Despatch was as close to Hegalia as she could be without running aground. A Bexarian ensign hung slack at her sternpost. The sea was flat calm and the mist had burned off, leaving the day starkly bright. Bethany could barely see the collier, the entire fleet had left it behind just before dawn, moving several versts away from the island and out of the path of the airship. Fletch was another verst gone, at the edge of the formation, as far from the collier as possible while still being nominally a part of the coming action. Her entire crew was on deck, beaten to quarters a half hour before. Every spyglass was in use, fixed on the slowly moving airship. The turrets of Howl and Skvoreshniki tracked its progress. They declined as it descended toward the tower, pointing its nose at its peak.

“When will they know we’ve killed all their men on the island, sir?” a sailor asked, addressing Badrine who stood near the hatchway, ready to rush to the engine room if called for.

“Hush,” Boyle admonished but Badrine had already begun to answer, “well they must see the damage now, but when there is nobody in the tower to catch her lines, they will know for certain.”

Farley glowered at all on deck, “not another word from anyone, strictest orders from the Vice Admiral, no needless noise.”

Soon lines did drop from the forward third of the airship. Some were long enough to reach the ground, others were clearly meant to be caught partway up the tower. They all hung slack. The airship’s signal lamp flicked briefly at the island. It was returned, instead, by a flicker from Despatch.

Farley took a step forward, bumping against the gunnel which he gripped until his hand went pale. The airship’s progress toward the tower stopped. It stood above the island, motionless, for too long. When it moved again it was backing away from the tower and its rudder was put hard over. Turning completely around over the course of several minutes it then proceeded toward Despatch at a walking pace.

Clotilde, who had taken a chair on the forecastle, rose and padded toward the clutch of officers at the rail nearest the airship. She found Bethany and touched her arm, indicating the spyglass. Bethany took a long look, then relented and passed it to her. She moved at once away from the rail, hastening back to the forecastle. Bethany followed her and saw her stop, raise the glass, and sighted on something off the bow.

“What is it?” Bethany whispered.

“Another ship.”

Bethany motioned for the glass - it had to be an iceberg or debris. She peered down the same line as Clotilde and saw first a plume of coal smoke. She followed this to a merchant ship, steaming with abandon toward the fleet.

“It’s Strator, the ship my father captured,” Clotilde insisted.

“Quieter,” Bethany protested, adding, “there must be scores of ships that look like that but this is something, I will get Mr. Farley.”

Bethany moved back to the officers. Farley would not follow her to the forecastle but did turn with his glass and eventually found the merchant ship.

“Pass the word to Mr. Boyle, make a flag signal to Howl, we have sighted an unidentified ship aft of the formation,” he ordered.

Boyle made the signal, its receipt acknowledged in the form of one of Howl’s aft turrets traversing to face the merchantman. The battleship made a flag signal to Sharp who set off toward the merchantman. Clotilde was again among the officers, “tell them they must be careful, my father interned that ship at Holman Quay, if the Bexarians attacked the island, they might have taken her back.”

“Don’t worry, there are at least twenty ships in that class,” Badrine reassured.

“We will have quiet on deck,” Farley demanded.

There was quiet for several minutes as they watched the airship draw up to Despatch and Sharp close with the merchantman. It was broken by the thunderclap of an explosion. Every man focused on the airship and seeing nothing there, swiveled toward Sharp. She had vanished, replaced by a tower of flame and seawater. When it settled she could be seen again, listing severely. Farley bolted toward the prow and scanned the burning ship, the merchantman’s progress continued, even faster now. Three small splashes appeared near her bow, becoming straight lines of white wake in an instant.

“They have torpedoes! Torpedoes in the water!” Farley shouted.

Sharp’s turrets and deck guns spoke, they fired at the merchant but overshot, the list making even their lowest elevation too high.

Farley faced the bridge, “get us moving damn you!”

Each of Howl’s turrets swung to face the enemy ship. Badrine grasped Clotilde’s shoulder “cover your ears!”

