Watership Down Beyond The New World

by Sharks Potter

In 2012, Jamie McEwen went in search of his missing father. His search takes him on an adventure in a future world of giant talking rabbits... Meanwhile, four years after the Battle of Efrafa, Alan and the rabbits of Watership Down receive a strange visitor, encounter an old foe, new enemies, and embark on a grand adventure, which will determine the future of their world...

49. Catching the Winds

5 Days Out of Watership Down...

After departing Rome, the El-ahrairah-One followed a steady north-easterly course that would take it through Bosnia, Serbia and eventually Rumania. From there, they'd make their way to the edge of the Carpathians and begin a zigzag search of the mountain range. Although they'd managed to narrow down the general search area, they still had no way of knowing exactly where on the mountain range the first Crypt was. Hopefully, from the air, they'd be able to sight something that would pinpoint the location.

They made good time on their first day, crossing from Italy, across the Adriatic Sea, and into Bosnia; but on the second day aloft, the weather changed. Dark storm clouds were developing across the horizon, as they flew straight towards a massive storm front moving across Eastern Europe. Soon, the wind began kicking up and rain started to fall; a sign of an approaching storm.

In this future world, sophisticated satellite meteorology no longer existed, forcing the Watershippers to take weather readings using crude, old-fashioned techniques. Unfortunately, these readings were only possible when the storm was within sight, a few hours away at most. Had they had satellite imagery, not only would they have been able to see it coming days in advance, but they'd also realised it was much bigger than it looked, with gale-force winds which their airship wasn't built to withstand.

Up on the observation deck, Alan and Derek stared at the incoming storm. Alan was studying the readings on a small console of aircraft gauges that showed temperature, wind speed and direction – originally part of the Cessna's flight instrumentation, now modified to work as an onboard weather station. With that, some simple math and good observation, they could get a pretty good idea of what kind of weather lay ahead. It didn't look good.

"Wind has increased to 25 knots and worsening," said Alan, "What's the threshold for the airship?"

"I wouldn't risk more than 45," said Derek, "Any more than that and any exposed external structures would be torn apart." He gestured at the fragile solar panel arrays protruding from either side of the fuselage, where the Twin Otter's wings originally were. Those were the airship's Achilles' heel; if they were damaged, they'd lose their only means of recharging their batteries and the airship would be dead in the water. Even now, the aluminium poles where the panels were mounted were flapping dangerously against the gusts of wind, their guy-lines luckily keeping them from buckling.

"The storm appears to be moving north," said Alan, studying his instruments, "If we deviate south, maybe we can circle around it." The idea won immediate approval. Closing the weather-proof lid of the weather station console and securing the rigging best they could, they got below and sealed the hatch. In the cockpit, Hotdog dimmed the cabin lights, diverting all available power to the engine, and changed course to the south.

"All right, chaps, listen up. We've got a storm coming," Alan announced, "It could get a bit bumpy. Everybody brace yourselves for turbulence." The rabbits obeyed and scrunched up against the padded cabin walls, which were lined with old seat-cushions for protection. Not a moment too soon, the first wave of turbulence hit the airship, causing a slight bump. Several rabbits yelped.

"Frith protect us all," muttered Violet, trembling with fear. Although by now, she'd somewhat managed to control her fear of flying, she was still very skittish every time the airship made any unexpected moves or bumps. Bluebell moved closer to his mate to comfort her. Several rabbits started growing tense.

"Pipe down!" Bigwig barked, "Everyone keep calm! It's just a storm like any other; we Owsla rabbits have done patrolling in bad weather before." However, he obviously wasn't so convinced himself, as he leaned closer to Alan, so the others couldn't hear him. "Something's worrying you, isn't it? Come on, out with it!"

Alan shook his head, "I'm hoping my judgement about that storm is correct. If I'm wrong and it changes course, we could end up right in the middle of it." Bigwig frowned but didn't speak. Alan's judgement was good, yes, but certainly not infallible, like when he'd let Little Threar get caught. And, as an Owsla captain, who always ought to think ahead, he'd better prepare for the worst-case scenario.

"If we do get caught in it, do we have any backup plan?" asked Campion, also listening in. Alan looked at him solemnly. There simply was no backup plan; once you were caught in a storm like that up in the air, the only thing to do would be to ride it out and hope you came out in one piece. If you tried landing in these winds, you'd smash up the moment you touched the ground.

"Don't say a word about this to the others," Hazel ordered, "We've got enough problems to worry about as it is without having them all go tharn."

Unfortunately, the premonition of doom lurking just around the corner was already at hand, because, at that moment, Fiver began to moan and shiver as another vision took hold of him.

"The Messenger's desperate race to save his child continues; but fate keeps playing its cruel game by stalling him. Only by seeking help from above will he get to her before it's too late..." Then he collapsed, dazed and confused. The Watershippers looked grimly at each other, realising they were in for trouble. All they could do now for wait for the inevitable and deal with it when it happened.

Alan might have known his concerns and Fiver's vision would both turn out justified because it soon became apparent that they had seriously misjudged the storm. Outside, the bad weather stubbornly refused to abate; dark clouds reduced visibility to zero, while the wind and rain mercilessly pummelled the airship, yet, thanks to Derek's sturdy design, she continued to hold together. For now.

In the cockpit, Hotdog fought with the controls, trying to keep them on a steady southerly course that would hopefully take them around the storm. But that wasn't to be the case. Just as he cleared yet another cloud, instead of seeing clear blue skies ahead that would indicate they were in the clear, he saw a wall of thick black clouds, lit up by lightning strikes. Alan and Derek, occupying the other two seats in the cockpit, paled at the sight, realising their fatal mistake: the storm had changed course to the west, so, instead of clearing it, their plotted course had taken them deep in the heart of it, beyond the point of no return.

"Hold on to your socks, gents," said Hotdog, gunning the engine to full power, "This ride's about to get a hell of a lot rougher!"

Too late to turn around now, they stayed on their course, hoping to navigate the storm. Outside, the gale raged, battering the airship with forces way beyond its design limits. The cabin rocked violently, forcing everyone to cling fast to whatever they could find. Those who couldn't found themselves flung around the cabin like discarded ragdolls. Cabinets and lockets burst open, scattering their contents everywhere and injuring anyone caught in their path.

Hawkbit clung desperately to a seat-cushion nailed to the wall, using both teeth and claws; but in his fear, he was holding on too tight. The thin fabric tore, sending him flying and slamming into Dandelion and Strawberry, who were holding on to a partition nearby. The trio slid across the floor and into the galley, hitting the base of the large drinking-tank, causing it to topple over, barely missing them. The heavy container burst open as it hit the floor, drenching them all.

A hammock filled with oranges snapped off its pin, bombarding the cabin with stray oranges, which rolled along the floor like bowling-balls. Those lucky enough not to be hit ended up tripping over them instead, losing their balance. Losing his footing, Silver flew across the cabin, slamming into a tools locker, which burst open, bombarding him with heavy, jagged tools. His cries of pain were heard over the noise of the raging storm, before a loose spanner found him square on the head, knocking him out. Another wave of turbulence hit, causing the cabin floor to tilt sideways.

"Silver!" screamed Violet, watching Silver's unconscious body roll towards the boarding door in the rear of the cabin. His two-hundred-pound frame slammed into it full force, disturbing the latch, about to turn it over. Any second now, the door would open and Silver would find himself tipped out into the void, "Someone, help my brother!"

Bluebell made a move towards Silver, but Campion stopped him. Even if Bluebell could reach him, the buck wouldn't have the strength to pull a rabbit of Silver's size to safety with his bad heart, at least not without risking another seizure and getting them both killed.

Darting across the cabin, using his claws to anchor himself down onto the cabin carpet, Campion grabbed Silver by the ears and heaved him away from the door and safely into Violet and Bluebell's paws. He was unconscious and with an ugly bump on the head, but he would live. Violet shot Campion a smile of gratitude.

Pipkin, unable to grab hold of something, was being thrown around like a rubber toy, slamming onto the cabin walls and crying out in pain. Nearby, Sam, strapped to her seat, was desperately trying to reach him, but couldn't without unfastening her seatbelt and possibly injuring herself in the process. But someone else didn't give a hraka about the risk. Using his quick Owsla reflexes, Bigwig dashed across the cabin, grabbing Pipkin by the scruff of his neck and passed him to Sam. Unfortunately, he didn't notice the toppled drinking-tank from the galley rolling across the floor, coming straight at him.

