The Lightning-hound trailed a column of smoke and steam as it fell through the air. What had been a controlled descent was now a matter of physics. One of the ship’s gas chambers had been punctured in the battle and the other was leaking. Max stood in the central corridor of the third deck, his forearm over his mouth as smoke drifted about his face. He had left the bridge behind hours after their encounter with the Black Company transport and the strange ship that had intercepted them. He had only been able to get away when it finally seemed certain that their attacker wasn’t interested in pursuing them.
“I think they we can seal the leak,” the chief engineer shouted over the sound of the emergency klaxons that still rang throughout the ship. “But we’re going to be down to forty percent or less, not enough to keep us aloft.”
Max turned a corner and found himself standing before an enormous tear in the ship’s hull. The hole extended from the top deck to three decks down, roughly along the Lightning-hound’s centerline. “If we put her down in the water will that be below the waterline?” he gestured, pointed down the corridor towards the gaping hole.
The engineer, a burly man with deep red hair tied back into a braid, ran his fingers through his beard. “We can patch the bottom of the hole. If we keep the ship high in the water we will be alright.”
“If a storm doesn’t hit us and sink the ship,” Max pointed out.
“Yeah, if a storm doesn’t hit us,” the engineer smiled grimly.
“Alright. I have to head to the fore and check out the damage there,” Max said. He left the engineer behind, leaving him to direct other crew to begin whatever repairs they could manage. He took the stairs upwards a deck and arrived in the central corridor. Here the smoke was even worse than before, and injured crew sat on the floor, the ship’s doctor frantically attempting to help everyone at once.
He knelt down and place a hand on the doctor’s shoulder. “How can I help?” he shouted so as to be heard over the noise. The doctor jumped slightly in alarm.
“I…uh, we need somewhere to put the injured,” she said at last, wiping some of the sweat and grime from her forehead. Her hair was the same silvery blonde as Wynn’s but stained with soot and blood. Although none of the blood seemed to be hers.
“Use the dormitory,” Max suggested.
“Right,” she agreed. “You there, start moving the wounded to the rear, to the dormitories. Clear out some space,” she ordered, getting the attention of two other crewman.
“How many killed and wounded do we have?” he asked, trying to keep from blurting the question that had burned through his mind ever since the ship had been attacked.
“Twelve dead, I don’t know how many injured. The marines took the worst of it.” she added, glancing at him knowingly.
“Where are they?” he asked. She pointed down the hall, which lead into the staging area of the ship and the boarding ramp. An area which was now a twisted wreck.
“Thanks,” Max said, placing his hand on her back reassuringly. “If there is anything I can do, let me know.”
“I will,” she nodded. Max left the doctor behind and headed towards the damage. He carefully stepped over a wounded marine and into the staging area. Blood covered the floor, and bits of uniform and flesh hung in the rafters. The inner walls were pockmarked with shrapnel, the outer hull having been blown inwards in a shower of metal.
Max spotted a tall woman with silver hair, stained with blood, standing over a wounded marine, giving him water. “Wynn!” he shouted.
The woman turned, but it was not Wynn. But she gestured him over with a wave of her hand.
“Captain!” she shouted once he knelt beside her. “I’m sorry, but I can’t hear you. My ears got blown out.”
“I’m looking for Master Wynn,” Max repeated, mouthing the words carefully and slowly. The marine pointed towards the hole in the ship, the edges of which were twisted into serrated knives of melted iron.
“Is she gone?” Max shouted, trying to fight back tears. The marine shook her head and pointed once again, this time lowering her hand. “She’s below decks?” A nod. “Alright,” he sighed, letting a heavy knot unwind itself inside of him. “Let me help you,” he added as she began to lift another marine to his feet.
Max lifted under his arm and together they lifted the man to his feet. They helped him into the corridor and deposited him near the other wounded, where the doctor could find him. He thanked the deaf marine and left her to care for her comrade, then headed back down the corridor to the stairs. This time he took them all the way down to the very bottom.
The bottom deck ran the length of the ship, and was mostly used for cargo and for housing the storage tanks that held ballast water. He emerged from the stairwell into darkness, the electric lights apparently having been knocked out. He glanced around and spotted the orange glow of torches towards the stern. He headed towards them and soon found a squad of marines cutting the nets that held food, blankets, and other gear.
“Wynn,” Max called. The marines turned towards him, including one tall and powerful warrior with long silver blonde hair, stained with blood like everyone else’s was.
