Before I continue, I'd like to thank everyone who has said nice things about my work thus far, and for pointing out a little recurring mistake (seeing as we're dealing in parallel universes here, I thought I could get away with the odd error so failed to re-read the books!). And no, Ceres Wunderkid, I don't give a f*** for convention!
Once again, the only character belonging to me is Dave (and the sister he mentions in passing, but she doesn't actually appear in the story so I'm not going to fight you for her). The aircraft is definitely mine.
Note: it's possible that the Fens and the Norfolk Broads are two different places, but hell, I only got a D in Geography.

We made our way to the town without further mishap. Will's leg wound was little more than a bad cut, and he tried very hard to stop the womenfolk from fussing over him. I stayed on deck most of the time, chatting to Tony about boats.
"My dad owns a boatyard; not proper working boats, mind, just fibreglass tubs for people to holiday in," I explained. "I used to try to help out at weekends. That's how I learned to swim!"
"I can see as how that would be an advantage," Tony laughed. "You didn't join the family firm, then?"
"Nah, too much damn paperwork. You want my sister for that," I replied. "She's a regular walking calculator; became a chartered accountant by the time she was nineteen, by God!" We rounded a bend in the river and beheld the town.
It was built alongside a broad, the local term for a large expanse of open water that gives the region its name. There were a few houses and shops, a meeting hall and a cluster of jettys, surrounded by boats. I was extremely relieved to see Aurora's gleaming hull riding the slight swell a little further out. Tony found a space to tie up in only a bit less time than it takes to find a parking space in London, and we disembarked. Mary was waiting with a tall, broad man who had an indefinable air of being IN CHARGE. He was introduced as Lord Faa.
"You the boss of this lot, then?" I enquired.
"Well, they always seem to expect me to know how to sort out everything. I suppose that's a definition of leadership," he replied. I grinned. "Practically THE definition of leadership, I reckon. You're gathering an impressive collection of weapons," I remarked. "This Magi-whatever must have really got your backs up, hmm?"
"You can't imagine," he growled. I believed him on that count; the horror stories I'd heard secondhand made my own experiences seem kind of tame.
"You're planning a revolt?" He nodded. "Want some air support?"
"You sure about this?" said Elaine, rather worried. "If you don't want to join in, that's fine," I replied. "But I for one am just a little riled about being shot at, dunked in the Thames and shot at a couple more times a bit later before we've even been here a day!"
"They've already tried to kill both of us," said Will. "I'm in!" Lyra nodded agreement.
"You can count me in!" Mary piped up, her bird-daemon settling on her shoulder. Elaine shrugged. "Well, the law of averages says Dave's got to have a good idea once in a while," she admitted. "Mary's the brains of the outfit, and if she reckons it's a good idea..."
Further comments were forestalled by a shouted warning, and a burst of gunfire. "What the hell-?" I drew my pistol and spun, seeing a large boat approaching. There was a big heavy machine gun on the prow, and it was strafing the waterfront. Gyptians with rifles, submachine guns or whatever else was handy were returning the fire. I got two wild snapshots off, but realised that it was useless.
"Come on, we have to get to Aurora!" Mary shouted over the gunfire. I nodded, and untied a punt from a nearby jetty. The others scrambled in behind me, and Lyra grabbed the pole. She handled it fairly well, and evidently she'd done this more times than me; ie at all.
We all made our way aboard Aurora, and I started up the engine whilst Mary tried to get the dorsal turret up manually. Before she could succeed, I got enough power to run the hydraulics, and the turret rose from within the fuselage. The twin miniguns slid from within the turret body, allowing Mary to get into her seat and begin firing.
I was relieved to see the enemy boat disintegrate into a cloud of splinters and body parts, but a second became visible behind it. Gunfire began to ping off the hull and starred the toughened glass windshield. Mary could be heard swearing over the intercom for a moment, then she remembered the jargon for the situation. "Stoppage, stoppage!" she shouted. I realised that she must have fired her whole ammunition load into the boat. I rolled my eyes a little, and blasted the remaining boat with my own guns.

Cheers erupted from the shore as I slowly taxied Aurora to a jetty and tied up. Lord Faa grinned broadly and offered his hand. "You have saved many lives," he said. "We are in your debt." I shook the proffered hand. "Don't worry about it. We were in as much danger as you anyhow," I replied. "Now, I think the case has been made in favour of us joining forces, don't you lot think?" The others chorused agreement, except for Mary who was in the cockpit trying to check the Drive system for damage. She needn't have bothered; I could clearly see that the transmitter array's protective nosecone was smashed. It wasn't made of the same supertough metal as the rest of Aurora, which blocked the energies released. I gave her a thumbs down sign, and pointed.
"Damn!" she shouted in frustration. "There goes half a million's worth of technology!" I sympathised; fixing the Drive would be a delicate and time-consuming process, and the parts had cost more than my last car.
"Oh, Jesus! Big airborne contacts inbound!" I ran for the cockpit, and examined the radar screen. "Zepplins, lots of them," I muttered to myself, "and a few fighters." I estimated we had about five minutes before they arrived. Mary was already fitting new belts of ammunition to the dorsal guns. I took a quick look at the round counter in my helmet HUD; more than enough left.
"Let's go, people!"
(Author's note: You may find that humming the Airwolf theme tune increases your enjoyment of this section.)
The others scrambled into their positions, except for Will. He took the copilot's seat and switched the rocket pods to his helmet sight. I noticed that the rear gun was deployed none the less.
"Ever the gentleman," I said mildly. It was one less thing for me to worry about, so what the hell.
I eased the throttles open, the rising whine having the same effect on my psyche as that really amazing orchestral bit in 'A Day In The Life'. We left the water, and our remaining weapons deployed; missiles from the wings, the rockets below the cockpit, and the lower gun turret. I grabbed for as much height as I could, and swung the nose towards the enemy force.
"There they are!" Will shouted. "They're just clearing that cloudbank!" He was right. We had a very slight altitude advantage, and they had no way of knowing we were after them.
"I see 'em. Get ready, folks, we're going to give those bastards one hell of an airshow!" I cut in the afterburners and raced towards our targets. The fighters saw us first, and swarmed in our direction. Pretty soon, they realised their mistake and swerved wildly, ruining their formation. That trick is almost as old as combat flying itself, and I had the added advantage of being in an aircraft that could probably survive a collision. The major problem wouldn't be the fighters, but the 40mm Bofours batteries on the airships, which were inaccurate but numerous and fast firing. Puffs of smoke surrounded us, and shrapnel pinged off the hull.

