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Title Page
Airship Down
Excerpt from Iron & Blood
More from the Authors
About the Authors
Airship Down
A Storm and Fury Adventure
by Gail Z. Martin & Larry N. Martin
ISBN: 978-1-939704-43-6
© 2014 Gail Z. Martin & Larry N. Martin. All rights reserved. This story may not be retransmitted, posted or reused in any way without the written permission of the author. Airship Down first appeared in the anthology, Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs. Aliens from Zombies Need Brains, LLC. Cover photo © Atelier Sommerland / ShutterStock.
“Three orbs at three o’clock, over the Homestead Works.” Mitch Storm’s voice carried over the hum of the dirigible’s engines.
“I see them.” Jacob Drangosavich leaned over to speak to the airship pilot, who veered their craft like a black ghost over the Monongahela River. “Get in close,” he said to the pilot. “I want to get as close to the sons of bitches as we can.”
“They match the description of what they sent us out to find,” Mitch replied. “Too far away to see detail. Is the camera working?”
Jacob checked over the camera controls. The Department had outfitted the airship with the best new, secret technology the folks in Rochester could come up with, small cameras that ran on a remote switch, something the agents could operate from the bridge of their airship. “They’re set, if they work,” he sighed.
“And there go the lights,” Mitch said, pointing. As if on cue, the Edison lights that illuminated Carnegie Steel’s flagship factory dimmed to brown, flickering out several times before struggling back to their original glow.
“Same as the other times,” Jacob said, scribbling in his journal with a Waterman safety pen and still managing to get ink on his fingers.
Mitch sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know why you bother,” he said, resignation coloring his voice. “No one will be able to read that chicken scratch.”
“I will,” Jacob replied. “You think it’s bad in English; even my mother can’t read my Croatian.”
“Sir,” the pilot, Captain Nowak said. “The lights are moving.”
Mitch and Jacob dropped their banter and scrambled back to the observation window. “Keep them in view,” Mitch ordered. “Don’t lose them.” Dark-haired and dark-eyed with a five o’clock shadow that showed up at three, Mitch Storm looked like what an adventure-book illustrator would come up with for an army captain and sharpshooter. Mitch was a few inches shorter than Jacob, but what he lacked in height he made up for in attitude. He had a pugilist’s build, all-muscle, and a gleam in his eyes that promised mischief.
“I’m on it,” Nowak replied. He was a good ten years older than either Storm or Drangosavich, with a little gray starting to show in his brown hair around the temples. To Jacob’s eye, Nowak looked more like he belonged at the prow of one of the river barges than high in an airship. He had the rumpled, lived-in look of a man who has spent his life in one cramped ship or another, either on the Oder River in his native Poland, or navigating the traffic on one of New Pittsburgh’s famed three rivers. Instead, a stint in the Navy had landed him in the nascent airship corps, and the Department had snapped him up for their own uses.
The airship’s engines whined as Nowak increased the power, steering their ship above the black ribbon that was the mighty Monongahela River, or as New Pittsburgh locals liked to call it, the Mon. Behind them, the Monongahela and the Allegheny Rivers joined to become the powerful Ohio, which in turn found its way into the Mississippi. Beneath them, the burn-off flares from the Jones and Laughlin steel mill on the south banks of the river reflected off thick clouds of coal smoke from factories that churned out coke and steel around the clock.
“What’d that reporter say it looked like?” Mitch asked. “Hell with the lid off? He got that right.”
Their airship, the Onyx Shadow, glided above the city. From here, the Mon seemed to be illuminated by torchlight, as up and down the river Mitch and Jacob could see the tall flare stacks of one massive steel mill after another.
“Have a care to give those flames a wide berth, or we’ll have big trouble,” Mitch warned.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got them in my sights,” Nowak assured them.
“The orbs are moving faster,” Mitch said. “Keep after them!”
Jacob looked down, and then thought better of it, gripping the railing white-knuckled. “I hate flying,” he muttered. The river bank slipped by rapidly beneath the airship with its rail lines and mill towns, as barges chugged downriver without a care about the excitement in the skies above.
