That's my airship, Patricia!

As some of you know, instead of buying cards and presents for my friends and family members birthdays, I often write them a story. If they've had characters based on them in one of my books, then they get an in-character story.

It's my Daughter's birthday today...

-oOo-

“And?” said Dorleith, raising her eyebrows.

“What do you mean ‘and’? You said you’d take me to the shooting range.” Mal’Ak-hai looked down dejectedly into his soup.

“I think you’ll find that Mother said I’d take you to the shooting range, I just nodded so she’d stop going on about it. You do know it’s my birthday don’t you Squirt?”

“Of course, we’re getting you a…” he dropped his spoon and put his suddenly empty hand over his mouth. “Nearly…” he mumbled.

She laughed, her brother was pretty easy to trick, and she’d proudly done it thousands of times before, despite the fact that he was only twelve years old. She sometimes even felt that perhaps she should lay off him a little – But that feeling never lasted long. “OK, I tell you what – I’m going to grab a couple of birthday presents from me to myself, then we’ll go to the shooting range and I’ll show you how to shoot properly, so you’re not shown up when you have to do it in front of the Guard.” Her brother rolled his eyes and ate the last few spoonfuls of his thin, grey soup. 

He followed her around the backstreets of Enys Skaw station, she seemed to duck into every shop that sold clothes with buckles, or brasswork or brown leather. Then they walked across the wide expanse of the main market place, all around them were offworld traders, selling everything you could possibly think of. In fact, some of the more esoteric Kalibri and Torkan shop owners were selling things that neither of them could identify at all. 

Mal’Ak-hai wandered over to the closest Torkan. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to a large glass bottle, full of a pearlescent amber liquid.

The Torkan picked up the bottle with the cluster of tentacles that made up its right hand. And turned it around slowly to face its hood. There was a sound like a sigh, before its facial tentacles started to vibrate and its translator box took over. The words were almost metallic sounding, with a slight background buzz. “It is an unguent that is used to supplement the stamina of the engorged trunquor during the long mating season.”

“What’s a trunquor?” Mal asked.

The Torkan raised itself up and seemed to look down at the boy from under its darkened hood, “You do not have one.” It put the bottle back down carefully. “Now go away, you are scaring off my real customers.”

Dorleith laughed and grabbed Mal by the ear, “C’mon Squirt, it’s shooty-mcbang-bang time.” She made her thumb and forefinger into a gun and pointed them at Mal’s face. “Pew-pew!” then she blew the imaginary smoke from her finger end and holstered her hand at her hip. “Have you brought your gun?”

He looked up at her, “I think I left it in the skimmer.” He took the Intercomm out of his jacket, “I’ll ask Mother’s pilot to…”

Dorleith slapped the box out of his hand, “You’ll do nothing of the sort.  It’s time you learned that actions have consequences.  When you’re in command of your own troupe of dancing tin soldiers, you can order them around however you please.  But until then, you can live with it.  We can hire guns there I would have thought.”

It took them fifteen minutes to get from the edge of the market to the street where the shooting range was. As they turned the corner, Dorleith could see that there was a large grey Pradilan standing outside. It seemed to get a lot bigger as they got closer to it. By the time they were stood next to it, it was over seven feet tall and smelled like the wrong end of an ox.

The huge grey reptile turned its head to look down at them, “What doin’?” it asked.

Dorleith turned to Mal, “I’ll handle this,” she whispered, and turned back to face the uncontrollably dripping jaws that looked like they could easily swallow you whole, “We’ve come to use your facility.” She pointed behind it at the door to the range. The scaled behemoth turned to look where she was pointing and appeared shocked, as if seeing the range for the first time.

“Got guns?”

“Yes we… Well I have, he’s forgotten his. We’d like to hire…”

“Can’t shoot gun you don’t got.”

“As I said, I was hoping that we could…”

“That stupid, Moose not stupid.”

“No Mr… Moose was it? I’m absolutely sure you’re not, but…”

A human voice shouted from the open door of the firing range in heavily accented Basic, “For Phobus’ sake Moose, let the nice people in before they get bored and fly home.”

The Pradilan moved out of their way and they entered the range. The last they heard from the reptilian doorman was a muttered, “Nice people don’t fly, nice people don’t got wings, Moose not stupid.”

The reception area was small, but clean. Behind an armourplas screen sat a wiry gentleman wearing a broad-brimmed hat, “Good afternoon, I’m sorry about Moose, it’s an idiot - but it keeps the riff-raff out. Can I help you at all?”

