The bridge crew instinctively held onto the arms of their chairs, bracing themselves, and it was as well they did because the ship gave a sudden lurch as if it were a ball being kicked by a space giant. Saturn, who'd just made it back to his seat, was thrown out of it again to fly across the room and hit the scrying mirror, which miraculously didn't break but which gave the wizard a heavy blow that bruised his whole left side.
The others managed to remain seated and suffered no injuries, but across the rest of the ship, where the attack had come completely without warning, people were thrown against walls and furniture and objects were dashed from shelves and tables, smashing and strewing the ship with sharp, jagged wreckage. Thomas and Tassley, who were still in the wizards' laboratory, were thrown together, the man landing on top of the woman in a way she'd never expected. Thomas's soft landing saved him from injury, but Tassley's head hit a chair, tearing her scalp open with a jet of blood and knocking her out like a light.
Thomas, momentarily dazed, took a moment to realise what had happened to her, then tied a rag around her head in an attempt to stem the bleeding before running from the room, screaming for a cleric. As he did do, his feet crunched on papers and broken bottles containing powders and potions that were now mixing in ways they'd never been meant to and smoking ominously.
The ship's priests and clerics had troubles of their own, though. Daleen Verdantia had been eating in the galley when the impact occurred and gave a shriek as she was thrown out of her chair and against the next table, where three soldiers had been laughing over glasses of beer. They'd had the bad judgement to sit right next to the cutlery cabinet and they were thrown right into it, slashing themselves badly on broken glass and splintered wood.
Drenn Pietar, the priest of Samnos, fared even worse. He'd been sharpening his sword in the privacy of his own quarters, honing it to the razor sharpness he demanded from all his weapons, but his fastidiousness cost him dearly now as he was thrown against the wall he'd been facing, the sword under him. By some stroke of bad luck, the point found a weak point in his chain mail armour where, unnoticed to him, the blow of a troll's mace a couple of months before had broken a couple of the links. The sword slipped deep into his stomach and his head struck the wall hard enough to stun him. What was more, the door of his cabin was closed. There was no-one to see as his life's blood spread out in a growing pool around his body.
In the crew mess Matthew and the off duty soldiers were spilled rudely out of their beds but suffered no injuries other than a few minor bruises, while up in the shayen garden the water sploshed out of the pond, soaking Flinda Luell, Lirenna's room mate, who'd been lying on her stomach watching the antics of the fish and water boatmen. She jumped to her feet with a gasp of shock, looking about angrily to see who'd played the trick on her.
The worst injuries were suffered by the moon trogs, though. Their fragile skeletons were smashed like delicate glass sculptures as they were thrown against the walls and equipment, and three of them were killed outright. The rest of them were so badly injured that they could only float in the zero gravity, those still conscious moaning in pain and almost delirious with terror as they waited for help to come.
☆☆☆
Daleen Verdantia picked herself carefully up from the ground. She heard muffled curses and gasps of pain as the soldiers climbed carefully out of the wreckage of wood and glass that was all that remained of the cutlery cabinet and examined themselves for injuries. One of them, Tayl Makral, had a knife protruding from his arm. He pulled it out with the casual disregard of a veteran who'd received many such injuries, and the cleric took his arm in her hands and prayed over it, straining to channel enough of the Goddess's power into this universe to heal it.
It took everything she had, but the wound closed and she gasped in relief, chanting words of gratitude to Ramthara. "Are the rest of you all right?" she then asked, quickly looking them over.
Their other injuries were trivial, though. Nothing more than glass cuts that they pressed wads of cloth against, and the cleric decided they could wait. There might be others with more serious injuries who needed whatever healing power she might be able to channel. She ran from the room, therefore, out through the door and across the corridor to the lounge, and finding it to be empty she dashed across it and out through the opposite door, where she heard cries of distress coming from somewhere.
She followed them to the bridge, where Thomas was gabbling Tassley's injury to Timothy, who was trying to tell him to slow down so he could make out what he was saying.
