by Mark C. King
Sigmund couldn’t help but think of the first time he broke into Holmes apartment and he cracked a smile.
Mills was very silent. It wasn’t until the straps and harnesses were all in place that he finally said, “Be careful, Sigmund.”
They activated the device and started it to pump hot air into the balloon. It took a couple minutes but finally Sigmund could feel the upward pull on his harness. Everyone watched, waiting for the moment that he left the earth. Another minute and Sigmund could only touch the ground with his toes. Soon after, he was airborne – a couple feet in the air and rising. “Could someone point me in the direction of Paris? I could really enjoy a crepe right now.”
There was a smattering of laughter from the men on the ground. Another minute and he was at least twenty feet in the air and he waved to the group. With the pull of a lever the propeller started up and he felt the forward momentum added to his lift. So far so good. He maneuvered so that he faced west, towards Buckingham Palace, towards Big Ben – towards Grimkraken’s ship.
31.
Sigmund had never been in a dirigible or hot air balloon. He had never been higher than a seven-story building. He was much higher than that now. Looking around him he could see no building or tower that he hadn’t ascended above. The view was amazing and he couldn’t help but think how much Sarah would enjoy this. Although not his main goal, he allowed himself a brief thought about what it would mean to Sarah if he successfully brought the ship down and the cubes were recovered.
Despite the awe he felt at the views around him, concerns of his mission took away much of the joy of his first flight. His mind shifted to thoughts of the dangers, not only of the untested device strapped to his back, but of actually reaching the ship, getting inside, and then the men he would be up against. Anyone’s doubts about him being successful were not without merit.
Regardless of the exhilaration of the flight and the nervousness of the assignment, Sigmund was irritated by the device straps digging into his underarms and groin. He tried to make adjustments but didn’t have a lot of leverage to work with and was not able to relieve any of the discomfort. He wished that he had given a little more thought to comfort when he and Sutton built the thing.
In the distance, very near Big Ben, Grimkraken’s airship could be seen. Not that he necessarily needed to see it as he could have followed the tremendous sound made by the propellers. Sigmund’s altitude was about level with the ship and his flight path went along the Thames heading straight for it. As he approached, he examined the lights that emanated from the ship and tried to find the best way to get close without being seen. There was no complete gap in the lights that he could see. Sigmund was resigned to the hope that not every angle was watched at every moment and that his small flying machine would go unnoticed. The rear of the ship was facing him so he decided that it was as good a choice as any to be a landing spot.
He flipped a switch to give his balloon a little more hot air in order to gain altitude. The higher he went the colder he was – although not all his shivers were from the temperature.
He was now higher than Grimkraken’s ship and about a thousand yards away. The sound of the propellers was loud, drowning out the sound of his backpack. The lights would now be a danger for Sigmund and he hoped the black dyed balloon would blend in against the night sky. As he moved closer the ship grew more and more impressive and his task more and more daunting. He was now near enough to start to look for a place to land, but panicked as he saw that for him to land on the top of the ship – his plan – that his balloon would have to get very close to the propellers – he wasn’t even sure if there was room to fit. He continued closer, the sound almost drowning out his own thoughts, knowing he had to make something work. It was then that he spotted the front right corner of the ship, the propeller in that area was not operating. There was damage around it – evidently the result of one of the air battles and the cause of inoperation. At least the ship wasn’t invincible, he thought. But in order to reach that section, he would have to fly along the length of the ship. He hadn’t been spotted yet, as far as he knew, but didn’t like the idea of flying along the length of the ship and giving such a long view of himself. Still, he didn’t see another choice, so he positioned himself close to the back edge of the airship, perhaps twenty yards above the propeller blades and steadied himself for the next step. The wind generated by the ship was causing Sigmund to move about and give him little sense of control, his body swinging in different directions. He needed to act quickly. Pulling the acceleration lever to full he started to move along the top of the ship, buffeted by the wind all the while. Hopefully all eyes were in the distance around the ship, not above it. Moving slowly and being thrown about, Sigmund gritted his teeth against the sound and turbulence and then pressed the third switch. The sprayed steam out the back of the engine propelled him forward through the wind. As he flew over the propellers, he couldn’t help but think how horrible it would be if Grimkraken decided to gain altitude. Shaking that thought aside, he focused on the damaged propeller and directing himself towards it. He covered most of the distance of the ship before the steam expired. The damaged section was only about ten yards in front of him and there was a clear area to land. Once he was over the non-propeller area, the turbulence reduced. He turned off his backpack and pulled a cord that let out some of the hot air. His descent to the surface of the airship was quicker than he would have liked and Sigmund landed hard. He stood up, thankful that he hadn’t hurt himself, and felt a touch of satisfaction at what he had just done. He had made it onto the surface of Grimkraken’s ship.
