Winds of Wrath

by Taylor Anderson

  “I’m honored to haave you aboard, Cap-i-taan Reddy, Mr. Stokes,” he said, then blinked surprise at Silva, who’d already stepped past him to look at things. “I’m Commaander Noor-Kai,” he continued. “I flew with Cap-i-taan Jis-Tikkar off Salissa until aafter Second Madraas.”

  “Then you flew with the best during a damn tough time. The honor’s mine, Commander,” Matt replied. He gestured around. “You have a beautiful ship. I don’t mean to intrude, but I’ve never seen Baalkpan from the air. Chairman Letts said you have a great view.”

  “Truly,” Noor agreed, blinking pleasure. “I believe we haave just enough time to make a loop around the city before returning to Maackey Field. Please, make yourselves at home.”

  “Thanks, we will.” Matt saw Silva start opening access panels and finely finished storage locker doors, peering inside. “Within reason, of course. Chief Silva,” he added sharply, “I told you not to touch anything.”

  Silva assumed a wounded expression. “I ain’t, Skipper! Honest. Nothin’ that does anything. Glory be, Mr. Letts was right. This thing’s differenter from a Grik zep than a Model T from a ’thirty-six Caddy limo! Me an’ Gunny Horn—an’ that dipshit Laney—sorta . . . sat in one o’ those once. In China. Might’a b’longed to a Chinese mob boss ’er Dutch diplomat.” He shrugged dismissively, as if there was no difference. “But it was near as big an’ fancy as this, with little doors on ashtrays wherever you looked; column shift synchromesh, V-16 . . . Boy, it could almost fly too!”

  Matt started to ask how he knew that if they only “sat” in it, but changed his mind. There were rumors that Silva, Horn, and to an ill-defined lesser extent, Dean Laney had—against strict orders that the US 4th Marines had bitterly resented—somehow participated in the vicious 1937 Sino-Japanese fighting in Shanghai. Nobody knew more than a fraction of the story and even now, when it couldn’t possibly matter, Matt hesitated to press the trio for details. All he was sure of was that Silva and Horn had apparently acted true to form and an airplane, Silva’s missing tooth, a little Chinese girl, and a lot of dead Japanese had solidified the unlikely friendship of an Asiatic Fleet sailor and a China Marine—and left them both highly contemptuous of Laney. He now knew a 1936 Cadillac limousine had been involved. He shook his head and stepped forward to look out the windows as Baalkpan Bay rose shimmering out of the jungle.

  It took a few minutes more to see Baalkpan itself. Few buildings, even the older style on pilings, rose higher than fifty feet, but the Great Tree was the only mature specimen of its kind on Borno and it dominated the coast, signifying the center of the city as surely as the Colossus must’ve marked Rhodes on another world. Closer still, huge cranes were visible and the huddled mass of shipping off the docks became individual vessels and not just a dark, blurry island. They flew onward, decelerating and descending, finally rumbling down to less than five hundred feet and almost crawling through the sky. Matt could see everything now, beneath the lizardbirds fluttering and flowing around them in their colorful multitudes: all the shipyards, lumber and mast yards, cable walks, machine shops, woodshops, steel fabrication factories . . . A lot of the really heavy industry had been moved out of the city, for room and security, but Baalkpan was still jumping with activity. New housing for all the imported workers sprawled beyond where the old defensive berms had been and looked a lot like similar suburbs Matt remembered around Manila, though it was probably laid out better here. The “inner city” retained some of its picturesque, prewar charm, though it was considerably diminished. Much along the waterfront had been knocked down to make room for industry, warehouses, and repair yards, but a large cluster of older buildings around the Great Tree and Hall, and surrounding the Parade Ground Cemetery, remained largely unchanged. Like the new construction, however, thatched roofs had been replaced with baked-clay tile shingles. Not only were they more durable, they were less susceptible to drifting embers spouting from stacks above woodburning boilers and furnaces that still ran a lot of things, particularly smaller, nonferrous foundries.

