Part 2 of the first chapter of my steampunk fantasy, featuring Jonathan, the immortal blue husky.
Here, we meet Laurence Claude, captain of the Thermadora and friend of Jonathan. During the flight back to Cranberg, the ship crashes, and saying anything else would ruin it, so you'll have to read it to find out :P

Laurence belongs to Laurence_wolf as does the Thermadora.

I hope you all enjoy, please leave any comments, queries, etc you may have, I love knowing people read this stuff!

Jonathan couldn’t quite put his finger on which was the most irritating – the thudding of the engines, or the tremors running through the ship from the storm they were flying through. He eventually settled with the storm – while he could deal with, and sometimes even liked, the sound of the Thermadora’s quad-turbine array thudding along in the background, the shuddering caused by the storm was threatening to play havoc with his experiments.
He was working with a new metal discovered while plying the Sondola plains, called sky steel by the locals from an old legend that the rocks containing it had fallen from the sky. Jonathan hadn’t been around at the time, but reasoned the legends had more truth to them than some cared to believe. The metal itself was incredibly strange, unlike anything Jonathan had ever encountered – which, considering his age, was really saying something. It seemed to be able to change between solid and liquid in the blink of an eye, and while the husky thought that temperature might have some role to play in this sudden changing of states, it was so sudden and seemingly random – happening multiple times at room temperature with seemingly no influence – he was finding it impossible to isolate this key temperature.
The storm threatening to ruin his experiments should not have been so severe. Indeed, both he and Laurence had thought it minor enough to fly through, a decision they both knew in one way or another they would come to regret now they were actually in it.
Suddenly, the ship caught a patch of turbulence, jolting the craft and sending the sample of metal he was working with crashing to the floor. By some miracle, the metal chose that point to become solid, the shattered test tube leaving a small torpedo of metal on the floor, but it could have been very messy if it had stayed liquid. Hurriedly, he picked the metal up in a gloved paw, and placed it in the sealed iron case with the rest of the samples. Sealing the case, he pulled off the thick black gloves, and left his small, cramped lab, going to find Laurence on the bridge.
The Thermadora was an experimental craft, an Explorator-class vessel designed for achieving high altitudes. It consisted of two large balloons, one behind the other, carrying a large, completely sealed ship section underneath. The ship itself resembled a large pill, made of dark oak and finished around the edges in polished mahogany. The entire craft was sealed so that it could reach higher altitudes than any other around, allowing it to pass over the highest of mountains with ease. Jonathan had been part of the crew for nearly seven years, and in that time had come to feel a fondness for the ship.
As he passed up through the ship he encountered a number of crew members bustling around, trying to keep things running smoothly through the storm. Engineers, mechanics, a couple of fellow scientists, all were trying their best to keep things in working order, but given the violence of the storm, it wasn’t easy, especially when all of it was being overseen by the judgemental eyes of the Imperial representatives sent on the expedition with them.
Jonathan bumped into one such representative on the way up to the bridge, an unpleasant little bandicoot by the name of Heimlich Grohz. He didn’t appear to actually be doing anything himself, but had a look on his little pointed face of extreme disappointment. Most likely looking for something to do, he stopped Jonathan.
“What are you doing?” he said, his accent thick and coarse, hailing from the Warkeinne capital. “Can’t you see we are in the middle of a storm?”
“Yes, I’m quite aware of that,” the husky replied, restraining his irritation at this pathetic excuse of a man. “I’m trying to find Laurence.”
“Captain Claude is up on the bridge, trying to keep this craft flying true. What do you want with him?”
“I need to talk to him,” Jonathan said, growing impatient.
“Why?” Heimlich asked.
“Because I do,” Jonathan said, pushing past the rodent knowing that if he waited there any longer they’d dock back at Cranberg one crewman short.
“How dare you!” the rodent cried out behind him. Jonathan was already gone before he could shout any further.
Three flights of stairs and one stop to offer assistance to a rather unfortunate boar, who had vomited all over the floor, later, and he was finally on the bridge. It was small by the standards of some of the airships Jonathan had flown in, but considering the size of the craft it was rather spacious. Roughly ten metres a side, the walls were covered in shelves and desks, displaying maps, cartography equipment, scientific specimens, various old books and scrolls, and countless paintings of the Thermadora, out on expeditions. Dominating the room, however, was the Navitorium array. The Thermadora’s Navitorium was a spectacular contraption, made of gleaming mahogany and edged in bright, polished brass. It flowed up out of the floor, curving up to end just above waist height, with the large spherical navigation compass sitting elevated in the middle. The compass was unlike those used by sailors on the seas, or the horsemen of the plains. It consisted of numerous spherical rings, each one given a different purpose. Sitting in the middle of the hollow sphere was a tiny scale replica of the Thermadora, held in place by spindly brass rods. Due to the three-dimensional navigation axis the airship was capable of, rather than being steered by a wheel, the replica in the middle of the compass showed the craft’s direction and alignment, using an impossibly intricate system of position points throughout the ship to keep it aligned in real time.
