Mistress of the Air Ch. 26

"Sabotaged! How very shocking. What do you mean captain?"

"It's probably easier if I show you," replied Captain Wyndham beckoning her and Victoria to follow him into the engine room.

When the captain opened the engine room door, Lady Sally gasped in amazement. Her living and dungeon quarters were designed and fitted to her personal and precise specification, but she left the detailed, technical aspects of her airship to Barnes-Wallis, Captain Wyndham and their team of artificers.

As she stepped tentatively into the room, she looked around in wonder at the intricate network of polished copper around her. She was struck, not so much by the technical complexity of the inner workings of the airship, remarkable though these were, but more by the enormous potential it offered for unusual punishments for her slaves.

"Why, Captain Wyndham, this is quite incredible. I had no idea. Would I be right in thinking these pipes get very hot, uncomfortably hot?"

"Why, yes Lady Sally, but..."

"So, would I be right in thinking this lets out a burst of hot steam?" she asked, examining a nozzle on one of the boilers.

"Well, yes Lady Sally, but..."

"And would these pipes be strong enough to suspend someone from if you chained them tightly enough?" asked Lady Sally, her imagination running away with her.

"Yes, possibly Lady Sally, but there's something I have to show you."

"Oh yes, of course, I'm terribly sorry. It's just I had no idea the engine room might offer such intriguing possibilities for erotic and corrective pleasure. But yes, do go on captain."

Captain Wyndham showed her the copper pipes, and pointed out how cleanly they had been sliced, and the tell-tale serrated markings which showed the pipes had been attacked with a hack-saw.

"The supplies to the four engines have been cut. That was what was so strange. It's not surprising to have an engine failure, but not to all four at the same time. I'm sorry Lady Sally, the only conclusion I can come to is that this was done deliberately."

"How shocking," gasped Lady Sally, "who could possibly want to do such a thing? Could it have been one of my slaves do you think, Victoria?"

"Madam, I doubt it, after all they're usually a bit tied up."

"Well yes, I suppose there is that."

"It's not impossible," Victoria continued, "one could have sneaked away in a moment when he wasn't in bondage but, to be honest, there's not much opportunity for that when you're around."

"Do you have any enemies?" asked Captain Wyndham.

Victoria rolled her eyes, "Well, where do you start?"

"Really Victoria, that's very naughty of you and quite unfair. Of course, a lady of my temperament and predilection will, how should I say, encounter people who disagree with one and occasionally some unsolicited corrective therapy is required. But no, I can't think of anybody in particular."

"How about Lord Melchiot?"

"Oh well yes, there was him. But he was most tiresome, and he treated his horses so abominably. You have to admit he deserved to be tied naked to his horse and sent galloping around in front of a full grandstand at Epsom Downs. Besides it was highly amusing. I seem to remember you laughed so much you dropped the sugar tongs in my tea. I was not best pleased as I'm sure you will recall."

"And then there was the suffragette you chained to the railings," continued Victoria.

"Oh, but Victoria you know that was merely a misunderstanding. Besides it turned out splendidly in the end. The news coverage was such good publicity for her cause and, once the little confusion had been sorted out, we ended up best of friends."

"How about UKSOLD?"

"UKSOLD, what's that?" queried Captain Wyndham.

"The UK Society of Lesbian Dwarves," replied Victoria.

"What?" exclaimed Wyndham. "Blimey, Lady Sally, what circles do you mix in?"

"Very varied ones, I can assure you captain. Well, yes it's true. I'm always having altercations with them. But they are so irritating and self-righteous. They just need putting in their place every so often."

"And then there was the whole of the winning Oxford crew of the 1908 boat race who you paddled with their own oars...

"Well, yes Victoria, if you are counting, there may be one or two whom one might have upset along the way. But I assure you that any correction I've administered was totally deserved."

Captain Wyndham had to add, "As well as those, there's the British Empire's Ministry of War, the Prussian Empire's army and airship fleet, and the Russian Empire's secret police."

"Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I do have a few enemies. It's quite an achievement for a lady to be pursued across Europe by as many as three empires."

They stood in silence for a few moments reflecting on the implications of the captain's revelations.

"What do we do next?" asked Lady Sally.

"Well, repairing the airship is not a serious problem. I've got the tools to do that and, once the pipes have been soldered, there's no reason why she can't be restored to full power. The trickier question is who did it?-And are they still on the airship?"

"You mean we have a stowaway?"

"I think that's likely, though it was a suicidal act to try to bring down the airship. We have to be vigilant. I'll tell the crew to watch for anything unusual. The inside of the airship is vast, it's a maze of gangways and steps to access the hydrogen bags. It could be hard to find anybody hiding there."

"Oh, my god!" exclaimed Lady Sally as a thought struck her. "Cook's reports of thefts from the kitchens. That could be our stowaway. We must put a guard on the kitchen door. Cook won't like it, but we have to catch the perpetrator of this heinous act of sabotage."

"You're right. I suggest we make a sweep of the airship frame too. Whoever it is could strike again."

Lady Sally and Victoria returned to the playroom whilst the captain donned his protective helmet, gathered up the blow torch and soldering irons, and set about repairing the damage. It wasn't a difficult task, and wouldn't take him more than an afternoon.

The blow torch shot out a tongue of blue flame and, using spare copper kept in the tool box for just such a purpose, the captain repaired the pipes. He built a new ring of copper around where they had been cut. They should be strong enough now to circulate the diethyl aether, which was the fuel that fired up the engines.

The captain returned to the control room to test everything was in working ordered. He adjusted settings and gauges, then started the engines. At first nothing happened, but that was no concern. It took a while for the aether to circulate around the system and as it did, sure enough, the engines fired up. He checked. All four of them were fully functioning. He pulled a lever, and the propellers began to start up, he left them rotating until they built up to full-speed.

The Corseted Domme was fit to take to the air again, which was just as well because approaching across the wheat fields was a troop of the Russian Empire's army led by a steam-driven armoured vehicle, which hissed and rattled towards them. It appeared word must have got out they'd crash landed here.

Once again, the captain was forced to take urgent action. He called the crew to pull in the guy ropes and get ready to release the anchors. The engines were repaired in the nick of time as they were forced into making another speedy exit. He told one of the men to fetch Lady Sally to the bridge.

"What alarums are there now, captain?" she asked on her arrival.

The captain merely pointed across the fields to the approaching platoon of Russian soldiers.

"Don't worry captain, I believe I have the means to delay them. I have to be honest, I've got fed up of looking at wheat."

She picked up a lightning blunderbuss from the stolen crate of weapons left in the control room. She turned the dial up to the highest possible setting, opened a window in the cabin, and leaned out. She raised the sight to her eye and aimed... aimed at the fields of wheat, dried out by the summer sun on the Russian Steppes, at a point in the path of the approaching enemy.

She fired. A purple light fizzed through the air. It struck the parched ears of wheat, which exploded with blue flame, and then caught light. It being summer, and the wheat so dry, the flames spread like wild-fire.

The captain turned towards Lady Sally with a look of unabashed admiration, "Genius! That should buy us enough time to escape."

The rigger-men on the ground, alert to the threat of the approaching soldiers, were toiling as fast as they could to pull the great iron grappling-hooks out of the ground. When the last one was released, both anchors and men were pulled up into the gondola of the airship.

The Russian military were thrown into a state of alarm and confusion at the sight of the balls of fire rolling across the steppes. There was no way they could get anywhere near the airship. They looked on, powerless, as the mighty dirigible soared into the air, swung around 180 degrees, and accelerated into the sky.