The Mongo Machine - Chapter 5

John Carter. Buck Rogers. Crash Corrigan. Three Warriors. Out of Time

May 31, 2026

This short story officially launched my House of Entropy and put sci-fi pulp front and center in the Public Domain Super Heroes universe. From this story, the novels The Metropolis of Mongo, The Marine Moon of Mongo and the forthcoming The Martian Monsters of Mongo were born.

A new chapter will go live every Sunday at 12:00 AM EST. I will update the links on each chapter at that time to point to the next installment in the story.

There is also an index page here if you lose track.

I hope you enjoy it!

CHAPTER 05

Each team member had a radio in their helmet. The range was limited, so they kept to a close formation. The night was moonless, the biting wind bitterly cold. The only real light came from the radium painted dials on their wrist-mounted compasses. Once they had formed up, Buck Rogers took the lead in a tight wedge, with Corrigan and Deering immediately trailing to either side and Carter off his starboard wing behind Corrigan in what pilots called a “finger-four” formation.

The wind was so fierce that speaking over the radios was impossible, so a series of clicks had been developed for each stage of the flight. Each stage began with two clicks from Rogers, their most expert pilot. Each of the others would respond with two of their own if all was well. Once all four gliders were in place behind him, Rogers gave two clicks and got two from each of the others in return. As practiced, the formation spread out both laterally and in altitude. Two more clicks, six back, and all four pilots flipped a switch on the panel strapped to the crossbar of their glider. Corrigan’s and Carter’s gliders surged ahead, the chemical rockets firing smoothly.

Below her, Deering saw Buck’s rocket light and then sputter and die as she was about to push the switch to light her own. She held her thumb over the switch and watched for the backup rocket on Rogers’ glider to fire.

Nothing happened.

Mission protocol stated that any member unable to make the rendezvous was to be considered lost. The mission was too important to jeopardize for any one man, or woman. Without a thought, she lowered the nose of her glider and aimed for the middle of Buck’s airframe.

Coming on board the operation late as she had, Deering had little time to learn to fly the fragile and temperamental glider. Each glider had a locking mechanism at the top of the wing structure to secure it to the Lancaster for transport, so they had rigged a version of that below one of the gliders to allow Buck to latch onto her wings in a sort of makeshift biplane arrangement. The tandem had been their way of jump starting her flight training. Because the coupling added weight, they gave Buck’s training glider to her rather than removing the mechanism . The additional weight meant that all four airframes carried similar mass. Despite her lighter build, this allowed them to use the same rockets for all four of their gliders. The latching mechanism was still in place beneath her.

Wilma Deering’s rank of colonel was no honourary title. She had been flying for years before signing up for the WASPs at the outset of the war and had ferried airframes of every description all over the United States and even to the Canadian border for FDR’s lend-lease program. Her skills had caught the attention of the OSS and after a whirlwind training regimen, she had spent most of 1942 in occupied France, gathering intelligence and organizing resistance cells. She hadn’t had much call to fly in that time, but flying was as natural to her as breathing.

Piloting the glider was trickier than any powered airframe and matching speeds with Buck’s rig was trickier still. That he had no idea what she was planning made her idea all the more difficult, but none of that crossed her conscious mind. Her teammate was in trouble and she had the means to solve his little misfire problem.

With a deft touch, she dropped her craft behind him. She caught a glimpse of him in through the Plexiglas faring that kept the wind out of his eyes as she swooped into line with him. He was angrily stabbing at the control for the rocket. If he managed to light one of the two rockets now, the blast would set her silk, aluminum and balsa-wood glider alight. She could only aim, drop and hope.

With a metallic thunk, she dropped her glider on top of his, feeling the latch engage with a satisfying clack. She sent two clicks.

If clicks on a radio could sound puzzled, the two-click reply from the glider below her did just that. With a grin, she stabbed both rocket switches and whooped as the power of her rockets kicked in. She imagined she could hear Buck shouting in fear and confusion. Her grin grew wider.

Chapter 06 is here!