Post by Lorpius Prime on Jun 27, 2008 8:51:05 GMT -5
Margaret’s stomach leapt into her throat as she quite suddenly found herself weightless, as if she’d suddenly jumped from a building or a child’s swing. For a moment, she could feel both herself and her chair rise perhaps an inch or two off the floor of her cabin.
The moment ended quickly, however, and Margaret bounced off her chair as she and it crashed back down. Margaret’s reflexes had not waned much since her childhood, however, and she landed expertly on her feet despite the painful shock to her back. She recovered swiftly and spun to look at the cabin window. The Apollo was sinking to the ground, and doing so rather quickly. It was not quite an uncontrolled fall, but nor was it the graceful descent Margaret expected from the passenger liner.
She was still watching the cityscape rising up to meet them when someone in the hall outside began pounding on the walls and doors and shouting, “Brace for crash landing! Passengers brace for impact!”
Margaret started at the exclamation and was turning around when the door to her cabin burst open and a conductor leaned in. Margaret was very glad she had not been undressing.
“Brace for a crash landing, madam! You want to lie on the floor away from anything loose or sharp, cover your head!”
He was back out the door and gone before Margaret could even open her mouth to ask what was going on. She stood stunned for a moment, and then shook herself. Whatever was happening, she decided it was prudent to do as the man had said. Margaret moved to the corner of the room nearest the door, which was the farthest away from the windows and furniture. She knelt down and leaned forward on her elbows, placing her hands over her head, though she kept her chin and eyes lifted towards the windows, Margaret could not resist the desire to take a last look outside.
The ground had not seemed to be approaching all that rapidly when she had been peering out the window, but it was only a few seconds after Margaret had knelt down that the great airship touched down. She felt the impact through the floor and glasses clattered on the table, but it did not feel as serious as the conductor had caused her to fear.
But after the very solid thump came a great screeching and rending of metal. Margaret had to plug her ears against it and the sound continued for nearly a minute. The steel lattices which supported the airship’s enormous gas envelope were being deformed, twisted and giving way. By the time it was over, Margaret wondered if the Apollo would ever be able to fly again.
Martin winced at the terrible noise. He knew what it meant and knew there would be hell to pay if he didn’t succeed to justify his decisions. But he could hardly turn back from the path he had chosen, and his window of opportunity had apparently shrunk dramatically; so it was either risk the Apollo or abandon his mission completely, and Martin Bozeman Holland did not make a habit of giving up. He pushed those worries out of his mind and pulled himself to his feet.
The bridge crew had seemed satisfied in their retribution to see Martin stumble when the airship jolted during the initial loss of altitude, afterwards they had instructed him on how to properly brace for the landing and it had not been too rough on him, even if it was the end of the airship.
Captain Randall began shouting orders while Martin straightened out his shirt and pants. He caught the captain's eye and nodded as crewmen began to scurry about the bridge.
"Thank you, Captain; your assistance is greatly appreciated. I'll leave you to tend to your ship now, as I must be off at once."
The Apollo's Captain gave Martin a look which wasn't quite a glare, but came close, and he nodded gravely. Martin wasted no more time, but followed a pair of officers out the door into the gondola's lowest level.
He paused as he passed by the stairs which led up to the second floor. Once again Martin could feel all of his professional instincts and all of his training being shoved aside by the sort of emotional dilemma which had not plagued him since he was a child. It was weakness, but a weakness he struggled this one time to turn away from. He had promised Margaret that she could come with him, he had asked her to trust him, and even though Martin knew that she could not, he was still reluctant to admit it… not just yet. Later he would have to make a choice and Martin had no doubts as to what that choice would be, but for the moment he wanted nothing more than to pretend that wasn't in his future, if only for a little while.
And then his professionalism regained the upper hand against his weakness. Because, as those cold thoughts pointed out, the Army had signaled that the Apollo had entered a combat zone. Whatever Martin was walking into, it certainly would not be safe for civilians to follow along.
Martin turned towards the access hatch on the outer wall which would take him outside. Before his fingers could even reach the jamb, however, the entire door was nearly torn off its hinges as someone outside wrenched it open.
