by Alan Austin
“Please no,” she begged, with a little less enthusiasm than she’d had initially.
“Do it now or I will shoot your husband in the leg!”
That was all it took. She scooted forward on her knees and took Sam in her mouth as he quickly reached his full arousal. He watched her husband’s face twist in agony at the sight of his young wife taking another man inside of her. It was only her mouth for now, but even that was enough to make him want to rip Sam limb from limb with his bare hands.
Sam enjoyed her on her knees for a few moments and noticed that she started to pick up speed on her own. That was usually a good sign that they’d given themselves over to it and Sam ordered her up to her feet. He made her strip down completely naked and bend over the chair to face her husband. Sam wanted the man to see her eyes when he entered her in the most intimate way.
Sure enough, her body was more than ready and he entered her easily. He could not see the woman’s face, but the general’s eyes were clearly locked on hers, and he could see the rage grow stronger and stronger as he imagined her face showed signs that she was not hating this as much as she should be. Sam even noticed her breathing change at one point and wondered if she was trying to hide or resist an orgasm. If he noticed, he was sure that the other man did too.
“I know you’re having fun, but the others will be here any second,” Boomer said, still looking off to the side to avoid seeing anything.
Sam was right at the brink already and felt himself go all the way over the edge just as his friend spoke. He didn’t bother pulling out, wanting to further the shame he brought the other man as much as he could. His eyes closed in the heat of it, but when he opened them again, he could see lines down Clive’s cheeks where tears had run. That was the best reaction of all for Sam.
“I’m so glad we finally got to meet each other in the way that I’d hoped,” Sam said with a big smile.
“It’s time to go,” Boomer called out. “Where’s Rosalyn?”
Sam gave his friend a strange look and then looked back to where she’d been standing, but she was gone. Where had she run off to?
“I killed that bitch,” the general shouted through his tears. “I only wish now that I’d killed her slowly. You got off too easily.”
Sam dropped to a knee. All at once, his memories came flooding back. He had been knocked out in the club, but he’d come to again just a short time later. The general asked him questions about the resistance and his gang, and when he refused to talk, he threatened Rosalyn. She never flinched and looked back at Sam, speaking everything she needed to say with her eyes. The Empire still needed her. She could still get them more information. It was an empty threat. Sam called the man’s bluff, and to his horror, the general turned back and shot her in the head right in front of him. It was the single most horrific thing he’d ever seen, surpassing the loss of Ticks only days earlier.
Whether he lost his hearing from the unexpected gunshot, or if his emotions just cut off the sense completely, Sam never heard the shout that he could feel pouring out of his chest. He watched in slow motion as the woman he’d just gotten back – the love of his life – folded to the floor like a rag doll, blood pouring from her head. She was gone.
“NOOOOO!” Sam screamed, now back in the present moment and nearly flat on the floor of the train.
“Had you forgotten?” the general asked, now laughing a little through his remaining tears. “Is that what happened. Did you block that out? That’s right Sam Rosecrans. I killed your bitch. No matter what happens, you lose. You might think you’ll…”
His words were cut short when Sam sat back up and shot him between the eyes. Abigail, still completely naked, screamed bloody murder at the sight of her husband being shot. She crawled across the room and threw herself on his body. Sam just stared at the dead man, lost in himself and the memories that had just come storming back with all their pain.
“I’m so sorry,” Boomer said, now at Sam’s side, “but we’ve got to go!”
He pulled Sam to his feet and hurried him out the front door of the car just as Ben and Mac appeared.
“What happened?” Ben asked. “Where is Rosalyn?”
“She’d dead,” Boomer answered to Sam, who was still clearly too lost in his grief to answer.
“Oh shit!” Ben said, his face losing some color at the revelation. “I’m so sorry Sam.”
“We need to go,” Mac said. They all took turns helping Sam along and when they reached the top of the car Sam saw the other ship that Grease was in circling overhead.
Mac looked up at her and said, “I can’t believe they didn’t have the upgraded defenses on this one, but I guess they never thought we’d make it up here. Grease got off easy.”
Ben looked at Sam and asked, “What do you want to do? If you want to call it off now, we can.”
“What are you talking about?” Boomer shouted. “Why would we call anything off. We’ve got him.”
“Sam wasn’t planning on coming with us,” Ben replied as Sam took in the words, but was still trying to process everything. “He wanted to fake his rescue and stay onboard to try and rescue his daughter in London. We were going to take the airship all the way over and pick him up off the coast.”
“WHAT?” Mac and Boomer both shouted at nearly the same time. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“He wanted to keep it under wraps and knew that we, and especially Rosalyn, would try and go with him. It won’t work unless he does it alone. He had a chance that way.”
Ben looked back at Sam and continued, “But if you don’t want to do it now, we can figure something else out.”
“No,” Sam finally spoke. “I need to do this. She dies protecting her. I need to get her before something terrible happens. We have to go on.”