Standing at the Navitorium, carefully manipulating the compass was Laurence Claude, captain of the Thermadora. He was a grizzled old wolf to look at him, though in truth he was only in his thirties. A lifetime of plying the skies in all manner of craft and roles had given him a weathered, slightly bent appearance, his blue eyes cold and shrewd, his fur coarse and seemingly perpetually stained with oil. He had wrapped about himself his blue Imperial Airman’s trench coat, a shield against the cold that seeped through the ship at these altitudes, and he looked out at the domed viewing port through a pair of clunky optical goggles.
“Laurence,” Jonathan said, walking over to the Navitorium, glancing over the knobs, dials, and readouts. “You’ve got to get us out of this storm. I’ve got a bad feeling about staying in it too long.”
“I’m trying,” Laurence said, not taking his eyes off the compass. “What does the altimeter say?” Jonathan looked over to the dial.
“Eighteen thousand feet,” Jonathan said, picking up a ticker tape in his paw that was spooling out the shocks running through the ship. “It’s a shame we don’t have the lightning nets onboard. A storm like this would be a harvester’s dream. Can’t we take her higher?”
“I don’t want to go too high,” the wolf said, tilting the compass back slightly and thus sending the ship on a shallow climb up through the clouds. “The ship can take it, sure, but I don’t know if Duke Stephenson could. Remind me why they put a Fennec fox on an exploratory airship expedition?”
“Because the government is ruled by men and women who’ve never left the confines of the Parliament, and who don’t know the first thing about how these things work.” Suddenly, the ship was hit with another tremor, this one particularly violent. The tape in Jonathan’s paw spat out a spool of angry red spikes in protest.
“Damn, they’re getting stronger,” Laurence grumbled, pulling down a speaker horn hanging from the ceiling connected to the crew decks and speaking into it. “Could one of you bring the Duke some blankets? We’re increasing our altitude, but it’s going to get a lot colder before we get out of this storm, over.” He hooked the horn back up to the ceiling, and tilted the compass back further still, the ship steadily climbing.
There was a blinding flash as a bolt of lightning struck the ship, causing yet another tremor. The shaking soon subsided, but suddenly another wave passed through the ship, accompanied by an almighty crack. The ship suddenly tilted to one side, rolling to the right. Shocked, Laurence tried to realign the ship, but the compass kept going back to tilt. There was a sudden ringing of a bell, and Laurence pulled down the corresponding horn from the ceiling.
“What is it?” he asked, agitated.
“Captain,” a voice said through the horn, belonging to the head Enginseer. “Captain, we have a problem. One of the main rigging cables has come loose – I think we’re going down!” As if waiting for its cue, another tremor passed through the ship, suddenly tilting it forward, and making it now hang from the balloons at an alarming angle. Laurence’s reaction was immediate. He pulled the master horn from the ceiling, and yelled into it.
“Evacuation procedure!” he yelled. “All crew, collect your parachutes or proceed to your assigned turbine. Turbines will detach in one hundred and eighty seconds, starting now!” The wolf proceeded to slam a button on the Navitorium array, which sounded an alarm through the ship.
In the event of an emergency such as the one at hand, the turbines off the sides of the ship could be detached, deploying wings and acting as escape gliders for the crew. Of course, not many of the crew – each turbine only sat four people – but it was enough that the air around the ship wouldn’t become clogged with parachutes. The numbers were also helped by the number of avians on the craft, who could fly down to safety on their own steam. There was also a two-man biplane that could be launched from the top deck, but that belonged only to Laurence. The whole evacuation system was automated – once the button was pushed, a 180 second countdown started. At the end of it, no matter what, the biplane and turbines were launched, by which point everyone had to either have jumped with their parachute, got aboard a turbine, or have reconciled themselves with whatever gods they decided to worship.
Jonathan turned to Laurence, fetching him with a freezing glance.
“What is wrong with you?” he yelled. “My research’s on board! It’ll take me two minutes to get down there!”
“Can’t you just leave it?” Laurence said, already hurriedly packing small items into his pockets, and making a move to take down a particularly beautiful painting of the Thermadora down off the wall.
“Leave it!” the husky said, incredulous. “Laurence, do you have any idea how valuable that research is? The impacts it could have on the world? I’ve almost got its transitional temperature nailed down, and was about to move onto its practical applications!”
“You can go and get it, but you know I can’t stop the sequence,” replied the wolf, picking up a couple of emergency bags and a parachute from the corner. Suddenly, the solution dawned on Jonathan.
“Alright, go without me,” he said, making a move to exit the bridge. “But when you come back, could you bring a change of clothes? These are going to get very bloody.”
“You’re going to jump out of the ship?” Laurence asked, pushing a button on the Navitorium to bring down a small access ladder to the biplane.
“I’m going to have to,” Jonathan said, stopping briefly in the door. “I can’t believe we’re losing the old girl.”
“I’ll make sure the mark three will be the most beautiful yet!” Laurence said, having to raise his voice as another of the anchorage cables snapped. “See you soon!” With that sentiment, he climbed up the ladder, into the compartment where the biplane was stored.
