The Quarry - Ambush - PTSD - Cogs' Secret
The air rumbled with the distant sounds of cannon fire. Thick, sickly-yellow smog surrounded the crew of the Ketty Jay - Frey, the captain, Jezabeth, the navigator, Malvery, the ship's doctor and dorsal gunner, Crake, the daemonist, Pinn and Harkins, the two original outflyers, Ashua, the stray scooped up by circumstance, and Cogs and Torrent, who maintained that they were two outflyers, but everyone knew they were really just trying to keep up appearances with their ship, and really worked together as one. Silo, the engineer, was off near the Samarlans' slave pens, trying to free his people, who were forced into slavery by the Samarlans. The crew descended further into the Gagriisk quarry, wearing goggles and breathing masks, having been told there was a man there, from the far north of Yortland, who knew where the origin of the Iron Jackal was. The Iron Jackal was the daemon tracking Frey - Once Crake had calibrated for Cogs' presence on board, he'd found the daemon easily. They had gone to a sorcerer, who told them that they had until the full moon to return an artefact that Frey had touched, marking him for the Iron Jackal. The crew descended further into the deathpit, scanning the surroundings for Dakkadian troops, the Samarlans' grunts. Jez was leading, as her senses were better than anyone else's - and Cogs, with a dragon's sharp vision and hearing, followed up behind her. They were roughly halfway down the tiered quarry, and looking for the next level down, when Jez held a hand up, signalling for the crew to stop.
"What is it?" Frey asked. The various heavy machinery scattered around the tier intimidated him.
Cogs nudged Torrent, nodding to him through his goggles. Both Jacks readied their weapons, Cogs his revolvers, Torrent his rifle. Cogs started to peer into the smog twitchily, fearful of what lay hidden.
"Not sure," Jez said. "Hard to tell where the sounds are coming from." She paused for a while, listening. Cogs cocked his revolvers, and tok a deep, shaky breath. Torrent turned around, advancing to Cogs' back. The rest of the crew readied their weapons, loading any empty chambers.
Jez looked at Frey. "I think they know where we-"
Jez didn't get to finish that sentence as bullets started pinging off of the ground, the machinery and Bess, Crake's golem. The crew of the Ketty Jay started returning fire through the fog, revolvers reaching crazy firing rates while hammers were fanned. Suddenly, a bunch of floodlights on a bulldozer popped on, blinding the crew of the Ketty Jay. Nobody could see anything, so they just took cover behind Bess and the bulldozer's scoop, returning fire when they could. Even Crake and Harkins, the two worst shots on the Ketty Jay, were firing back periodically. Torrent reloaded his rifle, hiding behind Bess, as he saw Pinn put some of his Flame-Slime - a sort of incendiary gel he'd invented without knowing the recipe - onto his revolver ammo. The first bullet fired acted like tracer ammo, but it had the unfortunate side effect of setting the revolver on fire. Pinn, scared out of his wits, threw his revolver to the ground, where it discharged from the impact and the fire. It hit Pinn in the cast, which sat around his arm. He'd burned it while demonstrating his Flame-Slime to the crew by setting his arm on fire.
"Right in the same bloody spot," Pinn said, right before fainting. Malvery ran over, muttering curses, and started to bandage up the wound to hold until they got back to the ship.
"He'll be fine, but not flying," was Malvery's diagnosis.
The bulldozer rumbled to life now, starting to advance on the crew.
"Great," Frey said.
"Between a rock and a hard place," Torrent said, checking on Cogs. The Dragonheart was sitting behind the bulldozer's scoop, breathing heavily. He was whispering something to himself, and Torrent thought he saw a pair of wings start to poke out from behind the long teal coat. Torrent fired a short volley into the fog, and ran from behind Bess to the slowly advancing bulldozer.
"Hey, you alright?" Torrent asked, nudging Cogs.
"If you haven't noticed, we are in a deathpit surrounded by more death, with death joining the death originally in the deathpit. DO YOU THINK I'M ALRIGHT?!" Cogs curled up into a fetal position. "We're about to die soon, and all of our friends here, too..." He stopped addressing Torrent then, and continued repeating "this isn't happening" as the firefight continued around him.
