Invasion

Chapter 15

Gerrard stood on the deck of Weatherlight. The ship soared along Benalish shores through coiling rills of cloud. Lifting his captain's spyglass, he glanced abeam.

Other ships bobbed there, strange small ships-the remnants of whatever arcane air defenses Benalia had. They were drawn to Weatherlight as ducklings to their mother. Gerrard had not known there were other flying ships on Dominaria. He had almost blasted the first one from the sky before he had made out the symbol of the Seven Clans on its side. Then more came. While Weatherlight crossed Benalia, flying its refugee army away from the Phyrexian armada, it gathered this ragged fleet. Most of the other ships were small, one-person fighters. A few had crews. A rare few even had enough room to take on some of the prison brigade. A humorless smile lit Gerrard's face. Who would have thought he'd become the commander of a flying armada, leader of a small army, defender of Benalia, bane of spider women? Without trying, he'd become what everyone wanted him to be. They didn't want a saint. They wanted an honest fighter- someone who saw evil and tried his damnedest to knock it flat.

Even so, his damnedest hadn't been enough for Benalia. Tsabo Tavoc had overwhelmed it. Sometimes, a fighter's damnedest wasn't enough.

"Perhaps it would be better to be an infallible savior," Gerrard mused darkly, "to cast out demons and heal the sick-" A pang of guilt stabbed through him. Healing the sick…

Turning away from the ragtag armada, Gerrard hung his spyglass from his belt, strode to the hatch, and descended a stair to the companionway below. Weatherlight's engines sent a hum through the wood all around. The lanterns in the hall glowed wanly over sleeping warriors. Gerrard stepped past them to a door that spilled light into the corridor. Ducking his head, he strode into the sick bay.

It was overloaded. On bunks and floor mats lay folk injured in the brig battle. These were the worst cases- amputations, skull injuries, sucking wounds, lacerations, multiple contusions. Other, less infirm soldiers slept atop crates in the hold. Orim swooped back and forth among the twenty-some patients, giving what aid she could. Most were unconscious, whether from agony or soporifics. Gerrard headed straight across the sick bay to a single bunk.

"Hanna," he breathed, taking hold of her hand and brushing blonde locks back from her sweaty face. "Has the bleeding stopped?"

She looked up at him through a cloud of pain. "I'm not sure. Yes. Orim packed it tight." She tried to sit up. "I shouldn't be taking up one of these bunks-"

"Lie down," Gerrard soothed, easing her back. "Orim can't tend you unless you are here. You're here for her, not for you."

"I should be navigating."

"No," Gerrard insisted. "Sisay can do it. Besides, we'll not be planeshifting. We'd lose our armada." He gave a little laugh. "For that matter, we're not exactly sure where we're bound. I was counting on the old man's advice, but nobody can find him. He's probably squirreled away somewhere. We can use the time to rest, all of us-a little sailing before the next fight."

Hanna curled in a spasm of pain. She clutched her stomach.

Gerrard held her hand, staring at clenched eyelids. "Orim! Over here. Something's happening."

Orim looked up from the man she tended, a double amputee at the knees. Her eyes were grimly determined beneath the turban she wore. In her bound hair, Cho-Arrim coins gleamed. Drawing a white sheet over the twin tourniquets, Orim made her way across the crowded sick bay.

She gave Gerrard an apologetic smile. "We're doing our best. There's not enough space, not enough supplies-"

"Something's wrong," Gerrard broke in. He gestured to Hanna, curled on the pallet. His eyes were pleading.

Orim nodded and knelt beside the pallet. "She's been doing this for the last hour. I've cleansed the wound and applied opiates. I fear to give her more, lest they poison her. I've tried every spell and meditation. Even Cho-Arrim magic is no match for this plague."

"I'm fine, really," Hanna said through gritted teeth. With an effort of will, she straightened. "I need to get back to the bridge."

"Let me see the wound," Gerrard said.

"It's nothing," Hanna interrupted, "just a little blood, just a little infection."

Orim's jaw muscle leaped. "I'm going to pull back the gauze. It's time to check the wound anyway."

Tears standing in her eyes, Hanna nodded.

With quick and expert motions, Orim drew back the bedclothes, exposing Hanna's midsection from her hipbone to the first rib. The bandage showed a small smile of blood.

Beyond the fabric, Hanna's skin was smooth and pink.

