The New World

[MWBailey]

"I'll take over from here, sergeant," a dark-haired, well-built, somewhat wry-looking Lieutenant said.

"Aye, Sir."

"Now, Captain...Burns, was it? Please accept our apologies if we seem to be stonewalling or unresponsive; Things are just a bit hectic at teh moment,. what with the Troop landings and billetting, and that airship attack. I'll have to say, I'm intrigued, though; just what can you do against an ironclad, non-gas-lofted airship capable of, oh... corporal, what was the last reported velocity of that monster airship?"

The corporal sitting at a desk in the corner, banging out a stack of reports on a typing machine nearly as big as he was, responded, "about ... ninety knots, I think sir, and still accelerating. They reported that...let me check the speed and stuff, hold on..." He shuffled through a stack of freshly-typed sheets. "They reported in about twenty minutes ago, sir, said 'estimated ninety-two knots and accelerating,' and they have a stowa--!"

"That's fine, Corp, let's not let all of the cats out of the bag just yet," Muckleroy cut the fellow off. "So, Captain, just what can you do from here? how will you find the pursuit fleet, and how do you propose to catch them in the first place? I ask because teh colonel will want to know; it might be best to formulate such a plan now, before you meet with him, rather than try to make it up on the spur of the moment. He admires people who can do that in the field in a battle, but not so much as a proposal. And you have to get through him, sir, to get any kind of transport, not to mention any cooperative effort from the fleet -- and I'm his secretary.

"I'm sure you can understand, sir, that anybody can claim to be a british 'Windwalker' and make vague promises about their abilities. We've certainly hear of the Windwalkers and their exploits, but how do I know you're one of them, beyond your insignia? The long and short of it, sir, is that we quite frankly don't know who you are. Do you have a letter or something from the British Military? Are you one of the Specials? Do messires Falko, O'Flaherty, or Gemmel know you? What credentials can you give us?

It suddenly became apparent that the room could boast a larger number of rifle-armed guards than it had previously; the Lieutenant had made a hand signal that had been prearranged for such situations, but the matter was about to taken from his hands.

"LIEUTENANT MUCKLEROY! GET THAT GUY IN HERE!"

[Crickity]

Kyle noted Ela's concern for Hugo and decided to do what he could to help her find the man. Finding a spanner wasn't difficult, despite his rather loose grasp of what a 'really good' one might entail, but the brass plating was proving a little more problematic. He jogged through the shelter and the surrounding shanty town, casting his eyes around for any metalworkers or mechanics. At last he came across a mutton-chopped gunsmith who was cutting up a sheet of brass for fittings and aesthetics. Kyle picked up a jagged square around two handspans across from the pile of scraps.
"Any need of this?" asked Kyle amiably.
"None at all, lad," replied the man, a hint of Irish permeating his voice slightly, "Mind how ye go with the edges though."
Kyle dropped the sheet into his bag and jogged back to the shelter, shouting thanks. He caught Ela coming back towards him and slowed to a halt.
"Well?" she asked, worry creasing her brow, "Did you get my things?"
"Brass and spanner check," he said, waving them before her, "didn't know how much water you needed, but there's any number of smiths out there who'll let you at a forge, and most of them have a faucet or something similar,"
She nodded and looked off to one side, still frowning about something.
"If that's not enough, we could get somebody to run a bath?"
No reply was forthcoming, so Kyle grasped her shoulder lightly.
"What's wrong Ela? I take it you didn't find Hugo?"

[thefrozenwulf]

my small bunk had only one useful thing on it. they had accidentally given me a double sheet instead  a single, and it had been a useful distraction for the guards that now lay at my feet. i learned this trick from his youthful games of cat and mouse with other immigrants when i was only six or seven yeas old. the cloth, flourished around my body, would shield them from ranged attacks, because it was hard to get a clear shot that wasn't all cloth, and it could draw the attention away from me long enough to get in a few lethal blows from the knives i carried everywhere with me. i worked my way into the bowels of the ship, and eventually found myself in a secret area of the hold. there where pipes, filled with a phosphorescent fluid, heading into a darkened room. the entrance was mostly filled with the pipes, but my flexible body managed to squeeze through. the room glowed with eerie blue light from the goo in the tubing. and in the center of the mass of pipes, head down, syringes tracking up her arms and spine, i found the immobile form of Ekaterina Volkova.

