Post by Lorpius Prime on Feb 20, 2007 23:59:22 GMT -5
When Jay returned to the cabin, he was all too happy to trade his legs for the little bed. The latter was actually willing to support his weight. The sun had just been nearing the horizon when they’d gone down to the airship’s bar on the lower level. When he got back, it was long gone. The Welsh Rover was underway, at least; Jay could see stars beneath the bulk of the gas envelope, and far more than were visible back in Britain. It was one of the small things which made him appreciate the continent.
He was in no shape to appreciate the view tonight, though. He’d gotten off to a bad start for his sobriety when Jack introduced him to some dark ale he’d not tried before. Then he’d totally lost the battle when he decided a third wouldn’t be too much worse.
Jay tried to uncross his eyes, but couldn’t figure out how. After a minute or two, he gave up.
Most of the evening had been spent among a group of women enthralled by Jack’s stories. Jay had been glad he was not the target of a few husbands’ jealous glares. Jack hadn’t seemed to notice, but went right spinning tales about camping in the Outback or apprehending Singaporean pirates.
At one point, during a lull, a pretty woman had tried to engage Jay in a conversation, but he hadn’t lasted very long. Jay thought his life had been rather exciting so far, but somehow it seemed boring coming out of his mouth. A vexing problem. The woman seemed to lose interest after a few minutes.
He suspected that Jack, on the other hand, could make a tax accountant’s job sound exciting. Not that anything so dull appeared to have ever been a part of the adventurer’s life.
Jack Duggan had been born in County Kerry, Ireland, an only child of minor nobility. When he was still a teenager, he’d stowed away on a ship to Australia, mostly to escape the proper civil life his parents were trying to build for him. He’d made quite a nuisance of himself over the next several years. Eventually, the authorities caught up with him, but not after he’d become something of a local legend, Robin Hood-style, and evaded capture by fleeing abroad; including the safari in Africa Jay was already familiar with. But he had finally been captured, and nearly killed too.
Several years breaking rocks in a prison seemed to have reformed him; and Jack jumped at an opportunity for parole in return for helping the government track down some former comrades of his that had turned into murderers preying on the helpless. After that, he’d become what amounted to a bounty-hunter—despite Jack’s dislike of the term—finding and dealing with various undesirables on government contracts but without the restraints placed on the government’s more official agents.
The women at the table had been hanging on his every word. Jay harrumphed, his own adventures across Europe were mild in comparison; Jack was like something out of a storybook.
He was nearly lost to the clutches of sleep when Jack came back to the cabin. His didn’t seem the least bit unsteady on his legs, despite having had twice as much to drink as Jay by the time he’d left. Jay grumbled, the man even held his alcohol better. And with that unhappy thought, Jay fell into a dreamless sleep.
Jay was awoken by something thumping against the window, like it was hit by a cricket ball. He bolted upright—startled—and instantly regretted it as someone with a malicious sense of humor stuck a knife in his brain. Rubbing his head and squinting through the hangover, Jay looked at the window, but there was nothing there. It was early morning and they were still hundreds of feet up in the air, so it couldn’t have been a cricket ball. Maybe a bird had flown into the window, it happened occasionally.
Glancing across the cabin to his left, he saw that the other passenger hadn’t even noticed, still snoring lightly. Yawning, he was just starting to lay back down to sleep when something went thud again.
Jay blinked. It sounded more distant this time, and not from the window in front of him, but as if it came from the other side of the airship. Nor did it sound like something striking the vessel, now that he thought about it, more like a heavy stone being dropped in the dirt, just a dull thump. But of course they were nowhere near the ground.
The sound came a third time, and once more as if it just outside the window. Scratching his head now, Jay slid out of his bed and padded over to peer outside.
It was a clear day; and though they had to be traveling rather quickly, there was the illusion that they were floating lazily over green expanse of southern Germany. The only thing the least bit unusual were a couple of dark clouds, just specks really, hanging in the air. Jay couldn’t tell how far away they were, and was just about to shrug the phenomenon off when a third black spot puffed into existence accompanied by the same sound he’d heard before.
That got Jay’s attention, and some alarming thoughts began hacking through the dense fog of his mind.
