Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 (129 page)

Jerry nodded, speechless, as the old man added the fuse to the first casing, and set it carefully aside. He pulled out another egg-shaped container, armed it, and a third, then produced a longer cylinder, this one conventionally bomb-shaped, with a pointed nose and fins at the other end. Tesla turned it fins-down, holding it between his knees, and used the second pair of pliers to unscrew the heavy nose.

"Now this is a bit more interesting." He tilted the bomb so that Jerry could see into the interior. Jerry leaned to look, but could make out only what looked like a coil of wire beneath a miniature pinwheel. "I haven't really had occasion to try these out, but in theory this should build up a significant electrical charge as it falls through the atmosphere, which will then discharge on impact. I expect you'll just get a shower of sparks, alarming to look at but not particularly damaging, but if one were to strike metal or an already charged object, you could achieve a significant discharge."

A flash powder grenade and an electric bomb, Jerry thought. Well, it was better than nothing — a lot better than he'd thought they had. Maybe they could do something to help. "How many of those do you have?" he asked.

"Nine of each." Tesla finished adjusting something in the cylinder, and replaced the nose. "Eighteen in total."

"Jerry?" Alma called, and Jerry levered himself out of the rear seat, took his place his in the co-pilot's seat again. "Jerry, are those bombs?"

"Oh, no," Jerry said. "Not conventionally, anyway."

Alma gave him a sharp look. "And I'm guessing the other ones aren't grenades, then, either?"

"Nope." Jerry looked over his shoulder again, and Tesla smiled happily as he screwed the nose onto yet another of the electric bombs. "The things that look like grenades are full of flash powder, like for cameras, and the bombs are supposed to give off some kind of electric shock. Or maybe just sparks."

He saw Alma blink, then shake her head slowly. "Well. If nothing else, it'll get their attention."

Chapter Fourteen

The Silver Bullet Mine

December 20, 1932

S
tasi paced by the front windows looking at her watch. It had been twenty minutes since Tesla's device went off again, and Mitch and Lewis were moving boards and the empty trestle tables around to block off most of the broken first floor windows.

"How's that?" Mitch asked, arranging a board so that it covered all but the bottom left hand side of the window. It was three thirty, and the sun would soon move behind the mountains.

"Perfect." Lewis squatted down to look out. "I've got a good clear range all the way down to the road. Well, except for that shed, but they're going to have to come around it one way or the other."

Mitch nodded, checking the space at the next window a yard away. The tables covered it to a height of five feet, with room to stand behind it with the pistol's barrel sighted just over the top. It was a perfect set up for him.

Stasi frowned. "I don't like this," she said.

"Do you have a better idea?" Mitch asked.

"Someone is going to get hurt this way."

"Yeah," Lewis said. "They are." He looked like he actually wanted to mix it up.

"Is this really worth getting shot for?" Stasi asked. She was frowning, an expression like she really didn't like this at all, and he wondered what their barricades reminded her of. Something bad.

He put the gun down. "It's ok," he said. "We're not going to get shot. They're not suicidal. They're not going to rush a setup like this, especially when they see that we've got more than one armed man."

"And if you get shot, what then?" Stasi demanded. "Am I supposed to hold them off over your and Lewis's dead bodies? Crawl over your corpses to get to the window? For what? For some idea? If this is your idea of some heroic last stand, some perfect way to go, let me tell you that it isn't. It's just hell."

He took both her hands, willing her to see him instead of whatever she saw before her eyes. "Stasi, that's not what's going to happen." There weren't any good words, but there were some true ones. "I'm not that guy."

"Lewis…."

"Lewis isn't that guy either." He squeezed her fingers. "This is a calculated risk with the odds running our way. I don't play it any other way. Remember? The ace who's still alive?"

She searched his face, and then looked away, faint color coming to her pale cheeks, an expression that was more like Stasi. "Well, it's all one to me, darling."

"You just handle the radio and keep up with Al. We can deal with these guys."

"Mitch." Lewis was still looking out the window. "They're back."

