Diving from five kilometers up with little more than wood and canvas bailwings to break his fall wasn’t exactly what Jim would call a normal day. But these days, the line between normal and odd was quite blurry. Diving, shooting, brawling, running… so much running. They had all become pretty commonplace. This was just another misadventure in the crazy life of a wanderer turned pirate turned revolutionary.

Below, a white, puffy cloud layer loomed, looking deceptively soft. A short distance below its inviting wisps was a very wooden, very hard landing. If he missed, he’d have another minute or so to think about it before he met a bloody end somewhere below in the dune sea. If his aim was true, he’d have to time his wing deployment perfectly or risk becoming a stain on the side of the Alliance airship.

“Woooohoooo!” Jim looked sideways to see Alia Rychist, his captain, wife, and future mother to his child, grinning ear to ear. Next to her, Vachir and Sandra Mason cut through the air with the grace and style of true professionals. Their finned metal helmets gleamed in the afternoon sun. Each of the divers’ bodies were rigid and pointed as they plummeted downward.

Whoosh.

Suddenly, the group plummeted into the cloud layer. Jim knew it was just vapor and air, but he flinched all the same. Instantly, the world was white, and he was freezing. Even the thickest diving jacket could do little to stop cool moist air at three hundred kilometers per hour. A shiver crawled down his spine.

Jim held up the multi watch on his left hand, careful not to change his dive direction in the process. The complicated contraption told time, altitude, temperature, and displayed awakened power levels. Cramming all that cutting edge clockwork into one device resulted in an overly cumbersome but necessary extra weight. Jim watched the altimeter tick down. The dial spun worryingly fast in a counterclockwise motion as the group continued their controlled fall.

4km - - 3.8km - - 3.4km - - 3.1km - -

At three kilometers, Jim extended his limbs out, slowing his descent, but only slightly. He had to keep his concentration on the fall direction or risk colliding with Alia and harming her or the child that had been growing within her for three months. He’d attempted to talk her out of the dive the day before but as always, Alia was a rock of stubbornness that could not be moved.

It was infuriating to him sometimes, but her strength of will was also one of her most endearing qualities. Now, he had another life to protect though. He was teetering on the sharp edge of worry and anger. Jim was usually a man of brevity, but he always found plenty of colorful expletives when arguing with his wife.

He took a breath and focused on the task ahead. As quickly as they had entered, the group erupted from the underside of the cloud. Wisps of vapor twisted into small swirls, leaving white trails behind them. Below, much closer than they’d expected, the Alliance airship stuck out like a black tumor floating kilometers above a coarse sea of golden sand.

“Deploy! Deploy!” Alia shouted through the rushing wind. Live or die, the dive would end soon, and Jim was glad for it. He pulled the deploy cord hard, hoping for a better result than his first leap. During that dive, he and a group from The Liberator had been ambushed. When he attempted to pull his bailwing cord, it broke loose. Luckily, the backup proved more resilient, but he had feared dives ever since. .

His hard tug was met with the familiar thump of wind and canvas. Jim’s body was jolted by the sudden loss of velocity. A copper taste filled his mouth followed by a delayed pain in his tongue. To either side, the others deployed their wings. Each turned their finned heads to direct their descent. Soon, the group was spiraling downward toward the lazily bobbing airship.

The mission would require absolute silence and stealth. If the alarm was raised prematurely, they’d have a fight in close quarters against at least seven to one odds. The tough part would be not killing the captives. Awakened priests and acolytes were all firmly under the mind control of the Prophetess and thus, each of them were the enemy. Yet, taking them alive was the group’s objective.

To get at the four or five awakened crew members, they’d have to fight their way, silently, through at least a few dozen Alliance soldiers. It was an operation Jim did not look forward to, especially alongside his three months pregnant wife.

Ahead, Sandra Mason bled off as much velocity as possible in her final approach. Behind her, the others had finished their downward corkscrew maneuver and were lining up for a soft, hopefully silent touchdown atop the balloon. Jim would be the last to land. With only a few dozen meters remaining, Sandra arched her back into a standing position and pulled the cord for her first air bottle. Jim watched from the back, impressed at her grace.

The small canister of compressed air expelled its contents violently. The sudden thrust was enough to counteract gravity and slow her fall. Her black military boots landed on the canvas without the slightest of sound. Seconds later, Vachir and Alia repeated the same maneuver.

