The Extended Steam Salon

[Captain Brandsson]

‘Forcing me down Memory Lane’ involved liberal use of a metal prod in my ribs and it felt like being struck by lightning.
Skinny seemed to like it when I so much as thought about the War, so I did what I could not to.
Military Man started on my record again.
“Grover’s Mill, New Jersey. 1938.” You could tell he was almost as tired of this as I was, “You were there when…”
“Awfully decent of you to drop in today.” I said, “Do you realize our army is facing disastrous defeat? What do you intend to do about it?”
The room got real quiet.  I hadn’t said much for a long while and this caught their attention. “I've done it already.” I continued.
Military Mann looked curious, “You've done what?”
“I've changed to the other side.” Everyone looked around, confused.  “So you're on the other side, eh?” I kept going, “Well, what are you doing over here?” Everyone was leaning in a bit closer, “Well, the food is better over here.”
One of the thugs laughed, “Heh! That was Groucho, I think, boss.”
Military Man turned to Skinny, “Up the goddamn power.”

[The Abiliegh]

sidebar: More, brother! More!

[Captain Brandsson]

Military Man was shouting, now.  I must have irked him something fierce.
"Morocco." I could tell he wanted to know more about this one, "1942."
"That's a good one." I said, "I'll give you three guesses."
"No record of why..."
"Now let me see. Has four pairs of pants, lives in Philadelphia..."
He dug the prod into my rib for probably the hundredth time and I felt it crack.  If I hadn't already I'd have thrown up.
"No record of why..." he repeated.
"Is it male or female?" ZAP!!! "No, I don't think so." ZAP!!! ZAP!!! ZAP!!!
Furious, Military Man spun around and reached over the bank of dials and turned one.  The background hum of the machinery got real loud.
"You can't do that." Skinny protested and moved to reset the dial, but one of the thugs held him in place.  "We need him!" Skinny looked nervously into the shadows.  "They need him!  Time doesn't hold as tightly to him as..."
Military Man began again, "There is no record..."
"Is he dead?  Who?"  The prod went right into my face, this time.  I could feel the skin burn and crack.  I went blind. I thought I heard Skinny trying to call it off.  "I don't know. I give up."  Again in the face. "I give up, too."
And then, I think, I died.

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

Meanwhile, elsewhere and elsewhen, "back" in 1948, three meteors streak across the Southern hemisphere, following the curve of the Earth, passing over Tierra del Fuego and eventually impacting on the great frozen expanse of Antartica. Nobody knows it, nobody will know it for years, but the Third War of the Worlds has begun. The only clue is that as the "meteors" pass over South America, a lone operator sits at his instrument..."Calling Barranca...calling Barranca...." Nothing but an angry hiss does he get by way of an answer. "Nuts! Something is sure screwing up the reception tonight."
Thus begins the Third Martian Invasion of Earth.
 Sidebar: (   and thus I take care of our obligatory nod to Howard Hawks. Why? Scarface, Sgt. York,To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, and The Thing From Another World   )

[The Abiliegh]

Meanwhile, elsewhere and elsewhen, "back" in 1948, three meteors streak across the Southern hemisphere, following the curve of the Earth, passing over Tierra del Fuego and eventually impacting on the great frozen expanse of Antartica. Nobody knows it, nobody will know it for years, but the Third War of the Worlds has begun. The only clue is that as the "meteors" pass over South America, a lone operator sits at his instrument..."Calling Barranca...calling Barranca...." Nothing but an angry hiss does he get by way of an answer. "Nuts! Something is sure screwing up the reception tonight."
Thus begins the Third Martian Invasion of Earth.
 Sidebar: (   and thus I take care of our obligatory nod to Howard Hawks. Why? Scarface, Sgt. York,To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, and The Thing From Another World   )

Great, now I *have* to go home and indludge in Bogart and Bacall films! 

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

Sidebar:  Yes! The quote "Calling Barranca" is from "Only Angels Have Wings," possibly the most perfect movie ever made. Over the weekend, I saw "Hellboy II," "Key Largo," and "Dick Tracy," (Warren Beatty, Madonna.) Somehow they all blended seamlessly in a dream Sunday night, intermingled with our story...

