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Sexy Steampunk Babes: Chapter Fifty Seven
🕑 Added 2024-12-22 12:54:57 +0000 UTCAN: For those who read the old version, this one remains the same until the end of this section and partway through Kanna's.
“They’re moving, ma’am,” the Majesty’s Orb-Officer announced, her voice steady and professional. “The Eyeglass confirms it.”
“Finally,” Tyana exhaled, her relief mingling with anticipation as she straightened in her command chair. “Direction?”
“Straight for us.”
“Of course they are.” The elven woman’s tone held a trace of irritation, but her orders were sharp and precise. “Tell Eyeglass to maintain distance and report any changes in their heading or speed. Then prepare the home fleet for deployment. I want all crew at ready stations immediately.”
She leaned back into her chair, her gaze sweeping across the bustling bridge as it erupted into a hive of activity. Officers called out commands, runners darted between stations, and the rhythmic hum of machinery filled the air as aether shifted in different directions through the pipes – it was a symphony of controlled chaos. More to the point, Tyana knew this scene was playing out across the capital’s fleet, each ship coming alive with purpose as the Orb-Officer transmitted her commands to each ship in turn.
Satisfied for the moment, she turned her attention to the horizon, her eyes narrowing as if trying to pierce through the distant haze to the unseen enemy that lurked beyond.
The past two weeks had been a test of both patience and resolve for all of them. For Tyana, Princess of Lindholm and admiral of its mighty fleet, the wait had been nothing short of excruciating.
Pirate fleets weren’t unusual. Pirate fleets with accompanying airship elements were.
Not least of all because it meant they weren’t pirates. Not with twelve airships. No, this was just another ploy by either the Lunites or Solites.
The only question that came up when they noticed it was who said ploy was aimed at?
Which was why they’d waited, allowing the enemy to gather. Certainly, most of her command staff were of the opinion that the fleet’s eventual destination was Lindholm itself, but neither Tyana or her mother were eager to make that theory a self-fulfilling prophecy by striking first.
There was, after all, every chance that the fleet’s true target was either a Solite or Lunite city – and that it was simply gathering where it was to bypass either side’s usual coastal defenses. As for pretending to be pirates? Well, it would hardly be the first time either side of the old Empire had chosen to cloak their atrocities behind the actions of ‘rogue elements’.
The gassing of Halmeshare leaps to mind, she thought.
An act of horror supposedly performed by a band of outlaws who stumbled across an old imperial weapons lab. Never mind that said massacre neatly paved the way for a Solite advance into Northern Penbelle.
And now it seems it’s our turn to suffer the predations of ‘bandits’, she thought. Either as a prelude to an invasion or some other ploy.
Part of her now lamented not striking first, while the fleet was still gathering its waterborne elements, but it was a passing thing. Her and her mother’s logic was sound. Had the fleet actually been intended for a destination on the old continent, then the threat would be dealt with without having to expend resources they might well need in the future.
After all, isn’t that the peak of strategy? To eliminate the enemy without fighting? She thought.
She didn’t know where she’d heard the phrase before, some half forgotten Imperial text from her mother’s library no doubt - but it seemed fitting in this case.
Now though, Tyana intended to meet them in the open water and crush them before they even glimpsed the capital’s spires.
And yet, that was exactly what troubled her.
Twelve ships, she thought grimly.
It wasn’t a small number - not by any stretch. Yet it was still dwarfed by the number of ships she had on hand. Even with parts of the Royal Fleet engaged in routine patrols, the capital fleet outnumbered the enemy nearly three times. Their superiority in firepower was unquestionable. A decisive victory for Lindholm was all-but assured.
And the enemy had to know that.
Likewise, the water-based fleet accompanying the airships gnawed at her curiosity. Those ships weren’t built for direct combat in the skies. Their only conceivable purpose was as troop transports, though if this was an invasion force, it likewise was too small.
And again, with too small a screen of airships, the capital fleet would have ample time to crush its opposing flight capable vessels before turning around and sinking the water-based ships with impunity. After all, even if her own fleet would intercept the enemy half-way between their current location and here, that was still hours of sailing time.
Her jaw tightened as her thoughts churned. There was too much she didn’t know here.
“Inform the Royal vassals of the ongoing threat,” she ordered, her tone sharp. “Order them to prepare for deployment over the capital. They’ll form the strategic reserve.”
“Ma’am,” an officer asked hesitantly, “do you think we’ll need them?”
“No,” she replied, her voice cool. “Which is why I want them ready. Someone’s playing a game here, and I don’t like it. Should the other shoe drop, I intend to be prepared.”
The officer saluted and hurried off, leaving Tyana to her thoughts. They flitted, briefly, to one particular vassal.
Perhaps it would be worth speaking with him after this battle was won?
If nothing else, she was curious as to what he’d done with the Jellyfish. It would also be interesting to meet the man who once upon a time had been a candidate for her hand in marriage. Her mother had been quite enthusiastic about the topic given his ‘genius’.
Tyana’s own interest had been a great deal cooler. Oh, she’d been fascinated and overjoyed by the man’s innovations. ‘Kraken-Slayer-Powder’ was… otherworldly in its potential applications. Especially when combined with similar principles from the Spell-Bolt he’d created.
As the admiral of the fleet, Tyana was very interested in William Ashfield. Tyana the woman however, was ambivalent. As she always was when it came to the fairer sex. Oh, she liked a saucy lad as much as any naval woman, but her true consort was at the end of the day her career and fleet.
Marriage… just didn’t hold much appeal.
Which was why she’d been more than a little relieved when the topic of her upcoming nuptials suddenly disappeared entirely from conversation but a few months ago. With the same holding true for her sisters.
That, more than anything, had made her curious. Not enough to seek the man out herself, and risk the possibility of the topic of marriage reviving itself, but curious enough that she could… meet him coincidentally.
Under a different guise, that of a woman staking out a possible asset to the fleet rather than a husband, she could admit to being very interested in meeting William Redwater.
“Radios operational?” she asked softly, though she already knew the answer.
The Radio-Officer stood to her right - a new and temporary role - responded with a crisp salute.
Though it felt stilted.
…Off.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Likely because the woman behind her was no true navy woman. The role of radio-officer, for now, was being filled by vetted palace staff, trained in absolute secrecy.
Eventually, once the system was fully unveiled, their duties would be absorbed into the Orb-Officer’s responsibilities. For now, however, their work remained a closely guarded secret. Looking over at the non-descript woman, Tyana allowed herself a moment of disdain. These women were undoubtedly part of her mother’s extensive intelligence network.
Spies, she thought with distaste. And I invited them onboard.
And it was entirely possible this woman wasn’t even of noble lineage. As effective as the Royal Guard were, their numbers were limited, necessitating her mother’s web of informants be made up of both ‘regular’ mages and even commoners.
“Do you intend to use the radios in the coming fight, ma’am?” the officer asked.
“No,” Tyana replied with perhaps a bit more briskness than was strictly necessary. “I’d prefer to save the unveiling of that capability for a real battle. Still, better to be prepared.”
The officer nodded silently and returned to her post with another salute.
“All stations reporting ready,” the Orb-Officer – an actual officer - called out. “Eyeglass reports enemy fleet maintains its course.”
Tyana nodded firmly. “Set heading for intercept. All fleet elements, full speed ahead.”
As the ship surged forward, and her orders rippled through the fleet like a wave, she tried to ignore the uneasy weight in her stomach. The nagging sense that something wasn’t quite right persisted.
But there was little else she could do now except keep her eyes open and her mind sharp.
It was all anyone could do.
-------------------------
"Don’t like this. Don’t like this one bit," Kanna, pirate queen of the southern shores, muttered miserably from her position on the forecastle, her sharp eyes fixed on the Lindholmian airship that had been trailing them for days now.
