Chapter XII: The Grave of Lost Airships
Apr. 11th, 2009 01:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonYou come upon an antiquated photograph.
Lateral view of two fencers locked in the embrace of a heated duel. Their sabers crossed at the blade into a slanted ‘x’ with the taller fencer on the right pressing the advantage of their bulk against the significantly smaller opponent. Each wear hooded masks of faceless mesh. Matching uniforms with target hearts embroidered over their plastrons. Behind them we can make out bowed walls latticed with rivet bolted steel girders. The whites of the photo have aged into a dull sepia. The shadows faded into the browns of long dried blood.
Compelled without any obvious motive, you reach out to trace the combatants with a gentle finger and find an odd satisfaction in the wake of dust your touch produces. It is then that you notice that the photograph has changed slightly – the taller fencer leaning a fraction closer against the other. The stance of the smaller duelist has shifted by a step. You pull back the hand, hoping to revoke the act and notice now that the photograph is beginning to flicker slowly. The duel begins to animate with the speed of a waking cinematograph. Lumière camera strobes across the surface, a faint crackling of phonographs resonates against the ear.
Step closer.
Watch.
The smaller combatant pushes off the opponent with considerable effort. Sharp sudden metallic scrape of foible against forte. The duelist yields a cautious retreat to the advancing sword fighter on the right. Stepping backwards, rapidly parrying a flurry of strikes that snap like a barrage of steel serpents for the target heart, the little duelist seems only moments from inevitable defeat.
But the advance slows, the sword fighter on the right seems to be losing steam, the strikes coming slower now, with more force and less precision. The little duelist leans back into a sudden crouch, the enemy foible slicing the air directly before the face and lounges forward with a small jump forward. The duelist lands out of the Ballestra thrusting the point directly into the opponents chest.
“Damn it!” the larger of the two fencers curses, stepping back to probe the heart with his free hand as if it had produced a more significant wound than a simple jab. He doffs his meshed hood, revealing a turquoise stare buried deep within a pale craggy face that beams with naked glee before his opponent. A quick comb of gloved fingers through the sandy brown scalp and he snaps to attention, saluting the victor with a snap and a wave of the saber.
“Well played” he concedes with a wry smile.
The little duelist returns the salute with a mirroring of the blade. Then leans down and removes the helmet. A spill and a shake of long hair black as a starless night. The little duelist raises herself up to face the vanquished opponent. Wisteria violet burning bright through cat slender eyes.
“I must say, Captain…” she chides him playfully, “… I rather expected better sport from a veteran officer. Especially one who was as highly commemorated in the battles against the Kaiser’s Eisen-Sturm as you were.”
“As always, you make your point quite clear, Miss Caine” he replies glancing down at the heart of his plastron before looking up at her with the gaze of a wolf’s devotion. “Perhaps, ma’am, I remain fatigued from the efforts that our other sport demanded of me?”
He steps closer to her with a swaggering confidence.
“Captain Drake!” Miss Caine protests, holding his swaying advance at bay with the business end of her blade, “I will remind you to keep a civil tongue in that reckless mouth of yours and in the future to kindly display a rudimentary sense of decorum in my presence.”
The Captain stops swaggering but continues his advance upon her, allowing himself to step just before the protruding saber, where with a sweeping flourish of a bow he takes the blade gingerly between his finger and kisses delicately the tip of the blade.
“My sincerest apologies, Miss Cain” he looks up at her from the length of the saber, “ I forget both my place and my manners.”
“Apology accepted, Captain Drake.” She lowers the blade and her stern countenance softens into an concupiscent smile – “Besides it is my distinct recollection that I did all the work.”
“Yes, but only at your insistence, I would like to remind you.” He closes the remaining distance between them, wraps large arms around her waist.
“Well if you want a job done, right...” she sing-songs wrapping her own slender arms around his neck.
“Ouch…” the Captain winces playfully and leans into her embrace.
“Oh, please. Besides you were the one who insisted on this match” she turns her face away so that the Captain’s descending lips meets only her rounded cheeks. “What is it now? Eighteen-to-aught, I do believe.”
“Seventeen-to-one” he corrects her.
