Between the Threads
-or-
what came after the Cold One Queen
And Before
The Search for George
-------------------------------------------------------------
Book 1
Shanghai Knife
Chapter 12: Battle Rejoined"On second thought, lemme go ahead and fix the engine now," Dreyfuss said, and thought to himself,
thank the Powers Patrick didn't mind me bein' a white flamer. He let the whitefire build around his hands, and then Grabbed the side of the (still cold, but warming) boiler, and concentrated on fixing the machinery of teh engines. There was a moment when the entire construct shone with a white light, and then the scuttle screamed like a metal banshee, and there was a blinding flash mixed with the sound of metallic grinding and crunching. When their eyes had readjusted, Jock and Tim saw that Dreyfuss had already left for the bridge -- but now the automatic scuttle was fixed, the gearing was no longer out of alignment, and the steam expansion cylinders and water conservation system were all back in synch and in working order. Jock brought the engines online when the full head of steam was available, and left the gearing for the ducted centrifugal fans at Revolving Idle. Then, he noticed that all of the bodies were gone as well; in their places were small piles of fine, white ash.
When Dreyfuss entered the Bridge, Irene was threatening right back at the aetherphone, on which one of the Pirate captains, Malcolm Dermott of the former RTAF
James Fannin, which had seen the other two aerial ironclads beating against the wind upriver, and had come to investigate and join th chase. The
Fannin had turrets fore and aft, and Hullbuster (A type invented by an early Marauder gunnery technician in the previous century for use against ocean-going line ships) deck-guns in angle-armored casemates between them; it was both larger and faster than either of the other two ships. The voice of the
Fannin's captain was saying, "Listen, Girlie, put Dreyfuss on and let the adults talk awhile. I'm sure he can work out a reasonable surrender."
Irene belted back, with absolutely malevolent sweetness, "oh, come on, now, you shouildn't let a girl win so easily. At least put up a
little bit of a fight!"
Incoherent vocalizations and what sounded like curses in Nepalese, of all lingoes, were all that could be heard from the other end. Dreyfuss gently took the handset from Irene, and said, "she speaks for me, Mally, and by the way, you're still a jackass in a blue 'shipman's coat," and turned the Aetherphone transceiver set over to Pulsifer's usual frequency, and said clearly, "Scrambling transmission now. Stings on twice and three, make it six hundred and twelve," He thumbed the Interruptor switch over to setting three, and the Delay Cylinder control to speed 4. Dreyfuss and Pulsifer had figured out and used the "scrambling" trick to great effect, in the years after the
Mad Anthony Wayne Affair, when they started their own careers away from the Marauders; When Pulsifer testified as to Dreyfuss' character at the inquest, he'd made mortal rivals and enemies of everyone else in the Marauders, and when Dreyfuss resigned rather than take a desk job, Pulsifer was one of the few who stood by him, and even privateered with him, and helped him to scrounge up money to build the
St. Elmo and modify her gunboat portion.
Of course, the cost had exceeded Dreyfuss' ability to pay, and the ship had been impounded in Galveston, whilst Dreyfuss worked his way across the North American Continent, signing on for brief assignments with various air privateers, a couple of expeditions to the Dark Continent & back again, and finally worked his way across teh atlantic to London, England, where he ultimately signed on with the Boheme, and passed into the pages of history along with the rest of her congenial (to him, at least) crew.
It was interesting to Dreyfuss that he had assumed that the pounding on the hull signalled the snapping of the back of Pulsifer's "camel of patience" under the final straw, thinking that the fellow was finally snapping and calling him out, when in fact it was to warn him of impending danger. Classic Mad Jack Pulsifer, that; the fellow was as unpredictable as a black bear with bees on his butt!
"Dreyf, old bean, I'm a little mad about you takin'
Beau without permission, but we're still comrades," Pulsifer sent, via aetherphone, once he had his own set calibrated to match the
St. Elmo's device. "How do you want to do this?"
Dreyfuss noted that the Pirate 'clads were falling into the old line-of-battle formation. "Let's give 'em a 'Full Nelson,' Jack," he replied, knowing that, if they had figured out the scramble or lucked onto the same frequency, the opposing captains wouldn't have the slightest clue what the order meant. But Pulsifer would; he had been there, after all...
With no more being said, both Dreyfuss and Pulsifer, and Irene as well, knew what was to be done, and so they turned the St.Elmo and the Beau Rosin toward the enemy, and slammed their engines into Ahead Full, while Dreyfuss pulled a lever, and forward of the Steering room, the Ramming Blades, a mask-like cluster of serated, giant-saw-like blades and horn-like giant sickles, angled such that they would rip through the fabric and support members of an opponent's envelope, and smash through anything lower, if it had not dropped due to the demise of the gasbags, swung down from it's resting position beneath the forward portion of the St. Elmo's envelope.
