Romulus Buckle and the Luminiferous Aether (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin #3)

by Richard Ellis Preston Jr.

  “No!” Lady Julia screamed. “No!”

  “We must surrender,” Octavian urged, arms open, imploring, “We must! It is the only way to save Atlantis. Marius! Defend me! Call in the Centurions! Marius!”

  “I shall save Atlantis!” Marius announced, striding towards Octavian with his sword pressed at his side. Belarius moved to confront him; Marius knocked Belarius’ sword away and laid him out with an armor-fisted punch.

  “No, Marius!” Lady Julia wailed, jumping in front of the Master Equitum.

  Marius shoved Lady Julia aside with a sweep of his arm and lunged at Octavian, his powerful sword thrust driving the blade clean through the First Consul, entering at the stomach and bursting out through the spine.

  “I am undone!” Octavian shrieked, blood gushing from his mouth.

  “No!” Julia screamed.

  Marius kicked the dead Octavian off his sword. “Horatus,” he shouted. “Now!”

  “Praetorians!” Horatus ordered. “Destroy Belarius and his traitorous senators.” The twenty purple-cloaked Praetorians charged forward, spears leveled, but they were not needed. The senate mob, bench planks raised, had already surrounded Belarius and his small knot of conspirators.

  “Do you think we are the only ones?” Belarius raged, rising from the rostrum floor, blood dribbling from his mouth. “You have made your choice, all of you—and you have chosen wrongly. The Master Equitum has misled you! I now claim the office of First Consul. Swear your oath of loyalty to me now, Praetorians, and I shall make you all rich! The doors of Atlantis have been thrown wide open. It is done. Defy me and you all shall pay for the murder you have done!”

  “Traitor! Dog of the Capitolines!” the senator with the black curly hair cried, and he slammed his bench plank across Belarius’ head with a dull whack. Belarius dropped.

  “Do not kill Senator Belarius, you hear me!?” Marius shouted. “Destroy the others, but leave Belarius to stand trial!”

  Dodging swinging bench planks, the black-haired senator and a female senator dragged the senseless Belarius aside until two Praetorians took hold of him, pulling him clear of the massacre unfolding around them. The other conspirators disappeared, losing their swords, crumpling under the flood of infuriated senators whaling on them with their boards, continuing to smash them long after their legs stopped kicking. The white togas took on brilliant streaks and spatters of red. Rivers of blood coursed down from the rostrum and flowed between the thousands of tile chips on the gallery’s mosaic floor.

  Buckle saw Lady Julia kneeling in the midst of the skirmish, cradling her dead father’s head in her arms. Cressida, her face flowing with tears, crouched beside Lady Julia. “Father, oh father—what have you done?” Julia wailed. “These were not his words! This was not his heart!”

  “Enough!” Marius roared, and the mob froze in place, gasping, their faces, togas and clubs dripping with blood.

  Buckle heard a shuffling, a wet dragging, and a pathetic whimpering. He saw the last senate conspirator, an old man with flowing gray hair and a stately face now busted and bloody, dragging his broken body across the rostrum, sobbing. Horatus stepped over the man and finished him with a downward stab of his sword.

  Then there was nothing but silence.

  Buckle smelled the blood, the rich, sickly sweet coppery scent of it. He could even taste it.

  “With the First Consul dead,” Marius announced, “I, the Master Equitum, assume temporary command as dictator. Does anyone here object?”

  No one raised a voice against Marius.

  “Lead us to victory, Marius!” the black-haired .senator shouted. “Save our city!”

  The senate raised a great cheer.

  “It is done then,” Marius announced.

  Horatus pointed up into the sea. “Be on guard, citizens, for the battle of Atlantis has only just begun.”

  XL

  THE DOME IS BREACHED

  Marius rushed back to the communications station, his sword dripping red on the marble, pausing to decipher dozens of frantic, distant voices streaming from the chattertubes. “Outer pickets are engaged and hard pressed,” Marius shouted. “Dome shields have been activated. The Admiral has ordered the fleet to attack.”

  Once again, hundreds of Senators turned to look out into the ocean. Seven sleek Atlantean submarines, pearly white and golden-copper and aglow with luminiferous aether, sliced effortlessly through the green water like the dolphins they resembled. They charged the oncoming Founders submersibles, massive bulky shadows emerging from the near distance, issuing volcanic bubble trails of gurgling oil and black smoke.