Dorleith took a step forward. “Yes, thanks, we’d like some range time; and my brother has forgotten his gun.”

The owner nodded, “Not a problem, we’re very quiet, so I can offer you a selection. If you’d like to go through?"

A sliding door opened in the opposite wall and buzzing lights came on to illuminate the shooting range itself as they stepped through. All but one of the range benches in front of them were empty. One contained a selection of handguns, and it was this one that they walked over to.

“How did he get them here so fast?”

Dorleith pointed upwards without looking. Mounted to the ceiling above each bay was a multi-armed construct that could deliver guns and ammunition from the storage area above. “I think it was magic.” She said, shaking her head. “Want to start with a needler?” She picked up a small pistol and handed it to Mal.

He took the weapon off her and hefted it, before taking aim at the cutout of a Spider at the other end of the range.

“Take it gently, don’t forget to breathe. That little gun shouldn’t kick back too much, but keep an eye on it tracking upwards.”

Mal turned to look at her, and fired down the range. Emptying the thirty round magazine of the weapon without ever losing eye contact with her. 

“Well, that was a waste of ammunition.” Dorleith sneered as the target sped towards them. “Three holes, three hits. Better than I thought you’d do.”

“Negative.” The construct above them uncurled and its sensor pod examined the target. “Three holes, thirty hits. 100% accuracy. Hits confirmed. Kill confirmed. Total destruction confirmed.”

“How did you…? It doesn’t matter, want to try a compression pistol next?”

“If you think I need to, Captain Sembhee says I’m a natural.” Mal put down the needler and was about to pick up the heavier pistol when his Intercomm started to buzz insistently. “Hello?”

The tinny voice from the speaker was their Mother’s, “I’m all done, so stop whatever you’re doing and meet me at the skimmer in five minutes.” She cut the connection without giving them any time to argue.

Luckily, the shooting range was close to the landing pads, so they made it back with seconds to spare. The Baroness was sat in front, next to the pilot and they took the comfortable rear seats. The twin engines spun up, and within seconds they were in the air on the way back to the Roost.

The Baroness looked at Dorleith over her shoulder, “Your birthday present is in the locker between you, I hope you like it, you can add it to your collection perhaps.”

She opened the locker that was built into the back of the centre seat and took out a large box that was wrapped with a ribbon.

“Open it!” urged Mal'Ak-hai. Almost bouncing in his seat with excitement, “It was very expensive.”

Dorleith frowned at him, but untied the ribbon and opened the box. Inside was a miniature airship, almost nine inches long, crafted from copper and bronze. She touched the graphene airbag and it gave slightly with her touch.

“The bags have got real Heptium in, when you turn it on it floats about two inches in the air.” Mal explained. “It’s the Bolivar.”

She looked down at the delicate model, “I know it’s the Bolivar, I’m not stupid.” The Bolivar was her father’s ship, lost with all hands two years before during the Spider attack at Tromega.

“I thought it might help.” Said her Mother, quietly.

Dorleith ran her finger down the model of the Bolivar’s length, and started to cry.

-oOo-

Of yes, for those of you having trouble visualising exactly what a Torkan looks like... Here's a production sketch that might help you out.

The Minidandy's Birthday

As you can probably tell, by the title of the post, that it's my Daughter, the MiniDandy's birthday.  Her fourteenth in fact.

I couldn't really do anything else than tell a quick story about Lady Dorleith Ahralia, Captain of the Edward Teach, In nominate ruler of the Open Lands and High Voort of the Shattered Spire (whatever that is) and what happened on HER fourteenth birthday.

Or this is what she told me happened at least.

-oOo-

'Wake up!' Her mother's strident voice echoed through her cabin as she was roughly shaken awake.

'Five more minutes, yeah? 'K thanks bye...'

'No, no, no... You need to get up, we're under...' A large munition detonated against the hull, shaking books from the small bookcase by her bed, 'attack. I need you to man a gun.'

She rolled out of bed, suddenly more awake than she had ever felt in her life.  Pulling on a ship-suit, some socks and her favourite old boots, she made her way forward, heading for the bridge.  She was constantly buffeted by a tide of crewmen desperately trying to get to their duty stations, alarms were blaring and Alexander, the A.I. that controlled the systems onboard the Grabthar's Hammer was providing almost constant status updates in his calm, measured voice.

'Attention gunnery crews, we have Spiders inbound on multiple vectors, the Baroness has announced that "firing at will" is the current standing order.'

Dorleith stopped at a corridor junction and tried desperately to clear her head and remember where her gunnery station was.  All of the corridors aboard the Hammer looked the same and her Mother had removed all of the signage, working on the theory that her crew should really know where they were going by now.

