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Cabinet escape
Aside from my apartment, Turtle Island held an even more important secret; one of Sting’s vaults.
Sting was a half-elf known for having an ear to the ground and a nasty reputation. Of course, said ‘reputation’ was mostly talk. Sure, he had an impressive bloodline he had no problem flaunting. Something about being the son of a full-blooded elf with an insurmountable amount of strength coupled with the temperament of a rock, but I never paid any attention to his boastings. I never paid much attention to him.
The thing I did pay attention to was his vaults containing unique and valuable items. Sting had them all over the place. Last I heard, he was moving a lot of sentimental items to Turtle Island, including a rather spectacular-looking bow. Granted, he had several powerful bows, so starting with Turtle Island may have seemed like a long shot, but it was always worth the risk if I got to rifle through his stuff.
He thought his vault was safely concealed behind his reputation and various misnomers about its location, but I knew where the brat kept his toys. One of the advantages of being me.
My phone buzzed, Sympathy for the Devil breaking the silence in the apartment as I gathered up a few things for my next heist.
“Yeah?” I asked, flipping the phone open and holding it to my ear as I walked around.
“You said talk later,” came my slightly annoyed answer. “It’s later.”
“Gotcha. What did I say last, sword collecting?”
“Yes. You remember you’re supposed to be collecting information on Layla’s sword and not collecting swords, right?”
I snorted. “I am collecting info. There’s more to this story than Layla’s sword; there’s a whole set of them. I can’t know more about it until all of them are drawn together.” I pocketed a nail gun and gave an experimental spin of a grappling hook.
“Sounds like an excuse to do something mischievous.”
“Does it? You sure?”
“Now you’re avoiding me.”
“True story. And since you’re me, you know I’ll keep doing it until you give up.”
“Fine. Don’t get killed."
The ship bucked hard, throwing me against the dash and knocking the phone out of my hand.
“What was that!?” I yelled over the groaning wood and beeping alarms.
“We’re being attacked!” Miles snapped, “What do you think?!”
“By who?”
The view screen in front of us flicked on, a small childlike face appearing to answer my question. I knew her; she was a Hunter named Annie.
“Give it up, Miles!” she crowed, “your ship is tinfoil compared to mine!”
“Buzz off!” Miles answered, slamming a hand against a button directly under the screen. It fizzled and went blank.
Olyvia and Layla rounded the corner, the kid’s face white as a sheet. “What happened?!” Olyvia yelled, the ship rumbling again.
“Disinformation!” Miles growled. “You neglected to tell me you had a bounty on your heads!”
“We didn’t!” Olyvia growled back, shooting me a look.
“They had one, but hired me to get rid of it,” I answered Miles. “I did my job. We don’t have a bounty!”
Warning shots rocked our ship, the wood shuddering around us. Something broke. More warning lights flashed and beeped. Something hissed in the cockpit.
“Turn them over, Miles!!” Annie’s high-pitched voice screeched over the coms, the old speakers making the sound scratchy and distorted. “You know you can’t beat me!”
“Oh shut up, kid!” Miles shouted back, slamming his fist against the speaker. It crackled and sputtered into silence. He glared up at Olyvia, who matched the look with demon-class ferocity.
The ship rocked again, throwing us. Layla landed in a heap of limbs, Olyvia fell to a crouch, and I stumbled up against the desk again. Miles managed to keep his feet, hands frantically flying over the dash and pulling at levers.
“Had a bounty,” I said quickly. “Dropped it. Someone must’ve renewed it or ordered another one. Not our fault.”
“Cannons,” Miles grunted. More beeping erupted from the console. “I need someone on the guns.” He looked at all three of us. “Follow me!” he demanded.
Slamming a few levers into place and locking them, Miles ran to the back of the room. We followed, his quick steps leading us down a twisting hallway and through a bunch of half-open doors and large archways. Why was all of this connected to the cockpit? How big was this damn ship?
“Usually my policy is to run,” Miles was saying, more to himself than to us. “But Annie’s apparently not going to give up. She knows who I’m carrying.” He grimaced. “I don’t have enough repairs to withstand this.”
The ship rocked hard again, slamming all of us into the wall. Pushing off first, Miles spun around and swung a door open, motioning inside.
“Cannons,” he said, firmly. Racing back down the hall, Miles pointed at us yelling, “Go now!”
Running through the opening, we were greeted with a three-way split. Olyvia and I traded a glance before I bolted to the left. The ship rocked and lurched, propelling me into a small rounded room at the end.
A curved control panel jutted from one side of the room, filling up half the space with sheer bulk. Steam whipped my face as I approached it, rickety panels sliding back to reveal a radar, display screen, and speaker grill. Miles’ voice came crackling through, screaming orders about something-or-other.
“...*FZZZ*—The red button over the console! If you can hear me right now then push the button!!”
I pushed it.
The ship shook again.
“Alright, everyone’s there. Good. It’s really simple from here: the green dot in the middle of the radar is us, reds are incoming projectiles, blue dots are other ships.” A single large blue dot pulsed to the left, approaching the single green one way too fast for comfort. There was another lurch and the blue dot halted, red dots suddenly peppering the screen.
Swearing erupted over the speakers. “There’s a joystick to the left of the displays,” Miles barked. “It’s hooked up to the cannons on the outside. The button on top sets the weapon, the trigger fires it. Now get Annie off my tail!!”
