Jupiter stared down through the gaping gash in the missile bay and saw the roofs of the town now loomed close below. The orange light from the fires made the buildings seem they were aflame too. Smoke and heat billowed throughout the space and Jupiter coughed.

‘Get them back,’ Jupiter yelled. ‘Push the mantas away from the hole. We can’t stay here, when we hit the buildings everything will be smashed to bits.’

Tamm and Jupiter struggled to shove the second exhausted manta. It could not lift itself so the weight of its body flattened onto the deck. The air hummed with its sense of the mantas’ despair. A death song at the end of their life.

Jupiter backed away into the corridor.

There’s got to be a way we can…

‘Look what you have brought on us.’ The harsh guttural voice of a blackbirder came to him from nearby.

Jupiter whirled.

In the corridor the blackbirder captain, his lieutenant and the remains of his crew moved towards him. Zaj stood at the captain’s side, her eyes fixed on the blackbirder.

Jupiter’s heart sank and his guts ached with sorrow.

I’ve failed Zaj, and failed the mantas.

‘You have destroyed my flight engine,’ The blackbirder shouted. ‘Stolen my mantas. And. You turned my engineer.’

One of blackbirder’s shoved Qunaaphi to the ground. She bled from a wound to her shoulder. The captain advanced on Jupiter and drew his blade from his scabbard.

‘The deck of my skyship burns. Even here the air chokes. All aboard will be killed when we fall from the sky. But you shall die first. And you shall suffer before you die.’

Jupiter shrank back. He had no weapon, had never wanted one. Tamm stood beside him. The fallen manta to the other.

The captain held his blade before him aimed at Jupiter.

‘You will not leap away from me this time. No one will.’

Maggie coughed as smoke roiled around The Jupiter. Pariqamtu held her breath when the thickest palls of choking cloud hit them, but she could not. Maggie’s eyes watered and her vision blurred. The heat that boiled off the blackbirder ship seared her as much as the roiling fumes. She took her felted jacket off, stuffed it in the cockpit next to Breeze.

We Sail… We Fly… We Save…

‘We can’t Breeze. It’s all but impossible.’ Maggie took a breath.

You Spin… You Spin… I Go…

Maggie gave the kheel a turn as Breeze scrambled to the bow and tugged at Pariqamtu.

‘You evil imp… I should…’

‘Pari-pari. He’s trying to help. Get the mast up. Jupiter is on that skyship. It’s going to crash.’

The Jupiter drifted away from the smoke, no longer tethered to the Kitaraham. She took in a deep breath of air then. It still smelled of woodsmoke, but now overlaid with the stink of the harbor.

‘Maggie. How is it you flay free with you strange craft?’ Gan shouted from the rail of his ship as The Jupiter floated in the clearer air.

Gan’s aura flashed in the firelight but Maggie could not read anything in it. The rebel skyship Kitaraham drifted, but the weight of the burning blackbirders vessel held her close.

‘I did not wish for The Jupiter to burn,’ Maggie cried out. ‘We have to save Jupiter. He’s in the burning skyship.’

‘You saw him?’ Gan said then turned to study the burning wreck below.

But Maggie could not say.

The fleeting sense of him could have been imagination, so too the almost presence of the mantas. She had felt the urge to save something. And now, the sense of it remained within her, gave certainty Jupiter lived. Somehow he had joined the mantas deep inside the blackbirder’s skyship.

‘We fly free of that wreck now. We have won.’ Gan looked down through the smoke. ‘What why? How is it we fly so near to the blackbirders?’ Gan shouted. ‘There is one last rope.’

He stepped away, then returned, a long blade in hand. He swung over the railing and climbed across the hull towards the tow rope Pariqamtu had rigged.

‘You save the town despite your cowardice,’ called Pariqamtu.

‘Thravin — cousin. Is this your doing?’

‘Stay your hand. I make you a hero. The burning ship should land at sea, not upon the people of Qhayuvakham. They are innocent in this.’

Gan had reached the tow rope, his blade held poised over the line. He stared at Pariqamtu, then at the black skyship. The wind tore the smoke from them now as it swirled over the docks. Screams and the calls of manisaurs and beasts echoed from below as they dragged across the docks and warehouses.