  Looking out at the bay, Matt saw transports and tugs crisscrossing the water, patiently avoiding the fishing feluccas coming and going from the sea. The far jungle horizon on the west side of the bay was smudged with the smoke of more industry, crowding right up against the Baalkpan ATC. He thought he’d had a good idea about how much had changed before, but the true scope had eluded him from the ground. Looking down, he caught a quick glimpse of Walker as Fueen turned to parallel the “old” fitting-out pier before steering east again, and was struck by how small she looked compared to Savoie and Gray, and especially the converted Grik BBs. And she looks so old and tired, he thought with a pang, compared to her newer “daughters,” gathered around her and Mahan as if paying their respects or seeking hard-won wisdom.

  He blinked and stepped to the starboard side of the gondola, avoiding Silva, who’d stooped excitedly to lift the cover of yet another access panel in the deck. “I never seen so many places to hide . . . I mean stow stuff,” the big man murmured admiringly. He looked at the wheel, then back down. “These’re the control cables for the rudder?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Commander Noor replied tolerantly. He knew of Silva’s previous airship exploits and understood his fascination. “You’ll see turnbuckles we caan use to adjust their tension from here, if necessaary. There are maany such around the ship, of course, but we like haaving extra, convenient ways to do a thing if others fail. . . .”

  “Prob’ly shouldn’t be nothin’ else in here then, huh?” Silva interrupted brusquely, bending down. “’Specially just floppin’ around loose.”

  Noor blinked annoyance and approached. “Certaainly not! Any loose object might bind or chafe the cables.”

  Matt was gazing out at the top of the Great Tree, seemingly just below to starboard. Its broad, rounded crest looked like an island in the sky. He was amazed by the variety of lizardbirds and other flitting things infesting it, and wondered if a few of Petey’s relatives had jumped some westbound ships and moved in. They lived in trees on Yap, after all, gliding from one to another or branch to branch like flying squirrels. Either way, now it had recovered, the Great Tree was more alive than he’d ever imagined from the ground. As the central symbol of the United Homes—the leading military partners in the Grand Alliance—he found a kind of comfort in that discovery.

  “What the hell?” Silva abruptly shouted, and Matt turned to see what caused his outburst. He’d opened a leather satchel in front of Commander Noor and both were staring incredulously at an object he’d fished out. Even at a glance, it was obviously a bomb. Two sticks of Sa’aaran dynamite wrapped in red wax paper tubes were affixed to one of their newest Bakelite battery boxes small enough to fit in a “Double E-8”–style field telephone pack. An uncased timepiece with exposed brass workings was secured to a sliver of wood, glued to the battery. Wires went from the battery to the timepiece to the explosive. The instant of confusion wasn’t due to the identity of the object, only utter astonishment at its presence.

  “Throw it out!” Noor commanded, trying to snatch the bomb.

  “In the middle ’o town?” Silva countered, pulling it away.

  “Better thaat, fool, thaan if it brings this ship down on the city!” Noor roared.

  “Relax, Commander.” Deftly, Silva unscrewed the wingnut on one of the battery terminals and lifted the wire. “I just pulled its plug. Safe as a tub toy now.” He glanced at Henry Stokes. “Not that I ever had a tub toy . . .”

  Noor didn’t relax. “All aahead full! Helm, make your course seero, six, seero!” he cried, tail twitching spastically. “Staart your descent,” he added to the ’Cat at the wheel controlling the elevators. “Level off at forty tails, then take us right down to the ground as soon as we cross the Maackey Field threshold.” He lunged past the talker by the aft bulkhead, telling him to repeat what he said next, in the clear, to Mackey Field Control. Uncovering the entire cluster of voice tubes ru
nning all over the ship, he pitched his voice to carry like Lemurians did so well, ensuring it would resonate through every tube. He also managed to subdue any hint of alarm, though his next words doubtless inspired a great deal. “Gener-aal quaarters, gener-aal quaarters, all emergency paarties maan your posts. All haands—and honored paassengers—this is Commander Noor. I regret to inform you thaat we just discovered an explosive device in the gondola. It haas been disabled but there’s no question it was placed deliberately in an attempt to damaage or destroy the ship. I’ve increased speed to return to Maackey Field, but since we caan’t be certain there waas only one device, all haands without emergency posts will immediately search for more. I aask our paassengers to do the same. Look everywhere. . . .” He paused. “Everywhere something the size of a pair of hu-maan shoes might be hidden. Report any suspicious objects at once!” He took a breath. “Paassengers be aadvised: We won’t make for the mooring maast. We’ll go as low as we caan when we reach the field and you’ll evaacuate down the emergency laadders. A detail will jettison the haatches, deploy the laadders, and aassist you. Thaank you. With the Maker’s help, we’ll all soon be safely on the ground.”

