Abney Park's The Wrath Of Fate (14 page)

But they didn’t alter course.

“Should we fire, Capt’n?” Mongrel asked, nervously making eye contact with the German pilot.

“For god sake, no!” answered Daniel, who understood the whole plan. “They are our cover. Just wait. Let’s see what they do.

They did nothing, they continued their course for a full three minutes, which seemed like an eternity. During this time some of the fighter planes had swung around, and took up a similar course just outside our little ménage’a trois.

Then the Luftwaffe made their move. Over the tops of the airships they came, the bombers, and we were sandwiched between these hulking giants! There was no escaping. Our only possible course was down, and that would not be an escape.

I panicked and threw the propellers into reverse, hoping to drop enough speed to avoid the bombs as they fell. Instantly there was a grating metal sound and the props pivoted sickeningly, and then froze at odd angles.

“Shit, shit, shit! Robert, what the hell have you done!” yelled Daniel, as he ran up to me. “This is not goo…” he started to say, but was interrupted by whistling sounds from overhead.

The bombs were away.

I heard a large explosion, and shockwaves rippled around the edges of our airbags like ripples in still water.

“FIRE!” I yelled as the second bomb hit. Ropes that held our massive gondola to the airbag were cascading around us, burning and smoking as they fell.

Our cannons fired, and the starboard Zeppelin burst into flames! In seconds the entire airbag was ignited. They didn’t expect that. It was the first time a ten pounder ever plugged into the side of a hydrogen filled zeppelin. Thankfully, we were not getting lift from hydrogen, or we would have been a fireball too!

But it was too late, more ropes snapped, and with a huge drop that sent our sailors falling overboard, the port side of our gondola broke free and fell. Everyone still on deck slid into the port railing, which now hung at the bottom of a fourty-five degree inclined deck. Cannon, crates, and casks slide on top or around them, breaking railings, and sailors. Half the deck crew plunged over the railing, and fell to their death.

Above us, the airbag was rolling up and away! After a second, however, the gondola stopped falling, and the airbag stopped climbing with a massive jerk. The gondola now hung from what was once the top of
Ophelia’s
airbag, but which was upside-down and burning on the bottom where the bombs had hit when it was upright. The gondola was tied only at one side, and dangled defeated at a severe forty five degree angle.

Then we heard more whistling.

I felt a massive rush of fear, of anxiety, and then my ears popped.

Instantly clouds formed around us, lightening flashed, and the sky was black. Wind hit us, and we started to swing wildly but something crashed into the side of the gondola.

Trees! Pine trees were tangled with the bottom of the ship, and were slowly rising as we dropped flaccid to the ground.

As soon as my feet touched the pine-needled floor, I ran to the dangling rigging and tied her off. Other sailors were doing the same, and others still were helping the injured to the ground, helping falling sailors up off the forest floor.

After things had been secured, Daniel and I climbed back on board the angled ship, and made our way below deck. There were unconscious and wounded sailors everywhere piled among the debris.

We made our way to the map room, and found Tanner, drenched in blood from a gash in the side of his head. He was laying on the floor holding the frail and unconscious Calgori.

Tears of guilt filed my eyes.

Tanner looked up. “Robert,” he said slowly, “I think I made a mistake. I think I should have left with…” but his voice trailed off.

I helped Daniel pick the doctor’s small body off the floor, and we did our best to gingerly move him from the cabin, and down the hall. He was disturbingly light, and frail feeling. We eventually got him to the ground, and laid him on several coats by a fire. In a few hours we had set up a makeshift camp on the forest floor. We had no idea where, or when, we were, but it was easy to see there were very few of us left.

All night we nursed the wounded, or slept. In the morning we buried the sailors that didn’t survive the night.

But that evening the doctor woke, and those remaining exhaled in relief.

It turns out Doctor Calgori had taken us fifty five years back from where we experienced our fantastic defeat. In his rush, the doctor had miscalculated and we re-emerged only a few feet from the ground. It was a dangerous error, but it also happened to save our lives. Fifty feet lower, and we would have emerged underground, but as luck had it, we emerged close enough to avoid falling to our deaths as the deflated and burning airbag finally gave up.

“I knew the likelihood of miscalculation was great, and typically I would have erred on the side of more altitude, not less, but considering the state our ship was in, we needed to get her down before she let go of us,” Calorgi said laboriously. “Still, I got the date right I think!”

Over the next few days, we laid more plans, and tried to figure out what had gone wrong. Those left who felt like talking were gathered around the fire: myself, Daniel, Calgori, Kristina. Tanner had nothing to say and stayed in his tent a few feet from the fire, and nobody had seen Lilith since that glance I caught on deck.

“But even given the fact that they had an air force,” I started to ask, “Why did we
arrive
broken? I mean, that was the worst jump we’ve made! It should have been the most stable, but the ship was practically destroyed before we arrived!”

