Aethosphere Chronicles: Winds of Duty (2 page)

Suddenly the room felt strangely still after
the years Bar had spent swaying on the deck of an airship. It made
him feel nauseous, and he would have given anything just to be back
on the
Chimera
, and out in the boundless skies of
Aethosphere at that very moment. “I would gladly,” he began,
fidgeting. The seat felt more unstable than when he first sat down,
as though it was imbued with some magic power to cause its
occupants to disgorge the truth against their will. “But perhaps
this council can enlighten me on some of these debatable
points
in question, so that I can better address them
specifically.” As he finished, he hoped it didn’t sound too much
like he was fishing for insight. An admiral’s rebuking laugh told
him otherwise.

“Mr. Bazzon,” one admiral responded, highly
agitated, “perhaps you don’t understand the position you’re in, so
let me expedite this evasive song and dance of yours. You’re a
common born and a man of mixed heritage. Your rank is the byproduct
of political posturing, it would seem, and not based on any notable
achievement, and by the looks of it, is about all you have in this
world. No noble house is going to arbitrate on your behalf, and you
have earned no commendations to sway our opinion otherwise. Let’s
make one thing clear. You made it back alive from that engagement,
and that’s the
only
reason in this world you’ve been given
this opportunity to state your case. The moment we feel you’re
wasting our time, Ensign, you
will
be made to regret
it.”

“Yes,” agreed the esteemed sky marshal with
a nod of satisfaction. “So, Mr. Bazzon, it’s best you start from
the beginning, and stick closely to the truth. At this point, it’s
all you really have.”

The word “truth”, so casually slung around
by DeGanten and his
crowny
friends, was an inconsistent
mistress who herself lied to make men into monsters and devils into
saints. Could her cold lips alone properly convey the series of
events that had plagued the
Chimera
on that fateful
voyage?

“We were patrolling the Erie Expanse between
the Barrier Shoal and the Ascella Cluster when it happened,” stated
Bar, picking each word carefully, making sure each syllable that
came echoing back was clearly understood by these privileged men of
high-rank, despite his own low-born accent. “At the time we were
about six-hundred kilometers from Midport. The captain had just put
us on an elevated alert status as of that morning. As the combat
systems manager I was charged with readying the weapons with a
handful of assigned skymen…”

The gun deck was a sulfurous cave, reeking of grimy
bodies and pungent gunpowder, all crammed between a low overhead, a
high deck, and ten of the Royal Air Navy’s finest seventy-five
millimeter tri-barrel cannons. The guns now gleamed, the powder
fresh, and Bar reveled in that pride he only got from a day’s hard
labor. He wiped his greasy brow across his forearm and took a deep
and satisfied breath whilst the men of the weapons, combat, and
engineering departments rejoiced together. They were a motley crew
to be sure, ghastly to behold beneath the thick soot that coated
each sweat-slickened body. Polishing the guns, swabbing the bores,
and inspecting the munitions was hard and dangerous work, but each
man wore jack-o-lantern grin regardless, for they’d earned
themselves a two hour respite for their deeds. That meant two hours
to finish the contraband grog, two hours to lounge in the gleam of
their accomplishment, two hours before evening duty, and two hours
free from Captain Moore’s incessant orders—orders that at times
seemed to be issued simply to have orders to obey. “I want the guns
inspected, cleaned, and made ready,” he’d ordered Bar that morning.
“Assign whatever personnel you need to accomplish the task quickly.
I want those weapon systems in top shape, is that clear?”

It was taxing living on high-alert in the
dead-calm of an empty sky, whilst word of the Iron Empire’s
unstoppable armada filtered through the strata-frigate like ash
from a firestorm. The men’s weariness could be felt in the air like
a coarse wool blanket on a hot summer’s day, stifling. These
Candaran men weren’t machines, they weren’t
automecs
from
yore; they weren’t even lowtrue slaves from bygone millennia; they
were simple aeronauts. Sure, they were a stout bunch; the older men
were well-seasoned, and the newer enlistees were quick learners;
but every crew had its breaking point.

