Whenever suitable conditions existed, pirates took to them like bacteria to a fresh growth medium. The skies of Meridian, with the relic volors someone managed to salvage after the Fall of the Keepers, were no exception.
Captain Prex’s words hung in the air. The engines outside hummed, and the craft buffeted in a gust of wind.
Selva growled. “Bloody pirates.”
Prex held his arms open, and guffawed. “Excuse me? Dulane pillages with a fleet and he is called Caesar, yet I am a pirate because I do it with one ship?”
“You save us from the Legions, only to hold us prisoner yourself?” Sir Wotoc asked.
“Oh, no, I have every intention of returning you to your people. Just not yet.” Prex grinned. “There is a place in the north, across the Sea of Sand, called the Iron Mountain. It is a Keeper ruin; no pirate has yet been able to plunder it. You will help me do so.”
“What makes you think we can?” asked Selva.
“They,” Prex nodded to Felden and Zandra, “tell me the arts of modern starmen are centuries in advance of the Keepers. You’ll find a way.” He walked back to the navigation station at the bow.
“Sorry.” Zandra switched to Americ. “We figured he might pull a move like this, but it’s got to be better than staying down there with the Arztillans.”
Temerin answered, “You can say that again.”
The volor’s engines thrummed down, and from a window Eric observed the solar-collector sails unfurl to catch the wind, carrying it along at altitude. A gust buffeted the ship, he almost lost his footing.
“Gyros are out.” Felden’s arm snapped to Eric’s shoulder with superhuman speed. “I took a look, but the systems are just too...primitive.”
“The Connecticut Yankee Problem.” Eric grinned.
“Huh?” The aven frowned.
“Just knowing theory doesn’t help, you need practical knowledge too.”
They berthed on the crew deck above the cargo hold, Selva and Zandra got a tiny private cabin towards the rear. The next day, Eric and Felden proposed their plan to Captain Prex. He assigned the first mate, a bearded, tobacco-chewing man named Brutus, to watch them. The gyroscopes were located on the crew deck, hidden behind wall-rugs since someone had removed the covers, perhaps to use as shields. There were seven, three on each side and one at the prow.
“That’s the best-looking one.” Felden got a flashlight from a Star Patrol supply pack and shined it in. “This thing has a computer that’s still working, but the pirates just use it for sails and helm control.”
“You know volors?” asked Eric.
“Yeah, my grandparents have one.” Avens even had volor cities, Eric knew. Fitting, for flying posthumans. “Any ideas?”
Eric crouched down, examined the compartment with its spherical gyroscope casing inside. “Well, the gyro itself looks intact, but the control units must be shot. We might be able to salvage components from the others, get a few running.”
It took them all day, and then next morning, to do it. Without knowledge of the original software Eric couldn’t program new control units, but he gambled they were interchangeable enough to pull those on broken gyros and swap them in for the intact ones. It worked, all he had to do was connect power and data lines. They got two gyros running on the port side, plus the one in the prow.
The volor’s buffeting dampened out, stabilized. Captain Prex came to them first. “Incredible! You sure you do not wish to sign on to my crew?”
“No, thanks, I already have a job,” replied Felden.
Eric added, “And I’ve got a degree to finish.”
A young lookout came scampering down from the open-topped upper deck, followed by Kadelius. He cried out, “Pursuers! We are being chased!”
“By whom?” Prex raised an eyebrow.
“Arztilla, Captain!” the lookout responded. “Who else?”
Eric rushed above decks. The volor’s top was covered with shades that doubled as solar collectors and wind-breaks, though the breeze still whistled through his hair. He wouldn’t be comfortable getting close to those railings without worrying about being blown off.
Away in the distance, sunlight glinted off a second volor, dead astern in pursuit. Felden held his flight goggles over his eyes; Eric supposed they had a zoom function, then passed them to him. He got a glimpse of the world as interpreted for hyperactive aven eyes: weather fronts and air currents outlined, then a zoom-window which showed a craft not too dissimilar from the Rogue’s Galley itself. The pirates had more Keeper relics than just their ship, Captain Prex peered through a set of binoculars.
“The Glory of Caesar,” he said. “Formerly Glory of Arztilla, before Dulane proclaimed the Panarchy.”
“Doubtless sent to chase us,” Temerin said. “Maybe the Savage Hunters are aboard.”
“We followed them to you,” Prex replied. “I’d be surprised if they weren’t.”
Temerin asked, “What defenses do we have?”
“Bows, pikes, two ballistae,” Prex replied. “We will stand no chance if they board, they will have embarked Legionnaires as well.”
“Then how do you usually handle volor combat?”
“We don’t. Few are foolish enough to risk such precious craft. Dulane must judge you worth a great price.”
“So what do we do?”
“Their sunpower will be depleted from hurrying after us. We may be able to outrun them.” He headed back down to the navigation station, Eric and the others followed.
The helmsman, Greasehair, stood at the controls. There were two primary ones, a brass wheel worn from generations of use, and a throttle lever at its right. Other knobs and touchscreens would control things like the sails. Deliberately simplified, Eric decided; the pirates likely operated it on ritual, not comprehending the underlying technology. Captain Prex gave the order. and Greasehair advanced the throttle.
Out the spacious bow windows, Eric saw rolling hills and the occasional village surrounded by farmers’ fields. They were still over Arztillan territory, probably some of the first lands they’d conquered. Ahead to starboard were mountains in the distance, snow-capped peaks about half their current altitude.
Felden and Zandra looked through their flight goggles, and conversed rapid-fire in what must be an aven language. Then they turned to Selva and explained something about mountains. She nodded.
“Captain,” Felden said. “We have an idea. Lose them in the air currents, down there!” He pointed to the mountains.
“Insane!” Brutus said. “No one dares risk his ship in such a place, the winds will wreck it!”
“Ah, but we can see the winds.” Zandra handed her goggles to Captain Prex.
He lifted them to his eyes. “I don’t follow.”
“What you’re seeing is wind data in visual form,” Zandra continued. “Cold fronts, warm fronts, downbursts, jet streams. My people use it all the time. Since we can see those, we can fly a safe path through them.”
“And the Arztillans, unless they have Keeper relics, will be lost,” added Selva.
“I do not like it.” Prex consulted with a lookout come down from the top deck. “But they are gaining. Give your orders to my helmsman.”
“We should fly,” Felden said. “Telling someone else will be too slow, and—” he ruffled his wings for effect, “we’re designed for it.”
Prex nodded, Greasehair stepped aside and Felden took the wheel. He put Zandra to the throttle, and told Eric to check the knobs and indicators at right. There were no multifunction displays, the most complexity in the panels were digital readouts of single numbers. In some places, the pirates had stuck parchment with good values documented like alien symbols.
Felden swerved the wheel, the volor rolled from side to side and a few crates in the hold to aft tipped over. “Sorry. Just getting a feel for how it handles.”
He pushed the wheel forward, and dove for the mountains.
