Storm Dreams (The Cycle of Somnium Book 1) (2 page)

Cassidy edged back into his seat and pulled back on the stick, careful not to pull too hard and tear the wings off. As the Fokker levelled out, he gunned the throttle and rose to meet the fighters above. Pure instinct, like another presence, took over his hands and feet as the Zeppelin came into view, its guns blazing away at the Albatrosses.

The fighters looked like pieces on a board in his head. He sized up their piloting as they made their way around the airship. They were good. Each seemed to know what the others were thinking. He could tell by the way they synchronized their attacks.

As he neared the rear of the Zeppelin, Cassidy noticed the damaged elevator fin. Smoke billowed from one of the main engines. The three fighters moved into formation above him, probably trying to combine their firepower on the airship’s internal gas cells. They flew close to each other in a perfect triangle. Only inches between their wings. Perfect. Too perfect. He would use that against them.

Cassidy aimed his nose at the centre of the formation and rolled, twisting up between the three, forcing them to scatter. One flew into a burst from one of the Zeppelin’s Lewis guns. It shredded the Albatross’s right wing, spiralling it into the twisted landscape.

Adrenaline surged. The other two fighters had rallied, but Cassidy rolled right and dove behind the Zeppelin before they had a chance to come round. Instead of continuing down the side of the airship, he pulled up and rolled his fighter back over the top, flying inverted to the canvas hull. The two Albatrosses had moved to meet him on the bottom side and he caught them from behind as he dove. They flew in perfect formation again, only inches apart.

Cassidy pinned the control stick between his legs and pulled both levers on the Spandau guns. Bullets ripped lose, shuddering the Fokker as they spewed between the blades with an odd rhythm. An internal mechanism was keeping the rounds from firing as the props passed by. He knew that rhythm like he knew his own heartbeat, but he’d never flown with guns like these. Had he?

His blast caught one of the fighters near the left wing strut and spun the Albatross sideways into its partner. The fighters collided, splintering into a cascade of wood and shredded canvas. Cassidy watched them fall. Snippets of other downed fighters flashed in his head. The image of himself falling from the sky. Standing among the wreckage of twenty or thirty planes. Fire. Smoke.

Wiry pink clouds untwisted beyond the Zeppelin’s tail, revealing the vague shape of the bulbous purple mass he’d seen before. It throbbed. Undulated. Pulled at him with an invisible force. The tug felt almost like words, but broader and more distant than words. More like solid tugging emotions.

Cassidy’s chest felt heavy. He needed the purple shape, whatever it was. Or,
it
needed
him
. It was hard to separate the concepts. He longed to be part of it as the throbbing pulse reached out like a mother trying to cuddle her child.

A crack of electricity sounded behind him. He twisted to see the Zeppelin vanishing into a wall of green light. The sky crackled with unknown energies. Banner was leaving him.

Cassidy’s heart thundered into his ears. His mind tore free of the purple shape and he pulled his fighter around. The adrenaline of combat shifted to fear as the great ship’s gondola and mid-section vanished, leaving only the tail of the Zeppelin sticking out of the blue gate.

The shape beyond the clouds wanted him back. Banner wanted him aboard the ship. The purple mass was a complete mystery, and the captain of the airship was only slightly less of one. He came about and throttled towards the Zeppelin. At least this captain wore an American uniform and spoke like a Yankee.

Slipstream
.
What had Jayce said? Cassidy urged the Fokker towards the vanishing rudder on the Zeppelin’s tail. Why did this German plane feel so natural instead of the—what had it been? Soap with caramel? Camel? What had Banner called that fighter?

Cassidy tried to think of concrete memories as he accelerated. Flashes of being aboard the giant vessel. An airman named Jayce. Banner’s outstretched arm. The bitter dogfight before... Before what?

Concepts.

Pictures.

War.

Fighters like a flock of distant ravens in the sky.

The Zeppelin’s tail slid into the gate. Cassidy pushed the Fokker to full throttle. The wall of green faded as the nose of his fighter touched it. Sparks of electricity illuminated the instruments with arcs and waves of light. The world shifted from pink and yellow clouds to one of intense cobalt.

The colours seemed off, as if the spectrum had moved several notches towards red, but snagged on blue. Cassidy sniffed the hard odour of ozone. There were no clouds and, as he dipped his wing, he saw nothing but empty blue below. No earth. No ocean. Dear Lord, he thought as the airship continued to pull away at full speed into the strange new world.

The Fokker’s engine sputtered. It wasn’t getting enough gas. He pumped more pressure into the tank and tapped the temperature gauge with his gloved finger. There had to be a leak somewhere. He’d pushed the fighter hard, flying at full speed for too long, exhausting most of the fuel, but there should have been more. Perhaps he’d taken a bullet to his tank. Pumping up the pressure helped, but he had to keep pumping. Cassidy couldn’t slow or he’d risk losing the Zeppelin.

