NOTICE: This is canon.
…
Tale #33: An Airman's Worst Nightmare
…
The Island Symphony was tied up at East Iron Island due to a snafu with their shipment of lumber. For reasons no one understood, the shipment had been sent to a lumberyard on East Iron Island in spite of the fact that East Iron Island had no lumberyards. Never mind that most lumberyards in the sky had their own sources; there was no reason for a lumberyard on Turtle Island to send a shipment to East Iron Island unless it was meant for construction. At least, that was how it had been explained to Link, who could not help his ignorance of how the lumber trade worked.
Rather than send the Island Symphony back to Turtle Island, the dock's staff sent a letter to the lumberyard along with Link's manifest to have the shipment verified. It was faster than having the Island Symphony trek all the way back just to be sent out again to the correct destination (which Link, Leynne, and the Skyrider branch office staff agreed might be West Iron Island). The waste in time and fuel was something which the company wanted to avoid.
Still, the letter was going to take time, so Link asked Leynne to arrange for the crew to take a bit of time resting ashore. It was actually going well, although most things appeared to work well early on. Link would have to wait until the afternoon to really know whether his crew would behave or get them thrown from another port. Not that he was sorry they got banned from Timbre Island, but he would be mad if they actually forced one of the other islands, which they were reliant on for business, to kick them out.
The afternoon felt like it was dragging, mostly because Link did not have much to do. It was one of those days when he did not have any paperwork to take care of but still had to remain on the ship in case something happened. He attempted to take a nap only to feel the need to go out onto the deck and stare at the rigging. He was sure he received a few odd stares, but there were only a few of his crew on-deck at the moment.
"May Kyabtin!" Link blinked himself out of a fog upon realizing that Twali was rushing toward him. "May Kyabtin, sariyk! Sariyk!"
Of course, Link's grasp of Geltoan was still lacking. He noticed her pointing as she came closer, so he looked toward the stern off to starboard.
He suddenly understood what "sariyk" meant as he watched a large, dark plume spill out from behind the aftercastle. "Oh, crap…" he uttered.
Then he hollered, "All hands, respond to engine room! All hands, respond to engine room!"
"Captain!" Link spun to start running toward the hatch and almost collided with Flower. "Whoa, easy."
"We've got a fire!" Link immediately told him.
Flower glanced out at the smoke. "That's not us, Captain," he said. "I was just down there."
"You sure?" Link asked with a cautious tone. "Sello works fast."
"Chief Ding-Dong knocked himself out. That's not us."
Link looked back at the smoke. "Go below, call everyone ashore," he ordered. "Keep Line aboard and move the Symphony to a different pier."
"Aye aye," Flower replied.
"Twali, yoynwoan," he then said as he pulled his flare gun from behind his back. As he started across the deck, he opened the breach. The situation seemed like a good time for a red signal, so he pulled the red smoke shell off his belt and loaded it.
"Captain!" Link paused and turned back to the bow as Leynne jogged toward him. "Ah we evacuating?" he asked once he was close enough.
"That's not us," Link told him. "The ship behind us must've caught fire. Get all our available crew together ashore; we're going to assist. Who's out now?"
"Gold, Randy, Biluf, aaaaand Dholit," Leynne said. Then he made a sound to stop Link from saying anything else. "Well, I think Biluf might still be aboahd, actually."
"Once everyone's ashore, Flower and Line will move the ship. Grab whatever crew you can."
"Undehstood."
"Layna!" Twali shouted.
"'Inu moyt—"
"Aaaah!"
"Yipe!" Link hollered in response to Twali's surprise that Layna instantly stood behind her. Link heaved a sigh. "Okay, we can work with that. Layna, get to the other ship and find out where the fire is. Then find their captain and make sure he knows. Pull people out if you have to."
"Ay'a, May Kyabtin," Layna replied.
Link closed the breach on his flare gun and started for the gangplank while Layna disappeared into the rigging. Although the flare was meant to signal his crew, he was certain that seeing a trail of red smoke in the air would probably alert whatever airmen and dockers did not know that there was a ship on fire. He waited until he stood at the top of the plank before firing the gun into the air; between the Island Symphony's unusual rigging and an overhead loading crane, he had very little room to safely shoot. He hustled down the gangplank and strode toward the rear of the Island Symphony to look at what was happening.
A pure nightmare.
The ship was a gaff-rigged frigate of the Fair Traveler company, indicated by the purple field of their ship's banner fluttering at the back of all of the rigging. The smoke was billowing through a porthole below-deck, and Link feared that it was attached to their gun deck. It could have meant that their powder was on fire, and if it found a sizeable barrel, it could blow up both the deck and the nearby ballast tank, potentially sending the ship down to the surface. It was impossible to tell how long the ship would last.
"Cap'n!" Link turned to find some of the engine crew as well as Lwamm and Biluf approaching. Lawrence looked across the Fair Traveler airship. "Goddesses above…"
Link had to quickly glance around, having little familiarity with the arrangement of East Iron Island's port. He spotted a couple of dockers rushing to a water pump beside one of the warehouses. Link pointed and said, "Guys, go help the dockers get water. Listen to them closely; if the ship starts to fall, they'll let you know."
