Peoples from a smoky sky

                                                    "Avarice, the spur of industry."

                                                     –David Hume

The red disk of the sun had not passed yet the horizon, and the city was already in motion.

The smokestacks had begun to erupt their columns of smoke that make the air thick and heavy, blinding the blue sky.

Factories and steel mills were fed with tons of coal, just arrived by trains and shoveled by machines and dozens of workers.

Who was outside wore heavy coats and scarves against the cold, envying their colleagues who worked inside, kept warm by the high temperatures of the furnaces where the metal was melted.

The streets and squares were empty, shops were closed and an unreal silence dominated everything.

Only the sweepers trailed around, trying to clean the sidewalks by the ashes thrown from factories, although they knew was pointless.

A cold gust of wind beat down upon my face. I sealed my lips and cursed myself for have forgotten the scarf.

Clenching my raincoat with one hand and my suitcase with the other, I continued to walk straight, although wind forced me to carry my top hat by myself, as I could not afford another one.

The cold was normal in this part of the year and, instead of stay sitted on the sofa in my appartment, drinking a hot coffee, I was walking in the middle of a boulevard with a raincoat, which didn't protect me in any possible way, and a heavy suitcase.  Also, my allergy began to bite.

Meanwhile, a sharp smell of tar and fuel had invaded the air, forcing me to put a handkerchief over my nose in order to keep walking.

It was unbelievable! Victoria had one of the most widespread underground network in the entire world, but no exits near the aerodrome!

Once reached the end of an dusty asphalt road, I raised my sight and sighed for relief, as I saw finally my destination.

Over my head, five airship were flying over dark clouds, shining their metallic trim with the small amount of available light.  Their white balloons made them perfectly visible in the orange heaven, while their engines emitted a continuous but not annoying hum.

Old models.

Four of them were simple cargo airship, as anyone could have deduced from their squat shape and the flat bottom, used for the transport of goods from one place to another.

Their appearance was not well maintained:  their hull was consumed by the weather, being made largely of wood, while the rusty engines emitted clouds of black smoke.

The last one was an Air-Fortress, evolution of the common battleship:  as his predecessor, the shape was incredibly long and the entire structure consisted of a cylindrical floating aerostatic baloon, completely armored.

His appearance made her look as an ordinary warship: four slively turrets with eight twelve-inch cannons, twelve small turrets with three-inch cannons and an overall length of about one hundred and sixty meters, while powerful engines and an internal structure made with Aetherium allowed it to fly.  On his left side there was written its name:  HMS Dreadnought.

Despite this beautifull sight, I turned my head on left and right, searching for my airship: aerodrome's platforms were all empty, except for one.  There, surrounded by a small crowd of curious onlookers, was placed the vehicle that would have been my home for two weeks.

The corvette, not big but incredibly well manteined, was a old rigid airship with a long red gondola, placed betwen two covered iron walkways.

Usually this type of airship were able to carry just ten passengers, namely the entire crew, but with the introduction of Aetherium and the elimination of hydrogen, made possible to have more rooms in the aerostatic ballon.  On its left, the name HMS Agamemnon.

As I said before, a great number on people were around the airship, some as workers who were loading some supplies, others instead as reporters looking for a scoop, but most of them as simply curious timewaster.

Then I heard the roar of a voice, which seemed to make his way through the crowd in order to separate and scatter it.  In that moment I ignored the booming sound and approached to the airship to embark.

It was cold and I longed to sit in front of a stove, as I notice the presence of two gattling cannon on the walkways and of several dents on a side of the gondola.  While I was wondering about the reasons of that armament, the voice I had heard before came up at my shoulders.

“Nice view, ah?”

I whirled and found myself in front of a white curled beard; betwen that and a wrinkled forehead, two eyes, actually just one, as the other was clearly a glass-eye, were studying me with a hardener gaze.  This, and a wool cap on his head, made him looking as an old salt.

“Are you talking about the airship or the armament, Sir?”  I asked.

I thought I had said something wrong, as he kept staring me disturbingly with his one good eye, which hardened even more.  His gray eyebrows piled, forming one indistinct figure over his forehead.

His breathing, noisy and heavy as a combustion engine, was steeped of strong tobacco.

That imposing figure reminded me to hasten my departure.  But when I was about to leave him, he burst out laughing so loudly I thought for a second that the air-fortress had opened fire, whilst his chest rose and fell like pistons of an industrial machine.

“Oh man! You should have seen your face!”  he slammed his calloused hand on my right shoulder  “I'm Captain Roland, but you can call me Francis if you like. And this” -he pointed the airship with one finger- “is my boy.  Maybe he's not advanced as many other airship, but during the siege of Sevastoone, he was the best corvette ever made! ”

I blinked for surprise hearing those words  “Sevastoone? You were there too?”

He took off some tobacco from his pockett and tried to kindle his old worn pipe   “Of course I was there!  In the 3rd Air Wing.  Those bastards took me an eye and I took out three of their corvettes!  As you can see, the signs of the battle are still on the gondola.  What was your regiment?”

I took some moment before anwer, as remember that period was an hard work for me.

“5th Regiment on Foot. I was a Sergeant Major in the 11th battalion under Lord MacMahon's command. ”

Captain Roland nodded with his pipe, held by teeth still strong for the age but with a clear problem of tartar  “ Well, it's seems we have another veteran with us! I hope you'll have a pleasant journey on my ship, Mr...”

“Prescott.  William Prescott.”  I tried to shake his hand, but he grabbed mine and shocked it with an impressive force.

“Nice to meet you Mr. Prescott!”   he blew out the pipe to quench it and began to move towards the footbridge.  “Now, come aboard!  We will leave any second now!  After all, Equestria is not around the corner.”

Few minutes later, a deafening noise pervaded the air, as the engines went into operation.  In the boilers coal started to burn producing a great amount of energy. After beeing converted into electricity, the Aetherium structure was charged by electrons, and rose up from the concrete platform.

At an height, the two propellers, placed on both side of the airship, started to rotate wildly, giving us enough speed to proceed.

As a whale emerges from the sea and rises, majestic and invincible, in the same way we rose into the unknown.  All that we had with us, was our will and the technology given to us by progress.  But otherwise it, we would be alone in an ocean of air.

Peoples on the platform started to shake their hands in the air for us, until they seemed indistinguishable from a stain on the asphalt.

Districts became small islands surrounded by the sea of streets, large smokestacks a little bigger than fireplaces and cruise ships appeared more similar to paper boats.

As I left my home town, I could not feel regret or other similar sentiments for that place.

Home!  No, that was not my home, even if I had though for years it was.  My home took away from me the only thing that mattered.

I spent my best years fighting, killing and colonizing for them, only for be repaid in such way.

My home was a voracious and selfish beast, a plague, a flock of locusts which destroys the work and lives of others.  Nothing more.  Science and progress should not authorize genocides of entire populations.  And for what?  For the prosperity?  For our superiority?

How many times did I shoot for the Victorian Empire?  How many times did I bersmirch my uniform with blood?  How many time did I lead bayonet charges, slaying enemy platoons?  So many deaths and broken lives were nothing for a herd of fat capitalists.

Ours was a deserved decline.