Before Sam could even shout a warning, the drum slammed into Bigwig, throwing him off-balance; he was knocked sideways, landing face-first into a circuit-breaker panel behind the cockpit. There was a shower of sparks, a scream, and then Bigwig collapsed, still alive but stunned. Hazel and Fiver, nearest to him, rushed to his aid. Dragging him by his hind legs, the pulled him into the safety of a corner, using their weight to pin him to the floor.

Oblivious to the pandemonium transpiring in the back, in the cockpit, Alan, Hotdog and Derek had their hands full. It had been over an hour and still the storm showed no signs of abetting. The airship was being pushed way beyond its limits; the fuselage creaked and groaned in protest and the ominous sounds of tearing and straining above their heads told them the balloon envelope couldn't take much more either. If it breached, the highly-explosive hydrogen would make contact with the air outside and that would be the end of them.

"Wind gusts are at 50 knots!" yelled Hotdog, fighting the controls, "We're going to be ripped apart!" Over at the engineer's panel, Derek was rapidly throwing switches, reading gauges, in a desperate effort to keep his baby flying. Needles were jumping, warning lights were flashing and buzzers were blaring, as the airship struggled to stay in one piece.

CLANG!

Suddenly, one of the guy-lines anchoring the starboard solar panel array snapped. This caused the flimsy panel to start flapping around in the wind like a sheet of old cardboard. Both arrays were mounted on the fuselage by a thin framework of hollowed-out aluminium poles, not designed to withstand such stress. The poles buckled at their mountings like plastic straws before snapping completely and the array blew away like a tumbleweed in the wind.

On his panel, Derek saw the power-generation readouts on the starboard side drop to zero. Disengaging the breakers for the starboard array and switching over to the port-side one, he tried to calm himself. The ship was designed to keep flying even with just one panel. If the port array held, they could still carry on. But the worst-case scenario was inevitable.

A bolt on the port array mounting base popped out; the array was torn from the fuselage, but still remained attached to the airship on the end of its guy-lines. The crosswind sent it smashing against the rear of the fuselage, shattering the solar panels as it went. At last, the mangled framework couldn't hold any more and it tore free too, joining its twin into oblivion.

In the cockpit, Derek cursed out loud as he saw the port-side power readouts also drop to zero. All three men knew what this meant; they'd lost their only means of producing the precious electrical power that made their airship flyable. They still had the batteries but, sooner or later, they would run out and then this fancy airship would be little more than a floating balloon drifting dead in the sky.

But there was no time to think about that now. Looking out the windshield, Alan saw something that made his stomach bottom out: bolts of lightning lighting up the sky. There they were, flying straight through an electric storm in a hydrogen-filled blimp; and, friction-resistant or not, the balloon canvas was an open target for the lightning. They were sitting on a hydrogen bomb waiting to explode! Alan stood up.

"We've got to rig the grounding line now!"

Struggling to keep their balance in all this turbulence, he and Derek hurried aft, leaving Hotdog alone at the controls. The main cabin was a shambles; food, equipment and spilled water lay scattered everywhere, amidst battered and bruised rabbits, covered in each other's vomit. Derek opened up an overhead locker, taking out a length of steel cable, one end of which trailed out through a small hole in the roof of the cabin, just below the balloon.

While building his airship, the possibility of an in-flight lightning strike had been brought up. For this contingency, a lightning-conductor had been installed on the top of the balloon, with a line trailing down the side of the envelope and into the cabin, in order to channel the strike down, where it would ground itself out in the fuselage skin. But in order for the system to work, the end of the line had to be rigged in place manually, so that it would safely ground out on the underside of the fuselage, away from any circuits or hydrogen lines.

With Alan unwinding the cable, Derek rushed to a small hatch in the centre of the cabin floor. Tearing it open, revealing the metal ring of a steel peg drilled into the fuselage skin, he hooked the cable into place with an alligator clip. Then he noticed the water from the drinking-tank spilled all over the cabin floor. Water and electricity – a lethal combination!

"Everybody off the floor now!" he shouted, grabbing hold of an overhead rack and lifting himself up, getting his feet off the floor.

With the humans' help, the rabbits scrambled to climb up somewhere so that their paws weren't touching the wet floor. Not a second too soon, one particularly large bolt of lightning struck the lightning conductor. In the millionth of a second, the current surged down along the line, through the cabin and into the fuselage skin. A bright blue flash lit up the cabin, followed by a shower of sparks, as every exposed metal object or surface was hit by the surge. Then it was over; the flash dissipated and an invigorating smell of fresh, ozonated air filled the cabin – followed by the acrid smell of burning. Bluebell was the first to notice the source.

"Frith of Inle, fire!"

Looking, Alan saw a bag containing some signal flares that had been lying on the floor was ablaze. Its contents whooshed and burst into a bright red fireball. Thick red chemical smoke filled the cabin, making them all choke. And the only fire extinguisher they had onboard was stored up front in the cockpit, with the fire blocking the way. Several rabbits began to panic, scampering to get away from the flames.

"No, stay where you are!" Alan shouted, "Keep the hell off the floor! There could be another lightning strike!"

With the risk of being struck by more lightning at any minute and killed, Alan dashed across the wet cabin and, frantically scooping up handfuls of the spilled water on the floor, began dousing the flames. After several frantic tries, the fireball finally sizzled and went out in a cloud of steam and smoke.

The damaged airship, now running off its finite battery power, continued on its way, its battered and exhausted crew praying to see the light of day again. Finally, after several hours, the storm began to abate. The sky cleared and the winds ceased. But the Watershippers had little cause for celebration. Despite having survived the storm, their problems had only just started and the worst was still to come...

It was late afternoon, the day after the storm. The El-ahrairah One had landed on a small barren rock in the middle of a vast, empty sea. They'd cleared the storm, only to discover that they'd been blown far south of their original course and floating over an unfamiliar sea, with no way of getting back their bearings. Then, they'd sighted this rocky island poking out of the water, which, although small, was big enough to land on, as well as a good reference point for figuring out their position, because it just so happened, this wasn't just any rock.

Still standing tall and proud atop the rock was the familiar marble structure of the Acropolis, which had once towered over the ancient city of Athens. Nicely preserved, like the Coliseum back in Rome, albeit more weather-beaten, the Rock of Acropolis was all that was left of the great city, the rest of it having sunk to the deep long ago from the earthquakes during the Apocalypse. There was no other land as far out as the eye could see. Maybe some of the islands had survived, but most of mainland Greece was gone, vanished into the depths of the sea like a new Atlantis.

With no time for sightseeing, the Watershippers were hard at work, tending to the wounded and assessing the damage to their ship. Regarding injuries, luckily there were only a few cuts, bruises and, in the case of the electrocuted Bigwig, some mild burns and sizzled fur, as well as a hell of a temper directed at anyone who dared make fun of the tuft of fur between his ears standing on end like a yona's spikes.

Alan, Derek and Hotdog had made a full assessment of the damage and the news was not good: some damage to the weather station, some loose rigging, one hell of a mess in the cabin, some ruined provisions, as well as some damaged equipment from the turbulence. The greatest loss of all was the solar panels.

Derek had spent several hours examining what was left of the arrays, trying to improvise some way to work the problem, but coming up with no viable solution.

"Can't we improvise something with what we have onboard?" asked Hotdog, "Cobble together a hand-wound generator or something?" Derek rolled his eyes.

"Oh sure, what don't you lend me your Travel-Easy hand-wound mobile charger while you're at it?" he said sarcastically, "Without new panels or a generator, it's useless. The only source of electricity out here is the lightning strikes that nearly brought the airship down!"

"How far can we get with what we have left in the batteries?" asked Alan. Derek scratched his head, crunching some numbers.

"Assuming the winds are with us, on a near-full charge we could do maybe 150 miles. I can push it to 200 by shutting off anything non-essential to save power, but that's about it."

Alan shook his head grimly. They were still 500 miles from the Carpathians and over 1500 miles from England. There was no hope of getting to their destination on time, much less turn back. Realising the gravity of their situation, Alan asked Hazel to call a meeting. They all assembled inside the Parthenon to hold conference.