…The Lunites had made no attempts to chase it off either. Not that they’d succeed. Even from this distance, she could tell the picket ship wasn’t a scrapper. It was built for speed.
And spying.
Which meant the enemy knew they were coming – and if they were hoping to perform a repeat of the last two invasion attempts, were going to be doing so via an oversea intercept.
Her second-in-command, ever the pragmatist, snorted. "So you keep telling me. And yet you still took the gold."
"Under duress," Kanna grumbled, her grip tightening on the railing.
It wasn’t as if she’d had much choice in the matter. Not after twelve airships dropped out of the clouds, their massive hulls bristling with weaponry and all too ready to sink anyone fool enough to run.
"Relax," the other woman scoffed. "Airships’ll focus on other airships. And while they’re busy with each other, we slip through the cracks, hit the capital, stir up as much shit as possible, and we’re gone. With all the loot we can carry and a bunch of reward money in the hold to boot. Easy."
Kanna rolled her eyes. Easy was not how she’d describe things. Still, the plan wasn’t bad per se.
In her limited experience, airship combat was an entirely different beast to true-blue naval combat. Mostly because it took place in the sky. Being able to fight in three dimensions changed things considerably. For one thing, formations could now overlap their fields of fire a lot more easily without worrying about another ship getting in the way.
Sure, firing up and down got a little more complicated, what with the need to tilt the ship, but that was what harnesses were for. To that end, airships didn’t spread out the way sea fleets did. They didn’t form lines. They formed arrows. Giant floating arrows that were designed to punch through the center of the enemy formation before moving on to either side for a defeat in detail.
Like two schools of fish attempting to shear off parts of the other’s formation, she thought.
Or at least, that was the general idea. Kana was sure there were a lot more specifics and variations on the theme than that, but on those occasions in which she’d been speaking to women who happened to crew airships, she’d been less interested in their vocation and more the contents of their undergarments.
Point was, airships were at their most effective when grouped together. Like a clenched fist. Which theoretically meant the enemy admiral wouldn’t be splitting off ships to hunt down dozens of smaller water-based ships until the main threat from the Lunite airship fleet was dealt with.
And even if she did dispatch a few ships, they’d only be able to pick off one group at a time. The majority would be safe.
In theory.
Kanna didn’t much care for theory. She cared even less for the idea of being caught alone by an airship with no support around to hide behind. A few heavy rounds from above, and being the best sailor in the world wouldn’t save you.
She sighed, leaning on the railing.
Fucking airships.
"Got protection, too," her second added, gesturing skyward. "Lunites have us covered."
Kanna grimaced, her eyes narrowing at the low-hovering fleet above. The Lunite airships were maintaining a mere hundred meters of altitude above the water.
Which, again, made no sense.
Sure, outwardly, it looked like they were shielding the pirates’ wooden vessels from the incoming fleet, but that was a stupid move even by her reckoning. Altitude mattered in a fight. Ignoring cannons and shit, it was why a water-based ship was little more than a sitting duck to an airship.
It was easier to drop shit from on high than throw shit upwards. Likewise, it was easier to lob shit further when you were already high up.
In short, an airship wanted to be as high up as its aether chambers allowed for.
Yet that wasn’t what the Lunites were doing.
So what the fuck is the plan here?
----------------------------------
While one could, and was expected to be able to, launch a shard in as little as five minutes, the onloading of an airship was a significantly more laborious process. Didn’t help that while most airships existed at a near constant state of semi-readiness, the Jellyfish was not most airships.
Watching as Corsair-M’s were wheeled up ramp to join the ‘empty’ frames already occupying the Jellyfish’s hangar space. Beyond, Bonnlyn waited anxiously while Olzenya tried to drag her away. Beyond, Verity and Marline were talking.
“Are you sure about this?” Xela asked.
“If we’re going to sortie, I want the Jellyfish as ready as we can make him,” William answered dispassionately. “That means bringing the full complement.”
“People are going to ask questions. Like, why we felt the need to sortie with a hanger full of ‘useless’ frames.”
William laughed. Going into combat with carrier space full of empty frames when the market was desperate for them? Yes, that would raise some eyebrows.
“No one is going to ask questions because no one is going to find out. You can’t see into the hangars from the outside.”
…Though they might run into trouble if any of the local airfields requested berthing aboard his ‘carrier’ to give them an elevated take-off position. He considered it unlikely though. Any incoming attack would be visible from miles out, which would give allied shards ample time to climb to their max altitude even if they were launched from an airfield rather than an airship.
“The crew will know they’re still onboard. Someone will talk. Someone already has talked,” Xela prompted.
“Should that happen, we’ll deal with it after the fact.”
Rumors from a crew member telling tales were both easier to deny and would take longer to circulate. By which point…
Well, it might be time for the ruse to come to an end anyway, he thought with muted anticipation.
The current word was that, at long last, Lady Summerfield’s hair had started to grey. Which, while not exactly significant for a human, was of great significance to an elf – given that they tended to be ethereal and ageless… right up until they weren’t.
As if some kind of magic was falling away – and it likely was – an elf could go from looking like they were in the prime of their life to essentially a shriveled husk in little more than six months.
Apparently, it was a rather grim process all round. To the extent that the most terrifying thing a soldier could come across on the battlefield was to see an enemy combatant remove their helmet to reveal grey hair. It meant they were facing a foe who not only had no plans to see tomorrow, but also nearly a hundred and eighty years of combat experience as a warrior and a mage to call upon.
Though he highly doubted that was the route Lady Summerfield planned to take, given her continued comatose state. Still, a final confirmation that her days could now be numbered in months meant that each of the claimants to her seat would now be preparing for war in earnest.
For his part, William wasn’t too concerned. His pilot candidates had been under Xela’s tutelage for just under eight months now. As far as he could remember, in the earliest days of World War Two, the RAF could have a trained pilot in as little as six – though it was considered far from ideal.
To that end, ideal or not, as far as he was concerned, any time beyond this moment was a gift unasked for in terms of preparing his people.
Once the war finally started he’d be able to unveil his new creations in such a way that they could neither be hidden nor his contributions easily swept under the rug. Nor could he be sidelined politically once he had the backing of the new rulers of the Summerfield duchy.
With those feats, combined, in one fell swoop, he’d be able to create for himself a third power bloc to challenge both the North and the Crown.
And with Yelena no longer able to simply demand his aid in disarming the North, he’d be able to request concessions that would otherwise be… unthinkable to any ruling monarch.
And if she refused? Well, he’d have access to near enough an entire duchy’s worth of production power to craft a response that would convince Yelena of the validity of his point of view.
At that point, even if he were revealed to be Harrowed, his success in the Summerfield succession crisis would render it moot.
“Make sure the instructors are present too,” he added. “They’ll be acting as our squadron leaders in the event… anything happens.”
Which it wouldn’t. The message they’d received said the Royal Fleet had departed to deal with a small taskforce out in the ocean. Some kind of pirate fleet that had lucked its way into an abnormally high number of airships. A number was high enough that a majority of the capital defense fleet was needed to deal with it in a ‘risk free and decisive manner’.
So as a precaution, she was calling in support from the Crown’s vassal territories to garrison the Capital in the Royal Fleet’s absence.
An understandable move, if a little annoying, he thought.
Honestly, all this fretting was likely for nothing. They’d fly to the capital, float around for a few hours, get the all clear, and return home.
Turning, he watched as a few crates of cannonballs – of the non-enchanted variety - were wheeled up the Jellyfish’s ramp and resisted the urge to wince. He’d been meaning to upgrade the ship’s armament to something more… modern for a while now, but hadn’t been able to free up the production capacity while his workshops were still focused on churning out both corsairs, engines, bullets and… smaller caliber guns.
