Green Cheese #8, Heavenly Hash #16 + cherry
Story: Virago
Title: Cloud Drop
Prompts: Green Cheese #8: meteor show, Heavenly Hash #16: higher law + cherry (battle scene)
Rating: R
Characters: Harpy Crew, Touzel Crew
Summary: Takes place on the second trip out during the Touzel arc. The Harpy knew it couldn’t stay under the Touzel’s radar for long. This is the battle that leads up to the ‘Viragos live with the consequences’ pocky in this.
I had a lot of fun writing this; it was like playing Battleship but with an extra dimension! This is my first time writing such an action-heavy battle scene, and I would really like to improve my writing in that area. As such, I would greatly appreciate some constructive comments on this! :)
“Captain-”
Thomasin made a sharp motion to cut off Ransom’s quiet call. She didn’t want to take any chance that the Touzel ship would hear them and be able to pinpoint their location.
It had been pure luck that they’d come across a Touzel ship in the middle of an enormous cumulus cloud formation. Thomasin recognized the ship as one of the Touzel’s flagships, equipped with their most fanatical pirates and captained by one of Silas’ immediate family. There was no way that Thomasin was going to face off with a Touzel that high up in the food chain just yet so she’d told Nelly to hide in the middle of a cloud and turn off all the engines, letting them float on the air currents with the clouds. Hiding in a cloud was a dangerous bet. The key was not being found because, if you were, you’d never see the attack coming.
This wasn’t the first time that the Harpy had used cloud cover. They knew what they were doing, and with Nelly at the helm, they should be safe. Still, Thomasin had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. A sense of foreboding that she’d learned in the military to never ignore. Meeting this Touzel wasn’t an accident, she could feel it. The Harpy had been sought out, no doubt to exact some piratical vengeance for taking over their idiot cousin’s ship.
A soft creak of wood made Thomasin’s stomach drop. It’d come from above the Harpy. Close above.
Nine heard it too. She caught Thomasin’s eyes and confirmed her suspicion.
They’d been found.
“Cloud Drop!” Thomasin screamed. A Cloud Drop was a dirty move by anyone’s standards. The attacking ship used the cloud cover to get directly above its target then threw down their anchors and lodged them in their target’s hull. This served two purposes, tethering the ship below them into place so they knew exactly where their enemy was in the low visibility conditions, and it made the target ship no longer air-worthy because of the giant holes in the middle of it. Meanwhile the attacking ship could shoot away to its heart’s content but there was no way of knowing the condition if the target ship. There was no surrendering in a Cloud Drop; only destruction.
Thomasin’s warning came a second too late. Nelly spun the wheel, jerking the ship so hard to port that it tilted dangerously off-balance just as three steel anchors dropped down from the Touzel ship directly above them.. Two anchors whizzed past the side of the Harpy, but the last one crashed through the main deck and embedded itself in the hull. The ship bucked backwards, suddenly tethered into placed just like the Touzel’s wanted.
During all of these tactical maneuvers, the Harpy crew had leapt into action, grabbing the nearest hold to keep from falling over the edge of their wildly tilting ship. That is, all but their newest member, who had no reason to know what to expect in such a situation. Georgiana shrieked as she lost her balance and fell hard on the deck. She slid down the steep slope, grabbing wildly for anything to stop her deadly fall.
A set of strong hands snatched at her, stopping her downward progress abruptly. Nine had braced herself against the main mast with her legs. She jerked Georgiana back up until the smaller woman could also get a foothold.
“Go with Bridget and saw off the anchor!” Nine yelled over the din of gunfire the Harpy was shooting upwards blindly.
Bridget was already scooting down the massive hole the anchor had created in the deck. Keeping a firm hold on a rope from the mast, she quickly rappelled to the offending hole. “Bridget!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Thomasin saw Bridget pull Georgiana down with her into the hull to take care of the anchor. The trick to their task was cutting the tether but not allowing the anchor to fall through the hull. A hole that big in the bottom of their ship was not something they could easily recover from.
Thomasin couldn’t worry about that, it was Bridget and Georgiana’s job now. She had to focus on countering the Touzels. There was a way to inflict damage on a ship above yours, but it was dangerous. A ship’s hull was a weak point, the Touzels essentially had their belly exposed with this maneuver. It was still a good move though because anything the Harpy shot upwards had to come back down. Debris would rain down on them in a deadly shower of splintered wood and twisted metal. It was enough to stop most victims of this underhanded move, who, instead of attacking, just tried to escape. But Thomasin had never been the type of woman to take defeat lying down. She had a talented crew, it was time to put them to the test.