I sprayed fire in the direction of a fighter which tried to go head to head, but it wasn't damaged seriously. Mary took it out as it veered off. Will, meanwhile, was throwing rockets at zepplins to great effect. They still used hydrogen, rather than helium, and it exploded nicely when hit by a small C4 charge travelling at several hundred miles an hour. One shot slightly misfired, striking an engine gondola and hurling debris in all directions. I tried to avoid it, but a big lump of metal whirled off and slammed squarely into the port engine intake.
Theoretically, the mesh screen over both intakes would keep out unlucky birds or other small objects, but twenty five kilos of metal was more than they could withstand. The engine burst into flame, and bits of metal scattered everywhere. Our rapid loss of altitude caused Elaine to retract and exit the lower gun turret rather quickly, and I had a hard job regaining control. I pressed the fire button, flooding the afflicted engine with inert gas, and made an emergency landing in a small lake.
"Shit!" I raged helplessly. We were out of the fight, and the town had no real air defences. I looked out of the transparent ceiling panel in the cockpit, and was astonished to see only two airships, one of which was minus an engine and unable to manouevre. There were two or three fewer fighters than I remembered, as well, and a couple of the survivors were trailing smoke.
"Nice work, everyone," I said over the intercom. "You OK, Elaine?"
"A stiff drink wouldn't go amiss," she replied shakily, "but I'll live."
"Oh, I think we can manage that!"
The next eight hours are a bit of a blur. Once Aurora had been towed back to town we were given a real hero's welcome. A rough chronological account from my memory is as follows; Us being carried upon the shoulders of the crowd towards the inn -missing scene- Will performing a creditable version of 'Together Forever' by Rick Astley -missing scene- me asserting that marshlights were an easily explicable natural phenomenon -missing scene- and finally me waking up in a rowing boat, extremely hung over and with no idea of where I was. Well, at least this time I could still remember WHO I was. Luckily, a passing barge gave me a ride back to base.

Lyra was in the galley, attempting to provide breakfast for the whole crew. Will helpfully appeared holding a fire extinguisher. "Dame Hannah's boarding school for young ladies doesn't go in for home economics much, does it?" he laughed, waving aside the clouds of smoke. "I never thought I'd meet a worse cook than Dave!"
"And I never thought I'd meet a worse singer than Roger!" she countered playfully.
"Morning, you two," I said weakly, rummaging in a drawer for some aspirin.
"Morning, Dave. So, where did you end up sleeping?"
"Don't ask," I replied darkly. "Has anyone seen Mary and Elaine? I'm going to need at least three people to help fix that engine, and the damn stabilliser's playing up." Instead of floats, which played merry hell with airborne handling, I had devised a weight-balancing system which pumped hydraulic fluid between two big tanks in the wings. The gyroscope it was connected to was sensitive only to large movements, but we stayed near-perfectly level even in the choppy waters off the Cornish coast. However, one of the pumps was acting up a bit.
"Mary's on shore, but Mum hasn't surfaced yet. I think she'll want some of these," Will said, taking a couple of aspirins and putting them on a tray with a mug of tea and some toast.
"I didn't get this treatment," Lyra replied mock-sniffily.
"Only 'cause you were up before me." I left them to it, and decided to get breakfast from the inn. God willing, I'd have enough survival money to clear my tab; I carried the standard £500 in gold sovereigns, but by the way my head felt that might only just be enough.

Mary was already there, drinking a mug of strong black coffee (apparently yesterday evening had affected her as well) and studying a map of London with Lord Faa. She looked up and smiled wearily.
"Welcome back. Find any marsh spirits?" Ah, so THAT was what I was doing in that boat.
"Not one!" I replied, though for all I knew I might have been abducted by aliens and gang-probed. "What's with the map?"
"We're planning a spontaneous outbreak of civil disorder," Lord Faa replied.
"Sounds like fun. Any particular target, or is it just going to be a smash-everything job?"
"We've got several important buildings in mind, which we want to get into rather than simply burn down. There's useful information to be had," Mary replied. "If we can fight our way up to them-"
"I think you might be going about this slightly the wrong way. The Magisterium will realise what happened and probably take action that will make whatever intelligence you gather utterly useless, if you obviously break into a government building," I replied.
"Oh?" said Lord Faa.
"A bit of molotov cocktail chucking would be a fantastic distraction, which would give us a shot at some housebreaking. By all means set the place on fire afterwards," I suggested. "I don't claim to be an expert in this stuff, but I reckon we ought to try something like this..."