Catastrophe Jones

This is Issue #96 of DeathWatch, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find ‘A Beginning’ and read from there, if you need to catch up.

Happy Reading!

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* * *

Dead in the air, the TS Jacob floated, fuelless, the screws twisting lazily. Waves of clouds and explosive drifts of aetheric fuel spun around them. Debris from the original explosion was found to have made holes in the main envelope.

The ship was sinking, back into the storm.

The Comms room was a flurry of chaos.

“We don’t know how much fuel we have left, and we don’t know if the lines are safe. We aren’t going to spin up yet; we don’t know if they can see us through the storm!” one of the helmsmen cried.

“We should turn around,” Djara called.

“A full turn? We don’t have the fine control to get back through the notch–” Penny said.

“–then what, we’ll stay here?” Djara snapped.

“Jules? Hurry it up,” Sha called. “The natives are getting restless!”

“She went to grab Brody — I’ll run down, and do some checks on the way,” Nate said, hurrying out. He ran, the pound of his boots on the boards feeling familiar and oddly comforting.

He wended his way back and back until he got to the last long corridor. The door to it was shut, and the pressure monitor said it was drastically low. Nate tapped the glass and cocked his head to the side. He leaned in, listening at the door, and heard the roar of the empty sky beyond. “No,” he whispered, and he spun the wheel and undid the latch.

When the door opened, he was pulled through, and scraped and bruised himself badly as he was pulled down the hall, toward the open door that swung, clanging, revealing the storm below and beyond, the lightning, and the gaping sky that had swallowed the cadet, the fuel tanks, the backbelly of the ship, and possibly a large part of everything he loved. He jammed his boots against the wall and stared down the hall until the alarms reminded him that pressure inside the ship was dropping now, too. He pulled a rope from the wall, and swung it down to catch the wheel on the open door, then pulled it shut. Once it latched, he hurried down the hall so he could spin it, and let the hall repressurize.

“Jules?” he called over his comms. “I got the fuel room. It’s, uh. How’s Brody?”

There was no answer until the Captain’s voice crackled over the line. “Sitrep on the fuel room.”

“Short answer: We’ve got a hull breach. Cadet Wales is gone. I’ll brief you when I get up,” Nate said bluntly. “Jules, did you find Brody?”

Again, silence.

“Commander Julianna O’Malley!” Sha called.

Dead air.

Sha’s voice sounded more irritable than panicked. “Anyone got eyes on Jules?”

Frustrated, Nate hurried back from the belly of the ship, running for the bunks. When he got to Kieron’s space, he stood there silently for a moment. The boy wasn’t there. “Brody?” he called. “Anyone got eyes on Brody or Jules?”

A shaking voice came up over the line, “They both went down to the rear belly, Quarter. They went to check on the cadet who was working on the pressure.”

“Fuck,” Nate breathes, putting his hands to his face.

“What’s the panic, Quarter?” the Captain called. “It’s a big ship, and her comm battery might not have been charged, and Brody didn’t have one. Get back up here.”

* * *

“She’s gone,” Nate said, fingers curled so tightly, they left bloody halfmoons. “She’s fucking gone, Sha. She’s gone. Her, and Brody, and Wales.”

“Hey, hey, stop,” Sha said, one hand on Nate’s shoulder. “We don’t have time for this. What makes you think she went out with Wales? Even if she did, there is nothing that can be done for them now. We’ve got half a shot at turning around and saving everyone else on this ship, at absolute best.”

“We don’t even have that,” Nate said darkly.

Sha froze, looking cautiously at Nate. “What are you talking about?”

“Backbelly of the ship is gone, Sha. From last door to tanks. You can see the screws and the sky. We’re dead up here. S’how I know she went. That last door was open. She and Brody must’ve gone to check on Wales, and–” His voice was grim. “Either way, still here, or not… Jacob’s done-for.”