He half turned towards the sleeping Jack Duggan, but kept his eyes on the sky outside the window, “Hey Jack, come look at this…”
He wasn’t sure if his words were loud enough to wake the slumbering Australian, but they didn’t have to be. The next sound was like someone striking a steel drum with a hammer, and Jay could feel it through his feet as well as ringing in his ears.
Jack’s eyes snapped open, and looked sharply over at Jay, who was glancing about the cabin stupidly. The adventurer didn’t have time to say anything, though, before the metallic strike was followed by a great roaring noise, like a hurricane, which shook the entire gondola.
Jay lost his footing and fell as the floor shuddered beneath him. The hurricane continued, though it was populated with an undercurrent of small exploding booms. Jack was struggling with his sheets, trying to tear his way out of bed; Jay could see that he was shouting, but couldn’t make out any words over the rush of noise.
Then something within the Welsh Rover gave out, and Jay was weightless for a fraction of a second before being snapped against the wall, hard. Furniture in the cabin went tumbling; Jack was spun out his bed, sheets and all, and nearly smacked into a toppled chair.
Jay was still dazzled by the sudden movement and his hangover. He couldn’t figure out what was going on. He was struggling to find a connection between the thumping clouds and the fact that the floor was now slanted when he looked up, through the window.
The airship was on fire.
Instantly sober, Jay gasped, “Oh my God.” It was a terrifying sight. The flame had already engulfed nearly half of the giant envelope, spreading out from the center and leaving behind charred, fragile bones of steel and wire.
Jack had apparently managed to extricate himself from his tangled bedsheets, because he shook Jay by the shoulder and shouted, “Hang on to something, mate!”
But before either of them had braced themselves with anything, there was a great groan of metal, and the floor shifted again. Jay, who had the good fortune to be seated, was only rolled a little to the right; and was glad he had when he felt table and chairs come crashing into the corner where he had been. Jack was unlucky; he was standing up and was flung headfirst into the wall above Jay’s bed.
Jay made his best effort to spread himself low on the floor against the side of his bed. The entire gondola seemed to be angled towards the ground at the rear, now, and Jay hoped it wouldn’t come loose entirely. He ignored the stream of curses coming from Jack, who was now struggling to disentangle himself from another set of sheets, and waited for the blazing airship to die.
He tried to convince himself that everything would be all right, that there wasn’t really any reason to be afraid. He had a hard time believing it. All the same, he knew that the noise of the burning gas bags held little danger to him. Hydrogen burned up, making a terrifying spectacle but doing little damage to the gondola tucked safely beneath the envelope.
Airship crashes were infrequent, and when they did occur, there were usually few casualties. The greatest danger was to passengers flying overseas, where a crash into stormy oceans was usually a death sentence unless a nearby ship happened to spot the disaster. More than a few trans-ocean liners had disappeared without a trace, and were presumed to have crashed into the seas and all aboard lost.
But the Welsh Rover was flying over the solid ground of Europe, her passengers did not have to contend with icy waves at the bottom. The fall would probably be hair-raising, but gentle considering the distance. Most everyone should escape unharmed. Jay said this to himself over and over, eyes clenched shut in fear. They would be all right.
Except this airship crash seemed destined not to follow the norm. Metal shrieked again, and Jay unhappily found that more of his weight was now falling against the side of the bed rather than the floor. The gondola also began to rocking from side to side, a sickening motion which Jay could feel even through the jolting motion of the descent.
When the Rover finally touched down, it was like the end of the world.
Jay hadn’t thought about where they would be landing. Crashes over the ground usually took place above the flat, paved expanse of air stations. Their airship had been cruising above the densely forested mountains of southern Germany. To make matters even worse, the gondola struck at a severe angle. Jay was thrown bodily into the thin wooden paneling of the cabin’s inner wall near the door. The table, which had earlier missed him in the tossing, flipped over and struck Jay on the head. He shouted obscenities at his exacerbated headache while a chair skipped off the overturned table and landed on top of the bed and Jack with a crunch.
The tearing of metal was now dominant in a cacophony whose myriad parts Jay could no longer identify individually. The whole gondola seemed in danger of tumbling over; but after a few final shudders and gasps of destruction, it came to a rest, with the floor inclined only slightly toward the rear and starboard. Stillness returned.
It took Jay a few minutes to realize that the only sound he could hear was his own panicked breathing. Then a woman started screaming.
