The Zeppelin Jihad Read Online Free PDF

before it hit the ground. Another drifted down more slowly, some of the shrapnel having apparently burst its helium bags. The two pilots in the open gondola were frantically trying to maneuver it beyond the stockade when the Gatling reappeared in the window. I watched it draw a bead on the crippled mini-airship. The smoke reasserted itself, covering the scene, so I only heard the rip of the Gatling firing.
    Speer grabbed my arm and dragged me to my feet. “ Get out of here! ”
    I nodded, wanting badly to get out of that hell, and glad that no one would think less of me for doing so. Then I saw Speer turn back towards the building.
    “ What about you? ” I asked.
    “ Some of the men from the advance squads may still be alive! ” he said, and dashed into the smoke.
    Through the stench of cordite, burnt earth, and blood, I followed.
    I was just a few steps behind him, firing my Glock blindly towards the building, more to give me courage than in the hope of actually hitting anything. Speer was firing mercury bullets into the ground. Two exploded harmlessly. Two more managed to set off mines, knocking us back before we pressed forward again.
    We reached where the advance teams had first been cut down. The man who ’ d lost an arm was lying inert on the ground. We turned him over to check if he was still alive. Covered in blood and dirt, at first I didn ’ t recognize him — it was Abernathy.
    “ Hello, Charlie, how are you doing here? ” Speer asked, forcing a smile.
    “ Better now that you brought me a nurse, ” Abernathy said, weakly gesturing towards me. “ I would have preferred her in a white dress and longer hair, but beggars can ’ t be choosers, right? ” He wore a brave face, despite the tear stains on it .
    Speer holstered his revolver, pulled out a pocketknife, and cut the sleeve from his own suit. “ Make a tourniquet, ” he told me.
    I did as he said.
    “ There ’ s someone else out there, ” Speer yelled. I could hear it too, the delirious moaning of a wounded man calling for someone named Rebecca. “ You help Abernathy through the stockade — I ’ m going after that other man. ”
    I looked towards the building. “ There ’ s no time — the smoke ’ s clearing! ” I shouted.
    He paused. “ Do you feel that rumbling? ” he asked, so calmly I thought he had lost his mind.
    “ What? ” I asked.
    “ We ’ re going to be fine. ” Then he disappeared into the smoke.
    I couldn ’ t feel any rumbling outside my own jackhammering heart. That and the Gatling gun drawing a bead on us were the only things my senses could process.
    So I barely perceived it when the Triclops came crashing through the main gate, two hundred yards from our position.
    The Gatling ’ s operator saw it before I did, swinging his barrels around and opening fire. The heavy rounds pinged off the tank ’ s armor as it advanced, leveling one of its three cannons.
    The left-most cannon fired, and an artillery shell smashed a hole into the structure the size of a bowling ball.
    I would have expected the entire building to explode, taking us with it. Instead, there was a seconds-long pause before all the windows and doors blew out, sending papers, bodies, and even the Gatling gun flying from the building. The building ’ s floodlights cut off. A rush of hurricane-strength air blasted over us, clearing what remained of the smoke.
    Now I could see Speer again, just fifteen yards from me. He had taken off the remains of his suit coat and was using it to compress a man ’ s chest wound. “ See? I told you we were going to be fine, ” he called wearily. “ Wish I could say the same for everyone. ”
    The Triclops drove towards us, guns trained on the building, with the two personnel carriers chugging behind. From the carriers, medics rushed out to take over care of the wounded. They took over from Speer on the man with the chest wound.
    One of the Triclops ’ hatches popped open, and Sgt. Baylor and several of his men