Though Plum Tommy deceived the Captain with allusions of valuable bounty downriver, they did find out something that could be even more useful. The more you know, the more you grow; knowledge is power! So the Captain said, trying to settle the rowdy crew after not finding any actual treasure.
On their hunt, near the semi-submerged ruins of some once-great city, they had found old geological surveys and engineering plans. These papers illustrated the energy potential of the Boa Gap Dam powered by a previously unknown underground spring that fed the Circle Sea, the Sindonglahya, and the rest of the district.
At this point, Captain Pearl knew they had been made fools and immediately devised an ambitious and ill-conceived plan to thwart Plum Tommy’s unscrupulous surge to control the district as overlord.
They had spent a year stealing any kind of munition they could find. Demolition explosives, rockets, warheads, fireworks, anything was useful.
The strategy was over-the-top in the most destructive way possible. They would use the firepower to blow up parts of the crater ridge surrounding the Circle Sea, creating landslides, hurling rock, mud, and sand to the bottom of the crater, burying the spring, and stopping the water. Plum Tommy needed that water to keep the turbine moving, to keep the batteries charged, to keep the weapon systems powered, to keep enemies away. Captain Pearl never really cared about taking back the dam; she just didn’t want him to have it.
After the shepherd versus sailor massacre at Capricosta, the gang, retreating to the Axolotl, salvaging a few dead goats along the way. Unfortunately, the crew were outnumbered and didn’t have a chance. Two of them were gored to death, and three seriously injured by the Praetentio practicing shepherds and their long barbed staffs.
“Sindonlah Ya, Sindongla Hya,” said the captain mockingly, “I knew we shouldn’t have stopped here, ya tart holes. Happy you got some goat?!” She lifted her leg, this time forcing out a long rumbling fart contemptibly like angry punctuation.
They raced upstream, the Captain hoping to get another glimpse of the airship along the way. But here, the river was sunk into the foothills at the bottom of tall cliffs with only a narrow winding slice of blue sky above.
After a non-stop, multi-day ride, the Captain, still sore about Capricosta, hurried the crew and the munitions off the Axolotl just before the Boa Gap waterfall drained into the river. “All of you and everything too—off the boat!” she ordered. They were on a narrow stony beach, near a cave entrance, shadowed by dark cliffs painted with moss.
In the cave was an old pulley lift they used to haul the explosives up to the top of the canyon. On the way up, the Captain went over the deployment plan and warned them to quickly dispatch any Plum Tommy security patrols before they alerted the weapon systems.
At the top, they unloaded the gear and pressed on, climbing through the hills toward the sea. Pulling sleds and carrying packs of explosives and detonation equipment, the rest of the trek up the outside of the crater exhausted everyone. Luckily they hadn’t seen any Plum Tommy patrols; they didn’t have much fight left in them anyway. By nightfall, they set up camp, nestled between two rocky peaks to hide the glow of their campfire. Looking around the ridge, they could see the well-lit structure of the Boa Gap Dam in the distance, where a double-headed spotlight whirled a wide beam up and down across the mountains.
The Captain was up at sunrise, and the crew got busy setting their plan in motion. They planted bombs attached by a long wired detonation system under every outcropping, along the inside of the crater ridge. Far below, the Circle Sea undulated obliviously toward the Dam.
The Captain was giddy. The moment had come. They all stood atop a boulder at a safe distance where she held the detonator in her hand and whispered a countdown under her breath. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.
There was a pause and a few seconds of disappointment when it felt like nothing was going to happen, then a crack ripped through the air, and a tremor shook under their feet, and large scoops of sand fell away into the water, followed by cascades of rock and earth. Fireworks burst in every direction, and plumes of multi-colored smoke billowed into the air, obscuring the glorious destruction. Their heads and chests rattled as the force of the explosions must have set off a chain reaction around the crater. Splashes echoed deep reverberating thunder far off across the agitated sea, frothing and foaming like an angry animal. The Captain and crew, still not wanting to draw the attention of Plum Tommy’s Light Strikes, remained quiet and stealthy, waiting for things to clear.
The aftermath was beautiful. Not only had the Captain decapitated most of the mountain peaks around the crater, but the force had also knocked holes in the ridge where water was now flooding through into the valleys and foothills below. The Circle Sea was draining quickly, and if they succeeded in blocking the spring, all the water would be gone in no time.
Captain Pearl smiled a rare toothy grin, knowing that by now Plum Tommy would be freaking out, watching his power slip away through the cracks. The dam would be useless now.
“Next, we take out Tommy,” said the Captain matter-of-factly, not having any idea of how to do that. His weapons were still going to be powered. They were also outnumbered here too, and the crew was weak and tired.
Captain Pearl looked toward the river behind them, scanned the foothills, then squinted into the sky above the place where the great Circle Sea used to be. A small orange and blue speck drifted cautiously on the far side of the crater.