An Army sergeant forced his way through the opening. He was built like a gorilla and hunched forward with his hands held out in front of him, fingers trembling as if he wanted to crush someone's head with them. His wide meaty face matched the crimson red color of jacket. His eyes caught on Martin's as the first person he encountered inside the airship and he seemed to be trying to reduce the other man to cinders with the glare.
"What," he growled, "in the name of the Empress' goddamn gilded girdle do you fuckers think you're doing? Clear this airspace now! If the enemy fixes your position their shells are going to have to race my boot up your ass. And you had better pray to the Lord Almighty that those seventy-fivers get there first!"
Martin almost chuckled, but the sergeant's tirade was kicking him back into gear and he kept a straight face. He appreciated men like this, they knew how to get things done and weren't afraid in the slightest of letting you know it. And not even God could save you if you were incompetent in their presence.
"Sergeant!" Martin snapped, the old voice coming back strong even after all his years away from the field.
The soldier blinked and straightened up slightly, he had not anticipated that voice but the response was ingrained, automatic.
Martin nodded briefly but respectfully and fished his credentials from his pocket to show the other man. "I am Colonel Holland from the Security Service, Sergeant, and I'm sorry to shit on you like this; but I need you to take me to the commander of your brigade at once."
"Sir!" The sergeant snapped into a full salute at once. Afterwards, however, he turned back to the hatchway and muttered without much of an attempt to conceal his feelings from Martin: "Shit."
Martin did not see how he could complain.
Margaret waited a moment before rising to her feet again, and felt slightly annoyed at the trembling of her knees. She did not feel particularly frightened, but apparently her body had a different opinion on the matter. She took a deep breath and shook out her limbs in order to bring them back under control.
Her first thought, after glancing around the room to see that everything was still reasonably in order despite the crash, was to walk go through her door and demand an explanation.
It did not appear that she was the only one to have that reaction, however, and someone else beat her too it. A middle-aged man in a red velvet smoking jacket clutching a still-lit wood pipe was already standing outside his cabin when Margaret opened her door.
"And just what is going on here, boy?" he shouted at a conductor at the end of the hall. The young man looked slightly shaken and unsure of what he was supposed to do. "I daresay I should get a refund on my fare after all this racket," the other passenger went on.
The conductor shook his head and seemed to recover his wits. He held up his hands in a calming gesture, "Yes, sir. For the moment, however, if you," he looked at Margaret and the handful of other passengers who had emerged from their rooms as well, "will just remain in your cabins for your own safety, I'll have further instructions from the crew shortly."
The man didn't seem terribly happy with this response, but he didn't seem to see the value in arguing either. Instead he took a few angry puffs on his pipe and withdrew back into his cabin. Margaret shrugged and did the same. She walked over to the table in the center of the room and straightened up the glasses that had tumbled over during the crash. She wondered if the conductors on the upper level were having as easy a time keeping control of the more numerous and tightly packed regular-fare passengers like—
"Martin."
As soon as she said his name, Margaret knew he had to be involved with this little incident somehow. She was certain he was already raising hell with the crew over it if, in fact, he had not somehow been the cause of the crash himself. Margaret's eyes narrowed. Yes, she was going to have to find that little cretin before he started to go completely off his leash and left Margaret twiddling her thumbs. Grumbling, she grabbed her handbag from beside her bed and returned to the hallway.
"Madam, please go back to your cabin," the conductor told her as she marched over to the stairway at his end of the hall.
"I'm here with another passenger and I need to… check on him." The conductor was a small man, and Margaret straightened her back in order to loom over him and look intimidating as she approached.
"I'm sorry, Madam," he replied, unfazed, and stepped into her path, "but we need all the passengers to stay where they are for the moment until we can make sure everything is all right. Was your companion in the dining room?" The conductor half-turned towards the door behind him, as if to indicate he could check on Margaret's other passenger himself.
"No, he's in one of the seats upstairs." Margaret moved to step around him, but the conductor held out his arms.
