Chapter 7: The Domain of the Queen of Metal

Ingrid stood on the forward observation deck at the bow of the airship. She held a watercolor painting of the city of New Heyl in front of her face, blocking the view. Long, open boulevards surrounded by tall buildings with peaked roofs, rounded bell towers, teeming markets filled with people wearing colorful hats. Ingrid lowered the painting and frowned. A massive scar ran in a line across the city. The scar was black, smoking, malicious. The outskirts of the city were unchanged, but the city streets were filled with refugees, medical tents, and Taisian soldiers.

Glenice and Algot Gunn returned flying in one of the airship's high-wing cargo aircraft. Vaska said the airframe was designated the HC-5 Saddlebag. It looked very similar to the HE-2 Eagle Eye, except that it lacked the observation deck on top. It landed heavy on the deck and with full reverse thrust it slowed rapidly.

Enlisted airmen unloaded the shipment of ingots on the deck. Mostly aluminum but some steel for the landing gear and a strange metal called titanium for the engine. Vaska summoned three metal elementals and three lightning elementals and as she had done with the flying submarine she used the six elementals to reshape the ingots into the very first HY-8 Fat Meg fighter jet.

While they were waiting for the crew to install the non-metal components, a familiar formation of airplanes roared overhead. It was the White Ravens, all six HY-4 Spearhead fighter jets. A seventh airplane, this one the two-seater variant of the HY-4, flew not far behind the delta formation. This last aircraft was painted like the others, mostly white with a black tail.

"Your sister is here!" Ingrid said.

"Looks that way," Vaska said.

"Are they fighting?"

"Presumably yes. Those fighter jets are fully capable of being equipped with missiles, and the pilots are the most experienced pilots in the Air Navy. It would be a waste not to make them fight."

"I don't see any missiles on the wings though."

"Oh. That's weird."

"Why are there seven airplanes?"

"The number seven jet is a two-seater. It is sometimes flown instead of the number four jet in the Slot position. Usually it's to allow celebrities or other VIPs to ride in the back seat."

The single pilot of the number seven jet was an unremarkable Air Navy pilot. After he left his airplane he sauntered off away from the other White Ravens and Ingrid didn't see him again. Vaska ran off to embrace Natasha as soon as the woman reached the bottom of the ladder. Natasha produced a cherry orb and she offered it to Ingrid. "My father, Emperor Adrian Maryy, wants to speak with you directly, commander."

"Me? Not Vaska?"

"My father can speak with me whenever he wants," Vaska said. "Why would he ask you to give Ingrid a cherry orb and not me?"

"That will become apparent immediately," Natasha said.

Ingrid tapped the glass box and the cherry orb flickered. "Hello?"

"Commander Varelion?" the man asked. His voice had a certain gravitas. A type of aged confidence that even Ingrid found attractive.

"Yes."

"You are very young to be a commander in the Air Navy, child. For most people it takes decades of service to reach that rank. You must have Titania's own luck."

"No," she was forced to say. "Not just her luck. I have Titania's bond."

"Good. I have a mission for you, commander. Since you are an ethnic Taisian, in active service to the Air Navy, and of an appropriate rank, I have instructed Natasha to begin training you to take her place as the commander of the White Ravens."

"What?" Ingrid exclaimed. "The White Ravens! Why me?"

"Daughter, please bring the Lady Ghost to a private location and brief her on the nature of the mission." The cherry orb dimmed.

"Come with me," Natasha said.

She led them to the ship's map room. It was a sunroom in the ship's island, above the command deck and accessible only by a narrow stairwell, completely surrounded by windows and occupied by numerous tables piled high with navigation charts. Once they were alone inside Natasha locked the door to the stairwell.

Natasha spread out a vague map that appeared to have been hastily sketched and then colored using light strokes of a colored pencil. It depicted a mountainous landscape of some sort, with a few perfectly square cities.

"This is our current map of the Domain of Metal," Natasha explained. She pointed to one of the square cities. "We are calling these things 'inverted pyramids.' They appear to be inhabited by masked denizens who possess metal elementals."