A full broadside screeched away from the battleship. The merchant turned to starboard and they missed, barely. The first torpedo did not. A tower of water rose from Valse’s side. Her size spared her Sharp’s immediate, fatal list, but she did start to settle lower. Her main guns began to ripple fire in the merchant’s direction, some making contact. They did not slow her.

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Howl’s signal lamp came alive, “sir, the fleet is to close with the enemy ship, sir” a sailor reported, “we’re to follow but keep well back.”

Dampers and throttles were opened. The cloud of smoke above the fleet became a hurricane as it came to its best speed. Crippled Valse was left behind, the third torpedo just missing her and exploding where Howl had been minutes before. The merchant was raked with gunfire, her funnel and bridge reduced to ruins and her masts clipped. She was sinking by the head and with every turn of her screw further drowned herself. She fired a final trio of torpedoes, one striking Quick in her aft quarter and bringing her to a halt. The others hurtled past the fleet, exploding in open sea. Howl stopped and the remainder of the fleet followed suit. She leveled her guns at the merchant, too close to miss. She did not, but it made no difference.

Now only a few thousand arshins from the vanguard of the fleet, Sophie, the merchant exploded. It was greater than her boilers and her coal going up, even a battleship’s worth of munitions would not have produced the blast that came. All on Fletch were knocked to the deck, Bethany saw the masts bend and the reefed sails pull against their ropes as a wave of pressure passed over them.

Badrine was the first officer to his feet. “She was a fire ship! Heaven help them, look!”

Bethany crawled to the railing, she could not stand, but raised her self up enough to see over it. Howl’s superstructure was nearly gone, her decks burned. Sophie had capsized. Skvoreshniki, ever at the rear, was blackened and small fires burned throughout, but was in the best shape by far. Her sidewheels began to churn sea, she reversed one and ran the other forward, turning nearly inside her length. This done she began to steam toward Fletch.

Farley filled his handkerchief with blood then spoke, “what of the airship and Despatch? Does anyone have an intact glass?”

A sailor stumbled toward him, handing over a tarnished spyglass. Bethany ran to the taffrail and looked herself. The airship had nearly blotted Despatch out with its shadow but the collier was still intact.

“It’s taken the bait,” Farley murmured.

The shots were simultaneous. Line throwing guns on Despatch barked, their barbed projectiles piercing the airship’s hide just as its main turret swung down to fire on the collier.

Skvoreshniki joined in, firing every gun she had at the airship. Most of her shots fell short but two collided with its tail, cleaving off the steel and fabric rudder. Through the gunsmoke Bethany saw Despatch heave and roll, badly wounded.

Skvoreshniki’s signal lamp, its lens cracked, managed to relay, “Locke alive, orders stand, collect lines from Despatch at once and bring them to us. Boarding expected.”

“Acknowledge the order,”Farley intoned, “but we will not advance without support.”

Valse stirred, her list had decreased and she was underway, making toward Fletch.

“Very good, full ahead, Mr. Badrine.”

Bethany found Clotilde still lying on the deck where the shock wave had left her. She prodded her until her eyes opened, they were tearful.

“Go below, not to my cabin but where the sailors sleep,” Bethany urged, “if they fire at us you will be safest there.”

Valse and Skvoreshniki loosed their broadsides at the airship, the shells whistling over Fletch. The cruiser’s fire battered the vessel’s side while the battleship managed to strike the massive chin turret. One of the twin barrels shuddered and slipped partly from its mount, hanging loose for a moment before dropping into the sea. Fletch’s sailors cheered.

Clotilde stood and Bethany grabbed her insisting, “go below!”

“No! I want to see it be killed! I must see it!”

The airship’s intact barrel fired an un-aimed shot toward Fletch. Beneath it, Despatch rolled, settling capsized to the seabed. Fletch was over the wreck soon enough. The airship hung in the sky, slowly descending as it vented steam and gas with a sharp hiss. Pieces of steel and flaming fabric dropped onto Fletch’s deck.

