The moment the crewman reached the engine room, he knew something had gone very wrong.
The cannonball had not merely hit something. It had found something important and introduced itself at high speed. One of the machines—formerly loud, proud, and spinning—now looks busted.
He rushes to the speaking tube embedded in the wall, only to found it bent and broken also.
“…Great.” The crewman muttered.
Abandoning all hope of civilized communication, the crewman bolts back into the corridor, inhales deeply, and shouts with everything his lungs can give.
“CAPTAIN! THE COAL FEEDER IS BUSTED!”
“Goddamnit…” the captain mutters from the bridge. Then shout back, “CAN YOU FIX IT?!”
“I CAN TRY!” the crewman shouts back.
Megan winces. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” the captain replies grimly, “someone has to feed the enhanced coal manually into the furnace if we want to keep flying—while my men try to fix the coal feeder.”
Megan nods immediately. She understands perfectly what that means.
“IRVING! KOVALSKI!” she bellows down the corridor. “ENGINE ROOM DUTY! MOVE!”
Irving and Kovalski don’t argue. They just nod and sprint toward the engine room, where the crewman is already crouched beside the ruined machine.
“Demons,” the crewman says as they enter, pointing toward a stack of crates shoved into the corner. “We’ve got plenty of emergency coal there. One of you feeds the furnace. The other helps me fix this mess.”
Irving glances at Kovalski.
“Kovalski, you take the coal,” Irving mutters. “I’ll help with the fixing.”
Kovalski grunts, grabs a shovel leaning against the wall, and starts moving the crates.
“How much coal?” he asks.
The crewman doesn’t even look up as he crawls halfway under the broken feeder.
“The more you burn,” he replies, voice echoing from inside the machine, “the faster this airship goes.”
“Got it.”
Kovalski immediately gets to work, hauling crates, cracking them open, and shoveling enhanced coal straight into the furnace. The fire inside roars brighter with every load.
---
Dockmaster Tower
Meanwhile, in the Dockmaster Tower, the base commander remains glued to his telescope, watching the Vitalis flee like an insult with engines.
“Sir!” a staff officer calls out. “Five airships have undocked and are ready to intercept the Vitalis!”
“Good,” the commander replies without lowering the telescope.
“However,” the officer continues cautiously, “the captains are asking how they’re supposed to intercept it. Firing cannons inside the hangar is too dangerous. Too many munitions.”
The commander clicks his tongue and lowered his telescope.
“Tch…”
What they’re saying is, annoyingly, correct.
“…Tell them to block the Vitalis’s path,” he orders. “Ram it if they can.”
The officer stiffens. “R-Ram it, sir?”
“Yes,” the commander says flatly. “Ram it.”
“Y-Yes sir!”
---
The Vitalis, Bridge
The moment several airships begin undocking and sliding into position ahead of them, the atmosphere on the bridge turns ice-cold.
Everyone goes pale.
“Shiiit…” Ivy mutters.
“Grr… Now I have to get past them too?!” the captain snarls, already reaching for the speaking tube embedded in the console beside her. She leans in and barks, “ENGINE ROOM! I NEED MORE POWER!”
No voice.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Only silence.
“Tch.” The captain clicks her tongue. “The tube must be broken too.”
Before she can curse properly, Megan is already moving. She pulls a small device from her ear and flicks it across the bridge.
“Here. Use this. Put it in your ear.”
The captain catches it reflexively. “What’s this?”
“Communication device,” Megan replies calmly. “Put it in your ear. You can talk to my men in the engine room with it.”
The captain doesn’t argue. She clips it on immediately.
“Engine room,” she says into the comm. “Come in.”
---
The Vitalis, Engine Room
Kovalski freezes mid-shovel when the captain’s voice suddenly appears in his ear.
“Yes, this is the engine room,” Irving answers, not looking up as he helps the crewman wrestle with the broken coal feeder.
“How long for the repair?” the captain asks.
Kovalski leans toward the crewman. “Your captain wants to know how long for the repair.”
The crewman grunts, still struggling to turn a stubborn knob. “Uhh… maybe a minute. Or two.”
“Sixty seconds,” Irving relays into the comm. “Two minutes, max. And for the bomb… three more minutes before detonation.”
There’s a brief pause.
“Then I need you to start shoving a lot of coal in right now,” the captain says. “Things are steaming up up here.”
“Copy that,” Irving replies, turning his head toward Kovalski.
Kovalski is still standing there, completely motionless, shovel in hand, eyes wide.
“HEY, KOVALSKI! DID YOU GET THAT?!” Irving shouts.
Kovalski flinches violently. “Huh?! Ah! YES! I’M SHOVING IT NOW!”
He immediately snaps into motion, hurling coal into the furnace faster than before.
---
The Vitalis, Bridge
“We’ve got more power now, Captain!” the bridge crewman reports.
“Very well…” The captain grips the steering controls hard enough that the metal creaks. “Here goes nothing.”
