Chương 568: Chapter Five Hundred and Fifty-Three - Mutual Debate of Ownership Philosophy

Our shots from above left plenty of holes and rips through the canvas fabric enveloping its frame. Some of those were large enough to expose the large gasbags within. They were all made of a dark fabric, maybe some sort of leather? I couldn't tell from afar. What I could tell was that we were poking plenty of holes into it. That didn't mean that it was going down so easily. Some of those holes were probably small enough that I could plug them with a pinkie, but some?

There were gashes and cuts large enough to crawl into, and that meant that the ship lost lifting gas by the second. If the pirates didn't patch all of that up--and soon--then the only thing keeping them afloat would be their gravity engines and that would burn a ton of fuel. In fact, even as I gathered my mana for more fireballs, I heard the telltale sound of machinery being thrown into high gear, and the enemy ship lurched upward.

"Keep it up!" Calamity shouted even as he nocked another arrow, pulled, and let it loose. It whistled down and punched through one of the balloons, only to explode deep within with a short-lived gout of flames.

"This flying trash-heap ain't gonna roll over and die without a fight!" He was right, the pirate ship was taking a lot of damage, but they were already scurrying around, slapping patches over the holes in the balloon, summoning water to put out fires, and a few were even starting to shoot back at us. Still, the pirates were gaining altitude. Large ballast tanks of water were opened up and spilled out below, making the ship lose a ton of weight and allowing it to rise, despite everything.

"Watch out," Bastion said.

"They'll be able to retaliate soon."

"Let's see if we can't stall that," Amaryllis muttered. She started to prepare another spell, just as big as the last. I fired off another brace of fireballs, aiming into the tears on the ship's side so that they'd splash around within and hopefully light something on fire. There were lots of things in an airship that could catch fire. We just needed a few lucky sparks in the right place, and the pirates would be too busy putting out fires to think about doing piracy. But that didn't happen.

Amaryllis called down another massive bolt of lightning from above. It crashed into the top of the ship, sparks leaping from one metal part to another, before shooting out the bottom. It left a smoking hole at the top wide enough to climb into, and a lot of the metal superstructure was red-hot.

"I'm out," Amaryllis gasped.

"I'll need ten before I can cast something like that again."

"Take it," I said.

"Clive! Give us some thrust! Engines on. No time to be silent. We need to get moving!" The pirate ship was climbing and gaining some speed. As it rose, nose pitching up, I was able to make out the platforms on its bottom half where the ship's ballistas were positioned. Pirates were loading them up, preparing to fire, and soon we'd be within their firing arcs.

"Ah! Focus on their weapons!" I called out.

"Got it!" Calamity said. He took another expert shot, only for it to ram into a hastily raised magical shield. They had casters? Oh no. The Beaver's engine kicked on, and was soon roaring, but that didn't instantly give us all that much speed. I jogged to the rear deck.

"Give us some height if you can, Clive," I said.

"Deploy all sails! I want us to catch any wind we can get. We're going to try evasive maneuvers!" Already, a few sputtering fireballs were pitched our way, arcing through the air and mostly missing, though I winced as one of them smacked into the wooden deck. No lingering fire, and it probably only hit as hard as a punch, but still, that was just a warning of what was to come. We started to gain a bit of speed and a tiny bit more height, but the pirate ship was just dropping ballast too quickly.

Soon enough it was nearly level with us, and its big ballista turned, aiming our way.

"Shields!" I shouted. Amaryllis threw one up, and Desiree another. They were both relatively small, hanging off the side of the Beaver. Three loud twangs sounded out as the pirates fired. One missed outright. Another long bolt crashed into our shield, exploding into splinters amidst a shower of magic sparks. The last one punched into (and through) the decking. I winced. That'd take some effort to repair, but it wasn't anything critical. Awen replied.

Opening up with her fast-firing multiballista turret, flinging out a bolt every second with a loud thump. They smacked into the pirate ship's side, first along the canvas, then across a few shields before leaving a trail of bolts along the main underhull of the ship. Calamity had Desiree and Caprica apply more magic to an arrow, until it was practically vibrating. His next shot was as loud as a gun, and one of the pirate's engine nacelles burst open, illuminated from within by the blossoming light of fire.

"Yeah!" I cheered. Then eeped as two more ballista bolts struck us. One in the foredeck, another punched right through our balloon.

"Oh no. Steve, Gordon! Emergency patch job, starboard!" I received a few 'ayes' before they were off, the Scallywags running about to give them the equipment they'd need. I grit my teeth. The pirate ship was coming alive in a big way, and soon they'd be plugging us full of holes. The pirates were probably busy patching up and repairing things.

I was hoping that we'd given them enough of a bloody nose that they weren't going to keep up the chase, but if we stayed so close to them, then soon we'd be dealing with a slug-fest, and the Beaver was in the wrong weight class for that. I looked around, then had an idea as my eyes landed on the Redemption. The smaller ship was roped in tight between the twin hulls of the Beaver and it had a fully-functional gravity engine and it was a strong one too...

