Zantos, this godlike giant of steel, flew proudly and majestically over Imperial Square, casting an enormous shadow over the roaring crowd of tens of thousands.
Compared with its excessively massive body and weaponized arms, Zantos's pair of V-shaped wings looked round and stubby, like a sea lion's flippers. Even so, it flew beautifully and steadily.
The designers and technicians of the Imperial Engineering Corps were all geniuses and madmen. Swann's people had once claimed that, with enough thrust, they could send the Emperor's palace into the sky and have the largest building in all of Augustgrad perform cobra maneuvers in midair.
Augustus had nearly approved that bold and ambitious plan. He called it the Wandering Palace. Unfortunately, Prince Arcturus ruthlessly struck it down on the grounds that it was "enormously expensive, impractical, and of no apparent use."
Of course, no matter how good the equipment was, it was useless without a capable pilot. Tychus Findlay was more than qualified for the job. His love for colossal war machines and violence nearly rivaled his love for women and alcohol. He could drive a baby carriage or pilot a starship.
Tychus had little interest in most people and things in the world, but everything depended on the payoff. He was the sort of man who would learn Swan Lake from scratch just to rob a train.
Tychus piloted Zantos around Imperial Square several times. Swarms of tactical aircraft rose from the hangars and gathered around it like a black storm. They were numerous, their formation perfectly ordered, the distance between each craft so precise it seemed to have been measured with a ruler.
At last, Zantos retracted its wings and landed lightly on the ground. The clustered fighters immediately returned to their hangars in formation, as swiftly as the steel giant's withdrawn