The high-sky gale screaming across Hangar Deck Alpha carried the bitter sting of frozen cloud mist and burning high-pressure oil.
The three-mile-wide floating mountain was dropping through the lower troposphere at twenty-two meters per second, listing thirty-five degrees toward its shattered northern flank. Deep within the bedrock beneath the flight deck, load-bearing tension cables were snapping with sounds like artillery fire. It sent shakes through Arthur Vance’s boots that threatened to pitch him over the cliff edge.
Outside the hangar portal, the sky was a churning whirlpool of gray cloud banks and shearing updrafts.
Four huge Vanguard heavy transport zeppelins—led by the three-hundred-meter flagship Iron Vanguard—battled the violent mountain downdrafts. Their titanic counter-rotating brass propellers bit into the freezing air, churning twin plumes of blue exhaust as their helmsmen fought to match the falling mountain’s descent speed.
Aboard the Iron Vanguard, Chief Flight Engineer Vance shouted over the radio link: “Doctor Vance, the mountain’s dying floating crystals are throwing massive magnetic pulses! Our gyro-stabilizers are drifting forty degrees per minute! We have one approach window to lock mooring harpoons before we’re forced to pull out!”
“Take the window, Engineer!” Arthur shouted back into his microphone. “We’re lined up on the threshold!”