  “Our flagship, the Tiber!” a Senator cried, pointing. “She leads the fleet against the enemy!”

  Buckle peered at the largest Atlantean submarine—large by Atlantean standards—as it led the seven-boat attack with three fellows spread out on each flank.

  “Dome torpedo batteries are manned and ready!” Marius called out.

  Lady Julia stood up from the body of her father, her hands and dress stained with blood, her eyes glassy, her hair falling from its pins. “Save the city, Marius. But at least show the decency to wipe my father’s blood from your sword.”

  “Forgive me, Lady Julia,” Marius replied, clearing his blade with a fold of his cloak. “It was a duty which broke my heart.”

  Lady Julia seemed to nod or perhaps she just lowered her head. Cressida pressed against her side and clutched her arm.

  “Horatus,” Marius said. “See to it that Guardian patrols are dispatched to defeat seabed incursions.”

  “Yes, dictator,” Horatus replied, stepping to the communications station alongside Marius.

  “All forces are in position,” Marius said. “Despite their treacheries we shall defeat the Founders soundly and then we shall turn our wrath upon them!”

  The four Founders submersibles, dwarfing the Atlantean boats with their immensity, came on. Buckle saw black rectangles snap open in their huge bows—torpedo tube hatches. He felt a terrible tingle run up his spine as two more monstrous Founders submersibles appeared in the baffles of the four leaders, both just as big if not bigger than the ones ahead. Six of them now.

  The Senators gasped as one.

  The seven Atlantean submarines fired their torpedoes, a pair apiece, the slender copper fish flashing as their propellers kicked up swirling bursts of bubbles. The Founders submersibles, lumbering behemoths, made no attempt to turn or avoid, and this was of little surprise to Buckle. Two of the Founders machines were struck, exploding in bursts of burning air; huge bubbles expanded and contracted and hurtled upwards toward the surface. The haunting thunder of the implosions and the shriek of collapsing bulkheads rattled the windows of the great Senate dome.

  A cheer rose up from the gallery.

  “There is some good old Atlantean backbone for you!” Cicero enthused from behind Buckle. “Served up on a silver platter!”

  The surviving four Founders submersibles came on, propellers churning, plowing past their sinking fellows as they sank, their great black hulls spilling bubbles of fire.

  The bows of the surviving Founders boats burst with multiple surges of flashing bubbles. Every submersible fired its full complement of fish, as far as Buckle could tell, in the neighborhood of four apiece. Twenty-four long, ugly, coppery-green colored torpedoes, seams glowing red, propellers chopping, hurtled at the Atlantean boats, fired near point-blank, coming in a wall like grapeshot fired out of a scattergun.

  The Atlantean submarines dove and wheeled to port and starboard.

  “They’re too close!” a Senator screamed.

  The Tiber and another submarine, struck on the flank as they turned to avoid, exploded in massive, grotesque underwater spheres of detonating gunpowder and collapsed back in upon what was left of the wrecks themselves.

  The force of the blasts rattled the great glass dome again.

  The Tiber and her unlucky companion sank, plummeting metal carcasses, their beautiful luminiferous aether lights flicke
ring as they died.

  “The torpedoes!” Buckle shouted. A dozen unexploded Founders metal fish were heading straight at the Senate dome.

  The Senators cringed as they saw the torpedoes approach, shuffling back, appearing as if they might break and run.

  “The dome shall hold!” Marius shouted. “Our electrified aether shield will detonate the fuses short of the glass! The dome shall hold!”

  The torpedoes sliced the water, their ugly, fuse-crowned, green-copper heads becoming more and more distinct until they raced up to the dome.

  “This is your doing, Marius!” shouted Belarius, his chin streaming with blood, struggling in the grasp of the Praetorians who held him. “You and your pride!”

  Buckle held his breath.

