Skyward - (NaNoWriMo 2013 Novel)

Back on the horse - (Nov 17, Sunday)

The rappelling defense maneuvers rarely netted much in the way of sky vermin. The alert ones would see the Peacemakers and their inspecting charge coming a mile away and would scramble off or swing away, back to their black, abandonned buildings across the gulf of space. The clueless pirates would diligently continue digging away at the Flexcrete until the Peacemakers were right behind them. In those situations, Thrash enjoyed swinging in right behind the pirates, screaming "BOO!", and watching as the freaked out space cadets jumped, lost grip of their rigging, flailed, and most of the time fell into the space below.

It was fun in the immediate, but every so often he wished he could bring one of the bastards back to pick him apart and learn whatever there might have been to learn about what, exactly, the pirates were trying to manage with the 'Dos.

Blah Blah Blah

This particular expedition had been sent out because the seismic and sonar sensors that had been built into the surface of the ‘Do had detected activity on the tower’s surface. The devices were able to detect intrusions on the outer surface of the ‘Do, but they were not sensitive enough to be able to locate where the intrusion was occurring. Thus, the Peacemakers were sent out to track down the disturbance.

He was just about to suggest that they head back when—

"BOO!"

It came from above him. He thought it was Horn, the other Peacemaker, trying to stir up some shit by spooking him, and he was about to call Horn out for it when he heard Horn scream. He swung around on his line, looking frantically for Horn, but Horn's cry lead him to an ever shrinking point beneath him.

His line's been cut! But—

Thrash looked up to where the line's were tied off just in time to see the skypirate finish with something that looked like a giant pair of iron scissors, and the Architech started to scream away from him. Thrash was grabbing frantically for the pacifier that rode around his shoulders on the strap. It had shifted behind him, and he couldn't seem to bring it around. All the while, his mind was racing, trying to take in the full measure of just what the hell was going on. He could hardly see the pirate, and if that pair of iron scissors had not been so comedically large, he wouldn't have been able to tell what kind of tool it was. He could hardly see the pirate because the pirate was far too high on the surface of the 'Do. He was stuck to the side of the 'Do a hundred meters above the port they had come through and had been returning to, up above the commercial layers and residential layers, into the floors that housed educational and administrative functions.

That's not right, his mind reeled. Pirates never made it that high. The derelict buildings from which they launched their attacks were far lower than the 'Dos, meaning that the sky vermin had the ability to menace only the lowest levels of the 'Dos: Immigration, Industrial, Nutrient Farming, and sometimes into the Commercial layers. They had never made it as high as Education and Administration. To reach that high, they'd have to climb a long way, or—

—or they'd had to have taken another 'Do. He had managed to swing around his pacifier and he loosed a shot at the pirate with the iron cutters. It didn't strike home, but it came near enough to prompt the pirate to swing out, away from the do on his line. Thrash tracked him out and fired another shot but missed. The pirate swung out of view around the back of the 'Do, and Thrash kicked in his emergency climb winch, sending him rocketing back up his line. While he was climbing, he watched for the return of the cutter above out of the corner of his eye while scanning the 'Dos in the vacinity for any hint that they might have fallen.

Command had lost touch with the Peacemakers over on Heaven's Stair, but that hadn't been a cause for concern since Heaven's Stair and SkyTooth had always been at odds, and when their Commerce sections had a disagreement on a given market item, it was common to cut off communication as a scare tactic. His eyes now picked out Heaven's Stair, one of the closest 'Dos to SkyTooth, and he was just in time to see what had looked like Flexcrete a second before draw back like a curtain as a giant cannon was wheeled into the void left behind. All across the surface of what had once been a 'Do, the surface grey rippled and pulled back, and black, iron projectiles broke through.

The first of the cannons to fire scored a direct hit on its target. It was one of the smaller ones, meant to imbed meter-long iron spikes in the surface of the 'Do to secure ropes for flexible gangways. It was nowhere near as powerful a cannon as the ones that propelled the the far more destructive "anchors": wicked stuctures of iron that were part wrecking ball and part grapnel and were meant to smash through thinner layers of flexcrete and secure themselved in the resulting holes.

The smaller cannon couldn't make much of a mess of the 'Dos outer layer, but its meter-long spike did have enough force behind it to bury itself in Thrash's guts and still drive a good half meter into the flexcrete surface behind him. His emergency winch was still trying frantically to pull him up his line, but it mercifully cut out just after he was speared. He didn't understand why until he saw his line falling past him. The pirate had swung back in above and severed the line, but the cannon spike held Thrash in place for a moment until he began his sickening slide to the side. Without the line holding him upright, he was pivoting on the spike, the weight of his upper body causing him to list sideways. He tried to hold onto the spike with all his strength to keep it from happening, but his strength was already failing him, and the world-oblitterating pain of the thing was bringing him to the verge of unconsciousness.

The last thing he saw before that velvety black took him was the same pirate from above, hanging upside down before him on a line. Except it was Thrash who was upside down, turned a full 180 degrees on his spike. The realization made him vomit, and the pirate swung back a bit to avoid getting hit, laughing all the time. He swung back in, bringing himself close to Thrash, and screamed right into the Peacemaker's face.

"BOO!"

After that, all was maniacal laughter and darkness.

# # #

Yesterday, nothing happened.

Well, a great many things happened, but it was the first day that I actually did exactly ZERO writing on NaNo this month. I contemplated posting an update for the day, saying just that, but I thought letting the day stand empty made more sense.

When I should have been writing, I was, instead, photographing bright young minds at a TED conference in Toronto, and then I was going out for dinner with complete strangers and good friends, and by the time I got home, it was after midnight and already Sunday, so I couldn't have written on Saturday if I'd wanted to!

Today I've already written about 3300 words to get back up to the level I'm supposed to be at, but none of those words pertained to Skyward, so they're going to live in some phantom space. They were Proper Writing, so I'm happy to count them towards my overall word count, but, unfortunately, I won't be sharing them. As I write this, there is still some time left on Sunday, so I'm hoping to get some actual Skyward writing in, but I guess we'll have to see how things turn out.