Tunnel Rat

Aboard the Iron Orca, Captain Annie swirled the rum in a half-finished bottle, drank down two inches of the potent drink, then cursed and threw it at the crow's nest. The lookout, a veteran of many voyages, not only avoided being hit with the bottle but snagged it in midair and yelled her thanks to the captain.

"Bad Rum?" Her first mate, Stompy, was a little concerned. Her captain drank anything from boot polish to fermented seaweed, and normally never turned down anything, let alone rum. The lookout was a drunken sot that was usually asleep most of the time they were in port. So Stompy was concerned about her captain's uncharacteristic generosity.

"Something's happening, my leg hurts."

"Which one? The one you broke wrestling in the pit against Beluga Belle, or the one you lost to that Kraken thirty years ago?"

"The one the Kraken ate, of course. That's my 'Trouble Leg'. The damned things only starts to ache when there's trouble coming to the ship. The other one barely hurts, and I'll get Belle next time."

"Not likely, she's got two good legs and gets bigger every year. Hell, she outweighs you two-to-one, Annie, and if she keeps winning she can keep buying all the rum cake and brandied apples she can stuff into her face. She'll be even bigger by the time that you can get that cast off."

"Shit, you're probably right, but I was getting bored of letting the damned Sharks take my coins at their crooked card tables. How the hell they can cheat right in front of me gets my goat. I was cheating at cards before most of them were born, but I can't figure out their system."

"You wagered a goat? When the hell did you get a goat? You know there are Engineers and miners running around if you're lonely. Granted, some of them smell worse than goats, but I'd still prefer a spanner-boy in my bed in the morning. I've never heard of a goat bringing a girl breakfast in bed."

"Breakfast in bed is a myth the grannies tell their little granddaughters to make them starry-eyed with romance. Doesn't happen."

Stompy had a smug look on her face that made Annie suspicious. Her first mate had been too damned cheerful lately.

"Wait! Did you find one that can cook? Where is he? I want to meet this wonder." The pain in her phantom leg was forgotten as Stompy revealed the existence of a mythical creature.

"HA! Nowhere near this ship! He's too smart to come on board, and I don't want to dangle any bait around the rest of you. I'm keeping this one for myself. Some treasures you don't share. Did I mention he knows a recipe for pan-fried toast that uses cinnamon, eggs, and enough rum that three slices get you drunk? He claims he learned the recipe from a ratkin master chef and adapted it to dwarven cuisine by adding the rum."

"No shit? Smuggle one for me sometime, I'd like to try it. And, yeah, keep that one hidden. If he can cook like that then he can...argh! Dammit! My leg is hurting again, and I bet that Bernadette is asleep in the crow's nest. Be a dear Stompy, and go take a look from the top. It will help you work off the calories from your gourmet breakfast."

"Aye, aye, Captain. But don't you worry about my girlish form. He helped me work off breakfast right after he did the dishes."

Annie said several rude things as her first mate scrambled to the top of the mast and took a look. The Orca used both sails and steam as was needed. The wind would save fuel and let her cruise the seas longer. Steam gave her the edge when the wind was down, and also powered the machine shop in her hull, her dual cranes, and the two steam cannons in the bow and stern. She might ride a little low in the water and be slower than a beached whale, but the Orca was a versatile salvage and repair ship, with the guns and armor to fight it out with almost any ship she might encounter.

Annie's head snapped around as somewhere out in the bay, fire erupted into the air, the glow of it rising above the sails of the tightly packed ships in port. Stompy yelled down, "SHIT! Your damn leg was on the money, Captain. I don't know what the hell is going on, but Pike's ship got close to those two bottom feeders that went out to harass the fishing boats and both of them just exploded into flames! Every bit of sail caught fire at once and they're burning from the Jolly Roger to the decks."

"Bloody idiots. I told them and every other dimwit who bought that shit that messing around with Clingfire was a good way to lose a ship. I don't care that the alchemists had a 90% off sale. That just tells you the batch wasn't stable. But that ain't all the trouble that's coming. My leg is throbbing like the shit is still hitting the rotors."

"Yeah, well, your leg is right again. Something is happening in the middle of the bay. I saw a big piece of debris from the explosion get knocked through the air and land over by the island. The snake critters didn't like it and are in a tizzy. There's a big mass of them, little and big, all boiling up from the bottom."