[The Abiliegh]

Sidebar:  Yes! The quote "Calling Barranca" is from "Only Angels Have Wings," possibly the most perfect movie ever made. Over the weekend, I saw "Hellboy II," "Key Largo," and "Dick Tracy," (Warren Beatty, Madonna.) Somehow they all blended seamlessly in a dream Sunday night, intermingled with our story...

Sidebar: This is fantastic All outstanding movies. Though I haven't seen the Beatty version of Dick Tracy in years. I might need to pick that up....


And We'll stop chatting when people start posting in response

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

Abiliegh..chatting with you is fine by me...though circumstance may dictate that it is fated to always be "long-distance and on-line," I really do feel that "this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."(The word soul-mates comes to mind.)
Yours truly, (truly!)
Jim  (even Thistlewaite must take a backseat this time! )

[The Abiliegh]

Abiliegh..chatting with you is fine by me...though circumstance may dictate that it is fated to always be "long-distance and on-line," I really do feel that "this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."(The word soul-mates comes to mind.)
Yours truly, (truly!)
Jim  (even Thistlewaite must take a backseat this time! )

You're a dear, and I thouroughly support a long and wonderful friendship!

And you never know, I travel far and regularly. I might drag Steampunks to YOU. Lord knows I've got enough steamy friends in the area!

[Athena]

*coming out of her internet coma*

Sgt. Thistlewaite may not have realized it in all the flurry of action, but Athena had been at his heels this whole time. She was never one for much talk, more for action, and has been enjoying the airship ride. She's been daydreaming, staring off at the clouds and enjoying the breeze. It had been a nice break. She saw what looked like shooting stars off the stern of the ship and thought of home. But she had that sinking feeling that ws usually right....things were only going to get deeper from here on in.

[MWBailey]

Brantley did his best to keep a stiff upper lip, but he remembered those weirdly-uniform "meteors" from the second Martian Incursion. HE thought that he would probably remember this wave as well, when out of all probability, one slammed into and bounced off for the Envelope of the Beau Rosin, happily enough knocking it out of the temporal doldrum zone, but unhappily, knocking it also off the thread it had been following, and into a veritable firestorm of flaming, streaming cylinders. it took Brantley at the gatling and tommy with the elephant gun to keep them from getting smashed to matchwood and scrap brass by the hurtling "tin cans," as the soldiery of earth during the last Invasion had dubbed them. The gatling cut slivers out of teh cylinders as it's projectiles impacted them and knocke dthem off-course, but teh Sgt.'s Elephant Gun actually knocked them open, spilling their occupants out to flail about in what was for them Zero gravity, to flame away in the atmosphere below.

It didn't dawn on Brantley that
1. they were up above any altitude that had been achieved before by anybody other than the aether corps marines of teh last Martian Incursion, and

2. this chrono-jumper conserved breathable airspace inside its Traveling Field, until he realized that that odd bow of light to starboard was what the limb of Venus looked like when seen in interplanetary space, rather than through a telescope. The storm of cylinders having passed, He was free to notice the beautiful astronomical Idyll, and then yell, "holy CRAP, Tommy? do you know what this means?" If we can keep the oxygen up, we can go to Mars!

Apparently, the Beau Rosin carried enough mass to attract and trap a breathable collection of gases...

MW turned back to the cabin and saw Miss Athena. Poor girl, she must have been feeling forgotten; no one had said more than one or two words to her since before the encounter with Lippy, he thought guiltily.

"Miss Athena!"  he called, "how good are you with astrogation?" Great, Brantley, like a girl who's never been close to a rocket before is gonna know how to navigate for one. Sure, and it's a genius you are, he berated himself unmercifully. "Failing that," he said, trying to salvage the situation, "how good are your maths?"

[Athena]

She snapped out of her present dream and heard Bailey call to her about rocket navigation....little known to him, she had some experience...but not much.

"My maths are fine, thank you. And so are my rocket skills." She grinned from ear to ear. She didn't know what was about to happen, but it did sound like fun.