Jacob pushed a stray lock of dark blond hair out of his eyes. He didn’t like his hair as short as regulations called for, or nearly as short as Mitch preferred to keep his. With a long thin face and pale blue eyes, Jacob was well aware he looked like the majority of Eastern European immigrants who had flocked to the manufacturing cities of the Northeast to work in the factories of America. The same slight accent that occasionally prompted a dour look from the Brass made him fit right in among the mill hunks and factory workers, as did his ability to speak several Slavic languages like a native. Like those mill workers, Jacob was tall and broad-shouldered, and hard work had put muscles on his lean frame. He seldom started fights, but often finished them.
Nowak maneuvered the Onyx Shadow through the ever-present smoke. Visibility from the airship’s small bridge waxed and waned, and Jacob fingered his St. Blaise medal, certain they would plow into one of the high brick smokestacks or the steep hillsides that sloped down to the river. The experimental airship moved at top speed, faster than any of the commercial or private dirigibles, thanks to the Department’s top-secret technology and design. It was even faster than the Flying Scotsman locomotive in its best race. That didn’t bear dwelling on, in Jacob’s opinion.
“They’re damn fast,” Nowak said, leaning forward as if it would help the airship gain momentum.
“Can you keep up?” Mitch urged. Jacob had seen that light in his partner’s eyes before, usually just before the two of them created a calamity that tended to include explosions and which required lengthy explanations to their superiors.
“I can try,” Nowak said, his expression set in grim resolve. “We’re still working out the bugs. Not completely sure yet what this baby can do.”
“Do it.” Mitch moved as far forward as the airship bridge allowed, staring at the flying orbs as if willpower alone would narrow the gap.
“They’re heading upriver, like as not toward the Edgar Thomson Works,” Nowak said as he managed the instruments and checked the gauges. Their reconnaissance ship held a crew of five, including Mitch and Jacob. Compared to the bigger zeppelins, the Onyx Shadow was fast, light, and classified, using a combination of rotorcraft and a much smaller gas envelope than the typical airships.
“I’ve got ’er opened wide up,” Nowak said. “With a little luck and a tailwind, we’ll keep them in sight.”
Jacob was torn between heady exhilaration and sheer terror, a common feeling when he and Mitch were in the field. The bridge was humming from the sound of the straining engines, and without feeling or hearing the sound of the wind whistling by them, a glance down made Jacob think that the moving scenery far below them was nothing more than scenes from a praxinoscope projection.
“We’re gaining on them,” Mitch said, with the same raw competitiveness that had made him the Department’s top crack shot three years in a row. He held a portable version of the airship’s cameras and had it pressed against the glass, muttering as he tried to hold it still enough to get a shot of the glowing orbs that danced through the sky.
“I can’t hold
this speed forever,” Nowak snapped. “This airship wasn’t tested for this. It’s fragile.”
“Just a little longer,” Mitch said, never taking his eyes off the orbs. “We’ve nearly got them.”
Jacob could hear the airship’s engines protesting. “Mitch, this isn’t a train. Push a locomotive too hard and you stop rolling. Push this too far and we fall out of the sky. Those rotors need to spin to keep us in the air.”
“Almost there,” Mitch said, in a tone that let Jacob know that Mitch hadn’t heard a word he or Novak had said.
The orbs dipped and swirled toward the massive Thomson Works mill, moving fast. They aligned over top of the mill, and the factory lights and all the street lamps dimmed and flickered, casting the Braddock riverside into near-darkness before the power came back.
“There they go again!” Mitch said, carefully snapping another picture as the orbs began to move again.
Nowak opened his mouth to protest, but before he could say anything, there were two loud bangs from the direction of the engines.
“Abandon ship!” a man’s panicked voice shouted from the speaking tube on the bridge. “Repeat, engines failing, rotors two and three both down, abandon ship!”
“Not again,” Jacob muttered.
