Chapter Five Hundred and Fifty — Slow on the Uptake
Chapter Five Hundred and Fifty — Slow on the Uptake
The day passed surprisingly quickly, though not easily.This was only the second time the Beaver had ever had to fly in formation, and the first time had been with a bunch of sylph navy personnel aboard, helping to keep him nice and steady in the air.As it turned out, the Beaver, even though it wasn't the fastest ship around, was still way better than the Pyrowalkian merchant ships we were trying to stay in formation with. If it wasn't for the added safety of flying in a group and the fact that I'd given my word as a captain, I might have been tempted to jump ahead of the convoy."How come they're so slow?" I groaned while at the helm. It was me and Awen, who'd come up to bring my lunch. She sat on a stool nearby, eating out of a tin plate."They're older," Awen said. "Their engines and overall classes, I mean. And they're poorly tuned.""Really?" I asked. "How can you tell?"All three ships had their engines in nacelles on the sides, with little ladders of scaffolding to reach them. Each was connected to a jumble of hydraulic lines that emerged from the balloon."The smoke," Awen said. "See how they burn different colours? That means that all four are tuned slightly differently. They're not calibrated for the right fuel-air mixture. They might not be taking in enough air. That might mean clogged filters, but I think that they're also probably just older engines. Can you hear them?"I twitched my ears, then pressed a knee against the ship's wheel so that I could reach up and hold my bun ears straight against the slight wind. I could hear the engines, but there were a lot of them. "I guess?""They're four-cylindres," Awen said. "Smaller, probably a lot weaker than the engines we use. And look at the pans beneath the nacceles. See that one? It's got these rust stains on it. I'll bet my favourite wrench that they're water-cooled.""Is that bad?""It's cheaper than magic cooling," Awen said. "But most engines now have a small array of cooling charms.""Uh-huh," I said before dropping my ears so that they'd flop down (and pick up less sand). I retook the wheel then looked back and smiled at Awen. " You're very smart."Awen flushed. "Awa! It's knowledge anyone could pick up."I giggled, then perked up as Amaryllis came up to join us. For a moment, it was just the three of us. I'd never put one best friend over another, but it was nice to be with the girls who'd been my best friends the longest. "Hey," I said."Hey yourself," she said before squinting out at the convoy. "Not exactly moving quickly, are they?""Awen was just telling me that their engines are old, and poorly-maintained," I said. "So that might explain it."Awen nodded."Then Awen went 'awa awa' when I told her that she's very smart," I continued. "And it was very cute."Amaryllis looked over to Awen who wore a look of absolute betrayal. "Hmm. Well, who am I to disagree? Awen is very smart. As for whether or not she's... 'cute' well, I suppose she's alright looking for a human. I trust that my sister sees something in her.""A-ah!" Awen said. "Broccoli, why are you a bully?"I laughed, then covered my mouth with a hand as the laugh turned into giggles. I was such a mean friend, but Awen was smiling, so I don't think she took it too badly. "Sorry!" I said.Awen put on a pout, but it was clear that she didn't take offence. "Fine," she said. "Appology accepted. Besides, you're much cuter.""Nope!" I said, straightening my back, squaring my shoulders, and forcing my ears to stand upright in denial.A second later, the floppy one flopped back down.Amaryllis huffed a meaningless huff, then looked out at the ships ahead again. "They are rather old. We used to produce similar designs, but the entire class is something we've stopped producing years ago. A decade, at least. But from everything I've heard, the Pyrowalkian airship industry is about three decades behind, still.""Is that a lot?" I asked."It didn't use to be. Across history, advances in technology and even magic have been piecemeal and rather slow, but in the last century or so things have picked up."The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon."Because people are more interconnected now?" I asked.Amaryllis blinked. "Possibly? It's likely more complex than just that, but I suspect that having easier, cheaper transportation between the various nations in our part of Dirt, as well as competition between those, is helping.""And Pyrowalk doesn't have that?" I asked.She shook her head. "Not to the same degree, no.. The nation has one major adversary, the Endless Swells, but the Swells have invested heavily in maritime travel. Pyrowalk hasn't had the drive to really push their airship industry forwards, so now they're lagging far behind.""They must have something else going on then, right?" I asked."Trains," Awen said."Trains?" I asked."Ah, large engines that pull cars along tracks," she said, but stopped when I shook my head."No no, I know what trains are. We had them back home. A lot more trains than airships, even."Amaryllis grunted. "They... aren't terrible, I suppose. Over flat terrain I imagine that they're even faster than airships, and can likely carry more. But the world doesn't offer easy flat terrain all over.""Yeah," I said. "Back home we used to have a lot of trains along the sides of mountains and in tunnels. I think it took decades to lay out some of the bigger networks. Probably cost a whole lot, too.""And how did you defend your trains from monsters?" Amaryllis asked. "Because while airship travel is certainly not danger-free, it does allow you to avoid the majority