Freedom Forged

by Alan Austin

  “If you know who I am, you know why I am here. I’m here for Lizzy. Where are you keeping her?”

  “Keeping her?” The man asked harshly. “We’ve been keeping her safe for the past few months, thank you very much. She could have ended up in any home where they would have locked her in a closet and fed her under the door, but not here. No sir. We’ve treated her like our very own, we have.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sam said. “I didn’t know what to expect, and as you can imagine, I’m a little on edge. Where is she now?”

  “She’s napping. Let’s you and I have a little chat before we go waking her up, shall we?”

  With that, he very calmly gestured to the living room.

  A woman entered the room and her eyes bulged at the sight of Sam. How did everyone know what he looked like? You’d have thought he was the leading general of the resistance army the way people reacted.

  “This isn’t good!” she shouted, looking at her husband.

  The man waved dismissively and said, “Calm down. He’s a father who wants to rescue his little girl. You know I’d have done the same for Lilly.”

  “Why aren’t you trying to detain me?” Sam asked, very confused by his reception.

  “Just because we’re British don’t mean that we’re your enemy Mr. Rosecrans. My wife and I are actually being held here just the same as your daughter. We tried to flee for the Americas ourselves and were captured. The only reason we’re not in a prison is because the Empire decided that we were of more use serving them and looking after children.”

  “Why not just leave again?” Sam asked.

  “Because they’ll shoot us dead if we try. Besides that, we have no real means of escape.”

  The wheels in Sam’s head were already turning. This could make things a lot easier for him.

  “Why don’t you both come with us?” he asked. “I have a way out and, it will be tight, but we can take you two along if you’d like. It’s the least I can do after you’ve taken care of Lizzy for me.”

  “I’m afraid you really don’t understand the situation at all,” the man said. “Your little girl is not just another child being cared for here. She is very, very important to the Empire. They check on her every hour. We have to show them up to her room when she’s sleeping. The wife stays up till after midnight and I wake up at two every morning to keep it up. If you take her, they will know before you can go anywhere at all and they will lock down the whole damn city.”

  Things were not going to be easier at all. Sam had expected to have to kill someone in the home to get her out, but he had never in a million years expected this degree of difficulty.

  “Why are they going through all this for my little girl? I didn’t even know she existed until a few days ago and who am I that they would do all this?”

  “You’re Sam Rosecrans!” the woman shouted. “You’re the biggest thorn in our military’s side, maybe ever.”

  “I haven’t done all that much to them,” Sam said, still not understanding all the hype.

  “You’ve done more than you realize my boy,” the man said with a smile, “but more important than what you’ve done is how you’ve done it. You are a legend. They’ve never caught you and you’ve shoved it in their faces. I’m sure from the look on your face some of the stories are overblown, but we’ve heard that you’ve raped the wives of more than a dozen of the top men in the Empires bank along with a few of their military leaders. They also say you sunk a trans-Atlantic train and completely destroyed a coastal town with no more than five other members of your gang. You’ve done more to cause them heartache than most nations that they’ve conquered. You give hope to others that there is a chance, and that is the most dangerous thing of all in their eyes. They’ve move a mountain if they could bury you under it!”

  Sam was in complete awe. The stories were certainly embellished, but most were rooted in some truth. He didn’t consider what he did with the women rape, but their husbands certainly would!

  “I can’t leave without her,” Sam said.

  He was beginning to feel defeated by the odds against him, but hearing the stories the man told caused him to sit a little taller. He WAS Sam Rosecrans, and he had clearly done what others already thought was impossible. He’d figure this out too.

  “You said they check every hour, but what if there was something else to keep them busy? If there was an emergency, do you think they might be delayed?”

  “I suppose,” the woman said, looking cautiously back to her husband. “There was the time with the fire at the bank. They pulled the man and we had a shift with no one checking, but it would have to be a big time emergency.”

  Sam thought for a few moments and an idea popped into his head that caused him to hold his own breath a moment. Could that really work? It would certainly be big enough if it did.

  “What’s going on in that mind of yours?” the man asked. “I don’t think I like the look on your face.”

  “Where is the nearest airship stack that would not have too many British soldiers around?”

  “The cloud stacks, I suppose,” the man replied. “Two blocks north and two blocks east of here. They only ever have two ships in at a time, but they are larger cargo ships. Not a lot of security at all there.”

  “Perfect,” Sam said as a smile crossed his face.

  He looked at the woman and then back to the man and asked, “If I can get you both out with me, will you help me?”

  “We have a daughter of our own too,” the woman replied.

  “Bring her as well. I can get all three of you out.”

  “How?” the man asked.

  “You know my reputation better than I do,” Sam replied. “I have a plan, but there is no time to explain. I am going to cause a bigger distraction than they’ve ever seen before. This will make everything else I have done look like child’s play. If I pull it off, we will have no trouble escaping and my people are coming for me.”

  “How will we know if it works?” the woman asked him.

