by Aeryn Leigh
In the dim, muffled light coming through to the not-so-overlapped sections of the coverings, she shuffled sideways up to the pilot’s seat, easing into it.
Finally, a chance to be alone.
She popped open the button on her lambswool jacket, reached into and pulled out the note given to her the day she'd departed. Amelia had used whatever piece of paper was lying around her bedroom it seemed, the back of a homework assignment covering the basic phrases of Norse language.
Nine years since she'd given birth. She shuddered at the memory. Of all the many things she was good at, birthing little human beings wasn't one of them. She shivered at the thought, remembering the tortuous final stages of pregnancy, every breath a nail in her abdomen. Amelia just did not want to come out. A week overdue, and a second full week overdue, until she could take it no longer and had her induced.
At that point, the labour itself went quickly, Amelia in an unholy rush to get out, damaging Ella even further. After nine months of sweating bullets, imagining every single worst-case scenario, the little kicking, screaming, wailing child with ten fingers, ten toes and one single head was born.
Flying prototype aircraft was almost the same thing. Days, weeks, and months of preparing for everything that might go wrong, harbouring fears that usually went unfounded, except for that every once in a while, when it felt good to be a pessimist.
She examined the note. In large, bulky handwriting, seven words. I love you. Please get back soon?
The idea of getting pregnant was supposed to be something to get that bastard Grieg off her tail, to remove suspicions. And given Ella never considered herself the mothering type, she grew amazed holding Amelia for the very first time, a beaming Helena, and the midwife by her side — Ella just knew she held the most precious thing in her life.
Everything Ella considered normal would never be the same again.
Her abdomen cramped, and Ella swore under her breath, involuntarily moving just as a large wave sent the longship high into the air. The note fluttered like a parachute to the latticework floor beneath the leather-sling seat.
Scheisse.
When the waves of pain passed, she crouched down, and lying on her side, bits of wood sticking sharply into her ribcage, stuck her right arm underneath the flight console trying to reach the note. Her fingers grasped it, and pulled it back.
She stopped midway, her eyes noticing the rudder cable, carefully sawn nine-tenths of the way through. Just enough strength to pass preflight inspection, maybe even last a few minutes in the air, then, snap.
Verdammt sollst du sein. Damn you.
We have a saboteur.
Chapter Forty-Six
THE RAZOR’S EDGE
ELLA LOOKED around the faces in front of her. Had it been cut in Fairholm or after they left? She longed to tell someone, but who? If only she could answer the first question. If it'd been sabotaged in Fairholm, in that last day or so, the troublemaker — wait — enemy was far, far behind. But if it'd been cut since leaving, well, it could be damn anyone. Could it be any of the family? She shook her head, refusing to let the thought go any further. Merrion? He hated the Inquisition more so than anyone else out here.
So that left the Vikings. Ugh. Is it one of them? Verpiss dich. At any rate, she'd have to go over each of the three aircraft minutely — well, she'd planned on doing that anyway, but still. What was their motive? There were far better ways to send an aircraft crashing to the ground if destruction was the intent. A broken rudder wasn't such a bad problem one couldn't safely land without it — unless, she realised, suddenly dawning on her, you are towing two gliders behind. Then, dear Ella, you would be in serious trouble with the aerodynamic dead weight.
Clever. The gliders weren't meant to float for long, nor land on water. Unless you didn't want to use them again. There would be no second launch if things failed the first time.
"Is everything okay?" said Merrion.
"Yes," said Ella, biting her lower lip.
"You don't look okay."
"Just nervous about the mission that's all."
Merrion raised one eyebrow. "In the entire time I've known you, I have never seen you chewing your bottom lip. Even on that very first night we met, that day you got me with birdshot, I told you about gods and monsters, you didn't look as remotely worried as you do right now."
Ella sighed. She grabbed him by the upper arm, and pulled him back toward the rear of the longship, to the poop deck, so they couldn't be overheard. She waited until a Viking stopped shitting over the side, the man pulling up his trousers as he walked past.