"As most of you already know, our mission status has changed completely," he said, "I won't try and sugarcoat this for you; we are literally up hraka creek without a paddle. With the loss of the solar panels, we won't get very far. We don't even have enough power to make it to the Crypt. So what do we do now?"

"What do we do?" repeated Hawkbit, as if the answer was obvious, "We turn round and get back home before we all end up getting killed out here!"

"Has your courage deserted you, Hawkbit?" asked Bigwig with disgust. As far as he was concerned, anyone who abandoned a mission to save one of their own, and an Owsla rabbit at that, was a coward.

"Have your senses deserted you, Bigwig?" retorted Hawkbit incredulously, "Wake up, all of you! There is no more mission! It's all gone to Inle! We can't carry on and we try, we'll only end up stranded and lost in this empty, abandoned world forever!"

"I'm afraid it's too late to turn back now, Hawkbit," said Hazel, who had obviously being paying closer attention to what Alan was saying, "The only way home is forward." Hawkbit looked scandalised, but said nothing. Hazel looked at Alan.

"Maybe we can continue our journey on foot?" he suggested, "After all, El-ahrairah and Rubscuttle did it long before us and they didn't fly..." But Alan shook his head.

"It would take weeks, if not months, to get to the Carpathians on foot," he said, "This isn't a simple trek from Sandleford to Watership Down across flat countryside. There are going to be mountains and who knows what else between us and the Crypt. By the time we get there, the Crypt will have been found and looted by Crowley's goons, and Lucy will be dead. We need proper transport and we need it now."

"Easier said than done, Al," said Derek solemnly, "I don't think we're going to find any aircraft maintenance base with tools and replacement parts down the road. After seven hundred years, they'll be nothing left standing, not here, or anywhere around the world." The situation looked pretty hopeless; until a certain rabbit with a beautiful mind, spoke up.

"Then, what about looking for one underground?" suggested Blackberry, "You know, at one of those giant man-warrens built by humans, like the one we have back home under the Honeycomb? Surely, there have to be more..." Everyone was on their feet in an instant.

"Cor blimey, he's right!" exclaimed Alan. Why hadn't they thought about it sooner? While little or nothing had survived on the surface, the HABs, built for the Apocalypse and designed to withstand the passage of time, were another story. Their own HAB back in England was not the only one on the planet; every country around the world had had one or more of them, to house a select number of survivors to rebuild after the asteroid impact. As long as their structure remained airtight, their contents, including any tools or parts they needed to repair the airship, would be literally frozen in time. All they had to do was find one.

Alan approached Blackberry, "You're a damn genius, you know that, old chap?" he said, giving the buck a gentle hug. Their previous quarrel seemed like a lifetime ago. Blackberry in turn felt the guilt of his cruel outburst towards his friend finally lift off his chest.

With a new plan laid out, the Watershippers got to work trying to figure out where, within their 200-mile flying radius, was the nearest HAB. All they had for reference were a number of old satellite printouts from their HAB's control room, which showed the locations of the other HABs across the globe in the form of small, red circles marked with an identification number, used for radio communication.

Grabbing the dossier containing the printouts from the cockpit, Alan brought them outside and spread them out atop a large marble slab from a collapsed pillar. Flipping through the printouts, they found one of south-eastern Europe, including Greece. These printouts obviously pre-dated the Apocalypse, because the Greek peninsula was still whole, just as Alan remembered it from the 21st century. Even the markings had no coordinates to mark the exact locations of the HABs, giving them only a rough idea of where they were.

"The HAB nearest to us is about 20 miles from Athens, up on Mount Parnytha," said Alan, studying the map on the printout, "Well, we can scratch that one for a start. The whole region is underwater." Across the Aegean, on the coast of Turkey, was another HAB, but, looking more closely at the marking, they saw it had been crossed out with an X, with a handwritten note spelling 'reactor blew'. Just a pile of radioactive debris waiting to be dug up. Another HAB in Cyprus was too far away. Still out of luck.

"Wait, there's another HAB up north, right over there," said Derek, pointing at another marking in the north-eastern section of the Greek peninsula. Alan chuckled, recognising the spot.

"Mount Olympus," he exclaimed, "The tallest mountain in Greece. What better place to built a HAB when the whole country is about to sink to the deep? If we're in luck, that HAB should still be intact and above water. That'll be our next stop, lads...and ladies," he added sheepishly, giving Violet and Sam a wink.

"You heard him, chaps," said Bigwig, "Rest period's over! Time to get moving!"

Having worked out their new destination, the Watershippers boarded the El-ahrairah One and took to the skies once again. Their destination: the Greek HAB on Mount Olympus, where they hoped to find leftover parts or tools to repair their damaged airship, before making a run for the Carpathians and the Crypt of Wealth – if Crowley and his thugs hadn't already beaten them to it. Before departing the Rock of Acropolis for the last time, Sam unofficially named the surrounding new sea, the Athenian Sea, in memory of the vanished city of Athens.

It was late at night. The interior of the airship was nearly completely dark, illuminated only by a couple of flashlights. Even most of the instruments in the cockpit had been shut down to save power. Despite these draconian measures, they had already used up nearly half of their remaining power. The batteries were getting low and if they couldn't find some alternative source of power at the Olympus HAB, it would be the end of the road.

With Hotdog and Derek on their sleep period, Alan was at the controls; in the back, Sam was manning the engineer's station. Although she hadn't the foggiest of how to operate anything on the console, she'd been instructed by Derek to wake him should any warning lights start flashing. Otherwise, everything should function like clockwork on automatic. According to their latest navigational reading, they should reach Olympus by daybreak.

Below them, the sea had finally ended and they were flying over land once again, indicating a sizeable portion of northern mainland Greece – including Mount Olympus and hopefully its HAB too – had survived.

As Alan sat in the pilot's seat in silence, thinking of Lucy, he was snapped out of his trance by Pipkin, who had come up front to keep him company. Alan gestured him up onto the empty navigator's seat beside him. Pipkin gazed in awe at the horizon through the windshield. Of all the rabbits, he couldn't get enough of the bird's eye point of view from flying. Alan reached over and patted him between the ears.

"Oh, Alan, there is nothing like flying!" he exclaimed ecstatically, "How I wish Frith had given rabbits the gift of flying! I could stay up here forever!" Alan chuckled in amusement at Pipkin's childish innocence.

"Well, you'll just have to make do with man's ingenuity for flying," he said, picking Pipkin up and placing him onto his lap. He pointed at the control stick in front of them. "Give it a slight push." Pipkin felt very uneasy. He'd never piloted an airship or any kind of hrududu before. What if he made a mistake and caused an accident?

"Alan, I don't know if I can..."

"Take the controls," Alan repeated, "Don't worry; I'll keep you out of trouble. Go on, just give it a push." Pipkin complied; unfortunately, he did it too roughly, accidentally causing the airship's nose to suddenly tilt downwards. In the back, Sam, who had been dozing off in her seat, uttered a yelp; this, in turn, caused several of the rabbits to stir in the back.

"What's going on up there?" called Bigwig, "Something wrong?"

"Nothing, just some turbulence," said Alan, quickly levelling out the airship, "Go back to sleep." He turned back to Pipkin, who was shocked by what he had done, thinking he'd just come close to killing them all. But Alan smiled reassuringly.

"All right, now try pulling it towards you," he said. Pipkin complied, albeit with some difficulty (without thumbs, it wasn't easy for a rabbit's paws to get a firm grip on the control stick). The airship rose skywards and then levelled out again. After showing Pipkin how to turn the airship left and right and making him do a few test manoeuvres until he was satisfied he'd gotten the hang of it, he handed the controls over to him proper.

"It's your ship, Captain Pipkin," he said jokingly, "Command's yours!" Pipkin, feeling embarrassed at all this praise, not to mention nervous at suddenly having full control of a giant hrududu he barely knew how to fly, but too proud to cower in front of Alan, took up his post. Following his friend's instructions, he held the airship level and on course.

Leaving Pipkin alone at the controls, Alan went to the back to check things out, always making sure to stay within close reach of the cockpit in case something got out of hand up front. In the back, everyone was sleeping soundly; even the ever-vigilant Bigwig and Holly were out like lights. They all had a mission coming up in the morning and needed all the rest they could get.

