Laurie Tom is a Chinese American writer with a fascination with World War I. This story allows her to play with both. Her work has appeared in venues such as Strange Horizons, The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk, and of course Galaxy’s Edge, where we’re happy to welcome her back.
They called her Ke-feng Yu when they accepted her contract with the Imperial German Navy, basing their pronunciation off the letters other westerners had used to approximate her name. Signing was to choose the lesser of evils, the same way her country had decided to enter the Great War on the side of the Central Powers.
It was foolish. Neither the Entente nor the Central Powers truly cared for China. The Germans had forced her country at swordpoint to lease Kiautschou Bay to them. Then at the start of the war, the Japanese had taken it over, and they proved even more demanding than the Germans.
Ke-feng did not like being so weak that her country had to choose between one occupying force or another, but the Kaiser promised to return Kiautschou Bay, even providing the military might to do so, if China would lend his country its kite dancers.
Her eyes were damaged and she could no longer perform her art as intended, but she still had the training, the ability to channel the wind, to feel its direction and change its flow. An airship with a kite dancer would never be blown off course and could skirt any storm, solving one of the greatest weaknesses in the Kaiser’s fleet.
“We’re almost there,” said the soldier beside her. He spoke in German.
“I can see that,” said Ke-feng, replying in the same.
She could still distinguish light and dark, even read if she pressed her face close to the paper, but he held her hand as though leading a child across the German airfield. The airship in front of them was a gigantic shadow and little more, but there was nothing else it could be. The hangars were behind them.
“The ladder is just two steps away. You can reach for it.”
Dressler was the L 75’s navigator, and because she was responsible for directing the wind around the ship, he considered her his obligation. He was beside her every insufferable moment, leading her about as if she was an invalid. She could find the ladder on her own, eventually.
Her fingertips brushed metal and she curled her hands around the rails. The light was not good in the shadow beneath the airship, giving her no contrast to work with, but she did not worry about the ship escaping while she climbed aboard. The L 75 might strain against its tethers, but it would not fly away.
“Is something wrong?” asked Dressler.
Ke-feng frowned and said, “Nothing.”
She climbed up the ladder. Dressler would be right behind her, but she didn’t wait before walking to her post. Ke-feng had served on the L 75 for several months now, and knew her way through the forward gondola. Oberleutnant Walther ensured that the men did not leave things for her to trip over. Walking to the navigation pod was no more difficult than walking in her own quarters.
Ke-feng did not entirely regret the contract she had signed, or the reason she had, but she had not expected to serve so far from home.
She’d hoped to participate in the liberation of Kiautschou Bay. She knew the winds there better than anywhere else. The city of Tsingtau was her home, where the coastal weather provided ample training for the years needed to channel the winds as a kite dancer. She had such mastery of the dragon kite that even the German governor had asked to see her perform.
That had ended with the siege of Tsingtau, when the shelling landed and the shrapnel blast ruined her eyes. Now she had no art, and no means to earn her keep, because the options for a blind woman were few. Her parents feared for her future, because who would want to marry a cripple? Who would care for her once they were gone?
But Ke-feng could still channel the wind. The German navy hired her for that. She wanted to free Kiautschou Bay and throw out the Japanese, but the Germans were her paymasters, and sent her halfway around the world to fight for their own country.
Someone dropped into the navigation pod beside her and from the sound of his landing it was Dressler. It was a cramped, cylindrical space beneath the bridge with two components of note: the viewing station, and the machine gun below it. The machine gun was Dressler’s post in combat, but the rest of the time he was by the maps and the Fernhaube, the device she called the farviewer.
“Before I forget, you have a doctor’s appointment scheduled for when we get back,” he said.
“I’ll go,” she said, though she did not like western doctors much. Their methods baffled her and they not seem particularly useful.
On learning that she had retained some sight, the German naval office had given her glasses, but they hadn’t helped. The doctor said he could do nothing if it was nerve damage, which meant he was about as effective as any other doctor back at home.