"Then I'm sure the other conductors will take care of him for the moment, Madam, please return—"
"My husband was in the dining room!" came an old woman's rather high-pitched whine. "I'm sure he was stuffing himself silly even as the rest of us were hiding under our tables!"
The conductor cringed and turned to this new complaint. Margaret used his momentary distraction to slip around the edge of his outstretched fingers and bound up the stairs. The young man spun to go after her, but glanced back down his hallway and planted his feet again with an exasperated sigh. Margaret felt her heart lift slightly at the successful bit of mischief and continued to climb the stairs.
At the top, she found another pair of conductors doing their best to maintain order among the many rows of general passengers. There was a great deal more complaining, but most of the people were seated and looked more annoyed than riotous. The conductor closest to the top of the stairs was, however, trying to keep back a rather large and swarthy-skinned fellow who seemed to be cursing the crewman in a foreign language. Margaret stood on her toes to peer over the heads down the cabin, but saw no sign of Martin.
"Miss!" The other conductor had noticed Margaret and turned around. "You shouldn't be up here, we need you to—"
"Smits! Franklin!" A man came running up the stairs and nearly ran into Margaret. He caught himself just in time and edged around her at the top, but didn't even look at her. He was wearing the same uniform as the two conductors, but with a peaked cap and gold insignia that indicated he was one of the airship's command officers. "Smits," he pointed a finger at the conductor who had been addressing Margaret, "go tell Will and Leslie, we need to get all the people off right now. There are a couple of Army squadrons at the doors to take everyone to shelter. Try not to crack skulls, but do it quickly, men."
The conductor, Smits blinked in brief astonishment, but then nodded and threaded himself past his partner and the large foreigner who had gone silent. The officer who'd just told them to evacuate turned and started stepping quickly back down the stairs.
Margaret called after him, "Wait! Sir, just a—"
The officer didn't even turn around to look at her, but shook his head, "Miss, I'm sorry, I don't have time. Just do what they say and you'll be all right." He kept right on going.
"Sir, please!" Margaret rushed down the stairs after him, "I'm looking for Colonel Martin Holland, have you—"
The officer whirled and grabbed Margaret by the shoulder before she could collide with him and send them both tumbling. "Pardon," he said, releasing her, "what about Colonel Holland, then?"
"I've been travelling here with him!" she gasped. "But I'm afraid I let him out of my sight, have you seen him?"
The officer's expression was stern as he nodded over his shoulder, "Yeah, he ran off with a Sergeant from the garrison right after dropping us all into this mess."
Margaret snorted, "I see. Well, I should follow after him, then."
The officer raised an eyebrow at her, but then shrugged. "Door's at the bottom, miss, but you'll have to tell it to the folks in charge outside." He turned back to continue his descent. Margaret followed in his wake.
She paused a moment back at the second floor where he cabin was. Most of her things were still inside, but it took Margaret only a moment to decide that she couldn't very well go chasing off after Martin while carrying along all her luggage. That was the sort of thing Jay Thomson would do. Shrugging, she continued on her way down to the Apollo's lowest level.
Another officer was in the hall at the bottom, standing by an open hatchway. His brow furrowed at the sight of Margaret and he raised a finger, but seemed to have trouble actually finding something to say. Margaret brushed passed him to climb through the hatch.
It was night outside, but the air station was well-lit by a nearly-full moon as well as various harsh lights on the ground and the side of the airship itself. To Margaret's left, a half-dozen soldiers in their red jackets were wheeling a set of stairs up to the Apollo's main second-floor hatch. There were quite a few more soldiers, rifles slung over their shoulders, standing around looking nervous, apparently waiting to take charge of disembarking passengers. A small knot of them started moving towards Margaret as she looked around.
And saw exactly what she needed.
"Captain Ivers!" Margaret put her hands to her mouth and shouted at a man on horseback several yards away who had been leaning over to speak with a similarly mounted lieutenant.
Gerald Ivers sat abruptly upright in his saddle and looked around, bewildered.
