Airborne: The Next Mission
David Drake
Dog Squat, Balloon Prima’s crew chief, tried to straighten and throw her shoulders back the way humans did when they stood to attention. She wasn’t very good at it, which was just as well. A goblin’s head is a solid mass of bone and the weight would probably have pulled Dog Squat over on her back.
Senior Thaumaturge Roxanne probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway. She was talking with—being ordered by—Malfegor himself. “Mistress Roxanne,” Malfegor said, “I’m counting on the Balloon Brigade. Another brilliant attack like the last one could leave us on top of the world.”
“Sir!” Roxanne said hesitantly. “I’m proud of our success last time but we were very lucky. We can’t expect that sort of luck again.”
“Of course not!” agreed Malfegor. “By sheer good luck your Balloon Prima was directly over the enemy command group when you were hit by an enemy bolt. Your forces completely disrupted the enemy.”
Actually, Dog Squat thought, we massacred the enemy. Crewgoblin Dumber Than #1’s whole philosophy of Life had been to bite them, and he and his fellows had done that brilliantly in the midst of enemy officers whose plan of defense seemed to be to wait for the goblins’ jaws to get tired. The goblins didn’t tire before they ran out of enemy officers.
“I can’t take much credit for that,” Roxanne said. Dog Squat remembered the senior thaumaturge curled up in the belly of the gondola where the rocks had been before they threw them all. She hadn’t been good at all at biting the enemy, but that was all right. Dog Squat and her crew could take care of that after Roxanne had done the plotting.
“This time,” Malfegor said proudly, “I’ve added a spill valve to the top of the balloon so that it can be dropped from a thousand feet directly on the enemy commanders. They won’t know what hit them!”
“I see that,” Roxanne said. “That’s a very thoughtful plan, but it may be more thoughtful than goblins can easily execute. I know you don’t have much contact with warrior goblins, sir, but I’ve had a great deal and I can assure you that there’s a problem.”
“One that I’ve already solved, Mistress Roxanne,” Malfegor said. “You will be in the gondola with your troops!”
Dog Squat didn’t remember Roxanne getting a single mouthful that time. “But sir,” she said to Malfegor, “I’ll be a thousand feet in the air also.”
“Yes,” Malfegor said. “But it can’t be helped, you see.”
“Don’t worry, Mistress,” #3 said in a cheerful bellow. “We’ll all be with you.”
“I don’t see how that will help with gravity!” Roxanne said, noticeably less cheerful.
Dog Squat was trying to figure out what gravity was. It was a concept above her rank. She squinted, and the thaumaturge jumped. Dog Squat meant her expression as friendly, or at least neutral, but someone who had recently watched her obeying her colleague’s suggestion that they Bite ’em could be forgiven for concern.
“Is gravity the thing about going down?” Dog Squat said, voicing the idea that had rattled out in her mind.
“Yes! You could say that,” Roxanne said in a bitter tone. She was staring at Malfegor’s back as he walked away. “Down a thousand feet!”
“Don’t worry, Mistress,” #1 said. “It isn’t as hard as it sounds! You’ll manage.”
All the labor goblins hauling coal had completed their tasks and the dragon wranglers were dragging and prodding their charges to the piles. Senior Thaumaturge Roxanne said, “I’ll have plenty of time to figure it out while plunging a thousand feet down to the plain,” and gestured over the edge.
Dog Squat followed the movement with her eyes. The blue army was below in rows so neat that they made Dog Squat’s head ache. How could people live like that? It wasn’t natural!
When Dog Squat turned back, Roxanne had disappeared. If the blue ranks hadn’t been so dizzying, Dog Squat would have worried herself into a headache. There wasn’t really a lot of time before they had to be aboard Balloon Prima’s gondola, ready to drop rocks!
Dragon wranglers hissed spells in the ears of their dragons. Some stroked the scaly necks and whispered encouragement.
One after another the rank of dragons belched sulfurous flames into the waiting coal piles, igniting them instantly. The dragon on the right, serving Balloon Secundus, had a greenish tinge and didn’t look healthy. It hadn’t flamed. Its wrangler screamed curses at it and punched it in the flank with no result. A labor goblin who wanted to get by the wrangler kicked the dragon in the ribs. The dragon spewed flames—and then farted explosively. The dragon wrangler was at a safe distance, but Senior Thaumaturge Roxanne leaped into sight with her hair on fire.
“There you are, Mistress!” Dog Squat shouted. “I was afraid you were going to get lost!”
The banner of the Balloon Brigade stood on a pole ready to be taken aboard Balloon Prima. Dog Squat grabbed the banner and threw it over the senior thaumaturge. There was a lot of gold thread in the red silk, so it didn’t flare up as Dog Squat rubbed out the burning hair. Roxanne screamed and thrashed. She wasn’t strong enough to pull free, but to be safe Dog Squat said, “Number One, get the thaumaturge into the balloon and make sure she doesn’t get lost.”
“I know!” #2 said. “I can sit on her!”
“No!” shrieked Roxanne as #1 carried her to the gondola. “You’ll kill me and Malfegor won’t like that!”
A senior thaumaturge was a lot smarter than a goblin, even a crew chief like Dog Squat. She was right!
“Don’t sit on her, Number Two!” she shouted. “Just make sure she doesn’t wander off!”