  Noor stepped back, took another deep breath, and exhaled. Matt was impressed by his quick, decisive action, as well as by what his orders implied about the professionalism of the Union’s fledgling Airship Corps. Outside, the engines roared at full power and Fueen was beginning to accelerate. Stokes had taken the bomb from Silva and was looking at it with interest.

  “Bloody crude,” he pronounced, hauling his own Impie-made watch out of a vest pocket and glancing at the time, “but all the more effective for it—if the timer hadn’t wound down.” He sighed and looked at Matt. “It’s still tickin’ but it’s lost time. The contact point shows it should’ve blown about forty minutes ago. Even if we survived the crash, we’d be in the jungle about fifty miles from here, with little more than a few pistols among us.”

  “Scout planes would find the crash site soon enough,” Matt said.

  “Yeah,” Stokes agreed, “but with only the one airship, how would they get us before the bunyips an’ super lizards?”

  That was a sobering thought. “You think Giaan’s responsible for this?” Matt asked.

  “Yeah. Him an’ Dupont, maybe. Who else? An’ how better to get what they want? They knock us all off at once, but mainly you an’ the Chairman, the least they get is your war plan outa whack an’ the Union in confusion when she can least afford it. Giaan’d shout ‘traitors in our midst!’ an’ use that to justify pullin’ outa the Union to their people back home, and in our armies. Even if people think they did it, why should they care? They’d act offended an’ use that to the same effect, sayin’ ‘after all we’ve been through, they accuse us?’” He shook his head. “They put their heads together on this, which makes me wonder why they’d leave it all ridin’ on one Impie watch. . . .”

  Matt’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe we ought to go help look for more.”

  Stokes shook his head. “No. We’ll be over the field in minutes. But I think they oughta jettison the hatches on both sides of the cargo/passenger compartment in case the blokes back there need out in a hurry.”

  That never happened, nor would it have helped. Giaan’s saboteur wasn’t in the Navy Clan, or the Air Corps. He was a civilian ground crew ’Cat, employed for airfield maintenance and to wipe bugs off airplane wings. Professing a fascination with the airship, he’d recently joined the crew of line handlers who helped stabilize it at the mooring mast, but was never granted access to Fueen’s inner structure. The army and navy aviators who flew and maintained it were picky about that. He’d occasionally been allowed to enter the gondola and passenger/cargo compartments, however, to keep things “tidied and polished,” and that’s where he’d hidden his two devices. During the frantic search following Noor’s announcement, Alan Letts and Bolton Forester quickly found the second bomb—also under a deck access hatch, and running almost three-quarters of an hour behind—just as it suddenly detonated.

  CHAPTER 19

  ////// Baalkpan, Borno

  Deputy Assemblyperson Giaan and High Sky Priest Nau had crossed the Parade Ground Cemetery and mounted the steps to the Great Hall and Assembly building surrounding the base of the Great Tree a little early. They had every confidence in their plan and knew it wouldn’t take long for a scouting Nancy or training flight to spot a distant tower of smoke and investigate. It probably wouldn’t be long at all before Fueen’s crash site was discovered and the grim news reported. There’d be pandemonium, and they wanted to be seated inside the Assembly room, chatting amiably with colleagues when that occurred.

  They were both surprised to see the great, blue cylinder rumble in from the northeast, apparently intent on overflying the city, and they stood and watched in fearful disappointment.

  “It didn’t work!” Nau hissed at Giaan, his words submerged by the delighted babble around them. It seemed they were the only ones who loathed the unnatural monstrosity that mocked the Heavens. Airplanes were bad enough, but wings were like sails so they vaguely understood them. The great sails on seagoing Homes were called “wings” after all. But nothing seemed to suspend Fueen and that touched an inner terror in some, particularly those already prone to terrors of every sort.

