Precipice

by Thomas Webb

  Intrepid’s gangplank lowered with the whisper of hydraulics, seemingly of its own volition. Two of Major Stevens’ airship’s guard descended first, positioning themselves at the foot of the wooden walkway. Scarlet took a deep breath, shouldered her gear, and stepped off. Major Stevens, along with her first officer, Lieutenant Scott, followed. When Scarlet reached the foot of the gangplank, the strangely dressed soldiers were there to meet her. The one in the lead snapped to attention. The others immediately followed suit.

  Scarlet checked the rank on his uniform. A petty officer? That didn’t seem right. He didn’t look or dress like a sailor. Nor did any of them, for that matter.

  The petty officer stood a full head taller than Scarlet. She had to crane her neck upward to look at him. He was broad-shouldered and barrel-chested with sandy brown hair and a full beard to match.

  The sailor slung his rifle behind him and rendered a crisp salute. “Welcome to Fort Defiant.” He offered his hand. “Petty Officer Carlyle, ma’am. At y’all’s service.”

  Scarlet returned the salute and shook his hand. Lieutenant Scott did likewise as did Major Stevens.

  Stevens eyed the man up and down. He looked like a giant standing in front of her. “You don’t look like any sailors I’ve ever seen,” Stevens said. She echoed Scarlet’s thoughts exactly.

  Carlyle laughed. “Rightly speaking, ma’am, we’re kind of something… new.” He turned to Scarlet. “And you must be Agent Scarlet.” He shot Scarlet a quick salute.

  She returned it. “Just ‘Scarlet’ if you don’t mind.”

  The petty officer smiled. “Scarlet it is, then.”

  The man’s demeanor was warm and inviting, a direct contradiction to the group he’d brought with him. They looked like a sideshow carnival strongman act, fully armed with repeating rifles.

  Carlyle hooked a thumb at the sailors behind him. “This here’s my crew.” Several of the group nodded. “Any friend of Colonel Montclair’s is a friend of ours. Got any more bags with ya?” The petty officer extended his hand for Scarlet’s pack.

  Scarlet shook her head. “I carry my own gear, Petty Officer, and no, this is all I have. Colonel Montclair told me everything I’d need would already be here.”

  “Yes, ma’—uh, Scarlet. We’ve got you covered.”

  Scarlet bid her farewells to Major Stevens and her first officer, thanking them again for the ride and apologizing once more for having delayed them. She watched as they stepped back up the gangplank to their airship.

  Petty Officer Carlyle turned and led the sailors back toward the fort by the riverbank. Behind them, the eerie whine of the Intrepid’s engines faded as the airship rose and departed. Scarlet didn’t turn to watch it leave.

  Scarlet took in her surroundings as they walked. Open field surrounded the forest, providing for clear lines of sight and fields of fire. The trees had been cleared back from the perimeter to as far back as a long rifle could reach. Anyone who assaulted the place would have to cross open land to do it. The defensible area around the fort, the artillery atop the walls, the access to the river — not to mention the soldier - like sailors themselves — someone knew what they were doing when they designed this place.

  Carlyle and his sailors formed a ring around Scarlet as they moved, executing the maneuver so quietly and smoothly she almost didn’t notice. Whether the ring was for her protection or simply to surround her, she had no idea. What exactly had Colonel Montclair told them about her? Could she trust them? Scarlet tried to relax, her mind churning through the various scenarios of how to fight her way out of this if she had to. Judging by their posture and the alertness with which they scanned the area, she’d be in for a tough time if it did come to a fight. Whoever these people were, they were not ordinary sailors.

  “So, you and your crew… you’re all something ‘new’, you said?”

  Carlyle chuckled. “Sure. You could say that. We’re part of a new program. Some of the Union admirals began to see a need for sailors with a bit more of what they termed an ‘advanced skillset’, if you will. And we’re the results of their little project.”

  “Really?” Scarlet said, intrigued now. “How so?”

