Aubrey had always appreciated silk. He liked its texture, the sheen, the touch of the exotic about it and the way that it was the only clothing fibre made by insects – locust leather, in his opinion, not being a legitimate garment material.
So the rope with which his friends and he were tied together being silk was a lovely touch, if unnecessarily luxurious. He would have settled for good old manila hemp, but silk was lighter and easier on the hands.
Leading the way, with his rifle slung across his back, Aubrey shuffled his hands along the hull of the Sylvia, propelling himself forward, and grimaced as he fumbled around a rivet. He uttered a small spell adjustment to ensure that his friends and he were constantly being buoyed upward, rising strongly enough that they had to hold their hands over their heads in order to avoid painful cranial-battleship collisions.
Their progress once they’d left the relative safety of the ornithopter had been a peculiar bobbing accompanied by what could be described as an inverted walking on hands. He’d been assisted by the surprisingly thick and warm air – part of Dr Tremaine’s magic, Aubrey assumed, enclosing the Sylvia in a bubble of comfort for whoever was on board – so moving air about was something he didn’t have to organise.
The experience was disorienting, with the massive bulk of the magically created warship directly overhead while Albion streamed by far, far below. Steadfastly, Aubrey didn’t look down after that initial, nervous glance, for the spiralling drop was only too easy to imagine – and imagination, in this instance, wouldn’t do him any good. He kept his attention doggedly on their destination: the point at which the hull curved upward to become the sides of the Sylvia. To their right, in the distance, the enormous propellers rotated, churning away at the air. To their left, the bow crested the non-existent waves. Pressing against their hands were rivets, bolts and seams.
The cloudstuff hull was peculiar to the touch. At close quarters, it looked as if the surface were swirling but, to the fingers, it was as solid as the steel it was imitating. Dr Tremaine had gone to some pains to make the ship as real as possible. Aubrey could only attribute such a rigorous approach to Dr Tremaine’s general spell-casting excellence. If he was going to conjure up a battleship, it was going to be a very fine battleship indeed.
Aubrey was jarred out of his contemplation by a thunder stroke that made the hull ring. Quickly, it was followed by a series of equally appalling blows. A rapid flickering flare of orange-white light to starboard threw a nearby battleship into high contrast, enough to see the storm clouds to the north.
The aerial battle had begun.
A few hundred yards away, an ornithopter plunged, dropping below the level of the skyfleet with an ominous plume of black smoke billowing from its tail section. Its wings were beating frantically and Aubrey had some hope that the pilot would bring the stricken craft safely to the ground. He wished them well.
Aubrey scanned the skies. Around them, the attack force of ornithopters was doing its best, but the pilots were having trouble with their altitude enhancers. He could clearly see a dozen or more ornithopters struggling for control. A handful were relatively stable and were firing at the battleships with machine guns, sending tracers flashing through the skies, bright streaks like wasps on fire. Some were descending, aiming to swoop under the skyfleet ships and away from their guns. This left vulnerable hulls exposed and several ornithopters were streaming along the lengths of the enemy ships, directing their weapons upward and raking the hulls with fire.
Naturally, this made their own position under the hull of the enemy flagship extremely precarious. Aubrey wasn’t in favour of the prospect of coming under enemy fire and coming under friendly fire was an even less attractive option. He looked over his shoulder and urged his friends onward.
The closer they came to the upward curve, the more of the sky they were able to see. Aubrey soon had a view of half the skyfleet as it continued in its stately progress, terrifying all of Trinovant. The skyfleet’s ships were firing, the unmanned guns magically aiming at the few ornithopters that had managed to control the altitude enhancers enough to climb above the plane of the vessels. Turrets rotated, barrels adjusted elevation with horrible speed, then orange and black clouds burst along the flanks of the ships as the mighty armaments let loose to bring down their attackers. Other ornithopters completed their attack on the belly of the ships and immediately came under fire as they swung out from underneath and sought to find another target. The noise was deafening, vast and painful, with the giant flagship shivering every time it let loose a broadside.
Off to the east, one of the ornithopters had a pilot more capable or more daring than most. Its wings thrashed, striving for altitude, and were having some effect. The aircraft yawed, canting sideways but still buoyed by the altitude enhancer. It flailed like a drowning man, but kept climbing slowly, and Aubrey could only think that the pilot was bringing the craft into position for an attacking dive.
