In the mid-morning a Rhummet Breehr appeared on the steppe traveling toward the fort, towing a beaten-up cargo wagon.
Phipps eagerly searched for markings and banners that would show whether or not this was another visit from the caravan that had caused so much misery for the men of Fort McMurray, but was relieved to see pennants declaring allegiance to Moerus Lacus and, by extension, The British empire.
The incoming party was flanked by four gashant-mounted outriders, all Canal Martians in appearance. What personnel could be seen on the wagon and in the howdah of the Rhummet Breehr were also Canal Martians, each dressed in unmatched clothes but each wearing the same distinctive design of leather harness. Each martian showed signs of having been involved in a recent, desperate battle, and the wagon and howdah had scars from bullets and snapped-off arrows in them.
Greeting the party at the south gate, it transpired this was a detachment of the Moerus Lacus irregulars, sent on a mission to see what has happened to the Steppe Tiger, overdue for a week at Moerus Lacus.
The lieutenant gave his report to Forsyth. They had followed various rumours of the vessel from Moerus Lacus to the Canal, where they commandeered a sailing vessel. They had used this to enact an interception of a loaded barge making for Shastapsh under the flag of the Marukee1 trading family.
The barge was loaded with strange cargo.
After a desperate fight with the crew, many of whom were actually more in the nature of trained soldiers and surmised to be Shastapsh Marines in disguise, the barge was taken and brought into dock at a small canalside town, Shee-na-Sho, 75 miles from the fort.
On learning that other craft, ostensibly non-military but actually infiltrated Shastaph navy, were actively patrolling the canal between them and Moerus Lacus, and the impossibility of proceeding to Shastapsh, it was decided to make for Fort McMurray where a message could be sent back to warn of the danger of invasion. The cargo was transfered to this wagon and a draft animal procured along with mounts for the outriders. A pair of irregulars had been detached and sent cross-country to Moerus Lacus with a dispatch warning of the danger from the canal.
Due to the sad state of the local roads and the complete impossibility of striking out cross-country with a wagon, especially one heavily loaded, not to mention several encounters with bellicose Hill Tribes, it had been 9 days since the cargo was seized.
Forsyth had the Martians’ wounds treated by the estimable Phipps, then he, Phipps and Hartwell took a small complement of men and examined the cargo in the wagon. Six tubes, each about five feet long and 18” in diameter, tipped with a cone of slightly different colouration tipped with a nasty-looking barbed spike were laid in makeshift cradles. The bodies were made out of some sort of metal, and a paper band wrapped the end of each tube. Each tube bore the unmistakable sigil of Cairo Munitions etched into it.
The rear of each tube was formed into a cone-shaped void, open at the end, and a long, stout cord ran through a small hole at the tip of this cone-shaped hollow, the other end being coiled and held inside the hollow. When uncoiled it proved to be about 60 feet in length, and it refused to burn though Phipps made heroic attempts to persuade it to do so.
When lifted, the centre of gravity of the whole was found to be slightly aft of its mid-point.
Surmising that he had some sort of rocket on his hands,Forsyth supervised the removal of one of these devices to a point some distance from the fort, had it propped up with the cone resting on the ground and unwound the cord and stretched it out to a “safe” distance. Then he slowly pulled on the cord, causing a small pin-like object to be pulled form the hole in the tip of the cone.
Everyone let out the breath they’d been holding, but otherwise nothing happened.
Forsyth waved everyone back to a safe distance, the attempted to replace the pin, at which point the fuel in what was indeed some form of rocket ignited, dealing the unfortunate Forsyth some nasty burns as it zoomed in a highly erratic path around the sky before crashing into the steppe and detonating loudly.
Forsyth ordered the rest of these odd munitions placed into the magazine and everyone retired to the fort.
The heroes decided that they really should have another look into the undercroft, but as the were discussing it they were subjected to another bombing run by a d___ed Shastaph kite. The Fort suffered some slight damage, but fortunately no serious injuries were inflicted and the kite was driven off by small arms fire.
Forsyth, Phipps and Hartwell, along with a small troop of men then descended into the undercroft. Pushing into areas they had not entered before they discovered one corridor blocked by a rock fall, another in which they were forced to retreat after being overcome with irrational fears, and a seemingly bottomless shaft in which there was no gravity at all!
Returning to the sanity of the fort, the heroes took their evening meal, rising the next day to bid the irregulars goodbye and send them on their way with yet more dispatches.
After a hearty breakfast, Forsyth, Phipps and Hartwell descended back into the undercroft and made a beeline for the deep shaft with such intriguing properties.
after a brief period of acclimatisation to free-fall gymnastics, they used the staple-ladders set into the walls as a means of propulsion and descended into the gloom for what seemed like hours, but was found to be only 10 minutes or so, they came upon an open portal to a horizontal corridor with far more usual gravitic properties.
Marching boldly into this adit, the team found themselves after a long walk at a Y junction.
At the end of one of the “arms” of the Y was a portal completely filled with ice. Beyond - or possibly within- the ice, shapes of things that could have been men or could have been things not remotely men could be dimly seen. Phipps chipped off some ice and took a sample, and was surprised to see the chipped divot slowly filling in with new ice. Tests would later proved the ice was formed from water as pure as that from the well in the fort.
At the end of the other “arm” of the Y was a portal to a room filled with dense fog, fog that did not flow out into the corridor despite there being no door.
Phipps decided to enter and explore. Forsyth and Hartwell attached a long length of rope to the good doctor in order to be able to pull him out in the event of trouble, and Phipps strode confidently into the room.
He found rank upon rank of bunks, each bearing the body of a Martian of unfamiliar race. Their clothing showed battle damage, and their bodies showed no life signs, but there were no wounds to be found and the skin was still pliable and wholesome-looking, far form the pallor Phipps associated with the dead.
Such was his wonder at his findings, and so thick was the fog, that in no time he was lost. Becoming frustrated by the tugs on the rope, which he found confining rather than helpful, he untied it and so it was that Forsyth and Hartwell reeled in not the missing Dr Phipps, but a perfectly good length of rope.
Phipps eventually found the exit and his comrades, and despite being a little light-headed, no doubt from breathing the fog for so long, was unharmed, so the team decided to return to the surface.
In the late afternoon, the fort was once again subjected to a bombing attack by a Shastaph-affiliated kite, which managed to inflict more serious damage before being driven off by Gatling-gun and small arms fire.
- See: Episode 40↑