“Max,” she called. “Over here.” He breathed a sigh relief. He had finally found her at last.
“What are you doing?” he asked after reaching them.
“Getting supplies to help the wounded,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, her face covered in dried blood.
“Are you alright,” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she sighed. “Some small cuts on my forehead and scalp…some on my back…It looks worse than it is, though.”
Max looked at the supplies as the marines began to load boxes onto their shoulders. “I was afraid you were in the staging area when we got hit.”
“I should’ve been,” she nodded. She wiped at her nose, an attempt that Max recognized as trying to hold back her emotions. “I had just conducted a weapons check with my first two squads when I went back get a status report from the gunnery sergeant. The shell hit when I was in the corridor. I felt it tear into the ship. I lost almost all of them Max.”
“I know.”
“How the hell did this happen? I thought the transport was unarmed.”
“Another ship came up on us. Some kind of warship I’ve never seen before, probably about the size of a frigate.”
“You didn’t recognize it? It wasn’t another Black Company ship?”
“It wasn’t in their colors. But it was definitely trying to get us off the transport’s tail.”
“We have to report back to High Command.”
“Yeah, if we can make it back.” Max stood aside as a marine passed between them, a huge roll of blankets on his shoulder.
“How bad is it?” Wynn asked, a certain amount of fatigue seeping into her voice. The marine ascended the stairs and they were left alone on the deck.
“It’s bad. We are going to have to put the ship in the water.”
“Are we going to make it back home?”
“I doubt it.”
“What if we ditch the ship on one of the islands? Maybe Fell’s island.”
“And wait for them to come back around and finish us off? No, we’re going get as far north as the ship can get us.”
“Max…”
“It’s not pride. If we don’t make it back no one will know what happened down here. Sitting on some island isn’t going to do us any good.”
“Neither will drowning,” she added.
Max grimaced but knew that she had a good point. “I won’t let the ship sink. You should keep at this, move all essential supplies to the upper decks. We will probably be taking on water down here.”
“Right,” Wynn agreed. “Max,” she added as he was about to turn away. She enveloped him in a quick hug, her strong arms wrapping around his body. “I’m sorry I didn’t report in immediately. I know you must’ve been worrying yourself to death.”
“It’s alright,” he said, wrapping his arms around her as well. “You stuck to your job.”
“And you to yours. I’ll direct things down here. You better head back up to the bridge.”
“Alright,” Max agreed. He kissed her on the cheek as they parted. “I’ll let you know if anything happens. You probably have thirty minutes before we hit the sea.”
“Thirty minutes then.” He turned away from her just as a pair of marines returned.
The Lightning-hound descended gracefully despite the damage inflicted upon it. It was past noon when the ship struck the sea, splashing water across the top deck. After the initial shock the vessel settled high in the water. The chief engineer had not succeeded in completely patching the hole in the ship’s side….every time they struck a wave bit of water would splash into the interior.
Max watched from the bridge as the crew went about trying to conduct repairs or care for the wounded. He ordered a northerly course, but unfortunately there were no significant landmasses for thousands of miles in any direction. He stood hovering above the navigation table, staring at a map of Kaeliterra. To their direct north lay the central provinces of the Tullian League, the homeland of his family. He wasn’t welcome there. The Tullians would be just as likely to shoot at him as rescue him.
However, on the southwestern tip of the Tullian peninsula lay an island with the only friendly port on the southern half of Kaeliterra. It just happened to be the largest free city in the world, Kassandreia. He checked the calendar, which was posted on the wall next to the bridge’s phone. Ascension Week would be starting soon.
Jan entered the bridge behind him. “Captain,” she greeted. “You look like you should get some sleep.”
“I’m alright,” he said, shaking his head. “I think I’ve got some work for you, though.”
“Oh, I hope you don’t expect me to get out and start swimming. I’m too old for that. If we sink, I’m calling it a career.”
“Can you chart a course to Kassandreia?”
“Kassandreia? You think we’ll make it that far?”
“I think so, but I need an expert such as yourself to chart our course. You know this sea better than anyone aboard.”
“I suppose Kassandreia is the only option,” she agreed. “Everyone is going to see us though, every navy in the world has at least a few ships at Kassandreia during Ascension Week.”
“I’m counting on it,” Max nodded.
“You think there will be Black Company ships there?”
“There usually is.”