Mitch grabbed his parachute and tossed chutes to Jacob and Nowak. He strapped his on almost without looking, then made sure he secured his precious camera inside his leather jacket before heading to the emergency hatch. Jacob grabbed his journal and shoved it into his jacket and zipped it up.
“Wariat! You’re insane,” Nowak shouted. “You’re bloody insane!”
“Get ready to jump,” Mitch said as if he had not even noticed Nowak’s outburst. He yanked open the emergency hatch, and cold wind ripped through the bridge, scattering papers and howling in their ears. The airship was no longer level, slowly sinking towards the river as the two remaining rotors fought gravity. Nowak struggled with the controls, trying to slow the airship’s rate of descent and level it out as much as possible for everyone to clear safely.
“Come on!” Mitch said, grabbing the pilot by the arm and shoving him toward the hatch. “Jump!”
Nowak had the same training Mitch and Jacob had taken, but Jacob bet that the pilot hadn’t needed to use his as often. He went out the hatch pale with terror.
“Jacob—jump!” Mitch shouted, holding tightly to the railing to keep from being pulled out of the airship.
“Magarac,” Jacob muttered under his breath, not bothering to translate. He had called his partner a jackass often enough that Mitch knew at least one word in Croatian. He dove from the hatch, counted silently and pulled the cord, feeling his heart in his throat until the black silk billowed into the sky above him. To his left, he spotted the two men from the engine room, gliding down with their parachutes. He saw Mitch a little ways over, his dark clothes nearly invisible against the night sky, but his face alight with the thrill of the jump.
The Onyx Shadow nosed toward the river, its engines sputtering and three of its rotors now in flames. They had dimmed its running lights to avoid notice, but even so, it would be difficult to imagine that no one was going to notice a large flaming object falling out of the sky and into the swift waters of the Mon. Once or twice, this kind of thing could be explained away with tales of weather balloons or atmospheric disturbances. Too often, and they’d have to call in help to clean things up. Jacob sighed. He should have known the night was going to end this way.
Jacob brought his chute down on a barren strip of land by the railway, not far from where Nowak and Mitch had landed. They wrapped up their chutes, weighted them with rocks and sank them in the river. Jacob shook his head. He had way too much experience with this sort of thing.
Nowak, still cursing in Polish, had gone in search of his crewmen. Mitch already had his camera out. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll track them on foot.”
Jacob opened his mouth to argue and shut it again with a sigh of resignation. There was no reasoning with Mitch when he was like this. The best he could do was to try and keep the damage to a minimum, if it wasn’t already too late for that. Mitch could explain it to the higher-ups. He always did.
“Damn.” Mitch struggled to the top of the embankment, where he had a good view of the massive steel mill. The orbs were gone.
Jacob removed a cigar from his pocket and lit it. “Put that out!” Mitch said. “Someone will see us.”
Jacob shrugged and shoved his hands into his wrinkled canvas jacket. “See what?” he said out of one side of his mouth. “Two jokers walking by the river? We sent the chutes to the bottom, along with the airship. Tomorrow, a barge with no markings will come along and dredge this area, and take out some odd-shaped thing under a tarpaulin. Colonel Falken will hand us our asses when he finds out, you’ll sweet-talk our way out of it, we’ll end up on probation—again—and next week, just to let us know they’re annoyed, they’ll send us out to the Rockies to find that big furry guy—again.”
“I thought we made a deal with him that we’d leave him alone if he didn’t bother the railroad workers?” Mitch said, looking genuinely confused.
Jacob took a drag on his stogie and sent the smoke in Mitch’s direction just to watch him cough and swat the air. “Right now, I’m going down to Birmingham since we’re on the south side of the river and get some decent pierogies,” he said. He said it the way the locals did, ‘sah side’.
“And a beer?” Mitch asked with a knowingly raised eyebrow.
Jacob grinned. “This is New Pittsburgh. A shot-and-a-beer. Iron City.” He took another puff. “See how many people are talking about strange doings over the Mon,” he said, and his accent, usually nearly non-existent, grew more and more Slavic. “Need to know how much damage control is needed. Before we stir up more.”
