Mark

“Keep it steady, blast it all,” the alien captain griped from behind Mark. “How am I supposed to weld with you wobbling the engine pod everywhere?”

Mark gritted his teeth, perspiration beading his forehead. Back bent beneath the pod in question, it was all he could do to hold it in place, muscles quivering with exertion. The smooth surface offered no easy purchase, and it felt like it weighed as much as a full grown hog. Arcturus could lift the damn thing into position without much trouble, but the alien needed both hands to work the welder; and that left Mark bearing the entire weight of the engine pod. He’d have died before admitting it, but the alien was much, much stronger than him.

“Why don’t you hold it and let me weld, then?” Mark grunted at the alien.

“Your tiny hands couldn’t handle the welder. Now hold still, if we don’t get this seated correctly in the gimbal it won’t work. You should be thankful this is a small engine…” His rumbling voice trailed off, fading into the intermittent buzz of the welder.

Mark hated to think how heavy the big ones would be. “Couldn’t hurt to try!” he wheezed, but he knew there was nothing for it but to settle his feet and hold fast. “Just hurry!”

“Almost there…” Arcturus muttered back at him. Mark didn’t believe him; they’d been “almost there” a dozen times in the last half an hour. Rather than think about it, Mark stared at the pine needles on the ground between his feet, fighting to breathe without trembling. A fat drop of sweat tickled its way down the bridge of his nose to the tip before falling to the dirt. All he had to do was hold on for a few more minutes. They’d done so much already, and this final engine represented the hardest piece of the repairs remaining.

The humans had worked from sunup to sundown at the stranded alien captain’s direction, helping him get the ship back into working order. Or at least to a point where it could limp along, Mark supposed. They hadn’t managed to properly straighten out the bent wing, or get the hatch closed again. Arcturus claimed that they didn’t need either of those to fly slow and low, which didn’t make much sense to Mark. How were you supposed to fly at all with only one wing?

There was a lot about the ship that didn’t make sense, and Mark had given up trying to wrap his head around all of it. For that matter, he didn’t think Arcturus knew how much of it actually worked. Take the engine on Mark’s back, for example. For all the world it looked like a blank, featureless pod with some wires trailing out the top. How was that supposed to be an engine? Arcturus’ answer had been that the turbine inside spun, pushing the ship along. He couldn’t explain what the turbine was supposed to be pushing on, from inside the pods, and he grew irate when Mark pressed him on the issue.

But he did know how to fix everything, as though he had every piece of the craft memorized, right down to the smallest nut and bolt. The parts that they had to jerry-rig gave him some trouble. He’d stare at the pieces, frowning and rubbing at the back of his skull, where the metal thing with the lights resided. The engines had been the worst, and it had been Mark who eventually suggested just welding them in place.

Arcturus’ deep voice broke into his thoughts. “You can let go; it should be able to hold its own weight now.” Mark eased off the engine, a little hesitant. If it slipped or broke loose, he wanted to be ready to catch hold of it…or jump out of the way. His sweat-soaked shirt clung to his skin as he peeled himself loose, but the engine didn’t move.

Bright flashes showed around the edges of the pod, and Mark studiously avoided looking at them. He’d made that mistake once already, and had spent an hour trying to blink away the spot it had left in his vision. Arcturus had heavy, dark goggles on that he was using to do the work, firming up the weld so that it would hold while in flight. The welder looked like a small Gatling gun, with all the barrels drawn together at the tip. It used light, rather than a flame, in short, intense bursts that melted the metals together. That gave it some unique advantages over a standard torch; the light stretched further than a flame, so the beam could reach tough nooks and crannies. Arcturus handled it with shocking delicacy, his massive clawed hands precise, leaving behind perfect beads of steel as he worked.

Mark straightened and put both hands in the small of his back, stretching as he surveyed the ship. They’d tipped it partway back to level with chains wrapped around a tree to the truck, but hadn’t managed to get it completely flat. Arcturus had assured them that wouldn’t be a problem once it had all four engines again. Again, that seemed crazy to Mark, but so did everything else about this.

Liliane poked her head up out of the hatch. “Hey,” she called. “I have those panels open, like you asked.”

“Thank you, miss.” Arcturus called back, not looking up. “I’ll be up shortly.” He shut down the light-welder and lifted his goggles, squinting.

“All done?” Mark asked him, turning to look at the welds. They looked strong, but he wasn’t sure if he trusted them to hold in flight. “How much force can those welds handle?”

Arcturus grimaced and rubbed at the plate in the back of his skull. “I have no idea. And no, not quite done. We need to get the power connections switched over, and then start testing the control system.”

