Uchronie Read online

  Copyright (c) 2012-2014 JukePop, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author or JukePop, Inc., except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  www.jukepop.com

  Discovered on:

  Part - the first

  In which our intrepid hero departs the Hindenburg and becomes embroiled in a curious adventure.

  Finally, as the brass sun rose on Friday May 7 in the year 1937, I was allowed to set foot on Lakehurst naval air station.

  I was over eight hours late.

  ‘Name?’ demanded the brown coated customs officer, studying my passport.

  ‘Nate Drywood.’ I said, strapping on my distressed leather backpack.

  ‘Let’s see your face.’

  I removed my flying helmet and brass goggles.

  ‘Alright! You can go.’ he said, stamping my papers with a black circle.

  I strode off through the clouds of steam rising from the concrete runway and hurried to the terminal. Above me the colossal silhouette of airship LZ129, the Hindenburg, hung, moored to her landing mast. She swayed gently against the russet sky like an enormous German cigar. I had arrived aboard her yesterday evening, but no one had been allowed to disembark until this morning.

  Something was going on.

  German Gestapo officers, in their long leather coats and fearsome Nazi armbands, had questioned everyone on the starboard side far into the night.

  I’d only been allowed to leave because I had to connect with my next commission. LZ0 - The Uchronie.

  I had completed my Observer training aboard the Hindenburg and now I was moving on to the next level - Observer Conductor. With every step away from the Hindenburg I felt I was getting further and further out of my depth. It was one thing sitting next to an experienced airman and pulling a lever when told, but it would be another to take command and issue orders.

  Especially as the Uchronie was the biggest airship ever built.

  It is also one of the oldest.

  The Hindenburg crew had confided in me that The Uchronie’s Commander was an absolute tyrant and they claimed that she was steam powered.

  Surely that couldn’t be true!

  I had laughed at them and they had laughed at my incredulity.

  According to them, The Uchronie had been constructed by a group of eccentric Victorian millionaires. They had shown me sepia photographs and promised that its size and opulence would make me gasp.

  I couldn’t wait to find out for myself and my fringed white scarf flapped furiously behind me as I strode towards the terminal building.

  A scruffy newspaper boy, sheltering in the waiting room entrance, handed me a single sheet newspaper - The Lakehurst Chronicle.

  HINDENBURG LANDS SAFELY

  ‘A device found aboard the Hindenburg yesterday was made safe by the bomb disposal squad. A police spokesman from Hackensack said…’

  Ah! It all made sense now…they had been searching for the bomber last night. My presence on the starboard side among the passenger’s cabins must have aroused some suspicion.

  ‘Flowers for luck.’ coughed the delicate, blonde haired girl standing beside the gangly paper boy. The little street sparrow held up a posy of mauve carnations framed with sprigs of white delphinium.

  I took them carefully from her trembling fingers and smiled down at her.

  She smiled back and patted her mechanical dog on the head.

  Jerkily, the canine automaton sat down, nodded its head and held out its front paw to me.

  Cute!

  I had just been paid. I dropped a gold coin into their enamel cup. The rising sun made her complexion as smooth and pale as alabaster.

  ‘Thank you.’ she coughed, as her wire terrier wagged its tin tail.

