The thunder and lightning increased, as Dreyfuss , Ishmael,Timothy, and Jock struggled to extricate the St. Elmo from the weirdly-unseasonable thunderstorm that has again boiled up just outside of Shanghai.
Dreyfuss had just gotten through telling the tale, of how he and the other crew of the Boheme had defeated both Bryan and Cadens (Timothy, like all lads, eager to hear the details) when suddenly there came a sensation as of a giant fist clamping down on the hybrid zeppelin and yanking it sideways to port, then up several thousand feet, then down ward twice as far, and finally to Starboard for an unguessable distance; all they could be sure of was the wind, whistling past at a blistering speed, and the feeling of inexorable power... then it was over, and the moon came out overhead, drawing Dreyfuss, Irene, and Timothy into one of the nearby empty staterooms to gaze out of the porthole, through which the moon shone on the bare white linoleum
There were many such empty staterooms; the actual optimum crew compliment of an aerial military vessel of the Elmo's size was originally somewhere around 90 to 170; The Foreign office had promised a more sizeable crew, and a marine contingent for the little war-zeppelin, but such a crew and unit had to be created, and then manned from other units, which took a long time, supposedly. The upshot was that there would be at least a one-year, six-month wait, during which Dreyfuss was free to hire professional airmen and a small number of mercenaries to serve until the new unit(s) were available -- but first, they had to take care of the more immediate problem of the kidnapped scion of the peerage. (and of course, finding their way back from wherever they had ended up...)
As they looked out of teh porthole, they saw that they appeared to be in the eye of a storm, as if in a typhoon, but over dry land...and far below, just barely discernible in the moonlight, a sizable village or town, and apparently Jack Pulsifer's blimp far below on the main street of that town (or at least the broadest and longest street visible).
"Well, if that doesn't beat Siberia full o' flyin' squid for strangeness," Dreyfuss said, while Irene looked slightly ill (she was thinking of her beloved flying tank, and how she had crashed from such a height as that at which they were now floating), and Timothy, rather frightened, thinking he might never get home again after all....
Dreyfuss took the Engineering/bridge speaking tube mouthpiece and blew into it, making the whistle in the bridge end of the tube screech and pop out of the tube on that end. Captain Lemuel Ishmael picked up the tube, and said, "Ishmael here."
"Captain," Dreyfuss said, "reduce fan speed and thrust to all ahead 1/2, sternward baffles to full aperture. we don't want to frighten to death whoever's down there with the roar of our fans."
"Aye Commodore, Sir."
The bridge-to engine telegraph display flipped around to All Ahead one-half, and bothof teh fanhousings on teh outside of teh hull made a loud screeching and banging noise, as teh new captain/steersman learned teh basics of controlling the thrust via the baffle mechanism. Al three of teh people in the engineering section winced and clapped their hands to their ears.
"Bloody Cap'n's got a lot ta learn about running this ship!" Irene grated.
"Irene! he can hear you through th' tube!"
"As if I'd care, Cousin dear. He needs to be told he's a true balls-up at it or he won't improve!"
Dreyfuss gave Irene a warning glance before continuing to direct the Cap'n, "And bring us down, slowly, captain; dial out about, say, a thousandthweight of gas per minute for ten minutes, and see what altitude we sink to."
"Aye, Sir, done and doing."
"That is all."
"Aye Sir."
(OOC: The envelope of the
St. Elmo is about the size of the standard Bombing Zeppelin used at about the middle of the First World War. It's the standard rigid Zeppelin envelope, and contains the usual gas Cells, except that they are located in the front and rear of the envelope, with a sizable space left open in teh middle; this serves as a secure hold during operational missions, and is teh exat lenth of teh Obs deck on top of teh envelope, which is currently equipped with
1. a mast, sloop-style rigging (as per general standing British admiralty orders as per riggings of HM ships)
2. a stair house housing the landing for the spiral stairway that winds up all the way from Engineering, has a landing at every level including teh envelope hold, and on up to the Obs deck.
