Gusts of wind blew by as the ship lazily floated over the canyons. She was of simple design. It had a steel hull and two decks. The higher one, housed the ships wheel main engine. The lower deck, held the guns and the two secondary engines. Attached to the bottom of the hull were two wing like sails. Her balloon was oval also bearing winged sails above it and a spike was attached to the front of it. Her port and starboard guns were identical, machine guns meant for suppression rather than inflicting damage. The real fire power was in the forward gun. They called it the Manticore Heavy Hwacha. It was a gun built to disperse multiple missiles from its mouth, making it ideal for penetrating enemy hulls. Her side read Steel Butterfly.
He stood at the helm of the ship, steering her. As wind blew through his jet black, hair he adjusted his hat so it wouldn't fall. He wore a black woolen coat and pants of the same color. He seemed somewhat uninterested or boarded, until something caught his eye. He took out his spyglass and looked towards the horizon. He smiled. He had found what he had hoped for.
He jumped into action. He called out to his crew.
"Stations men! I do believe I found something."
His crew ran out from below decks tacking their stations swiftly. He turned the engines on maximum power. As they sped through the sky, he looked through his spy glass and observed the enemy ship. It was a cargo ship. It had a single swivel canon at its front and a crew of what appeared to be 5.
"Easy pickings," he said to himself.
When they were within 50 yards of the cargo ship, he opened fire. The crew of the cargo ship was completely taken by surprise from their attack. Their hull rattled under fire and was about to give out. Their engines explode one by one as they took fire from the Manticore. They fired back but it was no use. Within 2 minutes they surrendered.
He boarded the cargo ship and walked to its captain. He spoke to him.
"Good day sir," he said extending his hand to the merchant.
Confused the merchant took his hand and shook it.
"Who are you?" asked the merchant.
He turned to look at the merchant.
"Have you not heard of me?" he asked.
The merchant pondered the question.
"No can't say I have."
"You haven't heard of me," he said somewhat shocked.
"Well then good sir, remember this day, as the day when you made the acquaintance of," he said taking a pause, "SKY CAPTAIN MAXIMILIAN VALENTINE, CAPTAIN OF THE SKY!"
"Who?" asked the merchant.
"I am him and I am the single greatest captain to ever sail the sky."
"I thought Sir Tobias Biscuit, captain of the ship Polaris was the greatest captain alive," said the merchant.
"No," said Valentine impatiently, "It is me and screw anyone else who thinks otherwise."
"I think he's the greatest," said the merchant.
"Well you're in no position to talk," he said to the merchant.
"Neither are you!" said a voice from further away.
Without anyone noticing another ship had dropped anchor next to them. At the helm of the ship was none other than Sir Tobias Biscuit.
"Let these merchants go Maximilian."
"Make me."
"Is that a challenge?"
"You bet it is."
"Fine then. First to have their ship reach an unusable state loses."
"Bring it on."
The two men mounted their wheels and drove 100 yards of each other. They waited until both sides had waved a red flag to begin their advances.
Maximilian took first shot. The Manticore at the Steel Butterfly's bow out ranged any gun on the Polaris. Wasn't long however until the other ships Flak Canons took aim. Even with this heavy long range exchange of fire, both ships continued their advances towards each other.
The Steel Butterfly's strategy was simple. Either get behind or below their ship to attack with minimal return fire. Attacking from the starboard side was also an option since the Polaris had no guns to speak of on this side. Their strategy was to make a port side pass at them in order to do heavy damage.
The weapons were doing a number on both of their ships. Their engineers struggled to keep the engines and balloon alive. Neither ship was seeming to give up. Then Maximilian did something unexpected.
He raised his ship above theirs and out of sight. When exactly above theirs he dropped all lift from his balloon as they crashed on top of them. They weighed them down enough to send them coursing down. And before they could recover, he had maneuvered his ship to their port side and rammed them. He then opened fire on all guns. The Polaris was dropping down fast.
Seeing that he had lost, Sir Biscuit surrendered. As he was drifting of he could hear shouting.
"Remember this as the day you almost killed," he said pausing, "SKY CAPTAIN MAXIMILIAN VALENTINE, CAPTAIN OF THE SKY!"
He sighed.
"You may have beat me this time. But next time you won't be as lucky."