“FULL SPEED AHEAD!” she roars.
“AYE! FULL SPEED!” the bridge crewman answer.
The Vitalis surges forward, its engines screaming as it accelerates once more—straight toward the airship blockade ahead.
Outside, armored troops, spider constructs, and soldiers continue firing wildly at the fleeing airship. The captain ignores all of it, her eyes locked solely on the movement of the airships in front of her.
“…The airships aren’t shooting at us,” Megan mutters.
“Because they know firing cannons of that caliber inside the hangar is suicide,” the captain replies flatly. “One bad shot and the live ammunition around here turns the whole place into a funeral.”
“Then how are they planning to stop us?” Bella asks.
As if answering her directly, the foremost airship on their upper-left suddenly veers off course—straight toward them.
“By ramming us! HOLD TIGHT!” the captain shouts as she spins the steering controls.
The Vitalis jerks upward, its nose climbing sharply toward the upper-right.
“KYAAAAAA!!” Bella screams.
They miss the incoming airship by only a few meters.
But there’s no time to celebrate.
The second airship is already in position, blocking their path horizontally with its long, armored frame.
“Rrrrgh!” the captain growls, wrenching the controls in the opposite direction.
The Vitalis’s nose dips violently, and the airship plunges downward.
“KYAAAAA!!!” Bella screams again—this time Ivy joins her.
Another near miss.
Their bridge almost slams directly into the underside bridge of the second airship. For a split second—a few terrifying milliseconds—the two bridges pass close enough that their crews can see each other’s faces.
Then gravity becomes the next problem.
They’re descending too fast. The hangar floor is rushing up to meet them.
The captain hauls back on the controls with everything she has.
“KYAAAAA!!!” The crewman adds himself to the growing choir.
The Vitalis finally pitches upward—but only barely.
Its hull skims the ground. Its twin propellers scrape against the hangar floor, throwing sparks in a screaming shower before the airship finally claws its way back into the air.
And then—
The third airship’s nose looms in from the upper-right.
Too close.
The captain reacts on pure instinct, slamming the controls to the right.
Against all expectations—and possibly several laws of physics—the Vitalis pulls off an extreme barrel roll to the right... somehow.
“KYAAAAA!!!”
This time even Megan loses her composure, turning the chorus into a full quartet.
After the final stunt, everything goes eerily quiet.
The Vitalis levels out, engines roaring steadily. The captain grins wildly, sweat pouring down her face from the strain of the maneuvers. Around her, the others wobble on weak knees before collapsing onto the floor.
“Stand up!” the captain snaps. “It’s not over yet!”
They force themselves upright.
Ahead, sunlight pours through the exit opening of the hangar.
But the relief dies instantly.
Two airships float side by side in front of the exit—perfectly positioned to block the Vitalis’s escape.
“Captain! We’re slowing down!” a crewman reports, staring at his instrument panel.
The captain immediately taps her earcomm.
“Engine room, report!” she demands. “Why are we slowing down?!”
---
The Vitalis, Engine Room
The engine room has devolved into chaos.
Coal is everywhere—scattered across the floor, bouncing in corners, wedged under pipes—courtesy of the Vitalis defying the gravity before. Kovalski scrambles across the floor, hurriedly scooping loose chunks back into their crates and shoveling what he can toward the furnace.
Nearby, Irving squats beside the crewman, who is sprawled flat on his back, unmoving.
“This is engine room,” Irving reports into his comm. “You know… it’s kinda hard to work properly while being flipped upside down.”
“How’s the repair going?” the captain asks.
“About that…” Irving glances down at the unconscious crewman.
“That last maneuver knocked your guy out cold. There’s no way to fix the coal feeder now.”
He taps the crewman’s cheek twice.
Nothing.
“This is just getting better…” the captain mutters through the comm. “No other choice. We’re relying on manual power now. Keep shove the coal.”
“Got it,” Irving replies.
He rises to his feet and immediately joins Kovalski at coal duty, both of them shoveling like their lives—and the ship’s—depend on it.
Because they do.
---
Dockmaster Tower
Inside the Dockmaster Tower, every Dwarf present is silent.
They stare through the windows and telescopes at the Vitalis.
“…An airship can do that?” one staff member whispers, sounding genuinely disturbed.
The base commander steps forward.
“There’s a reason she was chosen to command His Majesty’s personal airship,” he says grimly.
Outside, the Vitalis accelerates again—its trajectory unmistakable. It’s aiming straight for the narrow gap between the two blocking airships.
“But,” the base commander continues, his voice hardening, “there’s no reason to let her live after betraying us by aiding the demons.”
He raises the mana-comm.
“Captains,” he says calmly, “you know what to do.”
“Squeeze and crush the Vitalis. Don’t let anyone on that ship survive.”
“Affirmative,” two voices from the mana-comm reply in unison.
No no no, relax. I’m not dragging you into the dark alley called Patreon for now.
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