Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. It is a draft; there are mistakes, many misspellings and sometimes long periods of no updates. copyright: ion fyr 2025
“I have a friend,” was Luc’s response.
Etelka saw Luc look again at her hand.
“Gordon’s no longer with us. Attila is unconscious from a headwound from flying debris. Beatrix is tending to him. Thank the gods that he is alright.”
“I didn’t look at the setting–I was rather rushed–but we appear to have escaped for now.” Etelka moved closer to Nila. Their goddess of destruction was severely wounded.
The medical device did indeed look like an insect, even having eight appendages to cling to the wound. She saw the extremities, small metallic hooks digging into Nila’s upper arm and pulling the body tight against her flesh.
Nila had a series of large, barely coagulated gashes on her neck and the right side of her face. Dried blood was everywhere on her remaining clothing–Luc had ripped or cut away much of the material of the jacket and shirt.
“Can we get to Tesifon?” Luc asked. “My friend… is a…” A glance at Nila. “…a surgeon.”
“I don’t know at the moment, not without a survey of the damage. We must…collect and bury Captain Gordon, as well. It sounded like one of the blasts damaged the aft prop shafts.”
“It did, ma’am. I heard the rotational spin whine frightfully before we lost altitude the final time.”
Etelka hadn’t even realised they had lost altitude. I would explain why, after the jump, they were on the beach.
“Can someone help me move Attila? The man’s a beast.” She asked.
Pool offered, though he had only one hand.
Yet another wonder to decypher on their way to Tesiphon, if the ragged airship could manage to get alift from the beach.
Etelka looked at Luc, her brow furrowed with worry for Nila and exhaustion as the adrenalyne rush twitched to a halt. “May I have a word Mr Maron.” She could never get a handle on familiarity, even knowing that Maron was his pseudonym.
Despite this she grabbed his bloody sleeve, and led him back into the cargo hold. The neon yellow medical kit was splayed open, with sticky blood on its latch on the grate next to the wrecked car.
“Mr Maron…,” she started when he was facing her. It would have been intimate in a different situation. Her heart was still racing. “I am not sure the repairs on the Hut may be made as quickly as we need for the welfare of our friend. I am deeply anxious about the state of the ship and its ability to fly. I…” She faltered.
“Because Gordon is dead?”
“Well, yes, our loss is obviously a setback. I can pilot the ship, but am by no means proficient. The time mechanism functions, though I have not yet looked to see what new horrors await us when we have arrived–probably in the midst of the R’kshasa invasion…No, that is not my concern.”
“The envelops…the bladders of hydrangeum have been punctured numerous times, and I fear that our spare cyllinders might not provide enough gas to get airborne again, provided we, you and I and Beatrix can make the repairs effectively.”
“The propellers are likely damaged as well. Beatrix heard something amiss before the jump.”
The crinkled dimple on Etelka’s chin was showing. Luc wanted to touch her face, her hair to comfort her, but knew that she was on edge and not used to such physical attention even when she wasn’t.
After a few seconds of thought: “I have an idea.” He nodded toward the perforated car, once a comfortable highend machine, now reduced to a tangle of carbon fiber and bonding polymers.
Ion Fyr 