Thomasin started shooting off orders. “Grace Clare, Micajah, Merripen! Portside cannons on my mark! Nine, Jacklyn, Patty, Cook, Cecily! Light them up! We’re bucking! Brace yourselves!”
Nelly straightened out the ship and the crew used the momentary balance to their advantage. Grace Clare and the men loaded the three cannons while Ransom ran between them, restocking the supplies. Nine ran up the mast and grabbed hold of the ropes, climbing into the rigging with her team close at her heels.
“Give us some slack,” Thomasin ordered Nelly. Nelly obliged, raising the ship upwards. The metal chain attached to the offending anchor loosened. They had to be careful not to go too high up or the Touzels would counter by flying further upwards. The advantage to performing a Cloud Drop lied in remaining invisible to their target. The lower ship had a general idea of where the higher ship was because of the anchor line, but the thick clouds kept them from being able to pinpoint their location and that’s how the Touzels liked it.
Cannons boomed above them. Everyone ducked from the unknown fire while Nelly jerked the ship, trying to avoid what she couldn’t see. It didn’t work well, three cannon balls came whizzing down through their rigging, slashing up the sails and tearing smaller holes into the deck. Thomasin yelled at her crew to move quicker. Taking the defensive was a losing battle here, she needed to hit the Touzels back.
Thomasin spotted Nine and the others at the very top of the Harpy’s rigging. Each of them had a flare gun pointed upwards into the thick fog. Grace Clare was also ready, having braced the cannons at a ninety degree angle to the deck. Thomasin looked back at Nelly. Her pilot nodded resolutely, her fingers tapping rhythmically on the wheel in anticipation. The only way to fight your way out of a Cloud Drop was with a three pronged attack that had to be timed to perfection.
She held up her arm. Now or never.
“Nine!” she roared.
“Fire!” Nine yelled. The five people in the rigging shot upwards, all at slightly different angles to spread out their search radius. Two of the flares hit the hull of the Touzel ship, splitting into a ring of sparks.
Thomasin slashed her arm downwards. “Fire!”
Grace Clare and the boys had adjusted their cannons to the proper angle as soon as they’d seen the flares hit their mark. They set their weapons off then grabbed at the railing in anticipation.
“Move it!” Thomasin screamed but Nelly was already turning the wheel wildly. The Harpy jerked backwards as far as the anchor chain would let her, then Nelly pushed her hard to port, staying just this side of capsizing as she cleared them out of the area.
Everyone heard the thick crash of metal hitting wood, then the debris fell, the bulk of it falling beyond the Harpy’s nose but some crashed through the bowspirit, jerking the front sails forward then letting them whip free dangerously.
A good start.
“Reload!” Thomasin ordered at the same time she heard Nine direct two of the crew to secure the sails. Her crew worked like a crew should, all performing with skill at top speed. They ducked whenever they heard cannonfire then got right back to the job. She could just hear the low buzz of the aether saw belowdeck where Georgiana and Bridget were working double time to release their tether. It would take time though. That’s what Thomasin was intent on buying them with their counter attacks.
She held up her arm and it started again.
“Nine!”
“Fire!”
Three flares hit directly above them.
“Fire!”
Their cannons shot then a split second later the ship spun left, nearly knocking Thomasin off her feet. The debris missed them entirely this time.
“Reload!”
The crew got into the rhythm of battle, pushing themselves to perform at their highest level while their senses were also working overtime to try to adjust to a blind fight. Thomasin directed them, all the while keeping track of the Touzels pattern. They were trying to stay right above the Harpy but Nelly’s wild movements and Thomasin’s quick successive attacks had put them on the defensive. Still, they had the advantage and they used it ruthlessly, keeping their ship as close to the Harpy as possible so it could do the most damage to her ship. The third time they attacked, Nelly steered the wrong direction and the debris came crashing down through the rigging. Thomasin called up a warning but Nine was already on the ball, throwing herself out of the way while screaming at everyone else to do the same. No bodies came tumbling down with the debris so Thomasin stayed focused.
They were reloading for their fifth round of attack when the high whine of the aether saw belowdeck cut off. The ship jerked downwards and Nelly yelled. “We’re free!”
“Keep that anchor secure, Bridget!” Thomasin ordered down, even while her mind was scrambling for their next move. The Touzels would know they’d cut loose. Nelly was already racing the ship forwards, away from the last known place of the Touzel ship. But running away wasn’t the right thing to do, Thomasin could feel it. The Touzels would catch them and try another Cloud Drop. The Harpy wouldn’t luck out twice. She needed to face this now.
“Nelly, go up.”
Nelly hazarded a look of shock over at Thomasin but didn’t question the order. She guided the Harpy up through the clouds while Thomasin turned to her crew. “We face them now! Prepare yourself!”