[The Abiliegh]

Things were happening quickly again. She just wished she could tell if it was all in her head, or if the world was really moving this fast around her.

When she realized they were in space, her knees went weak. She grabbed hold of the railing beside her, knuckles white, as she looked around them. Brantley was talking to the country girl, and they seemed to have themselves under control. She'd seen her fair share of oddities, but this... this...

She needed to feel strong arms around her. Pushing away the inner voice that told her to be strong and to ignore the urge, she scanned the deck for Tommy.

[MWBailey]

Brantley's mind was moving about a million miles a second. that usually spelt trouble for either him or whomever he happened to be fighting in about equal parts, but he decided to worry about that when H efigured out who the real enemy was.

Mis Athena, would you be able to calculate a hypothetical gravity-well "slingshot".course to mars from the Earth, say, circa epoch 1949?"






Sidebar: Brantley means plot a possible course from Earth to Mars, using the gravity wells of both planets as sources of major boosting energy for acceleration and inter-planetary momentum, via the "slingshot" method commonly used on far-planet exploratory satellites from just after sputnik to just before the last Mars Mission (sucks in a huge breath and lets it out). he doesnt realize yet that the Beau Rosin doesnt have enough Diesel (and can't carry enough) to keep the power going that long.

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

Tommy is unceremoniously rousted from a pleasant dream of riding his pony through fields of wild flowers by Brantley screaming about "Martians!!" Still half asleep, he opens one case, assembles the elephant gun, and for the next fifteen minutes experiences what seems to be a surreal and bizarre session of skeet shooting. He fires the giant eight-bore until he's nearly deaf, dumb, and blind, and his right shoulder seems to be nothing more than one big bruise. He expends all the explosive rounds, all the armour-piercing rounds, all the slugs..there's nothing left in the case except a couple of parachute-flares. Finally, all the "tin-cans" they've been shooting at are past them, and Tommy realizes with a start that they are virtually on the edge of space, which scares the willies out of him. He hears Brantley proposing to Ms. Hoven that they take the Beau Rosin to Mars..."Jumping Jehosaphat!" he exclaims. "Hold on, MW, hold on..we can't just haul off an' go ta Mars! Can ya spin yer dials or whatever an' take us back ta 1948, and take us ta th' New River Valley in Virginia? We need equipment if we're gonna mount a war..and it just so happens I know th' guy who's business card says Arms & Armour, unlimited! My Uncle T. can set us up right, an' provide us with breathin' equipment and such...Please! Let's head fer The Iron Furnace...it's th' smart thing to do..." He's shaking like a leaf by now, and he fumbles in his pocket for the pack of Camels, and pulls one out..the last one in the pack, and lights it, inhaling deeply. "Besides that, " he says dolefully, " I'm outta cigs..ya can't expect a guy ta invade Mars without smokes!" He spies Mrs. Cross then, her eyes as big as saucers, their eyes lock, and a moment later they are in each others arms, holding on tightly for dear life. He nuzzles his face in her hair, and thinks, "This..this is what men fight ta protect!" For her, he'll fight Martians, or robots, or anything else. But first, he needs to get some cigarettes. "An' some whiskey," he thinks, " I definitely need a drink!"

[The Abiliegh]

She clung to him, the space and the martians and the lack of whiskey all melting away for the moment she was enveloped in his arms. It gave her strength, gave her a reason to fight through the pain in her head and in her limbs, gave her a reason to fight through this.

"I've got a few nails, Tommy..." She whispered into his neck. They weren't the most romantic words she'd ever muttered, but they held a meaning to be appreciated.

She pulled back slightly, slipping her hand and pack of camels into his, while turning to face Brantley. "I have to side with Mr Gunn, Mr Brantley. Unless Max is here, we need to get back planet-side and find him. When we fell, we didn't fall together. Where I landed was terrible, but I've got a feelin it wasn't so bad as the jam he's probably in. He's got a knack for ending up worse off than th'rest of us."

The dark and swollen bruise on the side of her face and the finger bruises on her wrists and arms gave a pretty clear idea of what "worse off" could entail.

