Things flew through the sky at our battered rocket. We hadn't reported in a week and apparently we'd missed the news about a full on battle with the Satellite Lords, who had one of our great Northwest cities under siege, tiring it out with rotating attacks.

“This is hot work!” Tando exclaimed, trying to maneuver the craft through smoke and cloud, all the while dodging rays firing from enemy ships. “What's got into them?”

I sat beside him in the cockpit, working the guns, trying with all my might to catch some of the camouflaged enemy ships that screamed past “Maybe we're just been out of the war for too long and we're getting rusty?”

“Speak for yourself, Cylas,” Tando said. “I can't help it if you took a vacation or two while we were captured.”

Swarms of sky-blue rockets dumped down from huge flying dreadnoughts, all taking their turns on raining punishment on us and the other defenders.

The whole sky was alive with them, ships like gnats obscuring the city below. Despite the mad frenzy of activity, the enemy all seemed to find plenty of time for us!

Tando maneuvered us through the fray like a madman, but the flack kept catching us and the metal hull buckled and rocked under the abuse.

By a stroke of luck we wove into a part of the sky where a nasty dark storm cloud obscured the whole landscape behind it, and in front of it the pretty blue rockets of the enemy became sitting ducks! I pelted rays through them just like a shooting gallery and I don't mind bragging that I hardly missed at it too.

“Does that look like the shooting of a guy who was on vacation?” I asked.

“Hardly,” Tando laughed. “It was the shooting of a guy who needs one!”

The enemy ships that remained were in retreat and we went in for a landing in the besieged city, along with the other defenders.

The city was a glittering jewel, crystalline towers arranged in circles with canals built between, surrounded by heavy layers of anti-aircraft guns and lookout towers with powerful telescopes. They called it Edgetown since it straddled some long forgotten border and it looked like we would be staying for a while since our own rocket was in no shape to take us all the way home to Rothrock.

The mechanics at the port started to flake off the scorched metal paneling and I felt a little sick.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Xato whined “Why can't we just catch a trip home in a fresh rocket? It's the least they could do for us after all we've been through!”

Tando shook his head “That's the ship we're assigned to and we are responsible for getting it to Rothrock in one piece. The men at the desk will tell us where we can stay in the meantime.”

Tsang whooped in excitement and ran along between us, jumping up and saying “Edgetown! I've always heard about it but I never saw it. You know there's a dam here that's like a million years old! What are we going to see first?”

I marveled at our green shipmate's boundless energy “I don't know how you can do anything but have a drink and pass out after that!”

“Say! Are you guys rocket men?” the question came from a lithe man carrying a lot of heavy luggage. He was white as a sheet of paper and his hair was cherry red, and he didn't have a thing on but a breechcloth and some moccasins. “That sure was some kind of excitement coming in!”

“We sure are,” Xato said, “rocket men, that is. Say, you don't mean to tell me that you flew in through that firestorm too? You're no fighter.”

He shook his head and grinned “Nah, I'm an entertainer. I'm the assistant to Grothol the Magnificent and my rocket came through all that too.”

Tando looked stunned “What maniac flew you in through that? Non-combatant rockets are supposed to stay out of the air during that kind of thing.”

Our new friend walked along with us now and just shrugged “You don't know Grothol. He spends a lot of money getting pilots who are crazy enough to fly in anything. When he has a performance scheduled he'll move mountains to make it happen on time.”

As we entered the hall with the offices and other rocketport facilities, we learned that our new friend's name was Klyp and that he hadn't been on Earth very long at all. In fact, he'd only recently been hired on with Grothol in Tuxpan and had only done about a dozen performances.

In line for the hotels desk, Klyp told us “I don't know how long I'll last as the 'lovely assistant' since Grothol had to appear without me once already. I was due in 18 hours ago, but you know what war can do to a schedule.”

“What do they have you doing on stage anyhow?” I asked. “Are you some kind of magician too?”

Klyp giggled “No, I guess I'm just sort of the added attraction. Say, why don't you boys come by and see the show? We're performing tonight at 8 in the Golden Bat, that's on top of the Riddance Tower. In fact, we'll be doing that all this week.”

I tugged on Tando's belt “Can we go?”

Tando tried to smile “Maybe tomorrow. If I go to a show I'll just pass out at it.”

The others were of the same opinion and I was pretty much done myself. I did promise Klyp that we'd come see the show sometime that week though.

We were fated to see more of Klyp, though, since we all chanced to be staying in the same cheap hotel, a place called Candlewood Arms near the rocketport. Klyp had a suite to himself, whereas we fighting men had to share a basic room.

This, they tell me, is the fortunes of war.