So at this point I need a steampunk icon
somebody kindly punch me.
Tenma knew precisely six things about airships:
1) They fly.
2) There are approximately eight ship classes: Cargo, Armament, Transport, Cruise, Warship, Wargliders, Skids, and Skimmers. The 'approximately' is because Skids and Skimmers do the same thing, but one is for racing and the other is not.
3) They have a bow.
4) They have a stern.
5) The left side is called 'port' and the right side is called 'starboard'.
6) The engine gets very hot and the room in which it resides does not a good hiding place make.
This last point was why Tenma was left-handed. However, it was his only truly distinctive physical feature: he was of average height with average straight brown hair cut in a popular style, with brown eyes and skin neither terribly light nor terribly dark, a slightly crooked nose and big-ish feet.
He also had a photographic memory and a head for numbers.
At the moment, Tenma was running for his life. Maybe, he reflected, he knew seven things about airships:
7) While airborne, there aren't many places to go when running for your life.
*
The Hobarten IV was a Cargo class airship, and largely indistinct from its three brothers except that the regular crew was certified to carry guns. The captain, vice-captain, cargo-mate, maintenance captain, and lookout all wore these prominently; the lookout in particular, not much older than seventeen, held his nose in the air and jutted his hip to show off his six-shooter with pride. The reason for all the security was that the Hobarten was authorized to carry Treasury property, which it generally did without ceremony, pomp, or circumstance. As was practice, a Confederate marshal accompanied the shipment, gleaming rifle tipped with traditional bayonet glinting against his perfectly crisp uniform. Also as was practice, one Treasury agent joined him incognito and integrated himself into the crew. This agent was Tenma.
Tenma would later be of the opinion this was the government's fault, for splitting his attention.
Not quite sixteen himself, Tenma fit neatly into the cargo crew. He helped haul boxes under the watchful eye of the cargo-mate and the marshal. Neither knew who he was, and wouldn't unless he pulled his own three-shooter from where it was strapped to his calf.
Tenma was told that airship takeoffs were truly amazing - watching the rivers become streams of painted blue, seeing cotton rows like quilted patches, horses and buggies rendered into toys below: Tenma had no idea, nor did he want to know. It wasn't precisely that he was afraid of heights, but rather that heights did not much like him and he had, since the age of three, managed to fall off most anything that was taller than himself when he climbed it. This always happened the moment he looked down, and so he had developed a sort of superstition about looking down unless his feet were firmly on the earth. This fortunately made a good excuse to curl up atop the Treasury shipment - as if he somehow didn't realize precisely what he was sitting on - and read a book while the crew waved off the voyage on the deck above.
In ten hours they would land in Richmond, VA.
Tenma often felt his interest in how airships worked should have been greater. They ran on steam, and ninety percent of the labor force would spend the entirety of the voyage shoveling coal into the engine. Ten propellers kept the ship aloft and three pulled it through the air, while the stern sail provided steering. Quite a lot of math went into engineering the technological wonders, and yet the only math Tenma tended to do in relation to airships was 'how far would the Hobarten fall if one of the propellers stopped working?' (Losing ten percent of his lift would drop him three hundred feet at a full load.)
The Hobarten being such a large ship meant he carried a crew of nearly one hundred (ninety-five, to be precise). Of these ninety-five only eight were regular crew members, the rest interchangeable by the day for menial labor. One hour into the Hobarten's eight-sixth flight, thirteen crew members plus the Confederate marshal were dead.
Mutiny. It was what happened on other ships.
Tenma crouched in the engine room, counting seconds under his breath. The whirring pistons, the sound of coal being shoveled, shoveled, shoveled, and the roar of the propellers drowned out the sound of his voice even to his own ears. The light was poor here and he was sweating buckets into his cotton shirt, but he hurriedly unrolled the sheaf of papers in his arms, now creased and torn from his grip, across the stained-black floor. Schematics greeted him, numbers and figures that meant very little to Tenma peppering the margins; he read them all, squinting and panting for breath, his hands trembling. He wasn't squeezed next to the boiler, but he kept checking the back of his right hand anyway, instinctively glancing to ensure he wasn't touching something he shouldn't.
"There ya are, ya little pipsqueak!" a coal-smeared face loomed into the space Tenma had squeezed into.