3. one of teh two frontally-shielded deck guns that the vessel will eventually have.
The "gunboat portion" that is mentioned so often is much smaller than the envelope, about the size of, say, the Rea-Life Myth-class gunboats of the Victorian era (HMS
Cockatrice being a very good approximational comparison. The Gunboat Portionan is, in fact, an old iron-hulled, paddle-wheeled gunboat, originally christened
Ariadne, and had in fact been one of the legendary Jean Lafitte's raiding 'clads.
Her paddle wheels have been redesigned and rebuilt into metal-housed, metal-bladed and constructed Centrifugal Ducted Fans, which the
Elmo is geared to turn at very high revs, creating thrust which can be deployed in many different directions, including sideways, upward, downward, sternward and fore-ward. The effect is very like that of having two extremely-powerful jet engines on articulated mounts, and makes the
Elmo capable of high-speed flight, and of flying more slowly without the benefit of lifting cells. (sort of like a harrier, but much larger). her "Ramming Masks" can be lowered from their "benign" positions, and effectively turn the
Elmo into an armed Aerial Ramship. (they have not yet been dismantled for the "D-Hopper" Missions, and will not be for at least one more year in her home dimension-- and yes, she IS going back, as is the Beau Rosin) A very formidable warship indeed.
She has 3 full-sized decks, and a "lumbago deck" at the very bottom, which is used for the storage and manipulation of ballast (most of which is in Liquid form). she has two "castles," the forecastle, at the bow of which is located the Steering Room of the dirigible, and the aft- or after-castle, which houses officer's country, the Officer's mess, and the captain's cabin, and also two diminutive "orderly cabins" and one sizeable "guest" stateroom.
The forecastle, in addition to the Upper Bridge and Steering, also houses five small staterooms (three on starboard, two on Port) there is an open-air "middle deck" between the two castles, and located under the envelope hold portion of the envelope in which the Life Blimps (4) are stored, and has large door panels which can be lifted from inside the envelope and rolled back on rollers to allow access from the middle deck.
The deck immediately below the Castle-and-middle-deck is the gun-deck, in which 12 rotary-repeating, self-reloading Hotchkiss deck guns are mounted in retractable half-turrets, and 4 hopper-fed silver-capable coilguns (similar to, but much simpler and easier to repair than a rail gun) which commonly fire 2 1/2 inch steel ball bearings at such speed that they burn in mid-flight, and rip the air with a hypersonic boom (CRACKK!) (very effective against any target that is vulnerable to heat and/or fire).These are also mounted in retractable half-turrets. In addition, an elevator system lifts ammo to the gun deck from the magazine located on the engineering deck, and down to the rocket-tube hoppers on the ballast deck. the rocket hoppers hold approximately five rockets each; each tube has three hoppers mounted revolver-style so that different types of rockets can be used for diferent purposes, including rocket grapnels. The rockets are electrically triggered, via what we would call something like "mechanically-actuated piezo-electric sparking," but which have a different name in Dreyfuss'/Jack's home multiverse.
one rotary-fed rocket tube in teh stern of teh ship
RTAF St. Elmo's current crew at time of this RP are :
Commodore Sir Jaisen Santiago Dreyfuss, Owner-Master and Commanding Officer
Lt. J.G. Irene Frost
Captain/Steersman Lemuel Ismael
Fireman/Acting Chief Engineer Jock Lough-Malley
The above are considered a Minimal Skeleton Crew.
The St. Elmo is officially classified as "Pocket War Zeppelin: Threat Hunter, Supernatural/Unknown."
She is considered, size- and armament-wise, as about equivalent to a heavily-armed aircruiser.
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I will remove the St. Elmo and crew if y'all prefer. I've been thinking of a possible enemy, but i woud need teh permission of some or all the Steam London bunch.