Aubrey measured distances by eye. The skyfleet was steaming in a great curve to the north-west. If it kept on that heading, one of the destroyer escorts would soon cross directly underneath the struggling ornithopter, which would be in the perfect position to do some damage, if it were carrying bombs.
Without warning, the wings of the ornithopter folded back. It trembled for a moment, floating on the power of the altitude enhancer, then it plummeted.
The ornithopter struck the deck of the destroyer, just aft of the superstructure. A huge explosion rocked the enemy ship. Fire and smoke fanned outward in a huge, demented spray. The destroyer ploughed on and soon the smoke was unrolling along its sides in black waves.
Aubrey’s friends had drawn up close alongside him. They stared, shocked as he was, at the destroyer. ‘They couldn’t have survived being shot down like that, could they?’ Sophie asked, her eyes wide with horror. She had one hand over her head, holding her away from the hull of the Sylvia. The other was firmly in George’s grasp.
‘I don’t think they were shot down,’ George replied slowly.
‘They weren’t hit by anything I saw,’ Aubrey agreed. ‘I think they turned off their altitude enhancer.’
No-one spoke for a moment. ‘They must have been desperate,’ George said, finally.
The smoke from the destroyer had diminished. Aubrey could see no sign of fire from the deck. It steamed on, barely touched by the assault. ‘They did their best.’
And it wasn’t enough was unspoken, but hung in the air next to them, ignored but only too obvious, like an off-colour speech at a wedding.
Caroline nudged him from behind. ‘We’re in a position to do something,’ she said. ‘Let’s not waste it.’
Aubrey wondered if that was what the pilot of the crushed ornithopter had thought.
Soon, the hull began to trend upward. He stopped, flexing his arms and resting his head against the hull, and waited for his friends to catch up.
Caroline was immediately behind him, followed by Sophie, with George determinedly bringing up the rear. Aubrey dangled until they came close. ‘The next stage is a little tricky,’ he announced.
George cast an eye back at the Merlin, forlorn and lonely in the middle of the ship’s hull. ‘Trickier than that little hand-over-hand jaunt?’
‘A few more yards and we’ll have the starboard stabiliser to get around. Then we won’t have anything overhead any more,’ Aubrey said.
Caroline cocked an eye at the hull. ‘So, if you keep the levitation spell active, we’ll simply float straight up?’
‘That’s it. Straight up the side of the ship. Once over the stabiliser, we’ll need to find the gangway so we can enter.’
‘Or we could simply drift right up to the rail. Over that, and we’re on the deck,’ Caroline suggested.
‘In plain view of anyone on the bridge,’ Aubrey said. ‘Let’s not go that way unless we have to.’
He paused and gazed outward. The skyfleet owned the sky. Even if Dr Tremaine had no other plan in mind, no ambition for personal immortality, this advance in warfare was a fearful thing. He had created a weapons base that could cruise, aloof and undisturbed, and then simply pulverise anything below it. Looking down from such a height, it wouldn’t be like attacking people at all – people would be nothing but ants. It was a world away from the intensity of the trenches, where the enemy had a face – and a sound and a smell. Fighting hand to hand was wretched but at least it impressed on the combatants that they were engaged in battle, not unconnected from it all. Far too easy to feel no responsibility that way.
As if I needed another reason to nobble this skyfleet, Aubrey thought.
He pushed off and let his negative buoyancy drift him upward until he reached the wing-like stabiliser. He felt a tug on the cord around his waist and he looked down to see that Caroline had emerged from under the hull and was on her way to joining him. He gave her an encouraging wave, then he clambered around the stabiliser and rose again.
Overhead, the guns roared again, but soon their job was taken over by the lesser armaments, the twenty-millimetres peppering the sky. Ornithopters darted and dived, doing their best to remain below the angle of the big guns, but they were still exposed. They were fewer in numbers now, and Aubrey flinched when one exploded and tumbled away.
Aubrey had judged things so that their rate of ascent was gentle enough to get them to the gangway smoothly without leaving them exposed for too long. Soon, while the aerial battle raged around them, they were past what would have been the waterline of the great vessel and the landing platform was within reach. Aubrey held his breath and, when the platform came close, he seized the metal with both hands and closed his eyes, briefly, grateful for the solidity that was now underfoot after half an hour of having nothing beneath them except a very distant and very hard Trinovant.