[Cpt Wallace]

"Seems I'm wanted Mr Muckleroy."

He swung the rifle from his shoulder and the winchester from his leg placing them on the table before the corporal and pulled his over coat from his shoulders placing it on the weapons, his uniform was pristine underneath, the insignia and regimental badges clear as day for all to see his officers flash hanging from his right shoulder and his webbing filled with the tools and articles of his trade, a pair of heavy leather vambraces were on his lower arms they sported a trio of recoiled blades and other dials across them, his pistol and short sword hung on his hips, the whole outfit was tight and constructed from a waxed linen material that looked warm and very waterproof.

He slid a hand into a pouch on his belt pulling folded papers from it and passed them to the Lieutenant.

"My papers ole boy, detailing my past dispositions and past battles and engagements I've been involved with officially and otherwise."

He stepped in close to the Lieutenant whispering into his ear.

"You can tell I'm a windwalker boy, I'm here alone."

He stepped past the man heading towards the voice.

"I'm the last of them."

He stepped into the office and before the owner of the bellowing voice. 

[MWBailey]

The Colonel called from his office. "Muckleroy! get on the horn and tell Lt. Jiroux to get a squad of mounts together, and get ahold of the Raptor; ask Cap'n O'Flaherty if he can help us out and take an operative to Garrow post haste -- and ask him, Lieutenant, I hear he's a level-headed fellow, but we don't need a fire-thrower mad at us. Get to work!"

The colonel turned to Burns. "Close the door, will you, Mr. Burns? Now, I'm going to keep this as short as possible. I don't know whether you're a real windwalker or not. I've heard some things, and we know some things for certain, but the long and the short of it is that we need all the help we can get against this godawful rogue bagless airship. I hear she doesn't even ship an auxiliary envelope, she just floats on MOFF units like a giant airbike -- only heavily armoured and armed to the teeth. Just to give you an idea, she fought off O'Flaherty and his bunch, Plus Lt. Jiroux (she's a real firecracker herself, so watch yourself), and that after nearly destroying the Virginian Garrison Fleet. It's not that she has a lot of guns, or whatever weapons, it's how they're positioned and how the commander and crew use 'em. Hildebrandt's a rogue and a Jonah through and through; he'll do literally anything. I suppose you've heard about 'em covering their ship with an envelope from a defeated opponent, and ramming through anything that refuses to budge out of the way. Well, anyway -- What is it!"

"Sir, Cap'n O'Flaherty says come ahead anytime, and Lt. Jiroux's already out on patrol; she says she'll be here in five, if not sooner. They drummed up the Old Hands for her first Dusk Patrol, sir. They've got the lights and gear for a night mission, just in case."

"Good Lord." Colonel Pierce shuddered. He turned back to Burns. The Dusk Patrol this time's a rough and ready lot, but they're all veterans, even though Jiroux is their new CO. O'Flaherty's a bit of a wild card; he's originally a groundpounder, & a new immigrant from Britain, so they tell me. A lieutenant from the African campaigns, a fire-throwing Special, and a smith by trade, originally. They say he burnt a hole in the side of Demologos and boarded her but got forced back off. His ship, that armored zeppelin out there, name of Raptor, she's got a coilgun, and they supposedly crippled Demologos with it, or she'd be running a lit faster, I'd warrant. He offered his hand. Good luck. Muckleroy'll show you to the Raptor." HE waved impatiently at the Lieutenant.

[Cpt Wallace]

"Thank you Colonel, I only ask that you help get me close enough to the air ship and then I'll render any help I can in crippling her so your boys can finish her off."

He thought for a second rubbing his chin.

"O'Flahery yeah I've hear of him, got himself quite the name in Africa I myself never served there, I was otherwise engaged."

