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Pt. X
Then a sixth boat peels away from the deeper layers of fog. A wicked black thing, blowing grey smoke, engine screaming through the deep dark shadows. Fog falls from the triple balloon rigging as blobs of muscle move along the deck. The chant of a war song announces their intent even over the extensive distance.
Hoo-rah, hoo-rah, our blood runs hot,
Hoo-rah, hoo-rah, we'll claim our lot.
A black muscly blob with horns bellows its own warcry that sends ribbons of fog away from itself.
“It's the Rever, an orc-run skyship, otherwise known as death.” Dog sounds impressed. "Those fucks are the reason for never taking this shortcut,” he says waving an arm in the direction of the looming cave.
“What’s an orc?” Rick can’t help being curious because if gnomes are real, orcs could be also and thinking of things from all those fantasy books he read in Vietnam, he would rather not face them today or tomorrow.
“People from the Up that came down a long time ago. The whole group calls themselves the Roanoke. We call them orcs.”
“So they are human?”
“Not anymore.”
The air is thick with the stink of the coming deaths, the sulfury-melt-the-hair-in-your-nostrils funk of doom. Rick wants Betsy so bad he feels the metal handle in one hand and the snake of the ammo chain in the other. He would love to tuck his baby under his arm and Rock and Roll.
Dog comments on the situation, “They are floating just out of range of the cannons. See?”
Another aeronaut, this one a female… gnome? …mouse …cockroach hybrid, says, “Doctor Sally is likely getting her group of gnomes ready” their voice like chittering that Rick has trouble understanding.
In answer to that, another who looks more human but squat, short, and greying, “We could use an amp to give the cannons more range.”
Many of the aeronauts around mutter how this looks like the end of the Merry Merrey Alle regardless.
“Why?” Rick asks.
“That asshole is the Pirate King. We don’t do too well if he marks us for bounty. He controls thousands of ships. It’s a if we win, we lose; if we lose, we are dead type thing.” He says with a little whine.
“Really?”
“Nobody knows the future, but it ain’t looking good.” Dog is actually nervously panting now.
Rick doubts that answer. “The future is yours one moment at a time," he whispers looking through the fog at the six collected ships in an obvious offensive formation. The black holes of cannons point directly at them from the stern of each ship. This puts the situation in perspective for Rick; each has a clean shot when the time comes. “Looks like we are sitting ducks,” Rick claims as if he knows anything.
“Nah, they have to be too far still. Captain’s not that fucked in the head to let ‘em get too close this soon into a battle.”
Then a cloud of smoke from the ship farthest away. Followed a moment later by a loud crack, and a lead ball bounces off the main balloon and with a bang then dents the boards it falls upon.
The old dwarf at the wheel of the Merry Merrey Alle curses. “This boat has been in my family for a thousand years. You’ll pay for every scratch," he screams at the armada amassed in front of him. He promises his crew off comm, “If we survive, I’ll pay double your bonuses at the next dock.”
“Too far away? Are you sure about that?” Rick asks
Rick covers up as another ball is fired, this one short and bouncing off the starboard side near Rick's cannon assignment. As a lark and certain to be punished for wasting munitions, he picks up one of the balls stacked in front of him and gives it a little toss with his new arm. The ball sails through the air in an orange arc and strikes one of the opposing pirates in the chest. What happens to the poor fellow is not visible below the bulwark behind which he fell and none of the sounds of turmoil the injury causes reach those around him, but it must have been bad because the little shapes running around are slipping and falling and coming up covered in what has to be blood.
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“Holy shit,” Dog exclaims.
Before Rick can reply, the other boat responds.
“Give up the old man!” the voice amplified by a device that offers as much squelch and static as it does volume. “And we will forgive you for the murder you just committed.”
The captain and the first mate confer.
Rick picks up another ball and lets it sail. This one is a bit short but manages to clip the nearest galleon’s rudder removing most of it. There is a bit of confusion on all boats, including the Merry Merrey Alle. Those around Rick obviously are privy so eventually the news gets around.
After a bit, the first mate takes off at a sprint while the dwarf grabs the Merry Merrey Alle’s comm system, a simple bullhorn hanging from the wheel console, and answers back. “What’s your definition of old? We got a 200-year-old dog over here, if you want him then you can come try and get him.”