  “You’ll know,” Sam said with a big smile. “The whole damned city will know. Do you know if there are two airships at that stack at the moment?” Sam asked the man.

  He thought about it a second and replied, “Should be. They are normally full up this time of the week. No way to know for sure though.”

  “What is the next best option after that one?” Sam asked, needing a plan B.

  “Another five blocks west. There is a larger one. They’ll have at least four or five.”

  “When you hear the explosion, go to the cloud stack. If there is an airship there, stay there and wait for me. If I don’t meet you there, you can come back here and I guarantee they won’t have checked on you at all. Can you do that?”

  The couple exchanged a look and Sam could see tears in the man’s eyes. It was clear that they wanted to, but he appreciated how much he was asking them to trust him.

  “Yes,” the man said, looking back at Sam as his wife burst into tears. “If we hear an explosion, we’ll do it. Please don’t let us down.”

  “I won’t!” Sam exclaimed, standing up and heading back for the door.

  He stopped short and looked back at the man. “Can I see her first?” he asked.

  The man nodded and escorted him up the stairs.

  Sam entered the room and looked down at the sleeping angel in her crib. He didn’t know what the man had been talking about. She looked like Rosalyn, not him. A tear formed in the corner of his own eye and he reached down and touched his little girl’s soft cheek.

  As the two men let the room the man reached his hand out to shake Sam’s. “I’m Ronald, by the way,” he said.

  “Nice to meet you, Ronald,” Sam replied gripping his hand firmly. “I’ll see you again soon.”

  With that he headed out the door and made his way to the cloud stacks. Sure enough, there were two massive airships docked on either side. They were as big as the cargo ships Sam had seen coming to the coast in the past and he was
sure they would do the job he was after. He climbed the stairs to the main platform and found a single man sitting at a table.

  “Who are you?” the man shouted.

  Sam did not answer and the man rose to his feet as Sam neared him. He reached for his gun, but Sam sprinted the final few paces and delivered a blow that knocked him out cold. With that, he looked back and forth between the two ships. Both had their cargo doors open and Sam could see that one was full while the other was empty. That made his decision so much easier. He ran for the full ship, grabbed an axe from inside, and chopped the anchor lines holding it down. It was hard work, but it took only a few minutes to sever all eight lines and he felt the ship drift up and to the side when it released. He tossed the axe aside and was about to enter the forward cockpit when the label on one of the crates caught his attention.

  Of all the ships to stumble across, luck was truly on Sam’s side today. The ship was stocked nearly full of dynamite. He’d thought the ship alone would do the job, but with the dynamite aboard, there was no doubt in his mind at all. A smile plastered across his face that he could feel, but not get rid of, Sam jumped into the captain’s chair up front and started working the controls.

  He took the ship up quickly, needing to act before anyone discovered what he had done, and once he was in the air, he did his best to survey the city from above. It was so large and he could not risk getting lost and not finding his way back. He located a few landmarks and felt good about navigating back to the others when the time came. He pushed the ship forward away from the city at maximum power and ran to the back to shovel more coal into the furnace. While he was there, he checked on the escape ship that all cargo ships carried and found that it was a glider only. He hoped that it would be enough to get him all the way back. It would have to be.

  With everything set back there, he made his way back to the cockpit and found that he was nearly at the ship’s top speed. He started the wide turn back toward the center of the city and lined the front edge of the large structure hanging above him up with the base of the central stacks. Tilting the ship forward as much as he could, he began to descend as he raced forward, skimming several other stacks, but holding his course on target. The ship had reached its top speed and Sam locked the steering in place, making certain that it looked to be on course for the massive steel columns. When he was sure it was set, he pulled the gas release levers before sprinting into the back.

  Even with the nose down, the gas filling the chamber above him started to lift the ship and Sam felt like he weighed five hundred pounds, but he climbed into the escape ship and readied it for release. He could already see ships turning away from the stacks having spotted his approach, and he released his glider.

  It dropped away in an instant and he realized that he was even closer to the stacks themselves than he had realized. Twisting the small ship he was now in so that he could pull up, he allowed himself a moment to look up and watch as the cargo ship collided with the closest pillar just below the first docking section. The large chamber caved in against the steel, but nothing happened at first. The fractions of a second that it took for the explosion to start felt like an eternity, but once it went, it shook his ship as it continued to freefall.

  Finishing his spin, the explosion fell out of his view and he pulled up and away from the stacks mixing in with all the other traffic that was moving about in a mad panic. He nearly collided with three other small ships, but as he moved away, the traffic thinned and he was able to turn toward the Cloud stacks again. He looked back at the central stack as he made the turn and there was still a massive fireball rising through the stacks with clouds of black smoke billowing around the impact point. He felt good about his chances when the second explosion erupted. Apparently, at least some of the dynamite had not gone up yet and when it did, Sam could see debris flying in all directions from both the cargo ship and a few other nearby ships that were consumed in the second, even larger fireball.

