Book 4, Chapter 22: Nor The Arrow For Its Swiftness
"Captain, according to the wireless range finder, there is no one else in a position to stop them aside from us."
*recording indicates seven seconds of silence aside from normal bridge noises*
"Then it's up to us."
"But we're just—"
"In the right place at the right time, XO Jorgenson."
*PA System Announcement Whistle*
"This is the captain speaking. Battle stations. This is not a drill. Battle stations. I repeat, all hands to battle stations. Prepare for combat. We are about to engage the enemy fleet. Repeat, this is not a drill."
*battle stations klaxon is heard in background*
"Comms, Priority message to High Command. Message reads: Zeta. Zeta. Zeta. Enemy airships, numbering eighteen, on approach from North by Northeast over the Baltic, altitude three kilometers, four hundred kilometers south of Stockholm, two hundred kilometers east of Copenhagen. The Kvasir is the only ship currently in range. Optical examination reveals they are carrying city-buster ordnance. They are heading on a course for Copenhagen, Lubeck, or Hamburg. We will buy what time we can. Requesting immediate reinforcements. Zeta. Zeta. Zeta. End message."
"Signal sent, Captain Haddock."
"Thank you, Mr. Irving. Helm, get us up above the cloud deck. Drop all ballast and prepare for maximum altitude. All non-essential personnel are to be evacuated. Include a copy of the bridge record in their pods."
"Aye, Ma'am."
"Wings, prepare to deploy our dragons. We're going to need screening elements and spotters."
"Yes, Captain."
"Comms, instruct Engineer Mac Phearson to take the safety governors off the focusing array and deploy all of the remaining elements of the distributed array. And prepare their focal elements for long-range collimation. He'll know what I mean."
"Aye aye, Ma'am."
*recording indicates thirty more seconds of bridge conversations as orders are followed*
"What are you thinking, Ma'am?"
"I'm thinking that our little airship is the only thing standing between those bombs and cities of several million people, XO."
"That's true. But when I said the other day that I was hoping to live up to my family name, this wasn't what I had in mind."
"Nor me, but while we can make our choices, we don't get to pick what decisions we're faced with, do we?"
"No. We don't. Ma'am, are you planning on going out there personally?"
*nine more seconds of background conversations*
"I suppose that I should. Send word to have Inquisitive saddled, would you?"
"Aye, Ma'am. See you on the other side."
"On the ground or in Valhalla, Snitlout. It has been an honor working with you."
—Bridge Records of Imperial Science Ship Kvasir, Captain Dame Astrid Haddock VII commanding, prior to attempted sneak attack on Imperial territory.
All essential hands and wings of the Kvasir were lost, but brought down sixteen times their tonnage in enemy airships and delayed the enemy forces from their objectives by twelve hours, allowing for the massing of a defensive force and the activation of air defenses in targeted cities. Captain Haddock and Inquisitive (NF-00005871b) did significant damage to the enemy propulsion systems and gas envelopes after the Kvasir was downed, and they, and their entire crew, were granted honors—the majority of them posthumous—for their actions.
Tropes that appear in this chapter:
- Conspicuous Consumption: Fishswill's idea to incentivise people paying their fair share of taxes is to tie it to their ability to show off their wealth.
- Content Warnings:Chapter Trigger Warnings: Explicit Battle Scenes, Explicit Depictions of Medical Treatment of Disembowelment, Non-Explicit Depiction of Torture, Character Deaths
- Death by Adaptation: In canon neither Spitelout or Kingstail ever died; in this chapter both of them are killed in battle.
- It Can Think: Mjolnir not only expresses an understanding of the meaning of Spitelout's Mjolnir pendant, able to recognise that the pendant is in some way linked to his name, but subsequently listens to Spitelout's explanation about the Norse Gods (although Spitelout adjusts it to terms and concepts he feels a dragon can understand).
- Sixth Ranger: Mala joins Mulan's party because the Pechenegs threaten her home too and she can translate for Mulan when they get closer to Berk.
- You Shall Not Pass!: As his men slowly die, Spitelout and Kingstail makes sure to hold the line to allow the waveskimmers carrying refugees to pass the bridge safely, dying in the process.