A process greatly slowed by the fact that the final assembly of all those things needed to be performed by him.
Again, he had to remind himself that the time for secrecy was coming to an end.
“Already done,” Xela said. “Though you should know the twins have sent a request to use our airship as a berth once the vassal fleet gathers over the capital.”
William frowned. “Think I can reject them without looking like an ass?”
Xela’s smirk was all the answer he needed to that question.
He sighed. “Fine. Permission granted. Just… see if you can’t make sure the Basilisk either stays on the deck or gets stored with the M-Class. Under absolutely no circumstances are either of them to be let near the C-Corsairs without an escort. I don’t want them getting ‘curious’ and popping a panel open.”
Xela laughed. “Easiest way to do that is to invite them up to your cabin and pop one of your own panels.”
“I… you know what, that’s not a terrible idea.”
If nothing else, it’d make the waiting around a lot more enjoyable than it might be otherwise.
“What? No! I was joking!” His second in command shouted after him as he set off in the direction of the Jellyfish’s gantry.
------------------------------
The pirate queen was no closer to getting an answer hours later when the Lindholmian fleet had turned from indistinct flecks in the sky into looming behemoths of metal and aether. Shards buzzed around the larger ships like flies on cattle. And unlike the Lunites, they held the high ground - if such a term could be applied to the sky.
It would have actually been a little amusing if her own life wasn’t a stake in the fight to come, to see how the Lindholmian fleet seemed to hesitate at the sight of the Lunites hovering so low. It was a momentary thing, barely more than the time it took for them to rearrange their formation, but Kanna imagined she saw it all the same.
Then they dove – like a hawk onto a grounded pigeon – the fleet started to descend.
Not descending, they’re just closing the range, Kanna realized.
From this distance, Kanna could already predict where they’d stop - around three hundred meters up. Two hundred meters was the effective range for enchanted cannon fire against steel hulled craft after all.
In other words, the enemy fleet was descending just low enough to rain fire down on their foes with impunity.
Not that that was her main focus. No, that was on the six ships that broke off from the Lindhomian formation, descending faster than the others, they peeled away from the coming airship clash as they headed straight for the pirate fleet.
“Six!? You sent six!?” she cursed at the distant fleet. “Was your brother buggered by a pirate or something!?”
One or two would have been eminently survivable, but six ships would cut through the fifty sea-based vessels with ease. Even if they were spread out. There were hours of sailing ahead after all – and for every moment of it, those six would be picking ships off, one by one.
Cursing herself for a fool for being roped into this, she clenched her fists as the Lunites finally began to make their own move – and promptly scattered.
Like a flower opening, the Lunite formation turned in all different directions, clearly intending to loop and turn around.
"Fuck," she spat, the wind whipping the curse from her lips. "This is a trap. They're using us as bait!"
A cold dread washed over her. She could almost feel the same panic rippling through the entire pirate fleet – and ironically, through the Lindholmians as well. There was a moment of stunned hesitation, then the inevitable pursuit.
Not of the Lunites. The elven vessels, sleek and deadly, were built for speed and boarding actions. Most would have a crew of less than thirty – but of those, all would be mages. By contrast, a Lindholmian vessel would have a crew of maybe eighty or more. And unlike their sleek elven cousins, the often human-womanned craft weren’t sleek at all. Built like bricks, they were designed for ranged slugging matches, where they could get the most of its cannons and plebian crew.
No, the Lindholmian fleet wouldn’t be catching a Lunite one that didn’t want to fight. But the pirates those Lunites had been escorting? Not so fast.
Still, at least with the immediate threat of Lunite retribution finally gone, Kanna could finally do what she’d been wanting to do for the past week.
"Hard to starboard!" she roared, her voice barely audible above the crashing waves. Her first mate echoed the command, relaying it to the crew. "If we're not headed for the capital, they might not pursue."
It was a vain hope. This many pirates in one place? The Lindholmians would be fools not to seize the opportunity to clean house. Though, perhaps they might hesitate? Preoccupied with whatever the Lunites were planning? After all, they’d gathered this fleet for a reason, even if they seemed content to abandon it.
Kanna chewed on her lip, her mind racing.
Sea spray hit her face as the ship turned hard, but she ignored it with long practice as she wondered what all this was in aid of? Why bring them all out here? Why risk bringing a fleet over open water, where they were vulnerable? The gold that had lured them out here had not been cheap either. Kanna wouldn’t have come for anything less than an exorbitant fee and she doubted her peers were any cheaper.
All that gold would be sinking to the depths soon enough – along with the fleet that carried it.
So why?
Then it hit her.
A distraction.
Or rather, a distraction within a distraction. Just as the pirates were a distraction for the fleeing Lunite fleet, that fleet was a distraction for something else.
“They knew the Lindholmians would choose to intercept them over water,” she muttered. “They knew they'd send a fleet out. But to what end?”
Was there another fleet out here somewhere? If so, how was it staying undetected?
Kanna scanned the horizon, the wind whipping her hair across her face. Somewhere beyond the churning waves, the Lunites were enacting their true plan, whatever it might be.
She only hoped she lived long enough to find out what exactly it was – and get her revenge on whoever chose to make her an unwitting part of it.
------------------------------------------
"Think the fight's going ok?" Tailor asked, leaning against the railing of the lighthouse balcony. Below, the sea stretched out into the darkness, the rhythmic crash of waves against the rocks a constant lullaby.
"Whether it is or it isn't, we'll be the last to know," Sally responded with a wry smile, her gaze fixed on the distant horizon.
Tailor snorted in amusement. Sally wasn't wrong. Guardswomen like them, were at the bottom of the information chain. News, especially about battles raging far away, might reach them about a second before it became common knowledge across the capital. Sometimes it reached them afterwards.
After all, being stationed out in the bay, the lighthouse wasn’t exactly easy to reach even for the most fervent gossips.
No, there was a decent chance the first news Tailor would get of the distant battle was when she knocked off for the evening.
Still, she could live with that. As long as she got her silver each week, she wasn't one to complain. Sure, being a guardswoman wasn't the most glamorous job in the world given that, in a world of mages who could conjure fireballs with a thought and pierce their enemies with automatic bolt-bow fire, what use was an ordinary woman with a sword?
At least the sailors aboard airships had served some purpose in a fight by crewing the ship’s aether-cannons.
For troops garrisoned on the ground though, their options were a lot more limited without a mithril core to tap into. Not non-existent - a few ballistae were mounted on the parapet below the lighthouse, but everyone knew they were mostly for show given that any attack ship’s aether-cannons could easily outrange them even without an altitude advantage.
No, the most Tailor could likely do if an enemy airship happened to fly overhead was hurl insults at it. Creative insults, mind, but still just words at the end of the day.
Well, that and I could shine a light on it, she mused.
Which would ostensibly give defending ships an advantage by illuminating their targets – but at the end of the day that meant Tailors’s contributions to any given fight relied entirely on-
"There’s something in the water," Sally interrupted her friend’s thoughts, her voice sharp. “Lights.”
Tailor followed her gaze and saw that sure enough, there were lights moving through the gloom. Now, that in and of itself, wasn't entirely unusual. The sea was teeming with biolumin- glowy creatures.
Kelpie leapt to mind as the most immediate example.
These aren’t no kelpie though, she thought.
Glowies tended to be blues, greens, reds or purples. And they were… softer. These… These lights reminded her of the lighthouse above her.
On another night, she might have dismissed it, perhaps making a note in the logbook of the sighting. But tonight, with the tension of the ongoing battle hanging heavy in the air, her instincts screamed danger.
"Get the searchlight on it," she instructed, her voice tight with urgency. "Quickly."
