The man in it must have noticed, for its survival instincts kicked in. Its working arm swivelled in place until it grabbed the Copper Matron by the throat. It squeezed, even as she squeezed her own working hand into a crevice in the Conductor's torso. She started to choke. She felt the suffocation, the starvation of oxygen, and the crushing force of the Iron Guard's gauntlet. She felt the blood on her forehead dripping into her eyes. She felt the pain in her hand and arm, and the pain throughout her body. She felt the life leaving her.
But she also felt anger for her fallen daughters, for her killed comrades. She felt a conviction stronger than anything she had felt before: that she would be this metal monster's own conductor, leading it to the gates of Hell. She ripped out whatever wires she could grab, and the creature's grip weakened, and it stuttered in place. Its joints no longer seemed like they could hold anything, and it collapsed upon itself, pulling Alakovi with it to the ground. She struggled from its lessened grip, bruised, bloodied, and broken.
But the fires burned anew in its eyes, and it once more tried to reach the Landquaker, but now it had to drag itself along the dust. She saw it move, and she crawled after it with one arm, hauling her broken body behind her. Everything was a struggle. Everything caused her pain, moving or staying still. Even her cries hurt. Her lungs ached as she breathed in and out air and sand.
She reached the Conductor's body and crawled on top of it. It continued to twitch and jerk, and the fires in its eyes kept reigniting. She would not stop until they went fully out. She tore at it with what little strength she had left in her. She forced her hand through a gap she had made in the plating. It was small, too small for her bulging muscles, and the metal sliced through her arm as she forced it inside. She felt around, until she felt a heart. She was not sure if it was a human or demon heart, and no one would ever know for sure, because she burst it between her fingers and ripped it from its place. The flames in the Conductor's eyes finally flickered out, and Alakovi rolled off it onto her back, feeling her own fires flickering.
Fighting raged on around her, but she could no longer move. She heard the cries of Copper Vixens, and her lips trembled as she realised she could do nothing to save them. All she could do was lie there and listen, and hear all the sounds as they faded out. It seemed like a long time passed, a lifetime. It was her life, and she watched it swiftly pass her by.
Then she saw Lokk's face, and she heard the humming of his engine. It was a reassuring sound. She hoped that it was a sound that existed in Heaven. She hoped she had earned her place there. Surely fighting demons was enough.
Lokk placed his hand behind her neck. He did not move her. She knew there was nothing that could be moved, nothing that was not broken. The only part of her that remained unscathed was her soul.
“We came to fight,” she said, spluttering blood.
“Not to die,” Lokk replied.
She forced a smile. “That's the ... biggest fight, isn't it?” The words were a struggle, a fight of their own.
“You've gotta win that one for me,” Lokk said.
The Copper Matron's smile faded. It took too much strength to keep it in place. “Can't win them all,” she said, her voice fading into a whisper.
Lokk held her less broken hand tightly. “You've earned your place with the Great Ox.”
“I just hope,” she said, “I earned back … his trust.”
“Who's trust?”
“Rommond.”
“I don't think there was ever anything to earn back.”
She nodded to herself solemnly. “There was. It shouldn't have been, but there was.”
“What about the Vixens? Who will lead them now?”
She coughed and choked on her final words. “There'll always be … a Copper Matron.”
What she said was true, for there were rules among that sorority for someone else to take her place, but they were untried and untested, and though someone new and younger might soon take that title, they would always think of Alakovi when they heard that name.
34 – THE CONTROLLER
The Landquaker was starting to pick up speed. Rommond and Taberah finally burned through the door to the control room, firing several shots at the crew inside. But the driver seat was taken by someone who was a little bit more than just the common crew.
It was her, the Controller. She had a name, but the Regime never used it. She had a role, and that became everything that mattered. That became her personality, her work, her rest, her life. She answered to no one but the Iron Emperor himself, for he was her controller, and yet it seemed that she did not even notice that, in her own way, she was just as much a machine as those beneath her.
She wore black armour, edged with silver, covering every part of her, leaving nothing exposed, not even her face, which was encased in a mask of many pieces, kept together with black fabric. When she talked, the pieces moved, almost like a puzzle, though the real puzzle was finding out who it was beneath the veil. Even her hair, if she had any, was hidden behind a plate of iron. Her hands were the same, covered in armour and cloth, never hindering her movement.
Upon her belt were many devices, all of which had many buttons. Some had aerials, some had cogs, and some had dials and metres. At the back of her belt were many cannisters, containing a variety of gases and chemicals, and next to those were an array of tools, for she did not just control; she made and she repaired. To the Iron Guard, she was all. She was their mother, their maker, their god. They were programmed to bow down to her.
Rommond fired a shot at her, but the bullet bounced off her armour, and came back at him so fast that he barely had time to move out of the way.
She pressed a button and turned a dial upon her wrist, and Brooklyn's eyes flickered. He stood up sharply and grabbed Rommond by the shoulders, pushing him against the wall. The general struggled, but the grip was tight.
Taberah charged into the control room, launching herself at the Controller, tackling her to the ground, knocking a cannister from her hand. They struggled on the floor, until Taberah dragged the Controller up, bashing her against the counter.
