Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📕

Sure enough, a cluster of the giant creatures were mingling within viewing range. One Cloud Emperor sprayed a fine pinkish mist from its outtake valve, showering the other Cloud Emperors behind it. The jelly’s suitors sprayed it back, but from the front.

“Ahh.” I heaved a deep, contented sigh. “Ladies and gentleman, we have just witnessed nature’s biggest bukkake.”

“Is this how we die?” Karalti asked innocently. “Falling out of the sky in a big metal box, covered in jellyfish spooge?”

“What are we going to do if they attack?” Rin asked Ambrose, tearing her eyes away from the scene outside.

Ambrose shook his head. “They won’t. Cloud Emperors are too massive to care about us. If you’re stupid—like Gar—you can get tangled in their tentacles if you fly a thousand feet or lower between them and the ocean. But at this height, no.”

“I heard that, you walking talking RealDoll,” Gar snapped. “Once! It only happened once! And we made it on the second try!”

“Sure, boss.” Ambrose rolled his eyes—all of them—and turned back to his work.

The banter didn’t reassure me that much. We were cruising at about twelve thousand feet, and we were surrounded on all sides. The Cloud Emperors scudding above us had their tentacles drawn up, coiled like springs. The ones lower down dangled them into the water. I zoomed in to watch as one of them caught something: a giant bony fish, which it reeled out of the waves and stuffed into a nest of digestive tentacles that reminded me uncomfortably of the Rotmother from Lahati’s Tomb.

“Captain, there’s a thunderhead coming up, twelve o’clock.” One of the navigators called out. “Monsoon rains sub twelve thousand feet. Wind is picking up, too.”

“Prepare for climb to sixteen thousand and give me a track toward the island,” Gar ordered. “We need to get into the slipstream along the coast before we get janked around by turbulence. All of you idiots on deck, find a rail and hold on to it.”

“Ugh, what is this guy’s problem?” Karalti muttered to herself like a badly tuned radio.

The engine whine intensified to a whirling roar as the Strelitzia began to climb. My ears popped as I leaned back against the glass, watching the jellies recede as we gained altitude. The bridge darkened as the monsoon clouds enveloped the hull.

“Captain! Something’s headed for us!” Ambrose called to him. “Something fast!”

“How fast?” Gar swiped his screen across to the sonar display.

“Sixty-nine knots and getting faster.” Ambrose cupped his control sphere in both hands, and sent out another pulse of magical sonar. Within seconds, five pings showed up on a holo display, flaring and then vanishing to reappear closer than they were before.

“Spotter! Get a visual!” Gar barked from the helm. “Someone’s intercepting us!”

“Oooh, is it pirates?” Karalti perked, her bad mood forgotten. “I always wanted to fight pirates! I can go outside and change shape?”

“Hold up, Tidbit,” I said, frowning as the crew began to scramble. “Rin, you okay?”

“Umm… yes. I think so.” She was shivering, clutching the railing with both hands. “It’s strange. I never feel nervous on Karalti’s back, but this… phew. I think it’s because we’re inside of a vehicle.”

“Yeah, for sure.” I drew a deep breath. “Not a big fan of cabins myself.”

“What in the name of…” Ambrose was still watching the sonar panel. “Boss, they’re splitting up. I don’t think these are ships.”

“What the hell else could they be?” Gar snapped back.

“Dragons!” Rin said, her voice thin with fear.

“What?” Nearly everyone turned to look back where she was pointing. For a second, I thought she was tripping balls—until I spotted a weird blue and white shape twisting through the air at high speed, like a glider with six paddle-like wings that ended in long glowing fingers. It didn’t look anything like a dragon. “That isn’t a dragon. But what the fuck is it?”

“No, she’s right. Kind of.” Gar shaded his eyes. “Those look like Glacus atlanticus. Blue Dragon Sea Slugs. Nasty little critters—they can give you a real sting.”

I gave him an odd look. “Seen them before?”

“On Archemi? Naw.” He shook his head. “In the real world? Lots of times. Blue Dragons are ocean predators. They eat Portuguese Man o’Wars.”

The flying slugs were eerily beautiful—and alien. They flew with even more agility than Karalti, gliding around the jellies with high-speed hairpin turns. As we watched, one of them darted up to the underside of a Cloud Emperor and bit a chunk out of it, raining glowing ichor into the air. The jellyfish’s gas bag rapidly expanded, then belched out a huge cloud of gas, ice chips, and water vapor as it sunk down through the crowd. The Blue Dragon Slug continued to hound it, nipping at its sail as the jelly rapidly descended toward the ocean.

“Finally. About time something interesting happened, other than me getting evicted from my own goddamned bed.” Gar jammed a cigarette in his mouth, lit it, and made a sound of disgust. “Let’s get ready for some real flying, ladies and gentlemen.”

More and more of the flying slugs appeared, drawn by the huge number of jellyfish and their eggs. Five became fifty—and then fifty became hundreds, serpentine blue bodies darting between the Cloud Emperors and savaging them with rigid scythes of bone. Booming, trumpeting blasts of sound went up from everywhere around us, as the entire mass of jellyfish—including the ones not under assault—began to vent huge quantities of gas into the air. It was some kind of herd defense, because when dragons were caught in the cross-fire, they dropped out of the air like stones.

Rin moaned. “It’s not just argon they’re venting: it’s Aethericly-charged antimagic.”

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head ‘bout antimagic! The Strelitzia can deal with a whole hell of it,” Gar called from the helm. “This just got fun! Hang on tight!”