Conflagration by Mick Farren

prevail?
    “Oh, magnificent.”
    She had exclaimed louder than she had intended, and some of Dunbar’s immediate staff turned and looked at her. Dunbar himself glanced up and arched an eyebrow. “You approve of my gunners, do you, Lady Blakeney?”
    RAPHAEL
    “Are we connected to the airship yet?”
    When Dunbar moved, his aides moved with him like chicks following an angry mother hen, except the Field Marshal was no mother hen, and right at that moment, a Colonel Ailes, the engineer responsible for communications, was the target of his ire. Raphael didn’t envy the man who was shaking his head and looking decidedly unhappy.
    “No, sir. We’re having trouble picking up the signal.”
    “Damn it, Ailes, when?”
    Raphael knew that the airship constituted Dunbar’s eye in the sky. He turned and looked at the pall of smoke and fire in the valley. Even with field glasses it was hard to tell what was really going on and how much progress the assault troops were making. He could see the howitzers firing from their new position at the base of the eastern ridge, but little else.
    “Just five to ten minutes, Field Marshal.”
    “You told me that five minutes ago, damn it.”
    “It’s a brand new system, sir. It’s never been used in the field before.”
    “You know my feeling about excuses.”
    Two electricians, a corporal and a private, came in laying electrical cable as they went, and temporarily removing Ailes from the hook. Two more pushed their way through the officers carrying a ticker tape machine, and began stripping wires and connecting them to shiny copper terminals. Dunbar stood over them, watching with interest. “Is this going to work for me, Corporal?”
    “We’ll soon find out, sir.”
    The corporal screwed down the final terminal and the machine commenced to clatter. A length of paper tape unspooled and was typed on by the automatic keys. When the process stopped, Dunbar ripped the tape from the machine and examined it. “This is gibberish.”
    The corporal was unconcerned. “Just a test, sir. But it shows that everything’s working, if you know what I mean.”
    Dunbar indicated he knew what the corporal meant. The ticker clattered again. This time the corporal tore off the tape and handed it to Dunbar. “Your first report from the airship, Field Marshal.”
    Dunbar gestured to an aide, who produced a flask and handed it to the corporal, indicating that he should drink and pass it on to the three privates. Raphael reflected how, if Dunbar came out of this day the victor, the corporal would have a story to tell his grandchildren, about how he shared a drink with the great man. Dunbar was already a part of Albany folklore. He was the hero of the bloodless revolution that had brought the present King to power and deposed his autocratic and unpopular father. In the winter of ’93, the poor had marched in the streets, and only the cool resolve of then-Colonel Virgil Dunbar had prevented bloodshed on Regent Square. Subsequently arrested, but then freed by popular outcry, Dunbar had later been one of those at the legendary Midnight Meeting, the historic encounter between the King, the leaders of the Commons, and the Army that had resulted in Carlyle I’s abdication in favor of his son Carlyle II, while the troops of Hassan IX were already coming ashore at Savannah.
    Dunbar noticed Raphael studying the ticker tape machine, and laughed. “One of the marvels of advanced technology, my boy. Strange to think that it exists in the same modern world as you and your friends.”
    Raphael nodded, uncomfortable that the commander had noticed him. “Strange indeed, sir.”
    Dunbar looked amused. He was probably accustomed to junior officers becoming tongue-tied in his presence. “I understand you Four have had very little to do as yet.”
    “That’s right, Field Marshal. As yet.”
    “I wouldn’t worry about it, my boy. I have a feeling you’ll all see action soon enough.”
    Dunbar was one of the few