The Core

Eien Akagawa

The wind ripped through my clothes as we descended like a comet. Iroha had pulled in the sail so we could go as fast as possible without tearing the ship apart. I glanced to our right, or I guess to starboard. The two other scavengers were behind us, but not by much.

My ship was meant for one thing and that was to go as fast as possible. Either fortunately or unfortunately, the other two ships were built the same way. They had to be in order to get into and out of battlefields. The clans did not take kindly to scavengers. Nor did scavengers take kindly to their own kind.

The Eye-borrower troops launched the last of their longboats from the ship, leaving the ship to continue its descent towards the ground alone. At least until I got there.

Iroha took the nose of our ship and put it lower, almost straight towards the ground. My feet floated up off the deck and I tightened my grip on the rope and railing that I held onto. I pulled myself back down and planted a foot against the mast and the other against the rib of the inside of the boat.

“Come on!” I yelled into the rushing air. “Faster!”

Keep that adrenaline in check Eien! You’ll bite your tongue off.

I felt the grin across my face and I tried to quash it. But that and the boiling in my blood could not be denied. Every quake and shutter that went through my ship, the scream of the wind around us, it only fed more into it.

“Wooohooo!”

Eien, keep track of your surroundings! I’m going to pull up hard and come up on its side. You’ll need to be quick.

I bared my teeth in a snarl as we came closer to our target. Then our ship pulled up sharply and I would have slammed into the deck if I hadn’t braced my legs earlier. It still hurt to keep myself upright, despite what Iroha did to minimize the forces of gravity on my body.

I hurled myself off of my ship and rolled onto the Eye-borrower ship deck. I looked up as I got to my feet. I got to the ship first and the closest scavenger ship peeled off to find other prey. While the furthest one slowed and hung back just far enough to be suspicious.

Iroha flew off to a safe distance. Just far enough away to not get shot down by the clan ship but close enough to come get me quickly if I needed an emergency exit. I headed down into the ship at a run towards the engine room. Samurai were unlikely to leave their weapons and armor behind. And they didn’t live in these ships unlike the ones that traveled across the world. Which also meant that there wouldn’t usually be anything valuable in the captains quarters.

There was only one thing that I wanted from this ship and it would cover rent and food for a good month. The ship's core.

I flitted around the ship's interior, trying to go as fast as I could. I glanced out a hole blasted into the side of the ship. As I did an explosion rocked the sky as one of the Kirin’s clan's ships engines were blown apart. I stumbled and put a hand on a beam to steady myself.

I didn’t pause and watch the wreckage fall, instead I kept moving. The lowest deck was a long hallway with doors on either side. There was a heavy steel door at the end of the hall. The door was wide open. I would have been worried about someone being in there but there was a harsh wind blowing through the door.

I drew to a stop at the door and looked in. There was a wide hole in the right side of the room. Two bodies remained, one of them impaled by the broken wood of the hull and hung over open air. They were engineers by the look of their uniforms which were a mix of western and eastern styles.

I ignored their bodies and went straight to the large engine at the back of the room. Metal piping covered the back wall. It hummed and strained against the effort of trying to keep the badly damaged ship afloat. In the center of the engine on a shrine was a yellow orb like the one Iroha was in.

Inside was a god that slowly spun in circles, deep asleep. Unlike Iroha, this one had been made specifically for flying ships. It looked like a bird that had been cut in half, with claws holding the two halves together. Its wings flapped lazily.

Most people didn’t have their gods pilot their ships for them. In that case, Iroha and I were unique. Most gods were now manufactured with faith being used carelessly for progress. Many were used to power modern machines such as these flying boats.

I reached out to the shrine and gently grabbed the glowing golden orb. It was smaller than the one Iroha was in. This was about the size of one watermelon. This must have been state of the art since it was so small.

The ship shuttered as I took the god or gods since they were two halves of a whole, from its shrine in the engine. It wouldn’t begin freefall yet as the god was still connected spiritually. But its descent would begin picking up its pace.

I tucked it under my arm and turned to leave when another explosion rocked the sky. I fell forward and the orb flew out of my hands. It fell onto the ground and rolled. At the same time, the ship began to tilt and the orb headed towards the blown out section of the wall.

I didn't bother getting to my feet, instead I scrambled on all fours across the floor and dove for the orb. I managed to grab it as it teetered over the edge. My upper body hung over the air and it was through strength of will that I kept myself from falling out of the ship. I clenched my abs and braced my knees against the scarred deck.

Then the ship tilted back the other way and I let myself slide back. I glanced down at the god inside of the orb. It was still doing its job. If it had fallen out the spiritual connection would have snapped and the ship would have fallen out of the sky. I ran back the way I had come, giving any sections open to the sky a wide berth.

I would have called for Iroha when I got close to the deck but our spiritual connection didn’t reach that far. Right now, the boat she was in was our ‘home.’ She wouldn’t be able to hear me unless I was within earshot. In this case she’d pick me up when she saw me come out onto the deck.

I ran onto the deck and came to an abrupt halt. Standing a few feet away was another person in a mask. Their clothes made it difficult to make out their gender. The most important thing about them was that they held a pistol pointed at my head.