Ke-feng pressed her face against the map on the wall of the navigation pod, hoping to find the foreign letters signifying their destination. The Oberleutnant said it was the British capital of London.
She mostly knew the British as allies of the Japanese and occupiers of Hong Kong, far down the coast of her country. She did not hate them, but this was work, this was money she could send home, and this was for Tsingtau.
“Do you need help?” Dressler asked.
On most ships the navigator would use this station by himself since the space was tight, but because Ke-feng could not see well enough to properly direct the wind from the bridge, she would have to stay with him. Kite dancers on other ships participated like regular soldiers, taking stations during combat.
Ke-feng had no such position, so the L 75 carried an additional soldier. The officer who had assigned her had jokingly told Oberleutnant Walther that it should be okay. She was light and barely weighed forty-five kilos. He had been unaware that she understood enough German to get the jape.
It was good she was tiny though, because that at least gave her a little room while perched alongside Dressler.
“No, I found it,” she said, though she was only about eighty percent certain that she recognized the city’s blurry location from the last time they’d gone.
Though she served on the L 75 she was not considered a part of the German navy, so she did not feel the need to address Dressler as a superior. She would call Walther Herr Oberleutnant since he commanded the ship, but the navigator was not her boss. Her uniform, such as it was, was simply a set of civilian coveralls clumsily tailored to a woman of her size.
She could hear the whisper of pressure valves and the barking voice of Walther above them, running through their final checks.
“We’ll be taking off soon,” said Dresser. “We’re currently pointed west by northwest.”
She considered that and said, “Then the wind’s blowing from the east, but it’s very mild.”
Ke-feng could feel it slide along the envelope that surrounded the rigid frame of the airship. Inside its shell were over a dozen gasbags filled with hydrogen, ready to lift them into the sky.
“It’s a good start,” said Dresser, but they both knew the winds could change once they got higher, and at that point it would be up to Ke-feng to keep them on course.
A bell rung, its clear sound traveling through the speaking tubes of the airship, letting the crew know they were lifting off. She couldn’t see the mooring ropes fall away, even though she knew that the bottom of the navigator pod had a wide opening for the machine gun and its gunner. For her, it was the upward bob of the airship and the change in the currents that said they were on their way.
* * *
Together Dressler and Ke-feng guided the L 75 toward London, with him calling the current bearing of the ship and telling her which direction the wind was needed. She could not control the speed of the air, but she could influence the flow of the currents. It was an ancient art, mostly for making kites fly like dragons and birds.
Westerners don’t know how to do this, said her grandmother. They don’t know to train their children in an art as soon as they have the ability to learn.
If there were potential kite dancers among the Germans, they did not know themselves, any more than kite dancers knew they could influence the winds around something as massive as an airship until the Germans had taken one up in a zeppelin.
Nine other ships accompanied the L 75. Eight of them were the same Y-class zeppelins, a relatively new model, with a light skeleton and able to carry the highest payload outside of an air carrier.
The ninth ship was SMS Silesia, flying escort with a belly full of airplanes. Though the Y-class ships had machine guns for defense, they did not have the maneuverability of smaller aircraft, and even if the Germans evaded the searchlights, the British night fighters would surely appear as soon as the first bomb dropped. The pilots and planes aboard the Silesia would make it difficult for the British to strike the airships without worrying about their own well-being.
Ke-feng spent most of the afternoon perched on the navigator’s bench, shifting between squatting and kneeling so that she was tall enough to push her face into the hood of the farviewer. It wasn’t necessary to channel the wind, being a navigation tool, but Dressler had taught her to use it.
Even though the kite dancers kept the ships on course, they could not see any better than the Germans around them. That was the farviewer’s strength.
And the farviewer did not require eyes to see. Ordinary lens could magnify, but to truly see things as they ought to be, the farviewer projected.
The viewer clicked as she cycled through the filters and magnification settings by touch, and she could feel the tingle of a weak electrical current around her head as the images bypassed her damaged eyes and fed into her mind through the metal contacts within the hood. She could change the lighting, turning the view before her into something resembling day or night, or anything in between, and by swiveling the wheel mount she could pivot the facing of the navigation pod and see in different directions beneath the airship.