  “Well, with the Confederacy building up its navy, there’s been some concern around potential attacks. They don’t want something like what happened with Lee sneaking up the Potomac to ever occur again.”

  “That turned out all right, thanks to Colonel Montclair.”

  “True, but men like the Colonel can’t be everywhere at once. That was pure dumb luck, at least in part. Then you got a whole passel of other, average, everyday type threats: aether smuggling, piracy, and the like. So the powers that be thought it’d be a good idea to have some sailors specifically trained to address those threats.”

  “Specifically trained?”

  “Yep. Trained to do things like take down riverboats, board ironclads, and—" Carlyle grinned. ”Well, I’m getting a little ahead of myself. You’ll see what I mean soon enough.”

  They arrived at the gate, a massive wooden affair made of logs lashed together with iron bands. Scarlet wondered how it would hold up to aether shelling or an airship assault. At least long enough to mount a counterattack and beat a retreat, she hoped.

  A word from Carlyle to the sentries on the walls above and the gate swung open. Scarlet surveyed the compound. The fort consisted of several low-slung timber buildings resembling barracks, a larger central hall with one wall open to the elements and rows of benches inside, one structure that looked like a kitchen, and two smaller split-wood buildings of about equal size.

  The door to the closer of the two smaller buildings stood open. Piles of spare clockwerk parts and collections of springs, gears, and levers filled a barrel by the entrance. A peek inside the building showed several ranks of the mechanical men, and a mechanist hard at work repairing a pile of arms and legs.

  The building next to it was closed up tight. Windows had been cut into the log walls, iron bars added later on. A sailor walked out of the building, an M4 in his hands.

  The armory.

  Just the sight of the building made Scarlet miss her Chassepot. The custom-made French rifle was back in D.C., in the cozy 8th Street apartment she kept when not on assignment. She frowned. She was certain her apartment had been thoroughly tossed by now, no doubt the minute she’d left it the morning of the coup attempt. And her beloved Chassepot? Probably confiscated. Scarlet took special note of the armory’s location. Just in case.

  The open central courtyard was filled with groups of sailors, all dressed similarly to Carlyle and his crew. In one area, a group of men and women sat around several charts featuring boat schematics. Not far from them, a second group was split into two, half performing calisthenics and half lifting weighted objects designed to build strength. A third group listened to an open-air lecture on what looked like hand-to-hand combat and weapons. A final group of sailors stood around a strange, rotund metal suit. It reminded Scarlet of a set of medieval armor, forged for a particularly overweight knight.

  With the exception of the odd metal suit, this place looked remarkably like DSI Indoctrination, just on a much grander scale.

  Carlyle’s crew split off with the exception of one sailor. He wasn’t quite as tall as Carlyle, but his shoulders and chest strained at the seams of his uniform. The sailor had olive skin and dark hair, his heritage hard to discern. Scarlet followed Carlyle and the second sailor as they rounded the corner behind one of the barracks. There was a tiny building there, no larger than a shed.

  “Here we are,” Carlyle said. “Your quarters for the duration of your stay with us.”

  Scarlet opened the door. An open window, cut out of the scrap wood the shed was built from, looked out onto the rear wall of the fort. An iron bedframe stood propped against one wall, a rolled mattress at its foot. There was barely space to turn around.

  “Latrines are communal,” Carlyle said. “Sorry the lodging is sparse, but I figured you’d be needing a little spac
e of your own. It’s probably best. Some of the troops here don’t have much experience with DSI, and what they’ve heard doesn’t sit too well.”

  Scarlet nodded, more than used to it.

  “This was a storage shed up until yesterday,” Carlyle said. “Didn’t think spartan accommodations would be an issue, though, what with you being Strategic Intelligence and all.” He gave Scarlet an appreciative glance. “I’ve heard y’all are tough.”

  Scarlet dropped her bag and nodded. “Yes. I like spartan. This will do just fine. How soon can we get down to business?”

  Carlyle laughed and stuck out his hand. The olive-skinned sailor shook his head and handed Carlyle a greenback.

