Lure for Megafauna
Hey, Sweetie belle. I'm glad we got to relive this bit together. Honestly? It really was fun. You think on your hooves, I'll give you that.
Chapter 23
Lure for Megafauna
Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Tom sat in Dignity's main cabin, working on the problem. The hatchlings moved about, making their detuned cello growls and hoots, calm and apparently unaware of their approaching – Father? Uncle? Cousin?
The remains of the Ilmarinen navy and their allies, meanwhile, had been smarter than Sweetie Belle expected. When Millie warned them about the big aelewyrm, they asked for information. In the end, the fleet, including the Dulcet, had agreed to move their staging area – retreating from the aelewyrm, but keeping the same distance from Ilmarinen, to give themselves more time. They'd also decided to begin their attack earlier. Millie, meanwhile, parked. If the big aelewyrm really was only after her passengers, she might be able to draw it away.
“You're right,” she said to Scootaloo. “The second time was after we split up with Tom. We're the only constant. Well, we and Saffron.” She paused to brush the attentions of Chardonnay, then added, “Something's attracting the big aelewyrm. Me, probably.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Tom.
“Everything's been after me since I got Saffron in my head. Blueberry, the daemons …” She turned to Saffron, who had manifested standing by the wall, and asked out loud, “That sounds right, doesn't it?”
Saffron scratched at her mane while she considered this. “I don't see a mechanism,” she said.
“Mechanism?”
“Blueberry isn't wasn't just drawn to you the moment you found the repository. The daemons are always there, you're just more vulnerable to them. I don't see how my presence would drawn them to you.”
Sweetie Belle speculated for everyone's benefit: “My mind could be sending out a … signal or something. Through my horn. The aelewyrms feel magic waves, right?”
Scootaloo and Tom looked at each other. “Uh, maybe?” said Tom.
Saffron shook her head. “Trust me, it wouldn't work.”
Sweetie Belle stared at her, then looked to the others. “No,” she told to them. “It's not that.” Turning back to Saffron, she said, “So what is it?”
“I don't know …”
“Magic waves!” said Sweetie Belle. She stared at Saffron. “Or waves in the thaumic field. Whatever.”
“Yes?”
“Who do we know is a source of magic waves?”
“Oh. Oh!” Saffron looked from her to Scootaloo and back again. “The welkin rings! I've been such an idiot.”
“What?” said Scootaloo, seeing Sweetie Belle looking at her.
“Your wings! It's how we tracked you.”
“That's it. Continuous signal, even when the wings aren't operating,”Saffron said. “Weak for a lure, but it's the only such source in all of Amaranth, so when the aelewyrm is wandering about with nowhere to go, it latches on.”
Sweetie Belle, grinning at all of them, did a little pronk. “And I'm not finished,” she said. She gestured at Scootaloo to turn around. After a moment's hesitation, Scootaloo obliged. Sweetie Belle peered into the folded left wing and a moment later unhooked something from a vane feather near the tip and held it aloft in her aura: A small pendant. “Saffron, could you check?”
“Hold it close to your horn … Yes, that's the source.”
“Voila!,” said Sweetie Belle, holding the pendant aloft. “This is our aelewyrm lure.”
“Well,” said Tom, leaning back and looking at Scootaloo, “I'm glad we were all present to help figure out that mystery.”
Scootaloo nodded at him, then turned back to Sweetie Belle. “So, it sounds easy enough. We get a gunship, fly that thing far away, and drop it in the middle of nowhere.”
“Yeah. Then we can have our battle in peace,” said Sweetie Belle.
“Wouldn't work. The lure is too weak. It only exerts a minimal influence. If the aelewyrm is already aiming at something – and it's seen us by now – it won't be distracted by the lure.” Saffron paused. “Though I might be able to make the signal stronger.”
Sweetie Belle related this to the others.
“Sweet!” said Scootaloo. “Gunship pilot needed. I'm up!”
Tom raised his hand. “Uh, Saffron? How strong can you make this lure? At maximum.”
“Very strong. For a few minutes, at least.”