“Way to set the bar high, guys,” Jim mumbled under the whisling wind.

The canvas balloon of the small airship was coming up fast. Too fast, Jim suddenly realized. He arched his back, attempting to use his bail wings as air brakes before deploying his first canister. Unfortunately, his maneuver came a moment too soon.

Suddenly, his splayed body shot upward. Before he could react, he stopped mid air and begun to plummet backwards. Quickly, he drew his wings in and pulled the cord for his first canister. The violent push slowed his fall as he’d hoped, but it also spun him into a triple backward somersault. As he rolled to a stop, he wasn’t sure which hurt more - his backside or his pride.

“I’ve never met someone with such an ineptitude for bailwings,” Vachir whispered as he reached down to help Jim to his feet. Jim was still seeing stars as he stumbled forward. Alia and Sandra snickered at him while they affixed their clamps to two of the many rope ladders, or “J-Ropes” as they were more commonly known, holding the balloon to the vessel.

Jim replied as he and Vachir fastened their own clamps into position, “I’m an awakened of earth. Not too much of that up here. I consider landing with no bones broken to be a personal best.”

He snapped the clamp into place and held a finger to his mouth, motioning for silence. The others nodded.

Alia gave the signal to begin. The group adjusted their clamps and started their slow descent over the side of the balloon. Below, the edge of the inflated bag swam through a passing patch of murky clouds. From his angle, he could only see the dunes far below before they were covered in a cloud layer. His heart and head struggled between fear and duty.

Clearing the edge of the balloon, they transitioned from rappelling to free hanging. As they continued their drop, the topdeck of the ship resolved in the mist. Alia motioned for them to stop. Using one hand, she relayed instructions to Sandra.

Two targets. Ten and one o’clock. Fifteen meters. Sandra, go.

Sandra nodded. Reaching into her flight jacket, she withdrew two small knives from a bandolier. The small weapons were only about fifteen centimeters long but were absolutely deadly. Each had been laced with suahm venom gland extract.

As the only non-awakened among them, she more than made up for it with a frightening proficiency for virtually every exotic weapon in the book. Taking a breath, she focused on her target. Suddenly, the first soldier collapsed in place, his rifle rattling on the deck. Jim never even saw her hand move.

The second soldier turned to examine the sound. His face twisted as he nearly sounded the alarm. A quick squish preceded his headlong collision into the deck. From his back, the small black handle of the poisoned dagger stuck out, awaiting extraction.

With the immediate danger over, the group descended down the remaining segment of J ladder and pulled themselves onto the deck. Vachir and Jim quickly tossed the paralysed soldiers overboard. Although the men would likely bleed out from their wounds before the paralysis wore off, Jim and his shipmates couldn’t take the chance. The last thing the soldier’s very aware minds would experience would be the distinct feeling of falling and the inability to move, followed by a high speed impact against one of the countless dunes below.

After their grim deed was done, they were moving again. In the lead, Sandra’s thick military grade boots were surprisingly silent on the wooden deck. Both bloodied daggers had already been sheathed and two new ones had taken their place in her skilled hands. Jim, Alia, and Vachir each drew their scimitars. Using awakened powers would alert any awakened of air on board, not to mention the trouble it would cause with the Alliance men when the alarm was sounded. This mission had to be carried out the old fashioned way - with steel.

As they approached the hatch to the gundeck, Vachir stepped forward. Placing his hands on the wooden slat, he closed his eyes and concentrated. He could only use his powers for a moment or risk alerting any other awakened onboard. After an uneasy few seconds, he opened his eyes.

He whispered as quietly as he could over the hum of the the engines and the whistling winds, “Three soldiers near the entrance. Two fire awakened somewhere on... the far end of the gundeck, I think. I didn’t have time to pinpoint the last one, but I think, there’s an air awakened down in the hold with a few more soldiers.”

“Well, shit,” Sandra sighed.

Vachir nodded. “One other thing,” he said. “There’re at least five or six more Alliance men up in the quarterdeck, hopefully sleeping.”

Alia pinched her forehead and closed her eyes, considering their options. After a few uncomfortable moments, she asked quietly, “Sandra, how confident are you in your throwing abilities?”

