Fic: Prisoners of War (cont.)
Jun. 11th, 2010 04:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalOkay, after this chapter Teh Funneh will finally begin. Just had to get the Exciting Action Sequence out of the way first.
“Oh, FRUIT!” Rolas cursed as he jumped up from the malfunctioning camera and ran over to the boiler. Without waiting for Rufus’ orders he began opening the valve to the boiler’s fuel lines, which hissed to life as the water began to heat again. “They’re going to blast us of the sky!” he exclaimed.
“Engage the chain drive,” Rufus ordered, pulling a lever at his station to bring the propellers back from their feathered position. “Don’t worry, Leftenant, they have to find us first.”
The steam engine’s flywheel began to spin, turning the chains leading to the propellers. But slowly, much too slowly as a searchlight beam crossed over the airship’s envelope, then suddenly swung back to pin the control cabin in a blinding beam of light, joined a moment later by the other three questing beams.
“Captain, I must formally request that you stop saying things like that!”
Rufus closed his eyes, grabbing the ballast release by feel and yanking down hard, dropping hundreds of gallons as their little airship shot upwards. It would cost them dearly later when the water in their steam engine fell low, but by that point they would be far enough out to sea to be able to release helium to drop down and siphon more from the ocean if they had to. “Never mind that! How long until we have a full head of steam?”
“Even with the boiler pre-warmed it’ll be at least five minutes.”
“We don’t even need that long. We’re over the harbor already going with the prevailing wind. Two minutes easy.” He squinted at the airspeed indicator. It was reading barely five knots. Add in the five to ten knots of tailwind that was already pushing them and that added up to…
Too bloody slow, he thought, as the first shells from the ack-ack guns began to explode in the air. It seemed a strangely backwards attack from their perspective, a sound of ripping canvas filling the air as the shells were fired upward. Only as the bright after-image of the shells exploding filled their eyes did the finally hear the low crump, crump of the ack-ack firing.
“How long before you think they’ll have our range?” Rolas called out as a shell exploded some hundred arms in front of them.
“Depends on how good they are. They’ve got us pinned with the searchlights, but it’s night and they can’t be sure of our altitude.”
A shell exploded about twenty arms aft and below, and they both automatically ducked as shell fragments pinged off the control cabin’s aluminum bulkhead. Then, over the hissing of the steam engine and the thrumming of the drive chains, they could hear high pitched squeal of gas escaping from the cells in the envelope.
“Patch that! Quickly!”
“Aye, sir!” Rolas snatched a patch kit from a bulkhead compartment and scrambled up the ladder, his protective foot mittens nearly slipping off the rungs in his haste. Rufus did a quick test of the rudder controls, satisfying himself that no cable had been cut. From above in the envelope he heard Rolas shout down, the leftenant’s voice squeaky from breathing in the harmless lift gas. “It’s the number seven and number eight cells. Maybe four holes in seven and three in eight that I can see!”
“Just take care of them!” Another shell exploded to the port, level with the airship, fragments smashing into the windshield and shattering several panes. Rufus pulled on his goggles as the wind pressed against his face at nearly twenty knots as the flywheel turned the props faster and faster. Almost there. One minute and we’ll be out over the ocean, too high up for a patrol boat to fire at us.
It was the firewall, heavy, clunky and necessary to protect their camera which saved Rufus, as the last shell struck the control cabin directly, slicing through the thin aluminum bottom and burying itself in the steam engine’s boiler. The firewall channeled the explosion away from the forward section of the cabin, sending debris back and upward, the blast tearing the airship’s envelope in half, ripping apart all the gas cells aft of numbers one through four. Rufus clutched at the lift/descent wheel with both paws as the undamaged forward gas cells pulled the remnants of the cabin nearly vertical. A whistling sound made him glance backward, to view the extraordinary sight of the back of the control cabin, now open to the sky, giving him a fine view of the harbor below as the burning remnants of the tail section fell towards the sea.
Then, not letting himself have time to mourn the dead leftenant, he let go of the control wheel and rolled out of his seat, falling through the hole.