"That doesn't look so bad," Gerrard said hopefully.

Orim pulled loose the gauze. It came away only reluctantly. Its warp and weft clung to the seeping flesh. A great weighty gob came loose. Crimson blood and black rot were mixed on the packing. Orim drew it aside, setting it in a silver tray.

The wound was a canyon in Hanna's stomach. Perhaps three inches deep, the infection had carved ragged walls down through skin and muscle. A glossy gray membrane stretched across the base of the wound. The corruption that ate away at her flesh dribbled down atop that membrane.

"That's the peritoneum," Orim said. "It protects her organs. If the disease spreads beyond that-"

"We have to stop it," Gerrard murmured intensely. "Can't you cut away the infected flesh?"

Orim shook her head. "That's how it got this big-I cut away the rot, but it returned. The roots of the infection are too long. Look." She pulled back more of the dressing gown. Beneath the pink of Hanna's skin, gray tendrils of corruption spread outward, up to her neck, around to her spine, and down to her knee.

"We have to stop it. You have to find a cure."

"Yes," Orim replied quietly, repacking the wound. "Yes, I know."

"All right," Hanna said. "The show is over. I'll be fine. Orim's the best healer in Dominaria. She'll-" She stopped, gripping her side.

Gerrard pulled her hand away and clutched it tightly. "You're right. You'll be fine. Orim will heal you. I've ordered her to. We're destined to stay together-"

Hanna laughed. "You've never known what you were destined for."

Smiling, Gerrard nodded. "You're right. But I always knew what I wanted, and I always wanted you."

As she finished bandaging the wound, Orim said, "Gerrard always gets what he wants."

"Damn straight."

A familiar voice echoed through the speaking tube. "Orim, is Gerrard down there?"

He answered with levity he didn't feel, "Ah, the third goddess summons! What is it, Sisay?"

"You'd better get up here. We're coming up on something."

"On my way," Gerrard answered. He bent, kissing Hanna. "Get some sleep. Orim will give you something. I need you rested. By the time you wake, we'll be halfway to a cure." Turning, he threaded his way through the crowded sick bay and out into the hall.

Beyond the murmur of the wounded, the hum of the ship's engines was omnipresent. It was a comforting sound-straightforward power. In the face of that roar, no obstacle seemed insurmountable. How could a little disease resist such power?

Gerrard gained the deck and climbed to the forecastle. Beyond the prow was a strange sight.

Low above the sparkling waves, a lone Phyrexian cruiser flew. It seemed almost an island instead of a ship, except for its speed. The cruiser's black mass left a churning sea in its wake, waves driven up by the force of enormous turbines.

"What are they doing down so low?" Tahngarth asked. He leaned on the rail.

Gerrard lifted his spyglass, extended it, and peered down. "They seem to be fishing."

Along the lower rail of the Phyrexian cruiser were batteries of harpoons. Scaly crews manned them. They worked diligently, loading and firing. Long white jags burst out from the guns, seeming to wriggle in the air as they descended toward the sea. They sliced the water with a diving motion. Beneath the glassy surface, they surged along. Four white shots converged on a school of fleeing dolphins.

"Just like Phyrexians to kill dolphins," Tahngarth hissed.

Gerrard shook his head grimly. "Just like them to kill merfolk."

Through the spyglass, he saw. The bolts below ripped into the undulating tail-fins of fleeing merfolk. Those shots seemed somehow to be self-guided. Each one burrowed straight up the spine of a creature. All life fled the bodies. Lanced corpses floated to the surface and lolled on the waves. The cruiser drove on, just above them, with no apparent attempt to retrieve the kills.

"What are they doing?" Tahngarth snorted. "They'd not waste a whole cruiser on harpooning, would they?"

"Those aren't normal harpoons."

Gerrard trained the spyglass on the crews at the guns. Whatever they loaded into those launchers wriggled like snakes-not snakes, centipedes. Long thin legs extended from the main body. They hungrily lashed the arms of the crews that loaded them. One gunner dragged his fist down the length of a centipede, flattening its legs against its bony body and straightening the whole beast. The gunner then jabbed the thing into the launcher. A shuddering second later, the centipede flew from the ship into the water and struck a merman, carving its way up his spine.

