“Jim, up the J ropes!” The captain shouted.
“But I-”
“We can talk later, if we make it,” the captain replied as she pushed
him through the cabin door.
Jim rushed toward the nearest fanned rope ladder. They were called
Jacob’s ladders but more often referred to as J ropes. Behind him, he could still hear the captain barking orders to the crew, “Get on a turngun! Henry, give the order to take us up higher. Their wings are shit at high altitude.. Harol, where are the twins? I need them...”
Captain Rychist’s voice trailed off as she disappeared up the forecastle stairs and out of view.
The crew was scrambling in every direction. Dozens of them hastily ascended J ladders hanging from the balloon. Jim ran for the nearest one. The captain’s earlier words played over in his head, “I just hope you don’t have a fear of heights.”
Jim scurried up the ropes, trying to ignore the thousands of meters between him and the world below. His bones shook as a loud thrumming started from below deck. The lazy thump thump thump of the ship’s propellers quickened, becoming a steady drone. Wisps of steam poured out from belowdecks as the coal-fed engine hissed and roared. More alarm bells were ringing, and shouts carried upward from deep within the ship.
Focusing on the ropes ahead and above, Jim continued his climb. The balloon’s pull on the J ropes kept them tight, but it didn’t stop his mind from playing games with his senses. The fear of a rope giving way and
tossing him into the abyss lingered between his animal and logical brain, threatening to petrify his body mid-climb.
The Liberator had already begun its ascent. The pleasant white cloud sea below them was now a distant blanket. As they pushed up into a higher, much colder layer, a chilly fog engulfed the ship. The sky seemed to darken as they rose, while the deep thrumming rhythm of steam—being belched into the balloon—gave the impression that he was climbing up the ribs of a giant leviathan.
The hull soon disappeared behind the bulk of the balloon as Jim quickened his pace. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he slowed to allow his lungs to catch up with his body’s demand in the thin air.
One step. Then another and another. Soon, the clouds below were replaced by the curve of the balloon’s canvas as he scrambled the last few meters to the top.
Moments later, catapulting out from the sides of the Liberator — five, eight, ten fighters burst forth. They were heavy Dragonfly variants, large two-man fighters used mainly against ground targets. The dual wings would also serve them at such a high altitude, hopefully providing an advantage against the oncoming firebug squadron Harol had warned of.
Dragonflies took their name from a nearly identical resemblance to the bug commonly found around the water supplies of most desert oases. The heavy fighters used a dizzying array of gears linked to a yellow ether cube to beat their quad wings in perfect sync, mimicking the insect in everything but size. Even the sound of one flying nearby was strikingly similar to the real insect.
Firebugs, on the other hand, carried only a single high refire turngun in the nose and a single pair of rapidly beating mechanical wings. Also powered by yellow ether cubes, as all aircraft were, they were fairly harmless alone, but in swarms, they could be deadly with their low caliber, fast firing nose guns. Somewhere to the northwest, one such swarm was coming their way.
The curve of the balloon began to level out, and soon he was on his feet. Jim stumbled toward the nearest emplacement, trying to catch his breath as he went along. The thinning air was wreaking havoc on his burning lungs and only added to his disorientation.
What the hell am I doing here? he asked himself. Since he’d woken up, 37
RUIN: AWAKENING
he felt as if he’d been dragged along through a wild fever dream. The ship, the beautiful captain, the clockwork man, and now...this. Whatever this was. Perhaps it was all a dream, or perhaps this was the afterlife.
BOOM! A peal of thunder burst through the clouds, its shockwave slamming into him like a hammer, robbing him of breath for a moment. Jim shook his head clear, as clear as he could anyhow. Whatever this was, he was here now and would do his part to survive.
Ahead, his turngun sat atop a small wooden platform that had been fastened to the thick balloon canvas. Surrounding it was a two layer high sandbag wall. The brass contraption had dual handcranks hooked up to a gearing system that rotated eight barrels arranged around a core. Ammo and powder bags dropped downward through separate hoppers into the top barrel, each bag carefully measured so as not to jam the loading mechanism.
With each turn of the crank, a flint cap was struck, igniting the tiny powder bag and sending the spheroid projectile toward its target. Of course, fighters and other powered contraptions did this all automatically thanks to the power flowing from their ether cubes. Unfortunately, this turngun would require Jim-power, limited though it may be.
Shuddering and releasing an enormous belch of steam, the ship jolted as they reached their target altitude. Jim quickly grabbed a pair of brass rimmed flight goggles hanging from one of the cranks and fixed them tightly to his head. The rims were lined with matted material, gamal hair, he guessed. They had a set of drop lenses for distant viewing, ready to be pulled down at the wearer’s discretion.
Over the commotion below and the rapidly oncoming storm, he could make out the shouts of Captain Rychist. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but there was a tension in her voice. If he were to guess, he was almost certain it was fear.
The air was intolerably cold, especially to Jim’s desert-acclimated sensibilities. He realized how underdressed he was compared to the rest of the crew members he had seen. Suddenly, a warm cloud of released steam passed over him and provided brief respite, though leaving him wet and cold a few seconds later. The thick grey cloud was acrid with the smell of degraded black crystal and coal.
Jim grabbed the leather shoulder harnesses hanging from the gun chair 38
CHAPTER FOUR
and strapped himself in. Through the cold metal bucket seat of his emplacement, he could feel every bump and vibration from the ship below. He suspected the platform was anchored to one or more of the steel frames that gave the balloon its streamlined shape.
The Liberator’s squadron of Dragonflies circled around it as they formed a perimeter in the air. Their quickly heating yellow cores reflected against the trails of white that streamed behind each fighter as they corkscrewed in tight formation. He imagined that from a distance, The Liberator must appear to be wearing a golden halo of steam.
But something far more sinister drew his gaze. Against the horizon a wholly artificial, wholly deadly, black cloud raced toward the ship. Peals of thunder announced their coming doom as white lightning snaked throughout the unnatural vapor. Within the darkness, yellow dots darted left and right appearing for seconds before retreating into the veil.
“By the Gods, they have a prime of air in there!” came a cry from the emplacement nearest to him.
“What’s a prime!?” Jim shouted back, but the commotion of dragonflies and an approaching maelstrom drowned his voice in the chaos. The storm was nearly upon them, rumbling like an avalanche as it approached. The young man shouted something and pointed toward the cloud. Jim couldn’t make out the words, but the fear in the boy’s face told him everything he needed to know.
He fought the urge to unstrap, dive down, and hide behind his meager sandbag wall. Fear weakened his grip on the weapon’s cranks as he stepped on the right control pedal. The small dais beneath him hissed as steam from the balloon escaped to engage the gearing, turning him in the direction of the pedal.
He released the control pedal as his weapon leveled toward the storm. From head to toe, his body tightened in preparation for the unknown. What the hell am I doing here? He thought. I don’t even know these people.
At that moment, he wanted very much to be back on his ship. It may have been a barely floating piece of junk, but it was far closer to the ground. Accompanying the ever-present fear of small spaces, he had apparently picked up a fresh fear of heights. His heart fluttered under a wave of anxiety.