This excerpt from the thrilling, high-flying pulp adventure Tales of the Invisible Hand by Miles Holmes is an excellent introduction to the first original fiction release from Skull Island eXpeditions. Tales of the Invisible Hand releases in print and digital this Thursday, August 4th!

If you’re going to be at Gen Con, be sure to stop by the Privateer Press booth this Friday and Saturday between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m. and get your copy of Tales of the Invisible Hand signed by Miles Holmes.

Zekh var Zaehn, a rookie pilot, and Sh’Col Gaur, a Neanderthal inquisitor, are on a mission that seems doomed to fail, even more so after they find themselves confronted by ancient enemies called the Nephaeez. When the pair aboard the airship the Qinta are attacked by a Nephaeez airship called a sky serpent, not everyone will survive…

Even before glyphs materialized to issue a warning, Zekh saw the twisting torso of the serpent jettison whitish globes from itself, each one bubbling forth with waves across its milky surface. They appeared like the progeny of cell division then held in orbit around the serpent’s middle.

“Here we go,” Zekh whispered.

Still clutching the handgrips of his chair, the Sh’Col said nothing.

As the Qinta crested a second mountain range, the Nephaeez sky serpent fired its first volley. A trio of the orbs, each two feet across, flew screaming toward the Qinta. Their flight was deadly fast and unerringly accurate.
Zekh could only gasp, trusting reflex over thought. He pushed the Qinta into a last-second dive an instant after clearing an imminent peak. He hugged the sheer cliff face of the mountain as tightly as he dared. As he rushed earthward, he risked a glance back, fearing his acrobatics might not be enough.

The hurtling orbs easily adjusted course downward and continued closing on the Qinta.
Only yards away from impact with the tail of the Qinta, Zekh had a compelling thought. Without hesitation, he reached out to his dash, switching his sensor array off.

For a second time, the luminous projection sphere before him vanished. A second later, the screaming orbs whooshed past them. Zekh watched them hurtle into the rocky ground a few hundred yards below, where they exploded in a blinding flash.
“How did you know to do that?” The Sh’Col asked, first marveling at the blast, then at Zekh.

“How do we know any of this?” Zekh shouted, flicking his sparkler guns to readiness and his sensor array back to life, all while in mid-dive. He swiveled the Qinta’s rotors through the yoke, swinging both fore and aft mounts in opposing directions. The result was immediate and violent. The Qinta swung end over end with a creaking groan down her spine.

The Sh’Col cried out, unable to keep his composure. Abruptly, the nose of the Qinta was pointed toward the sky. Zekh deftly tilted the engines once more, swinging all of them vertical. Only yards from the sheer wall of mountain, the Qinta stopped dead. The venerable airship hovered in place, ready to retaliate.

“Kivra would not approve of that maneuver,” Zekh confided to the pale Sh’Col, whose breathing came now in low gasps, “but we’ve got to try something. There’s no chance of outrunning that snake.”

There were only seconds to wait and no more. The sky serpent flowed over the mountaintop with languid grace, appearing a hundred yards overhead. Without pause, Zekh lit up the front end of the Qinta with quad-fire from each of her sparkler cannons. The rapid-fire weapons chattered loudly, streaking silvery contrails across the space above him. Whatever advantage of agility their pursuer had, it would surely not be able to avoid such a barrage.

In fact, it did not even try. Each shot that flew true was flickered harmlessly away. The serpent neither slowed nor even wavered course. It simply kept coming, closing the gap to less than fifty yards in a heartbeat.

“Pshtak!” Zekh swore. Desperate to avoid the thing getting any closer, he spun his engines, and the Qinta dropped like a stone. Righting the ship, he twisted her face down, diving into the valley that stretched far below them. He reeled as the serpent matched him, move for move, and closed the gap to less than thirty yards. His adjusted sensors screamed out in warning of overload. The Sh’Col, meanwhile, watched in silence, his face paler by the moment.

Opening the ordnance panel, Zekh noticed the glyph for his Lance flashing, hovering over the icon of the fast-closing serpent. He chewed his lip, trying to make sense of it. Though a powerful weapon of ancient origin, the Lance was a slow-charging siege weapon, unlikely to hit anything but stationary targets.

“Challenge accepted,” he muttered. He gritted his teeth, setting the Lance to ready as he prepared to meet the ground.
Fighting to control the Qinta, he swung his engines level. They strained to hold the erratic course, tilting left and right. As he leveled off, he spun her front to back, engines flaring. The Qinta had soon come about to slide in reverse. Warning chimes blared in protest against his audacious tactics, but the engines held.

The serpent meanwhile slowed as it descended, swirling like a streamer in the wind. As it approached, the remaining orbs encircling it surged for another volley. With a breath, Zekh tried once more to kill the otherworldly airship. His Lance primed, he began the agonizing countdown for it to fire.