Jonathan didn’t hang around long enough to return it. At once he left the bridge, running at full pelt through the corridors, along the decks, and down the staircases to his lab. Once there, he began quickly packing away the most important things, namely the samples, his most precious or sturdy equipment, and his personal effects, including a pair of triple-barrel pistols, an antique pair of Saltharhan battle blades , a number of journals, a watch, and a small locket, an item he could not leave behind. Sure that everything was in order; he drew one of the pistols, levelled it at the window, and fired.
The glass shattered. At once, the pristine calm of his lab was transformed into a swirling maelstrom of papers, glass and rain. Holstering the pistol, knowing he would not be able to keep a grip on it once he landed, Jonathan took a couple of steps back, and then launched himself into the storm.
Jonathan had died a number of times in this manner – plummeting to his death from an obscene height. He’d done it off of buildings, into chasms, out of airships, and in worlds gone by even from the extremes of a ship in low orbit. Thus, he was relatively up-to-date of the procedure that went with such a death. Knowing he had only a short amount of time before he was smeared all over the Corhan mountain face, he quickly rolled his body, so that the first thing to hit the ground would be his back. It also meant the meat of his torso would, at least to some degree, cushion the impact for his valuables, reducing the damage done to them considerably. Next, he curled himself up into a ball around the bundle, tucking in his tail. It wouldn’t do much, but if it was close in to him it would reduce the risk of the member being... removed.
He fell like that for a few moments, his lab coat flapping about him like a pathetic set of vestigial wings, before impacting with sickening force into the side of the mountain. His back shattered instantly, every other bone in his body soon following. His organs ruptured, his brain pulping, and in places his skin split, bloodying his fur and the rocks around him. He died instantly, his body like some demented man’s ragdoll tumbling for a while down the mountain face, before finally coming to a stop. His possessions lay scattered about him, but admirably most of it, though cast to the four winds, had remained intact – though here and there lay chunks of wood and metal from the chest, and a few loose pages from one of his journals, as broken as their owner.

Three hours later, Jonathan began to come to. It came in dribs and drabs, his brain slowly rebuilding itself, but he soon regained feeling and full consciousness. He would have screamed, but it would take his lungs another two minutes or so to be whole enough for him to do that. Over the next two or three hours, his body slowly rebuilt itself, in a series of wet squelches, hard cracks, and agonising pain as everything slowly placed itself back together.
By the time Laurence arrived, Jonathan was able to scream again. The sounds cut through the air, piercing and filled with untellable pain. They were mixed through with howls of agony, and a string of profanities in every language the broken husky had ever known – which, given his longevity, resulted in an almost awe-inspiring display of obscenity. Laurence had touched his biplane down at the foot of the mountains, and had simply had to follow the sounds up to where his friend lay, the screams cutting through the rain and the thunder.
When he got up to Jonathan, Laurence nearly vomited. Though the husky was mostly healed, and he already knew of his ability through previous encounters with the more nefarious denizens of the skies, the sight was something he was utterly unprepared for. Jonathan’s limbs were bent at impossible angles, his head was still partially caved in, and blood matted his fur completely, still oozing from the healing wounds, though some of it was being washed away by the storm, leaving a pink river flowing down the side of the mountain.
“Oh my god, Jon!” he yelled, rushing over to help. As promised, he had brought a change of clothes for the husky, consisting of a pair of trousers, a shirt, a thick red waistcoat, and a thicker black overcoat, contained in a bag slung over his shoulder. “Are you ok?”
“What does it look like?” Jonathan said, composing himself enough to speak, though every word was laced with pain. “What’s–” his speech was broken by an agonising scream as right his arm suddenly snapped itself into place. “What’s in the bag?”
“Clothes, like you asked,” Laurence said, putting the bag down and drawing out the items within. “Do you need some help there?”
“I should be–” he stopped again as his legs both set with a sickly crunch. “Ah, that’s better. I should be fine.” Shakily, he pulled himself to his feet, nearly falling over a couple of times in the process. “Were the crew ok?”
“Turbine 3’s wings didn’t deploy,” Laurence said, looking saddened at the fact, “but everyone else got out ok.”
“Well, that’s good,” Jonathan said, delicately shrugging out of his bloodied lab coat, grunting halfway through as his other arm finally healed. Slowly, he turned around. “Is my tail ok?”
“Meh, a little bloody, but that’ll wash out,” Laurence said, taking the lab coat from Jonathan and folding it up. “Did... did it hurt?”
“I died instantly,” the husky said, tearing off his already ripped and bloodied shirt with his claws and throwing the rags over to Laurence. “It’s the healing that’s the painful part.” He began removing his trousers, fumbling with the buckle of his belt with fingers that were still broken in places.
“I heard the screams,” Laurence said, passing Jonathan the trousers from the bag. “Have you done that before?”
“Many times,” Jonathan replied, carefully slipping into the trousers and fiddling around the back with the tail opening. “I’ve fallen from a lot higher than that before, don’t you worry.”
