The northern horizon groaned beneath the weight of an empire.
Twelve dreadnoughts of the Imperial Void Armada cut through the clouds at three hundred miles an hour. Their riveted black hulls stretched five hundred feet or more. Cold-Iron armor covered their sides, and rows of dragon-bone ballistae jutted from the gun decks.
Ancient floating crystals glowed turquoise beneath their hulls. The crystals held the ships up, but they also produced a painful, pulsing drone.
At the head of the formation flew the flagship, Sun-Slayer.
It was eight hundred feet long, a floating fortress of iron and royal pride. On its bow sat the Ancient Dark-Ice Absolute Zero Cannon, a siege weapon with a twenty-foot barrel. Eight hundred years of imperial victories had built its reputation. During the Western Pacification, one shot had frozen a boiling volcanic basin into sixty square miles of black ice.
Grand Admiral Meng stood on the flagship’s gold-trimmed bridge.
His crimson Dragon-Blood Iron armor was decorated with coiling dragons. His beard looked like a bundle of black wire, and his Half-Step Divine Transformation aura pressed down on everyone around him.
Ninety royal formation masters stood in two ranks beside a glowing scrying pool.
“Have you found the source of this blasphemy?” Meng demanded.
A mapmaker dropped to his knees. “Yes, Supreme Commander. The false sun is anchored above the southern peak of Mount Clear Sky. Beneath it stands a rough timber lodge with a covered porch. Eight silver towers are venting hot vapor.”
Meng sneered.
“Southern hill dwellers. They light an unauthorized star and cover seventy-two imperial provinces in daylight. Commoners refuse to sleep. Night silkworms have stopped spinning. Worst of all, the glare shines through the Emperor’s bedchamber curtains. His Majesty cannot sleep without a blindfold.”
One of the formation masters gasped. “Disturbing the Emperor’s sleep is treason against Heaven itself!”
“His Majesty wants the southern supply roads secured,” a formation master reminded him. “Canglan’s grain carts are already ignoring imperial checkpoints.”
Meng heard only the insult to the throne. Yan Ming had to worry about bread, wagons, and whether seventy-two provinces would still obey him next month. Meng’s duty was simpler: no subject could humiliate the imperial fleet and go unpunished.
“Prime the Absolute Zero Cannon,” Meng said. “Put out their toy sun and take the Builder alive if possible. His skull is optional. The Emperor’s honor is not.”
WUUUUUURRRRRRRR.
The fleet descended through the clouds and spread into a ring around Mount Clear Sky. The twelve ships stopped only five hundred feet above the Obsidian Plaza.
Their downwash tore young trees from the slopes. Their unshielded crystal drives hammered the mountain with one pressure wave after another.
VZZZZZZ-BOOM! VZZZZZZ-BOOM!
White lilies along the new drainage trenches flattened against the soil. Across the plaza, cultivators and traveling merchants fell to their knees and covered their ears.
“The Imperial Void Navy!”
“The Absolute Zero Cannon is charging! If that frost touches us, our cores will shatter!”
“Mercy! We only came to buy cheap steel and second-grade spirit gravel!”
Alarms sounded in the control bunker.
Tie Kuang burst onto the porch, holding his hard hat with both hands.
“Master Chu! Their engines are shaking the whole site! Tower 4’s vibration sensor is close to its shutdown limit!”
Jiang Taixu stumbled after him, clutching a roll of plans to his chest.
“The Void Navy has ruled the skies for eight hundred years! Sword Qi cannot pierce those hulls! One broadside will shave the summit flat!”
Austin did not answer.
He sat in his oak rocking chair with a mug of fresh chicory coffee. His clipboard rested across his lap. The coffee rippled in sharp little waves with every pulse from the fleet.
Ripple. Ripple. Slosh.
A splash landed on his clean denim thigh.
Austin looked down at the dark spot. His left eyelid twitched.
Above the lodge, the Sun-Slayer adjusted its thrusters. A blast of air struck the roof.
Creak... Groan...
Then came a small metallic snap.
POP.
One roofing nail broke under the vibration.
Two hand-split cedar shingles slid down the steep roof, flipped over the copper gutter, and landed two inches from Austin’s boot.
CLATTER. CLACK.
Tie Kuang stared at the shingles. Then he looked at Austin.
He had seen Austin face heavenly lightning with a grin. He had seen him absorb a solar flare without blinking. Neither had produced this expression.
Austin’s face had become perfectly still.
He set his mug on the side table without making a sound and picked up one of the shingles. His thumb brushed the broken nail hole.
“Tie Kuang,” he said quietly.
“Yes, Master Chu?”
“These are Grade-A western red cedar. Straight grain. No sapwood. Hand-split and trimmed. I installed them with hot-dipped galvanized nails rated for a hundred and twenty pounds of pullout per inch.”
His voice grew even quieter, like a building inspector who just found sandbox gravel in the foundation.
“That flying pile of junk just shook them off my roof.”
Jiang clutched his scrolls. “Master, they have hundreds of cannons aimed at us.”
Austin stood.
He picked up his five-foot pipe wrench and rested it on his shoulder. He tucked the clipboard under his arm, then pulled his Shade-14 goggles over his eyes.
To him, the twelve warships no longer looked like symbols of imperial power. They looked like twelve unmuffled industrial generators hovering over a residential site without permits.
He stepped off the porch.
CLOMP.
“Master Chu?” Tie Kuang called. “Where are you going with the wrench?”
Austin kept walking.
“Get my citation pad.”
“Your what?”
Another heavy step struck the plaza.
“Nobody shakes shingles off my roof.”