The Clockill and the Thief
Page 10
“Only from a distance.” Stanley looked down. “Sin told me. He said it was sweet as toffee.”
The Major’s head clicked around, his gaze coming to rest on Sin. “Did you check his pulse? Examine the body?”
“There was no time, sir.” Sin didn’t want to upset Zonda further with more details. The nail’s strike was definitely not survivable. Even if by accident, it was a perfect shot. Not that taking another’s life should ever be described as perfect. Zonda had done something terrible. Something that one day might be required of all of them in the service of COG. If they succeeded in preventing the looming war, they’d never know of the countless lives they’d saved, only of those that they’d ended.
“Hmm. We’ll chalk the mission up as a partial success. You’ve neutralised the threat.” The Major nodded, as much to himself as the others. “For now, at least.”
“The NB88 rotary blunderbuss is wildly inaccurate, pathetically short-ranged and has a kick like a Punjab elephant,” barked Staff MacKigh. He stood on the firing point of the weapon’s range, the grassy shooting lanes with their white distance marker posts extending six hundred yards behind him. At the far end of the range a steep bank of earth and sand, known as the butts, acted as a trap for any stray rounds. MacKigh had unzipped the sleeves of his canary-yellow flight suit. His biceps bulged under the weapon’s considerable weight, warping his tattoos into unhealthy pictures.
Sin shuffled closer to Zonda. It had been a week since they’d returned from Coxford, and although Zonda was putting on a brave face, Sin sensed things still weren’t right.
MacKigh aimed the weapon’s flared barrel skywards. “It’s also heavier than a pig inna pie shop, but I love the wee beastie.” He pulled the trigger taut. Steam spurted from caged pistons, pumping the munitions drum round and round, faster and faster. A whistle screamed and with a rapid phutt, phutt, phutt the blunderbuss spat a continuous cloud of steel ball bearings skywards. The spring-padded stock pummelled MacKigh’s shoulder, the vibrations spreading through his body, shuddering his cheeks, making the smile that split his face seem all the more wild.
He brought the weapon to bear on a lozenge-shaped hydrogen balloon floating twenty feet above the range and the lethal hail of steel obliterated the fragile envelope. Releasing the trigger, the blunderbuss whined and with an eruption of steam the drum clattered to a halt.
“That was good, eh?” whispered Sin. Zonda didn’t reply. Instead she hugged her arms across her chest, her knuckles bone-white.
MacKigh locked the weapon’s safety in place. “Shredding anything in its path, the rotary blunderbuss is your most effective weapon against sky-pirates.” He lowered the still-steaming weapon onto the firing point.
“She’s got a fair wicked temper and you canae be expected to operate her on your tod.” He picked up a leather harness, which supported a hinged brassanium arm, on the end of which rested a swivel ball. “You will work in pairs. Number One will wear the swing-arm weapons mount. Number Two will cling on tae number one tighter than a Scotsman clings on tae his wallet, to help with the recoil.”
The East and West Wing candidates teamed up, each pair taking a weapons mount.
Sin waved the harness at Zonda. “Are you a Number One or a Number Two?”
Next to them, Stanley sniggered.
Lottie, his partner for the exercise, frowned. “Still with the toilet humour. Really?”
“You can take the boy out of the streets, but you can’t take the streets out of the boy. Ain’t that right, Sin?” said Stanley.
Was that right? Had he changed? Certainly physically – the blue blood had seen to that. He was stronger and more muscled than ever, and those were just the visible changes. Who knew what it was doing to his insides. But at heart, was he the same Sin? The one who would lie and cheat, who would cruelly stamp on a young boy’s arm? He hoped not. He hoped he had changed for the better. Deep down, however, he feared he hadn’t.
For now, Sin lifted his chin in a half nod. “Yeah, Nobby, that’s right.”
Fitting the leather yoke over her shoulders, Zonda clipped the broad belt to the reinforced rings at the waist of her flight suit. “How do I look?”
Sin smiled. Zonda seemed more animated already. “You look –”
“– like a fat lemon,” said Velvet, cutting over him.
“At least I’m not bitter and sour like one,” Zonda shot back.
Velvet clutched her hands to her heart, as if mortally wounded. “Oh, look at you, getting all zesty.”
