He found it was easier to crawl over to the radio rather than walk. He got to the console and pulled himself up. He keyed the send button on the microphone and said, “Mayday! Mayday! This is the dirigible Sky Ship! We are in the water off the Keys! This is a Mayday. Send help . . .” he stopped sending as his mouth dropped. “What the hell is that?” he grabbed the binoculars as they swung on their strap and put them to his eyes. He looked at the ocean and saw a blood curdling sight! The white foam of a submarine as it broke the surface!
“Open hatches!” shouted Captain Ghazi as he ran up the steel ladder followed by sailors. “Gun stations!” he shouted as he stood and raised his binoculars to his eyes. Lookouts climbed the conning tower as a six-man gun crew ran to a fixed gun on the forward deck of the submarine. The gun captain looked up to the conning tower at Ghazi.
“Hold!” he shouted. A hand slapped him on the shoulder and he turned to see General Aziz. The general turned and put his back to the wind as he lit a cigar. He looked bitter and depressed. Ghazi turned to his First Officer who looked through the rangefinder, “Salem,” he said in a determined voice, “the range?” the man turned a knob on the large rangefinder and answered, “One half mile, Captain.”
Aziz lifted the binoculars and said with a laugh, “Look at them! They are smiling and slapping one another! They think they are safe!” He put the glasses down as he drew deeply on his cigar. “This is because they would not listen to me! No, they wanted my brother to head the assault! Fools! All fools! Then he grinned as he shrugged his shoulders, “So now I have to erase his mistake. As I have been doing since we were children, Faisal!” He sighed then turned and asked like a little boy, “So, when do we fire a torpedo at them? I never saw one fired except in moving pictures.”
The submarine commander couldn’t hold back his inner contempt for the high living, politically connected, upper ranks any longer, and said in a tense voice, “Torpedo rafts? You can’t torpedo rafts! They have no hull. Leave this to me - me and the sharks.”
General Aziz looked with his mouth open as Ghazi turned to his First Officer, “Salem, no big gun, the sound may carry too far. Wait until we are close and have the men use small arms.” He turned to the general, “The less noise, the better.”
In the raft, Aziz looked at his wristwatch again and grinned as he saw that, in five minutes, the bomb would blow up, “As I said, Mr. McKee, today you die!”
Although the big ship is rising, she is breaking up fast. The smoke trails her as she does a slow climbing circle. Dan stood and pulled at the steering wheel with all his might as he strained to control the ship as he called on the radio. “Sky Ship to anyone, this is a . . . “ a flash of sparks flew from the rear of the radio compartment and it went dead. “Damn it!” he screamed as he threw the mike down. He watched the sub as it closed in on the people in the raft.
First Officer Beniquez looked up to see where the airship had wandered. He saw a flash of sunlight glint off a ship and squinted to make it out. “Oh my God!” he said to himself almost in a whisper. Then he yelled out to the people in the rafts, “Get down! Everyone get down!”
The airship flew in jerky movements. First the nose rose, and then dipped. She flew straight away from the rafts, then started to turn back as Dan fought to get control of her. “Ohhh,” he said with hope in his voice as it responded to the helm and came around behind the surfaced submarine. Dan now leaned with all his might on the wheel as he tried to lower the airship. “That's it, that's it.”
The submarine had ten men on deck all armed with AK-47 automatic rifles. The First Officer eyed the rafts as they bobbed in the swells. He called out instructions to the gunners. “Thirty meters, hold fire, hold fire,” he raised his arm in preparation to have them fire.
General Nuri Aziz sucked deeply on his cigar as he casually turned to look at Sky Ship, but did not see it. He turned more - and is aghast at the sight of the enormous, burning dirigible bearing down upon them from directly behind. He saw Dan as he stared fiercely at him. Unable to speak, he hit Captain Ghazi on the shoulder until Ghazi turned and saw the looming airship with the tortured Karim who swung crazily at the end of a rope.
Ghazi stared in awe for a moment, then turned and shouted to his Crew. “Behind! Behind! Turn your guns!”
At first the crew just took sight at the rafts and their occupants. Then one turned and saw what the Captain was shouting about. He screamed and pointed up as the others started to turn and see what he was shouting about. All wheeled about, as the big gun crew started to pivot their deck gun to bear on the danger from the sky.
Dan's looked at the pandemonium below as they realized his plan to ram them. “Holy smoke!” he said out loud as the deck gun finished its pivoting, “look at the size of that muzzle!” He ducked as flashes brighter than day told him that the men on the deck were firing their weapons up at him. The glass in the gondola’s front seemed to disappear as shards flew all about the room, and bullets thudded into, and through the thin aluminum gondola. The only thing that saved him was the console in front of him that absorbed the AK’s bullets. He looked up to take a final aim and saw a flash from the big deck gun. A large explosion shook the craft as the panicked men hit the airship’s nose rather than the gondola. They didn’t have time for another shot as Sky Ship crashed slowly into the submarine in a stupendous explosion. The airship and the submarine were joined and just floated along for a second when a huge secondary explosion followed. The airship and submarine became a colossal mass of burning wreckage as the quiet passengers and crew watched in shock from the rafts.
Jennifer started crying as she watched. “Dan . . . Dan . . . I- I have to . . . ”
She tried to get out of the raft. Jim threw his arms around her. “Jennifer, please, remember the girls. Think what Dan would want you to do.”
Jim and Jennifer stood balanced in the front of a raft: woefully searching the waters with their eyes.
