AEGIS Tales 2, page 15
part #8 of Airship Daedalus Series
Since the trunk was the easiest to access, Heidi reached in and hauled it out. Rather than picking the lock, she drew her hunting knife and cut across the leather straps that held the lid in place.
What we found was certainly nothing like I had guessed. The upper tray held a starched gray uniform with a black collar. On the left-hand collar was the stylized SS of the German Waffen.
I lifted the tray out and beneath were another three uniforms as well as hats to complete the ensembles.
“Verfluchte schweinerie,” burst out of Heidi’s mouth.
I wasn’t familiar with the words, save for part of the second meaning, pig, but it was clear from the disgust in her voice that this was not a term of endearment.
“I won’t ask what that means.”
I knew darn well just how much Heidi hated the Nazis that had started to take over her homeland. Just as I also had no doubt that she was cursing their very existence.
I dropped the tray back in and closed the lid, shoving the trunk down the center aisle of the vehicle as I pulled a claw hammer from the toolbox conveniently stashed in its own spot in the truck.
“Let me,” Heidi insisted as she hopped up inside the cargo area.
I realized that the temperature of the vehicle was a little warmer than the heat of the day. Either our captors weren’t planning on using the refrigerated storage or what little ice they had brought was melted.
There was a loud screech of rending wood and nails and Heidi tossed the hammer aside before reaching into the crate. I heard a rattling sound as Heidi pulled out an ammo belt with some very large bullets. It was the type that fed into the machine gun of a plane or maybe a vehicle mounted weapon.
“Well, that’s certainly not a good thing,” I muttered.
A quick check of the other crates revealed two more filled with belts of ammunition. The longer, skinny one held the machine gun they clearly belonged to.
The final crate was roughly eighteen inches square and contained a bronze-hued orb that was polished so brightly that it seemed to reflect everything in sight.
My hand was inexplicably drawn to it. When my fingertip made contact with the surface, to my surprise, it rippled and my finger was enveloped by warmth as I pressed into what seemed like cool liquid metal. I withdrew my digit quickly and examined it. I couldn’t explain the reason, but it was completely dry.
Heidi looked completely nonplussed. She too poked at the orb with her finger and stared at her own digit after she pulled it back.
“What on Earth is this?” she asked.
“Maybe the packet of papers on the clipboard will give us some more information,” I suggested, since that seemed to be the only source of official paperwork in the vehicle.
✽✽✽
“Are you certain that we are in the right area,” Heidi asked as we bumped our way along the farm road outside of Fallon.
“I am.”
“We should be seeing the barn soon,” Heidi insisted as she stared at the detailed map that we’d found among the papers in the milk truck. “We have to be practically right on top of it.”
I searched the empty flat space ahead of me and still saw no structure in sight. I felt sick to my stomach for a moment and then suddenly we were at the edge of a field full of dried, tan grass and there, not half a mile away, was an oversized barn. The wooden walls were sloughing sun-bleached red paint like a bad sunburn. At the peak of the barn’s crest sat the rounded shape of the stealth dirigible that the plans had detailed.
I stomped on the truck’s brakes and assessed the what had just happened.
To my left was a generator with two leads trailing off into a fifty-foot-wide pond with reflective brass sheen and several dead fish along the edges. Suddenly everything made sense to me.
Apparently, Heidi had figured it out as well because she shot a knowing look in my direction.
“The material,” she gasped. “You add an electrical current to it which generates a reflective field that effectively renders an area invisible, until you pass through the curtain, for lack of a better term.”
“That explains why we couldn’t see the orbs until after we were around the tree,” I replied.
“Exactly. But I wonder. Yes,” Heidi threw me a smile that she got when she was struck by a sudden insight. “I am willing to bet that you can mold the field such that you could create a cylinder that would allow the orbs to transport relatively unseen. Just as this small body of water can most likely obfuscate a large area, I am certain that if it were contained in something to allow it to project upward that the orb would only be visible momentarily at the speeds it was traveling.”
“That makes sense,” I agreed as I gazed toward the barn. There appeared to be movement at the open doors, and I wondered for a second if we’d been spotted.
The sharp crack of a rifle being fired in our direction followed quickly by the whistle of the round passing the truck’s open window answered my question.
I shifted the truck into gear and slammed the accelerator pedal to the floor as Heidi started to frantically dig into the carpetbag filled with weapons and useful items that she had restocked while back at the ranch.
The smart thing would have been to turn right around and retrieve the orb from where we had hidden it in the woods near the border, but all my instincts told me that we didn’t have the time. Any secrecy about our visit was now out the door. I turned the truck into the grass field, feeling the back wheels drift out for a moment, which was what I was hoping for.
I reasoned that the tall grass would provide us some cover and if the back end would randomly slip out then it would also make it harder for them to target us.
A bullet blasted through the windshield not six inches from my ear.
Heidi popped up, a familiar Thompson submachine gun in her hands. She propped it out the open window and started to fire.
I could hear the familiar sound of high pitched turbines starting to rotate and a massive dust cloud started to erupt from the open barn doors, effectively blinding our attackers.
The airship’s props had clearly spun up and they were going to try and escape in the dirigible.
