Friday, 22 July 2016
Airship Pilot
I am quite sure I finished more of this story than this, but I can't find a single trace of that finished copy.
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*Boom*
...And now zero.
The airship rocked from the exploding engine, lurchin to one side. The whole of the barge hung at a tilt, suggesting we'd lost gas in one side.
Thank got I'd upgraded to helium last year or the whole bag would have exploded.
I checked the dials again. Gas bags 2-4 were on half normal-pressure, meaning shrapnel from engine 2 had ripped up the entire left side.
I checked engines 1, 3 and 4, and then pushed up to full throttle.
"c'mon c'mon" I silently prayed to Arya not to lose any more gas. We where still 2 miles from the border between Viscount Omarch and the Dark Duke. I don't want to think about what happens if we land and get caught. The Viscount is known for... no don't think about it.
I could hear the engines humming.
3 and 4 sounded fine, to the right, but the left engine, 1 sounded...
"Fred get eyes on engine 1, if it's been shot I'll have to dump it and then we're screwed"
"Captain, s'onfire"
*Oh you too, you bastard. I'm not letting you take us out.*
I pushed out of the my chair and reached for a lever I was hoping never to use. Squeezing the lock and pulling it to the floor I heard a stutter and then quiet from the left side.
"I think you hit a farmhouse Captain" Fred called up.
Too late to think about that now. We're Down to two engines, with not enough gas to stay airbourne. We are Farked.
"Fred, get up here."
Fred scrambled up into the cockpit. He's a good lad, enthusiastic, and good with engines. Bit weird though.
"We're going down. We may make it half a mile before we're ground bound. We've got maybe 8 minutes at the rate we're losing gas before we're kissing daisies, but I'll try and make it smooth enough not to kill us both. Go and grab food, water and blankets from the hold and come back here. You have 2 minutes."
As I spoke his face went a pale white under the dirt and grime. he scurried off in the direction of the hold and I turned to the safe
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