Short Story: The Direction's Whim

“Where we go, the wind follows in our wake. Those that fall under our shadow know doom or deliverance. We are the storm that sweeps civilizations. We are the author of all that is Holy. We are justice borne aloft upon the wings of Aether. We are Aetherion.”

The holy tenets of Aether have been a large part of my existence for most of my life. My name is Renata, though my comrades call me the Skyborne Orphan, or simply Skyborne. I am an ace pilot of the Levitar Air Force, and I know my fate awaits me in the clouds of Elyrion. Every day that passes, every day that Aegard and the Aetherion Empire drifts ever onwards, every day that I rise and pray and fly is a day closer to my reckoning.

I was born a slave and orphaned before I could even remember my parents. They were fighters, like me, though the great god Aetherion didn't see fit to bless them with the abilities he gave me. Abilities that have seen me return victorious from over a hundred sorties. I was born shortly after they were captured, taken from a Valrathi slave trader's ship, one that had travelled too deep into the Shattered Expanse. For, you see, my parents already belonged to another nation. The Valrath Dominion, that most arch and evil place. Their brutal forces had effected an extermination of Fenrir like me during their invasion. My parents were among the lucky ones they had enslaved rather than killed – if that could truly be called luck.

They were made slaves, liberated, only to be made slaves again by those that would call themselves rescuers. An irony that stays with me. When they were brought to Aetherion, they were forced to join the Levitar, but only as part of the land based forces, as was appropriate for the lowest of the low: the captured of foreign nations, the slaves and serfs, those that could not be relied upon to fight with full heart for the glory of the Aetherion Empire. They died and left me behind to be raised as a fighter. And so that is what I am.

I fight the enemies of my home, the only home I have ever known, Aegard of the Aetherion Empire. The islands of the Empire drift across the Shattered Expanse, leaving fruitless lands behind and forging a path determined by the Holy Direction to new lands of plenty which will be conquered in Aetherion's name. This is my mission, what is expected of me, and flying is my means of completing it.

When the first bell tolls each morning, I rise with the dawn and complete my devotions in the chapel barracks. The other pilots usually join me for breakfast, simple food, but good, as befitting our relative importance within the Levitar. Afterwards, the engineers and ground crew meet us at the hangars that cluster around the barracks, ready with preflight information, training data, and occasionally mission orders.

Today is such a day. Today, the slate bears no holy seal, only the red spiral mark of an immediate scramble. Sky raiders. Pirates bold – or desperate – enough to stalk the drifting margins of Aegard, hoping to snatch cargo skiffs or prey upon outlying farms before the Levitar is able to respond.

Honestly, a disappointment. Raiders are not Valrath, though the likelihood of ever engaging fighters of the Dominion this far west is slim to nonexistent. More likely it would be the air forces of isolated nations within the Shattered Expanse, or pirates and mercenaries flying out of the Wyrmscar Peaks.

Raiders provide little challenge individually. They fly crudely lashed together fighter-craft, usually with more guns bolted to their hulls than is sensible. Though, even these fighters are dangerous in large enough numbers, and the skies have been getting ever more full of such chancers in recent years as the tensions between nations rises.

And yet, the sky cares not for my longing. Duty is duty.

“Contact at bearing five-two-four,” the duty officer announces. “Multiple hostiles encroaching upon capital airspace.”

I accept his quick briefing, already heading to my craft. The Blue Yonder sits in my personal hangar, engineers surrounding it, making last second adjustments as I climb aboard my fighter. The canopy locks in place and seals. Fuel is good, aether feeds clear and sensors running optimally.

I briefly make eye contact with one of the engineers, a young lady, copper hair under her cap and goggles. I see awe in her eyes. Awe and hope.

I hate that most of all.

Launch rails fire and suddenly I am in open sky. Aegard falls away below me as I climb and soon the rest of my wing are with me. As always, the simple joy of flight cuts through all of my dark thoughts. This is where I am supposed to be.

“Standard hunting formation,” I call over the aether-net. “I'll take the lead, stay with your wingmates and good hunting.”

We find the raiders with little trouble. They don't have our speed, nor our sophisticated targeting. What they do have is numbers. There are nearly three times as many of them as our own fighters. That so many are abroad in our skies speaks for how bold they have become in recent times.

The swarm buzzes above the low cloud layers, skipping in and out of banks, obviously attempting to avoid detection. We fall on them like hunting birds. As soon as they spot us, they scatter, but we maintain flight discipline and begin our hunt, chasing them down in pairs.

