1637 The Polish Maelstrom

by Eric Flint

  They might have to do that anyway. But they thought the Magdeburg would choose to come at them. So, they waited.

  Three miles east of Linz

  “The commander orders us to stop and hover,” the radio operator said.

  Moshe Mizrahi had been expecting the order. “Signal the other ships in the line.”

  The radio operator doubled as the airship’s signal flagman. Within seconds, he was leaning out of the stern of the gondola and giving the signals to the other four airships in the Chaldiran’s line. Theirs was the second line in the assault. As before, the first line of five ships was commanded by Mustafa bin Ramazan, aboard the Turnadağ. Moshe could see the Turnadağ’s radio operator making the same flag signals. The action would be duplicated by the lead ships in all four lines involved in the attack.

  Moshe found that an unsettling feature of today’s mission. By now, Turkish artisans had made enough radios to equip every single one of the airships in the Gureba-i hava, as Sultan Murad’s air force was called. The problem was that the radios were quite heavy—that was mostly due to the batteries—and in this mission weight was at a premium. In order for the Gureba-i hava’s gunners to have a reasonable chance of killing the Jooli, they had to fire from within armored turrets. And given that the Jooli had already proven that she was quite capable of killing the crewmen, they also had to be protected with armor. The end result were gondolas so heavy they could only just be lifted off the ground.

  So, only the lead ships had radios—which, to Moshe’s consternation, they accommodated by reducing the armor protecting the crew. Among them, of course, being himself. Rather prominently himself, since he had to guide the airship and that required him to take a position in the front of the thinly armored gondola.

  For the others, signal flags would do. Signal flags weighed very little.

  “So now, we wait,” he said, to no one in particular.

  Airfield just west of Linz

  “About time,” Julie groused, when Dell Beckworth climbed into the turret.

  “Gimme a break. I don’t have a motorcycle.”

  “I offered to get you one. I’ve got a lot of clout with the emperor these days, you know.” It didn’t occur to her just how bizarre that sentence was. In her days as a small-town girl back up-time, the thought that she’d someday have a personal relationship with an actual emperor had never once crossed her mind. Emperors were people who only existed in history books and Star Wars movies.

  “I don’t want a motorcycle. I’m a gun nut with a proper sense of safety, not a lunatic.”

  “You’re just jealous.”

  “That is sooooooo not true.” He eased into his position to her left. “We gonna start with the Remington?”

  “Hell, yes. I’m not a lunatic either.”

  He smiled. “C’mon, Julie. The Karabine doesn’t kick that bad.”

  “Then why don’t you volunteer to shoot it?”

  “I’m not the world’s best marksman.”

  “Markswoman, dammit.”

  “I’m not that either.”

  * * *

  The Magdeburg cast loose from the mast and began rising.

  North bank of the Danube

  About a mile west of the village of Langenstein

  Atop his observation tower, Sultan Murad watched the huge enemy airship begin its ascent. He turned to one of his aides and said, “Inform the troops that the battle has begun.”

  The aide hesitated. Understanding the reason, Murad shook his head. “No, we will not begin the assault today. If our ships succeed in their mission, they will need the rest of the day and much of the night to refit the gondolas for a bombing mission. But tell the men the battle has begun. It will lift their spirits.”

  It might lift their spirits, assuming the Jooli was destroyed today. But since he took Baghdad and Vienna, Murad IV was not very concerned with maintaining his army’s morale. Following the greatest sultan in the Ottoman Empire’s history, the men would absorb a few setbacks easily enough.

  Three miles east of Linz

  “Commander Mustafa bin Ramazan reports that the kâfir ship is coming,” said the radio operator.

  Moshe suppressed the impulse to snarl, I am not blind. All he said was “Signal the other ships in the line.”

  Then he had to suppress the impulse to rap the sheet of metal in front of him with his knuckles. He’d done that once or twice before, when the Chaldiran was on the ground in its hangar. Even then, the tinny sound had been depressing.

  “Armor,” they called it.

  He tried to console himself with the fact that the armor protecting the gunner was quite a bit more substantial. Surely he would be the Jooli’s target.

  Surely.

  Chapter 34

  Four thousand feet above Linz

  Provisional capital of Austria-Hungary

  The airship Preveza, commanded by Abraham Zarfati, was in its usual position in the first of the four lines of attack. The command ships of each line flew on the far left, which in Zarfati’s case meant his immediate superior was the commander of the Turnadağ, Mustafa bin Ramazan. Abraham’s own vessel was the next one over in the line.

  Once the huge enemy airship reached the same altitude as the Ottoman fleet, it began moving toward them, at that same frightening speed Abraham remembered from the year before. Between that velocity and the sheer size of the thing, Abraham had to clench his jaws for a few seconds to keep himself under control.

  In the attack ordered by Sultan Murad the year before, the front line of airships had been armed with nothing but smoke generators. For that reason, the Magdeburg had ignored them and attacked the second line of ships. But it was soon obvious that was not going to be the case today. The Magdeburg was heading directly toward them.