* * *
It was the heavy coat, designed to protect aircrews from the bitter chill at high altitudes, and his parachute, that saved Rolas. When the shell and boiler exploded they sent hot fragments ripping through the entire after section of envelope. But Rolas had been near very end of the tail, his back to the explosion, trying to press a patch over two holes in the number eight gas cell while using a hot glue gun to secure it. The force of the explosion knocked his forehead against a support spar, but his heavy hood caught most of that blow, though it left his ears ringing. Then the tail rose up in the air briefly as the last two cells expended their gas and he started sliding down the narrow catwalk between the cells as the envelope’s fabric burned around him. An attempt to catch himself on the railing only succeeded in a brief grip before he slipped again and narrowly managed to miss a damaged spar that threatened to impale him. Then he was falling away from the envelope and into the open air, pulling frantically at his parachute’s ripcord.
The parachute jerked open and suddenly he was hanging in the air by the few precious square arms of fabric, rocking back and forth like a pendulum. He looked up, trying to see if Captain Ru Ofanius had escaped as well, only to see at least three gaping holes the size of his open palm in the parachute, left by fragments of exploding boiler that had embedded themselves in the parachute pack. Fruit! I’m dropping too fast! He was just looking back down to try and judge exactly how fast he was dropping when his foot mittens hit the water, plunging him into the icy cold sea, lungs filling with water as he let out a cry of surprise.
Rolas kicked upward, head rising clear just long enough for him to cough up the water and take a breath, before his parachute began to drag him back down into the water. Fumbling and trying not to panic, he tore off his gloves and unbuckled the chute, his padded leather coat pulling off his arms as he shed the dead weight. Then he kicked upward again, finally reaching the surface to gasp for breath as he felt his body begin to shiver.
“Captain! Captain Ru Ofanius!” he called out.
“Above you!” the captain called out. Rolas looked up to see him dangling beneath his own parachute, taking a deep breath before he plunged into the water some fifty arms away. The captain sank down and stayed down, his parachute floating briefly before it disappeared below the surface as well. Rolas swam toward him, cursing the abominable foot mittens that seemed to cling like lead weights to his feet, but which he didn’t dare try to fool with for fear of going under himself once again.
The captain surfaced, spitting out water and gasping for breath, having shed his own parachute and leather coat, before going under again. Rolas tried to swim faster, as Captain Ru Ofanius surfaced again, gasped, then went under once more. He dived down into the dark, paws outstretched, then felt himself bump into something large and soft. Rolas wrapped his arms around his captain and kicked upward one more time, supporting him as Brushtail coughed and spat.
“It’s my bloody… tin arm…” he said between coughs. “It’s all full… of water… and dragging me down. Let go… you idiot… before I take… you with me…”
“Can’t understand you, sir. You’re coughing too much,” Rolas said, tightening his grip and kicking to keep them above the water. Even with the foot mitts he couldn’t feel his toes and his fingers were frozen, locked in a death grip around his captain’s shoulders. “Anyway, we’re likely to freeze to death before we drown.”
“Always the optimist.”
They both turned in the direction of a high pitched whistle which carried out over the water, as a small ship mounted searchlight began scanning the water, focusing on the burning remains of the airship which floated on the surface still.
“Hey!” Rolas shouted. “Hey! We’re over…!” His head went under the water and he came back up spitting more seawater as the light shined down on them. They both heard the putt, putt, putt of the small torpedo boat’s steam turbine as it pulled along side them, and then paws were grabbing hold of them both and pulling them on deck as officer and sailors shouted back and forth to each other in Gerwart.
“Who are you?” a male in a Gerwart officer’s uniform asked in heavily accented Mother’s Tongue. “Were zere others aboard your airship?”
“No, we were the only ones.” Brushtail pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, his black nose gone gray from the incipient hypothermia. “I’m Air Captain Ru Ofanious Brushtail, of the Mother Country Air Corps. My companion is Leftenant Rolas Darktail of the same. We request… we… request immediate… immediate… medical assistance.”
“You shall have it.” The ship’s commander held out his paw. “Welcome aboard, Captain Brushtail. You and your subordinate are now prisoners of war.”