She listened as Sally moved to obey, but a sudden gurgle cut through the night. Tailor reached for her blade, her heart pounding, only to be struck by a wave of warmth spreading across her chest.
She instinctively brought her hand up – it came away wet with blood. She tried to shout - to do something! - but no words came out.
Her legs gave way, and she stumbled. Then she fell. The stone beneath her wasn’t cold. It was warm. Like her chest.
Through blurred vision, she saw Sally crumpled on the ground nearby, shadowy figures standing over her.
"Sentries are down," one of them said in a gruff accent that Tailor vaguely recognized from the docks. "Signal the fleet."
Tailor watched with a strange sense of detachment as one of the figures moved to the lighthouse and began flashing the shutters strangely.
She needed to… stop that…
She needed to… do something…
Her body refused to cooperate. So she could only lie there as her vision darkened by the moment.
Her last thoughts were of her family, and a silent apology for failing to protect them.
-------------------------------------------
Yotul’s tribe hollered as the Blood-Oath surged to the surface, water cascading off his barnacle-encrusted hull. Moonlight pierced through the magically reinforced windows of the bridge, flooding the space with cool warmth. The glass, a masterpiece of craftsmanship, was the result of days of work by skilled mages layering enchantments to withstand the crushing weight of the ocean’s depths.
When submerged, these windows were the only means of seeing outside, and even now, above the waves, they remained the sole vantage point – and they gave her a perfect view of the enemy’s home.
A city, of a size she was stunned to believe could actually exist, lay sprawled out before her. Even at night, it wasn’t hard to see with so many lanterns lit and the moon shining overhead.
More important than that though, were the many airships present, most still tethered to the city’s massive skydocks.
Like guard dogs left chained to their post when the wolves came roaming – they were practically defenseless. Yet the tethered ships refused to move – even as those few that were in the air finally started to turn. Already one was burning towards her craft.
That was fine. There weren’t enough of them. Not to stop the nine other underships that Yotul knew were rising behind her.
The capital fleet still had them outnumbered – but what use were numbers when half of them were sleeping?
The orc grinned as down below, the lighthouse’s spotlights spun as one, not to illuminate her craft, but that of the incoming defenders. She could practically hear the confusion and panic of the crews aboard.
“Seems that the slaver wasn’t all talk,” she muttered to herself.
She’d promised that the fleet wouldn’t be spotted as it maneuvered into the bay and she was as good as her word.
In this, at least. Yotul doubted any of the other promises that had been made would be worth the air used to utter them.
That was fine. Neither were Yotul’s.
They were here for their shared enemy and nothing more.
"Make ready for air combat!" the captain bellowed into the ship’s internal comm system. The command echoed through the corridors, sparking a flurry of activity among the crew.
The ship’s transformation into an undership had been an arduous process, months of reinforcement both mundane and magical were invested to make the vessel seaworthy. But while those modifications had allowed it to dive into the depths, they were less than ideal for aerial combat. Every gun port and every hatched had needed to be fused shut, the metal molded seamlessly through magic until no trace of a seam remained.
But what magic could seal, it could also unseal - and quickly.
All it took was a single thought: hole. The same arcane techniques used to shape metal were now used to create holes. Gun-holes. And unlike the precise work required to shape a cannon or blade, this task required no finesse, only raw intention.
Yotul knew from experience, both as a defender and an attacker, that Saboteurs often used similar techniques to breach walls and bulkheads when boarding ships – which was why she knew the method had limits.
The larger or more complex the hole, the greater the drain on the user’s magical reserves. A breach larger than a few meters in diameter was almost unthinkable without a few minutes of uninterrupted thought.
Not something often found during a boarding action, she thought wryly as the controlled chaos around her continued.
And not easily found here either, as their ship continued to climb up towards the hated invaders. Fortunately, a few dozen gunports were quite easy with the entire tribe’s spellcasters at work.
Metal fell away in sheets, revealing the madness of the outside world to those beyond the bridge. She wondered if they too salivated like she did at the thought of vengeance. If they too thought of burned villages and empty caves.
Were it not for the fact that she had more immediate targets in mind, she’d have been tempted to order her ship’s many cannons to aim at the city below – to give the people sleeping within a taste of the terror her people had endured for generations.
No, that would come in time. For now, she had a better target in mind.
She could still hear the soft tinkle of metal plating falling as the last of the gun ports unsealed themselves, revealing the ship’s hidden arsenal. Likewise, she heard and felt the first clangs of rounds slamming into the armored hull before exploding into fireballs or cascading webs of lightning as the first of the defenders’ shots rang out through the night.
The armor held though. For now.
“Cannons ready,” came the report from her second at last.
“Port guns concentrate fire on the supports of the closest sky-dock at two eighty five degrees. Starboard guns concentrate on the one at seventy five,” the captain ordered, her tone icy with resolve as the bridge crew set about relaying her orders. “Fire on my mark.”
For a moment, it seemed the entire world held its breath as they drew abreast of the first first skydock – the four ships tethered to it by steel umbilical gantries still lifeless and unmoving.
In a few minutes, she knew that would change as the crews within reached ready stations.
Minutes she wouldn’t give them.
“Fire.”
The Blood-Oaths forty guns fired as one – sending enchanted metal lancing through the air on flutes of aether. Near enough in timing so as to be indistinguishable, four of the other underships in their formation fired too.
Each shot, enchanted through decades of mages multiplying spells on top of one another over and over, struck the support posts of both airdocks before exploding into cascades of ice, fire and lightning.
Smoke and aether filled the night sky, but the beams of the light-houses in the bay managed to pierce through it.
The first skydock held, either enchantment or good engineering allowing it to survive its first volley.
The second did not – as Yotul watched with rising joy as the great concrete structure started to crack and then crumble.
Like a child’s snow castle, it came away in clumps before it started to sag and fall, stonework dropping down into the city below as the massive structure fell – dragging with it the four airships that had been tethered there. Like fish caught on a line, they were dragged down to the ground and smashed upon it, one of the vessel’s bows splitting like dry firewood as the component parts of the ship were spread across the rubble.
Rubble that was comprised of not just the skydock, but had also once been houses, stores, restaurants and warehouses.
All gone in a single breath.
Yotul stared, something shifting in her stomach. Some part of her absently wondered just how many people had been in those buildings. Not just marines and sailors… but men and children.
Then smoke and dust obscured the view entirely – becoming so dense that not even the lighthouse’s beams could pierce them.
Not that they tried to.
They’d already moved onto new targets. Like the second of the five skydocks that had yet to fall.
Licking her suddenly dry lips, Yotul got ready to give the order to fire again.
Every skydock they downed now was four less ships the taskforce of ten wouldn’t have to deal with in open combat.
Comments
Medical-Cyanide
aye, if memory serves the act of Kamikazes were partially because of the general lack of supplies and the empire of Japan figured it was resources better spent sending these pilots and their craft into the important infrastructure of a ship. (hence the limited fuel dedicated Kamikaze mission planes tended to have.)?
Alex LordThorsen
From the outside looking in, organizations and states normally look like a unified front. This is very much intentional. It isn't until you're on the inside of an organization that you get to see the factions, politicing, and backbiting.
Random Information
Hey Beta readers - give it back!
Blue Fishcake
Beta readers have it :D
Vonbaron
Things are going to get epic really quick.
Trevayne
Thanks for the information. I wonder how the Blackstones will react when they find out that one of the hide bound and technologically backward southerners has built a converted carrier that holds twice as many shards as their brand-new, built for purpose carrier, the Brimstone.