of monsters and dangerous creatures, seeing as how they tend to be landbound.""Are there a lot of those in Pyrowalk?" I asked.Amaryllis paused, then reached up and scratched her chin with a talon. "You know, Broccoli, you might have made a point there.""I did?"She nodded. "Pyrowalk is old. One of the oldest known empires. It technically predates most of the civilizations on our part of Dirt, and by some time, too. There are, of course, likely still pockets of monsters and areas that are untamed, but with large, expansive cities that date back to thousands of years, I imagine that there have been several attempts to civilize the land itself.""Isn't that a bit like what Deepmarsh is doing with the Dark Woods?""Exactly," Amaryllis said. "Only on a much longer scale. If that's the case, then it's entirely possible that Pyrowalk has successfully pushed back any threats likely to attack a train line. That would make overland transportation a lot more appealing than it is around home, and if that's the case, then people would invest more into it.""Ah, which would mean better roads, and more tracks," Awen said. "So more reason to invest more.""Yes. The same logic as to why airships are only growing more popular as cities build larger, more convenient ports and the cost of older airships goes down so that more companies and individuals and nations can afford them."Awen hummed. "And mechanics too.""What do you mean?" I asked."Well, when I was young, there were only two shops near my district, but then a third opened, and I think there's something like five now. The port is much larger too. There used to be space for maybe ten airships the size of the Beaver Cleaver but now you can fit three times as many. Which means a lot more people are working at the docks."Amaryllis leaned back onto... whatever she had that counted as heels, and looked up into the sky. "The world is growing smaller. A generation ago it was still not fully charted, you know? Now... well, it's possible that the next generation, or perhaps the one after that, won't need an Exploration Guild anymore.""That's okay," I said. "Things change, but change isn't inherently bad.""I suppose not," she said. "It will be interesting to see how the shrinking world handles it when nations like Pyrowalk butt heads against our continent.""Do you think they will?" I asked."Oh, definitely," Amaryllis said. "We'll see whose unique ideas survive in a century or so. Maybe we'll even still be around to see it!"
* * *
Chapter Five Hundred and Fifty-One — Become the Hunter
Chapter Five Hundred and Fifty-One — Become the Hunter
I didn't expect us to actually encounter pirates.Like, sure, we joined the convoy explicitly to avoid pirates. That was one of the major reasons the convoy even existed in the first place-though there were a few other advantages. But still, I didn't expect pirates to be an issue. After all, any pirates would have to fight all of us! Not a very appetizing target.That's probably why I was caught a little flat-footed when Gordon let out a shout, saying that he spotted a ship on the horizon.Calamity came out, and squinted his cat eyes while shielding his vision from the sun. The ship was barely a dot on the horizon, with the sun more or less behind it.It was late enough in the evening that the ship didn't have to be too high in order to come in with the light of the sun at its back, and we were pretty lucky that Gordon had spotted it at all, even though the harpy couldn't make out many details.Calamity could, though. He had good eyes, probably because he was a hunter by trade and good eyesight was a boon for that."What do you see?" I called out to him.Calamity turned and glanced up. "I think it's pirates, Broc."I blinked, my ears twitching as if to make sure I'd heard correctly. "Pirates?"The catboy made his way over so that I wouldn't have to shout. "N'yeah, I think so," he said. "It's a pretty big boat. Looks a lil' worn out. The bottom half's painted a sort of blue-grey and the top half's all yellow-white.""Is there a jolly roger?" I asked."A what?" he asked."A pirate flag," I said."Do pirates tell people that they're pirates? That seems a lil dumb to me," he said. "But nah, no flags that I can see from here. But it's still far, even for my eyes."I glanced over, and yeah, the ship was just a tiny black smudge in the distance, no bigger than a fly across a room. I was impressed that Calamity could see enough of it to make out colours, even. "How are you sure that it's a pirate ship, then?""Well, I figure paint like that's for hiding better. There's only two reasons animals hide. If they don't want to be spotted by predators, or if they're ambush predators themselves.""That kind of covers both sides of the predator-prey thing," I said. "Doesn't that mean everyone would use camouflage like that?""No-you only need to camouflage yourself if you're afraid of getting discovered." He grinned, "Us social races don't usually need to fear discovery. But maybe pirates are not as social as civilized folk. Call it a gut feeling."Who was I not to trust in the gut feelings of my friends? I found some semaphore flags and then moved up to the foredeck where I waved the flags for attention. As soon as I saw a reply from one of the Pyrowalkian ships, I sent a message back. "Ship sighted. West high. Incoming. Danger."The message was repeated back to me, then I saw it being repeated on the ship's other side. It only took another two minutes before we received instructions. "Turn. 20 degrees. Starboard. Observe."That made some sense. The turn would have us flying a bit off-course from the maybe-pirate ship, presenting our sides. The 'observe' order