Falling Sky Read Online Free Page A

and slug it back.

    I’m resting my head against the console, the moonshine carving out a nice warm hole inside of me, when I hear the shots.
    Despite the alcohol, my body is hardwired to react to that sound, and I’m up in an instant, running to the window at the front of the gondola, then to those at the sides. Cameras rigged beneath me show me what’s happening. Another dirigible, coming in at me from the port side, to the southeast. Green envelope with silver trim. Medium sized, rigged for cargo but still pretty fast. But why are they firing at me? And why from that distance? They have to know that the shots won’t do anything. And it’s not like ammo grows on trees.
    Then I see the second airship coming down from above. That’s the one that’s firing. On the other.
    I’m ready to push off, to fly the Cherub as fast as I can away from these two airships and whatever quarrel they have between them. Then I see that the aggressor is flying the flag of Gastown. The new flag.
    My hand pauses.
    Gastown. It was a city, built in the sky. A city made up of dozens of airships and balloons all lashed together, with platforms suspended beneath. A city where people lived and worked. A city where they made helium. But Gastown was more than that. It was progress. It was hope. It was a place that created its own economy. It was a place where a forager like me could barter things I found for things I needed.
    Which is not to say that I liked the place. They charged a fucking ridiculous tax just to dock there. And they strong-armed people into working for them. If you wanted to stay independent, like me, you got cheated. Fewer jobs. Less payment for what you brought in. It was theirs to do, of course, but it wasn’t what I was looking for in the city of the future.
    Only it didn’t last that long.
    That helium was too valuable a commodity. And the skycity of Valhalla, off to the east, didn’t have any. And they wanted it. Man, did they want it. So they took it.
    But the way they took it . . .
    Valhalla got a bunch of their ships and attached hooks to the bottoms of them. Then they went fishing. For Ferals. Each of them hooked a Feral the way you might hook a fish and then dropped those dying, bleeding Ferals on a city full of people.
    In a world where you learn that being in the air is safe, no one was prepared for that. It caused widespread chaos. Fear. Panic. Everyone tried to run for safety. Back to their ships, if they had them. Probably to others’ if they could steal them. It was like the outbreak of the Bug all over again. People ran. For their ships, for shelter, for their loved ones. And as they did, the Valhalla raiders flew in and fired on them.
    In the end, it was so easy for them. Those who didn’t leave were picked off by the raiders. Then it just took a little while for them to wait out the Ferals and to clean off the city. By then who was left to take it back?
    I know all of this because I was there. And yes, I ran when I saw those Ferals. I got Miranda and Sergei off with me. And I don’t feel bad about it. There was nothing I could do except die. And if you couldn’t guess already, I don’t aim to do that.
    So here is a ship flying the flag of Gastown, which is essentially the flag of Valhalla, and with all that’s going on, well, it just pisses me the fuck off.
    So rather than turn around, I go toward them.
    Which is something of a problem because I don’t have any weapons on the Cherub . And this ship I’m heading toward does. But it’s distracted. And I have a one-track mind.
    I raise the Cherub so that she’s above the enemy ship, which will protect me from its side-mounted weapons. Then I maneuver myself so that I’m going to pass right over it.
    It’s true the Cherub doesn’t have any weapons—no mounted guns, no harpoons, no rams. Dad never went in for any of those, and I don’t either. She’s a fast airship