Rising Tide: A LitRPG Novel (Age of Steam Book 1)

by Mitchell T. Jacobs

  She punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Oh, I'm sure that I'm responsible for all those unexpected things that happened to you all.”

  “Yeah. You must be a jinx or something,” Brandon said with a smile.

  Despite the issues they had done about as well as he could have hoped. Now, the thing that concerned him was what might be waiting for them when they got back to Beylan.

  For now they had a long sea journey ahead of them.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Once they reached Beylan and sold their cargo on the exchange Shane brought the blueprints to Blue Frog. They were accepted, but then Travis and Alex guided him into the basement lair. He could already sense what kind of conversation they'd be having and tried not to groan.

  “So, you decided to just blow up three Iron Guild ships without any warning,” Travis said as they descended the stairs.

  “Interesting that you'd say that. They have no proof it was us. The ship that sunk them was an unmarked vessel from an unknown guild, so how could they implicate mine?” he asked.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I suppose you had a reason for doing that?” Alex said.

  Shane bristled for a moment, but he quickly calmed himself down. Jumping down their throats wouldn't do him any favors, and besides, he could understand why they'd be annoyed. Extra attention from the Iron Guild never ended well.

  “Yes, I had a reason for it,” he said. “They were hunting. They were looking for easy prey inside the Welles Bay dome, and they picked us. They didn't even give us a chance to do anything except cut our engines and let them board us, and you know I'm not going to let them do that.”

  “Blueprints aren't regulated.”

  “No, but the contraband we were hauling in the cargo hold is. Do you really think we were going all that way without bringing something else back with us?”

  “I can't argue with that,” Travis said.

  Alex shrugged. “When you say you had no other choice I believe you. But you've caused quite a stir within the guild.”

  “Is that speculation, or is that verified?”

  “That's verified. Our source was quite adamant about it. I daresay that you've sent the higher levels of the Iron Guild into a panic.”

  That made him smile. “Really? Nine of us in a ship that isn't at full capability, and has teething problems? That has the guild in a panic?”

  “Or, according to the reports that they were given, a ship that moved extremely fast for its size, fired explosive shells, and shot them so rapidly they didn't know what was happening.”

  “It's enough for us to start construction on more of the ships,” Travis said as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

  Shane frowned. “Hold on a minute, I'm not sure that's a good idea. We're still trying to get the kinks worked out. Both of the gun crews said they were having issues aiming while the ship was going through rough seas, and we still need to put it through tests.”

  “We don't have the time. Not when you've already caught the Iron Guild's attention. Identification or no identification, they'll find a way to hunt you down and sink you. You're more than a nuisance.”

  “So you might be producing a system that's not fully capable? We don't even have the torpedoes ready,” Shane argued.

  He understood their reasoning, but he didn't want to try to challenge the guild if they weren't ready. Maelstrom's ship was a prototype to test out the concept. As far as he was concerned they needed to work out all the defects and issues before they tried producing more.

  He tried to argue his point further. “We're not ready. We still need to put the weapons systems through more tests before we're ready for large scale use.”

  “But the engines and the rest of the layout work fine?” Travis asked.

  “Yeah, they do,” Shane admitted. “But that's because we've take it on one trip. If we do more then we might find-”

  “Then we'll figure out. But this ship class gives us the best chance of countering the guild, and the sooner we start building more the better. You said that the engines and the layout are sound. We can build around that at first and then take care of the weapons later.”

  “You know that making them is going to implicate you and bring the guild down on your head.”

  “I know that, which is why Blue Frog won't be taking control of any. Neither will any of the other guilds. Maelstrom Squadron will have exclusive access to the new destroyers.”

  “And how are we going to crew them? We have nine members, and they need eight crew at minimum to operate them properly,” Shane argued, becoming more and more frustrated by the moment. He understood the enthusiasm about their success, but they were getting too far ahead of themselves. Three sunken ships meant very little against the power of the Iron Guild, especially since they had lost the element of surprise. Now every enemy patrol ship knew to be wary of them.

  “You're in the process of recruiting new members, right? That should solve your problem.”

  “I'm...” He took a deep breath. “Yes, we're in the process of recruiting new members. But the last group we invited to join the guild had a connection to us, so we had some idea of what to expect. But I'm not just going to start pulling in random players off the streets of Beylan. And I'm not going to add thirty or more of them at once.”

  “We need-”

  “I'm not doing it,” Shane said firmly. “This is our best chance at pushing back the guild, and I'm not going to screw this up by pushing things too fast. We'll expand the squadron given time. But for now we need to keep testing things, and everyone else needs to keep a low profile. There's no sense in giving ourselves away before we're ready.”

  “But we can still build new ships and prepare them. We need them,” Travis insisted. “We have the resources to create them. And we can train...”

  Shane tried not to sigh as Travis continued to hammer home his point. It felt like smashing his head against a brick wall, but he didn't want to offend one of Rising Tide's most powerful members.