Grace Clare yelled at the boys to push their cannons back down parallel to the deck, working double time to get them into position for the more traditional air battle that she excelled at. Nine was also moving, her team following her down into the lower rigging where their position would be more stable and better covered.
Thomasin could see the clouds thinning, could feel the cloud break. Like a dolphin jumping out of the sea, the Harpy suddenly cleared through the clouds. As she expected the Touzels were flying above the clouds, chasing hard on their tails, but they hadn’t expected them to come up to play. Thomasin loved having the upper hand.
“Fire!” she screamed. The Touzel ship pulled hard to port but it was too late. Grace Clare’s cannons shot straight through Touzel’s bow, shredding their hull. Nelly pulled the ship forward close enough for a gun fight but not close enough that the Touzels could board.
“Now, Nine!”
“Fire at will!” Nine yelled to her team. Gunfire blasted from their rigging, using their higher angle to their advantage while they took out the Touzel gunners and caused chaos on the deck.
While Thomasin kept control over Grace Clare and Nine’s actions, she also had a new responsibility with this change of battle tactics. The helm was necessarily on the upper deck so that the pilot had a clear 360 degree view of her surroundings. That also meant pilots were prime targets in a gun fight. Thomasin had no intention of losing Nelly’s superb flying abilities just yet, so it was her responsibility to take out any threats aimed in their direction. Thomasin pulled her rifle out of its sheath on her back and settled into her task with an ease begotten of experience. As Nathaniel was so fond of saying: ex-soldiers were called ‘veterans’ for a reason.
Thomasin had perfected her skills in the middle of a war with the Holy Empire of Eden. She’d seen more active battle than she cared to remember, killed more Edenites than the enemy cared to acknowledge. Soldiers of Eden wore their empire’s colors of white and gold proudly, saying that they had the Goddess on their side and had no need for the traditional camouflage colors of war. As such, Thomasin had learned the basic lesson that any Myridian soldier worth their salt knew: shoot the white.
As it turned out, the Touzel captain had made a poor wardrobe choice this morning.
She’d already taken out three pirates when she’d caught sight of the man’s sharp white shirt and white plumed captain’s hat. Just like that, her conditional response kicked in. The sudden burst of adrenaline made her vision tunnel in on her target like it used to on Ita, giving her an all-natural sniper scope. There was no pause for her to steady her thoughts, there never was in the middle of a war. She exhaled and squeezed the trigger. Red blossomed high on the right side of his chest. Thomasin shot twice more to finish the job but her enemy had dropped behind cover. No matter. They’d unknowingly triggered the trained soldier in Thomasin. She wasn’t going to let this response go to waste.
“Fire at will!” She screamed at her crew to give them free reign then took her own advice. There was a methodology here. Target, kill, duck, and move. Never stay still. Never let your enemy anticipate you. Kill, then keep from being killed.
While Thomasin was knocking off enemies one after the other, Nelly showed her prowess behind the helm, vertically zig-zagging the ship in controlled chaos. She used the side of the ship to shield her crewmates then evened it out so they could take out more Touzels. The crew anticipated her moves, rolling with the ship and Nelly’s tactics in a way that only a ship full of veterans could.
Thomasin saw the moment when the Touzels reconsidered their attack. They could still defeat her ship, everyone knew it, but Thomasin had made it clear that the Harpy would not fall into the sea alone. Contrary to popular belief, ships weren’t destroyed as often as the public liked to think. Pirates had a healthy dose of self-preservation. Most would rather live to fight another day, and it seemed that the Touzels prescribed to that way of thinking. The Touzel crew started firing continuously, giving themselves cover while they flew upwards and northwards.
“Retreat!” Thomasin ordered Nelly. She pushed the ship to flying hard in the opposite direction of the Touzels. Thomasin jumped down onto the main deck. Once the gun fight had started, Bridget had come up out of the hole to help, leaving only Georgiana to stabilize the anchor and avert that potential disaster.
“George, report!”
“We’re stable for now, Captain!” she called up shakily. Georgiana was covered in black smudges from the anchor chain. She and Bridget had constructed a makeshift pulley system with a few reinforced ceiling braces. Georgiana had herself braced against a pile of boxes while she kept a death grip on the free end of the chain and pulled the anchor’s weight partially lifted off the floor. The pulley system distributed a lot of the anchor’s considerable weight but it was obvious that Georgiana would appreciate some help.
“Micajah, help George...” Thomasin started to say. She cut herself off abruptly when she saw the state of her gunner. Micajah and Merripen were straining to drag a cannon away from an unconscious Grace Clare, whose lower body was covered in blood. She’d been crushed.