“I mean … could we use it to focus the aelewyrm on a single object?” asked Tom.
Sweetie Belle stared at him. “A single ship?”
“That's what I was thinking.”
With a slowly expanding grin, Sweetie Belle turned to Saffron. “So, Miss Can't-Do-This-Gambit-Again, what do you think?” She swung the pendant round in her aura. “Shall we go for a hat trick?”
Saffron made a decent attempt at giving a disapproving look before a hint of a smile crept onto her face.
“So, uh, if we do this,” said Tom softly. “How do we get the lure onto the ship?”
Sweetie Belle looked to Scootaloo, then realised.
“Yeah,” said Scootaloo. “Awesome wings would come in handy right now.” Her tone was light, but Sweetie Belle heard a hint of disappointment under it. For a moment, her mind went back to a conversation months ago in a pub garden: Scootaloo flicking her wings, disappointed by their weakness.
“Griffon,” suggested Tom. “Volunteer from Lucille's ship.”
“Could they get close enough without getting shot down?” Scootaloo asked him. She stopped to consider this. “There's the approach, yeah? Either they go on an airship, which will definitely get shot down. Or they fly in alone, which is gonna be a stamina problem.”
“Could go in on an gunship,” said Tom. “More stamina than a lone griffon, more agile than an airship. If necessary, they could bail and fly back alone.”
“Yeah …” said Scootaloo. She didn't sound convinced. “It might work.”
Sweetie Belle thought about offering to fly in with the hatchlings, but she didn't want to put them in danger – and the lure or the sight of the big aelewyrm might affect them.
Something occurred to her. After a pause to scratch Benz's mandibles, she trottred over to Scootaloo. “Turn around.”
“Again?” said Scootaloo.
“Yeah,” said Sweetie Belle. “I just can't get enough.”
Turning, Scootaloo laughed. “There. Like the view?”
Sweetie Belle reached out with her aura to the joint where Scootaloo's wings met her spine., then pushed through, into the machinery beneath. The machinery so advanced it bordered on biology, structured, resting but ready to leap into motion. Underneath, the connection between wings and flesh slept. She ignored that and looked around it. Structures like tendons or cables. She settled on one and lightly tugged it.
The right unfurled with a whisper. At its full length it knocked over a spare turbine that lay resting against the a desk.
“The wings themselves,” she recited, “are fully operational.”
“Close it, would you?” Scootaloo asked. As soon as Sweetie Belle had done so, she bounded across the main cabin to the steps to the cockpit. “Millie!” she called. “We've got a plan, and you're gonna love it!”
Twenty minutes later, Sweetie Belle watched the approaching aelewyrm from the window of Lucille's office. It was much closer now – she could make out the structure of its wings, its eyes, the scar on its side. The desert below skated past; air whipped at the Dulcet's hull; the engines murmured. A little way ahead, the rest of the fleet – nine battleships and four other ships who had joined the assault – split into three groups. One headed right, one left, and one held steady.
Lucille's claws clinked against her typewriter. A griffon design, littered with so many keys they had to split into four rows. The messages rolled out the top impressively fast. When she'd finished, she pulled out the sheet of paper and sent it through the ansible on her desk.
Sweetie Belle looked round the office again. The map she'd made earlier that day had already been affixed to the wall.
A reply came through the ansible. Lucille read it, then looked up at Sweetie Belle. “We're ready,” she said. “I'll wait above the cloud layer. Millie will be ready to pick you up on the ground if she can get close enough. Now let's get going.” She ushered Sweetie Belle to the door and, at the last moment, paused, and looked back at the second ansible – the one with its other terminal in Ilmarinen. At the last moment before she went through the door, Sweetie Belle saw Gritstone's messages stacked neatly beside it.
Lucille took her out of the office and into the bridge, where Scootaloo was waiting for them.
“Take us through the cloud layer,” ordered Lucille.
“Yes, ma'am.”
Lucille turned to Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. “If either of you die, I will be very disappointed. Now get going.”
A crew member escorted them off the bridge. Outside, the yellow-ochre vapour ceiling came down to meet them.
