It’s Going to Blow!

Schöneluft Log, 1900.07.05

Ulrik Manfred Adler, acting Captain

The windows glowed orange. This is madness! As soon as the fire reaches the compressed gas tanks that feed Chef’s ovens, we are all dead. The explosion will puncture our hull and ignite the gas balls inside it. Chef knows this, he knows what I must do.

Another look at the Mongol ship. Still the men surround the central structure. What is it? Another threat, surely!

I could not bear it. I could not condemn the fool for loving his work. Access to the Galley is well down the passageway, through another hatch, and down the ladder-like stairs. I strapped on the rifle and filled my pockets with rounds, loathe to be caught unarmed. I was not thinking clearly, I suppose, running into a burning building with pockets full of gunpowder.

Fzzap! Fzzap! Two lightening balls shot from the Generator, one red, one gold, both only six inches. I noted with some relief that a gust of storm winds had pushed the Generator closer to the Mongol ship. The red ball circled the generator – not good, the circling ones are most likely to blow up the device. The gold fell twenty feet and hovered there.

The passageway was just too long; I didn’t have enough time. I wound out more of the ladder I had fought from earlier, a good seventy feet, and started down it. Rain slapped me; the storm had caught us. As I scrambled down I threw my weight backwards and forwards, back and forth. Through the air I soared, freedom in my heart where there should have been fear. Back and forth, taking longer each swing until finally I could bridge the distance from my fighting hatch to the Galley stair. As I swung back I lifted my feet from the rungs and kicked through the ladder, sitting on the rung. As the mica window rushed toward me I had second thoughts, and swung the rifle butt in front of my face for good measure.

I smashed through the thin window, flew across the stair, and my boots knocked out the window on the other side! I would have kept going but for the rifle, which fell sideways across the window frame. That bruised my arm pretty badly, though I didn’t notice it at the time. I had expected to shatter the windows, but they popped out, cracked but whole.

Extracting myself from the window, I used the rifle to wedge the ladder into the stairwell. Then I was coughing. Black smoke roiled up the stairs. I had drawn it by opening the windows. I jumped down into the Galley, crouching below the black stream.

The food stores were burning. Wooden shelves crackled. Cooking oil ran from broken jugs; flames chased it across the floor to lick at the table legs. Chef stood across the room with his back to the stove, holding a large copper canister. Fire extinguisher! He released the mechanism and sprayed the flaming shelves. Flames hissed and steamed.

“You’ve got to get out of here!” I screamed over the maelstrom of fire and water. I pointed to the stove behind him. “It’s going to blow!”