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. That was an idea... We'd swiped the Redemption from some privateers but never really needed it for anything. The cutting-edge metal airboat was lashed in place with a fully inflated balloon, but otherwise shut down. I think Awen sometimes did maintenance checks on it when the Beaver was running smoothly.

"Clive!" I shouted.

"Turn us toward the pirates! We're going over the top of them!" He gave a somewhat strained affirmative as I spun on my heel and sprinted for our ballista turret.

"Awen! The Redemption! Start the Redemption!" I saw her eyes widen. The gears in her head were turning. Awen clambered out of her turret, then sprinted across the deck. I left her to it while rushing along the edge of the Beaver, attention split towards the pirate ship who was gaining altitude and was soon going to be level with us. A few stray spells were coming up from below now, the pirate's casters doing what they could to scare us off.

When I made it to the rear, I gave Clive new instructions, and just like that, the Beaver started to turn, slowly pointing its nose right at the pirates. It only took a minute for them to figure out that our trajectories were going to intersect. The shouting on their ship grew. I noticed a lot of my friends glancing back, but I tried to remain calm, collected, and brave. The twin prows of the Beaver aligned itself with the pirates.

I think everyone on both ships was a little shocked by this, especially as Clive gunned the engine. I really wished I had a sword to point towards the pirates. Instead I settled on gesturing at them.

"Fire everything!" My friends did just that. The number of smaller spells we were flinging at the pirates redoubled. The pirates fired back, but the only bolt that might have hit us was caught on a shield. The Redemption's engine came to life with a howl. The pirate ship loomed large in front of us. I couldn't help the fear that shot down my spine, but I kept firing fireballs and trusted Awen. The pirates were shouting back and forth as Clive kept us on course.

At the front of the pirate ship, I could just barely make out people on the main deck where they had an impressive view afforded by bay windows. A man wearing a large captain's hat was glaring. Darn. If he was angry, he might choose to give chase, no matter how much we blackened his eye. His eyes bore into mine. We were so close-- The howl of the Redemption's engine changed timbre as Awen engaged the state-of-the-art Snowlander gravity engine.

My stomach dropped, and then we lurched upward as she threw the engine to maximum power. The safety lines tied to the Redemption creaked as it strained to take as much load off of the Beaver as possible. Clive shifted gears and at the front, the Scallywags cheered like madmen. The Beaver tilted up and rumbled past the top of the pirate ship.

I think there were only feet to spare between our hull and the top of their balloon, and the only reason we didn't collide was the pirates cuttting off their own engines and venting their balloons to lose some height. That would cost them!

"To the rear!" I shouted as we crossed over the top of the balloon.

"Fire as you go! Amaryllis, can you make a shield for us?"

"I'm still out from the lightning bolts." she replied.

"But... I'll see what I can do."

"Yeah, but we need to show up their mages," I said.

"Imagine how scared they'll be if we stop them from hurting us at all." She puffed up a little, then started to work on a spell. When we were out of the shadow of the pirate ship, the ballista on their other side opened fire at us, but the pirate ship was rocking. Having an engine blow up was probably not great for their stability, and as I squinted to see through the night, I had the impression that their upward climb was faltering. Were the leaks in their balloons catching up to them?

Calamity fired a few more arrows, nailing them into the thin metal walls of the undercarriage of the ship. It was unlikely that he'd hit anything important, but one cut hydraulic line could really make things annoying for the pirates, plus it probably spooked them to have arrows suddenly poke out of the floor. A few windows were opened, and spells and bolts fired from crossbows were aimed down at us. Amaryllis muttered something that didn't sound very polite, then threw her talons out.

A large disk of buzzing, electrical energy flashed to light between the Beaver and the pirates, snapping at anything that came too close.

"Flashy enough for you?" Amaryllis asked. She looked a bit sweaty and tired, but the spell was super impressive.

"That's incredible," I said.

"It's mostly decorative," she admitted.

"Let's make some room before they realize it?" With Clive at the helm, we moved the sails we'd deployed to catch the wind as best we could, then gunned it out of there. The Beaver wasn't fast-fast, but it was faster than the pirates were at the moment, and we slowly gained distance until they stopped even trying to fire at us. With most of the lights on the Beaver extinguished, we'd be hard to see anyway. The Redemption's howling engine spun down to idle, and we began to lose altitude.

A somewhat frazzled Awen emerged from the side hatch and clambered across the access ladder onto the Beaver's deck. She came up to stand next to me.

"So," she said.

"The engine still works."

"Are you, uh... okay?" I asked. She had a somewhat manic look in her eyes.

"I think so. This is what I signed up for, after all." I paused.

"You didn't sign up for anything though. I kidnapped you."

"Voluntarily," she argued.

"And I don't plan on leaving. Uncle does much crazier stuff than this."

"Let's catch up with the convoy," I said.

"And then we'll see what our next steps are."