A Dreadful Airship Accident

Belle takes a moment to enjoy the sky, the quality of the light, the feel of the wind outside. Like C.S. Lewis and children, Belle loves weather. Any kind of weather.

Then, she glances toward Richter and Kaze. "You just tell me where you want it to go."

Then, she frowns slightly and raises a finger. "Just a moment. It occurs to me to ask: what outcome do we want, ideally?

"Are there innocents on board? In which case, I want it to come quickly but not violently?

"Or, are we not concerned about innocents at this time?

"Basically, whatever I do, their weatherman, if they have one, will try to compensate.

"Now, not to toot my own horn, but. I'm rather good. I also have an intimate knowledge of air ships...which not all weathermen do.

"But, that doesn't mean that in a straight out tug-of-war--weatherman to weathergirl--that I'm a guaranteed winner.

"So I'd like to act quickly, slam the ship to where we want it ...so it goes where we want before their weatherman can compensate.

"But slamming and landing safely are two entirely animals.

"So before I blow this beauty earthward, I'd like a quick rating on where I should try to shoot for in the range between speed and safety."

Richter: "That's no passenger liner -- it's a cargo ship, and an express job to boot. They won't have any innocents, except maybe the crew. But that's a whale of a lot of men standing in the gondola. If they make it down safely, they might could overpower us.

"No, seems to me that we have to take the chance and crash them so hard they aren't in any condition to pursue on the ground."

Belle gives a quick little nod and begins whistling cheerfully.

Using her Weatherman skills and her knowledge of air ships, she carefully calculates whatever will give her the best chance of crashing the ship quickly...and the best place to crash it. As the ship noses over a cliff at some five hundred feet, she plans to drive it suddenly down by creating low pressure below and high pressure above. If there's enough moisture at altitude, that will probably lead to lightning.

As she gathers her magic to do that, the sides of the gondola flop down. Dozens of ropes drop out and the ship flares, venting hot air from its ballast tanks to lose altitude fast. As soon as its ropes reach the ground, dozens of soldiers grab them and slide down the ropes.

However, in rapidly dropping to allow its soldiers to rappel to the ground, the airship has unwittingly assisted Belle's plan. The ship drops, sucked down by low pressure and pushed down by high pressure. The light raincloud above the ship balloons into a huge, dark thunderhead, flickering slightly with heat lightning

KA-CRACK! The gondola slams into the edge of the cliff, hard. Glass breaks and steel bends. Most of the soldiers have reached the ground, but they hit harder than they intended.

A figure in green and gold leaps off the airship's nose. She misses the cliff and falls five hundred feet to the valley slope below, hitting with a terrible crack! Dust and rock chips spray into the air. The woman, whom we now see has odd golden wristlets and anklets, stands up, apparently unharmed from her plummet.

A man in orange and blue dives after her, hitting the ground hands-first. His impact is much louder, like the sound of a boulder snapping in two. He bounds out of a small crater, looking around for enemies.

Four more men leap from the airship just as it begins to buckle in the middle, where its keel is being bent over the cliffside. These men, all in tunics with long, flowing trousers but bare arms, flutter to the ground as softly as leaves. The kanji on their forearms ripple with firelight.

A sudden gust throws the four Iron Guard back into the cliff face, as though they were paper dolls. A mighty wind has blown up, holding the airship's bow up while the crew tries to abandon ship. This wind bends trees, strips leaves, and throws an impenetrable cloud of dirt over the two Massives down in the valley. The four Iron Guards are pinned to the cliff by the windstorm.

The many soldiers on top of the cliff begin shooting. They aren't concentrating on anyplace in particular; they may be trying to scare Belle, wherever she is, and spoil her focus. The airship's back is broken, but their Weatherman is still holding the nose up.

The Grimnoir are in their hollow, shielded from direct sight of the cliff. But Belle, Kaze, and Voinovich are out there in the teeth of the bullet-storm. It's only a matter of time, so it seems, before one of them is hit!