Mercadian Masques

Dabis happened in, lending two more sets of hands. With light but weary voices, the crew members each told of what had happened to them since their parting. They were, Gerrard reflected, like school kids returning after a long holiday, happy to see familiar things once more.

Once the bandages were in place, the crew moved to the engine room, jammed with humming machinery. There, they found Karn, looking immaculate as usual. His hands were sunk into a pair of twin ports in the engine. Within lay handles, which he gripped. Metal filaments jutted from the console into the joints in his metal fingers, hardwiring him to the power core. With a thought, he could control all the engine's levels, harness and shunt its power, even sense the outside world through the ship's lanterns and weapons and hull. It was his concentration that kept Weatherlight floating in midair in the smoky cavern. Karn gave no acknowledgment of his friends' entry, for his silver shell had gone inert. While engaged this way, Weatherlight became his body.

Passing him, Ha

"What are you talking about?" Gerrard asked.

"The bubble. Karn's been carrying it about in his guts for-how long has it been?"

"A long time," Sisay said. Unbidden, there rose to her mind an image of First Mate Meida, killed when they retrieved the Juju Bubble from the Adarkar Wastes. "What did you do?"

Ha

Sisay shook her head. "I don't understand."

"It was Karn's idea. He brought it out from his chest and realize what it was for. When we placed the bubble over the framework of stones, it acted as a kind of lens. It focused the power. The Power Matrix spontaneously grew to incorporate it. It was beautiful!"

Sisay laughed. "All right. I'll take your word for it. But can we planeshift?"

Ha

"We can't reach enough speed to planeshift out of here-" Sisay began.

"We'll have to blast our way into the main cavern and then out the doors at the base," interrupted Gerrard. "We can wipe out the rest of the fleet en route."

"Blast our way out?" Ha

Gerrard smiled, turning toward her. "You've said the ship's more powerful than ever. Let's see how much more. Battle stations, everyone." He spoke the command quietly, but the sound of it carried even above thrumming engines.

"Yes, Commander," Captain Sisay said, saluting. With a grin, she turned and climbed the stairs toward the bridge.

Ha

"Just so," Gerrard said through a gentle smile.

As Ha

"Not if you'd like to live long enough to reach your battle stations," Gerrard replied.

Dabis rolled a seaman's cap nervously in his hands. "Sorry to say, Commander, but our battle station was the galley, locking down pots and pans. We never were highly ranked."

"Come with me, then," Gerrard said, motioning over his bandaged shoulder. "You too, Tahngarth. We'll need the four of us to operate the forward guns. Acquit yourselves there, and you'll get a promotion." He strode up the stairs from the engine room, through the hatch, and out onto the deck.

"Forward guns! Possible promotion!" Dabis enthused to Fewsteem. "Better than pots and pans!" Across the deck, they scrambled to the guns.

In her centuries of existence, Weatherlight had been fitted out with numerous defensive measures-dimension disrupters, glasspitters, bombards, lantern-guns, acid atomizers… All of these weapons, though, had been genteel compared to the massive Phyrexian ray ca

Two such guns were poised on the upper deck, and Gerrard and Tahngarth climbed the stairs to these. They strapped themselves in. Man and minotaur gripped their separate fire controls, moving the barrels experimentally through their full arcs. Both of the guns could shoot forty-five degrees past the prow on the opposite side, allowing dual coverage of the whole forward quadrant. They each could also sweep back one hundred twenty degrees on their own sides. Their field of fire overlapped with the guns stationed to port and starboard amidships. There, Fewsteem and Dabis readied themselves. A fifth such gun perched on the tail of the ship, and even now, a certain green fellow climbed stiffly to the controls. Squee had overheard the call to battle stations, and he longed to fire the weapon he stared down at for agonizing hours. A sixth gun was mounted to swivel vertically down from the ship's belly, and a seventh to fire vertically upward from the center of the main deck.

"Whatever their other faults," Gerrard called over his shoulder to Tahngarth on the upper deck, "Phyrexians certainly know their weaponry."

Checking his range finder, Tahngarth replied in impressive deadpan. "I've never before seen a machine so worthy of my… adoration."

Fewsteem and Dabis, amidships, were similarly delighted.

"Strap in, boys," came the voice of Sisay from the speaking tubes. Gerrard glanced toward the bridge's windows to see her standing at the ship's helm. She waved. Through the tube came her voice. "Ha

The ship rumbled eagerly, surging higher up from the smoldering floor of the hangar. Intakes on either side dragged in long draughts of air. Steady and humming, the ship released a blast of fire.

Laughter filled the tubes. Then came Ha

"And she's more maneuverable," Sisay explained. "Everybody, hang on until we've got the feel of the ship."

"Hang on, strap in, and draw a bead on that rockslide," Gerrard ordered.

"Right, Commander," came Fewsteem's and Dabis's unison reply in the tubes.

"Take us in steady, Captain, a hundred yards from the cave-in," Gerrard said. "Karn, shunt all auxiliary power to the forward guns."

Though there came no response from the engine room, sudden heat filled the footwells. Fire crawled within the manifold conduits.

Weatherlight lifted smoothly above a ruined goblin skiff and then coursed down a corridor among smoldering hulks. She slid easily into place before the landslide and shivered to a gentle halt.