  He continued alternating his focus between his destination ahead and the stacks as the column he’d hit began to buckle and he could see the entire tower start to lean to the side. It was going to fall.

  Watching the biggest structure Sam had ever seen lurch and then tip to the side was the greatest sight of all time. He watched as more than a dozen Empire Military ships were torn apart as the structure either pushed into them with enough force to bend their frames or pulled at them, tearing cabins from gas chambers like they were made of paper. When the far column started to buckle, Sam gasped. In a matter of seconds the entire structure went from leaning slightly to one side to a complete collapse, crushing what looked like a quarter mile of the city in the process as explosions went off along the entire line of devastation. It was bigger than he’d hoped for, and there was no way ANYONE in the city was going to give a damn about anything else for a good long time.

  A few seconds after the impact, the sound reached Sam and he had to cover his ears. It was deafening. At least he hadn’t been lying when he told Ronald and his wife that they would hear it!

  Chapter 17

  The Future

  The glider had wheels and Sam felt like he could land it if he had a good stretch of runway, but he realized as he approached his destination that there wasn’t enough room in the streets to set it down. He spotted a park just a few blocks away and pointed his ship toward it, hopeful that he could land safely, and get to the stacks again before the family gave up and went home. Given how big a distraction he had caused, he could likely get them from their home again if needed, but he wanted to get out as quickly as he could to avoid any further risks. He’d already done the unthinkable and seemingly impossible and taken down the largest structure in London from behind enemy lines. If he was a legend before, he could only imagine what he’d be when word got out that he had been behind this attack.

  He lowered toward the ground and found that his luck may have just run out. The ground was not as flat as it had looked and he was about to try landing on several small hills which looked like certain death from where he was sitting. It was too late. He had no means of ascending and was already too low to find another spot. He pointed down trying to match the slope of the first hill and felt his wheels touchdown. It was smooth, but he was fast approaching the uphill curve.

  The force of the ship banking up along the ground smashed his body down into the seat and he felt light-headed for a moment, but that was hardly the worst of it. The ship was still careening up and over the hill and he felt it leave the ground again at the top. Without enough speed to control it, he felt himself tumble through the air before slamming down sideways and rolling a few times before his world, once more, went black.

  When his eyes flicked open a few times, he could feel searing pain in his shoulder. He forced them open completely and found himself laying in the grass with the remains of his ship a few feet away. The canopy has smashed and he’d been flung from it. He could also see that the wings had both snapped off which explained why it rolled so much. Using his good arm, he checked himself over for more injuries, but aside from cuts and bruises, the dislocated shoulder somehow seemed to be the worst of it. It was a miracle.

  He managed to get to his feet, finding that one of his knees was also injured, but it held his weight. Sam had to take a second to remind himself which way he needed to go. Hoping he’d only passed out for a moment, he started limping his way toward his daughter.

  Had it been a normal day, his blood-soaked clothing likely would have drawn a lot of attention, but with all eyes directed up at the thick smoke rising over the city and people staring in horror at something they could have never imagined, no one gave him a second glance. Sam considered how many lives he had just ended, but he reminded himself that it was a war and how many innocent people had been killed in raids and bombings back home? At least most of the ships in the column had been military.

  He took no joy in killing any civilians that were caught in what had happened; it was just a casualty of war and
a consequence that the British forced when they took his little girl and used an innocent child as a pawn.

  He turned back onto the street where the cloud stacks were located and was elated to see the two adults each holding a child in their arms.

  Ronald saw him first and pointed, saying something to the girl in his arms. It was Lizzy. Sam wanted to run up and take her, but they had to keep moving. He limped right past and said, “Follow me.”

  They went up and found the same guard that had been there before back in his seat, having regained consciousness. Knowing that he could not get the jump on him again, Sam pulled his pistol and shot the man in the shoulder. Nothing fatal, but enough to slow him down while they made their getaway. He directed the others into the airship and Ronald cut the ties this time since Sam’s arm was still clearly out of commission.

  More relief came when Ronald told him that he knew how to pilot the ship, letting Sam sit and rest. After a quick launch, Ronald pointed them west and then came back when they were clear of the city to find out where exactly they needed to go. Sam pulled a map from one of the drawers in the cockpit and showed him the agreed upon rally point with the others.

  “They won’t be there for a day or two still,” Sam said, folding the map up and tucking it away.

  “What do you mean?” the man shouted. “They’ll catch us!”

  “They don’t care about us right now,” Sam said with a smile. We can set down in a field somewhere and wait this out.”

  “Why wouldn’t they care? What did you do?”

  Sam realized that in the small streets of their part of the city, the couple had not been able to see the smoke rising or the carnage that he had caused.

  “Take a look,” he said pointing to the cargo door that they had closed before liftoff.

  Ronald motioned the others to stand back as he pulled the lever and slid the long door back.

  “BLOODY HELL!” he shouted, seeing the destruction first. His wife gasped at the sight.