Aethosphere Chronicles: Winds of Duty Read Free Page A

not going to
send resources to protect the north, is that true?”
    “Silence, you mangy dogs! The next man who
so much as utters a word that isn’t ‘yes, Chief Master’ will
promptly find his back kissed by the leather. Do I make myself
clear?” Chief Master-at-arms Stowe eyed the crowd as though
challenging them to say no, daring the most foolish of them to make
good on his promise. He almost looked disappointed when the deck
slowly relented to a grumbling wave of, “Yes, Chief Master!”
    “Good!” he replied with no real approval in
his sky-grizzled face. “Now I want every last man up there within a
quarter hour, and if one of you sots so much as arrives a second
late, I’ll personally wield the bullwhip that splits the skin off
your back.” And just like that, the master-at-arms turned and
marched towards the ladderwell door, disappearing through it almost
as suddenly as he’d appeared, drawing with him the chill air in the
vortex of his wake.
    The gun deck was quiet for a full on minute
until all were certain Stowe was long gone. It was almost as though
they’d been holding their breaths, and the collective exhale filled
the room with rum-soaked fumes. There was some relieved chuckling
and a couple of the old-timers gave Ensign Bazzon a playful
shove.
    “Don’t let it phase you, lad,” reassured
Alabrahm Muldaire as his squat form came hobbling up next to him.
“You know how Stowe can get under stress…and if it makes you feel
better, you technically outrank him now anyhow.” He chuckled. The
ship’s old cook had been good enough to help the men in the gun
deck this day, and though his broken body wasn’t much use with
lifting, it was his grog that helped the most.
    In the shuffle of men finishing to clean
themselves up, Bar heard one of them grumbling to another. “This
big announcement…so, you think that’s what it’s all
about…abandoning the north for some new battle strategy?” It was
one of Tolle’s gunners asking the question, a stout man named Angus
Frasier.
    “Battle strategy,” scoffed an engineer as he
zipped up his coverall.
    “Aye, Stowe may not have confirmed it but I
know the truth,” replied the skyman who’d earlier made mention of
the Admiralty’s plans. Bar listened in curiosity. If battle plans
were being drawn up, that could’ve been the reason for Moore’s
orders this morning; and as the Combat Systems Manager, it was
important to know if he’d have to be at the ready “I heard it
myself when Tiny was talking with Commander Hastings in the
ladderway outside the galley this morning. The first officer didn’t
sound too happy about it either.”
    “Can’t blame him,” grumbled Gunnery
Technician Frasier, “It’s shit if it’s true…ain’t right not to post
a fleet to watch over our homes. I’ve got family on Glenfindale; a
wife, children, my parents; and they expect me to what…? Just
dedicate myself to watching over crownies and their southern
sycophants?”
    “Well…strategically it makes sense,” offered
Egan Sato, Bar’s electronic technician, “Our fleet can’t hope to
match the Empire if it splits up, and King’s Isle is closest to the
Straight…more important—”
    “More important!” snarled one of the other
gunners contentiously. The man reminded Bar of a wolf with shaggy
black hair swept back into hackles. He had a mouth full of sharp
teeth as well, flashing out as he drew up his lips in a snarl. “How
do you figure on that, Sato?”
    “Whoa whoa! Easy, O’Dylan,” replied Sato,
lifting his hands up in apologetic surrender. “Meant no disrespect
to the north and all, but resources, mate. You know; population,
bilge-oil fields, factories, foundries, Ragnarok Cloudfortress—the
whole war effort?”
    “So that’s it,” fired back the predatory
gunnery skyman in scolding, “and you’d just tell the north to
what…? Piss off?”
    “It’s not like—”
    “Actually, that seems about right to me,”
butted in Bar’s Fire