A sickening slap broke his momentary reverie, followed by a geyser of water and an almost simultaneous eruption of blue sparks against Dodge’s skin. He grimaced involuntarily as a score of electrical shocks bloomed all over his body. The force field crackled angrily as the water droplets threatened to short it out completely, but stabilized a few moments later. When he looked again, there was a gory oil slick, like the effluent of an abattoir, spreading below. Dodge knew what had caused the bloody splashdown, but strangely felt no remorse. That could have been me, he thought, shuddering. Splattered on the river or electrocuted by his own force field; he had escaped both fates by a hair’s breadth.
With the tedious caution of someone who knows he’s used up a year’s supply of luck in a single throw of the dice, Dodge extended his limbs, mimicking the motions of a swimmer trying to roll over in a pool. Evidently it was the right thing to do, because his attitude shifted and he began to gently rise once more toward the sky.
I think I’m getting the hang of this.
His elation was once more short-lived. The four raiders that had doubled back to intercept him were organizing into a loose formation and following him from above, evidently biding their time. With the demise of their comrade, there was no longer any reason for them to hold back.
Remembering the adage about a good offense being the best defense, Dodge tried rolling over onto his back. He kept his movements slow and cautious, lest an inadvertent arm swing send him plunging into the river. The maneuver worked as planned; the controls of the exoskeleton responded intuitively to his body, almost as if it was meant to be an extension of his own musculature. Not bad, he thought. Now let’s try something a little more spectacular.
He extended one metallic fist toward the quartet of flying villains and experimentally squeezed the handgrip. Nothing happened. He tried stabbing his hand at skyward, as if throwing a punch….
A blinding flash leaped from his hand and arced into the sky. He let go, more as a reflex than from any conscious intent, and the lightning bolt vanished. A dark ribbon lingered on his retina, partially obscuring his vision, but beyond it, he could see the four flyers still aloft. He lined up another target, and squinted in preparation for a two-fisted attack.
His barrage failed to strike a target, but he certainly had his foes’ attention. One of the men, after banking to avoid a blast, lowered his gauntlet and took aim at Dodge. Before the latter could take any kind of evasive action, a bolt of blue lightning seared toward him.
The electrical discharge missed him by a few yards — close enough for him to again feel the creeping cobwebs of static on his skin — but then something unusual happened. A second lightning bolt, inextricably intertwined with the first, raced back to the source. The shooter was enveloped in a coruscating field of sparks, and then the light abruptly blinked out. Dodge saw a dark smudge in the sky around the man, which became a trail of black smoke as the scorched figure lazily heeled over and began to plummet.
In a leap of comprehension, Dodge realized that his foes were not the professionals he had first imagined them to be. Their grasp of the limitations of the strange technology they employed seemed little better than his. He knew from writing the Falcon adventures that bellicose foreign warmongers always tested their new devices and extensively trained their soldiers on the correct use of those weapons before sending them out on some audacious enterprise, but at least one of the sky pirates had either forgotten that striking water might cause the lightning to feedback on its source, or had never known it to begin with.
I might actually have a chance here, thought Dodge. But a chance to do what?
He stabbed another bolt skyward, then rolled over and straightened himself into streamlined arrow, no more than a hundred feet above the river. No longer did the Capitol skyline dominate his horizon, though. Instead, he followed the watercourse, straining for even a glimpse of the strange disc-shaped airship that held the most precious hostage in America. It was impossible to gauge his speed, but he estimated that he was moving about as fast as an automobile could travel — forty or fifty miles per hour. Alexandria flashed by on the west bank of the River and he could make out George Washington’s historic home on the Mount Vernon plantation. There was however, no sign of the airship.
The three remaining raiders had learned from their comrade’s deadly mistake. They withheld their lightning bolts and chose instead to bring the fight down to his level. Dodge kept a wary eye on the group, pondering the strategic options at hand. There weren’t many.
He made a few exploratory feints, rising and swooping to see if he could provoke another lethal misstep, but his opponents did not take the bait. Instead, they matched his speed and kept low.
So they mean to run me down. Well, then, let’s bring the battle to their doorstep.
The fact that the escaping airship had kept to the river course was not lost on Dodge. It was an easy navigational reference, especially for someone unfamiliar with either the city or the vagaries of aerial navigation. It was time, he decided, to gamble. After another feint, he angled his body upward, and shot into the blue. This time, the raiders bought his ploy, and were left behind as he angled toward the west bank of the river.
Dodge continued to climb, rising high enough to increase his line of sight by several miles. The circular shape of the airship, still following the river as it wound to the right and began a long southward journey toward Chesapeake Bay, was barely visible but nonetheless unmistakable. He didn’t linger to enjoy the view, but immediately angled toward this new destination and started giving up altitude.
The trio of pursuers had adapted to his latest gambit and was closing fast. Lightning burst below him, right in his path, forcing him to veer off. Another burst sizzled in front of him. The raiders were learning quickly.
Dodge resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to veer away from the electrical charge. He knew that they were waiting for him to do exactly that. Instead, he steered almost head on into the ribbon of energy. He passed so close that his force field crackled angrily. He felt a tooth-rattling shock shoot through one arm, but then he was past, momentarily out of harm’s way.
“They don’t call me Dodge for nothing!” he shouted, with more enthusiasm than he actually felt.
More electrical discharges passed through the air below him, too far off the mark to be attributed merely to bad aim. Unable to hit him directly, his enemies were trying instead to keep him from reaching the relative safety of the river. Fortunately, his foes had no idea what his real goal was.
The airship continued apace and banked to the right, past Mason Neck, the boot-shaped hook of land beyond which the river began to broaden to more than three miles across in some places. The airship stayed in the center of the waterway like a hound following a scent, leading Dodge to speculate on its ultimate destination. Even with their astonishing technology, the kidnappers would have to know that watchful eyes on the ground would be following their progress across the sky. Even now, he reckoned, the police broadcast net must have been humming with activity, alerting patrolmen to follow the strange object over the river. If the raiders were as clever as he thought, they would be looking for a place to ditch their wings in favor of a less conspicuous mode of travel.
His intercept course cut the airship’s lead by nearly half. He was still a few miles off, but he was able to distinguish the dark shape of the lone man who had stayed with the vessel. Braving the random bolts of lightning that still scoured the air below, Dodge angled downward, putting himself between the receding craft and the pursuit. The lightning had no range limit and once his enemies realized that their attacks could very well hit their cohorts, the electrical storm abated.