K. Weiland - Storming

Then, just like that, the wind released the plane back into smooth air. He resettled his feet on the rudder pedals—and the wind smashed into him again. A torrent of rain washed over the windshield and peppered back against his face, too hard and needle-fine to feel damp. The roar of the rain against the wings thundered even above the engine chatter.

A crack of lightning lit up clouds that had gone dark purple. This was not good. Not good at all. The wind by itself was enough to do him in. If Zlo somehow managed to conjure hail, that would be about as lethal as if he started firing grapeshot out of that cannon of his.

All around, the planes scattered. They’d been willing enough to charge in and help start the storm. But they weren’t about to stick around during it. The dirigible might be able to weather the turbulence, but the biplanes were sitting ducks out here in the weather.

The Jenny’s stick had a mind of its own and kept trying to pull right out of his hand. He clamped it in both fists and gritted his teeth. Truth was, he had to get out of here too. Even his modified Jenny with its reinforced frame wasn’t any kind of match for a crazed airship captain with a magic weather-maker.

He turned his head and squinted through the deluge. The rain, at least, had swept away the oil splatters and shined up his goggles.

Had to be a way to keep this day from being a total loss. He could always crash the Jenny into the envelope. The whole thing would probably blow up. The leather skin would melt away and the spars would crumble. Whatever was left would plummet to the ground. He grimaced.

Noble, but maybe a tiny bit extreme, especially considering all the supposedly innocent people in there.

He turned the Jenny in closer to the dirigible for one more pass. The protection of the hulking envelope shielded him from the rain for a bit. Ahead, the cannon came clanking around the bow end of its track, headed straight for him.

He reacted almost without thinking. Throttle open, right foot on the right rudder pedal. The Jenny ducked sideways. She sailed in between the bottom of the envelope and the top of the ship. There was exactly no space to spare. His heart quit beating for a good long second.

Beneath him, a four-foot railing bordered a flat deck, loaded down with boxes and barrels of supplies, all of them lashed together. A few crouched men stared up at him, open-mouthed. One of them held a seven-foot stick; another squatted beside a pile of cannonballs; a third stood, with arms raised, hanging onto a rope that ran through a pulley system over his head.

A pulley system. That was how they were moving the cannon. He scooted the Jenny to the left. A few feet was all it took for him to line up the handkerchief hook on his bottom wing. As the Jenny screamed out the other side of the dirigible, back into the full force of the storm, he snagged the rope in the hook. A slight tug to the left told him it was secure.

His heart still refused to start beating. This here was the tricky part. If he’d snagged the wrong part of the rope, he’d catch the full weight of the cannon. He’d probably succeed in pulling it off the track—right before it jerked him out of the sky.

The wind pounded the Jenny sideways, and with every muscle in his body, he held her course steady. He watched over his shoulder. Through the cloud and the haze of rain, the rope unfurled behind him. Then, just as fast, it pulled loose. With a zip of spraying rain, it sped all the way free of the hook.

Time to get out of here and right now . His breathing came almost too hard to give him any oxygen. Push his luck any further, and he’d be a goner for sure. He turned the Jenny all the way around and zoomed over the top of Schturming for a look.

The cannon still sat on its track, solid as could be. Maybe that fool trick of his hadn’t done a lick of good, except to give him a few gray hairs.

But the cannon wasn’t moving. Beneath it, something dangled.

The pulley system.

He’d completely unthreaded it. For the time being at least, Zlo’s men couldn’t move the cannon. That was something anyway.

As he whipped on past, something else caught his eye: the orange glare of a spark at the cannon’s breech.

It was loaded, and it was lit, and without the pulley, they’d lost their ability to readjust its aim.

A heartbeat later, he was over the top of the envelope and out of sight of the cannon. An explosion tore through the storm.

He looked back.

Splinters and chunks of wood splattered up from Schturming . Her cannon had punched a hole down into her own hull. And straight through the _dawsedometer_’s heart with any luck.

He allowed himself a tight grin, then faced forward and opened the throttle, headed back across the lake.

RAIN LASHED THE airfield as Hitch flew in. The wind was considerably slacker here. Even still, half the planes were skidding out in the crosswind, striking the ground with their propellers or flipping over. From the looks of it, at least one had busted its landing gear. Maybe only half the planes had made it back to camp at all. The rest were scattered in the fields between here and the lake.

Even without that cotton-picking cannon, Zlo and his storm had managed to wipe out half of Livingstone’s impromptu air force. That might not bode too well for the future of the Extravagant Flying Circus—or Hitch’s shot at a partnership.

Rick’s blue Jenny streaked in front of Hitch, engine snorting black smoke. He flared for a hard landing. Parts splintered into the air. The wings caved in at the center, both ends shooting up like a broken teeter-totter.

To compensate for the wind, Hitch banked his Jenny a little and set his right wheel down first. The friction against the ground helped slow her some, and only then did he kick in opposite rudder to center her on both wheels. Her tailskid thumped down and dragged, acting as a brake. The wind caught her anyway, and she came that close to ground-looping and maybe even flipping over. Only the wooden hoop under the bottom wing, acting as another skid, kept the wing from tipping into the ground.

When she finally rolled to a stop, he sat there for a second. His ears were still buzzing, and his heart and his lungs pulled in opposite directions. That had been about as close as any bit of flying he’d ever had to do. He’d had his share of crashes, and had the scars to prove it, but not like that. Not with Death cackling in the front cockpit all the way.

People raced across the field, on foot and in automobiles, headed for the wrecks.

A man with a white scarf fluttering out of his leather jacket slowed as he passed. “You all right?”

Hitch raised a reassuring hand.

The man kept going. “They’re saying the colonel is down!”

Bad weather could bring down anyone, didn’t matter how good a pilot you were. But Livingstone was one of the best. It’d take a lot to bring him down. Hitch unfastened his safety belt. Served Livingstone right, of course—charging out there like some dumb media-hound palooka. But none of these pilots here today, including Livingstone, deserved to crack up like this.

He looked over at Rick’s blue plane. Speaking of dumb palookas.

Hitch hauled himself out of his cockpit and crossed the field. The rain hadn’t reached them in full force yet, which maybe indicated the limit of _Schturming_’s weather powers. But as soon as they finished rounding up the surviving pilots, they’d have to tie down and cover up what was left of the planes.

Rick hoisted himself up in his cockpit and fell out of it, landing on his backside. He clambered to his feet and started kicking at the wing and the fuselage. The wing spar bent, and a spider-webbed dent appeared beneath the back cockpit.