Plum Tommy immediately sent out security gangs. One in Captain Pearl's direction and the other toward the suspicious-looking airship on the other side of the crater. Some of the engineers warned of aftershocks; if it was indeed a seismic event, this might not be the end of it. They were detecting some subterranean activity, palpitations, throbbing in irregular intervals. But Plum Tommy was a paranoid villain and thought the whole thing seemed somewhat unnatural and suspicious.“This has got Pearl the squirrel written all over it!” he huffed, “Go find her and bring her to me. And while the scouts are out, see if you can get a line on that flying egg over there and strike it down.”
“There’s too much interference—reverberations—scopes are bouncing around too much,” said one of the engineers.
“Brmph, never mind then! Go survey the crater damage. Figure out what we’re going to do about that.”, Plum Tommy demanded, clearly thrown off by the unexpected disaster.
Over the next few days, the security scouts and armed patrols tried to circumnavigate the crater ring but didn’t find anyone. Most of the foothills flooded, now dotted with lakes and mud pits, many areas were inaccessible. On the other side of the crater, the small airship slowly spiraled up into the stratosphere, out of sight.
All the while, serious seismic events had increased, cracking biocrete at the dam and throwing a few engineers down the dried-up sluiceway. There was an air of instability and unease as they wondered what to do next.
Plum Tommy wanted to see it first hand. An unnatural pressure pushed against his skull as he hiked down the crater to explore the last pool of water wrapping around the enormous pile of debris at the bottom of the sea bed. On a boulder near the center of the crater, he watched a couple of crows hop around, picking at what looked to be snake parts. Heads, tails, and pieces in between, they strutted around, gobbling up the bits that he now realized were strewn everywhere across the disturbed landscape.
He walked over to some guts nearby and picked up the tail of a rattlesnake. Searching the sky as the ground groaned beneath him, the rattle vibrated in his hand. Steadying himself, Plum Tommy held it to his ear. Shk shka shk shk shka shk shk shka shk.
“Can you feel that pressure? Is it just the elevation?” asked Juujee.
“Shouldn’t be. We’re high, but not that high,” answered Maggis
Dez chuckled under their breath, knowing that they were all indeed very high. “I can feel it. But I’m really not sure what feelings are real or what the old real feelings were in the first place. Everything is ticking, pulsing, shaking, rocking, moving, and nonagonning around, and I can’t even blink without seeing these glitchy visions of snake gods and winged alligators, not to mention the ringing in my ears and dirt up my nose from all that blow-up!”
Maggis agreed, “Best we keep from those deep mingles—if possible. If it weren’t for that crater blowin up, we would’ve sailed right into that cliff,” he clapped his hands together, “Bam!”
“Yeah, that was a close one,” said Juujee, “We were spaced right out ——How’d we even get here?” She looked around like she just realized they were in the air. “Say—speaking of spaced out, how did you end up getting knocked out in the first place?” she asked Maggis.
“Not sure I have a clear answer, especially now—it feels like a hunderd years ago,” Maggis continued, “I remember heading toward Mount Magnet to resupply and survey the new irrigation tracks. I was crossing over a solar field—then out of nowhere—Geese! I tried swerving to avoid them, but that’s the last I remember.”
Dez tried to hold it in but started laughing, “You got run down by a flock of birds! Don’t tell me—there were probably nine of them—with nine eyes on nine heads!” he kept laughing now, “Sorry, sorry, it’s just all so ridiculous. Actually—it’s kind of wonderful. A marvel of the universe! This whole thing—everything that’s happened to us and the world and the Tads and that crater down there—it makes you wonder if this is someone’s insane plan—and if I wasn’t so interested in where this was all going right now, I might just jump out of here and fly away.”
Dez thought about it for a moment.
“Hey hey, Dez, I get it,” said Juujee trying to turn the energy down, “It makes perfect nonsense—right? I haven’t even told you about the great flightless bird rescue with this weird pilgrim from out of town. Makes me wonder too about how little we know—how little we’re prepared to know. Like we’re on top of one of those old iceberg things, pretending we got it all figured out—but really, there is a crazy amount of stuff lurking below the surface that we can’t hope to ever know or understand.”
The compulsion to mingle was strong, but they resisted fearing they would careen out of the sky in some catastrophic collective delusion. Instead, high above the Columbo Crater, they talked about what to do next. They knew they should steer clear of Plum Tommy, and they had no need to confront the Captain and crew. So, cruising back toward Mount Magnet seemed logical. They could survey the Sindonglahya along the way. If the Circle Sea dried up, the river would too. It was profoundly clear what had just happened. The district needed a plan to excavate the crater and open up the font spring, or they were all in trouble.
*
Beneath the crater and reaching across the entire planet, a subterranean ocean was being pressurized by the Fantastrigo metadido. As the original incubator, this ocean was rich with native microbial life that Fantastrigo metadido farmed for energy and now used to scale underground continental bead movements, creating mass dissonance, disrupting and destroying the Nebs’ host animal bodies. The force was building, and with the Columbo Crater fissures blocked, it was only a matter of time before something was going to give. The tremors and high-pressure meteorological systems created widespread instability, only adding to the chaos of the already untethered population affected by some new ill-defined sub-tryptamine-induced psychosis. Not to mention the once-fat Sindonglaya was now a skinny stream, littered with dead reptiles, trickling through the district, lucid but listless.
