Last year,
had an open call for an steampunk anthology titled Full Steam Ahead. I had little to no interest in steampunk as a genre and had read very little of it. However, I was interested in being published, so after a little study on the subject, I dove in.I based my story on my failed 50-word submission to Steam-Powered Postcards. My prompt had been a really cool picture of some kind of dirigible type aircraft. More on my adventures in crafting 50-word stories can be found here.
Battle rattles clacked throughout Her Majesty's Aerostat Tempest as Marines and crew beat to quarters. Beneath the length of her balloon envelope, aeronaut sailors scrambled about the long double decked gondola. Crewmen expertly slid down the brass rigging of the rigid hull to their battle stations. Royal Marines took their stations throughout the gondola and rigging. Some took sniping positions while others joined their designated gun crews.
Accompanied by her sister ship, HMA Whirlwind, Tempest patrolled the troposphere over the North Sea against enemy incursion. Their external combustion engines turned the turbine driven props as the aerostats chugged and hummed into the contested skyways. Hydrogen filled gas cells lifted the rigid airships through the vault of the sky. The morning sun painted the clouds ahead with rays of red and orange hues. - from “Cloud Buster.”
Though I hadn’t read much steampunk, I do love me some Richard Sharpe books. My story focused on the ship’s detachment of Royal Marines, go figure.
"What do you think, Sergeant?" The Marine detachment commander was decades younger than the veteran Sergeant. His blond hair and bright blue eyes screamed exuberance. He positively vibrated at the possibility of action.
"I think shipboard accompaniment is not fit duty for Her Majesty's finest, sir." Black leaned his scarred hands on the railing of the lower gondola and yawned. Lines ran along his chiseled face like old campaign maps. "Keeping the Royal Aeronautical officers safe in their beds from mutinous crewmen and chasing about the sky is no task for a fighting man." - “Cloud Buster.”
Their airship encounters a German SMS Grusel, a huge zeppelin capable of seeding the sky with aether treated iodides. In its wake formed supercells of cyclones, torrential rain, and tumbling hailstones over enemy positions.
Air to air ship combat rages in the sky, followed by boarding actions by wing-suited Flederkommando. After a healthy dose of bayonets, bullets, and boarding actions, the Tempest gets the worst of it and limps away. The Grusel heads towards the skies over London.
What are the good guys to do? Thankfully, there’s a detachment of angry Royal Marines on board with a bias for action.
Check it out in Full Steam Ahead!
Rifleman Sharpe is one of my favorites, too.