Chapter 638: To Sacrifice
When Crown Prince Najja saw the number of airships that greeted the 9th Iron Fleet upon arriving at Mortling's Hold, he had a sinking feeling in his belly. Sky General Bundberg shook his head in silence before he turned away from the view ports.
"Ready a courier ship for his Highness to depart immediately," Sky General Bundberg said to his staff. "And call for the commander of Mortling's Hold and all the senior officers for a meeting."
"My Brother..." Prince Najja paused at the hatch and said. "G- Good luck..."
He gave a nod to the Sky General as well before he scurried off with his followers. Sky General Bundberg turned to Prince Herod and said, "This would be the last chance for you to get to safety, your Highness."
Prince Herod shook his head and replied, "You are pretty decent for someone who took Lord Sincia's gold..."
"I might be old and serve a different lord now, but my heart is still loyal to the kingdom," Sky General Bundberg sighed. "It doesn't matter who sits on the throne in the end, if the kingdom falls here."
Prince Herod gave the Sky General a deep look before he gave a nod in acknowledgment of the Sky General's honor. After that, he stood at one side and waited for the local commander and officers to arrive. It did not take long before courier ships dropped off the commander and officers and they entered the bridge with barely suppressed anxiety on their faces.
"What numbers are we looking at?" Sky General Bundberg barely even waited for the new arrivals' salutes and greetings. "How many ships have gathered?"
"M- My Lord," The Mortling's Hold's commander was a bony middle aged elf, with long silvery green hair tied into a pony tail. He cast a glance at his officers before he answered, "Forty airships, but only ten cruisers, the rest are all patrol or escorts..."
"Are Lord Sincia's reinforcements arriving any time soon?" Sky General Bundberg asked with a frown.
"We have received no word from Lord Sincia," The commander looked confused as he checked with his subordinates. "Is he sending help over?"
Sky General Bundberg shook his head and asked another question, "What are Iron Lord Costa's orders to you?"
"The last command sent by my Lord Costa's courier is that we are to delay the enemy as long as possible while the people, the young and elderly heads for the hills..." The commander said. "I have send whatever merchant airships that I could get my hands on to move as much people to safety."
"He did mention that he is gathering what ships he could," The commander added. "But if we are unable to hold on anymore before his arrival, we are to pull back to Castle Chancey..."
"That's less than half a day of flight away," Prince Herod spoke up as he leaned over the map table. "But I doubt our current forces could not make the trip."
"The Prince is right," Sky General Bundberg frowned as he looked out of the view ports at the direction of the approaching Protectorate ships. "We have the most, two turns of the sand glass or less, before they arrive."
"The 9th has suffered heavy damage and are badly in need of supplies, from projectiles to refined aetherium, coal and water for the boilers," Sky General Bundberg listed out the urgent needs of the fleet. "The 9th cannot handle another sustained fight with the Protectorate..."
"B- But the people has yet to evacuate!" The commander hastily replied. "We cannot leave them to the Protectorate! We all know what they do to those they deemed as the lawless ones!"
"I... We know..." Sky General Bundberg let out a deep sigh. "But... we need to save as much ships as possible if we are to face off the Protectorate in a decisive battle!"
"At the cost of the people? Our families and homes?" The commander and his officers were incensed at the thought of abandoning their people.
Sky General Bundberg shook his head sadly, "If our forces get defeated by the Protectorate piecemeal by piecemeal, we will not have enough ships in the entire Kingdom to stop them!"
"But still!" The commander protested. "How could we abandon our people to those savages!"
"Lord Roeg! Sacrifices must be made to save the entire Kingdom!" Sky General Bundberg met the commander's glare without flinching. "How many ships do you think your Lord Costa could scrape together?"
"Fifty? Or Sixty?" Sky General Bundberg asked angrily. "How many of those would be ships of the line?"
Lord Roeg looked down to his feet, unable to answer the question thrown in his face. Sky General Bundberg paced around the bridge and continued, "What we need now is to save all these ships! The people here... t- they will serve to slow down the enemy for us!"
"What!?" Lord Roeg and his officers were shocked. "H-?"
"Without these ships... How many more people do you think will suffer the same fate here?" Sky General Bundberg looked glared harshly at the commander and his officers before his tone softened slightly. "Do you think I wish for such a thing to our people?"
Prince Herod clenched his fists tightly as he knew the Sky General's actions were right. Without enough warships and weapons, they could not stop the enemy. Sacrificing the common people to slow Protectorate was also a way and it proved that their situation was very dire.
"We will depart within one and a half turn of the sand glass!" Sky General Bundberg declared, ignoring the pleading looks of the local commander and officers. "Load up all the supplies the ships could carry and those that have to be left behind, destroy them!"
"You all have that much time to bring your families onboard the ships!" Sky General Bundberg said. "Only bring your direct families!"
"The fleet will depart whether or not the supplies or your families are onboard!" Sky General Bundberg said coldly. "Go! Time is of the essence now!"
