Chapter 12: Raise Leg, Ready Shoe for Dropping...
Friday, 23 June 2017, 0700 hours, Kettle Kompound, north of Lecompton, KS
Parker (Pa) Kettle looked out the kitchen window of the sturdy house his family and the Visitors had finished two days before. He had to hoof it to the Visitors, they kept their word, and the house was indeed much better than his family could do on their own.
In his field of view were the access doors to the combined food storage complex and storm shelter Captain Crane had insisted they build for the family. Pa didn’t argue too hard, especially after he learned ways to manipulate dirt and rock as well as influencing plants, not to mention the couple of times in the past two weeks that storms came close enough to warrant getting everypony in the shelter.
Pa sighed, content at how matters had proceeded in the last couple of weeks. He built up the fire in the fireplace and set a pot of water on to boil for coffee. Ma came into the kitchen as Pa filled some more pots with water. “Let me handle that, Pa. Forty-six years together and the best thing you can cook is cereal!” she said with a nuzzle and a laugh.
Pa returned the nuzzle and backed away from the fire. “As you say, Ma. I earned the daily bread, you bake it proper!”
“That I do!” Ma laughed as she prepared the breakfast porridge before breaking out a loaf of bread to cut into slices for toast. “Want to check for some eggs? A dozen if you can, eight at the least.”
“I’ll see what I can get, Ma” Pa said as he picked up a grocery store basket in his mouth and went to the chicken coop. When he stepped out, he could see the scientist’s encampment on the north side of 46th Street. Both trucks were gone, but the tents and trailers remained. They may be a little standoffish, but they were good neighbors. They would come over every Sunday afternoon, regular as clockwork, to sit with the family, do Bible study, teach some about current affairs, and help with the Sunday dinner. Some of the crew of the Voyager would also come up, with choice delicacies from their kitchen.
With the science team gone, that could only mean they were up at the blast furnace they had set up further north, off the borders Pa had laid out. Finding Heaven Stones was comparatively simple near the crater, its own mana field rendering them obvious to anyone with their own mana fields. Doctor van Hoosen insisted on setting up the blast furnace far away from the camp, in case of ‘unforeseen consequences’. Pa appreciated her foresight. He did find a dozen good-sized eggs, putting them into the basket to bring inside for breakfast. The hens raised a little ruckus, but a stern glare from the big earth pony quickly stifled their complaints.
23 June 2017, 1300 hours, the blast furnace
Doctor Laura van Hoosen stood back from the blast furnace they had spent the past ten days building and letting the concrete set before lighting the fire. Two of her crew worked the bellows, one watched the fuel and the diamond dog, Hugh Thompson, a former steel mill worker, kept an eye on the temperature. When the furnace was warmed up enough, Doctor Laura lifted a bucket of meteor ore and flux and put it into the blast furnace, followed by charcoal. She did that six times before Hugh waved for her to stop. “It should be working now,” he called out from where he was standing. “Right now, we want to see if it can be done!”
“Right, Hugh!” Laura shouted. Hugh was the only being on her team that had actually worked from raw ore to refined product, so she deferred to him when working the ore and furnace. Like it or not.
After some time, Hugh opened the drain section, to let the slag slip out and puddle on the ground. He then put on a heavy set of gloves, took a long set of tongs and extracted the ‘purified’ ore from the bottom of the furnace. It took both Hugh and Laura to clean off the remaining slag to find the small ingot of pig iron. Laura inspected the ingot.
“I don’t like the look of this,” she muttered, just loud enough for Hugh to hear.
“Something wrong?” Hugh asked as the rest of the team came around to look.
“Yes. The magic is less intense now than it was when it was raw ore. It looks like I will be spending some time tonight online with the Maasvlakte Library and the Royal Archives in Baton Rouge. I want to see if there was anything we did wrong, and what other processes we can use to try again tomorrow. Not like any of us has really done this before, right?” she asked of her team, putting the ‘refined’ chunk down.
“Think there is enough there fo’ me to whack off a chunk an’ do some chemical tests on it, Doc?” the group’s chemist, the griffon named Jimmy Joe Farris, asked.
“There should be. Let me see if I can cleave a chunk off, and I can let you fiddle to your heart’s content,” Laura replied. “Just be sure to take careful notes. The only difference between doing science and screwing around is writing everything down!”
“Yes, Doc. Shall we head back?” Jimmy Joe asked.
“Might as well. Let’s inspect the furnace, to make sure it’s shut off properly. It won’t be good to come here tomorrow and find that it broke in the night, right?” Laura cautioned.
“Point made, Doc,” said a red and pink earth pony mare who did a lot of the driving and heavy work, Sally Rodgers. Together, the six inspected the furnace before leaving. Satisfied that all was proper, they headed back to camp.