  The dome windows lit up as if hit by lightning, shivering with splitting blue forks of electricity that made Buckle’s skin prickle. As each torpedo arrived within ten feet of the glass a myriad of rising electrical arcs slashed out to greet it, concentrating their energy upon the point of contact and shattering the device. Three of the torpedoes detonated. Buckle lifted his arm to shield his eyes from the stunning blasts of light and fire. The flash and wallop of the explosions shook the floor. Luminiferous aether tubes cracked, spilling bright liquid high from the dome ceiling. The shuddering window glass, the sheets rocking and grinding in their iron frames, cracked in places; tiny jets of water sprayed through some spiderwebbed fissures but the great dome held.

  Buckle lowered his arm, staring in awe. Every torpedo had been destroyed before it struck the glass directly. Never before had he seen such a thing. He felt the Senators expel a collective sigh of relief.

  “Atlantis!” someone cheered.

  But still the battle raged. Buckle watched the Founders boats continue their charge, the Atlantean vessels wheeling about them.

  “All north-facing batteries returning fire!” Horatus shouted.

  Buckle almost lost his balance as the platform rolled and shook under his feet, the dome rocking with a series of deep, echoing booms.

  “What has happened?” Marius asked.

  “Our sea batteries—the torpedoes have exploded in their tubes!” Horatus yelled. “The launchers have been destroyed! Breaches—we have multiple breaches on the battery decks!”

  “Sabotage!” Marius snarled.

  The Senate chamber voices rose into a howl of “Traitors! Spies! Betrayed!”

  “Marius!” Horatus shouted from his station, his face pale. “The main docking bays have been opened—all of them!”

  “Close the bays!” Marius ordered.

  “We cannot,” Horatus replied. “The engineers have been locked out of the control stations on every deck.”

  Again the Senators howled, “Traitors! Saboteurs!”

  Marius, shocked, could do no more than stare at Horatus.

  “You forced our hand, you fools!” Belarius shouted, still trying to wrench his arms free of the Praetorians who held him. “Many stand with the Founders, not just a handful in the Senate. And now we have opened the gates of Atlantis and they cannot be shut again in time. Surrender, Marius! Order the fleet to stand down or every one of you shall die.”

  Marius marched up to Belarius. “How could you betray your own house, your own gens?”

  “Always side with the strongest man, Marius,” Belarius replied. “My followers already have. It is not too late. Submit. Yes, it stings in the beginning but the future holds wealth and glory for us all.”

  “Mother of Mars!” Horatus yelled. “We have enemy soldiers inside the Number Three dome!”

  “Enemy troops?” Marius gasped. “Impossible! What happened to the pickets? Where are the Guardians?”

  “I don’t know!” Horatus answered. “General Sulla and his Centurions are assembling the Guard on the Via Aventinus causeway. We shall hold them there.”

  Cicero, looking as pale as his white toga, clambered onto the bloodstained rostrum. “I fear the enemy has access to every dome. All is lost!”

  “Surrender, Master Equitum,” Belarius bellowed.

  “Horatus,” Marius shouted. “Order Sulla and his men to retreat beyond the watertight hatches. If they are about to be overrun tell them to seal the hatches and flood the dome.”

  “Did you not think we would be prepared?” Belarius laughed. “The Aventine house is doomed. Surrender, Master Equitum. You are a good man and we shall show you mercy.”

  With a roar, Marius spun around and ran his sword straight into Belarius. The Praetorians held the dying Belarius up so Marius could look him in the eyes. “Die like a dog, traitor,” Marius hissed. “Atlantis shall never surrender.”

  Belarius opened his mouth but died before he could speak. Marius yanked his sword free and the Praetorians dropped Belarius’ body on the floor.

  “Clear the Senate!” Marius ordered. “Get to your escape pods if you can!”

  The Senators dropped their planks and hurried toward the exits, though there was no panic. Buckle turned to run, to leap down from the platform and race back into the Black Atrium to collect Sabrina, Welly and Penny Dreadful. He had to get his people out of Atlantis. But how to escape? Where was Captain Felix? Their only chance was the Dart.

  “Wait, Captain,” Marius said, taking hold of Buckle by the shoulder and hauling Cicero along beside him. “We shall see to it that you get out of here.”

  “I cannot be taken,” Cicero mumbled, opening a compartment on the golden dolphin ring on his finger. “I cannot be taken. I shall not be drowned.”

  “No, Cicero,” snapped Marius. “Not yet.”

  With trembling fingers, Cicero snapped the ring shut.