Thomasin sprinted to Grace Clare and dragged her out of the way of the cannon that had gotten loose of its braces. She screamed for Patty, their surgeon, who dropped out of the rigging covered in scratches but didn’t look much worse for the wear.
Patty immediately took control of the situation. He directed his wife to run down to her kitchen to get the supplies while he quickly triaged Grace Clare. “It’s her left leg,” he told everyone. He yanked out a length of cloth and went about performing a tourniquet to stem the blood flowing freely from her wounds and presenting a real danger.
“Will she be alright?” Thomasin asked bluntly. Losing appendages was still a common danger working on an airship what with all the heavy machinery and dangerous battles. Nine had lost her hand in a similar battle, but the Harpy had been mostly injury free since that accident four years ago.
Patty looked grim. “Maybe. Get her downstairs.”
Micajah and Merripen carefully carried Grace Clare into the makeshift surgery room. Thomasin was tempted to go down and help assist with her gunner but she had to think of the whole crew. Bridget was leaning against the side of the ship while she methodically ripped off the bottom half of her shirt and used it to bandage a long shallow scratch across her side where a bullet had creased her skin.
She saw Thomasin looking her over and attempted a smile. “It’s all good here, Captain. I’ll just drop down and help George, don’t you worry.”
Thomasin knew Nelly was alright, she’d been covering her position after all, so there was only one group left. “Nine!”
“Up here.”
Thomasin recognized the cold tone in Nine’s voice. She braced herself before looking up into the rigging of the main mast. Good thing too. Jacklyn’s corpse was stuck in a knot of ropes and torn sails. Nine was lying on her stomach across the main yard, working to untangle the rigging so she could get Jacklyn out of the mess.
“Shit,” Thomasin cursed. She sheathed her guns and climbed up the rigging to help. She positioned herself under Jacklyn and pushed the body upwards, giving Nine the slack she needed to work the ropes free. Thomasin couldn’t look away because she had to see what Nine was doing, so she was forced to stare at the bullet hole in Jacklyn’s forehead and those wide open, bright blue eyes frozen in death. It didn’t affect Thomasin like she knew it should. She’d retrieved corpses like this before, and even if she hadn’t, she knew how to turn her heart off, at least for now.
“Cecily?” Thomasin asked after the last crew member unaccounted for.
“She fell off when we were breaking the tether,” Nine replied in the same dead voice. She knew how to turn her feelings off too.
Thomasin grabbed at Jacklyn as the corpse fell loose of the ropes. Nine helped her carry the body down the mast, then they dropped it on the deck. They’d put her on ice soon, but right now they had more important things to do, like check the integrity of the ship.
Nine looked over the ship. “Damage?”
Thomasin ran down the problems she knew of and told her about Grace Clare. Nine only nodded. “I’ll get everyone that isn’t helping Patty to check the Harpy over.”
Thomasin nodded and they parted ways, Nine heading below-deck and Thomasin going up to the helm. “Alright, Nelly?”
Nelly was standing stiffly in front of the wheel. She didn’t even look at Thomasin as she said. “I can get us back to Asparas by dawn.”
“I can take over here. Go help Nine.”
The pilot didn’t move at all. Thomasin looked Nelly over again. She wasn’t bleeding anywhere, but she’d obviously taken a hit emotionally. “What’s wrong?”
Nelly tightened her grip on the ship’s wheel until her knuckles turned white. “I saw Cecily fall. I pulled it too sharply. She didn’t have time to grab anything.”
Thomasin looked Nelly square in the eyes. ”Don’t you dare blame yourself for that. If you weren’t such a crack pilot we’d all be dead now.”
Nelly shook her head and two tears finally slid down her cheeks. “Just like Cecily?”
“Cecily should have held on harder,” Thomasin said bluntly. She pulled Nelly’s hands off the wheel and clutched them in hers. Nelly was shaking, barely holding it together after the rush of adrenaline she’d been riding high on for so long diminished. Thomasin didn’t coddle her. She knew that a soft emotion would break Nelly to pieces, and the hard truth was Thomasin needed every crew member she had available right now. “I need you to check the engine room. Run a quick diagnostic and see if we can make it back to Asparas in one go. Then go help George and Bridget rig up something more permanent to keep that anchor from falling.”
Nelly sucked in a deep breath and composed herself. Though they were still shaking, she pulled her hands out of Thomasin’s and wiped the tears away. “Yes Cap’n.”
Thomasin stepped up to the ship’s wheel with ease while Nelly hurried away to carry out her orders. Thomasin was aware that the Harpy had just performed a miracle. Getting out of a Cloud Drop was something that only the best could lay claim to. Still, Thomasin was also aware that, while they hadn’t lost, they certainly hadn’t won today either.
Thomasin turned the ship towards Myridia and faced the truth. Sometimes that was the best anyone could ask for.