"It's ok," Mitch said, and let go of her hands. "Really. I promise." He thought of something she'd believe, or at least believe he believed it. "I don't make promises I don't think I can keep."

The truck was pulling up down the hill away from the building, the car behind it screened by the bulk of the truck. Somebody had a brain. Mitch turned back toward the window. And there was Kirsch, wearing gloves this time, his right hand bandaged. That burn must hurt.

"I thought you boys packed up," Mitch called out.

"I figure we can come to an arrangement," Kirsch replied. He tipped his hat back on his head. "How about two hundred dollars to make yourself scarce?"

Mitch paused like he was considering, Stasi hurrying across the dusty floor toward the office and the radio. "I don't reckon so," he called back. "I figure we can handle this."

One of Kirsch's boys looked at him doubtfully, having caught the 'we'.

"Dr. Tesla must be paying you a lot of money," Kirsch said.

"You do know we've got a radio," Mitch said. "National Guard's on its way up here."

One of the other men shifted from one foot to another, but Kirsch smiled thinly. "I don't think that's very likely," he said. "If it were, why would you stick your neck out rather than just let them handle it? Do you really want to do this the dirty way?"

There was the sharp report of a rifle and the dust kicked up inches in front of Kirsch's foot, Lewis showing off his marksmanship. Crap, Mitch thought. He'd figured he could stall them a few more minutes.

"I reckon we do," he said. No warning shots for him. He only had the six cartridges in the cylinder. He'd have to make them count, but he'd rather it didn't come to that. Killing a man from an airplane was bad enough without making it face to face.

Kirsch and his boys scrambled all right, back behind the truck and the nearer shed. Lewis held his fire. Mitch waited. They seemed to be having some kind of heated discussion back there, probably about who the sucker was who was going to make a run across Lewis's field of fire. Tesla might not be paying him squat, but Kirsch had better be ready to pay these guys plenty to walk into that.

"What's going on?" Stasi called from the office.

"A little contract renegotiation," Mitch replied.

"I have Alma on the radio," she said.

"Super," Lewis said. He was lying prone, his shoulders perfectly relaxed, sighting along the rifle barrel through his constructed blind.

Whatever Stasi said next was drowned out in a hail of gunfire outside, two or three pistols opening up from the shelter of the truck. Mitch ducked down, acutely aware of the thinness of the boards that protected him. They couldn't see where he was, but it might not matter. He squinted out. Yep, that was the point of it, just as he'd expected. The fire covered the movement of Kirsch's men, two of them scrambling in each direction, toward the shed and the other end of the building. Lewis opened fire, two warning shots down the building, stopping one in his tracks to run back behind the truck while the other threw himself to the ground.

"Try not to kill anybody," Mitch said.

"That would be hard to explain," Lewis replied.

"Sure," Mitch said. The other two had gained the shed. They'd be working their way as close as possible to the end of the building against the mountain and the windows there. Those windows were boarded, but they hadn't had any way to nail the boards in place. They were just propped and braced with a turned over table, and there was no way they'd stop anybody for more than a couple of minutes. "Lewis, down to the right."

At that moment there was the crash of the table toppling backwards. Two men pushed, breaking out the last of the window frame in a tinkle of remaining glass. Mitch swung around and fired, his arm not yet at full extension.

"Yow!" One of them lunged back, clutching at his arm, the other dragging him down against the outside wall.

Lewis looked up, one eyebrow rising. "I thought you said not to kill anybody."

"I just winged him," Mitch said sheepishly. It had been pure instinct. "I think."

The two men against the wall made a run for the shed and Lewis shot after them, a wide shot that pinged the corrugated steel of the roof, ringing like a cowbell.

There was a long silence. Dust motes drifted in the beams of sunlight coming in through the upper windows, the last rays of the day on the longest night of the year.

"Think we scared them off?" Lewis asked quietly.

Mitch shook his head. "I'm not betting on it."