  At least, so it appeared at the beginning. But after a short while, it became apparent that the Magdeburg was angling slightly. It was now headed for the fifth ship in the line, almost at the opposite end from the Preveza’s station.

  Abraham started to sigh with relief, but restrained himself. True, there were no janissaries on the Preveza’s command deck who could have observed the little betrayal of fear. The only janissary aboard was the rifleman, and he was positioned in the gun turret below the command deck. Still, it was not a good idea to get in the habit of displaying any emotions while carrying out the duties of an officer in the Gureba-i hava.

  * * *

  As they had planned, Julie shifted to the first of the two gunports on the right side of the turret. The Magdeburg’s size meant that it could support a much larger turret than the ones on the enemy airships. From reports brought back by spies, the allied forces knew that the small Ottoman turrets only had a single gunport—a wide one which faced straight ahead. The Magdeburg had five: one in the very front and two on each side. That would allow Julie to shift her angle of fire and meant the Magdeburg didn’t have to be flying directly at an Ottoman airship to pose a threat to it. It was their hope that this would prove to be a significant advantage, one that could offset the much greater number of the enemy’s vessels.

  They were about to find out. Two minutes earlier, the pilot of the Magdeburg had shifted course. The enormous airship was now headed directly for the fifth and last Ottoman airship in the first line. Which meant…

  That within a few seconds, from the gunport where she was now stationed, Julie would have a clear shot at the gunport of the first or second ship in the line.

  The second, as it turned out.

  * * *

  Abraham heard the distinctive cracking sound that he remembered well from the year before. The monster had fired.

  But at what? He hadn’t spotted a rifle barrel emerging from the gunport at the upper front of the enemy’s gondola.

  * * *

  The commander of the Preveza hadn’t spotted Julie’s rifle because it was eight feet away from the forward gunport and only a few inches of the Remington’s barrel protruded from the gunport she was using. He simply wa
sn’t looking there.

  The janissary who served as the Preveza’s gunner had spotted Julie’s rifle, just before she fired, since he was looking directly at that gunport. But he wasn’t seeing anything anymore.

  * * *

  Abraham was a bit surprised that his own gunner hadn’t returned the fire. True, he didn’t have a very good angle of fire at the forward gunport of the enemy ship, so it would have been a difficult shot.

  Difficult, but not impossible. Abraham estimated the range as being somewhere between two hundred and two hundred and fifty kulaçs—a kulaç being roughly equivalent to the height of a tall man, about six feet. Between four and five hundred yards, if he used the enemy’s measurements.

  That range was at the edge of performance for the best of the sultan’s rifles and marksmen, but it wasn’t beyond it.

  Perhaps the gunner had decided to save his ammunition for a better shot later. He was using special ammunition, which was expensive and in short supply.

  In any event, it was none of Abraham’s concern. His authority over the airship’s crew did not extend to the janissary in the turret below. The janissaries had been quite insistent that they would not accept being subordinated to zimmis, the term applied to the empire’s Jews and Christians.

  * * *

  Dell was stationed at the first of the two gunports on the starboard side, to Julie’s left. Julie made a note to herself that they needed to come up with a suitable terminology for the things. “First of the two gunports on the starboard side” was at least eight syllables too long under battle conditions.

  Because he was positioned at the port itself, rather than behind the railing in the center of the turret that Julie was using as an arm rest, Dell had a better and much wider view of the whole situation.

  “The next ship’s coming into line, Julie,” he announced. “It should appear in your port any—”

  “I see it. Thanks.”

  This was going to be a more difficult shot. The first airship had been almost completely level with the Magdeburg. This one’s altitude was at least thirty or forty yards below theirs. Julie’s turret was above the main deck of their gondola; that of the Ottoman ships was below. From this angle, most of the enemy gondola was obscured by the gas bag. She could see the ship’s gunport, but didn’t have the clear and straight line of fire into the interior of the turret that she’d had with the first airship.

  On the other hand, the range was a bit shorter. She estimated it at four hundred yards, thereabouts.

  Difficult, but not impossible.

  “This is why I get paid the big bucks,” she murmured. The shot went off an instant later.

  * * *

  The third ship in the first line was named the Krbava, after the Ottoman victory over the kingdom of Croatia at the end of the fifteenth century. It was the third of the six airships commanded by a Jew, Isaac Capsali, a friend of Abraham’s who had recently been promoted to command his own airship.

  Again, Abraham heard the sharp crack! that was the distinctive sound of the Jooli’s weapon. But, again, he could not see what effect it had, if any.

  * * *

  Aboard the Krbava itself, Isaac Capsali was apprised of the effect of the shot immediately. The unmistakable sounds of a bullet ricocheted about were accompanied by a piercing screech. Moments later, the janissary rifleman came swarming up the short ladder into the gondola proper. He was clutching his side above the hip with his left hand, blood oozing out from between his fingers.

