Chapter 21

BOOM

The dingy cabin shook as the cannonball broke through the hull and whistled straight through the middle of the tiny compartment before embedding itself right in to the other side of the wall, waking Cody from his slumber.

“ALL HANDS ON DECK!”

Cody shook himself, groggily rolling out of bed and stumbling towards the door in only a shirt and breeches. Opening the door the crew surged passed him as they rushed up the ladder, joining the tide he climbed up the vertical stairway and stopped for a second to survey the scene.

The clouds roiled around them as the rain thundered down from the heavens, with flashes of lightning occasionally illuminating the darkness of night. Men ran from position to position, fastening rigging and securing ropes.

“TO BATTLE STATIONS!”

Cody was suddenly pushed to the side as the next person came up the Companionway, prompting him to rush down another ladder and down to the Gunner’s Passage, sprinting along the narrow corridor he arrived at the powder magazine. Grabbing two cartridges he started his routine of running along the walkway to the guns on the portside of the ship. On arriving at the first one he a passed the first magazine to the gunner, who gave him a firm nod, before continuing to the next one, once he gave it to that one as well a second explosion rocked the ship causing him to stumble right into Quartermaster Henry.

“Cody! Where’s your pack boy? We’ll need it for this one!”

Cody merely nodded before going back to the magazine store and grabbing a backpack designed to hold six cartridges. Dashing back towards the cannons the shouting began, but Cody ignored it and ran up and down the walkway, handing out cartridges to the smoke coughing monsters as they fired wave after wave of bullets on their squeaky axels.

Streams of lead balls, designed to break through even the toughest armor ricocheted along the rusty walkway, one managing to burst open a pressure valve causing the engine next to Cody to start stuttering.

“Engineer!” Cody shouted as he refueled his pack. Almost immediately a stocky Arishian man slid down the ladder and pushed past Cody, he inspecting the damage for a second before grabbing a rerouting tube from his belt, fixing it to each end of the broken pipe, and welding it with a chemical sealant. Then, he proceeded to cut off the pipe where the hole was with an electric saw and putting away the scrap metal for later use.

Cody continued to feed the Artillery guns under his charge the black powder, eventually being forced to grab another pack and strap it along his chest for bullets as well as the stores of each gun were slowly emptied, pushing Cody to dip into the ship’s ammo reserve. He was sweating profusely from the heat of the engines even though the strong winds from the open sky blasted him with cold air every time he moved away from the engine’s protective armor.

From what he could gather, the battle wasn’t going well. Henry belayed orders every so often down to the Gunners but mostly left them alone, the Gunners were a tightly knit group and it wasn’t often that they needed outside communication to tell them when to shoot and how to shoot. But even professionals can’t do miracles. Cody would occasionally catch glimpses of the opposition through the storm clouds and what he saw wasn’t good, glints of rigging and metal, once he even saw a balloon with the crest of the Fjord Baronies! Not good.

Then came the fire, one of the enemy ships managed to get too close and apparently they had a flame thrower. The screams and crackling of splintered wood emanated from the deck and the sickly orange light illuminated the dank Gunner’s Passage.

“WEBB! GET UP HERE!”

Cody rushed to obey as he grabbed an extinguisher from the wall and run up the ladder, only to be greeted by utter annihilation. Blood and smoke rose in fumes of pink as the flames licked at the bullet riddled deck, sailors lay about, screaming as liquid life oozed from their wounds, soon to be joining the accumulating number of corpses which were slowly being eaten by the fire.

“WEBB! THE CABLES!”

The order came and Cody moved on autopilot if the flames ate away the cables, however unlikely that may be, the Balloon might come undone, potentially spelling their doom. So Cody ran, grabbing the can and smearing the green acid over the steel wires, coating them in its heat resistant gel. The flames licked at his feet but he ignored it. His boots would hold, for now. Moving from cable to cable, he had to move Sailors, both dead and alive, out of the way as he and others rushed around the deck with their can of fire proof solution. And all the while the orders came, unending, unfaltering commands that kept the men from dissolving into panic.

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Just when it looked like the fire was contained another gout came. With a tremendous roar that shook Cody’s very being, the clouds parted to reveal its terrifying visage. Wings extended, its scales gleamed from the water that struck to its still warm body, its eyes an emerald green, the glare like a Captain’s telescope, ready to order death and destruction with a wave of its arm. And on top of his back, a figure, riding the tempest of nature, like some parasite, latching on to a being greater than him. A truly horrifying sight that once again, rooted Cody to the spot.

“GUNNERS! TO STARBOARD!”