This was the best part of the L 75. Even if it was only the ocean or distant landmasses, even if the color was not quite right, at least it was a sharper world with details like she remembered, and as long as he did not immediately need the device himself, Dressler allowed her to use it as much as she wanted.
Someone banged on the rail above the ladder to their pod to get the navigator’s attention. “What do you think, Dressler? Are we still an hour to the coast?”
It was Oberleutnant Walther.
“I would guess so,” said Dressler. “We haven’t had much trouble with the wind.”
Which meant she had done her job. Dressler didn’t do much except tell her their bearing so she could make adjustments.
Through the gap for the machine gun below she could feel the air currents, the cold outside, as they threaded through her gloved fingers. It had been easy to grasp and pull them the way she wanted to go. She had coiled the breeze around her hands since she was six.
Ke-feng pulled her head out of the hood, and the navigation pod was little more than a dark haze. She could not distinguish anything at all, not even Dressler’s large frame, and he was perched right next to her. It was past sunset now, but that hadn’t mattered in the farviewer, where the ocean beneath them was blue instead of black.
“The winds seem manageable enough,” said Walther, “and we’re so close now I doubt we can drift much. Take Ke-feng and get some dinner before we get in the thick of things.”
“Yes, Herr Oberleutnant.” Then to her he said, “Well, Ke-feng, shall we get dinner?”
As if she hadn’t heard Walther, which was foolish since she was right beside him. But being petulant would not get her anything, so she simply said, “Let’s eat.”
Dressler led her to the officer’s rest area, taking her by the hand even though she knew she could find it on her own if she put her hand to the wall and counted how many steps she had taken. She could picture what the gondola looked like in her mind, even if she couldn’t see it very well, or at all, given the current amount of light.
Ke-feng suspected they could barely see the other zeppelins from their gondola. The L 75 would be running without lights if they were this close to shore. No one wanted to signal to the British that they were coming.
When she thought about it, she doubted Dressler could see any better, not unless there was a fair bit of moonlight, and still he treated her like some fragile marionette that must be protected. She was already broken and unable to perform like she had been made.
Dressler raised her hand and set it down on the back of a chair. “Here you are,” he said. “You can sit now.”
She did, and heard something clink in front of her, a tin plate with food. “Your share,” said a voice. It belonged to an engineer named Sauber. She could tell from his voice that he was quite young, like most of the crew of the L 75, and probably not much older than her.
“Thank you,” she said, and she carefully slid her hand around the table until her fingers found the plate’s rim.
She would have liked some chopsticks, which she could use blind better than most people expected, but the crew of the L 75 did not even bother with the Western-style utensils while eating on the airships. All the food was simple, and relatively dry; easy to hold with the hands.
At least their rations often came with sausages made from pig, one of the few foods that the Chinese and Germans had in common, though they were spiced differently and Ke-feng missed eating it chopped with rice.
Dressler’s voice came from across the table, which she knew from previous exploration was not very large. “Can you find your food all right?”
Ke-feng had her plate right in front of her. Did he think she could miss it? Or was it because he could barely see as well? But she said, “Yes.”
The air was frigid, not just because of the spring season, but because of the altitude. After she removed her gloves she blew on her hands to keep them warm. There wasn’t a proper kitchen on the L 75 for cooking food, but they did have hot coffee, courtesy of running pipes of water by the engines. The two sausages on her plate were cold, and so was the bread.
They had given her a full set of rations again. Walther’s orders. He never undercut her meals, even though she was tiny and could not assume as many duties as another soldier.
But she noticed on handling them that the sausages were shorter this time, maybe even thinner.
“How is your meal?” she asked.
“Good enough,” said Dressler, which told her that in actuality it wasn’t.
