A Sinner's Eden

***Tirnanog, Aerie Flagship***

***Magnus***

“What managed to get that sour expression onto your face?” Astra asked as soon as I entered the bridge and made my way over to her. She was standing with her parents and other elders at one of the planning tables, where they were briefed on the situation.

One table further I found the matriarch with her entire entourage of trusted people. Jeng’s leadership was also present and as the icing on the cake, I recognized some Caravaners like Seeker Holly and Luka mixed in among the crowd. On a second glance, I also found Gunnar and Jakob as representatives of the Organisation among them.

It seemed like everyone who had something to say was present.

“Nothing much,” I replied once I returned my attention to Astra. “Just met Ivonne and Hector on the way here. They managed to join the club, so to speak. I just hope Iv doesn’t get herself killed.”

Astra clicked her tongue. “I imagine you didn’t like that. Did you blow up in front of her?”

“No,” I grumbled.

Astra looked briefly surprised before she smiled and unexpectedly hugged me. “I am so proud of you! Normally, I would have expected you to rip off Hector’s head for allowing your sister anywhere close to the conflict.”

“It’s alright, alright, alright!” I quickly tried to wrangle her off of me. Not that I disliked being hugged by Astra, but I felt uncomfortable with such a display right in front of so many high-ranking people.

Etan turned away from where he was talking with Mary. “I am not a fan of Iv’s pursuits, but she hopped through all the hoops. Keeping her at Mount Aerie would have been high-handed of us. Especially after she managed to get Hector on board with her search for her sister. At the very least I tasked them with protecting the Drake hangar. It should be one of the safest spots on the ship aside from the bridge.”

He hesitated for a moment. “And nothing against your sister. We have adopted her which was a big extension of trust, so I prefer she stays far away from any Thich military. You have already proven yourself more than enough, but the girl is untested. I don’t want there to be even the possibility of collaboration with the enemy. Mere suspicion or not. It doesn’t matter that Thalia vetted her.”

“Thanks.” I raised a hand, palm out, to stop him. “You don’t have to say anything more. I understand.”

Etan nodded.

There wasn’t much more to say, so I turned to the map. “Do we already know how this will be going down? I heard fairly little about how this fleet engagement will be handled.”

Except for the initial engagement at Jeng, I had been out cold for most of the airship battle thanks to a certain ancient.

Teresa shrugged. “I am afraid there is not much to tell. We have just received news from the scouting units. The Thich and Vier are not moving, and are massing their units above Raider’s valley. Everyone believes they are preparing a final battle with the intention to duke it out no matter the cost.”

I winced and replied in a questioning tone, “I hope we are not going to take them up on that. I am not certain how we match up to them, but the casualty rate would be horrific in my estimation.”

It wasn’t like I cared about sacrificing a certain number of people for the greater good. I had given my blessing on such decisions in the past, but the clans had to survive the aftermath.

“Skye, Juliana, and the Matriarch worked out a plan,” Etan assured me. “At least they are giving out envelopes with orders for everyone. Orders are not to be opened until contact with the enemy is imminent. They want to keep the plan as secret as possible because they are still afraid of more psylings hiding among our ranks.”

“Though current orders say that, should anything come through the UI chat, those orders overrule everything else,” Teresa added. “Be sure to monitor the central command chat. Only the two highest ranking individuals from each Clan should be allowed to post messages.”

“Which are?” I asked.

Teresa looked over to the other table. “It’s the elders Juliana and Skye for Aerie. Matriarch Vanya and her right hand Tianna for Hochberg. Jeng is represented by Ancient Felix and Paladin Ahmad Gentry. The Caravaners and your Organisation are pure support, so they abstained from having a command role.”

“The two of us are to stay here as long as we get no other orders,” Astra informed me. “I have already talked to the Skyes.”

I gestured with my chin at the map. “Do we already know why the enemy chose this Raider’s valley as the battleground?”

Etan scratched his chin. “Historically, Raider’s Valley belonged to a group who called themselves Raiders. They never had the manpower to be counted among the great clans, but one couldn’t just walk up to them and make demands either. They claimed this region for a few decades and demanded ‘taxes’ from the Caravaners who commuted through their territory. Everyone who didn’t pay had to expect raids, hence Raiders. They got bolder and bolder over time, increasing their demands. At some point, the Caravaners peddling between Thich and Vier refused to pay and one of their groups disappeared. Suffice it to say, the Raiders didn’t just piss off the Caravaners with that move, but also the Vier and the Thich who relied on the trading route.”