Unfortunately for Miles, I’m not a weapons kind of guy. I am, however, pretty good with hacking.
Placing both hands on the top of the console, I pushed my magic through the system, watching the screen turn to static. Various bits of information flicked across the screen as I worked, my magic infiltrating Miles’ computer system.
Computers are meant to store certain amounts of information, primarily the information of use to the owner. The pirate was bound to have his ship’s schematics, which meant with the correct potential burst, I had them too.
Right on cue, the schematics popped up on the screen. I took a moment to look them over and nodded to myself. This would take a bit of doing, but I was sure I could handle it.
“ROD!” Miles’ voice scratched over the speaker. “What are you doing!? Why aren’t you firing??”
“I’m not so good with weapons,” I said, kneeling and placing my hands on the floor. “So I’m making better use of our time.”
“GET BACK ON YOUR CANNON!”
“You want to actually get away from her, or you want to die trying?” I shouted back. “Shut up and let me work!!”
He didn’t. So I reversed the ability for the speaker to transfer noise and kept working in the relative silence.
A large part of the ship was made from maple, so that was the first thing to influence. Maple is a fairly strong wood, so I reinforced its natural strength to the nth degree. For a short time, it might as well be indestructible. Next was the ramshackle smoke pipes on the sides, designed to spit out enough white smoke to be mistaken for a cloud by any humans looking up.
Last but not least, the mirror reflectors placed on the bottom and sides of the ship. They were touched with a bit of magic on their own, made to reflect everything in such a way so humans would simply see a strange bit of sky. Probably added as an extra bit of attention evasion. With a touch of my magic, however, those mirrors reflected the ship itself and scattered the sky with hollow extras.
I took a deep shuddering breath. The magic was draining my strength already. I wasn’t used to dealing with an object this big. My skin was starting to itch.
Something blipped nearby as the ship rumbled. The speaker scratched with static for a moment before a voice I’d never heard before asked, “what are you doing?”
I blinked. Was there someone else on the ship?
“I feel funny. What are you doing to me, Rod?”
It knew my name.
I sat back for a moment before walking to the control panel. I tapped at the speaker, finding it hard to believe it was still functioning. My magic couldn’t be that bad already, could it?
“Ow!” The speaker exclaimed. “Stop poking me! How would you like it if I poked you?”
A small shock of electricity surged up my finger, making it jerk away.
“You...you’re the ship, aren’t you?” I asked, looking around.
“Well duh,” it responded. The speaker crackled again before it asked, “now answer my question. What did you do to me?”
Well this was...new. I’d never used my magic on an animate object. The self-possessed buildings usually responded negatively if I tried to influence their native magic, but none of them had ever actually spoken to me. Never mind sounding like a young-ish humanoid.
“Trying to help,” I answered. “My magic influences things to their full potential. The wood you’re made of has a good hardness...I was trying to make it harder to hurt us. Or harder to hurt you, I guess.”
“My sensors tell me Annie’s ship is firing at nothing,” the ship bleeped. “Why is she doing that? Did you do that?”
“It’s not nothing,” I answered, blowing out in relief. My trick worked, then. “I can use mirrors to make reflections of things. So long as I know what I’m reflecting, the mirror projects it.”
“Oh. That’s pretty cool.” The ship heaved sideways, throwing me to the ground.
“What’s happening now!?” I asked, struggling to get upright.
The speaker crackled again. It was a little clearer this time...I think the ship was giggling.
...the ship. It can giggle.
“Olyvia found my lightning cannon.”
“Your what?!” I asked, getting my feet under me and stumbling to the console.
“My lightning cannon!” It exclaimed happily. “Let me show you!”
The screen flicked, giving me a view alongside the ship. The quality of the video looked like Miles had strapped a smartphone to the side of his ship and wired the feed into the ship somehow. Something huge and metallic with a murderous bow soared into view, firing missiles at something off-screen.
A streak of light flashed between us and them, a bolt of lightning scoring the outside metal of Annie’s sky-shark and leaving a giant burn mark trailing across the hull. Lightening. Miles’ ship had a lightning gun. And it could talk for itself. And it sounded like a girl.
Olyvia fired a round of shots—said shots being actual cannonballs shot from a cannon—and a number of them connected with Annie’s hull. They dented the metal, but otherwise there was no damage. The cannonballs were ineffective.
We must have been thinking along the same lines. The she-wolf quickly changed her tactics. Instead of firing at the broad side of Annie’s ship, a series of cannon balls shot out towards her guns. The mirror copies were doing a decent job of dividing her attention, and Olyvia was taking full advantage of every opportunity.
One of Annie’s missile launchers cracked open, smoke leaking from the wound. Her ship began to turn towards us, Olyvia continuing to fire a barrage. She was trying to widen the tear to make the next lightning shot count.
Slapping my hands against the console, I rerouted my magic to the lightning gun. I pushed with everything I had to strengthen the shot, building the electric energy into a frenzy of power. Olyvia would only have one chance at this before Annie guessed the right ship and blew us to bits.
A burst of white-hot light shot from our ship, streaking along the sky to the sound of a mighty thunderclap. It pierced the ship and lit up the inside like a Christmas tree. The metal monster bucked and jerked, smoke now pouring out the metallic wound as it began to fall. The girls began firing as many cannonballs as possible as Annie retreated, our ship lurching away as Miles ran for it.