"Let's go, fellas!" Randy declared as he started running in the dockers' direction.
"Yoynwoan!" Link then told the Gelto, waving them along in case his pronunciation was still odd.
He immediately ran to a different area of the docks and grabbed one of the boarding planks lying next to a warehouse. The Gelto quickly caught on to his intention and grabbed a second plank while Biluf helped Link carry the first. They charged across the dock to the burning ship and used the edge of the dock area rather than the narrower pier to set the planks on the bulwark of the main weather deck. Once they were set, Link and the Gelto rushed down them onto the main deck.
As soon as they were on the deck, airmen started rushing up from the nearby hatch. Link immediately pointed up one plank and shouted, "Use this one! Hurry!"
Something slammed open astern, and Link turned to see more crew evacuating the quarterdeck. One man, wearing a long, purple jacket, turned and immediately started shouting to the others while indicating the plank on the quarterdeck, "Abandon ship! Go! Go!"
Link turned to see the dockers and his crew hustling down the other plank with buckets of water. He immediately grabbed one airman to stop him. "Hey," he hollered over the bustle. "Is that the gun deck burning?"
The airman he had grabbed just shrugged his shoulders. However, another airman behind him, having heard the question, stopped and said, "No, it's our generator. But it's right under the powder magazine."
"Okay, thanks," Link told him before gesturing for them to go. Once the first docker landed on the deck behind him, Link spun. "Generator room, two decks down."
"Right," the docker replied with a nod. "Let's go, boys! Two decks down!"
"Lawrence!" Link hollered. Lawrence, last in line, stopped just as he was about to pass. "Take your bucket and douse the powder in the magazine at the front of the ship. If we wet it, it'll keep the powder from exploding."
"Go' i', Cap'n!" Lawrence said.
"Hey, you!" As Lawrence hustled to the hatch, the man in the purple jacket jogged over to Link and stopped. "Captain Rugger, Cloud Saber."
"Captain Link, Island Symphony," Link replied in turn.
"What's happening?" Rugger asked.
"We saw the smoke," Link told him. "Your generator caught fire."
"Shit, that's right on top of the magazine," Rugger growled. "Guess we should be glad it wasn't the magazine itself."
"I just told my airman to douse the powder," Link said. "It should buy us enough time to evacuate your crew."
"I told some of my boys to start grabbing buckets."
"How many do you have aboard?" Link asked.
"One hundred and eleven."
"My Captain!" Link looked up to see Dholit rushing down the plank with Gold and Randy behind her.
"Dholit, take these three and search the ship," Link ordered, indicating Twali, Biluf, and Lwamm with a hand. "Randy, Gold, grab buckets and follow them—" He pointed to a pair of dockers rushing up the other plank with the crew. "—down to the fire."
"Aye aye," Gold said with a nod while Randy replied, "Arr."
"Captain," Rugger spoke up, attracting Link's attention. "Not that I'm complaining, but don't you Skyriders have a uniform policy, too?"
"Things are a little loose on my ship," Link said. "It's kinda a long story."
"It's just that I'd've responded better to someone in uniform. That airman, uh… airwoman? The crew you sent to get me had to drag me to the door to get me to respond."
"Most of the women on my crew don't speak Hylian. It's kinda hard to tell them anything."
"Oh, that explains why I didn't understand her! I thought she was just babbling drunk." Rugger then looked over Link's head and instantly put on a shocked expression. "Aw, shit…"
Link turned around to see flames licking the sides of the forecastle. "The fire's outside…" Link uttered to himself. He turned back to Captain Rugger. "Logbook and crew roster?"
"Already with my first officer," Rugger said.
"May Kyabtin."
"Yikes!" Both Link and Rugger jumped in surprise as, in the middle of turning to look up just as Dubbl and Leynne came down one plank, Layna appeared on the deck behind them.
"Will you stop that!?" Rugger snapped.
"Report," Link told Layna.
"'Afi'il dha' giyt sifinak," Layna said. "Naxiban cublak."
"She said ze crew, gone," Dubbl translated. "No one stays."
"Start pulling out our crew and the dockers," Link said. "We're abandoning."
"Theh's no way to save the ship?" Leynne asked as Layna disappeared from sight.
Link pointed to the flames on the side of the bow (which Helo and Lidago were throwing buckets on) and said, "Once the outer hull catches fire, it's no use. We can't save it. Leynne, start counting the crew."
"Yes, sih," Leynne said before starting up the plank with Dubbl in tow.
"Hey!" Rugger reached out and grabbed a docker about to run past Link. "The ship's lost. Grab your men and abandon."
"Got it, Captain," the docker said as he turned around. He immediately started relaying the order as more dockers stepped onto the deck.
"Captain, you should get ashore, too," Link said.
"Not until every last man is off this ship," Rugger said. "Captain."
"Captain!" Both looked up to see Leynne standing at the edge of the dock. "The fihst officeh repohts two aihmen missing, technicians!"
"Shit, must've been the boys working on the generator," Rugger growled.
"Captai—wait!" Link hollered as Rugger started for the hatch.
