Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter fifty eight, Off The Map: No losing our sight.

-Nearing the future that will be, Palicoast, Inn, Jacky-

The bloody balcony spike having been removed from my back via pliers and bandaged up with Savannah’s help, I made my way to the door. Everyone on my crew was virtually a certified doctor at this point, in pirate legalese they all definitively qualified as doctors.

Do not rely on anyone in my crew to actually have a medical license though, because that would be silly.

Entering the inn, followed by a grimacing Savannah holding the spike aloft in the pliers, I quickly sat down at a breakfast table and made an order. I would then proceed to hold completely still as if expecting any sudden movement to cause my chair to break out from under me. It’s happened before, it’s like the thing where trees come flying at me out of nowhere at random.

I should really be more paranoid than I was. Probably hearing my thoughts, a wonderful wing full of feathers spread out and wrapped around me from my left affectionately.

“Okay, that was quite painful, not that my luck was ever going to be helpful with what we have to do later on anyway.” I was older, my feathers grown out and my luck was still at negative three on my Ogres and Oubliettes character. Weird thing too, my bad luck actually translated into my made up character in full.

If my character was a real living being in some alternate reality, I would probably want them to suffer far less than what I currently am. Skelly was a prominent figure in the Squizzards army in the game, like she was still an actual general for Minos as nobody had bothered to actually remove her from that position.

I haven’t seen Skelly, Flamberge, Fortitude or Sweetcakes since Huoshan, but it was nice to have friends who were famous. More famous than I was anyway. I didn’t truly care much for fame, but a little recognition wouldn’t hurt now… would it? Knowing my luck, my bestest friend ever, it probably would.

I’m happy to have friends and family that cared about me, even if I wasn’t exactly the best pirate in the world.

Gambling was not something I would ever do without a good reason, given that lady luck has wanted me dead on numerous occasions for some odd reason. In fact, I was about to gamble all the lives of everyone riding out on the Ardent Survivor an hour from now on a fool’s errand that is entirely likely to end with us dead.

Business as usual, I have the cursed artifact collection to prove it.

I’m sure actuaries would love to explain to us in great detail why we should have been long since dead already, you know, given our exceedingly deadly choices in treasure hunting targets. Let’s just say I hated traps and will leave it at that.

I still haven’t gotten my sister and captain back. I felt like a complete failure a lot of the time, mostly for not knowing how to help her after so long. Her fire was still burning away in the Saddle Arabian desert, so that meant we could do something to help Jade and hadn’t the foggiest of what. We sorely needed a clue, otherwise I was stuck with piracy and random treasure hunts to keep the boredom at bay.

My curse does not count as a boredom alleviator.

We came to Palicoast after hearing on the grape vine, basically Eir and Gallant Bluster, some guy simply called the Storm King was going to attack Abyssinia. I would apologize for causing a mess, but they were quite used to it whenever I visited.

That Eir had that specific boulder as a pet horrified me on a number of levels given it definitely remembered me, but Eir apparently had Ragna under control. At least some form of control.

It was concerning that she mentioned something in passing about Ragna not being welcome in Yakhalla and some guy named Loki being a large butt the last time we were in Turtle Toga.

Life was about to quickly become quite disheartening around here. That was why we came to Palicoast, because if I couldn’t help Jade personally then I can at least try to help her homeland. I really should have gone to visit mom over the years, but I didn’t want to go back home without Jade.

Also my wanderlust was quite fairly horrible.

Sure, Abyssinians were generally good for fist fights, but what happens when it came to matching them up against opponents twice their size, weight and generally strength? Yeah, the Storm King’s army of Storm Creatures was definitely going to wreck Panthera, we weren’t stopping that entirely. It was only a matter of when and how much time it took for them to get there.

I was going to personally stall that entire invasion fleet of airships for as long as possible, crew or no crew. Sad thing is, every intelligent member of my crew wanted to do this and I wasn’t even ordering them to. We were going to at least give Pal Calico Coast some time to bunker down before their coastal city was burned down.

The other pirate’s weren’t going to help us stop them, mostly because it was risky fighting an army of large hairy beings with ridiculously protective anti-magic armor and decent weapons for very little 'incentivizing' personal profit in it. They probably hadn’t thought about how broken up the shipping lanes would quickly become without the Abyssinian merchants being able to travel the world to peddle their goods.