She would miss the larger sausages, but if the Oberleutnant cut her share, then rations were probably smaller for everyone. Even if she could make do, she did not think her dinner would fill the stomach of a soldier twice her weight. Dressler’s belly would probably be growling on the way back from their raid tonight.
Ke-feng took her hunk of bread and tore it in two. Unsure which piece was actually bigger, she held one out across the table. “I don’t care for this sort of bread. Perhaps you would like it?”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
She wasn’t. A part of her still wanted to eat it even if she didn’t like its coarse texture, because it was food, but she said, “Yes.”
His hand touched hers and she flinched. Clearly the darkness was enough that he couldn’t see either, because he quickly apologized as he took the bread from her.
She ate the piece she had held on to and it would be her luck to have kept the smaller half, but at least she wouldn’t have to listen to his stomach. This whole rationing process bothered her. She didn’t know how a nation that was struggling to feed its soldiers was going to be able to help her country.
* * *
“Go ahead. Bring us in,” said Dressler.
Bauer, their pilot, would handle the steering once they spotted their target, but the kite dancer still handled the approach. Ke-feng stood on her knees to keep her face pressed into the farviewer. She could recognize landmarks from their previous raid, or rather she could when the clouds cooperated.
Ke-feng spun through the filters, trying to find something that might mitigate the effect. They always wanted to approach with cover, but sometimes the clouds were too heavy even for the farviewer.
At least she was able to spot the Thames, and the L 75 followed it up.
Walther shouted down into their pod. “How is our distance from the other ships?”
Ke-feng swiveled their station around and could see the L 81 to their right, where it should be. When she checked the air currents, she found another ship above and behind them, just at the farthest end of her reach. Probably the L 72.
“We’re adequately spread out,” she said to Dressler, who really should have been the one on the farviewer, but neither he nor Walther commented on that.
“We’re clear!” he said to the Oberleutnant. Then to Ke-feng he said, “There are searchlights on either side of the river. They’re sweeping the sky for us.”
“I can’t do anything about that,” she said. “If you want lift, it’s the Oberleutnant’s decision. You want fine maneuvering, talk to Bauer.”
She only controlled heading, and while she could channel the wind to blow up or down, such control could not be sustained. Air did not naturally flow that way, not without abrupt differences in temperature.
“I’m just letting you know,” said Dressler. “Even though you can see through there, your vision is still very limited because it is so focused.”
It wasn’t just focused. It was limited because all she got were landscapes. She couldn’t make out individual people with this, couldn’t see the texture of the cobblestones on a street.
A beam of light waved before her, and she sucked in a breath. It was too close, and the cloud cover was thinning.
“Do you see anything that looks like a factory?” said Dressler.
“No.”
“Let me have a look. It’s about time I take over anyway.”
She scooted to the side and sat on the edge of the bench, once again surrounded in darkness and even darker shapes that were the walls of the airship. Currents flowed beneath her, coming in from the gaps around the machine gun. When she had gone on her first raid under Walther they had made it to Britain and back without having to return fire. The night fighters hadn’t found them in time.
But every raid since had ended in gunfire, and they had lost a few of their gunners over the year she had been with them.
The L 75 itself was sturdy, and the multiple gasbags inside the envelope made it difficult to lose lift. After they came back from one raid, Dressler had told her that the L 75 had been punctured over a hundred times, and yet it was not enough to bring the airship down.
He had probably been trying to reassure her, but that was the same raid where they had lost the L 73. The British were getting better with their incendiary ammunition.
“Target spotted,” said Dressler, loud enough for Walther to hear. “Bring us southwest. You might be able to see it soon unaided.”
Dressler had told her the city was dark outside of the searchlights around the periphery. They knew about the raids, and that the light of homes gave their invaders a means to see. That’s why the Germans needed the farviewer. It wasn’t just for the distance, but for the filters to turn night into day.
Ke-feng monitored the air currents as the L 75 split off from the other ships toward its target. She could hear the radio operator chattering on the wireless above her. The Silesia would remain positioned over the middle of the city as the bombers splintered in different directions. Dressler spun the pod around as he adjusted his view of the landscape below.