“Not on my watch,” is what erupted through my brain as I floored the truck, trying to get close enough to prevent the launch of this new aircraft.
We covered the half mile distance in less time than I would have expected, the truck bouncing and jostling as the tires transitioned from the grass to the dirt patch in front of the barn. I slammed on the brakes and hauled over hard on the wheel, skidding to a stop.
The truck came to a rest and Heidi reached between her legs and handed me a drum-fed shotgun before she opened the door, her goggles down to protect her eyes from the propeller wash.
I settled my own eye protection into place before I slammed open the door and paused behind it, not wanting to expose myself too much. It turned out to be a wise decision, as small arms fire started to pepper the door. Given that the shots didn’t penetrate the metal, I was guessing that the attacker had switched to a pistol of some sort.
Taking a quick glance above the truck door, I spotted the gunman hiding behind a stack of wooden crates just to the left of the barn’s threshold.
The pitch of the airship’s turbines rapidly increased and it was apparent to me they had now come up to power. The angle of the wash also changed as the craft clearly started to ascend.
I braced the shotgun against my shoulder and top of where the window met the door and stood up, centering my weapon on the crates. The gunman, who I could now see was wearing black overalls, stepped out. I fired, hitting him center-mass and causing him to fly back behind the stacks.
Heidi moved into the field of my vision, sprinting toward the open door and yelling at me that they had only left one person behind to slow us down.
I abandoned my shotgun and raced toward the barn, trying to catch up with my partner.
We got into the building just as the dirigible cleared the top of the barn. The cable that had been used to tie the airship down was dragging through the dirt and hay floor as it rose with the craft.
I leaped forward and tried to grab a hold of it.
My hands grasped around the one-inch hemp for a moment. And then my injured left hand spasmed, causing me to lose my grip.
I watched helplessly from the ground as the line rapidly rose into the air, now out of reach.
I could see the wide grins of the two pilots, also dressed in black overalls, staring down at us through the glass of the cockpit. I recognized them both from yesterday’s lunch at Zephyr Cove.
“Alyssa, hurry,” Heidi called out, pointing to the right-hand wall.
My eyes followed her finger and there, in the nearest stall, was a dressmaker’s mannequin with a jetpack, its harness draped over the shoulders of the frame.
Even though I hadn’t been in the air since Romania, I knew it was our only chance to catch the airship now.
I pushed off the ground and stood up, following Heidi who had already lifted the double jetted pack off the dummy. I quickly made my way over, turning at the last moment so that Heidi could help strap me in.
It may have been more than two years since I was wounded, but the familiar weight that draped over my shoulders was like coming home. I started adjusting the front straps and bucking myself up appropriately. I familiarized myself with the controls as everything started to come back to me like second nature.
While I had never flown a Silver Star or Nazi jetpack, the principals were the same as the AEGIS packs. There was a grip-based locking throttle on the right handle and a wrist controlled rudder tied to the left. The power switch was just under the right armpit and I instinctively triggered it, the electric battery humming to life.
As the straps cut slightly into my trapezius muscles, I took a deep breath. Heidi gave me a slap on the gyro housing and I moved forward toward the barn doors. I didn’t want to shoot directly up because I was worried that I would impact with the slower moving dirigible.
Each heavy step I took brought back great memories of climbing the stairs on any number of AEGIS craft. My sisters and myself ready to get up to the rim of the basket to fight in the air. I couldn’t help but smile as I walked into the light and depressed the throttle.
There was the familiar tug as I was propelled upward. My heart started to race as my feet left the ground. I rocketed into the air, away from the barn, before I used the rudder to swing myself around to get my first look at the craft in front of me. It had swung around and was now moving away from the barn toward the southwest.
An exhilaration coursed through my veins that I hadn’t realized I’d been missing. The wind whipping through my hair, the slight chill as I ascended in altitude. There was something so pure and right about it.
All I wanted to do was keep flying, but I had a mission to accomplish, and that took precedence.
I knew from the captured plans this was much smaller than a craft like the Daedalus class light recon airships. But I was still surprised at its compact nature. While the Daedalus herself was about two-hundred-fifty feet in length, this ship had to be a third of the size, which made a sort of sense. If they had the stealth material installed then you would want as compact a footprint as possible so as not to utilize too much of your power to cloak your vessel.
Suddenly the noise in the air changed. Where previously there had been the high pitched whine of the airship’s turbines, now all I that I could hear over my own pack’s motor was the sound of air being compressed by the turbofans.
So, in addition to the reflective material, apparently there was a whisper mode to allow the craft to approach a target silently.
It wasn’t going to help them because I had them in my sights and I was rapidly approaching from their blind spot.
As I swung around to the left side of the cockpit, I pulled my Tesla pistol from its place in my now unsnapped thigh holster. A flick of the wrist and the sights were up.
The looks on the two men in the cockpit were priceless as I swung into view and fired twice, knocking both of them unconscious.
Then it was a simple matter of gliding to a landing on the gantry above the cockpit. There was a convenient door, not even a hatch, and I was inside, pack and all.
