Competence by Gail Carriger

Author:Gail Carriger [Carriger, Gail]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781944751128
Publisher: GAIL CARRIGER LLC
Published: 2018-07-16T23:00:00+00:00

Prim took to the main deck in the hopes of an opportunity to shoot something. Ordinarily she wasn’t bloodthirsty but her nerves were frayed by too much worry in too short a time, and she thought, if pressed, she might shoot her brother. Better to give herself an opportunity to shoot the enemy instead.

Sadly this was unnecessary, as Willard took a clean pass with the gun and disabled the ladle with no spill, no fuss, and no loss of life.

Perhaps the pocket people weren’t accustomed to dirigibles with the Spotted Custard’s level of nimbleness. Or perhaps it was the superior technology and reach of the Gatling gun that got to them. Regardless, Willard’s first volley hit the enemy craft amidships and did a tremendous amount of damage.

By rights it should have been a great deal more dramatic. Prim was disappointed and kept her weaponised parasol open and raised against the sun, just in case. And to ward off freckles, of course.

With his second volley, Willard took out their bottom propeller and then the lower section of the bowl of the ship. It was his best guess as to where their boilers were located. It was pretty common to put engineering in the base of any ship.

The enemy airship was such a strange design, one might expect boilers to be located above decks or somewhere equally incongruous, but this time the airship was per international standards.

A massive chunk of the ladle’s grey hull fell away, and steam burst forth from the gaping hole left behind. Apparently Willard had hit their main boiler. The hull must be made of some very flimsy material indeed, paper thin, as the escaping steam continued to tear away at it, peeling it back until nearly half the side of the ship was gone, exposing the crude structure within.

Prim was no builder and certainly no engineer, but even she could see that just as the enemy’s Nordenfelt was an older gun, their steam technology was old-fashioned as well. Perhaps a decade out of date.

The airship itself may have been unique and new to them, but what drove it wasn’t new at all.

Since all the ladle’s balloons were still whole, the ship remained floating, but she had no manoeuvrability and was adrift on the breezes - no longer a threat to the Spotted Custard.

Rue barked out orders and Percy propelled them out of range, but then he maintained a steady drift so that they paced the lame craft.

“Percy, hold us on their broadside.”

“That’s what I’m doing, Captain.”

Something has my brother’s britches in a bunch.

Rue ignored Percy’s snappy reply and continued barking out orders. “Willard, keep them in your sights. I don’t want them boarding us. Fire on anything that leaves that ship and heads in our direction.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

“Primrose?”

“Yes, Rue?”

“Call up Quesnel and see if you can find Anitra, please. I’d like a quick meeting on the poop deck in half an hour with all officers.”

“Aye, aye,” said Prim, trying it on for size. It was kind of fun to say.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.