  Carlyle looked at Scarlet. “I bet him you wouldn’t be five minutes getting settled. Thanks for winning me the wager.”

  Scarlet nodded. “First round’s on you later.”

  Carlyle looked amused. “Huh. Maybe you DSI agents aren’t as bad as they make y’all out to be.”

  Carlyle dismissed the second sailor, the man a greenback poorer than he’d been a few moments earlier.

  “So, when do we begin?” Scarlet asked again.

  Carlyle held up his hands. “Easy, agent. I know you’ve got a vested interest in getting this done as soon as possible, but let me show you something first.”

  They retraced their steps across the courtyard’s training grounds and back through the gate. Instead of cutting across the fields toward where she’d been dropped off, Carlyle headed toward the dock. Scarlet hid her displeasure at the delay as best she could. Every minute lost was another minute Copperhead rotted in some prison. What was this man doing?

  As they walked toward the empty dock, a thought occurred to Scarlet. “You mentioned you train to take down riverboats,” she said, “but I don’t see any boats here.”

  “Pretty astute,” Carlyle said. “We don’t keep them here all the time.”

  “So, where do they go, and how do you get to them?”

  “Remember we were discussin’ the Battle of the Potomac? You know how Lee caught us flat-footed there, right?”

  “Of course. Confederate leviathan submarines sailed up the coast, slipped into the river, and didn’t surface until they were within spitting distance of the capital.”

  “Yep. Union leviathan technology was the one area where we lagged behind the Rebs, and Lee exploited it masterfully, I hate to admit. If it hadn’t been for Colonel Montclair’s plan, the stars and bars’d be flying over this fort, and you and I wouldn't be having this conversation.” Carlyle looked out over the river, clearly thinking of what might have been. “My point is,” he continued, “they had us beat on leviathan technology, but President Grant’s since had that corrected.” Carlyle checked the pocket watch face lashed onto his wrist. “I think we’re right on time.”

  Scarlet put a hand above her eyes to shield them from the sun. She scanned up and down the Mississippi as far as her eyes would allow. There wasn’t the faintest sign of a ship, either up or downriver. Before she could ask what they were on time for, the caramel-colored water next to the dock began to roil and churn.

  As a Strategic Intelligence operative, she'd been privy to many of the Union’s military secrets. Her work required she have access to the latest technology, the newest fighting methods, and all the most recent innovations. Since they’d first crossed Vice Chairman McCormick last year, she and her minder had been shut out from much of that innovation. From the looks of this outpost, these sailors, and the river in front of her, they’d been shut way out.

  The tip of a whale-sized fin, the iron painted as black as coal, broke the surface. Then, like the great beasts of the depths for which it was named, the wicked, saber-like nose of easily the largest leviathan ironclad she’d ever seen burst through the surface of the river. It shot up toward the sky and hung, poised, before dropping and landing with a tremendous splash, soaking both her and Carlyle in the process.

  Scarlet stood next to Carlyle, crimson hair dripping and clinging to her face like seaweed, mouth agape, her borrowed uniform soaked through as she gazed up at the thing. The engines on the leviathan’s port side whirred, expelling a fresh spray of river water as the beast-like machine maneuvered toward the bank. While they’d watched the massive ship surface, a group of sailors had come down from the fort. They walked past the speechless Scarlet and scrambled onto the surface of the metallic ship. They reminded her of ants, the way they scurried over the beast’s black metal surface, attaching and securing moorings and rope.

  “Yep.” Carlyle chuckled, wiping river water from his face. “She’s something else, isn’t she? Agent Scarlet, let me be the first to introduce you to the U.S.S. Kraken.”

  14 New Orleans, Louisiana – The Old French Quarter, October 1866

  The city had risen from humble beginnings, an elevated game trail used by the natives to traverse the treacherous swamp. Eventually, the trail became a road, and the road a route to a French encampment. Some years later, thanks to relatively high ground, a natural levee formed of a severe, crescent-shaped bend in the river. With close proximity to the Mississippi, the French encampment became a trading post. And despite the eighteenth-century priest-chronicler of the Alchemists’ Guild, Pierre François Duvalier, describing it as “a place of a hundred wretched hovels in a malarious, wet thicket of willows and dwarf palmettos infested by serpents and alligators,” that French encampment grew to what was, at this very moment, the most powerful city in the Confederacy.