“You can't control me,” Taberah said, grasping for the woman's throat. She could see her eyes through the mask, the only part of her that was visible, and despite all that was said about them being the window to the soul, Taberah could see nothing in them, as if they too were masked, or if she did not have a soul.
“We are all machines,” the Controller replied. “We do not act. We react. We're all programmed by something. Call it nature. Call it God.” She scoffed at the latter. “Call it me.”
Taberah cocked her head. “Well. React to this.” She smashed the Controller's head against the controls. A piece of her mask tumbled to the floor, and her skin was burnt and blackened beneath. She coiled over, hiding her face. “The pain … is just a symptom.”
“Well, whatever you've got,” Taberah said, “I'm the cure.”
She struck again, knocking the Controller down to her knees.
“How arrogant you are,” the Controller said. “Did you not think that maybe I just wanted you to let me fall?” She reached for the fallen cannister, and before Taberah could get to her, she pulled the pin. A green gas sprayed out, and in the haze it seemed that the Controller simply disappeared.
Taberah ran from the room, to where Rommond was slowly overpowering Brooklyn, and Brooklyn was slowly coming to himself again.
“We need gas masks!” she cried to Rommond.
“They're in the control room,” Rommond said, still struggling. “Under the counter.”
Taberah dived back into the smoke, reaching around until she found a box of gas masks. She grabbed one for herself, inhaling hard, and dragged the rest outside. Rommond shoved one in Brooklyn's face, before putting on his own. Taberah crouched on the ground, gasping oxygen.
Rommond walked into the haze, holding his gas mask up against his
mouth.
Taberah stood up and looked around. From the window in one of the doors, she could see the Controller racing down the corridor towards the rear of the railway gun. She moved to chase her, but Brooklyn held her back.
“Let her go,” he said. “We have mission here. We need to stop Landquaker.”
“Everyone has a mission,” Taberah replied, and she pointed to the fleeing Controller. “I think that's yours.”
“Damn it!” Rommond shouted, emerging from the haze. “She's broken the controls.” He held up the snapped lever.
“We can't stop it?” Brooklyn asked.
“Well, Rommond,” Taberah said, her voice muffled by the gas mask. “I think you better play that Ace you've been saving.”
35 – RAIN ON THE RAILS
Jacob, Whistler and Lorelai eventually found their way to the control room, where the gas had dissipated. The nurse started to tend to Brooklyn's wounds, while Rommond and Taberah rooted through boxes, the general periodically looking up to fire a shot at a passing Regime soldier.
“What are we looking for?” Jacob asked.
“A radio,” Rommond replied.
Jacob thought it was probably best if he did not tell him what he had done with the last one he encountered.
He and Whistler joined the rummaging, falling over every now and then as the train hurtled along even faster than before. The boy eventually found a two-way radio among the Regime supplies.
Rommond grabbed it. There was no please or thank you. There was no time for it. The general fiddled with the knob, trying to tune in to a designated channel. He knew there would be Regime forces listening. They were always listening, but he knew by now he had more than announced where he was, and what he was up to.
“Desert Hawk here,” he said.
“Rainmaker,” someone replied on the other end, his voice crackling.
“We need rain,” the general said. “Over and out.”
Who knew what the Regime made of this brief exchange, but Rommond knew it would worry them. He liked that it would worry them. He just hoped the card he had tucked up his sleeve for so long was still there for him to play. It was Plan B. He did not have another one.
“We better buckle up,” he said.
“Can't we just get off?” Whistler asked.
“At this speed,” Rommond said, “if you jump, you might as well jump to Heaven.”
They found seats wherever they could, and tied their belts up tight. Jacob and Whistler sat in one room. Rommond, Taberah and Brooklyn sat in the next, and Lorelai sat on her own further on. Then they stared outside the windows, following Rommond's lead, and they stared for a long time, until they thought they saw something in the distance. They looked some more, until it was clear what they were seeing.
The sky lit up with colour as the Treasury's fleet of hot air balloons advanced, led by the Skyshaker.
An alarm went off in the Landquaker, the kind of dull, groaning alarm that rose and fell, the warning of a bombing raid.
Several Regime crewmen charged through where the Resistance members sat strapped up. Most of them paid them no heed, focusing on their urgent duties, but one of them stopped and looked at them, bemused.
“We're fine for tea, thank you,” Rommond said, unloading a bullet from his gun.
“Hell,” Jacob shouted over. “I could do with a whiskey instead.”
The crew of the Landquaker immediately hoisted the gun up, one slow latch at a time, each notch clicking into place like the sound of a gigantic clock, counting down the seconds till the Treasury's coffers would be scattered in the sand.
Cantro advanced the Skyshaker ahead of the Treasury fleet. Unlike them, he did not need to rely on the good will of the wind. The airship made its own wind, zooming through the air in crusader mode, even as an army of the sky marched behind to join the crusade.
