The Gold Engine (The Gold Chronicles)

by D. Girard Watson

  "Why?" asked David, lowering the pistol, his arm shaking. He felt his gorge rising, and fought to keep it down.

  "The Americans were never that interested," said Waterhouse struggling for breath. It clearly pained him to talk but he continued. "The Spanish saw the value of it.... all the resources I needed to make the engine truly great. I... I couldn't forgive the stupidity of our countryman."

  He was silent after that. David stood there, and watched as the life slipped from the old man's chest.

  "I could use some help."

  He'd almost forgotten Lara. She looked horrible. The pool of blood had grown even larger.

  "What can I do?"

  "It's a stomach wound," she said softly. "It's not fatal. Not right away. It's just bloody."

  David ran to her, and helped her to her feet. He didn't care if she was a Spanish agent. He wasn't going to leave her to die on the floor of a prison.

  "You have to destroy the engine," she said. Her voice was weak but firm.

  He had completely forgotten. He looked around. The room was filled with tables containing cogs and gears, steam hoses, pistons littered everywhere. Somehow it was different from how he had remembered it when he'd been down here that first time. There seemed to be no order to it. It was in complete disarray. The machine was there, but it wasn't. What made it dangerous were how the pieces fit together and the engineering that was required to create its machine language. Without Waterhouse, it would take them a century to even begin to figure out how it might work.

  "No need," he said. "Waterhouse was the critical component. Without someone who knows how it all fits together, it's just a pile of metal."

  They started towards the door and slowly crept down the corridors up towards the surface.

  "Why are you helping me?" asked Lara.

  "I don't know," said David. He was being completely honest. "It just felt wrong to leave you there. I've known Waterhouse for many years, but the man back there was foreign to me. You, on the other hand, seem more real. I couldn't leave you."

  She shook her head, wincing with the effort, "You're a strange piece of work, Marr."

  "Why did you do it?" he asked

  "Become a Spanish agent?"

  He nodded.

  Lara laughed, "I'm not."

  "Why did you say you were?" He was incredulous, "I could have shot you! Or left you there to die." But then, it made sense. She'd wanted him to destroy the engine. A real Spanish agent would never have asked him to do that.

  "Maybe, but when we were back there, whether I was an agent or not was unimportant. I didn't want to have a debate about that. I wanted you to focus on Waterhouse. I needed to convince you that he was actually a traitor without your mind being clouded by my own self-defense. I needed you to think, 'ok, she's a traitor, but why is this guy acting the way he is.'"

  She grimaced. "You have no reason to trust me, but if we get out of this building and there's a squad of Spanish troops out there to pick us up, you'll know I sold you down the river."

  They walked to the exit in silence. There was not another living soul in the building. David figured that all the soldiers had either joined in the defense, or fled the area, making their way to the town. There were sounds of distant explosions and rifle fire.

  When they opened the doors to the loading dock, they made their way out into the street. In the sky a few kilometers away were the Calista and what must have been La Negra, hovering high above the port, lighting up in brief flashes as they fired cannon shot into the town down below. The ships were moving slowly to the rendezvous point.

  David and Lara moved quickly to meet them there.

  Harriet looked down at the base with satisfaction as they headed towards the rendezvous point outside of town. There was only so much damage they could do with the ships they had, but it was sufficient for setting several buildings on fire, killing dozens of Spanish soldiers, and generally wreaking havoc across the Spanish military base. They accomplished all of this from relative safety high above the city.

  She looked at her watch. They were to meet at the captured battery, that is to say, the battery that was supposed to have been captured instead of blown to pieces. When they planned the extraction, her marines at the battery were supposed to help defend the position from ground forces moving into position to attack the landing airships. Of course, now the plan had changed. The attack force that was supposed to have taken the battery was probably dead, and there would only be the few marines aboard La Negra to keep the Spanish at bay. There was also the question of whether David and Lara had succeeded in rescuing Waterhouse, and the answer to this question was even more critical now that it was unclear how long she could stay at the waypoint.

  She was not optimistic.

  The battery was in view, flames still dancing over the twisted, blackened guns. It looked like a blasted heap of slag metal. She searched the ridge leading up to the guns with her glass, looking for the moving figures that might be her engineer and first lieutenant.

  They were close now, but still no sign of them. Her stomach tightened a little.

  She maintained altitude. Their attack on the base had left the Spanish forces in disarray. They didn't seem to be following the airship as she had expected. Then again, she hadn't expected to be able to leisurely blast away at the port for half an hour. The Spanish soldiers may have been willing to fight, but they clearly didn't have the command structure in place to pull it off. The ships clearly weren't be tracked. No masses of soldiers were moving towards the blasted battery to investigate what happened. There was really no organized response. She hoped this would be emblematic of how the war would be conducted.