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Metal shredded while wood splintered as a mighty boom shook the skies. The Penal Class heavy cruiser of the 84th Righteous Fleet of Ramuh spun slowly in the air as its starboard aerial screws had turned to mangled metal, its crew desperately trying to restore controls.
The single unknown ship, painted in a riot of colors that would made a pious devotee of Ramuh wept in horror, looked so close, yet kept away at a tenderizing distance. No matter how much steam the 84th Righteous Fleet put in or prayed, they were unable to close in to effective steam cannon range.
And all the way, the single ship spew heretical magic and destruction at the ships of the 84th. The enraged Lord Bishop, fleet commander and shepherd to the righteous, declared that the single ship was the spawn of all evil and placed an excommunicate extermination order upon the ship and all its crew.
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Marine Private Bartley, formerly of the United Nations of Mankind Marine Corps, braced against the C shaped shoulder supports of the quad fifty caliber weapon mount and squeezed the butterfly triggers. The entire weapon shuddered on its mount together with loud booming roars as bolt after bolt of tracers spat out towards the strange reversed dragonfly like flyers that attempted to swarm the Old Ugly.
He chased one of the winged mechanical flyers, using the tracers of the quad fifty to guide his fire until he saw the tracers intersect his target. Smoke and debris erupted out from the flyer and it death spiraled off down to the featureless ground.
He switched targets, his tracers chasing another flyer and suddenly, the weapons locked back. He did a quick check and found the box magazines had emptied. "AMMO!"
An ammo bearer hearing his cry, came running over. The Orc's chest ladened with belts of fifty caliber and both his hands carried a can of ammo each. Bartley quickly helped himself with the ammo belts and together, the two reloaded the quad fifty. He returned to firing while the Orc ammo runner disappeared off somewhere.
The decks shuddered slightly as a dragon fly like flier spat a projectile and the ship's magical barrier intercepted it. The semi transparent bubble shimmered with a rainbow display of colors as it blocked the projectile. Streams of tracer fire chased after the flier and soon it went down trailing dark smoke.
Bartley frowned as he noticed a cluster of fliers forming up above the airship. He raised the weapon and sent hot lead towards the group and his frown turned to surprise and he gripped the quad fifty handles hard as he aimed the cross hair at the fliers that charged towards the ship.
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Keta was a proud member of the Winged Order of Ramuh. As part of the Winged Order, he flew a Soarer, a small winged airship with a crew of four, including himself. The Soarer airship was actually built around two steam cannons with gave it an insect like appearance.
The control cabin was set at the rear of the steam cannons, with the boiler and aetherium bladders mounted on the side. Two pairs of wings, forming a X shape, flared out from the clockwork mechanism next to the aetherium bladders. The two bulbous looking boiler and aetherium bladders made the Soarer looked like a Terran dragonfly, but flying in reverse.
Keta as the pilot, sat on a saddle like seat and was leaned forward, his body weight supported by the leather padding. The controls were simple, two handle bars on both sides which controlled the turn and pitch of the Soarer. White, his co pilot, sat on a raised platform directly behind him and he controlled the steam powered repeating crossbow.
In a compartment below them, the other two crew members were the steam engineer and his assistant who oversee the boiler and pressure tanks. The Soarers' dual steam cannon were both single use and required the Soarers to return to their mother ship to reload once their steam cannons had discharged.
And Keta, like many of his other fellow apostle of the Winged Order of Ramuh, had discharged both the steam cannons to no visible effect on the heretic ship. And he saw how the once majestic and grand looking formation of an entire fifty Soarers getting decimated into barely a dozen or so.
Unable to accept such blasphemy to his faith, he ordered his co pilot to signal those few remaining Soarers nearby and together, they formed up once more, their numbers a pitiful few. Keta lined up his Soarer and he prayed and recited from the Book of Law and Order. "The lawless shall be Judged by their sins!"
He aimed his airship at the top decks of the heretical vessel and pushed the aerial screws to maximum power. He briefly saw streaks of light that left a searing light spot in his eyes and saw one of the Soarer flying before him come apart under those streaks of light. The sickened Soarer broke into smoke and rained pieces of debris downwards.
Yet Keta felt no fear as he closed his eyes. All emotions disappeared as he felt himself getting embraced by Ramuh's righteous law and order. He took his hands away from the control handles and prayed to Ramuh, once more pledging his life and very soul to be Judged. "For Justice!"
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Streaks of tracer fire slammed into the rapidly approaching flier. Bartley gritted his teeth hard as he sent round after round at the fliers clearly trying to kamikaze themselves onto the Old Ugly. His efforts were awarded when the last kamikaze flier broke up into pieces just before impacting the magical barrier of the Old Ugly, the larger portion of the flier missing by mere centimeters.
The raining debris made a spectacular show of rainbow colored circular waves all over the magical barrier. When the colors dissipated away from the barrier, there wasn't any more fliers around the Old Ugly remaining.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
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Thanks for the wait, was having some heart problems that needed some healing but kept failing the dice rolls... so took me a while to get better and let's go!
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