This affected them as well, whether they liked it or not. If they weren’t going to help stop the Storm King, then whatever resulted from the raiding king being left unchecked was going to come back to haunt them.

I felt a beak peck my cheek and the edges of my beak curved upwards. I loved my husband and didn’t want him to actually come with me on this, but we were in this together and he wasn’t about to let me out of his sight. My left talons eventually found his right claws and grasped them tightly. I got a reassuring squeeze back.

As we waited for breakfast, I decided to discuss our strategies for the upcoming fight. First topic was going to be a sad one.

“So… Savannah… you can’t come with us.” She looked affronted by the idea that we’d be leaving her behind and she immediately opened her mouth to shout at me, her fur color today was burgundy with white stripes. Amulet of Savannah had some useful features that saved Savannah a lot on magical fur dye. I personally liked the rainbow polka dots on yellow fur she kept for a solid week, but that was unimportant compared to what I was about to say. “You know why you can’t come with us Savvy, why I want you to stay behind. I think I’m being both reasonable and logical here.”

Savannah's ears wilted and she looked away to start rubbing at her left arm, after a few seconds and turned back to me with a huff. I could see the hurt in her eyes.

“Can’t we just…” Tightening a gaze on Savannah, I watched as she gulped and looked to her lap.

“You know why you can’t come with us Savannah, you have a far more important job to do here.” Telling her this and seeing her expression drop hurt me just as much as it did her.

“I… aye captain…” The defeated tone and look in her eyes was a stab to the heart.

“You’re the only one we can trust with this Savannah.” I wanted to reach over and hold her. I know it hurt her feelings, considering we were still bringing Nefer along.

Nefer hasn’t grown that much bigger, but we unfortunately couldn’t afford to leave him behind and even Flotsam had a grim look on her face. We weren’t exactly planning to come back from this, it was an all or nothing thing.

Sighing, I calmly took up the glass of wine the waitress put down and sipped it.

“My job is simple, I’m going after the head of the main problem… the Storm King himself.” I felt Gene clutching my talons in a painful manner, I glanced at him and he frowned. He actually frowned. His blank face rarely showed how he felt, I could read him without seeing the frown. “I will be leading a solo assault and will draw their attention away from the ship while I hunt down the capital ship.”

“So you’re going to use ‘that’, did you at least work out all the kinks this time Captain?” Flotsam spoke up from next to Nefer who was silent as the grave and didn’t look the slightest bit happy. One of my favorite crew members was already depressed, ouch.

Flotsam was growing into being a fairly beautiful sea pony, one that couldn’t find a boyfriend. That was mostly because of the whole sea pony biology thing ruining her efforts. Every port we visited she’d find someone nice, then would lose them just as quickly when she was upfront about her biology. The one that didn’t immediately book it for the hills would become close to being a keeper for her.

Hadn’t found a single male that was willing to stick around, not ones that I would be willing to take on and I would agree with Nefer on whatever he thought on top of my own opinions. If I didn’t like them and if Nefer didn’t like them, then Flotsam probably wouldn’t like them for that much longer either.

“Yes… mostly… it’ll work!” My tone was certainly not as reassuring as it could have sounded and my crew was staring at me with flat looks. The kind of problems you get with everyone knowing you so well. “Seriously, it will!”

Even Gene was giving me a look, his wing rubbed my shoulder slightly in a comforting and clearly condescending manner.

I glared at him.

Gene sighed, but he didn’t remove his wing. He’d support my plan come Tartarus or high water, but he didn’t have to like it.

“Anyway… next we’ll have Nefer on Belfry silently planting bombs on the balloons of various ships, the Ardent Survivor is to remain silent until those all go off.” I didn’t trust Belfry to fly the ship or set the bombs we had himself. “The army will, hopefully enough, be too distracted by my… entrance… to notice Belfry’s profile as he flies through the air.”

Belfry was a fairly intelligent giant butterfly, but he was still a dog brained one that liked to waggle his abdomen as he rubbed up against me and make affectionate sounds.

“You hesitated Jacky.” Stated Gene forlornly.