Book One, Chapter:
-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-
-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30-31-32-33-34-35-36-37-38-39-40-41-42-
-43-44-45-46-47-48-49-50-51-52-53-54-55-56-57-58-59-60-61-62-
Appendix: -A-B-C-
He was in no shape to appreciate the view tonight, though. He’d gotten off to a bad start for his sobriety when Jack introduced him to some dark ale he’d not tried before. Then he’d totally lost the battle when he decided a third wouldn’t be too much worse.
Jay tried to uncross his eyes, but couldn’t figure out how. After a minute or two, he gave up.
Most of the evening had been spent among a group of women enthralled by Jack’s stories. Jay had been glad he was not the target of a few husbands’ jealous glares. Jack hadn’t seemed to notice, but went right spinning tales about camping in the Outback or apprehending Singaporean pirates.
At one point, during a lull, a pretty woman had tried to engage Jay in a conversation, but he hadn’t lasted very long. Jay thought his life had been rather exciting so far, but somehow it seemed boring coming out of his mouth. A vexing problem. The woman seemed to lose interest after a few minutes.
He suspected that Jack, on the other hand, could make a tax accountant’s job sound exciting. Not that anything so dull appeared to have ever been a part of the adventurer’s life.
Jack Duggan had been born in County Kerry, Ireland, an only child of minor nobility. When he was still a teenager, he’d stowed away on a ship to Australia, mostly to escape the proper civil life his parents were trying to build for him. He’d made quite a nuisance of himself over the next several years. Eventually, the authorities caught up with him, but not after he’d become something of a local legend, Robin Hood-style, and evaded capture by fleeing abroad; including the safari in Africa Jay was already familiar with. But he had finally been captured, and nearly killed too.
Several years breaking rocks in a prison seemed to have reformed him; and Jack jumped at an opportunity for parole in return for helping the government track down some former comrades of his that had turned into murderers preying on the helpless. After that, he’d become what amounted to a bounty-hunter—despite Jack’s dislike of the term—finding and dealing with various undesirables on government contracts but without the restraints placed on the government’s more official agents.
The women at the table had been hanging on his every word. Jay harrumphed, his own adventures across Europe were mild in comparison; Jack was like something out of a storybook.
He was nearly lost to the clutches of sleep when Jack came back to the cabin. His didn’t seem the least bit unsteady on his legs, despite having had twice as much to drink as Jay by the time he’d left. Jay grumbled, the man even held his alcohol better. And with that unhappy thought, Jay fell into a dreamless sleep.
* * *
Jay was awoken by something thumping against the window, like it was hit by a cricket ball. He bolted upright—startled—and instantly regretted it as someone with a malicious sense of humor stuck a knife in his brain. Rubbing his head and squinting through the hangover, Jay looked at the window, but there was nothing there. It was early morning and they were still hundreds of feet up in the air, so it couldn’t have been a cricket ball. Maybe a bird had flown into the window, it happened occasionally.
Glancing across the cabin to his left, he saw that the other passenger hadn’t even noticed, still snoring lightly. Yawning, he was just starting to lay back down to sleep when something went thud again.
Jay blinked. It sounded more distant this time, and not from the window in front of him, but as if it came from the other side of the airship. Nor did it sound like something striking the vessel, now that he thought about it, more like a heavy stone being dropped in the dirt, just a dull thump. But of course they were nowhere near the ground.
The sound came a third time, and once more as if it just outside the window. Scratching his head now, Jay slid out of his bed and padded over to peer outside.
It was a clear day; and though they had to be traveling rather quickly, there was the illusion that they were floating lazily over green expanse of southern Germany. The only thing the least bit unusual were a couple of dark clouds, just specks really, hanging in the air. Jay couldn’t tell how far away they were, and was just about to shrug the phenomenon off when a third black spot puffed into existence accompanied by the same sound he’d heard before.
That got Jay’s attention, and some alarming thoughts began hacking through the dense fog of his mind.
He half turned towards the sleeping Jack Duggan, but kept his eyes on the sky outside the window, “Hey Jack, come look at this…”
He wasn’t sure if his words were loud enough to wake the slumbering Australian, but they didn’t have to be. The next sound was like someone striking a steel drum with a hammer, and Jay could feel it through his feet as well as ringing in his ears.
