Everyone has a purpose, that’s what mother always said.

 I’m standing on the 13th deck of Old Glory, watching my crewmates prepare the craft for battle. Horns are sounding, Officer George is barking out orders to the boys around me, lining up charges on the raft. I can see the ones below me through the floor grates, slaving away as the dust and sweat from the decks above covers their small determined faces. I see their small hands deftly running through the well-practiced drills all deckboys know.  Twist the top, stuff the pipe, beat with the boomstick, partner loads, twist again, and pass on. The rhyme rings out as I watch.

 Gods below I don’t envy them. I wasn’t much older when I first joined the navy. How time flies when you’re wasting away…

 Back then I was the youngest on my ship. With the ships layout as it is, there’s plenty younger men down below them.

One of the boys above me makes a mistake as he hurries to load his barrel. I hear the soft crunch of bones breaking before I recognise the loud clang of metal against metal, barrelling its way down the ship’s innards. He must have mispacked his barrel, and as a result the cannonball jumped out when his partner threw it onto the cotton and gunpowder. It bounced out of the barrel and fell below them to yet more levels of determined soldiers, clanging against the steel pillars and metal grates that make up the ship’s skeleton. The crunch came 3 decks below them, as a 15-year-old in my squadron, Tim, stops the ball with his head. It caves in, collapsing his face and sending a spray of fluids on to my cheek. I turn around and scream, just for a moment, seeing my friend of several years crumple down to the floor just a few feet away from me.

No one reacts. The production line behind me slows down as I stop my work to stare at his corpse, still holding the boomstick and cotton in his cooling hands. I try and wipe off the blood from my face with my dirty sleeve. A moment passes, and Officer George is blocking my vision with his red, puffed up face.

“David.. David! Get yourself together solider!” George delivers a hard slap across my face.

He was going to be an aeronaut.  

I remember signing up, not long ago. The war had just started. Everyone was all fired up with patriotic duty, with honour and war stories we’d been fed since we were old enough to care.

He was going to get out of the grates and make it up there, going to save everyone of us sorry bastards down here. Poor stupid Tim.  

Officer George delivers another slap, harder. Looking into my eyes, willing me to focus. Then another, and another.

My eyes focus. He’s blocking Tim from my view as his replacement pulls away his corpse far enough to replace him on the assembly line.

“Yes sir, right away sir” I reply with a practiced air, knowing that will be enough to get him away from me.

“Stay strong and set an example for your men corporal. The boy will be stripped and lashed once the battle is over, rest assured. Until then, Archon protects”

“Archon protects” I reply, holding my hand over my chest the way they always taught us to do at school.

 I get up. The new boy is already standing in Tim’s spot as his body leans against a pillar behind him. I don’t bother asking his name, I don’t need another name on my conscious after his battle. Officer George instructs the new boy as I make my way to the portside shutter closest to me.

 It’s open, allowing me to see the full extent of the Third Archon’s Navy moving ever closer to no mans land. Leaning my head ever so gently out the shutter, I can make out the great craters and smouldering ship carcasses many miles ahead of us. The tell-tale rugged landscape that I see so often in my dreams. It wasn’t long ago that there was a lovely little town there.  Akrefall, population twenty thousand. The powder keg that ignited this war. Their heinous crime: being situated on the border of our territory.

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If only we’d never have attacked them. Maybe then I would be able to sleep at night.  

The ship lurches. I see our sistership, the light cruiser Redemption make its way past us. It’s signalist aptly waving his many flags to signal the current bearing and readiness of his floating bride. The glowing sails of the ship illuminating the deck easily.

I think back and remember watching those sails many years ago. Back on the streets of Groan, in one of the many parades to honour our war heroes. How glistening they looked back them, shining well-dressed officers and deckmen with pressed clothing, clean and silver sails illuminating the faces of every child in the front row.