“I beg your pardon, Sir?” she squirms in protest in his arms though her words stern as her tone sweet. “You cheated during our last duel. You were losing terribly, even by your standards and promptly began whining about how you pulled a tendon in your arm, eliciting from me a moments concern for your well being that you promptly took advantage of with a sudden thrust…”
“… and you fell for it!” he laughs light-heartedly.
“I suppose I did… seventeen to one it is” she snorts dismissively and then, seized by an opposing inclination, grabs the Captain suddenly by the back of the head and arching herself upwards on the tips of her boots, presses a deep kiss against him.
A forced, rumbling cough from behind interrupts the embrace.
Reluctantly Drake, breaks from Miss Caine’s affections and turns around to face a visibly nervous enlisted standing at attention.
“Yes, airman, what is it?” the Captain asks through an annoyed sigh.
“Sir, er… my apologies…” the airman stammers awkwardly and clears his throat for real this time before continuing, “… but you left orders that you were to be immediately made aware of when we arrived at the coordinates!”
The Captain’s face brightens considerably, he rubs a freshly shaved chin with thought before waving off the youth, “Very good, airman… tell them I’ll be right down shortly.”
“Sir!” the airman executes a well-oiled salute and promptly exits through the hatch. Drake stares off ponderously past the hull out towards some private horizon known only to the visions of his speculations.
“’Arrived’?” Miss Caine asks sliding up to the Captain from behind, layering her arms to cross over his chest, nestling her face between the nape of his neck, the breath of the faintest whisper blows in his ear – “Arrived where exactly, Captain?”
“Why, Abigail haven’t I told you?” he walks free from her arms exuberantly oblivious to the purr in her voice.
“No Jonathan” she arches a disapproving brow at this impromptu display of informality, “I’m afraid you haven’t.”
The Captain spins around as if showing off at a ball, takes her by the hand before she can ask another question and pulls her into a tight one armed hug even while gesturing the blade of his saber wildly with the other hand to sweep beyond the vaulted bulkheads of the HMAS Darwin. “Well my Lady, it gives me great pleasure to announce that we’ve arrived well ahead of schedule… welcome to the Grave of Lost Airships!”
****
Abigail Caine sits on the bed waiting patiently inside the Captains Quarters. Drake was inside the quarter’s head, changing quickly out of his fencing garments into his uniform.
“Now one more time… where are we?” she calls out to him through the half-closed door, watching him pull off his shirt in the reflection of the small mirror that hung over the sink.
“The Grave of Lost Airships…” the Captain calls back out louder than necessary.
“Yes, you’ve told me… but just what does mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like” the reflection catches her eyes and smiles, “a fleet of abandoned air vessels gathered from all the world’s fleets that, for reasons admittedly beyond my present understanding, have locked themselves into each other’s orbit. I believe it has something to do with the left over Cavorite fuel cells residing in the ethereal engines… or ‘Vril Turbines’ as our Prussian cousins would have it. I imagine your father could probably explain it far better than I…”
“Wait …” Abigail tilts her head to force her attention from the bare-chested reflection , “’abandoned’ how?”
“Another mystery, I’m afraid” the reflection shrugs and begins to deftly button up an olive green dress shirt, “No one quite knows for sure… but portside scuttlebutt has it that it is no less than the very presence of ghosts to explain the vanished crews and passengers. It is said that the dead call out for rescue and possess the bodies of their rescuers, returning to the ship to kill the crew. Gruesomely adding another vessel to their armada. Others have it that is has something to do with the properties of the space it inhabits and that it might have a curious side effect on the engines Cavorite cells. Most likely why no vessel will enter this particular patch of air space… even Robur’s raiders give the Grave a wide berth.”
“No vessel except us” Abigail muses more to herself than the Captain.
“Heh, yes ‘except us’…” the Captain tightens the knot of the black tie around his throat.
“And why is that, if you don’t mind mine asking?”
“Well, besides the fact that I have given express orders for us to do so…” The Captain steps out of the head in his fleet khakis and drab olives, “… there is still the small matter that we are currently being pursued by the Phobos. We won’t be able to crawl along in cloud cover forever and we certainly won’t survive another engagement with the damage we’ve taken on. It is my hope that her captain will be a little more… reluctant, to follow us through the Grave and at the same time allow us ample opportunity to salvage necessary replacement parts for our propulsion system.”
