The captain stood at the fore of his longboat and looked
down at the city, spread below him like a map. They'd been in the air for six
days, not long, but long enough for the ground beneath the airship to turn from
the fields of home to this smoke-choked wasteland they called a city. Perhaps
it was the black clouds that filled the air with suffocating vapour, but no one
seemed to know they were coming. The city had yet to send their own airships
after the longboat, to battle the raiders back with every power available to
them.
Perhaps they just didn't look up often enough.
The captain turned back too his crew, assembled on the deck
before him, their war trophies clinking like so many bones. They looked like
animals about to bolt, eyes darting down over the sides to the city.
“The men think it's an ambush.” His first mate muttered in
his ear, unnecessarially. “They think we have a traitor on board.”
The captain grimaced. Of course the men did. He groped
reflexively for his Elektrik pistol, feeling its comfortable weight at his
side. If there were a traitor on board...
******
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