by Bryan Young
“We must hurry, Preston,” Renault shouted back to me. “The zeppelins are upon us!”
6
Winded, Renault finally led us to the promised land, that hot and humid sanctuary we’d been searching for: the steam shop.
Sitting behind the workbench was that same, overgrown Frenchman in his soot-stained rubber apron and gloves. Three layers of magnification lenses helped him see the inner workings of my jump pack through the maintenance panel in the top.
As we entered, he made fine adjustments with a pair of tools, too dainty for his meaty hands, on the inside of the access panel.
It would have been a miracle if he had fixed it and fueled it in time for me to save the day. Seeing him still working on it, fine tuning it, worried me.
As we stepped further into his domain, the steam-master’s head raised up to look at us. Through the magnification lenses, his eyes seemed ten times their normal size and grew even wider with his surprise for seeing us there. “Quels sont vous deux fais ici?”
Ignoring the question I barely understood anyway, I leapt for the table and set my grasp around the massive pack. Checking the gauges and dials, I closed the panel he’d opened to adjust, and then turned the whole pack to its side. There, the gauge for the peroxide read full.
“You filled it? Filled?” I said.
As he moved the magnifiers from his field of view, what I was asking must have seemed strange to him.
“Uh...Filled. Rempli?” he said.
“Rempli? Oui. Oui.” I nodded my head. “Rempli.”
Nothing could guarantee he’d filled it with the proper combustible concoction, but that was the least of my concerns. Tossing the straps over my shoulders, I felt the heft of the pack weigh me down considerably, an ironic contrast to what it could do. I fed the control wire down the front of my blue coat and pulled the controller out through my sleeve and neatly into my left hand. Buckling the straps across my chest, I glanced around the work bench, looking for a pair of goggles since mine were who-knows-where.
“Goggles?” I asked, making glasses with my fingers over my eyes.
The wrencher pointed to his magnifying array, peeling them off his face and offering them to me. “Vous avez besoin de ces?”
“No. No. Goggles. Uh…” I searched my mind for the phrase, remembering it wasn’t just one word. “Lunettes protectrices…?”
“Ah. Lunettes protectrices. Oui.” He reached down below the level of his workbench and withdrew a grimy pair of goggles. Each circle of glass was smaller than I was accustomed to when I flew, but I didn’t care. I just needed to be able to keep my eyes open, and this pair would work out just fine.
“Thank you. Merci beacoup,” I said as I snatched them from his mitts, pulled the rubber strap over my head, and fixed them to my face.
“You’re not serious...?” Renault said.
Knowing how ridiculous I looked, I couldn’t blame him.
I shrugged and drew my pistol. “It’s the only way.”
Angling my way out of the sweaty steam shop was no easy challenge with the added width of the pack, but I made it, stepping back out into the ever dwindling twilight outside. The zeppelins had only grown closer to the French position, and the din of the battle being waged grew deafening. Grenade and mortar explosions added thunder to the constant sound of gunfire.
I found a corridor in the trench suitable for my departure and braced myself. If I’d learned anything over the course of my time jumping in the 5th Aeronautical, it was that your trajectory was determined by the angle of your body and your back as you launched. I was accustomed to arcs over the fight. It was a delicate calculation, which direction to head on lift-off, then when to cut thrust, re-angle your body, and begin your descent on the enemy.
Thinking back on my training, I wasn’t sure my plan would work. I wasn’t going to adjust my thrust and aim to control my arc; I was going to gas it the whole way up. Hopefully my precious sixty-three seconds would be enough to get me onto the running boards of one of the zeppelins, and I’d be able to find a way to bring them down. Otherwise, I’d fall to the earth like its most foolishly heroic rag doll.
Mentally, I ran down a quick checklist of everything I needed to worry about and everything I should have but didn’t. First, I wasn’t sure if my jump pack could handle the stress of a trip that long as it was, let alone with the damage and “repairs” done in the local steam shop. I could explode in a fiery ball of death the second I ignited the engine.
Then, I was without all of my padding and armour. I was going to be a sitting duck up there in the air, the biggest, brightest target in the sky for the Germans. And I’d be freezing to death the higher I got.
Fortunately, my plan called for me to be moving very fast, so my window of dying by bullet or cold was fairly narrow. Just over a minute, anyway.
But all of that reminded me of another thing I didn’t have: an entire cadre of Aeronauts to jump with. I’d be the only target.
None of that mattered.
The only thing that mattered was that I could do something about the situation. If I played things right, and my jump pack didn’t kill me, I could save far more lives than mine was worth.
Hunching over and aiming my body in the general direction of the zeppelins, I took in a sharp breath and fingered the controller in my left hand.
I let out the breath, wondering what it was I hoped to accomplish. They were halfway over the divide between their forces and ours; there was no time to hesitate. I inhaled another quick breath and engaged the thrust.
I was instantly stricken by the force of gravity, pulling my intestines down into the pit of my middle. If they could have, I’m sure they’d have found their way down through my legs to explode out my feet.