The Ilmarinen navy had been remarkably open-minded about her plan. Or, rather, pragmatic. It went quite well with their own. By starting the assault on the enemy ship, they would draw its attention and fire from her, giving her a better chance. And if she failed, they'd fall back on the original plan to just overwhelm the enemy.
Mind you, if she failed, they would still have a pissed-off aelewyrm in their midst, right on top of Ilmarinen.
Their destination was a small room with a door that led directly into the open air. Here, the escort handed them each a gas mask and separate goggles. The mask, made for beaks rather than muzzles, squashed her nose. She pulled it up.
“Lure,” said Saffron.
The lure was taped to the end of a narrow steel bar about a metre and half long, sitting ready in the corner. Sweetie Belle held it up to her horn. By now, the sensation was familiar: Saffron giving her the spell directly. She applied it with a pale green ribbon momentarily joiing her horn and the lure. It seemed to hum for a moment, in a way that she felt through her aura rather than heard, then went silent again. A dull ache billowed through her chest, leaving tiredness in its wake. Some of her own energy had gone into turning up the lure.
“There. He'll definitely feel that,” said Saffron. “I'd guess the lure will last fifteen to twenty minutes at that strength before it burns out.”
”Right,” said Sweetie Belle. She gave the pipe to Scootaloo.
“Ready?” said Scootaloo.
“No,” said Sweetie Belle. She glanced out the window. Twenty minutes to prepare – to learn as much as she could about operating Scootaloo's wings, to study the photographs of Blueberry's airships and have Saffron comment on the best place to hide the lure. It wasn't enough. And during that time all her enthusiasm had drained away. “But let's go anyway.”
She mounted Scootaloo awkwardly, all the undertones of such an act pressing on her mind, while the griffon, all business, helped apply the set of straps that hold them together and stop her from falling off. Finally, he tucked the bar under a strap along Scootaloo's flank.
“Done,” he said.
Scootaloo took a few steps back from the door. Her coat, shifting muscles underneath, pressed against Sweetie Belle's belly. “Remember what we said. Open the wings the moment we get outside, but not before. And add thrust slowly,” she said.
She's as uncomfortable about this as I am, realised Sweetie Belle. Of course: The plan always sounds more awesome before you have to do it. “Got it,” she said. I won't let you down.
The griffon opened the door for them.
Outside seemed like a different world: The clouds like a ragged mass of foam formed a surreal desert floor twenty or thirty metres below. Above them, just the bright, empty sky, with the sun trailing in front of the Scar.
And then Scootaloo was moving. A leap into a canter became a gallop halfway across the room. Sweetie Belle settled her aura into the opening mechanism of the wings, held herself back. A fraction of a second dragged out – then with a faint whoosh they were outside, falling. Her stomach lurched –
and she opened the wings. Gravity came back. She pushed the wings into thrust, gently as she could – they trailed a faint iridescent glow. As she increased the thrust, the glow became stronger.
“That's it!” said Scootaloo. “Stop there!” She finished her sentence with a shriek of joy. “Yeah! It works!”
Sweetie Belle realised she was smiling. “We did it!” she said. She glanced back at the Dulcet, still huge in perspective, but rapidly receding. Lucille would now take it back below the cloud layer and pull away on a different course to take it out the path of the aelewyrm.
She checked the Scar to orient herself and made a slight course correction.
This was the easiest part. Fly straight for ten minutes. Ilmarinen would be visible ahead – the spire of the highest sphere would poke through the cloud tops. But it would be easy to miss. Her mind ran through the possibilities: Missing the target, going too far, letting the Ilmarinen navy get destroyed and being left without support in the path of the aelewyrm. Or coming out in the wrong spot, too far from the ship. Getting shot down. Failing to get the aelewyrm to follow.
No, she told herself. You would've have got this far if you weren't capable of doing this.
Or maybe this is the point your luck runs out.
A single daemon hiding in Scootaloo's wings whispered at her.