"They fulfill the bank contracts," Ingrid said.

Natasha seemed surprised by this comment.

"Father did not say. In any case, your mission, commander, is to lead the White Ravens to this inverted pyramid and perform the maneuvers from the first half of the airshow, the ones that require the diamond formation. The Solo and Rival jets will be performing their own maneuvers without you."

"I don't know how to do any of those manuevers!" Ingrid protested.

"I will be flying the number one jet not far behind the diamond formation, observing. I will tell you how to perform the maneuvers required for the airshow."

The map room filled with golden light and Titania appeared. "I do not like this," she said. "You must not waste time on such distractions. You must find the contract crystals for the High Daughter as quickly as possible."

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"The White Ravens will perform after the contracts have been recovered," Natasha said. "My father, the emperor, sent a governor to rule this territory. Taisia is part of the Heylin Empire, which means that Ingrid is my father's oath-sworn soldier."

The light elemental eyed her suspiciously. "I see. The scion of House Maryy is permitted to give direct orders to his oath-sworn servants. Yes. Once the contract crystals are collected and not before."

With the folded-up map in her shirt pocket Ingrid went down the deck to board the number seven jet. She had spent two months training on the same airframe with Glenice in the back, so she knew she could fly the thing. Unfortunately, there weren't any missiles on the wings of any of the seven fighters.

"We are going unarmed?" Ingird asked.

"We have a large escort," Vaska said. "Including Reese in the new Fat Meg airframe."

"Who's Reese?" Natasha asked.

"Someone we met in the Domain of Water," Ingrid said.

"She says she's immortal," Vaska added.

"Did she join the Air Navy?"

"No," Vaska said. "Nor does she fit into our normal command structure. In effect, she reports directly to me."

"Take me to her."

They went down and introduced Natasha to Reese. The two women started talking and Ingrid left them to their discussion. Ingrid and Vaska went back to Vaska's room to freshen up before the flight and by the time they arrived on the deck Jack and his team had finished their work on the Fat Meg. Ingrid took the front seat of the number seven jet and Vaska took the back. They took off without incident.

To the east the bird's nest of silver-white lines pulsed all along the ring at the edge of the portal. The moon loomed in the sky to the south of the portal and the Gray Baby had risen further to the north, two celestial bodies framing that window into another sky. The landscape beyond the portal was a vague reddish color.

Ingrid and Vaska flew in the Lead position and the other White Ravens flew in their correct positions. Natasha observed in the number one jet. Glenice trailed not far away in Ingrid's two-seat HY-7 Dodger. For some reason that burly marine named Algot Gunn was riding in the back seat. Reese, who turned out to be a remarkably competent pilot, flew the HY-8 Fat Meg. They trailed two waves of ten HY-4 Spearhead fighter jets and an HE-2 Eagle Eye. All the fighter jets were flying at a lower power setting so as to not overtake the Eagle Eye.

Ingrid did not know what to expect inside the portal but what actually awaited her was so completely alien that her brain refused to accept the scene. It was as if some artist who thought she was clever elected to use a distorted perspective as part of an elaborate joke which only other artists might appreciate. Simply put, the world was inside-out.

It was a world-sized cylinder and they were inside it. The inner surface was covered in reddish mountains with veins of yellow, white, black, and even tiny bits of blue or green, as if that mythological artist had dragged a fistful of particolored paintbrushes across those mountains. The land featured rivers and lakes and oceans not of water but of silvery molten metal which boiled into metallic weather patterns, steaming clouds and writhing vortexes and precipitation of an impossible weight.

The lumpy reddish cylinder was open at the far end and beyond that vast pornographic landscape the grayish sky was filled with the oily rainbow light of sparse nebulae. One section of a silver-white moon filled part of that hole.

And then there were the giants. At least three miles tall and vaguely feminine. The mercurial behemoths perfectly reflected their surroundings like chromatic mirrors and they ambled about with nearly imperceptible progress and they were so numerous that they could be seen as bright silvery specks all across the rusty inner lining of the cylinder. The giants seemed to be actively avoiding the inverted pyramids of silver-black metal drifting through the transparent depths with likewise slowness in defiance of gravity. The upper surface of each pyramid was crowned with the skyline of buildings taller than the tallest buildings in the cities of Taisia.

