A low moan rose up out of the depth of the Pandora’s hull, drowning out the cheers of her crew as they watched the enemy airship fall from the sky.  Bewildered, they turned in circles, looking everywhere for the source of the groan.  A shout came down from the crow’s nest: the ballast had taken a serious hit and was leaking; the ship was going to fall.

Three kilometers to the north, and five hundred meters below, the sky-port of Gadren, a small merchant town on the floating continent of Ziegland, sat nestled between twin waterfalls.  The great rivers that formed the edges of the town swept over the edge of the continent, their waters shattering into an endless rain on the ocean surface a kilometer and a half below.  The crew watched the glimmering descent of the liquid diamonds only for a second before springing into action, hoping to avoid the same fate.

On the bridge the captain shouted orders in a rapid, but calm manner.  His demeanor set his crew into an efficient motion, rather than outright panic.  He knew the Pandora did not have the forward speed to make it all the way to the land’s edge; he also knew that only two other members of his crew could make the same calculations in their heads.  One was at the helm, doing his best to defy the laws that caused most objects to fall.  The other was down on the main deck, cleaning up the mess from the battle.

Dirk Gisko held his empty shotgun at waist level, pointing the dangerous end at the remaining boarders.  The battle had been quick, and the crew had left Dirk’s side in an attempt to keep the ship from crashing.  He had reasoned that anyone stupid enough to launch themselves from the deck of one airship onto the deck of a hostile airship at an altitude of several kilometers was also dumb enough to not count bullets.  Thus far, none of the boarders had thought to reason that their captor was crazy enough to hold them hostage with an empty weapon.

“Now listen carefully,” Dirk said, waving the barrel of the shotgun at the captives, “In a few moments this ship is going to reach the point of no return and plummet into the ocean two kilometers below us.  A fall like that will kill everyone on board, including you.  So I’ll make a deal with you; help us stay airborne long enough to reach Gadren, and I’ll put in a good word with Captain Cutthroat up there; if you’re lucky he won’t kill you.”

The men glanced nervously at each other.

“Or,” Dirk said after a tense moment had passed, “we can all fall to a horrible death.”  He shrugged- he had access to a parachute.

“Then let us fall,” shouted the largest of the hostages, “good riddance to you and your vile ship!”

The man spat at Dirk, who sighed and turned towards the bridge, shouting to Cyril that the large ogre wished to die.  The hostage fell to the ground in a heap seconds later.  A warm puddle began forming underneath his limp form.

“Toss his body over the railing- we need to lose as much weight as possible.  You two,” he singled out the two strongest looking men, “Report to the captain and follow his orders.  The rest of you, dispose of the body and get to work.  One of the quartermasters will give you orders.  Now move!”

The hostages scattered; none senseless enough to join their fallen comrade.  Dirk tossed his gun over his shoulder and ran below deck to help toss the cannons.  One by one, the mammoth bronze guns somersaulted from the rear cargo doors into the calm blue-green waters below.  When the last of the heavy bronze guns had made its dive, Dirk began rolling the cannonballs after their launchers.  Food and drink sailed through the air after the heavy iron spheres had departed, and the crew paused only once to quickly fill their flasks with whiskey before rolling the heavy oaken kegs off of the ship.

Returning topside, Dirk noticed that Gadren was much closer to eye level than before he had ducked below deck; the Pandora was losing altitude rapidly.  Overhead, a colorful red flare exploded into a crimson cloud that shouted for help.  In Gadren, emergency vessels filled their ballasts with helium and hot air, responding to the dissipating clouds of red that trailed behind the struggling airship.

“Not fast enough,” Dirk muttered under his breath, sliding his spyglass shut and securing it to his belt.

The ship groaned again and followed the low creak with a sharp, metallic whip.  Dirk realized with horror that the steel ballast lines, damaged in the battle, were beginning to snap under the weight of the hull.  As more lines broke, the sheer mass of the hull would begin to overwhelm the remaining wires and gravity would tear the boat from the balloon.

“Reinforce the ballast lines!” he shouted as another wire sounded its failure.  Something glanced hard across Dirk’s back and he fell to the ground like a dropped marionette.

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Flight of the Calliope! by William Nagel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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