“Get a party together with axes, we must cut the lines and make them fast,” Farley ordered.

“Use the mooring cleats and capstans, nothing else will take the strain,” Badrine added.

Fore and aft, sailors used boat hooks to grab the lines, some still attached to the sunken collier, and tie them off to Fletch. The airship did not stir, no men could be seen through the ragged holes in its envelope.

“Have we killed them all?” Farley wondered, turning to the bridge, “signal them, demand their surrender!”

As the signal lamp began to wink a great shudder broke from the airship. Bethany looked up in time to be struck with a torrent of water that swept her down the deck. From openings in the airship’s belly came waterfalls running longer and wider than Fletch. The yacht was inundated but most drained safely off the deck. As the last of the water left the airship, the lines went taught at once and began to groan.

“That’s her ballast!” Badrine announced, “stand by to cut the lines!”

“Belay that!” Farley interjected, “full astern let's bring it to Skvoreshniki.”

With a ringing thud the airship released its turrets, they slid haltingly from their locking rings then at last fell free. One landed well clear of Fletch but the other slammed into her bowsprit, snapping it off and swamping her forecastle. The lines connecting Fletch and the airship sang and the some of hooks in the latter’s body broke free only to find purchase along its thick, lower spine. The turret that had landed on Fletch rolled off and sank. At first Bethany thought what came next was only the ship righting itself but she soon knew it was more. The realization spread across the ship, those nearest the gunnels grasping it first.

The airship hauled Fletch out of the ocean. Her screw cleared the water, followed by her keel. The ascent quickened, by the time Farley shouted “cut the lines!” the airship had entered a low, white cloud.

Badrine rushed to him, “no! She won’t survive the fall!”

“Will we?”

“The impact would break most of our backs, I fear.”

Clotilde looked up, then down, and began to laugh wildly. Bethany held her.

From beyond the cloud came the clatter of axes.

“They’re going after the lines themselves!”

Fletch burst through the cloud and the Bexarians chopping at the lines became visible. They clung to their ship’s skeleton or laid on the bits of its envelope that remained taut.

“Open fire! Stop them!” Farley ordered.

His marines did so at once and a few dead Bexarians dropped from the airship, one crashing into Fletch on the way down.

“We must board it,” Badrine pronounced, stepping from Granger’s cabin with a sketch plan of airship in hand.

“Those are our orders, yes,” Farley replied.

“Hang the orders, if we don’t we shall all be killed. This is an uncontrolled ascent, it hasn’t the ballast to level off now. If we wait much longer the lines will break, they shall manage to cut them, or we shall simply be starved of air.”

“Starved of air?”

“It has happened to certain balloonists and mountaineers. I cannot say how high but if we keep ascending we shall find out ourselves soon.”

Farley knelt and took his boots off, he stood and addressed the bewildered sailors on deck, “any man that believes he can climb the line take a carbine or a revolver from below and stand by.”

Ten men volunteered, they took position nearly Farley, who led them to the line tied off near the bow. He looked them over, grasped the line but hesitated and moved down the deck.

Bethany did not notice him until he spoke, “do you think you could climb?” he asked.

Clotilde was still clinging to Bethany. She edged carefully out of her embrace, sitting her against the gunnel, and answered, “I can try.”

“Good, I haven’t enough men, I think you must go.”

Bethany retrieved her sword, pistols, and carbine from Granger’s cabin and stepped to the line. When she did so several more sailors approached Farley. They were sent to arm themselves and returned, standing ready. Badrine appeared among them, revolver in hand.

“You’re needed here,” Farley told him.

“Not anymore, the fires are banked, none of the controls will answer, why would they? If I’m to do my bit now I must go with you.”

Boyle had been among the first volunteers. He circled the ranks of men.

“Any of you who supposes he might fall had better go at the back,” he advised, “a man falling from above is liable to knock out the others below him.”

The ranks were slightly reshuffled, Boyle took the first position, even in front of Farley, “I’ve been climbing rigging for thirty years, you want me here, sir.”