Another explosion rocked the ship and she stumbled against the wall, looking up she saw the engraved brass head of Alexander directly above her, staring down.

'Alexander, wh...'

'Ion cannon seven, deck three.  You're welcome My Lady.'

She turned back the way she had come, slid down a steel ladder without touching any of the rungs and made her way to the control nexus for deck three's ion cannons.  Settling into the seat, she put on the gloves and helmet that comprised the control system and activated the interface.  Immediately she became cannon 7, wherever she looked, the barrels that were her arms pointed, whenever she punched, a beam of blinding blue light shot out into the early morning sky.  Her first few shots were wild and uncontrolled, even though she had practiced and been drilled for this moment since she was twelve years old.

Eventually she emptied her mind and relaxed into her position, everywhere she looked there were Spiders.  The targeting scanners that were her eyes picked out the separate targets and displayed details of speed and range and the probability of a clean hit.   She picked out a target that was closing at 200 miles per hour.  Zooming in, she saw that the spider had a huge rotating drill attached to its carapace and was planning to board.

Her first few shots bounced harmlessly off, the spider was obviously shielded.  She clenched her fists and felt the buzz of the stored energy building in her arms.  Her next double punch almost blinded her, but caught the mechanical arachnid straight in the sensor array.   Immediately, the light in its eyes died, the drill stopped spinning and it fell away into the clouds, far below.

Heartened by her victory, she spent the next ten minutes furiously punching Spiders from the air.  whooping and yelling as the force of her blasts removed legs and mandibles wholesale and the creatures themselves spiraled to the ground.

The sky started to clear, the immediate area around the airship was almost devoid of targets, but Dorleith continued to fire at anything that moved.  The trill of the incoming message alert had been playing in her ear for three long minutes before she noticed it.

'Cannon 7?'

'Aye Cannon 7, ceasefire was called five minutes ago, stand down and return to the Nexus.'

She took off the helmet and gloves, stowed them back in their receptacles and ran her fingers through her long, red, sweat-soaked hair.  As her eyes got used to the sudden darkness she noticed that the Gun-Commander was scowling at her.  'You're to report directly to the Baroness on the Bridge... My Lady.'  He bowed whilst simultaneously shaking his head.

She looked at him for a second, perplexed.  He nodded towards the exit lock, 'I think she meant now.'

The adrenaline was still pumping as she entered the Bridge, walked over to her Mother's command chair and waited patiently for her to finish reading the battle reports.   Baroness Bhin-Dhee Lohlephel of the Rustholme slowly turned to address her young daughter.

'Happy Birthday.'

'Thank you Mother, I...'

The Baroness pressed her index finger to her lips. 'I just wanted to explain to you why you weren't currently in the Brig.' She waited for the whorls of confusion to reach their crescendo on her daughter's face. 'The cease fire was called a good five minutes before you actually ceased firing.  What you should have done at that point is explicitly described in the name of the order.  Cease... Fire... Are you suffering from some kind of hearing deficiency?'

'No, I...'

'Insubordination then perhaps?  Did you think that my order was some kind of recommendation?  Something you should only do if you couldn't think of anything better yourself?'

'It's just that I...'

The Baroness waved away the communications officer who had bought her a data tablet that required her authorisation and looked directly at her daughter.  'Do you know how many Spiders you shot down?' Dorleith shook her head. 'I'll tell you, fifteen.  You shot down fifteen of them, including three that were set on boarding my ship and trying to wreak as much havoc as they could have done, which would have no doubt have entailed the death or injury of many valuable crew-members.  After the ceasefire however, you shot down nine ducks, an albatross, one of our camera drones and number four gasbag, which is why we are currently listing...'

Mr Britt turned around and grinned.  'six degrees Ma'am.'

The Baroness nodded at him and continued, 'six degrees to port.  Do not repeat this next time you are manning a gun.  Birthday or not you'll spend a day in the Brig.'

Dorleith looked up and could feel hot tears welling behind her eyes. 'Yes... I mean, no Mothe.. Ma'am.  I will try to be more careful.'  She curtsied deeply and started to slowly back her way towards the door.

'See that you do.  Oh, and Dorleith?'  Her daughter froze and stared at her like a kitten that had fallen down a well lined with rabid dogs. 'The next time you come onto my Bridge wearing mis-matched socks, I'll skin you alive.'