"We have a saboteur on board Merrion. Or possibly back at Fairholm. Somebody cut the rudder control cable on the Cat so that it would fail after a few minutes of flight."
Merrion stared out toward the tip of the mountain. "Is that all?"
"Is that all? I don't know. Now I have to check all three aircraft with a fine-tooth comb in case there's something else damaged."
"This weather should clear up rather soon, it's unusual to have such bad storms for so long. You can check them at leisure in the morning."
"Is that all you can say?" she said, through gritted teeth and clenched fists.
"Frankly I am surprised we have got this far without acts of sabotage. I screened every single man and woman on this voyage the best I could, but the Emperor has eyes and ears, and ways of persuasion and listening that even I can only dream of preventing. I am aware the three planes are your babies. Gods willing in the morning, if this storm front leaves us be, we can do a thorough check on everything using preflight inspections as the excuse, and get this mission underway. Now go, get some sleep, Ella. Because I’ll be buggered if I know when any of us are going to get a half decent sleep again after tonight."
When she left, he removed a dagger from his calf boot, and sharpened the razor's edge in the moonlight, his thoughts a frantic mess.
Chapter Forty-Seven
SHOWTIME
HANDS SHOOK HER AWAKE, Ella snapping out of sleep with a start, just as the massive sound of a giant slapping water assailed her hearing. Thwack. She blinked rapidly, to get her eyes to focus. The tinge of orange crept over the far horizon. The face of Merrion came into relief. He held his index finger in front of his pursed lips. With his other hand pointed over the wooden side rail.
The ocean sat still, calm. Her heart stopped. Moments later, it resumed with a pounding crescendo in her ears, terror pumping adrenaline through her veins.
All around them, bobbing at the surface and carousing in play and some just resting, a mega pod of killer armoured whales swam.
Babies only six feet long snuggled in tight to their sixty foot mothers, as adolescents started bursting out of the water and corkscrewing around to land on their backs, shooting great fountains of seawater high up into the air.
Hundreds upon hundreds of them, black and white, colourings exactly like orcas from Earth, but on a whole new scale again. A few of them made the sixty-foot mothers look like babies themselves, at least as long as a wingspan of the Lancaster or Stirling heavy bomber, easily being over one-hundred-feet of marine death. These elders of the pod expended the least energy, save for rotating their bodies around as now squawking seabirds descended from the heavens, for an early morning feast of parasitic sea life encrusting the killer whales’ bodies between the armoured frontal plates.
The younger members of the pod began their games. Some disappeared under the water diving down and down until they shot back up out of the water like spawning salmon, sailing over the bigger family members, landing headfirst in a graceful display with minimal water splash as if diving off the ten-meter springboard.
They are playing leapfrog thought Ella. The terror dissipated as sheer fascination won over.
Some of the younger adolescents rested above the great tails of the matriarchs who with one titanic contraction of muscles catapulted the small whales clean into the air, the younger ones contorting themselves midair to land back in the water as cle
anly as possible.
And amongst it all, bobbed up and down the eight fragile Viking ships.
Ella looked out over at Hellsbaene, just over two-hundred feet away and three killer creatures in between. Laurie stood with Griffin and Beowulf. Was Laurie laughing? She peered closer. Sheer, unbridled mirth was writ all over him. Griffin was slightly shaking his head and the Viking King looked relaxed.
Damn Beowulf. Does nothing ever frighten him? She was still looking at them when a killer whale burst from the water behind them, a mere pup at ten-feet, off Hellsbaene’s port, and sailed clear over the top of the longship, diving into the waters between the two boats. She watched as Laurie laughed so hard he had a coughing fit, and Ella heard the meaty slaps of Griffin's hand across his back all the way over the water.
More of the youngsters took turns jumping over the longships. She flinched as one sailed overhead, spraying her with droplets.
Oh, now they're just showing off. Around them the creatures cavorted like dolphins Ella had seen on her travels, chattering to each other, and all the while taking great care not to hit any of the boats, even as the longships bobbed up and down like toy boats in a frenetic bathtub.
