Hear Us Coming

“What are you doing?!”

Shiro arrived at the airship as the ground shook beneath the thunderous artillery fire with every step he took. Countless lives were being lost. War was at their doorstep, and he had come expecting to find one thing, only to discover something far more shocking.

“Good to see ya, Boss! See, the ship’s got a nasty habit of veerin’ too hard to starboard. So we rigged these here to balance her out. Aye, and figured we’d give the enemy a bit of music while we were fixin’ the problem for ya!”

Bolted along the sides of the prototype airships were enormous brass horns. Each one nearly as large as a man and likely stolen from the city watch towers. Thick aluminum braces had been bolted into the hull to support them. Their wide bells jutting outward like extra rail cannons.

Before Shiro could answer, he watched as the rest of Captain Eiichro's crew were loading all sorts of instruments into the bay of the airship. Massive drums, rows of pipes and trumpets. Metal chimes and even an accordion.

“Can’t go into war without music, now can we?”

I was an engineer learning to make clean energy for future generations. Now I'm going to fly over an army of demons in prototype magic zeppelin, armed railguns as the crew of pirates sing sea shanties....

Shiro's thoughts were interrupted as he saw one of the crew members try to roll a large grand piano into the air ship's bay.

"A piano?! Really!?"

Captain Eiichrio turned around to look at his crew.

"Brooks! Where do ya think you're putting that piano!?"

Shiro shook his head and pulled tight the bag he had thrown over his shoulder as he made his way towards the airship.

"Come on, it's time to go."

"Aye aye!"

Captain Eiichrio followed him towards the air ship and called out to all his crew.

"YA HEARD THE BOSS! All hands to battle stations!”

The crew immediately began to rush inside the airship. Leaving any instruments not already loaded behind

“Raise the colors! Load the cannons! Prime the engines! Today, we sail straight into the jaws of hell! SO LET THE DEVILS HEAR US COMIN’!”

The crew shouted in unison.

"AYE, AYE Captain!"

Drums thundered across the deck as the pipes and trumpets joined in. The prototype airship trembled as its three burner engines came alive.

Across the construction site, ground crews hurried to clear the cables that held the ship to the ground. One by one, the cables detached. The massive craft began to rise.

Dust and grass whipped beneath it as the landing gear lifted clear of the runway. It's legs that gave clearance for the rail cannons underneath began fold away. Three turrets spun to life to check their rotations.

The airship tilted toward the horizon and accelerated into the open sky, brass horns blaring to the city below.

      .       .       .

Helldrakes stretched there with leathery wings and took off to meet the airship.

"Geraltavin, that's not a sacrificial unit, their sending all their Helldrakes!"

Johnaquil looked to Geraltavin.

"They outnumbered our wyvern riders ten to one, we can't stop them. They'll reach the airship before it can get above the helldrakes height limit."

"Yer right, the airship crew does have some light rail cannons. But they're not trained er armed enough to handle this many. Protecting the airship will fall to Shiro and the prototype weapon 'X03'..."

Geraltavin rubbed his temples frustrated.

"The name is stupid! I argued with him for hours, but all three of them er weird so I couldn't think of a better. I'm still working on it for the time being."

"Geraltavin not the time for it."

"Yer right, we will focus on things you still need to pay for later..."

"Excuse me!?"

"Now is the time for the things yer did pay for! If they're going to hold back their ground troops because of the airship, now's a perfect opportunity to install the modules!"

Geraltavin slammed the butt of his bunker hammer into the ground again.

"OUTER CANNONS! INNER CANNONS! HOLD FOR MODULES!

The respective commanding officers repeated the orders down the line. A hint of confusion joined in on the cascade of call outs that rolled from tower to tower like an echo made of human throats.

“Outer Cannons! Inner Cannons! Hold For Modules!”

“…outer cannons… inner cannons… hold for modules…”

With that, Geraltavin's crew began moving in with covered cart in tow.

"Tell me, Geraltavin, how much of a difference is module going to make?"

"Outside of doubling yer range and rate of fire? Not much..."

Geraltavin looked at he horizon covered in an ocean of black and red. Thousands upon thousands of demons stood across the Red Plateau.

"But when you've already stationed yer army In the middle of their range....."

Geraltavin's crew began removing the previous cooling system on the heavy rail cannons and began installing a new system. Using the vortex design for the burner engines, the new modules swapped out Fire runes for Ice runes.

"And spent the morning sacrificing troops in a probing strategy only to find out yer learned nothing."

Geraltavin's crew then swapped out the aluminum rails for new and improved rails made from imported copper and steel.

"I'd say it do a lot"

“…outer cannons… modules are ready to go…”

“Outer Cannons! Modules are ready to go!"

“…inner cannons… modules are ready to go…”

“Inner Cannons! Modules are ready to go!"

"Steel and copper rails were always the end goal. Desperate times and desperate measures."

"Ai... Yer know we never got to test which ways the wall will go for bolts engraved with the spell 'Wall of Lightning'."

Geraltavin slammed the butt of his bunker hammer into the ground once again.

"OUTER CANNONS! TWENTY THREE DEGREES! INNER CANNONS! TWENTY TWO DEGREES! PURPLE BOLTS!

With the new modules installed, the heavy rail cannons were adjusted and the respective commanding officers repeated the orders once again.

“Outer Cannons! Twenty Three Degrees! Inner Cannons! Twenty Two Degrees! Purple Bolts!"

“…outer cannons… twenty three degrees… inner cannons… twenty two degrees… purple bolts..."

"Now the war begins!"

Again Geraltavin slammed the butt of his bunker hammer into the ground, lightning bouncing off the stone with the drawf new found vigor.

“FIRE AT WILL!!!!!!"