Dead Air (19 page)

Dr. Von Patterson chuckled nervously. "My word! You're quite the ... er ... specimen aren't you?"

"Tacita won't hurt you, Dr. Von Patterson." Tiberius said with an nervous smile. "I'm Tiberius Fabia, you might remember our letters? We corresponded?"

Dr. Von Patterson gazed at the young man a moment, then awareness spread over the archeologist's face. "Why yes! From the University of Rome! Indeed, I remember you. But how are you here on this ... " James hesitated as his location suddenly escaped him. He looked to Adonia for help.

"Relay Station." She offered.

"Quite." Dr. Von Patterson replied with a fatigued sigh, "What are you doing here?" Before Tiberius could answer, the archeologist frowned and shook his head slightly. "In fact, what am I doing here? My head is in such a fog. Wait, there was a dig site. I think there was a dig site." He said absently.

Krumer walked over to the door and glanced outside. The fog had returned in force. Bands of mist ran eagerly along the roof top and danced around the occasional lightning rod. Despite the thickening fog, he could still make out the silent, unmoving figures in the distance. It bothered him that the zombies had retreated so abruptly, only to stop for no apparent reason. It was almost as if they stood guard outside despite the approaching storm - but whom they stood guard for worried him.

"What do you remember?" Krumer heard Adonia ask Dr. Von Patterson. The orc stepped away from the open door to rejoin the others.

The archeologist's brow furrowed in thought. "I remember a campsite. A dig at a ruin of some kind. My wife and children were there as were some of my colleagues. There was a statue ... and gunfire. Voices, lots of voices all yelling at once in Latin? Perhaps not in Latin, but at some point someone was speaking quite a bit of Latin to me. Finally, however, I heard a woman's voice." He looked up at the others. "I heard her voice before I opened my eyes and ... well ... found myself here." After a brief pause, Dr. Von Patterson asked. "My family ... are they well? Safe?"

Adonia smiled softly at her friend. "Yes, James. You had the presence of mind to send them away the very day before the attack took place. They will be worried with grief, but last I knew, they were quite safe."

Krumer was only partially listening to the conversation. His eyes were on Tiberius. The young man was eager to speak to Dr. Von Patterson, that much he could tell, but the first mate also saw lines of worry on the young man's face. Most notably, when he sat quietly by while Adonia and Dr. Von Patterson talked. The orc cleared his throat. "Tiberius, the telegraph is still hooked to the battery. I don't think the zombies will attack just yet."

Tiberius caught Krumer's suggestion and smiled. "Thank you." Rising from his place near the door, Adonia, and Dr. Von Patterson, he hurried to the telegraph. Once there, he squatted down and began to tap out a very precise code.

"I thought you didn't believe him, my friend?" Adonia asked with a slight smirk on her face.

"I'm keeping an open mind like you asked." He replied with a slight sigh. "Even if it's against my better judgement. Let us say for a moment that he can rouse help for us. It would mean more able bodies against the zombies ... and whoever is behind them."

"Speaking of such, can we not escape with the zombies ... hm ... resting?" Adonia asked with a brief glance towards the fog-laden doorway.

"Once Tiberius is done, we will." Krumer replied.

Dr. Von Patterson turned to look at the fog that swirled along the rooftop outside the door. "I remember ... " He looked between Adonia and Krumer. "Is the statue here?"

Adonia shook her head. "No, there was an attack. It was taken."

The archeologist rubbed his face from fatigue. In the background the tapping of the telegraph filled the air. "We have to find it. I ... I remember flashes of memories. They are quite jumbled and come at me in a rush. I remember something about that statue. I daresay I don't understand how it was made, but it held recordings. I think they were all in Latin." He hesitated a moment, as if searching to grasp at an elusive memory that danced just out of his mind's reach. "Yes, they were. That is where I heard all the Latin."

Just then, Tacita's ears turned around in two different directions: one towards the door and the other towards the back wall. The great cat's posture went tense. Krumer held up a hand for quiet. He had heard what Tacita had noticed - a faint set of footsteps.

"Tiberius? Almost done?" Krumer asked carefully.

"Almost," the young man answered, oblivious to Krumer's expression. "Why?"

