Tales of PulchraGea, Vol. 1

9: Forging The Storm (Final/2671)

  I wandered like a lost sheep in and out of the shelves. I eventually reached an area filled with gutted aircraft fuselage. They were stripped of electronics, engines, everything on down to the bolts and surface plates. Most seemed to be older models but still common enough to use for parts. People had scavenged pieces they needed from a given fuselage and left the rest for someone else. At the back were some older still that had a distinctly predatory, military look about them. These looked like ships for small cargo, almost like a military delivery truck.

One in particular stood out, though. It was hidden behind the other stripped frames and still had the majority of its outer plating intact. It resembled a blended wing body aircraft. The fuselage resembled a jet fighter with a slightly blunted nose, but much smaller. There was a much larger cockpit to body ratio. The wings stretched forth several yards and very much looked like dragon's wings folded for a steep dive. The engine was missing from the rear. Wires, cables, and tubes hung from the chasm where it had once been. At one point in time it had been a whitish-grey, but now was faded, peeling, and badly oxidized in some places.

Though unlikely to ever fly again, it was beautiful in a sepulchral kind of way. I thought about how useful an aircraft might be in my search for the keystones. Perhaps it was time to gain information about that.

***

I called Robin immediately. If anyone would know how to go about commissioning an aircraft, she would. She was effectively my lifeline while I was learning the ins and outs of this kingdom. She set everything up and only hours later we were on our way.

Robin was taking us to Galileo's Flying Transport in the town of Clifford. Robin explained that every town had a shipwright, but most focused on specialized designs. For instance, the shipwright in Argentum specialized in UTPods, and the one in Bay City focused on aquatic craft like the underwater ocean liner, the Coral Veranda. However, of all the shipwrights in PulchraGea, none were finer (nor more expensive) than Galileo's. Apparently he was somewhat of a mad genius and had been behind the most cutting-edge innovations in aircraft for the past several decades.

Clifford is the ancestral home of the Rasenkono, the Red Tribe. It sits atop the mighty Mesa Grande, which itself overshadows Boonie's desert. Although ostensibly a cliff town in origin, Clifford is the second largest city in PulchraGea and spans many miles across the top of the titanic mesa. There's still plenty of room to continue expanding, as the Mesa Grande is itself over a hundred miles long and nearly a mile high (hence its ability to block rains coming in from the north and create the desert). The city is known for it's heavy industry and urbanization, although many of the actual factories were built in the caverns below the town that stretch through the entire mesa.

We were invited to land in Galileo's own private Launch, where all newly purchased models could be flown by the owner to the public Launch in Clifford proper. As the mandibles opened at the front of the UTPod, a woman in her early thirties stood there in a lab coat.

She was strikingly beautiful with short, feathered hair the red of a sunrise. Her ice-blue eyes hid the indigo of a flame's heart. She was of average height for a PulchraGean woman, with slim hips and a fairly large chest, and she walked with an almost predatory grace. Her eyes were the most interesting thing about her, however. They were much larger than the average. Where many PulchraGeans could pass for humans with large eyes, hers were a third larger and took up a surprising amount of her face. She was a thaliel'ai, the original race of PulchraGea that Gershom had found when he arrived in PulchraGea thousands of years ago. Their lines were untouched by the Chosen Kings or their descendants and were increasingly rare in modern PulchraGea.

"I'm Clair Vendum," the thaliel'ai said. her voice was melodic like a songbird. "I'm the head of Research and Development here at Galileo's. Welcome."