“From your celestial craft, you mean?” Laurence asked, going over to help the obviously struggling husky with the tail opening of his trousers, lacing the top of the opening far quicker than Jonathan could with his healing digits.
“Oh yes – thanks for that, by the way,” Jonathan said, picking up the fresh shirt. “Those were particularly painful.” He went to put on the shirt, but dropped it suddenly as his fingers healed.
“From what you’ve described, I’m not surprised,” the wolf said, watching as the husky pulled the shirt down over his head. “Did you get your things out with you?”
“What I could manage,” Jonathan said, lacing up the front of the shirt. “But it’s scattered everywhere.”
“Um, Jon,” Laurence said. “Some of it’s... well, it’s in your chest.” Puzzled, Jonathan looked down, lifting up his shirt to reveal the locket half embedded in the muscle of his chest.
“I thought that hurt too much,” Jonathan said, pulling it out with a sharp tug. Blood briefly spurted from the wound, before swiftly healing over. “That should be better. Thanks for noticing that, would have stayed in there until we got back otherwise.”
“No problem,” Laurence said, handing Jonathan the waistcoat, insulation against the freezing winds. “You didn’t see where she went down, did you? I was sort of focused on landing the plane.”
“Sorry, no,” Jonathan said, buttoning the waistcoat and slipping into it his watch and chain. Despite the immense fall it had taken, the watch was completely intact, the only thing showing signs of damage being the gold chain that hung from it. It was ancient Dol’ken technology, salvaged from one of their abandoned cities, and had kept perfect time for Jonathan ever since he found it, nearly 12,000 years prior. He had no idea how old it had been before that, but it didn’t much matter – the device had held up with the sturdiness that Dol’ken tech promised and more, and he would hate to see it go. “If we gather everything up from the mountain face first, then go searching for the ship, we should be good.”
“Can’t believe she went down,” the wolf said, handing over the greatcoat. “You ready to go?”
“Almost,” Jonathan replied, shrugging into the heavy black coat. “Did you see my goggles nearby? They came off when I landed.”
“You mean these ones?” Laurence said, handing over the slightly dinted pair of goggles. Taking them in a bloodied paw, the husky slipped them over his head, resting just forward of his large, normally fluffy ears, crusty with blood and snow. “Come on, let’s get this stuff and head to the ship. The fires will have mostly burnt out by now, but I want to make sure none reach the Navitorium.”
“If there were fires, they won’t have lasted long,” the husky said, setting off to gather his scattered affects. “With this rain and the wind, they can’t have been too persistant. And didn’t you fireproof the Navitorium anyway?”
“Don’t want to be taking any chances though, now, do we?” Laurence said, stopping briefly to pick up one of the battle blades and handing it to Jonathan.
“Better than the crash of the Mark One though,” Jonathan said, taking the blade and clipping it to his belt, custom made to holster the pistols and blades.
“Oh, don’t remind me,” Laurence said, passing the husky the chest with his samples in it. “She didn’t like that, not one bit.”
“From the way you described it, I’m not surprised,” Jonathan said, picking up one of the triple-barrel pistols as Laurence found the other. “It sounded very... messy.”
“You’re telling me,” the wolf said, picking up the shattered remains of a College-standard microscope. “3 days we were sorting through the wreckage, Jon, 3 days. I nearly lost her.”
“You know as well as I Bound souls can’t be lost,” Jonathan said, taking the twisted pile of metal and tossing it to the wind.
“She’s always been wary after that though,” Laurence said, spotting the second blade and chucking it to the husky, careful not to catch the activation stud on the bottom. “This can’t have been good for her, not by anyone’s guess.”
“She’s a resilient beast,” the husky commented, clipping the second blade to his belt and checking that everything else was in order. “There’s enough of you in her that she’ll still fly no matter what happens. I think that’s everything, should we go and find her?”
“If you’ve got everything, then definitely,” the wolf said. “I think she went down over to the...” he paused briefly to pull out a multi-compass, a small flat device that when the lids were flipped off produced a sort of compass orb not unlike that present in the Navitorium. “She should be over that way.” He pointed with a gloved paw over to the east, towards the base of the mountains. “Can’t see with this damn cloud though, might be wrong.”
“Nah, you’re probably right,” Jonathan said, setting off down the mountain. “Where’s the rest of the crew, by the way?”
“Off getting cargo haulers and the like,” Laurence said, speeding up a little. “They should be here in an hour or two, depending on the weather.
“Well, let’s make sure we’re there to greet them,” Jonathan said, leading the way down the mountain, the rain lashing around him.

Nearly an hour later, the pair arrived at the final crash site. The Thermadora lay amid a pile of rocks, wood, and twisted metal near the base of the mountain, her twin balloons merely torn frameworks now. The actual body of the craft had fared better than either had hoped, but it was obvious she would not fly again. Though the wind and rain had indeed extinguished most of the fires, some still fought for survival in the engine decks, and one portion of the cargo hold was completely burnt through – Jonathan suspected it to have been caused by the pyrox crystals he’d been taking back to the College, their containment chests breached during the impact, before they could be destroyed by the powerful freezing formula held within the chests in the event of such a breach, that would destroy the power of the impossibly hot gems.
