Drewmandred
July 22nd, 2004, 07:49
It was a dark and stormy night. The zeppelin was not at all airworthy.
The heavy drone of the engines, stuttering whenever one of the overworked machines faltered, cut through the hissing lash of the rain. The rags of a ruptured gas cell dangled from a gaping hole in the belly like the entrails of a wounded fish. Aluminum supports squealed in protest and bent a little further as the bouyancy shifted, the damaged rear section beginning to deform under its own weight. At the helm, the skipper peered through the driving rain, searching for a place, any place to put his craft down, but this forsaken land was nothing but rain-carved canyons and patches of muddy dirt, no single stretch of land big enough to ditch in. The cabin lurched as something gave and one of the big twelve cylinder engines tore away and whirled off downwards.
-
It had seemed simple enough at the time. The gold shipment going overland to the British settlement in Hong Kong had been heavily protected from bandits, robbers and other riff-raff by a hundred hand-picked cavalrymen and five of the lurching inefficient armoured tanks which seemed so popular nowadays. Surely no-one would be foolhardy to think of attacking such an escort. What they hadn't expected was the Dirigible Airship Unflammable to drop down out of the monsoon rainclouds over Vietnam and harpoon one of the trucks, winching it and the precious golden cargo up into the Unflammables' hold. The light bullets from the cavalry rifles simply failed to do any real damage, and by the time the tanks had moved to a position where their main cannons could be brought to bear, the pirate zeppelin had escaped into cloud cover and was already swinging south.
The crew was still celebrating as they passed over Singapore, and is was shortly after that when they were attacked by a flight of British Typhoons. Bleary-eyed turret gunners tried to keep the fighters at bay with machine gun fire, and engineers hurried to empty the crated gold from the truck so the vehicle could be jettisoned. An ill-fated burst from the rear belly turret punched through the cockpit of a Typhoon screaming upwards, and the uncontrolled aeroplane plowed into the cargo hold, tearing the floor loose from its mounts and ripping a sizeable hole in one of the gasbags, helium blasting loose. The truck, surrounded by a cloud of shattered metal and a tangle of burning airframe, dropped, hitting the water in a myriad of splashes, to finally sink to the bottom of the Singapore Strait.
The remaining Typhoons harried the crippled zeppelin, until one of the turrets scored a lucky hit and they pulled out, nursing their smoke-streaming comrade back to their aerodrome.
The skipper breathed a sigh of relief and gave the order to begin dumping extra weight, and prayed he could nurse his damaged ship to back to base.
He would have made it, had it not started to rain. But it was the Wet, after all.
-
The zeppelin dropped lower, the ruined underside grazing the top of a rock formation, and the skipper span the helm, ordered a stop to the port engines. He eyed the stretch of canyon as it wheeled in front of him, hoped that it would be long enough, wide enough. He stopped the starboard engines, and yelled for everyone to brace themselves. The airship was sluggish as it slowed, still turning, and the craft sank in a spray of wet leaves, crushing trees and sending up a cloud of angry budgerigars. Broken branches tore through the light armour on the underside of the zeppelin as the full weight of the Unflammable settled.
The skipper sagged against the helm, unable to hide his relief. He took a few minutes to calm himself, then left the cramped cabin and watched as his crew disembarked, began to set up camp in the shelter of their grounded vessel. He looked into the strongroom, half-filled with plain wooden crates. If not a kings ransom, then that of a semi-popular prince.
He went out to join his crew.
And that was the end of the Unflammable.
-----
Beh, and that's why I don't write. Because everything winds up being trite stories about pirates and zeppelins. At least this one didn't have ninjas in it.
And yes, I am heavily influenced by the whole 'Crimson Skies' thing. :P
The heavy drone of the engines, stuttering whenever one of the overworked machines faltered, cut through the hissing lash of the rain. The rags of a ruptured gas cell dangled from a gaping hole in the belly like the entrails of a wounded fish. Aluminum supports squealed in protest and bent a little further as the bouyancy shifted, the damaged rear section beginning to deform under its own weight. At the helm, the skipper peered through the driving rain, searching for a place, any place to put his craft down, but this forsaken land was nothing but rain-carved canyons and patches of muddy dirt, no single stretch of land big enough to ditch in. The cabin lurched as something gave and one of the big twelve cylinder engines tore away and whirled off downwards.
-
It had seemed simple enough at the time. The gold shipment going overland to the British settlement in Hong Kong had been heavily protected from bandits, robbers and other riff-raff by a hundred hand-picked cavalrymen and five of the lurching inefficient armoured tanks which seemed so popular nowadays. Surely no-one would be foolhardy to think of attacking such an escort. What they hadn't expected was the Dirigible Airship Unflammable to drop down out of the monsoon rainclouds over Vietnam and harpoon one of the trucks, winching it and the precious golden cargo up into the Unflammables' hold. The light bullets from the cavalry rifles simply failed to do any real damage, and by the time the tanks had moved to a position where their main cannons could be brought to bear, the pirate zeppelin had escaped into cloud cover and was already swinging south.
The crew was still celebrating as they passed over Singapore, and is was shortly after that when they were attacked by a flight of British Typhoons. Bleary-eyed turret gunners tried to keep the fighters at bay with machine gun fire, and engineers hurried to empty the crated gold from the truck so the vehicle could be jettisoned. An ill-fated burst from the rear belly turret punched through the cockpit of a Typhoon screaming upwards, and the uncontrolled aeroplane plowed into the cargo hold, tearing the floor loose from its mounts and ripping a sizeable hole in one of the gasbags, helium blasting loose. The truck, surrounded by a cloud of shattered metal and a tangle of burning airframe, dropped, hitting the water in a myriad of splashes, to finally sink to the bottom of the Singapore Strait.
The remaining Typhoons harried the crippled zeppelin, until one of the turrets scored a lucky hit and they pulled out, nursing their smoke-streaming comrade back to their aerodrome.
The skipper breathed a sigh of relief and gave the order to begin dumping extra weight, and prayed he could nurse his damaged ship to back to base.
He would have made it, had it not started to rain. But it was the Wet, after all.
-
The zeppelin dropped lower, the ruined underside grazing the top of a rock formation, and the skipper span the helm, ordered a stop to the port engines. He eyed the stretch of canyon as it wheeled in front of him, hoped that it would be long enough, wide enough. He stopped the starboard engines, and yelled for everyone to brace themselves. The airship was sluggish as it slowed, still turning, and the craft sank in a spray of wet leaves, crushing trees and sending up a cloud of angry budgerigars. Broken branches tore through the light armour on the underside of the zeppelin as the full weight of the Unflammable settled.
The skipper sagged against the helm, unable to hide his relief. He took a few minutes to calm himself, then left the cramped cabin and watched as his crew disembarked, began to set up camp in the shelter of their grounded vessel. He looked into the strongroom, half-filled with plain wooden crates. If not a kings ransom, then that of a semi-popular prince.
He went out to join his crew.
And that was the end of the Unflammable.
-----
Beh, and that's why I don't write. Because everything winds up being trite stories about pirates and zeppelins. At least this one didn't have ninjas in it.
And yes, I am heavily influenced by the whole 'Crimson Skies' thing. :P