Torrent decided to cut to the chase as Jez switched gears from human to Mane - It was scary to watch, as Jez threw down her gun and blitzed into the darkness on all fours to tear a few throats out, scaring Harkins witless in the process.
"We'll all die only if you let us! You're the only one strong enough to move that bulldozer!"
Cogs glanced up, his eyes brimming with tears from his resignation to death. He stood up, his half-dragon form now clearly out for all to see, stunning the Ketty Jay's crew, and pushed up solo against the bulldozer, and started to shift into his dragon form. As he gradually made the switch, he changed from using his arms - at this point his forelegs - to his horns and skull, digging all four claws into the ground. His scales, scarred from seven hundred years of abuse, either deflected the bullets or were too thick or resistant to penetrate.
"By the Archduke's beard," Frey said, "He really was a daemon..."
Crake only watched in stunned silence, while the rest of the crew, though distraught, continued firing back, occasionally using Cogs as cover, as Cogs pushed the bulldozer back a few centimetres. Cogs pushed relentlessly, switching to his forelegs, and bellowed at the remaining Dakkadians.
"Whatever happens now..." he said, his voice deepened from size, "I will not let my friends die... least of all... by the likes of you!" He pushed in one colossal burst of energy, and the bulldozer slid backwards. Cogs lifted the bulldozer off of the ground using a burst of adrenaline, and placed it on the tier above. Fighting to keep it under control, he swivelled it around to illuminate a squad of terrified Dakkadian marksmen. He fired a portion of the quarry wall, toppling it onto the path.
"In sovyit Rrusha, bulldozer drive YOU!" he said, grinning evilly. He released the bulldozer, which careened into the guards, pushing them off the ledge.
That was how it could have happened.
But it wasn't.
"I will not let my friends die..." Cogs said, "Least of all... by the likes of you!" He packed his rage up, and unleashed a long stream of blue flame, at least a hundred degrees hotter than normal. While this set a few Dakkadians on fire, it also illuminated Cogs' face for anyone in the battle to shoot at. Several shots penetrated the upper portion of Cogs' face, weakening him to the point of letting the bulldozer continue. Barely aware, Cogs gradually changed back to his half-dragon form, necessitating Torrent to drag him along as the crew retreated from the bulldozer. Torrent grabbed one of Cogs' revolvers, and more out of panic at seeing his friend hurt than anything else fired blindly into the foggy darkness. The crew, minus Jez, were retreating behind the bulldozer. They were nearly pushed off of the edge when the bulldozer shut down, and Jez walked up out of the darkness, covered in blood. With her came an absence of gunshots, the only sound being her footsteps and the thunder of an anti-aircraft gun firing at the Delirium Trigger somewhere above. She reached the crew of the Ketty Jay, then passed out right there. Malvery sighed, and got Crake to help him carry Cogs and Jez to the Ketty Jay's infirmary, with Ashua escorting them in case Silo and the Murthians hadn't taken over by the time Malvery got out of the quarry. Torrent and Frey, the last ones left, proceeded to the bottom of the quarry. The pair walked up to a steel door, obviously an airlock to the prison. Torrent tried to open it, but Frey held it shut.
"First, let's get a few things out of the way. I make it a policy to not pry into people's pasts on the Ketty Jay, but this warrants an exception. What. The hell. Was THAT?!" Frey said, pointing to the bulldozer.
"The simplest explanation I can give you at the moment is that it's magic from another dimension. Ask Cogs later if that isn't enough."
Torrent tried again to open the door, but Frey did not relent.
"Captain, if I knew the whole story, I'd tell you. Trust me."
Experience told Frey that when either Jack got overly formal, he wasn't lying. His gut told him that this was one of those times, however far-fetched it seemed.
"Any other huge secrets?"
"I can do it, too, through a different method. I'll show you later."
Frey let go of the airlock door, and Torrent opened it, holding it for his captain. Once inside, it was easy to find the prisoner they'd come for, as he was the only Yort in the building. Upon freeing him, Frey took an immediate dislike to him, diagnosing that he was probably crazy. Torrent, Frey and the Yort, Ugrik, left through the airlock, to rendezvous with the rest of the crew in the Ketty Jay and plan their next move.