Pouring himself a cup of cold tea and grabbing an orange, he walked over to the periscope to do a sweep of the horizon. All was clear; no sign of danger or anything else of concern. They'd found, once above 10,000 feet, the elil couldn't reach them, as they couldn't fly so high. Up here, they had the sky all to themselves. Zooming into a target ahead, Alan saw something that made him smile.

"Everybody, wake up!" he called, "Come look at this!" The rabbits, as well as Derek, Hotdog and Sam, crowded around Alan, to take a look through the periscope. Sure enough, up ahead was their destination. Mount Olympus was finally in sight!

"That's our destination, lads," said Alan, "We land at first light!"

Normally, it would have been a cause for celebration. But this was not the time to celebrate; they still had a long way to go before they could find the Crypt and that depended entirely on whatever they could find at the Greek HAB...

Space is silent. No sound can travel in the infinite vacuum of the universe. Even in the Pandora Belt circling the Earth, no sound could be heard from the millions of fragments of the shattered asteroid that had destroyed human civilization long ago, as well as ejected fragments of the Earth itself, debris from satellites, and even the International Space Station, colliding endlessly against each other as they drifted along, locked into an eternal orbit around the globe. Every now and then, some fragments would get bumped, knocking them out into deep space or else hurling them towards the Earth's atmosphere for a fiery re-entry.

From the farthest reaches of the solar system, a small meteor came hurdling towards Earth. No bigger than a football, yet travelling very fast, it struck the Pandora Belt like a bullet, shattering on impact against a larger rock. This in turn unleashed a chain reaction as the orbits of several fragments were disrupted, causing them to break free of the Belt and into a new orbit. The Earth's gravity immediately took over, pulling them towards it. Unlike small fragments which vaporized instantly upon re-entry, the largest of these were the size of cars – too big to be instantly vaporized. In a few hours, their orbit would decay completely and they would enter the Earth's atmosphere…direct over northern Greece.

The early hours of morning brought a strong wind blowing across the summit of Mount Olympus. The El-ahrairah One was flying between the peaks, following a zigzag pattern over the mountain, searching for any sign of the HAB. It was anything but easy; all HABs were 99% subterranean, with only the entrance built above ground. Several centuries of wind and rain would have no doubt erased most if not all traces of such an entrance. Unless they could find some sign of past human activity to pinpoint the site, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Up on the observation deck, Alan and Sam were scanning the mountaintop in all directions with binoculars, looking for any trace of the HAB's entrance. Not a damn thing. No matter where they looked, the mountain appeared pristine and untouched, as if no human being had ever set foot up there before. Bigwig, also surveying the horizon with them on deck, shook his head at this seemingly futile task.

"This is hopeless," he grumbled, "I'm telling you, there's nothing down there! We must be looking in the wrong place." Alan felt himself grow desperate; perhaps the map on the printout was wrong? What then? Meanwhile, the batteries were getting dangerously low. Unless they could find some means of recharging them by the end of the day, they would end up stranded hundreds of miles from home and their mission would be over.

Passing over Mytikas' Peak, the highest peak on Mount Olympus, they came upon a vast plateau on the mountaintop. At first glance, it looked just like the rest of the mountain; rocks, ice, and patches of tundra-like grasslands, often found at this altitude. But, looking more closely, they realised there was something else too.

Barely visible against the carpet of shrubs covering the plateau was, what looked like, a large circle with an H marked inside it. Although faded by time and covered by a thick blanket of vegetation, it was unmistakably the outline of an old helipad, probably an aerodrome. And the only reason why there would be an aerodrome so high up on the mountain meant there had to be something important down there... This had to be it! They'd found the HAB! And not a moment too soon.

"I think we've arrived!" said Alan excitedly. At last, things were looking up for a change. Down below, Hazel announced the good news to the other Watershippers, amidst cheers and applause. Hotdog steered the airship over the plateau, hovering a hundred feet above the aerodrome.

The winds on the mountain were too strong for the El-ahrairah-One to make a landing without risking a smash-up, so the expeditionaries would be forced to repel down on ropes. Alan and Derek would lead the expedition, which would consist of them, Hazel, Bigwig, Fiver, Campion, Silver, Hawkbit, Dandelion and Strawberry. Bluebell, Violet, Pipkin, Holly, Blackberry, Sam and Hotdog would remain onboard, to keep the airship ready, in case they had to make a hasty departure.

"Make sure you keep your radio tuned in to our frequency, the engine on standby and the repel line lowered at all times," ordered Alan, "If you see any signs of trouble, send word and we'll haul arse back here on the double."

Alan and Derek zipped up their thermals and donned utility belts containing flashlights, radios and all the tools they might need. They each also took empty rucksacks, in which to carry anything useful they could salvage from the HAB.

The winch close to the boarding door was unwound and the cable lowered until it was touching the ground below. The men fastened ascenders to the cable, preparing to repel down.

Alan went first. It wasn't easy; the strong mountain winds kept swinging him to and fro all the way down, making his head spin. At last, he felt his feet touch down on solid ground. Giving Derek the thumbs-up, they began lowering the rabbits, which couldn't repel down unaided, down in slings.

Soon, Bigwig, Hazel, Campion, Dandelion, Hawkbit and Silver (the latter being violently sick from the ride down) were safely on level ground. But as they were lowering Strawberry down, trouble struck. The makeshift sling around his middle, which was badly worn, suddenly ripped. Poor Strawberry found himself hanging precariously a hundred feet above the ground, clinging desperately to the ripped sling with his claws, which seemed about to give way at any second.

"Help! Pull me up! Pull me up!" he screamed in terror, trying not to look at the ground far below. If he lost his grip now, he'd be splattered all over the mountain top like strawberry marmalade. He felt his insides turn to ice, feeling the canvas he was clinging to slowly start to give way.

Up top, Sam and the others hurriedly tried retracting the winch and hoist him back up, but Alan, realising that by the time they could reach him, Strawberry would be in a freefall, stopped them.

"No, keep lowering him down!" he bellowed over the noise of the wind, "Release the brake and let him drop!" They all gaped at him, wondering if he'd flipped his marbles. Strawberry lost it completely, screaming at them not to let him fall. Noticing their hesitation, Alan shouted, "Now, damn it! That's an order!"

Sam half-heartedly complied and released the brake. Under Strawberry's weight, the winch began unwinding itself rapidly, sending the terrified Strawberry in a rapid descent – too fast for comfort, but not fast enough to cause a serious injury. With only ten feet still to go, the damaged harness finally gave way completely. With a scream, Strawberry fell, landing with a thud like a sack of potatoes. They all hurried over to him.

"Strawberry! Strawberry, talk to me!" shouted Dandelion, "Frith of Inle, don't you dare be dead!" For a minute, Strawberry didn't stir; then, he eyes suddenly sprang open, a look of absolute terror on his face. Incredibly, he hadn't been hurt, other than having the hraka scared out of him.

"You know, Strawberry, sometimes you're in a class of your own," muttered Campion, helping the still-shaken Strawberry to his feet. Other than a few bruises, he hadn't been harmed. But if he had been a few feet higher off the ground, he could have had any number of broken bones.

"You're one lucky bucko," said Bigwig, "Great big dandies like you always have the irritating habit of worming their way out of tight scrapes, you know that?" Strawberry shot Bigwig a dirty look, suggesting he go pass hraka on his marli.

With the El-ahrairah-One still circling the mountain top, the expeditionaries made their way over to the H. As they'd thought, it was indeed an old helipad, half-buried beneath centuries' worth of earth and shrubs, no doubt part of a larger aerodrome used to transfer people and supplies to the HAB. But, aside from the helipad, time had long since erased all traces of any surface structures of the base. Finding the entrance below, if there still was one, wasn't going to be easy.

Splitting up in pairs, they began scouring the plateau for any signs of the entrance. Not a thing. Then, while searching over by a clamp of rocks, Fiver discovered a ditch, the sides of which he noticed were lined with traces of that rough, stone-like material humans used for building their warrens called concrete. This was no ordinary ditch.

