343 First Electric Flight...?

While Remian, Mindy and Darian were sneaking through the Dragon Empire, Taj, who had somehow ended up supervisoing Mindy's shipyards, called Mindy urgently.

"It's Xiao Yan. She wants something." Taj told her.

Xiao Yan? What could the little girl want? Color pencils and some drawing paper? "Give her whatever she wants."

"But…!"

"I'm busy! Just handle it!" Mindy barked and hung up.

At that, Taj gulped, looking at the drawings in Xiao Yan's hands.

It turned out Xiao Yan had already done her drawing, and she wasn't asking for materials to draw more. In fact, what she wanted was…

"This is my latest designs for the Frigate-class Scorpion Gunboat." Xiao Yan said proudly. "Build it."

"B-but… we don't even know if it'll work! Maybe we should wait until Mindy gets back!"

"Mindy?" Xiao Yan snorted. "I've seen her designs. She doesn't seem to understand how propellers work. She keeps putting the engines at the back. That's wrong. Propellers need to be in front! Like mine! See? There are two propellers here, and both are at the very front, forming the left and right arms of the Scorpion. There's even space in the back to mount a medium weapon, like a ballista or a steam cannon. That's much better than mounting four turrets like hers. Plus, her designs have too little fuel capacity. Gas tanks need lots of space!"

Taj gaped. "Wait. If propellers need to be in front… then all our adaptation of old airships…"

"It would be fun seeing all of them fly in reverse." Xiao Yan grinned. "Though you could just turn all the seats around."

"That would put the wheelhouse facing the rear! How would they even see where they were going?!" Taj spluttered.

Xiao Yan shrugged. "I don't think putting propellers at the back would be a good idea in any case. You may as well give the airships wings and stick them on those."

"W-wings…?"

"Like this." Xiao Yan took out another drawing.

Like Remian, Xiao Yan, too, had learned a thing or two about higher technology. While she hadn't spent all her time in study, just watching their entertainment virtuals had taught her a lot. Afterwards, looking up these wonders online was really not difficult at all. She didn't know how to build an 'ancient' airplane but she definitely knew what one looked like.

"What's this?" Taj peered at it, curious.

"This is an aeroplane! Or an airplane, for short."

"What does it do?" Taj had to ask.

"Uh… carry stuff around? Or people?" Xiao Yan scratched her head.

"Four propellers… and you say gas tanks need a lot of space, right? Something that thin… gas tanks will take up all the space it has! That airplane of yours… it's basically just a Tug, isn't it?"

"Let me see!" Arnold (who was in the process of moving his workshop to Fal'Herim along with most of the industries) came over and shook his head. "We can't turn our Tugs into those! They're too thin. See, our Tugs are Corvettes, and they're broader around the waist, like this…"

Now even Arnold started taking up a pencil and doodling on paper.

"So if we had to add propellers, and you say they work best with wings, then…" Arnold added wings to their current Tugs, and propellers on them. "Here you go!"

With that, Xiao Yan's wants and the shipyard's work suddenly aligned. Taj leapt up. "Great! Let's try it."

Of course, it wasn't that easy. By evening, as Remian, Mindy and Darian were splitting up to infiltrate the fortress in different ways and Tim was leaving the Imperial dinner table, their efforts had mostly resulted in a heap of broken wings, propellers and other assorted airship junk.

Finally they managed to put one together!

"So… we need a test pilot. Any volunteers?" Taj called.

The workers in the shipyard all backed away slowly.

"Huh. Are there no brave warriors in this place?" Xiao Yan asked.

"Someone call for a brave warrior?!" Wulfgar suddenly popped his head in.

Xiao Yan grinned.

***

With a chugging sound, the airship came to life!

While it seemed to choke and splutter at first, soon enough the propeller engine started to whir energetically and a strong wind current rose up in the shipyard.

"We did it!" Xiao Yan exulted.

"Prototype Tug Frigate, Wulfgar, moving out!" Wulfgar declared and the aircraft began to move.

There was an ominous creaking, squeaking sound.

"What was that?" Arnold asked worriedly.

"Oh, I'm sure it's nothing." Xiao Yan waved it away dismissively.

There was a cracking, snapping sound.

"Uh… I have a bad feeling about this." Arnold gulped, as the airship began to move.

And then there was an even louder creak, and then a whole lot of clanging and clankering and then…

BAM! Pieces of steel and structure shot out in every direction. The entire frame of the airship suddenly came apart in three different places, and then with a whole lot of crashing, all three main pieces separated explosively.

The left piece went spinning over to one side, bowling over half the crowd of spectating mechanics and technicians. Carrie quickly pounced on it like it was a juicy steak, and only with her help did they manage to pin it down.

The right piece, the biggest piece by far, simply dropped where it was, tumbling about a little while people yelped and scrambled to get out of the way, on occasion crashing into each other in their haste for distance.

The forward piece hurtled forward with Wulfgar yelping in his seat. It suddenly shot up, straight up at the roof.

"UWAAAAAAH!" Wulfgar intoned the historical words of the first man to experience electric motor flight on the planet before his screams suddenly ended with an abrupt crash as his piece of airship slammed straight into the ceiling.

BOOM! Broken wreckage and Wulfgar rained down on the ground for the next few speechless seconds.

"OW!" Wulfgar landed on his butt and rolled about on the ground a little. Then, he slowly sat up and shouted, "That was AWESOME! Let's do it again!"

At least seven different slapping sounds could be heard around the shipyard as mechanics and technicians alike facepalmed.

"Uh… I think the Tugs need structural reinforcement." Arnold admitted. "There's too much stress and strain. We'll need to give it stronger wings. Also, we better reinforce the spine, or it might break if we try to get the Tugs to actually pull something."

"Back to the drawing board…" Xiao Yan mused, and went back to drawing.

"Hey, are we going again? Can we do that again?" Wulfgar shouted, looking around with shining eyes while a big black and blue lump formed on his forehead.

Please go to

to read the latest chapters for free