Challenger - Airborn fanfic - Chapter 2

Chapter II:  Wind Tunnel

By noon the next day, I was dangling from a rope attached to the Challenger’s safety rail.  Crenshaw had been a little overzealous in ramming the charter ship, and the Challenger’s nose was pretty scraped up.  Thankfully, none of the gas cells had been torn.

I braced my feet against the Challenger’s black alumiron skin.  It had rained earlier that morning, and the Challenger was still wet.  I swiped a patch with glue and pressed it over a hole.  The glue dried quickly, even though the patch was wet.

“Hi, Brigid!”

Ellie stood 100 feet below me, waving.  I rappelled down the side of the Challenger and hung upside down in my safety harness a few feet over Ellie’s head.  “Hey,” I said.  “Are you coming to the bonfire tonight?”

“No,” Ellie replied glumly.  “My mother’s making me visit all her knitting friends.  She says you’re a bad influence.”

I flipped myself right-side up and looked at Ellie quizzically.  “I’m a bad influence?” I said.  “Since when?”

“Since this.”  Ellie handed me a newspaper that Carter had taken from the charter ship.  On the front page was a giant headline that said:

SZPIRGLAS STRIKES AGAIN—WITH ACCOMPLICE!

Underneath was a sketch of my dad in the Agave’s lounge—and me standing next to him.  I was struck by how similar we looked.  We had the same nose, the same eyes, the same hair (although mine was a lot longer), even the same arrogant posture.  The artist had done a good job.

I looked at Ellie.  “And how does this make me a bad influence?”

“I guess she doesn’t want me to turn into a crazy pirate feminist girl, or something.”

“What’s wrong with crazy pirate feminist girls?”

Ellie shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Ask my mother.”

“Brigid!” Crenshaw called from above me.  “Is your section done?”

“Yup!” I replied.  I turned back to Ellie.  “Meet me at the wind tunnel.  I have something I want to test.”

I grabbed my safety line and climbed up the side of the Challenger.  Halfway up, I stopped.  Nick, the new wireless operator, was trying to help with the patching, but he was having trouble staying upright.  He hung upside down in his harness.  “Patching is hard,” he grumbled.

“You just have to keep your weight centered,” I chuckled, grabbing his arm and flipping him back over.  “Don’t

swing too far, or you’ll flip over.”

He nodded.  “Thanks.”  I continued up the side of the Challenger.

When I reached the safety rail, I untied my line and walked back to the crow’s nest untethered.  It was windy up here, almost as windy as the wind tunnel.  I walked with my feet spread, staying in a slight crouch.  One wrong step would send me plunging into the water below.

In front of me, my dad climbed awkwardly out of the crow’s nest, gripping the safety rail for balance.  “It’s windy up here,” he remarked, making his way to the Challenger’s bow.

“It is,” I agreed.  “What are you doing up here?”

“Theodore went fishing,” Dad said, “and now the hut smells like fish.”  He shuddered.  “How is the patching coming?”

“We’re almost done,” I reported.

“Good,” he said.  “There’s a cold front coming in.  We should get some rain tonight.”  I nodded, making a mental note to bring an umbrella to the bonfire.  Dad was like a human barometer.  He had an uncanny ability to predict the weather—the kind of ability that only comes from years of flying.  19 times out of 20, what he said would be right.

“So,” Dad concluded, “if you have any inventions you want to kill yourself with, I’d do it before it starts raining.”

He was referring to the contraption I’d taken with me on the Challenger.  I had an ongoing bet with Crumlin about human flight capabilities.  He was convinced that a person needed fuel or hydrium to get off the ground.  I was going to prove him wrong.  To do so, I had invented a pair of wings, much like those of an ornithopter.  They had slim metal struts that hinged like the bones of a bat, and tail fins that were controlled with the pilot’s feet.  The wings had handles, for steering and flapping, and each one could move independently, for complicated maneuvers.

I swung myself into the crow’s nest and climbed down the ladder to the keel catwalk.  I ran to my room and grabbed my invention, being careful not to let it bump against the walls.  Jumping out of the Challenger’s main hatch, I ran to the wind tunnel.  Ellie was probably there already.

The wind tunnel wasn’t really a tunnel—just a long, narrow, tree-lined beach.  When the wind blew, the trees would channel the air into one long stream, amplifying a small breeze into a great gust.  It was an ideal place to conduct my experiments.

Ellie and I got there at the same time.  She was wearing a jacket over her sundress, to keep warm.  It could get very cold in the wind tunnel.

“Hey!” I shouted, slinging my invention over my shoulders like a backpack.

“Hey,” Ellie replied.  “Where’s your invention?”

“I’m wearing it.”  I trudged to the anchor post, leaning into the wind.  “Grab that rope, will you?”  Ellie tossed it to me, and I tied it around my waist.

“How’s the anchor post?” Ellie asked.  “I don’t want it to get pulled out of the ground while you’re flying.”

“It’s fine,” I said nonchalantly.  “I checked it last time.”  I knotted the rope around the anchor post and backed up until it was taut.  “Could you stand behind me?” I asked.  “Tell me how the skin’s holding up?”

“Sure,” Ellie said.  She positioned herself behind me.  “Big gust coming!  Ready when you are!”

“Okay, here we go!”

Taking off into the wind from a standstill was an art.  I ran forward, and just as the wall of wind hit me, I snapped out my wings.  Immediately, the wind grabbed me and pulled me back and up.  I quickly angled downward, leveling out.  I was hovering on a cushion of wind, suspended in the air by my wings.  The rope from the anchor post was holding me in place, keeping me from flying back into the forest.

I slipped my feet into the tail fin straps and tried banking to the right.  I turned and listed sideways, straining against the anchor post.  Rolling to the left, I glided back to the center of the wind tunnel.  “IT WORKS!” I shouted.  “IT’S REALLY WORKING!”

