In The Past, You Know
“In the past, you know,- arrived at the unwelcome conclusion
- She’s a lyin’-ass bitch.
- might well have been considered winged sharks
- couldn’t believe anyone would want to
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“In the past, you know, aerial combat was among the courtly arts taught in Contrarian finishing schools.” Fleur’s voice carried to me as she ascended to her gunner’s seat and I clambered down to mine. When I reached my perch I also arrived at the unwelcome conclusion that the harpoon gun I was about to employ hadn’t been maintained properly.
“Isolde assured me, before we departed from the carrier, that the zeppelin’s weaponry was in top condition.”
I didn’t bother shouting a reply to Fleur, but if I had it would have been, “She’s a lyin’-ass bitch.” The sights were crooked, the trigger felt like someone had used it as a place to hold chewing gum, and the gun wasn’t loaded. The harpoon rolled around in the gunnery compartment, flung this way and that by Jim’s desperate flight path.
Jim was buying us time, but it seemed to be at the expense of altitude. I hoped the topside gun was in better condition, because our adversary wasn’t likely to present itself to me down here. We were skimming the whitecaps.
Grabbing the harpoon before it impaled me, I worked on getting it loaded. Suddenly we veered so hard to starboard that the force of the turn tipped our vessel sideways. Thus my seat became the perfect vantage to observe as a school of ferocious looking flying fish — they might well have been considered winged sharks, only bigger — burst forth from the ocean. They were the reason Jim heeled us over so drastically. The huge creatures arced over us and sank their serrated teeth into the not-so-armored envelope of the Pentagonal faction’s airship.
And then we yawed back to level flight, and I could see only spume. For those few seconds, that cramped keel-mounted gunner’s nest was the best place to obtain a view of such a singular spectacle, but having gone through it I couldn’t believe anyone would want to.
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