“The night fighters will be coming soon,” he said. “We’re close enough that their listening posts should have picked us up.”
“I don’t feel anything yet,” she said. The currents would change once other aircraft joined them.
Dressler called up the bridge. “We’ll be over the target shortly. Estimate: thirty seconds!”
“We see it!” said Walther.
“Searchlights in the city!” It was Bauer’s voice that carried from above.
Walther’s command was immediate. “Man the guns! Prepare for bombardment.”
Dressler got out of his seat and jumped down to the next level of the navigation pod. Ke-feng couldn’t feel them yet, but if additional searchlights had gone up inside the city itself, the British definitely knew they were here. Somewhere nearby, the Silesia would be opening its cavernous belly and Germany’s own airplanes would be lowered into the sky.
Then she felt the change in the air.
“Incoming fighters!” she shouted.
“You heard the girl,” said Walther. “Stay sharp!”
Bauer called out that the L 75 was almost over their target. Walther ordered the dropping of the bombs. Servos whirred, opening up the belly of the ship.
She knew they had fallen before she heard the impact below. The L 75 suddenly lifted, buoyed by the weight that was shed, but before they shot too high, she felt the air change again. The crew was letting hydrogen out of the gasbags. Better to do it now before the night fighters and their flaming ammunition came to bear.
Voices chattered above her, excited. It sounded like they hit the building they hoped for.
“I can feel them closing,” said Ke-feng. She turned down to Dressler. “Can you see if they’re ours or theirs?” she asked.
“Judging from the direction, they’re probably British, but at this distance it’s hard to tell without the farviewer’s filters,” said Dressler. “We’ll know soon enough. If they’re smart they’ll stay clear.”
The German planes knew to avoid flying too close to the zeppelins, to avoid accidentally being pitched by the kite dancers. Though the British were aware of the Chinese wind artists, they were not certain of their reach, nor that the Central Powers changed the distance the kite dancers were allowed to interfere with enemy fighters with every raid, to avoid revealing their full range. It kept the German pilots safer, the load on the kite dancers lighter, and the British uncomfortable.
“A few are coming close,” said Dressler. “Stay where you are. Make sure you have cover.”
Night fighters would strafe beneath the zeppelins, guns aimed upward at the airships’ bellies. The floor beneath the farviewer’s bench was plated to protect it, and when she knelt she could hardly be struck by anything save a ricocheting bullet. She huddled tight, knees almost to her chest and tugged her scarf closer around her neck.
Ke-feng knew that the British liked to aim for the navigation pod. She wasn’t sure if they were aware of the farviewer and its capabilities, but she was certain that the fact it had a gun and dangled from beneath the bridge was reason enough.
“How many?” she asked, daring to lean out just far enough to Dressler to hear. She could feel the trembling currents of the airplanes’ approach, but it was too hard to figure out their numbers.
“Three or four! Now get back! I’ll call when I need you.”
Gunfire erupted above them. The L 75 had two other machine guns mounted on either side of the forward gondola. Someone was anxious.
She grit her teeth and bowed her head. If she could see, she could redirect the wind to blow evading fighters back in line of sight of their guns, and she wouldn’t need Dressler to act as her eyes.
“Ke-feng! Facing southwest, knock them south!”
She reached out and grasped the shaking threads of the sky. The natural state of the wind was not strong tonight, but the fighters themselves shook the air, giving her currents to work with. She closed her hands and swung the currents hard. The sudden change in airflow would startle the pilots, and push them right where the L 75 wanted them.
The machine gun beneath her came to life.
“Good work!” said Dressler.
Ke-feng sighed and hugged herself tight.
“We’re turning around!” said Walther. “The other ships are almost done.”
The night fighters would harry them out of the city, but would be unlikely to pursue them all the way to the coast, not with the Silesia’s own fighters covering their retreat.
