Shadow War: Book 3 of the Shadows Rising Trilogy (WIP Rough Draft)

47. Airship

20th of Arrestre, Continued

Karronido's metal monster put me down when we reached the lift to the Command Tower.

For several minutes, it was just me and the giant hulk of moving steel, flying upward through the mountain.

Strangely, I wasn't afraid. I was more... furious. That wasn't quite it, even. There was a snarl of fury laced up with raw, ragged horror over what was probably happening to NaVarre and Kenoa, all packed under a heavy layer of unshakable numbness.

The metal man wasn't going to kill me. If he was, he would have done it when he found me, which meant the General wanted me alive. I discovered I didn't care.

My legs shook from all the recent running, but I made myself walk out of the lift on my own when the metal man opened the gate, revealing the vast expanse of concrete that was the airship hangar.

The metal man gave me a prod in the side, aiming me in the direction of the huge hangar doors, and then we walked for almost as long as we had been in the lift, crossing the hangar.

I had yet to see any actual fighting, but finally there were signs that something big was going on. The hallways in the Medical Sector had been deceptively empty because everyone had been sent to other places – many of them to the Tower, it seemed. Everywhere, there were guards, officers, and staff rushing about, shouting orders and carrying gear, getting ready to crew the airships. The whole fleet was there, floating like giant, airborne sea creatures over the broad landing platform outside, their shadows casting the hangar in a false twilight.

As we made our way across the platform, I had to dodge teams of yellow-clad mechanics transporting racks of strange melon-sized metal spheres across the pavement.

I craned around as I trudged by, watching them hustle the spheres into the loading bay of an airship docked at the platform. There were hundreds, no, more like thousands of spheres already hanging inside the bay, strung up in row after row, swaying gently with the ship and gleaming in the ambient sunlight reflecting off the roof of the Command Tower.

They were almost pretty, like clusters of pearls, but a trickle of dread crept down my spine. A battle was going on somewhere out there, and judging from the resistance the Coventry was mounting, it was turning out to be a big one. The realization that the Coventry was in a scramble almost made me grin, but those spheres wouldn't be full of ribbons and welcome banners. I was looking at a flying arsenal. My breath stalled and my stomach lurched. Who could survive that much firepower?

Again, the metal man gave me a shove, sending me stumbling toward the right-hand end of the landing platform. One of the airships was moored there, the upper command deck level with the platform, a gangway stretching between an open hatchway on the ship and a boarding gate on the deck.

Up the gangway we went. I balked for a second in the hatchway, only to receive a hard push from behind, and then I was in a rounded metal entry room with two hallways on either side leading off lengthwise along the inside of the hull. A third hallway went straight forward into another section of the command deck, but the next shove sent me to the right, heading aft. I tripped over the hatchway flange in the hallway entrance, but there was no stopping. The metal man prodded me forward again, toward whatever — or rather whoever —waited for me down that hallway.

I heard the General before I saw him, a voice that featured in most of my nightmares calling from the room at the end of the hallway, "Ah. Macca. You found it. Good. Bring it in here."

The metal man delivered a few last nudges as I dug my heels in again. It was like fighting with a moving wall. My feet slid along as he barreled me forward into that control room and across the floor to a chair in the far corner.