Sunday, 25 June 2017, 0700 hours, Kettle Kompound, Lecompton, KS
This Sunday dawned to cloudy, rainy skies with the occasional distant flash of thunder. Yesterday was similar, wet enough to have the furnace team take the weekend off to rest, recreate, and help out the Kettles around the farm. Doctor van Hoosen moved to the Voyager so she could research in the dry, exchanging information with Maasvlakte and Baton Rouge, trying to make sense of matters. Why did the ore LOSE magic potential after being refined? So far, nobody could figure out why.
The Kettles, after waking early enough to listen to the sermon rerun on WSU Radio, fixed a big enough breakfast to allow those of the research team who wanted any to join in before hosting their usual Sunday Bible study. The two team members who declined the study decided to sack out, listening to music from their laptops, their little generator chugging away to provide power.
Aboard the Voyager, Sunday routine was being observed, meaning it was essentially a day off for all but one watchstander at a time, monitoring the bridge controls with half-hourly walks to check the generators. Of the rest of the crew, four were playing bridge in a corner of the Lounge (Frack and Bernie versus Carroll and Harry), Howard, Julia and Lucien played gin in another corner, Doctor van Hoosen in her cabin doing research, Arnie and Jason both napping in their cabins, while Aaron had the watch.
About 0900, Aaron walked into the Lounge and walked directly to the Captain’s table. “Captain, I’m picking up something unusual on the radar, coming up from the southeast. I can’t tell what they are. Can you come up and look?” he asked in a low voice, so as not to disturb the others.
Howard looked at Julia and Lucien, who put down their cards. “For all I know, there should not be anything on the radar, other than weather,” Howard said as he stood up.
“Storm cells, I know what they look like on radar. This is more distinct blips, one large and some smaller, coming out of the southeast. The wind is out of the southwest,” Aaron reported.
“What’s the range?” Julia asked as the foursome made their way to the bridge.
“Extreme. The contacts are definitely there. I trained the antenna like I have been taught to increase resolution. Distinct contacts,” Aaron said as they entered the bridge.
Julia went to the navigation radar while Howard went to the fire-control console, powering up the radar at that console, which had more power than the navigation radar. “I have three targets, bearing one-three-nine, range five miles,” Julia reported.
“I have a similar reading here, First. One target is much larger than the other two. What’s your estimate of closing rate?” Howard asked, Lucien looking over his shoulder.
“Very slow. It’s like the aerial targets are circling something. It’s lucky we’re getting anything at all in this rain,” Julia said as Aaron went to the chart table.
“That places the targets over I-70, west of Lawrence,” Aaron reported.
“Thank you, Mister Tereshkov,” Howard said, stepping back from fire control. “Julia, maintain a radar watch. Lucien, with me. We have some phone calls to make.”
“Aye, Captain. Alert the crew?” Julia asked.
“Not yet. Let me find out some information from our sources. Alert me if the range closes to three miles or less.”
“Right, Captain.”
Howard first rang up Kansas City while Lucien got in touch with Saint Louis via gemstone. After both sites reported that they had nothing at all in the area, Howard called Memphis while Lucien got in touch with Baton Rouge. “Stella, do you have a train running yet?” Howard asked when he got connected to the Mayor of Memphis.
“Yes, we do, but we’re heading southeast from Memphis for now. Tucker has the pilot engine and a crew out checking trackage. We’re seeing if we can get to Mobile or Pensacola and back. WSU tasking, as an alternate to New Orleans,” Stella told the Captain. “Next month, we’ll head north to Saint Louis.”
“Okay, then. It’s not you near the train tracks outside Lawrence. I needed to tick that box off. Thank you, Stella, and we’ll call again later. Looks like we’re having trouble coming to our door. Voyager out,” Howard said before hanging up.
“Ivan says the dragon in Saint Louis is being a very good boy, as is his unicorn aide. Colonel Forest also says he has nothing coming up this way, while the Ranger’s last reported position is a day out of Memphis, heading to Saint Louis,” Lucien reported when Howard looked his way.
“Okay, then. Looks like something’s afoot, then,” Howard mused.
“The butler couldn’t do it! He’s dead!” Lucien riposted. Howard just gave a mock-hateful glare at his ship’s doctor. Both shared a joy of old musicals, and they had watched ‘Something’s Afoot’ more than once in the past few weeks.
Howard leaned out of the dayroom into the bridge. “Any motion?” he asked.
“The big blip got to within four and a half miles before turning back to its original position. Other than that, nothing else,” the First Officer replied.
“Okay, then. It’s time for action. Aaron, roust up Arnie and Jason, then head for the lounge. Time to figure out our next step,” Howard commanded.
“Okay, Captain. I’ll check the generators before reporting to the lounge. They’re about due,” the big diamond dog said before heading down the upper level causeway, to wake the sleepers-in.
Sunday, 25 June 2017, 1000 hours, west of Lawrence, KS.