"This is going to be interesting to paint," Vaska said.

Not far from the portal multiple airships were engaged and, as it was in the Domain of Life, the contested airspace was filled with explosions. However this situation was repeated in every direction, and there was no way to simply fly around the battles without getting involved. They turned life-ward after passing through the portal and the twenty escort fighters each unloaded three dark-three missiles into the battle in that direction. Some of the escorts rolled over and began defending.

The enemy was overwhelmed by the sudden surge of force in that airspace and many of the missiles scored kills. One enemy fighter jet attempted to defend behind one of the giants and when the missile struck the resulting explosion left a small dimple in the metal which quickly healed and the giant didn't respond at all. It just kept on moving with that impossible slowness. This clever pilot was rewarded with a second missile which barely caught the exhaust nozzles and a third which hit the cabin.

They flew deep into the Domain of Metal in search of the contract crystals and when they found the target fighter jet Reese launched a dozen dark-three missiles in the general direction and there was nothing the enemy could do to survive. The crystals twinkled like silver stars as they fell toward the painterly highland rocks where Titania claimed them and summoned them into Ingrid's cabin.

With Titania satisfied, they went in search of the inverted pyramid depicted on Natasha's map.

They flew over the threshold of the pyramid, an ominous blue-gray metal edge followed by the blur of green parks and lawns. Buildings a hundred feet tall arranged in a grid with perfect mirrors for streets so that when the masked denizens turned to the sky in astonishment this drama was repeated upside-down without loss of detail.

"Diamond clear," Natasha said.

The other pilots pulled in very tight behind and below Ingrid.

"Smoke on."

The cabin of the number seven jet was equipped with a unique lever to activate the airshow smoke. It was delimited with a bright stripe in a yellow-black bee pattern. Ingrid flipped it.

"Commander, pull up into the vertical loop."

Ingrid pulled back on the stick and that dizzying reddish cylinder seemed to rotate around her, as if she was the center of its axis of rotation and she had compelled the entirety of it to move.

"Ease up on the power."

They looped all the way around and then they flew once more over that inverted pyramid.

"Nice job boys and girls. Smoke off."

"This is fun," Vaska said.

They flew far away and lined up for another maneuver.

"Smoke on. Diamond half clear on nine. A little pull. Bank left. Ease power. Roll out."

Natasha kept giving commands and Ingrid followed them and the White Ravens automatically adjusted their attitudes to remain fixed relative to her airplane. Solo and Rival had flown off by themselves and they left long trails of smoke over the pyramid after they had completed their own maneuvers. Reese and Glenice patrolled the airspace around the pyramid but there weren't any enemies and no missiles were launched.

"Left turn for the diamond roll. Smoke on. Up you go, up you go."

Ingrid performed a very long, very lazy barrel roll, and the White Ravens followed. They left something like a helix of smoke in the rearview mirrors and Ingrid could not help but see the impression of the spinning arm of a clock in that airy path.

"Smoke off. Ease the pull."

When they finished the diamond formation maneuvers Natasha was so satisfied with Ingrid's performance that she began issuing orders for the delta formation. From Ingrid's perspective not much had changed except that Solo and Rival flew to either side of Slot.

Overall Ingrid got the impression that it was easy flying and somewhat relaxing when compared to a merge against Glenice. Once they had finished performing all the maneuvers their escort returned and they fought their way back outside.

When they closed the portal there was a great celebration in the city and the imperial governor summoned the Lady Ghost to a great feast where he pinned medals on her uniform. The Admiral of the Taisian Air Navy was there and he promoted Ingrid to the rank of Vice Admiral before the night was done. The next day she performed with the White Ravens and the revelry in the streets became quite furious. Two days later the emperor arrived with an escort of one hundred fighter jets and he summoned Ingrid to the estate of her dead father.