Fateful Lightning

by William R. Forstchen

  The air was heavy with the damp sodden smell of smoke, almost unpleasant, slightly reminiscent of a rainy autumn day.

  Five hundred men dead today. He’d miss Showalter. He had wanted to be another Jeb Stewart. He had his wish; Jeb dead at Yellow Tavern, and Showalter dead on the Kennebec. They wouldn’t even get a decent grave. He pushed the rest of the thought aside.

  Over by the telegrapher’s booth the station dock ticked away the seconds, pendulum swinging slowly back and forth, marking off the eternal passage. Bringing closer the inevitable.

  If they rode hard, advanced scouts might make it here by tomorrow night, the rest of them within another day, two at the outside.

  A snap of lightning flickered overhead, thunder booming, the rain redoubling.

  He reached over to a wall peg and grabbed hold of his poncho. He clumsily worked it over his head, again painfully aware of just how difficult so many things were when you had only one arm. Poncho on, he took his kepi hat and pulled it low over his eyes.

  He looked back at Pat and Emil and smiled.

  “I’m going home to Kathleen, taking the rest of the day off. It’ll be the last for a while, I guess.”

  Emil nodded his agreement, and Andrew went out the door and into the swirling storm.

  “How’s he holding up?” Pat asked, motioning for Emil to pour another drink, which the doctor reluctantly did.

  “As well as is to be expected. The death of Showalter and his boys hit him hard.”

  “It always hits hard when you’re responsible,” Pat said quietly.

  “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be,” Emil said, grabbing hold of an empty mug and pouring out the rest of the flask for himself.

  Pat sighed, leaning back in his chair.

  “I wish we had another six months to get ready. But I think, good doctor, that the game is up and Andrew knows it.”

  “We’ve been waiting for this for a year, running for nearly three months, ever since the Potomac. In a week, two weeks, it’ll be over with, one way or the other.”

  “And you know which way that’ll be.”

  “I’m not sure,” Emil said, his voice low. “The boys know what’s at stake,” and he nodded toward the poster nailed to the wall, showing the infamous massacre at Suzdal. “We still might beat the bastards.”

  “Well, we gave ’em a run for it,” Pat replied with a low chuckle. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, or even a ticket back to New York. Me, a corps commander, high and mighty like Hancock or John Reynolds, blessed be his memory, and a good fighter he was.”

  Pat looked into his mug and then drained the rest off.

  “We’ll give ’em a fight here to be sure, and when we’re gone they’ll wish the hell they’d never seen the likes of us.”

  “You honestly believe it’s finished?”

  “Who wouldn’t?” Pat said with a laugh. “But what the hell, it’ll be fun while it lasts, and in a week I expect to be in the best damn fight since Gettysburg.”

  Chapter 9

  How much longer he could stand this pace he wasn’t sure. But at the moment he honestly didn’t care. After all, who needed sleep?

  Chuck Ferguson leaned on his elbow and looked down at her. She had drifted off to sleep, the moonlight slanting in through the window of his cabin, her olive skin shining, now pale, glowing.

  After the storm of yesterday evening the heat had returned. By the following afternoon even the forest was hot, sweltering, mosquitoes rising up and plaguing the work crews. The cabin was still warm, and in their mad insane lovemaking they had kicked the wool army blanket off the bed.

  She was stretched out naked beside him, her full breasts rising and falling softly. He ran his hand lightly down her side, resting it for a moment on her rounded buttock. He felt the stirring again. Just looking at her was more than sufficient.

  She sighed, moving, arching her back to snuggle up closer, taking his hand in her half-dreaming state and moving it back up to cup her breast.

  He considered waking her up, to begin again.

  He looked over at the clock. No.

  He kissed, her lightly on the nape of the neck and slid out of the bed, pulling on his faded blue wool army trousers and a loose-fitting Rus tunic. He wanted to check on the repairs and relaunching of Yankee Clipper II. The crew had been working nonstop, the ground crews from the two lost ships helping out.