“Was that damaged in the crash?” Mark asked, frowning. “I thought you said most of the damage was to the physical systems not the…” He waved a hand vaguely towards the front of the ship. “Computer thingies?”

“The controls are calibrated for lander engines,” Arcturus explained patiently as he set the light-welder down on the hatch. “Now we have one lander engine and three tug engines; it will be like walking with one leg that was three times stronger than the other. Doable, but clumsy. The computer can make adjustments, so long as everything is calibrated correctly.”

“Great, we can use the time to get all of our stuff loaded off the truck.” Liliane clambered down off the hatch, searching for the ground with one foot. The motion drew the trousers she was wearing tight around her thighs in a way that was very appealing. Mark watched her with intense interest as she clambered down. She turned, saw him looking, and gave him a look that was half-amused and half-exasperated. Mark just grinned and shrugged back at her. What was he going to do, not look?

Shaking her head, she went on. “And we’ve got time now, so we might as well put it to good use.”

“Yah.” Mark said, letting his grin go a little lecherous. “We should.”

She narrowed her eyes, and was opening her mouth to start in on him when Francois came pounding out of the forest at a full run. Mark whipped around at the sound of his boots tearing up the trail, his shoulders tensing. Francois had been out keeping watch; there could be only one reason for his rapid return.

He slid to a stop in the clearing, just beyond the shadow cast by the ship. “The Germans are coming,” he panted without preamble.

“Damnit.” Mark should have known this was coming the second that Liliane had said they had plenty of time. He checked the Walther at his belt, and snatched up his bag. “How many, and where are they?”

“A half dozen; standard patrol. I laid a trail down the hill for them to follow, but they’ll find their way up here eventually.” Francois bent over and put his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. “How long until she can fly?”

“Ships are its, not she’s.” Arcturus scowled. “At need, we could limp along right now...Another couple of hours to do the calibrations right. Do we have that long?”

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Francois shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Then I will start work immediately,” The alien growled, starting up the lower wing into the ship. “I will need to power all of the engines to test them.”

Mark looked around at the forest nervously. “How much noise will that make?”

“Not much.” Arcturus stepped down through the hatch, and his voice took on an echoing quality. “It shouldn’t be any louder than us talking.”

Well, how far could that possibly carry? Still…better safe than sorry. “We should all go aboard. I’d rather be in than out if they find us.”

Francois nodded. “Agreed.”

Mark cocked an eyebrow at him. “No argument?”

“You English have a saying.” Francois growled, pushing past him. “About blind pigs and acorns. It is applicable, I think, in more ways than one.”

Between the three of them, they gathered up the most critical of their remaining supplies and piled into the ship after Arcturus. Mark had been inside several times already, but the scale still left him feeling small. Compared to the few naval ships he’d seen, the halls and hatchways were enormous, though they barely admitted Arcturus’ bulk in some places. There was plenty of space in the cabin for three humans; though once you added the alien captain it felt a little more cramped.

Arcturus occupied the leftmost seat in the cabin. He swiped at the screen in front of the seat with a scowl, throwing bright red warnings and yellow alerts aside. Straps dangled from the seat at an angle, and Liliane knelt at an open panel just behind him. Bundles of wires lay coiled within, and she frowned down at them. “How am I supposed to know which of these goes where?” she asked, waving a hand at the mess.

“I’ll start the engines, and you start unplugging those four thick ones one at a time. That will turn off the associated engine, and we can hook it into the secondary power supply.” Arcturus started tapping at green symbols on the screen. “We want to keep the lander engine—that’s the big one—plugged into the main supply, so when you hear that one turn off, plug it right back in.”

Liliane wiped her hands on her trousers, looking at the bundle of wires like she might a nest of snakes. “Is that…Is that safe? I don’t know much about electricity.”

“It should be.” Arcturus pressed another big, green button on his screen, and something in the ship started humming. “Ready?”

Liliane didn’t look like she was, but she nodded anyway. “Ready.”

Arcturus took hold of the sticks in front of the console and pushed them forward. There was a mild buzz from the engines outside, and then a tremendously loud thumping, as loud as a cannon firing. The whole ship shook.

“That’s not quiet!” Francois shouted to make himself heard. “You said it would be quiet!”

Arcturus ignored him. “One of the engines must have been knocked out of balance by the crash, blast it,” he swore, dropping one of the control sticks and tapping at the screen furiously with his free hand. “We’ll have to shut down and try to rebalance it.”

A loud angry shout in German from outside cut him off. “You in there! Come out with your hands up! Shut that…that machine down!”

Mark groaned. “I don’t think we’re going to get a chance to fix it. Can it fly as is?”

Arcturus wobbled his head from side to side. “Maybe.”