Jumping into the ditch, he began sniffing the earth on the bottom; his super-sensitive rabbit's sense of smell didn't take long to pick up the tell-tale scent of old, stale air, not unlike that found in abandoned warrens, seeping up from underneath the soil. There was something down there! Scampering back up, he called his friends over.

Alan scampered down into the ditch and, using his knife, began chipping away at the soil where Fiver had picked up the scent. It wasn't long before the blade punched clean through, revealing a pitch-black hole. The ground beneath their feet was hollow!

Shining his flashlight through the small hole, Alan saw the outlines of dirty concrete walls and what looked like a couple of old army trucks covered in cobwebs. It seemed they'd found the entrance.

"Good job, Fiver," he praised his friend. He turned to the others, "We need diggers here, on the double!"

"You heard the ithe, you lot," said Bigwig to his Owsla, "Hawkbit, Dandelion, Strawberry, down on your forepaws and start digging!" Hawkbit groaned at being ordered to do such dull work, but, catching Bigwig's warning gaze, held his tongue. It wasn't long before the earth was cleared away, revealing the entrance to a pitch-black cavern deep inside the mountain.

"Ground expedition to mothership," called Alan over the radio, "Hotdog, we've found something here. Be advised, we're going below ground to investigate. We'll be out of contact for a few minutes."

Alan went first, slipping and sliding down the landslide of loose rock and earth that had piled in over the centuries, until he found himself level with the floor. Behind him, his companions followed suit.

Shining their flashlights around, the humans saw this was indeed no natural cavern; they had entered what looked like an old vehicle storage area, containing a couple of abandoned army trucks standing silent in a corner, the faded blue-and-white Greek flag still visible on their worn paintwork. One side of the chamber was completely filled in with earth, probably where the entrance, now completely caved-in, had once been. A thick layer of dust and undisturbed cobwebs coated everything, indicating nobody had been here in centuries.

"Looks like this place had once been a fallout shelter, probably a mothballed relic from the Cold War," muttered Derek, studying the archaic architecture of the underground facility. It made sense why the Greek military would refurbish and utilise one of these old shelters, designed to withstand a nuclear holocaust, to house their people during the Apocalypse.

They approached a slide-door behind one of the trucks. The latch was frozen stiff from long-term disuse and took the combined strength of both Alan and Derek until it finally turned over and they were able to slide the rusted door open. On the other side, the party found themselves in a dark corridor, leading in opposite directions throughout the facility. Flaking paint and crumbling plaster covered the walls; in many places whole chunks of it had fallen away completely, exposing the rusty framework inside the concrete. It seemed the HAB hadn't remained airtight all these years, letting air and humidity penetrate and causing decay. The humans felt their hopes plummet; a HAB not sealed tight meant anything inside would be subject to corrosion unless stored in some airtight container and likely unusable after all these years.

Derek walked over to a bank of circuit-breakers on the wall and tried throwing a few. No power, of course. If their flashlights died down here, they'd be lost forever in the dark. Not a comforting thought. Meanwhile, they had a big facility, several square kilometres in size, to explore.

"We should split up," suggested Campion, "We can cover more ground this way."

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," said Silver, getting goosebumps at the musty darkness that filled the place.

"You're probably right," scoffed Hawkbit sarcastically, "The Black Rabbit might be lurking down here, waiting to pick us off one by one!" Several rabbits' eyes went wide.

"We can live without the sarcasm, Hawkbit," Hazel chastised him. They had enough problems at it was without this idiot tempting fate. Truth be told, he wasn't too keen on them splitting up in a place like this either.

"They'll be a lot of ground to cover down here; HABs can go on for miles," argued Derek, "It will take all damn day to search this place if we stay in one group."

"All right, we'll split up into two groups," said Alan, pointing to the right, "Deke, you take Silver, Dandelion, Hawkbit and Strawberry and go that way. See if you can find the generator. We need light and power." He pointed to the left, "Hazel, Fiver, Campion, and Bigwig, with me. We'll look for extra provisions and communications equipment. If there's a working satellite imagery station here, we can use it to pinpoint the way to the Crypts. Make sure to keep in constant contact, guys, and nobody strays away from his group."

Splitting up, the two groups began searching the facility, top to bottom. Campion's suggestion that they split up proved to be justified, because the place was enormous, an endless maze of corridors and rooms, not unlike their own HAB back on Watership Down. Some sections were ruinous and often inaccessible, others still in fairly good shape.

Alan led his party along another corridor, down a spiral staircase, until they came to some sort of meeting hall or conference room for the facility's top staff. At the far end of the room was a stage with a large Greek flag used as a drape in the background and a microphone stand in the foreground, where the Greek Prime Minister would speak to the nation via satellite broadcast during the last days. A long mahogany table and chairs stood in the centre of the room, where the select VIPs that formed the skeleton government of the HAB would hold conference underground. A fine coat of dust and mould covered everything.

Exploring further, they found the communications room. Presumably originally equipped with Cold-War-era equipment, the place had been upgraded and modernised, to serve as the nation's command centre during the Apocalypse. Although most of the equipment appeared still intact, without electrical power, the satellite imagery and radios were all useless.

"So much for finding the Crypts the easy way," muttered Alan in disappointment, "Looks like we won't be putting our problems in the hands of technology any time soon."

He glanced at some mouldy papers lying scattered all over a nearby desk, all in illegible Greek and making no sense whatsoever, although Alan did recognise several mechanical drawings of the long-derelict facility, including a map. Unfortunately, all the areas were marked in Greek, making it impossible to tell what was what. Nothing of interest here.

Further down, they found a few more even less likely places of finding anything useful, including a pantry, still stocked high with leftover canned goods, but all of which were reduced to crumbling chunks of rust and their contents long spoiled. A few ran-down dormitories, offices, utility rooms, and a storeroom filled with safety suits and rebreathers for surface operations during the Apocalypse, all ditto.

Exploring further, they made a rather gruesome discovery in the facility's chapel, which was filled high with decaying human skeletons, probably the HAB's former occupants, who had died down here when the facility's life-support systems had given out. Other rooms were either locked up or collapsed and completely inaccessible. Then, they stumbled upon a library.

This place looked like it might have something worthwhile, so Alan ushered them in. Rows upon rows of dusty shelves, most still lined with books, filled the room. Many of them had grown musty and mouldy over the years, but most were still in legible condition. Besides spare parts and power, another thing they needed urgently was information. Unlike electronic technology, printed libraries could last through the ages.

"Anyone remembered to bring along his library card?" he asked jokingly.

The library's browsing database was off-line, so Alan had to resort to using the old Dewey-decimal system instead. Hopefully, some old-school nerds still catalogued their libraries using old-fashioned systems in the 2030s. Going through a drawer at the librarian's desk, he found a familiar box of cards he used to use as a student, labelled 000 to 999. Voila!

"Thank heavens for good old hard copies," he muttered, browsing through the cards, "911, no... 912: Geography: Graphic Representations of Earth. This is it!"

Following the serial number on the card, they found a bank of filing cabinets in a corner. Going through, Alan found what he was looking for: a dossier containing several high-definition satellite-imagery maps, printed circa 2029 – showing the changed world after the Apocalypse, as it was today. These would sure help improve their navigation. He shoved the maps into his backpack.

Browsing further, he found something else interesting under 029: State Information and Archives. Going through a drawer of copies of reports on old, declassified military operations released to the public after their secrecy had expired, hoping to find information on the Crypts, he found one of particular interest, dating back to 1945; a translation of the original Kriegsmarine report by the Nazi scientist Dr Martin Heinz they'd found in Clint Van Owen's old safe. Could this be the key to the mystery surrounding that baffling ISV virus that had brought Woundwort back from the dead?

Alan read the report aloud. It outlined the details of a secret mission arranged by direct order of Adolf Hitler, involving an expedition to Antarctica. It had all started in 1938, with Nazi Germany making plans for expanding into foreign territories and, anticipating war, the Nazis had decided to probe the southern ocean for whale oil, in case imports were cut off, dubbed the German Fat Plan. Dr Heinz was one of the scientists on the Schwabenland expedition to Antarctica, but unlike the rest of the science crew, he had his own mission. During ice sampling, he had discovered what he described as 'a microbial organism of non-terrestrial origin', apparently brought to Earth by an ancient meteor millions of years ago and preserved in the polar ice.

