Storming

Twenty-Six

ANOTHER PLANE CAUGHT a cannonball square in the tail. It spun a full circle in the air, then pitched nose down, screaming until it hit the ground in a splash of wood and metal. Hitch swooped into an Immelmann turn and hauled his Jenny back around through the haze of smoke and exhaust. He swiped the heel of his hand across the oil sheen on his goggles. Right after that last pass, the engine had started leaking pretty good.

He couldn’t get close enough to Schturming to hook it. All things considered, that might be a good thing. The way it looked from up here, Earl was probably right about that being a pointless way to die. But that left him weaponless. If he’d kept his .45, at least he could have popped some shots at the envelope. That would have made him feel better even if it didn’t bring down the ship.

_Schturming_’s propellers started chugging. The dirigible eased forward.

He circled prow-ward.

The rope ladder snaked around in the wind; they were letting Campbell climb back down, probably so he could carry their terms to the town.

As Schturming moved out of the way, Hitch could see a huddle of people on the ground, faces raised skyward. Looked like Jael, Earl, and the Berringers. Hopefully, they’d had a sight more luck than he had.

Schturming started to rise: it was leaving.

So far, he’d scored exactly nothing up here. Jael hadn’t been kidding about that cannon. Through the smoke, it looked like some old piece from the early 1800s, wide-mouthed and mounted on a track that ran all the way around the lower side of the envelope. On either side of the prow, a big iron bell snuggled between the envelope and the ship. Whichever side he showed up on, that was the side where the bell started clanging. Everywhere he went, the cannon followed.

What he needed was a wingman. He swiveled his head to scan the sky. Most of the planes had disappeared once the shooting started. Of those that had stuck around for the fight, at least three had been shot down.

A flash of light blue, nearly blending with the sky, winked on the far side of the dirigible.

Rick. Not his first choice for a partner, but at least they’d flown together.

Hitch climbed over the top of the ascending airship and straightened the Jenny into level flight beside Rick. Beneath his goggles, Rick’s grimy face was set in a determined look. Hitch motioned to him. During their six months together, they’d come up with hand signals so they could communicate in the air. Cannons and dirigibles had never figured into those signals, but they’d have to make do.

If one of them could distract that cannon long enough, the other could repeat the trick of diving at the open bay at the ship’s end. It had worked before to get Zlo to lower the airship. Maybe it could work again, and this time they could ram the thing right into the ground. See how Zlo’d like that.

Rick pursed his lips, frowning hard. Either he didn’t understand or… he didn’t want to be a wingman.

Even Rick couldn’t really be that petty and short-sighted. Hitch hadn’t dinged his pride that hard.

“Ah, come on!” Hitch shouted into the wind.

As if he’d read Hitch’s lips, Rick grinned and saluted with two fingers. Then he peeled off to climb skyward.

The cannon circled around to bear on Hitch again.

He dove hard and whipped under the dirigible. A floating red wing, like an amputated limb, flashed in his windshield, and he skidded to the right. The Jenny tore through the narrow tunnel of open space between the undercarriage and the ground. He dared one glance over his shoulder at the dangling wing. That had to be Jael and Earl’s handiwork. At least this little sortie wouldn’t be a total loss.

Wouldn’t be any kind of loss at all, if he could help it.

He burst back into the sunlight and pulled the plane into as steep a climb as he could manage, engine whining. A few more yards and he’d be able to level out and charge straight into that bay. He leveled out, throttle all the way open.

Something hit him. Like a giant outstretched palm, something caught the Jenny and swiped her aside. He slid through the air and wrestled with the controls to try to keep her straight and level. With only a couple dozen yards between him and the ground, he had zero room to maneuver.

The something hit him again.

Ahead, Rick’s blue plane floundered just as hard.

A cold rush of air bit into the side of Hitch’s face. Wind. He craned a look over his shoulder.

Zlo stood at the edge of the doorway, one hand propped against the frame. He seemed to be grinning.

That dirty mug. He’d turned on the storm.

Only an hour ago, the sky had been blue as cornflowers, the few clouds searingly white. Now, thunderheads swirled in overhead. The wind tossed the plane like she was a baseball. If it got any worse, his wings could stall and smash him to the earth.

He had to land, and fast. The round was over. Zlo had won hands down.

He growled deep in his throat and let the wind grab the plane for a second. That was all it took to whip her around, away from _Schturming_’s heading. In his wake, the cannon boomed. But that was the least of his problems right now.

What he needed was another empty field where he could put her down.

The Jenny scudded on the wind, covering the miles way faster than she should have.

The black blot of a burnt haymow showed the field where the lightning had hit Jael the other day. It’d have to do.

He overflew it, then hauled the Jenny around. Landing with her nose to the wind was about the only way to keep any kind of control over her. She bobbled her landing anyway, skidding around in a ground loop, and nearly pitching over. The propeller chewed dirt and clanked to a stop, splintered to its hub.

In the sudden engine silence, he whooshed out a breath. His hands shook, and he looked around. From every direction, dark clouds tumbled in to close off the valley.