“So I assume the two big clans dealt with the problem?” I concluded.

Etan nodded. “Permanently, as far as I am aware. The valley was since inhabited by one group or the other of dubious background and morality. Not that the scraggy wasteland out here allows people anything but to fight for survival by taking every opportunity presenting itself. Anyway, the settlers out here never again reached the manpower to consider threatening a caravan. I would be wary of whatever is in that valley now. The Caravaner’s situation is proof that Thich and Vier managed to create a complete information embargo on everything beyond the Jeng-Vier trade route. It might have been years since we got reliable news, so I would presume we know nothing about the current situation. All we can do is decide on the spot as soon as we get a picture of what’s in that valley. Our scouts couldn’t get close enough because the enemy’s fleet is hovering right above the area.”

The others had a few more tidbits to share, but it was nothing of great import. Ultimately, all I could do at the moment was to lean back and let the airship crews do their work while watching information trickling in.

It wasn’t like we had a real-time visual of the battlefield. The closest thing was a table with a big map of the region and several wooden figurines representing various scouts and fleet units. From time to time we would receive a scouting report over the UI or even directly from one of the flagship’s lookouts. Then a piece would be moved to a new position.

I only began to question what our leadership was doing when it looked like the main bodies of both fleets were about to collide, though I was assured it only looked this way because of the map’s scale.

It was then, that Skye Rumen gave a new command over the UI chat, ordering all vessels to drop ballast and rise at maximum speed, seeking the height advantage over the enemy’s vessels. At the same time, all unnecessary crew was ordered to evacuate over to the troop transports. It was a highly complicated move to pull off on the fly, but Skye seemed sure his people could make it within twenty minutes. Which meant the dedicated warships with guns would be left with nothing but skeleton crews.

“What are they up to?” I questioned while another report came in and one of the adjutants who was in charge of keeping the map updated adjusted the height of our opponent’s vessels who tried to engage our fleet.

But it looked like they wouldn’t catch us. Skye’s order to drop ballast had ensured Aerie’s airships would overshoot the enemy with a big safety margin.

“He is testing whether the Thich are willing to drop ballast to force the engagement,” Etan explained while my ears began to pop due to the rapid change in elevation. “If they do, he will abort the attack run and have the fleet fly a loop. Then we will repeat the manoeuvre. In an airship battle, the fleet with the higher elevation has a big advantage because they can drop ammunition. On the other hand, dropping ballast or unhooking one of the buoyancy tanks is something which can’t be done repeatedly because the airship will end up too light or too heavy. The one who spends these resources more carefully will end up gaining the upper hand if they can survive for long enough. An airship which can no longer change its elevation is a sitting duck.”

As it turned out, the Thich were not willing to drop ballast, though they tried their best to move out from beneath our fleet while firebombs were dropped to set their airships aflame. According to the reports, we got some good hits but nothing which could be called decisive.

The Thich nonetheless also steadily gained height as they tried to counter our advantage while using up fewer resources.

This first engagement was very anticlimactic, especially because we had to wait for twenty minutes afterwards to give the fleet time to fly a spiralling u-turn.

On the second run, Skye ordered to unhook buoyancy tanks and hold fire till hits would be guaranteed. Primary targets would not be the airships as a whole, but propulsion systems. The troop transports were to split off from the main fleet and avoid contact with the enemy.

The goal was to drop our fleet through theirs at an angle, allowing our ships to drop firebombs while doing maximum damage without allowing the Thich to do the same to us. It sounded all well and nice in theory, but I nonetheless imagined colliding airships and burning debris falling from the sky.

“While collisions are a possibility, they are extremely unlikely unless our enemies aim for it,” Teresa explained. “The ships are spaced out more than enough for both fleets to pass through one another without significant collisions.”

“What’s considered significant?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Oh, between five and ten per cent,” Skye replied jovially.

“That sounds pretty high if you ask me.” I mean, ten per cent meant there was a one in ten chance for collision!

