Unobtainium 1: Kate on a Hot Tin Roof (29 page)

‘
That
is what we are leaving in?!’ Antonia exclaimed, looking up at the vast bulk of the air-dreadnought.

‘Well, if you have to steal an airship, you might as well make it a huge, armoured one… with enormous guns.’

‘I suppose so. I hope it has rooms with curtains. When it gets light, I’m going to need somewhere dark to hide.’

‘And I will likely need somewhere to lie down soon.’

‘Are you injured?’

‘I haven’t had my pills since we crashed. Don’t tell Charles. He’ll worry and there’s nothing we can do. If we can find a reactor… Well, there’s no helping it otherwise.’

‘I… shall not mention for now, but you will not be able to keep it secret for long.’

‘I know. When we’re safely out of here and on our way, I can afford to be weak.’ She took the steps of the walkway two at a time as though she wished to emphasise the point.

The cockpit had four flight positions, two of them equipped with wheels. Another, equipped with a lot of gauges, was presumably something to do with monitoring the engines. Kate was entirely unsure what the last one was. Moorbridge was working at the engineering console while Charles had assumed one of the pilot seats.

‘Engines are at power,’ Moorbridge said. ‘Jettisoning the cables… and the docking locks are free.’

Charles pulled back on a lever beside his chair and the ship began to rise away from the ground. ‘She’s a little sluggish.’

‘She masses around a thousand tons, sir. Wait until you feel the main engines power up.’ Moorbridge glanced at Antonia and Kate. ‘When he does bring them up to power, you may wish to be holding onto something.’

‘That will not be necessary, Mister Moorbridge.’ The voice came from the rear of the cockpit and everyone except Charles turned to look. Charles knew who it was and he was concerned with flying the ship. ‘You will return us to the ground, Doctor Barstow-Hall,’ von Auttenberg said.

‘I will not. In approximately seven minutes, your entire complex will have an average temperature of two thousand degrees with several atmospheres of pressure. There is insufficient time to switch the devices off. You can shoot me if you wish, but going back is suicide.’

Von Auttenberg looked down at the Luger in his hand. The conflict on his face was obvious, but short-lived. He looked up again. Kate could see the decision being made and her body tensed as she prepared to spring, to put herself between the German and Charles. The explosion was loud in the confines of the cockpit.

‘Antonia!’ Kate screamed as the blonde doubled over, staggering back a foot or so.

Charles slammed one of the sticks at his seat forward hard and the entire ship lurched forward. Von Auttenberg staggered back through the door to the rear compartments. His wrist hit the doorframe on the way through and the gun fell from his hand. Kate, still on her feet, was after him before the others could figure out what was happening.

‘Antonia?!’ Charles half yelled.

‘I appear to be all right,’ Antonia said, straightening up and beginning to unbutton her shirt. ‘I mean… I’ve been shot in the stomach, but there is no pain.’ She pulled open her shirt and Moorbridge made a strangling noise and looked away though whether that was from the sight of bare breasts or the hole just above and to the right of her navel was an open question. ‘It went through, and it’s not even bleeding. I assume this is Drafenberg’s work. What happened to von Auttenberg?’

‘Miss Felix went after him,’ Moorbridge replied.

‘I’d better go after her.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Charles snapped. ‘We don’t know how that wound will affect you and Kate is quite capable of taking care of herself.’