Jim muttered, “Please, dear God. Please . . . ”
Suddenly a man broke the surface with a force that said he was deep beneath the waves and reached the surface as fast as he could. Jennifer gasped and Jim shouted, “He's alive!” He slapped Jennifer on her back so hard she almost went overboard.
Dan sucked air into his lungs as fast and deep as he could.
Jennifer waved at him as she shouted, “He's alive! Dear God, thank you! Thank you.”
The sudden sound of a helicopter’s propellers chopping made most of the passengers duck as it made a low pass over them. Jennifer looked at Jim with a frightened look on her face and asked, “Ours?”
Jim squeezed her shoulder as he answered in a shout for all to hear. “It’s a United States Coast Guard helicopter, just sit still in your rafts. We’ll be rescued soon.”
Dan swam past two rafts and held on to the one that held Jennifer and Jim. He panted, “Hi gang. Room for one more?” Jim reached down and pulled him in. “Hon, I’ll never get upset again when the girls say they don’t want a bath.” Dan sat up and saw Colonel Aziz in another raft. He waved to him and said, “Hey Abbie! How’s it going?”
A loud whoop sounded, and all turned to see a Coast Guard cutter coming at them with a white wave at its bow. Another followed as the helicopter went into a hover overhead.
Five minutes later, the first cutter eased itself next to the rafts as the other circled the smoking conflagration less than one half mile away.
Jim called to the cutter as it threw down a line. “Ahoy! Jim MacFarlane owner of the airship, Sky Ship. We were hijacked by a group of terrorists, and that man,” he pointed to Colonel Aziz as Beniquez and Wilcox held him up, “was the leader of the group that murdered passengers and crew.”
A boat was launched from the cutter and a burley guardsman boarded the raft and put a set of plastic handcuffs on Aziz. He stayed in the raft and held him as the others were helped up into the cutters longboat. After they were safely aboard the cutter, a defeated-looking Colonel Abdul Aziz was taken into custody.
> Jim pointed to the other rafts and said, “Would you, please take those people aboard first. After a short time, theirs’ was the only raft left with people in it. Jim and Dan handed Jennifer to the sailors in the longboat then all followed. The boat took them to the cutter and they boarded.
The passengers and crew were wrapped in blankets and had mugs of coffee in their hands as the last person started to climb up.
It was Dan McKee. As he appeared, the Trosses began to clap him aboard. The Neilsons picked it up, then Claire and Jackie; Captain Eckener; Harry Slade; and Levon and Joan all joined in. Dan is bruised and bloodied and trailed bandages. Jennifer ran and gave him a long embrace. He looked at her and asked as he grabbed the mug of coffee that was thrust in his hand, “You okay?”
She smiled, nodded and wiped a tear away. Dan got a blanket from
a Coast Guardsman and put it around her shoulders. A Guardsman threw one around him, too. Dan asked the guardsman, “I need to talk to your Captain, right away. It’s paramount.”
Jim McFarlane is already approaching with Captain Tolleson. “Dan, I've already filled Captain Tolleson in on everything.”
The Captain shook Dan's hand. “Nice work, Mr. McKee. I'm going to place a call to the Pentagon immediately.” He looked at Dan’s bloody hands and shoulder, turned to a guardsman and said, “Sailor, get the Medic! Help this man.” He turned back to Dan and Jim, “You must excuse me gentlemen, I have to report this as soon as possible. I look forward to hearing the whole story before we dock.” He touched the brim of his hat and quickly walked away. The medic started to dab Dan’s wounds with alcohol.
Levon and Joan approached Dan. They shook hands warmly.
“Nice spiral, Levon.”
“Thanks. Now don't forget that lunch we've got planned.”
“I'll be there. And I’m afraid I owe your wife a new bow and set of arrows.”
Joan laughed, “I’m sure it’s a great story.” Joan and Levon went over to a group of happy survivors, nearby.
Dan, Jennifer and Jim turn to watch Sky Ship. Jim took a flask out of his kilt, unscrewed the top, offered it to Dan as he asked, “I was wondering . . . ”
Dan took the flask and a swig of whiskey as Jim continued, “Do you think I might be able to interest you in the position of Security Officer on my new dirigible. I'm thinking of calling it 'Sky King.' “
“Sky King . . . Didn't some cowboy already use that on TV?”
Jim shrugged his big shoulders as Dan took another swig then continued, “Let me see . . . Can you get me a Four-Oh-One-K Plan?”
“Ach Danny Boy! I think I can swing that. Yes.”
Dan passed Jim the flask. “Hmm...Whattayouknow . . . Looks like this is my lucky day.”
The three turn and walk together toward the cluster of passengers.
The End
Other books by Robert P. McAuley
Romance in a Ghost Town
Aviation Facts & Rumors: Book 1
Aviation Facts & Rumors: Book 2
The Dripping Sands Of Time
A New Jersey Yankee In King Arthur’s Court
Vampire’s Bloodline
Time Travel Adventures of The 1800 Club: Book I FREE!
Time Travel Adventures of The 1800 Club: Book II
Time Travel Adventures of The 1800 Club: Book III
Time Travel Adventures of The 1800 Club: Book IV
Time Travel Adventures of The 1800 Club: Book V
Time Travel Adventures of The 1800 Club: Book VI
Time Travel Adventures of The 1800 Club: Book VII
Time Travel Adventures of The 1800 Club: Book VIII
Time Travel Adventures of The 1800 Club: Book IX
Time Travel Adventures of The 1800 Club: Book X
Time Travel Adventures of The 1800 Club: Book XI
Sky Ship Page 20