“I see…” Abigail breathes out still unconvinced of having obtained all the Captain’s motives.
“Besides… “ the Captain slides wide shoulders into his jacket conceding to Abigail’s suspicions, “… I’ve always wanted to see it for myself.”
“Ah-ha!” Abigail rises from the bed, fixes the Captains tie and pecks him on the cheek, “The truth comes out at last.”
“You got me, ma’am!” the Captain surrenders with a helpless shrug.
“Very well, are we done here?” she asks.
“After you, Miss Caine.”
****
The Captain graciously escorts Abigail Caine down the winding staircase that bores through the center of the Darwin’s command canopy. She has not bothered to change out of her fencing garments, feeling more comfortable dressed in such than in the confines of traditional clothing expected of her.
They walk down in silence together, the heels of her boots clicking sharply against the wrought iron steps before drowning out against the chorus of hisses and clanks emitted from the weave of copper piping emerging then vanishing from the narrow bulkheads. The bulkheads reverberated around them from the massive ether engines above and rattled the railing in Abigail’s hand.
Descending deeper into the canopy away from the Officer and Guest Quarters the two pass the various levels of the ship: The crowded berthing area for the crew that stank with stale sweat and tobacco smoke. Strolled through the empty galley wafting with the scent of fresh burnt meat, slowed down at the gymnasium where they dueled only minutes ago, hurried through the steam drenched laundry rooms filled with the hollow shadows of hanging uniforms, politely ignored the Séance Hive – where the ships communications hub utilized psychics to transmit messages to Port Victoria via an Ouija board attached to all manner of radio tubes and exposed wires, exit the battery level, where the ships modest cannons line the canopy. They come to the Cloud Menagerie, decidedly Abigail’s favorite part of the ship – where the various life forms her father had captured and cataloged from the lower levels of the stratosphere. Here you will find the Balloon-Plants - fist sized bulbous creatures that hover in their cages, a series of thin tendrils waver lightly from the thin membrane of skin that glows faintly with the clear blue of a bright day. The Quetzalcoatl’s - long flowing serpents whose bodies are flattened to ride the wind currents and coil around their prey. An aviary filled with exotic birds… some with golden feathers and others with mirrored scales that blind the eye if seen in broad daylight. The glass jugs filled with phosphorescent sentient gases that shift to mimic those that approach them. Onwards they descend, an occupied Orpheus leading a bemused Eurydice past the locked armory guarding the rows of ‘Tesla Pistols’, rappelling guns and the more traditional Lee Metford rifles.
They arrive at the lowest level of the Darwin, the bridge, whose floor to ceiling windows are made of a highly durable glass providing a panoramic view of the surrounding sky. Which at the moment revealed little more than a wall of swirling clouds around that cast a faint gray light through the bridge. A pilot stands at what appears to be the helm of a more traditional sailing vessel. Around them the staff busied themselves at their stations. The Executive officer is the first to notice the recent arrivals bellowing ‘Attention on deck’ to which the Captain responds with a grumbling, ‘At ease.”
The Captain leaves Abigail to wait by the hull as he confers with the XO and navigation officer. Through the PA system that sat in the corner of the bridges ceiling, a faint voice can be heard weeping in a foreign tongue. Abigail cocks her ear upwards and the longer she listens the clearer the voices become – ‘Hellllp uszzzh-please… my mother and I have been stranded here for two weeks now. Pllllee-fwthhhhshwzzz- if you can hear us send help we are onboard the USS Mark Twain…”
“How long has this been going on?” The captain asks the XO nodding his chin towards the PA.
Though clearly ten years his senior the XO responds with a crisp air of authority that would give pause to a king and has already made more than one prince tremble in his time: “A few minutes before you and the Lady’s arrival, Sir!”
“Trapped memories!” Doctor Caine announces with the dry authority of an academic, ducking through the hull to enter the bridge, pausing to gaze suspiciously at his daughter. Knowing better than to inquiry after her absence, he continues - “Nothing more than the recordings of the last few moments of a life. Preserved by the dwindling aura of the ships ethereal radius. They have only a limited awareness and are considered to be harmless... or so we believe at the Academy…”
“Yes, yes, very comforting, Doctor” Drake rolls his eyes before addressing his XO: “Metcalf!”