  Was that movement? She saw a flicker of shadow across the rock face through the glass. She squinted, holding the glass steady as a rock. It was them. How many? Three? Definitely more than one. Two. She frowned as she turned the wheel, changing course to intercept the figures on the rocks. Who was missing? Had David or Lara been killed? Had they failed in getting Waterhouse? She prayed that this hadn't all been for nothing.

  It took only a few minutes to reach the battery, and she scanned the area around it with her glass to see if there were any of her people to pick up. Nothing. The damage to the battery had been total and the damage to those unfortunate enough to be near it was even more devastating. Charred figures and blackened limbs surrounded the battery. No one had made it. She grimaced.

  "Put down a ladder."

  She lowered the ship to within a few hundred feet of the ground. Her marines scanned the road to the battery, but there was no one. The Spanish were not interested in pursuing the ships.

  Harriet ran to the main deck to look over the side. She saw dark figures climbing up, but they were moving extremely slowly. After the longest fifteen minutes of Harriet's life, she saw David's head appear over the side. He was gasping for air. He was followed by a deathly pale version of Lara. She looked like a corpse.

  Lara grinned, "Sorry it took so long. Marr here is not much of a climber." Lara scrambled on deck and then promptly passed out.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  "Why didn't you tell them you were a double agent?"

  "It wasn't necessary. Marr and Milton believed I work with Naval Intelligence, but that's it. It would have been dangerous to tell them since I might need to keep the role for a future mission. I didn't want to risk my cover...or endanger them."

  Tanenhaus nodded. "You really don't trust anyone, do you?"

  "Nope."

  "Well, the whole thing has been an all out success. Waterhouse eliminated. A ship stolen from the Spanish. Daria crippled by a single frigate. This was a huge tactical success and the PR all by itself is gold. The people upstairs aren't going to forget about your contribution. The Secretary told me personally to extend his deepest thanks to you."

  Ah, the PR, thought Lara. At the end of day, that was probably the biggest contribution of this caper to the war effort.

  "La Mujer?"

  "We picked u
p Miller yesterday per your directions." Tanenhaus wrinkled his nose. "The son-of-a-bitch cried the entire time. He begged us to let him go. He said it was all a big mistake. Academics."

  "How much damage did he cause?"

  "Probably a lot," shrugged Tanenhaus. "Not much we can do about it now. As director of that damn Institute, he had access to pretty much every technical piece of knowledge we were working on. He handed it all over to the enemy."

  "Well I hope the Secretary has plugged all the leaks."

  "So do I."

  The wind blew in off of the ocean, filling the cafe with a fresh breeze that reminded Harriet of Baltimore.

  "I'd love some crabs."

  Lara gave her a puzzled look, sipping a glass of rum.

  "I'd love to be back on Earth," said David, looking off into the sea. The cafe was one of the few establishments on the beach. The sun was starting to set, and oddly enough, it looked so much like a sunset on the prairie that he was briefly reminded of central Illinois.

  They'd been back for a few weeks, enjoying the much needed leave. The war effort had kicked off in full swing, so the shipyard in New Boston was filled with warships, ready for battle in the New Madrid star system. The atmosphere of the town had changed. There was a seriousness about everyone in town. The war was a very real thing.

  "Next round is on me," said Harriet.

  "Not likely," snorted David. "None of us have had to buy a drink since we've gotten back."

  "I'm surprised you're complaining," laughed Harriet.

  "Nothing's free, especially those drinks. Every drink comes with some sailor wanting the whole story, laid out in life size detail, and I just don't have it in me."

  They all silently agreed. They'd lost too many friends on Daria.

  "And what's next?" said David, "We'll get sent out to New Madrid to get torn to pieces."

  "As long as we deal out as good as we get," said Lara coldly.

  "I'll remember that next time you get shot in the stomach," said David.

  She ignored him, but unconsciously touched her stomach. She had fully recovered by the end of the three week voyage back to New Boston, but it had been touch and go early on.

  David was still unsure where he stood with her. Despite his best efforts to ignore his feelings, she had a sort of pull on him. She didn't seem to be encouraging any advances on his part, and she was acting as though nothing had ever happened between them.

  "We're not going to New Madrid," said Harriet.

  "How do you know?" said David.

  "I got my orders this morning. You two have been assigned to my new ship, the Calliope."

  "Where are we off to?"

  "You'll get your orders soon enough," said Harriet sipping her drink, "but we're being sent to the Sumatra system."

  "Really?" asked Lara. Sumatra had only been discovered ten years ago. It was almost completely undeveloped and was one of the few planets that had natives on it.

  "Why Sumatra?" asked David.

  "Gold."