Phipps and his small team rode back toward Fort McMurray with their captive, miss Carter-Lloyd bound, bootless and tied securely onto a gashant.
Meanwhile Forsyth's party rode hard after the mysterious second gashant rider, following the tracks left by what looked like a rider anxious to avoid being intercepted. After an hour or so, they sighted a kite and Forsyth ordered the men to spread out and seek cover.
This was sound tactics, for the kite altered course slightly to overrun them and reduced its altitude to a reckless 50 feet off the ground! The dastardly Martian was obviously going to bomb the party and seemed supremely confident in his crew's ability to manage this at nap-of-Mars.
A sad mistake.
Spotting a group of four soldiers to the west of the main group, the Martian came in for a bombing run unaware of the majority of the force lying in wait for him. As the kite overflew them the hidden troops opened fire, as did our brave adventurers, aiming to hit anything they could.
The bombs were dropped and were devastatingly effective, but a lucky and well-placed shot by Forsyth's sergeant took down the helmsman just as he put the kite into a very tight turn to port, intending to line up a second run on the now-revealed troops firing at them.
The helm of the kite swung wild, forcing the trimsman to frantically attempt to trim the craft - a task to which he brought inadequate skill.
And so it was that the kite keeled over and ploughed into the Martian steppe, smashing the hull and detonating the remaining bombs, which in turn ignited the magazine. The resulting explosion smashed the hull to matchwood. The non-lifting components of the unfortunate kite cartwheeled across the steppe in a swath of wreckage and destruction; cannon barrels, cannon balls, masts, steering gear all thrown up, out and along the path of devastation.
Phipps' party was just deciding whether to follow the tracks left by Forsyth or to return to Fort McMurray when the deafening roar of the explosion washed over them, and they turned to see a towering mushroom-shaped cloud of sooty smoke rising high over the steppe.
Fearing the worst, Phipps' party rode hard for the column of smoke, eventually rendezvousing with Forsyth and his men attempting to recover anything of value from the wreckage.
Managing to secure a few damaged planks of liftwood from the wrecked trimming equipment, which by some miracle had not broken free of their mountings and sailed up into the air like so much of the hull cladding had, the combined force decided to return to Fort McMurray as hostile Steppe Tribes would probably be rushing to the scene to see what they could grab, and previous encounters had instilled a healthy respect for the danger they posed.
Approaching the fort, Forsyth, Phipps and Hartwell were dismayed to see an airship at the mooring mast. The markings on it were those of the inconvenient Count Oberluft, obviously still out and about on his "diplomatic mission".
Wilhelm was undismayed only because he had not experienced the count's last visit, but he soon developed the appropriate levels of discomfort once the other heroes had explained matters.
The party was greeted at the gate by Lieutenant Jacobs, whom Forsyth had left in command. Jacobs explained that the Germans had arrived earlier that day and he had been placed in a difficult situation. The count was reporting more massing of Steppe Tribes and under the circumstances had requested that his men be billeted inside the walls rather than in a bivouac outside the fort as they had on their last visit.
The airship it seemed had developed a problem, some sort of engineering issue, and the count had "dropped in" to see if the fort could supply one or two essential components he might use.
Lt. Jacobs had granted this request, and the German ranks were as he spoke dining at trestle tables set up in the courtyard.
Forsyth was then approached by Count Oberluft and his aide-de-camp, Major Wilhelm (no relation to Professor Wilhelm). Greetings were exchanged and Professor Wilhelm requested a tour of the airship, which was granted with good humour.
Count Oberluft then requested a reciprocal visit to the undercroft, which Forsyth denied on the grounds that he had put the whole place off-limits due to fatalities suffered while exploring. The count was mildly offended, but Forsyth was adamant the danger was too great. The count expressed disappointment that he would not be able to examine this fascinating structure for himself before he was forced to continue on his way at dawn.
Professor Wilhelm toured the airship and examined the "special engine", but he could not decide whether the Germans were being truthful about its purpose (and its supposed off-centre mounting making it all-but useless until it could be re-aligned).
The Professor noticed that the frame of the airship had some odd modules attached at regular intervals along its length, along the dorsal centreline, the ventral centreline and along both the port and starboard centrelines. They were interconnected by thick wires of some sort. The German engineers explained they were instruments to detect leaks of he explosive monohydrogen used as the lifting fluid in the airship's gasbags.
Phipps used the time to dissect the boots miss Carter-Lloyd has stolen, along with sundry other items of clothing he suspected as harbouring tools of the assassin's trade. Forsyth had her incarcerated in a different room and ordered triple guards on the door.
Phipps' searches resulted in no items of skullduggery being discovered.
In the evening Count Oberluft has his cook arrange a German meal for the officers of his command and those of Forsyth's, along with the heroes and the count himself.
The German troops dine on the spiced Martian meat left by the caravan a few days ago. This was fortunate since Forsyth's own troops generally hated the spicy foreign stuff, and complained if served it in their mess.
The evening went as well as could be expected, with relations strained as they were by Forsyth's suspicions of the count's motives and the count out-of-sorts over Forsyth's refusal to bend to his request for a tour of the labyrinth. In any event, the meal was uneventful and officers and men retired well-fed.
Forsyth posted extra guards on the labyrinth with orders to watch the Germans carefully.
At 4am the fort erupted into a cacophony of gunfire and screams.
The German troops were savagely attacking the garrison, clawing and biting in a frenzy of insane violence. The garrison troops were fighting back and some were resorting to rifle fire, but were hopelessly disorganized until Forsyth and his officers arrived in theatre and began conducting things in a more military fashion.
In truth, Forsyth would admit later that he had been looking for an excuse to show those Hun swine the back of his hand.
The fighting was intense, and the danger quite severe, as it was now obvious that the Germans were infected with full-strength Red Sands, and were little more than mindless zombies who would fight until death, infecting anyone who was wounded in an alarmingly short time.
Three more British soldiers were lost in the action to th terrible disease, and another was killed by "friendly fire"
Count Oberluft, finally up and about, was livid, enraged at the slaughter. He refused to listen to trumped-up tales of disease and vowed to unleash the most dire consequences when he got to Syrtis Major. At the urging of Major Wilhelm, the count ordered the airship undocked and set on course for Syrtis Major.
Forsyth ordered the bodies burned, and after ascertaining that the Martian spiced meat was tainted with Red Sands had that destroyed, all but a small sample retained for evidence and "medical purposes".
Phipps autopsied the bodies and discovered organ and brain changes, changes that he had not seen in anyone but those infected by Red Sands. This confirmed an awful suspicion - someone had either a store of the original Red Sands poison or - infinitely worse - knew the secret of making the foul stuff.
Forsyth, dismayed at these developments and the conclusions of Dr Phipps, decided after consultation with Phipps, Hartwell and Wilhelm to dispatch a single rider to the nearest heliograph tower with an urgent message to be relayed, and a second to Moerus Lacus.
His thinking was that whereas a mass sortie would and had attracted the unwanted attentions of the Steppe Martian tribes, a single, careful rider might stand a decent chance of getting through.
No comments:
Post a Comment