I winced, but gave him a pleading look to not pressure me. He relented slightly by glancing away as the waitress started to put down our food, but it is mostly because we both knew that he didn’t have any better ideas.

“Yes… because things could go wrong at any time, it’s kind of my thing… as wrecking airships is." Which I would soon be doing a lot of, I was a pro at dismantling them at this point just by being within a mile of one

Give me a stick of dynamite and I can sink an airship with a single toss… without the stick being lit prior to my throwing it. I’m just that good at it and sometimes wished I wasn’t.

“I won’t let you down Captain Blackcap!” Nefer was proud to be a part of the crew and he saluted me with a weak cheerful disposition, even he could see the writing on the wall.

“Once you have the bombs planted Nefer, you are to retreat back to the Ardent Survivor and to help your sister with loading the cannons and Belfry will take care of boarders. Note that I did not say that you could fire the cannons Nefer.” I turned from Nefer to Flotsam, there were a few stories about why Nefer should never be a gunner and what tales those were. “Once he gets back, you will have free reign to shoot wherever you want with the cannons Flotsam, at that point they’ll have likely noticed the Ardent Survivor or even Nefer. I even give you permission to shoot me if you feel it to be necessary.”

I didn’t say shoot ‘at’ me, I mean literally hit me with a cannonball if she thought it would help with the situation. Flotsam gulped and nodded, she took that order seriously.

“Jacky…” Gene muttered.

“Gene, you’ll be at the helm, stay high up and don’t get too close to their ships unless you have to. News says they use shock troopers with gliders and I will be drawing most of those to myself.” That would be my problem and they would all be chasing me, his wing shifted slightly in a sign of despair. “I’ll need you to circle around the fleet once the chaos is sown to pick me up at the capital ship, I’m giving myself a time limit for how long I can fight the guy before we cut and run. We all know the plan so let’s dig in.”

This place had the best damned strawberry waffles I’d find anywhere, too bad this might be the last time I’d get to taste them and the blueberry pancakes in the double up breakfast special. This establishment might not be here tomorrow.

So I ate myself hearty large meal and told the nearby Abyssinians that the food was excellent and that I’m sorry if their inn gets burned down in the coming storm.

“We are a community that survives together or dies together… thank you for what you are doing.” The male Abyssinian that runs this place put a comforting paw on my shoulder.

“No thanks necessary, this is where my sister was born.” We all got up and set out for the ship. “Please rebuild this place if it gets destroyed, you really know how to run an inn.”

The one thing that didn’t need to be said was what Savannah would be doing during all of this, she was going to help with the efforts to stockpile supplies and she would do her job.

-One hour later, over the ocean, Ardent Survivor, Gene-

We were taking the ship as high as it could go, the modifications Jacky made to it made it one of the harder airships to catch while in retreat.

I looked over my shoulder at the coastal town barely visible on the horizon, looking forward I saw at least a hundred airships.

I watched as my wife walked circles on the deck and she was complaining and checking things multiple times.

We were not ready for this, not in the slightest.

“Gene… I’m going now!” Jacky walked onto the plank and faced the horizon, I silently watched. “Nefer, Belfry, you two wait until the ship is closer before you disembark.”

She took in a deep breath. After exhaling loudly, Jacky pulled her goggles down and leapt backwards into the open air. I watched as her beautiful long black feathers fanned outwards.

She fell twenty or so feet and my heart leapt into my throat, I resisted every urge in my body to catch my wife before she fell into the ocean.

Soon a loud explosive whine sounded out and a stream of fire shot towards our enemies.

Author's Note:

Guess what Jacky used the Dragon Burst Gem for once she got it back from Teatime?

Also I've been a bit ill lately, right before feast week too... I better be capable of ingesting turkeys whole when the time comes. My family might worry if I don't have that capability.

Comments

[Shadowshame]

Huh a jetpack that's an interesting idea sad to see Jacky's ending coming up soon the pirates were my favorite substory in this beautiful mess of a fan fiction it's still hard to believe that I read all the chapters you made originally before getting to the waiting for updates

[Booster Spice]

Jackie flies off to set up the distraction for the attack?

Its like Rooks Drift.

[Herald of Opera]

Fiction 101: any plan explained to the reader/viewer in full will fail in full. Of course, we already knew she's not allowed to succeed, so it doesn't really matter that much...