*Boom*

*Bang*

*Boom*

My eyes snapped open and I realized to my horror that I must have nodded off at some point. With my constitution being as high as it was, I barely needed sleep, yet it seemed the mental strain of this whole situation had left me exhausted all the same. I looked around and saw Jack looking at me with an expression of concern. My sense of alarm fell as I saw that she was okay and we were undiscovered. She was standing near the stairs that led up from the ship’s hold where we were hiding.

“What’s happening?” I said.

“I think the ship’s being attacked,” said Jack.

“Pirates?” I said. Feeling my stomach sink.

“...Maybe?” said Jack. Shrugging.

“Damn…” I said. We’d been trying to avoid this. Staying away from both ships that were likely to be attacked by pirates and ships that were likely to be secretly pirate ships. Yet here we were, all the same.

“Okay, so any ideas?” said Jack. Showing tremendous mental resilience instead of panicking. Helping me stay calm, because wouldn’t I look like an idiot if I was the only one freaking out?

“....Hm,” said Jack. Cupping her chip.

“....Mhm,” I said. Idly scratching my arm.

“I got it!” said Jack.

“What?” I said.

“Airships like these are designed to have escape-pods in case something happens, we can probably take one of those,” said Jack.

“En, I guess that’d work, but what if we’re nowhere near a sphere?” I said.

“Well,...then I guess if we’re really unlucky then we’d float aimlessly until we ended up escaping the thin energized-atmosphere that surrounds and encapsulates all the Pearls of our shattered world, and we end up in the outer-void, where we’d either freeze to death, or eventually suffocate,” said Jack.

“Huh...Let’s try to avoid that shall we?” I said. Dryly.

“Eh, it’d probably be fine. The Pearls are clustered fairly close together and a single Pearl’s gravitational pull is great enough to assure that we’d likely land somehow habitable...before we ended up floating into space,” said Jack.

I mulled it over and decided her logic checked out.

“Alright, let’s go…”

We crept up the stairs that led out of the ship’s hold. Then I thought of something and said,

“Wait! Hold up for a second.”

“Eh?! Why? We’re kind of on a timer here, Jill. If this ship goes down, or all the escape-pods get taken, we’ll be screwed,” said Jack.

“I know...I’ll be quick,” I said. Retrieving a spear, from my inventory. This spear was a proper spear. Made of steel and ironwood. One of several weapons stolen from Marrow Clan’s lesser-armory. The one used to equip the house-guards.

There were a bunch of pained and panicked bleats as I quickly went through the ship’s hold and culled a number of cloud-sheep. With the beasts being caged as they were, and of a more docile, domesticated, stock than their wild cousins, it only took me a few seconds to kill several dozen of cloud-sheep. Jack’s eyes went wide as she realized what I was doing. These sheep were dead anyway, considering the way things were going. There was no need to let them go to waste.

“Oh, shit!... Uh, anyway, could I get you to save me a few, please?” said Jack.

“Already did. You can have the cores of the cloud-sheep that I stored in my inventory.

“Noice…” said Jack. Pumping her fist in the air.

Then there was a rumble, followed by a thunderous boom. This was in turn followed by a renewed number of cries of anger and fear.

Jack and I looked at each other with apprehension.

“Okay, we really need to get out of here,” said Jack.

“Gotcha, “ I said. Nodding and agreeing.