Then there is silence. It lasts a while. Enough time for Rick to wonder if maybe he missed something. There is a level of anticipation in the air, it crackles and pops. Any second he expects the opposing force to cross the T and begin firing barrage after barrage of cannonballs at them. No single ball is going to do shit. Especially if they want to make sure before they board. Rick has seen pirate movies since he was a kid, some of his favorite times at the movies were watching boarding parties hashing out the ownership of each other's boats.
“Okay, fine. Gives us the fat old man you stole. We took him from the Up. He is ours. Let us have him and we let you leave alive. We will give you a minute to discuss and then we blows you out of the sky.”
“Wouldn’t you be blowin’ your precious fat man out of the sky also?” the captain replies into the bullhorn.
“He’s better dead than not with us, forty-five seconds.”
One of the best things about the Merry Merrey Alle is it comes manned with a crap ton of gnomes. They come and go as they please, so there is no telling how many are on board at any given time, though how they get off nobody can or will say. Ten gnomes appear from below deck, then twenty and before Rick knows it, the deck is covered in fifty little people with large tufts of hair in many shades of lime and pink and sky-blue. They all wear goggles. Dark-glassed goggles. Maybe too dark. They trip and fall about as they move around. The miraculous thing is they never fall overboard. Maybe it's magic. Maybe there is a thing at play that keeps them on board. Maybe it's the same system that works their ancient engineering.
One male, with fuchsia hair and a mustache that dangles to his thickly padded knees, sets a tripod up on the ground, then he attaches a metal tube to it. Rick thinks mortar launcher, but he is utterly wrong.
Three rotor blades erupt from the tube and begin to spin faster and faster until the tripod is pulled skyward. Three gnomes grab the legs of the tripod as it takes off. All around the fifty gnomes are setting up their own choppers and before the 45-second mark is over each and every one of those fifty gnomes are airborne.
“Tinkers can’t leave anything alone. If they don’t understand it, they take it apart to figure it out. If they do understand it, they take it apart to make it do better. Most of their results are spectacular and as much a surprise to them as to us,” Dog says randomly looking at the flying gnomes in awe.
“Doctor Sally runs the gnomes.”
“Nobody runs the gnomes except insanity and a constant need to ‘improve’ things.”
Rick sees Mr. Green and Mr. Red engaged in a heated conversation on deck as they pick at a circuit board passed back and forth. Little sparks and whiffs of smoke result from their pokes.
“I am not sure what they hope to accomplish,” Rick begins but as a volley of cannon fire erupts from the ships ahead, he sees what the trick is. Between each gnome-flown chopper is a net that bounces the cannonballs back to whence they came.
Then the captain of the Merry Merrey Alle yells fire and Rick picks a target and tosses another cannonball with his new arm as the ship’s canon releases a volley of fire of their own. The balls zip through the air and some smash into the enemy ships. Rick’s ball strikes the main balloon of the lead ship. The balloon instantly pops, the hot air wheezing free. The ship slopes forward and three enemy pirates fall overboard with terrified screams. There is never a splat or any indication they ever land as they dent the fog and disappear.
Rick launches another ball, this one crashes through the bow. Splintered wood and screaming wounded aeronauts result. The battle is going in their favor. The gnomes are very good at not being hit by the cannonballs which fall harmless into the fog after bouncing off their nets.
“Huh, we just might win this one,” Dog exclaims between handing Rick cannonballs.
Rick agrees until he sees something strange on the Rever. The black blotch with horns seems to have been thrown into the air by a huge mechanical catapult. The contraption goes twang as if it used quite a lot of G’s to send the monster up.
“He’ll never make it,” Dog brags.
But Rick isn’t sure of that after already calculating the parabellum and knowing if the minotaur’s velocity remains constant, he’ll be on board in less than three seconds. However, two seconds later, as Newton could explain, he is slowed by air friction and begins to sink.
“See!” Dog exclaims. But he is shut up moments later when a burst of flame from an unseen rocket-pack lifts the monstrous creature back into a perfect arc heading directly toward Rick.
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