Trevayne
On a separate topic, I wonder how Yotul sees this operation ending? Does she think she can defeat the vassal ships defending the capital before the RN returns, or is this a raid intended to weaken the Queen's allies? I assume the RN will defeat the decoy force, but will then get urgent messages to return. Those messages may well save the Lunite ships by causing the RN to recall the pursuing shards. Then what? Does Yotul flee or fight a suicidal engagement over the capital? If the latter, I could see the Queen reversing policy as nd join ok by with the North to wipe out the orcs or at least force them out of Lindholm.
Conrad34xdsa
Well here’s to the final chapter of 2024. I hope it’s a big one. Glad to have been subscribed since February. It’s been a ride. I’m glad the chapter will be out on Friday.
Blue Fishcake
About four hundred because, as you mentioned, ground based airfields also exist and are staffed. Also, countships - not dukeships - aren't allowed more than one airship. So any 'excess' mithril will either be hidden for a rainy day or converted into shards. We'll say there's about four hundred shards. Which makes William's forty or so represent one tenth of the nation's planes. Which is a lot crammed into a single airship. Will it win a war on its own? Not even close. Not even a battle - without support. But it's a significant factor.
Trevayne
Now that the open combat is starting to break out, one thing I would like to know is how many shards are there, at least in general terms? The reason I am asking is it seems like shards were invented only a few decades ago and are generally seen as airship auxiliary weapons. This leads to the impression that there are roughly two shards per airship, with some having none and a few carriers having 4-10. The new Blackstone carrier has 20. The question is whether those are most of the shards? The Houses could easily have independent shard squadrons based at their estates if they can afford them. Many comments ago, I guessed that there were about 140 or so airships on Lindholm and that there were about 330-350 shards. This was assuming two shards per airship (280) with 3-5 carriers with 10 shards and the 20 on the Brimstone (Blackstone carrier). However, is that the majority of the shards or not? Any noble could try to build 10-20 shards and base them at their manor. Assuming they can hurt airships, that might be a better use of their extra funds than trying to get a second airship. I don't think this is the case because if it was then Yotul would be worried about more than just the opposing airships. The reason this matters is that it affects just how much power William is demonstrating with his new shards. His 20 matter a lot more if they are assessed against 320 shards than if they are compared to say 640 shards. Assuming each noble house averages two additional shards beyond those on their airships. Granted, he can just out-build everybody in the long run because his shards can be mass-produced. Regular shard numbers only increase as more mithril cores are located and split up to make shard cores.
Trevayne
Pretty sure they already know about dive-bombing. Remember this bit from chapter 46? “Climb on approach. Enter a shallow dive towards our target. Make minimal adjustments on approach to maintain speed. Drop the bomb." The Basilisk is a bomber shard. I expect all shards can use dive bombing, but the Basilisk is specially intended to carry a heavy bomb that can wreck a small airship and cause significant damage to larger ones.
Trevayne
Pretty low. They can kill a lot more of the enemy if they return and come back with more bombs and ammo. Kamikazes are single shot weapons.
Isak Mark
What are the chances the plebeian pilots will kamikaze their aircraft into the enemy airships after running out of ammo. They have a lot to prove and aren't used to the same lifestyle the royal shard pilots have.
Found&Lost
Happy New Year!
Spintool
I can’t wait to see some actual war, I’ve been craving conflict since William and his team fought his ex fiancé, which was a long time ago. Don’t get me wrong. I love the industrialization and kingdom building parts but now we can finally see that buildup in action
JollyRodger
It's time to slip the veil on his new shards. Introduce dive bombing. Capture a second ship (hopefully the orcs). I can see great conversion from verity talking mad shit. Our boy has been as loud as all hell about his feelings on slavery. Yeah, our boy is about to start his God Emperor rise, hahaha! He already has some forces. Time to assemble a carrier fleet with subs,.... ooOoOo,... a sub carrier ship! Nice
Vonbaron
Aye I was concerned about torque roll and the complexity of an engine based "shard" being an issue. You can't just jump into a ww2 radial aircraft and start it up by pressing some buttons. One has to properly prime the engine and remove the oil collected in the bottom cylinders before ignition or risk catastrophic failure. Beyond that fuel mixture, manifold pressure etc have to be monitored by the pilot. Shards are going to have a torque roll of some kind by the nature of the spinning bits but based on what has been said Will's engines are far more powerful and thus going to suffer more from torque roll. Good part of the reason why I was surprised William went with for the f4 instead of the much superior F6F or F8F options.
Vonbaron
Early Zeros were light and did indeed turn well.. below certain speeds. Lack of hydraulic boosting made the zero significantly harder to control at high speeds. The roll rate at all speeds wasn't that great either. The plane was basically designed for samurai like duels in the air so the ammo count is quite low in all models. There's no armor to speak of and of course it lacked self sealing fuel tanks. The engine itself wasn't that great and many would argue that all zeros were under powered as a result. A well running F6f or F8F would leave a zero behind in level flight or in a slight dive. Once the American's figured out that you can't turn fight 1v1 with a zero the kill ratio swung wildly into the USA's favor. Tactics, experienced flight crews and rugged craft made all the difference. Even without those advantages the sheer production capability of the USA meant that worst case scenario the USA could just zerg Japan down.
Conrad34xdsa
Good to know. I was meaning the final chapter of 2024. Happy New Year Blue
Blue Fishcake
My mental model for the capabilities of the top tier craft of the setting - I.E. full enchantments and the like piloted by the house heir - is an early war Mitsubishi Zero - A6M. Light. Turns good. Replacement craft will generally be about a tier below that. As for this being the final chapter? Honey, we've got like... three to five left.
Conrad34xdsa
Hello Blue. So, I’ve been wanting to know something about shards that hasn’t been addressed directly. What is the exact range of speeds that Mithril shards operate under? Are we dealing with Great War era speeds or are we dealing with postwar/interwar era aircraft from the 1920’s-early 1930’s in terms of speed? Basically, are the aircraft from Porco Rosso going to be making an appearance? I’m asking because I would like to know how much of an increase in speed at level flight the aircraft William has over the competition. Will the situation be so lopsided like this? https://youtu.be/Uam4i6OksEY?si=XoCrc0CEAu-sDyQC Best of luck with the final chapter.
Hikaraka
Something I've been thinking on for a while: We know they know of other worlds, but how detailed are the histories they have? Because when William comes clean with his origins and reveals what he knows, I can easily see things like WW1 and 2 getting fandoms, not the least because all the main characters are our equivalent of Milfs, and it would basically be a modern gacha game. "I got a 2 star Earnst Evans! Aww... another 3 star MacArthur? Whoa, I got a Rommel." Things like that.
O
Too late
O
Called it
John
okay, i did not see he had already posted that there will be no chapters this week. can i retract my bet?
John
i will NEVER stop believing in friday releases
Trevayne
Thanks for keeping us informed.
MarakEvans
I too also bet no chapter this week.
Jason Dortch
New year new blue chapter!
Blue Fishcake
No chapter this week I'm afraid. I planned to work through Christmas, but... didn't.
Drunk Pop-Tart
If i was him i'd take a well deserved rest, i know i've had a busy week over here myself.
Conrad34xdsa
Fair point
O
My bets are no story this week. After all, Christmas just happened
Conrad34xdsa
So, Christmas money on the table. Are we getting the hopeful Friday release or are we betting for the Saturday or legendary Sunday release? Betting odds as follows: Friday: 7:1 Saturday: 2:1 Sunday: 4:1 Place your bets and in what form or currency is wagered. For myself: Saturday Currency: https://youtu.be/V1C8PAZ76nM?si=an2YK8mQr-HnTiM-
Conrad34xdsa
The problem is, these are far more powerful engines, which is a problem for such a light aircraft. In real life, the change from other aircraft to these far more powerful beasts lead to problems. https://youtu.be/oELswcifnGA?si=zx5fcgeIoVIjpJjr
Spintool
I’m thinking the ship will be shot down and everyone will see that the ship heading the surprise attack was maned by orcs. I think the surprise of an orc maned ship will take up most of the headlines which will in turn make them look worse in the eyes of the public even if their just a small part of the attack
Found&Lost
Merry Christmas Blue! For Christmas I want a million chapters!
