The Last Voyage of the Nordstar

by David Barber

Part 1 appears in this issue.

conclusion

They left Lars Thorsson in North Dakota. The Captain spoke words over a shallow grave hacked into the frozen earth, the crew standing in silence as snow began to fall. Franks looked on, not hiding his impatience.

Later, with his precious cargo safely stowed, they lifted into the sky and Franks dared to believe their enormous good luck might just hold.

Captain Sokkasson clambered along a catwalk. If memory served, there was a hatch into the aft gallery where the Imperials guarded their secret. He lowered himself down amongst canvas bags, and it took only moments to realise each concealed an identical metal cone, standing chest-high to a man and burnished smooth as old armour.

Positioned between the spinning props, the rear windows offered a view of their smoke and steam trailing away into a luminous sky. Unobserved, his face set into the expression that made men avoid him.

He was rearranging canvas to conceal his intrusion when the Imperial Colonel spoke.

“I knew you could not let it rest.”

The Captain turned and met his gaze. “What are these things?”

“The future of the Imperium.”

Moorish dirigibles and their fanatical soldiery raided across half of Europe, opposed by a handful of Imperial biplanes.

“The Moors have endless oil, and we do not. Always they press harder.”

Franks said no more, yet his imagination was feverish. Carried by airships, these devices would lay waste to Moorish holy places, harvest their cities like wheat, and destroy them utterly.

* * *

The scientist wiped his face with a shaking hand. “These fuses work by electricity.”

The innards of the device were spread out on the floor like a gutted animal.

“But there are... complications.” Taking off his spectacles, he resembled something small and startled.

“I asked if they will work,” Franks repeated.

“I believe they could be detonated by connecting certain wires by hand,” the scientist said. “But we are not Moorish fanatics. Who would volunteer to do such a thing?”

He suddenly vomited blood, black and copious at Franks’ feet.

* * *

With a final effort, Franks hauled the unconscious scientist to the trapdoor and opened it to the wind. Far below glittered the ocean. Imperial lands grew closer each day, and their cargo was almost safe. The scientist groaned. This crew needed no reminder that there was a sickness aboard.

The tumbling body became a dot and was lost.

Sitting while he regained his breath, Franks wiped dark blood from his nose.

* * *

“Jettison your cargo,” demanded Sokkasson, “before it poisons us all.”

Northmen and Imperials faced each other down the narrow corridor running the length of the gondola.

Behind Sokkasson crowded his crew, all those not on watch with Njalsson or struck down with the bloody flux. Most carried axes or a cutlass, one held a shovel from the boiler room.

Franks motioned his troopers to fix bayonets. “It is the property of the Imperium. You will not touch it.”

“You think your toy soldiers will stop us?”

Wordlessly, Franks took a musket from a trooper and fired it outwards, shattering window glass.

“You risk loaded guns?” cried Sokkasson, appalled.

Franks looked beyond the Captain to his crew. “Do you also blame me for Lars Thorsson’s death? Surely it is the airs here that are poisoned.”

“Bah! It started when you brought your cargo aboard.”

Again Franks ignored him. “We all know your captain is cursed.”

It was something no man had said in Sokkasson’s hearing.

“I heard the Captain bought hydrogen fouled with air,” muttered a crewman.

And when Einar Sokkasson did not turn on him in fury, others swore softly, knowing it meant coin had been saved at the risk of their lives.

“Killed his own father,” said another.

“Who says that?!” shouted the Captain, but it was too late for rage now.

“Let Sigrid Njalsson take you home,” Franks said, blowing on the flame of mutiny. “He is one you can trust. I want nothing more than safe passage.” He saw faces change and Sokkasson saw it too.

“Damn, blast you all!”

No one dared stop him when he turned and shouldered through men he could no longer call his own.

* * *

Einar Sokkasson had feuded with his father and now Sigrid Njalsson had betrayed him also.

“This is not my doing,” Njalsson had told him, “but these men will not follow you now. Let me guide Nordstar safely home, then you and I shall part.”

Sokkasson had just turned away.

After that, Njalsson circled north of Iceland, guessing that a Moorish captain whose prey had escaped him might think to loiter there. But then they flew into a storm too vast to be avoided and it swept them relentlessly towards the pole, ice beginning to encumber the airship.

No one argued when Sokkasson took the wheel, fighting the storm all night. Finally, he let the winds take the airship where they chose.

Unable to sleep for the nausea that rolled over him in waves, Franks found Njalsson in the chart room at dawn.

“I thought I had finished us,” Njalsson admitted, “but storms blow in circles, you see. Einar found the southern airstream. It will carry us back towards Iceland and safety.” He stared accusingly at Franks. “I do not know another Captain that could have done it.”

Next day, a crewman woke Franks from a lurid dream of airships that nosed into clouds like silver fish. A fresh wave of nausea gripped him.

He found Sokkasson and Njalsson sharing the wheelhouse in uneasy silence.