"Margaret Joyce?" his eyes went wide as they settled on the girl who had tormented him for years when he was a boy in an Exeter grammar school. He glanced briefly up at envelope of the giant airship which hung above them, visibly warped and torn from its landing. Then his gaze returned to Margaret, "I should have known."
The moment ended quickly, however, and Margaret bounced off her chair as she and it crashed back down. Margaret’s reflexes had not waned much since her childhood, however, and she landed expertly on her feet despite the painful shock to her back. She recovered swiftly and spun to look at the cabin window. The Apollo was sinking to the ground, and doing so rather quickly. It was not quite an uncontrolled fall, but nor was it the graceful descent Margaret expected from the passenger liner.
She was still watching the cityscape rising up to meet them when someone in the hall outside began pounding on the walls and doors and shouting, “Brace for crash landing! Passengers brace for impact!”
Margaret started at the exclamation and was turning around when the door to her cabin burst open and a conductor leaned in. Margaret was very glad she had not been undressing.
“Brace for a crash landing, madam! You want to lie on the floor away from anything loose or sharp, cover your head!”
He was back out the door and gone before Margaret could even open her mouth to ask what was going on. She stood stunned for a moment, and then shook herself. Whatever was happening, she decided it was prudent to do as the man had said. Margaret moved to the corner of the room nearest the door, which was the farthest away from the windows and furniture. She knelt down and leaned forward on her elbows, placing her hands over her head, though she kept her chin and eyes lifted towards the windows, Margaret could not resist the desire to take a last look outside.
The ground had not seemed to be approaching all that rapidly when she had been peering out the window, but it was only a few seconds after Margaret had knelt down that the great airship touched down. She felt the impact through the floor and glasses clattered on the table, but it did not feel as serious as the conductor had caused her to fear.
But after the very solid thump came a great screeching and rending of metal. Margaret had to plug her ears against it and the sound continued for nearly a minute. The steel lattices which supported the airship’s enormous gas envelope were being deformed, twisted and giving way. By the time it was over, Margaret wondered if the Apollo would ever be able to fly again.
* * *
Martin winced at the terrible noise. He knew what it meant and knew there would be hell to pay if he didn’t succeed to justify his decisions. But he could hardly turn back from the path he had chosen, and his window of opportunity had apparently shrunk dramatically; so it was either risk the Apollo or abandon his mission completely, and Martin Bozeman Holland did not make a habit of giving up. He pushed those worries out of his mind and pulled himself to his feet.
The bridge crew had seemed satisfied in their retribution to see Martin stumble when the airship jolted during the initial loss of altitude, afterwards they had instructed him on how to properly brace for the landing and it had not been too rough on him, even if it was the end of the airship.
Captain Randall began shouting orders while Martin straightened out his shirt and pants. He caught the captain's eye and nodded as crewmen began to scurry about the bridge.
"Thank you, Captain; your assistance is greatly appreciated. I'll leave you to tend to your ship now, as I must be off at once."
The Apollo's Captain gave Martin a look which wasn't quite a glare, but came close, and he nodded gravely. Martin wasted no more time, but followed a pair of officers out the door into the gondola's lowest level.
He paused as he passed by the stairs which led up to the second floor. Once again Martin could feel all of his professional instincts and all of his training being shoved aside by the sort of emotional dilemma which had not plagued him since he was a child. It was weakness, but a weakness he struggled this one time to turn away from. He had promised Margaret that she could come with him, he had asked her to trust him, and even though Martin knew that she could not, he was still reluctant to admit it… not just yet. Later he would have to make a choice and Martin had no doubts as to what that choice would be, but for the moment he wanted nothing more than to pretend that wasn't in his future, if only for a little while.
And then his professionalism regained the upper hand against his weakness. Because, as those cold thoughts pointed out, the Army had signaled that the Apollo had entered a combat zone. Whatever Martin was walking into, it certainly would not be safe for civilians to follow along.
Martin turned towards the access hatch on the outer wall which would take him outside. Before his fingers could even reach the jamb, however, the entire door was nearly torn off its hinges as someone outside wrenched it open.