“You don’t care what I’m going to do?” Mitch retorted.
“Nope,” Jacob said. “Because you’re going to hang around here and get some pictures, telling everyone you’re a newspaper man. Then tomorrow, you’re going to wake me up early and drag me out to Tesla-Westinghouse to see if that boy-genius had anything to do with the orbs,” Jacob added, his gravelly voice carrying even though he did not turn his head.
“You’re angry about the crash,” Mitch said.
Jacob shrugged and kept on walking.
Mitch jammed his hands in his pockets and glared at him. “Who insisted on having parachutes on the airship?” He said. “Me, that’s who.”
“And who made us need to use the parachutes?” Jacob replied drily. “You, that’s who. See you at the house, Mitch. If I win a few hands of cards, I might bring you a bucket of beer.” With that, he sauntered off down the riverside.
At first, he could hear Mitch fuming behind him, but it was all for show. He and Mitch had been partners since the Johnson County Wars out West, only back then, they were green recruits, still wet behind the ears, newly signed up for the adventure of being in the U.S. Cavalry. He took another long drag from his stogie and let it out slow. Adventure. That’s what they called it. Nearly got our asses shot off. Still have some lead in my leg from that one.
By the time Jacob reached the safe house in Shadyside, it was after midnight. The lights were out, and no one responded to his quiet knock. Jacob picked the lock and let himself in, then crept up the back stairs.
“About time you got back,” Mitch said. He had hooded the room’s only lamp so that it could not be seen burning from the street. “I waited to send our report until you came back.”
On the table in front of him sat a clockwork carrier pigeon. It was a mechanical marvel, designed with the ability to fly long distances and return to its home base just like its living counterpart. What set the Department’s ‘pigeon’ apart was the hidden compartment on its steel back into which small objects could be placed.
“I developed the pictures we shot earlier,” Mitch said. “Got in a good photo or two. I had to make them small to fit the bird, but it’s enough to give Falken an idea of wh
at we’re seeing.” Mitch stared at the photos for a few minutes before maneuvering them into the hidden compartment. On the table nearby lay a mobile telegraph switch, and Jacob saw a wire snaking out of the window to the pole outside.
“I think we need to show these to the wunderkind over at Tesla-Westinghouse. You printed extras, right?” Jacob asked.
“Yup,” Mitch said. “Oh, and Falken telegraphed. We’re on probation—again.”
Jacob muttered under his breath in Croatian. “I hear Idaho is lovely this time of year. We might as well buy a cabin.”
“Not a bad idea,” Mitch replied. He turned off the light, opened a window and released the clockwork bird into the night sky with the sound of the rustle of brass wings.
Jacob groaned as sunlight streamed through the window, hitting him full in the face. “Get up, lazy ass!” Mitch’s voice sounded far too chipper given the late night they had put in. “The carriage is coming for us. I brought up a cup of coffee and a roll for you, but you need to get dressed.”
Jacob had barely pulled on his clothing and gulped his coffee before the driver arrived. He grabbed the roll, biting off chunks as he followed Mitch down the steep steps. “No cross words from Mrs. Hanson about last night?” he asked with a mouthful of bread.
Mitch chuckled. “She’s got nothing to complain about. The Department paid to patch up the holes from the last time. You can hardly see where the fire was.”
Hans, their driver, waited with the carriage in the street, a second cowled man beside him. Hans had his cap pulled low over his face, shading his features. Most people wouldn’t look twice at a carriage driver, but if they did, one glance would have made it clear he had been modified.
Half his face was metal, with a mechanical eye and exposed gears—results of a bad explosion a few years back. Likewise his companion kept his visage equally hidden. Hans was still obviously human, but the second man was clearly a mechanical, one of the latest generation of werkmen the Department had begun to deploy. They were loyal, trustworthy, did exactly as ordered, and they did not require hazard pay.
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