“Let it go, Zon, she’s not worth it,” said Sin, stepping between them.
“I know, but she gets on my pip.”
Velvet snorted. Zonda held a hand to her forehead. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Fruitful as this conversation has been,” said MacKigh, drawing the candidates’ attention back to him, “it’s time to throw some steel down-range. East Wing versus West Wing. The pair who hit the most balloons win Scotti-pops for their wing.”
“That will be the West Wing, Staff,” said Velvet.
“COG Von Darque, seeing as you’re so confident, you’ve got point.” MacKigh held out a drum magazine and beckoned to her.
Grasping the drum, Velvet strutted to the firing position, followed by Beuford.
The burly Americanian hefted the weapon easily in one hand. “Don’t worry, little lady, big ole Beuford will take care of y’all.”
Velvet spun, gravel crunching beneath the soles of her boots. Her lips narrowed and she glared darkly at Beuford. “You ever call me little lady again and I’ll geld you like a Texan quarter horse.”
Despite being a good foot taller than Velvet, Beuford still leaned backwards at the force of her ire. He raised a finger to an imaginary stetson. “Message received and understood, ma’am.”
Sin smirked at the Americanian’s discomfort. He’d been the target of Velvet’s wrath enough times to know the power of her fury. Any feelings of camaraderie disappeared when Beuford wrapped his bear-like arms around Velvet’s waist to assist with the recoil.
A tightness constrained Sin’s chest. His sentiments towards Velvet were more complicated than he liked to admit. She’d left him as bait to be injected with the blue blood that polluted his body, so he should really hate her. However, she’d also sacrificed her chance to win the Gears of Excellence trophy so that he could stay in COG, and for that he was eternally thankful. Ever since he’d met her on his first night of COG recruitment it had seemed there was an invisible force connecting them. Like two magnets: most times repelling, but equally, on rare occasions, irresistibly attracted.
“With a magazine. LOAD!” barked MacKigh.
Velvet slotted the drum of ball bearings into the weapon’s magazine housing, locking it in place.
“Fire team, ready,” instructed MacKigh.
“READY!” answered Beuford. He hugged Velvet tighter and the invisible band around Sin’s chest constricted.
“Fire team, your target is the pirate Zeppelins to the front. ENGAGE!” MacKigh operated a lever and a flotilla of balloons soared upwards.
Velvet pulled the trigger and steam shot from the blunderbuss’s pistons. They pumped faster and faster, whirling the drum up to speed. The firing whistle screamed, and the weapon slammed into Velvet’s shoulder. With a look on her face somewhere between abject terror and divine rapture, Velvet manoeuvred the blunderbuss in a figure of eight pattern. With a cannonade of bangs, the balloons exploded in a rampage of destruction. She released the trigger and the drum clunked to a halt. Wisps of steam drifted from the barrel, and some fifty yards down-range pieces of shredded balloon fluttered to the ground.
Beuford unhanded Velvet and Sin exhaled, tension melting from his body.
Staff MacKigh stepped up to the firing point and checked that the weapon was safe. Satisfied, he said, “COG Von Darque has just treated us to a textbook example, hitting all of the balloons. The figure of eight technique she used ensures maximum coverage and destruction.”
MacKigh clasped Beuford on the shoulder. “Excellent work, COG Wagtail. It’s the Number Two that seals the deal. A stable platform is essential for everybody’s safety. Here, you’re on solid ground. On top of an airship’s envelope it’s an entirely different bag of badgers.” He lifted the blunderbuss from Velvet and handed it to Sin. “COG Chubb, you’re up.”
“Go Zonda,” shouted Jasper.
Esra patted her on the back. “You’ve got Velvet beat easy.”
“Show them what the East Wing’s made of,” said Mercy.
The colour drained from Zonda’s face. She swallowed and shuffled up to the firing point. Sin lowered the blunderbuss onto the swing arm’s swivel mount and secured the locking pin. “You’ve got this,” he whispered in Zonda’s ear. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her tightly against his chest. Her body trembled.
Zonda clattered the drum of ball bearings against the weapon’s magazine housing, struggling to lock it into place. Her hands shook, and her breath came in short sharp pants.