Dressler continued to call for directions to disrupt enemy fighters even after she felt the hum of the engines and the turning of the ship’s body for the journey home. Bullets sprayed from both inside and out, and she knew as much as any of the crew there would be scores of holes in their envelope. Their flight would not be fast, and she could do little to help that, but she pushed and pulled the wind until she felt the sweat bead on her face.
The British were stubborn tonight. She wondered if they feared that losing would cause the Germans to carve up their country the way the British had claimed chunks of her own.
She heard a curse from Dressler that she did not know how to translate and realized that there was now a contrast in the air that even she could see.
“They’ve got a searchlight trained on us!” said Walther. “Run the engines at full. We need to get out of sight.”
Ke-feng felt more planes. They were converging on the L 75. She couldn’t swipe at them all.
“Can you do anything to speed us?” asked Dressler. “There aren’t many rounds left in the bottom gun.”
It was a foolish request and she clenched her hands in frustration. “You know I can’t!” she shouted. If the wind speed was not already there she couldn’t make it appear.
A new group of airplanes arrived, ducking in and out of her reach, and because they did not approach the L 75 too closely she knew they were probably German, trying to chase off the British. It wasn’t working.
They hadn’t lost much altitude yet, but she could feel the shift in the buoyancy of the airship. The L 75 had dropped ballast, to better keep itself high in the air. They were being scored, and there were so many fighters that she did not wait for Dressler to call before she pitched what she could.
The ship lurched and shuddered, and she bumped her head against the wooden bench of the farviewer. She felt heat on the wind, currents flaring up from the rear of the airship.
No.
Dressler immediately clambered up the ladder and she heard him settle on the bench, planting feet widely on either side of her so he would not have to dislodge her from her hiding place.
“We’re on fire, aren’t we?” she asked. She could hear the tension and fear above her, Walther calling for more information on damages.
“Yes,” said Dressler. “I’m going to find a place for us to land.”
“Ke-feng! Try to keep the fire away from the other gasbags!” said Walther. “We may have to let out more hydrogen to get us down in time.”
They were going to vent while they were on fire? She supposed it was better than waiting until all the hydrogen burned up and they simply fell...
She tried. She ignored the planes, even though she could feel them circling, like birds in search of a meal. The hydrogen was thinner than the rest of the air, but the fire consuming it was wild and moved with a will of its own. She struggled to keep the currents flowing aft, so they could vent from the front. At first the fire was only on the top of the ship, feeding off the three rearmost gasbags, but it was spreading, worrying at the ship’s envelope like a hound.
“There’s an open field about eight kilometers northeast! Big enough for the L 75!” said Dressler. “Do you think the ship will hold?”
Walther did not immediately respond. Then he said, “Maybe. If Ke-feng can keep the fire under control...”
“We only need a few minutes.”
“We’ll try. Better a controlled crash than anything else. Ackermann says the flames are bad, but the girl’s holding them back.”
A few minutes might as well be an eternity.
Ke-feng felt a hand on her shoulder. “Keep it together,” said Dressler. “We’re all counting on you. You’re the only one who can keep this ship in the sky.”
She couldn’t even draw the breath to respond. Whether she lived or died, once they landed the war would be over for her. Even if she survived the crash, she would be trapped in enemy territory, with no way back to Germany, let alone China, and most likely a prisoner of war. The British would not keep her with the rest of the crew, on account of being a woman, and they would surely interrogate her for being the ship’s kite dancer.
“I know you’re working hard,” said Dressler, “but there’s something I want to tell you, in case we don’t have a chance later.”
She shook her head. He was being distracting.
“The army has been working on a smaller version of the Fernhaube for the war injured, one you can wear,” said Dressler. “There have been lots of soldiers who have lost their eyes this war.”
“This isn’t the time!” she said, angry that she could not see well enough to glare at him, upset that she was huddled in a ball at his feet because she was too valuable to lose.
“Ke-feng! It is! You have to know, just in case.... The Oberleutnant requested one for you, and the rest of the crew agrees.”
“That’s foolish,” she snarled. “Your government would never give one to a soldier who isn’t even part of your military!”
