The Martian Falcon (Lovecraft & Fort) by Baker Alan K

Author:Baker, Alan K [Baker, Alan K]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: SF / Fantasy, 9781782068877
Publisher: Snowbooks
Published: 2015-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

The Sky Beast

The Bel Geddes lurched and heaved again, the deck jumping like a tossed pancake as the sky beast’s tendrils wrapped themselves around the aircraft’s wings. The distant squeal and groan of crushed metal echoed through the craft in counterpoint to the tuneless opera of the passengers’ screams. Crockery, furniture and the band’s instruments flew through the air, smashing against bulkheads and deck as the pilot throttled up the aircraft’s engines to maximum, their desperate drone competing with the cacophony inside. From unseen points above and below, a metallic, staccato chittering began: the machine gun batteries mounted on the Bel Geddes’s dorsal and ventral surfaces. The great airliner wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

‘It’s trying to pull us in!’ yelled Fort, pointing through the archway leading to the observation lounge and the panoramic windows. ‘If we can’t break free, it’ll make a meal of us!’

‘I don’t think so!’ Lovecraft shouted back. ‘Look at it, Charles! Look at its colour!’

At first, Fort wondered what the hell Lovecraft was talking about. Then he peered more closely at the blue and pink striations that had begun to ripple across the creature’s vast circular canopy. ‘My God, Howard, you’re right!’

‘You’ll note the species, as well,’ Lovecraft continued. ‘Peregrinans placidus…’

He was right about that, too, Fort realised. Peregrinans placidus… gentle walker. The sky beast shouldn’t have been a threat: this particular species was perhaps the most docile of all the atmospheric Medusozoa; there were no known instances of a Peregrinans placidus ever having attacked an aircraft.

‘I read about these in the National Geographic,’ said Lovecraft as he ducked to avoid a flying double bass. ‘Those colours, that pattern…’

‘I know,’ said Fort. ‘They’re a mating display. The damned thing doesn’t want to eat us… it wants to screw us!’

‘Well,’ said Lovecraft, ‘I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but…’

The rate of fire from the defensive batteries increased. Lovecraft and Fort watched as a score of streamers of hot metal hurtled towards the sky beast. They didn’t seem to be doing much good. The aircraft lurched again as yet more tendrils flew from the creature’s underside and wrapped themselves around its wings.

Fort looked up at the ceiling. ‘Damn it, Howard, even if it doesn’t want to eat us, if those tendrils damage the engines or the control surfaces…’

‘We’re still done for,’ agreed Lovecraft. ‘The question is, what are we going to do?’

At that moment, the air was shredded by the sound of breaking glass – but this was no falling wineglass or decanter. The sound was distant, but it filled the dining room and made the passengers scream even louder and cover their ears. It was as if every piece of glass in the world were shattering at once.

Fort cringed beneath the sound. ‘Jesus Christ!’

‘It must be the solarium windows,’ said Lovecraft.

‘Right again, Howard. Come on!’

Half running, half staggering, they ran from the dining room into the port pontoon and aft along the central corridor, past doors leading to the shop, the bar and the infirmary (Fort quickly looked into the infirmary, but saw that it was empty).

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.