“Captain— you see that?”

  Kera saw Virgil squint, then strained to see what Decia pointed out, as their riding birds carried them across the wide and open plain.

  There was something in the sky.

  Like a great lone vulture, aloft far higher than any animal’s flight. It left a dark wake behind, no doubt the exhaust of an engine, from the north-northeast, on a heading as if straight toward them, just shy of their four o’clock.

  Virgil pulled Luna’s reins to a complete stop, and so Kera followed suit with Horus, as did the rest of their patrol. He found his spyglass from his saddlebags and held it to his eye.

  “It’s… fast. Do you see that?” said Reglus. “Gods, it's hard to keep a bead on it… but that’s a course to intercept, if I ever saw one. Flying in the sun like that – it's got us by surprise, if it's coming for us.”

  Kera felt a first prodding twinge of adrenaline.

  “Yep. The birds’ll take minutes to put it out of range again, on a sprint directly away,” Virgil said. “Maybe longer, with the civilians.”

  “Wide formation! Ready rifles!” Decia called out to the patrol.

  “Wide formation, belay ready rifles!” Virgil shouted back, collapsing his spyglass with a clack as he spurred Luna into motion once more. “We’d be far outranged at this distance. Both hands on the reins, all of you!”

  Kera drew Horus back, spacing herself farther apart from the nearest other riders as ordered. She waited with bated breath as Virgil whipped his reins, then squinted back up at the sky one last time.

  “Full sprint, matching my pace!” he called. “Vessel trailing us, now, five o’clock high! Keep spacing, and keep the civilians in sight!”

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  Kera tried to scan the horizon as she spurred Horus on. It was open, treeless grassland for miles in every direction.

  “Wait, what?” Sekhem called to Kera. “It means to attack us, he’s saying? Who are they?”

  Kera thought to save her the shame of a sideways glance as the other officer’s voice broke mid-sentence.

  “Don’t know. Just a precaution, sergeant,” Virgil called back on Kera’s behalf. “Be ready to cut and scatter, south-southwest, keeping full sprint! On my mark!”

  “I was never a good shot,” Sekhem muttered. At last glancing over, she saw her struggling with the bolt of her rifle, only one hand on the reins, between fearful twists back up toward the sky behind them.

  “If they pursue, only running the birds ragged might outpace them! If we have to scatter, keep track of the civilians! Then, watch for my flares, once you’re out of range!” Virgil continued ordering.

  “Sir–” Decia called, twisting in her saddle to look back. “Looks like they’ve got a…”

  Kera saw it too. The ship had a small-bore deck gun, and its barrel was swiveling across the bow.

  “Scatter! Scatter!” Virgil shouted, whipping his reins. “South south-west! On your own headings–”

  A sharp crack split the air. A geyser of dirt erupted just next to Decia’s bird, both thrown limp to the ground from the blast. Even yards away the force of the overpressure impacted Kera as she rode into it as if she’d fallen face-first into a pool of water, and her ears rang and ached.

  Their birds all startled, though Virgil reigned Luna back into control in the same single motion, all while observing Decia’s body over his shoulder. She lay on one side unnatural and unmoving, streams of blood seeping from her mouth and nose.

  “South south-west! Scatter, then look for my flares!” Virgil cried.

  For a moment, Kera only held close to Horus. She’d ducked down against his neck in reflex at the sound of the shot, but he fortunately matched Luna’s pace without explicit direction.

  “Wider, scatter wider! Until you can’t hear me! They already have us ranged–”

  Another sharp crack swept over them, accompanying another impact of shot, ahead of their course. Debris pillared upward in the spot where Reglus and his bird might’ve been if they hadn’t just started to peel away. A shower of projectiles impacted the savanna, rather than a single shell, as shrapnel scythed random patches of the tall grass. The ribbon of a cloth or paper sabot fluttered down to earth, as Kera darted past the rising cloud, then saw over her shoulder how further back the bodies of Decia and her bird grew smaller behind them, and darker with spreading bloodstains.

  "And they are blown out, rent by hurricane

  To bits and shreds that spatter down to earth

  What once were men—good friends and foes alike."

  Captain Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, 5th Kentucky Battery (U.S.)