Flight to Tabriz II
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Down in the guts of the airship, you groaned softly as the throbbing vibrations started playing with your headache. Despite your hangover, though, the mood was high and cheery in the guts. Searching for Thomas, you found him at the central station, laughing lightly as his gauges danced and the oilers greased the four V-block engines. The wire and rebar cage he sat in had excellent visual access to the four centerline boilers split between the two machine decks, as well as the engines mounted outboard vertically and horizontally of them.
"How's she holding up?" you asked, trying to make sense of the dozens of gauges. Loads and temperatures were measured here down to the slug and degree, while the damage control stations directly above and below the engine rooms were only equipped with more general gauges due to induced error.
"Vibration's all in the port dorsal engine." Thomas grunted. "Haven't started tracking her down yet, but this ship's got foreign guts. I will say the Turks had a damn good idea with the boilers, though."
"Oh?" you asked, curious. "Do tell."
"Alright, using common hot walls isn't anything new." Donald said, warming up carefully. "The thing is, they've run the main feedwater input line between the hot walls at the center, and the secondary lines in around the hot walls to keep the heat up. It's making the system a lot faster to get up to pressure for the boiler condition."
"So what's the catch then?" You asked, chuckling. "There's always a catch."
Thomas' eyes hooded over. "The fuel scuttles are… poorly placed."
"Details man, details!"
Groaning, Thomas pointed at the coal screws. Applying the Archimedes Screw to chunked coal wasn't anything new, but they were certainly seeming more fussy than normal. Looking carefully, you checked to see where the running belts were… and found them tied into an odd shaft, which was tied into a fifth engine?
"Thomas, what is this?" you asked carefully.
"That, Alek, is the ship's electrical engine, pump engine, steering engine, and half-a-dozen-other-things engine." Thomas replied glumly, looking at it with sad little puppy eyes. "And right now, she's been gimped with some of the most retarded plumbing decisions I've ever seen. Her input is directly run by a boiler temperature check valve, and a one-way override."
"Meaning…" you asked carefully.
"If we need to run any two major subsystems at once, we need to heat up the boilers to higher conditions." Thomas explained. "Needless to say, that'd probably be expensive."
"Yeah." You muttered. "Can you fix it?"
"We'd need to be boilers cold for a week, but I could fix it with the right valves if you can finangle something to generate power to the tooling shop."
"I'll look into it." You replied, before leaving the engineering spaces. It was time to take a nap, banish this headache, and get ready for Aether transit.
---
Standing by the bridge, you breathed in and out. Elizabeth was already inside by the navigator's console, and as you entered she barely moved to track your presence. She was pouring over a dusty old book, the faint text too little for you to make out from your position.
"All hands, ready?" you asked, checking things over carefully.
"Not quite." Elizabeth muttered, before locking eyes with you. "A word, Captain?"
"Certainly." You replied, nodding. "What's the matter?"
"My charts are… incomplete." She replied, sighing. "I've only got very low-band current charts for the area, and they're all fairly dated. I've got a few journals to work off of, but that's not a good compensation for good charts or a savvy crew."
"So we'll need to set more watches, and you might want to show me some more tricks of the trade." You muttered. "I'm still confident in you, Elizabeth."
"I wish I could believe the same." She murmered softly, so much so you barely caught it over the thrum of the ship. A moment passed, before she stood up and made for the front window. "Portal is thirty points port, up angle three degrees. Range is… about a mile. Maybe a mile and a half."
"All crew, brace for transit." You called. "Helm, as the Navigator orders."
A murmered choruses of 'aye sir' went around, while you braced yourself for the shift. You didn't have long before it happened, the frost instantly forming on the edges of the glass telling you what had happened in a moment. Stepping forward, you got out of your chair to inspect the windows.
"Frost?" you asked rhetorically. "Elizabeth, is this normal?"
"It's not unheard of, but normally the temperature only starts dropping when you're over the mid-bands…" she said, trailing off. "I need to go to my office to check."
"Do it." You replied. "Send a runner when you find out what's gone on."
As Elizabeth moved off the bridge, you breathed in and out. You had a watch to manage, after all.
---
Six hours later, you started heading down to the medical bay with most of a plan in mind. Specifically, talk to Czeslawa, see how she was holding up, and maybe see if she wanted to get something in the wardroom.
A bad feeling crept upon you as you checked the infirmary. Czeslawa was sitting at her desk, a sweaty headscarf holding her hair back as she glared at the twenty-something full beds in front of her.
"Is this a bad time?" you asked carefully, edging in around the corner. Sighing, your friend just waved her hand, pointing at a bench you could snag.
"No, it's just that these retards forgot their cold weather gear and didn't go back to get it."
"The bo'sun should have sent them in." you replied, stretching your hands carefully as the chill started to creep in. "I'll need to talk to Donald about activating the ship's whole heat system, and until that's running we'll need to issue a cold weather gear watch. Do you have an electric samovar or anything to make warm water with?"