A
lma pitched the Dude into a steep dive, shedding altitude as quickly as she dared. Stasi said Kirsch's men were back; Lewis and Mitch were armed and ready, but there was no way they could hold Kirsch off for very long. She could see the mine buildings just ahead and to her right, the mountain rising above them. There was a truck pulled up in the open space where the railhead had been going to be, a car tucked in behind it, and there were five or six men on the ground outside. The sound of the air changed as Jerry rolled the cabin window down, and the Dude's balance shifted slightly. Alma touched the rudder to compensate, glanced over her shoulder a final time. Jerry was on his knees in the right hand seat, hanging on with one hand, the first of Tesla's bombs ready in the other. Tesla had the other bombs ready, laid out neatly in groups of three.

She saw all that in an instant, before she focused on the group outside the mine. The last radio message had said Lewis and the others were inside and going to stay inside, trying to keep Kirsch out as long as possible, and that meant anyone on the ground was an enemy. She steadied the Dude twenty feet above the treetops, low and level, tipped right wing down to give Jerry his best aim. She saw him move, once, then twice, and then she rolled left, banking away from the mountain behind the minehead. She heard a bang, then saw a brilliant flash and another bang, the figures scattering for cover.

"Come around again!" Jerry yelled, but she was already lining up for another pass.

She brought the Dude in lower this time, barely at treetop level, heard the bang as another of the flash powder bombs landed, and then a weird shrill whistle that ended in a frenzied popping like a string of firecrackers. Another bang followed, and another, and she pulled the Dude up sharply as they reached the trees on the far side of the mine.

"I believe they're shooting at us," Tesla called.

"Jesus!" Jerry said, in almost the same instant, and Alma risked a backward glance. "Al, they're shooting —"

"What kind of gun?"

Jerry paused. "Pistols, I think? I didn't see anything bigger."

"That can't do much harm," Alma said. Unless a bullet hit her, or severed a control cable, or damaged a control surface — it might punch a hole in the gas tank, but unless it caused a spark, the Dude probably wouldn't explode. She pulled back on the yoke, scrambling for altitude, the motor straining. The Dude rose into the late afternoon sunlight, and she banked again, choosing her line.

Outside the mine, the packed snow was spread with fans of burnt powder where the flash bombs had landed. The one electric bomb was spinning like a dying top, still spraying gusts of sparks. Two of Kirsch's men had taken shelter beside the tumble-down shed that had held the mine's donkey engine, and two more crouched beside a heap of spoil. The rest of them were huddled by the truck, and even as she watched, one of them jerked to his feet and dragged himself into the cab. A good sign, if they were planning to run, but if not…

"Use the electric bombs," she shouted and saw Jerry lift a hand in answer.

Speed, she thought. If they were shooting, speed was her friend. She let the Dude climb further, up into the last of the sunlight, filtered by thin cloud at ten thousand feet. She could see her line then, and turned the Dude on its wingtip, over and down like a stone, arrowing for the ground. One of the men by the shed made a break for the truck, then darted back, arms up to protect his head. Lewis, she guessed, shooting from inside the mine. He wouldn't miss much at that distance, and she hoped he'd remember they'd be better off if Kirsch's men got away.

And there was her mark, and she hauled back on the wheel, leveling out a hundred feet above the ground. She could see one of the men taking aim, then another, felt the Dude rock as Jerry tipped more bombs out the window. There was a smaller bang, and a sound of breaking glass, but she didn't dare look, concentrating on pulling up and away. Light flashed behind her, a fountain of sparks from the first bomb, then the flash and bang of powder, then sparks again and a sudden vivid crack of blue fire bright as lightning.

"Jesus!" Jerry said again, and she looked back to see him fumbling with a piece of the floor matting, trying to brace it across the rearmost window on Tesla's side. A bullet must have hit it, but Tesla didn't seem to care, twisting to see the effects of his bombs.

"That's very interesting —"

Kirsch's men by the shed broke for the truck, hurling themselves across the snow and into the car drawn up behind it. Kirsch was yelling at them, waving his pistol, but it didn't look like he was getting very far. A moment later, he'd pulled himself into the cab, and both car and truck turned for the access road, tires sliding and gripping in the snow.