Broken. The cry of the Captain once again shattered the spell, prompting action. And Cody ran, a robot, designed to do what was ordered, embracing the calm of not having to make a decision, just following someone else’s. Once more, he was in the Gunner’s Passage, filling the mechanical beasts which battled with the organic one.

But it was not to be. The enemy ships, taking advantage of the situation, closed in on Cody and the crew, barraging them with their close up scatter rounds from the other side.

The ship rocked as it was attacked by fire and brass from each side. However she wouldn’t go down that easy.

“LOOSE THE ENGINES! OPEN THE HATCHES! ALL THE GUNS YOU CAN MUSTER! WE’RE GOING IN A BLAZE OF GLORY!”

Finally, the order, Blaze of Glory. A tactic for only the desperate, when the engines are overfed, giving the ship a huge burst of speed at the cost of destroying them, it also meant that the state of the ship didn’t matter anymore and every sailor must focus on firepower, from the Pilots to the Engineers, the sole objective was to make enemy suffer as much as possible before the ship went down, and Cody wasn’t going to waste this opportunity.

He ran to the front of the deck and jumped on Big Bertha. The ship’s biggest, baddest, and only cannon. It consisted of a pilot’s seat surrounded by twelve rockets in a fuse box on each side and one gargantuan mass of steel and iron in the shape of a snarling gargoyle. The fiend’s mouth opened up to reveal a massive hole in which a single, solitary cannonball resided. It would usually take a minute and three fully fledged Gunners to reload it in ideal conditions, needless to say, Cody was getting one shot at this.

Grabbing the two handles on each side of the gargoyle, he swiveled the gun around and took aim. The dragon wasn’t moving much but the winds this high up would cause even the largest rounds to be buffeted by some tempest. Reading the dials behind the gargoyle’s ears, he adjusted Bertha with millimeter precision until the iron sights lined up perfectly with the readings. Then he fired. Nothing happened at first, and then a dull thump followed by a whoosh was heard, like a corkscrew popping off a particularly fine champagne. Cody took a deep breath, breathing in the smog around him, yes, very fine indeed.

The ball was made up of condensed Iridium, the heaviest metal in all the Isles. Simply the amount of firepower needed to get a bullet version moving is extraordinary, not to mention a cannon sized projectile. A merchant ship like this one would need to make a profit of a couple hundred Florins to justify firing it just once, but Cody thought that the situation would allow it in this case.

The ball arced through the air, having to make them be fired at a higher angle on account of the massive drop off. With everlasting slowness, it neared the winged creature before impacting it straight in the chest, crumpling it, sending the monster flying, causing the wings to flop forward and cover the wound like a mother protecting its newborn son.

“Yes.” Cody cried, but his triumph was short lived as he heard pop, a pop that every mariner feared. It seemed the constant barrage of pellets have finally breached the balloon’s protective metal layering, exposing it and allowing a knuckle-puncher to penetrate the thick hide of the ship’s life preserver. With alarming velocity the ship descended, no longer being under fire by the enemy, for why waste the bullets? The deck was strangely silent as the clouds enveloped the Blue Wattle save for the groaning of the wounded.

Through the fog, three rings were sounded from the ship’s bell. The sign for a roll call. With aching joints, only now realizing how tired he was, Cody made his way to the middle of the deck and joined the line of men standing stiff backed, waiting for an order.

“Gentlemen.” The captain said, a rusty man, with rings embedded into his leather skin around his eyes from countless years of wearing the goggles.

“It seems the hour is upon us.” He said as he descended the stairs from the Quarterdeck, the chain and metal screeching under his weight.

“I want you to know how proud I am of you, every single one of you. I couldn’t have asked for a finer crew.” He said as he stopped in front of Cody, patting him in the shoulder before moving on.

“And here I give the final order.” He said, stopping at the end of the line and facing the scarred, wind bitten Aeronauts.

He grinned. “You are given leave of all duties and responsibilities on the Blue Wattle. We have-” he checked his pocket watch. “Seven minutes and fort-nine seconds until impact. It has been an honor gentlemen, dismissed.”

Everyone sagged, while a few went to ease the pain of others. Most, like Cody, went to the side to look at the sky one last time. The blue ever vastness of the great Air-sea that captured many a young boy’s heart, promising adventure and glory for the daring. The clouds parted to reveal all its infinite beauty in dawning sun, blinding the sailors yet none looked away, not now.

Cody sighed, he had dreams, aspirations, goals like every sailor on this boat. To own a ship of his very own, with sixteen Artillery guns and a golden figurehead, to be the greatest Aeronaut the world had ever seen. But it seems it was not to be, Cody let out a single tear before the ship descended into the Depths.