Calgori drew a rasping breath. “That is because we were sabotaged. After the jump through time, as you all ran on deck, I was busy as a bee below deck trying to figure out what caused the damage. It would appear one of the chromatic orbs that helps us travel through time had been removed. It’s a mid-ship orb, not easily seen, so no one noticed it was missing. With this gone, our jump was off balance, and it caused an amazing amount of stress.” The doctor paused. “This orb was also one that could be used on its own, if wired correctly, and all the piping and wiring to it had been carefully removed as well.” The doctor paused “Someone who knew a lot about our ship seems to have taken it to use themselves.”

Daniel gave a sharp look to Kristina, and then to me. Tanner left his tent and headed off into the trees without a word.

“Wait, you’re saying one of our own crew took a part of our engine? Why would they do that? Wouldn’t they be risking their own lives?” I asked.

“Not if they left the ship before we activated the Chrononautilus,” Calgori answered.

Daniel spoke up, “If that’s the case, then whoever it is behind us, and we can…”

“Technically,” Calgori interrupted, “they are ahead of us by forty or so years”

“Fine, ahead of us. The question is, what do we do now?” Daniel continued.

“We have a multitude of options,” Calgori said. “I believe we are now very near the time when our mission started. In fact, less then ten years prior to when the
Ophelia’s
first journey through time. This is around the time I first started building the large scale Chrononautilus for the Royal Navy. Which means I think I can…HAH haha!” The doctor started chuckling.

I looked at him, questioning, and he answered, “When I first started my large scale constructions, spare parts started to become scarce. I had an account at several places where I ordered things like the glass orbs construction, or the rare gasses I used. But I regularly found the bill far higher then I expected, and often found certain items would inexplicably sell out before I could get my hands on them.”

He sat up looking almost playfully amused, and took a long draft of tea before continuing “I was certain this was because some competing scientist was on the verge of discovering the same technique I was to use. It turns out I was only partially correct. I believe the scientist I was competing with was me!”

“I don’t understand,” Kristina stated.

“If I can get to a telegram office,” Calgori said “I can use my accounts the Navy has established for me to order replacement parts for the
Ophelia!
I can order from the same sources, I remember them well, and have them delivered here. Which explains why I will have trouble ordering them in my office in Whitby over the next few years! The other doctor I was competing with is myself, here and now!”

“Well, hell, if you can send a telegram to your supply houses, can you send a note to yourself that tells me not go to Germany?” I asked half-joking, not sure what his answer would be.

“I’m not sure I would deliver that to you, even if I did. You have done a lot of good for a lot of people with your wild antics through time, even if many of our crew lost their lives on this mission. I’m not sure it’d be a good idea to tamper with your rashness.” He paused, and his face went through a series of quick expressions, which always indicated he was in speedy thought. He continued then more quietly, as if to himself, “But perhaps a simplified application of the
Chrononautilus Effect
could be put into a device for sending notes. I will send myself a note to create a device called a…Chronofax? Ooo, that’s good. A
Chronofax
.” He said, savoring the word.

I said nothing. Now I was confused. Had Calgori just thought of inventing the device that had been in my family for years, or was he again showing signs of dementia, and had forgotten this very device has sat in my cabin this entire journey? Surly
he’s
seen it before? In fact, I assumed he had placed it there.

Daniel then got us back to task, “Then we have a plan for the repairing of the
Ophelia.
What about the mission at hand?”

“Wait, I think I have an idea,” I said, “How old was Adolf Hitler when he was in power? Specifically, how old would he be right now?”

April 20, 1889, at precisely 5:45 in the evening, a black motorcycle and sidecar, virtually indistinguishable from bikes that would be used by the German armies some thirty years later, pulled onto the crushed gravel driveway of
Gasthof zum Pommer,
an inn in
Braunau Am Inn, Austria–Hungary.

A girl in her mid twenties un-straddled the bike, removed her leather jacket and leather helmet, pinned her hair under a small wedge shaped nurse’s hat, and picked up a stack of fresh towels from the side car. She walked slowly to the front doors, she was a bit road sore from her travels, and went in. She had a fresh cut down one thigh, but her skirt nearly hid it.

Once inside, it was easy to know where she was going. At the bottom of the stairs and across from the front bell-desk was a group of men smoking cigars around a little table while their companion paced nervously. The men made good-natured jokes and taunts to him.

The men at the table looked up to see the leggy blond nurse enter,
“Guten Tag, Fräulein, sind Sie hier, um mit dem Baby zu helfen?”

“Was denken Sie?” she replied in an annoyed but flirtatious tone.

Up the stairs she went and into the nursery. There a bald and bespectacled man was taking off his gloves, while another nurse washed a screaming newborn. The mother slept.