The minutes passed. Up here, everything seemed serene. Another world, where all the strife and grime of Amaranth was left behind. Just her and Scootaloo and the sky. She watched Scootaloo's mane dancing in the wind, the hair on her coat quivering, her ears pinned.
A deep bass rumble came from behind. She looked over her shoulder. There it was. The aelewyrm. Already close. Its middle wings dipping into the clouds and churned them with each beat. Its mandibles glimmered wetly in the sunlight.
Part one of the plan done, then.
“There it is,” said Scootaloo. The tip of the spire, a little antenna poking out of the clouds.
Time for a sighting check. Sweetie Belle eased back the thrust and pulled the tiny gas mask over her muzzle. “Ready?”
“Yeah,” came Scootaloo's muffled voice.
She angled the wings gently. They began to drop.
“Bit more than that,” said Scootaloo.
Sweetie Belle angled more. A moment later the clouds swooped up to meet them. For a moment the world became very small, an opaque and faintly flowing yellow wall surrounding everything. A flash of panic – she'd overshot! She steadied the angle as they came out of the clouds.
There it was – Ilmarinen from above. One of the sphere had been torn open. Elsewhere, it trailed thin lines of smoke from vents. The gorge lay like a scar in the desert. The wreckage of battleships, torn apart and burnt out, lay scattered across the ground.
And there, to the left, was the qilin ship. An ornate, alien, impossible thing. The three fleets approached it from different directions; gunships launched and swarmred around them. Faintly, she culd hear the patter of distant gunfire. The qilin ship swung around the face the nearest of the fleet. A moment later, a sound like a thunderclap – and the nose of the leading battleship crumpled like a paper toy under the blow of a hoof. Bits of shrapnel came away and tumbled through the air.
She took a moment to memorise the position of the qilin ship, then angled the wings again and took them back above the cloud layer. Another turn, decreased thrust. Not long now.
The aelewyrm roared loud enough the hurt her ears. She could hear the steady, deep beat of its wings behind her. Below, gunfire pattered, and another thunderclap came in response. Some of the cloud vapour had infiltrated her mask; it dug astringent claws into her tongue and nostrils.
“This is the spot!” called Scootaloo.
“Oh, Celestia,” murmured Sweetie Belle. She reached through into the wings , cut the thrust, and together they dived through the cloud layer.
Her inside lurched again. The opaque vapour gave way a moment later, and the qilin ship appeared before her. It had moved since – it was still a good hundred, two hundred metres away. To her right, the massive spheres of Ilmarinen blocked the view.
“Up, pull up!” called Scootaloo. “We'll miss it!”
Sweetie Belle did so. The qilin ship fired again, but she didn't see what it hit. When she checked, she saw she'd overcompensated, and dropped again. There – 45 degrees down – heading straight for it. Its hull, a map of swirling curves and baroque decorations, came up towards her. It swung about again.
Towards her and Scootaloo.
Its weapon – not the muzzle of a gun, but a faint bristling sort of undulation the seemed to swim across the surface of the hull – moved up to meet her.
“Turn!” said Scootaloo.
There were too many controls, too many variables, not enough time. Sweetie Belle dived. Suddenly the desert lay directly in front of them. Air whistled past. The thunderclap came, louder than an aelewyrm roar, loud enough to leave her ears ringing; a gentle but powerful pressure pushed against her rear.
The ground seemed to lurch, turn, swing about.
They were spinning she realised. Spinning nose first towards the ground.
“Scootloo!” she shrieked. “I can't – I don't know how!”
Scootaloo's voice was tense but steady, loud enough to hear without becoming a shout: “Left wing, angle up, thrust. Right wing angle down!”
Closing her eyes, Sweetie Bele ran through this instructions over and and over in her head, blocking everything but her aura on the controls of the wings.
Scootaloo's voice again: “Drop thrust. Straighten the wings!”
As she did so, Swetie Belle realised first that her throat hurt, and second that she was still screaming. She opened her eyes again – saw the weapon slinking across the nose of the qilin ship. They were level with it now, less than a hundred metres away. The dive would have only taken a few seconds; the weapon was still recharging.