“BRIGID!” Ellie shrieked.  “THE ANCHOR POST!”

I glanced down at it—just as it was ripped clean out of the ground.

I sailed backward, flung into the air by the wind.  I quickly snapped my wings closed and fell down—right on top of Ellie.  A blast of wind swept us both up and sent us careening into the forest.  I twisted around just in time to save my wings from a thorny tree—and took it in the face myself.

When the wind died down, Ellie and I got slowly to our feet.  The hem of her sundress was ripped, and there were scratches all over her arms.  She touched her elbow and winced.  Then she looked at me.  “Brigid!” she gasped.  “Oh, your face!”

“What about it?”  I reached up and touched my cheek.  “It’s kind of numb, actually,” I said to Ellie.

I must have made a horrible face, because she flinched.  “Ellie!” I said.  “Your arms are bleeding!”

“I know,” Ellie said miserably.  “We have to go find my mother.  She’ll have bandages.”

“No, not your mom!” I begged.  “She’ll kill us!”

“She’ll kill me,” Ellie corrected.  “But I’d rather get in trouble than get blood all over my clothes.”

“You’re not going to get blood all over our clothes,” I scoffed.  “Those cuts will start clotting, and then they’ll scab over, and...”  I trailed off.  Ellie gave me a withering stare.

“Fine, we can go see your mom,” I grumbled.  “Just let me pack up my wings.”

I untangled my wings from the tree and folded them up.  Then Ellie and I walked back to the village.

Ellie knocked on the door to Delilah and Crumlin’s hut.  Delilah opened the door, a scrap of knitting in her hand.  When she saw us, her eyes widened and she dropped her knitting.

“Ellie!” she shrieked.  “What happened to you?!”  She grabbed Ellie’s wrist and took her inside.

“Hi, Mrs. Crumlin,” I said, following her into the hut.

“Brigid, did one of your contraptions do this?” Delilah demanded.

“No,” I said.  “The invention was working fine.  But it was so windy that the anchor post came out of the ground and I flew backward and accidentally hit Ellie, and then we got flung into the forest.”

Delilah shook her head.  “You really ought to find a safer hobby,” she chided.  “Those contraptions of yours are going to hurt someone.  Leave inventing to the people who know what they’re doing.”  She dabbed my face with a stinging salve.

“I know what I’m doing,” I protested.  “The problem was the wind, which is an uncontrollable external factor.  The invention worked!”

Delilah wasn’t impressed.  “Really, Brigid,” she grumbled.  “You’re eighteen now.  You must find something proper to do with your life.”

“And I suppose flying on the Challenger isn’t ‘proper?’” I snapped.

“No, it’s not!”

Just then, the door opened and my dad walked in.  “Delilah, have you seen my second pair of boots?” he asked.  “I can’t find them anywhere.”

Delilah produced them from under the table.  “Here they are,” she said.  “Theodore brought them over here this morning.  The soles were worn down, so I replaced them.”

“Thank you,” Dad said, taking the boots.  He glanced over at me.  “Good Lord, Brigid!  What happened to your face?!”

“I flew into a tree,” I said, sparing him the long explanation.

Unlike Delilah, my dad was more interested in the invention than the injuries.  “Was that during a ground test?” he asked.

“Yup,” I replied.  “The anchor post didn’t hold.  I should have checked it.”

Dad nodded.  “It was probably too windy for a ground test,” he said.  “That cold front, remember.  And it’s even worse up in the sky.  The Challenger almost got away.”

I gasped.  “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” Dad reassured me.  “We’ve got double lines on her now.”  He rubbed the soles of his boots and rolled his eyes.  “These are slick as the Challenger after a rainstorm,” he muttered.  “Crumlin!  Do you have a rasp?”

Crumlin looked up from the book he was reading.  “I don’t think so,” he said.  “I’d check in the tool shed.  Why do you need one?”

“My boots are too smooth.”

Crumlin slammed his book shut.  “Delilah!” he snapped.  “How many times do I have to tell you?  Our boots are supposed to be rough!  How do you expect us to work on the Challenger if we’re sliding all over the place?!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dad said, trying to spare Delilah.  “I’ll scuff them up myself.  I have to go to the tool shed anyway.”  He turned to me.  “Brigid, you come too.  You can repair that broken arrow before the hunt this afternoon.”

“Ooh, bow hunting!”  I jumped up, not waiting for Delilah to finish working on my face.  “Ellie, want to go hunting?”

“Absolutely not!” Delilah snapped.

Dad tugged on my arm, and I followed him outside, mouthing “see you” to Ellie.

“I don’t remember breaking an arrow,” I said.

“Oh, it’s not yours,” Dad replied.  “It’s Nick’s.  I told him I’d fix it; you know how useless he is with tools.”

I nodded.  “What’s wrong with it?”

“The shaft snapped,” Dad explained.  “It just needs a new one.”

We tried to preserve arrows for as long as possible.  It was rare to find them on airships, so if the tips broke, we couldn’t replace them.

When we got to the tool shed, the broken arrow was already on a worktable.  I handed Dad a rasp for his boots and grabbed a knife and some glue for myself.  As I pried the arrowhead off the shaft, Dad attacked his boots with the rasp.  Delilah had done such a good job sanding that his first few swipes glanced right off.  He shook his head.  “One of these days, I’m going to slip right off the Challenger!”  I chuckled.

I glued the arrowhead onto a new shaft, grabbed my bow and five arrows, and waited for Dad to finish fixing

his boots.  He waved at me to leave.  “The others are probably waiting already,” he said.  “You can take them out to the forest.  I’ll catch up.”  I nodded, and ran out to meet the other hunters.