The railway gun locked into place, and it too zoomed, speeding down the tracks on a mission of its own. The Regime fired a shell at the Skyshaker, which Cantro easily dodged, and as he flew back over the tracks ahead of the Landquaker, he dropped a bomb, which tore a hole in the train's path.
Yet despite this, the Landquaker's speed was so great that it sailed over the missing track, barely rocking any more than normal. Its many wheels, held together in a frame, span ferociously, grinding against the iron rails, keeping its gigantic hull firmly in place.
Cantro turned and passed over again, but before he could drop another bomb, the Landquaker let loose its own, firing a cannister into the air that was unlike any it had previously used. The skypilot evaded it again, but it did not need a direct impact. It exploded nearby, sending nails and shrapnel in all directions, many of which bounced off the hull of the Skyshaker, and many of which pierced the envelope encasing its balloons.
Cantro lost some control and was forced to retreat, the vessel sinking a little as he fled. It was not a good sight for the Resistance aboard the Landquaker, and it instilled new courage and conviction in the Regime forces there, who knew they just had to wait it out long enough to reach the well-defended docking bay fortress at the harbour further south.
It was then the turn of the Treasury. Some of the crew were the same ones that had faced the Skyshaker in battle, so it was an odd feeling to be following it into a war against their former ally. For some, it was a welcome change, for they still felt their old allegiances. For others, seeing Cantro forced to retreat gave them a little hint of joy. It would not last, because with the Skyshaker out of the picture, all that was left was the Treasury's colours, and the Regime's intent to paint them all red.
The Landquaker fired another cannister, which ripped through the weaker balloons of the Treasury fleet, sending some careering down, some plummeting, and some torn completely into shreds. Amidst the explosions and the cries, the Treasury dropped its own payload, bombs that were smaller than the ones aboard the Skyshaker, but ones that, in numbers, could rip apart those tracks. Numbers was the Treasury's only advantage, having spent so long counting gold and iron.
The tracks shuddered under the force of the blasts, but many of them held, and those that did not were merely cracked or weakened. More bombs fell, and the Treasury's fleet seemed endless, and its bomb supply unlimited, but the tracks themselves seemed to go on forever, like a ladder up to Heaven, or a stairway down to Hell.
Then Cantro re-emerged from the clouds, having forced the Skyshaker up as high as it could go. He did not have time to repair the envelope, and so little crew to do the repairs, so all he could do was expend steam, giving it a momentary lift, and let it sink slowly from its camouflage in the clouds, pushing it on with its tail-fin, propelling it that little bit faster than the Landquaker. As it descended, Cantro released his bombs in lots, three at a time, rocking the rails below, tearing the beams up, breaking and bending the metal. Yet the railway gun still chugged on. Cantro managed to keep just ahead of the train's gun, but he was dropping fast, and the Landquaker's barrel was still aimed high.
Then the wind betrayed him, blowing against the Skyshaker, as if something had dropped bombs on the airship's own tracks. He was losing speed fast, and the Landquaker was catching up. He released the last of his payload, which tore through the tracks and almost toppled the railway gun, but still was not enough to take it down. So Cantro did what he knew Rommond would do; he dipped the nose of the airship and made it dive even faster, right towards the tracks. The Landquaker's cannisters of exploding nails helped in its descent, freeing more of the air in the balloons. Then it crashed before the Landquaker, and the train drove straight into it and up onto it, catching the airship beneath its wheels. It skidded on, sending sparks everywhere, until it veered off the tracks entirely and turned upon its side. There it skidded through the desert for a time, throwing sand high into the air.
Cantro and his skeleton crew left the Skyshaker just in time, parachuting down and landing behind the toppled
gate of the Iron Wall. Smoke and sand rose for a time, and it dissipated slowly, revealing the crippled ruins of the railway gun.
36 – THE CARRIAGE SMOG
Inside the Landquaker, Jacob could barely see a thing. All the oil lamps were shattered, and some of them had started fires, adding more smoke to the haze. He heard people coughing, and felt hands reaching out for him.
He tore open his belt and stumbled out of the seat. He heard glass crushing beneath his boots. He knew he was standing on a window pane, and the Landquaker was on its side. He advanced slowly, reaching out in front of him.
“Whistler,” he cried out, choking on the fumes. “Taberah.”
He reached where he remember Whistler had buckled up, and found the boy struggling to get out of the bonds. Jacob freed him and helped him out.
“Meet outside,” he heard Rommond call. “Don't stay in here.”
The problem was finding a way out.
Jacob felt something smack his head, and he reached down to find a gas mask there. Someone, probably Rommond or Taberah, was throwing them out in all directions. Jacob could not find another in the smoke, so he handed it to Whistler, who held it to his face. Jacob pushed the boy onwards, towards where he thought he saw a little light through the black smoke. He held his arm up to his mouth, coughing into his uniform.
It was light all right, but it was the light of a fire, not the sun, so they were forced to retreat again. They might have stood on a body, but they did not stay long enough to find out. Jacob just hoped it was not one of his companions.
They scrambled through a hole in the wall leading to the next room, but they could not find a way to get into the corridor, which was now above them instead of beside them. They reached around, trying to find more openings, but it seemed like they were trapped there.
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