There was silence, for awhile, as the Captain of the TS Jacob took it all in. Sha finally nodded, saying, “I’ll send everyone packing. Chuting through the storm and avoiding the ships won’t be easy, but if everyone drops, maybe they’ll be able to land close enough together they can all head back for the border, or go north to the ice seas. Safety in numbers. Maybe they die on the way down. Maybe they die in running. But chances are better there than here.” She looked almost optimistic at the idea of it; in reality, she was simply avoiding thinking about how close everyone alreadty was to death — no point in panicking. No point in lamenting the loss of her commission, her ship, the last thing tying her to her brother, all these people under her care. Now, priorities had to change. The only thing left: make sure her people survive, if possible. “Help me spread the word?”

Nate nodded, and they spent the next thirty minutes spreading the news, relaying the information to grave-eyed, solemn-faced soldiers, and wide-eyed cadets who hadn’t realized it but had become soldiers along the way. Once they told someone, they asked that person to pass it on. Everyone worked hard and fast to get packs, chutes, masks, and any emergency gear they could. They packed essentials only, and a few people grabbed some sentimental junk. A picture here, a letter or a piece of jewelry there.

Nate kept twisting the ring on his finger, and asked everyone he was telling, “Have you seen Jules?”

No one had.

* * *

The Jacob was skimming the top of the roiling stormclouds when the first of the crew began to jump. Somewhere below, there were Ilonan Dormitors ready to fire — they had to hope they could avoid them, and get all the way to the ground. Groups of them jumped together, in hopes of braving things more easily, due to not being alone.

“Captain, I don’t–” Djara was saying.

“It’s an order. Jacob’s not going to fly again. I don’t need you to steer it into Ilona. I need you to live,” Sha ordered.

“Captain, I–”

“Pilot!” Sha snapped. “I don’t have time for insubordination!”

“Yes’m,” Djara said, snapping off a salute. “We’ll see you on the ground, Captain. Quarter. Sir!”

She and Penny and another round of cadets jumped, hand in hand.

With every chute that opened, radios went out of range and the Jacob grew emptier and emptier, until finally it was just Sha and Nate, standing on the deck, masks on, as the Jacob drifted down into the storm. Lightning arced all around them, struck the chains; wind tried to spin the ship. He held her hand and looked over the side, saying, “We riding this thing down?”

“I am,” Sha said. “Want to come with me? I got a bottle of something clear and lovely. I think I owe you.”

“Holdin out on me til a grave situation, hm?” Nate said, shaking his head. “I see how it is. Well, I can’t drink anything with this damn mask on. You want to go below?”

Sha rolled her eyes, smirking. “Yeah, let’s go get pissed and crash an airship, huh? We’ll just get it as far as we possibly can, so there’s no way this hulk or any debris will hit any of our guys.”

Nate’s voice was steady, even as his eyes stung in their goggles. “Let’s not hit any little villages either. The Ilonans might get mad and ruin your ship.”

* * *

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This is Issue #95 of DeathWatch, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find ‘A Beginning’ and read from there, if you need to catch up.

Happy Reading!

PREVIOUS

* * *

Jules bowed her head, tears stinging the backs of her eyes. Break, she thought. Break or die, let it be over quick. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

“You can stop this,” the Captain hissed.

Jules bared her teeth at the table, clenching her fists. “I can? I can?! I fail to see how I can stop a man who would not stop himself from doing something so monstrous,” Jules growled. “You’ve chained me to this table and you’re torturing a boy who’s only real crime is that he ran away from home!” she said, looking up at the Captain. “He doesn’t know anything,” she maintained. “You gain nothing from this!”

“We’ll see.” He knocked again.

This time, Kieron’s cry turned into a long, awful sob. “Please!” from the other room, Jules could hear furniture being shoved, the sound of someone desperately trying to run, to get away, to escape. Somehow. Instead, Kieron was obviously pushed up against the wall that adjoined the room. When his body hit the wood, he went silent.

They must’ve hit his head, Jules thought, closing her eyes, sick with relief.

