Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. It is a draft; there are mistakes, many misspellings and sometimes long periods of no updates. copyright: ion fyr 2025
Etelka was concerned with Nila’s welfare and so didn’t want to extend the trip and asked several times if there was someplace closer, though Luc had insisted Tesifon was really the only option. She relented and steered for the Pillars of Hercules. This would add another day,
As the transatlantic airship traffic was fairly sparse to begin with, the bulk of it moving between the several great European coastal cities and primarily N’Aurelia and Port Arthur in New Land, they only saw one distant glint over the ocean, a behemoth of a ship a kilometer long in the distance.
In the early evening of the second day, the passed between the Pillars, Templum Hercules on the north with its massive ancient temple atop the pinnacle, looming over the modern fort below, and more distant the Vidalian City of Teusbirk to the south, the lights just barely visible against the silloute over the coastline.
Etelka, Beatrix and Attila took turns piloting, by this point all of them were familiar with the control interfaces. Etelka insisted they fly as low as possible above the waves. She wanted to avoid interactions and there was much more traffic over the Mediterreanean than there had been over the Atlantic, and both the Brethmanic Empire and Vandalia patrolled the frontier along their mutual boundaary.
Things were going along without incident, Etelka and Pool were playing chess on a folding table in the cabin (Nila was still laid out on the table in the lounge) when Attila shouted for Etelka. They were being flagged down by a Brethmanic patrol.
It was not clear whose ship it was at first in the dark, however, moonlight soon revealed the dim outline of a Brethamic light cruiser, a hundred meters long with eight or ten guns per side.
Attila called out the semaphore signs for the rest of the cabin which he struggled to identify through binoculars.
“Ma’am, they tell us to match their speed and vector,” he paraphrased. “Our people.” meaning Imperial.
“They think we’re smugglers,” Etelka said. “They wouldn’t challenge a passenger liner, and there aren’t enough small personal ‘yachts’ like ours for them to be familiar with. Beatrix, let me have the controls, if you will, please.”
With Etelka at the controls, they made as if they were going to match the other airship’s movements, but when BYH was along side and the cruiser had slowed, Etelka pulled the nose suddenly up without even telling her companions, who stumbled and grasped for handholds. She then turned sharply to starboard, the Hut’s gondola almost scraping the dorsal rudder of the cruiser.
Now, with the cruiser below and aft of them, Etelka powered up the engines as far as she was willing to risk. Baba Yaga’s Hut headed straight for Vandalian airspace. They were well west of the urban center of Teusbirk and the coastline ahead was dark as lampblack. Etelka nervously checked the altimeter to keep above the waves and the upcoming ground.
Attila, still with the binoculars had slung himself in a harness and was now dangling out the open starboard door, standing on the narrow footrail, peering behind them.
Etelka resolved to have a rear porthole or two on the next incarnation of the ship.
“They are firing at us, but don’t appear to have enough altitude, nor enough desire, to hit us. Their pursuit is lazy. There were only two muzzle flairs.”
“More probably, we are already over Vandalian waters,” added Etelka, “which presents a different set of problems. Beatrix, can you see that all of our external lights are extinguished, our running flag is stowed and find something to black out all of the portholes from the engine room.
Ion Fyr 