The Khan

Schöneluft Log, 1900.07.05

Ulrik Manfred Adler, acting Captain

A glimmering blue ball, six inches across, darted across my vision. The Lightening Generator! I looked down, scanning the sky as I arced across it, still climbing back to the ship. The Mongol was gaining on us, determined to shoot us into oblivion with his ballista. The blue lightening ball was behind me, poor Chef’s problem perhaps. I could not see the Generator.

There! An enormous red ball of energy dashed out from under the Mongol airship, chased closely by a gold one. It was directly below the enemy! The rumbling filled my gut again, building unbearably so close to the cloud bank. Lightening attracting lightening.
A tiny green lightening ball zoomed after the gold, followed by four more, chasing the gold. A War Wing rider banked into the last one as he chased the wind to reach me. It must have passed through his heart, for he was dead before he had time to scream. The green ball kept up its chase, as if the body of the man was no different from air.
The lightening struck the Generator. I felt it in my teeth. My eyes felt shriveled; my ears popped and I heard nothing of the explosion, at first. Then the boom came roaring through me as the electricity had. Then the Mongol was on fire, and I pulled my goggles back over my eyes as the first blossoms of flame bloomed on the envelope.

The explosion of the Lightening Generator had blown the ballista crew from the fighting platform as it set the wood alight, but one man still stood. The Khan himself, judging by the gold plates on his leather armor. He raised his fist to me just as the flames reached the hydrogen bags. Whether he saluted me or threatened I will never know; he was blown to pieces.

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