  A mission was about to take off, Yankee Clipper, along with four of the five other remaining ships, going out on a desperate gamble. There wouldn’t be any more of them built while the war lasted, for the supply of silk had been totally used up. If a balance wasn’t made between the two sides, and damn quick, the Merki would rule the air, a situation that could be disastrous.

  Pulling on his boots, he slipped out of the cabin, gently closing the door. Over at the sheds, on the far side of the clearing, the first of the ships was already out of its hangar, glowing in the moonlight. Chuck walked up to it, looking at it with awe. “Star of the West” was emblazoned upon its side in Cyrillic and Roman characters. Magnificent, but only the beginning.

  He had taken to watching the flight of vultures that hovered above the clearing, and ducks down in the marshy ground near the Sangros. Something about the way their wings seemed to curve had set him to thinking. When this damn war was over he’d take the time to experiment a bit.

  The two-man crew, looking hot in their heavy canvas coveralls, goggles pushed up on their foreheads, were walking around the ship, checking it one last time.

  “Everything ready?” Chuck asked.

  The pilot nodded, saying nothing. Chuck stepped back and left him alone. Chuck could well understand the man’s fear and tension.

  The ground crew looked equally concerned. It was a strange bond, the men loving their ships, watching anxiously as they lifted up, waiting nervously through the long hours until the return, raising their gaze to scan the sky, rushing to the watchtower when the lookout announced a ship coming in. After the landing they’d barely listen to the pilot excitedly pouring out a description of the action, looking instead at their ship, almost angry when the pilots brought back a shot-up vessel, as if a child of theirs had been recklessly put in harm’s way. And when a ship didn’t return they would continue to wait, sitting alone outside the empty hangar, as if their giving up would somehow be a confirmation that hope was gone.

  Chuck walked away and headed for Yankee Clipper's shed. Red flags, which looked black in the moonlight, were posted around the hangar, warning that the ship was still being refilled with hydrogen, a small caloric engine air pump, outside the hangar, chattering away, sucking the gas out of the vats of zinc and sulfuric acid, feeding the gas by a canvas hose into the ship inside the hangar. Except for the explosion-proof miner’s lamps the building was dark.

  He knew that according to Andrew’s rules he was not supposed to be anywhere near a hangar when a ship was being gassed up. He ignored the flag and the sentry and went in anyhow. Petracci stood to one side, Feyodor beside him, hands in their pockets, watching as the balloon slowly started to hover.

  “How’s it going?” Chuck asked.

  “Closing the hose off now,” Feyodor said.

  “The patches?”

  “I guess they’re all right,” Jack said, his voice flat and calm.

  “Gas line’s clear. Bringing her out!” The shout echoed from the back of the shed.

  Chuck stepped back as the ground crew started to walk forward, the ship hovering above them, the detachable wheels under the ship barely touching the ground.

  The nose emerged into the light of the twin moons, which shone dull and red on the eastern horizon. The cab rolled past and finally the tail of the ship, and the three walked out after it. The clatter of the pump was silent, the clearing ghostly. The other four ships were already outside, engines running. They moved into the center of the clearing past the red flags around the hangar, and the Rus ground chief moved up to the caloric engine mounted at the stern of the wi
cker basket. Striking a match, he lit the pilot. The crew waited as Feyodor joined the crew chief, the burner flashing to life as he opened up the fuel line, kerosene rushing in, igniting.

  After several minutes, Feyodor pushed on the flywheel. The engine kicked half over, then the engine hesitated, went through a full cycle, and started into a steady run. Chuck noticed that the ship was rising up slightly, the hot exhaust from the engine filling the center bag, helping to provide additional lift along with the two gas bags set fore and aft inside the long sausage-shaped ship. The ground crew were leaning into the ropes.

  Jack broke away from Chuck’s side and took a final walk around the ship, looking up at it, standing back to examine the patches that had been stitched over the dozens of holes from the enemy canister rounds.

  Chuck walked up and joined him.

  “Thought it’d take three, four days to fix her,” Jack said quietly.

