Ash 2nd, 122
The day had been long in coming and even so, Stefan worried it was too soon.
Everything was in place, every system strut and bolt had been checked more times than he could remember to count. He'd checked himself, had his best engineers check behind him, had his builder bosses check with their expertise, and the Order mages check behind all of them. The Windworks was as ready as it could be for what he was attempting, but no one had ever attempted it before and there was no way to truly test the work in a real world environment except to implement it.
Every person not essential for keeping the potential airships that the Windworks and the Hall would become if all went well in the air had been evacuated. They waited either on the ground in a location the soldiers and mages had made safe for them, or were on one of the ships that had joined them. Eitan and the wives, along with his daughter, were on the Nachtherr, some distance away and high up enough that if everything went as wrong as it could, they would be safe. Plans were in place should the Windworks somehow manage to break apart as it tried to take off.
The people would be kept safe and evacuated by the airships to where they could make their way to what succor the army refugee camps could offer. Eitan could be in charge, with Delia and Luca to support him. Delia had been none too happy when Stefan insisted on doing the last of the work and supervising the take off himself but there was literally no one else who understood the project as a whole.
All was in readiness, he kept reminding himself as his brain kept trying to insist there were things he had forgotten. He accepted the fears and addressed each calmly as he settled into the control room. It was like the control room of any large airship in appearance, instruments, panels covered in knobs, buttons and levers. There were windows, or what would be windows, once they left the ground. For the moment all that could be seen out of them was a few feet of empty air and then stone and dirt. The intended area to leave the ground had been fully dug out and was supported now by a combination of magic and metal beams. The beams would be uncoupled and then there was nothing left but to see if the work he and everyone living at the Windworks had put it was enough to give them lift.
He gave the orders needed at precise times, keeping track of the minutes and even seconds with the large pocket watch that he had ordered engraved almost a year ago. There wouldn't be anything nearly so grand to celebrate with this year, but he would do his best, for the one brother that remained to him.
There was no time to dwell on such thoughts, thankfully, as he continued to count down the long pre-flight check list he had written with his own hand. It would take hours to get through it all but each airman manning the Windworks soon to be airship was well trained, diligent and understood the procedures by heart. Each step had been memorized by everyone involved, but he read from the list anyway and no one questioned him or seemed to think it anything but exactly proper.
As the moment approached he was nervous, as he had been the first time a ship he'd wired himself had been about to take off, as he'd been the first time a ship he'd designed had been about to take off. There was more at stake, much more, but the same sort of childish dark anticipation swelled somewhere inside him. It wasn't as bad as he remembered it, perhaps he was just too far away from the youth he'd been, even the young man he'd been, to be effected by their feelings anymore.
When he reached the last item on the pre-flight list he waited till the watch told him it was time and then called out the last order, clear and steady. Around him the airmen responded with precise action and then reported back to him. It was time. He took the controls himself, wanting to feel if anything was going wrong before the imprecise instruments told him so. He did not hold his breath, because he needed it filling his lungs, needed it filling his brain, keeping his reflexes sharp. Drawing air in and out steadily he accelerated, straight up, until they were enough above the earth to be fully free of it. There were groans and shudders but not of the type that would have told the tale of the new airship breaking apart or cracking.
Stefan stayed steady, calm and focused throughout, giving the airmen something to look at to reassure themselves when there were falls of earth or sounds from the engine that they were not used to. The officers reminded the men to be steady, to hold their nerve, and Stefan reminded the officers with his presence and attitude that they could do so with assurance they weren't misleading their men.
It was a grueling few minutes but he kept to the excruciatingly slow pace of assent throughout. If anything went wrong he would need time to recognize and adjust for it, so slow was the only way. When, at last, daylight shown through the windows there was a little cheer by a few men but it was quieted by the officers. When they reached safe altitude, fully extricated from the earth and no longer in danger (unless they ran into something) Stefan made the call, loud and clear, and this time the officers did not try to stop the cheer, but joined it.
Allowing himself to acknowledge that he'd been sweating through his shirt Stefan retrieved a pocket handkerchief and mopped his brow before turning to the men and accepting their brief but heartfelt congratulations and returning them by thanking the men for their bravery in staying with him. After a few minutes of this he called to the officer at the read out station for reports. The man gave them and the rest of the airmen moved back to their stations so that when he called on them they could each give accurate answers.
The next few hours were spent testing the ship through a series of maneuvers, starting with movement in the four cardinal directions and increasing in complication. The ship, if it could be called that, would never be zipping around performing aerial feats of daring, but she was surprisingly responsive the the helm considering her size and the sheer weight of her. The fact that Stefan was now, mentally, referring to the Windworks in the feminine implied that he had done his job in making the factory fly.
When at last even the overcautious owner of the Windworks was satisfied that the ship was both airworthy and safe he directed the ranking officer to take the helm and move the ship to where the majority of the refugees were waiting. They would have been able to see the ship, once it rose high enough, as would all the other ships waiting. Still, Stefan went up to the main communications hub and sent confirmation that all was well and working to the little fleet with his own hands. Keeping back an airman to risk his life just to sit in the communication hub had felt like a waste.
