FIC: Flyboys, Part Twenty-Five

[jeriendhal]

Three days of frantic work followed after their launch, as a myriad of minor problems cropped up, from the short in the electragram between the forward and aft control cabins to freezing plumbing lines to leaking seals in several portholes, which caused some cabins to be closed off as they rose in altitude, up to twenty-five thousand arms, nearing the record point set over fifteen years ago. But there was nothing to require the great airship return to port, and Rolas was happy to find that the great engines he and his brother had labored over to design functioned perfectly.

Once that Captain Lakewalker was confident in the ship’s health, she authorized Professor Swiftfoot to go ahead with the assembly of her telescope on the specially reinforced platform atop the central passenger cabin.

Which is how Rolas found himself standing in the fading light of day, bent over the frighteningly complex bundles of wiring that connected the clunky electric motors of the telescope’s stabilizers to the ship’s electrical system, trying to get everything hooked up before the sun went down and he was forced to work by the light of a hand torch. It didn’t help that he was doing it in the face of a twenty lengths breeze, as the Queen maintained neutral lift to stay above the clouds. Though there were railings along the edge of the platform and he was wearing a safety harness clipped to a ring on the deck, he was still acutely aware of the great height below, higher than any aeroplane had ever managed to achieve and any slip in safety could prove fatal.

“Are you done yet?” Professor Swiftfoot asked for the tenth time. She stomped her footpads, bound in their mittens to protect them from the biting wind, and stuffed her hands down in the pockets of her padded coat. Rolas tried not to curse as a strand of wiring slipped out of his fingers just as he was about to tighten the connecting screw.

“Almost,” he repeated, grabbing the errant wire. He quickly tightened the screw and flipped the cover shut. “All right, signal down to the control cabin to give us power.”

One of the soldiers standing guard by the telescope mount nodded and tapped on the electragram key clamped to the platform railing. Not for the first time Rolas wondered what the point was of having armed guards on an airship so many arms in the sky. There was a real rarity of sky pirates about, except perhaps in the pages of a pulp novel in a crewfolk’s locker.

“Control cabin reports we should have power,” the soldier repeated.

Rolas nodded. “All right. Ready, Professor?”

“Turn it on, so I can finish having my heart attack,” she said testily.

“Right.” He flipped a toggle switch, and was rewarded by the sound of a slight whine as the motor in the gyroscope revved up to speed. “Ready to release at your word, Professor.”

“Do it,” she said, her face a mixture of fear and anticipation.

With one smooth motion Rolas pulled out the oiled restraining pin that held the telescope in place. The great brass and steel cylinder seemed to start wobbling back and forth, but he knew that was an illusion. It truth it was the deck of the airship that moving, in tune to the vibration of the engines and the force of the wind against its great hull. The telescope itself was perfectly still, pointing up at an angle towards the sky.

“It appears to be working, Professor,” he said.

“Ha! I knew it would! Corporal, tell the captain we’re ready to try for that altitude record!”

In a few minutes the ship’s warning siren sounded and Rolas scrambled to don the heavy leggings and foot pad protectors that would be needed for protection at the chill of the altitude the were attempting. Then, along with Professor Swiftfoor and the corporal, he headed for the shelter of the stairwell leading back into the ship as the Queen of the Skies engines roared and its nose rose up at a 10% angle. At twenty thousand arms the siren bleated again and they donned their oxygen masks, air tanks slung on their backs. The heavy smell of rubber filled Rolas’ nostrils as he kept an eye on the professor, who was breathing heavily and holding onto her stomach.

“Are you all right, Professor?”

“Bit of altitude sickness” she said, her voice sounding tinny and distant in Rolas’ ears. “Got it every time I took the tram up to the observatory. It’ll pass.”

A runner came up to them from the down the corridor. It was Lt. Sharpears, breathing hard through his mask. “Captain’s complements to Lord Rolas and Professor Swiftfoot. She said to tell you that we were at altitude and that you may begin your observations at your convenience.”

“Good, good, finally I’ll be able to get a decent look at this thing!” Professor Swiftfoot declared. She wasted no time in opening the hatch to the platform and stepped out. Rolas followed, clipping his safety line to the railing and then the professor’s when he realized she’d forgotten to. She was too busy fussing over her telescope, double-checking the massive gyroscope that kept the massive device pointing in one direction. Above them, the sky had turned a deep purple, and the first faint stars were appearing through the color.

“Holy Den Mother Bless, it’s beautiful,” Lt. Sharpears said.

“Lord Rolas! I need this damned breeze to slow down!” Professor Swiftfoot shouted.

“On it now!” Rolas stumbled over to the electragram key and uncovered it, tapping in a quick code that went down to the engineer’s board in the control cabin. A few moments later the sounds of ship’s engines began to fade, as twelve of them were feathered and shut down, leaving two fore and two aft operating to keep air running over the control surfaces.

