«Thank you," Bantam replied, and then spun and threw the weight at an incoming waltzer who was just landing. The man caught it with an 'oof!' and sank to the floor.
«Soldiers! From the base!» Bantam explained to Rachelle. «I recognize them both!» Then he turned, weightless now from Helux, and kicked another incoming soldier squarely in the stomach.
This propelled Bantam upwards, out of control, somersaulting helplessly. To his surprise, he popped up precisely in between a dancing couple, sending the older lothario gentleman sailing, and finding himself air-waltzing with the pretty young blonde who had been the object of his affection.
«Oh. Hello," Bantam said with a smile.
Rachelle saw this and the tips of her ears turned pink with anger. «Why he --» She turned to the rental gentleman. «Mine! On! Now!» The man hurriedly obeyed.
But Bantam's pursuers had recovered and had launched themselves upward at him at a fast clip.
«Tut! Tut!» yelled a man seated in something like a lifeguard chair about midway up. He pointed at a sign that read:
Graceful Velocities Only!
Gentlemen especially will remember that the Waltz is a gallant dance of grace, and an Air Waltz is
the most gallant dance of them all!
But of course, the soldiers paid him no heed. One was almost upon Bantam when he noticed and extricated himself from the embrace of the blonde. But she was frightened and held on to one of his hands — while the soldier missed Bantam but grabbed onto her other hand.
The trio now spun in midair, girl screaming between them.
Meanwhile, her lothario date was now back, and, missing the girl, he grabbed onto Bantam's other hand, making it a spinning foursome. He cursed and snarled at Bantam, trying to climb up his arm.
The other waltzers began to notice the ruckus now, though the orchestra was oblivious and kept playing. Screams erupted here and there, and some couples began landing on the various balconies.
Bantam suddenly pulled the two ends of the spinning human chain towards each other, causing them all to crash into one another and let go. Bantam went flying upwards towards the ceiling.
From there, he saw that Rachelle had made her way to the second soldier and was yelling something at him furiously as the both floated in a chaste embrace.
Still, Bantam grumbled inwardly at the sight of it.
He was about to launch himself downwards when something caught his eye out of the skylight. His eyes going wide, he launched himself downwards directly at Rachelle and the solider.
When he reached them, he grabbed Rachelle and pushed off the wall again. «MOVE! MOVE! YOU TOO!» he yelled to the soldier. «THE FLOOR! GET DOWN THERE QUICKLY!»
Puzzled, the soldier followed them both.
When they landed, Bantam grabbed a steak knife from the nearest table. «Turn around!» he ordered Rachelle. She did so and Bantam cut the whimsical straps that held the Helux bubbles to her arms. They both flew up and away. Then, Bantam did the same to the soldier and himself.
«What is it?» Rachelle yelled at him. «What's wrong?»
BLAM!!!!!!
The skylight exploded. Glass broke into a thousand pieces, but didn't fall; instead, it was sucked out into the sky above.
Several waltzers were sucked out as well, soundlessly, as the screams were torn from their mouths by a sudden vaccum. The other soldier was one of these unfortunates.
«Hold into something!» Bantam yelled to the soldier, latching his own arm around a nearby statue and his other around Rachelle.
Wind howled around them. The ballroom had become a hurricane. People everywhere desperately clung to whatever was nearby. Most made it — but some did not. Every once in awhile, there was the terrifying howl of someone else suck up, up and out of the Phlogistonian.
Over the cacophony Bantam yelled, «We're under attack! A giant Nazi dirigible is parked right off our bow and it's taking pot-shots at us!»
There was another explosion somewhere. Loud. And the Phlogistonian creaked and tilted. Tables and chairs and food and people all tumbled along the floor now, sliding towards the front reception area.
Bantam, Rachelle and the soldier all tumbled as well.
All three still wore Helux bubbles attached to their legs; they were semi-weightless. Thus when they finally stood, they floated slightly off the ground before thumping back down again. It was like running in a dream. The air was made of molasses.
But then they found an alcove. It was a back-office entrance, but it kept them from falling towards the tilt.
«What now?» Bantam asked Rachelle and the solider. «I'm out of ideas. Sorry. This isn't my world.»
«The Growlers. Air Taxi's. They will be quite some number moored up front. We need to get to one.»
Another bomb hit the far side of the hotel as if to emphasize this point.
The aerotel tilted further. She was now actively falling from the sky.
Clumsily, the threesome were dislodged and bounced along the floor, finding themselves at last in a Growler.
Bantam cut the last of the Helux bubbles from them as Rachelle piloted the growler away from the Phlogistonian, which was now aimed and falling like a great golden knife into the heart of New York City.
Ten: The Great Clanker Battle
The Great Clanker Battle, as it came to be known, began with a sneak attack in the early morning.
The Nazi Iron Scallops — a fleet of very large submarine transports — had run silent, creeping along the continental shelf up to New York harbor. Although Hitler had only recently seized power in this world, he had not been idle in the intervening years. Using money acquired through several sympathetic banking dynasties — including the Veerspike family — he had secretly built the largest fighting force the world had ever seen. Machines and airships and submarines of all kinds had been forged in factories deep in the wildernesses of the world. There, they had accumulated and waited for just over a decade.
It was this fighting force that Hitler now brought forth.
Under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, the Iron Scallops had landed. Then, pulling up the shore docks, the great submersibles suddenly opened their scaly metal tops.
Out poured Clanker after Clanker after Clanker …
The Nazi swastika of this world was slightly different — it was rounded and fit inside of a red circle like a gyre. But the horror that it represented was every bit as recognizable to Ben Bantam.This modified swastika was emblazoned upon every Clanker.
The Clankers themselves were basically tanks, but they walked on two iron legs. This enabled them to navigate any terrain. And each had several guns that were capable of shooting projectiles for several miles.
The Nazis didn’t hold back; the second they landed in New York, they began firing upon buildings, upon dirigibles, upon the Manhattan Sky Way cars. The tubes of the Pneumanet were smashed to bits. The Nazi Clankers burned everything in their path. Millions died within the first hours of their arrival, and the Manhattan skyline was a horror of orange and billowing black smoke.
It was into this mess that Rachelle and Bantam’s Growler descended from the Phlogistonian.
They were on the ground in no time, immediately wondering whether the aerotel might have actually somehow been safer. The Nazi Clankers were everywhere, stomping horses and people into the sort of thing you never want to see.
But then — the American Clankers arrived!
Pouring out at once from a single canyon of buildings, Clankers emblazoned with the stars and stripes blasted away gloriously at their dark Nazi foes, destroying many in the first wave of the counter attack.
One American Clanker nearby was hit and tipped over. When it did not rise, Bantam and Rachelle ran to it. Inside, the pilot was dead, hit by shrapnel. But his Clanker itself was still operational. Respectfully removing the soldier, Bantam and Rachelle worked together to operate it.