“I’d say, I’m a decent shot,” Sandra replied in a hushed monotone.

Vachir scoffed, “Riiight. What Miss. False Humility here means to say is, she is likely the best shot in Ruin. I’ve seen her hit moving targets out to twenty meters with frightening accuracy. Hell, those soldiers were a good fifteen.”

Before Sandra could protest, Alia raised a hand for silence. The distinctive sound of feet on wood echoed up through the hatch. Someone was coming up the ladder. The group shifted to the foredeck side of the wooden slat and waited. The hatch creaked open and a brown haired man in his early twenties, facing aft, popped his head out.

“Hey, Rashid,” he called. “Second watch is about to start and I’m starving. Where ya -” Alia grabbed the back of the soldier’s neck. A small burst of awakened energy rendered him instantly unconscious. Before he could collapse to the gundeck below, Jim and Vachir grabbed his arms and swiftly hauled him onto the topdeck. He too was sent over the rails to join his comrades.

They were out of time. The plan would have to evolve with each step. Alia whispered to Sandra, “Save those daggers for the two awakened below. Go for non vitals if you can. Even a glancing blow with that stuff should paralyze them.” Turning to Jim, she added, “You and Vachir, dispatch the two guards. Remember, no awakened power unless absolutely needed.”

The point didn’t need to be debated. The captain was the captain and, the plan was the plan. Each of them nodded in agreement. Being the better swordsman among them, Jim opted to go first. He locked both rails between his boots and dropped down with Vachir following closely behind.

As soon as his feet hit solid wood, Jim was off in a sprint. The soldiers were not as close as he had hoped. Ten meters ahead, the remaining two guards turned from their conversation to face the fast moving shadow that had burst onto the gundeck. The first opened his mouth to shout. His head was removed from his shoulders in a spray of blood and flash of steel.

The second guard was a bit lighter on his feet. Rolling away from Jim, he jumped back up with scimitar in hand. Vachir was on him before he could react. It wasn’t fast enough though. The man parried Vachir’s first overhead strike and shouted, “Boarders!! BOARD-” Jim’s blade sung as it entered and exited the man’s windpipe in one quick motion.

Two blurs flew by Jim’s head with a sharp whistle. Sandra’s daggers found their targets across the room. Both awakened had raised their arms to incinerate Jim and Vachir but, their attack wouldn’t come. The first dagger buried itself into the left side of the man while the second, a girl who appeared to be in her late teens was far less fortunate. From her left leg, blood spilled out, too fast for a superficial wound. Both awakened collapsed backwards from the poison’s infliction.

“Damn,” Sandra exclaimed as she ran across the room the check on the girl. “I was aiming to graze her leg. I think I nicked an artery.”

Jim was no less impressed. Hitting the small woman’s leg at all from twenty meters away was nothing short of incredible as far as he was concerned. Above, a sudden commotion of feet on deck plates told them, their secret was out.

He turned to Alia who was also running to check on the awakened girl. Pointing back, he shouted, “Alia, burn the hatch. It will buy us some time. I’ll take care of the girl.” He ripped a strip from his undershirt and hurried over to the fallen acolyte. Her skin was already growing pale with blood loss as he tied the cloth tightly around and above the wound.

Alia turned and raised her arms toward the gundeck entrance. The first soldier had already dropped through the hatch, rifle in hand. The sound of boots on wood echoed from above. Nearby, a steadily burning flame from one of the glass enclosed gas lights burst from its container and leapt into her hand. With a brief moment of concentration, she had formed it into a raging ball of orange fire. Pointing her open palm forward, she willed the ball of destruction toward him.

With a loud boom and a blast of superheated air, the hatchway, and the unfortunate soldier, were incinerated. Jim could feel the air being sucked in through the open gun ports to feed the awakened blaze. More men, no doubt caught in the explosion, screamed above. “We have to get these two out of here!” Jim yelled over the shouts of men and the crackle of burning wood.

Before anyone could answer, a bolt of white electricity leapt across the room and struck Alia. Jim watched in horror as her body jerked and bounced backward against the deck.

Vachir’s arm thrust forward to return the favor. A flash of lightning escaped his palm toward the cargo deck entrance, but the crackling bolt found an empty space. The awakened of air had already retreated below. Suddenly, gunshots rang out and two new holes appeared inches from Vachir’s feet. More loud cracks sounded from above.