  I tucked the colorful flowers into the top pocket of my brown leather flying jacket and went to find out if my contact from the Uchronie had waited for me.

  ~~~~~~~~~

  There were seven waiting rooms, but they were all empty. Most aerodromes did not offer such commodious facilities; usually there were only ‘first class’ and ‘general’ waiting rooms. But Lakehurst, being one of the larger aerodromes, was equipped with separate rooms for gentlemen, ladies, pilots, aircrew and three different classes of departing passenger.

  I cautiously opened the door to the ‘Crew’ room and sniffed the air prior to entering. The gas lamps were sometimes left turned on by a departing crew as some sort of practical joke and there was often the risk of an explosion.

  A fusty odour of mahogany and ersatz leather hung in the air, but there was no hint of gas. The solid seats, expensively upholstered in red, were arranged round the fire. This was much better than the wooden benches that I had been used to.

  I was definitely going up in the world.

  I smiled at my own joke.

  It was cold and musty with night air in the waiting room, so I turned on the gas fire and sat down to figure out how long I should wait. The red leather chair being of fine design welcomed me rather than submitted to being sat upon as I relaxed and adjusted the time on my brass arm plate to match the clock on the wall.

  It was six thirty AM and I was wide awake. International travel can play such havoc with one’s body clock. I soon found that I was getting roasted by the fire on one side and exposed to cold gusts of wind from the door on the other. Shifting from seat to seat, trying to find a Goldilocks zone, I suddenly realised that the waiting room wasn’t empty after all.

  Half hidden by the privacy curtain, a red haired youth, with bronze pilot wings cogged to his beige Naval Air Corps uniform, lay asleep in a booth in the far corner.

  I walked over to him, the heels of my studded leather boots clunking noisily on the bare wooden floorboards.

  The airman stirred and his right hand went automatically to his holster as his dark eyes focussed on me.

  ‘May I be permitted to say, sir, that you are a pilot.’ said I, hooking my fingers into my own gun belt ‘…and that this is the crew waiting room.’

  ‘Sir.’ said he, sitting up and slowly stroking his fine ginger moustache with the back of his left hand. A gesture that I would soon recognise as a sign that he was annoyed. ‘I beg you not to excite yourself. I was enjoying a little privacy while awaiting a crewman to conduct to the Uchronie. I fear that he has been delayed aboard the Hindenburg.’

  ‘Ah sir, I believe you are waiting for me.’ I said.

  He frowned at my distressed leather flying jacket and shook his head ‘I beg to differ. I await a gentleman observer. I don’t think you quite fit the bill, sir.’

  Carefully I moved the posy of flowers in my right breast pocket to reveal my name tag. ‘Nate Drywood at your service, sir.’

  ‘Ah! It is yourself Nate!’ he exclaimed, looking me up and down as he shook my hand. ‘Ginger Baxter at Your service. I was expecting you yesterday. I‘m afraid the Uchronie left for Africa two days ago.’

  My face fell. ‘Ah… then I fear I have missed my connection and wasted your time.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Ginger, leaping to his feet and slapping me on the back. ‘Don’t take on so negative. My aether-nav will soon find her.’

  ‘Well if you’re sure.’ I said.

  ‘Of course I am. We just have to catch her up.’ said Ginger, checking my name tag again. ’Where did you get the flowers from?’

  ‘Why? eh… The flower girl in the foyer.’

  ‘Have you interacted with anyone else since you landed?’ asked Ginger, rather curiously.

  ‘Only her m
echanical dog.’ I said, securing the flowers to my top pocket with the cog button, ’Oh… and the paper boy.’

  ‘That should be tolerable.’ said Ginger, ‘Come along, I am your ferryman, we need to get out of here with not a moment to lose. Anyway… as you have correctly pointed out sir… I am in the wrong waiting room!’

  Sheepishly, I followed him outside to a red triplane sitting outside a wooden hanger marked LZ0.

  ‘Do you have all your necessary requisites.’ asked Ginger, hauling wooden blocks from beneath its wire wheels. ‘I believe there is an emporium on the aerodrome if you require to purchase anything.’

  ‘I have everything I require.’ I said, undoing the brass buckles of my backpack. All my necessary travelling utensils, jackets, textiler shirts and stockings are in here.’

  ‘You travel light.’ said Ginger.

  ‘I wear one set of clothes and carry another in my bag, along with my requirements.’ I said. ‘B.Y.O.D! It is the airman’s way.’

  ‘I’ll take your backpack and you’ll have to take off your gun.’ said Ginger, loosening his own gun from its holster. ‘There’s not much room in that rear cockpit and this could be quite a lengthy flight. The Uchronie will be well out over the Atlantic by now.’

  Ginger’s bronze handgun glinted in the morning sun.

  ‘The new Duellist W@ve pistol!’ I gasped, ‘I have heard much about them. May I be permitted to handle it?’

  ‘Surely.’ he said, handing his weapon to me. ‘The security fastener is on.’

  Ginger climbed into the pilot’s seat to check the rudder and ailerons as I examined his marvellous pistol.

  The Duellist had a heavy, front end, multi shot, rotating barrel, but it balanced effortlessly in my hand. The easi-grip handle had individual finger grooves detailed with bronze inlays of skulls and crossbones. The W@ve logo was engraved along the stock and the hand tooled bronze and red glass telescopic sight testified to its reputation for accuracy over long distances… especially at night.

  I was in awe. His gorgeous bronze pistol put my Nerf Two Shot Consolidator to shame.

  ‘Come along Nate, she‘s good to go.’ said Ginger, stroking his moustache with the back of his left hand. ’No time to hang around on the ground.’

  ‘That is a brimborion firearm,‘ I said, handing him back his Duellist as I mounted the fragile wing of the red triplane. Holding on to the tensioning wires I clambered into the cramped seat behind him.

  It really was a tight fit.

  I tucked my Nerf Two Shot into my leather jacket, zipped it up and squeezed my arms in.

  Three ground crew took up their positions around the plane; one at the tip of each wing and one at the single propeller.

  ‘Start her up.’ shouted Ginger, twirling his white silk muffler in the air, before I could even buckle up my seat belt.

  With a mighty heave, the crewman swung the propeller.

  Immediately the engine roared into life and the exhausts, on either side of me, vomited thick blue smoke. Before I could pull on my goggles, the red triplane lurched forwards into the stinging smoke as Ginger revved the engine to full power. The boiler suited men holding the wings guided us to the runway and ran alongside us until they could run no more.

  Suddenly we were airborne.

  Despite being an airman I always have a sick feeling when I first leave the ground and I held on for dear life as the chalcenterous Ginger soared into the sky with unnecessary rapidity.

  ‘Terrible business.’ he shouted, turning round to look at me as we banked right over the Hindenburg. ’You can’t trust anyone these days.’

  I nodded and swallowed hard, glad that I hadn’t partaken of any breakfast.

  ‘It must have been a passenger.’ shouted Ginger, ‘It stands to reason that the crew wouldn’t blow up their own ship.’

  I nodded again, gasping in cold air, as Ginger took us into a steep climb.

  ‘Do you know how to make bombs?’ he yelled.

  ‘What?… Only Molotov cocktails.’ I bellowed, in reply to another strange question.

  ’Don’t worry.’ roared Ginger, ‘I know it wasn’t you. The crew all vouched for you.’

  ‘They told me that the Uchronie was a steam powered island in the sky.’ I shouted.

  ‘There are lots of myths about the Uchronie.’ cried Ginger, laughing again, ‘and most of them are true.’

  ‘Like what?’ I shouted, tightening the strap of my leather helmet.

  ‘Well…She is a craft of considerable dimensions.’ shouted Ginger. ‘True, she’s from another time, but she is also a tightly run skyship.’

  ‘Is it true the commander is a tyrant?’ I shouted.

  ‘DeBlanc is a tyrant alright. ’ roared Ginger. ‘He’s a German Double Duke… you know that makes his wife a Double Duchess. It’s hard to understand what she says sometimes.’

  I laughed uneasily, unable to hear him properly as we entered a thick layer of cloud over Long Island Sound.

  ‘You’ll be fine.’ shouted Ginger. ‘Above these clouds, the air is pure, bracing and delicious… it’s the same air that the angels breathe.’

  ‘You are an optimist, sir.’ I bellowed.

  ‘I guess I am.’ yelled Ginger. ‘Optimists build airplanes and pessimists invent parachutes.’

  I nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘Have you ever parachuted, Nate?’

  ‘No!’ I clung on to the struts inside my tiny cockpit. The thought of throwing myself out and falling to earth made me feel poorly again.

  ‘You’ll get parachute training aboard the Uchronie.’ shouted Ginger. ‘She never comes down to earth so it’s actually the quickest way back to terra firma.’

  Further conversation in this murk was impossible so, as we flew out over the Atlantic, I pulled my muffler up over my mouth and sat wondering what kind of flying monstrosity I had signed up for. Lost in grey cloud, I again regretted my decision to move up from the class of vessel that I had been used to. I fervently wished that I could have stayed laughing and joking with the crew in the Hindenburg parlour… forever.

  But there was no going back now.

  We plunged on through cold, damp, grey, clouds.

