The incident at Barker Air Force Base demonstrated once and for all the hostile intent of the strange alien visitors, continued the reporter’s account. And as the news quickly spread around the globe, similar reports began flooding in from the major cities of the world. Even the state news organs from behind the inscrutable Iron Curtain carried reports of mysterious saucers zapping aircraft from the skies. What did it all mean? Where did these spacecraft come from? Why had they traveled millions of miles across space to reach Earth? And now that they were here, what did they want?

The world’s greatest scientific minds immediately stopped whatever projects they were working on and pooled their formidable brain power in an effort to solve the mystery. Studying the reports from around the world, the scientists quickly discovered a startling pattern in the reported flight paths of the mysterious saucers — a pattern that might yield the first clue to defeating these terrifying invaders.

* * *

One hundred fifty miles off the California coast, the U.S. Navy blimp Peregrine was making steady progress eastward as it neared the end of a routine four-day anti-submarine patrol. The giant silver airship had been bucking headwinds for the past twelve hours, and its crew of 18 tired sailors were looking forward to an extended shore leave once they landed.

In the airship’s cockpit, Commander Rick Darrow removed his ball cap and massaged his scalp and eyes, stifling a yawn. “Just another few hours and then we’re home, Stew,” he said to the lieutenant seated in the co-pilot’s chair next to him. “I tell you, I’m going to sleep for a week.”

Lieutenant Don Stewart smiled as he pushed the wheel down to counteract the effect of a sudden gust. “Yeah, Skipper, I know what you mean. But don’t you have someone waiting for you when you get back?”

“What?”

Stewart jerked his thumb over his shoulder “Sparks told me. He said he saw you at the cinema last week with a rather shapely Navy nurse.”

“Why that no good . . . ,” Darrow smiled, rubbing two day’s worth of stubble on his formidable chin. “She’s just a friend of the family. Transferred from Alameda and needed someone to help her find a place to stay.”

Stewart shook his head. “That’s not what I heard, Skipper.”

Darrow turned to face Stewart with mock indignation. “Say, who are you going to believe? a reputable senior officer or that little weasel of a reprobate back there?”

At that moment, a mop of orange hair attached to a round smiling head leaned into the cockpit. “Reprobate, huh? Are you talking about me again?”

“O’Casey, I ought to . . . ”

“He says the nurse is a friend of the family,” Stewart said, his emphasis indicating his skepticism.

“My sister’s friend, actually . . . ”

“You two sure looked mighty friendly walking along the boardwalk, Skipper.”

Blushing, Darrow waved dismissively at his radioman. “Aww, Sparks, you’re full of beans.”

O’Casey made a show of looking crestfallen. “And here I thought our dear Skipper had at last found true love.”

“If my sister were to hear you now, she’d . . . ” Darrow tried to put on a stern face as looked up and back at Sparks. “Say, what are you doing in here anyway? Just come to bother The Old Man again?”

“Actually, no, sir. This message just came in from Fleet HQ.” O’Casey handed Darrow a sheet of paper. “I could barely hear the Morse code through the high-frequency radio receiver static. It’s pretty bad today, Skipper.”

Darrow took the paper and read the handwritten message, in O’Casey’s meticulous handwriting.

-- TOP SECRET AND URGENT --
To ZPG-2 airship 323
From Air Fleet Command Moffett Field
Divert immediately to rendezvous USS Bastogne (CVE-124)
to pick up two personnel and equipment
then proceed best possible speed to
Lat 39o 25' N  Long 141o 47' W.

Darrow tapped the sheet. “What’s this all about, Sparks?”

“No idea, Skipper.”

“What’s up?” asked Stewart.

“We’re supposed to rendezvous with an escort carrier and pick up to passengers and then hot-foot it to the middle of nowhere over the Pacific.” He handed the paper back to O’Casey. “Get me a course to the Bastogne.”

O’Casey threw a quick salute. “Will do, Skip.” He started to duck out of the cockpit.

“Oh, and Sparks, you’d better pass the word to the crew.”

O’Casey grimaced. “Why do I always get to be the bearer of bad news?”

“Consider it penance for your sins, young man. Thou shalt not tell fibs about thy superior officers.”

O’Casey left the cockpit muttering a long string of Irish oaths, oblivious to Stewart’s and Darrow’s laughter.

* * *

As the Peregrine approached the pitching deck of the aircraft carrier, Darrow lowered the blimp’s landing gear from the central gondola and the propeller outriggers. Darrow and Stewart were all business as they guided the ship slowly and steadily down to the deck in the face of twenty-knot winds, by far the most hazardous landing they had attempted. The tension was only heightened by their frustration at the uncompromising orders that required them to make such a landing in the first place.

As they came in over the carrier’s stern, Darrow could see men crouched on the deck, braced against the wind and waves, awaiting their approach. Darrow held his airship above the deck, attempting to time his descent with the pitching of the carrier’s deck to avoid crashing into it. Once the Peregrine’s mooring lines reached the deck, several enlisted men wearing brightly-colored vests and headgear rushed out to grab and pull them to tie-downs on either side of the deck. At just the right moment, Darrow pushed his control wheel down and the blimp bounced heavily onto the deck, secure for the moment. A moment later, another team began rolling a mobile staircase toward the side of the airship.

“We’re down,” Darrow called into his headset. “Make this snappy. I have to keep the engines at full power or we’ll get swept off.”

