Crike

"They're attacking the flux cores!" Uzbecka hollered up the comm tube from the engineering compartment in the hold. "The engineer is down, I'm not sure if they're trying to sabotage the ship, or steal the core... you need to stabilize the ship and find somewhere to land if the cores go offline."

Crike was handy at the helm, a closely kept secret, because Crike didn't want any more responsibilities around the ship. Peeling potatoes and fetching the captain meals was enough. Under ordinary circumstances, landing the ship would not be a problem.

These were not, however, ordinary circumstances.

Under desperate circumstances, a crew could pull together, but where was Harlaan now? He had been up in the lookout nest, where Crike could now see the two lookouts heaving beams and swinging ropes to foul the remaining Remora in the sky. Harlaan had dealt with at least one more with a peevee pole, before he leapt off the side of the ship. Crike knew better than to underestimate Harlaan's acrobatic prowess, but even so... this was concerning. Were there more of the sky pirates on the deck? Hard to tell. Crike's hands were full with keeping the ship from plummeting towards the ground.

The Runagate's main form of lift was the helix-shaped main skysail, which had recently been filled like a balloon with hot air from a geothermal vent on a volcanic island now far away. The sail would keep them aloft as long as it was intact. Without the flux cores, they would lack propulsion... Crike could steer the airship in a limited fashion using the four steering sails on the hull, but without propulsion, the ship would lose momentum, and steering would become difficult. In this fog, navigation was a challenge, even with the dream-navigator's guidance, and that comm tube was silent. The absense of attendanst was worrisome, and Uzbecka had said that the captain had gone down there to investigate.

Uzbecka and the engineer were in the hold, and there were sky pirates in the hold, and perhaps that was the only thing that mattered right, now, aside from trying to find somewhere to land in the fog, and without the benefit of Harlaan's keen sight, Crike had to admit that they were effectively blind, relying instead on luck to guide them to one of the plateaus or tepuis that they had previously been trying to avoid in the dense fog.

Crike could still see the shadow above and to port of the skywhale, and that was reassuring. It had not closed any distance. The skywhale were not exactly benign presences in the Swirl, but they would not intentionally run into skyships, if intention was even the right word. The Remoras may have been lying in wait for a while behind the skywhale, by the looks of it a large autonomous tanker ship, without provoking any reaction. But at the best of times, skywhales were unpredictable, and this was far from the best of times.

Crike called up through the comm tube to the nest, telling them to keep an eye on the 'whale and to look out for land. They had the Manta snarled up in the rigging, which was one less concern, perhaps, unless the Remora broke free and damaged the balloon sail, but Kimmy was still hurling loose planks and shackes at her, so that seemed less and less likely. Crike also called down the engineering comm tube and the forecabin tube, but there was no answer.