I did not combust into a ball of flames straightaway, and for that I was grateful. In no time, I was above the fight, praying I would go unnoticed. The longer I remained simply a speck in the distance, the longer I went without being a target, and that suited me just fine.
And from the looks of it, the battle was not going well.
Like insects swarming a hill, the gas-masked Germans were beginning their rise over the wire, timing their offensive like a fine Swiss clock. Glancing up at the zeppelins, it was easy to see they would reach the French line long before the soldiers, who would march into a battered and broken opposition.
My fingers began to lose feeling to the cold and there wasn’t much I could do about it. It was too late for gloves.
I tried to look down at the battle from the perspective of the birds, putting the cold out of my mind. I’m not sure I realized it until that very moment, but seeing things from the air allowed me a layer of separation, a wall of objectivity. I could watch things happen below, and they seemed impersonal enough for me to rationalize all the stupid things I’d be called a hero for.
By the time I reached the mid-point in my mile-high ascent, I began to think I’d made a very severe mistake. My pack sputtered and I lost climb and altitude momentarily. My heart leapt from my chest and the contents of my stomach almost evacuated through my mouth. Gazing down at the fall that would certainly turn me into a bag of mush and bone, I was relieved to find the problem was nothing more significant than a bit of air in the line.
Upward thrust resumed and I was delighted I would indeed meet my imminent death up in the air instead of down on the ground.
It took incredible amounts of willpower to force my head up so I could look at my target instead of the battle raging below. That’s when I was rocked from my left by an explosion. The concussive force knocked me to the right, just enough off course to have me worried.
I couldn’t turn to see where the explosion had come from, but it was easy to guess. The French artillery battery knew the score. Since they had no idea I was up there, risking my neck, they were doing everything they could to take the zeppelins down on their own. Through the howl of the wind and over the whoosh of the pack, I could hear more bullets and explosives buzzing throu
gh the air and sailing ineffectively toward the airships.
The zeppelin grew in size for every inch closer to it I flew. It was monstrous, dwarfing the size of any engine of war on the ground. Even the great tanks, belching thick columns of coal and steam behind them, were tiny compared to the might of the flying machines. The metal canisters of mustard gas beneath the zeppelin were bigger than the transport that had brought me to this part of the country.
By the time the alarm buzzers blared on my pack, telling me to land, I could see inside the crew deck of the zeppelin. German officers swaggered back and forth through the glass, adjusting dials and pushing buttons. The captain stood at the wheel like an old boat master, staring out over an empty sea of twilight sky.
The outer decks were what I’d aimed for. Around the windows of the glass crew compartments were metal walkways with waist high guardrails that looked wrought from iron, but must have been a much lighter alloy, given the height. With just a few feet between me and the planks, I reached out with my right hand, hoping I could grasp one of the guardrails so I’d be able to pull myself over the ledge, but I still didn’t have enough height.
Rather than loosening the thrust, like the pack’s alarm begged me to do, my left thumb smashed down on the gas button, gripping it to the point of spasming muscles in my wrist and arm. My jump pack whined in protest, but I hovered closer and closer to the side rail of the zeppelin. My right hand reached out and I was sure my fingers brushed the railing, but I could no longer feel their tips.
The pitched mewl of the contraption on my back melded with the landing alarm, spelling doom for me if I couldn’t gain a purchase on the airship.
“Just… one… more… inch…” Stretching my frozen hands toward the rail, I pulled myself by my fingers another inch, then three, then five, and I was finally able to clench the railing with my right hand. I let go of the thrust with my left and swung my arm up for the railing as well, working as fast as I could in that split-second before my momentum reversed.
The engine stopped completely, and I felt my weight tugging at me for the first time in what seemed like an hour, pulling me down toward the ground.
Gravity had it out for me.
My arms strained and burned through the cold, holding me up a mile in the air, dangling over the battlefield like a kite. With both hands firmly attached to the German flying machine, I worked to pull myself over the rail, first with my left leg, then the other, and collapsed down on the metal grate of a walkway with gratitude in my heart.
I rose to my feet, but kept myself crouched low to the walkway while I unstrapped the jump pack from my back. It was too bulky and awkward for infiltration. I would have liked to have had it in case I needed to make a hasty ejection, but I was close to out of fuel as it was.
It would merely slow my death instead of putting it off entirely. If I was going to die, falling, screaming through the night sky, smashing into the ground, I wanted it to happen as soon as possible.
The thought of a fall from a mile up forced a shudder from me. Refusing to let that thought take root in my mind, I closed my eyes and took a breath, trying not to look down through the grated gangplank.
Now that I was aboard the German airship, the easy part was over. All I had left to do was overpower the entire crew and bring the zeppelin down.
Simple, right?
7
The whizz-clang! of a ricocheting bullet reminded me I had bigger things to worry about than escaping with my emptied jet pack. Raising my pistol in my right hand, I swung around, ready to shoot at who ever was shooting at me.
But there was nothing behind me.
Another echoing ricochet forced a squinting wince from me. The bullets weren’t coming from around me, which is why I didn’t hear gunshots but the bouncing of the rounds from below on metal moorings of the zeppelin. As far as I could tell, no one on board had noticed my infiltration.