Zvezda gathered her command staff outside the encampment, Genghis the ground commander and her exec, Impedimentia, the unicorn leader and her aide, and her water force leader, who went by the name of Gar. A tough name for a rather innocuous-looking hippogriff, but her determination cannot be faulted. The two members of Gar’s crew knew not to cross her. There were once three, but one lost an argument crossing Missouri.
“Yes, storms have slowed us down getting here, but now we ARE here. Today’s the day we go in, grab what we can, and run, making sure no one is capable of following us,” Zvezda led off with.”Impedimentia, you can feel the presence of the meteoric ore, right?”
The shaggy gray unicorn mare nodded. “Yes, I can feel it, but no point sources yet. It’s like what’s here is dust, enough to make its presence known, but not enough to have any real change, unless you get enough gathered. Up that way is a stronger source, like seeing a spotlight from the side instead of being in the beam,” she explained.
“I’m aware of its presence, too,” the big red and black dragon said. “Gar, your job is to take your team, swim upriver, and disable the riverboat. You have breaching charges, so crack that riverboat’s hull!”
“Can be done, Zvezda,” the gray and orange hippogriff told her boss with a cheerful tone. Gar just loved wrecking things as well as ponies. No one knew what she did before, but handling explosives and hand and hoof fighting came easily for the small hippogriff.
Zvezda nodded, having taken a shine to the hippogriff, only tempered by her killing of the only male hippogriff on the team with a well-aimed hoof to his neck. “You take your team now, get in position, and watch them. We’ll signal when we’re close enough to begin operations.”
“Right, Zvezda!” Gar said with a smile, getting up and trotting off to her team, getting them to put their gear on and setting out.
Zvezda then looked at Genghis. “Your combat troops ready to go?” she asked.
“Yes. We managed to get enough rest these past few days to set up for the attack today. I will depend on you and the air contingent to give us good steers to where the opposition is. It’s obvious there was a big flood recently. We’ll need to know where it is safe to ford the river,” the big black earth pony stallion reported. “Plus, we need to know where the opposition is. Take them out, and we can take our time. Just where is the settlement, and where is it in relation to the crater? We need good intelligence on that.”
“I’ll make sure you get it,” Zvezda assured her ground commander. She is leading the air wing, which consists of herself and two pegasi, armed with radios and GoPro cameras. “How is our artillery?”
“The two cannon we have are still in good enough condition to fire. We have twenty rounds for each, and two short-range rockets and launchers. Once we know where they are, we can find a place to set up no more than a half mile away,” Genghis reported.
“Good. We can use the rain and clouds to shield our approach. They don’t know we’re here, and I intend to keep it that way.”
Overhead, nipping in and out of the clouds, Frack and Harry observed the campsite down below. “Damn, that’s a big dragon! I thought Casimir was big, but this one…” Frack said into his radio.
“Got that right, One. There’s a group of three heading for the river, with what looks like a heavy load. I’ll follow them, you call the chief, okay?” Harry said as he broke formation with Frack to follow the movement on the ground.
“Got it, Two,” Frack said before changing channels. “Recon Viper One to Chief Miller. Report position.”
“We are at the corner of Seventh Street and Jones, in the woods. What are they up to?” Chief Twogogglehat asked.
“Looks like they are in a planning session, but a team of three are heading for the river. Suggest you remain in that position. If their ground forces stay on the roads, you are in a prime position to intercept. They do have artillery. Have fun with it,” Frack said bluntly, which meant he was not joking.
“Lawyer Buffalo copies, Recon Viper One.”
Meanwhile, nearer to the river, Harry flew just under the cloud layer, nipping up when one of the three hippogriffs looked up. His natural gray color helped him blend in with the clouds. “Recon Viper Two to Galactica. Ready river defenses. Team of three heading to the river. I don’t think it’s the Welcome Wagon.”
“Galactica copies, Recon Viper Two. Going to ready river offenses, too, just in case. Keep in touch with the Colonel,” Howard said into the radio.
“Recon Viper Two.”
Howard turned to look at his First Officer. “Julia, rotate the ship so it is port side to. Ready fire control for the forward packages. I’m going out to deploy the anti-sub net,” he said, in tones that conveyed he was not happy with the decision, but could not think of anything better.
“Will do, Captain. Retrieving forward gangplank before raising anchors.”
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Nice to see an update, mate!
Trouble is afoot... or is that ahoof? I hope our protagonists are up to dealing with it.
That dragon is going to recieve a startesling development when they recieve a Frak cannon to the face
How good are hippogriffs against standard high tensile plastic fishing nets, especially badly deployed, twisted and loose ones?
Just wondering, but have the metallurgists thought to test the slag for any magical energy?
11305108
No, it has not occurred to them.
Yet.
11304938
Good question. Stick around and find out.
snickers
so we have a BFD in bound and he has heat backing him up,,
wonder how that will work out.