Trevayne
Good point, although I did mention it two days ago in the following post. "Great update. It resembles Pearl Harbor, but it isn't the RN getting clobbered, it is the allies, unless the RN is a lot bigger than we thought. The RN is intercepting the Pirate diversion with 30 or so ships. They left the capital covered by their allies. The other RN ships are out on patrol. There are lots of possibilities here, including an opportunity for William to save the day." It does raise an interesting issue. If the Southern Duchy fleets are badly damaged, can the RMN hold out against the combined forces of Blackstone and New Haven? The whole pointy IIRC of the Summerfield gambiut was to move the Summerfield ducal fleet from the RN side to the Northern side and force the Queen to surrender. Here, if the Southern Duchy forces are too badly damaged, the RN may be in the same situation. Blackstone and New Haven will have to decide if they should try to take out the RN while they have the advantage, or ally with the RN against the Lunites. I expect the latter, since the RN's situation is not going to improve during the war (it takes time to build new ships for the Southern Duchies, even if they were able to retrieve all of the cores). They also have their own internal issues. Blackstone wants to keep Lindholm independent. New Haven wants to conquer it for the Solite Empress. Both are opposed to the Lunites and the Royal Navy, that are currently fighting each other.
Trevayne
Thinking some more about radios, we know that William has them because he invented them. We know he has been providing them to the RN as well, because there is a radio officer on Admiral Tyana's flagship and presumably others in the fleet. It sounds like they are fielding radios on all ships. This suggests that they do not have enough communications orbs for all of their ships or they need a back-up method. They may not trust the security of orb communications. They might also want it to control their shards, since I doubt very much they have enough orbs for both ships and shards. The other question is what progress the Blackstones have made with their crystal communicators. They were shown to exist during the duel between Tala and William. It looked like they had relatively short range and were just point-to-point (Tala could not broadcast to her whole team, she had to switch between them). However, it is now sometime later. Have they managed to make versions for airships and/or shards?
Trevayne
Very good point about whether anyone has flown the Corsair-C before. I hope they have and I think William would at least want to verify the design works before building forty or more of them. However, if he didn't, I think it would be another point of evidence suggesting that he never flew a Corsair and picked the design because of its historical reputation against the Japanese and seeing too many episodes of Black Sheep Squadron. The other thing he would have needed before flying the Corsair-C is a heavy-duty noise cancellation enchantment. Piston engine aircraft are loud and the Corsair-C makes noises unlike anything else on the planet. If they were flying around on training missions, they would have to be silenced. It would only be needed during training, so if it interferes with normal use (say it is a hundred-pound noise-cancelling rock that fits on a bomb rack) it doesn't matter, but it is definitely needed for training. Thinking about it some more, IIRC Torque is a product of the rotating parts of the engine. IIRC shards are also propelled by aether turbines that power rotating propellers. Presumably, they also have torque issues, so they should not come as a complete surprise. The radios are another good point. I expect they will be used and hopefully they have been training with them. Even if they haven't been training with them, getting them to talk with them is easier than learning to fly.
Trevayne
I think heading back to the Orc lands is a possibility, but they need to see that the Blackstones have joined in the war. Otherwise they are just a priority target for the Blackstones. Especially since they require a significant amount of work to restore their ability to submerge. An interesting question is whether the orcs are all concentrated on Yotul's ship. If so, then disappearing is easy. If instead there are orcs spread across all the underships serving as experienced crew, leaving becomes harder because the elves will want to stay.
Trevayne
Defensive minefields are probably a ways off. They are still building up explosives production and probably want to put it in bombs that will be dropped on the enemy rather than stuck in mines that might never encounter an enemy.
Conrad34xdsa
I don’t know the Orks know about the abolitionist movement, and I doubt they cared all that much considering Blackstone represented the kingdom and was presently enslaving them. My guess is that after this attack, they might just leg it the moment presents itself so they could leave and let the empire use this new technology against their oppressors while, knowing full well that they would most likely be betrayed and enslaved by so the empire the moment their usefulness ran out. Now that the empire has what it wanted. There wouldn’t be any need for the Orks so they would go elsewhere. Perhaps back to their own lands while this whole mess spirals.
Conrad34xdsa
Well, only one of the ships are Ork crewed, the rest are from the empire so I doubt that people would realize that this is Ork tech. The only people who know would be the Blackstones and maybe A few of the queens spies, who haven’t been able to get away to let her know of the invention. Plus this is a night raid. I doubt anyone would be able to see the one ship and note it’s crewed by Orks.
Conrad34xdsa
Well, a surprise first strike against a military installation with ships docked and vulnerable. I guess my Pearl Harbor prediction I made a while back came true, although from one of the empires and not from the Blackstone side as I originally thought. I do have a couple of questions. One, have anyone actually flown the corsair-c before now? Any instructors, or teammates or even William himself? Considering the massive amount of torque The engine puts out that could flip the aircraft into an unrecoverable maneuver at low altitude that might become an issue. Also, are the Corsairs equipped with radios? That came standard with them but had he actually equipped them with that? Sounds like a massive mistake to not equip them. I get that he would not be doing so during the jousts at school because that will be something people could latch onto and reverse engineer. But to not provide that advantage for his own forces seems odd. Also, munitions would be a lot simpler to manufacture such as armor piercing bombs due to their simplicity. You wouldn’t even need magic for the most part, just simple metal working could do. The fuse, and the actual explosive material could be manufactured in secret, but for the most part the body could be manufactured by the general workforce. Great chapter. Can’t wait to see where the story goes from here. With the rewrite, did you get a head start on the next chapter? Wonderful chapter and I hope you have a Blue Christmas https://youtu.be/3KK6sMo8NBY?si=Xnrf9HdzIlFTiPYy
J Duo
Great revision! Another interesting point I haven't seen mentioned yet is that in this version, it seems the RN itself (and therefore the strongest/most competent core) of the Royal and southern duchies fleet is likely to escape almost unscathed; in the previous, it was the RN that was being set up for a serious blow while here it is the southern allies that take the brunt. I wonder if the power imbalance arising from the core RN getting gutted was part of the reason for the last version getting tossed...
DMR1
Only if someone is crawling through a ventilation system to make it a proper Christmas special!
Morpheus
will ghazghkull approve of whats to come i wonder?
Morpheus
its probably too much to ask but im hoping for a Christmas surprise early episode
Trevayne
I agree with most of this, but have a few quibbles. He started with 40 pilots and they will be his best trained pilots, aside from the instructors. We don't know if he stopped and has only been training those, or if instead, he started a new training cycle with 40 more pilots with a couple of months of training. Given that I don't think he really believes he can beat all his opponents with just 40 shards, I think there are more to follow. I also think he is continuing to produce more shards. Initially the production rate may decrease because he has other things to do, but the alchemists/mage-smiths can continue to get engine parts and airframes to the point of being ready for his finishing. An interesting question is whether there are any mage-smiths that he thinks he can teach the final assembly process to? Effectively, they need to be able to mage-smith a 90% Corsair-C to 100%. Right now, he is the only one who can do that, but I think others can be taught. Especially since they aren't expected to create anything from scratch, just to mage-smith a 90% Corsair-C into an exact duplicate of a completed Corsair-C that they have as an example. He wasn't wiling to do this before to maintain security, but once they have engaged over the capital that secret has been blown wide open. The ability for others to produce Corsair-Cs also reduces the gigantic target on his back as long as if he is killed or disabled the entire production process grinds to a halt. The weapons are another good question. I think his original intent was to save chemically-propelled guns and cannon for the post-war political discussion/round two of the civil war. However, he may have changed his mind. It certainly looks like he hsasd new guns for the Corsair-C because he has to do the finishing on the guns and ammo. As for heavy weapons, he doesn't seem to have built any new shipboard guns. They already have bombs for use against ground targets or airships at lower altitudes. They just use fireball and/or lightning-bolt enchantments instead of chemical explosives. Some, like the twins' shard, use earthblood-based incendiaries. William could have easily adopted an armor-piercing bomb to use chemical explosives, but we don't know that he has done so yet. I expect we will get a better idea in his first battle.