The blunderbuss was a fearsome beast and Sin was aware of his own increased heartbeat, but Zonda’s response was wrong. Normally, you put a firearm in her hands and the transformation to a steely cold markswoman was instantaneous.
“Keep calm,” whispered Sin. “This is what you do.”
“Not any more,” said Zonda, fidgeting the weapon into her shoulder.
MacKigh gripped the balloon release lever. “Fire team, your target is the pirate Zeppelins to the front. ENGAGE!”
Another cloud of balloons drifted skywards. Sin clutched Zonda tighter, waiting for the body-jarring thump of the blunderbuss. Nothing happened.
“Enemy front. ENGAGE!” bawled MacKigh. Still the weapon remained silent.
“Pull the trigger,” whispered Sin.
Zonda shook her head. “I can’t. All I see is Eldritch, dead.” She locked the weapon’s safety catch into position and let the blunderbuss swing free on the mount.
Staff MacKigh clunked the lever and a winch hauled the balloons back down to earth. He strode to the firing point and relieved Zonda of the blunderbuss. With well-drilled efficiency, he disengaged the drum magazine and placed both weapon and magazine on the gravel. “Ten-minute tea break. STAND EASY,” he shouted. Then, putting an arm around Zonda’s shoulders, he guided her towards a concrete bunker to the rear of the firing point.
Leaving the other candidates crowded around the tea urn, Sin joined Zonda and MacKigh. The drill sergeant glanced up at him but didn’t object. From his tunic pocket MacKigh withdrew a tea flask and handed it to Zonda. “Drink. It’ll help.”
Tears welled in Zonda’s eyes. “How can the stewed mashings of dried leaves possibly help?”
MacKigh’s forehead furrowed at the illogicality of the question. “Because it’s tea.”
Zonda unscrewed the carbonchina cup from the bottom of the flask and sloshed an inch of Earl Grey into the bottom. “Nothing can help, not even tea. I’ve done something most terrible.”
“Aye lassie, you have,” MacKigh said softly.
Zonda looked up from her trembling teacup, surprise on her face. Sin was shocked, too; he’d been unaware that MacKigh knew about their confrontation with Eldritch. Had the weapons instructor known about the mission beforehand, too? If so, what might that mean?
“And if you stay in COG, you’ll do it again,” MacKigh continued. “Ours is not an easy path. We want peace and there’s a cost to that.” The drill sergeant retrieved the flask from Zonda. It trembled no less in his scarred fingers as he brought it to his lips and knocked back a slug. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and gazed across the range with a thousand-yard stare. “A cost that sometimes you pay with your life and, sometimes, your soul.”
A sound reminiscent of the skirl of bagpipes wailed around the science lab: the West Wingers were making sure that the East Wing knew how much they were enjoying their Scotti-pops. Shaped like a bagpipe’s drone, the sticks embedded in the tartan-coloured candy screeched every time the candidates sucked on them.
Sin ignored the cacophony, instead concentrating on the four balloons that bobbed above the long wooden bench at the front of the science class. Each was of a different size and tethered to the bench with string. He fought the urge to go and “bop” them. The way they floated, straining to be free, was like magic. Then again, much of the science he was learning still seemed like magic to him.
“I don’t get it. Why do they do that? It’s fantastical how they hang in the air,” he said to Zonda.
Jasper leaned around them. “It’s just buoyancy. Even the ancient Greeks figured that out. Have you not heard of Archimedes’ principle?”
“Course I have,” lied Sin. “Only I thought they might be floating due to hot air, but that can’t be right, otherwise you’d be bobbing round the science lab.”
“The gases in the balloons are lighter than air,” said Zonda in a quiet voice. “They displace the same volume of air with less mass. The air pressure at the top of the balloon is less than the air pressure at the bottom, and so they are buoyant.”
“Yeah, what she said.” Stanley nodded knowledgeably. “Either that or magic.”
Nimrod clattered into the classroom and placed an exquisitely polished walnut box on the science bench. Sin scanned his face, trying to search out some similarity in the scientist’s features to his own. Something to reassure him that the man really was his father. Sin still struggled with many of the scientific principles they studied, and found it hard to believe he was the son of the genius inventor.