I have the honor of the first kill. The raider has climbed hard, trying to get above us, but my targeting system has a lock on before they can bring their guns to bear. Aether powered rockets streak out and detonate on the wing and tail and the craft folds. The crumpled metal that used to be a raider tumbles from the sky.

"Good shot, Skyborne!" my wingmate calls over the aether-net. "The next one's mine!"

Within minutes, my hunting wing has knocked out four more of the raider craft. The surviving raiders regroup and two try to lure us into a cloud canyon where four more wait to catch us in crossfire.

I recognise the tactic and climb instead, rising higher and higher until the sky begins to darken, then I angle my nose down and dive through the centre of their formation, dropping flares and firing my cannons as I go. Two more raiders explode into spinning flecks of metal and my wingmate rubs a third. One manages to get a bearing on me as I flash through their formation. I almost feel the tracer fire as it hums past my wings. Then an aether rocket from another of my squadron impacts on the raider and the contact winks out on my radar. The explosion buffets Blue Yonder, but I fly on.

Over the next ten minutes, we corral and destroy six more of the enemy. The last raider makes a break for it, trying to reach the safety of the lower cloud banks.

"In pursuit!" I cry, but the aether-net crackles, and suddenly flight control is speaking.

"Negative, flight lead. Let them go. The Holy Direction wills the conservation of fuel. Let them go."

"Affirmative," I reply, masking my disappointment. "As the Holy Direction wills."

Orders are orders, whether they come wrapped in scripture or not.

"Don't fret, Renata. Always let one go," my wingmate laughs. "Let them run back to their buddies and tell tales of our aerial superiority. It might make them think twice about having a go in the future!"

She is right, of course, but that doesn't quell the sour feeling in my stomach at allowing a pirate a future opportunity to hurt our people.

My wing circles once more to make sure the skies are clear, then turns for home, heading back to Aegard. The huge landmass looms ahead, like a mighty mountain torn free of the earth and suspended in mid-air. We fly across much of its bulk to return to the hangars. Viewed from above, the floating island city is quite beautiful - terraces of white stone, spires and minarets of gold and azure. Windmills and prayer towers and forests and fields that ought not exist at this altitude.

It sometimes makes me wonder how many civilizations have been stripped to build this world.

With Blue Yonder safely back in its hangar, the rest of the day descends into monotony. We debrief, ammo expenditure is noted, fuel is checked, and damage, minor as it is, assessed and scheduled for repair. The engineers are already swarming over the craft as my fellow pilots and I return to the chapel barracks. Another successful sortie added to my record.

After that, the day stretches ahead and its weight settles on me, strangely discomforting. I eat alone, wistfully watching the sky outside the windows, longing to be back out there – not fighting, simply flying for the pleasure of it. I may be a slave, but in the sky is where I feel free. In the sky, I'm untouchable.

In the afternoon, I'm assigned simulator time: combat scenarios against Valrath fighters. The instructors know my history. They think this is a kindness.

The simulations are brutally accurate, the bat-winged craft of the Valrath Dominion rendered in cruel detail. I am shot down twice before I have adapted to the new tactical challenge, and that makes me feel even worse. Even scoring twenty straight kills doesn't improve my mood.

After that, mandatory prayers, and evening repast. The priests talk of destiny and the winds favoring us in the trials to come. All I can think of is the sky. I speak the holy words and bow when required, but my faith, if I have one, is bound up in the clouds.

With my evening meal eaten, I make my solitary way to the observation deck and rest my arms on the railings, looking out into the darkening horizon. Few people come here because of the cold and the wind, but it has always been refreshing to me, and humbling, too. The vast world of Elyrion is laid out before my gaze, and I am reminded how small I truly am, how little my troubles mean. It also allows me to imagine.

Somewhere out there lies Valrath, the land that enslaved my parents, that took from me before I even had the chance to choose my fate or to know what I had lost. One day, my flight would take me there and then...

“I’ll come for you,” I murmur, not sure whether I am speaking to Valrath, to Aetherion, or to the ghosts that follow me through every cloud bank. “One day.”

As the bell tolls for nightfall, and a million lights are lit across Aegard, like little stars pulled from the sky and tied to our drifting home, I turn away and trudge back to my bunk. One day my reckoning will come. Until then, I remain what I have always been: Renata, Skyborne Orphan. Slave-born. Ace pilot. Storm on borrowed wings. I will sleep and rise and pray and eat, and return to the sky when the bell calls me to do my duty.

I will fly.

I will be free.