Czeslawa grinned, and moved over to a small counter that ran behind her desk. In it was most of the applications of pharmacy, as well as her few surgeon's tools. Bolted into the counter was a small appliance, its screw-tap firmly locked shut. Tapping some anonymous powder into a container to be filled with hot water from the samovar and stirred, Czeslawa started making what you thought was tea in the Russian style, making a thick concentrate first and then thinning it to taste at the table. Scrounging up a pair of clean mugs, she set them down before filling a clean beaker with hot water, steam curling off it happily. Your guess turned out correct, as she poured a measure of the concentrate in both cups before handing you the beaker of water. Thinning the tea down carefully, you passed the hot water back and took a sip. It was nearly hot enough to scald your mouth, and if you tasted carefully the hints of packing salt still nibbled at the heavy flavor. Sitting in silence, you smiled contemplatively as the ship moved, before the thrumming of the motors died down into almost silence.
Looking over, a beam of almost moonlight seemed to grace the infirmary, coming in through one of the open trunks to aerate the room in times of trouble. The few electric lights flittered momentarily, before blinking out one by one as the focus of the room became a nurse in moonlight. You had to stare, the pale light reflecting a soft white as it danced off Czeslawa's round face. She was beautiful, gray eyes flickering as the clouds of the Aether broke clear for a minute. Moments later, your ship started rocking slightly, the sailing rig topside luffing as the sailing master changed tacks. The crystalline light faded, and as the room fell to darkness you heard your nurse stand up to shut the trunk. As it closed and you got ready to leave, you felt her hand on your shoulder.
Then you felt her lips on yours, brushing your guard aside to kiss you for a single moment. As the electric current danced between you, the parting kiss deepened and you smiled contently as you held Czeslawa for a brief minute.
"I do have to go to bed, I'm afraid." You murmered as she waltzed away on light feet. "I'll see you tomorrow, though."
"Go to bed, then, Aleksander." Czeslawa laughed. "I'll be here in the morning."
You both smiled in the dark, and shared a chuckle as you walked away. As you stepped past the threshold, the electric lights in the hallway started flickering back on, warm electric glow leading you back to your cabin.
---
VOTES
Main activity while on transit?
[] Prepare the cargo areas and topside for handling small boats with Lucia and the rest of the deck crew.
[] Work with Elizabeth on what the confusion with your current oddities of the Aether
[] Get those noble fops in the passengers quarters to do something useful for once as you sic Ayse on them to test their social combat skills.
Crew Focus?
[] Engineering Section. They need to make sure everything works right first time every time.
[] Armed Sections. Familiarity is next to godliness, and they need to know their weapons and ship.
[] Other (write-in; can be no section at all.)
"How's she holding up?" you asked, trying to make sense of the dozens of gauges. Loads and temperatures were measured here down to the slug and degree, while the damage control stations directly above and below the engine rooms were only equipped with more general gauges due to induced error.
"Vibration's all in the port dorsal engine." Thomas grunted. "Haven't started tracking her down yet, but this ship's got foreign guts. I will say the Turks had a damn good idea with the boilers, though."
"Oh?" you asked, curious. "Do tell."
"Alright, using common hot walls isn't anything new." Donald said, warming up carefully. "The thing is, they've run the main feedwater input line between the hot walls at the center, and the secondary lines in around the hot walls to keep the heat up. It's making the system a lot faster to get up to pressure for the boiler condition."
"So what's the catch then?" You asked, chuckling. "There's always a catch."
Thomas' eyes hooded over. "The fuel scuttles are… poorly placed."
"Details man, details!"
Groaning, Thomas pointed at the coal screws. Applying the Archimedes Screw to chunked coal wasn't anything new, but they were certainly seeming more fussy than normal. Looking carefully, you checked to see where the running belts were… and found them tied into an odd shaft, which was tied into a fifth engine?
"Thomas, what is this?" you asked carefully.
"That, Alek, is the ship's electrical engine, pump engine, steering engine, and half-a-dozen-other-things engine." Thomas replied glumly, looking at it with sad little puppy eyes. "And right now, she's been gimped with some of the most retarded plumbing decisions I've ever seen. Her input is directly run by a boiler temperature check valve, and a one-way override."
"Meaning…" you asked carefully.
"If we need to run any two major subsystems at once, we need to heat up the boilers to higher conditions." Thomas explained. "Needless to say, that'd probably be expensive."
"Yeah." You muttered. "Can you fix it?"
"We'd need to be boilers cold for a week, but I could fix it with the right valves if you can finangle something to generate power to the tooling shop."
"I'll look into it." You replied, before leaving the engineering spaces. It was time to take a nap, banish this headache, and get ready for Aether transit.
---
Standing by the bridge, you breathed in and out. Elizabeth was already inside by the navigator's console, and as you entered she barely moved to track your presence. She was pouring over a dusty old book, the faint text too little for you to make out from your position.
