The fall

HMAT Tyche – Upper Deck, Starboard Side - 15 September 1946 – 1445 hours

Dr. Mary Protandry hated sea travel. Not because of the motion—she’d endured the Channel in winter and North Atlantic convoys under blackout—but because of the proximity to other people. Too many male hands that didn’t know when to keep to themselves.

She stood on the upper deck, staring up at the unfolding drama with a small notebook tucked under one arm and her other hand gripping the railing. Her hair was pinned tight under a white cap. Her coat was grey, the hem marked faintly with iodine stains.

She worried briefly about her cargo of glass vials containing new experimental penicillin strains, cooled in a refrigeration case below deck. She checked on it regularly. Would they turn around and disembark? Would she need to move her cargo again? What was this alarm and gunfire and aeronautical tomfoolery about?!

Behind her, the Rat of Tobruk, Lieutenant Buck —was stalking around like he smelled trouble. He always looked like he expected the world to break in half but his fears seemed founded at the moment.

She adjusted her collar against the wind. The ship’s engines growled steadily beneath her feet, driving them slowly down the east river into open Atlantic ocean. She’d volunteered for the transfer after being outed in New York. Adelaide was waiting, and someone in Adelaide was waiting for her. And maybe, just maybe, she’d be allowed to keep working. Having been involved in both the collection, testing and vetting of strains, and also the mass production of penicillin in Pfizer’s New York factory meant she was an authority on this new **** -

A shriek of engines tore through the morning air. Mary’s eyes flicked up again, reflex sharp.

Above the river, slicing through the air was a silver jet aircraft—fast, low, wobbling slightly as it banked too hard. It had markings she didn’t recognize. American, yes. But strange. Sleek. Military.

Following its path she realised it was bound for the dirigible, high and massive, moving slowly with unnatural grace. Mary knew what a collision looked like. She’d seen bombers take hits over England. She’d seen bodies tumbling out of the sky like burning birds. But she had never seen anything like this.

The jet seemed to slow down as the engines cut and the plane ascended a parabolic arc, and at its vertex it slammed directly into the dirigible’s gondola —not a crash, more like a controlled impact. The jet folded, the wings scissoring through its own fuselage, then the metal twisted in a slow corkscrew and dropped away in pieces. There was a heartbeat of silence, like the sky inhaled.

They all watched. Everyone on the Tyche. Everyone in the city. The plane fell. Was Jetboy in it? A parachute opened below. The dirigible was directly above the Tyche. Then the airship exploded.

A white-hot flash lit the sky, followed by a ring of flame that bloomed outward like a flower made of fury, raining shards of metal and something else into the city below.

Mary didn’t flinch. She simply watched. Studied it.

Behind her, sailors shouted. An alarm bell rang once, confused, as if it didn’t know whether this counted as a drill or the end of the world.

Something glowed in the sky. A falling object, round, burning—debris, not a man. It tumbled, trailing sparks, and landed somewhere near the rear freight crates, deep in the Tyche’s hold.

She stared at the smoke trail hanging above New York like a god’s question mark.

“Bloody Americans,” she said softly, and turned back inside.