Russ Howard - The Ultimate Helm

The last missile collided with the scro ship just as it started a sweeping turn to move away and then come back on another run. The missile angled into the boar's prow and chipped off most of its starboard face. The missile and the face dropped to the great ship's deck, bounced off the captain's tower, and landed between the library and illithid towers.

The Spelljammer's fighters soon came to understand the attack strategies of the elven flitters, and quickly learned how to fight back against their swiftest opponents. Light catapults were used to the best advantage, and soon flitters were falling to the decks all around and crumpling like paper, battered and torn by the rock storms that shot from the towers. One flitter was hit by a hail of iron shot from the Chalice tower and sailed directly into the roof, crushing the warriors who had shot it.

The number of elven flitters was soon cut down in half. By that time, the armada had come well within range to bear its heavy weapons, and the scro battlewagon had turned itself around to stare down the Spelljammer once again and begin another attack run.

High above the decks, directly below the Spelljammer's triangular stinger tail, a glowing ball of light appeared, which transformed in the figure of Gaye Goldring. Arms outstretched, floating above the towers like a spirit of the winds, she summoned power to her and concentrated, molding the wild energies of her mind, the energies with which Teldin had fortified her, and focusing on the approaching ships. Energy flickered around her in a golden cloud of lightning, of swirling, formless power.

In the lower hull of the elven armada, a pinprick of golden light blossomed. It spread slowly, glowing bright with Gaye's psionic energy. The glow faded as it spread across the hull in an expanding circle, and where the light had burned, the hull became discolored and appeared warped or weakened.

Gaye floated there, concentrating on her target, while the armada attacked, while missiles rained death upon the Spelljammer and its crew. The minotaur tower was felled by a barrage of both stone and missiles. Immediately, the Spelljammer's weapons shot back from the hulk and giant towers. One missile punctured one of the armada's great wings and continued past. Another was shot straight into the armada's lower hull.

The elven ship shuddered as the missile pierced the hull easily, like a sewing needle through fabric. Gaye's molecular manipulation had transformed the armada's thick, chitinous hull into a material no stronger than parchment. The crew of the Spelljammer quickly assessed the armada's weakness, and weapons across the ship were aimed at the discolored, vulnerable patch that now had grown to cover the armada's entire underside.

Within minutes, the armada fluttered drunkenly across the flow, a dozen missiles sticking out of its underbelly like stubby legs. Its wings were broken and bent, tattered into shreds by the shots from the Spelljammer's catapults.

The armada managed one last, fitful assault against the Spelljammer. One missile found its target in the uppermost chamber of the illithid tower. Trebek's books and scrolls exploded out of the tower and showered the decks below.

Then the armada shook as chambers inside ruptured, fires broke out, and explosions rolled in a chain reaction throughout the ship. The elven flagship blew apart and sent the shattered hull scattering in all directions. Blackened bodies spun into the flow; then the phlogiston ignited around the wrecked ship, and the sky blazed.

The Spelljammer was buffeted by the storm of heat and turbulence. The scro battlewagon shook and was tossed sideways by the blast. The Shou tsunami appeared unbothered; only its frontal antennae were slightly scorched as it sailed harmlessly through the last of the explosion.

The Spelljammer adjusted its course and accelerated. Its starboard wing swung up, over the scro battlewagon, which could not recover fast enough from the explosion to fire at the Spelljammer's lower hull. The battlewagon's helmsman realized his mistake and quickly turned the ship around in pursuit.

The tsunami fired its heavy weapons as the Spelljammer passed directly in front of it. Boulders fell into the walls of the Long Fangs' tower and the beholder ruins, then the Spelljammer's crew retaliated individually, firing indiscriminately at the beautiful Shou ship as it wriggled through the flow. One of the tsunami's long antennae cracked and was sent spinning away by a hail of iron shot.

The Spelljammer flew straight through the gap in the Broken Sphere, heedless of its enemies. It was swallowed by the darkness, by the enormous weight of its ancient, forgotten birth. Behind it, clouds of phlogiston roiled into the sphere, kicked up by the Spelljammer's wings and sucked in by its wake.

The battlewagon fired from behind and to starboard, clipping the mast of a galleon with a ballista missile, then the wildfire projector was readied on the Evisceratorupper firing platform. The boar ship sped forward, close enough to the galleon to see the surprised look in the pirates' eyes as the scro on deck aimed their arrows and killed eight warriors in a single pass.

The scro ship penetrated the Spelljammer's air envelope. One missile, shot from atop the Armory, impaled one of the ship's great forelegs. The battlewagon rocked with the impact of a heavy load of iron shot.

Then the scro aimed the wildfire projector, and the top of the Dark Tower was engulfed in flames that licked up the Spelljammer's tail. The scro hopped and laughed on the deck of the Eviscerator and aimed again. Fire splattered the base of the Armory in a wide swath that blazed through the Old Elvish Academy and the Academy of Human Knowledge. The flames spread from roof to roof, and soon the Long Fangs' tower and the beholder ruins were eaten by fire. Phlogiston exploded chaotically, raining rubble down upon the decks.

Missiles from the Spelljammer embedded into the battlewagon like spears. The scro ship twisted evasively, ignoring most of the Spelljammer's attacks by staying far to starboard, off the wing. Inside the control cabin, the scro helmsman sweated copiously in a struggle to keep the ship out of danger, yet still in a position where it could dive in easily and whittle away at the Spelljammer's defenses

… and kill as many hells-spawned elves as possible.

Concentrating on the scene outside, transmitted to him by the Eviscerator's helm, the helmsman did not notice a golden glow appear at his side. He did not notice the shape of a woman materialize and beckon to him, her fingers stretched at strange angles, her gaze fixed upon his face. He jerked once, violently, struggling in his mind as a superior force battled with his subconscious. He suddenly stood and awkwardly faced her.

His eyes were wide with fear as first one of his arms went up into the air, then another. He watched helplessly as his right leg came up involuntarily, and he started hopping. The battlewagon began to slow. It listed to port as the helmsman's mind strayed from controlling the ship's course and speed. Gaye could hear shouts from the decks above as the ship continued to list.

"What are you doing?" he screamed in the Common tongue.

"Stop this! Stop this now! You'll kill us all!"

Gaye stopped. Instead, she concentrated. The scro pulled a short sword from his scabbard. His eyes widened even more. "No!" he shouted. "No!"

He brought the point of his sword to his unprotected chest. The sharp point dug into his flesh. Blood welled in a shiny, thick drop. "You can't do this to me! You can't!"

Then he gasped, as his body was flung against a wall and the impact pushed the sword into his heart. He fell to his knees, then pitched over.

"Yes, I can," Gaye said calmly.

The battered battlewagon listed dangerously to port and began its descent. The door to the cabin burst open, and a contingent of scro warriors charged in, their weapons drawn.