Later that day, in the afternoon, after all the refugees had been safely ferried back to the now airborne Windworks, Stefan repeated the process with the same skeleton crew for White Knight Hall. There was a tense moment when, as they were almost clear of the earth, a large chunk of stone from the underside gave way and crashed back down. Stefan had held his breath then as he waited to see if the land above the lost rock would crumble after it. It had remained stable, however, and, after checking the area to ensure the reinforcement struts were still in place and stable, the ascent had continued.
By the time the testing maneuvers had been completed on the second, smaller but still massive airship, Stefan was mentally exhausted. His thinking was beginning to show sluggishness and he knew he needed to turn the captaincy over to other men. The ones who had crewed with him were surely almost as mentally drained as he himself was. A crew change had been arranged, of course, they would happen regularly from then on, and it was with gratitude that he saluted the incoming ranking officer and made his way out of the sort-of-underground workings of the ship and out the hatch and the shed that housed it.
Walking across the lawn, weary, his mind could ignore the fact that the majority of it was now taken up be fast ripening crops and imagine, for those brief minutes, that he was simply coming home, home to his wife and brother, their family. They were there, to greet him when he did walk in and hang up his coat on the familiar rack in the entrance hall. Delia, holding their daughter, who as yet had no name, and Eitan, with his arm around Luca, who looked like she was ready to pop her once-slim middle was so round. He tried to smile for them as they congratulated him, fully meaning their praise and accolades. In truth he felt like nothing so much as the want of a long hot bath and his bed, but he hadn't slept in his bed, or any bed, for months and wasn't sure he knew how anymore.
Stefan wasn't sure he knew how to stop worrying, even as he could look out the windows and see the city with all it's dangers falling away in the light of the setting sun. They were safe. His family, his people, and as many of the citizens of his city as he could save. He'd done what he'd set out to do on the 34th, when everything had gone wrong. The fact was, at that moment, he had nothing he needed to do, and it was the first time. Since the 34th, but also before that, since that awful night in Kalzasi when his world had been taken apart and reordered by the time he got home to be something wholly Other than he had imagined it.
In a lot of ways, he felt like he'd died, the version of himself that he'd spent his whole life envisioning and working towards had ceased to be. A whole new future, all uncertainty and Mists was laid out before his feet and he didn't know how to walk it.
When they family had moved to the sitting room and Eitan stepped over to hand him a drink he took it but leaned in and spoke for his ears alone, saying,
"Tomorrow we need to convene the council. We need to decide... What now?"
The day had been long in coming and even so, Stefan worried it was too soon.
Everything was in place, every system strut and bolt had been checked more times than he could remember to count. He'd checked himself, had his best engineers check behind him, had his builder bosses check with their expertise, and the Order mages check behind all of them. The Windworks was as ready as it could be for what he was attempting, but no one had ever attempted it before and there was no way to truly test the work in a real world environment except to implement it.
Every person not essential for keeping the potential airships that the Windworks and the Hall would become if all went well in the air had been evacuated. They waited either on the ground in a location the soldiers and mages had made safe for them, or were on one of the ships that had joined them. Eitan and the wives, along with his daughter, were on the Nachtherr, some distance away and high up enough that if everything went as wrong as it could, they would be safe. Plans were in place should the Windworks somehow manage to break apart as it tried to take off.
The people would be kept safe and evacuated by the airships to where they could make their way to what succor the army refugee camps could offer. Eitan could be in charge, with Delia and Luca to support him. Delia had been none too happy when Stefan insisted on doing the last of the work and supervising the take off himself but there was literally no one else who understood the project as a whole.
All was in readiness, he kept reminding himself as his brain kept trying to insist there were things he had forgotten. He accepted the fears and addressed each calmly as he settled into the control room. It was like the control room of any large airship in appearance, instruments, panels covered in knobs, buttons and levers. There were windows, or what would be windows, once they left the ground. For the moment all that could be seen out of them was a few feet of empty air and then stone and dirt. The intended area to leave the ground had been fully dug out and was supported now by a combination of magic and metal beams. The beams would be uncoupled and then there was nothing left but to see if the work he and everyone living at the Windworks had put it was enough to give them lift.
He gave the orders needed at precise times, keeping track of the minutes and even seconds with the large pocket watch that he had ordered engraved almost a year ago. There wouldn't be anything nearly so grand to celebrate with this year, but he would do his best, for the one brother that remained to him.
There was no time to dwell on such thoughts, thankfully, as he continued to count down the long pre-flight check list he had written with his own hand. It would take hours to get through it all but each airman manning the Windworks soon to be airship was well trained, diligent and understood the procedures by heart. Each step had been memorized by everyone involved, but he read from the list anyway and no one questioned him or seemed to think it anything but exactly proper.
As the moment approached he was nervous, as he had been the first time a ship he'd wired himself had been about to take off, as he'd been the first time a ship he'd designed had been about to take off. There was more at stake, much more, but the same sort of childish dark anticipation swelled somewhere inside him. It wasn't as bad as he remembered it, perhaps he was just too far away from the youth he'd been, even the young man he'd been, to be effected by their feelings anymore.