‘You make me not,’ Gan shouted. He climbed up the hull toward his skyship’s deck until he could call to his crew. ‘Drop us lower,’ he commanded. ‘We shall finish them yet.’

The outrigger had passed over the water now. The moored fishing fleet glowed bright in the fires. The cries of their crews came to her shrill with the terror of the flames and debris that rained from the bright flaring skyship just meters above their vessels.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

‘Now. Fly high,’ Gan shouted. He slashed down on the tow rope. The Kitaraham bounced higher. ‘Fly true.’

The Jupiter bucked in the wash of heat from the burning hulk as it fell towards the water. A huge concussion of light, and heat. Flames burst high towards The Jupiter as the blackbirder’s skyship hit the water and the end of the docks. A boom of thunder, came hard upon the eruption of smoke and steam as streaking bolts of flaming debris shot towards them.

Maggie cried out. Something died within her. Breeze wailed. She saw he and Pariqamtu had raised The Jupiter's mast. But there would be no rescue now.

Whatever sense she had felt of Jupiter and the mantas snuffed out as if a candle had been doused. The fires below stuttered out now, replaced with clouds of steam, and the acid stink of ash from a dead fire.

Maggie’s heart wailed, even as the screaming call of a wounded beast roared from the docks below.

Jupiter’s world fell, and a blast of air tore through the missile bay. All tumbled in confusion about him.

Jupiter landed on his knees, then was thrown forward as a boom thudded into his chest. Pain filled his ears and the room spun again as all went dizzy.

Water surged around him. He had no breath as the embrace of the sea tore his limbs in every direction.

His vision went black and he knew nothing.

A heart beat.

He surged through water and air, struck a bulkhead, then fell again. The missile bay had flooded with water. Then he heard a call.

The mantas.

The glow-globes under the water now lit it golden and he saw the shapes of the sea creatures shift within the light.

‘Tamm! Tamm!’ Panic gripped him then. ‘Where are you?’

His words sounded far away. Diminished. He did not recognize where he swam. The shifting light shone upon a changed missile bay. The poised mass of ammunition of boulders and shafts had fallen from their racks in the sudden upending.

Jupiter thrashed in the water and his foot struck the broken edge of the hole torn in the hull, He dragged and beached himself upon the deck and got his bearings.

The blackbirders had been dashed by the storm of water far along the corridor. The cries of some animal sounded through the ringing in his ears.

‘Tamm!’ Jupiter found the manisaur upon the deck, thrown against the bulkhead. He had found his friend like this once before. He had saved him then, and unwittingly bound the officer with an imprint. The replay of emotions rolled over him and he bent to save Tamm again.

But Tamm groaned, his aura flickered.

Jupiter helped him to a sitting position. The manisaur legs lay unnaturally bent but, as always, they unfolded. Together he and Jupiter stood.

‘The water. It’s getting deeper. We’re sinking,’ Jupiter said.

‘And as I predicted. I will die as I drown.’

‘No. There is air. We can get out.’

In the corridor the blackbirders had recovered. ‘But not that way,’ Jupiter said.

The mantas surfaced in the missile bay.

‘They could flee, but they do not,’ Tamm said.

‘No. They save us. Come on.’ Jupiter slipped into the water and stroked towards the nearest manta. ‘Tamm. Come on.’

‘I cannot. I cannot swim.’

‘This is not swimming. It’s like riding a surfboard.’ Jupiter swam back to the edge. ‘Come.’ He held out his hand.

The manisaur and human locked gazes. But Tamm would not yield.

‘You called me Dhakara. I call you now.’ Jupiter said. ‘Into the water with you, and let’s get out of here.’

Behind Tamm the blackbirder captain now stood close.

‘You cannot change a quevantaq. You cannot make them Qvazira.’ The blackbirder held a blade, smaller now.

‘I don’t want to change him,' said Jupiter. 'I just want to teach him to trust, to take a chance.’

‘An Imperial sejrat’sha? Trust? You may order them, but they will not do against their nature.’

‘I’m no turned-blade,’ Tamm jumped into the water next to Jupiter. He floundered and bounced like a cork. But Jupiter shoved him onto the back of the stronger manta. He wrapped one arm around Tamm, the other hand he gripped the fin on the manta’s back.