An Army sergeant forced his way through the opening. He was built like a gorilla and hunched forward with his hands held out in front of him, fingers trembling as if he wanted to crush someone's head with them. His wide meaty face matched the crimson red color of jacket. His eyes caught on Martin's as the first person he encountered inside the airship and he seemed to be trying to reduce the other man to cinders with the glare.
"What," he growled, "in the name of the Empress' goddamn gilded girdle do you fuckers think you're doing? Clear this airspace now! If the enemy fixes your position their shells are going to have to race my boot up your ass. And you had better pray to the Lord Almighty that those seventy-fivers get there first!"
Martin almost chuckled, but the sergeant's tirade was kicking him back into gear and he kept a straight face. He appreciated men like this, they knew how to get things done and weren't afraid in the slightest of letting you know it. And not even God could save you if you were incompetent in their presence.
"Sergeant!" Martin snapped, the old voice coming back strong even after all his years away from the field.
The soldier blinked and straightened up slightly, he had not anticipated that voice but the response was ingrained, automatic.
Martin nodded briefly but respectfully and fished his credentials from his pocket to show the other man. "I am Colonel Holland from the Security Service, Sergeant, and I'm sorry to shit on you like this; but I need you to take me to the commander of your brigade at once."
"Sir!" The sergeant snapped into a full salute at once. Afterwards, however, he turned back to the hatchway and muttered without much of an attempt to conceal his feelings from Martin: "Shit."
Martin did not see how he could complain.
* * *
Margaret waited a moment before rising to her feet again, and felt slightly annoyed at the trembling of her knees. She did not feel particularly frightened, but apparently her body had a different opinion on the matter. She took a deep breath and shook out her limbs in order to bring them back under control.
Her first thought, after glancing around the room to see that everything was still reasonably in order despite the crash, was to walk go through her door and demand an explanation.
It did not appear that she was the only one to have that reaction, however, and someone else beat her too it. A middle-aged man in a red velvet smoking jacket clutching a still-lit wood pipe was already standing outside his cabin when Margaret opened her door.
"And just what is going on here, boy?" he shouted at a conductor at the end of the hall. The young man looked slightly shaken and unsure of what he was supposed to do. "I daresay I should get a refund on my fare after all this racket," the other passenger went on.
The conductor shook his head and seemed to recover his wits. He held up his hands in a calming gesture, "Yes, sir. For the moment, however, if you," he looked at Margaret and the handful of other passengers who had emerged from their rooms as well, "will just remain in your cabins for your own safety, I'll have further instructions from the crew shortly."
The man didn't seem terribly happy with this response, but he didn't seem to see the value in arguing either. Instead he took a few angry puffs on his pipe and withdrew back into his cabin. Margaret shrugged and did the same. She walked over to the table in the center of the room and straightened up the glasses that had tumbled over during the crash. She wondered if the conductors on the upper level were having as easy a time keeping control of the more numerous and tightly packed regular-fare passengers like—
"Martin."
As soon as she said his name, Margaret knew he had to be involved with this little incident somehow. She was certain he was already raising hell with the crew over it if, in fact, he had not somehow been the cause of the crash himself. Margaret's eyes narrowed. Yes, she was going to have to find that little cretin before he started to go completely off his leash and left Margaret twiddling her thumbs. Grumbling, she grabbed her handbag from beside her bed and returned to the hallway.
"Madam, please go back to your cabin," the conductor told her as she marched over to the stairway at his end of the hall.
"I'm here with another passenger and I need to… check on him." The conductor was a small man, and Margaret straightened her back in order to loom over him and look intimidating as she approached.
"I'm sorry, Madam," he replied, unfazed, and stepped into her path, "but we need all the passengers to stay where they are for the moment until we can make sure everything is all right. Was your companion in the dining room?" The conductor half-turned towards the door behind him, as if to indicate he could check on Margaret's other passenger himself.
"No, he's in one of the seats upstairs." Margaret moved to step around him, but the conductor held out his arms.
"Then I'm sure the other conductors will take care of him for the moment, Madam, please return—"
"My husband was in the dining room!" came an old woman's rather high-pitched whine. "I'm sure he was stuffing himself silly even as the rest of us were hiding under our tables!"