"Irene, If you wouldn't mind, could you still man the gun controls?"
"I'm already here, Cos, you could try looking around a bit more," Irene answered, smirking nastily, but not in an unfriendly way. Much. She was unsure whether or not to mention the body of the helmsman flashing into white ash; she decided it was moot, and that Cousin Jaisen was a man much like Caractacus, the Patriarch of the "Clan of Dreyfuss," was purported to be.
Jaisen rolled his eyes, and said, "Okaay...here we go!" He grabbed the speaking tube as he took control of the engines and slammed the levers to Ahead Full, blew into the mouthpiece, blowing the plug out on the other end and making the whistle in the plug shriek just before it popped out, then yelled into the tube, "Ramming Maneuver! Brace for Impact!" And they braced against their consoles as the
St. Elmo smashed into the envelope of the
Fannin, whose hydrogen lofting caught a spark from the smashed boiler-smoke exhaust funnels, and whooshed into flame as the stricken aerial battlewagon drooped toward the earth. "Starboard broadside, full numbers, on the
Crockett! spray with the coilguns!"
:"Aye! On it!!" Irene called back, then reporting, "
Crockett on fire, but still flying, she's attempting retaliatory fire, but most shots going wild-!" Irene cut off as she saw Pulsifer literally land on the top of the last flying Ironclad, the former RTAF
Moses Austin, and pour what looked like coal oil over the side of the battlescow, drenching the top of the gasbag forward of the
Beau Rosin's position on top; he lifted off suddenly, then dropped what appeared to be a rag-tipped torch, flaming wildly, down onto the
Austin's envelope, the huge gasbag suddenly erupting in flames. Then Mad Jack, living up to his name, dropped down even with the ironclad's casemates, and traded broadside for boadside, until something exploded inside the pirate dirigible, and the outer hull plating around the stern gunports blew outwards in a huge gout of flame and flaming timbers and torn plating. The
Austin's envelope finally caught, and the FWOOOSH of igniting hydrogen filled their ears, and the suspended ironclad fell to earth, smashing itself to splinters and twisted iron on the river rapids below. "Before the Gods, he really
IS mad!" she breathed, almost as if she admired his apparent insanity.
Irene fired the forward three guns on each side of the bow of the gunboat section, the bow's pointed shape and the half-turret mountings allowing a devastating fusillade of crossing fire; the automatic, recoil-actuated ten-pounders, and the constant-feed hopper-magazined coilguns blasted away and made large holes in the surprisingly thin plating of the larger flying ironclad. "WhaHOOO" she crowed, as the shells began exploding deep within the
Crockett.
Dreyfuss grabbed the speaking tube, and yelled, "Jock! Tim! You two OKAY? Give me a damage report!"
-----------------------------------
Jock and Tim were both strapped and clipped into place beside the Engine Console when Dreyfuss sounded the warning klaxon, and blew through the Engineering speaking tube, blowing its whistle-plug and popping it out of the mouthpiece, his voice shouting through, "Ramming Maneuver! Brace for Impact!" they grabbed an extra bit of safety, and held on for dear life as first they were thrown forwards against the pull of their straps, then bounced up and forwards as the third hit from the Crockett detonated, harmlessly, against the starboard stern keel-plates.
"No dammage, Commodore, sir, ' Shouted Jock back through the tube, and followed the report with a stout "Give 'em HELL, Dreyf! -- Uh, er, Sir, I mean...how many enemy survived?"
The answer came back, "Don't worry about it, Jock, and there's only one, badly damaged, but the
Crockett's still fighting back. Going to give 'em two rockets to play with..." And the sound of the rockets THUMPing in their tubes as they were fired sounded loud in the engine room, from teh gun deck above, then the rapidly-fading roar of the rockets exhaust as they arrowed toward their target.
-----------------------------
Down below the clinker-box, the snakelings and their leading sibling crouched, the larger albino Queen hissing a crooning hissssp! of comfort and reassurance. "Mama-queen loved hunter-man, she say so in our mind. Hunter-man will win battle, you will see, we safe here with hunter-man. Bite not hunter-man's big friend and little friend and girl cousin friend, they all good people, not bad like others who stole our home with us inside." The Eldest spat in disgust, "stupid thief-people! They even taste bad!" one of the underlings hisp'd a question, and the Eldest hissped back, lovingly and reaassuringly, "Yes, I will stay with hunter-man. Mama queen and Muscle-man come back for rest of you, take you to good-homes..."
A short time later, the Eldest slithered off, to find the sleeping-place of her new charge, and guard it against all enemies...
Critiques/comments/suggestions are appreciated!
PM me, or send to
mwbailey@hotmail.com---=====<[[/{{"<(|)>")}\]]>=====---