Antonia opened her mouth to speak and then thought better of what she was about to say. ‘Of course,’ she said.

~~~

Von Auttenberg was moving quickly and Kate did not know the layout of the ship, but she could smell him. His wrist had been cut on the metal doorframe and the scent of blood was clear to her as she tracked him through to a flight of stairs leading up into the huge space above the gondola which appeared to house both the central gas bags and what appeared to be blocks of bunkrooms for the crew. In passing, she wondered whether there were multiple blocks and so she would have the opportunity of some time with Antonia before…

The Count stepped around a machine of some sort, a sabre in one hand, and went straight in for the attack. Kate missed the parry, but she flipped backwards, clearing the swing and stepped away from him.

‘You are very nimble, Fräulein,’ Von Auttenberg said, humour in his voice now. ‘I would congratulate Cooper, but he will be dead in a few minutes. How does that make you feel?’

‘Ambivalent,’ she replied and he raised an eyebrow. He was moving as he spoke, circling around her in an attempt to flank her, or at least catch her off-guard when he delivered his next attack. She centred herself and answered his unasked query. ‘He is my father. He tortured me, experimented upon me, but he remains the man who sired me, even if Sharles has been more of a father to me than he ever was. His death brings me no pleasure, and yet I will shed no tears for him.’

‘The beastmen Drafenberg created, and those produced by that fool the Woosters brought an end to, were little more than animals. Bestial at best. You are clearly more human than any of them.’

‘Thank you. You still saw fit to have me dressed as a savage.’

‘And you will die as one.’ He moved, his sword rising to bring its edge down on the joint of shoulder and neck. Kate drove her blade forward, punching through his tunic into his chest. The shock registered on his face as his blade slipped past her back. He backed away, stumbling. She could hear the wound sucking and the smell of blood was strong now.

‘I think, perhaps, not.’

He turned and started down the room. He was slowed now, his wound telling on him, but he was still moving. Kate walked after him and, after a few seconds, he stopped and turned again. ‘I cannot outrun you now. I will have the satisfaction of knowing that I do not die alone. I was unsure of my chances of taking you all alone and I always plan to win. There is a bomb in the engine room. Had you turned around I could have disabled it in time, but…’ Kate narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Perhaps if you run you could reach it before it goes off, but that would mean letting me live.’

‘I do not think so.’ She moved, seeing his eyes widen at the speed of the attack. His sabre caught her blade, dashing it aside, and she whirled around, striking again almost immediately. Blood sprayed out across the nearby wall as the hardened edge sliced through his throat.

She did not bother to wait for him to fall, instead running for the rear of the ship where she assumed the engine room was. That had to be how the Count had got aboard: in through the engine room somehow and then through the ship to the cockpit. He had left something there when he entered. Now she just had to find it.

~~~

‘Kate is taking too long,’ Antonia stated flatly. ‘I am going to look for her whether you like it or not.’

‘I would prefer that you remained in your seat,’ Charles replied, ‘but since I cannot stop you, take my Webley.’ He pulled the heavy revolver from his pocket and held it out to her. ‘I know you dislike Lugers.’

Antonia took the gun. ‘I do, too prone to jamming and I prefer a heavier round. Now if he had used a Mauser I might be in more discomfort.’

Charles managed a laugh. ‘Be aware, the bombs will detonate in around five minutes, and there may be a shockwave.’

‘Understood.’ She set off at a walking pace, because she thought it likely that Charles would shout at her if she ran. In truth, the wound felt nothing. She knew it should hurt. There should have been shock. There was nothing. That more than anything told her that something had changed. She did not seem to need to breathe, and she was not hungry even after almost a day without food. She
was
thirsty and would have to do something about that soon. The thought crossed her mind that it would be good if water was all that was required. With her dislike of bright lights, she was a little worried that she might start craving blood.

If that were the case, she had plenty to drink. She found the Count lying in a pool of it amidst what appeared to be crew dormitories. There was a stab wound in his chest and his throat had been sliced open, but she checked for a pulse anyway.

There was no sign of Kate, however, so Antonia continued walking towards the rear of the airship. If von Auttenberg was dead, why had Kate continued onward? Had the Count brought additional men with him? If he had, surely he would have brought them to the cockpit. No, it seemed more likely that he and his sniper lieutenant had gone out hunting for them while his troops dealt with the ‘fire’ in the mine. He had seemed the overconfident type. So where was Kate?

Kate was in a broad room on two decks at the rear of the ship, staggering towards a hatch with a large, cylindrical device which had fins attached to it.

‘Kate?’

‘Uh… You don’t know how to disarm a bomb, do you? In twenty seconds?’

‘I do not, and Charles could not get here in time.’

‘Then do you think you could get the hatch? Von Auttenberg left us a present in case he was unable to stop us taking his ship.’

Antonia rushed to the hatch. ‘I noted that he did, indeed, fail.’

