John Schettler - Grand Alliance

For his part, Karpov had no scruples about his operation over Germany, and no fears about his imminent visit to England. He was demonstrating a power and capability that no other person on the earth had at that moment, and this was something that fed directly into that unfillable well of recrimination within his darkened soul. Later that evening he was satisfied with his photography of Bremerhaven, and gave the order to steer due west for another 300 kilometers before turning southwest for the coast of England near Norwich. Headwinds began to pick up, and they could not make more than 70 KPH, but Karpov was not concerned.

It was then that they ran into the storm.

The light was fading and they remained at very high altitude when forward spotters, and even the Topaz operators, reported a formation of black storm clouds ahead. Bogrov did not like the look of them, and immediately suggested they alter course.

“We must be 3000 meters above them, said Karpov, squinting through his field glasses.”

“Aye sir, they look to be up just over 10,000 meters, but some of these storms can go much higher, and there can be nasty surprises if we run into one, updrafts exceeding 120KPH, turbulence, wind shear, ice, not to mention lightning.”

“We’ve good lightning rods installed,” said Karpov.

“Yes sir, but we also have those nice expensive radar sets on the nose and brow of the ship, and they’ll do the same. It will be a rough ride, but at least the moon is up, and still almost full, so we’ll have some light when we make the coast- if we make the coast.”

Karpov heard the warning in the man’s tone. “Carry on for the moment. If this storm climbs any higher, we can always take an evasive course.”

The storm did climb higher, an unusual monster that continued to billow up and up with angry black fists of clouds, sewn with fitful flashes of lightning. It was a ‘trop buster,’ a storm that was so high that it broke into the troposphere, where the cumulonimbus clouds began to flatten out at the top in the classic anvil shape. By the time they realized what was in front of them, the storm itself was too wide to circumvent. They were going to have to ride it out, and the ominous rolls of thunder grumbled in the sky as they approached.

“All hands, secure for rough weather,” said Karpov, cursing his bad luck to hit a storm of this size.

The view panes were frosted over around the edges, but they were feeding a low current to the center of the glass where they had embedded tiny filaments of wire to heat the surface and allow for some visibility. The airship was shaken by stiff winds, the duralumin airframe shuddering an squeaking as the wind put unusual torque on the structure. At one point a hard jolt shook the ship, and a crewman in the aft section reported a rivet had broken on one of the beams securing the tail and rudder section. The engineers rushed down the long central aluminum mesh walkway, their boots clattering on the metal grating as they went. With their oxygen masks on, they looked like grim, ghoulish figures, the demon crewmen of a phantom ship.

Karpov went into the interior of the massive airship, leaving the heated cabin and venturing down the cold, drafty walkway. His breath came up short in the chilled, thin air, but he thought he could brave the environment, wanting to show his men the iron strength of his will. It was then that he heard an odd thumping on the canvas high above, beyond the bulbous gas bags, and realized they must be running into hail or ice. The ship careened on the wind, a strong gust nearly knocking him from his feet as he gripped a nearby beam to steady himself. When he reached the aft section he could see that the engineers were busy applying a tough canvass restraining belt around the intersection of several duralumin beams where the rivet had failed.

“It’s moving too much to try and get another rivet through, sir. We can’t drill under these conditions and welding is out of the question. So we’ll secure it this way and hope it will hold.”

“Carry on, Chief,” said Karpov, and as he turned to head back, Tunguska shuddered with another impact and a loud boom. He saw what looked like greenish blue lightning running along the interior framework in eerie streaks of Saint Elmo’s fire. It was a weather phenomenon where luminous plasma formed in a coronal discharge. It could center on the tip of any sharp object, like the high mast on a ship, but he had never seen anything like this before. A strong thunderstorm could generate more power than a nuclear detonation, and produce very strong magnetic fields.

When Karpov made it back to the control gondola, he saw that Bogrov’s face was white with apprehension. His men were battling the control wheels, straining to turn them this way and that as they struggled to keep the ship level and stable, fighting the heavy winds. Karpov took one look at the compass and saw the needle was spinning wildly around in jittery circles.

“We’ve blundered into ice, just as I feared,” said the Captain, “and we’ve been hit by lightning at least twice. I’ve lost the number six engine aft and rudder control is very loose right now. This could get bad, Admiral.”

“Should we get lower?” Karpov really did not know much about the aerodynamics of the airship. He was a commanding officer, but not a real Zeppelin Captain here. He had no sense of how to maneuver the ship in these circumstances, and was relying on Bogrov.

“We’ve no say in the matter now. We’re icing up too bad and getting heavy. The gas bags are filled to the bursting point, and yes, I’d advise we let the ship descend.”

“Then take her down, Captain.”

The air seemed to have a strange smell of ozone, ionized by the storm, and the strange glow infused every region of the ship now. Tunguska’s bones were tingling with an eerie magnetic fire, infusing the metals that had been mined in the place that gave the ship its name.

“Candles of the Holy Ghost,” said Karpov, using an old seaman’s name for the effect he was seeing. When Charles Darwin had first noted the effect while cruising on the Beagle, he had described it thusly: ‘everything is in flames-the sky with lightning-the water with luminous particles, even the masts are pointed with blue flame.’ Karpov had seen it aboard Kirov, but under circumstances that gave him a chilling warning of grave danger here. Saint Elmo’s Fire was usually a fluorescent blue or violet color. The strange luminescent green rippling along the inner framework of the ship put a bad feeling in his gut.

It was a difficult ride down, taking all the skill that Bogrov had to manage the inflation and prevent a major gas bag from collapsing as the pressure changed. Helium expanded at high altitude, and contracted as they descended. He had to manage a careful balance but his crew was skilled, and the ship began to stabilize at lower altitudes.

They could see the tall angry storm off the starboard side of the ship, and Bogrov turned to try and avoid plunging into the billowing column again. Evil twisting wind spouts seemed to curl and form at the fringes of the column, and the bridge crew was deathly quiet as they watched.

“Land ahead!” a watchman finally called out the sighting, and Bogrov rushed to his navigation chart.

“Damn if we haven’t been blown another fifty kilometers southwest,” he said, moving his puckered eyes from the charts to the view panes, now wet with rain. “That’s England there, sir,” he pointed. “And we’re at no more than 5,000 meters now and still descending. I’m releasing helium from the reserve and we should level off soon.”

“You may keep us low,” said Karpov. “I doubt if we’ll run into any British fighters at night, and in this weather.”

His prediction was on the mark, except on one count. They descended lower and there was no sign of any other aircraft in the sky, and there was soon no sign of the rain or storm they had just come through either. But they were too preoccupied to notice this at that moment. One of the forward Topaz radars had been hit by lightning, and was no longer functioning, and reports were now coming in from all over the ship.