The Steam Age: Gears and Bones

Chapter 20

The cruiser did not linger off the coast of St. Petersburg.

The moment Perfit closed his notebook in the officers' mess, the captain was already standing on the bridge giving orders.

The ship stayed outside the port of St. Petersburg for less than a day and a night. After the sailors packed up the small boats used for reconnaissance on shore and counted the remaining shells in the ammunition compartment, the steam engine on the port side started roaring again.

The cruiser slowly turned around, its bow cutting through the leaden-gray seawater, and sailed south along the coastline.

The captain drew a new route on the nautical chart with a pencil—sailing for about half a day south-southeast along the coastline of the Rus Empire, rounding the promontory jutting out onto the coastline from the main city of St. Petersburg, then turning northeast to find a suitable landing point outside the low-lying area marked as a swamp on the southeast side of the city.

This route would add almost a day to their journey, but compared to plunging the expedition into the ruins of St. Petersburg's main city, which were teeming with infected people, going around the swamp would at least provide a relatively safe landing environment.

Perfit stood on the bridge, watching the coastline slowly recede to starboard.

Through the telescope's circular field of view, the outline of St. Petersburg gradually blurred in the hazy sky—first the burned-out warehouses in the harbor shrank into a few jagged black dots on the coastline, then the spire of the clock tower, and finally even the most conspicuous old customs house was swallowed up by the thin fog.

Only a few wisps of black smoke, not yet completely dissipated, still floated on the distant horizon on the north side of the port.

Chertzov stood beside her, his hands gripping the bridge railing, gazing at the disappearing coastline, and remained silent for a long time.

His uniform cuffs trembled slightly in the sea breeze, but apart from that, the veteran's posture remained as still as a rock that had been repeatedly washed by the sea.

"There's a shoal south of the harbor," he finally spoke, his voice deep. "From here, sail south-southeast for about twelve nautical miles. Behind the shoal is saline-alkali land, hard with lots of gravel, which is walkable."

About two or three miles further in, the swamp begins.

Pofico nodded and turned the telescope southeast.

There are more ice floes on the sea than yesterday, and some of them are so big that you can see the snow covering them.

However, there were noticeably fewer ice floes on the water near the coast. This is probably because the shallow waters near the shore freeze first in winter, thus blocking ice floes from drifting over from further away.

"Notify the captain," she said, turning to Belfast, "that the lookout keep an eye on the coastline and look for shallows. Report any obvious mudflats or rocky areas. Also, have the medic and the flag officer wait for me on deck; we need to do a final check on the equipment before landing."

Belfast accepted the order and left, her skirt brushing lightly against the iron stairs of the bridge, making no extra sound except for the sound of her boots hitting the floor.

When Perfit and Chertzov stepped off the bridge, the deck was already bustling with activity.

The flag captain was squatting by the ship's side, spreading out the supplies the expedition team would carry on a tarpaulin, categorized by type: medical supplies, food, ammunition, tents, ropes and carabiners, and portable alchemy test cases. Each category was stacked separately, while several of his knights stood beside him, checking the latches and seals of each box one by one.

Ludwig and his Romulus knights were organizing their weapons on the other side. Longswords, short swords, flintlock ammunition, and bayonets were arranged in neat rows on the deck, and all the metal parts were wiped clean again with cloths soaked in hydrogen peroxide.

Since Perfit issued the orders at the port that everyone must wear double gloves and breathing masks at all times after going ashore, and that anyone bitten or scratched must report to Sabelle within thirty minutes, no one in the entire expedition team has questioned her protective procedures.

Even the veterans who had fought on the northern front of Romulus for several years did so without a word.

No one on deck took off their gloves.

The medic had already set up his examination equipment on the ship's side—several alcohol lamps, a row of silver surgical instruments in leather cases, several rolls of gauze and bandages sterilized by high-temperature steam, and two copper basins secured with iron frames.

Sabel was squatting next to the inspection table, distributing copies of the requiem prayers one by one to the accompanying medics and the knights responsible for bringing up the rear.

Each sheet of paper was folded to the size of a pocket inside the breastplate, and the handwriting was extremely small but meticulous.

Perfit walked to the tarpaulin, squatted down, and personally checked the items in the portable alchemy lab kit.

Six sets of microscope lenses that she had modified, a small box of filamentous slides extracted from Sample No. 7, a complete set of miniature distillation apparatus and several sealed glass petri dishes, and several bottles of sealed hydrogen peroxide.

Everything in the box was there.

The large pine trunk next to it, reinforced with iron bars, was also intact. The wolf head emblem of the Brandlis family was branded on the lid, and the brass lock on the latch was undamaged.

She closed and locked the experimental box, then stood up.

"After landing, all supplies will be allocated uniformly." She explained to the flag commander and medic, "Medical supplies will be given priority to the wounded, ammunition will be distributed according to the flag commander's plan, and food and water will be carried by men arranged by Major Oberstan."

No one objected.

The Romulus gray-armored knights responsible for bringing up the rear stood silently in formation behind Ludwig, listening to Perfit's instructions, like a group of silent, patient stone statues.

The lookout at the signal flag position at the top of the mast suddenly shouted a message towards the bridge. Perfit turned around, raised his binoculars, and aimed them at the coastline.

We've reached the shallows.

To be precise, it wasn't a sandy beach, but rather a rocky outcrop formed by long-term erosion by the sea along the coastline.

Grayish-white gravel stretches inland from the edge of the sea, connecting with large patches of low, sparse, dry halophyte shrubs, and further in the distance, the undulating frozen soil can be vaguely seen—that is the edge of the swamp.

There were no gunshots, no plumes of smoke, and no signs of human activity.

As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but pebbles, moraine, and the frozen reeds along the edge of the distant swamp.

"Here it is." Perfiter lowered his binoculars. "Have the captain prepare to launch the small boats."

The cruiser anchored outside the shoals.

The ship's draft was too deep, so it could only anchor one nautical mile away.

They needed to use small boats on the ship to ferry them back and forth between the anchorage and the landing beach.

It was a small boat propelled by oars, each capable of carrying ten to twelve people and a small amount of supplies, with a thin sheet of iron lining the bottom to protect it from the scraping of floating ice.

The captain calculated that it would take the small boat at least four round trips to get the expedition team, along with the Sword and Rose Banner team, Ludwig's Romulus Knights, and Chernzov and his veterans, all ashore.