knew he would die. He thudded to the deck, alive, and manoeuvred himself quickly. The cannons were swirling to his direction before he even landed. He ran to the doors and they opened and shut. He didn’t know how close to death he was, if he was, but his heart was racing at such a pace that it felt like he was going to die anyway. ‘Meanie, you’re okay!’ Meanie turned his head and saw Denkon, his uniform ripped but looking alright. Not to mention twenty other Skyrovers standing in a pile inside a corridor, mostly looking shocked and white. ‘This is all that’s left,’ Denkon said sadly, shaking his head, forcing back the tears of years. ‘They knew we were coming, the feskers! No. No, it’s the captain’s fault, isn’t it? Yeah, he said we were going to have a quick in-out, no sweat. We’ve lost an incredible amount of bodies, and for what? Nothing, that’s what. That idiot in the Redfly giving us orders.’ He went silent and lowered his head. Meanie had never seen him so angry, or emotional of any kind. Denkon felt the losses hard, Meanie could see that; and it was Avventura’s fault. Meanie never really liked the captain, nor did he respect him, but he never hated him. Now he did. He’d seen his crew mates shot out of the air all because Avventura assured them that they would land safely, as if he couldn’t see huge fesking guns where they were meant to land. The mission was a failure before it ever began because Avventura wouldn’t open his eyes. ‘What are we going to do now?’ asked a Skyrover. ‘We can’t give up.’ ‘Yes we can!’ ‘No we can’t. We can’t go back out there and the only way we can go is beyond that door,’ he said, pointing to the door they were held against in their heap. ‘But we don’t know what’s behind that door!’ he shouted again. ‘No, but we do know what’s behind the other one, don’t we? And I personally don’t want to see another death before we leave this ship.’ The man who’d spoke went silent. Meanie stared at him, at the grey face and bulging eyes. Nobody looked well, and Meanie was sure that he wasn’t looking very peaky either. This had never happened before, and, looking at the Skyrovers, he knew that they would make it that it would never happen again. Meanie would make it even doubly so. Avventura stared at the screen and said nothing. Denkon had been changed. Not genetically, exactly, but more like an add on. He was partly mechanical. He was partly mech. Partly machina. Partly so much that he just wasn’t human, and it made him sad. Sad in his heart. He would take his clothes off and see metal, with bits of flesh wired in, and he knew, knew, that wasn’t right. He shouldn’t be called human; he should be called android and made to do cleaning twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week like all the other androids. Denkon Hypoluxo knew this. Denkon pushed the people out of the way, keeping his face concentrated and still, and said, calmly, ‘I’m going through. None of you have to come with me, if you don’t you’ll just have to stay here for a very long time, or at least until someone finds you and kills you like the rest.’ The door opened and he stepped out with no hesitation, which was stupid, of course. Anything could have come from that door. He could have just killed the last survivors. Denkon said Avventura was stupid. An idiot with no heart – more like Denkon than Avventura. ‘What are you doing, kid?’ ‘I’m going to follow him.’ ‘He’s an old fool, kid, let him go and get killed. Avventura’s killed enough for today and I ain’t letting you go.’ Meanie took the man by the shirt collar and brought his head to his own. ‘I’m going.’ Meanie went after Denkon, letting himself through the door and into what lay beyond. Inside the Hannibal, inside the conference room, there is a long window that goes from one end of the room to the other. Outside there were just clouds and some smoke from the cannons. A bird flew by. Lechim Faber stared out of the window and contemplated meeting the captain of the airship Redfly. The captain, by whatever name he called himself now, had been stupid as he always was. To assume that just because he was so high in the air that they couldn’t see him was preposterous, and now there were dead bodies to prove it. Or, at least, wet puddles. ‘Faber,’ said Lady Metusi, coming to stand beside him. ‘The pirates are in doorway F. What should we do?’ ‘Leave them,’ he replied, not turning his attention from the sky. ‘Just leave them.’ ‘Why?’ ‘They won’t do anything in their wounded state unless confronted. Leave them and they’ll eventually crawl out, defeated by hunger and pain.’ ‘Very good. The royal family are in the safe room and they are calm.’ ‘Aren’t you a member of the royal family?’ he asked, turning his head slightly, his face shadowed. ‘Yes,’ she said, her hands flowing through her red hair. ‘Then you should be in the safe room aswell.’ ‘I’m not going in.’ ‘You might be hurt if you don’t.’ ‘No I won’t. You’ll protect me. You always do.’ ‘I can’t protect you when you are left alone.’ ‘Then don’t leave me alone.’ ‘I must if I have to fight the pirates.’ ‘I’ll fight with you.’ His head turned around, showing his full profile. It was…indeterminable. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I’ll fight alongside you if the need arised.’ ‘It won’t.’ ‘If.’ He touched her shoulders with his large, scarred hands. She looked into his face, the Talarian face that showed all his training in the Guerre desert. That was a face that could show the most compassion and emotion, and was the fiercest face she had ever seen. That face could make her do anything. ‘Go into the safe room with your family. I will protect you and your family from inside.’ ‘And the fortune?’ ‘Of course.’ She was going to hug him but decided against it. She left the room, Faber turning to watch her go. He turned back to the outside view and watched a white bird fly by. Denkon was in stealth mode, his back against the wall, edging towards the corner of the wall. ‘What are you doing?’ Denkon blasted his hand against Meanie, pushing him hard against the wall. ‘You may have just killed me,’ he said. ‘Sorry,’ Meanie said, although he knew it was the wrong thing to say. ‘Shut up, don’t be stupid from this point on and copy me.’ ‘Okay. ‘I said shut up.’ ‘O…’ he stopped. Meanie was not his real name. No one knew his real name and neither did he himself. He couldn’t even remember how he got that name, but he did have it and he was quite fond of it. Denkon turned the corner and found it clear. His pistol held in his hands he stepped the corridor to the upper door. There was another to the left of them but he dismissed this; Meanie didn’t know why. The door opened automatically and inside there was a room that contained nothing but paint on the walls. It was clear of everything, including furniture and anything visibly usable. Meanie had a bad feeling but he trusted that of Denkon better and he entered the room, Meanie following. He looked around, looking for anything. There was just another door. Denkon, pointing his pistol in that direction as, apparently, a signal to Meanie that they were going through that door. The door opened and revealed a metal robot. Meanie tensed, waiting for the firing to begin, but Denkon never fired. He saw the symbol that meant it was just a cleaner bot, which there was no point in destroying. The bot skimmed away to safety but it wouldn’t tell its masters about the intruders because it had no way of doing so. It couldn’t talk. They went the way the bot went, through a corridor of orange walls, pictures of rich people hanging from them wearing jewellery and a rich expression of known excellence. Meanie didn’t know much about that. He didn’t have a weapon apart from a small knife that was really used to cut his food rather than a person’s throat, but he was ready to fight. He would die, sure, but not before he threw a couple of stabbing motions. At the end of the corridor there was another door, larger than the others. The cleaning bot must have come through here. The door slid open and Denkon ran out, brandishing his pistol, shouting, ‘We’re taking over!’ The people around the table looked vaguely surprised as they looked at Denkon waving a pistol at them. Meanie stood behind him, not completely sure what to do. He held his knife in his hand, ready to stab someone. He knew he could do that at least. They swarmed over the table, the men and women looking, now, not too bothered. Not scared as they should have been. Another door slide open and Denkon and Meanie turned to see. A man in a long coat came marching out, his glasses covering his eyes but his mouth showed what his feelings were. He was pissed. ‘Gentleman,’ declared Faber, brandishing his gun in both hands the same as Denkon. ‘You don’t know me but I’m sure you know I’m a Talarian.’ ‘A what?’ asked Meanie. ‘Shut up,’ Denkon told him. ‘My name is Lechim Faber and I wish to speak with Captain Avventura.’ ‘You…know him?’ ‘Yes,’ Faber said casually, looking to the window. ‘I knew him well.’ ‘But how did you know it was him who’s here?’ ‘I just know. We know that kind of thing. If you arrange in interview between me and Avventura then I will let you go with no more deaths because, I’m sure, you want no more death, do you?’ ‘No.’ ‘I thought so. How about it, a little talk with your captain and no more senseless killing, especially in such a…un-heroic way.’ Faber smiled and appeared to smell his gun, bringing it up to his nose and holding it there, his eyes going into the back of his head Meanie stood in front of Denkon, his teacher staring a hole through him from behind. ‘Not until you go through me!’ Meanie brought out his knife and Faber stared at it. The people at the table were getting interested now. ‘What are you going to do, scrape me to death?’ The table laughed politely. Denkon pushed Meanie out of the way. ‘Don’t mind the boy. I’ll do as you say and you’ll get your little talk, alright?’ ‘Good. I see the packs you’re wearing so I’ll take it that you won’t need a lift back to your ship above the clouds?’ Incredible, Denkon thought. I really hate Talarians. ‘Fine. Good. We’ll be going then,’ and he started to walk away. Faber placed his gun on the table, the man sitting next to it looking at it apprehensively. ‘Goodbye, maybe I’ll see you another day.’ ‘Damn Talarian,’ Denkon said, pushing Meanie out the door. It slid shut. ‘Why did you take out that stupid knife?’ ‘I was going to fight him.’ ‘He’s a Talarian, Meanie! ‘You would be turned into juice before you got your knife the right way round.’ ‘But you can’t talk to Skyrovers that way,’ Meanie squealed. ‘Yes you can, easily. Anyway, I don’t believe we are Skyrovers any more.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I mean that the Skyrovers fell to their death. We’re just pirates, nothing more.’ ‘But we’re not pirates.’ ‘Shut up, Meanie. Just…shut up. Avventura had stopped watching the screen a while ago and was now content with shouting at people, which he barely noticed he was doing. His mind was still flashing images of his people, the Skyrovers – what a joke – as they fell to their death. He could hear the screams through the ships audio, right next to every person’s mouth as they screamed before being cut off. He’d nearly shown emotion.
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