End Chapter One
“Oh, FRUIT!” Rolas cursed as he jumped up from the malfunctioning camera and ran over to the boiler. Without waiting for Rufus’ orders he began opening the valve to the boiler’s fuel lines, which hissed to life as the water began to heat again. “They’re going to blast us of the sky!” he exclaimed.
“Engage the chain drive,” Rufus ordered, pulling a lever at his station to bring the propellers back from their feathered position. “Don’t worry, Leftenant, they have to find us first.”
The steam engine’s flywheel began to spin, turning the chains leading to the propellers. But slowly, much too slowly as a searchlight beam crossed over the airship’s envelope, then suddenly swung back to pin the control cabin in a blinding beam of light, joined a moment later by the other three questing beams.
“Captain, I must formally request that you stop saying things like that!”
Rufus closed his eyes, grabbing the ballast release by feel and yanking down hard, dropping hundreds of gallons as their little airship shot upwards. It would cost them dearly later when the water in their steam engine fell low, but by that point they would be far enough out to sea to be able to release helium to drop down and siphon more from the ocean if they had to. “Never mind that! How long until we have a full head of steam?”
“Even with the boiler pre-warmed it’ll be at least five minutes.”
“We don’t even need that long. We’re over the harbor already going with the prevailing wind. Two minutes easy.” He squinted at the airspeed indicator. It was reading barely five knots. Add in the five to ten knots of tailwind that was already pushing them and that added up to…
Too bloody slow, he thought, as the first shells from the ack-ack guns began to explode in the air. It seemed a strangely backwards attack from their perspective, a sound of ripping canvas filling the air as the shells were fired upward. Only as the bright after-image of the shells exploding filled their eyes did the finally hear the low crump, crump of the ack-ack firing.
“How long before you think they’ll have our range?” Rolas called out as a shell exploded some hundred arms in front of them.
“Depends on how good they are. They’ve got us pinned with the searchlights, but it’s night and they can’t be sure of our altitude.”
A shell exploded about twenty arms aft and below, and they both automatically ducked as shell fragments pinged off the control cabin’s aluminum bulkhead. Then, over the hissing of the steam engine and the thrumming of the drive chains, they could hear high pitched squeal of gas escaping from the cells in the envelope.
“Patch that! Quickly!”
“Aye, sir!” Rolas snatched a patch kit from a bulkhead compartment and scrambled up the ladder, his protective foot mittens nearly slipping off the rungs in his haste. Rufus did a quick test of the rudder controls, satisfying himself that no cable had been cut. From above in the envelope he heard Rolas shout down, the leftenant’s voice squeaky from breathing in the harmless lift gas. “It’s the number seven and number eight cells. Maybe four holes in seven and three in eight that I can see!”
“Just take care of them!” Another shell exploded to the port, level with the airship, fragments smashing into the windshield and shattering several panes. Rufus pulled on his goggles as the wind pressed against his face at nearly twenty knots as the flywheel turned the props faster and faster. Almost there. One minute and we’ll be out over the ocean, too high up for a patrol boat to fire at us.
It was the firewall, heavy, clunky and necessary to protect their camera which saved Rufus, as the last shell struck the control cabin directly, slicing through the thin aluminum bottom and burying itself in the steam engine’s boiler. The firewall channeled the explosion away from the forward section of the cabin, sending debris back and upward, the blast tearing the airship’s envelope in half, ripping apart all the gas cells aft of numbers one through four. Rufus clutched at the lift/descent wheel with both paws as the undamaged forward gas cells pulled the remnants of the cabin nearly vertical. A whistling sound made him glance backward, to view the extraordinary sight of the back of the control cabin, now open to the sky, giving him a fine view of the harbor below as the burning remnants of the tail section fell towards the sea.
Then, not letting himself have time to mourn the dead leftenant, he let go of the control wheel and rolled out of his seat, falling through the hole.