“Ah hell,” Vachir grunted. “This thing is taking a really bad turn.” Leaning down, he picked up Alia’s limp body and quickly examined her. “She’s ok, Jim. Just a little dazed.”

“Jim!” Sandra shouted. “I have an idea. Help me with this.” She was bent over one of the ten pound cannons, cutting one of the breech ropes with a bloodied dagger. “Your scimitar!” she shouted. His instinct was to help Alia, but they would all be dead if they didn’t move. Watching Sandra as she sawed the thick rope, he understood what she was attempting.

Jim raised his scimitar above his head and brought it down on the rope. It took three hard blows, but the coil finally snapped and the heavy iron weapon broke free.

The pair slowly pushed the cannon to the rear of the gundeck, against the aft wall and angled it at twenty degrees, as high as it would allow. Gunshots continued to crack from above and below. Holes in the wood cast tiny beams of light through the thickening smoke. One round buzzed by, inches from Jim’s head while another grazed Sandra’s right shoulder. She grunted through grit teeth.

Jim moved quickly to pack a gunpowder charge into the breech followed by a round of explosive shot, specially designed for close quarters combat...normally against other ships of course.

He grabbed a nearby ramrod and pushed the canister down as far as it would go. Next, he ran through more gunfire from above and retrieved a burning piece of wood from Alia’s makeshift fiery barrier. He placed the glowing ember at the touch hole and braced for what came next.

Instantly, the deck was awash in smoke and fury.

Suddenly, the sounds of battle were replaced by a loud, high pitched ring. Sandra shouted something at him but, he couldn’t hear her. There was sound coming from her mouth, but it was as if his mind refused to translate the words. Shaking his head, he finally regained some focus.

“Grab that guy!” she shouted, “I’ll get the girl.” He couldn’t seem to form words, so he just nodded in agreement.

Jim slung the unconscious man onto his shoulder. The stranger was thickly built - especially for a priest. The brainwashed followers of the Prophetess had little need for physical conditioning normally as their awakened abilities more than made up for anything as crude as brute force.

Owing either to her formidable build, the girl’s small form, or both, Sandra effortlessly threw the pale faced teen over her shoulder and sprinted off in the direction of the breach. A section of the topdeck had collapsed downward to form the semblance of a ramp. Vachir was the first to disappear up the hole, holding Alia as he did so. Sandra and Jim were hot on his heels.

Gunfire continued to pour out from below, boring more holes in the deck, followed by-

“Dammit,” Jim growled as a burning sensation worked its way up from the arch of his foot. Of all the places to be shot, he thought angrily. Limping the last few steps, he emerged onto the topdeck. All around, Alliance soldiers lay in various states of gore and carnage. The few who hadn’t been obliterated cried and groaned pitifully. The explosive round had done its bloody work quite well.

Jim continued his slow hobble across the topdeck. Loud footsteps echoed from behind him. The rapidly thickening smoke had flushed the third awakened priest and his Alliance guard out of their hole. “Drop!” came a familiar voice from across the deck. Alia had recovered from her temporary daze.

Without thinking, he rolled to the right, doing his best to protect the man on his shoulders from a head injury. A tearing sound and flash of red hot fire sailed above his head and exploded directly behind him. The priest and soldiers that had emerged were engulfed.

Jim could hear them screaming as they disappeared below. He didn’t know what was worse, the sounds of their agonized voices or that they continued on for some time as each one burned to death.

The blaze was quickly spreading. The entire forward topdeck was nearly engulfed. Below, billows of smoke poured out of the newly blasted hole. The raging fire at the forward deck was turning into an unstoppable inferno as the first J-ropes began to burn.

The ship had only minutes left as a master of the skies. Soon, it would smash onto the Dune Sea in a million pieces, taking Jim and the others with it. He looked around frantically, trying to find an alternative that didn’t result in everybody dying.

Suddenly, small iron grapples soared over the port side railing and landed on the deck with loud thuds. Alia rolled sideways as a nearby hook skipped backwards until it caught on the port railing. Dozens more small metal hooks emerged from the cloudline and skipped across the topdeck. Their attached ropes tightened. Jim squinted into the thick cloud.