  “She’s an afreet!” he shouted. “No human can shoot like that!”

  It took a couple of minutes to calm the man down enough to inspect the wound. Once he was able to do so, Isaac assured the janissary that the injury, however bloody, was not life-threatening. He was able to bind it up and stop the bleeding within a short time.

  Soon enough, he found himself wishing it had been a fatal injury, however. The janissary cursed him for a fool and insisted he had no chance of surviving such a demonic wound. He went on in that vein for some time. And he adamantly rejected any suggestion that he return to his post.

  Eventually, Capsali was able to shut the man up and get him to go back down below. He couldn’t command the hysterical fellow, of course, being a zimmi. But he did point out that regulations required the commander of an airship to write a report after each action, depicting in detail what had transpired. If the sultan discovered that a still-conscious and functioning gunner had refused to return to his post…

  In the end, the janissary was more afraid of Sultan Murad IV than he was of a demon. A wise man, no; but not a complete idiot, either. Perhaps he bolstered his courage by telling himself the afreet was a mere female. That probably didn’t bring much comfort, however. So might a man cast overboard assure himself that the fin cutting toward him surely belonged to a female shark.

  * * *

  For the first time since the battle began, a bullet struck the flank of the Magdeburg’s gun turret. It didn’t hit near any of the gunports, but Dell went to investigate anyway.

  “There’s a good-sized dent here,” he announced. “But it didn’t penetrate the armor. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that from the looks of the indentation I don’t think it hit the armor head-on. If it had…”

  Julie would have shrugged, except the rifle was back at her shoulder. “We always knew any armor light enough for an airship to use wouldn’t stop a high-powered bullet fired straight on. Way it goes. I need you to start spotting again, Dell. I think that last airship in the line will be coming into view soon.”

  North bank of the Danube

  About a mile west of the village of Langenstein

  “So far, My Sultan,” reported the radio operator, “the Jooli has killed one man and injured another. So far as we know, she herself remains unharmed.”

  “And the airships themselves?” asked Murad.

  “Ours remain undamaged in any significant way. So far as can be determined, the same is true of the enemy craft.”

  The sultan nodded and went back to peering through the telescope atop the observation platform. By now, Murad thought he finally had a good grasp of the logic by which the airship battle he was observing was unfolding. It was like watching men wading through mud and trying to club each other with very light and heavily padded cudgels. On one hand, the airships themselves were slow for their size and ungainly. On the other hand, they could only be injured under extremely constrained conditions. Two people firing at a great remove through narrow firing slits, at least one of whom had to be pointing directly at their target for either of them to score a hit. All the advantage was on the side of the defense.

  The problem that remained was that his airships had a very limited lifting capacity. So long as they were armored, the Jooli could do little damage. But the armor was so heavy that the airships could not lift any significant number of bombs. But if they removed the armor to enable the airships to carry out bombing missions, the Jooli would become deadly again.

  The solution was obvious. So he thought, at least—and this was a good time to test it.

  “Tell the second line to advance directly on the Magdeburg. Crowd it as closely as possible. Then tell the third line to bypass that battle and fly directly over the city.”

  He considered instructing the ships of the third line to climb high enough to be out of range of the Austrian rockets, but decided not to. He himself was skeptical of the effectiveness of the missiles, given their inaccuracy. Sooner or later, that would have to be tested, and he saw no reason not to do it now.

  Four thousand feet above Linz

  Provisional capital of Austria-Hungary

  “Relay the order to the rest of the line,” said Moshe Mizrahi, who commanded the second line of airships. The radio operator of the Chaldiran took up the flags and began signaling to the other four ships.

  This done, the commander took a deep breath.

  Crowd the enemy ship. He felt like a mouse ordered to take his fellow rodents to c
rowd a cat.

  The cat was likely to object. And it—no, this one was a she—was much bigger than they were.

  Chapter 35

  Four thousand feet above Linz

  Provisional capital of Austria-Hungary

  Tom Simpson’s voice came into the turret via the intercom that had been installed for the purpose. “Julie, they’re up to something.”

  From her vantage point inside the railing, Julie didn’t have a wide view of what was happening outside, but Dell was positioned right in the front gunport. He practically had his head sticking out of it.

  Hearing Tom’s statement, Dell drew back into the turret and said to Julie, “He’s right.” He moved his hands in such a way as to suggest a ball of dough being squeezed. “The whole next line is crowding in—I swear, a couple of ’em are practically touching—and they’re moving directly at us.”

  Julie frowned. “Sounds like they plan to fire a barrage. Well, insofar as five rifles constitute a ‘barrage.’”

  The intercom had been designed to pick up any voice in the turret, so Tom responded to her immediately. “I don’t think so, Julie—or not entirely. I don’t doubt they’ll fire one or two barrages but what I think they’re really doing is playing football.”

  “Huh?”

  “Football. You know, old-fashioned up-time—”

  “I know what football is, thank you.” Her tone was a tad acerbic. “But you’ll have to explain what you mean.”