Sunday, October 14, 2007

CHAPTER 22 - FLIGHT

The old Poofer sailed aloft into the dawn skies just as the autumnal sun began to peek over the horizon and into bedroom windows throughout the capital city. As couples blinked into the sunlight and though about hitting the snooze bar, the Poofer rose slowly into the cold clear morning. She leveled off at 200 meters and slowly circled the Monforte Detached Palace and then headed north toward Fort Balatro and Zippy’s Blimp Works. The Poofer was heavy and slow.

Although the crew had been ordered to get some sleep, no one slept that night. They had spent the evening assisting the loading of fuel and supplies, and Washrox and Farley had overhauled the leaking values on the port boiler.

Punky was examining closely the cargo supplied from the Montforte’s larder, wood lot, and armory. Punky had placed Washrox in the pilot’s seat and Paxford Lint was heaving logs into the two boilers above in the engineering section. Fraley, the blue blood, was assigned the task of Mission Commander and was busy plotting a slow indirect course to Fort Balatro and the blimp works. Normal, the Goth, stood next to Punky with a clipboard reading off the items taken on board together with an estimate of their weight.

“Gras, Foie, Pate de, 20 kilos,” read Normal trying to sound as official as possible.

Punky looked at the dozen or so enormous loafs of pate.

“Claret, Pimp, Château du, 40 bottles, jeroboms, 140 kilos. Lobsters, poached, yesterday, large, 1.6 kilos each, quantity 10, 16 kilos. Asparagus, White, Tips, 10 kilos. Cigars, Grande, Testosa, Primero, three gross, 7 kilos,” read Normal.

Punky raised her hand and Normal abruptly stopped reading. Punky advanced on the cargo which lay in the engineering section held down with netting. She reached through the netting and pried open a small brown wooden crate and then a slim cedar box within the crate. From the box Punky pulled four cigars, three of which she placed into her shirt pocket, their little brown tips poking up from the edge of the pocket like so many little heads with yellow ties waiting for a date. The remaining cigar she smelled and a broad smile broke out on her face like the smile of a young ferret about to pounce on another ferret of the opposite persuasion.

“Testosa Grande,” said Punky as she sniffed a second time. Then she carefully placed the cigar with its anxiously waiting brethren in her breast pocket.

Eventually they got to the weapons Punky had asked Monforte to supply.

“Sword, Broad, Claymore, condition good, quantity 6, 22 kilos.” Punky raised her hand again and Normal stopped reading. Normal looked up. Punky pulled one of the swords from an oil cloth covering. There was rust on the hilt but someone had carefully sharpened the blade and it gleamed in the slanting rays of the morning sun streaming through the starboard port hole. A deadly weapon Punky knew, but exhausting to use and requiring considerable skill. Punky replaced the sword and Normal resumed reading the cargo manifest.

“Bow, Cross, Ratchet, condition good, quantity 4, 10 kilos.”

“How many bolts for the bows?” asked Punky.

“None,” replied Normal. “When we tried to load them they just fell apart, all rust and wood dust. I thought we might fashion bolts from aluminum rods at the blimp works.”

“Good thinking,” replied Punky knowing that the crossbows were practically useless against modern rapid fire air powered rifles and handguns. The weapons gave the crew a psychological boost even if they were dead weight.

“Mace, flexible on chain, condition poor, quantity 6, 75 kilos, Shield, kite shaped, wood with leather covers, condition good, quantity 6, 30 kilos.” Normal continued on down the list.

The checking of the cargo took another hour.

When they were finished Punky ordered Normal to get some sleep and she returned to the flight deck. The altitude read 900 meters and they were on a roundabout slow course toward a landing at Fort Balatro at sunset. They were darting in and out of a field of clouds. Comforting clouds thought Punky. Dense grey clouds that obscured their presence and their direction in the skies above Second Life.

Punky loved being among the clouds despite the fact that most blimp captains hated clouds and the turbulence that inevitably occurred in certain cloud formations. A blimp in flight was a living breathing being to Punky. On the ground a blimp was simply a bag of gas, but in the air, in the airship’s natural environment the blimp was transformed into something magnificent and alive. In clouds and moving air a blimp became a steed to be ridden hard enjoying every moment of being alive and racing into the wind. They were flying through what Punky recognized as ‘fractus’ clouds or bits of clouds broken off from towering formations above. The clouds above were probably cumulonimbus with puffy rounded tops as high as 3000 meters. They would be loaded with moisture and potential for thunder. It would rain tonight thought Punky. A hard rain.