Pushing forwards on the control stick he dipped the Fokker and made his way beneath the body of the grey behemoth. Cassidy spotted a massive hook on a line dangling from the Zeppelin’s body. Standing in the cockpit, he braced his left hand on one of the Spandau guns, caught the hook and slipped it into a metal ring bolted to the main struts. Jayce waved from the open hatch as Cassidy matched speed to the slowing ship. Two more lines came down, which he attached as well. He cut the engine and let the wires carry him into position where the steel U-shaped hitch locked into place on either side of the cockpit.

Cassidy shook as he tried to reach the open hatch. Jayce lowered a short rope ladder. Cassidy grasped the rungs, but his arms and legs trembled harder as he put weight on them. His foot slipped.

“Grab my hand,” Jayce shouted.

Cassidy grabbed. Leather gripped leather as their gloves met and held tight. Jayce hauled him aboard.

As the hatch closed, cutting off the howl of rushing wind, Cassidy lay against the cabin door and breathed in the silence.

“The captain’ll want to see you,” Jayce said with a grimace, as Cassidy glanced up through half-closed eyes.

Cassidy exhaled half a laugh and closed his eyes. “Why am I so weak?”

“Your body’s just getting used to being solid for this long,” Jayce said, pulling him to his feet.

Solid?
“What was that purple shape in the air?” Cassidy asked.

Jayce stopped. “What purple shape?”

“You must have seen it. It was huge, up in the air.”

“That’s just the sky,” Jayce said, heading in the direction of the bridge.

Like hell, the sky, Cassidy thought and limped down the corridor. “Magneto on the Fokker is shot. I almost died.”

Jayce nodded. “We need a new plane.”

Ned looked up from the navigation console as they entered the helm. Banner flipped a switch and turned from the wheel to face them. “My god, where the hell did you learn to start a fighter in mid-air like that?”

Cassidy leaned against an aluminium support beam. He hadn’t learned it. But someone he couldn’t remember had once told him about trying it as a stunt.

Banner gripped him by both shoulders and shook him hard. “That’s the best damn flying I’ve ever seen. And let me tell you, not a man under me isn’t a full ace, including Karl, and he’s the engineer.”

Cassidy narrowed his eyes. “I thought I was the only—”

Banner laughed and gave him a soft slap to the side of the face. “I needed to know what you could do. No doughboys on my ship. You did good.”

Heat flushed Cassidy’s cheeks. “You put
me
in that death-trap of a plane, and anyone else could have flown it? I could have been killed.”

“Hah,” Banner said, returning to the wheel and flipping the switch again. “Wouldn’t really be death, now would it? Besides, I already knew how good you were.”

Cassidy started to ask what the captain meant about death, but instead propped himself against one of the aluminium supports and took a deep breath. “How could you know what I can do?
I
don’t know what I can do. Or what the hell I am?”

Banner stiffened. As if on some unseen cue the men filed out of the bridge, leaving them alone. The captain’s hand still held a single spoke of the helm to keep the ship steady. Jayce avoided Cassidy’s gaze as he exited behind the others. The captain sighed. “I rescued you from slavery.”

“That purple shape in the sky?”

“That purple shape...I suppose it looks like that through the atmosphere.” Banner took a deep breath. “I need men. Fly for me and I’ll take care of you.”

“Why?”

“To be free,” the captain said, turning to the helm, eyes gazing out the window at the deep cobalt beyond. “I need pilots like God needs angels.”

Cassidy’s stomach churned. “Am I really a man? There’s something wrong. I don’t feel...” He wanted to say he didn’t feel
real
, but that wasn’t enough. He felt like a fish that woke up at the top of a tree picking apples.

Banner didn’t turn around. “We’ll have to dock for repairs with our tail shot up like that.” He spun the helm starboard and the Zeppelin drifted right. “First day with us and already a shore leave. Your lucky day. Jayce will find you a cabin and some gear.”

The conversation was over. Cassidy could tell by the set of the captain’s shoulders. Fire rose in his chest, but he pushed himself away from the girder and shoved the door open.

Jayce stood outside. “Ready for your new quarters?” the young man asked.

Cassidy glared. He felt empty as he pushed past. His mind still ran with fog as he marched down the corridor, trying to focus on his surroundings. The wood floors, doors and cabins were trimmed with a great deal of brass. Glass sconces adorned the walls. This battle-ready airship looked like the inside of a luxury liner. What kind of a war machine was this? Why did it feel so solid? So real?

“It was an experiment,” Jayce said, as he helped Cassidy into one of the cabins and let him flop onto the fold-down bed.

Cassidy felt dizzy as he rolled so he could still see the young man, though he had to fight to keep his eyes open. “An experiment?” Cassidy mumbled, as he drifted to sleep.