He climbed out and took a look at the engine. Other than the busted propeller and the oil leak, the plane was holding up all right. But “all right” wasn’t going to get him back into the air. Even should the wind die down, she wasn’t going to be able to fly back to camp.

A rusty jalopy, the bobbing headlights held on with baling twine, screamed up the road alongside the irrigation ditch. Jael drove, jerking the wheel dramatically every time she made a correction.

In the passenger seat, Earl hugged one arm to his chest. “Slow down! You trying to break my other arm? The brake—step on the brake!”

Jael must have stomped it with both feet. Dust boiled up behind the rear tires, and the whole car swerved, first to one side of the road, then the other. It skidded to a stop, left front wheel about two inches over the edge of the ditch. Both Jael and Earl bounced in their seats.

Hitch ran over. “What do you think you’re doing? She can’t drive!”

Earl’s shoulders sagged. “You’re telling me, brother.” He still held his left arm cradled against his chest.

“What happened to you?” Hitch asked.

“Arm’s busted.”

“So you come tearing out here instead of finding somebody to set it?”

“You were about to crash my plane—again. You think I was going to just sit back there?”

Hitch opened the door. He reached to steady Earl’s good elbow.

Earl dodged and, with a grimace, eased himself out. He hobbled over to the plane, his face the color of flour paste. “What’d you do to her this time?”

“Busted propeller and an engine leak. But this one wasn’t my fault, and you know it.” He looked at Jael. The wind splattered raindrops against his face. “We’re in trouble now, aren’t we?”

She swiped her hair out of her eyes and held it back with one hand. “Yes. You have no hurt?”

He looked down at himself. He hadn’t stopped to check if he’d gotten hit or broken anything. Aside from the taste of castor oil in his mouth—and the beginnings of nausea from inhaling too much of it—and cramps in both forearms—and the fact he was still shaking all over and couldn’t get enough air—he seemed fine.

Jael climbed out of the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

“What about you?” he asked.

“I am fine.” But she was limping worse than ever. She supported herself against the car as she hobbled around the corner. “We have put marking on underside.”

“Yeah, I saw the wing. It about took my head off.”

“The idea was Walter’s.”

“This Schturming of yours—” He dug around in his brain for the words to describe what he was feeling. “Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t that. Where’d it come from? It’s not German. You’re not German. It looks like it’s been floating around up there for ages. But why? I don’t get it. And these storms.” He raised both hands into the wind. “Past time you brought me up to speed, don’t you think?”

She opened her mouth, hesitated, then nodded.

“Doggone it, Hitch!” Earl hollered. “I’m going to have to carve a whole new propeller. I’d like to know how I’m supposed to do that with one arm!”

“Quit about the plane, will you? Get over here and let me set that arm of yours before it swells up bigger’n Rick’s head.” He looked around at Jael. “Whose car is that?”

“J.W.’s.”

“Well, see if you can’t find something in there to use as a splint.” He tromped across the field and practically dragged Earl back. “Sit down and quit carping. Pretend you’re the plane and I’m the mechanic.”

Earl grunted in pain. “I wouldn’t let you be mechanic on a Sopwith LRT.”

Jael surfaced from the backseat with a couple plaid shirts and an old buck-bow handsaw.

Earl huffed through his clenched teeth. “Amputation’s a little drastic, don’t you think?”

Hitch ignored him. “That’ll work. Tear up one of those shirts.” He took the saw and stomped it apart. The crosspiece would be about the right length to support Earl’s forearm. He shot Jael a sideways glance. “Tell me what happened up there. What is that thing?”

“You sure you can doctor and think at the same time?” Earl said.

“You, shut up.” Hitch pulled his knife from the sheath in his boot and slit Earl’s jumpsuit sleeve.

The arm was already swelling around a crooked bump halfway between the wrist and elbow. Definitely broken, but it looked pretty clean. He would immobilize it now, then let the doc in town set it.

Jael handed him the saw’s crosspiece. “Schturming is… I don’t know where to be starting.”

“Who built it?”

“The _glavni_—the leaders.” With both hands, she steadied the crosspiece against Earl’s arm. “They made it and they launched it in year of one thousand eight hundred sixty.”

“Explains the elderly cannon. How come you never updated it?”

She shrugged. “I have told you. My people they are not trusting your technologicals.”

“We haven’t got anything as technological as a flying weather machine.”

“I think maybe they are afraid of that even. They see its power, and they do not trust even ourselves with it.”

“When did you get on board?” Earl asked.

Realization hit Hitch between the eyes. “You were born there, weren’t you? So was Zlo.”

“Yes. All of us there now. It has never landed since one thousand eight hundred sixty.”

Isolation. That explained things, partly—like why she thought of Groundspeople as practically another race, and maybe even why the descendants of the machine’s inventors had ended up scared of the thing.

“How’s that work?” Earl gritted out. “You gotta eat, you gotta fuel the thing.”

“We send down what you called the elevators—so we can gain what we need.”

“But why?” Hitch started winding the longest strip of torn shirt around Earl’s arm. He overlapped the wraps and kept the cloth snug. “I don’t get it. Why’s it up there at all? It was an early army airship or something?”