  “Horatus,” Marius yelled. “Escort the Keeper to the First Consul’s private launch. And take Captain Buckle with you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Horatus replied, rushing up with two Praetorians at his side.

  Marius turned to Buckle. “Captain, return to your clan and tell them Atlantis is with them. We are with them.”

  “I shall,” Buckle said.

  “The Founders!” Lady Julia screamed, flinging out her arm to point at the dome wall. “The submersible!”

  Buckle spun to see the lead Founder’s submarine, its towering bow advancing through the water, accelerating as it charged the towering glass wall.

  “Oh, Neptune save us,” a Senator screamed. The Senators surged, now a chaotic, panicked mob heading for the doors.

  “Go,” Marius shouted at Buckle, shoving Cicero towards Horatus. “Get out of here!”

  “With me!” Horatus announced as his two Praetorians grabbed Cicero by the scruff of the neck and, lifting his feet off the floor, raced down the stairs to the hatchway at the rear of the speaker’s platform. Buckle ran alongside. As he reached the hatchway he heard a collective scream, hundreds of male and female voices erupting in terror—and he looked back.

  The Founders submersible loomed larger and larger in the glass four stories up, too fast, coming on too straight. The crazy bastard was about to ram the dome.

  The Founders didn’t make officers like that, Buckle thought.

  The submersible slammed into the dome, its bow punching through the glass like a gigantic harpoon of copper-green metal and iron, sending a titanic waterfall of seawater and glittering glass plummeting down to the gallery floor. The pendulum cable snapped and the huge bob crashed down on the grand mosaic.

  A violent burp of pressure nearly burst Buckle’s eardrums, making him stagger. As he stumbled through the hatchway he sensed more than saw the entire side of the dome collapse, sending a mountainous wall of churning dark blue water—and it the midst of it the falling submersible—thundering down upon the rostrum where Lady Julia and Cressida knelt and hugged each other over Octavian’s dead body.

  XLI

  THE BATTLE OF THE BLACK ATRIUM

  Buckle dove through the doorway, bounced off a Praetorian hedging against the hatch and crashed into Cicero, knocking both of them sprawling.

  “Now!” Horatus shouted.
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  The Praetorians slammed the hatch shut. Horatus whirled the locking wheel.

  The corridor shook with a deafening boom so immense Buckle was shocked the structure didn’t collapse around them. The hatch sprung leaks but its seals held.

  The Praetorians hauled Buckle and Cicero to their feet.

  “Get going, damn you,” Horatus gasped. The Praetorians took hold of Cicero and raced down the passageway.

  Buckle turned to follow but Horatus hauled him back. “Captain,” Horatus said, “the Keeper must not fall into enemy hands. The secret of the aether must be preserved at all costs. If the enemy overwhelms us we must make certain the Keeper does not survive to have his secrets extracted. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” Buckle replied.

  “Good,” Horatus answered, and set off running. Buckle followed at a sprint, breathing in air rich with the salty stink of seawater and wet ambergris. He emerged in the Black Atrium where Sabrina, Welly, Penny, and four Praetorian guards waited, swords drawn, looking confused. Buckle found himself splashing through ankle-deep seawater as he crossed the room—he saw a low torrent pouring in from the opposite blue hatchway, pooling shallow but flowing fast, turning the red carpet to a dark, ugly shade of purple.

  Twelve red-cloaked Atlantean soldiers led by a man with a sideways crimson brush on his helmet charged in through the Mars gate. Buckle noticed the Mars gate—and the Neptune gate opposite—were closing, slowly, as big metal hatches slid into position to seal the passageways.

  “Horatus—what has happened?” the officer with the crimson brush on his helmet asked.

  “The Senate chamber is lost, Centurion Numa—breached by a Founders submarine,” Horatus said quickly. “We have reports of Founders soldiers entering the domes.”

  “Impossible!” one of the soldiers snapped, more out of rage than disbelief.

  “All watertight doors are closing,” Numa said. “We’ll cut them off and drown them, we will, General.”

  The dome shuddered again, making Buckle’s stomach clench. The aether tubes vibrated and the fountain spouts splattered droplets into the shallow water on the floor. Buckle heard the sound of torrents of water roaring though the interior of the dome, coming somewhere from above. Buckle picked up Penny Dreadful without breaking stride and she clung to him like a human child.