Chapter 8: Striking out.

If she had known better, Naimee would have remained inside the ship when the alarm sounded. But she didn't, so onto the deck she went, trying to find out what was happening. The air was calm... nothing threatening was in sight. Spying Halire keeping watch atop the crow's nest, she began climbing the ladder on the mast to join him.

As she neared the top, a sudden lurching almost pulled her off the ladder, but a hand reached out and steadied her before she slipped off. The next moment, Naimee was lightly sprinkled with saltwater much to her surprise, having no idea what was going on. Supporting herself using the railing, she climbed into the crow's nest.

Halire was busy stringing his crossbow, too busy to even acknowledge her. Naimee looked around trying to locate the source of all this commotion... the Raven turned hard to starboard, and a watersprout bursting into the air where the ship was mere moments ago certainly attracted her attention.

"Submarinal hostile?" she asked.

"Airborne," was the curt reply.

Naimee turned her gaze into the skies, and in the distance she made out a silhouette that could only be man-made. As she watched, there was a flash of light and a sphere of energy hurtled down towards her. Timbers groaned as the Raven's rudder forced her to port to avoid it, and this time Naimee was aware of the ship's captain's muted shouts and orders far below.

"Why are they attacking us?" she whispered as another energy bolt was launched at the Raven.

"I don't know." Halire finished his preparations and raised his new Rower crossbow, freshly upgraded successfully seven consecutive times. He loaded a steel bolt and wound the springs tight, taking a trial aim at the enemy airship above.

"You have a weapon, Naimee?"

"No."

"Then you'll be my spotter." He handed her a telescope. "I can't search and shoot at the same time," he grinned.

They were both thrown against the railing of the crow's nest as the Raven angled up. Her sails were unfurled to capture every possible bit of speed as the waterline dropped until the hull cleared the water entirely. The four engines strained to lift her into the air, but it would be a while before she would reach GMS Sleepywood's altitude.

"Halire!" Claw shouted from the base of the mast. His figure on the deck, far below them, seemed like that of a dwarf. For a moment the world swirled around Naimee before she regained her composure, as he ordered "take out that cannon before it kills us!"

"Time to get to work." Halire said to no one in particular.

Naimee put the telescope to her eye and studied the ship above. "I've never seen, heard of or read about this class before. No mast, two turrets forward and back, I see... gunners operating from within turret, no protection!"

He aimed up and overloaded the arrow to make it fly as fast and straight as possible. He could make out two tiny knoblike structures on the hostile with his naked eye. "Centre of turret; which one?"

Yet another flash of light emmited, a tell-tale sign of another incoming giant energy bolt, and this time through her telescope Naimee noted that the forward turret was the one firing. "Forward turret, dead centre!"

Halire made a small adjustment to his angle and released his own bolt, locked on to the closer little knob shape he saw.

Hitachi's hand was sweaty on his wand, but still he kept on aiming and firing bolts of energy at his target. He reminded himself that his job was relatively easy and interesting; the mages below charging up his cannon for every shot had it much worse. Still, missing every shot was becoming frustrating - whoever was helming his prey was skilled at it.

He considered requesting an ammunition switch to something faster, like magic claw, which was weaker but made up for it by firing from his cannonwand at a much faster rate and closing the distance to impact much more quickly. Or perhaps closing in on the enemy ship might help too: there would be less time for evasion that way and besides the boarding party was useless in ranged combat.

He opened his mouth to make his request but no sound came out. A cutting pain materialized in his chest, and looking down he saw an arrow embedded in his body that certainly was not there before. It had pierced his lung, the mage died, a bloody bubble frothing from his mouth.

Meanwhile, the captain of GMS Sleepywood had himself noticed the inefficiency of his current tactic, and began to order a change of attack. He turned, and saw his gunner, now dead.

"Medic!" It was almost guaranteed to be useless, but sailors believe in luck more than anything else. At the same time, fortune favours the prepared and so he ordered the backup gunner to take his place. A few deckhands quickly removed the corpose and cleaned the compartment of the blood stains in preparation.

"Adjust course, ten degrees starboard!" Throwing off the sniper's aim was important to the survival of the next, and also last, gunner. But the bearing change brought the rear turret out from behind Sleepywood's superstructure, leaving an open path for it to bear down upon the Raven. Its own gunner was itching to join the fray. "Rear turret, fire at will!"

The backup gunner hurried forward to replace Hitachi, crossing a certain area of deck - unluckily for him, the very spot where the spillage and lack of cleanup thereof had occured. The ship's motion caused him to slip, and he careened towards the side of the ship. Sleepywood was thousands of feet above the ground, and all that lay between him and a long fall was the ship's railing. Thankfully, it was sturdy and did not break.

Fate has ways of laying even the best precautions to ruin, however. As the rear turret released its first shot, the recoil caused the entire ship to dip slightly - and the unlucky gunner rolled over the side of the ship to a long fall and sudden death.

The captain muttered an obscenity under his breath and looked around for another replacement, knowing full well that there was none. Unless...

"Major Tess, we have only one gunner alive on board, and he is manning the rear turret. This leaves our front turret inoperational, effectively halving our firepower. The good news is, the cannon is designed to be able to be operated by any mage once the key is inserted..."

"Yes, I understand already! You want me to take the gun. I can do that. What key?" Tess said.

"The former gunner Hitachi's wand is the key. It is still inside. Use it to operate the turret," the captain explained.

Tess hurried to the turret and climbed into the gunner's seat. The captain followed to give her instructions.

"Just hold the wand and will the turret to move and fire. It will work." The captain finished his explanation and then gave orders down below: "Load with ice!"

Hitachi's wand was between Tess's legs, sticking up like a joystick. She gripped it and pulled it to the right, but neither turret nor stick moved. Will the turret... Tess concentrated hard on the bulky metal frame and giant protruding wand that constituted the cannon, but it did not budge.

Stupid thing... why don't you just move to right? Tess screamed out in frustration in her mind. The captain made it sound so easy-

"Woah!" She could not help but utter out loud as she found herself staring into a new patch of sky. Glancing around at her surrounds, she noticed that the turret was now pointing starboard. Maybe she could do this after all... she turned the turret around again, this time pointing towards the Raven. Tess noticed a strange humming sound, and that Hitachi's wand vibrated as though it contained some strange pent-up power - her own staff, placed out of the way, was beginning to resonate too.

"Fire, Major!" The captain shouted, worried that the overload may cause a catastrophic explosion on board his ship.

Tess did what worked last time, she thought about the release, wished it to happen, and as before the cannon reacted - spewing a magical chunk of ice trailed by rainbows into the summer air.