‘Well, not if this thing goes off before I can get it out.’ She was almost there. The Count had lied about the location. She had found the bomb, presumably part of the armoury for the airship, propped against a wall just outside the engine room. It had taken her several minutes to carry it to the hatch, which was at the very back.

Antonia pulled open the hatch, and Kate took two more steps and then let go. The bomb slipped through the hole and Antonia slammed the hatch shut again. There was a second or two of pause and then a shudder ran through the ship. Almost immediately, one of the engines started making an odd whining sound.

‘Oh,’ Antonia said, ‘that does
not
sound good.’

~~~

‘Did the bombs go early?’ Moorbridge asked as both men felt the ship shake under them.

‘I do not believe so, but–’

‘Damn! We’re losing pressure in the starboard engine.’

‘Is it bad?’

‘I’m going to have to shut it down. These engines are basically compact Unobtainium reactors. The heat is used to pressurise air pulled in using a fan. The exhaust temperature is quite high and if we have a hole in the pressure vessel we risk the entire unit failing. Possibly catastrophically.’

Charles checked their speed, and estimated the loss of acceleration and the distance they would be likely to cover before the bombs went off behind them. ‘Ten miles. We should be at least ten miles from the blast.’

‘Is that enough?’

‘It should be. The blast radius is likely to be huge, but at that distance, in this ship, I would expect minimal effect.’

There was a buzz from Moorbridge’s console and he frowned before locating the source and pressing a button. ‘Hello?’

‘We’re in the engine room,’ Antonia’s voice said from a speaker. ‘Von Auttenberg left us a present which is why we have apparently lost an engine.’

‘That would explain the problem,’ Moorbridge replied. ‘The Count himself?’

‘Kate dispatched him quite thoroughly. Are we safe?’

‘Doctor Barstow-Hall assures me that we should reach a safe distance in time.’ He took out his watch and checked it. ‘You may wish to find a seat. We have only a minute or so.’

‘It is fortuitous that this room appears to be equipped with two then. We will return once the fireworks are over.’

It was just over a minute later that another, far longer, shudder ran through the ship. ‘My God,’ Moorbridge said as the vibrations finally settled, ‘that was at ten miles?’

‘With but four pounds of explosives. Still… What do you know of the device Gantheim designed? Von Auttenberg’s ultimate weapon.’

‘I know it existed. The detail of it is not my area of expertise.’

‘Good. I would ask you to forget that it existed at all. That device would be the end of everything and if the military ever finds out that it is a possibility, some fool will want to build one.’

‘Would it really be so bad?’

‘Sir, it would make what we just experienced akin to a light tap on the nose.’

Moorbridge was silent for a second. ‘Personally I have no recollection of any such project.’

‘Good man.’

The Land of Opportunity

Kenya, Africa, 4
^th
September 1920.

‘This is Mrs Antonia Wooster aboard the commandeered German dirigible approaching from west-south-west.’ The fourth position in the airship’s cockpit had, it turned out, been concerned primarily with communications. Antonia sat at the console holding a microphone and was trying to contact the ship they all hoped was in the harbour at Mombasa. ‘HMS
Empress of the World
, do you read me?’

Kate sat in the co-pilot’s seat, though slumped would be more accurate, watching her friend. Her condition had become quite obvious by the previous evening, but by that time they had other problems. The second engine had started losing pressure. Moorbridge had suspected a problem with the main fan and they had had to cut their speed to a relative crawl in the hope that the problem would not get worse. It
was
getting worse, but they were still moving.

‘Antonia Wooster to the
Empress of the World
, please respond.’

‘Mrs Wooster, this is the
Empress of the World
. Please confirm your status. Over.’

‘Thank heavens! There are four of us aboard. All British. One of our number needs… specialist medical attention.’

The voice on the other end of the radio connection changed, becoming a little gruffer, but also with a far clearer, better-educated accent. ‘Mrs Wooster, this is Captain Hemming. We are under orders to locate you, Doctor Barstow-Hall, and a Miss Felix, to arrest you once found, and to transport you back to England. Over.’

‘Frankly, Captain, we were very much hoping that was the case. We can explain when we get there, but I believe our mode of transport will suggest that things are not all as they would appear. I’m supposed to say “over” now, aren’t I? Over.’