A sample of that microbe - which Alan was certain had been what would later be known as ISV – was brought back to Berlin for further study. Years later, in 1945, with the Third Reich about to fall to the Allies, before committing suicide, Hitler had given Heinz, now a decorated SS officer and lead scientist, secret orders to return to Antarctica to collect more samples of the alien microbe and continue his research in a safe location in South America, as part of a certain Operation Unsterblichkeit, or immortality.

Heinz was eventually tracked down by a joint SAS/Mossad operation in South America in 1958 and brought to Britain for trial. Despite intensive interrogation, no trace of his secret, post-war research was ever found. Eventually Heinz was led to Albert Pierrepoint's gallows, his last words reportedly being 'death is only the beginning'. As for his work, it had seemingly died with him...only for it to resurface literally out of the blue here in the future, with evidence suggesting someone else was continuing it back in the 21st century. It was utterly baffling.

"This doesn't make sense," said Alan, "How can a discovery of this magnitude literally vanish under the carpet for over 60 years, only to resurface in a military contractor's laboratory in 2010? And then, a sample of the same virus to turn up buried here? How the hell did Virusine get hold of Heinz' lost research?"

Remembering how the company laboratory had burned down and the mysterious disappearance of its CEO Dr Clint Van Owen, Alan realised there had to be some conspiracy afoot. Then, suddenly, he remembered; Dr Van Owen had known his brother Royce! After all, he'd met the man in person at his brother's funeral all those years ago! And the destruction of Virusine had occurred around the same time the Shardik had been lost... The realisation hit Alan like a ton of bricks. The rabbits were stunned.

"Your own brother knew about this?" gasped Bigwig, almost accusingly, "He had something to do with this...this evil disease that brought Woundwort back from the Shadowlands?!" Poor Alan couldn't even find the words to answer him, realising his own estranged brother was heavily implicated in a plot involving a sinister Nazi experiment that made it possible to resurrect the dead, literally unlocking the key to immortality! Could Hitler have been the original intended test subject? Perhaps that was why they had destroyed all traces of his body? Alas, it hadn't stopped the virus from resurrecting another murderous dictator in this day and age.

"I don't know what to say," Alan muttered, feeling sick to his stomach, "I can't believe Royce would get mixed up in something like this. For crying out loud, he was a decorated war hero, a patriot through and through...!"

"Maybe he decided his true loyalties lay elsewhere," said Campion solemnly. Although it stung to admit it, Alan couldn't help but feel Campion had a good point. Ronald Fields was one good example of someone who'd been close to him going bad. He and Royce had been estranged for years, he had no family of his own, nothing to keep him honest. What was there to keep him from falling in with some shady corporation like Virusine? On the other hand, who could have destroyed the Virusine laboratory when they had their prize right within their grasp? Why would someone steal Van Owen's safe containing the research and a sample of the virus, only to bury it out in the middle of nowhere and leave it? It certainly didn't seem like the work a corporate rival, as it had been printed in the press. And how was Royce connected to all this?

Noticing his distress, Fiver approached Alan, "There's no point in blaming yourself, Alan. Whatever wrong choices you brother made, it doesn't make you in any way responsible for Woundwort's return. You've always stood by us and so will we, to the end!" The other rabbits muttered their firm agreements. Although touched at his friends' never wavering loyalty, Alan couldn't just banish what he had just found out from his mind. He wanted answers.

"We need to find out more about Royce's last mission," he said, standing up, "Where did he go, what he was doing, everything. It's the only way we're going to unravel the key to this mystery once and for all."

But Alan's confidence was soon found to be misplaced. All the details of the Shardik's last mission were a highly classified secret of the British government, only accessible to select Admiralty personnel. All he had been told when presented with Royce's posthumous medal was that the Shardik had been ambushed by an enemy vessel and sunk, because an enemy agent had been leaking information on the movements of Royal Navy vessels to the Chinese. The Shardik scandal, as it had been known, had been a terrible embarrassment for the Royal Navy and the British government had gone to great lengths to keep it under wraps after the war. There was no way they would find any information here.

"The Crypt of Knowledge contains stashes of all recorded knowledge," said Alan, thinking hard, "If any records of the Shardik's last mission still survive, that's where they'll be kept."

At that moment, the radio began crackling with an incoming transmission from the second party.

"Al, we found the generator..."

After splitting up from Alan's group, Derek had led his own party deep into the bowels of the Greek HAB. Unlike Alan, being an engineer gave him a great advantage in navigating the facility, by following different coloured pipes and electric cables that he knew came from the power house down below.

Making their way through dark, semi-collapsed areas and down several stairwells, they finally came to a door marked with a tell-tale No Entry sign. Entering, they found the facility's power house: a large generator room, housing banks of heavy machinery that made the facility work, including fuel tanks, air and water purifying systems and, behind a mesh gate, was the huge diesel generator itself.

Approaching the generator, Derek stood marvelling the massive machine, but frowned as he took in its rough state. Because the HAB hadn't remained airtight over the centuries, air and moisture had leaked in, corroding all exposed metal surfaces, including the generator.

"I'll be surprised if this old piece of hraka still works," scoffed Hawkbit, staring at the rusty generator. But Derek ignored him and got to work, removing the service cover from the housing of a small auxiliary dynamo beside the generator's engine.

The batteries used to start up the generator were long dead, so Derek would have to try and kick-start it by hand. Removing his belt, he wrapped it around the dynamo's shaft, improvising a start-cable. Reaching for a nearby bank of circuit-breakers marked in eligible Greek, he found the controls he was looking for and set the generator to auto. Then, he pulled the belt, turning the dynamo over. The generator didn't start. The next few tries yielded similarly fruitless results.

Opening up another service panel to take a look at the generator's engine, he found it in a sorry state indeed. Moisture had seeped in and corroded all of the interior parts over the years, causing the engine to seize.

"Al, we found the generator," he called over the radio. He heard his friend utter a yell of delight on the other end.

"That's great news, Deke! Looks like we found what we came here for..."

"No, we don't," interrupted Derek, having saved the bad news for last, "Bloody thing's all rusted to the gills and the engine is completely shot. I can't get it started."

"Can you fix it?" asked Alan hopefully.

"It would take a whole machine shop worth of tools and spare parts to get this hunk of junk back in running order," said Derek, shaking his head. "We might as well try building a new one from scratch..."

"Well, this is a bloody HAB!" retorted Alan in exasperation, stubbornly refusing to give up now. "There has to be a machine shop down here somewhere. Find it and get the tools you need to fix that bloody generator, or to build a new one, or else we aren't going anywhere!" Derek groaned under his breath; he hated being pressured like this, but he knew his friend was right. Without a power source to recharge the airship's batteries, they wouldn't get far.

It didn't take them long to locate the facility's machine shop, just next door to the generator room. Just like all HABs, which needed constant maintenance, the facility had a massive workshop the size of a small factory, where any necessary spare part, for every piece of machinery down here, could be fabricated on-site. Tools and equipment lay strewn all over the dusty worktables, some cakes of rust, others still sound.

Derek began his search. Most of the machine shop's fabrication equipment was electrical and therefore useless, but luckily he was able to find plenty of hand-tools to work with. Unfortunately, he couldn't find any of the parts he needed to construct a new generator. Then, looking in a corner behind some empty fuel drums, he found a whole truck's engine, probably from one of the abandoned trucks they'd found back at the entrance, sitting on a cart, which someone had used to move it here, probably for maintenance. That old engine was just what they needed.

Using a chain-host, they heaved the heavy engine (nearly dropping it a couple of times thanks to Silver's clumsiness) onto an empty worktable, where Derek could disassemble it. There was no point trying to cart it out of here as it was; it was far too heavy, even on the cart. Instead, they would bring it back in pieces, which would involve several trips to the airship and back. Then, it could be reassembled and modified to suit their needs. If they could get it working again, they could use the alternator attached to the engine to produce electricity, just like with a generator, enough to recharge the airship's batteries. Also, unlike the facility's generator, this could be made portable, so they could take it with them on the airship. Of course, in order to run it, they'd also need to find some source of fuel. But one problem at a time.

