Tales From Tharassas by J. Scott Coatsworth

Author:J. Scott Coatsworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J. Scott Coatsworth

“Holy henchaballs!”

Jas jerked awake in her seat, slamming against the restraint belt. “What?” She rubbed her eyes. She’d fallen asleep, lulled by the whir of the flitter blades and the singing of the hencha.

The hencha don’t sing. Must have been a dream.

Jas glanced back at her mother in the back seat. She was still fast asleep.

“The ship from Earth. That must be what it is.” Torry was straining at his belt, staring at the sky above. The flitter started to drift toward the ground.

“Hey, eye on the controls. You’re making me nervous.” Jas leaned forward, looking for whatever it was that had caught the pilot’s attention.

“Holy—”

“Language, Jas.”

So Lyn’Aya was awake, after all. “Holy damn.” She ignored her mother’s self-satisfied nod.

Something was coming down out of the green sky. There was flame and smoke, and then a loud rumble filled the air. She could feel the vibration in her bones.

Whatever it was, it looked like it was headed straight for the conical roofs of Gullytown.

“Something’s wrong.” Lyn’Aya was glued to her own window, hollow eyes fixed on the interloper like a field hawk.

“It wasn’t like this last time?” Jas traced the invader’s course. It was going to be close.

“No. It came down direct and proper-like. Not like this—”

Jas frowned “Could you see it from Corinth?”

“I wasn’t in Corinth yet.”

Jas turned to look at her. “What?”.

“It’s gonna hit the city.” Torry’s face was white.

She tore her eyes away from Lyn’Aya and watched the ship plummet.

They were drawing close to Gullytown. She could see the end of the hencha fields, the red grass of the landing field, and just beyond it the first of the ridges and gullies that gave the city its name.

Gullytown was built along the tops of granite spines that had been flattened to accommodate human inhabitation, and white bridges connected one of them to another over the deep gullies the Elsp River had carved out from the seafront bluffs over untold millennia. “Your family’s down there?”

He nodded. “My ex-wife and our daughter live on Raven Spine.”

“Look!” The ship was miraculously shifting course, moving away from the city. The roar in Jas’ ears was continuous and deafening as the ship plummeted toward the ground.

“Someone must be steering it. As much as they can.” Sweat beaded the pilot’s forehead, but he was calmer. “Oh, to fly one of those beauties…”

“She’s bringing it down on the edge of the landing field.”

“She?”

Jas stared at him. “Can’t a woman be a Runner?”

“I suppose so. But they usually aren’t. The last time—”

The descending starship exploded in flames.

Or at least that’s how it seemed to Jas.

Then she saw that the fire was shooting out of the bottom of the craft, slowing its descent. They were close enough now that she could feel the heat of it on her face.

It wasn’t going to be enough.

The ship hurtled toward the grassy landing field at about a third of the speed it had gone before.

Then, just before it hit, a bright blue glow surrounded its base, extinguishing the flame.

The ship slammed into the ground, throwing up a cloud of red grass, dirt and smoke.

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