“She’s looking good, all things considering,” Jonathan said, looking over the smoking wreck. “The crystal chests broke though.”
“I told you not to bring those,” Laurence said, looking with an expression of great sadness at the remains of his once-pristine ship. “Come on, we’d better put out the engines.”
“Agreed,” the husky said, starting off again down to the wreck. “Come on!”
The two of them got halfway down to the ship before they were interrupted by Jonathan rather unceremoniously tripping. Cursing, he pulled himself to his feet, searching for the offending article, only to be greeted by a huge lump of rusted iron. On closer inspection, he suddenly realised that this pitted, warped lump was a bolt from the ship, the anchorage bolt meant to hold the balloon to the craft It was the size of a barrel, and looked like something aquanauts would dig up off the bottom of the ocean.
“Have a nice trip?” Laurence called out, smirking as he watched the husky stumble.
“Informative trip,” Jonathan said, nudging the oversized bolt with a foot-paw. “I’m pretty sure this might be why we went down.”
“What is it?” the wolf asked, walking over.
“It’s the anchorage bolt.” There was a brief moment of silence as Laurence tried to work his head around the implications of such a discovery.
“You mean it snapped?” he said.
“No, I mean it fell out,” the husky replied, pointing with a claw to the piece of metal. As Laurence got a good look at the bolt, a look of utter amazement crossed his face.
“You’re telling me that was holding one of the cables in place?” he said, kicking the huge bolt. “It’s not even got any grooves left!”
“And from the looks of the decay, it’s been doing a bloody good job at half-arsing it for a while now,” Jonathan said, kneeling down and running a paw over the pitted metal. “I think the only thing holding this in has been the rust. The storm must have dislodged it for good. I thought you were meant to check the anchorage housings?”
“No, I told Sydney to do that,” Laurence said, walking around the bolt. “I knew that bloody bird was trouble.”
“And I told you not to give a pigeon such important tasks,” Jonathan countered, digging his paws under the bolt. “Help me lift this, would you?”
“Why?” the wolf asked, placing his own paws under it and lifting all the same.
“So we can show the next crew what happens if they don’t check properly,” Jonathan said, groaning a little bit at the sheer weight of the solid metal. “Let’s get this down with the rest.”
It was a ten minute walk with the bolt slung between them, but eventually they got down to the wreckage, dropping the bolt near where the cargo ramp would come down. Hitting a switch next to the ramp, Laurence watched as the cargo bay opened up, giving them their first real idea of the damage wrought within the ship.
All things considered, and factoring in the damage done by the pyrox crystals, it could have been worse. The deck was buckled and twisted, the portholes all shattered, and strewn across the floor were dozens of boxes, crates, chests, and various knick-knacks.
“Well,” Jonathan said, hopping up onto the ramp. “I’ve seen worse.”
“When have you seen worse?” Laurence said, following the husky up the ramp.
“The Battle for Port Royal,” Jonathan said, looking around the cargo bay. “There were dozens of Ordinatus-class craft there. You ever seen an Icarus Array or a Thunderfane Cannon go down? That was worse.”
“Show-off,” Laurence said, walking ahead to open the door to the access corridors. “How many of those were you at?”
“All twenty seven,” the husky said, recalling the long and drawn-out events of the Kratillian War that had facilitated the constant changing of hands of Port Royal, the single largest sea or airship port in the Kingdoms. “That got tedious after a while.”
“I’ll bet,” the wolf said, leading the way through to the engine deck. He stopped suddenly halfway there. “Oh damnit!” he said.
“What?” Jonathan asked, nearly bumping into the stationary wolf.
“I just remembered the cheese!” Laurence said, starting walking again. “One more month and it would have been perfectly mature! What a waste.”
“Actually, I think the fires will have speeded it up,” the husky said.
“Yeah, and caught flame to the oil,” Laurence said, stopping again at the door to the engine room. Through the armoured glass porthole in the door, he could see that the engine stacks were all aflame, the fires turning Laurence’s face from a dark, woody brown to an eerie burnt orange.
“Never know, it might have improved the flavour,” Jonathan said, looking through the porthole. “Burnt the tastes into the cheese as it melted, you know?”
“I guess it might have helped,” Laurence said, running through his mind the flavour possibilities that the burning oils, which when matured properly would lend the cheese a strangely pleasant greasy flavour, complementing the creaminess of the cheese in a peculiar yet brilliant manner.
“Step back, would you?” the husky said, rolling up the sleeves of his greatcoat and shirt. As he did, the fur of his arms began to sway in a wind generated from no natural source. Seeing the activity on Jonathan’s arms, Laurence stepped back, leaving the door clear. Stepping forward, the husky turned the wheel lock, and swung the door open.
Within a mere twenty years of being within the realm of Voldis, Jonathan had almost completely mastered the arcane arts, intensely pleased with the fact that this was one of the many realms where one could simply use magic. Twelve thousand years of perfecting the arts later, and by this point Jonathan considered himself, rightly so, the most powerful mage in the Kingdoms. Not that it mattered in this case – a simple wind application would solve the issue at hand. Thrusting his paws forward into the engine room, he created an enormous blast of air, channelling it through the room, over the fires, and out of the portholes. The intense wind made short work of the flames, and soon the engine room was extinguished.
