Page 60 of The Sky Pirate's Stowaway
He shook me a bit. “Hey! Hey, Ghost?”
I met his eyes.
“You good?”
I gave a nod even though I was most definitely not good.
“Get another cannonball, lad.”
Not having a response to that, I turned on my heel and headed for the crates. My chest ached, and my body felt like it’d lost all its energy when I’d fallen on my butt. Shaking my head out, I picked up another cannonball, the weight of it feeling ten times heavier than it had a few minutes ago.
As I placed it in Jimmy’s cannon, I tried to figure out what was wrong with me.
Something smacked loudly, heavily, right behind me, and I flinched, turning quickly, peeking through the hole. I thought I’d see a cannonball flying at my face, but instead I saw a cannonball stopped mid-air.
I blinked.
No, not mid-air.
The air around the ship sort of shimmered, reflecting the light whenever the clouds moved out of the way.
Holy phoenix tails!There was an energy shield surrounding our ship. The cannonball bounced harmlessly off the shield, falling into the sea far below us.
With that realization came the understanding of what I was feeling.
I wasn’t the one with low energy.
It was the engine fluxstones in the hold.
The amount of energy it took to erect a shield like this, hold it up, and block out all of the enemy fire we were taking was so enormous that the poor fluxstones were practically screaming for my help.
They were draining at an alarming rate.
If we didn’t outrun or outgun these Sunada ships soon, we were going to be dead in the air.
Now that I knew what was happening, I could more easily brush the sensations away as I sent a silent apology to the fluxstones.
I’m sorry, I can’t help you. I can’t reveal what I am. I’m sorry.
Obviously, the fluxstones didn’t reply. They weren’t sentient, but I still felt bad that I couldn’t help the poor things.
“Ghost! Move it!” Jimmy yelled.
I shook off all other thoughts and concentrated on my job. With another cannonball in hand, I rushed over to Jimmy and rammed the darn thing into the barrel.
Then I grimaced and asked, “How are you gonna shoot that? It’ll hit the shield and bounce back.”
He shot me his toothless grin, then smacked a button on the cannon. I felt the buzz of another fluxstone’s power slowly draining. He’d turned something on.
Jimmy pushed the cannon forward, and I watched in fascination as the smaller fluxstone created its own shield around the perimeter of the cannon, allowing it to pass through the ship’s energy shield.
Huh. Well, I guess they know what they’re doing.
Overhead, Viper yelled, “Kill ‘em all! Take ‘em down! Now, you scurvy dogs!”
The crew yelled in response, amping up their attack, and I rushed to help even as I grimaced on the inside. I didn’t want to kill anyone, but it seemed that out here in the air above the sea, it was us or them.
I had friends among the crew. They may’ve been pirates, but they weren’t all bad. In fact, many of them were good people who’d been put in a bad spot.