was just common sense as well. Obviously we'd be keeping an eye on that ship.I relayed the order to the helm, and we turned, following the convoy into a gentle curve that had up pointing in a new direction. Once we settled into our new course, there was a new message. "Engines full. Thirty knots."That was hardly our top-speed, but it was a bit faster than what we were moving at. We let the convoy kick their engines into full, then easily caught up and matched speeds with them.In the meantime, I let my friends and crew know that there might be trouble. It was as good a time as any to prepare for it. That meant getting bows out and stringing them, finding ammunition and setting it out, preparing water-collection spells to fill buckets in case of a fire, and doing some last-minute preparations like securing anything loose so that it wouldn't tumble around in case of tight maneuvers.It was important not to have loose things on an airship, but sometimes it was just more convenient not to tie everything down. Now wasn't the time for that, though.As we had sped up and changed course a little, we were no longer going to be in the same spot as before, which meant that the ship that would have intercepted us needed to change its course if it wanted to do that.If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.And it did. There was a subtle change in its distant shape as some sail was deployed and the ship turned to a new heading, one that looked very much like it would cut us off."Alright," I said. "I guess that they are pirates after all."Now that the sun wasn't behind the intercepting ship, I could safely point a spyglass at it.It was still so distant that I still couldn't make out too many details, but Calamity's description had been accurate. The ship was of a more... Pyrowalk-y design. It had a large balloon, long and narrow, with a long structure beneath that ran almost the entire length of the balloon from bow to stern.There were six nacelles poking out of the middle of the balloons, each one with a propeller at the front and rear. Surprisingly, there was little smoke coming from those. So maybe the engines weren't running at their fullest?The top half of the ship from the middle-up was painted a pale yellow-orange, with mottled patches of beige and grey. The bottom half, including the main structure of the ship, was painted in a blue-grey kind of colour. It actually happened to match the early evening sky very well, which I supposed was kind of the point.It reminded me a little of pictures of world war two aircraft, with their two-toned camouflage patterns.I squinted into the spyglass, trying to hold it even so that I could make out more details. There were three platforms on this side of the ship, all of them equipped with what looked like smaller ballistas. Smaller, but not tiny. There were some figures around them, so I knew that the arms on those were about as wide as a person was tall.That was a lot of weaponry.I looked back at the ships in our convoy. Each had a single ballista, and I wasn't sure if the crews were as ready or trained to use them.I was just starting to worry in earnest when Bastion came up next to me. "An interesting situation," he said."A bad one," I replied. "You're good at fighting and stuff. What do you think our odds are?"He stared at the distant ship, then at the other three ahead. "If the enemy thought that the convoy here was such easy prey, then they wouldn't be waiting so long to attack. They're moving slowly, trying to come in from ambush. It might just be caution on their part, of course, but when you have an overwhelming advantage, it's usually best to use that advantage aggressively.""So it's not that bad?" I asked."Oh, I didn't say that. I think the Beaver is a well-crewed ship, all things considered. It might well be able to hit far above its weight class. But that vessel looks like it very much is above our weight class."I chewed on my lower lip. He was probably right. "So, what do we do?""I'll tell you this much. Sticking to a nice, easy formation like this isn't going to scare them off," Bastion said. "They've already committed to the attack, though by the looks of it the battle won't have its first shot for another hour or so. My point is, they've decided to attack. The goal of the convoy, to scare off the threat, failed.""Right," I said. "Now we fall on the second goal, having friends close by to make the fight easier."Bastion nodded. "That means hoping that those three merchant ships can hold their own in a fight."I winced. I didn't know the crews or captains. All I knew was that they weren't super well-armed.This was going to be tricky, wasn't it?Then I glanced over as Awen came over, with Calamity next to her. "Ah, hi. I have an idea," she said."Go on," I replied."We were talking," Calamity said. "About ranges. And with the thinner air, I'm pretty sure that with a bit of altitude and maybe a spell or two, I can probably shoot an arrow a good kilometre and a half.""What's the range of a ballistea?" I asked."On even ground, half a kilometre," Bastion said immediately.I blinked. "Okay, so that's good, but one arrow probably won't do too much to a whole ship?"Awen nodded quickly. "You're right. Unless the arrow is designed to carry a payload." She pulled something out of her pocket. One of her bolts for her ballista, with a glass bulb on the end. "Like this. Filled with explosive liquids and with plenty of room for a few added spells.""Well then," I said as I glanced back at the pirates. "You said a kilometre and a half, but that's if we're flying even to them, right?""Yup," Calamity said."And if we're higher?"He grinned.
* * *
