Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(105)
“Hey,” Lawrence protested. “They’ll see the glint. Griks don’t ha’ telescokes.”
“Relax. Ever’thing’s shiny in the morning.” Silva adjusted the resolution. “Jumpin’ Jehosephat!” he exclaimed. “There’s a couple ’Cats down there, inside a fence surrounded by water! There’s a little shack inside too, an’ . . . some other folks may be stretched out under awnings.” He stared a moment longer, then eased back and closed the telescope. “Larry, ol’ buddy, I think we found our people.”
“Did you see Lady Sandra?” Lawrence asked excitedly.
Silva looked at him incredulously. “Sure. An’ she has a mole on her cheek I never noticed,” he snapped. “Hell, no, I didn’t see her! I couldn’t tell them others was ’Cats from here, without their flippy tails. What’s the matter with you?”
Lawrence shrugged. “I got excited, I guess.”
“Yeah? Well, me too,” Silva admitted. “I hope she’s there. It’ll make things a lot easier if they’re all in one place. We’ll find out quick as we can.” He looked back at the crew-’Cats. “Okay, it’s about time to play busted duck, anyway.” In response to their confused blinking, he elaborated. “Make like we’re coming in to land at the strip, but when I give the word, we’ll kill the engines on the port side, see?” He looked at the Lemurian at the tiller. “It’ll get tough for you, an’ I doubt you’ll have to pretend how hard it is to keep ’er under control. Larry, you’ll have’ta guide us in. Too many eyes’ll be on us in a minute for me ta’ show my purty face. You know where we wanna set down. Just sing out if it looks wrong when we get close.”
“Rong?”
“Yeah, you know: big rocks, trees, ten thousand lizards waitin’ underneath us. That sorta thing.” His eye rested on the three Grik corpses secured in the forward gondola. “Get ready to peel ’em,” he said.
From the ground, the dingy, hard-weathered airship must’ve looked like it had seen a lot of action. Perhaps it had survived numerous raids over Grik City? Several large patches were evident, specifically where Silva once painted Walker’s number, DD-163, so they wouldn’t be shot down by friendlies. But as it descended toward the airfield, turning into the wind, and Grik line handers began to assemble, two engines on the port side suddenly clattered and died. Immediately, it veered left as the thrust of the starboard engines and the breeze took it. The rudders slammed hard over, and the throttles controlling the starboard engines were quickly cut, leaving only the centerline motor behind the forward gondola. More a steering engine than anything, however, it just wasn’t enough. And too much hydrogen had already been vented for the airship to rise again, so it kept descending as it drifted swiftly westward.
The young Japanese sailor only recently promoted to officer and who had the duty at the airfield sprang into action. He quickly ordered a telegraph message sent to HQ that they had an airship in distress and raced off on foot, leading a dozen Grik security troops. They ran as fast as they could through the dense jungle separating their post from the sea, but before they’d made it a mile down the narrow, winding path, they saw a ball of bright orange fire roll into the sky through a gap in the cover. Black smoke gushed away to seaward. Picking up their pace and panting as they went, they covered the final mile to the coast. It was all over by the time they arrived: there wasn’t even much smoke anymore. Through heroic effort, the crew of the airship had apparently managed to crash-land on the broad, blindingly white beach before they were blown out to sea, but whatever caused the engines to malfunction—whether they overheated or their fuel lines burst, there was no telling—must’ve started a fire. Constructed almost entirely of wood and fabric, the very cells containing the volatile hydrogen saturated with a highly flammable sealant, and with the heaviest weight aboard being fuel tanks, Grik zeppelins, once ignited, burned as quickly and thoroughly as nitrated paper. All that remained were scattered engines, a frail, collapsing skeleton, and the two gondolas, still smoldering.
“Check inside!” the Japanese officer shouted, waving his Grik forward before he bent over gasping, hands on his knees. The skeleton crumpled with a sparkly crash, nearly catching a couple of his Grik, but they ventured forward again, to peer inside the gondolas.
“Su’ete no shisha!” one of the Grik reported in his best butchered Japanese. He held up three clawed fingers on each hand. Six bodies; no survivors. The officer sighed and sank to the sand. “We’ll wait until the wreck cools, then see if any dispatches survived.” Those were usually in thick leather satchels or wooden tubes and may have escaped the fire. The Grik gathered round and squatted in the sand around him.
“Well, we’re here,” Silva whispered, peering from the jungle shadows nearby. Lawrence was putting the brass-framed Remington MK III flare gun that ignited the zep back in his pack. He took out a thick paper box of hardtack “heart attack” crackers and offered them around. Brassey took one, biting into the thick, dark square, and munched quietly. Silva nodded at the Khonashi sergeant who stuck to Brassey like glue. “Quick work covering our tracks, Sergeant . . . Oolak, right?” The fierce-looking Khonashi nodded. “I doubt they’d’ve noticed ’em, the way they charged right up, but who knows?” He slithered back and leaned against a tree, gazing around at his, Brassey’s, and Lawrence’s ten Khonashi and three ’Cats. “My poor zep,” he lamented. “It was the best one in the whole damn Air Corps!” He held up his canteen in salute and took a solemn sip.