Terrestrial Undead

Chapter 41

"Hey. Hey."
Someone was gently shaking Faith by the shoulder. What did they want? She was tired. Couldn't she just be left alone? She groaned.
"Come on, you're fine. Wakey-wakey. You'll want to see this, I promise. You did it, Cap. They went right over the top of us."
She knew that mechanical voice. Suddenly the events that led to her unconsciousness flooded into her tired mind, and she sat bolt upright.
"Where's Pax?" Faith gasped. The last thing she remembered was seeing their limp body propelled across they room, and panic rose in her throat.
"Woah, there. It's alright. A bit of a nasty head wound, but they're okay. They're sleeping it off," Orla said calmly, gently preventing a struggling Faith from leaving her mattress.
"Where?"
"Right next to you, genius. Take a break already."
Faith turned her head to the side and sighed deeper than they'd ever breathed before. They were there, head bandaged, but breathing soundly. Faith fell back onto the bed and clung to them with the little strength they had left, and Tesla laughed, approaching Orla from behind and taking their hand.
"Well, we were hardly going to pull you apart, were we? We found you all tangled up in the engine room. It would've been like extracting wires."
Faith wasn't listening. She was going over what she could remember in disbelief. She had been sure they were about to crash. How were they all still alive?
Orla answered her thoughts with another good-natured laugh.
"Bruised and bloodied, but with a working engine. You saved our skins, Cap."
It dawned on Faith then: it hadn't been the impact of the crash that had sent them hurtling into the opposite wall, but the valve giving way to their wrench. They had fixed it, and the engine had started at the last minute. Faith laughed in disbelief.
"So, we got into the cave?"
"Sure did. It was a bit rough, and most of the crew sustained injuries, but we made it. No fatalities."
"I told you I was the world's best mechanic," a groggy voice chimed in from Faith's side, "the world's best mechanic for the world's best captain. we did it."
The pair sat up, and the scent of bleach told Faith they were in the medical suit. Apart from that, she would have barely been able to tell they were still on the airship; all was still, and apart from a few voices of crew members in the other beds here and there, all was quiet apart from the distant sounds of running water and birds. They really had made it into the cave, dropping out of the air brigade's view, sending them searching overhead. The Captain and her crew had pulled off the ultimate disappearing act.
An unfamiliar groan and a gentle clinking of chains startled Faith, as well as her friends it seemed; the entire group tensed at the sound.
"That'll be our guest of honour," Orla said grimly, "shame His Majesty missed all the fun."
In all the panic that had followed his capture, they had completely forgotten about the King until they had landed. By the sounds of it, Faith guessed Orla and Tesla had remembered him, and gotten him into shackles while he was still dead to the world.
Faith got up gingerly, her whole body aching, and carefully made her way over to where the sound had come from. She pulled aside the curtain, and the others joined her, gathering around their captive.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
He sounded so pathetically frightened that Faith felt a pang of pity for the man that had put them all through this. They were all silent.
"Well?" cried the thin voice, "I demand an answer!"
"What do you say," Faith heard Orla snarl from across the bed, "after all this? What can you say to scum like this? Everything, the death of Tesla's parents, the loss of her sibling—" Pax tensed at this— "Faith's torture, all this," she said, voice rising as she gestured to the metal on her body, "everything, comes down to you. I have nothing to say to you. Nothing." With that, she turned and left, Tesla following.
Pax turned to Faith.
"Do you mind if... I think I need to talk to Tesla."
Faith smiled, squeezing her love's hand.
"Go ahead. I'll be fine."
As they headed out, Faith turned her sightless eyes onto the king. She too was at a loss at what to say to him. Orla was right; he had allowed all of this to happen. She decided to start with the basics.
"My name is Captain Faith of Airship 11. And you are?"
"His Majesty the King of All Terrestria," he tried to say with customary pompousness, but his voice trembled.
"I know that," Faith said patiently, "but what's your name?"
"This is an outrage—"
"No," Faith interrupted him, "this is what's been coming for a very long time, I think. You know, I used tho think I deserved what you've done to me. But you hurt the people I care about most..." she turned her head briefly in the direction Pax had disappeared in, "...even us apart for a while. I don't think I'll have that any more."
"I've done nothing! I don't even know you."
Faith was silent for a time, nodding.
"You never needed to. But my skin was cut up by your Gazers. I was tortured in your prison. They took my sight. Why was that necessary?"
"So you're a criminal," The King spat, "You'll never get away with this, you... you..."
Faith walked away. She needed a nap.
"Yes, I'm a criminal," she sighed over her shoulder, "and you'll get better treatment from us than we ever got from you. Think about that for a while."
As she retreated from his protests, Faith wondered at the legendary figure behind Terrestria and its works. As she emerged from the medical suit and headed for her quarters, the cool, damp air hit her nostrils. From the catwalk, she was able to press an outstretched hand against trickling stone; the airship was well wedged into the mountainside. The familiar rhythm of Pax's walk sounded from behind her and echoed off the stony wall she touched.
"We should camouflage the cave entrance somehow. The Air Brigade will come back soon, and this airship isn't ever going to move again. We need to make sure they don't see us."
"Soon," Pax soothed, "for now we should sleep."
Faith was too exhausted to protest, and let Pax take her hand and lead her to her quarters. Faith found breathing a little easier as she sunk into the mattress and closed her eyes, allowing her body to relax into Pax's as they lay side by side. Still, questions prodded her mind.
"What happens next?"
"Shh," Pax murmured, "Don't think. Only sleep now."