However, he stopped short after a plume of smoke revealed Harley rising out of the deck with an airman draped over one shoulder. "Found this for ya," he told Rugger. "Where ya wan' 'im?"
"Take him ashore immediately," Rugger ordered as he watched Lwamm come out of the hatch with a second airman draped over her shoulder. Rugger gawked for a moment. "Damn. You're some woman, aren't you?"
Link spun toward shore and called, "Leynne! We found the missing airmen! Get a surgeon!"
"Undehstood!" Leynne replied.
"Go, hurry up!" Rugger hollered from behind Lwamm. Link turned to see the rest of the dockers scrambling for the planks while one, upon noticing Harley struggling with the airman, stepped up beside him and got his attention. Link watched as Harley sat the airman on the deck and then picked him up under his shoulders while the docker grabbed the unconscious man's ankles.
Rugger turned and asked in a loud voice as Layna stepped onto the deck bracing a docker in the middle of a coughing fit, "Is anyone else down there?"
The docker shook his head. Dholit, stepping up behind them with Twali, answered for him, "We ah the last."
"Okay, hurry!" Rugger told them. "Go!"
The docker recovered enough that Layna let him jog on his own and disappeared into the rigging once more.
Pap! Papap! Link started and glanced afore to see that some of the standing rigging had snapped loose, causing the fore-mast to sway. He then had to back out of the way so Harley and the docker could step clumsily onto the plank behind him.
Rugger followed Dholit back to the planks, an irritated look on his face. "You wanna tell me why your airwoman just slapped my ass?" he asked Link.
"Uuuh… not really—Dholit!" Link snapped as Dholit rushed up the other gangplank. "This isn't the time!"
"Captain!" Both captains watched one of Rugger's airmen scramble toward the top of the gangplanks. "The ballast is gone! The ballast is gone!"
Rugger cast his eyes across the weather deck. "Captain, let's get the hell outta here," he told Link.
"Aye aye," Link replied.
Link immediately hustled up one gangplank knowing that Rugger would want to be the last off the ship. He still checked over his shoulder to make sure that Rugger was on the plank right behind him. Link felt the plank shift and quickened his pace. He stepped between a pair of dockers waiting to pull the plank out of the way. He heard scraping and spun in response just to see the dockers pulling the other plank out of the way. He stepped back, and Captain Rugger set foot on the dock immediately.
"Excuse me, Captain," one of the dockers said. Link and Rugger moved closer to where their crews had gathered so that the dockers had a clear path to drag the plank away.
Flames flared out from the hatch, and the docks fell quiet enough to hear the ship's hull crackle. The air was full of shock, palpable for what felt like miles. Link could feel memories of other vessels rising to mind, the casualties of Cunimincus' incursion into the sky kingdom. Although this appeared to be nothing more than an accident, the weight of events fell hard on Link. All he could do was swallow hard and wait to see where things would go next. He mostly feared for Captain Rugger. Link knew that most captains would have a breakdown watching their ship burn, and he wanted to stay near in case he sensed that Rugger might want to do something drastic.
"Captain," Leynne said as he approached Link.
Link glanced at Rugger to see him staring stone-faced at his burning vessel. He turned to Leynne and responded in a low voice, "What?"
Leynne looked at Rugger. Then he leaned forward. "Captain Ruggeh's second-in-command repohts all of his men accounted foh."
"The dockers?"
Leynne glanced over one shoulder. "They had nine men respond to the emehgency. They said that theih men ah all heh."
"How about our crew?"
"All heh. I'll call r—"
Leynne looked up and paused, and Link had heard the rustle behind him. He turned to see that Rugger had raised his hand to his forehead, his salute directed at the ship. Link and Leynne glanced toward where the crews were gathered to see that Rugger's crew, whether they were standing or sitting (in the case of the men who had been injured during the evacuation), had raised their hands as well.
Link understood the sentiment. He turned back to the burning ship and raised his left hand. Leynne gave his fingers a snap to get the rest of the crew's attention so they would see him raising his own salute.
Once the last of Link's crew and even the dockers saluted the ship, they watched in silence until the burning hulk began its descent. Rugger, his face pained as the ship fell out of sight, finally released a tear two minutes after the ship had disappeared.
He still waited a while before letting his hand drop, and his eyes gave the horizon a distant stare for a little longer.
"Captain Link."
"Yes, sir," Link replied.
"Thank you for responding," Rugger told him. "I don't know how many of us would've survived, but just one man gone would be one too many."
"I'm… sorry we couldn't save your ship," Link said.
Rugger gave a slow, shallow nod. "That's all right. The Saber was an old ship. In for maintenance every other week and cursed with age. She was ready to go." He paused, and Link looked up to see him struggle to keep his face neutral. "She held on just long enough to make sure no one had to go with her…"
Link had the urge to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. The only reason he did not was because it would be an awkward stretch for his short stature. Instead, he heaved a sigh and said, "C'mon, Captain. The first round's on us."
Rugger took in an audible breath. "Thank you, Captain."
…
Tale #33 of the Island Symphony – END
NOTICE: This story is canon.
