[1.4] Reckless and Irrational

Storm snake. Overgrown cobra. Maybe even call it a dragon - Conlan didn't have time to get caught up in the semantics of the thing, as much as he did love semantics. What he had here was a very large snake capable of decimating what little remained of the Camalus. It coiled through the air, thin as silk but very wide, and charged with enough lumia to disrupt air traffic for thousands of miles if it ever got out of the storm. Definite international safety risk. It's head reared back, all slit eyes and needle-fine teeth and centuries of barely refined rage. And he was still heading right for it.

"Camilla, I'm gonna have to call you back."

"What? Co-"

While he was at it, he disconnected from the fortress computers entirely. It would take a good five minutes or so for Vincent to override and get back on, but that would be enough for Conlan.

Sailors are a superstitious bunch. This is common knowledge. The thing is, so are pilots - each in their own way. And Conlan didn't like to kill himself when it could be broadcast to an audience. He also believed a certain Mad Goddess, patron of pilots and young warriors, liked a good show now and then, and before he sealed the deal he turned on the night flying lights. A beacon.

He flew right at the head of the snake, looked into its abyss of a mouth, felt the air fill with lumia particles and gnash at every part of him. All around, kaleidoscopic shards of light and glass.

He allowed the last of the exhaust filter to break off, sending a spray of multi-hued fumes out in a fan.

And right as he was about to fly in, right as the snake shot forward for the killing blow, Conlan spun out the airship. Whipped the steering console and let the tail fling right into the burst field. Let the exhaust hit the burst field.

He cut the engine and fell.

[1.3] Launch

A press of the button, and with the jet stream still pressing around the airship and encasing it in glowing air, the steering console sank a few inches into the floor, angled up, and reformed itself into something resembling the front of a  motorbike. The pilot's seat shifted forward and up to accommodate, and then Conlan was in business, barely strapped in but hands gripped around the steering bars.

This kind of set-up was murder on a pilot's back, and frankly rather dangerous, what with the constant threat of being bucked off the console, but it offered an unparalleled level of control if one got used to it.

"Conlan?" Camilla asked, her voice soft compared to the sound of the wind and the engines.

No time to talk.

To his right. He had to get into that air pocket, burst field or not. He was leaking too much exhaust for it to be anywhere near safe, but there wasn't any choice. He would pass the target burst if he stayed in the jet stream any longer, and if he tore out the conventional way, he would overshoot.

Ok, improv. His best friend.

Conlan slammed down hard on the right bar, yanked up on the left, and threw the airship into a hard roll out of the jet stream.

***

Camilla whipped around in her seat and stared up on the overhead screens as the Camalus swept sideways out of the windpath, stopping just short of hitting the burst field, the airship swinging loose and barely keeping forward momentum for a moment before speeding ahead.

The lobby was silent.

Then, from the balcony, "That was a barrel roll at minimum operating capacity!"

And then everyone was talking again, about how history was being made and he was brave and stupid and amazing and people were going to be talking about this for years and Camilla just looked on at the screen, quiet, lips pursed.

He would make it. There was nothing else she believed more.

***

It was going to be a miracle if he made it. 

Conlan shifted gears again a prepared to for descent. If he just brought it down nice and easy, at the right angle, then this would be the most simple part of the evening. The burst was already lined up in the airship's sights, the turbines and the mechanical "wand" of sorts ready to guide the burst safely into holding. And the air pocket was calm and cool, just come clouds way down below.

The burst field was his only real worry at the moment. He was keeping the Camalus almost too close to the jet stream's wall in order to avoid hitting the field with the ship's leaking exhaust. Too bad if he just shut up the whole thing he'd be dead in two minutes from lumia poisoning.

"Alright, I'm bringing this thing in," he told Camilla, dipping the console forward, the ship following suit.

"Hm. That isn't what you were doing before?"

Conlan nearly had the nose of the ship in line with the burst, now. Visibility was good - getting foggy around the burst, but that was because he would be dipping back into storm territory to grab it.

He took it down.

The burst field seemed to keep up alongside him, and he maneuvered carefully to keep the wing tips out of its reach. The particle shields were struggling, though, and grains of light began to build up on the windshield.

Then, suddenly, still in the clear zone, the flight path staggered. The whole airship rocked with it, and it felt like something rolled under the ship - unnervingly similar, Conlan suspected, to driving over a body. He tried to pull back a bit, but the momentum was already there, it would take another insanity play to slow down now. As he jostled the steering console, trying to get the ship to pull it together and stop the turbulence, a supernova of refracted light crackled into his path, revealing a storm snake ready to lunge.