At the midpoint of the Peregrine’s gondola, two enlisted men shoved open a hatch against the howling wind and reached out to pull the staircase closer, mere feet ahead of the airship’s thundering propeller blades. As soon as the airship crewmen had a firm grip, two people in flight suits and helmets scrambled up the stairs and jumped across the narrow gap into the airship. The enlisted men were about to close the door when one of the boarders waved frantically and pointed to a line of sailors who were struggling to carry large metal boxes across the pitching carrier deck toward them.

With one hand clutching the steering wheel and the other playing the throttles, Darrow looked out and back at the unfolding scene. “What is this?” he hissed through clenched teeth. “A yard sale?”

Once the last box had been shoved through the hatch, the carrier’s deck crew began pulling the staircase back as the airship’s crewmen tugged the door shut.

“All aboard,” O’Casey shouted to the cockpit.

“About time. Up ship,” Darrow called. Stewart signaled the deck crew to release the lines. The moment the lines slacked, Darrow gunned the throttles and pulled back on the control wheel. The ship popped skyward. “Let’s hope they don’t pitch right up into us,” Darrow said as he worked the controls aggressively. “Come on, my little eaglet.”

Stewart craned his neck to see down to the carrier. “All clear.”

It wasn’t until the Peregrine had reached the comparative safety of several thousand feet above sea level that Darrow and Stewart collectively blew out deep breaths and glanced at each other.

“Well done, Stew.”

“That was some sterling airmanship, Skipper.”

Darrow shook his head in disbelief. “Make your course two-eight-two, best possible speed,” said Darrow as he pushed his chair back and prepared to stand. “I’m going to go back and greet our guests.” His emphasis on the last word conveyed no ambiguity about his opinion of them.

“Aye,” said Stewart. “Don’t make them walk the plank, Skipper.”

“After all that?” Darrow snorted. “The Navy’d probably make me go back down and pick them up again.”

In the cramped corridor amidships the two visitors, still clad in their flight suits and visored helmets, struggled to move their metal boxes into the hold with the help of several sailors. Darrow appeared at the bulkhead and surveyed the scene.

“So what’s so important that I had to risk my ship and crew for?” Darrow’s blue eyes glinted steel.

The taller of the two visitors turned almost lazily to face him, unstrapping and then removing the helmet. To Darrow’s surprise, a long mane of grey-streaked black hair tumbled down from the visitor’s head. “Professor Madeleine Abbot,” she said, extending a hand as she shook the rest of her hair free. “Director of the Monterey Coast Atomic Research Laboratory.”

Darrow instinctively straightened up as he shook Abbot’s hand. “Commander Rick Darrow, USN. Commander of the Peregrine.”

“Is that the name of your amazing airship?” the other, shorter, visitor asked, revealing a similar cascade of curly black hair as she removed her helmet. “That rendezvous certainly must have taken quite a lot of skill, Commander.”

“Claudine Abbot, Commander,” Abbot said. “My daughter and assistant.”

“Delighted,” said Darrow as he shook Claudine’s hand. “I rather think it did, yes.” Darrow noticed the sailors had stopped manhandling the crates and were staring at the two scientists. “Finish stowing the doctor’s gear,” he snapped. “Smartly.” The men nearly stumbled over each other as they returned to their task.

“Let me show you to the stern compartment,” said Darrow. “You can get out of your flight suits, and then perhaps you can tell me why we’re shaping a course to the middle of nowhere.”

“Skipper,” came a voice from behind Darrow. “We just received a message from the Bastogne and . . . jumpin’ Jiminy Cricket!”

Without missing a beat, Darrow turned around and gently pushed O’Casey’s boggling face back through the radio compartment doorway, then turned back to face the Abbots, gesturing aft. “Ladies?”

The two Abbots and Darrow proceeded single-file through the ship’s noisy engine compartment and through another compartment filled with large drum-shaped ballast tanks. Once the three of them reached the cramped stern compartment, Darrow closed the door. Doctor Abbot spoke immediately, not distracted by the panoramic view through the room’s wraparound windows, unlike her daughter. “I’m afraid this can’t wait, Commander. The fate of the world could be at stake.”

“Why? Where are we going?”

Dr. Abbot took a moment to weigh her words carefully. “Commander, over the last twelve hours a fleet of alien spacecraft has been spreading around the world, destroying military aircraft and attacking innocent civilians. So far, we have been powerless to stop them. But the world’s best scientists have been working closely together to find patterns in the behavior of the attacks. And we believe we have found just such a pattern. A very crucial one.”

Darrow was still trying to grasp fully what he had just been told. “What pattern?”

“By examining the flight paths of the spacecraft, it appears that they are all entering and departing the Earth’s atmosphere from a single location.”

Darrow raised an eyebrow. “Thirty-nine degrees, twenty-five seconds north . . . ”

Doctor Abbot nodded. ” . . . One hundred forty-one degrees, forty-seven seconds west,” she finished. “It is imperative that someone get there immediately to find out why.”

Darrow folded his arms. “And that someone . . . ”

” . . . Is us, Commander.”

* * *

What awaits the crew of the Peregrine in the middle of the vast Pacific? Find out in the next exciting chapter of The Terror from the Other Dimension!

Many thanks to Lawrence F. Rodrigues, PO1c, USN (ret), Major, USAF (ret), for his generous technical advice. Check out Larry’s website, filled with stories of his adventures on a Navy ZPG-2 similar to the one in this story, at www.BattleBlimps.com and in e-book format too.

Categorised as: The Terror from the Other Dimension!

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