Dodge was still pondering how to bridge that gap when Hurricane spied something else. “I think Majestic just launched a couple planes,” he said in a grave voice.
If the airship was a speck, then the two aircraft which took to the sky from her launch platforms were mere motes of dust, but it wasn’t long at all before they grew large enough for Dodge to spot them as well.
Dodge recalled that Sorensen had strafed the attackers at Alamut from the air. Majestic’s complement of biplanes was there for combat, not shuttle duty. He craned his head around, shouting from the cockpit. “General! Tell me about those fighters!”
Vaughn came forward and peered through the front windscreen. “Damn him. All right, those are Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawks. They’ve got a pair of Browning machine guns. They’re fast and very maneuverable.”
“How fast?”
“Around 150 knots… that’s about 175 miles per hour. But they’re meant to be short-range patrol craft. Can’t go more than about 300 miles on a tank of gas.”
Dodge knew the Catalina could max at 196 miles per hour, and its range was measured in thousands of miles. It was start. “Service ceiling?”
Vaughn searched his memory. “Just below 20,000 feet if I remember right.”
“That’s higher than we can go.” Dodge drummed his fingers on the control column. “Okay, we can’t fight back and we can’t outfly them, but maybe we can outrun them.”
“We’re not completely toothless,” Hurricane said. “We’ve got that Tommy gun I took from the baron’s goon back in the cave. It’s not much good at a distance, but maybe it they get close enough we can give them something to think about.”
“I can do that,” Vaughn volunteered. “I’ll set up in one of the waist turrets.”
Dodge saw a flicker of disappointment in Hurricane’s eyes. The big man knew he wasn’t much use in the cockpit, so being able to shoot back would have given him something to do in the crisis, but he simply nodded. “Good hunting, sir.”
As soon as Vaughn called forward to say that he was situated, Dodge banked to the south, but the Sparrowhawks were already close enough to start throwing lead across the sky. Dodge saw streaks of white — tracer rounds — slicing through the air ahead of them. He responded by lifting the nose up, climbing for a few seconds, then angling down before the fighter pilots could adjust their aim. He saw more tracers whiz past, now coming in from behind, and knew that the Sparrowhawks were lining up for the kill. He leveled out and pushed the throttles to their limit.
Suddenly, the interior of the plane was filled an explosive roar, louder even than the drone of the engines; Vaughn was firing his sub-machine gun at the incoming fighters. After firing three short bursts, the general crowed in triumph.
Eclipsed from Dodge’s view, one of the Sparrowhawk pilots had the misfortune to be flying right where Vaughn was shooting. A few rounds had plinked off the cowling of the plane, doing little more than cosmetic damage, but one bullet had grazed the side of the man’s head, knocking him unconscious. As he slumped forward, his hand jerked the control stick, and the plane veered off, corkscrewing aimlessly through the sky as it descended out of control.
Vaughn’s victorious moment was short-lived. A very different sound resonated through the fuselage as 7.62 millimeter rounds from the remaining fighter hammered into the Catalina. Dodge started in his seat as one round passed through the interior of plane and smacked into the instrument panel scant inches from his hand.
The plane suddenly shook with an explosion. Dodge glanced up just in time to see the starboard prop disintegrate. The nacelle continued to vomit black smoke, and after a few seconds, the smell of burning metal intruded into the cockpit.
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to outrun them,” Hurricane said in a grim voice.
Dodge cursed under his breath. Deprived of half its engine power, and now structurally compromised, it was all he could do to maintain control, and with the fire evidently spreading, trying to stay aloft was patently foolhardy. Outrunning the fighter plane was sheer fantasy. He nosed the plane down and headed for sea, silently praying the Catalina would hold together long enough for him set down.
He kept the port engine at full throttle, fighting the plane’s insistent drift to the right, but the aircraft was shedding forward velocity, fast approaching stall speed. He increased the angle of descent, using gravity to increase the airflow across the airfoils, but even as he did, the wing assembly started to groan and shake.
If the wing comes off….
He didn’t let himself finish the thought.
The descent was interminably long, but as the plane finally got below a thousand feet, he started leveling out. The open sea rushed up at him, looking a lot choppier than it had in the sheltered harbor of Naples, but the fates weren’t going to let him be picky.
The plane held together just long enough for the hull to kiss the water. The sudden friction and the jolt of landing caused the damaged wing strut to snap, and the rush of air ripped the entire wing away with a deafening shriek.
Still careening forward at more than a hundred miles an hour, the Catalina suddenly tried to go in several directions at once. The next few seconds were a blur of noise and motion as the fuselage tumbled along the surface. Salt water sprayed in through dozens of tears in the hull, and then poured in as windows and hatches broke apart completely.
Dodge’s next memory was of sitting in waist deep water, with more spraying directly in his face. He reached down and fumbled with the buckle of his seat belt. It was like trying to get dressed while standing under a waterfall, but after several attempts he felt the metal clasp yield to his efforts. Hurricane was groggy, but still alive and mostly conscious. Dodge shook the big man’s shoulder until the latter’s eyes flew open, and he got a reassuring nod.
“I’m going back to check on the others,” Dodge shouted over the sound of inrushing water. “Find us a way out.”
Nora was still buckled into the navigator’s seat, apparently unconscious, with the rising water nearly up to her chin. Dodge tilted her head away from the flood, giving her a few more seconds to breathe, and saw her eyes flutter open. She started involuntarily as her mind caught up with everything that had happened, but Dodge offered an encouraging smile.
“It’s going to be all right,” he told her, reaching down to free her from the safety belt. She spilled forward into the water, but he caught her and pulled her into a one-armed embrace as he went looking for Vaughn.
The general had chosen the starboard waist-turret as the place to mount his defense against the Sparrowhawk attack. The Plexiglas bubble was still above the water line, but Dodge saw that there was very little of it left. Rounds from the enemy Browning machine guns had shattered the turret as easily as they had the starboard engine. They had also struck Vaughn full in the chest.
Dodge heard Nora gasp as she got a look at the general’s lifeless body, and he quickly steered her away. There was nothing he could do for Vaughn now, and if they didn’t get out of the sinking wreck, they would soon be joining him in the hereafter. Nevertheless, he took a moment to close Vaughn’s unseeing eyes. “All is forgiven, sir. Godspeed.”
Hurricane appeared a moment later with a large canister under one arm. “The bow hatch is underwater, but it’s open.” He paused a beat as he spied Vaughn’s motionless form, then shook his head. “Come on. This way.”