From the grey mist, a giant airship emerged. It was a behemoth compared to the small vessel burning away beneath their feet. The black and red hull of the Liberator, their home in the sky, was clear against the backdrop of swirling clouds. Its twenty four gun portside was a welcome sight for Jim.

With renewed strength, he grabbed the still paralyzed priest under both arms and dragged him over to join the others.

Two large booms rattled their faltering airship. The sudden jerk snapped the forward J ropes, whipping them skyward and causing the vessel to list down sharply. The fire had reached the forward powder reserve.

“Hurry up with those harnesses!” Vachir shouted toward the Liberator. Seconds later, eight small bags were lobbed over the larger ship’s railing and landed on the burning scout vessel’s deck. The team scrambled to retrieve and unpack them.

We won’t be needing that many bags, Jim thought.

Within each bag was a rope mesh and dual clamps. Originally, the plan had been to disable the awakened onboard without setting off an alarm and bring them to the topdeck for retrieval. Once the Liberator descended to altitude, the group would retrieve the bags, harness the disabled priests and acolytes, and escape.

Jim quickly removed the mesh and laid it out on the deck. Hopping on his good foot, he rolled the priest onto the tangle of ropes. Careful to cover the man’s full height, he tucked the corner of the mesh underneath his back and rolled him until the ropes formed a makeshift swaddle.

Jim couldn’t help but smile inwardly at the sight. The priest looked like a human sized fly, trapped in layers of webbing, waiting to be some lucky spider’s dinner. Next, Jim grabbed the clamp and fixed both ends to the web, and finally to the grapple rope. He sliced the thick rope at the base of the grapple, careful to avoid hitting the priest. The sudden loss of tension sent the tightly wrapped man springing into the air before falling and dangling directly below the Liberator.

Jim suddenly remembered that the man had been paralyzed, not knocked out. He was probably watching the entire event in frozen horror. Not fond of heights himself, Jim couldn’t help but feel at least a little sorry for the poor man. The webbed bundle began to ascend as the crew on the Liberator hauled the paralyzed priest up.

“Move your ass, Jim!” Alia’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. Already, Sandra had finished with the awakened girl. Jim spotted the acolyte’s tightly webbed body also swaying from a rope, beneath the Liberator.

Jim limped into position. Alia rushed to his side and placed his arm on her shoulder. Vachir and Sandra had already clamped onto their grapple ropes and were waiting with expressions of urgency. Smoke was pouring through every slat of deck plating, threatening to choke their lungs of air long before they burned to death. More J-ropes snapped. The dying airship tilted further downward as its balloon started to break free of its last restraints.

“Time to go!” Alia shouted over the roaring fire and creaking ropes.

Jim clamped the nearest grapple rope and nodded at her. With scimitars in hand, each of them quickly slashed at the bonds. Simultaneously, their bodies sprung upward. They were free from the falling airship.

Jim yelled through the whistling air as they swung toward the bottom of the Liberator, “That fire is going to hit the powder re-”

A sudden explosion ripped through the air and catapulted the four of them horizontally.

It was too powerful, too loud, too...everything for Jim. He didn’t have time to think. The blast knocked any sense of reason out of him and basic instinct took over. He was holding onto a small rope, suspended kilometers above the ground, with nothing but a small rusty clamp. There was no figuring his way out of this one. Jim held the rope in a white knuckled death grip and hoped for the best.

The blast pressure slammed into their bodies like an invisible brick wall. Suddenly, they were swinging downward at a frightening speed. Before any of them could react, their bodies had passed underneath the hull of the Liberator and were bleeding off velocity upwards.

Much like a tetherball, their ropes were losing length quickly. They weren’t circling a small pole but rather, an enormous airship. Jim found himself suddenly upside down and sailing, rear end first, toward the topdeck as his body continued to shed speed.

With a loud “oof” escaping his lips, Jim’s body slammed into the J-ropes of the Liberator. Very suddenly, he was upside down, hanging by his legs in one of the large rope nets that held the airship’s balloon above the hull.

Turning, he spotted the other three in similar situations. Each hung in a very undignified way, helpless until someone could ascend the ladder and untangle them. They all looked as miserable as he was.

Yep. Just another day in the life of a revolutionary, Jim thought with a sigh.