“Sir!” the First Officer’s voice booms across the cramped bridge.
“Have the intercoms shut off for now. Full radio silence as well. The last thing we need is voices from beyond rattling the already frayed nerves of the crew.”
“Very good, sir” and with a roar of terse commands the XO sets the order in motion.
“There, sir!” the helmsman bellows pointing towards the fore window.
Everyone turns to look, the last wisps of the gray clouds part like a slow veil from the bridges view.
Before them a vast armada of airships appear in a rounded clearing of clouds, each basks in the fading gold and purple effulgence of a dwindling dusk.
There the damaged luxury cruisers from Norway, Sweden and Holland float lifelessly, their cooper hulls coated with patches of verdigris and faded flags. The Triomphant, a Béhémoth class battle cruiser of the French air fleet, whose breadth dwarves the other ships in its vicinity. An American surveillance glider, The USS Gettysburg, revealing a badly damaged control canopy now acting as a nest for a series of large, black birds who take occasional flight from their sanctuary at the approaching Darwin. A Russian oceanography survey vessel, the Победоносное drifts behind the cover of a rusted Japanese air-whaler, whose harpoon turrets point uselessly from her canopy. A pair of rusted Prussian Luft-Zerstörers flank the battle ship HMAS Boudicca, as two noble gentlemen might court the company of a lovely young lady. There were about two dozen more of these vessels, many rendered unidentifiable by age and damage, some tottering on the shifting air currents as their last supplies of Cavorite fading allowing mistress gravity to have her way.
It is Captain Drake who breaks the spell of stunned silence that has fallen over his bridge: “Metcalf!”
“Sir!”
“Have the Chief Engineer report to the bridge immediately. I want to know what’s out there and more importantly what we can use. Also have our aero-marines along with an engineering team ready for an away mission. The Phobos is still out there and it won’t be long before she has our scent again. ”
“What are you planning, Captain?” the Doctor asks raising white caterpillar brows curiously.
“Why isn’t it obvious, Doctor?” Drake smiles mischievously, “We’re going grave robbing!”
Join us next time for episode XIII of the HMAS Darwin: Ghosts of the Boudicca
Lateral view of two fencers locked in the embrace of a heated duel. Their sabers crossed at the blade into a slanted ‘x’ with the taller fencer on the right pressing the advantage of their bulk against the significantly smaller opponent. Each wear hooded masks of faceless mesh. Matching uniforms with target hearts embroidered over their plastrons. Behind them we can make out bowed walls latticed with rivet bolted steel girders. The whites of the photo have aged into a dull sepia. The shadows faded into the browns of long dried blood.
Compelled without any obvious motive, you reach out to trace the combatants with a gentle finger and find an odd satisfaction in the wake of dust your touch produces. It is then that you notice that the photograph has changed slightly – the taller fencer leaning a fraction closer against the other. The stance of the smaller duelist has shifted by a step. You pull back the hand, hoping to revoke the act and notice now that the photograph is beginning to flicker slowly. The duel begins to animate with the speed of a waking cinematograph. Lumière camera strobes across the surface, a faint crackling of phonographs resonates against the ear.
Step closer.
Watch.
The smaller combatant pushes off the opponent with considerable effort. Sharp sudden metallic scrape of foible against forte. The duelist yields a cautious retreat to the advancing sword fighter on the right. Stepping backwards, rapidly parrying a flurry of strikes that snap like a barrage of steel serpents for the target heart, the little duelist seems only moments from inevitable defeat.
But the advance slows, the sword fighter on the right seems to be losing steam, the strikes coming slower now, with more force and less precision. The little duelist leans back into a sudden crouch, the enemy foible slicing the air directly before the face and lounges forward with a small jump forward. The duelist lands out of the Ballestra thrusting the point directly into the opponents chest.
“Damn it!” the larger of the two fencers curses, stepping back to probe the heart with his free hand as if it had produced a more significant wound than a simple jab. He doffs his meshed hood, revealing a turquoise stare buried deep within a pale craggy face that beams with naked glee before his opponent. A quick comb of gloved fingers through the sandy brown scalp and he snaps to attention, saluting the victor with a snap and a wave of the saber.