JOIN THE NAVY

SEE THE WORLD

MAKE THE WORLD

The bright carbon-ray lit signs held above the ships spoke to my little heart. To touch the sky, to serve my country. It was all I ever dreamt of, right up until I joined at 13-years old. I was overjoyed when they approved my application, I’d finally made it. All those years of studies, of hard training, finally paid off. I had found my purpose. I was going to explore the world, and I was going to make my country proud doing it.

The flags of the Redemption shift colour. A striped triangle waving next to a red flag. I hear a faint whistling sound as a stray cannonball flies wide.

A miss, of course.

We are still a bit off any sort of accurate range, even with a battleship sized cannonball, which that most certainly wasn’t judging from the last of noticeable trailing fire.

Still, I feel my blood pumping louder in my ears. The smell of gunpowder and blood briefly swell up in my nose as I see Tim’s sunken face flash in front of me again.

Another one for the slideshow. The more the merrier, mom always said.

The horns change their rhythm as I stare out. The beeps go out: two long, three short, two long, one short. It repeats, overpowering the sound of cannons sliding out on their rails to their hatches, readying.

Our own signalists must have finally woken up.

 I walk up to the massive machinery that defines my purpose. One of seven on the portside of Old Glory, the hulking turret with it’s four barrels would have stretched the imagination of any child back in Groan. Armed with long lines of bolts, the intended purpose, back in the minds of so many dusty generals, was to fire at approaching scouts and spy craft. Of course, once the war started in full there was no need for such defences, the size of the crafts are ever increasing with the military budget, and the areas of engagement never move far from the frontlines. Besides the rare and unfortunate bombings, of course. Still, it could wreck the sails and projectiles of the slower ships. Bleed them out with pinpricks. And that’s good enough for me.

 Maybe things would have been different if we’d had them at the start. Maybe I’d be able to eat my moms cooking, one last time.

The deceleration of the ship wakes me from my reverie. We’re close. Aiming down the sights of my gun I can see the outline of the blasted Royalists’ ships. Large hulking beasts when seen up close, filled with portraits of whatever noble family decided to finance it. At first they were just flying debry for us. It was childsplay taking them down, one by one. Those first arrogant idiots that charged in thought the war would be won before winter came. Smiling as they brought back wonderous noble treasures to give to the archon.

Now their faces are stuck in the permanent grins of the dead.

Or so I assume. It’s hard to see faces from up here, looking down on no man’s land.

I see our first row make contact. The deafening shots of tons upon tons of gunpowder firing at once is enough to stop the inexperienced in our crew in their tracks. Children, all of them, some begin weeping as their officers whip them back into shape. Our frontline flagship takes a battleship cannonball through its mast ahead of us, as it returns with a full broadside of its own massive cannons. Next to the hulking flagships the midrange ships sail past. A couple of 9-deckers, a handful of 12-deckers. I take my aim on one of them, it’s dark bold font reading Privilege on its side, letting off a salvo on its great sails. I hear the battlecry of several of my crewmates.

“Remember Akrefall!”, the cry rings out.

“Remember the Archon!!!”, the chorus follows.

The Privilege’s sails rip asunder under my fire. Its great mast collapsing on to several of its crew, now close enough to see clearly. A fire starts as my next salvo ignites what must be misplaced gunpowder in the bowels of the ship.

They were sloppy.

“Remember Triest!”, my shipmates continue.

“Remember the Archon!”, the chorus follows.

The enemy ship is in flames. It barrels closer to Old Glory, it’s course set. I can see their Captain now, gray specks and royal purple uniform across the vast space of the sky. He’s going serve his country into the last. Those fucking old nobles really know how to end it, I’ll give them that.

The fore of the Privilege, with its many tons of iron, steel and wood, slams into the portside of the Old Glory. The 9-decker’s far smaller stature is not enough to stop it. The fire I set off with my turret spreads as it impacts, reaching the rest of its black powder stockpiles. It goes up in flames, a momentary inferno larger than the ship that caused it. As I see the storm of fire engulf me, I think of home. I think of mother, I think of that little boy hoping for a brighter future. I close my eyes.

Remember Groan.

Fuck the Archon.