“Bloody show-off,” Laurence said, padding into the room and surveying the damage, heading straight for the primary engine stack.
“Is the cheese ok?” Jonathan asked, rolling his sleeves back down as he walked into the scorched ruins of the engine room.
“It is...” Laurence said, walking round to the back of the stack, reaching into the specially made niche in the wall for the maturing cube. “Ok! The cheese is ok!” Carefully, the metal still hot, the wolf lifted the lid of the cube, dipped in a finger, and placing it into his mouth. He gasped a little at the scorching heat, before swallowing the gooey morsel. “You were right – that does taste better. I just hope I don’t have to crash another one to get cheese this good again...”
“Neither our finances or the ship could deal with being crashed every 7 months just for the sake of good cheese,” Jonathan said, taking a taste for himself. “Now come on, we’ve got to check the Navitorium.” Placing the cheese cube back into its wall niche, the husky moved to leave the engine room, heading up to the bridge.
When they arrived, Laurence nearly did a little jig to express his joy. There were books, paintings and curios scattered every which way, the viewing screen had a nasty crack running in from the top right corner, and something thick and oily was dripping down from the ceiling, but the Navitorium, the heart of the ship, was intact. The only sign on it to show it had been in a crash at all was a shining red river of ink, running down its still-bright mahogany from where the impact readout’s ink vial had shattered.
“Oh, thank god you’re safe!” Laurence cried out, rushing over to the Navitorium and placing a dirty paw on the wood. “Are you ok? You’re not hurt, are you?” The ship seemed almost to groan in response, like a child being told it wasn’t a good idea to play ball in the street.
“She’s fine, Laurence,” Jonathan said, walking over at a slightly more restrained pace. “Sure, her body’s a little bruised and battered, but the part that counts is fine. You want to get her off?”
“What?” Laurence said, looking up from where he’d been stroking the compass. “Oh, yes. Um, hold on, the key’s here somewhere...” The wolf proceeded to reach a paw into his shirt, groping around his neck. He pulled out a large iron key, fastened to his neck on a sturdy steel chain. “I’ve got it!”
“I don’t know why you don’t keep that on a collar,” Jonathan said, patting his own. Though not many people on Voldis wore collars voluntarily, Jonathan wore his all the time. A simple inch-wide band of tough leather, the collar was a fashion he’d picked up from a world long gone, and in the worlds where humans were but a distant fantasy at best, it made him feel safe, as if home were always with him. It had no adornments to speak of, though at its centre was a small D-ring onto which he could attach important items, such as keys.
“Because I’m not someone’s pet,” Laurence said, looking at the collar a little disdainfully as he fumbled underneath the Navitorium for the keyhole.
“Neither am I,” the husky countered, kneeling down and looking for the keyhole. “I just like the way it feels.”
“You look like some feral house dog,” Laurence said, finally finding the keyhole and slotting in the jagged length of iron. “How can that be comfortable, anyway?”
“You wear ties all the time,” Jonathan said, backing away from the Navitorium. “It’s just like that, except it feels better and keeps my neck warm.”
“Still looks stupid,” Laurence muttered, turning the key and standing back.
The Thermadora Mark 1’s Navitorium had been designed to be easily interchangeable between ships, and as such was easy to remove, if you had the right key. As the two canines watched, jets of steam burst up from the floor, and the viewing port hinged up, letting in the wind and rain. Slowly, the Navitorium and the area of floor surrounding it began to slide forward and down, decoupling with the rest of the bridge. With a squeal of hydraulics and pistons waking up after years of not being used, the gleaming wood and brass contraption descended down, out of the ship to the ground below. It landed with the loud clank of metal on stone, before the pistons detached and retracted, their job done.
The moment the Navitorium was completely detached from the craft, the ship let out a loud, almost pained groan, as the metal and wood all shifted slightly, as if it had been held up by the Navitorium.
“Doesn’t sound happy,” Laurence said, looking down to the huge device, metres below.
“Oh, she’s fine,” Jonathan said. “Come on, we’ve got to move her before the haulers get here.” The husky proceeded to hop down out of the bridge, falling to the ground below. As he fell his coat flapped about him, giving him the appearance of some gargantuan bat. He landed with a thud and a small crack as his left calf shattered.
“You ok?” Laurence called down, peering down over the new ledge in the ship.
“Yup,” Jonathan called back, his voice strained in pain as the shards of bone knitted themselves together. “Couldn’t be better, mate.”
“Hold on, I’m coming down,” the wolf said, hopping down onto one of the pistons. A few graceful leaps later, and he was standing next to Jonathan, watching as his leg rapidly reformed. “Do you have to do that to yourself Jon?”
“It’s quicker, I swear,” Jonathan replied, hobbling around to the other side of the Navitorium, his gait becoming more normal with every pained step. “Where’s the button to deploy the wheels?”