"I believe we've visitors," The first mate said softly. Tiberius looked up in alarm. Krumer motioned for the young man to resume sending his message. Tiberius nodded, licked his dry lips, and picked up where he had left off. Tactica stood and padded over to crouch not far away, facing the outside.

Quickly, Adonia helped Dr. Von Patterson to his feet. Together, they made their way over to the large, four foot tall cylindrical generator and crouched behind it. Meanwhile, Krumer quietly stepped over to the right of the doorway, drew his pistol, and waited. 

The footsteps, though still nearly silent, moved around the outside of the shed. They were almost a sliding gate, much like the zombies that had come at them earlier. The first mate firmly squeezed the grip of his pistol, keeping the barrel pointed at the floor of the shed. A shadow crossed the opening and slowly obscured the fog. It solidified into a figure that stepped within arms' reach. Immediately, Krumer moved in a blur of motion. His pistol shot up, the palm of his hand slammed back the hammer of the gun ready to fire.

In the same moment, Conrad O'Fallon, quartermaster of the
Brass Griffin
, threw himself against the opposite side of the door frame, his own pistol drawn and pointed in towards Krumer. When the Scotsman realized who he threatened, he lowered his pistol with a bruised and bloody grin.

"Top o' the evenin'! Ah'd bet ye be wonderin' just how we got past the zombies?" O'Fallon asked, dropping his pistol into the holster at his belt.

"Indeed," Krumer replied with a faint - and relieved - smile of his own.

"Well then, if we be havin' the time for a quick breather, Ah'll be happy ta show ye." The Scotsman replied cheerily.

O
utside the station, the waning light of day struggled against the might of gray storm clouds, tinging the sky with the color of blood. The storm gathered strength and pushed in around the station: a tiger that circled its potential prey. Lightning reached out between the clouds as the storm tested its strength. Electricity flashed bright against the dark sky followed by the roar of thunder. Between the shake and rattle of the clouds, the
Brass Griffin
darted between the chaos. Aboard, Captain Anthony Hunter stood resolute on the quarterdeck, like a rock set against the waves. Beneath his feet, the vessel raced through the clouds.
 
Gusts of wind tossed the
Griffin
about until the ship crested the larger thunderheads. Then the wind was joined by bursts of cold rain. Hunter stood, unmoved by the storm's display, his frown a permanent carving etched in stone.

"Station, ho!" Came the shout from the crow's nest, high above on the
Griffin's
gas bag.

"Steady as she goes, Mr. Tonks." Hunter said automatically.

"Aye, Cap'n." Tonks replied, turning the wheel slightly to guide the ship around one of the darker thunderheads which threatened to throw out its store of lightning. Thunder rolled, but somehow it was no longer in tune with the occasional flash of lightning. Tonks frowned, as the sound did not match his expectations. "That's a right odd sound for thunder."

Hunter listened more carefully a moment. Again the thunder rolled between the clouds like stones falling downhill. Behind that, however, he could hear something more. A set of low, regular rumblings, not dissimilar to thunder but more alike to other phenomena of which Captain Hunter was intimately familiar.

"That's because it's not." He replied just as the
Griffin
broke from the clutches of the thunderclouds and into the teeth of another type of storm. "Action Stations! All hands to action stations!" Hunter shouted. On the main deck, Lucas dropped the empty bucket he carried and raced off to grab the rope on the ship's bell. He rang it furiously in the prescribed rhythm he was taught. Immediately the crew raced to their assigned posts while rifles were handed out.

The moment the clouds broke, the station emerged full into view. Along the dock, the distant crackle of gunfire echoed on the cold, damp air. Puffs of acrid smoke drifted in small clusters where the fighting was fiercest. A group of fifteen men were barricaded in the wreck of the
La Paloma,
arranged in a rough firing line along the ruined vessel's side. Because of how the
La Paloma
was tilted to one side, it only provided cover from anyone that might approach from the station. Any arriving ship could easily see the men. Occasionally they rose from cover to fire towards the station, where an unruly mob of twenty figures slowly ambled in a swarm from the buildings. Most did not carry weapons, and those that did held onto the odd pipe or hatchet.

Tonks squinted at the group of figures that shambled along. "Would that be the zombies Krumer was goin' on about?"

"Indeed it might. Though I've my doubts of anything undead." Hunter stated flatly. "I've seen drunken men stumble no differently."