It was the French troops below, firing up wildly at the zeppelins from the ground. At that range and speed I was impressed any of shots made it all the way up to the German airships with any force whatsoever.
Peeking my head over the railing and looking through the windows of the control room, I could see the crew going about their business as usual. The Kaiser’s men, safe inside the flight deck, were clearly unconcerned with the possibility of any damage occurring from below. If they could hear the worrisome bullet hits, they made no show of it. They stood there smugly, wearing all the arrogance I’d known in German soldiers as easily as they wore their ribboned dress uniforms.
Crouching low, keeping out of the sight lines of the flight crew, I pressed myself up against the low metal wall, just below the observation glass of the flight cabin.
I had flown six-thousand feet in the air to stop a zeppelin, and when I got there, I froze, realizing I had no idea how. What business did I have trying to take down something so massive and clearly above me?
Taking in a few deep breaths and clutching my pistol, I calmed my nerves and gathered my resolve.
The warship wasn’t going to crash itself.
Remaining on my haunches, I made my way to the back of the walkway that led to the door of the navigation compartment. I was lucky no guard was posted there, as each of the men on the exterior of the airship were stationed around the rear bombing compartment, raining bombs down on the French. They were too busy to notice me.
I tried the knob of the flimsy wooden door to the flight cabin, but found the Germans weren’t entirely stupid. Though there was no guard at the door, it had been locked.
I imagined them in there, on the other side of the door, knowing I was out there, waiting to come in. They wouldn’t want to fire at me, for fear of igniting the gasses that kept them aloft, but they’d all have bayonets fixed on their rifles, ready to gore me to death the second I kicked open the door.
Like a bull in a fight.
And like that dying bull, what a fight I would give.
I stood upright, clenched my jaw, balled my left fist, and clutched the pistol in my right hand. Taking half a step back, I raised my booted foot and kicked it through the door. It splintered at the middle, swinging open wide, giving me a perfect view of the deck.
Four crewmen, two on each side at the navigation stations, pushed buttons, pulled levers, and read lights and gauges. The captain stood in the middle at the far end of the cabin in front of the rudder wheel, his hand lightly on it, delicately guiding the airship on its course.
The heads of all five swiveled to see me and the commotion I’d made. Since they were too perplexed to react to my assault, I was able to fire off three shots, killing two before anything else happened.
The first shot hit the captain of the vessel and sent him sprawling backwards against the rudder wheel. He hit it hard with his back and slid down to the ground with a thud. The second shot missed, shattering a pane of glass between the captain and a helmsman on the right. The third shot took that same helmsman in the chest. He slumped over in place.
With the glass shattered, the compartment was flooded with the rush of air coming at us, blowing paper and maps across the compartment. I knew from my ascent that the glass at the front of the cabin had no walkway beneath it. It let out over the open terrain a mile down. It made me feel exposed and ready to fall, though I was across the room.
The other crewmen, two on the left, one on the right, scrambled for their own pistols.
I shot twice more at the crew member fumbling for the gun on his right. The right half of his face exploded, starting at his twirled mustache, spraying the contents of his head across the spic-and-span navigational console he’d been manning.
The two to my left, the map team, were close to having their pistols drawn.
I had to keep them off balance if I was going to live long enough to change the course of the battle. I tossed my empty pistol at one and moved in quickly, charging the other like he was the matador behind my torment. Getting low and leaping forward like a spring, I pounced into his mi
ddle, stealing his wind with an “oof!”
Locked in a tackle, we rolled over the back of his chair, knocking into his compatriot who didn’t know if he should shoot or join into the fray.
His hesitation was his mistake.
With a sharp knee to his groin, I temporarily disabled the one beneath me and scrambled for the one still standing. From his point of view, this must have seemed entirely unexpected, because, before he could react, I’d already thumped his kidneys twice and toppled him to the floor beneath me.
I’d never been locked in mortal combat with my bare hands before, and my guess was neither had these navigators. How were we supposed to finish things? Punch each other until one of us stopped moving?
I didn’t have time for that.
Summoning a violence of spirit I was disappointed to find inside me, my attacks grew more vicious. Landing a blow on his face finally stunned the poor bastard.
Another shot to his face broke his nose, and a third split his lip. The fourth, fifth, and sixth hit to his face were a blur.
My blood was up and, for a moment, I thought I could end the entire war right then and there.
I was no longer me, and not even the rampaging bull anymore, but transformed into some sort of American black bear in a floating forest, roaring and screaming, pounding my prey into submission like a wild animal.
So all-consumed by my rage, I hardly noticed the other navigator on my back, doing his best to pull me off of his compatriot.
There was no telling if the man below me, whose face I’d turned into mush, was dead, but he certainly wasn’t putting up a fight after this. That’s when I noticed the arms around my neck, yanking me upward to my feet. Reaching up and over my head, I grasped my attacker’s head and pulled it down into me. I heard the crack and pop of bone, though I knew it wasn’t fatal because there was still fight left in him.
