Heaven's Expedition by Joshua Giem

Author:Joshua Giem [Giem, Joshua]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Adventure, Steampunk
Published: 2020-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13:

The drums beat considerably louder than I’d come to expect over my duration with this ship. A frenetic energy in their sound threatened to overwhelm the drummers’ discipline. They were scared.

I couldn’t blame them. Although I’d made peace with the situation a few minutes ago, mostly to make room in my mind for thoughts of how we were going to defend the ship, the fight or flight response still lingered in me.

It also caused problems for the crew’s preparations. Everywhere I saw airmen making mistakes and miscommunicating.

After exhausting every option to raise the ship’s altitude without the turbines, Captain Nome had reluctantly conceded that the ship needed to fight. A strong possibility existed of losing some of her crew in the process, and she clearly hated the thought.

Once the decision had been made to hold out, any reservations she had disappeared. She relocated the entire senior staff to the aft of the gondola’s deck, where an extremely good view of the surrounding area stretched out before us.

We had several advantages. The ground around us was rocky and unforgiving. While scouting, I had for the most part stayed mounted on my outraptor for this reason. Outraptors are sure-footed; humans are not. The hope was that the enemy force would stumble and fall over the sharp terrain, breaking their charge. A clear lack of cover also acted to our advantage; not a single tree grew in this desolate basin.

The downside of defending here were the depressions containing those purple-foliaged ponds. Each of them fell about a meter or so below ground level. Two of them were particularly close to the ship: one about twenty meters from the Destiny’s front port side, one about thirty from its aft port. If the enemy took shelter from our fire in there, they would have defensible positions very close to our ship.

We had oriented the Destiny when it landed so its port side faced the opposite end of the basin. Fortunately, this was the direction that the enemy would approach from. Already, I saw a rapidly expanding orange blob kicking up dust in the distance. It appeared as if they were popping out of the ground - there was no pass through the basin’s outer slope. At this distance, I couldn’t tell how they were mysteriously appearing like that, but I could hear them. A faint rumble echoed off the mountains, coupled with primordial cries of anger.

The captain placed both hands on the guardrail. “We need to keep them at range. They don’t have sophisticated ballistic weapons, so they will attempt to charge the ship and close the distance. Pullnir, thoughts?”

“The cannons can do significant damage, but their firing rate won’t be enough to stall a charge. We can fire one, maybe two broadsides before they close distance.” Pullnir responded.

“Small arms and bayonets readied for close-quarters, captain.” Yuri said while loading bullets into an automatic rifle drum.

“Again, they’ll overwhelm us if we don’t change the battlefield in our favor, sir.” Pullnir said.

The captain glanced over at the pond depressions and pointed at them calmly.

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