“Today we are going to be looking at the science behind aerostats,” declared Nimrod.
“That’s good,” whispered Stanley. “When we fly on Hawk’s airship, I’d feel much safer knowing it’s science that’s keeping me in the sky.”
Nimrod extended a telescopic rod and pointed to the second-smallest balloon. “Hydrogen was the first gas used in recreational balloons, and also in the early zeppelins of the Teutonian Himmelsmarine. There is one major problem with hydrogen.”
A flame appeared at the end of the telescopic rod, which Nimrod held beneath the balloon. With a thunderous bang, the balloon exploded in a ball of flame.
Fragments of burnt rubber splattered Sin. “Every time we sit at the front,” he grumbled to Zonda.
Oblivious to Sin’s plight, Nimrod continued. “The Britannian Sky Navy opted for helium in the first of its aerostats. Less buoyant than hydrogen, helium balloons need to be larger to generate the same lift. Helium, though, is not flammable.” He moved the flame beneath the largest of the balloons, which, despite its size, disintegrated with a pop rather than the massive bang of its hydrogen counterpart.
“When the Sky Navy started using NB23 flaming phosphor nails in their steamcannon, the hydrogen-based Himmelsmarine were rendered obsolete,” said Nimrod. “The Britannians ruled the air until the Teutonians discovered quarkoneium. It has three times the lift of hydrogen and is not flammable.” The flame touched the tiny quarkoneium balloon and it burst with an apologetic pop.
There was a brief scattering of applause from some of the candidates. Nimrod acknowledged them with a wave of his pointer. “The Britannians soon managed to manufacture their own quarkoneium and the short-lived Teutonian air superiority was lost. Since then, neither Empire has made significant advances.” He opened the walnut box and took out a rainbow-sheened metal cube. “However, I have.”
“Gravitanium,” said Sin. He’d only seen the rare metal once before, in a tweet that Nimrod had used.
“Correct, COG Sin. Gravitanium.” Nimrod held the cube on the flat of his hand for the whole class to see. “Incredibly rare. What I have here is the world’s entire known stock of the metal.”
The cube floated gently away from Nimrod’s palm. “And what makes gravit
anium so special is that when it’s heated it throws off the pull of gravity. Imagine what you could do if there was enough to build an entire airship.” Nimrod plucked the cube from the air and returned it to the wooden box.
Lottie raised her hand. “What’s in the last balloon, sir?”
“That is an invention of mine.” Nimrod held the flame beneath the balloon. The rubber caught fire and burned away. Beneath, in the shape of the balloon, was a translucent metallic material. “Litanium Lattice Aerogel. It’s stronger than steel and a thousand times less dense.”
Zonda’s pencil raced across her notepad, scribbling complex calculations. She thrust her arm in the air. “Sir, that’s still much heavier than air. It can’t possibly float.”
“Ah. Indeed. COG Chubb has spotted my subterfuge. I cheated and filled the inside of the balloon with quarkoneium.” Nimrod untied the balloon and banged it against the wooden bench. A metallic ping rang throughout the lab. “Litanium Lattice Aerogel is the future of airship construction, making passenger transportation across the globe safe, comfortable and affordable.” He let go of the balloon and it floated to the ceiling. “Or it could be. If only the technology wouldn’t first be used to create war machines to carry bigger bombs further, or to disembark entire armies deep behind enemy lines.”
Nimrod placed his hands on the desk and leaned towards the class. “Technology offers the human race wonders beyond our dreams.” He sighed, a look of despair on his face. “And yet we use it for the nightmare of war.”
“La technologie of war ’as enabled us to mangle bodies on un magnifique scale,” said Madame Mékanique. “I will teach you ’ow to repair them.”
Sin was well acquainted with the palace’s infirmary, having been patched up on a number of occasions. Today, for a change, he was not attending as a patient. The students crowded around a human-looking manikin laid on the floor. It had a large cut across its forehead, from which flowed a steady stream of blood, or at least what looked like blood. Eerily, the manikin’s chest rose and fell as if it was breathing. The artificial lungs and heart were controlled by clockwork, but unlike the mekanikal watchmek, the humanity of the manikin made the whole effect more than a little disturbing.