Annie had sailed as Captain of the Orca, leading the Clan for nigh on fifty years, and she had a few hard and fast rules. The most important of those was having her guns ready to fire. No more than a third of Orca's crew was ever off the ship at any time, even when stuck in port and blockaded by all these crappy wooden skiffs. She reached over to a chain hanging from the bottom of a large steam whistle and blew a long blast, followed by the code for recall and roll out the guns.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The crew boiled up from below and ran to their stations. More were running from the Shark's gambling hall or the bars where they were hanging out. Other Scavengers took note that something was up. Some dismissed it, laughing and putting it down to a bored captain wanting to spoil her crew's day. Captain Annie was one of the crazed captains who insisted on drilling her crew, even in port. But the captains of Lamprey, Hammerhead, and Stingray yelled orders to their crew onboard their ships, and more steam sirens and whistles called out to their crews out on leave.

Below deck on the Orca, the mechanics opened up the fuel lines and ethanol made from fermented seaweed juice poured into the boilers bringing Orca to full steam. On deck, the gunners and loaders on the steam cannons got the bulky weapons ready to fire. These guns didn't use gunpowder to throw one large cannonball at a time. Instead, high-pressure steam powered a high-speed revolving drum. The ammunition entered the center and was driven by centrifugal forces through the spiral track, gaining speed as it went until it emerged from the gun and tore through anything it encountered. The guns weren't terribly accurate, but firing 800 rounds a minute made up for any problems with aiming. At full steam, the Orca's boilers had no problem supplying enough steam for both guns to operate constantly. Ammo was a different story. At a constant rate of fire, the guns would go through 96,000 rounds in an hour, throwing over nine tons of steel ammunition.

Normally, the ship only carried a quarter of that amount, but Annie knew better than most that idol hands led to mischief, and mischief led to exploding boilers. She'd kept her mechanics and crew busy in the machine shop making ammunition for all the guns, replacement parts for the boilers, and extra armor plates to make repairs after a battle. The crew was carrying up enough ammunition to keep the guns running for a full hour, and half that ammunition was made from Dark Steel, acquired from the Engineer's Guild for a handful of magi-tech components looted from a half-abandoned sunken city. Annie had plans to return to that place and get revenge on the fish people and their damnable tame Kraken. They owed her a leg.

"What are you seeing, Stompy?"

"Problems, Captain. The eels are chasing something across the bay. Can't get a good look at it, half in the water and kicking up a spray. But moving fast and heading this way along with half the dragon snakes in the ocean. And Pike is heading here with every bit of sail he can muster. He must smell lunch."

Annie hoped the Ogre was hungry, and that he made it here before the critters did.

===========

In Light's End, Squint opened his eyes where he'd been napping on his throne. "Milo's back! Can you feel it Cats? We don't have to be bored anymore! I love the smell of chaos in the morning!"

The two monstrous cats looked at each other and feigned indifference. Boring meant full bellies and time to nap. Their job was to keep Squint alive and every time he got excited their job got harder. The latest gang war with the Scavenger Clans had tired them out. Squint was determined to keep the drunken dwarves out of the back half of the city and several times that had led to fighting, and nearly losing his life twice. Fighting Players was one thing, but the dwarves fought to win and didn't mind using pistols, bombs, and Molotov cocktails to gain victories. Despite his cat's misgivings and advice, the lord of the Kulags was already bounding down the hallway and out the front door, yelling for everyone in his gang to follow.

As they crossed the last bridge and saw the boiling mass of eels heading their way, Squint took his gang across the docks to the area where the last unburnt houses of the fishing families stood. The constant fighting between Kulags, Players, Scavengers, and Pirates too often ended with a building or two burnt to the ground. "Spead out and protect the houses if they get out of the water and head this way. Where's my Water Mage?"

"Here, sir!" Tobias came out of his family's home, staff in hand and ready to fight. He looked out at the army of eels coming across the bay toward the city and reached out with his senses. The minds of the eels were filled with rage and revenge. They weren't stopping for anything. "They are really upset with whoever they are chasing. I can see it in their minds. Some old enemy who attacked and hurt one of their ancients."

Squint smiled. "Hear that, cats? Milo picked another fight with something big. That's what I like about him."

If the cats had any opinion, they kept it to themselves.