Title: Cloud Drop
Prompts: Green Cheese #8: meteor show, Heavenly Hash #16: higher law + cherry (battle scene)
Rating: R
Characters: Harpy Crew, Touzel Crew
Summary: Takes place on the second trip out during the Touzel arc. The Harpy knew it couldn’t stay under the Touzel’s radar for long. This is the battle that leads up to the ‘Viragos live with the consequences’ pocky in this.
I had a lot of fun writing this; it was like playing Battleship but with an extra dimension! This is my first time writing such an action-heavy battle scene, and I would really like to improve my writing in that area. As such, I would greatly appreciate some constructive comments on this! :)
“Captain-”
Thomasin made a sharp motion to cut off Ransom’s quiet call. She didn’t want to take any chance that the Touzel ship would hear them and be able to pinpoint their location.
It had been pure luck that they’d come across a Touzel ship in the middle of an enormous cumulus cloud formation. Thomasin recognized the ship as one of the Touzel’s flagships, equipped with their most fanatical pirates and captained by one of Silas’ immediate family. There was no way that Thomasin was going to face off with a Touzel that high up in the food chain just yet so she’d told Nelly to hide in the middle of a cloud and turn off all the engines, letting them float on the air currents with the clouds. Hiding in a cloud was a dangerous bet. The key was not being found because, if you were, you’d never see the attack coming.
This wasn’t the first time that the Harpy had used cloud cover. They knew what they were doing, and with Nelly at the helm, they should be safe. Still, Thomasin had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. A sense of foreboding that she’d learned in the military to never ignore. Meeting this Touzel wasn’t an accident, she could feel it. The Harpy had been sought out, no doubt to exact some piratical vengeance for taking over their idiot cousin’s ship.
A soft creak of wood made Thomasin’s stomach drop. It’d come from above the Harpy. Close above.
Nine heard it too. She caught Thomasin’s eyes and confirmed her suspicion.
They’d been found.
“Cloud Drop!” Thomasin screamed. A Cloud Drop was a dirty move by anyone’s standards. The attacking ship used the cloud cover to get directly above its target then threw down their anchors and lodged them in their target’s hull. This served two purposes, tethering the ship below them into place so they knew exactly where their enemy was in the low visibility conditions, and it made the target ship no longer air-worthy because of the giant holes in the middle of it. Meanwhile the attacking ship could shoot away to its heart’s content but there was no way of knowing the condition if the target ship. There was no surrendering in a Cloud Drop; only destruction.
Thomasin’s warning came a second too late. Nelly spun the wheel, jerking the ship so hard to port that it tilted dangerously off-balance just as three steel anchors dropped down from the Touzel ship directly above them.. Two anchors whizzed past the side of the Harpy, but the last one crashed through the main deck and embedded itself in the hull. The ship bucked backwards, suddenly tethered into placed just like the Touzel’s wanted.
During all of these tactical maneuvers, the Harpy crew had leapt into action, grabbing the nearest hold to keep from falling over the edge of their wildly tilting ship. That is, all but their newest member, who had no reason to know what to expect in such a situation. Georgiana shrieked as she lost her balance and fell hard on the deck. She slid down the steep slope, grabbing wildly for anything to stop her deadly fall.
A set of strong hands snatched at her, stopping her downward progress abruptly. Nine had braced herself against the main mast with her legs. She jerked Georgiana back up until the smaller woman could also get a foothold.
“Go with Bridget and saw off the anchor!” Nine yelled over the din of gunfire the Harpy was shooting upwards blindly.
Bridget was already scooting down the massive hole the anchor had created in the deck. Keeping a firm hold on a rope from the mast, she quickly rappelled to the offending hole. “Bridget!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Thomasin saw Bridget pull Georgiana down with her into the hull to take care of the anchor. The trick to their task was cutting the tether but not allowing the anchor to fall through the hull. A hole that big in the bottom of their ship was not something they could easily recover from.
Thomasin couldn’t worry about that, it was Bridget and Georgiana’s job now. She had to focus on countering the Touzels. There was a way to inflict damage on a ship above yours, but it was dangerous. A ship’s hull was a weak point, the Touzels essentially had their belly exposed with this maneuver. It was still a good move though because anything the Harpy shot upwards had to come back down. Debris would rain down on them in a deadly shower of splintered wood and twisted metal. It was enough to stop most victims of this underhanded move, who, instead of attacking, just tried to escape. But Thomasin had never been the type of woman to take defeat lying down. She had a talented crew, it was time to put them to the test.
Thomasin started shooting off orders. “Grace Clare, Micajah, Merripen! Portside cannons on my mark! Nine, Jacklyn, Patty, Cook, Cecily! Light them up! We’re bucking! Brace yourselves!”
