Arcana 99: Stage One

Of course, I had heard of the Grenfell-Maxwell Marathon. Upon first hearing of it, and the prize that awaited the victor, I knew that this was the moment I was told to await. I quickly gathered a platoon of like-minded men and refitted an old zeppelin to carry us to victory.

The sight of the quarter-kilometer-long beast drew attention, but I became a Major for my ability to turn things around. We moored the zeppelin several miles behind the end of the race’s starting grid. We would launch before the race began and would drift to just behind the line by noon. After that, I would brief the men aboard of our mission, but before I could do either, I needed to finish this idiotic interview.

“So, what are your plans if you win this ‘wish’ everyone’s been promised?” The reporter laughed at the word ‘wish’ as he pointed the microphone to me.

“I care none for the wish, real or no. I only desire to show that Germany has moved beyond our wretched past and is a source of more than just war.”

Damned Englishman, you are the reason we’re seen this way.

“And you’ll certainly show the versatility of German engineering with your zeppelin back there. Might I ask what its name is?”

“Oh, yes, that is the Graf Zeppelin, but we call it the Graf II to avoid confusion. Built to be the sister ship of the Hindenburg, but after the disaster in ‘37, it was scheduled for destruction.” The reporter nodded along to my drivel.

You’d believe anything, wouldn’t you?

“I fought tooth and claw to keep it around, for historical purposes of course. I had the interior remodeled to better reflect the Hindenburg and even took it for a few test flights. Even then, I never thought I’d get the chance to fly it for any real journeys much less with so many watching,” I forced a natural smile, “It truly is an honor to be able to be the man that shows the world that airships need not be forgotten.”

Honor? A fool’s tool, and. . .

“Thank you for that insight, Mr. Kober. One final question, how are you prepared to obtain helium abroad with most of it being held in the US?”

It’s Major Kober you twit.

“Ha, the US may have 90% of all helium, but we’ve made contracts with the other 10%. Some of them were even willing to give it to us for free just to see the Graf fly overhead.”

“Wow, I suppose you have everything figured out, huh?”

You fucking imbecile. No amount of helium could make it fly, not without drastic changes to the ship. Hydrogen is the only option we have.

“Yes,” I smiled at the man, “planning ahead is a must when flying an airship. Misreading a weather map, flying too high, unevenly distributing weight, and venting too much air can all quickly lead to a crash. Even landing is an odyssey. We need specially built mooring masts which haven’t been made or used in twenty years. In fact, we had to order the construction of a mast both here and in Lake Petén Itzá just to be able to participate in the race. And, if we must build one at every stage and hire a ground crew to launch and land us, we’d probably spend more money than we could win!”

The reporter laughed then took a step back, “Well, that’s all we have time for. The race is going to start soon, and I’m sure you’re just dying to get started,” The reporter said some final words to his invisible audience then waved for the camera operator to stop filming. With that annoyance out of the way, I started for the Graf.

I boarded, and the vessel’s captain immediately ordered the 200-person ground crew to walk the Graf Zeppelin away from its moor. When we had reached an appropriate distance, he gave another order and they threw off the ropes tying us to the ground and the Graf began to gently lift off. If I hadn’t watched it happen, I never would have never noticed it due to the gentle nature of our ascent. When we reached our cruising altitude of 200 meters, I climbed up the ladder from the control gondola and into the Zeppelin’s hull. From there I walked into the lower deck’s interior. I turned left, walked through the Chief Stewards cabin which had been refitted into a cabin for our head doctor, and into the smoking room.

Inside sat the eight sergeants of our 85-man army. I gave them a swift briefing of our flight plans, and how they should prepare their troops for potential deployment. The officers knew that deployment was unlikely. I knew better but kept it to myself for now. I finished the briefing, and the other eight men all stood to relay the information to their squads. As they left, I stopped the fourth squad sergeant, Vasilij Hetzenauer, and gave him further instruction. I then made my way to the upper deck lounge.

We had refitted much of the old ship to better reflect our needs, but many of the niceties originally provided were too great to remove. We had kept the paintings, seats, and tables from the original design, however, the item I had wanted most, the aluminum Blüthner piano, had been destroyed during the war.

I had always held a fascination with musical instruments. The skill and artisanship required to make even a rudimentary one were immense. Every detail, every facet of the design had to be perfect. It was like a microcosm of life; to succeed, all imperfections must be removed and replaced. If you have an imperfect piano, you could fix the broken parts as they begin to interfere with its sound, but in the end, you would still need to remove them all. So, why waste time waiting for them to harm you?

