Gun of Ashes

Chapter 1010 - 49: Flaming Spear

The howling wind and rolling thunder played in unison, setting the tone for this perilous encounter.

"What’s going on, Lorenzo!"

By the time Bola rushed into the command room, it was already packed; he seemed to be the last one to arrive.

Each man to his trade: Lorenzo had handed over emergency command of the crew to Captain Notar, while he and the newly arrived Blue Jade were discussing how to strike back.

"We’re under attack, it’s a group of pirates." Lorenzo glanced at the sea. Firelight flickered, another salvo roared out, and the ship’s hull shuddered violently again. "I don’t know how many there are, but choosing to attack at a time like this... they really know how to pick their moment."

"Do we accelerate and pull out? If the Morning Glow Advance goes to full speed, they’ll never catch us." Blue Jade suggested; to her, that was the safest solution.

"We can get away, but those few cargo ships can’t."

Lorenzo immediately vetoed Blue Jade’s proposal,

"Does the Morning Glow Advance have any means of counterattack?" Lorenzo asked Captain Notar.

"We do, but none of the weapons have seen real action at sea... at least, not under conditions like this," Notar was also shaken by the ferocity of the weather. "I don’t know how they’ll perform in combat, and they’re mainly meant to deal with Demons."

This kind of scene was a first for Notar as well. He was even wondering if the enemy were lunatics: in weather this vile, any sane man would be trying to get out of the storm, yet the pirates chose this moment to strike. It was also possible they were simply very shrewd, seizing on this mental blind spot. In any case, right now the Morning Glow Advance was extremely passive.

"If it can deal with Demons, it can deal with humans." Lorenzo shouted, "Prepare to return fire!"

"Prepare to return fire!"

Seeing this, Captain Notar could only grit his teeth and go along, passing the order down.

Fire once again flashed in the grey, hazy world. Wave after wave of shelling washed over the Morning Glow Advance. Fortunately, the violent swells made it hard for the Black Teeth’s guns to aim; only a few shells slammed into the hull’s armor. But the respite didn’t last—flares of fire burst to life on the deck as a shell smashed into it, scattering sparks.

The Iron Armor ship’s hull was well protected by solid plating, but the superstructures above the deck were completely exposed. Notar heaved at the wheel, adjusting the Morning Glow Advance’s angle as much as he could.

The engines roared, and thick black smoke billowed from the massive funnels, stray embers rising and scattering with the wind.

"Fixed guns, open fire!"

Notar gave the order, but Lorenzo stopped him.

"Wait! Don’t fire yet."

Lorenzo stared at the Black Teeth beyond the raging waves; it was holding a safe distance from the Morning Glow Advance.

"What are you trying to do?"

Notar had no idea what kind of fit Lorenzo was having—he’d sworn to fight back, yet at the critical moment he suddenly held his fire.

"Our elevation isn’t enough; the fixed guns will struggle to hit. Firing blindly will only put them on their guard. Right now, we need to pretend we’re weak." A terrifying smile crept over Lorenzo’s face. "Show weakness, wait for the right moment, and kill with one strike."

To kill time in the dull life at sea, Lorenzo had read a great deal about Iron Armor ships. In his mind, a new plan was taking shape.

At present, most Iron Armor ships in the world carried fixed guns as standard, but fixed guns had dead angles in their arcs of fire—and that was exactly the problem the Morning Glow Advance was facing now. Some had tried mounting rotating guns on deck platforms, but current hydraulic technology was not enough to turn a turret weighing dozens of tons. Even if you could drive it, the traverse would be so slow it wasn’t worth the trouble.

To solve this, the Perpetual Motion Pump had come up with a rather interesting idea: they installed the deck guns inside steel fortresses. There was no need to rotate the turret itself; you only had to rotate the gun within the turret. Above the gun, mechanical systems handled breech loading, and as long as four gunners inside the turret kept it under control, it could operate normally. The top of the turret was completely exposed, with no protection whatsoever, but to trade that risk for higher mobility, the technicians of the Perpetual Motion Pump felt it was worth it.

Six such rotating guns were mounted on the Morning Glow Advance, distributed along the hull. One of them was somewhat special—that one had been temporarily installed by the Perpetual Motion Pump.

"Load Ascalon. I want it to kill in a single shot."

At Lorenzo’s order, vicious steel slowly shifted under the scour of the downpour. From the tallest turret on the Morning Glow Advance came the growl of machinery; a gigantic gun barrel rose up out of a recess, dragging itself into position. It was so heavy that the Perpetual Motion Pump had designed a ring-shaped rail around the turret for it; the steel carriage running along that rail bore the weight of the muzzle.

"Treat this as a live-fire drill. What we run into in the Silent Sea will only be worse than what we’re facing now."

That was Lorenzo’s real thought. All he knew of the Silent Sea came from other people’s stories; he had never truly been there. As for what might happen, he knew nothing.

So the only thing Lorenzo could do now was make everyone start adapting to all of this, to get used to fighting atop the waves.

"Begin loading!"

Notar didn’t waste words; he shouted directly. On paper he was the captain, but that was more like being a quartermaster, managing the sailors’ work and assignments. When war actually came, his words could only be taken as suggestions.

It wasn’t that Notar lacked experience in naval engagements; it was just that, over his long years of service, he had never faced that kind of enemy—those monsters known as Demons.