Nelly straightened out the ship and the crew used the momentary balance to their advantage. Grace Clare and the men loaded the three cannons while Ransom ran between them, restocking the supplies. Nine ran up the mast and grabbed hold of the ropes, climbing into the rigging with her team close at her heels.
“Give us some slack,” Thomasin ordered Nelly. Nelly obliged, raising the ship upwards. The metal chain attached to the offending anchor loosened. They had to be careful not to go too high up or the Touzels would counter by flying further upwards. The advantage to performing a Cloud Drop lied in remaining invisible to their target. The lower ship had a general idea of where the higher ship was because of the anchor line, but the thick clouds kept them from being able to pinpoint their location and that’s how the Touzels liked it.
Cannons boomed above them. Everyone ducked from the unknown fire while Nelly jerked the ship, trying to avoid what she couldn’t see. It didn’t work well, three cannon balls came whizzing down through their rigging, slashing up the sails and tearing smaller holes into the deck. Thomasin yelled at her crew to move quicker. Taking the defensive was a losing battle here, she needed to hit the Touzels back.
Thomasin spotted Nine and the others at the very top of the Harpy’s rigging. Each of them had a flare gun pointed upwards into the thick fog. Grace Clare was also ready, having braced the cannons at a ninety degree angle to the deck. Thomasin looked back at Nelly. Her pilot nodded resolutely, her fingers tapping rhythmically on the wheel in anticipation. The only way to fight your way out of a Cloud Drop was with a three pronged attack that had to be timed to perfection.
She held up her arm. Now or never.
“Nine!” she roared.
“Fire!” Nine yelled. The five people in the rigging shot upwards, all at slightly different angles to spread out their search radius. Two of the flares hit the hull of the Touzel ship, splitting into a ring of sparks.
Thomasin slashed her arm downwards. “Fire!”
Grace Clare and the boys had adjusted their cannons to the proper angle as soon as they’d seen the flares hit their mark. They set their weapons off then grabbed at the railing in anticipation.
“Move it!” Thomasin screamed but Nelly was already turning the wheel wildly. The Harpy jerked backwards as far as the anchor chain would let her, then Nelly pushed her hard to port, staying just this side of capsizing as she cleared them out of the area.
Everyone heard the thick crash of metal hitting wood, then the debris fell, the bulk of it falling beyond the Harpy’s nose but some crashed through the bowspirit, jerking the front sails forward then letting them whip free dangerously.
A good start.
“Reload!” Thomasin ordered at the same time she heard Nine direct two of the crew to secure the sails. Her crew worked like a crew should, all performing with skill at top speed. They ducked whenever they heard cannonfire then got right back to the job. She could just hear the low buzz of the aether saw belowdeck where Georgiana and Bridget were working double time to release their tether. It would take time though. That’s what Thomasin was intent on buying them with their counter attacks.
She held up her arm and it started again.
“Nine!”
“Fire!”
Three flares hit directly above them.
“Fire!”
Their cannons shot then a split second later the ship spun left, nearly knocking Thomasin off her feet. The debris missed them entirely this time.
“Reload!”
The crew got into the rhythm of battle, pushing themselves to perform at their highest level while their senses were also working overtime to try to adjust to a blind fight. Thomasin directed them, all the while keeping track of the Touzels pattern. They were trying to stay right above the Harpy but Nelly’s wild movements and Thomasin’s quick successive attacks had put them on the defensive. Still, they had the advantage and they used it ruthlessly, keeping their ship as close to the Harpy as possible so it could do the most damage to her ship. The third time they attacked, Nelly steered the wrong direction and the debris came crashing down through the rigging. Thomasin called up a warning but Nine was already on the ball, throwing herself out of the way while screaming at everyone else to do the same. No bodies came tumbling down with the debris so Thomasin stayed focused.
They were reloading for their fifth round of attack when the high whine of the aether saw belowdeck cut off. The ship jerked downwards and Nelly yelled. “We’re free!”
“Keep that anchor secure, Bridget!” Thomasin ordered down, even while her mind was scrambling for their next move. The Touzels would know they’d cut loose. Nelly was already racing the ship forwards, away from the last known place of the Touzel ship. But running away wasn’t the right thing to do, Thomasin could feel it. The Touzels would catch them and try another Cloud Drop. The Harpy wouldn’t luck out twice. She needed to face this now.
“Nelly, go up.”
Nelly hazarded a look of shock over at Thomasin but didn’t question the order. She guided the Harpy up through the clouds while Thomasin turned to her crew. “We face them now! Prepare yourself!”