Her scream became a laugh. She angled the wings and with a kick of thrust sent them up again, out of the weapon's reach.
The weapon fired again – the thunder followed by the faint squeal of metal.
She levelled out – and there it was. Amongst all the surface decorations, an opening. A sort of vent, leading downwards, less than half a metre across.
“Steady!” cried Scootaloo. She grabbed the bar holding the lure, clutched it in her pastern while she aimed, and threw it.
For a fraction of a second, Sweetie Belle thought it was going to miss, but the bar thumped into the hull just above the vent, then tumbled inside, out of sight.
As soon as she was sure it was in, Sweetie Belle turned, checked the weapon, and kicked up the thrust.
Ahead of them now, the assault fleet: One ship in flames, two bearing great warped scars on their nose or flank, another torn almost in half. They were all watching her, she realised; they began to retreat.
Another thunderclap finished off an injured ship. Sweetie Belle glanced at the sky. Come on, where are you? She checked the weapon to keep out of its way. It fired again, crushing the aft section of one of the independent ships.
Then came the aelewyrm's roar.
It plunged down through the poisonous cloud cover towards the airship, trailing yellow vapour behind its thagomizer. Ivory mandibles, lacquered with slime and saliva stretched open and closed with an immense crack.
The aelewyrm had come out almost directly above the qilin ship. It dived and, at the last moment, swung to the side and levelled its decent just below the ship. The ship pulled back as if startled. Its weapon moved across its hull. The aelewym pulled away, towards the assault fleet – and for a horrible moment Sweetie Belle, watching over her shoulder, thought the lure had burned out. But then it turned and headed back to the ship.
As it passed, the aelewyrm bit down on the flank of the ship. Its mandibles clanged against the hull and bounced off. The ship fired; the aelewyrm twitched. One of its middle wings tore from its body and tumbled to the ground like a sycamore seed, trailing some light brown fluid. Its tail flew up into the ship's belly – its thagomizer penetrated – and scored giant scars into the hull as it pulled away.
The aelewyrm swung about again – an uneven and jerky motion with only five wings – and hurled itself into the ship. This was no flyby. It folded its wings and curled its body around the ship. Roaring, it beat at the ship with its tail, bit it again and again. Some attacks bounched off, some dug into the hull.
The ship lurched, turned back and forth. It fired again, where the aelewyrm's body was pressed against its hull. The aelewyrm's skin split open – and so did the ship's. The aelewyrm roared, bleeding thick oils and tars, shifted, and bit into the ship's wound. Its mandibles came back cluching a crumpled mass of interior bulkheads.
Something inside the ship sparked, igniting the oil covering it. A sea of blue-violet flames exploded out to coat both combatants.
The qilin ship, began to list. Its starboard side dipped, then its nose. It descended slowly. The aelewyrm continued to tear at it, pulling out more of its innards. Together they gathered spped, until both combatants, bound together, dived at the ground.
At their scales, it still seemed slow and oddly beautiful, thought Sweetie Belle.
They hit the lip of the gorge together, burst open together, impossible flesh and impossible machinery spilling out, mixing, all coated in flame. The sound, a deep, grinding groan, swamped everything and yet seemed oddly soft.
Where they'd landed, a chip of rock a hundred or more metres across split away from the lip of the gorge. The aelewyrm and ship, now indistinguishable, fell out of sight. A distant sounding boom came from within the gorge, trailed by its echoes, gradually fading into nothing.
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Awww I wish they didn't have to kill the aelewyrm
And that is a big weapon taken off of the Duo''s enemy list
One down, one to go. Too bad daddyworm had to go down with it. Now we get to see how Sweetie deals with Blueberry.
helped apple the set
Should be apply. Other than that, great chapter!
8339320
Fixed! Thanks.
Either of you
"We did it!" ?
Checked
Sorry for the litany of corrections; I'm posting them as I find them because I'm on my phone. It's easier to do a bulk comment on my desktop.
aelewyrm
mandibles
Need a period at the end of that sentence.