The War Wheel

The Komet's pilot was asleep under the wing of his little plane. Chuck woke him by pressing the muzzle of his .45 to the German's forehead. The pilot's eyes popped wide open at the touch of the cold steel. Kilroy spoke rapidly in fluent German. Chuck could speak only a little German but he understood it pretty well, an ability acquired from his childhood time with his German immigrant Grandfather, enough to know Kilroy was quickly interrogating the pilot.
The German told them his name, rank and serial number. He refused to say anything else until Chuck put the automatic against his head again and pulled the hammer back with a loud click that the pilot felt as well as heard. He still made a pretense of not cooperating but admitted that the War Wheel would be coming for him. Then Chuck noticed something odd. Kilroy's voice changed so he sounded just like the German.
“You're good at that,” he said.
“It's not so hard,” Kilroy said, “when you can change the length of your vocal cords and the shape of your palate and tongue at will. I don't even think about it anymore, it's a reflex.” He pulled out a polished steel mirror. He looked intently at the German, than at himself in the mirror. His face flowed and rippled and then settled into an exact duplicate of the pilot. The Nazi and Chuck gasped in unison.
“Hot damn! That's fantastic”
“Yah, it's a handy talent in this job. I never bothered changing my face before because I liked being recognized.” Kilroy swapped uniforms with the German. Then they bound and gagged him and dumped him in a nearby gully. Less than an hour had passed when they felt the ground tremble. That soon turned to a rumble in the air. Then the spikes of the War Wheel's rim appeared above the horizon. The next second, the entire bulk of the massive war machine rolled toward them across the plain. The towering steel wheel decelerated to a stop precisely beside the grounded rocket plane. It was an impressive bit of maneuvering.
Instantly, hatches opened, a lower one extending a set of metal steps and an upper one projected a boom from which hung blocks and tackle to retrieve the little fighter. Soldiers in gray jumpsuits swarmed out of the giant machine and began hooking the Me 263 to the hoisting tackle. Two, armed with submachine guns, accompanied an officer who walked over to Chuck and Kilroy. Kilroy had the rocket fighter pilot's Luger pointed in Chuck's general direction. The Nazi officer smiled as he approached.
“Hauptman Kroner, it's good to see you safe and healthy, and you have a prisoner, too. Is this the pilot of the plane you shot down?”
“Yes,” Kilroy said. “When I knew I had to set my plane down, I followed the Blackhawk's parachute down and landed near him.”
“Excellent! The capture of one of the verdamnt Blackhawks will add further glory to our mission.”
“True, sir. But if you please, take him into custody and have someone help me to the medic. I believe I struck my head in the landing and my mind is a little fuzzy. I can't remember some things, like your name for instance.”
“Oh, of course, Hauptman. Sergeant, take the prisoner aboard and secure him. I'll take the Hauptman to the medic.”
Inside the War Wheel, a loud whine assaulted Chuck's ears. He looked around a vast, open structure of steel beams supporting massive pieces of equipment interconnected by bundles of cables and pipes, and a maze of catwalks and ladders for the human crew, who seemed like ants in comparison to their metal habitat. He immediately recognized two huge diesel engines of the size used to power railroad locomotives. The output of the diesels fed through a complex mechanism of equally huge gears that ended in an orbital gear that ran the entire circumference of the Wheel's rim, which rode on titanic roller bearings. Obviously, they were what drove the giant wheel.
Above them, embedded in the center of the steel latticework, enormous discs, each forty feet across and at least six feet thick, spun on their axis at an incredible speed. Chuck realized they must be gyroscopes of an unprecedented size, gyroscopes that kept the War Wheel from toppling over and provided the stabilizing force around which it steered. The gyroscopes were the source of the pervasive whine. The engineer in him couldn't help but be in awe of the technical achievement the Wheel represented. Too bad the skill and effort that had gone into its design and construction had not been used to produce something of benefit to mankind instead of this terrible weapon.
The armed crewmen shoved him into a small compartment divided from the rest of the open interior by heavy wire screen walls welded to the Wheel's framework. Cardboard boxes of rations partially filled it. Obviously, the Wheel had no dedicated brig and this storage compartment served as a temporary substitute. The screen walls did nothing to keep out the noise or the pervasive aromas of diesel exhaust, hot oil, and ozone. None of it was enough to keep him awake. He'd had an exhausting day and a soldier always grabbed any opportunity for some blanket drill. You never knew how long it would be until the next chance came along. He had to wait for Kilroy to make his move, anyway.

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