The Nebs were losing. Their numbers were dwindling. With their interdimensional influence weakened, they could not hold the attention of humans, let alone use their imagination against them. Thousands of years of work were dissolving, sinking back to the bottom of the oceans, faithlessly falling out of the sky. Religion and mythology were losing their opacity, wearing thin, and no longer standing up on their own.
“That’s him! That poncy scarf’d furball—We’re going down”, said Captain Pearl, looking through a scope and swatting some flies away. “Look! He’s alone. C’mon!”
The crew followed the Captain on a slow descent, traversing the steep crater walls, sneaking behind boulders, and trying to keep their balance as the earth heaved beneath them.
Plum Tommy seemed lost in a trance. He couldn’t have seen them coming. Standing looking at himself in the water, hand holding part of a snake, he bowed his head. Rivulets of sweat dripped into ripples, framing the reflection of his face. He counted the rings.
Confident she had the upper hand, Captain Pearl stood behind Plum Tommy and kicked a rock in his direction. “How do ya like your waterworks now, Tommy? Not much to look at anymore.” She kicked another stone into the water.
Then on cue, the ground shook and broke open, knocking everyone everywhere. In the next few seconds, violent spouts of water flew into the air, throwing rocks, mud, and snake bits across the crater. Tommy, Pearl, and the crew didn’t have a chance. The underground ocean was venting at its weakest point, flooding the basin and obliterating everything inside.
Aboard the airship, not far from the crater, Dez, Juujee, and Maggis, looked back and saw great fountains of water erupting, spraying a sparkling mist across the horizon. Dez shrugged and shook their head. Maggis blurted an unintelligible exclamation, and Juujee, trying to be more optimistic, said,” That looks like a fantastic rainbow in the making.”
A minute later, she was right. Bounding out of the crater and into the distance, a spectrum of light refracted in the sky. Ribbons of color just hung there, suspended from nothing. Juujee picked up the monocular for a closer look, “It’s a good omen, right?” she asked. “How many colors are there supposed to be? I can see seven.”
Maggis replied, “Vital Instruments Begin Grounding Your Oblique Rain! Or if you prefer, Radical Obscure Youth Grow Between Idle Vipers.” He smiled, pleased at remembering the mnemonics, “Not that happy with the syllable count, but pretty nonetheless. Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. Some say there are two more colors on either end. The infra and ultra they call em. That would make...nine. Hmph.” He raised his eyebrows at Juujee.
“It’s pretty and all, but let’s check out the Sindonglahya. I want to see if we can find the Axolotl.” suggested Dez to Maggis, “I want you to look at the maps aboard. Cartographic charts. World views I’ve never seen before. I want to take them if we can.”
Maggis perked up at ‘world maps’ and not so subtly glanced over at a drawer where he hid the locked container. “What charts? What did they look like?” he asked.
Before Dez could respond, Juujee started in, “Are you ever going to let us see what’s in your super-secret tube?” She motioned toward the drawer, “I mean, we are literally all in this together—right?”
They drifted above the foothills, heading toward the river.
“Yeah, Mag, what’s the big deal? I remember the combo. Want me to open it up for you?” Dez teased.
“Let’s find this boat and these charts first,” said Maggis flatly.
“Fine, fine,” Juujee said.
“Deal,” said Dez
The engineers at the Boa Gap Dam watched the water level rise again inside the crater but knew it would never reach the turbines. They saw more crater walls collapse and give way to torrents of water pouring through new gaps, carving new paths in the hills, and running down toward the Sindonglahya. The power station at Boa Gap was useless now. Without a leader, the small army of engineers and soldiers abandoned the dam quickly, scattering into the district, goats looking for a new shepherd.
The returning sea poured into the river valley and fell into the Sindonglahya. Unencumbered by dams and turbines, the rush of water flooded the gorge with a force twice as strong as before. It ran hard and fast, taking anything in its path.
Maggis had lowered the Gulliverswift for a better view of the rogue river when they spotted the Axolotl, out of control, bashing against the canyon walls, tumbling downstream.
“There it is!” yelled Dez
“See it, see it. Wouldn’t want to be it,” rhymed Juujee, being cute for no apparent reason.
“Don’t think we’ll be able to chase it down,” said Maggis, “Maybe we can intercept it down near Capricosta. Head it off there.”
Turning away from the river, they started back toward the plateau where they crash-landed. “We should be able to make good time.” reassured Maggis, “Not sure that boat will be in ship-shape by the time we see it again, though. Gotta plan for stopping it?”
“No, not really,” said Dez watching the river fade away, “But anything can happen.”
“Hmph—indeed,” said Maggis.
This story just keeps getting deeper. Some really good writing here, Jon. :)
I love how smoothly the description and dialogue flow, like a river into the Sindonglahya. Great work, Jon.