“No.” She frowned with her eyebrows. “Schturming was not made for war. It is for nauka_—for science. The makers—they were men of studies. They made _Schturming and took their families, so they could fly all across world and study weather. And I think, too, they wanted to protect their families from Groundsworld. They tell us all our lives that Groundspeople are ignorant, greedy, and having no responsibility.” She shot a glance at both of them. “But in this I am seeing now they were wrong.”

Hitch tightened the wrap over Earl’s break. “You’ve been flying around up there for sixty years. How many people are up there now?”

“Hundred, more maybe.”

Earl winced. “All up there in that flying sardine barrel?”

He had a point. It was a big ship, but not that big.

“That is being part of why Zlo has taken over it.” She spoke in a low, even voice, as if she had to control each word. “Even in engines, I am hearing that changes are happening. People want to come to ground, and other people are thinking that is wrong and dangerous.”

“And what’d Zlo want?” Hitch asked.

She snorted. “Zlo wants everyone else to go to ground, so he can be glavni of Schturming and gain for himself fame and richness. Once, I heard him tell Nestor that he is hating our leaders—even the first ones—for making us stay in Schturming. He was Forager. He saw your world. I think… I think he thought Schturming was like prison to him.” She looked up at Hitch. “When Nestor let him see dawsedometer, he knew what he could do with it.”

Hitch stopped wrapping. “That was your original mandate, then? Study and learn how to control the weather with the dawsedometer?”

He’d heard of such things before. During one of the bad droughts when he was a kid, some of the farmers had hired a quack out of Omaha to use his weather machine to bring rain. The whole thing had been hush-hush. Nobody had actually seen the machine: the guy had kept it barricaded inside a wooden tower. A few days later, when it rained in Morrill County to the east, he’d taken credit for it.

But for somebody to have come up with something like that in 1860—and something that worked, no less—that was more than a bit remarkable. Actually, the whole thing was jaw-droppingly impressive. Nobody’d ever heard of a dirigible of that size and power before the turn of the century. The Huns, with all the hullabaloo about their Zeppelins, had been decades behind the ball. And this one had held up for sixty years without ever touching ground.

“Weather is always controlling us,” Jael said. “So now we could be controlling it instead.” She gestured to the brown hay field. “There would be rain when growers needed it. It was never meant to do what Zlo is doing with it.”

Hitch knotted off the last of the bandages and eased the arm back to Earl’s chest. “So what happens now?”

Jael looked at the sky. “I think he is wanting to take from your world what he thinks he deserves because he has never had it. I think he is making prison of your valley.”

“A barricade? With the storm clouds?”

Hard to see what was going on from down here, but it did kind of seem like the dark gray of the clouds was closing in from every direction. At least the clouds were drifting high enough that the visibility wasn’t too bad yet. So far, the rain was only a spattery drizzle.

“What about your pendant?” Hitch asked. “If you don’t have it, then there’s nothing keeping him right here.”

She handed him the other shirt. “That is maybe bad. Because he has no knowledge of that. If he has belief he cannot use dawsedometer anyplace but here, he will not stop harming your town.”

Hitch slipped the shirt under Earl’s arm and tied the sleeves around his neck.

Earl settled his arm into the makeshift sling and grunted. “I thought you dropped the pendant.”

“I think it caught on bottom of korabl.”

Hitch met her look. “Maybe it did.” He helped Earl scoot back into the passenger seat. “C’mon, let’s get you to a doctor.”

“And then what are you going to do?” Earl asked. “I reckon Livingstone’s competition is over now. If we’re going to try to fly through that storm to get out of town, we better do it sooner than later.”

“I’m not getting out. I’m staying.”

Earl raised both eyebrows. “You kidding me? Just like that?”

Hitch shrugged. It was hard to explain. There weren’t even really words for how he felt. He’d left before because it had been the best thing for everybody. But this time he might actually be able to do more good for Griff and Nan if he stayed. This time, he couldn’t just skip out. For once, maybe the skills of a wandering pilot might make the difference here.

He shut the door. “I need to stick around and at least see what happens. Then we’ll clear out.” He turned to Jael. “This could end up being a war, of sorts. You know that, right? A lot of your people could end up getting hurt.”

“If Zlo is glavni, they are already hurt.”

He pocketed his hands. This was dead serious, but he didn’t want her to think it was a threat: “I need to know what side you’re on in all this. Nobody’s going to blame you if it ain’t us.”

She was watching him, with that deep, searching look. “It is not just your home Zlo puts in danger. If only way to save Schturming is to bring it down”—she lifted a shoulder—“then I will stay with you and help you to first save your home. I think you will save mine too, if you can.” The steadiness in her voice held a daunting load of implicit trust.

Sooner or later, it seemed he always ended up letting down the people he cared about. But maybe not this time. Maybe this time, he’d not only stick it out, but actually do something useful in the process.

Take down the flying pirate and his crew. Save the valley. Make peace with Griff and Nan.

Sure. No problem.

He straightened away from the passenger door. “All right, then. Let’s go.”