Grace Clare yelled at the boys to push their cannons back down parallel to the deck, working double time to get them into position for the more traditional air battle that she excelled at. Nine was also moving, her team following her down into the lower rigging where their position would be more stable and better covered.
Thomasin could see the clouds thinning, could feel the cloud break. Like a dolphin jumping out of the sea, the Harpy suddenly cleared through the clouds. As she expected the Touzels were flying above the clouds, chasing hard on their tails, but they hadn’t expected them to come up to play. Thomasin loved having the upper hand.
“Fire!” she screamed. The Touzel ship pulled hard to port but it was too late. Grace Clare’s cannons shot straight through Touzel’s bow, shredding their hull. Nelly pulled the ship forward close enough for a gun fight but not close enough that the Touzels could board.
“Now, Nine!”
“Fire at will!” Nine yelled to her team. Gunfire blasted from their rigging, using their higher angle to their advantage while they took out the Touzel gunners and caused chaos on the deck.
While Thomasin kept control over Grace Clare and Nine’s actions, she also had a new responsibility with this change of battle tactics. The helm was necessarily on the upper deck so that the pilot had a clear 360 degree view of her surroundings. That also meant pilots were prime targets in a gun fight. Thomasin had no intention of losing Nelly’s superb flying abilities just yet, so it was her responsibility to take out any threats aimed in their direction. Thomasin pulled her rifle out of its sheath on her back and settled into her task with an ease begotten of experience. As Nathaniel was so fond of saying: ex-soldiers were called ‘veterans’ for a reason.
Thomasin had perfected her skills in the middle of a war with the Holy Empire of Eden. She’d seen more active battle than she cared to remember, killed more Edenites than the enemy cared to acknowledge. Soldiers of Eden wore their empire’s colors of white and gold proudly, saying that they had the Goddess on their side and had no need for the traditional camouflage colors of war. As such, Thomasin had learned the basic lesson that any Myridian soldier worth their salt knew: shoot the white.
As it turned out, the Touzel captain had made a poor wardrobe choice this morning.
She’d already taken out three pirates when she’d caught sight of the man’s sharp white shirt and white plumed captain’s hat. Just like that, her conditional response kicked in. The sudden burst of adrenaline made her vision tunnel in on her target like it used to on Ita, giving her an all-natural sniper scope. There was no pause for her to steady her thoughts, there never was in the middle of a war. She exhaled and squeezed the trigger. Red blossomed high on the right side of his chest. Thomasin shot twice more to finish the job but her enemy had dropped behind cover. No matter. They’d unknowingly triggered the trained soldier in Thomasin. She wasn’t going to let this response go to waste.
“Fire at will!” She screamed at her crew to give them free reign then took her own advice. There was a methodology here. Target, kill, duck, and move. Never stay still. Never let your enemy anticipate you. Kill, then keep from being killed.
While Thomasin was knocking off enemies one after the other, Nelly showed her prowess behind the helm, vertically zig-zagging the ship in controlled chaos. She used the side of the ship to shield her crewmates then evened it out so they could take out more Touzels. The crew anticipated her moves, rolling with the ship and Nelly’s tactics in a way that only a ship full of veterans could.
Thomasin saw the moment when the Touzels reconsidered their attack. They could still defeat her ship, everyone knew it, but Thomasin had made it clear that the Harpy would not fall into the sea alone. Contrary to popular belief, ships weren’t destroyed as often as the public liked to think. Pirates had a healthy dose of self-preservation. Most would rather live to fight another day, and it seemed that the Touzels prescribed to that way of thinking. The Touzel crew started firing continuously, giving themselves cover while they flew upwards and northwards.
“Retreat!” Thomasin ordered Nelly. She pushed the ship to flying hard in the opposite direction of the Touzels. Thomasin jumped down onto the main deck. Once the gun fight had started, Bridget had come up out of the hole to help, leaving only Georgiana to stabilize the anchor and avert that potential disaster.
“George, report!”
“We’re stable for now, Captain!” she called up shakily. Georgiana was covered in black smudges from the anchor chain. She and Bridget had constructed a makeshift pulley system with a few reinforced ceiling braces. Georgiana had herself braced against a pile of boxes while she kept a death grip on the free end of the chain and pulled the anchor’s weight partially lifted off the floor. The pulley system distributed a lot of the anchor’s considerable weight but it was obvious that Georgiana would appreciate some help.
“Micajah, help George...” Thomasin started to say. She cut herself off abruptly when she saw the state of her gunner. Micajah and Merripen were straining to drag a cannon away from an unconscious Grace Clare, whose lower body was covered in blood. She’d been crushed.
Thomasin sprinted to Grace Clare and dragged her out of the way of the cannon that had gotten loose of its braces. She screamed for Patty, their surgeon, who dropped out of the rigging covered in scratches but didn’t look much worse for the wear.