[MWBailey]

I'd prefer to go and find the Capn first before we do any gallivantin' around myself, Mrs. Cross," Brantley said, matter-of-factly. I wa sjust thinking s far as possibilities are concerned. Mars might a bit of a hefty chaw for a ship like this."

"as far as liquor's concerned, MW said, guessing what was on Tommy's mind, "there's probably a couple of jugs of white lightning in the crate next to the head of the cot that Honey's laying on."

"But for the ammo... I'd hate to be without that elephant gun, and I'd be interested to know if your uncle T. made or makes boat and railing guns; or a one-barrel market gun would work, as long as its a caplock and a muzzle loader, and he has powder, shot, and caps on hand...maybe a few small grenades to lob with it..."

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

"Brantley," says T.E., grinning, "When we get ta th' Furnace ya ain't gonna believe yer eyes...the Baron makes guns that are bigger than this boat o' yers...oh yeah, if it's guns ya need, he's got 'em..and if he don't have just what yer lookin' fer, he'll make it from scratch." Tommy is very aware of the armful of warmth that is Mrs. Cross...one arm encircling her waist, his other hand brushes back her luxurious hair, and as she tilts her face up to him, he does what he's been wanting to do since the moment he laid eyes on her..he kisses her, gently at first, mindful of her bruised face, but as she responds, with more passion.
"Trouble," he thinks, "but worth it, every bit." He pulls back a bit, grins his lopsided grin, and says, "Ya know, doll...I still don't even know yer first name..."

[MWBailey]

Brantley ducked back inside, pulling Ms. Athena along behind him., and handing her his old D-4A pilot's dead reckoning wheel and graph slide., also supplying her with a pencil to calculate and graph with. He thought about her as he headed back to the wheel; her hair, her general competence, confidence, willingness to help...plus,. he had to admit, not bad-looking either-- whoa, slow down boy, just because Tommy's got himself all set up is no reason to start in on some pretty young lady, 'sides, she's got a young man already, the one what stood her up. Damn, If she were mine I wouldn't do that unless I was dead...STOP that and keep your head in the cabin, not in clouds, flyboy.

He managed to concentrate on finding the coordinates for this "Furnace"  factory Tommy wanted to go to. Oh, that's right, he thought. that old Thistlewaite factory. Old "T" had never run afoul of the law, or of customs, either, and his weapons were legendary. Brantley dialed, toggled, and cranked in all three sets of coordinates, and cranked in the Traveling and Jumping threads, And then pulled the governor ring, gave the jumper one last crank, and then hooked a wire from the 'jumper to the Tracking device, and turned the tracking device to a slightly-different angle of incidence, and set his pocket device, replaced it in the skillet, and started the Tracker. The entire system came on then, and Brantley politely asked the professor to keep steering by the dot-and-line in the tracking display, unless the temporal machines quit suddenly, and went back to see if Ms Athena needed anything further. Oh-oh, Brantley thought. Falling again, are we? Do we have a net this time? No? well, try not to miss this time, eh?

...You numb-nut.

------------------------
Sidebar: Taking a bit of a liberty here; the E-6B was the wheel the bomber and cargo navigators used during WWII here in our RW; I don't know what was used before then, but it's reasonable to my mind at least to think that the airship folks would have come up with a dead reckoning wheel; they're just so darned handy for figuring ETA's, fuel consumption, headwinds, anti-yaw angle for upwind flying, etc. etc...

[OldProfessorBear]

The Professor, who'd been manning the helm throughout the strange battle, once again took the wheel, saying to Brantley, "Aha! I think the cloud has finally lifted from my memory! It was in very similar circumstances that our vessel got out of the doldrum last time around ... or perhaps 'will be in very similar circumstances' would be more correct, because it was -- or will be -- 1968 when that happened, er, happens. Dang! Our language doesn't have an indefinite tense to cover cases like this!

"At any rate: though the details are still hazy, the ship I was -- will be -- piloting at that time was bounced out of the doldrum by a cylindrical object very much like those we just destroyed, but much larger. It barely grazed us, of course, or I wouldn't be here now. Wherever and whenever here and now are ..."