“Many thanks, Ensign Bazzon,” said the
heftiest of the Candarans now lumbering through the gloom. Weapons
Officer Second Class Abner Tolle was the ship’s artillery
specialist and possessed a gut as round as a bilge-oil barrel,
giving him the look of a curly-haired ball. For good measure he
furnished the young officer with a smart salute. “Seems you haven’t
softened in the bosom of the captain’s mess over the months since
you abandoned us for the airy decks.”

The other enlistees cheered and jeered and
caterwauled around him, but Bar just grinned as smugly as ever.
Let the crew have a bit of a fun at my expense,
he told
himself, looking around to the mirth-filled faces of those he’d
served with for years; some even decades.
Now that we’re behind
the major battle lines they deserve a little relaxation of
discipline…good for the men to blow off some steam despite what the
captain may believe. Good for me as well,
he realized.

Living as an officer under Lord Captain
Zavier Moore’s constant scrutiny had taken its toll on his
constitution, and that was never more apparent than at the present.
Bar hadn’t felt this good in months. Toiling back down in the dusty
twilight bowels of the ship; in amongst the smell of aged spruce
and hammered bronzsteel, gunpowder, and the working class stench of
the enlistees; he discovered he relished being just as
stinking-filthy as the rest of the able-bodies around him. It made
him feel closer to normal—more normal since the moment he’d first
put on the stiff canvas uniform and everyone started calling him
‘sir’. It felt like home again. Why the ship’s former captain had
ever made him an ensign before leaving for the Admiralty, Bar would
probably never know, but Lockney had been a man of flight and
fancy, and something of a father-figure for years. But now, after
all these long hard months under Captain Moore, he didn’t know
whether to thank the old captain, or loath him.

“I didn’t think officers were capable of
sweating!” cried out one of the grimy skyman.

“Yeah,” hollered another, “and I’d been told
they sewed you gents into your uniforms.”

Bar just laughed. “They couldn’t make a
uniform to contain this even if they wanted to,” and then he flexed
an exposed bicep to the rowdy crowd. Years of hard labor had
cleaved the fat from Bar’s bones long ago, leaving nothing but
muscle and sinew in its wake, and the three months of living the
‘easy’ life of an officer had done nothing to ruin it as of yet
either.

“Watch your ladies, gentlemen, Bazzon’s a
cad alright!” teased Mr. Tolle.

They all got a real kick out of seeing their
former mate hamming it up for their riotous amusement, and the mood
felt right for it. Too many tension-filled months had taxed them to
the last, months spent anxiously on the frontlines in the thick of
it, with imperial warships hammering them up and down the skies,
and then the hellish nightmare of their retreat once the Giedi
Cluster was lost. The plan had been for the fleet to regroup at
Midport and hold the line there, but by the time the
Chimera
arrived it was a day late to the aftermath of the isle’s defeat.
Nothing remained for them but smoke, despair, and the Iron Armada.
How they’d made it through the hell of that gauntlet was a thing of
mystery, and by the time they reached the safe embrace of the
Sargasso Sky the crew and ship were battered and weary beyond
reconciliation. Then Bernard Lockney was taken from them through
promotion, and Zavier Moore came sweeping in with his Kinglander
sensibilities, and after that, the months of drilling and waiting
had taken its toll. It was hard not to get discouraged; not with
the Empire still lurking in the sky like something out of a
nightmare. They and their blasted iron behemoths reminded Bar of
the legends his father used to tell:

“
Nearly two thousand years ago
the
Nequam sailed the skies in the name of the Enox Unon. Those damned
demons, in the service of their damned devil, commanded great
flying fortresses—called them Basilicas—and they used them to rule
over the beleaguered Candaran tribes of Aethosphere for millennia
uncountable
…”

How similar that sounded to the present day
Great Skies War. Those old stories had always inspired terror in
the young Bazzon, but he would often make his father tell him
regardless; because little boys liked to be scared in the safety of
their homes, when they have their fathers close at hand to drive
away the nightmares. But after his father passed on, Bar was loath
to hear them, and eventually stopped thinking of the myths
altogether. That is, until the day he’d first laid eyes on an
imperial destroyer. All the old scare-stories came flooding back in
an instant as that terrible machine slipped from a storm cloud like
a wraith through tattered curtains. It was a terror to behold;
massive, and wrought in impenetrable black iron, turreted
long-range guns, blood red Atmium Core; and for the first time
since his father died, Bar knew what it was like to feel true
hopelessness again.