The sins of the Father (Pt 2)

She stood on the bridge of the Grabthar’s Hammer, next to her Mother’s heavily decorated command chair.  The battle had been raging for nearly an hour now and the sky was dark with Spiders.

‘Alexander! Report!’ Baroness Bhin-dhee of Minidandia yelled at the battleship’s ancient AI.

‘We are currently outnumbered five to one, we have Spider interceptors inbound on bearings zero-four-two, one-two-four, three-five-eight and…’ Replied the ornately lit brass and copper head in the corner of the bridge.

‘Enough!’ She turned to Dorleith, ’Let’s see if we can find your Father shall we? He’ll probably be needing a hand about now?’

The eleven year old girl looked up at her Mother and smiled, she knew exactly where her Father would be, right in the middle of the biggest, thickest ball of Spiders that he could find, tearing them out of the air with his bare hands if he had to.  It was hard for her to understand why he hated the Spiders so much, even back at the Roost, before she was old enough to come along with her parents on the raids, every story he told ended up with his knife being plunged into a tabletop, or a crystal goblet of brandy being thrown into the fire, and him stomping off hurling obscenities at whoever got in his way.

‘DiGriz, this is The Hammer, Where are you, you old goat?’ The static from the speakers indicated that they were out of range, ‘Alexander, what was the last known position of the DiGriz?’

‘Our Cruiser, the James DiGriz, last known position bearing two-six-four, distance four miles,’

‘Show me.’

The main screen changed from the tactical display to a map showing Northern Macedonia, the flashing red dot indicating the last known position of the James DiGriz was hovering over the mountains to the west.’

She opened the shipboard Intercomm, ‘All hands, this is the Captain, we’re rendezvousing with the DiGriz, any gunner that has a Spider in their sights, take it out now and make ready defensive positions, keep those mechanical scum off my hull,’ She turned to the helmsman, ‘Lay in an intercept with the DiGriz, let me know when we’re in communications range.’

‘Aye Ma’am, course laid in… Captain!’

‘Aye?’

‘We’re going to have to fight for every yard, that course’ll take us through a cloud of Spiders a mile thick,’

‘Gods damn it Mr Hadleigh, bring Mary online, divert power from the engines to her and fire as you get a target.’

The deck thrummed as power poured from the great fusion engines at the rear of the airship, to the Ion cannon that occupied almost the entire front half.  The Grabthar’s Hammer had been built around this big gun, it was designed to kill the Spiders’ electrical systems and render them inoperative en-masse but unfortunately, because it was so powerful, they could only fire a few shots before they needed to cool and recharge.

The first blast took nearly one hundred spiders out of the fight, their systems fried as their lifeless husks fell onto the ruins of what used to be Kumanovo. 

‘Well Ma’am, that certainly seemed to have got their attention, we have fifty… No, sixty targets inbound, five seconds before we can fire Mary again!’

‘Fire as she becomes ready, Helm, then as soon as she fires, hard a-port, bring us broadside to the cloud. All starboard guns, be ready to fire as you acquire a target!’

Mary barked again and the sun-bright blue flare carved another chunk out of the cloud of chittering limbs and spines. The Helmsman dragged the ship hard to the left, airbrakes and scoops deploying all down the port side, the connecting chains to the gasbags groaned with the sudden tension as the deck slewed drunkenly below them.

The Captain grabbed hold of her chair and held onto her Daughter with her other hand.

‘You alright?’ She shouted, over the blare of the bridge alarms.

‘Aye Ma’am,’ replied the little girl, attempting a salute,

‘Good Girl, strap yourself in, it’s going to get bumpier before it gets calmer.  Mr Hadleigh!’

‘Aye, Ma’am?’

‘Keep us headed in the direction of the DiGriz, but initiate a Crazy Ivan, let’s clear ourselves a gap.’

‘Aye, All hands! Prepare for violent manoeuvres, we will be initiating a Crazy Ivan in five seconds, tie yourself to something solid and find yourself something to be sick into.’

The ship slewed hard right, as Mary pointed towards the enemy she fired, scooping great swathes of Spiders out of the cloud, then the Hammer came full broadside to them and the deck guns fired another cannonade.  The left-right movement continued for two miles until the Helmsman cried,

‘Captain, I’m getting a signal from the DiGriz!’

‘Onscreen!’

Through the interference on the viewscreen, the unmistakable silhouette of her Father appeared, he had his favourite monomer edged cutlass in one hand and a repeating ion pistol in the other, he was in mid-flow.

‘… Damn your eyes, man if I thought for a second you were running from your post I’d show you your own liver before making you eat it…’ The picture faded and then snapped back into sudden clarity, ‘Get off my bloody ship!’

