Ensign Filbert

Invictus

8/30/2024 9:02pm

"It's the Captain," Sylvia said. "And first mate Quiller."

And a whole bunch of other people, and airships. It was the biggest floating aerodrome I'd seen in my life. And it was making me oddly nauseous. Maybe some kind of "bends" because of some insane altitude we'd reached? How high were we? The altimeter was on he fritz. 

"Shouldn't we open the hatch?" she asked. 

"Didn't the captain have some sort of safe word he said he'd use in situations like this? When he might be compromised but can't let his captors know?" I asked. 

"Dramamine!" the captain said through the intercom. 

"Sounds like it!" said Sylvia. "Opening the hatch now."

Invictus

12/9/2022 11:37pm

I'd taken the Invictus to a safe distance from the carnage at the Witch Delivery™ Quick Station.

"But the captain!," said Sylvia. "And Quiller! They're still down there!"

Were they crushed in the rubble? The site was already crawling with drones.

We remained at a distance with the transponder down, losing ourselves in the loitering traffic of automated delivery ships and wandering commuter craft. We were scanning the EM band and watching for unusual activity. First responders were going through the wreckage of the Quick Station, but no bodies had been recovered. The haze of the night sky was lit by city light.

"There!" said Sylvia. "35 degrees from the bow. What is that?"

Some distance from the Quick Station, and at a rather high altitude, the underbelly of a ship appeared through the smog ceiling. But it didn't look right. It seemed... huge.

"Sylvia..."

Sylvia was busy with her slide rule.

"Based on the curvature of the hull it's... this can't be right. It's as big as the moon?"

Below the great ship, there was something on the end of long thin cable. Something not much bigger than a phone booth. And it was being reeled in.

"Why didn't something that big show up on radar?"

"It's like it's there, but it's not there," Sylvia said. "It's so large it's almost like background noise..."

"It's got to be Quiller. And the captain. Take us to it, Sylvia."

"We'll be spotted for sure, Flibert."

"Yeah but so will they, and they'll get all the attention."

"Aye aye."