Jack considered what he could do to the new Duke Hent. He didn’t want to kill the

guy, but he didn’t want him getting in the way while he was doing things. Maybe a

trip to the Elves would fix his attitude.

He smiled as he considered what that would entail. If the Elves fixed the guards Josie

had sent over, they should be able to fix some minor noble. He could see that

backfiring once he was on the other side of the wall.

Jack stood on the lawn of the manor house. He didn’t see anybody around. He hoped

the women had escaped from things after he had went to town. He should have made

sure they got where they needed to go before he had broke free and headed for town.

He couldn’t take back his decision now. He probably should have killed the guests

while they were coming out, instead of ripping them up by the bushel. He had not

considered anything about what would happen after he was done.

He should have.

He supposed that was why he had been a great infantryman, and not a good

commander. He needed to think more about long term strategy instead of short term

gains made by killing his enemies in the face before they could come after him.

He needed to talk to Elaine and see what she thought. She was a better planner than

he would ever be. He could see that in the way she did things.

He decided that he needed to search the house to make sure he was alone at the

moment. He checked his watch. His counter climbed to full. He needed to know that

he wasn’t frying people by mistake.

He wanted to fry them on purpose.

He walked through the house. The servants had left, taking things with them as they

went. He could see spaces where things had been, but were gone. All the bodies had

been gathered up and moved out for burial away from the house. The guards might

have just left them for the local animals, but he doubted that.

He walked back outside with some paper and a charcoal he had scrounged up. He

turned into Mister Fantastic and drew a blueprint of what he was making. He leaned

into something that looked like Buck Rodgers from the thirties and Futurama. He

smiled when he was done. He grabbed some rocks and pinned the paper down to the

ground in front of where he wanted to start his building.

He turned back and called Josie as he waited for watch to fill back up. He smiled. He

hoped she liked the build when he was done. What he was doing was crazy and an

extension of doing things with the watches to make his life easier to live.

Jack hoped that things would work out easier than the arm. He doubted that it would

be no matter how much easier than he made it look.

He hoped Guin would be able to get him the rest of the material he needed if he

couldn’t build the ship out of the mansion.

If he could build the thing out the mansion, then he wouldn’t have to worry about

that.

Jack settled on the lawn. He closed his eyes. He had his idea in mind. He had a

blueprint based on what the girls had given him and his own experience. He was

ready to start when the girls got there.

The fact that he was erasing Hent’s mansion was just frosting on the cake.

He smiled when he saw the Ducklings drop out of the sky. Elaine wrapped her cloak

around her when she landed. She smiled as she herded the girls to one side. Josie

appeared as a body of wind. She let the persona go to be her human self.

She placed her hands in her pockets as she walked up to join her adopted sisters.

“Hey, girls,” said Jack. He waved them forward to join him. “I’m going to be

working. Do you want to see the thing from the inside, or the outside?”

“Can we have both?,” said Laura. “We’ve never seen you do anything major in

person.”

“I guess I can have a recording made while I’m doing it,” said Jack. He rubbed his

face. “That way we can watch it later after everything is done.”

“It will be like the couple who build things and post videos of it,” said Josie.

“Exactly,” said Jack. “I can do that while I am working. I can build things around us

while we sit here. When things start, don’t try to walk around. Things will be flying.

You could be hurt.”

“We got it,” said Josie. She bumped into Elaine.

“Would you like to see a play after we have dinner with the Harps tomorrow?,”

Elaine asked.

“Just you and me?,” asked Jack. “Like a date?”

“Like you are courting,” said Angelica. She bounced on her toes. “Like you are

getting married.”

“Are we getting married?,” said Jack.

“Yes,” said Alicia. “Also Josie promised us magic stuff to use. She said you were

better at that kind of stuff than she is.”

“Did she, Number Two?,” said Jack. “That is so ego boosting.”

“Also the tax people were back at the apartments trying to break in when we left,”

said Josie. “I told them you were out here, but I don’t think they believed me.”

“What I am about to do does sound outlandish, doesn’t it?,” said Jack. He put on his

grin. “Let’s see how far we can go.”

He sat down and waved for the others to sit down around him. He looked around,

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making sure the drawings were in reach. He nodded. He flexed his hands.

“Let’s start with phase one,” said Jack. “I am going to have to do this in steps as the

charge runs out. I might need some water, and some food before I am done.”

“I’ll cover that,” said Josie. She sat to one side, among the shorter of the ladies

present. “Let’s see what you got.”

Jack looked around one more time. Then he pressed the button on his watch and

called for Magik to get to work.

White rings opened in the air in front of the house. They began sucking the house into

their grip. White rings formed around the girls. Material began to extrude out of the

rings.

A deck formed, lifting them up. A ring of inscribed metal formed around them.

Wiring leaped from the ring to form connections up and down the proposed volume

of the new airship. Mechanisms formed behind the group, putting themselves together

into giant machines. More rods formed to create fans below them and behind.

“Most of engineering is done,” reported Jack. “As soon as we move, I’ll try to light

the mana battery to power the engines and test them. Outer walls are coming online,

landing gear is down to help support the keel.”

He stood up. He gestured for the others to follow his lead. The rings adjusted to let

them move out of the way.

“All right,” said Jack. “We’re going to carefully go forward. Watch for anything

moving in the air as things work themselves out.”

The group walked around flying pieces of walls and wiring soldering itself into place

to a ladder rising upwards. He climbed up and made sure nothing flew at them as the

girls followed. He nodded as half of the house had been taken apart and reconstituted

under his spellwork.

“The Duke is not going to like that,” said Beatrice.

“Having met the man,” said Jack. “I can honestly say I was about to set him on fire

just based on his personality alone.”