  “You had two additional crews from the lost ships on her.” He silently cursed himself for mentioning the fact.

  Jack nodded, his features tense.

  “Scared?”

  “Shitless,” Jack whispered, looking over at Chuck and forcing a sad smile.

  “How long do you think it’ll take?”

  “It’s been calm since the front passed through. I hope there’s no weather. With luck a tail wind will kick up on the way back. Maybe a day, maybe thirty hours.”

  “You could have taken the shorter run. Nobody would have thought less of you,” Chuck said.

  Jack shook his head. “I’m the senior pilot, it’s my job,” he said. “Hell, I’m the one that thought of the plan in the first place, goddam me.”

  “We’ve got full lift.”

  Jack nodded to the crew chief.

  “Good luck,” Chuck said, extending his hand.

  “Bad luck to wish an aerosteamer pilot luck,” Jack said, looking at Chuck as if he had committed a heinous crime.

  He had noticed the rituals and jargon that were already developing among the small team of pilots, who died almost as quickly as they and their ships were launched. The crew of China Star had survived only their half-dozen training flights and one combat mission before going down, and Flying Cloud’s crew had survived barely ten days of flying. The unfortunate two in Star of the East had died on their first solo when the ship caught fire and exploded. Jack, with over sixty flights, three kills, and one crash, all in less than three months, was considered to be almost godlike in his invincibility.

  “Time to go,” Jack said quietly, and taking Chuck’s hand he shook it, his grip loose, almost rubbery. He went up to the ship’s basket and climbed in.

  “Cast off all lines!”

  The ground crew stepped back, releasing their holds. The ship slowly started to rise straight up, an easy launch in the dead calm of night. As the ship reached fifty feet, the propeller hummed to life and the ship started to move, nose pointing up, turning to the south. The second ship, Star of the West, cast off, rising up, and a moment later China Wind and Republic drifted up to join their comrades, engines humming to life, Star of the West turning to follow Jack, the other two turning north, followed by the last ship, California Clipper, its crew going out on their first battle flight. The thumping of the propellers died away, the air becoming still, the excitement of launch gone.

  The ground crews stood silent, looking up into the night sky, and slowly wandered back to the hangars to wait.

  Chuck turned and started back across the clearing to his cabin. Perhaps he could catch a brief nap before going up to the rocket factory. But then again…

  Whistling softly, he followed the path up to his cabin, noticing that a lantern was shining within. She must be up, he thought. He heard low voices, one of them angry.

  What the hell? He quickened his pace and pushed the door open.

  Olivia sat on the bed, eyes wide, blanket pulled up to cover her body. John Mina sat at Chuck’s desk, two officers behind him.

  “What the hell are you doing here like this?” Chuck shouted.

  “I should ask what the hell you’re doing,” John said.

  “Goddammit, get out of my house.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure this is your house anymore.”

  Chuck ignored him, turning back to Olivia.

  “Are you all right?”

  “They just came walking in,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “We apologize for that, sir,” one of the Rus officers said. “We came in here looking for you.”

  “Get out.”

  John stood up and looked at the couple.

  “I’m sorry to have embarrassed the lady,” he said, a note of sarcasm in the way he said “lady,” and he stepped out of the cabin.

  “Get dressed,” Chuck said, and she grabbed his hand.

  “That’s Mina, isn’t it?” she whispered.

  Chuck nodded, suddenly feeling queasy and slightly weak-kneed. John’s barging in like this could only mean that he was already in a towering rage.

  “Wait here.”

  Chuck stepped out of the cabin and closed the door behind him.

  “I’m placing you under arrest,” John snapped, turning on Chuck before he was even through the door.

  “What the hell for?” he asked, angry with himself that his voice was shaky.

  “Disobedience of a direct order, malfeasance, insubordination, embezzlement, and theft of government property, for starters. I’ll think up half a dozen more charges on the train ride back to Hispania.”

  “John, be reasonable,” Chuck said.

  “General Mina to you, Lieutenant Colonel Ferguson.”

  “Goddammit, John we started out as privates together, so don’t pull this petty rank business on me.”