  But he didn't want to knuckle under to their demands, either. They were wrong. Travis was wrong, and his enthusiasm for the new ship meant he was getting ahead of himself. Building ships without proper armament or crews meant creating nothing more than a paper tiger, and if the Iron Guild pressed the issue it could turn ugly very quickly.

  Alex leaned toward him.

  “We'll talk about this later. Can I see you at your office?”

  Shane nodded. Did Alex agree with him, or would they just be arguing in circles again? At this point he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

  “I heard you had some success with the cannons,” Jocelyn said as Bailey walked into the warehouse.

  “Yeah, we did. But don't get too comfortable. We had plenty of complaints as well.”

  “Complaints?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, according to the gun crews they were having serious issues trying to aim in rough seas. Every time the waves shifted a little bit it threw them off.”

  “That's natural,” Teresa said. “It happens with every ship.”

  “Yeah, but it's still a problem that we could work on. Especially since we don't want to waste ammo. I don't know how you're doing on dust production-”

  “We have three machines up and running,” Rami said.

  “Huh, that many?”

  “One's not going to be enough, and we want to build stockpiles. It should be a matter of pulling shells out of storage and loading them onto the ship, not building them as needed.”

  Bailey nodded. The sooner they could create a proper supply chain the better. Their ship might be powerful, but they could only be in one place at once. If they didn't have enough ammunition, that place would be in port, away from all the action.

  “So we're going to have to work on the guns, according to them,” Teresa said. “Along with the torpedoes, apparently. We don't seem to have enough to do.”

  “The torpedoes are primary,” Bailey explained. “The guns
can wait, or they can take secondary priority. They work as they are now. It's just that they'd work more efficiently if there were more improvements.”

  “Everything works better if there are more improvements, but the ones demanding them aren't the ones that have to build them. If-”

  “What kind of improvement do they want?” Jocelyn cut in.

  “Well, Kelvin suggested gyrostabilized guns. That would make it easier to aim in rough seas.”

  “Oh. Well, that actually might be doable without a lot of effort. You know what blueprints you bought from Welles Bay, right?”

  Bailey frowned. “Torpedo components? I didn't have time to look it over. I spent most of my time trying to make sure the engines worked without any issues.”

  “Did they?”

  “Yeah, they ran without any problems. They were surprisingly efficient on coal as well.”

  “Good to hear,” Rami said. “Props to Jocelyn for that.”

  “Yup. So what was the blueprint for? I didn't get to look at it before we handed it over.”

  “Exactly what you need. A gyroscope,” Jocelyn smiled.

  “That's… a lucky coincidence,” Bailey said.

  “Eh, not really. It's what we needed for the torpedoes. The model we're using is run off a flywheel, but that messes with the stability. If you launch it wrong it has a tendency to roll. And if you do it really wrong it can loop back so hard that it hits your own ship.”

  “Yeah, I'd like to avoid that if possible.”

  “That's where the gyroscope comes it. We rig it to the fins, and it'll make sure that the torpedo runs straight. That's the last element we need to make it work.”

  “And is it going to stand up to abuse?” Bailey asked. Plenty of weapons and machines had delicate components that made them impractical for regular use. Engineers spent more time fixing them than getting actual use out of them.

  “I wouldn't smash them with a hammer or anything, but if we do this right they should be relatively rugged,” Rami said. “That's what we're going for with all our stuff. It's going to be butt-ugly, crude, and it's going to work under most conditions.”

  “Well, that's all I can really ask for. Give me function over form any day,” she said. “So are you ready to start work on the torpedoes, or-”

  “If you'd like to help that'd be great. Because your ship is going to be the one that's carrying them,” Jocelyn said. “You'll have to deal with them first.”

  “So you'd better make sure that they work,” Bailey said with a grin.

  “Oh come on, what do you take us for, amateurs?” Rami smiled. “I'm wounded.”

  “We always do a good job,” Teresa said.

  “Oh, I agree. Otherwise we'd probably be at the bottom of the Trevithick Sea. Just making sure for this time.”

  Rami shrugged. “Well, time's a wasting. Let's get this going and see what we can come up with.”

  Alex stopped by the office later that day.

  “So, talk about this later,” Shane said after they exchanged pleasantries.

  “Right. I see that you're not exactly happy about the direction that Travis is trying to take us.”

  “That's an understatement. I don't think we're ready. I don't think we're ready at all.”

  “You performed well on the last trip.”

  “Because we caught them by surprise. And we were fighting three chasers. Travis seems to think we took on half of the Iron Guild's fleet and came out without a scratch.”

  Alex laughed. “Ah, I don't think it's that bad.”

  “It's getting to that point. He seems to think that the destroyer is a wonder weapon that's going to turn the tide of the trade war by itself.”

  “But isn't that what you're banking on? Why you've gone through all that time and trouble to get it working?”

  Shane exhaled. “I think there's a difference between what I'm thinking and what he's thinking.”

  “Travis isn't a fool. Blue Frog would never have gotten as powerful as it is if he was. I think he realizes the limitations of the vessel. But he also realizes the strengths, and he's willing to spend the money and effort to make sure we have a supply of them.”