While rummaging around the shop for parts, Derek also found several boxes under a worktable, filled with vintage vacuum-tube assemblies that seemed to have been part of the facility's original radar system during the Cold War, which someone hadn't bothered to clear away when upgrading the facility for the Apocalypse. Unlike delicate, modern electronics which corroded easily in this environment, vacuum tubes could last for ages and had a thousand useful applications for the trained eye. These components could be useful in their search for the Crypt once they reached the Carpathians. Selecting the parts he needed, Derek packed them away in his backpack, along with several lengths of wire, a screen, power transformers and a radar antenna, which had once been mounted on a fighter jet.

Like a tinkering mechanic scavenging for spare parts in a junkyard, Derek began tearing the engine apart for transport. Unfastening the alternator from its bracket on the engine assembly, Derek tucked it into his backpack, belts and all, along with a second, spare alternator he'd found in a drawer; the pair would piggy-back on the same engine, doubling their electrical output.

He was just about to unfasten the carburettor, when suddenly a loud, rumbling noise was heard throughout the facility, followed by a violent vibration resembling an earthquake...

Back onboard the airship, Sam, Holly, Pipkin, Blackberry, Bluebell and Violet were huddled together over the radio console, waiting anxiously for news from their friends. Hotdog sat at the controls, circling the mountaintop. After Alan had reported they'd found the HAB's entrance and were going below, as they'd expected, radio contact had been lost, as radio waves couldn't travel through the facility's nuclear-bomb-resistant walls. All they could do now was wait until their friends re-emerged.

Over two hours had passed and still no word from them. What could they be doing? Perhaps they'd run into trouble down there? Holly was tempted to send down another search party, but Hotdog overruled him, insisting they didn't have enough people to spare.

Pipkin, bored to tears, had gone up to the observation deck to get some air, feeling rather irate. How he wished Alan had let him join the ground expedition, but his friend had insisted it could be dangerous and ordered him to stay behind, with Hazel-rah and Bigwig firmly backing him up. When would those duffers realise he wasn't a kitten anymore and could look after himself!

Admiring the view, he suddenly picked up a new smell in the air; an unpleasant, acrid smell, much like burning sulphur. Then, he realised it was coming from a greyish white dust trickling down from the sky, which, at first glance, resembled snow. That's impossible, thought Pipkin. Winter is long over and the sky is completely clear.

"Get up here, you buckos!" he called excitedly, "You've got to see this!"

Hotdog, Sam and Holly scampered up the ladder. They all stared in amazement at this strange blizzard. The off-putting smell of sulphur made them realize this was no ordinary snow.

"What kind of snow is this?" asked Sam, holding out her palm to catch some of the flakes, only to withdraw her hand with a yelp, "Ow! It's hot!"

"This isn't snow, it's ash," muttered Hotdog, wiping his finger against the deck. It came back black and dirty, as if he'd dipped it in soot. "Volcanic ash!"

"What's a volcano?" asked Pipkin. He frowned, not liking the worried look on Hotdog's face. And very soon he would know exactly why.

"That's impossible," Sam was saying, "There aren't any volcanoes around here..."

BROOM!

Suddenly, without warning, a loud, rumbling noise was heard from the sky. Looking up in alarm, the Watershippers saw several flaming bodies falling from the sky, leaving a trail of flames and smoke in their wake. Unbeknownst to them, the loose fragments of the Pandora Belt had finally entered the atmosphere, causing a spectacular – and deadly – meteor shower. The meteors were coming straight towards the mountain.

Slight correction, Hotdog thought to himself. Not volcanic, but asteroid dust...

The first wave of fragments hit the mountain, exploding on impact and sending out violent shockwaves that triggered landslides. One hit the peak, obliterating a large chunk of it in the process; another hit the plateau, blowing a large crater in the ground, not twenty feet away from the HAB's entrance. Any second now, any one of those flaming projectiles would strike the airship and they'd be blown out of the sky.

"We've got to get out of here now!" shouted Holly, "Everybody below!"

They all scampered back down the hatch and buttoned it shut. Without even seating himself properly in the pilot's seat, Hotdog was all over the console, throwing switches and gunning the engine to full power. Ignoring the low-battery warning lights flashing on the engineer's panel, he manoeuvred the airship over to the spot where Alan's party had found the entrance. Sam was on the radio, tuning into the ground expedition's frequency.

"Alan, if you can hear me, you've got to get back to the ship now! We've got a meteor shower raining down on us! I repeat, get back to the ship now...!"

Below ground, the expeditionaries didn't hear Sam's transmission, but they did feel the impact of the meteor fragments striking the mountain above their heads. The shockwaves shook the whole HAB. Dust and chunks of crumbling plaster fell from the ceiling, thickening up the air. In the library, Alan and his party were instantly on their feet.

"Frith of Inle, what's happening?" gasped Fiver, ducking under a desk to avoid a falling chunk of debris. "What was that?"

"Time to go!" said Alan, grabbing his backpack with the maps and documents he'd found and ushering them all out the door. He didn't know what was going on above ground, but he did know they had to get the hell out of this place before they ended up trapped down here. He shouted over his radio.

"Derek, drop what you're doing and get back to the entrance. We're pulling out! Move it, you chaps! Move it!"

They hurried back the same way they'd come towards the entrance, hoping by the time they got there, it wasn't too late...

In the machine shop, Derek's party had hit the floor when the impact came. The rusted I-beams holding up the decaying ceiling above their heads creaked dangerously; the whole place was about to collapse. Grabbing his backpack, Derek gestured at the others.

"Go! Go! Go!"

They all dashed back towards the stairs. On his way out, Derek turned to look at the semi-dismantled engine he'd been working on still lying on the worktable. All he'd managed to pack up so far had been the alternators and belts, which wouldn't be of much use without the rest of the engine. Part of him was edging to stay behind and retrieve the rest of it, and probably end up killed in the process, but the thought of Sam and his friends, and what they would become without him, resigned himself to giving up his prize and living to see another day. They could always find another way to repair their damaged airship.

The two parties reunited in the main corridor and made their way back through the semi-collapsed vehicle area and up through the hole. Outside, they were confronted by a scene born straight out of a nightmare: the sky alight with a horrifying fireworks display of flaming meteors falling to earth. Fireballs was falling like cannon fire all around them, obliterating everything in their path.

"Come on, back to the ship!"

They ran across the plateau, towards the airship, as it made a low overhead pass to pick them up. With no time to hoist them up one at a time, the ground expeditionaries simply grabbed hold of the trailing winch cable – the humans using their hands and ascenders, and the rabbits their sturdy buck teeth – so their friends onboard could hoist them up together.

With everyone safely back onboard, the El-ahrairah-One gunned its engine to full power, making a run to get clear of the meteor shower. As it moved away from the mountain, a rather large meteor fragment struck the plateau in the vicinity of the HAB's entrance, obliterating it, and sealing up the facility for good.

Through the scope, Derek and the others watched in utter dismay as their only hope of fixing their dying ship went up in a cloud of dust and smoke. The HAB was gone, along with anything they could have used to repair the airship, and there wasn't another within reach. Their entire plan had just gone down the drain. But there was no time to think about that now.

They all took up their stations, quickly, but not panicking. Their one objective: get their ship safely out of the danger zone. With meteor fragments raining down all around them, any one of which could knock them out of the sky, they plotted a north-easterly course, dodging meteors as they went.

"All ahead full, Hotdog!" called Alan, "We need all available speed."

"Batteries are flat and draining fast," reported Derek from his station, staring at the ominous readouts on the voltage gauges. Alan figured as much, judging by the flickering cabin lights. A few more minutes and they'd be dead in the water, sitting ducks for the meteors.

Hotdog used every ounce of flying skill he possessed, dodging meteor after meteor, trying to steer them out of this nightmare. The airship's limited speed and manoeuvrability complicated things even more and every now and then Alan felt his hair stand on end at the pounding sound of a stray micrometeorite fragment striking the fuselage. The Watershippers all held their breath, some silently praying to Frith for help, expecting death to find them at any second.

"Ah!" screamed Hawkbit, as a fragment penetrated the fuselage just above his head like a bullet, leaving a small, jagged hole, grazing his ear as it came by, and punching its way out through an exit hole in the floor, not three inches away from the reserve hydrogen tank.