Four wings unfurled at the stern of the ship like a giant X. Engines rolled into

existence at the base of the wings. Small roars drifted to the group as more of the

house was converted into material for the aircraft.

Seats rolled out of the walls next to windows fitting into frames. Jack nodded at the

count. He had enough for the girls, and for the adventuring party. A galley cut itself

off from the rest of the deck with a closing door in a partition wall.

Controls formed the front of the section. A small display formed between the pilot’s

and co-pilot’s seat. Lights for switches came on one by one.

“It looks like things are slowing down,” said Jack. “Go ahead and get seated so we

can test this baby out.”

The girls found seats. Harnesses dropped down over them so they wouldn’t fall out

of the seats when things got rough.

“Take the co-pilot’s seat, Jo,” said Jack. He took the pilot’s seat. “Everybody strapped

down?”

Josie dropped into the seat on his right. She pulled the harness down and let it clamp

down on its own.

“Things are still adding on,” said Jack. “It might be adding on to the mana batteries

for flying. As soon as I get an all clear from the machine, we’ll try to fly and make

sure it will carry passengers and cargo.”

“What if it doesn’t?,” asked Elaine.

“Then we lift off, and go nose down into the ground,” said Jack. “All right. The

house is gone. I have taken everything from the mansion. I wonder what the new

Duke is going to do about getting a new house.”

“Probably tax someone until he can take their house,” said Angelica.

“He’s already sent more collectors to our place,” said Josie. “I gave them a warning,

but they might be breaking in despite the fact I toughened the door and shutters.”

Jack frowned. He hated to think he would have to do something drastic, but it looked

like he was going to have to draw a line in the sand. Maybe the next guy would

understand that he shouldn’t be taxing the crap out of the people in the city.

There was no telling what they were doing to the local farmers that fed everybody.

He should have made an example of the old Duke, so the new Duke would understand

who he was dealing with right out the gate.

“All right,” said Jack. “All the lights are green. I’m lighting the engines. Look out

the windows and make sure that nothing falls off as we lift off.”

The collective what made him grin.

“All right, Josie,” said Jack. “This works like one of those pilot simulators. Throttle

up to cruise speed, pull the latch to move the stream from the belly fans to the rear

engines, climb to five hundred feet and let the machine do the rest.”

“Navigation?,” said Josie.

“Before you lift off, you put in your destination in the console here,” said Jack. He

reached down and put in a random spot on the map. “The console will start off with

just a line, then get more detailed the closer you are to the target.”

He reached down and put in a random spot for the console to point at from where they

were. He nodded when the flat map appeared. He turned to follow the line north.

“I don’t know where this will take us, but it’s a good test run for the quinjet,” said

Jack.

“Quinjet?,” said Josie. “Why quinjet?”

“Why not?,” said Jack. He smiled as he spun the aircraft through the air in a circle.

He laughed at the cries from the back. “You get to name the next one.”

“How long can it fly?,” said Josie.

“I don’t know,” said Jack. “The batteries were at minimum power. Red light there.

We’re going to have to bring it in. Ready?”

“All right,” said Josie. “What do we do?”

“Everybody, look for some place soft for us to put down so the batteries can

recharge,” said Jack.

“Will the quinjet float?,” asked Melanie.

“I think so,” said Jack. “Why?”

“There is a lake below us,” said Melanie. “I think we can drop down on top of it if

you’re careful.”

“All right,” said Jack. “Instruments are marking the Ell Zee. I’m bringing us down.

Throwing the latch for the belly jets. We can hover to a landing.”

“All right,” said Josie. “I am keeping an eye on things. What do I look for as we go

down?”

“The altitude marker is center of console over the navigation,” said Jack. “We’re

about two hundred feet above the water.”

“All right,” said Josie. “How long will it take for the batteries to recharge?”

“I have no idea,” said Jack. He smiled at her expression. “It depends on what is

flowing through here.”

“That is not good,” said Josie. “Will the jet float long enough for the batteries to

recharge?”

“Sure,” said Jack. “If it doesn’t, the airship is waterproof. We can sink to the bottom

and fire things up when we’re ready to go.”

“To the bottom?,” asked Beatrice.

“Sure,” said Jack. “We can watch the local fish while we’re waiting.”

“Why would we want to do that?,” asked Melanie.

“So we can see animals in their home grounds,” said Jack.

“Who wants to see that?,” asked Melanie. “We could drown.”

“We won’t drown,” said Jack. He turned down the jet power. The airship crashed into

the lake. “And if there was such a threat, I would get us out of here before anything

happens to us.”

“We’re safe in here,” said Josie. She watched as he turned the engines off. “If we

weren’t, I wouldn’t stay here.”

“Now all we have to do is wait for the engines to fill up and give us a green light,

and we can fly home,” said Jack. “Until then we can look out the windows and listen

for the call of the whipperwill.”

“The whipperwill?,” asked Alicia.

“It’s a bird,” said Jack. “A night bird like the owl.”

“We’re above where Accordly happens to be,” said Josie. She looked down at the

center console. The map was down without power from the engines.

“I guess so,” said Jack. He had an eye on the gauge while keeping an eye out for fish

people wanting to board and get at him and Josie for what they had done to their god.

He didn’t like being stuck in the middle of the lake with the kids. He didn’t mind

fighting the fish people off, but he didn’t want to risk the kids over this.

“We could fish from here,” said Josie. “If we had rods and lines.”

“It probably looks pretty in the daytime,” said Jack. “You kids want to come up here

fishing one day when we’re not saving the world.”

“Yes,” said Laura. “I would love that.”

The rest were noncommittal at best.