Jack’s eyes snapped open, and looked sharply over at Jay, who was glancing about the cabin stupidly. The adventurer didn’t have time to say anything, though, before the metallic strike was followed by a great roaring noise, like a hurricane, which shook the entire gondola.
Jay lost his footing and fell as the floor shuddered beneath him. The hurricane continued, though it was populated with an undercurrent of small exploding booms. Jack was struggling with his sheets, trying to tear his way out of bed; Jay could see that he was shouting, but couldn’t make out any words over the rush of noise.
Then something within the Welsh Rover gave out, and Jay was weightless for a fraction of a second before being snapped against the wall, hard. Furniture in the cabin went tumbling; Jack was spun out his bed, sheets and all, and nearly smacked into a toppled chair.
Jay was still dazzled by the sudden movement and his hangover. He couldn’t figure out what was going on. He was struggling to find a connection between the thumping clouds and the fact that the floor was now slanted when he looked up, through the window.
The airship was on fire.
Instantly sober, Jay gasped, “Oh my God.” It was a terrifying sight. The flame had already engulfed nearly half of the giant envelope, spreading out from the center and leaving behind charred, fragile bones of steel and wire.
Jack had apparently managed to extricate himself from his tangled bedsheets, because he shook Jay by the shoulder and shouted, “Hang on to something, mate!”
But before either of them had braced themselves with anything, there was a great groan of metal, and the floor shifted again. Jay, who had the good fortune to be seated, was only rolled a little to the right; and was glad he had when he felt table and chairs come crashing into the corner where he had been. Jack was unlucky; he was standing up and was flung headfirst into the wall above Jay’s bed.
Jay made his best effort to spread himself low on the floor against the side of his bed. The entire gondola seemed to be angled towards the ground at the rear, now, and Jay hoped it wouldn’t come loose entirely. He ignored the stream of curses coming from Jack, who was now struggling to disentangle himself from another set of sheets, and waited for the blazing airship to die.
He tried to convince himself that everything would be all right, that there wasn’t really any reason to be afraid. He had a hard time believing it. All the same, he knew that the noise of the burning gas bags held little danger to him. Hydrogen burned up, making a terrifying spectacle but doing little damage to the gondola tucked safely beneath the envelope.
Airship crashes were infrequent, and when they did occur, there were usually few casualties. The greatest danger was to passengers flying overseas, where a crash into stormy oceans was usually a death sentence unless a nearby ship happened to spot the disaster. More than a few trans-ocean liners had disappeared without a trace, and were presumed to have crashed into the seas and all aboard lost.
But the Welsh Rover was flying over the solid ground of Europe, her passengers did not have to contend with icy waves at the bottom. The fall would probably be hair-raising, but gentle considering the distance. Most everyone should escape unharmed. Jay said this to himself over and over, eyes clenched shut in fear. They would be all right.
Except this airship crash seemed destined not to follow the norm. Metal shrieked again, and Jay unhappily found that more of his weight was now falling against the side of the bed rather than the floor. The gondola also began to rocking from side to side, a sickening motion which Jay could feel even through the jolting motion of the descent.
When the Rover finally touched down, it was like the end of the world.
Jay hadn’t thought about where they would be landing. Crashes over the ground usually took place above the flat, paved expanse of air stations. Their airship had been cruising above the densely forested mountains of southern Germany. To make matters even worse, the gondola struck at a severe angle. Jay was thrown bodily into the thin wooden paneling of the cabin’s inner wall near the door. The table, which had earlier missed him in the tossing, flipped over and struck Jay on the head. He shouted obscenities at his exacerbated headache while a chair skipped off the overturned table and landed on top of the bed and Jack with a crunch.
The tearing of metal was now dominant in a cacophony whose myriad parts Jay could no longer identify individually. The whole gondola seemed in danger of tumbling over; but after a few final shudders and gasps of destruction, it came to a rest, with the floor inclined only slightly toward the rear and starboard. Stillness returned.
It took Jay a few minutes to realize that the only sound he could hear was his own panicked breathing. Then a woman started screaming.
Book One, Chapter:
-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-
-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30-31-32-33-34-35-36-37-38-39-40-41-42-
-43-44-45-46-47-48-49-50-51-52-53-54-55-56-57-58-59-60-61-62-
Appendix: -A-B-C-