Patty immediately took control of the situation. He directed his wife to run down to her kitchen to get the supplies while he quickly triaged Grace Clare. “It’s her left leg,” he told everyone. He yanked out a length of cloth and went about performing a tourniquet to stem the blood flowing freely from her wounds and presenting a real danger.
“Will she be alright?” Thomasin asked bluntly. Losing appendages was still a common danger working on an airship what with all the heavy machinery and dangerous battles. Nine had lost her hand in a similar battle, but the Harpy had been mostly injury free since that accident four years ago.
Patty looked grim. “Maybe. Get her downstairs.”
Micajah and Merripen carefully carried Grace Clare into the makeshift surgery room. Thomasin was tempted to go down and help assist with her gunner but she had to think of the whole crew. Bridget was leaning against the side of the ship while she methodically ripped off the bottom half of her shirt and used it to bandage a long shallow scratch across her side where a bullet had creased her skin.
She saw Thomasin looking her over and attempted a smile. “It’s all good here, Captain. I’ll just drop down and help George, don’t you worry.”
Thomasin knew Nelly was alright, she’d been covering her position after all, so there was only one group left. “Nine!”
“Up here.”
Thomasin recognized the cold tone in Nine’s voice. She braced herself before looking up into the rigging of the main mast. Good thing too. Jacklyn’s corpse was stuck in a knot of ropes and torn sails. Nine was lying on her stomach across the main yard, working to untangle the rigging so she could get Jacklyn out of the mess.
“Shit,” Thomasin cursed. She sheathed her guns and climbed up the rigging to help. She positioned herself under Jacklyn and pushed the body upwards, giving Nine the slack she needed to work the ropes free. Thomasin couldn’t look away because she had to see what Nine was doing, so she was forced to stare at the bullet hole in Jacklyn’s forehead and those wide open, bright blue eyes frozen in death. It didn’t affect Thomasin like she knew it should. She’d retrieved corpses like this before, and even if she hadn’t, she knew how to turn her heart off, at least for now.
“Cecily?” Thomasin asked after the last crew member unaccounted for.
“She fell off when we were breaking the tether,” Nine replied in the same dead voice. She knew how to turn her feelings off too.
Thomasin grabbed at Jacklyn as the corpse fell loose of the ropes. Nine helped her carry the body down the mast, then they dropped it on the deck. They’d put her on ice soon, but right now they had more important things to do, like check the integrity of the ship.
Nine looked over the ship. “Damage?”
Thomasin ran down the problems she knew of and told her about Grace Clare. Nine only nodded. “I’ll get everyone that isn’t helping Patty to check the Harpy over.”
Thomasin nodded and they parted ways, Nine heading below-deck and Thomasin going up to the helm. “Alright, Nelly?”
Nelly was standing stiffly in front of the wheel. She didn’t even look at Thomasin as she said. “I can get us back to Asparas by dawn.”
“I can take over here. Go help Nine.”
The pilot didn’t move at all. Thomasin looked Nelly over again. She wasn’t bleeding anywhere, but she’d obviously taken a hit emotionally. “What’s wrong?”
Nelly tightened her grip on the ship’s wheel until her knuckles turned white. “I saw Cecily fall. I pulled it too sharply. She didn’t have time to grab anything.”
Thomasin looked Nelly square in the eyes. ”Don’t you dare blame yourself for that. If you weren’t such a crack pilot we’d all be dead now.”
Nelly shook her head and two tears finally slid down her cheeks. “Just like Cecily?”
“Cecily should have held on harder,” Thomasin said bluntly. She pulled Nelly’s hands off the wheel and clutched them in hers. Nelly was shaking, barely holding it together after the rush of adrenaline she’d been riding high on for so long diminished. Thomasin didn’t coddle her. She knew that a soft emotion would break Nelly to pieces, and the hard truth was Thomasin needed every crew member she had available right now. “I need you to check the engine room. Run a quick diagnostic and see if we can make it back to Asparas in one go. Then go help George and Bridget rig up something more permanent to keep that anchor from falling.”
Nelly sucked in a deep breath and composed herself. Though they were still shaking, she pulled her hands out of Thomasin’s and wiped the tears away. “Yes Cap’n.”
Thomasin stepped up to the ship’s wheel with ease while Nelly hurried away to carry out her orders. Thomasin was aware that the Harpy had just performed a miracle. Getting out of a Cloud Drop was something that only the best could lay claim to. Still, Thomasin was also aware that, while they hadn’t lost, they certainly hadn’t won today either.
Thomasin turned the ship towards Myridia and faced the truth. Sometimes that was the best anyone could ask for.