* * *
Jeremiah Maxwell, Coal Union employee, had finally received orders from his superiors. Normally he would receive his assignments from a discreet drop – a piece of paper attached to the bottom of a park bench, a code in the classified ads – but now that he was aboard Grimkraken’s airship, those options were not available. His first issue was to let the Coal Union know that he was alive and needed new orders. He accomplished this in a very old fashioned way – he placed notes in bottles addressed to the Coal Union and had dropped them from an open hatch to the city below. The bottled notes were cryptic:
Need light northerly directions.
Sincerely,
Icarus Maxwell
Assuming that one of the bottles made its way to the Coal Union, he was fairly certain that they would understand. His reference to ‘Icarus’ would indicate that he, ‘Maxwell’ was flying and the phrase ‘light northerly directions’ should indicate not only that he was waiting for instructions, but also how to contact him – using light from north of the ship. The hard part was to keep watching north during the night hours. The first night, after he thought of the idea of the bottles, he waited and watched until his eyes wouldn’t stay open any longer. He assumed the message, if it came, would be from the ground, but he couldn’t rule out that it could come from a distant dirigible – the Coal Union had several. No message was sent, or at least not seen by Jeremiah.
The following evening, Tuesday, he found a spot in an empty cabin that had a window that faced north and settled in for another long night. Around 7:30 he saw a blinking light that persisted and stood out from any other lights of the city. It took only a few seconds to realize that the blinking light was Morse code – someone was communicating, maybe to him, maybe to Grimkraken. With pad and pencil in hand he wrote down the letters as they came through:
t.. t.. l.. e.. d.. e.. s.. t.. r.. o.. y.. c.. u.. b.. e.. s.. n.. o.. w.. v.. i.. s.. i.. t.. o.. r.. t.. o.. n.. i.. g.. h.. t.. b.. a..
The letters repeated after that. After arranging them he was able to see the message clearly:
visitor tonight
battle
destroy cubes now
Well that is interesting, he thought. The message was definitely for him, but how would someone be visiting and whom? Was the Empire really going to try a third attempt to battle this ship after the first two went so badly? Whatever the case
, his assignment was clear: destroy the cubes. What was unclear was how he was going accomplish that.
Once he made sure that there were no other messages he gave thought to his instructions. To destroy the cubes would be difficult, not only was the production area heavily guarded – and it was only assumed that the process documents were kept there – but there were cubes being used all around the ship. The only way to destroy all of them would be to destroy the ship. Okay, he thought, how would he destroy the ship? Sabotaging the engines would not likely work as each propeller had its own engine and after he took out one of them the security around the rest would be tightened. What about taking over the control room and crash the ship? No, he didn’t like that idea. Not only would he be outnumbered but he wasn’t sure he could escape if he had to crash the ship himself. He wasn’t going to die on this mission if he had anything to say about it.
The more he thought the more his mind focused on those two options. Engines or control room. There had to be another way. Come on Jeremiah, where is that special ability to overcome difficult situations? The self-chastisement worked as a new idea came to him. If he could get to the secure cargo area he could do it. Not only would his idea destroy the ship, it would also allow him time to escape. It still wasn’t going to be easy but it would be easier than the other options he had come up with. Once more in his life he would be up against bad odds putting his indestructibleness to the test.
With his plan in mind he left the cabin and headed towards the middle of the airship. As a crew member he had free access to most places on board. Running into a fellow crew member was not an issue, not until he was close to the secured area. Once there he would need to figure out a way passed at least one guard. He carried a good amount of money with him, as that was one of the easiest ways to get people to do what you want, and he hoped that whatever guard or guards he ran into valued money more than their ideals – nothing like a true believer to ruin a good bribe.
The secured cargo area was accessible in three ways, an exterior door, a large interior entrance that allowed the larger cargo to be removed, and a small personnel entrance. The exterior entrance was not an option unless Jeremiah learned how to fly. The larger cargo doors were locked from the inside, so that wasn’t an option either. The personnel door was his only way in and he knew that it would be guarded. As he walked down the metal lined hallway, footsteps echoing off the walls, he approached the final door prior to the entrance to the secured area. The door had a window and Jeremiah could clearly see the crew member guarding the door he needed to get through. On his way here, he thought of the story he would tell to try and get by. With cash in hand and story in mind he opened the door and walked to the guard.
“What do you want?” asked the guard in a particularly unfriendly voice.
“I have a favor to ask, mate. I met a girl and I arranged for her to meet me here so that we could be alone. Could you help a fellow crewman out?” Jeremiah followed his request by offering a small stack of currency.
The guard looked at Jeremiah and then the cash, first with a look of surprise and then one of annoyance. “We are in the midst of battles and you are concerned about romance?”
Clearly the story that Jeremiah came up with was falling on unsympathetic ears. He couldn’t think of another approach that would work on this man so he did the simpler thing and without any warning punched him. The blow was a hard one to the man’s head and he fell unconscious. Jeremiah opened and closed his fist to help alleviate the pain. “Couldn’t you have just taken the money?” he said to the unconscious guard.