* * *
It was the heavy coat, designed to protect aircrews from the bitter chill at high altitudes, and his parachute, that saved Rolas. When the shell and boiler exploded they sent hot fragments ripping through the entire after section of envelope. But Rolas had been near very end of the tail, his back to the explosion, trying to press a patch over two holes in the number eight gas cell while using a hot glue gun to secure it. The force of the explosion knocked his forehead against a support spar, but his heavy hood caught most of that blow, though it left his ears ringing. Then the tail rose up in the air briefly as the last two cells expended their gas and he started sliding down the narrow catwalk between the cells as the envelope’s fabric burned around him. An attempt to catch himself on the railing only succeeded in a brief grip before he slipped again and narrowly managed to miss a damaged spar that threatened to impale him. Then he was falling away from the envelope and into the open air, pulling frantically at his parachute’s ripcord.
The parachute jerked open and suddenly he was hanging in the air by the few precious square arms of fabric, rocking back and forth like a pendulum. He looked up, trying to see if Captain Ru Ofanius had escaped as well, only to see at least three gaping holes the size of his open palm in the parachute, left by fragments of exploding boiler that had embedded themselves in the parachute pack. Fruit! I’m dropping too fast! He was just looking back down to try and judge exactly how fast he was dropping when his foot mittens hit the water, plunging him into the icy cold sea, lungs filling with water as he let out a cry of surprise.
Rolas kicked upward, head rising clear just long enough for him to cough up the water and take a breath, before his parachute began to drag him back down into the water. Fumbling and trying not to panic, he tore off his gloves and unbuckled the chute, his padded leather coat pulling off his arms as he shed the dead weight. Then he kicked upward again, finally reaching the surface to gasp for breath as he felt his body begin to shiver.
“Captain! Captain Ru Ofanius!” he called out.
“Above you!” the captain called out. Rolas looked up to see him dangling beneath his own parachute, taking a deep breath before he plunged into the water some fifty arms away. The captain sank down and stayed down, his parachute floating briefly before it disappeared below the surface as well. Rolas swam toward him, cursing the abominable foot mittens that seemed to cling like lead weights to his feet, but which he didn’t dare try to fool with for fear of going under himself once again.
The captain surfaced, spitting out water and gasping for breath, having shed his own parachute and leather coat, before going under again. Rolas tried to swim faster, as Captain Ru Ofanius surfaced again, gasped, then went under once more. He dived down into the dark, paws outstretched, then felt himself bump into something large and soft. Rolas wrapped his arms around his captain and kicked upward one more time, supporting him as Brushtail coughed and spat.
“It’s my bloody… tin arm…” he said between coughs. “It’s all full… of water… and dragging me down. Let go… you idiot… before I take… you with me…”
“Can’t understand you, sir. You’re coughing too much,” Rolas said, tightening his grip and kicking to keep them above the water. Even with the foot mitts he couldn’t feel his toes and his fingers were frozen, locked in a death grip around his captain’s shoulders. “Anyway, we’re likely to freeze to death before we drown.”
“Always the optimist.”
They both turned in the direction of a high pitched whistle which carried out over the water, as a small ship mounted searchlight began scanning the water, focusing on the burning remains of the airship which floated on the surface still.
“Hey!” Rolas shouted. “Hey! We’re over…!” His head went under the water and he came back up spitting more seawater as the light shined down on them. They both heard the putt, putt, putt of the small torpedo boat’s steam turbine as it pulled along side them, and then paws were grabbing hold of them both and pulling them on deck as officer and sailors shouted back and forth to each other in Gerwart.
“Who are you?” a male in a Gerwart officer’s uniform asked in heavily accented Mother’s Tongue. “Were zere others aboard your airship?”
“No, we were the only ones.” Brushtail pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, his black nose gone gray from the incipient hypothermia. “I’m Air Captain Ru Ofanious Brushtail, of the Mother Country Air Corps. My companion is Leftenant Rolas Darktail of the same. We request… we… request immediate… immediate… medical assistance.”
“You shall have it.” The ship’s commander held out his paw. “Welcome aboard, Captain Brushtail. You and your subordinate are now prisoners of war.”
End Chapter One
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 02:27 pm (UTC)I like it (well, not that they almost drowned etc. but Rufus' request) :D
We request... we... request immediate... immediate... medical assistance. *grins*
I thought he had something different in mind when he started the request and then changed it into this :D
mjkj
no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 03:43 pm (UTC)...but then on the other hand...
...well, without the dancing...
...it might get over-fulfilled... :P
mjkj