  “But it's not about numbers,” Shane argued. “Numbers will help, sure. But this entire thing is about quality, not quantity. We know we can't build a big enough fleet to challenge the Iron Guild, so we're going to have to use better ships. Right now the destroyer has severe limitations, and if we don't fix them we don't have that edge.”

  “So you want to delay and give the engineers time to perfect the design, is that right? Knowing very well that the longer you take, the more times the Iron Guild has to hunt you down and sink you. Not only that, but they'll have more time to created and deploy countermeasures. You might be powerful, but you're one ship. You can only be one place at once. But if we have more, that puts more pressure on them.”

  “But if this isn't ready...”

  “I think we need to look at realistic options,” Alex said. “The design isn't perfect as it is now, that much is true. On the other hand, holding it back until we think it's perfect will take too long, and then our advantage is gone. Maybe we need to strike a balance.”

  “What kind of balance are we talking about?”

  “Well, my idea would be to push through the design as it is now but leave room for upgrades and fixes later.”

  “Provided any of the defects don't end up sinking us first.”

  “Yes, there's that. If you could make a list of the things that are absolutely necessary to fix? We'll focus on that, but otherwise we'll push through the design as is. Travis is right about that. The sooner we start building new vessels, the better off we'll be.”

  Shane stopped in front of the destroyer mockup, still sitting in the middle of the workshop floor.

  “It's not just about numbers,” he said. “We can have as many of these things as we want, but if we're not using them correctly then it's not going to make a difference. We can't just go charging into the middle of enemy ships and hope to win. And we can't take on larger warships without a plan. In fact, if you want to challenge the Iron Guild fleet then you're going to need to build cruisers and battleships of your own.”

  “An expensive proposition,” Alex commented. “If you thought that getting one of these cost a lot...”

  “They'll cost a ton more, and require more crew. I'm well aware of that. But we're not battleships. We're not going to be able to fight like it. We have a very specific role.”

  “And what is that role?”

  Shane hesitated. “Our role is to protect the trade routes going in and out of Beylan. That means fending off guild patrol ships that are trying to enforce their regulations on traders. That's our main role. Our secondary role is the ability to threaten large warships with our torpedoes, but that's going to require us to attack in packs. A single destroyer isn't going to be enough to kill a battleship with a skilled gunnery crew. Not unless we get lucky.”

  “I see.”

  “And we can't deviate from that role,” he said. “Trying to push us into roles that we don't fit in is going to be really bad for us. It's like any other RPG.”

  “So what would you be?” Alex asked. “If we're going by traditional RPG classes, I mean.”

  He shrugged. “We're rogues, I guess? We can't take much damage, but we're quick and we can dish it out. That's what I'd say.”

  “And I'd say that it's a pretty good comparison. And I understand your other point as well. I'll try to strike a good balance between you and Travis. Are you fine with that?”

  Shane shrugged again. “Well, I don't really like it, but I see your point, and I really don't see how we have much of a choice. If the guild is that concerned over us they're going to start hunting us. We'll need to start putting our plan into motion before we start running out of time.”

  Alex nodded. “Oh yes, that's one last thing I need to tell you. Our source just gave us this information, and I received it right before I came he
re. The guild has put out a kill order on your vessel. That's going to extend to your guild, if they ever figure out who the ship belongs to.”

  Not a surprise, but it provided him with another reminder of the gravity of their situation. If he wanted to be arrogant about their small success against the Iron Guild, Alex's information was a bucket of cold water thrown in his face. They'd be watched as soon as they left port, and hunted when they reached open water. They'd need every advantage they could get with guild ships hounding them across the seas.

  But if they added more destroyers to the fleet…

  The crews needed to be trained. If they sent amateurs out into the open sea the guild would massacre them, but if they knew what they were doing the addition of more destroyers could confuse the Iron Guild and put them at a disadvantage.

  Or maybe spreading them out wasn't a good idea. If they consolidated three or four ships into a squadron they could take on a variety of threats. Even a battleship might hesitate to take on a group of smaller ships that could swarm it and sink it with a spread of torpedoes.

  “So the guild is out for blood, huh?”

  “Yes, and I don't think we'll be able to clean up the messes this time,” Alex said. “We'll try to protect you as best we can, but you might be on your own. And the further you go from Beylan, the worse it will be.”

  Shane nodded. “That's fine. We still have the other ship to smuggle with. And we expected this from the beginning.”

  The Iron Guild hadn't retained their position by remaining idle. Whenever a potential threat reared its head they immediately tried to stamp it out at the beginning. Their methods could be brutal, but Shane couldn't doubt their efficiency. Many conspiracies ended in their infant stages. Those that progressed further were constantly undermined by the enemy's agents and the relentless pursuit of the Iron Guild fleet.

  They'd be hunted, but they weren't helpless prey. No, they were more like the ferox cats, capable of striking back and mauling anyone who didn't take proper precautions. If the Iron Guild wanted to fight then they'd make the enemy pay dearly.

  “That wasn't a threat. Just a warning. You'll need to watch your back on the open seas. Anyone associated with the guild that sees you is an enemy, and I don't think you can show them any mercy.”