Chapter 49
In the skies above Gyulafehérvár
“Dixie Chick,” Tuva said over the radio, “this is…Smooth Operator. Come in, Dixie Chick.”
Tuva hesitated while repeating the name of her Dvorak. It was the name Denise had suggested, and she had accepted with a raised brow. It wasn’t a bad name; in fact, it fit quite well. Many in her circle of friends and colleagues had commented upon how calm and collected Tuva was under stressful circumstances, just like Minnie. Eddie had even commented on her smooth demeanor more than once. So, Denise had sung several bars of the up-time song to her. Tuva didn’t understand a lot of the context of the lyrics. There were references to places in the world the singer made that Tuva didn’t know anything about. But the song had a positive message, and in a time of war, perhaps that’s what mattered the most.
“Dixie Chick here,” Denise’s voice crackled over the radio. “Flying about five, six miles south towards, according to the map, a little spot called Meinbach. No sign of the enemy so far.”
“All clear here as well,” Tuva said. “Moving through some pretty heavy cloud cover right now. Will drop lower to get a better look at the ground.”
“How far out are you?” Denise asked.
Tuva checked her gauges, her timer. “I estimate about ten miles, give or take.”
“You be careful. This is your first real recon mission. Keep a clear eye, okay?”
“Roger that.”
Well, it wasn’t her first mission, per se, but the first that really mattered. Denise had taken the point on most of the Sunrise’s scouting missions as the army had moved down the Transylvanian plateau toward Kolozsvár. Tuva had served as Denise’s second in that regard, providing any support she could, radio signal boost, passenger transport (like delivering Ellie Anderson and Morris Roth to the capital), among other tasks. Those were important duties, but this was her first real solo scouting mission. It was important that she impress.
The massive gondola of an Ottoman airship exploded out of the low, gray clouds directly in her flight path. Tuva screamed at its sudden appearance and dove.
“Tuva, what’s wrong? Respond!”
The sudden descent pressed her body against the chair, and for a moment, she lost control. She had no idea if this plane could handle a barrel roll nor was she going to find out right now. The nose of the Smooth Operator was pointed toward the ground. Tuva let the plane drop, drop, and then pulled up hard until her landing gear almost scraped treetops. Denise kept yelling in her ear.
“Dammit, Tuva…talk to me!”
“Can’t right now,” she said, accelerating until the Dvorak acquired some lift and began ascending. Her heart pounded in her chest; her stomach churned. She calmed her breathing. “Ottoman airship…we damn near collided. Circling around to take another look.”
“Radio it in!” Denise shouted. “And get the hell out of there!”
She would do both, but not yet. She was back in control of the Smooth Operator and circling left under the airship. “Roger that.”
My, but it was big! She knew little about them. The USE had them as well, but she had never flown in one nor, by her recollection, had she even been near one. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. The men in the gondola were pointing muskets at her.
She dipped again as the sound of rifled musket fire followed her dive. How much elevation-change pressure could her flimsy canvassed wings take? No bullets had come near her, and she knew those firing the guns would have to pause to reload. That gave her at least a few more seconds to fly up and take a better look at this ballooned monster.
Such a marvelous craft—but slow. It certainly couldn’t match the Dvorak’s speed and maneuverability. But it would be difficult to attack from the ground, and without offensive weaponry, the Dvoraks couldn’t hope to bring it down either.
She dropped again, and this time, at her own pace and speed. Tuva heard the muskets fire again, but she didn’t care. She was now too far away and moving too fast for it to be of any concern. She banked right and circled toward the capital.
“Woo-hoo!” Tuva shouted in the radio. “What a beautiful craft…without the musket fire, of course.”
“Get your butt back to base, girl,” Denise said, though Tuva could hear that her friend’s anxiety was gone, “or I’ll tell my boyfriend on you.”
“Eddie won’t care. He’s already betrothed to a wild child.” Tuva giggled.
“Don’t bet on it.” There was a pause, then: “If that airship is up and running this close to the capital, then you know what that means.”
Tuva nodded, feeling silly doing so. “The Moldavians are here.”
* * *
Where are the Wallachians? Denise wondered as she flew at a thousand feet, high and above the dense fog floating through the Maros River Valley. She checked her fuel gauge. Half a tank. She grunted. “Where’s a service station when you need one?”
“What was that?”
Tuva’s voice surprised her, though it shouldn’t have. They were still connected. But Tuva’s escape from the Ottoman airship had given Denise such relief that she had quite forgotten. “Sorry, Smooth Operator. An up-time joke.”
Tuva chuckled. “You up-timers make too many jokes.”
Perhaps that was true, Denise thought as she dropped a little lower, fighting against a headwind. But look at it from our perspective. Pulled out of our time and dropped hundreds of years into the past? We crack wise just to stay sane.
Living in the seventeenth century wasn’t so bad, Denise had to admit. If the Ring of Fire hadn’t happened, she would have never met Eddie, or Minnie, or Tuva, or Christian, or Enkefort, or any of her other good down-time friends. Hell, she’d probably be sitting at a desk somewhere in a boring job, or serving as some man’s bored housewife, taking tequila shots in the afternoon just to drive away the blues. Nope. Life in 1637 was a bitch, a lot of the time, but at least it wasn’t boring.
The horizon opened to her, and there it was, the town of Meinbach. And there, too, the Wallachian army, making its way through its narrow streets.
“Smooth Operator,” she said, her excitement up, her heart racing, “tell the boss that we got an army sighting. And it’s a big ’un!”