On three, he unleashed his deadliest fire.

The Lance flared brightly, sending a starburst of cherry red toward the twisting serpent. Zekh began to shout in anticipation of the kill, but the joy died on his lips. Sufficiently forewarned, the snake easily swerved around the shot. Once more it sped unerringly toward the Qinta. Zekh cursed again.

“I suppose that would have been too easy.” He wasted no time in dismay, his thoughts already searching for another option. He veered away, then gained altitude while banking right, twisting into a full rising barrel roll to put some distance between them and their pursuer.

Yet the serpent accelerated as well, refusing to surrender the chase. Despite Zekh’s acrobatics, it soon matched the Qinta’s vector, all the while closing the gap.

“We can’t hit it!” the Sh’Col cried.

Zekh studied Gaur for a moment, a thought creeping in. “If it would just hold still. . .” he muttered.

He powered the Qinta into a steep climb, his throttle pitched to a wail. Rising steadily, he crested over a cloudbank at last. His attitude vertical, he defiantly pushed the throttle to full and waited for the inevitable. He looked over at the Sh’Col sympathetically.
“You’re not going to like this,” he admitted.

“Why not?” the Sh’Col demanded. “What are you doing?”

“It has to be convincing.”

The Qinta stalled. Her engines died.

As they plummeted toward earth, Zekh made no attempt to restart the failed engines. The serpent easily avoided the falling ship, circling wide. Then the Qinta began to tumble and spin completely out of control, leaving the Sh’Col to howl amid the chaos. Zekh only clenched his teeth, clutching the controls.

In seconds, the ground loomed up, heggi crops below them spinning closer and closer. At last, Zekh reached for his control panel, fighting to keep his focus. He cycled the engines back, and they roared to life less than fifty yards before impact. The airship strained to avoid a fatal impact, but the restart came too little too late this time.

Zekh knew it. In fact, he was counting on it.

With a whispered apology to the Qinta, he turned to the Sh’Col. “Brace yourself.”

The Qinta smacked into the ground, crumpling her fuselage and breaking her wings. Both men rolled helplessly within the buckling cockpit. Zekh winced as his side flared in pain, but he immediately fought to slip loose of his harness. The Sh’Col was bloodied and groaned in his seat.

Zekh tumbled down into the twisted hull, his sides blazing with a scalding pain. However bad it was, there was no time for him to deal with it. For now, it gave him focus. He grunted, reaching for the portable Lance on his weapon rack. The boarding ramp was cracked open, bent out of shape. He shoved hard to make a gap and leaned out of the opening, lying on his back and cradling the heavy weapon to line up his target.

With a graceful and delicate arc, the snake came to hover above the fractured plane, hovering in place. Gradually, it regained the appearance of an orb, and tendrils of energy began to flicker across its surface. The memory of his failed campfire target practice came to mind unwelcomed.

“You’re a lot bigger than a rations can, aren’t you?” He mumbled. With careful aim, he waited agonizing seconds for the portable ordnance to charge. On three, he fired.

Once more a cherry-red pulse streaked at the strange airship. He could do nothing but hold his breath as it surged forward, turning from red to white-hot as it picked up speed.

The orb held position, either immobile or indifferent—until the Lance slammed into its geometrically perfect underside. The appearance of a liquid surface became instantly rigid as stone while raw electricity crackled at the point of impact. Then the orb simply thudded to the ground, broken and motionless among a withered heggi crop.

It did not move again.

Zekh rolled over and laughed, coughing as he did. The Sh’Col groaned loudly in response from the shattered cockpit above.
“Sh’Col, are you all right?” Zekh ventured, still coughing.

The answer was another groan, one more in anger than in pain.

Zekh smiled, wiping blood from his nose. “Right. Can we send for help?”

“I think not. Your transmitter is smashed. No, wait. The locator beacon still functions,” the Sh’Col called back, then groaned. “Kumult’s beard! I think. . . yes, it’s gone!”

“What is?”

“My eye! My eye is gone! Your ridiculous stunt has cost me an eye!” The Sh’Col howled in misery and fury.

Zekh groaned. “I’m sorry, Sh’Col. I didn’t know what else to do. It seemed to move much more slowly as an orb. I. . .” Feeling the wetness of blood pooling where he lay, the young scout risked a glance at his midriff. Immediately, he regretted it. “Oh boy. I’m really bleeding.”

At once he heard the groan of shifting metal in the cockpit and the roar of the Sh’Col as he cleared it from his path. “Who said you could bleed, scout? Our mission is compounded! Lay still—I’ll be right there.”

Zekh sighed, heartbroken by the loss of his beloved airship. With a shallow breath, he looked out beyond the wreckage. A fragrant wind had picked up from the north, and he smiled to watch it sway the rows of heggi crop between him and his fallen foe.

Really, it seemed as good a day as any to die.