“Well played” he concedes with a wry smile.
The little duelist returns the salute with a mirroring of the blade. Then leans down and removes the helmet. A spill and a shake of long hair black as a starless night. The little duelist raises herself up to face the vanquished opponent. Wisteria violet burning bright through cat slender eyes.
“I must say, Captain…” she chides him playfully, “… I rather expected better sport from a veteran officer. Especially one who was as highly commemorated in the battles against the Kaiser’s Eisen-Sturm as you were.”
“As always, you make your point quite clear, Miss Caine” he replies glancing down at the heart of his plastron before looking up at her with the gaze of a wolf’s devotion. “Perhaps, ma’am, I remain fatigued from the efforts that our other sport demanded of me?”
He steps closer to her with a swaggering confidence.
“Captain Drake!” Miss Caine protests, holding his swaying advance at bay with the business end of her blade, “I will remind you to keep a civil tongue in that reckless mouth of yours and in the future to kindly display a rudimentary sense of decorum in my presence.”
The Captain stops swaggering but continues his advance upon her, allowing himself to step just before the protruding saber, where with a sweeping flourish of a bow he takes the blade gingerly between his finger and kisses delicately the tip of the blade.
“My sincerest apologies, Miss Cain” he looks up at her from the length of the saber, “ I forget both my place and my manners.”
“Apology accepted, Captain Drake.” She lowers the blade and her stern countenance softens into an concupiscent smile – “Besides it is my distinct recollection that I did all the work.”
“Yes, but only at your insistence, I would like to remind you.” He closes the remaining distance between them, wraps large arms around her waist.
“Well if you want a job done, right...” she sing-songs wrapping her own slender arms around his neck.
“Ouch…” the Captain winces playfully and leans into her embrace.
“Oh, please. Besides you were the one who insisted on this match” she turns her face away so that the Captain’s descending lips meets only her rounded cheeks. “What is it now? Eighteen-to-aught, I do believe.”
“Seventeen-to-one” he corrects her.
“I beg your pardon, Sir?” she squirms in protest in his arms though her words stern as her tone sweet. “You cheated during our last duel. You were losing terribly, even by your standards and promptly began whining about how you pulled a tendon in your arm, eliciting from me a moments concern for your well being that you promptly took advantage of with a sudden thrust…”
“… and you fell for it!” he laughs light-heartedly.
“I suppose I did… seventeen to one it is” she snorts dismissively and then, seized by an opposing inclination, grabs the Captain suddenly by the back of the head and arching herself upwards on the tips of her boots, presses a deep kiss against him.
A forced, rumbling cough from behind interrupts the embrace.
Reluctantly Drake, breaks from Miss Caine’s affections and turns around to face a visibly nervous enlisted standing at attention.
“Yes, airman, what is it?” the Captain asks through an annoyed sigh.
“Sir, er… my apologies…” the airman stammers awkwardly and clears his throat for real this time before continuing, “… but you left orders that you were to be immediately made aware of when we arrived at the coordinates!”
The Captain’s face brightens considerably, he rubs a freshly shaved chin with thought before waving off the youth, “Very good, airman… tell them I’ll be right down shortly.”
“Sir!” the airman executes a well-oiled salute and promptly exits through the hatch. Drake stares off ponderously past the hull out towards some private horizon known only to the visions of his speculations.
“’Arrived’?” Miss Caine asks sliding up to the Captain from behind, layering her arms to cross over his chest, nestling her face between the nape of his neck, the breath of the faintest whisper blows in his ear – “Arrived where exactly, Captain?”
“Why, Abigail haven’t I told you?” he walks free from her arms exuberantly oblivious to the purr in her voice.
“No Jonathan” she arches a disapproving brow at this impromptu display of informality, “I’m afraid you haven’t.”
The Captain spins around as if showing off at a ball, takes her by the hand before she can ask another question and pulls her into a tight one armed hug even while gesturing the blade of his saber wildly with the other hand to sweep beyond the vaulted bulkheads of the HMAS Darwin. “Well my Lady, it gives me great pleasure to announce that we’ve arrived well ahead of schedule… welcome to the Grave of Lost Airships!”
Abigail Caine sits on the bed waiting patiently inside the Captains Quarters. Drake was inside the quarter’s head, changing quickly out of his fencing garments into his uniform.