Ben wrapped his arms around Sam and he could feel his older brother’s breathing a little broken. It was clear that he was emotional about Rosalyn and the risk that Sam was taking. Sam was still struggling to breathe normally, but that was all a result of Roz. He could care less about his own life now and knew that he had to risk it to try and save their girl. He’d never even seen her before, but she was his, and he had to get to her or die trying.
“Thank you,” Sam said, pulling away and looking his brother in his tear-soaked eyes.
“Go get your little girl,” Ben urged him with a solid pat on the shoulder. “We’ll be waiting when you’re done.”
“In hostile airspace with a Resistance airship… what could go wrong?” Boomer piped up in the background.
“Not now,” Mac said, smacking the guy and giving Sam a nod, which Boomer also offered a moment later.
“That you all,” Sam shouted. “I’ll see you soon!”
With that, he turned to see some guards approaching from the front of the train.
“Time to go!” he shouted and ran back toward the small ship that Mac had so expertly landed.
When everyone else stopped to board, Sam ran around the back of the ship and used it for cover from the soldiers approaching to escape. He went over the back ledge of the car, made sure no one was looking, and then dropped down to the underside where he walked the unguarded platforms all the way back to the front. When no one was at the coupling, he climbed back to the first level and ducked into the next car where he quickly found an empty sleeping car and someone’s belongings. He helped himself to some spare clothing.
In a new outfit and hat, and with no one knowing he was still on board. Sam settled in to an empty seat in the passenger area and waited for their arrival on the other side. His seat offered him a little privacy and he spent the first several hours trying to contain his grief as the images of his love being shot cycled over and over in his head, but after enough time, he was able to bottle it all back up in his own rage. It wasn’t healthy, but he knew it had to be done. He was heading into enemy territory, and his sorrow would be his undoing if it were not under control.
Only one thing mattered right now. Getting to his daughter
. Finishing that Roz had been trying to do. Protecting Lizzy.
Chapter 16
Finding Lizzy
Sam had gleaned enough information from Rosalyn to find the house where they were keeping his daughter once he arrived in London. He’d never been to Britain and had only heard stories about the massively built up city with its airship racks stacked high over the buildings below and traffic rivaled only by the columns of steam rising from factories and vehicles alike on the streets and in the skies above. When the train began to turn after hours of holding a steady course, he looked out the window to see the coastline. It was bare and rocky, but he knew that the picturesque scene would change when they neared their destination. Seeing the train edge closer and closer to land was a terrifying thing, but just when it looked like they were going to crash into the beach, the train entered the mouth of the river and the ride got just a little rougher with the current against them.
Looking around, no one else seemed alarmed, so Sam chalked it up to being a normal ride. Seeing what they had don to the Thames in person was breathtaking. They had widened the river for the trains and brick retaining walls lined both sides giving a wide enough berth for the train to travel safely. He was about to turn his attention away from the window when the city came into view. It was so sudden that he briefly wondered if he was seeing things again.
The stretch of farmland and small towns that had buzzed past vanished and in their place was a vast wall around the city which was indeed built up even more marvelously than he had imagined. A high-speed train emerged from a tunnel under the wall, a large cloud of steam puffing out the end of the tunnel right after the engine emerged. Sam’s attention was drawn away from the sleek looking train and up to the sky by movement to his right.
Airships filled the sky above the city. He’d only seen three of them since entering the river, but there were hundreds here, some just hovering, with others rising and falling into their positions. The stacks above the buildings were beyond anything he’d imagined from the descriptions. The steel rails which held them up were so thin that they looked like floating platforms just hovering over all the activity below. It was breathtaking.
When his train passed between a gap in the wall it caused a jump in him and many of the other passengers. It was so close to the train and came out of nowhere, but at least others had been startled too. Sam could feel the train slowing and sinking down into the water as it neared it’s stop. It shifted slightly from side to side as it slowed and it felt like it was settling down into a groove or track of some sort beneath the water. That made sense as it would be quite hard to manage it at a slow speed otherwise.
They eased into the station and the train lurched to its final stop abruptly, something that the other passengers were prepared for as they braced just a moment before. Sam had the sense to follow suit and spared himself an embarrassing moment in the process.
Panic roared back to life in Sam as he watched two lines of soldiers come running out of the terminal, but they were all heading back toward the rear of the train. No word about what had taken place had ever reached the passenger cars in the front. The British likely did not wish to alarm anyone. He reminded himself that no one knew he was on board and did his best to remain calm. Everyone started to grumble as they were not allowed to depart right away, but once the soldiers had come and gone, likely retrieving the general’s body, the other cars were allowed to exit.
The first thing Sam noticed when he stepped off was the thick feel of the air. It smelled of industry and was almost harder to breath. He coughed a few times and then seemed to adjust well enough, but it was far from pleasant. He’d worried about security upon arrival, but all of the checks were done on the other side before even allowing anyone to board the train. Now that they had arrived, there were just open gates letting them right into the heart of the city.
