True dawn broke over the ship. For a moment, all seemed blue-the robin's-egg sky above and the sloshing sea below. The scene was marred by one black knot of swamp and moss and tree. It was an island, a rather small island, though growing larger all the while.
Weatherlight and her titan stowaway were plunging down toward it.
Gerrard growled. Into the prow speaking tube, he shouted, "Sisay, evasive!"
Her voice echoed back, "Hang on!"
Weatherlight's engines flared. She yawed suddenly, jiggling the titan's arm. With angry insistence, the ship rolled. Sea replaced sky.
Urza half-flipped. Nerveless, his metallic arm lost hold of the ship.
Weatherlight's airfoils slapped together. Fire flared behind. Like a cork from a bottle, Weatherlight shot from Urza's grasp. The ship surged up into azure heavens.
Urza's titan engine meanwhile plunged toward azure seas.
Gerrard peered over the rail and watched Urza fall, open-mouthed and panicky in his pilot's capsule. The planeswalker's shock could not have been more profound. He tumbled to splash magnificently just beyond the island's shelf. His impact sent a plume of white water five hundred feet into the air. Limbs sank in sand and muck. The pilot bulb glared like an angry eye as it went under.
Gerrard whooped. Standing in the traces, he shouted over the rail, "How do you like getting shoved around, planeswalker?"
From black churning waters, the titan engine's crown emerged. Foam draped the proud dome, and liquid streamed from power conduits. Urza doggedly marched toward the shore of the island.
Gerrard shook his head. "Why did the old bastard bring us here?" He glanced toward the island, and his breath caught in his throat.
Weatherlight had been here before, perhaps a year ago. This isle had once been the home of Crovax.
"Sisay, take us low over the isle."
"Aye."
When last Weatherlight was here, the woods were overrun by Phyrexians and the plantation house was destroyed by fire. Crovax lost his home and his family on that day. He lost even more than that. He lost his angel Selenia too. It had been that loss that had turned him to evil.
Now, more than ever, Gerrard understood such loss.
Weatherlight plummeted from the skies, followed by her fleet. She shot low over the waves. Her keel tore past the toiling titan engine. She mounted up to soar above the palms.
Gazing down between the tossing heads of the trees, Gerrard saw an all-too-familiar scene.
Phyrexians filled the island. They slew men and beasts and feasted on them. They gnawed trees and burned thorn brakes. They piled ash into swamps and built redoubts. They set ray cannons and mana bombards in their embrasures. By the end of the day, this island would be a Phyrexian stronghold from which they could control the seas and the outer isles of Urborg.
"Not if I can help it," Gerrard said beneath his breath. "Battle stations!" he called through the tube. "Signal the fleet. We're taking back the island."
Tahngarth stood in the gunnery traces and peered down at the swamps rattling past below. "We'd better take out their artillery before it gets running-"
His words were cut short by a black stream of energy that erupted through the cypresses. It vaulted up toward Weatherlight, growing all the while.
"Evasive!" Gerrard called.
Weatherlight folded her airfoils and knifed down laterally above the trees. The black-mana bolt slid away to one side. Weatherlight's wings spread to grab the air, and her engines blazed. Her serrated keel sliced the uppermost boughs as she shot out above the island.
"Too late!" Tahngarth growled. "They've got their guns."
"And we've got ours," Gerrard replied through gritted teeth.
His cannon howled as it unleashed its round. The charge whirled a moment among white boles and crashed into a black-mana bombard. Plasma laved the gun chassis. It penetrated the energy stores. The bombard burst. It dissolved into a swelling sphere of fire. Energy pulverized the Phyrexian gunners. It destroyed trees nearby and cracked the very air.
"That's the way!" Gerrard whooped. "Keep us low and fast, Sisay-at the treetops. They won't know where we are until we're on top of them."
Sisay didn't answer except by steering the ship along a low ridge above the swamps.
Atop the ridge, Phyrexian cannons turned a bead on Weatherlight.
Tahngarth's gun cackled. The shot struck the first cannon. It melted like a candle. Red metal spattered Phyrexian crews and destroyed the second gun. The third got off a shot. Crimson force rose from the steaming barrel.
Growling, Tahngarth swept the air with answering fire. It caught the other blast like a net catching fish.
Weatherlight roared out over the gun.
Tahngarth pivoted to bring his cannon to bear, but the target slid to stern. Another bolt rose after the ship.
"Look sharp, Squee!" Tahngarth shouted into the speaking tube.
His voice spilled out beside the aft gun. There, a much smaller figure clutched the fire controls. Squee was an unlikely tail gunner-green and warty, with long, pointed ears, a crooked-toothed grin, and a reputation for cowardice. Still, he had downed Volrath's own gunship and had assisted in countless cruiser kills during the opening war. At the tail gun, Squee fought with fury.
This occasion was no exception. Squee loosed a triple blast. The first shot smashed aside the Phyrexian beam. The second ripped a clear way through the treetops. The third soared down the enemy barrel and peeled it back as if it were a banana.
"Nice shooting, Squee!" yelled Gerrard. "That's four guns down! How many do you think they've got?"
As if in answer, a wall of scarlet energy jutted skyward ahead of them. Helionauts and jump ships hurtled away to either side of the red wall. Weatherlight was too big for such quick maneuvers. She soared toward destruction.
Sisay dragged the helm hard to port. Weatherlight banked sharply away from the raking fire. Her keel cut a deep groove through the air. She rose on angry engines.
The Phyrexian cannons followed her with fire.
Sisay braced her legs and hauled hard on the wheel. The ship climbed almost straight up. Engines belched blue flame. Weatherlight rocketed heavenward, enwrapped in killing rays. She rose up past the curtain of fire and skipped away among shielding clouds. The light rays dissipated among drops of water.
"It'd be nice to have a little help!" Sisay shouted.
"I've given up expecting it," Gerrard answered. "At least we've got our fleet. Take us back down to them, Captain."
"Aye, Commander," Sisay said.
Weatherlight dived through the clouds. Vapor rolled from her gunwales.
The isle appeared below. Phyrexian cannon fire clawed the treetops away. One blast snatched a helionaut from the air. Another grazed a jump ship. Though outgunned, the smaller craft sent exploding quarrels down into the Phyrexian armies. It would not be enough. Phyrexians swarmed the land.
"Get the helionauts out of there," Gerrard ordered. "Signal them to hover high and watch for airships. They're no good against ground troops."
"Aye, Commander," came the voice of the communications ensign.
"So, that leaves just us and the jump ships?" Sisay asked.
"Not just us," Gerrard reported, jabbing a finger toward the rapidly approaching shoreline. "Urza's made landfall."
Taller than the treetops, Urza's titan engine marched into the swamp. The hulking mechanism still streamed water and seaweed but looked all the more sinister for it. Rockets jumped away from his wrists and corkscrewed through deadwood forests. They plowed through earthwork trenches and exploded in the bunkers beyond. Hunks of bug flesh rained outward.
Gerrard shook his head in grudging amazement. He lifted a captain's glass to his eye to watch the carnage.
Urza's titan engine strode onward. A huge fireball formed before the planeswalker and swooped down to drive Phyrexians into a shallow marsh. Lightning leaped from the fork above the pilot bulb and jagged through the water. Monsters thrashed and sizzled. Urza strode atop them, paying no heed. He drove straight across the ground, making toward some goal only he knew.