He had the head of a Spider impaled on the end of his sword and was rapidly beating it against the bulkhead.

‘Massimo?’

‘I’ll kill ye, I’ll kill every one of ye, you’ll wish you’d never been riveted…’

‘Massimo!’

‘I’ll hunt down where ye wuz made, an I’ll kill everyone there, then I’ll find where the constructs that made ye wuz made, and I’ll kill them, then I’ll…’

‘MASSIMO! – I think it’s dead!’

‘Aye, Whut?’ The bear of a man that was Baron Massimo Lohlephel blinked the red mist from his eyes and looked at his screen, ‘Ah, hullo my Sweet Flower, Mist of my Midsummer Morning! Ah.. I’m.. a bit busy at the moment, I’ll pull out your eyes you clanking contraption… No, not you Dear, I’ll get back to you in a wee while…’ He turned away from the camera and yelled, ‘Get that bloody million legged abomination off my bridge Mr Cotterill!’  And with that, the connection went dead.

‘Alexander, can you contact the Slut?’

Dorleith giggled, The Slut was her Mother’s pet name for Angelina, the AI on board her Fathers ship.

‘Aye Ma’am, connection established.’

‘Get a status report on the DiGriz’s systems.’

‘They have multiple hull breaches, Spider boarding craft cover the entire fore-section of the ship, there are more mechanical lifesigns on board than the internal sensors can reliably count.’

‘Damn! Are we close enough to fire on the Spiders without hitting the DiGriz?’

‘Not with any degree of certainty Ma’am, no.’ Replied Hadleigh.

‘Take us in, weapons free, fire at will!’

The Hammer lurched forward, Mary and the other cannons killing Spiders in all directions as they went.

‘Erm, Captain?’

‘Yes?’

‘We’re slowing down!’

‘What?’

We’re slowing, I’ve lost control of the throttles… We’re… We’re in full reverse?’

‘Alexander, what in the seven hells is going on?’

‘The James DiGriz has invoked remote access; they are controlling us for the moment.’

‘What? Can we over-ride the signal?’

‘No Ma’am, Angelina has locked me out of my own control systems; I will be having stern words with her when we get back to the Roost… Ah!’

‘What now?’

‘I am detecting a tritium leak in the the DiGriz’s starboard engine, there are signs of an impending cascade event.’

‘Get them onscreen… Now!’

The main viewer sprung into life, Captain Lohlephel was sat, calmly in his command chair.  The bridge was swathed in smoke and the sound of gunfire could be heard in the distance.

‘Hullo my Jewel, I’m sorry about pushing you away..’

‘What’re you doing Goat?’

‘I’m saving your life…’

‘I don’t…’

‘Angelina informs me that my engines are just about to go critical, and the lifepods are covered in Spiders, so I’m going to take as many of these mechanical monsters with me as I can.’

‘No!.. I… I fought my way here, I’ve come to save you… We can…’

‘You know this is the only way, Is Dorleith there?’

She nodded and beckoned her daughter across, ‘Daddy wants to talk to you.’

‘Hello Daddy!’

‘Hullo Beautiful Girl, hope you’re OK.   I’m sorry, I’ve got to go now, but I know you’ll keep on fighting… Don’t let the Spiders win, try to stop ‘em any way you can.’

‘I will Daddy, I promise!’

‘I know Baby.  I love you both so much.’ He put his hand on the viewscreen, ‘I…..’

A freezing ball of tritium gas rapidly expanded from the rupturing engine, which then ignited in a ball of fire two miles across.  The main windows of the bridge exploded into shards which spread across the room like knives, narrowly missing the dumbfounded crew.

‘DADDY!’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Criven Preen’s calm voice brought the Captain back to the present, she slowly looked around and realised that she was once again in her cabin on the Edward Teach.

‘Nothing… I just remembered…’

‘Yes, indeed, nasty business, your Mother has the details, if you wish to help.’

‘Help?’

‘Yes, your Father needs rescuing.’

‘Rescuing?’

‘Yes, rescuing, you have been following my conversation haven’t you?’

‘Well, no, I…’

‘I see, well, I suggest you talk to your Mother, she has the details.  Now, I need to leave, I have other errands to attend to.’

‘Can we drop you anywhere?’

‘No, that won’t be necessary, thank you.’ He doffed his hat, stepped back into the shadows, and was gone.

‘I…’ She turned and entered the bridge, ‘Set a course for Minidandia, best speed, and get the ship tidied up, we’re going to visit The Baroness.’