Between the giant horse thundering into the air and virtually through a brass bell and the thief leaping the distance between the ships while they were still three times the distance apart Balder was waiting for, Balder both sighed and smile at the situation he had made for himself. After literally throwing little Jory across the gap and into the ship to follow the Brideson boys, he finally launched himself across the now growing gap. Soaring through the air and landing on his feet...

...was what he had meant to do. Instead, like a misshapen cannonball, Balder lurched forward and to the left, crashing onto the deck painfully. Swearing as he gathered himself, he unsheathed his cutlass and sprinted into action – embarrassingly with a slight limp from the fall.

“We need to kill them and preferably now.”

He's got that right. Almost as an afterthought, Balder shouted out, “No Guns! We need to do this silentlike!”

Ironically, a few moments after his command, the old warrior made more noise than Lasrach in a china shop; parrying a metal pole, Balder punched out with his free left hand at the attacking engineer. He scored a direct hit and following it up with a bash from the metal guard of his cutlass. The sickening pop that comes with crunching bone shot through the air as the man's orbital floor collapsed. The half-blind engineer stumbled backwards, directly onto the project that he was working on. As the man fell into the ship's smaller, external exploring vessel, the engine started. The boat started up with a deep thud and a sharp grinding sound. Before he could even think to stop it, Balder had to watch as the small airboat skidded out of its harness, veered to the right – it was missing its starboard stannum jet – and crashed loudly into the wall. More swears from the old man.

“Let's finish up quickly here boys! We need to be movin'!” Even as he shouted it, Balder could see that his crew had made quick work of the unprepared sailors. “Right then, to the hallway!”