She turned to Merrion, taking the scene in with calm yet bemused detachment. "They could kill us at any moment stone cold dead, yes?"
He nodded. "Magnificent, aren't they?" he whispered. "I would pay a king's ransom to find out how to communicate with them."
A little while later when the seabirds had picked the pod clean of parasites, they left with as little fanfare as they had come, slipping beneath the calm, blue waters.
Chapter Forty-Eight
THE CURTAIN GOES UP
FOOT BY FOOT, section by section, Ella and Thorfinn inspected the Catalina, removing sections of tarpaulin in turn. Apart from the odd singe marks from the incendiaries, each section of fuselage and wings appeared to be in good working order.
So far, so good.
Ella removed the covering from the port radial, the monster engine seeing daylight for the first time in weeks. No matter how big her apprehensions, the mere sight of it made her smile.
Raw, mechanical power. Enough to make her fly like the birds. She ran her hand over the metal cowl casing, appreciating the workmanship and intellectual mind power needed to create such a wondrous thing.
They both moved down the checklist, doing it by the numbers. Time for the interior. Ella entered first, followed by Thorfinn, and found Magnus inside, half underneath the flight console.
"The rudder cable snapped," he said, "could you pass me those pliers? Merrion informed me last night. Strange how such twisted steel could come to break like that."
Ella made her way forward, past the wooden benches and handed the tool to him from the Viking's toolbox lying beside the co-pilots sling.
"You splicing it together with a new section?" said Thorfinn, crouching down.
"Yes," said Magnus. "It will suffice, crimped at both ends."
"I didn't know we had a crimping tool?" said Thorfinn.
"I asked Rob to make one," said Magnus. "The beasts on Hellsbaene required such a tool for the throttle control cables."
"Ah," said Thorfinn, sounding a little disappointed.
Ella regarded the Australian. Was that just her imagination playing tricks? He couldn't be the one. Could he? She rubbed the bridge of her nose. Focus Ella. Concentrate on the task at hand. "Good work, Magnus. Thorfinn, shall we continue?"
They finished the interior inspections of the Catalina, then transferred to the longships carrying the assault gliders, and both checked out fine. A couple of hours after dawn, it was time to float the Catalina, and spread her wings.
Laurie and Thorfinn clambered up the side of the fuselage, and with a small group of Vikings helping, began unfurling the port wing, the wing making a substantial creaking sound from the huge pivot as it swung out, and with a final creak locking into place.
The longship tilted over, and quickly they all moved to the opposite side, and righted the ship. Laurie and Thorfinn repeated the process, and at last, the Catalina sat empty and ready for the next stage.
"Now for the fun to begin, been waiting forever for this," said Mick, rubbing his hands together. "Not bad for a drunken idea if I don't bloody well say so myself."
"Cocky bastard, aren't you," said Laurie. "Wish I had come up with it though." He picked up one of the few remaining barrels, and handed it to the Viking next to him, who in turn passed it to Griffin standing on the Oslo right alongside.
"There," said Laurie a few minutes later, "that's the last of it." The longship which carried the Cat was empty save the Catalina herself. "Now let's prep the gliders."
LAURIE STOOD at the prow of Hellsbaene, one hand on his sword hilt, the other on the iron base of the murder cannon, and addressed them all. "Well ladies and gentlemen, this is it. Those of you wanting to change your minds and swap aircraft, well too bad. You've had three months to sort it out between you, so any last-minute change of hearts, tough. Them's the breaks."
He smiled. "Whatever happens from now on, we're making history. No matter what, give them fucking hell. No quarter. No prisoners. Kill every bastard that resists until the landing zone is secure. Those in the assault gliders, remember your training. Remember to brace before impact. And for you crazy buggers jumping out from the Cat, for pity's sake pull the right cord."