I made my way down the stairs and into the cockpit. The radio on my left hip crackled to life and Heidi’s voice was coming through loud and clear.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“First, I will secure my prisoners. And then I will figure out how to fly this bird. After all, I’m pretty sure that a ship like this as well as the stealth material will throw the boffins down at Moffett Field into a tizzy.”
“I approve,” Heidi’s voice called through the radio. “While you are filling out the paperwork, I will head back up to the lake to acquire the cloaking device near the landing spot. We can meet at the clearing near the border, grab the other orb, and then you and I can take a little flight to drop them off.”
“That sounds perfect,” I replied as I pulled a pair of handcuffs from the left thigh pocket of my trousers.
This should help resolve the Pyramid Lake fishing issue, I thought as I felt the wind calling me to play in its currents.
As Above, So Below
by Rose Lamont
It was a strange case, to be sure.
Serial murders were one thing. Creepy, but bearable. Cult suicides? Not only were they weird, but they required much more research than Sid Cooper, ace detective with the homicide department, was willing to do on any given day. So, as the manila folder landed on his desk and he skimmed through it (victims’ eyes were all melted out of their skulls—disgusting), he stifled a shudder and asked, “Why me?”
“Chief says this is for arresting the wrong guy last time,” his associate who had made the delivery answered, “Says if you do good this time, he might let you keep your job.”
Keeping his job was something that Sid definitely wanted to do, so he made contact with the mother of one of the victims.
“I just don’t know how it could have happened,” she cried. “I don’t know what was so unfulfilling about his life that he would go and join a cult.”
“Were there any signs that you noticed when he first started?” Sid asked.
“No, not that I can…” the old woman began, before hesitating. “…well…”
“Please, anything you know could help.”
“He did start wearing this necklace.” She fished something out of the pocket of her dressing gown and held it out for Sid to look at. It was indeed a necklace, adorned with plastic beads and a quaint little sparkly blue butterfly, akin to something that a six-year-old girl would wear, rather than a man in his mid-thirties.
Sid quickly slipped on a pair of leather gloves from his coat pocket and held out his hand. “May I?”
The old woman dropped the necklace into his outstretched hand without question. “Of course. It’s a strange thing, isn’t it? They found it still around his neck during the autopsy. He literally wore it until the moment he died. I can’t imagine why it would be so special to him.”
Sid moved the necklace around in his hand as the woman kept rambling and he stopped listening. She was right, though; what could possibly be so important about a plastic kids’ toy necklace that a grown man would wear it to his supposedly planned death?
He glanced back up at the woman. “Anything else?”
She looked somewhat surprised, but she said, “Well… Yes, actually, let me see if I can find it.”
She got up from her chair and left the room for a moment before coming back with a leather-bound book, stuffed with pieces of ripped-out notebook paper. “He would study this all the time,” she said, handing it to Sid.
“Ah… thank you,” he said, taking the book and getting up from his chair as well, “Mind if I take these back to the station? I think they will prove to be valuable evidence.”
“Of course, whatever you need,” the old woman said.
Sid said his politest goodbyes and was gone, back to the station. It was late, however, and nobody of importance was there—nobody who could help him look through this damned book. Sid Cooper was lazy, but he was also impatient. He wanted answers now. So he went to his office, sat at his desk, and opened the book.
The original pages were filled with sigils and words in a language that Sid was unfamiliar with. Luckily, however, the notebook pages that were stuffed inside seemed to be translations. They were instructions, for some kind of ritual. He did a cursory flip through the rest of the pages and found that they all were extremely similar. Draw this sigil. Wear this amulet. Amulet, amulet, amulet. They all mentioned the amulet. Well, Sid didn’t have an amulet.
But he did have…
He pulled the necklace out of his pocket and eyed it for a moment, before sighing and hanging it around his neck. He figured he might as well try one of these rituals. No research like hands-on research.
“Draw sigil on floor as it appears on page,” he read aloud. He looked at the sigil displayed on the original page of the book and sighed again. Why did he have to randomly pick one that was so complicated?
He picked up a piece of chalk from his wheeled chalkboard and pushed around some furniture to make room on the floor. “Here goes nothing,” he mumbled as he got to work. This circle here, then a line from here to there…
He did his absolute best to recreate the design, wondering to himself multiple times why he was trying so hard, but deciding he had nothing better to do on a Tuesday night.
Then he stood on one side of the intricate circle he just drew, and chanted. Well, he did his best, anyway. He stumbled on a few words, not really knowing how to pronounce the random apostrophes. And when he was done…
Nothing. It was quiet in his office, just as it had been before. Of course nothing happened; Sid didn’t believe in any of that occult hooey anyway.
He turned to slink dejectedly back to his chair, when he noticed someone—or something—there already. Something with horns. Big, curly horns, like those of a ram. Whatever it was was huge, just barely able to fit in the chair at all, and, although it appeared dark, as though surrounded by a black mist such that most of the grisly details of its features were hidden from clear sight, Sid could make out glowing red eyes and a mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth arranged in a smarmy grin. The teeth didn’t move, but Sid heard a deep, growling voice come from somewhere in the back of his mind, ringing across the confines of his skull in an echo that sent chills down his spine: “You called?”