When he reached the last item on the pre-flight list he waited till the watch told him it was time and then called out the last order, clear and steady. Around him the airmen responded with precise action and then reported back to him. It was time. He took the controls himself, wanting to feel if anything was going wrong before the imprecise instruments told him so. He did not hold his breath, because he needed it filling his lungs, needed it filling his brain, keeping his reflexes sharp. Drawing air in and out steadily he accelerated, straight up, until they were enough above the earth to be fully free of it. There were groans and shudders but not of the type that would have told the tale of the new airship breaking apart or cracking.
Stefan stayed steady, calm and focused throughout, giving the airmen something to look at to reassure themselves when there were falls of earth or sounds from the engine that they were not used to. The officers reminded the men to be steady, to hold their nerve, and Stefan reminded the officers with his presence and attitude that they could do so with assurance they weren't misleading their men.
It was a grueling few minutes but he kept to the excruciatingly slow pace of assent throughout. If anything went wrong he would need time to recognize and adjust for it, so slow was the only way. When, at last, daylight shown through the windows there was a little cheer by a few men but it was quieted by the officers. When they reached safe altitude, fully extricated from the earth and no longer in danger (unless they ran into something) Stefan made the call, loud and clear, and this time the officers did not try to stop the cheer, but joined it.
Allowing himself to acknowledge that he'd been sweating through his shirt Stefan retrieved a pocket handkerchief and mopped his brow before turning to the men and accepting their brief but heartfelt congratulations and returning them by thanking the men for their bravery in staying with him. After a few minutes of this he called to the officer at the read out station for reports. The man gave them and the rest of the airmen moved back to their stations so that when he called on them they could each give accurate answers.
The next few hours were spent testing the ship through a series of maneuvers, starting with movement in the four cardinal directions and increasing in complication. The ship, if it could be called that, would never be zipping around performing aerial feats of daring, but she was surprisingly responsive the the helm considering her size and the sheer weight of her. The fact that Stefan was now, mentally, referring to the Windworks in the feminine implied that he had done his job in making the factory fly.
When at last even the overcautious owner of the Windworks was satisfied that the ship was both airworthy and safe he directed the ranking officer to take the helm and move the ship to where the majority of the refugees were waiting. They would have been able to see the ship, once it rose high enough, as would all the other ships waiting. Still, Stefan went up to the main communications hub and sent confirmation that all was well and working to the little fleet with his own hands. Keeping back an airman to risk his life just to sit in the communication hub had felt like a waste.
Later that day, in the afternoon, after all the refugees had been safely ferried back to the now airborne Windworks, Stefan repeated the process with the same skeleton crew for White Knight Hall. There was a tense moment when, as they were almost clear of the earth, a large chunk of stone from the underside gave way and crashed back down. Stefan had held his breath then as he waited to see if the land above the lost rock would crumble after it. It had remained stable, however, and, after checking the area to ensure the reinforcement struts were still in place and stable, the ascent had continued.
By the time the testing maneuvers had been completed on the second, smaller but still massive airship, Stefan was mentally exhausted. His thinking was beginning to show sluggishness and he knew he needed to turn the captaincy over to other men. The ones who had crewed with him were surely almost as mentally drained as he himself was. A crew change had been arranged, of course, they would happen regularly from then on, and it was with gratitude that he saluted the incoming ranking officer and made his way out of the sort-of-underground workings of the ship and out the hatch and the shed that housed it.
Walking across the lawn, weary, his mind could ignore the fact that the majority of it was now taken up be fast ripening crops and imagine, for those brief minutes, that he was simply coming home, home to his wife and brother, their family. They were there, to greet him when he did walk in and hang up his coat on the familiar rack in the entrance hall. Delia, holding their daughter, who as yet had no name, and Eitan, with his arm around Luca, who looked like she was ready to pop her once-slim middle was so round. He tried to smile for them as they congratulated him, fully meaning their praise and accolades. In truth he felt like nothing so much as the want of a long hot bath and his bed, but he hadn't slept in his bed, or any bed, for months and wasn't sure he knew how anymore.
Stefan wasn't sure he knew how to stop worrying, even as he could look out the windows and see the city with all it's dangers falling away in the light of the setting sun. They were safe. His family, his people, and as many of the citizens of his city as he could save. He'd done what he'd set out to do on the 34th, when everything had gone wrong. The fact was, at that moment, he had nothing he needed to do, and it was the first time. Since the 34th, but also before that, since that awful night in Kalzasi when his world had been taken apart and reordered by the time he got home to be something wholly Other than he had imagined it.
In a lot of ways, he felt like he'd died, the version of himself that he'd spent his whole life envisioning and working towards had ceased to be. A whole new future, all uncertainty and Mists was laid out before his feet and he didn't know how to walk it.
When they family had moved to the sitting room and Eitan stepped over to hand him a drink he took it but leaned in and spoke for his ears alone, saying,
"Tomorrow we need to convene the council. We need to decide... What now?"