"Spinal implants," Gerrard said in realization, "just like the one Volrath used to control Greven. They're killing merfolk and then-"

Before he could say it, the spyglass caught movement among the slain merfolk. They lifted lolling heads. Their limbs jerked horribly. The dead things turned and stared in awe at the vast ship. Their backs were long, raw wounds where the former spine had been ejected. The flesh was as torn and corrupted as the gash in Hanna's stomach.

"Oh, that's it," spat Gerrard, folding the spyglass. He whacked Tahngarth's chest. "Let's get to the guns. We'll sink that mermaid-killing, zombie-popping, black-boil-onthe-butt-of-the-world slave ship."

Lifting an eloquent eyebrow, Tahngarth said, "If you say so."

"Battle stations!" Gerrard called out between cupped hands. Flipping open the speaking tube beside the port-side ray cannon, he repeated the command, "Battle stations! Signal the fleet. We go down in a strafing run. Any ship with a gun, follow Weatherlight!"

Sisay's voice replied, "Aye, Commander. I thought you'd have something to say about this. How close do you want us to pass?"

"Close enough to clip their horns," Gerrard called back as he strapped himself in behind the cannon.

Tahngarth rubbed one of his own horns. "That's close."

"Drive them into the sea. Let 'em rust beneath the waves. Let 'em feed the sharks."

"Aye," was all Sisay said.

The ship pitched sharply forward. Her prow dipped past ragged white clouds. The black cruiser came into view directly beyond the figurehead. Air spilled up past the gunwales. Weatherlight plunged into a dive. Her engines mounted up, trailing coils of vapor. The manifolds roared.

The airfoils trimmed backward. Wind screamed off their streamlined tips. All that noise might have alerted the monsters below, but the ship punched through her own sound envelope, outrunning it.

Weatherlight was an axe head rushing down to split the vast ship below. Beside her and behind her swarmed the ragtag fleet. Every last gun buzzed, its charge building.

The blue-green sea welled up below. The black cruiser above it grew as well. It swelled to fill the whole world. Only when every gun turret and conduit showed clear across the horrid thing did Gerrard give the order.

"Fire!"

Red bursts leaped from his cannon. Plasma smacked against a canister engine, cracking through the armor shell and releasing geysers of sulfur. Tahngarth's gun spoke twice. The first charge ripped away a whole section of wall. The second painted the harpoon deck in killing fire. Phyrexians and their damned spinal centipedes writhed in agony as the blast burned them to nothing.

The amidships cannons added their fury to the battle. Red flack spread from all sides of Weatherlight. As she snapped out above the rankled mid-ridge of the cruiser, even her rear gun came to life. Squee clung there with savage glee. He unleashed a fiery barrage that stripped the Phyrexian's answering fire from the sky. The rest of the armada blasted away as well.

Explosions rocked the outer shell of the ship. Fires belched out from within.

"Pull up!" Gerrard ordered as Weatherlight shot fore of the craft. "Take her high in a rollover reverse. Prepare for a second attack run!"

The ship launched herself skyward. She climbed with the same eager speed with which she had plunged. The rest of the armada struggled into her slipstream.

Gerrard glanced over the rail. The cruiser was striped with destruction. Inky smoke rolled up from its rent hull. All across it, Phyrexians lay dead.

"That'll teach them-attacking defenseless merfolk!" Gerrard hooted.

Sisay stood the ship on end and rolled her over, climbing all the while.

"Not as defenseless as you think," Tahngarth barked.

Gerrard peered down again.

Huge columns of water blasted up out of the deep. They surrounded the crippled ship, overtopping it. The arcs of water broke and fell away from vast hooks and thick cables. A sheet of spray flung up, carrying in it an enormous net. With unimaginable force, every line that had snagged on the cruiser went taut. The ship struggled in vain to stay aloft. The force below was too great. The bow of the craft crashed into the waves. It sank with preternatural speed. Lightnings awoke across the cruiser as power cells contacted the water. Energy surges opened more cracks in the ruined hull. The pressure of the seas lengthened these fissures. Underwater explosions mounded water high.

In deep and boiling oceans, the cruiser sank with all hands aboard.

Gerrard stared in amazement. He gabbled, "Uh, c-call off the next attack,"

A heavy hand settled on his shoulder. Tahngarth's voice rumbled. "The seas can take care of themselves."

Nodding numbly, Gerrard said into the speaking tube. "Captain, let's maintain a high altitude. We wouldn't want to get too close to those nets."

"Aye."