[MWBailey]

they soon boarded a small craft that looked like a blimp with a passenger and seating area built down into the top. Muckleroy called it "the gig."

The Raptor looked exactly like what it actually was: a repurposed NYPD Police zeppelin, armored rather more heavily than usual. It had the standard twelve big-bore autogatlings, a couple of patched-in heavy pom-pom guns (about 2-inch bore), and the usual ten or so 50-caliber gatlings in various places on the hull. Delta-configuration rear stabilizers with built-in control surfaces; bow vanes; Rather too stubby to be sleek, but too slender to be exactly tubby; her kind were known to be faster than the average civilian craft, but were not exactly racing vehicles, either.  The Lieutenant wondered to himself just how O'Flaherty and crew would be able even to pace the Demologos and the pursuing warships, to say nothinhg of catching the fleet or running down the miscreants in 'that demon battlewagon,' especially when he saw one of the things that were not standard about the ship.

Hanging from the keel amidships-ward, and placed to fire under the control car, was the coilgun that Pierce had mentioned. Long, relatively slender, and covered with a coating of mastic and canvas that still failed to mask the fact that it was wound around and about in a specific and intricate pattern with heavy-duty cabling, the wye-yoke from which it depended and through which it was loaded, the char marks around the muzzle-- all in all, it looked entirely too big, ungainly and insanely powerful for the ship it was attached to.

Two other things were odd. One, the props that were standard on such ships had been replaced with ducted-fan type prop units -- big ones, which looked like they were designed to be aimable, and usable at high speed. For another, long, pointed-front tubes poked out from under the angled-down lower fins at the back; their flared tails, which poked out at the stern, were stained or perhaps burnt black. The whole ship, looked at second or third glance-wise, suddenly began to look as if it might be souped-up enough to catch that fleet.

They docked at the keel door just forward of the stern and within the shelter of the two downward-angled lower tail fins. "Permission to come aboard?" Muckleroy called up. Muckleroy here, I've a Captain Wallace to deliver."

----------------------
Fergus looked up at the sound of the radiomajn's voicecalling for him. "Patch it n here, will ye Brian?"

"Aye, sir."

Fergus listened to the message. The exchange went back and forth several times, and it was finally decided that the Raptor would take on Captain Wallace. "He'll be along in a bit, over." the Fort's radio dispatcher said and signed off.

Fergus switched off teh sqawkbox and turned back to Isa. "He'll be comin' abard soon, I'll wager. would ye loik tae come with, and meet 'im? Them windwalkers are a flashy lot, or they used tae be. Funny, I though they was all furloughed or dead." He grunted, then chuckled. "Guess I coulda been wrong, though. What d'ye say?"

[Stella Gaslight]

Isa was happily fed and had decided that Fergus was someone like Bella she could trust.  Therefore until l the got a better feel for the ship she would hang by him.  So far none of the men were like old Jacobi bur she did not want to be alone with them until she knew without a doubt. "Yes Sir. I think I would like that."  She hoped to see Bella soon too.  There was so much she had to tell her, so many things she had learned.

[MWBailey]

Bella was not far off; She had had sergeant Flagg answer the query on the aetheradio, and they had made arrangements to to hitch a ride with the Raptor; the Raptor's radioman had informed them that the souped-up zeppelin would probably outdistance the courier airbikes, even as fast as they were reknowned to be.  So it was with relief that Bella and her first Dusk Patrol with the 4th Recon Company came aboard and hung their 'bikes in the hold of the Raptor. "I left a friend here, Lieutenant," she said to Murphy, "take charge of the patrol while I go see about her and report to Captain O'Flaherty."

"Aye, Ma'am!" Murphy snapped another air-slicing salute.

Fergus slapped a corridor Squawkbox as he and Isa made their way toward the hold to greet Burns; the Radioman had just called for him. "What is it, Brian?"

"Cap'n, Lt. Jiroux and her patrol have just boarded as well, and berthed their vehicles. I hear it's quite a motley assortment."

"Aye, well, So be the lot o' us, if ye recall. But thanks, We'll be at the hold presently..."