My mourning was interrupted by sergeant Hetzenhauer stepping into the room. He had a rifle on his back and a tube in his hand. If I had looked closer, I would have seen that the tube was a single scope of a long-broken binocular. Of course, I had no need to look closer; I already knew what it could do. The sergeant walked past me and sat on a bench in the promenade. He opened the window before him and readied his rifle.

“I take it that you already know what I was going to order?” I said, sitting down on the bench beside him.

“I knew that ‘meet me in the lounge, bring your gun’ meant that I was about to fire it,” he fiddled with the rifle’s scope, “What I don’t know is how you expected me to see anything.”

I looked out my own window. The ground beneath us looked like little more than a muddy pond. A moment later, a lone fish leaped out of the water. It continued to climb upwards until its entire form was revealed to not be a fish but a plane.

“There’s your answer Hetzenauer. Dumont would win this race. . . if she can finish.”

Vasilij said nothing. He carefully aimed his rifle at the approaching plane and surveyed it for weak areas. The plane continued its rapid ascent, much more rapid than I thought Dumont would fly, and grew ever nearer to our vessel. In fact, she appeared to be on a direct collision course with us.

Is she really so desperate for attention? Oh well, she would be the only one hurt by such a crash.

I glanced at the old ship wheel hung on the wall above where the piano should have been.

Dumont’s plane was less than a hundred meters from us now, and sergeant Hetzenauer smiled, fumbled with his gun’s trigger, and quickly pulled it back inside the window. I barely had time to register that he had not even made a shot before Dumont’s plane eclipsed our windows and veered away from us.

With Dumont’s distraction over, I was able to fully focus on Vasilij’s direct failure, “You didn’t fire! Explain yourself right now!”

“I had two reasons for not firing, Major Kober,” He addressed me by my title, but his words held no respect, only necessity. “One, the pilot of that plane was not Dumont. Two, someone else had sabotaged her plane and caused one of the engines to catch fire.”

We weren’t the only ones thinking about eliminating Dumont. Good.

I congratulated Vasilij for his observational skills and dismissed him. He retired to the writing room next to the lounge. I looked out the window once more. The air beneath us was still too murky to make out any individual people. Craning my neck to glimpse at Dumont's shrinking plane, I could barely make out several thin, gray wisps emanating from it.

It appears that a crash is inevitable. Good, I was not looking forward to hiding her corpse.

With first-place secured, I started towards the lower deck's bar.

Vasilij's voice emerged from the writing room and cut my plans short, “Major Kober!” His voice still held no respect, only urgency, “Two racers have already pulled ahead of us!”

What?!

I ran to the room. Inside a small radio was quietly tuned into the race. Out of the radio came the voice of the reporter that had interviewed me earlier, “. . .of the same team. This really does put the pressure on the other competitors. Can anyone but Dumont’s plane and Kober’s Zeppelin hope to stand up to these two magnificent competitors? Why, if I wasn’t watching this happen, I would dismiss it as fantasy. Yet, here they are. A motorcycle and a horse topping nearly one-hundred and fifty miles per hour. . .”

I looked at Vasilij.

Could they have. . .

“. . . ten minutes ago, I would have given the race to Dumont, and second place to Kober, but now it appears that second is likely to be. . .” The announcer’s voice became more muted as he spoke to the unheard people within the studio, “You really think I would fall for this nonsense? I know that this race is starting a bit strange, but you won’t make me look like a fool! I should have you fired for that! There’s no way. . .” Silence filled the airwaves as someone at the studio muted his microphone, “Are we back now?” His voice had lost all the wonder and cheeriness it held before. It had been replaced with the voice of someone’s whose entire world had been destroyed and violated before them; a voice I had only heard one other time, “God, this will be the end of my career,” He took a deep breath, and a rustling page could be heard, “The first stage of the Grenfell-Maxwell Marathon, from the Great Salt Lake to Flores, Guatemala, started on June 24, 1954, at 12:00 PM. Now, at 12:15 PM on the same day, it. . . it. . .” He sighed, paused, and sighed again, “We have a winner.”

What!? How dare they! First, those two bastards break ahead, and now someone else has already won? Verdammt, we’ll lose at this rate. Then we’ll never get the wish, and the Reich will never be reformed.

I stopped, afraid I had spoken. They were too transfixed by the broadcast to notice if I had.

No. No, perfection is achieved by destroying the imperfect. And victory is achieved by destroying the undeserving victors. I cannot get caught up in minor setbacks. Not until I know who I can trust with my true goal.

That thought calmed me enough. This race was certainly going to be more difficult than I anticipated, but with both the Graf and our manpower, victory was an inevitability. This race was merely a test. A test to ensure that the imperfect is removed and the perfect rise. I smiled, now certain of my success.

I am Gottlieb Kober, and this race is how I got my wish.