“There’s not one,” Laurence said, bending down and placing his paws underneath the edge of the device. “I built the mechanism expecting it to be done somewhere less like a mountain face.”
“Of course you did,” Jonathan grumbled under his breath, bending over and getting a grip onto the Navitorium. As he did, he muttered a small lifting spell, nothing too fancy, just enough to get it away from the ship.
“Alright, on the count of three,” Laurence said, bracing himself. “One... two... three!”
With an almighty heave, the two lifted the Navitorium between them, managing to get it only a few inches off the floor even with the aid of the spell. His muscles straining, Jonathan grunted in the direction of a small, flattened area of rock, and began awkwardly shuffling towards it. Their paws made airy rasps against the gravely rock, and they had to stop a couple of times before Laurence’s shoulders dislocated. Eventually, however, they got the Navitorium to the flat, and as it happened just in time.
Over the rock ridges, their sound announced the arrival of the haulers before they were seen. Their huge, fat engines, designed to lift far more than a regular craft, made a sickening bass throb, the sound too low to be heard by many of the people operating the craft. For Laurence and Jonathan, however, their sensitive canine ears were subjected to a sound as if their heads were trapped in the world’s largest timpani.
At long last, the haulers appeared. They had an appearance unlike that of any other aircraft, barring some of the monstrous Ordinatus engines. For a start, to allow for the immense weight they were expected to carry, each one was possessed of four balloons. The main craft – a tiny little thing, consisting of a single cramped deck for navigation and crew – hung between the front two. The back of the front two and the entirety of the back two supported an enormous, hollow cage, with a couple of tools and articulated claws inside for the haulage. There were three of the haulers in all – the Ursula, Gladiator’s Mistress, and The Fishwife – accompanied by a far smaller craft for personal retrieval and carrying with it four HL-Class mech suits, for assistance with retrieval.
It took a while for the haulers to find somewhere to land, their cages, each one the size of a small airship in their own right, making landing rather impractical. While they searched for somewhere to land, the assistance craft settled itself down next to the Thermadora, her captain disembarking to meet them. The man in question was an incredibly overweight boar, wearing a pair of oily denim jeans, a thick leather jacket and an ill-fitting shirt that left a good two or three inches of his sweaty, grease-caked gut hanging free to the freezing air – the rain pouring down around them was probably the closest it had come to a wash in many months, boars not being the most hygiene-oriented of species. He had a face that looked like someone had rolled a cabbage around in mud and stuck tusks into it, his small, beady eyes peering out from the bored folds of his brow. Despite the weather, he had somehow managed to light a cigar, the only thing in the area as fat as he was, the glowing end defiantly pouring smoke up into the rain.
“Is this your ship?” he asked his voice low and bored, the words awkwardly fitted around the cigar.
“Indeed it is,” Laurence said, offering the man a paw. The boar looked at it for a couple of seconds as if he’d just been offered a small heap of dung, before shrugging and taking it in his meaty, tri-digit hand.
“Alright then,” the boar said, walking around to the back of his own craft and pulling down the ramp to the mech hold. “You guys know how to use a suit? We’re short-staffed on account of not many people wanting to help you out in this weather.”
“Know how to use one?” Jonathan said, stepping up into the compartment and looking over the suits. They were all identical, eight foot tall contraptions of metal in a roughly anthropomorphic shape. They were covered in a thick layer of leather all over, un-armoured given their task. The right arm of each ended in an enormous, three-clawed hand, the size of a large pup, and the left had a stupendously-sized drill bit, which could be swapped out for a huge hammer. Jonathan ran an almost loving paw over the leather of the front mech, before punching the opening seal and stepping up into it. “I helped invent them.”
“You what?” the boar asked, watching as Jonathan walked the suit out of the hold, each articulated step sending small shockwaves through the rocks.
“Don’t mind him,” Laurence said, getting up into the second one. “And don’t touch the Navitorium. I want that completely intact, you understand?”
“Yeah, sure,” the boar said disinterested, moving round to the third suit. Before he could, however, Laurence had the oversized drill of his left arm extended, blocking the man’s path. With a whine of hydraulics the wolf lent in close, placing the gargantuan claw against the wall and pinning the man in.
“I don’t think you understand me,” Laurence said, slipping his arm out of the suit and grabbing the swine by one of his many chins. “Do you see that Navitorium, over there?” Using his paw, he turned the boar’s head to face the device. “That is beyond valuable. If you, or one of your men, damage it, then things are going to go very downhill. You see, right now, here, you’re talking to Laurence, the nice guy who’s going to get on and help you do a job you should have brought enough people to do. But if I find a single scratch – hell, if I even see you lay one of those filthy hooves on it – then Laurence is going to go away, and trust me when I say this, you do not want to deal with the guy that shows up when he’s out, understand?” The boar gave a pathetic, terrified nod. Satisfied, Laurence let go. During the exchange, he had failed to notice that he had been slowly lifting the man up by the neck, a fact he was only made aware of by the loud thud the boar made when he hit the ground. With a worried look, he held a paw up to his face, but the signs he was looking for were already gone. Slipping the arm back into the suit and sealing it, he stomped off, less gracefully than Jonathan, but still with a gait that spoke of experience.