Sam stepped out onto the old brick road and marveled at the older construction he was surrounded by. He’d never seen anything as old as most of the buildings, and their contrast with the most advanced airships he’d ever laid eyes on behind them was stark and captivating. He snapped out of it and started moving down the street, away from the soldiers that were patrolling the terminal. Given how quickly he’d been recognized in Boston, he had no desire to linger and be spotted here. If word got out that he’d come, his daughter would likely be taken or killed before he could get to her.
He found a row of shops around the next corner on a busier street and ducked inside. Keeping his hat brim pulled low over the top of his face, Sam asked the attendant inside where he could find the central stacks. That was the reference point he needed to find the home.
“You must be new here!” she said with a jolly tone. “That’s as easy as it gets. Just head north down that main road out there and make a left when you get to the postmaster. You’ll be able to see the stacks from there.”
“Thank you,” Sam replied, heading back out and following the road further to the north, hoping the postmaster’s office was easy to spot.
Rosalyn hadn’t known he planned to come here on this mission, but he’d spoken with her at length about where Lizzy was being held. As far as she’d known, they were going to find a way over after the mission and attempt to rescue her then, but Sam was never willing to wait. There was too much risk that they would at least move her to be safe after a hiccup in their plan to get Sam the first time. The premise of coming back later and the risk of something – anything going wrong on the mission had been enough to press her for details about her location. Five blocks straight west of the central stacks, make a right at the shop with the bright red door, and then the fourth brown-brick townhome on the right.
He hoped it would be enough. The certainty he had at being able to follow the directions had faded as the enormity of the city overwhelmed him and he wondered what he would do if he could not find it.
Sam let out a sigh of relief when he spotted the postmaster’s sign on the building up ahead. It was right on the corner, so there was no uncertainty about that direction the woman had provided. He rounded the corner onto the street and prayed that he’d know which of the many stacks he could see above the city was the central stack. What he found was a beauty to behold. There had been no need at all to worry. Amongst the ten or so other stacks scattered across the skyline was a massive structure of two steel columns twisted around one another that reached far higher into the sky than all the others. That was where he needed to go.
He started down the street and soon found that the woman had failed to mention it would require turning further north down several other streets as the one he was one curved to the south. Regardless, he knew what direction he needed to go, and that was enough. As he moved further from the terminal toward the stacks, the city became mired with dirt and grunge. He noticed that the peoples attire changed as well. Wherever he was, it wasn’t the nicest part of town, and he was dressed much nicer in the clothing that he’d taken on the train than anyone else. It was beginning to draw attention.
Block after block, it continued to deteriorate, and Sam was starting to come up with a plan to get some new clothes in a hurry when he saw that things seemed to change back in an instant the moment, he crossed over some tracks running through the city. Everything to the east of them was clean and there were open businesses, while a thick layer of black seemed to cover what he was leaving behind to the west. Relieved to no longer stand out amongst the crowd, he pushed on with only a few blocks to go. He could now see the structures base and the road he was on lead straight to the west past it. Feeling like an ant as he looked up at the structure above him, he wondered how the resistance had any hope at all. More than half of the airships that he could see were all Empire Military. From Sam’s perspective there on the street, it was an insurmountable force if they deployed them all to fight the American Resistance. He knew it wasn’t really that simple and that it was their main hub versus the much more scattered Resistance forces, but he could not help but sense the
defeat of the Resistance hopes as he passed by.
He wanted to run the rest of the way, but the presence of police and military moving about was too high and he feared being spotted if he did anything at all to draw eyes to him. He maintained his brisk walk and counted the blocks as be passed them by.
Once again, he was relieved at how obvious the landmark Rosalyn had given him was as a large grey building had a door facing out to the street corner that was bright red and stood out against the rather drab colors of the rest of the street. He turned the corner and found a street lined with town homes.
The only thing that seemed to separate them was their color with sets of four grey, then red, then brown. He neared the fourth unit of the brown building on the right and was about to turn to the door when it opened and a soldier walked out. The man was still looking back and talking to whoever was inside so he did not se Sam’s quick and obvious adjustment to continue past. If there were anymore stressful moments in his day, Sam was sure he would just drop dead of a heart attack at this point.
He walked about a block down the road and looked back to see that the soldier had vanished down another side street. Sam turned back just as a ground vehicle passed by on the street. It looked unlike the clumsy contraptions he’d see back home and moved quickly, vanishing around the corner he’d turned by the red door. With no one else on the street, he turned toward the door and knocked. He had his hand on his pistol with his side turned to keep it hidden from the occupant when they answered the door.
An older man answered and gave Sam a curious look before poking his head out and looking from side to side.
“Come in you fool!” he urged as quiet as he could. “How in the hell did you get here?”
“You know who I am?” Sam asked.
“Of course I do. Your daughter is your spitting image, even at a year old. Now answer my question. What are you doing here?”