That imperial monster had been a real life
demon alright, brought to life with hatred and science, and
afterwards it was hard to keep the men’s spirits up. Getting chased
out of the Giedi Cluster, and then having to flee from Midport
through the King’s Straight gauntlet had further eroded morale, and
now with the whole of the Sargasso Sky open to Imperial incursions,
no man could feel anything but dread anymore. Families were in
danger, and that left everyone on edge. So seeing the men laughing
and joking around him was a sight that stirred the fledgling
officer’s heart—made him feel like maybe everything
could
be
alright again.

“Mr. Bazzon!” the master-at-arms’ voice
cracked like a discordant whip across the back of the men’s
merriment. Like a cold and savage wind, it drove away any measure
of mirth, and the room quickly gave way to frosty silence. “Why are
you outta uniform?”

Bar spun on his heels, wobbling, and feeling
a bit drunk from the grog. Chief Master Stowe may have been nearly
half a meter shorter than the ensign, but he stood like a boar
ready to stampede over him regardless. The humorless man’s face was
even shaped like a boar’s, long in the front but wide and flat,
with a mustache that spilled over the corners of his mouth like two
tusks.

Bazzon teetered, trying his best to maintain
that delicate balance between standing at attention and seeking out
his missing uniform top. It was Tolle that helped him out with
that, by tossing the missing shirt and catching Bar full in the
face. Raucous laughter burst through the crowd, but Stowe silenced
it with a growl.

After wrestling the article of clothing
away, Bar found Stowe standing eye-to-eye with him, glaring with a
look that could have flayed the honor off a man just as surely as
the cat-o-nine-tails could cleave flesh from the bone. Shame burned
across Bar’s face. “We’ll have a discussion about the importance of
the king’s uniform later,” said the master-at-arms, “but for now,
the captain’s called all hands on deck for an important
announcement.”

“Is it about the war?” asked someone
standing behind Bar.

“Are we being sent back to the
frontlines?”

“Where are the frontlines these days?”

“I heard tell the admiralty’s not going to
send resources to protect the north, is that true?”

“Silence, you mangy dogs! The next man who
so much as utters a word that isn’t ‘yes, Chief Master’ will
promptly find his back kissed by the leather. Do I make myself
clear?” Chief Master-at-arms Stowe eyed the crowd as though
challenging them to say no, daring the most foolish of them to make
good on his promise. He almost looked disappointed when the deck
slowly relented to a grumbling wave of, “Yes, Chief Master!”

“Good!” he replied with no real approval in
his sky-grizzled face. “Now I want every last man up there within a
quarter hour, and if one of you sots so much as arrives a second
late, I’ll personally wield the bullwhip that splits the skin off
your back.” And just like that, the master-at-arms turned and
marched towards the ladderwell door, disappearing through it almost
as suddenly as he’d appeared, drawing with him the chill air in the
vortex of his wake.

The gun deck was quiet for a full on minute
until all were certain Stowe was long gone. It was almost as though
they’d been holding their breaths, and the collective exhale filled
the room with rum-soaked fumes. There was some relieved chuckling
and a couple of the old-timers gave Ensign Bazzon a playful
shove.

“Don’t let it phase you, lad,” reassured
Alabrahm Muldaire as his squat form came hobbling up next to him.
“You know how Stowe can get under stress…and if it makes you feel
better, you technically outrank him now anyhow.” He chuckled. The
ship’s old cook had been good enough to help the men in the gun
deck this day, and though his broken body wasn’t much use with
lifting, it was his grog that helped the most.

In the shuffle of men finishing to clean
themselves up, Bar heard one of them grumbling to another. “This
big announcement…so, you think that’s what it’s all
about…abandoning the north for some new battle strategy?” It was
one of Tolle’s gunners asking the question, a stout man named Angus
Frasier.

“Battle strategy,” scoffed an engineer as he
zipped up his coverall.