***

The world was crisp. It shuddered and righted itself like a bad signal coming back to full strength. Cassidy flew a Sopwith between the spires of an ancient castle. Its bricks looked like the scales of a dragon as the colours shifted with the sunlight. The turrets were too big and too high, but oddly natural in context.
He
felt natural too, as if he’d just woken up to blasting wind stinging his cheeks.

A dot appeared in the sky, at least a mile away.

“Cassidy. Cassidy. Wake up, Old Boy.”

Cassidy came awake to the Englishman shaking his right shoulder. Brewster, Banner had called him, sat on a stool a few feet from the bed. He appeared to be in his late thirties, a veteran age for any airman. “What the hell?” Cassidy asked, trying to force himself awake. He sat up and rolled the cramped muscles in his shoulders.

“You overslept.”

Cassidy tried to remember what he was doing in bed. “Do dreams have dreams?” he asked, uncertain why he was asking.

“Just one,” Brewster said, leaning forward. “The one you escape.”

Cassidy stretched and leaned forwards as well. His foggy mind registered his surroundings in blurry frames: wood panelling, a desk, a hat rack. Another rack for clothing. “Then I
am
a dream?”

“Nicer than barracks,” Brewster said ignoring the question. “Germans paid a pretty pfennig for a ride in cabins like this.”

Brewster seemed as English as anyone could be. More so. He felt like an old cadet buddy every airman had. The kind one knew for years even though Cassidy was sure he’d never met the man. “Is all this…?” Cassidy asked gesturing around.

“
Real
?” Brewster shrugged. His handlebar moustache drooped as he grimaced. “The ship’s
real
as anything, I suppose. It’s from the
real
world, if that’s what you mean.”

“Jayce said something about an experiment?”

Brewster’s forehead furrowed, then he nodded and pulled out a pipe and tobacco. “He meant the airship itself. It was a luxury Zeppelin before the war. German government took it over and souped it up for recon work. That and some other kind of mission we don’t know about. There’s some equipment up in the main cell even Karl can’t identify and Karl’s seen everything. No telling what the bloody thing does.”

“Why can’t I remember anything solid?”

Brewster shrugged. “Captain likes to give you a few days to settle in. Take a breather before you get to that sort of thing.”

Cassidy gritted his teeth. “Why the hell don’t I feel
real.
”

Brewster drew in a deep breath. “Bottom line,” he said, and lit his pipe, taking several puffs as he did, “because yes, you’re a dream, and dreams are never fully formed. You’re a caricature.” He pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and passed one to Cassidy.

“You only smoke pipes?” Cassidy asked?

“Can’t smoke fags. I’ve tried. My body doesn’t know how. Only carry them around because I hate smoking alone. See, we’re just exaggerations. Very few details. Most of us only exist for a few minutes, perhaps a few hours before we melt back into the Everdream. If Banner hadn’t picked us up, it would have been back to the soup.” He took another puff on his pipe. “If we’d rescued you a few days ago, you might have been a child. A dog. A tree. An old love letter. None of us know how it works, but for now you’re whatever someone created you to be in whatever dream you were in.” He gave Cassidy a sardonic nod. “You’re more solid than most I’ve seen. That means something, I’m sure. Banner jabbers about how a lot of who your dreamer
was
being latent in your subconscious. Damned if I know what that means.”

A cold heat settled in Cassidy’s stomach. He took the cigarette and let Brewster light him up as well. “My head keeps shifting around. I feel like everything’s missing.”

“It’s like that,” Brewster said. “Your missing memory is just the first thing you notice. Me, I don’t have a navel. Some of us don’t have all our toes.
Franzie
doesn’t have a gun, if you catch my meaning. Bit of a problem when it comes to the ladies and taking a piss. Oddly, he doesn’t have to. All depends on how much detail we were given in the dream.”

“But Banner?”

“He’s different,” Brewster said nodding. “None of us know why. He’s crisper. More solid.” The Englishman sent a cloud of smoke into the air.

“Don’t you worry about smoking in a Zeppelin?”

Brewster shook his head. “Nah. We’re cut off from the air-bladders. Besides, Karl hates hydrogen. We switched to helium a couple years ago.”

“Where did he get helium?”

“You’ll find out,” Brewster said, standing up and opening the door. “You were supposed to gear up.”

Cassidy grimaced and stood with him. He hadn’t even bothered to remove his boots before nodding off. “I don’t like having Germans on board.”

Brewster scoffed. “You mean Karl and Franzie? They’re not German.”

Cassidy narrowed his eyes.

“I’m not Limey. You’re no Yank. I told you, we aren’t
real
people. For all you know, some French kid dreamed you just to fill a spot in a dream he was having about his dad. You’re as likely to be a plane as a pilot from dream to dream.”

“But I know I hate Germans.”

Brewster’s faced shifted. He took Cassidy by the shoulders and locked him with his gaze. “That’s just dream memory. We’re all friends here. That’s what’s important.”

“What if I want to go back? I mean, to the Everdream?”