Tenma let out a terribly unmanly squeak, fell backwards, and kicked the man in the jaw.
He felt more than heard the bones crack beneath his booted toes. Bloody saliva spattered against the man's lips and flecked across the pipes of the engine room; so stunned, when Tenma scrambled past him he only made a feeble grab for Tenma's ankle before the boy darted by. Tenma didn't look back. Slipping on coal dust, he half-fell half-ran from his least favorite part of the airship while startled engine crew looked on. He slammed a swinging door open with his shoulder and skidded on blood - the maintenance captain's body was propped in a chair, throat slit from ear to ear. Iron-salt smell made the air thick.
Tenma barely took a glance, but the sight was seared into his memory regardless. Gagging, he staggered towards the narrow stairway that led to the captain's office where he leaned heavily on the railing and groped at his calf for his three-shooter. "Went the wrong way," he gasped to himself, but the truth was his odds were better getting into the captain's office than trying for the parachutes in the crew quarters with only three bullets. He crouched, tucked the schematics under his elbow, and crawled up the stairs as rapidly as he dared.
Ninety-five crew members plus the marshal. Five were officers, and likely all six of them were dead. Seventy-eight crew members for the engine room and other below-deck flying apparatus; it would only take three to five petty officers amongst them to be in on the mutiny to make it work. So at most there were seventeen conspirators, and between them a total of thirty-one bullets, eight of which had already been used in Tenma's hearing.
He could see one cargoman standing in front of the back door to the captain's office when he half-stood out of his crouch; he held his gun near his ear, pointing it skywards, and scowling as he looked back and forth in a businesslike manner. Tenma breathed in, braced his shoulder against the wall, and took aim with both hands before firing once with a loud popping sound that deafened Tenma instantly.
The man dropped. Tenma scrambled up the switchback and kicked the gun out of the man's hand, not bothering to check if he was still alive (truthfully, he didn't want to know if he'd killed him). Without hesitating he twisted the knob on the officer's door and pushed it inwards, throwing his shoulder against the wall and leading with his gun to sweep the room--
And the five shocked mutineers inside.
"Sorry," Tenma said, and turned, and fled.
Tenma knew precisely six things about airships:
1) They fly.
2) There are approximately eight ship classes: Cargo, Armament, Transport, Cruise, Warship, Wargliders, Skids, and Skimmers. The 'approximately' is because Skids and Skimmers do the same thing, but one is for racing and the other is not.
3) They have a bow.
4) They have a stern.
5) The left side is called 'port' and the right side is called 'starboard'.
6) The engine gets very hot and the room in which it resides does not a good hiding place make.
This last point was why Tenma was left-handed. However, it was his only truly distinctive physical feature: he was of average height with average straight brown hair cut in a popular style, with brown eyes and skin neither terribly light nor terribly dark, a slightly crooked nose and big-ish feet.
He also had a photographic memory and a head for numbers.
At the moment, Tenma was running for his life. Maybe, he reflected, he knew seven things about airships:
7) While airborne, there aren't many places to go when running for your life.
*
The Hobarten IV was a Cargo class airship, and largely indistinct from its three brothers except that the regular crew was certified to carry guns. The captain, vice-captain, cargo-mate, maintenance captain, and lookout all wore these prominently; the lookout in particular, not much older than seventeen, held his nose in the air and jutted his hip to show off his six-shooter with pride. The reason for all the security was that the Hobarten was authorized to carry Treasury property, which it generally did without ceremony, pomp, or circumstance. As was practice, a Confederate marshal accompanied the shipment, gleaming rifle tipped with traditional bayonet glinting against his perfectly crisp uniform. Also as was practice, one Treasury agent joined him incognito and integrated himself into the crew. This agent was Tenma.
Tenma would later be of the opinion this was the government's fault, for splitting his attention.
Not quite sixteen himself, Tenma fit neatly into the cargo crew. He helped haul boxes under the watchful eye of the cargo-mate and the marshal. Neither knew who he was, and wouldn't unless he pulled his own three-shooter from where it was strapped to his calf.