“Just because two airships collide doesn’t mean they go down,” Astra assured me. “Airships from Earth might go down if a significant part of their balloon was damaged, but even back then they compartmentalized their gas. Our ships rely entirely on buoyancy tanks filled with glowmoss. So unless you destroy the entire tank or rip it out, nothing much will happen. From what I have read about the last war, collisions between airships left both vessels intact in most cases. Only in the most grievous of crashes, the ships had to be abandoned – like an ammunition depot blowing up or some flammable cargo igniting. And even then, the reason for abandoning the ship was mostly because the buoyancy was affected beyond repair. So the airship could no longer be stopped from gaining or losing height.”

Etan’s explanation was interrupted when something hit the ship and caused the deck to shudder.

“They still have some of those rockets!” was the only explanation we got from one of the adjutants.

I figured if the damage had been significant, they would have given a more detailed report. Thanks to the flagship’s size and taking Etan’s earlier explanation into account, a single hit wouldn’t bring us down.

Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but wonder how much damage the flagship could take before we had to give it up.

When the airship shuddered a second time, Juliana Skye gave a surprising order.

“Magnus, one of the enemy’s capital ships is trying to ram us. I need you to prevent that at all costs. Take out their engines!”

“Where?” I asked. Days prior, I had been briefed by Skye Rumen on the possibility of getting such a task. He had taken two hours to explain how best to sabotage airships and what to look for. Including a detailed explanation of what we knew about Thich airship construction.

“They are Two o’clock at a twenty-degree downward angle,” one of the adjutants informed me.

Not wasting any time, I ran out onto the observation platform and flash-stepped off the flagship. From the outside, the battle looked a bit more intense than the relative calm on the flagship’s command bridge suggested.

Our drake riders and Thich’s flying bat-things were out in great numbers and there were airships all around us, even if they were spaced out generously.

I oriented myself and found a huge, square-shaped ship headed for us, flanked by four smaller support ships. Thich’s box-like designs were distinctly different from Aerie’s flattened oval shapes.

Flash-stepping four more times while falling, I landed right on top of one of the ball-shaped flak cannon turrets belonging to one of the Thich support vessels. I had chosen the ship because it was flying the closest the capital ship.

The cannoneer had a second of looking up to me in baffled surprise before I punched my fist through the sighting-window's glass. This naturally forced him to close his eyes and raise his hands protectively. Grabbing his collar, I pulled him out and let go as soon as he began sliding down the side of the hull. For good measure, I gave him a kick to send him on his way. It happened so fast, he barely had time for a scream before he disappeared out of sight.

He most certainly was not juggernaut classed or anywhere close to it. On the other hand, crewing equipment like a cannon with good hand to hand fighters would be stupid.

“Excuse me, I need that.”

I swung myself into the seat and began pushing and pulling levers to find out what they were doing. It was all pretty intuitive and it took me maybe ten seconds to become comfortable with the machinery which reminded me of something I had seen in a museum about the second world war.

The cannon had a very complex sight to aim with. The four sliders on it were thankfully not needed. My target was about six hundred metres away and I figured a few wasted shots wouldn’t make any difference, so I pushed the device to the side.

Drawing in a sharp breath, I used my filaments to protect my ears and pressed the trigger.

The flak cannon began firing at a satisfying rate of two or three shots per second. My normal eyes couldn’t see the projectiles, but my Second Sight had no trouble informing me that the ammunition dropped below where I was aiming.

A small adjustment later, big holes began appearing in the engine compartments behind the capital ship’s main propellers.

I smiled and whistled a small tune while I counted to five in my head. Five seconds was kind of an arbitrary number, but I figured it would take at least eight seconds for some Thich gunner to rationalize why one of their ships was firing at them and take action.

But five seconds of having free rein with this kind of weapon turned out to be more than enough to rip open most of the visible engine compartments. Especially at this distance!

At five, I flash-stepped out through the crushed window and turned around while falling, only to see the support vessel’s side erupt with explosions as another ship began scouring away its flak turrets.

It had taken some quick-witted fellow only about six seconds to begin shooting at their comrades. Which meant I had cut it uncomfortably close.

“Okay, three seconds it is,” I promised myself as I chose my next target to repeat the game.