“How far up are we?” Lt. Sharpears asked.

“Nearly forty thousand arms. Much higher and our blood would start boiling in our veins.”

“Ha! There it is!” the professor crowed.

“You see our Visitor, already?” Rolas went eagerly over to the telescope, where the professor had her face glued to the eyepiece.

“Of course not! I just located the Southern Fire.” She pushed in a couple of levers, and over the sound of the wind Rolas could hear the distinct sound of moving clockworks in the telescope’s machinery. “Now that I’ve got that locked in, locating the Visitor is simple.” Though apparently not too simple, as she pulled out a notebook from her pocket and consulted it by the light of a hand torch, then shouted for Lt. Sharpears to get their exact position from the navigation office in the aft control cabin. This led to several minutes work with a slide rule before she rushed back to her telescope and turned several hand cranks. “Where, oh where… there! I’ve got it.”

“Got what!” Lt Sharpears demanded, driven to near distraction by all the incomprehensible activity. “I say, milord. Isn’t this all a bit much for scientific curiosity?”

“Oh, Goddess bless us all, it’s so clear,” the professor crowed, face still glued to her eye piece, writing rapid notes in her book purely by feel. “And it’s not just one ship either. I’m seeing the big one and at least two or three smaller ones, perhaps a tenth of its size. It’s like there’s a bloody fleet of the things. Lord Rolas, give me the photographic plates!”

He opened a wooden locker, pulling out a precious chemically treated glass plate the size of a large book, which he carefully passed over to the professor. She in turn slotted it into the telescope’s camera, pulling the protective box out and leaving the plate in the camera. She opened the lens for a count of ten, then closed it again and slipped the plate back into its box, writing down the time, exposure length, and an arcane series of coordinates on the top of the box with a thick charcoal pencil.

“All right, hand me another plate. I’m going to take a series of exposures with different filters and see if we can determine the thing’s chemical composition in any way.”

“Here you go, Professor.” Rolas quickly handed her another plate after she clicked a filter over the camera lens.

“Ah, let’s see how that looks.” Underneath the hood of her coat, he could see her brow furrow in confusion. “Strange, one of the little ships has disappeared. It couldn’t possibly have moved out of the field of view.”

“Perhaps it’s hiding behind the big one,” Lt. Sharpears offered, laughing slightly. The professor turned to give him a withering look, then went back to her observations. The crestfallen officer then whispered to Rolas, “What’s she looking at anyway?”

“A visitor from another planet who has apparently being spying on us for years and who may or may not want to take over the planet,” he replied blandly, taking the latest plate and handing her a fresh one.

“Oh, haw haw. No, seriously.”

“I am being serious.”

Before the poor lieutenant could form a reply to that, the corporal who had been manning the electragram reported, “Control room reports that engines one, two, fifteen and sixteen are beginning to overheat. They want to know how much longer the professor will be.”

“Ask me in a week!” Professor Swiftfoot called back. “No, a month!”

“Professor, we can drop down and come back up again tomorrow evening,” Rolas said. “That’ll give you time to develop your plates and examine them.”

He heard a distinct growl from the professor, but then she nodded and said, “Tell them we’re done here, then.”

“Very good, ma’am!” The corporal started tapping on the electragram key, while Rolas and Lt. Sharpears began unrolling the waterproof tarp that would protect the precious telescope when they went below the cloud layer.

They had just each grabbed a corner to start pulling it over the 'scope when the deck under Rolas' feet suddenly dropped with a jolt, knocking everyone their tails and making the professor's poor telescope wobble alarmingly.

“What happened!” Sharpears shouted. “Did an engine drop off or something?”

“No, that would have sent us flying up, not down,” Rolas said, grabbing the railing and helping the professor to her feet. “We're still on an even keel. Maybe we hit a downdraft or something.”

“What's that light over there?” Professor Swiftfoot asked. Rolas turned, eyes blinking as a bright light spread out over the deck. It didn't seem to have a source, it was just a thin, bright line in the air, which rapidly widened into a rectangular portal. From the light emerged figures, tall beings, stockily built and hairless...

...grey skinned...

...and walking on what seemed like broken legs.

“To all Vulpine creatures aboard this vessel,” a booming, commanding voice called out. “Listen to the words of your Wise Masters and kneel before the emissaries of the Varn Dominion!”

TBC

Comments

Thank You :-)

[mjkj.livejournal.com]

Thank you for notifying me =)

It is really great - and they not seem to change their way of approach...

But I guess it will take a while until the Vulpine will surrender...

Tsk, just coming on the scene and already demanding worship... tsk.

Looking forward to the next part.


mjkj