He caught up with the husky in the engine room, tearing out the most irreparable of the engine stacks with his huge claw. His control of the mech suit was so utterly flawless, one could be led to believe it had a mind of its own – every step was fluid and measured, his manipulation of the claw, hammer, and drill bit as if they were mere extensions of his flesh.
“What took you so long?” Jonathan asked, plunging the whirring bit of his drill into an engine and ripping it from the floor.
“Warning that fat idiot out there not to touch the Navitorium,” Laurence replied, taking the engine from Jonathan and hurling it through a hole in the wall with his claw.
“You didn’t let the other guy through, did you?” the husky asked, concern lacing his voice.
“Almost did,” Laurence said, stomping over to the primary engine stack, which was mostly intact. “I managed to lift him three feet off the deck.”
“You managed to lift all of that three feet?” Jonathan asked, incredulous. He followed Laurence over to the engine stack, placing his own claw around the other side and revving his drill once again to life.
“You’ve seen the Hatter,” Laurence said, activating his own drill.
“I guess, but he never struck me as much stronger than you,” Jonathan said, using his drill to obliterate the bolts holding the engine down to the floor as Laurence did the same. “Agile, yes. Fast, also yes. But strong?”
“Well, apparently so,” Laurence said, grunting a little as the final bolt gave and they lifted the engine from the floor. “How are we going to get this off in one piece?”
“Um...” Jonathan looked around for somewhere to put the enormous hunk of metal. “Out the window?”
“Really?” Laurence asked despairingly. “Come on, Jon, it’s the only one that’s not broken.”
“Well, the cargo hold’s just below us...” Before Laurence could object to Jonathan’s idea, the husky flicked the drill round, switching it for the ridiculously sized hydraulic hammer. He brought it thumping to life, and slammed it down hard onto the deck, once, twice, three times before it finally gave. For the briefest of moments, the decking held, but the sheer combined weight of the mech suits and the engine they held brought the whole section tumbling down into the cargo hold below.
They landed with a crash, the whole ship shaking with the impact. Through some miracle, the engine and the suits held together, the only sign of impact being a few minor dents, and a tear here and there in the leather covering of the mechs.
“Told you it would work,” Jonathan said, sticking his tongue out at the wolf and placing the engine down on its side.
“You didn’t say anything!” Laurence exclaimed, a little shaken by the fall. “You mentioned something about the cargo hold, and then you broke the deck!”
“And is the engine intact?” Jonathan asked, rolling the undamaged stack down the ramp.
“Yes,” the wolf said, a little begrudgingly. “It was still a stupid idea though.”
“It’s not as if the deck being in pieces is going to affect the scrap price,” Jonathan said, getting to work taking crates down the ramp.
“Thinking of which, we’d better get a move on,” Laurence said, helping out with the cargo. “I want all of this back to Cranberg sooner rather than later.”

Over the next three hours, the ship was steadily dismantled, a quick go-over by one of the hauler pilots revealing it to be too damaged to ship whole. Due to the size of the twin balloons, the ship had to be split across two of the gargantuan hauler cages, one for the balloons, the other for the wreck of the ship itself. The Navitorium was placed with the utmost care into the hold of the assistance vessel, where Laurence could watch over it for the flight back to the city.
Once there, the real heartbreaking work began. The wreckage was all deposited at a scrap yard on the outskirts of the city, after which Laurence and Jonathan had three days to go through it and take out anything they wished to keep. After those three days, the ship would be broken down and sold for scrap, much of the wood and metal being sent off to the Cranberg Air Docks to go towards the construction of a new ship, taking a considerable amount off the cost of the new commission. Over those three days, Laurence watched as his ship was broken down piece by piece, until eventually all that was left was a battered and dented shell of splintered wood and twisted metal. The Navitorium was sent off to the air docks ahead of the rest of the material, so that the shipbuilders had plenty of time to figure out how to build the bridge and ship around it.
Four days later, the scrap was sold. It fetched a reasonable price, more than enough to cover the costs for the Thermadora Mark 3 not covered by the provision of materials. The Mark 3 was built much the same as the Mark 2, with a few minor tweaks – additional security measures were placed on the balloon anchorage bolts, for a start. The craft itself was also altered, with the cargo and research decks being expanded, and the crew space shrinking, knocking off about five of the engineers and mechanics, and any spare space for passengers. After having to deal with the deluge of complaints and threats from the surviving three Government officials who made it away from the crash, Laurence swore off Government-funded expeditions, instead settling for going back to his roots a little more, exploring the farthest reaches of the maps on his own terms.
The Mark 3 was finished two months after the crash, taking everything into account. Her maiden exploratory voyage, a trip around Voldis in an attempt by Jonathan to prove to the College that the planet was spherical, would not take place for many years, though Laurence still used her to get around the “local” area before that. However, the events leading up to that voyage were started off by one very key turning point in the lives of the two canines – they still had to buy their pub.