Chris
It stated in an earlier chapter that William could produce 2 frames a week. So if his pilots have been training for 8 months, then he could have at most 62 frames. He has 40 pilots, 3 instructors, himself, and his 4 teammates. Question is does he have enough corsairs, 48 of them, that have engines in them; which would allow him to put up 4 squadrons. Also, it stated the in an earlier chapter that the corsairs had the guns from Earth; which could be .50 cal or 20mm. He could have created bombs or hvars to load out a few corsairs to target airships. Curious to see what he has available for the upcoming fight.
Andrew Lechner
Good changes. It seems William is about to prove himself in real combat. Everyone could claim his victories were flukes or Royal intervention when they happened during training. No one will deny his brilliance after seeing his custom modified airship and fighters doing more for the defense of the capital than likely any other Noble's vessel.
ChaosAndBunnies
On top of that, they already have Kraken-slayers, so fields of sea mines becoming standardized in the future seems pretty likely.
ChaosAndBunnies
Well, for starters, I feel like the vast majority are going to have a hard time accepting that the 'savage orcs' were responsible for a Lunite attack where only a single ship was manned by orcs, assuming they ever even find out that last bit. The only one I can see being privy to the fact this technology originated from the orcs are the Blackstones, and even then it's probably easier to rationalize that the Lunites actually invented it and spread it to the orcs to draw focus to the Sunlands before their surprise attack on Linholm. What you're proposing is like finding a single non-japanese pilot among the Pearl Harbor attackers and pinning the entire thing on them, though in this scenario that would actually be the case. If there's any increase in orc discrimination, I feel like it's going to be relatively insubstantial.
DMR1
Our dearest cadet/count ashfield/redwater is gonna roll in to combat like the Enterprise at Sector 001, isn't he? Taking command by radio and rallying to a total shutout victory? *makes note to prepare popcorn for next week*
DMR1
Without a doubt this is a superior product. NEVER feel bad about doing this when you feel you need to. We appreciate the quality commitment.
Moonlightwind
Yeah, this change is absolutely better, well done Blue. I think their plan in the first version was good for testing the capabilities of this new strategy and invention, but the strategy in the second is simply far better. Baiting out the royal fleet and hitting the capital for a surprise attack is far more of a blow to Lindholm. It reveals their entire hand, but the damage even with just that first volley is already catastrophic. Four airship hulls, a sky dock, and a huge section of the city leveled, and they’re not done. I hope William decides to pull out all the stops immediately, because if he doesn’t there is a chance they simply lose. Let the damn C-Corsairs loose and you’ll get far more credit than just being an important part of a succession war. Instrumental in defending the capital will make him a folk hero, which I suppose is what is about to happen. I’m just excited to see his planes finally brought to bear.
Oreo-belt25
MORE DAKKA!! WAAAGHH!!
Spintool
Also remember what America did to Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, I can’t imagine what these guys will do too their orc slaves. I’m imagining William will have to suck up some horrific crimes in order to keep the queen and basically anyone who isn’t an orc on his side until he defeats the north. I just don’t see William being able to stop discrimination and I don’t know how he’s going to promote his pro orc ideals after this
Spintool
This is like 9/11 and Pearl Harbor mixed into one. I don’t know how William is going to plan to give the orcs their own country after this lol. Orc racism is going to go insane. Not to mention that these people have medieval age morality, even the most tolerant noble would gladly genocide orcs for something like this. Hell plenty of modern day Americans wanted to genocide Middle Eastern after 9/11 and we kind of did except we also did it to Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11 but we were so mad we didn’t care. Also orcs aren’t humans so there’s an even greater emotional disconnect compared to real life racism
Gjim
The first version worked and fit into the story nicely. This version works better. Question is will William have a new love interest in the Admiral as he swoops in to explode the day.
Trevayne
Turning, he watched as a few crates of cannonballs – of the non-enchanted variety - were wheeled up the Jellyfish’s ramp and resisted the urge to wince. He’d been meaning to upgrade the ship’s armament to something more… modern for a while now, but hadn’t been able to free up the production capacity while his workshops were still focused on churning out both corsairs, engines, bullets and… smaller caliber guns. A process greatly slowed by the fact that the final assembly of all those things needed to be performed by him. There are lots of things to notice in this chapter and this is one of the very interesting ones that doesn't concern the attack at all. We know William has to do the final finishing and assembly on the aircraft and engines has to be smoothed over by him. This is the first mention of small caliber guns that need to be worked on by him. IIRC he wanted to hold off the use of chemically propelled ammunition until after the Civil War, but it could be that a compressor that can provide compressed air for aether-cannon style guns was too heavy.
Trevayne
It certainly looks like it. Otherwise why would he have given orders that the twins are to be strictly monitored and kept away from the Corsair-Cs, the ones with the internal combustion engines?
Templar9999
Yotul was acting out of desperation. She knows that the Lunites are slavers, and that she was making a deal with a devil. She said as much earlier. But she was also down to one ship, and her effective fighting force was all but annihilated. Desperation often leads to short sighted decisions. She is probably hoping the attack will force Lindholm to regroup and reorganize, long enough for her own forces ro recover. Maybe even establish a legal border. But I doubt she trusts the Lunites any further than she could throw her submarine. But yes, Verity marrying William to make the rule more palatable for the orcs is likely. Not that Verity will complain.
Trevayne
Thinking about it, I agree that William's best option is for an Orc Duchy. The orcs don't want to be ruled by a non-orc. I wonder if somebody could point out that the Crown would only accept someone of proven loyalty, like an orc who is also a Royal Mage-Knight. The orcs get an orcish Duchess, the crown gets a loyal orcish Duchess, and Verity gets William. Yes, I know William thinks she is too young, but he could rationalize it as a political marriage intended to reduce the probability of a future genocide. Another interesting question is just how much do the free orc rebels understand about Lindholm society and its faultlines. Does Yotul understand how her actions could be putting the orcs in a win or die situation? For that matter is she just fighting for revenge, or does she have a plan for how this will lead to better things for the orcs. I have a bad feeling that the Lunites told her of course we are going to free the orcs. They will be just as free as the humans, meaning that both will be slaves or serfs to their eleven overlords.
Mikołaj
I much more prefer this plan of surprise raid on capital than the previous one. Do William aircraft have the engines mounted inside already? Are they ready to fly?
Trevayne
Agreed. The Lunites are only ever going to have this one opportunity for a surprise attack like this, so it makes sense that they are going for as many easy kills of moored airships as they can manage. Granted, they can try future similar attacks, but they are easier to defend against. Just have your airships in the air and only use the docks for loading and unloading.
Richard Anderson
Okay that made more sense than the first draft, looks like William will have to get his non-magical fighters in the air to save the day.
Baron Von Mott
This is definitely better. Not that the original version was bad per se, but the pacing was rather hurried. I also like how Blue has re-written the Lunite ruse. Using the submersibles against the dockyard allows for far more damage to be inflicted by the small force, and thus make far better use of the element of surprise they have.
