"Ease back," Dalen gasped as they sank. "My stomach can't handle this anymore than the airship can! Look at the right wing."
She did. As Dalen said, there was a ragged puncture dangerously close to the engine nacelle. Behind her, Mikial saw something else that shot hot energy through her body. "Dalen! That little building! It ... it's rising off the ground!"
He wrenched around. "What?"
Jagged rock and clumps of greenery shot by beneath them as Mikial swooped for the beckoning brightness of the canyon mouth. "I'm seeing things, right?"
His reply was a shocked monotone. "It's coming."
"How can it?"
His hand gripped her shoulder hard. "Mikial, do something! It's right behind us!"
Insane as it seemed, the thing hung just off her tail. What she had first assumed was a tarp pulled over some truck was actually the thing's hull. It looked like a bubble someone had sat on--a bubble made of a dull green metal. It had skids instead of wheels. She saw neither wings nor propellers. There were two figures visible through a sloping windshield. They wore helmets.
"Someone's opened a side door," Dalen said, his eyes wide. "They have a gun!"
"Surprised?" Mikial hissed as she made a sharp turn, the harness biting into her shoulders as her head rocked to one side. The thing followed. Trying to keep her and Dalen's skulls from banging into the canopy, Mikial repeated the maneuver in reverse.
)