Jan eyed him carefully. “You know that it’s illegal to take another ship at Kassandreia. Wynn and whatever marines she has left won’t be able to do a damn thing even if the very same transport we were tailing is sitting in harbor waiting for us.”
“We’ll see what happens,” Max shrugged. “Just get there as quickly as possible. I figure if we ride the easterly currents and then cut north…”
“Yeah, yeah, leave that to me,” Jan cut him off. He backed off from the navigation table with a slight smile, allowing her to get to work.
The crew of the Lightning-Hound banded together, doing everything they could to keep afloat. The engineering chief set up a pump in the lower decks, which kept water streaming out almost as fast as it was coming in. Jan kept the ship criss-crossing up the Okeanos Sea, attempting to ride the waves rather than let them crash into the ship. The once fast and nimble patrol craft was relegated to a slow and barely manageable drift. But there was no sign of a storm, and no sign of any other ship.
Max checked on the kids at least twice a day. The boy, Fell, seemed to be holding up okay, although he had been terrified during the battle. The girl, Gyda, had been silent the entire time. A steady supply of soup seemed to have turned her health around, but no one had seemed able to shake her out of the state of shock she seemed stuck in. Even so, Wynn had spent every evening since the battle reading to her. Despite her silence the girl seemed attentive. Max had promised Wynn he would do everything under his power to get her help once they got back to civilization. But until then all he could was hold the crew together and hope that their luck did not take a turn for the worst.
The days went by, the weather warming as they travelled. As the fourth day passed since the Lightning-Hound entered the water the watchman spotted lights on the darkening horizon. At last they were within sight of Kassandreia, the largest city on Kaeliterra. Kassandreia was a city-state, an independent island nation near the geographic center of the world. For over a thousand years it had been a center of learning, with Kassandreia’s Museum so much more that what it’s name implied.
The Lightning-Hound steamed towards the island, the setting sun casting its golden light upon the sea in waves of undulating amber. Airships of every size and shape filled the sky. Some were old wicker sailers, powered only by the wind. Others were huge lumbering giants of iron, belching black smoke into the sky.
Max stood on the bridge, hands folded behind his back, as the pilot fought his wheel. The ship was too high in the water, and threatened to capsize if they let any of the larger waves strike them sideways.
“Send up a flare,” Max ordered, allowing the communications officer to relay the order. The watchman in the tower shot up an orange rocket, which burst above them in an eruption of color. The rocket was a clear signal to the Kassandreia Port Authority, if the smoke still emanating from their damaged ship wasn’t signal enough. They were a ship in distress.
A Tullian destroyer hovered above them, hundreds of meters distant. Max didn’t have to look up at them through his spotting scopes to know they were leering at him. A fishing vessel drifted by them in the water, its nets filled with brightly color fish. The fishermen waved at them, and seemed to be offering assistance, but their little wooden sailing ship would do little but get dragged along behind them if they tried to tow them in.
Finally the city came into view. A crowded forest of massive buildings made of stone and iron rose into the sky. The ancient harbors for the water-bound ships were only the beginning…here the moorings rose into the clouds. The city was full of light and life and ships of every kind. Massive airships with cigar shaped balloons. Multilayered ships of wood that seemed to be apartments in the sky. Tiny propellor craft flitted about like birds coursing through the trees.
A huge fog horn erupted from above. Max, up against the cracked forward viewport, gazed upward as a tug airship signaled them.
“You have the bridge,” he nodded towards the pilot. “Just keep her as steady as possible.” Max exited the bridge and quickly arrived on the top deck. The tug descended until it hovered just above them on the starboard side. It was an ugly, bulbous vessel, shaped not unlike a toad with two powerful engines atop its spherical gas chamber. A small crew compartment sat atop it, a boxy construction that had little aesthetic value.
“Hey down there,” someone on the tug shouted through a megaphone. “You look like you could use some assistance.” Max waved up at them until they threw down heavy mooring chain.
“Tie her up,” Max ordered, and the crew scattered about him, grabbing the chains and securing the ship. The tug fired it engines, black smoke belching into the atmosphere as it gathered steam. At last, with reluctance, the tug lifted the Lightning-Hound out of the water. They listed for a moment, forcing Max to grab the railing for support, before the pilot of the tug adjusted. Moments later they drifted into the stonework docks, which was lined with padded wood just for occasions like this. The Lightning-Hound finally came to a stop with a huge crash, it’s perilous journey through the sea finally done.
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