Seeker

Shinobu had made several more incisions to Traveler’s wiring, which the ship had absorbed without complaint. He had expected to be inside helping Quin already, and he was now cutting more aggressively as he searched for the electrical lines that would shut off the internal power while still leaving the vessel aloft.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

A thick twist of insulated electrical cables ran around the engine casing. He’d been avoiding it for fear of damaging the engine, but now, tilting the torch nozzle sideways to minimize its impact, he aimed it at the cables.

“Please don’t hurt the engine, please don’t hurt the engine …” he said aloud, the wind carrying away his words.

The torch made a long, deep gash, easily severing the electrical lines and instantly breaching the engine. For one moment he glimpsed the blue flame of the torch sinking deeply into the ship’s whirling propulsion apparatus; then furnace-like air was gushing out around him, creating clouds of boiling steam in the rain.

“Dammit!” Shinobu yelled, ducking sideways to avoid the scorching blast. His goggles saved his eyes, but he could feel fiery streaks of pain across his cheeks where the steam had burned him.

The engine was making an awful noise, and now the ship bucked violently and Shinobu was thrown free of his tiny perch. He fell, then was yanked to a stop, dangling from his rope and piton as the immense bulk of Traveler appeared to tilt toward him. His vision was suddenly filled with the streets of London moving dizzyingly far below.

New pain shot up his leg, and he realized the torch nozzle was bouncing around by his ankle, burning through his samurai leggings, through his clothing, through the layer of armored heat-resistant underclothes, and right through his skin. He screamed and kicked at the nozzle, then tried to grab it, but he and the torch were swinging wildly through the air.

The ship caught itself, the other engines screaming as they worked to keep it stable. He kicked frantically at the flaming torch again and again, and finally it went out.

He hung at the end of his rope for a moment in relief, then scrambled to get hold of the ship. His ancestor’s armor, though half burned from the fireworks earlier, was still so tight that he couldn’t extend his arms fully. He dug his fingers into the charred sections of silk braiding, ripped the armor off, and tossed it toward the streets below, mentally apologizing to his mother.

Grabbing desperately for handholds, he managed to pull himself back up onto the hull. But before the relief of being on firm footing could sink in, another engine blew out with a deafening boom, and the ship swung nose-first toward the ground.

Shinobu was thrown up over the aft engines and found himself flying above the upper hull of the ship, far past the original hatch he had cut through, in the direction of its nose. His rope caught him, violently, and he slammed into the glass covering the bow. A moment later, the engines fired and arrested the ship’s fall, as he struggled to fill his lungs with air after the impact.

His face was pressed up against the glass when he started to breathe again. It was dark inside, but something was moving. Rainbow-colored sparks were dancing around in the darkness. Suddenly the sparks were directly in front of him, whirling along the other side of the glass, inches from his face. Someone inside was firing a disruptor. And very likely, it was being fired at Quin.

The glass was slick from the rain, and Shinobu’s feet skated around as he maneuvered the plasma torch in front of him. His ankle and cheeks were burning, his ribs were aching, but he hardly noticed these things as he sparked the nozzle back to life.