"All hands, ready?" you asked, checking things over carefully.
"Not quite." Elizabeth muttered, before locking eyes with you. "A word, Captain?"
"Certainly." You replied, nodding. "What's the matter?"
"My charts are… incomplete." She replied, sighing. "I've only got very low-band current charts for the area, and they're all fairly dated. I've got a few journals to work off of, but that's not a good compensation for good charts or a savvy crew."
"So we'll need to set more watches, and you might want to show me some more tricks of the trade." You muttered. "I'm still confident in you, Elizabeth."
"I wish I could believe the same." She murmered softly, so much so you barely caught it over the thrum of the ship. A moment passed, before she stood up and made for the front window. "Portal is thirty points port, up angle three degrees. Range is… about a mile. Maybe a mile and a half."
"All crew, brace for transit." You called. "Helm, as the Navigator orders."
A murmered choruses of 'aye sir' went around, while you braced yourself for the shift. You didn't have long before it happened, the frost instantly forming on the edges of the glass telling you what had happened in a moment. Stepping forward, you got out of your chair to inspect the windows.
"Frost?" you asked rhetorically. "Elizabeth, is this normal?"
"It's not unheard of, but normally the temperature only starts dropping when you're over the mid-bands…" she said, trailing off. "I need to go to my office to check."
"Do it." You replied. "Send a runner when you find out what's gone on."
As Elizabeth moved off the bridge, you breathed in and out. You had a watch to manage, after all.
---
Six hours later, you started heading down to the medical bay with most of a plan in mind. Specifically, talk to Czeslawa, see how she was holding up, and maybe see if she wanted to get something in the wardroom.
A bad feeling crept upon you as you checked the infirmary. Czeslawa was sitting at her desk, a sweaty headscarf holding her hair back as she glared at the twenty-something full beds in front of her.
"Is this a bad time?" you asked carefully, edging in around the corner. Sighing, your friend just waved her hand, pointing at a bench you could snag.
"No, it's just that these retards forgot their cold weather gear and didn't go back to get it."
"The bo'sun should have sent them in." you replied, stretching your hands carefully as the chill started to creep in. "I'll need to talk to Donald about activating the ship's whole heat system, and until that's running we'll need to issue a cold weather gear watch. Do you have an electric samovar or anything to make warm water with?"
Czeslawa grinned, and moved over to a small counter that ran behind her desk. In it was most of the applications of pharmacy, as well as her few surgeon's tools. Bolted into the counter was a small appliance, its screw-tap firmly locked shut. Tapping some anonymous powder into a container to be filled with hot water from the samovar and stirred, Czeslawa started making what you thought was tea in the Russian style, making a thick concentrate first and then thinning it to taste at the table. Scrounging up a pair of clean mugs, she set them down before filling a clean beaker with hot water, steam curling off it happily. Your guess turned out correct, as she poured a measure of the concentrate in both cups before handing you the beaker of water. Thinning the tea down carefully, you passed the hot water back and took a sip. It was nearly hot enough to scald your mouth, and if you tasted carefully the hints of packing salt still nibbled at the heavy flavor. Sitting in silence, you smiled contemplatively as the ship moved, before the thrumming of the motors died down into almost silence.
Looking over, a beam of almost moonlight seemed to grace the infirmary, coming in through one of the open trunks to aerate the room in times of trouble. The few electric lights flittered momentarily, before blinking out one by one as the focus of the room became a nurse in moonlight. You had to stare, the pale light reflecting a soft white as it danced off Czeslawa's round face. She was beautiful, gray eyes flickering as the clouds of the Aether broke clear for a minute. Moments later, your ship started rocking slightly, the sailing rig topside luffing as the sailing master changed tacks. The crystalline light faded, and as the room fell to darkness you heard your nurse stand up to shut the trunk. As it closed and you got ready to leave, you felt her hand on your shoulder.
Then you felt her lips on yours, brushing your guard aside to kiss you for a single moment. As the electric current danced between you, the parting kiss deepened and you smiled contently as you held Czeslawa for a brief minute.
"I do have to go to bed, I'm afraid." You murmered as she waltzed away on light feet. "I'll see you tomorrow, though."
"Go to bed, then, Aleksander." Czeslawa laughed. "I'll be here in the morning."
You both smiled in the dark, and shared a chuckle as you walked away. As you stepped past the threshold, the electric lights in the hallway started flickering back on, warm electric glow leading you back to your cabin.
---
VOTES
Main activity while on transit?
[] Prepare the cargo areas and topside for handling small boats with Lucia and the rest of the deck crew.
[] Work with Elizabeth on what the confusion with your current oddities of the Aether
[] Get those noble fops in the passengers quarters to do something useful for once as you sic Ayse on them to test their social combat skills.
Crew Focus?
[] Engineering Section. They need to make sure everything works right first time every time.
[] Armed Sections. Familiarity is next to godliness, and they need to know their weapons and ship.
[] Other (write-in; can be no section at all.)
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