One by one, his friends joined him. George untied the silk rope and looped it until he could stow it in his pack. Aubrey peered up the ladder and along the sides of the ship, looking for anyone who could be at the rails to observe the aerial battle, but the ship was free of spectators.
Despite seeing no crew on any of the flanking ships, Aubrey couldn’t be sure that Dr Tremaine wouldn’t have a crew of soldiers aboard the flagship.
He shared his concerns and Sophie had a suggestion. ‘A change of appearance?’
‘Just the thing.’
Sophie cast a light Familiarity spell. It was very delicate – Aubrey didn’t want to risk bringing them to the notice of Dr Tremaine – and the casting didn’t take long. Sophie frowned, but before she could wonder aloud if it had worked, Aubrey reassured her. ‘I can feel the magic. Any Holmlanders will think we look like Holmlanders, once we’re inside.’
The hatch at the head of the inclined ladder was open – arrogantly open – and Aubrey paused again for a moment. He tried to listen over the sound of the guns, but shook his head with frustration. With the din of the battle, he wouldn’t have heard a draught horse galloping up and down the corridor.
After a deep, steadying breath, he stepped inside Dr Tremaine’s flagship.
A passageway, dark apart from a crusty electric light right at the end, twenty yards away. The hatch and the bulkheads were military grey, the no-nonsense colour announcing that this ship was all about lethal guns and heavy armour, not namby-pamby things like colour schemes. Aubrey spread himself along one wall, doing his best to merge with it while a part of him marvelled at how real it was. Inside, there was nothing cloud-like about it. It had the phlegmatic solidity of a real battleship.
He shook his head. Was some level of magic involved here? Was Dr Tremaine’s magic using Aubrey’s own expectations of how a battleship should appear and shaping the surroundings? Wherever he looked, the details were perfect: fire hoses neatly coiled by brass outlets, raised thresholds of doors (hatches!), the smell of oil and cordite, sweat and boiled cabbage.
He beckoned. Caroline slipped through the hatch with her pistol at the ready, then Sophie, then George. The rapid thumping of the guns eased for a moment and the dominant sound became the turbines, which Aubrey now realised he’d been feeling through the soles of his boots ever since they stepped onto the landing platform.
Aubrey signalled to the others to holster their pistols. Sophie’s Familiarity spell could cope with much dissonance, but the outright threat signalled by a drawn firearm would probably strain its ameliorating influence. It was far better to act as if they belonged there, strolling with confidence and speaking in Holmlandish, anything to help any Holmlanders they might find on the ship to overlook the details that set Aubrey and his friends apart.
This, of course, meant that George had to remain silent, a part that he played assiduously. He took up a position next to Sophie and behind Aubrey and Caroline. A glance over Aubrey’s shoulder told him that his friend was walking with his hands behind his back – confident, at ease, in charge – as Sophie spoke. George was judging by the rhythms of her speech and the expressions on her face when to shake his head, when to nod, when to essay a disbelieving grunt.
The hands behind the back was a nice touch, Aubrey thought, but it served the double purpose of keeping George’s hands near the small pistol he had secreted in the rear of his waistband under his jacket.
Since the magical connection he shared with Tremaine was currently vague and unhelpful, careful exploration was the key if they were to find Dr Tremaine. The bridge – the domain of any good commander – was atop the superstructure in the middle of the main deck, so Aubrey took the first ladder that presented itself, then kept moving through passageways and breezeways, ignoring intersections that, to judge from the noise, led to engineering sections and machinery spaces, pumps and foundries.
So intent was he on the charade, listening to Caroline’s bland points about victualling and giving the Familiarity spell something to work with, that it took Aubrey some time to realise that they hadn’t encountered anyone.
They’d passed crew quarters and what looked like a carpenter’s shop, but they hadn’t run into, passed or overtaken any Holmland sailors. In between the thumping of the guns, their feet actually echoed on the polished timber. Even when an massive explosion nearby made the Sylvia stagger, no curious faces presented themselves at hatches, no cries of alarm went up from the depths of the boiler room.
‘A ghost ship,’ he said in Holmlandish to Caroline.
She gave him a startled look and paused in the middle of her explanation of how to make pea soup for four hundred sailors. ‘Not literally, I hope.’
‘I was alluding to the lack of crew. We seem to be alone.’
‘Or the sailors are all somewhere else,’ Sophie said, but the suggestion wasn’t comforting. Aubrey didn’t really want to imagine a place where the entire crew of a battleship would be gathered, waiting, armed and ready for them.