That was better than a definite no. “Okay, so let’s just switch out the power and get out of here!” Mark said.

“Excellent idea.” Francois grabbed him by the shoulders and propelled him towards the hatch. “Go stall them.”

Mark stumbled to a halt just short of the hatch. “What, me?”

“You are always bragging that you have the best German,” Liliane said. She yanked one of the cords loose from its plug, and the vibrations from the back left corner of the ship ceased.

Well, that was true, but on reflection as he walked down the corridor to the hatch, sticking his head out that hatch seemed slightly worse than having to walk that claim back. He steeled himself and poked his head out around the corner.

The six Germans that Francois had spotted had taken position in the clearing outside the ship. Most of them were behind cover, laying prone or standing behind trees. All save their commander, who stood in the open, chest puffed out. Two could play that game though.

“What is the meaning of this interruption?” Mark bellowed in his most aristocratic German, cutting off the man as he opened his mouth to speak. I should have thrown the uniform on for this. “We are in the middle of delicate work here!” Behind him, Liliane and Arcturus’ voices rose and fell as another engine cut out and the first one started back up.

The man’s face clouded with confusion, taken aback momentarily by Mark’s bravado. “What work? We were not informed of any…” His eyes flicked over the ship as though unsure what he was looking at. “…of this.”

“Do you think a miserable grunt like you would need to know about this?” Mark retorted. The man’s jaw clenched at that. “This whole area is supposed to be off limits!” The remaining lander engine shut off, and then started right back up again. Found that one. Now they just need to switch over the other two.

“We were told nothing of the sort! I am afraid that I need to insist that you identify yourself.” The men behind the trees had started to half level their weapons at the ship, as though unsure if they should be shooting or not.

“You will insist on nothing!” Mark shouted back at the man, stabbing a finger down at him as a third engine cut off, the cannon thumping going quiet with it. It started again almost immediately. “Who is your commanding officer? I will have your ears for this impertinence, you swine!” The man’s face darkened to a deep, beet red.

“Come on down here and try it!” he snarled, his hands balling into fists. The last two engines fell silent.

All four engines roared to life, and the ship jerked underneath him. “No, you come on up here and try to stop me!” Mark yelled back. “You miserable Nazi prick! Long live the Queen, and Hitler can choke on my-”

He cut off, falling backwards away from the hatch, laughing hysterically as bullets pinged off the hull. “We’ve worn out our welcome!” He called down the hall. Arcturus was shouting something in his own language from the cockpit. “Can we fly?”

In answer, the whole ship lurched underneath him, shuddering and throwing him into the wall. “That answers that,” he muttered, picking himself up and groping at the walls for support as the ship bucked under his feet. He half stumbled, half fell into the cockpit, grabbing hold of Francois’ chair for support. “Are we all good then?” he shouted, trying to make himself heard over the tremendous thumping of the out-of-kilter engine.

They must be, since the viewscreen in front of Arcturus showed them wobbling out over the trees. Mark caught a brief, delightful glimpse of the German soldier’s shocked, slack faces staring up at them before the ship started to slide away over the forest.

“Which way?” Arcturus demanded. His hands squeezed the control sticks so hard that the knuckles went white. “Which way to Peenemunde?”

The ferocity in the captain’s voice took Mark aback, knocking the laughter out of him. “You’re…you’re on course. Just keep heading towards the sun for now,” he answered, gesturing. What was happening? Francois and Liliane were watching Arcturus closely, ignoring the marvelous view entirely. Liliane’s hair had fallen askew from her careful bun, framing a worried expression.

Arcturus hunched forward in his seat and spoke again, in his own tongue this time, ignoring them completely. The words sounded desperate, and Mark caught the name “Reel.”

Neither Francois nor Liliane seemed to know what was going on. The captain cried out in pain and his hand shot to the metal plate in his skull, letting go of one of the control sticks. The ship stumbled dangerously in the air, rolling.

“Arcturus!” Mark grabbed at the back of the alien captain’s chair and stumbled over to stand behind him. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“No!” It came out as a choked wail, as Arcturus seized the control stick again. “The Germans have betrayed her, ripped her implant from her very skull! They hurt her! We have to get there now!”

Mark stared at him, baffled. Betrayed? Who? He looked to Francois and saw his face darken, his fists clenching in fury. Liliane was an instant behind him, her mouth thinning to a grim line. Neither of them spared him so much as a glance, staring at Arcturus like he was a live mine they’d just trod on.

Mark’s heart froze, and a chill swept down his spine as the mine clicked for him too. Betrayed, Arcturus had said. Betrayed by the Germans.

Reel hadn’t been in Peenemunde by accident after all.