  ~~~~~~~~~

  Suddenly, after what seemed an age, we burst through the cloud ceiling into bright sunlight.

  I gasped and blinked in wonder.

  Up ahead a sparkling city floated on top of the clouds.

  For a split second I imagined that it must be New York.

  Enormous... prodigious… gigantic! Words failed me at the sight of this mile wide flying island of iron steam towers and emerald glass domes.

  That sir… is the Uchronie, shouted Ginger, without looking round. ‘I always get a surprise at how big she is.’

  I rubbed the mist from my goggles, shielded my eyes and stared in wonder. The sun turned the vapour clinging to her four steaming chimneys into rainbows as the vast ironclad made its stately progress through the skies.

  Everything I had been told about the Uchronie was true! She was gargantuan.

  A flying metropolis.

  As we approached, I could see waterfalls pouring off her back edges into the grey clouds below. This cumbersome behemoth even had her own eco system!

  Two enormous three bladed propellers mounted above her stern scythed through the clear blue sky, pushing her forwards.

  ‘She’s cruising at about 70 knots.’ shouted Ginger, soaring high above the blades, ‘We’re doing 100, so we’ll soon get in front of her.’

  ‘Where do we land?’ I shouted.

  ‘We don’t! There’s no landing strip.’ shouted Ginger. ’There was no such thing as a fixed wing aircraft when she was built, so there are no facilities for them. Commander DeBlanc doesn’t trust any aircraft with less than three wings… says they’re the work of the devil.’

  Smoke and steam hugged the four, enormous, steaming chimneys as Ginger weaved our tiny triplane between them. The pointed front end was still an awfully long way off.

/>   I looked down incredulously at a vast area of grassland where sunlit trees waved in the breeze as we passed overhead.

  ‘Why can’t we land there?’ I shouted.

  ‘It’s a preservation area,’ shouted Ginger, ‘planted with different species of trees. You haven’t seen a tree until you’ve seen its shadow from the sky above the clouds.’

  I nodded. This was all too astounding.

  As we finally cleared the bow, we passed over a small, single gun.