As far as they were concerned she was a damaged piece of equipment they only needed because it was better than going without. They constantly treated her like a child, even though she was old enough to marry.
“I know, but we pushed for it!” said Dressler. “We wanted to surprise you. That’s why we were going to take you to the doctor once we got back to Germany. It’s for a fitting. There is a portable Fernhaube waiting for you, so after we land.... You have to escape. The British will probably not have soldiers ready where we come down. It will take time for them to arrive, and you have to slip away before they do.”
“The field’s in sight!” said Walther. “Dressler, you and Ke-feng better come up here. The pod’s going to hit ground first.”
Ke-feng grunted and stood on cramped knees, banging her head against the hood of the farviewer and she swayed in a haze of pain. Hands caught her and Dressler uttered an apology as he hefted her over his shoulder. She could feel the steps he took as he climbed the ladder to the bridge.
“I can’t move the wind anymore,” she said, both mind and hands numb.
“It’s all right,” said Walther, his voice even. “We’re almost there.”
“I’m bringing her down!” said Bauer.
“Brace for impact!”
Ke-feng felt her body swing down and an arm wrap protectively around her. Dressler.
“Keep your head down,” he said. She could feel him reach for something to grab, then the world pitched over.
* * *
Voices shouted around her, mostly Walther, ordering everyone to evacuate, and then she was lifted off her feet. “Time to go,” said Dressler.
The floor was not even. She could tell by how he lurched, trying to keep his balance. Forty-five kilos might not be much to an active soldier, but she had no doubt it would be easier if he wasn’t trying to carry her. She wanted to tell him to put her down, but at the same time she knew that left on her own she would likely not make it out of the ship. The world was dark, rimmed with tendrils of light.
Then he jumped and landed on something soft that sounded like dirt. Others landed on either side of them. The air was a mix of heat and a chilly spring night. They ran a short distance away, Walther calling for a head count. Dressler set her down, only letting go once certain she was steady on her feet.
“I see,” Walther said, after listening to the men who had been stationed in the aft gondola, “then we’re down two.” He paused. “Listen, the British will be sending a force out here to capture us. There’s no way the L 75 went down without notice. So we need to destroy as much of the airship as we can before they get a hold of it, especially the Fernhaube.”
“And the kite dancer?” asked one of the men.
“Not your concern. Now hurry up and get that ship on fire before all our remaining hydrogen is gone!”
The soldiers ran back to the ship, boots stomping on the soil and the wet vegetation. Ke-feng felt a hand on her shoulder.
“You should go now,” said Dressler. “You’re not in a German uniform. If you can find your way back to Germany, the naval office should still honor our request for your personal Fernhaube.”
“Agreed,” said Walther. “You’re free to go. There’s no need for you to get captured along with us.”
Ke-feng stood there, stunned, uncertain how she could possibly navigate through a foreign land when she did not speak any English. If she was resourceful she might be able do it—there were probably some Chinese here from Hong Kong, but still...
Dressler gave her a little push, and she realized that since they landed he had not held her hand. They really did mean to send her off.
But she could feel the heat dying on the wind. She turned to where she had last heard Walther and asked, “Are the men having trouble with the fire?”
“They are,” said Walther. “We lost a lot of hydrogen on our way down.”
“Let me help. I’ve had enough time that I can coax the air currents again.” She held out her hand. “Lead me back.”
“No! Don’t you realize you’re going to be taken from us the moment we’re captured?” said Dressler.
“I know,” said Ke-feng, “but I am a full member of this crew, aren’t I?”
“You always have been,” said Walther.
She closed her eyes, afraid of what might fall, and chided herself for having never asked. Perhaps there had been one more fool on board than she had thought.
“Then I won’t abandon my duty,” she said. “We have to destroy what remains of the ship.”
“Are you sure?” said Dressler.
“Yes.”
He took her smaller hand in his. “I can’t see the ground very well either, so watch your step. The shadows are bad.”
They were always bad, but this time she wouldn’t face them alone.
Copyright © 2018 by Laurie Tom