Immediately the report came back. “Ballast dropped, sir!” They could feel it in their guts when the ship lurched beneath their feet.
The bridge crew took over.
“Engines to speed.”
“All hands rig for pressure loss!”
“Full speed ahead, Mr. Ajayi. What’s our bearing?”
“Due North, sir.
“Due North it is.”
Below, over a thousand fires burned. At the heart of each fire, a decorative gargoyle—one atop each of the town’s lampposts—shivered and swiveled its head upward, seeking until it found the rapidly climbing airship.
There was a great cracking sound across the town, and the burning figures stood atop their posts. There was another great snapping and hundreds of sets of flaming wings extended. They reached down in unison and, grasping the center light globe, drew it forth, revealing a long, steel lance. As one, they all pointed their lances at the little airship and launched themselves upwards.
Aboard the airship, the great flaming swarm of torchmen could be seen coalescing above the town and heading towards them in a tight spiral.
“They’re coming right at us!” Mr. Owlswick shouted.
“Engine’s in the yellow,” the engineer reported.
The captain stared at the advancing wave. He didn’t like what the trigonometry was telling him. He again grabbed the intercom.
“All hands! This is an Emergency Dump! Food! Fuel! Ammo! Everything!”
The bridge crew looked shocked. This was a desperate measure indeed. Reserved for those situations where every gram made a difference in weight and speed.
Behind him, Kraddock, now a model of professionalism, smacked the back of both wheelmen’s heads. “Hold your wheels!”
Hands that had gone lax snapped back to true North. One of the newer wheelmen, called out: “Kraddock! You know about these things. How far will they follow us?”
The old man’s eyes went distant. “If you’d live to see the end of day, from Mechanicsburg you’ll two leagues stay.”
Silverstein looked lost. “Two leagues? Um…whose leagues?”46 He thought again. “And what’s that in kilometers?”
Kraddock stared at him. “How the freefalling hell should I know,” he roared. “We just stayed away from the damned place!”
Lieutenant Lorquis removed a set of earphones. “Sir! Chief says that he’s dumped everything but the bag!”
Mr. Owlswick piped up. “They’re still gaining, sir.”
The captain thumped a fist down on a bulkhead. “Blast! There’s got to be something we can toss!”
“You scum!” The voice caught everyone by surprise. It was Duke Strinbeck. He had pulled himself up to a sitting position. “You dare to strike my royal personage? I’ll have every member of your crew flayed alive! I’ll see to it that you never collect a pfennig of your pensions! You’ll never fly again!”
Lieutenant Lorquis exchanged a glance with the captain. Occasionally, problems solved themselves.
Less than a minute later, the two men returned to the bridge. Lorquis ran his tongue over a split lip. The captain fussed at a lost button.
“That did it, sir,” Mr. Owlswick sang out. “We’re pulling ahead.”
This announcement fell flat. The rest of the bridge crew was tense and silent. Lorquis took a deep breath. “So, uh, Captain…we pirates now?”
The captain froze, and then deliberately stood tall and brushed off his coat. “No. He didn’t count. I’ll log him in as ‘Lost Due to Own Stupidity.’”47
The lieutenant and the rest of the crew relaxed. “Just checking, sir!”
The navigator called out, “Heading, Captain?”
Ah, now that was a question. Captain Abelard had had a belly-full of these conspirators, but they were powerful, there was no denying that. He had to think carefully about what came next. Or so he believed.
“Whoa!” That was Van Loon, one of the wheelmen. “Captain! Clouds moving in fast out of the West! I’ve never seen—”
“Wait.” Kraddock gasped. “Hard to starboard!”
The wheels spun and the bridge crew was suddenly blinded as they were caught in a web of searchlight beams. Castle Wulfenbach’s spotters had seen them and now the enormous grey expanse of dirigible loomed before them. Apparently Castle Wulfenbach had been running dark, but now decided that this was pointless. Thousands of lights burst forth from the structures covering her hull, making it appear as if a flying city were bearing down upon them.
“Captain! We can’t let them delay us! The torchmen are still following us.” It was the new kid who suggested it. “If we slide around ’em, then the torchmen will go after them, and we can—”
Kraddock’s fist slammed into the kid’s jaw, and the other airmen nodded grim approval. Sometimes airmen fought other airmen, it was true, but that was under orders or for similarly good reasons. Until then, you were all part of the Brotherhood of the Skies.
“Heliographs,” Captain Abelard roared. “Signal flares! Sound the sirens! Warn them what’s coming and tell them we offer all aid and assistance!” He then grinned at his crew. “And I’ll bet that’s the first time anyone’s said that to the flyin’ whale.”
The crew chuckled as Captain Abelard gazed back at the onrushing wave of flaming death. And I’ll also bet they’ll take it, he thought.
On the ground below the crowd oooh’d and ahh’d as the torchmen rose after the rapidly departing dirigible. A few tasteless people were noisily taking bets as to whether or not the craft would escape.
Gil heard Vanamonde sigh with pleasure. The young man was staring upwards, possessive pride radiating from him like a beacon. He saw Gil looking at him and he pointed upwards. “Look at them! Still operative after all these years!”
Yes, Gil thought to himself. Father will be annoyed that he missed that.
Van continued, “Back then, ‘Made in Mechanicsburg’ really meant something!”
Gil pondered this as he stared upwards. Something about the patterns of the flying looked…off to him. “If I remember correctly, it usually meant ‘death and destruction.’”
Van shrugged. “That’s still something.”
The meaning of what he was seeing became clear, and Gil gasped as a dozen flaming machines smashed to earth. Instantly, Van was all business. “Fire fighters,” he shouted. “To your stations!” His voice seemed to break the spell and dozens of locals threw down their drinks and raced off into the night.
Van frowned as a few more of the torchmen hit the ground.
“I don’t understand,” Krosp muttered. “That airship isn’t shooting at them.”
Van looked embarrassed. “They haven’t been properly maintained. Not since the Castle was damaged. Since the Baron took over, we haven’t even dared test them.”
“And yet she still got them running.” The admiration and excitement was obvious in Gil’s voice. “She’s amazing. Together we will—”
Krosp batted at his ear. “Focus! We’ve got a problem!”
Everyone gasped. The Castle Wulfenbach airship had now appeared from out of the clouds. It was clear even from the ground that it was the torchmen’s new focus, and—unlike the tiny pink dirigible—the capital of the Empire was equipped to fight back.
Almost as one, a hundred anti-aircraft guns flashed. Several seconds later, the sound of the fusillade reached the people on the ground, rolling over them like a continuous roar of thunder. Dozens of torchmen exploded into burning fragments. Now the hundreds of smaller support ships that traveled with the behemoth airship could be seen, and they also began firing. Unfortunately, their presence complicated the battle. The compact group of torchmen broke apart and spread out. Weaving and ducking amidst the flock of ships attacking them, grazing envelopes, igniting gondolas, leaving trails of burning devastation behind them, they made it almost impossible for the Wulfenbach ships to fire on them without hitting their own allies.