"Tassley!" the wizard gasped, trying to pull the cleric to the door. "She's hurt, I don't know how badly! Quick!"
Timothy nodded and started to follow him out, but Saturn barked an order for them to stop. "The moon trogs will be most in need of your healing," he said. "Check on them first."
"But Tassley...!" cried Thomas. "She's unconscious and bleeding from a head wound! She could be seriously hurt..."
"Saturn's right," said Timothy, though. "You know how frail the moon trogs are. They've got to be in the worst shape. Daleen, you see to her. I'll see to the moon trogs..."
"No," said Saturn, though. "Both of you go to deck six. Gown, make Tassley comfortable and try to stop the bleeding. One of the clerics will see her later if they've got any strength left."
Daleen stared at the wizard, but Timothy was tugging at her sleeve. She nodded and the two clerics pushed past Thomas and out of the room.
☆☆☆
"Another attack on the way!" cried Prup Chull, who'd put his helmet on. "No, my mistake. Two more. Three!"
The other members of the bridge crew put their helmets on and saw what the moon trog had seen. Three more of the fast moving objects speeding towards them, less than a couple of minutes away from impact. "The spell stopped the last one," pointed out Strong, who'd spotted the wreckage of the first attacker flying away from them in all directions. An impact of such violence that it would have torn the ship apart if it had struck the bare hull.
"We can't take too many impacts like that, though," added Saturn. "The orbs are fragile, and if either the Orb of Propulsion or the Orb of Skydeath Protection breaks, we're dead."
Strong nodded. "Orbmaster, take us away from here, fast as you can. Take us back to the portal."
"We won't make it in time," said Saturn, who was on the floor again, preparing another spell. "And anyway, it’ll be two days before it opens again. I've got another idea. No time to explain..."
"Just do it," said Strong. "Do whatever you have to."
Saturn didn't hear him, he was too busy concentrating. He cast another spell on the orb, knowing even as he did it that the orb could only magnify one spell at a time. The second spell would cancel the Globe of Invulnerability, and if it failed to perform as he hoped it would, they were dead.
The orb darkened, then brightened again, but Clordus and Prup Chull both gasped in surprise at the subtle change that seemed to come over the room, and presumably the whole ship. The walls around then, and the floor under their feet, had assumed a strange, insubstantial quality, as if they had somehow become less solid, less real. The moon trog was particularly upset by this, as he knew what vacuum could do to living people, and those walls were all that were protecting them from it.
"What have you done?" he gasped, holding onto the arms of his chair in near terror.
There was no time to explain, though, as the first of the three new missiles arrived and its warhead detonated less than thirty feet from the outer hull. Everyone on the ship was momentarily blinded by a dazzling burst of white light, and they tensed up in alarm as they seemed to feel a blast of something passing through their very bodies. A moment later it was repeated twice in quick succession as the other two missiles arrived, but there was no impact and no-one suffered any further injuries.
"What did you do?" asked Strong, staring at the elderly wizard with relief and grudging admiration.
"I cast an Ethereality spell on the orb," replied Saturn, who was now looking smug and pleased, although he'd had no idea whether the orb was capable of amplifying that kind of spell. It had been a pure gamble, but he would never admit that. He made sure to give every outward appearance of having known exactly what he was doing and that he'd known it would work. "The whole ship became ethereal, able to pass through solid matter and have solid matter pass through it. We are now immune to that kind of attack, for as long as the spell lasts."
"And how long will the spell last?" asked the Captain.
"An hour, maybe two. No way to know for sure."
"Then let's get out of here while we can. Orbmaster, get us back to the portal."
There was a brief delay before the order was carried out, as if the shae in the room above had also been hurt in some way, but then the ship was turning and moving back the way it had come.
The door burst open a second time and Tayl Makral burst in, looking pale and scared. "Where's Timothy Birch?" he asked, searching the seats and her eyes settling with dismay on the empty one. "Drenn Pietar's hurt, badly. I've done what I can, but he needs a cleric of Caroli!"