He mused for a moment, called out "Could someone please bring the poor helmsman a cuppa java?" and went on: "These cylinder thingies (a technical term) are some sort of spatiotemporal vehicles, else they wouldn't have been able to appear in the doldrum. Did I hear your right? You think they come from Mars!?

"And -- just before the excrement impacted the ventilator, you were saying you knew the fellow who owned that pen. Is that right?"

[MWBailey]

"Not precisely," Brantley said, "it's more a case of having read a perpetrator's file." HE was a bit hesitant about sharing this kind of information; some people persisted in thinking the Customs people were cops, and the idea of 'time cops'--Lord, how he hated that term--sprang from the  early role played by the customs people  in enforcing the "National and Temporal security" angle, which in turn sprang from the first-known case in which parties from both the past, present & future, and as some scuttlebutt rumors said, some entity or race from outside of time itself, all collaborated to bring the course of time itself back on track. But all of that was "classified (the term made his tongue feel oily and unclean when he muttered it past his moustache). He went to get the cuppa for the Professor as he tried to puzzle outwhat he could tell and shouldn't, and was on his way back with it, when he decided they were all so deep in the classified manure by now that it wouldn't hurt, and might help, to tell all he could remember.

"Now, before people start gettin' all high behind and accusing me of being a 'time cop,' let me explain. First of all, there are no 'time cops,' and there is no 'cross-time' enforcement agency. political and enforcement entities exist in past, present and future which have collaborated in one particular case; that case involves the man whose name is engraved," he said, picking the pen up from where it lay on the railing between the windscreen and the wheel, "on this pen: Mr. Welles, and yes, I do mean THAT Mr. Welles; Mr. H.G. Welles, of London, England. He let that sink in. "Now, I don't know, and frankly don't think, that the fellow who keeps appearing and leaving change behind is Welles; but I sure would like to know why he keeps showing up at crucial points, and how he came into possession of Welles's pen...

[The Abiliegh]

He pulls back a bit, grins his lopsided grin, and says, "Ya know, doll...I still don't even know yer first name..."

As the kiss ended, she looked up at Tommy, smiling. "Abiliegh... My name is Abiliegh." For as fast as everything up to this point had happened, the world seemed to move in slow motion around her now. She could feel the warmth of him beside her, and it steadied her as the ship jumped and traveled through time and space. Every movement she made kept them touching somewhere.

Listening to Brantley go on about Welles and the man who kept appearing in their adventure, she wished she had some insight to give the boys. "All I can really figure, seeing as i've missed a lot, is that the spiv obviously 'as a pocket device of his own, and he's got to be tracking us. No small feat, seeing how erratic our travel 'as been."

[Captain Brandsson]

And then I was alive again.
Skinny pushed my eyelids up and shined a light in, “We have him back, now.  I suggest we give him some…  What?  No, I don’t think that’s a very wise…  Yes.  Of course.”
My eyesight was weak, but I could see.  I still hurt like hell, though.
Military Man was gone as well as a couple of the goons. 
Skinny was prepping a syringe, “I hadn’t wanted to take this route.  The mind tends to wander aimlessly.”
I tried to speak, but I couldn’t get any words out.
“No more Groucho, Captain…” He stuck the needle in, “Try Harpo, for a while, perhaps.”

[The Abiliegh]

sidebar: While jonsing for more posts, I've decided it might be fun to try and actually compile this into novel format. That would, of course, require a fair bit of editorial work to smooth out some erratic areas and repetition, as well as flesh out some other areas that have gone rather quickly and would benefit from more information. Does anyone have a problem if I start working on it?

As a side note to the side note, I'm willing to change character names, if people don't want it so closely associated to them.

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

Sidebar: No problem here, ma'am...Gunn's moniker is fine as is. The various POV perspectives work pretty well as a plot device, or so it seems to me. Smoothing it out, editing for spelling errors, any bumps in the continuity...I think it sounds like a great idea. Let me know if there's any way I can help.

Thistlewaite