Tenma was told that airship takeoffs were truly amazing - watching the rivers become streams of painted blue, seeing cotton rows like quilted patches, horses and buggies rendered into toys below: Tenma had no idea, nor did he want to know. It wasn't precisely that he was afraid of heights, but rather that heights did not much like him and he had, since the age of three, managed to fall off most anything that was taller than himself when he climbed it. This always happened the moment he looked down, and so he had developed a sort of superstition about looking down unless his feet were firmly on the earth. This fortunately made a good excuse to curl up atop the Treasury shipment - as if he somehow didn't realize precisely what he was sitting on - and read a book while the crew waved off the voyage on the deck above.
In ten hours they would land in Richmond, VA.
Tenma often felt his interest in how airships worked should have been greater. They ran on steam, and ninety percent of the labor force would spend the entirety of the voyage shoveling coal into the engine. Ten propellers kept the ship aloft and three pulled it through the air, while the stern sail provided steering. Quite a lot of math went into engineering the technological wonders, and yet the only math Tenma tended to do in relation to airships was 'how far would the Hobarten fall if one of the propellers stopped working?' (Losing ten percent of his lift would drop him three hundred feet at a full load.)
The Hobarten being such a large ship meant he carried a crew of nearly one hundred (ninety-five, to be precise). Of these ninety-five only eight were regular crew members, the rest interchangeable by the day for menial labor. One hour into the Hobarten's eight-sixth flight, thirteen crew members plus the Confederate marshal were dead.
Mutiny. It was what happened on other ships.
Tenma crouched in the engine room, counting seconds under his breath. The whirring pistons, the sound of coal being shoveled, shoveled, shoveled, and the roar of the propellers drowned out the sound of his voice even to his own ears. The light was poor here and he was sweating buckets into his cotton shirt, but he hurriedly unrolled the sheaf of papers in his arms, now creased and torn from his grip, across the stained-black floor. Schematics greeted him, numbers and figures that meant very little to Tenma peppering the margins; he read them all, squinting and panting for breath, his hands trembling. He wasn't squeezed next to the boiler, but he kept checking the back of his right hand anyway, instinctively glancing to ensure he wasn't touching something he shouldn't.
"There ya are, ya little pipsqueak!" a coal-smeared face loomed into the space Tenma had squeezed into.
Tenma let out a terribly unmanly squeak, fell backwards, and kicked the man in the jaw.
He felt more than heard the bones crack beneath his booted toes. Bloody saliva spattered against the man's lips and flecked across the pipes of the engine room; so stunned, when Tenma scrambled past him he only made a feeble grab for Tenma's ankle before the boy darted by. Tenma didn't look back. Slipping on coal dust, he half-fell half-ran from his least favorite part of the airship while startled engine crew looked on. He slammed a swinging door open with his shoulder and skidded on blood - the maintenance captain's body was propped in a chair, throat slit from ear to ear. Iron-salt smell made the air thick.
Tenma barely took a glance, but the sight was seared into his memory regardless. Gagging, he staggered towards the narrow stairway that led to the captain's office where he leaned heavily on the railing and groped at his calf for his three-shooter. "Went the wrong way," he gasped to himself, but the truth was his odds were better getting into the captain's office than trying for the parachutes in the crew quarters with only three bullets. He crouched, tucked the schematics under his elbow, and crawled up the stairs as rapidly as he dared.
Ninety-five crew members plus the marshal. Five were officers, and likely all six of them were dead. Seventy-eight crew members for the engine room and other below-deck flying apparatus; it would only take three to five petty officers amongst them to be in on the mutiny to make it work. So at most there were seventeen conspirators, and between them a total of thirty-one bullets, eight of which had already been used in Tenma's hearing.
He could see one cargoman standing in front of the back door to the captain's office when he half-stood out of his crouch; he held his gun near his ear, pointing it skywards, and scowling as he looked back and forth in a businesslike manner. Tenma breathed in, braced his shoulder against the wall, and took aim with both hands before firing once with a loud popping sound that deafened Tenma instantly.
The man dropped. Tenma scrambled up the switchback and kicked the gun out of the man's hand, not bothering to check if he was still alive (truthfully, he didn't want to know if he'd killed him). Without hesitating he twisted the knob on the officer's door and pushed it inwards, throwing his shoulder against the wall and leading with his gun to sweep the room--
And the five shocked mutineers inside.
"Sorry," Tenma said, and turned, and fled.