For a moment, Franks was disoriented, then Njalsson pointed at the white dirigible, already close enough to make out the Moorish script along its side. Waiting patiently off Iceland, the second of their pursuers had found them.

“Your cargo will kill us yet,” Sokkasson spat. “You are here because I need to know if they want us dead, or if they will settle for your treasure.”

The Moorish craft housed gasoline motors in sleek nacelles that thrummed louder as the dirigible gained on them.

“What can they do if we just press on?”

Before Sokkasson could answer, there was a puff of black-powder smoke from the long gondola beneath the dirigible and, moments later, a dull boom.

“They have cannon,” breathed Njalsson, “on a hydrogen airship!”

For a moment Sokkasson struggled with his vengeful heart, then barked orders. “See if we’re holed!”

Through his binoculars, Franks made out figures on the dirigible gesturing downwards. Njalsson must have seen them too, because the Nordstar dipped towards the Icelandic coast.

“They can have you and your cargo both,” said Sokkasson. “And be damned.”

There were no more cannon shots. The Moorish craft slowed and kept pace alongside them.

“There is gasoline aboard that airship,” Franks told his troopers. “Ignore the gasbags, aim for the gondola where the fuel tanks are.”

Could it be that no one noticed gunfire from an airship trailing its own clouds of steam and smoke, the shots drowned by the noise of motors? But then the blades of the dirigible changed pitch, and it began to veer away.

“Keep firing,” the sergeant-at-arms bellowed. What had started as volley fire became ragged as each man reloaded as fast as he could.

The Moorish cannon boomed again, and Franks was certain the ball was aimed at him. He tensed, then heard it rip though gasbags somewhere above.

On the dirigible, gasoline must have been dripping from holed tanks, the air shimmering with fumes, and perhaps it was that last muzzle flash that ignited it.

They stared open-mouthed as the Moorish craft bloomed into flame.

* * *

Months later, agents of the Imperium found Einar Sokkasson in Bergen, on the far Nord coast, where the Nordstar was laid up.

Their bagged silver coin was enough to hire a crew and replenish leaked hydrogen. Who would fly with airship-captain Sokkasson now? Men demanded wages in advance and were mostly strangers.

After they halted at Gdansk to pick up an Imperial official, they turned south. It was safe Imperium territory all the way to the Alps.

A crewman appeared in the wheelhouse.

“The Imperial fellow is waiting in yon chart room,” the man said, offhand. He was one of the new ones, a shifty Scot. His gaze took in the geiger crew, the wheel, the controls.

“I can find work for you,” snapped Sokkasson, and the man shrugged and slouched away.

Sokkasson had no intention of being at the Imperium’s beck and call. He stood by the wheel, curtly repeating orders he had already given. Finally, he pulled aside the curtain to the chart room.

In the time since their expedition to the Americas, Franks had aged terribly. His features were wasted, his neck loose and scrawny in his collar; it was like seeing Lars Thorsson in Imperial black. His head nodded as he dozed, his breathing laboured. It was the vulnerability of the sleeping man that shocked Sokkasson most.

So this was the Imperial ambassador he must secretly deliver to the heartland of the Moors. A dangerous mission, but he was being paid handsomely for it.

The Colonel roused himself. “Ah, Captain.” He held out a thin blotched hand, and Sokkasson hesitated at the tainted touch of it.

Contempt twisted the lip of the dying man. “I hear Sigrid Njalsson no longer flies with you.”

“That is no concern of yours.”

Sokkasson could feel the airship lifting, and he feigned interest in the view from the glassed side of the chart room.

In a wheezy voice, Franks spoke of their devious route across the Mediterranean and down the Red Sea, matters already agreed upon. He added that his troopers had stowed the cargo.

Sokkasson brought himself to look into the ravaged face. “What cargo is that?”

“A secret cargo. Kept from those within the Imperium who are seeking an accommodation with the Moors.”

Sokkasson snorted at this. The Moorish fanatics did not compromise. “A bribe, then?”

The Imperial won his struggle for breath. “You are picturing treasure, Captain. You wonder about taking it.”

Franks shook his head. “Imagine a relic instead, imagine a gift for their holy men in Mecca.”

Sokkasson frowned. There was something amiss here, but he could not find it. Nor could he see how to ask what part a dying man might play in all this.

“And what of you?” he ventured finally.

“The Imperium called for a volunteer,” the Colonel managed after a rattling cough. “Someone to deliver a message.”

“And how will you get home?”

The sunken eyes glittered. “You think I will be coming home?”

* * *

The propellers were stilled and they drifted through the night in silence. It was part of the plan to wait above the city. Franks had assured Sokkasson the Moors were expecting a secret ambassador and would guide his craft to a landing next morning.

Suddenly awake, Franks felt his dream slipping away. He had opened a trapdoor onto the wind and the trackless waters below. Perhaps it was the secret cargo that must be jettisoned rather than falling into Moorish hands.

It had been explained to him how to connect these wires and battery to their baleful payload. They said he would feel nothing as dawn came early to Mecca.