The conductor cringed and turned to this new complaint. Margaret used his momentary distraction to slip around the edge of his outstretched fingers and bound up the stairs. The young man spun to go after her, but glanced back down his hallway and planted his feet again with an exasperated sigh. Margaret felt her heart lift slightly at the successful bit of mischief and continued to climb the stairs.
At the top, she found another pair of conductors doing their best to maintain order among the many rows of general passengers. There was a great deal more complaining, but most of the people were seated and looked more annoyed than riotous. The conductor closest to the top of the stairs was, however, trying to keep back a rather large and swarthy-skinned fellow who seemed to be cursing the crewman in a foreign language. Margaret stood on her toes to peer over the heads down the cabin, but saw no sign of Martin.
"Miss!" The other conductor had noticed Margaret and turned around. "You shouldn't be up here, we need you to—"
"Smits! Franklin!" A man came running up the stairs and nearly ran into Margaret. He caught himself just in time and edged around her at the top, but didn't even look at her. He was wearing the same uniform as the two conductors, but with a peaked cap and gold insignia that indicated he was one of the airship's command officers. "Smits," he pointed a finger at the conductor who had been addressing Margaret, "go tell Will and Leslie, we need to get all the people off right now. There are a couple of Army squadrons at the doors to take everyone to shelter. Try not to crack skulls, but do it quickly, men."
The conductor, Smits blinked in brief astonishment, but then nodded and threaded himself past his partner and the large foreigner who had gone silent. The officer who'd just told them to evacuate turned and started stepping quickly back down the stairs.
Margaret called after him, "Wait! Sir, just a—"
The officer didn't even turn around to look at her, but shook his head, "Miss, I'm sorry, I don't have time. Just do what they say and you'll be all right." He kept right on going.
"Sir, please!" Margaret rushed down the stairs after him, "I'm looking for Colonel Martin Holland, have you—"
The officer whirled and grabbed Margaret by the shoulder before she could collide with him and send them both tumbling. "Pardon," he said, releasing her, "what about Colonel Holland, then?"
"I've been travelling here with him!" she gasped. "But I'm afraid I let him out of my sight, have you seen him?"
The officer's expression was stern as he nodded over his shoulder, "Yeah, he ran off with a Sergeant from the garrison right after dropping us all into this mess."
Margaret snorted, "I see. Well, I should follow after him, then."
The officer raised an eyebrow at her, but then shrugged. "Door's at the bottom, miss, but you'll have to tell it to the folks in charge outside." He turned back to continue his descent. Margaret followed in his wake.
She paused a moment back at the second floor where he cabin was. Most of her things were still inside, but it took Margaret only a moment to decide that she couldn't very well go chasing off after Martin while carrying along all her luggage. That was the sort of thing Jay Thomson would do. Shrugging, she continued on her way down to the Apollo's lowest level.
Another officer was in the hall at the bottom, standing by an open hatchway. His brow furrowed at the sight of Margaret and he raised a finger, but seemed to have trouble actually finding something to say. Margaret brushed passed him to climb through the hatch.
It was night outside, but the air station was well-lit by a nearly-full moon as well as various harsh lights on the ground and the side of the airship itself. To Margaret's left, a half-dozen soldiers in their red jackets were wheeling a set of stairs up to the Apollo's main second-floor hatch. There were quite a few more soldiers, rifles slung over their shoulders, standing around looking nervous, apparently waiting to take charge of disembarking passengers. A small knot of them started moving towards Margaret as she looked around.
And saw exactly what she needed.
"Captain Ivers!" Margaret put her hands to her mouth and shouted at a man on horseback several yards away who had been leaning over to speak with a similarly mounted lieutenant.
Gerald Ivers sat abruptly upright in his saddle and looked around, bewildered.
"Margaret Joyce?" his eyes went wide as they settled on the girl who had tormented him for years when he was a boy in an Exeter grammar school. He glanced briefly up at envelope of the giant airship which hung above them, visibly warped and torn from its landing. Then his gaze returned to Margaret, "I should have known."