Despite the lack of firearms or other equipment, the staccato bursts of gunfire did not seem to bother anyone in the unruly mob. Each time any were hit, they would fall, only to stand up and resume their unnerving, silent march. The figures on the
La Paloma,
however, were anything but quiet. Even at a distance, the shouts of orders could be heard. In between
La Paloma's
defenders and the encroaching figures from the station, the lone dockmaster's shed stood exactly in the middle. From the open doorway and the broken window, a handful of figures could be seen, rifles at the ready.

"However," Hunter commented with a thoughtful, almost suspicious tone, "being able to stand up after being shot quite so many times, that would be new."

Then, for only a moment, the air went deathly still. It was as if the storm itself waited in breathless anticipation for something traumatic to happen. Suddenly, the dock was enveloped in a wide blossom of flame and rapidly surrounded by a billowing cloak of black, oily smoke. The smoke boiled out in all directions obscuring any view of the dock. The roar of the explosion rolled out like a wave, then hammered the
Griffin
and her crew with its passage. After a moment, the smoke parted in time to see the final five feet of the abused, burnt and broken dock surrender to the inevitable and fall away into the waiting storm clouds below. A mere hundred yards closer to the station, the dockmaster's shed remained standing, resolute against the firestorm.

Tonks pointed off to Hunter's right. "There, Cap'n! It came from there!"

Hunter tore his eyes away from his besieged people on the dock to look in the direction Tonks indicated. Two air ships were locked in a violent duel. One, a schooner only a few feet longer than the
Brass Griffin
, had just completed a turn, passing three hundred yards from the wreck of the
La Paloma
. A copper-lined hull covered her keel, and her gas bags were not the usual elliptical tube Hunter was accustomed to. They were longer, though not as large in circumference. At her waterline, a set of metal pontoons was attached to the ship's hull.

The ship had taken a hard pounding. That much was obvious to Hunter even before he pulled out his spyglass. Three ragged tears in her hull vomited a foul, black smoke. Her crew raced along deck, some to tend to repairs, others to defense, and the last to the wounded and dead. The crew's uniforms were unusual, at best. All wore brown trousers, ankle-high sandals in a stout leather, thigh-length tunics and a wide leather band that covered the waist and mid-section of each sailor. Three belts kept it secure.

Hunter squinted to make out another figure aboard who wore a similar style of clothing, but boasted a leather jerkin with an insignia upon it. It was at that moment the observed ship shuddered from another artillery impact, and smoke blocked Captain Hunter's view. He blinked in surprise, swinging the spyglass around in search of the cause. His keen eye found the second ship in moments.

This was a style of ship Hunter was familiar with. An armored frigate with sails stained so deep with soot and smoke they were black, a gray gas bag and a full compliment of forty-four guns soared five hundred yards off from the wounded schooner. Its crew scrambled to reload the cannon. Neither ship flew any flags of nationality or had any markings on their hull. The captain could not put his finger on the reason, but something about that ship seemed all too familiar.

"Who are they, Cap'n?" Tonks asked.

"I'm not certain, Mr. Tonks. Neither are flying a flag." Hunter turned his glass back towards the wounded vessel. "We've just left the cloud bank, so we've only a few moments' peace before they spot us. Bring the
Griffin
about, we'll ... " the captain's words words caught in his throat. There, on the schooner, a banner hung from the base of the quarterdeck. Stung by flame and darkened by smoke, the stretched cloth retained still legible markings in what appeared to be Latin. The most striking feature was the golden relief of an eagle with its wing outstretched. At first Hunter mistook it for the American eagle, then he realized the eagle sat on a perch and held neither olive branch, nor cluster of arrows.

"Roman?" He said incredulously. Then pieces of a puzzle began to connect in his mind. "The map, the Latin ... I wonder ..."

Tonks gave Hunter a strange look. "Beggin' the Cap'n's pardon?"

Hunter shook his head. "Unimportant now, we've people to recover." He replied, filing his epiphany away in his mind for a moment. His gaze shifted between the two air ships locked in battle and the station itself. "The wind's caught the smoke and dragged it along south-southeast. Mr. Tonks, we'll use that to our advantage. Bring us down a twain and three degrees to port. We'll slip into that smoke stream and ride it into the station."