“I’ll help!” #1 said. He handed Roxanne to #4, already in the gondola, pulled the slack tie rope from one of the labor goblins, and wrapped it around the senior thaumaturge. Some of the balloons were already filling, their fires capped and hoses feeding illuminating gas from the coal.
Prima’s hose handlers attached the hose of dragon intestine to one of the pair of headers from the metal fire cap. It was getting to be time. Dog Squat followed #1 into the wicker gondola. The basket rocked queasily under the weight of the goblins. Roxanne had sure been right about #2 squashing her if he’d sat on her. That was why it was so good to have a senior thaumaturge like Roxanne in the Balloon Brigade.
Their balloon began to fill and rise, taking up slack in the guy ropes. Roxanne wriggled and began to scream. “Loosen this rope!” she shouted. “You’ll squeeze my guts out through my teeth and what will Malfegor say?”
Number 1 moved over to the edge of the gondola. “Hey!” he shouted to the labor goblins. “Stop pulling or I hit you with rocks!”
He looked over at Dog Squat and said, “Is that all right?”
Dog Squat had gotten lost trying to figure out the question Roxanne had asked about what Malfegor would say when the senior thaumaturge’s guts squirted out her mouth. It probably depended what direction she was facing when it happened. Number 1 wasn’t smart enough to figure out the question, so he just acted.
The labor goblins scattered from the threat and released their end of the guide rope. Roxanne resumed struggling and managed to writhe free of the wrapping. That was good, because in Dog Squat’s experience anything Malfegor said to her would be loud and angry.
“That’s all right,” Dog Squat said. Malfegor looked back toward them as the balloon bobbed half off the ground, but he didn’t shout at them.
The balloon drifted over the edge of the escarpment. The labor goblins on another rope let go to avoid being dragged over, as did all the labor goblins on the tie ropes. Prima drifted toward the neat blocks of the blue army, but not as high in the air as she was meant to be. The enemy saw this.
Teams of ground ballista men unlimbered their weapons and began launching bolts from all sides. Blue mana arched into the sky, but instead of losing its energy in its climb to high altitude, it skimmed at low level over the front ranks of its own army and crashed into the ground in bright blue plumes, flinging turf and men in every direction. Couriers, many of them mounted, rushed from the command group on the rear toward the artillerymen.
The shooting stopped. None of the shots had passed close to Balloon Prima.
Malfegor’s directed breezes continued to drive Balloon Prima toward the hostile command group. The enemy officers had heard what happened to the white army previously and the stories had lost nothing in the telling. The blue command group began to scatter even before Balloon Prima was overhead.
“We’re not very high,” #2 said.
“That’s all right,” said Dog Squat.
“That’s all right,” said Roxanne. “It’s not so far to fall.”
“We’ll get lots higher after we throw rocks,” Dog Squat continued, choosing a delightfully jagged rock from the pile in the bottom of the gondola.
She hurled the rock toward one of the blue regiments and watched with pleasure as the ordered formation broke up, men running in all directions. The balloon shook itself and bobbed up noticeably higher. Roxanne had hopped on the pile of rocks to reach the spill valve, but the motion threw her down. She scrambled up again but when she started to raise her foot to place it on another rock, #2 whisked the rock away, shifted toward the edge of the gondola, and poised to fling it over.
“Hey!” Roxanne shouted. “I was going to climb on that rock!”
“Well, climb on another,” #2 said. “This one just called to me.”
Roxanne jumped onto the highest remaining stone in the heap of ammunition. She reached up for the spill valve and touched it just as Dog Squat saw what the thaumaturge was doing.
“Not yet, Mistress,” the balloon chief said to the senior thaumaturge, and lifted her away from the line. “We still got to be higher.”
As she spoke, #2 flung her rock and a moment later #3 flung another. The balloon jolted upward like a bucking horse. It even managed a corkscrew motion as though it were alive.
Roxanne’s guts went through a similar series of motions. She reached the side just before she threw up. “Nice try, ma’am,” #1 said. “But I think it’s best to use rocks for as long as we’ve got them.”
So speaking, #1 picked up the last of the rocks on the floor of the gondola.
They were very high now. If the balloon fell it might flatten against the wicker frame and let them down gently as it had the first time, or it might shift sideways and dive straight for the earth at increasing speed until not even the massive bones of goblins could survive the impact. On the other hand, if they drifted on over they would lose gas slowly and reach the ground at the speed of a slow walk.
“Mistress!” Dog Squat said in a polite bellow. “Are we high enough now?”
“We’re high enough,” said the senior thaumaturge, “but if we wait we won’t hit so hard!”
Dog Squat wasn’t interested in qualifiers. She reached up as Roxanne had been trying to do earlier and swiped her clawed hand across the balloon fabric. She missed the spill valve but she tore through the balloon itself easily. The bag of dragon intestine was gas proof, but no match for the thrust of a goblin determined to carry out Malfegor’s instructions.
The gas rushed out with a foul odor as the fabric of the bag flattened against the wicker framework. They were dropping as fast as they had the previous time when the bolt of mana had blown a huge hole through the balloon. They’d survived that, no problem.
“We’re going to hit!” cried Roxanne as she saw the ground rushing up.
“Yes!” said Dog Squat. “Good news, Number One. It’s all right for us to bite them soon!”
And so they did. Turned out thaumaturges didn’t bounce too well, though. Next battle, they’d need a new one. Dog Squat hoped Malfegor wouldn’t mind . . .