  Giaan tried to remain calm. “Either Dupont’s devices didn’t work, or they were discovered—and the finger of suspicion will point at us.”

  “It cannot touch us, though,” Nau countered, as if trying to reassure himself. The airship was almost overhead now, largely obscured by the broad branches of the Great Tree. It seemed to be circling, as if already pointing its own finger down at them.

  “Our infiltrator was dealt with?” Giaan asked anxiously.

  “Yes. When he went to the appointed place to receive his reward, he . . . accidentally slipped and fell in the bay. The terrible fishes took him at once.”

  Giaan didn’t respond. The great airship was invisible now, completely shrouded by the leaves above, but it was definitely turning. It soon reappeared, and he was startled to hear its engines roar thunderously, louder than they ever had over the city.

  “It seems they are suddenly in a great hurry,” Nau lamented, sure this was proof their plot had been uncovered. Most around them only chattered more enthusiastically, appreciative of the display of power.

  “Put it out of your mind, brother. It never happened,” Giaan said. “If they even reveal their discovery, we’ll be as shocked and outraged as any other. We might still shape even that to our advantage. Come, let’s be seen inside. Be cheerful. Relax.” He glanced once more at the hated symbol of the Union he loathed as it accelerated away, descending rapidly even as it gained speed. It was already several hundred tails away when he saw a curious, smoky flash in its fat belly. He clutched Nau’s arm. “Look!” he cried.

  Smoldering streamers of debris and at least one windmilling body fell from a jagged, smoky opening that had appeared in the bottom of the airship. It seemed a tiny wound, hardly noticed, and the thing surged onward. A few concerned cries rose up, but most of the gathered assemblypersons seemed oblivious. Still watching intently, not knowing what to expect, Giaan saw an abrupt stalk of dark smoke gust upward at the sky, as if from the thing’s broad back, followed almost instantly by a mushrooming ball of orange flame wreathed in an ugly black cloud. Simultaneously, he felt giddy with glee and dread. The crowd wailed in comprehending horror as the flames rapidly bloomed and spread. Imperceptibly at first, but quickly gaining speed, Fueen began to fall. The ship would crash in the city, there was no help for that, but for the first time, Giaan felt genuine regret for his actions when a furtive glance revealed the most likely impact point. Almost directly below the dying dirigible was the Baalkpan Naval Hospital—the largest hospital in the city. “Maker forgive us,” he murmured.

  * * *

  * * *

  Colonel Chack-Sab-At knew he was in a “
funk,” as Silva accused, and he’d been neglecting his duties as well. Particularly to his Raiders. But aside from the fact he’d been in almost constant combat for far too long, lost too many he cared for, and now an unborn youngling and possibly the mate he adored, Majors Enrico Galay, Abel Cook, and Hamish McIntire had thoughtfully made it easy for him to focus on Safir’s well-being—and frankly, his own misery. They’d reorganized the First Raider Brigade and brought it back to Baalkpan, billeted it at the ATC with a big chunk of Safir’s II Corps, and were feverishly bringing it back up to strength. In their concern for him, his officers had left him little to do except mope, and haunt his increasingly frustrated mate.

  His wounded mind and spirit got jolted back in gear that day, with the abruptness of a popped clutch on one of the new tanks. Safir had sent him to get some air—and probably out of her sight for a while, he’d grimly reflected, and he’d joined some ambulatory wounded lounging in the open air on the hospital grounds. It was mostly clear, but starting to cloud up a little, preparatory to the daily squalls, and he’d been talking to Pam Cross and a few wounded Raiders when Fueen flew over the city. They were still there, talking a little less and watching the great airship thundering lower toward them when it suddenly exploded and began to fall. Mind reeling in horror, Chack first thought it would drop on the hospital, but even as the malignant flames raced fore and aft to consume the huge ship, pulsing with fire and a sky-blocking billow of smoke as hydrogen bladders erupted, he saw its rudders had kicked hard left and it was starting to turn to the north. That only helped because Fueen fell rather slowly at first. Despite her immense size, she was comparatively light, and the very heat of her immolation and the gusting flames encompassing her withering bones slowed her descent.