After several minutes of nerve-wracking flying, which seemed to last forever, the airship moved into the clear and out of reach of the meteor storm. Looking at Mount Olympus, now far behind them, the Watershippers could see the forests on its sides, as well as the surrounding countryside at the foot of the mountain was ablaze from meteor fires; fires that would burn unchecked for days, destroying hundreds of acres of land, until nature could heal itself over time.

Despite all of them having escaped alive, they couldn't help but lament the failure of their mission. Today's escapade had been little more than a botched-up fiasco; they hadn't acquired what they needed, save for an up-to-date set of maps and a backpack of random engine parts, which, on their own, wouldn't be of much use.

It was late in the afternoon. The main cabin was completely dark. No lights or instruments were working; outside, the engine prop stood at a complete halt. They had depleted the last of the battery power only a few hours ago and the airship was now drifting uncontrollably in the wind.

In the cockpit, Hotdog still sat at the controls, but only out of habit, as the flight controls were all useless on a dead ship. For the past few hours, the humans had been struggling to come up with a solution to get their ship running again, but without success.

In the engineering section in the rear, Derek had set up the two alternators he'd scavenged from the Greek HAB, wired them into the main circuit and joined their shafts together with the engine belt, so they could spin off a pulley and produce 12 volts DC current. But without a proper engine to spin the system, it couldn't produce enough power to recharge the batteries.

Derek had hoped they might be able to spin the alternators by hand, using a stationary-bicycle-like set of peddles he'd jury-rigged to the pulley's axel, but no matter how vigorously they peddled, the voltmeter didn't go above 9 volts. Unless they could get to 12, they had nothing.

"If we can't make this thing work, then we have no choice but to continue on foot," said Bigwig, "All our ancestors made their journeys across the Meadows of Fenlo on foot, and so can we."

"Don't be a fool, we wouldn't get far on foot," Derek chastised him, "It's a wild, uncharted world down there, with a thousand different ways to kill you, and we're a continent away from home. We wouldn't stand a chance!"

Up on the observation deck, Alan sat alone, feeling defeated. With arguments raging down below, as to whether they should abandon ship and continue on foot, he'd excused himself and gone up top, where he'd have some peace and quiet, to think things over.

It seemed it was the end of the road for the airship; part of him felt they had no choice but to go ahead with Bigwig's suggestion and continue their mission on foot. After all, they had good survival skills, fit for this environment, and most of them were in top physical condition to make the journey. But he knew it would be hopeless; Crowley's mercenaries had jeeps and would make it to the Carpathians long before they could. Not to mention the near-impossible task of climbing one of the largest mountain ranges in all Europe. And what about the rest of the Crypts scattered across the globe? They couldn't travel across entire continents and oceans on foot! Like it or not, they needed the airship if they were to continue their journey. But how?

A northern breeze was starting to kick up, forcing him to hold onto his hat so it wouldn't blow away. He looked at the setting sun on the horizon, thinking about Fiver's vision. It seemed his friend's premonition that they wouldn't be able to find help at the Greek HAB, as always, had been right. Instead, they were supposed to be looking to the sky for the solution. But, for crying out loud, how was that supposed to do them any good? What were they supposed to do, get down on their knees and pray to Frith for some miraculous deliverance? Despite having found a newfound if not outspoken respect for the divine following his experience with the Life Memory Journey four years ago, when he'd nearly joined Woundwort in death, Alan didn't believe in placing his trust in miracles, especially when it came to rescuing his daughter.

Lost in his thoughts, he was caught off-guard by a gust of wind, knocking his hat off; Alan barely managed to grab it before it could blow away. As he did, it struck him; the wind. The wind could be used as a means of propulsion! He didn't know exactly how different the winds were at this altitude compared to sea level, but he was fairly certain they would do the job. There was no time to lose.

Dashing below, without bothering to explain to his rabbit friends, he grabbed Derek by the arm, "We need something we can use as a sail and something sturdy to hoist it on."

Going through the equipment they had onboard, they soon discovered the parachutes they carried for emergency bail-out. There were five parachutes; one for each member of the human flight crew, plus one spare. Not that they would do much good in a real emergency, as there were 17 of them onboard and the rabbits couldn't even use them unaided. Sacrificing one or two of them to make sails would not make much of a difference. Then came the question of spars.

In order for the sail to work, they needed a strong cross-like frame to hoist it from, so it could catch the wind and carry them along. Examining the cabin, they found the two monorails that held up the baggage racks above the seats, which run the full length of the cabin. These and some spare rigging would do nicely.

Using hacksaws, Derek and Alan cut down the monorails. Removing the aluminium ropes from the netting that formed the baggage racks, they moved them up onto the deck. Using a scaffolding bracket he'd found, Derek fastened them tightly together in a cross; the ends of the poles were then reinforced with lengths of rigging fed through drill-holes at the tips. The structure was then mounted over the top of the windshield, in an angular position, facing forward, like a bowsprit on a ship, and secured to the roof of the cabin with sturdy bolts. Then, more lengths of tight rigging were added, further anchoring it down, until it was steady as a rock.

Next, they were ready to mount their sail. Unfolding the rectangular-shaped parachute on deck and cutting away its pack and harnesses, they fed the cords through iron rings screwed onto the pole for that purpose. Pulling together, they hoisted the parachute sail onto their makeshift spar and secured it in place.

They watched eagerly as the sail fluttered in the wind, before assuming a bulbous shape as it caught the wind. Beneath their feet, they felt the deck shift; they were moving! Slowly, but definitely moving.

Overjoyed at their success, they unpacked a second parachute, preparing a second sail. As they didn't have another pole for a second spar, they would have to hoist it on the same spar as the first, only upside down.

Feeding the parachute cords through a pulley on the top of the balloon envelope, they hoisted the second sail, which also took shape in the wind, doubling their speed. In the cockpit, Hotdog set their course for the Carpathians. At long last, they were on their way again!

Flying an airship with sails, something never even attempted before in the history of commercial flying, didn't come without its drawbacks however. They could only keep moving for as long as the wind held and was blowing in the direction they were travelling. If it died down, or changed course, they could be at a standstill for days, until it shifted back in their favour. That was until they made an interesting discovery.

While checking the rigging on deck, Pipkin had noticed the engine prop in the tail of the airship was mysteriously spinning and had called Derek up to have a look at it. The slipstream caused by the moving airship was making the prop, which Hotdog had forgot to feather, spin uselessly in the wind. The sight of the spinning propeller made the wheels inside Derek's head spin with an idea.

Hooking up the pulley that controlled the belt which spinned the alternators he'd set up to the dead engine's driveshaft, the moving propeller began spinning the alternators. Following several adjustments with trial and error, he watched as the voltmeter on his panel finally rose, fluttering on 12 volts. Cheers and applause erupted throughout the cabin as the lights flickered back to life. They were producing their own power once again and the batteries were recharging!

"The Renaissance Man has done it again!"

Although not enough power to run the engine directly and, at this rate, it would take at least 24 hours at a time to recharge the batteries, it would do. All they had to do was travel by sail whenever the winds were favourable and switch over to battery power when it wasn't. Between the two, they could continue their journey.

"A round of applause for Fiver and his life-saving visions that have gotten this mission back on the road!" said Alan (But don't let it go to your head, Fiver," added Hawkbit with a hint of jealousy), "And another round of applause for Derek and his miracle-working genius!" The Watershippers all cheered loudly for their friends. Fiver smiled at all that praise, doing his best to hide his embarrassment. Sam reached up and kissed Derek on the cheek, who stood tall and proud at his latest accomplishment. Between them and their rabbit friends, there didn't seem to be a single obstacle they couldn't overcome.

"Well, we're the Watershippers, what else would you expect?" said Bluebell, having chosen a good moment to throw in some humour, "Our escapades are supposed to make poor El-ahrairah green with envy and rotten old Woundwort sick as a pig!"

The Watershippers, even Blackberry, who had little appreciation for poking fun at their sovereign Prince, or their deadliest enemy for that matter, burst out laughing – the first laugh they'd had in a long time. Once again, the truly felt more than just friends and comrades on a mission; they were family, heart-brothers, and their devotion for one another would see them through.

Author's note: A thousand apologies for the delay, but this chapter was a nightmare to write! Coming up next, the arrival at the first Crypt. Enjoy and please review!