That was when the Captain unlocked Jules’s shackles, and hauled her up from the table, dragging her across the short room and against the wall. He shoved her up against it, and held her head to the boards, her ear pressed there. She flinched, pushing back, and he shoved harder, all but mashing her face against the boards. She could smell pitch and copper, salt, the herbed soap the Captain must use, and the unmistakable scent of burned meat. She felt her gorge rise, and her head swim.

“Can you hear him?” The Captain asked lowly. “Can you smell him? You have denied me three times. He has three brands on his back. Shall we go for a fourth? Can you hear him, Commander?”

Jules bit her tongue against answering back smartly; she thought the sound she could hear, the groaning, was the ship itself, but she realized the noise for what it was, finally, a low, tortured weeping. Kieron cried, pressed to the wall, right on the other side of her. “Please, please, please,” he whispered against the wood, and she could hear it in her skin, the way he begged. She heard a low rushing then, in her ears, like ocean waves coming to claim her, and counted herself lucky, in that moment, that she wouldn’t hear whatever happened next.

She went limp in the Captain’s arms, and slipped.

* * *

Everything fucking hurt. Her feet, her head, her back, her belly. Everything. She was sore with exertion, miserable with bruises and cuts. She had been beaten, and was on the run, based on how her lungs burned, and how awful it all felt.

She knelt over two bodies — one alive, gasping.

Kieron. He looked up at her with a mixture of shock and gratitude.

One dead, bleeding sluggishly, his skull half-crushed-in.

She’d never seen him before.

The rock in her hand was heavy, bloody.

She dropped it, staring at her fingers. There was a familiar white-gold band around one, and she smiled to see it.

Rain fell against her skin as she sat back on her heels and moved to stand up, to help Kieron up.

God, she was tall — taller thank Kieron; the feeling was disorienting and ridiculous and funny all at once. She put a hand to her face to stifle the laugh, and felt the stubble of an unshaven jaw.

“He knew my name–” Kieron said, looking stunned.

She nodded, reaching to cup Kieron’s cheek, to look at the angry scar, the ragged stitches. It hadn’t been long. She was on solid ground, and it was raining, and his injury hadn’t healed. She took in the details, soaked them up, and opened her mouth to ask him a question when the pain in her back and chest got worse, sudden and impossibly hot.

“NO!” Kieron cried.

She tried to speak, to say something, anything, but a run of blood fell over her lips, instead. She reached up a hand and touched her mouth, then blinked hard as the world got fuzzy. She reached out for Kieron, but felt held back; when she looked down, the point of a sword had erupted from just beneath her chest. The blood came faster, and she swallowed against it, tried to speak, but it only came out as a red spray. She coughed, trying to catch her breath. If only she could just catch her breath, just for a moment, she knew she would be all right. She took a step toward Kieron, and the sword was pulled loose.

Somewhere behind her, she heard a familiar scream of rage, heard blades clang and clatter, heard the meat of a body hitting the ground.

“Ohgod,” Kieron pled, reaching to catch her as she fell into his arms. He didn’t look panicked so much as stricken, pale and soaked and shaking.

She couldn’t keep the rain out of her eyes, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t anything, and the world grew dim.

Kieron knelt over her, shielding her from the falling downpour, sobbing. “No,” he pled. “No, not like this. Please,” he begged. “You gotta get up. You have to. C’mon. We didn’t make it this far for you to fall now,” he begged.

She lifted a hand up to him again, to touch his cheek, and stared at the ring, watching it glint in the scattered, drowned moonlight. She pulled it off and stared at the inside of it, feeling her heart slow in her chest. She felt it grind, felt it seize, felt the way the beat stuttered, felt the way it failed. She knew what the ring would say on the inside. She knew, and it broke her dying heart. She knew it, because she was the one who had to convince the engraver make it tiny enough to fit, even around the wide white gold band, in the language of her grandmother, Cuisle mo chroi, mo Einin.

You are the pulse of my heart, my little bird.

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