“Now one more time… where are we?” she calls out to him through the half-closed door, watching him pull off his shirt in the reflection of the small mirror that hung over the sink.
“The Grave of Lost Airships…” the Captain calls back out louder than necessary.
“Yes, you’ve told me… but just what does mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like” the reflection catches her eyes and smiles, “a fleet of abandoned air vessels gathered from all the world’s fleets that, for reasons admittedly beyond my present understanding, have locked themselves into each other’s orbit. I believe it has something to do with the left over Cavorite fuel cells residing in the ethereal engines… or ‘Vril Turbines’ as our Prussian cousins would have it. I imagine your father could probably explain it far better than I…”
“Wait …” Abigail tilts her head to force her attention from the bare-chested reflection , “’abandoned’ how?”
“Another mystery, I’m afraid” the reflection shrugs and begins to deftly button up an olive green dress shirt, “No one quite knows for sure… but portside scuttlebutt has it that it is no less than the very presence of ghosts to explain the vanished crews and passengers. It is said that the dead call out for rescue and possess the bodies of their rescuers, returning to the ship to kill the crew. Gruesomely adding another vessel to their armada. Others have it that is has something to do with the properties of the space it inhabits and that it might have a curious side effect on the engines Cavorite cells. Most likely why no vessel will enter this particular patch of air space… even Robur’s raiders give the Grave a wide berth.”
“No vessel except us” Abigail muses more to herself than the Captain.
“Heh, yes ‘except us’…” the Captain tightens the knot of the black tie around his throat.
“And why is that, if you don’t mind mine asking?”
“Well, besides the fact that I have given express orders for us to do so…” The Captain steps out of the head in his fleet khakis and drab olives, “… there is still the small matter that we are currently being pursued by the Phobos. We won’t be able to crawl along in cloud cover forever and we certainly won’t survive another engagement with the damage we’ve taken on. It is my hope that her captain will be a little more… reluctant, to follow us through the Grave and at the same time allow us ample opportunity to salvage necessary replacement parts for our propulsion system.”
“I see…” Abigail breathes out still unconvinced of having obtained all the Captain’s motives.
“Besides… “ the Captain slides wide shoulders into his jacket conceding to Abigail’s suspicions, “… I’ve always wanted to see it for myself.”
“Ah-ha!” Abigail rises from the bed, fixes the Captains tie and pecks him on the cheek, “The truth comes out at last.”
“You got me, ma’am!” the Captain surrenders with a helpless shrug.
“Very well, are we done here?” she asks.
“After you, Miss Caine.”
The Captain graciously escorts Abigail Caine down the winding staircase that bores through the center of the Darwin’s command canopy. She has not bothered to change out of her fencing garments, feeling more comfortable dressed in such than in the confines of traditional clothing expected of her.
They walk down in silence together, the heels of her boots clicking sharply against the wrought iron steps before drowning out against the chorus of hisses and clanks emitted from the weave of copper piping emerging then vanishing from the narrow bulkheads. The bulkheads reverberated around them from the massive ether engines above and rattled the railing in Abigail’s hand.
Descending deeper into the canopy away from the Officer and Guest Quarters the two pass the various levels of the ship: The crowded berthing area for the crew that stank with stale sweat and tobacco smoke. Strolled through the empty galley wafting with the scent of fresh burnt meat, slowed down at the gymnasium where they dueled only minutes ago, hurried through the steam drenched laundry rooms filled with the hollow shadows of hanging uniforms, politely ignored the Séance Hive – where the ships communications hub utilized psychics to transmit messages to Port Victoria via an Ouija board attached to all manner of radio tubes and exposed wires, exit the battery level, where the ships modest cannons line the canopy. They come to the Cloud Menagerie, decidedly Abigail’s favorite part of the ship – where the various life forms her father had captured and cataloged from the lower levels of the stratosphere. Here you will find the Balloon-Plants - fist sized bulbous creatures that hover in their cages, a series of thin tendrils waver lightly from the thin membrane of skin that glows faintly with the clear blue of a bright day. The Quetzalcoatl’s - long flowing serpents whose bodies are flattened to ride the wind currents and coil around their prey. An aviary filled with exotic birds… some with golden feathers and others with mirrored scales that blind the eye if seen in broad daylight. The glass jugs filled with phosphorescent sentient gases that shift to mimic those that approach them. Onwards they descend, an occupied Orpheus leading a bemused Eurydice past the locked armory guarding the rows of ‘Tesla Pistols’, rappelling guns and the more traditional Lee Metford rifles.