The door to secure storage had a yellow horizontal stripe across it and Jeremiah pulled on its handle, but it didn’t open. Rummaging through the unconscious guards pockets, he found a key and used it to unlock the hatch. Inside the secured storage room, he closed the door behind him and looked around the dimly lit area. It wasn’t hard to find what he was looking for – two very large crates. As he approached them he heard a sound from outside the door he had just come through. The guard couldn’t have recovered that fast, could he? Quickly hiding behind a box he peered over the top of it just in time to see the door open and two men enter, one holding a gun. The men walked in and slowly made their way around the room. It would only be a matter of time before they found him. Jeremiah thought about running for the door but then saw another guard, the one he had punched, standing just outside of it – not looking at all happy.
“We know you are in here,” shouted the man with the gun, “Come out now!”
Jeremiah desperately tried to think of options but nothing feasible came to him. Maybe he had finally overplayed his indestructability, he thought darkly. Just before the man with a gun discovered him, Jeremiah called out, “I’m here, don’t shoot.” And slowly stood up.
“Grab him!” said the man with the gun to the other two guards. Jeremiah stood with his hands in the air and was grabbed by one of the guards while the other – the one he had hit – punched him in the stomach and then grabbed his other arm.
“Should we report him?” asked the punched guard.
The man with the gun responded, “If you want to tell Grimkraken that you let someone get by you and into this area, go ahead. But I don’t think that would go so well, do you?”
The man obviously hadn’t thought it through and the realization of what was being said made his eyes go wide. “Umm, no, sir. I think it would be better to not involve Grimkraken. What should we do?”
The man with the gun thought for a moment then looked at the two guards and said, “Put shackles on him and then we shall show our intruder here to the door.”
* * *
The surface of Grimkraken’s ship was steady. One was almost able to forget that they were high in the London sky, sort of like how one might forget they are on a large ship at sea – except for the wind from the propellers, the noise, and the vibrations that Sigmund could feel through the soles of his shoes.
Now standing, wind blowing, the sound near deafening, he didn’t know what to do with his flying device. One of many things I didn’t think through. He let out the rest of the air from his balloon and then unstrapped himself – feeling a deep relief as the pain from the straps faded. He gathered up the balloon to the pack and then carefully walked over to the damaged hull around the propeller. He found in the damaged section a crevice that could hold his pack. He tucked it in and hoped that it would indeed stay – he also hoped that he would survive to care.
Next for Sigmund was to figure out how he would enter the ship. Surely there had to be several hatches on the surface – didn’t ships have hatches? A search of the area around him did produce a door, however, it was locked from the inside. This wasn’t like a house door with a handle and keyhole, there was no locking mechanism visible. Sigmund lost a lot of hope in that moment. He searched a little more, fighting the wind with each step, and found another hatch with the same construction. He thought of using one of the explosive devices that Sutton had given him but wasn’t sure it was a good idea. If the bomb opened the hatch, which he wasn’t convinced it would, it would make a lot of noise and limit him to only one explosive device for the Gauss cannon. No, if he was going to enter the ship, he needed to try and find another way.
Moving back to the damaged section of the hull, Sigmund saw that it was more severe on the front edge of the ship. He dropped to his knees as he approached the edge of the hull. One foot from the edge he dropped to his stomach and crawled forward until he could see London far below. A little further and he could look down and see the front of the right bow. There must have been several hits here as the hull was torn into pretty good. There looked to be some welded sheets of metal put up at various areas – no doubt inflight repairs. Then he spotted a potential option. The decks may have been sealed up but there was a vent that was open to the air. It was large enough for a man to crawl through – although getting to it would be very difficult.
He pushed himself away from the edge and sat back on his knees.
He wondered if he was mistaken in thinking he could do this. The wind whipped around him as he closed his eyes. At first he only saw himself falling but he forced his mind to focus on the task at hand. How he would climb over the edge, how he would latch onto exposed superstructure, how he would climb into the vent and enter the ship. It helped. He opened his eyes, took a deep breath and looked around him. There was a damaged part of the hull behind him and to the right. Sigmund lifted his wrist and pointed the grappling device at the damaged section, a jagged hole in the armor plating. He pressed the button and watched as the hook flew through the air and into the damaged section. He pulled on the rope until the hook anchored on something. The string that trailed the hook and was attached to the wrist launcher looked impossibly thin. Having little faith in its ability to actually support him, he figured it was still better than nothing.
He once more dropped to his stomach and inched towards the edge. Reaching the edge, he adjusted his prone body so that his leg could be swung over the side. He felt around for a foothold and panicked briefly until it was found. He put some weight on it and found that it was solid. He swept his other leg over and found another foothold. Without looking down he lowered his first foot and again searched for another object to stand on. That found, he moved his second foot and did the same. Slowly and carefully Sigmund climbed down the front of the damaged section of the ship, trailing the rope above him, until he was just below the level of the exposed vent. Looking around him he spotted a beam that led from his current position towards his destination. He bent his legs down readying to jump, then froze. He hoped he could get through this without thinking too much but finally fear had caught up. He tightened his grip on his hand holds and pulled his body as close to the ship as possible. His breaths became short, sweat started to bead.