  “Well, damn you, it stands now,” John roared. “I’ve known something was wrong for weeks—workers listed as deserted, trains mysteriously pulled for repairs, powder by the ton unaccounted for. I come up here to look around and I find that!” He pointed up the path toward the hidden rocket factory.

  “How much have you stolen?” he demanded, and he stepped closer, his nose almost touching Chuck’s. “Ten tons, twenty? How about fifty?”

  “Somewhere around there,” Chuck whispered.

  “Damn your hide. A ton of powder is eighty thousand rounds. We’re short by millions.”

  “Even if you had it, the problem is casting rounds and wrapping them, not the powder.”

  “Don’t argue with me, damn you. What about the workers? I need ten thousand more rifles, better yet forty thousand to replace all the smoothbores. I need everything. Everything, and here you’re building your own little empire. Damn you! God damn you to hell!”

  His words started to slur into an incoherent scream, the explosion of months of tension at last finding a release. One of the two aides stepped up to John’s side as if to restrain him, taking hold of him by the shoulder. John pushed the man off, turning, his rage switching in an instant from Chuck.

  “Calm down, sir,” the man said quietly.

  “And you go to hell too, all of you. I’ve had it, goddammit, I’ve had it with everything!

  “I’ve been getting the blame for months, and it was you who was wrecking everything, you bastard. I ought to blow your brains out, and your whore’s too while I’m at it.”

  He started to reach for the revolver in his holster, and one of the two aides was instantly at John’s side, grabbing hold of his arm.

  “Please, sir, he isn’t worth it,” and as he spoke he quickly pulled the revolver out of its holster and tossed it to the side of the cabin.

  “God damn all of you!”

  John turned and staggered off, his voice breaking into a convulsive sob, the one officer following him.

  “You’d better come with us,” the aide whispered, looking nervously back at John.

  “He’s mad,” Chuck hissed, shaken by what he had just seen. He had believed for an instant that John was going to shoot him down. “The hell with you. I’m stayi
ng here. I’ve got work to do.”

  “Sir, you’d better come with us.” The man’s voice was low but insistent.

  “He’s mad.”

  “Sir, when he saw that factory of yours he threatened to blow your brains out. We won’t let him, but if you don’t come with us quietly…” He fell silent.

  “God damn him, I’ll kill the son of a bitch if he comes near me,” Chuck snapped. “Who the hell is he to break into my home?”

  Chuck turned to go back into his cabin to grab his revolver.

  The captain reached out, grabbing Chuck by the arm.

  “Sir, I’m telling you. According to General Mina, you’re under arrest.”

  Chuck started to pull his arm back, but the man held on, his grip viselike.

  “Please, sir, be reasonable. We’ll go see the colonel. Let him straighten this out. Vasiliy over there,” and he nodded to his companion, “he’ll keep an eye on the general, and I’ll watch out for you.”

  Chuck stood rigid, sensing that this man could disable him with a single blow.

  “Please, sir, be a good gentleman about this. He’ll calm down. He’s had a terrible time of things. Before you know it, you’ll both have a drink over this and laugh,” and a note of peasant deference was clear in the man’s voice, as if he were trying once again to argue sense with an obstinent boyar.

  Chuck nodded. “Keep him away from me,” he snapped, ashamed that he was forced to give in, struggling to appear in some semblance of control, knowing that Olivia was watching.

  “I promise, sir.”

  Chuck looked back into the cabin and saw Olivia in the corner, out of sight of the officer, a short dagger in her hand.

  “It’s all right,” he said in Latin. “Put that thing down.”

  “He wants to kill you.”

  Chuck smiled weakly. “Just a squabble between friends. I’ve got to go see Keane and straighten it out. I’ll be back tomorrow evening.”

  Her shoulders started to shake, and she ran up to him, grabbing him around the waist as if ready to struggle for possession of him.

  The Rus captain looked back nervously to where Vasiliy and John stood in the shadows, Mina still shouting and sobbing. “Please, sir, we don’t want to set him off again.”