"He'll be back when he can," said Strong. "You'll have to look after him as best you can." The navy man stared at him in horror, then nodded and disappeared, leaving the door open behind him.
"We need some kind of lock on that door," he muttered. "Or perhaps a couple of guards. We couldn't keep having people bursting in like that. Callan," he said, activating the ship's Farspeaking spells so that the first mate would hear him wherever he was aboard the ship. "Organise some of the men and get me a complete casualty report. Then give it to Birch on deck six so he can prioritise himself."
The Farspeaking link brought Callan's acknowledgement back to him, along with the report that the soldiers had suffered no serious injury.
"Well, that's something to be grateful for at least," said the Captain under his breath when the link had been broken.
"I must also see to my people," said Tana Antallan, rising to his feet. "They also may have suffered injury."
He made for the steps up to deck one, but had to step aside to make way for Lirenna, hurrying down. "What happened?" she demanded. "Is Tom okay?"
"Your husband is uninjured," said Saturn, "but Tassley's hurt. They're in the laboratory."
The demi shae muttered her thanks and dashed from the bridge.
"We need a lock on that door as well," said Strong. "I've never been happy with the bridge being the main way in and out of deck one. The shae folk should have the same respect for the bridge's sanctity as everyone else."
"Any more attacks?" asked Saturn, lowering the visor of his helmet to look for himself.
Space around them seemed to be clear, though, except for the spreading cloud of wreckage that was all that was left of the four missiles, and a moment later Prup Chull confirmed it. "They seem content to drive us away," the moon trog said. "They don't like visitors."
"And yet the felisians experienced no such hostility," said Strong, removing his helmet to stare suspiciously at Clordus.
The elderly felisian seemed honestly surprised, though. "I swear to you that everything we have told you is true," he said imploringly, his face twisted in anguish. "We were not attacked, and I have no explanation for this attack upon you. If I'd had any idea that there was danger here, I would have warned you of it, I swear!"
Strong examined him critically for a few moments longer, then nodded. "Okay, I believe you. We have a mystery, then. This world is evidently not as dead and abandoned as you came to believe. Who are they, and why did they perceive us as a threat and not you?"
"You came in your silver ships, did you not?" said Saturn, examining the felisian with his single eye.
"Yes, of course. They are the only means we have of travelling through space."
Saturn nodded. "Your silver ships, ships originally owned by the Masters. I wonder if the occupants of this world allowed you to approach because they recognised your ships?"
Clordus stared, then gasped in fear. "The Masters! You think this is the world of the Masters?"
"Possibly, or they may have had dealings with them. They may have been allies or trading partners. Or maybe it was the people of this world who originally built the silver ships. The Masters seem to have been scavengers, after all. They raid dead civilisations for whatever they consider to be useful. I suspect they found the ships and learned to use them, just as you did.”
"That makes sense," said Prup Chull. "The felisians said that this world has been abandoned for thousands of years, and yet the Masters left the felisian world less than a century ago. The timing makes sense if the Masters scavenged their ships from this universe."
"Those parts of the planet we visited were dead and abandoned," said Clawdus, "but it's a big planet. If a visitor from another world landed in the Endless Plains, from which the Shadow has only recently lifted, or one of your dead cities such as Old Mala, might he also conclude that your whole planet was dead?"
"He's right," agreed Strong. "It's a big planet, and the ring makes it even bigger. If even a small part of it is still inhabited, there could be an awful lot of people down there. Masters, or perhaps Shipbuilders. I intend to return to Tharia to replace our dead and have the ship checked for damage, and then we'll return, but slowly and carefully. I want suggestions for ways to announce our peaceful intent, or perhaps reach the planet without the Ringbuilders knowing we're there. I'll be holding a staff meeting at noon tomorrow, I'll expect to hear your ideas and suggestions then."