He drew himself fully upright, then sagged. Memories of giving similar speeches before the curtain went up in the trenches of Somme, of Flanders, on another world, in Turkey, in France, climbing up and out of the dirt, out of the mud, out of lakes of mud where men drowned in craters filled with the buried and the dead and those who wished they were, out of the earthen wooden boarded slit, up and into the raining metal death of machine gun fire, into billowing clouds of poison mustard gas, into artillery barrages. His sword hand trembled. Laurie shook it off, not noticing the assembled group see him shake his head nor mutter under his breath for a short amount of time, or his hands shaking.
Those on Hellsbaene knew the berserker, and his battle-derived madness. And prowess. Knew exactly what it had cost, and continued to reap. And all would follow him into the very jaws of Hell because he was their mate. And he was theirs.
Beowulf laid a hand upon Laurie's shoulder. The shuddering ceased. "You heard the warrior captain. Let us make a tale worthy enough to be sung in the halls of Valhalla for millennia." He took Laurie's hand and raised it high into the air. "For Odin and the Republic. For victory!"
Hellsbaene rocked and rolled.
Chapter Forty-Nine
A SHITLOAD OF ARDUOUS WORK
MAGNUS STEADIED HIMSELF, holding the sledgehammer near his chest. He moved his feet slightly, to get a better footing, then swung with all his might available. The steel head smashed into the oak pin, cleaving the connecting rod right out, and the prow of the longship carrying the Catalina separated in half. He made his way with care down to the far end, as the ship creaked and groaned as it began to split, taking on water.
He brought the sledgehammer down upon the stern pin, which came only halfway out, the sheer tension of being the only remaining connection between the two halves of the lobes unfurling like a flower. The second strike removed it, and with a final groan the boat split in half, away from the seaplane. Her pontoons now tasted seawater for the first time this trip.
Magnus raced back to the seaplane, as salt water rushed in, and claimed the longship, hopping on the right pontoon. The two halves, weighted with rocks brought specifically for overcoming the buoyancy of wood, slipped beneath the surface and their trip to the ocean floor fathoms below.
Mick gave a wild cheer as the Catalina upon which he rode bobbed freely on top of the ocean.
"Don't get too smug," said Griffin, still impressed the drunken idea of Mick's worked.
"I told you she'd be right, and she was."
"Well let's see if Ella's idea for the gliders bears fruit." The two of them watched from the Catalina's side
doorway as ropes connecting the tips of the glider's nose to the rear of Hellsbaene pulled taut, and the flagship moved forward under oar power, and one by one carried the gliders and their small rowboat undercarriage along twin hardwood rails up and over the stern of the support ships, the rear dragon masts collapsed forward on their hinges, and into the ocean.
"So long, gentlemen, and good hunting" said Magnus, as the Oslo moved alongside, and he jumped across.
"You too, mate," said Mick waving frenetically. "See ya on the other side."
Griffin chuckled. "And you call Laurie sentimental."
"Ah, bite me."
Up in the cockpit of the Catalina, Ella turned around and yelled back to them. "Are the gliders free and floating?"
"Affirmative," said Griffin, holding his thumb up.
"Roger that," said Ella. "Everyone take your seats. Time to buckle up." She sighed to herself, drew a deep breath, and put on her Luftwaffe gauntlets. Even after all this time, she could still smell Helena’s perfume, from when her girlfriend upended an entire bottle of fragrance and let it soak into the leather.
Ella smiled. "Right Rob, let's start her up." She ran through the checklist, flipping switches, then nodded to Rob. He flicked the Number One engine start, and the radial rotated slowly with a loud, uneven whir. "Come on beautiful, start," she whispered, and after a few seconds of hesitant cranking the Wright-Cyclone radial burst into a steady roar at 1,200 rpm.
"Number Two, Rob," she yelled. Rob flicked the switch. Nothing happened. He looked at her, then back at the control board, and tried again. Nothing. Rob climbed out of the co-pilot's seat and made his way to the small access hatch built into the space where the fuselage bisected the main wing, and checked the fuel pump.
No fuel.
He swore under his breath, and grabbed hold of the secondary fuel pump, and manually pumped aviation fuel into the line. He closed the hatch and returned to his seat, and tried for the third time. It started a little unsteadily, then settling into a rhythmic purr like its twin.