Hamerlin spent minutes as the artillery mind came back. He dragged out an old survey map and began to cross reference the heights, lows, valleys and hills together. The whole thing blurred into his mind, damn his one eye slowing him down as he pulled together and sketched out a route on grease pencil scrawled across an old survey map with angles, A protector and several warnings for potential height dangers due to the route. They were flying too low…but what if he turned low and slow into aadvantage… 

An advantage.. Perhaps he had just made their escape plan. Next came working out the turns, the airship handled more like a speeding capital ship, slow on the turns, handling hard with momentum and energy meaning turns would be slower and have to be planned ahead. The gaps would be narrow but .. possible…the heights. Hazards but they still had the light. At night that would be lethal but she was light enough. 

His hands began to calm and his mind sharpened as he scrawled out a scale and did rapid maths at a rate he had not done in the last 20 years! He had something to vent his frustration on as he quickly did the approximate speed, distance to turn vs scale and … to his surprise it worked even though it might stress the hell out of the top gunners and the pilots. 

Why fight your way through when you can not be seen, they would potentially be miles away, with open sky and then be able to easily exhaust the pursuit force over the evening and night. 

Breathe in.  Breathe out…control… he closed his eyes and recited the general orders in his mind to calm the waves before he explained. Always stay calm, calm is control. “The first order is to follow all lawful orders….” Ran through his mind's voice back to a time when he was younger and whole. 

Making his way over he put down a map covered in grease pencil markings and several small skulls marked as hazards because if they hit those…they might not worry because they would be done for. “Excuse me, Ladies, Gentlemen and Officers…I might have a plan. But..it would require some rather tricky flying risks and we would be skirting the limits of what she can handle loaded like a Widows wine cellar, trust me, i had a type… diplomatic status is a good way to meet people.” He was somewhat of a rogue as a diplomat but a professional rogue, events were only as fun as you made it. Functions were not fun if you went for the speeches. 

He gestured. “we are here, they are about here… we have a chance, to use the terrain to mask our route, we utilise hills and thead the valley here.. into the river here and out over floodplain.  This would break our line of sight heavily and they would have to make pursuit up, down and then into a muddy lowland”

He paused as he let them see the map that might kill them or be their ticket out of here. “The weight, speed and height we would have to maintain is… honestly threading a needle but if we do this, we could be in the open sky and make time and distance all evening and night. We would long exhaust even a mechanical division on main roads. Probably at least 200 to 300 miles even if there is minimal fuel burn… They would have to pause long before we would.”

“We would fly so low in one area you'd probably be able to admire the farmer's daughter, 90 to 100 feet.” He said as he finished, a rogue was always a rogue, even an older one but you choose to be a gentleman rogue.  

“So, I cede the floor to you lovely ladies and gentlemen.” He said with a mock bow and wink to the woman, an old rogue had to have a little fun. 



[@InfamousGuy101][@Bingelly][@Dyelli Beybi]