Jupiter looked up and behind him to see the blackbirder captain had grabbed Zaj. He dragged her away down the corridor. The other crew followed as they turned to a screaming animal cry that echoed through the missile bay.

Jupiter did not think they would outrace the flow of water that flowed after them as the fallen skyship sank.

As water surged around him, the missile bay became dark when the last glow-globe died. But with Tamm’s grip on his body, the manta took them away, free and clear from the fallen carcass of the blackbirder's skyship Neqharazathesa.

Tamm struggled within Jupiter’s arms and then fell still. Jupiter’s lungs felt ready to burst and yet he held on to the manta’s fin. It dug into his hand like a knife. A blunt one that did not cut but he felt his grip slipping.

The black water pulled at Jupiter as the mantas muscles bunched and slid under him. Then they reached the surface and he took in a huge gulp of air. Then he held it in the fear the manta would dive again.

But they lolled on the surface. Jupiter turned Tamm over and checked if he still breathed.

Not again Tamm. You keep doing this.

‘Got to stop drowning you I guess.’

Jupiter rolled Tamm to the side and doubled him over to push any water out from the air passages. Then he brought him onto his back. Tamm convulsed and spat up water. Then fell to coughing.

Jupiter slammed him on the back.

‘Do. You. Have. To. Do. That?’ Tamm choked out.

‘It’s meant to help.’

‘Humans. Maybe.’

Jupiter stopped when Tamm sat up. ‘That’s another time you owe your life to me.’

‘I have only one life to give. And you have it,’ Tam said. ‘Conditional on you not hitting me so hard, ever again.’

‘Nice to have you back again Tamm.’

‘Always Dhakara. Always.’

The wreck of the skyship had settled in the harbor partly on the dock. Manisaurs and animals crowded close by to view the spectacle.

Above hung the smothering shadow of another skyship.

‘Who the heck is that?’ Jupiter said. ‘Gan?’

He slapped his arms across his chest to get some warmth into them. The cool night and the chill of the harbor worked its way into his bones. He began to shiver, the manta’s fur-feathers shook and radiated warmth.

Jupiter lay down upon the manta’s back thankful for their heat. He stared into the sky

‘Hard to see in the dark,’ he said. ‘It looks pretty beaten up.’

The manta gave a shake as it trying to dislodge them. It swam on the surface towards its mate, then slipped down. Jupiter and Tamm floated off.

Tamm floundered.

‘Relax. You float better than me even.’

‘We quevantaqi are not swimmers.’

‘Yeah, drowners more like.’

The manta came up under its mate and pushed it away.

Jupiter pushed a struggling Tamm towards the dock, but the flailing of the manisaur meant they made no progress.

‘The Jupiter,’ said Tamm. ‘Look.’

‘Oh you act like you’re drowning…’ Jupiter held Tamm’s back tight to his chest and kicked towards land. ‘But you have time to talk.’

‘It’s no act, I can not lie,’ said Tamm. ‘But that’s The Jupiter.’

Sure enough when he followed Tamm’s wavering arm he saw the outrigger, without a sail, floating on the wind. The blur of blue from the kheel shone upon the faces of its crew.

‘Maggieee, Pareeee-Paaareeee,’ Jupiter yelled.

‘You shout in my ear,’ Tamm said.

‘You deserve it. Shout for me instead then.’

And Tamm let out a piercing ululating call that echoed from the docks and buildings. It even caused a stir from the crowd near the downed skyship.

‘Ouch.’ Jupiter said. ‘Consider us even now.’

As Tamm readied to call again, and answering cry came from The Jupiter.

‘Pariqamtu,’ said Tamm. ‘She is with Maggie. They come.’

‘Fantastic. I don’t think I could keep this up much longer.’

‘What do you mean? My body is so light it supports you while you just flounder.’

‘It’s your backchat I can’t stand. I liked you better when you were imprinted.’

If Tamm had an answer to that Jupiter never heard. A shadow rose behind Gan’s skyship then blazed into light as a thousand flaming arrows shot through the night.

‘A skyfort,’ shouted Tamm. ‘The Air Lord attacks.’