Trevayne
Err, AFIAK the only new characters in this chapter are the lighthouse sentries who were introduced to be killed and Admiral Tyana. The pirate Captain Kanna was introduced in chapter 53 and seen again in chapter 56. The orc Yotul is the leader of the orcs that escaped the trap the Blackstones laid to take out the orc airships.
Chargcake
I don't remember any of these characters
Trevayne
"Were it not for the fact that she had more immediate targets in mind, she’d have been tempted to order her ship’s many cannons to aim at the city below – to give the people sleeping within a taste of the terror her people had endured for generations. ... Yotul stared, something shifting in her stomach. Some part of her absently wondered just how many people had been in those buildings. Not just marines and sailors… but men and children." Thinking some more about this, I wonder just what Yotul's intended endgame is. Is she doing this just to get revenge on the LIndholmians and doesn't care about the distinction between the Northern Duchies that kill and enslave her people on a regular basis and the Southern ones that are trying to emancipate the slaves? Did the Lunites promise her an independent Orc Duchy in the north after they conquer Lindholm? Why does she think they would keep any such promise? Another very interesting viewpoint will be Verity's. What does she think of the orcs that have done this?
Trevayne
General comment, I think this is a much-improved chapter. It shows the Lunites thinking and realizing that they can only pull this surprise once, figuring out how to inflict maximum damage. The earlier version showed them intervening ion a fleet battle, that was still going to be an uphill slog to inflict serious casualties on the RN. The six airships going after the pirates were going to get crunched, but the 12 sub-airships were going to be hit from above by twenty-four RBN airships. This version hits the port facilities in the capital and the allied ducal fleets. Here they can expect maximum results for the one-time surprise gambit.
Trevayne
"Once the war finally started he’d be able to unveil his new creations in such a way that they could neither be hidden nor his contributions easily swept under the rug. Nor could he be sidelined politically once he had the backing of the new rulers of the Summerfield duchy." William is about to get a spectacular opportunity to demonstrate his new creations and their contributions.
Trevayne
Another interesting question, Kanna's thoughts were about how the Lindholmian ships could not catch a Lunite fleet that did not want to be caught. She didn't think about shards. Even without a shard carrier, the RN ships should have about sixty shards. They shouldn't have any trouble running down 12 Lunite airships and all they have to do is slow them down. Another interesting question is how Anoria is going to be thinking and feeling. Unless her superiors told her to stay off the pirate ship, she has to know that she was sent to arrange a pirate fleet as bait for the RN and while the Lunites could expect their airships could get away (I think they are wrong and are underestimating the shards), the pirates were dead meat. She and her family are on the pirate ship and they can also expect to be casualties. What might save the pirates are orb messages calling for the immediate recall of the fleet. I expect Admiral Tyana might well just leave the six ships to finish the pirates and head back with the other 24 or so of her ships. If she leaves a detachment to finish them off, I wonder what the pirates do. If they are smart, they will surrender. They might even be able to cut a deal if they volunteer to be Lindholmian privateers. Kanna can honestly say they were fooled by the Lunites just as much as the Lindholmians were. Under normal circumstances, they would never go for it. However, the RN's allied forces have just taken a big hit from the orc underships. They might just be open to the possibility. If nothing else, if the pirates surrender, they get to live a little longer. A couple of airships could have probably sunk them all. Six will kill them.
Templar9999
True, this will be the Crucible that makes his reputation. The major confounding factor will likely be his Harrowed fixation on remaking George's world. Or at least as close to the world that George knew as possible. He will likely be in a position to leverage his knowledge and reputation to push for a less severe option. That being conquest and assimilation. If he plays his cards right, he may even be able to place himself as the new Duke of the Northern Range. Leaving him with the responsibility of "pacifying" the orcs following the conquest. IE, the hardest part. But that may be his only option to prevent the orc's extermination and enslavement.
Trevayne
Yes, it will be very interesting to see what William does with the opportunity that is about to fall in his lap. Is he still going to press for orc independence, or will he advocate for an orc duchy carved out of New Haven and Blackstone? He might personally favor the first, but how does he keep a future Lindholm Queen from reconquering an independent orc state?
Trevayne
He will not need to see barnacles. Unless the entire capital was in an enchanted sleep, there were lots of witnesses to the airships coming out of the water. The problem is there wasn't enough time to get all the defenders underway. Many are still moored to sky towers and those are getting wrecked as the mooring towers are destroyed. Thinking about it, the capital is being converted into a land version of a Kraken's lair, with multiple cores scattered in the wreckage.
Trevayne
Good point, but it does give William an opportunity and immensely complicates things as well. If he manages to mitigate the damage with the Jellyfish, he will be a hero. He is also likely to be the only major public figure speaking against wiping out the orc clans. I am pretty sure he doesn't like genocide as the alternative to slavery.
Trevayne
I wonder how it is going to affect William when he finds out after the battle that the orcs gave the Lunites the idea and their last ship was part if the attack? It will be great for him politically and his technology will shine if he saves the capital from having to surrender. Assuming standard shard complements (two shards per ship), he has as many shards on the Jellyfish (20) as the entire fleet of sub-airships (10x2=20).
aj0413
Ah. A LOT of people are about to die as the Queen decides to give William whatever he wants in return for these people’s deaths
Trevayne
Great update. It resembles Pearl Harbor, but it isn't the RN getting clobbered, it is the allies, unless the RN is a lot bigger than we thought. The RN is intercepting the Pirate diversion with 30 or so ships. They left the capital covered by their allies. The other RN ships are out on patrol. There are lots of possibilities here, including an opportunity for William to save the day.
Andrew
Thank you!
Killerturd117
Pearl harbor 2: Lindholm electric boogaloo
Marius Petrauskas
nice
Phlojem
A brilliant rewrite, I can't wait for William to see the barnacles on one of the wrecked ships and shout "A Submarine! Why didn't I think of that?" Also you better take that break you mentioned last time!
Templar9999
Well done Xanatos Gambit by the Lunites. By investing in what amounts to an insurgency using a novel weapon system, they simultaneously test the system in real combat, while doing damage to multiple enemies. And potentially clearing out a Pirate fleet as well. Regardless of how things play out, they have already benefited immensely. This was the worst thing the orcs could have done for their cause. They just proved to ally with one of the primary enemies of the queendom of Lindholm. Using a new weapon system, strategy, and tactics. To attack ships at port, the port, and the capital. Shifting them from a morally justified political nuissance at the border, to a clear and present threat. This will unify the various factions against the orc clans. Potentially preventing, or at least postponing, a civil war. And almost certainly ending the orc clans.
Kaywye
Holy crap. Devastating attack...cannot wait to see the counter strike that William cooks up. He will need every one of his new shards to drive the point home that to attack Lindholm is to dig your own graves.
MarakEvans
*squints* I'm not sure whats real or not anymore...
Bas van Lissum
Reaaly rewrite! Cant wait to see the corsairs smash the submarines to bits though
CW
Oh boy, something tells me this might speed up the Norths plans a year or so.
Admiralthrawnbar
Sunday, December 22nd, 2024... a date which will live in infamy...
Blue Fishcake
What do you mean? It's Kanna. It's always been Kanna. (Jokes aside, if I'm this bad with my own characters, can you imagine how bad I am in real life at remembering names?)
MarakEvans
!
Found&Lost
Interesting rewrite! Also, dastardly assault. Looking forward to the next chapter!
Christopher Manoff
No no, thank you! I look forward to these chapters every week, and i get to catch them right as I'm about to go to bed or just got off work. Plus, I won't lie, all these stories, I'm heavily invested in. So really, thank you for these :3
Blue Fishcake
Aw, thanks :D
Christopher Manoff
This chapter is *stellar*. A great chapter, my friend.
Matt Bradock
Ooof. Catching the fleet in port... Giving me some Pearl Harbor vibes.