  New Orleans had survived wars, floods, and fire. The jewel of the Mississippi lived through being bandied about by the French and the Spanish before being sold off by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. He had no need for sugar cane but did have a pressing need to finance the purchase of a legion of early-model clockwerks. Once it became a part of the United States, New Orleans rose in power and prestige, somehow managed to avoid the worst of the latest war, and in the process crowned itself the gateway to all the Louisiana Territories and a major seat of power.

  Montclair nudged his brute along, the two of them navigating the narrow stone streets of the Vieux Carré, the old French Quarter. In Montclair’s heart, feelings stirred like the cauldron of a Voduo Mambo, a voodoo priestess. The happiness of returning home, the nostalgia brought on by the sights and smells of the city, the natural fear and apprehension at returning to his father’s estate; each emotion was an ingredient in the brew. Each vied for supremacy over the others, but none achieved it. Beneath it all ran an undercurrent of sadness, memories of his mother whispering to him at every turn.

  As the city traffic shuffled him along, the aroma of strong chicory coffee and deep-fried beignets wafted from a café, mingling with the scent of the nearby river. Montclair reflected on what had brought him back to this place. Somehow, his estranged brother, Randall, had known he was coming. For some reason, Randall had invited him home, ostensibly under a banner of truce. Did Randall’s knowledge of his movements mean the entire mission was compromised?

  Montclair shrugged. “Only one way to find out,” he told his brute.

  Montclair scratched his cheek underneath the horsehair mask. His eyes scanned the busy streets for any sign of being watched. His pistol and saber hung heavy at his side.

  He thought back to when Greg had asked to accompany him. “Asked” wasn’t quite the right word, though. It had been more of a demand, really, albeit a simply stated one. Montclair’s reply had been just as simple.

  “No.”

  Greg had fumed. “We may be at odds, Julius, but no way in hell am I letting you walk into a viper’s nest alone!”

  “This is a family oath, Greg. I have to go alone.”

  “And what oaths do they honor to bastards, Julius?” Too late, Greg realized his mistake. “I...I meant no offense,” he mumbled, the best attempt at an apology he knew how to make.

  Montclair had actually laughed. “None taken. And I can only answer by saying that things are… different here in New Orleans.”

  “And what
about the native princess?” Greg had asked.

  They'd spent the afternoon making love to the point of exhaustion. Afterwards, he'd insisted they share a bottle of wine, knowing her limited exposure to alcohol would have the sweet liquid carrying her into a comfortable doze in no time. Then, he’d revitalized himself with dark chicory coffee, bathed and dressed, and left her fast asleep in their hotel room. Deceiving her that way pained him, but this was a matter for him and him alone.

  “I told her the message waiting for me at the docks was from a contact.” Montclair furrowed his brow and sighed. “She’s not to know about this, Greg. Not a single word. Are we clear?”

  Surprisingly, to Montclair’s relief, Greg had agreed without an argument.

  Now, he found himself here, headed Southeast from the city proper toward an area called Montclair, a place just outside New Orleans named for the owner of the land, his father’s estate.

  Montclair passed a steam carriage with a clockwerk driver, which brought a chuckle. The clockwerk’s owner had masked it for the holiday. New Orleans would never be denied her traditions, no matter where time or technology took her. Montclair waved to the machine. To his surprise, the clockwerk waved back. Montclair shook his head. Technology had the world moving almost faster than he could keep up.

  The sun dipped toward the horizon behind him by the time he approached the road leading to Montclair plantation. He’d spent most of his youth here training alongside his brother, always under the strict eye of their father. Montclair was never meant to inherit the estate, so he’d grown up free from the burden of it one day being ‘all his’. Those years must have felt so different for Randall.