Chapter 6 - The Kraken Gate
The gold and copper spires of the cathedrals of Draxil and Aripole dulled as the vast, ash-coloured carapace slid relentlessly overhead. A woman dropped her bag. An old man’s legs folded under him. A man screamed,
‘The Nallians! The Nallians are attacking!’
We knew of airships, and most had seen the Council’s dirigible above Emberly, but that machine was miniscule. Had it been alongside this one, it would have looked like a minnow swimming in the wake of a leviathan. The engine nacelles, each the size of a crofter’s cottage, wore armoured baffles; this and the gunnery blisters marked it as a man-o-war. Only the Nallians had the technology to build airships like this one. I had read that this dreadnaught class was capable of carrying a thousand pounds of bombs, or deliver a strike force of two-hundred men into the heart of Emberland.
The ship kept coming, droning ever onwards. It was heading straight for Vanover Hall, Emberland’s parliament. Its gondola passed above us now, and behind that, perhaps half a furlong of dark underbelly. Terrified citizens started running in all directions. I craned my neck, searching for the tail-fin and the airship’s insignia, but Ankush beat me to it.
‘It’s the Malaban Milady,’ he remarked, sighting the blue and white roundel. ‘First ship of the Emberland Republic.’ Ankush was something of an expert. He and his brother had grown up on the border with Nallia, where they were a common sight. This was the airship that Emberland had purchased from Nallia two years ago, before the troubles. Others had also noticed the livery now, and suddenly the crowds were throwing their hats in the air, whooping and cheering, their previous alarm entirely forgotten.
‘Ridiculous’ growled James. I had heard him and Ty Rendish, both familiar with oceangoing vessels, grousing about the “flimsy contraptions” before. ‘Bloody death-trap! You wouldn’t get me up in one of those for all of King Orwall’s crown jewels.’
Indeed airships had been relegated to a historical curiosity after the tragedies of the Pride of Emberland, that claimed the lives of sixty people, and the Nallian liner, the Pol Ebrecht, which had been en-route to Caddria with ninety-four souls aboard when lightning turned the hydrogen-filled bladders into a fireball, visible from thirty leagues away. Even after non-flammable leverium was first extracted from volcanic rocks, the restitution of airships looked sure to fail. One of the pioneers of leverium balloons froze to death in the skies above Caddria when his vents froze shut. At least three dirigible inventors perished when their underpowered craft had been shunted out to sea by capricious winds. Investment dried up in Emberland as money was diverted to the air-train.
‘They are quite safe these days, Mr. Dunn’ said Ankush.
‘Yeah, don’t write them off,’ added Inigo. ‘While Emberland and Caddria gave up on air travel, the Nallian navy doubled-down, pouring millions into their own programme.’
‘They had many more setbacks,’ Mahkran chipped in. He glanced at Ankush. ‘My brother and I witnessed the death of the Pol Garfarch I, maybe six years ago.’
I had heard this tale. On Gulrei’s border with Nallia, the brothers had watched the latest evolution of their neighbour’s airship on patrol. Shortly after reaching its cruising altitude it had accidentally vented its lifting gas. The crew had struggled to rectify the problem to no avail. Five turns later it impacted the rocky terrain, killing forty-three airmen. The pol-murch, the Nallian air navy, persevered in spite of the tragedy. Whatever the undisclosed design flaw had been, the Pol Garfarch II had overcome it and the Malaban Milady was its sister-ship, built to order for Emberland’s military back when relations had been more cordial.
‘By Draxil’s Grace!’ Ellen breathed as that star, and Aripole, finally shone down on us once more. ‘I have seen pictures before, but they do not begin to capture the scale.’
‘My people believe that Nallia has six dreadnoughts like this,’ said Ankush. ‘They also have twenty frigates and some forty of the smaller, faster corvette-class vessels. We get news back on others from our compatriots who work in construction gangs in Nallia.’
‘So we have two airships versus their sixty-six?’ was Ellen’s sardonic response.
‘Which is why the Koulomb Gate is so important,’ I said.
Ellen shook her head. ‘Do you really think that Emberland can catch up with Nallia’s production lines? Even if Harman discovers leverium on another planet, we’re too far behind to be more than a nuisance to the Nallian navy. Besides, we lack the technical expertise.’
‘We do,’ I conceded, as the airship slowed over Tellemarch Park.
Around us, excited bystanders who had been terrified mere moments ago, now jubilantly tracked the airship’s progress. Knots of people formed briefly then broke up, individuals scurrying off to report what they’d seen, or fetch family members down to the park to see this spectacle for themselves. Even the jeweller and greengrocer closed up their shops and disappeared.
‘Well, that was diverting,’ I said. ‘Bearing in mind the scale of preparations needed to decamp to Lannerville, perhaps we should get back to work?’
The team collected themselves and dispersed to visit Mr Harman’s employees, those reassigned to the Lannerville estate. We were helping to relocate scientists, engineers, and administrative staff, all without their families; I doubted they would thank us. Arrangements would be made for a haulage company to collect everyone’s luggage and convey it to the land train the following day. Such scientific equipment that had survived the blast, because it had been stored elsewhere in the city, would be escorted by James and Mahkran; they had volunteered to keep it safe as it made its way overland. Ellen decided to accompany them which was unsurprising. I suspected she had something of a crush on James. She was petite and intelligent, he was a pillbox of a man with an intellect even he said could best be described as street-smart. Ellen was bubbly and enjoyed holding forth on almost any topic, while James was the quiet type. Wine versus beer, classy restaurant versus stolid pub food, refined string and wind instrument music and operas versus tub-thumping inn warmers…the list goes on. Maybe opposites do attract after all.
Inigo’s boyish enthusiasm for all things new and technical meant that he couldn’t turn down the opportunity of a journey on the sky train. None of us had travelled on one before; it was too expensive for ordinary folks, but with Director Harman bankrolling the enterprise, a few of us would finally experience what it was like.
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