They arrive at the lowest level of the Darwin, the bridge, whose floor to ceiling windows are made of a highly durable glass providing a panoramic view of the surrounding sky. Which at the moment revealed little more than a wall of swirling clouds around that cast a faint gray light through the bridge. A pilot stands at what appears to be the helm of a more traditional sailing vessel. Around them the staff busied themselves at their stations. The Executive officer is the first to notice the recent arrivals bellowing ‘Attention on deck’ to which the Captain responds with a grumbling, ‘At ease.”
The Captain leaves Abigail to wait by the hull as he confers with the XO and navigation officer. Through the PA system that sat in the corner of the bridges ceiling, a faint voice can be heard weeping in a foreign tongue. Abigail cocks her ear upwards and the longer she listens the clearer the voices become – ‘Hellllp uszzzh-please… my mother and I have been stranded here for two weeks now. Pllllee-fwthhhhshwzzz- if you can hear us send help we are onboard the USS Mark Twain…”
“How long has this been going on?” The captain asks the XO nodding his chin towards the PA.
Though clearly ten years his senior the XO responds with a crisp air of authority that would give pause to a king and has already made more than one prince tremble in his time: “A few minutes before you and the Lady’s arrival, Sir!”
“Trapped memories!” Doctor Caine announces with the dry authority of an academic, ducking through the hull to enter the bridge, pausing to gaze suspiciously at his daughter. Knowing better than to inquiry after her absence, he continues - “Nothing more than the recordings of the last few moments of a life. Preserved by the dwindling aura of the ships ethereal radius. They have only a limited awareness and are considered to be harmless... or so we believe at the Academy…”
“Yes, yes, very comforting, Doctor” Drake rolls his eyes before addressing his XO: “Metcalf!”
“Sir!” the First Officer’s voice booms across the cramped bridge.
“Have the intercoms shut off for now. Full radio silence as well. The last thing we need is voices from beyond rattling the already frayed nerves of the crew.”
“Very good, sir” and with a roar of terse commands the XO sets the order in motion.
“There, sir!” the helmsman bellows pointing towards the fore window.
Everyone turns to look, the last wisps of the gray clouds part like a slow veil from the bridges view.
Before them a vast armada of airships appear in a rounded clearing of clouds, each basks in the fading gold and purple effulgence of a dwindling dusk.
There the damaged luxury cruisers from Norway, Sweden and Holland float lifelessly, their cooper hulls coated with patches of verdigris and faded flags. The Triomphant, a Béhémoth class battle cruiser of the French air fleet, whose breadth dwarves the other ships in its vicinity. An American surveillance glider, The USS Gettysburg, revealing a badly damaged control canopy now acting as a nest for a series of large, black birds who take occasional flight from their sanctuary at the approaching Darwin. A Russian oceanography survey vessel, the Победоносное drifts behind the cover of a rusted Japanese air-whaler, whose harpoon turrets point uselessly from her canopy. A pair of rusted Prussian Luft-Zerstörers flank the battle ship HMAS Boudicca, as two noble gentlemen might court the company of a lovely young lady. There were about two dozen more of these vessels, many rendered unidentifiable by age and damage, some tottering on the shifting air currents as their last supplies of Cavorite fading allowing mistress gravity to have her way.
It is Captain Drake who breaks the spell of stunned silence that has fallen over his bridge: “Metcalf!”
“Sir!”
“Have the Chief Engineer report to the bridge immediately. I want to know what’s out there and more importantly what we can use. Also have our aero-marines along with an engineering team ready for an away mission. The Phobos is still out there and it won’t be long before she has our scent again. ”
“What are you planning, Captain?” the Doctor asks raising white caterpillar brows curiously.
“Why isn’t it obvious, Doctor?” Drake smiles mischievously, “We’re going grave robbing!”
Join us next time for episode XIII of the HMAS Darwin: Ghosts of the Boudicca