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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 219: Brown 362
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Takano 152
Michael Gabriel launched skyward. Beneath him he saw his wife and Tommy running at a fast trot toward the repurposed factory, now spaceship hangar. They spotted the Shamblers coming their way, and began to curve around them, outpacing the enemy. Reluctantly he forced himself to fly above the roof and let his wife out of his sight. She could handle herself, he thought. Vashti was a verser, and a trained bodyguard, and she was tough.
Circling over the building he saw that the top had been replaced by a retractable roof. On either side of a centerline a dozen folds of black painted metal were ready to be slid back so the armored spaceship could exit. He dropped and stopped a foot above the roof, leary of sensors alarming if he landed. Spotting a small hole, he began to weaken the molecular bonds of the parts of the roof near the hole with his esper powers. After a few minutes he broke chunks away to widen the hole and squirmed through, coming out as he had expected into a vast open space. The building was six stories tall, tall stories at that, and the bottom level was the most normal, but the top five were just the spaceship and open air.
He dropped into a quiet dive making no more noise than a falling piece of paper. Two stories later, he landed on the tip of the disc. Contact confirmed his vision. This ship was built like a Detroit automobile to which had been added three inches of steel armor. Outright destroying the ship would be hard, and impossible under any time constraint.
Instead, he began to snap off the antennae at the nose. Some he had to yank at until he pulled out one of his repulsor knives. It did not cut all the way through in one or two strikes, but four or five got the job done. Laying the antennae or other sensors (he was not sure what they actually were) down carefully so as to not have them slide, he spread his wings and walked down the side of the top of the spaceship in a partially controlled walk.
Flaring his wings to stop, he yanked off some control ailerons. Here his questions with The Eagle about flying bore fruit. He could see several dozen control fins on the surface and if he mangled them all this vehicle would not fly as well. Unlike the main hull, the ailerons were weak enough for him to damage or jam, or occasionally rip off. Humming ‘Saints’ quietly to himself, he continued his campaign of sabotage.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