Nimbus, the cloud god, was sleeping peacefully. Somewhere he felt a little itch as something crawled along the edge of beatific unconsciousness. Nimbus thought about scratching or rolling over, but the tickle went away and Nimbus fell back to sleep. After a while he began to snore.

Punky was exhausted so she went to the rear of the gondola to catch some sleep. There was thunder in the distance perhaps 10 kilometers out. Normal was sleeping soundly above the droning rhythmic hum of the engines above. Punky lay in the captain’s bunk and tried to think of what to do after they arrived at the blimp works. Daggy would be there. The Chair had said so. Daggy would be preparing a set of quick repairs for this old training ship. Dagmon Zhukovsky, Chief Engineer, was as familiar with this blimp series as she was with traditions and absurdities of the Blue Navy of Second Life. Perhaps some offensive arms, both for the blimp and for themselves would be ready. They needed arms badly.

Punky fell asleep.

She awoke to the loud hiss and growl of escaping steam and the shouts of Washrox and Farley. They had blown a high pressure head on the port engine. Punky knew that ugly sound. The whole ship shuddered violently and began to pull to the left. Punky jumped to the deck and raced to the ladder leading to engineering above. Punky climbed fast and saw Paxford rolling about on the floor grasping his right arm and with a fierce grimace of pain on his face. Washrox was tugging hard on a valve trying to shut down a wall of super heated steam. The whole engineering section was wet and painfully hot. That steam will kill you knew Punky. Punky reached for the pry bar lever and together Washrox and Punky pulled. The valve would not move. Fraley appeared with a med kit and began attending to Paxford.

Punky shouted, “Hit it, hit it hard on the stem.” Washrox stared at Punky in disbelief. That would be destroying Blimp Cartel property. Punky grabbed the pry bar from Washrox’s fist and brought the bar hard down on the stem. Then Punky grabbed a greasy rag and yanked the valve. It moved a bit. Washrox reached for the valve and slowly the two of them got it closed. The hissing steam slowed to a small but still deadly stream as the valve closed.

Punky turned to Paxford. Paxford Lint was badly burned on the right side. His arm got the worst of it, but the right side of his neck and face were also burned. Second and some third degrees thought Punky. Paxford was lucky. He would live, and have some attractive scars with which to impress the young ladies.

Punky inspected the engine carefully. The high pressure piston head was cracked. There was no way it could be repaired in the air. The head needed to be replaced. In fact, as Punky looked at the engine carefully, the entire assembly needed replacement. Balatro was unlikely to have replacement parts, and casting them would take weeks. Punky knew that a blimp with only one engine was like those cross bows without bolts. Helpless.

“Washrox watch the starboard engine carefully. Tell me if anything goes wrong, anything! Got it?” Washrox nodded.

“Fraley,” shouted Punky. “Don’t move Paxford, get him sedated, but don’t move him. We are going to need to remove a bulkhead to get him out safely, and we can only do that at the blimp works.” Fraley looked troubled but nodded his head. Paxford looked bad thought Punky. Paxford was groaning.

Punky took a long look at the remaining operating engine and then she walked to the ladder and slid down into the gondola.

Normal was in the pilots chair and had reduced the power output of the remaining engine in order to maintain a forward direction. There was butter dripping from her chin and lobster shells on the floor. I need to eat something thought Punky. “Reduce pressure on the engine to 90 pounds,” said Punky, “Head straight to the Blimp works. Keep your altitude at 900 meters until we are out about 2 kilometers,” said Punky in as calm a voice as she could muster. The Poofer was finished Punky realized.

The sun had begun its slow descent to the horizon and a few of the lower clouds began to glow orange and then red. Soon the sky burned with fiery light. Tung’s of flame were interspersed with deep blue darkening sky and black outlined patches of white. The land below receded into shadow and then into darkness. In the distance, to the north, Punky could see nothing. Not a single light dotted the darkening horizon. There were no approach lights, or Morse lights flashing out signals to remote stations, no drum fires lit by guards trying to stay warm. Only black. Punky prayed that the blimp works would be intact. Then in a brief flash of lightening Punky saw the enormous blimp hangar. The blimp works was whole and intact.

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