Worldwaker: A Steampunk Dystopian Action Adventure (The Great Iron War, Book 5)

by Dean F. Wilson

   “I'm neutral!” he yelled, before elbowing one of the pilots in the eye.

   The distraction was enough for Rommond to overpower the other pilot and slam his face against one of the steel chairs, knocking him out cold. He was the lucky one, because Rommond dived for his pistol, turned sharply, and took the other pilot out with hot metal.

   Porridge shuddered as the pilot slumped to the ground near his feet. He grabbed the chair for support, and whipped out his fan. “Oh, Rommond, I could never do what you do, buttercup!” He saw splatters of blood on his gown, like new crimson polka dots “Look at my outfit!”

   “I need you to do something else,” Rommond said. “Can you fly this?”

   “Oh, I don't know. There are a lot of doodahs to pull, but I think I'll manage, darling.”

   “Put us on a course as far away from populated regions as possible … just in case.”

   “Oh, Rommond! Don't say that!”

   “I have to, because this isn't over yet.”

   He pulled at the door leading to the rest of the plane, but it was jammed. He could hear the rattle of a crowbar on the other side, and a female voice shouting at Jacob.

  * * *

  Cala took another hit of Hope. “That's the stuff. Oh, it really gets you. There's no hiding from it. It knows where you are. It knows how to bring you out. You look like you need that, Jakey boy. You look like you need someone to find you. I know you're in there, deep inside, still the same Jake I knew. You're in there somewhere. Come and have a sniff. It'll do you wonders!”

   He knocked the bag from her hand, and the dust went everywhere.

   “Are you mad?” she cried. “That stuff costs a fortune!”

   “Not that you pay for it.”

   She thrust her hips, and the tight brown leather creaked. “I pay for it just fine.”

   She knocked him to the floor, clawing and screaming. “Your eyes clean, Jake?” She pulled down her own goggles, then produced an eyebox from her belt, two little cubes attached to a pair of goggles. She pressed them against Jacob's eyes.

   For a moment, he was stunned, and he stopped resisting her. His eyes were enraptured by the sight in the eyebox. It was like looking at the universe, a hundred thousand million stars, all swirling, all making him dizzy, all pulling him in, hypnotising him.

   He bashed the box away, and it took all his strength to do it.

   “No!” Cala cried, clambering off him and holding up the broken eyebox. “You're ruining it all! You're ruining all the fun!”

   “This isn't a game!”

   “It is. Everything is.”

   “Well, then you lost,” Jacob said, standing up. “We control this plane now. Rommond's in there. We're going to land this thing, and we're going to disarm the bomb. It's over, Cala. Just … give up.”

   Cala shook her head. “No. You clearly don't understand. It doesn't end like this. It can't! It has to be like fireworks. Don't you see, Jake? Don't you see?”

   Jacob sighed. “No, Cala. I don't. I don't think I ever did. I just … don't see things like you do. This isn't a game to me. This is real. And I want it to keep being real. When I was with you, we were living a dream … a fantasy. I've found people I can be myself with. I found a place where I fit in.”

   “That's the dream, Jake,” she told him through her tears and the tangle of her unkempt hair. “There's no such thing as a perfect family. There's no such thing as a happy ending. You might think the candle's still burning bright, Jakey boy, but sooner or later all our lights go out. And it can fizzle, and send up a tiny stream of smoke, or it can all be brash and blinding. Life's boring enough as it is. Why be boring too?”

   Jacob shrugged ever so slightly. “I guess because it makes me happy. What's all this excitement ever done for you?”

   She gave a fierce frown, and struggled with her emotions. “You're trying to trick me!” She said it more to herself than him. “I can't believe it! Not you! Not you, Jakey boy. Anyone but you. I've tried to help you! But you're trying to get inside my head. You're playing mind games with me! Oh, no! You get out now!” She pawed her head. “You had your chance. You blew it. And now I'm gonna blow it too.”

   She grabbed the crowbar that held the cockpit door shut, and then threw herself outside, with not a hint of concern for where she might land. She struck the bomb with a clang, and caught one of the wires holding it in place. Immediately she started banging the weapon with the tool in her hand, whacking it until there were dents in the metal.

   “Stop!” Jacob shouted down to her. “You've got to stop this!”

   “I'm stopping it!” she yelled back up. “I'm stopping it all!”

  * * *

  Rommond stumbled into the room, ready for a fight, but found Jacob standing there, and Nissi lying there unconscious amidst a pile of other bodies.

   “That woman,” Rommond said. “Where is she?”

   “Eh … out there.” Jacob pointed to the open door.

   Rommond bowed his head slightly. “It's probably for the best.”

   “No, I mean … she's still alive. She's on the bomb.”

   “She's what?” Rommond charged over to the door and looked down to where Cala was sitting with the bomb between her legs like a horse. “God,” he said.

   “He ain't listening, sweet-cheeks,” Cala shouted up. “And I've been praying real hard.” She gave the bomb a few more whacks. “Hey, can you do me a favour and throw me down some tools? This isn't quite doing the trick.”

   Rommond turned to Jacob. “We need to stop her.”

   “Yeah, I kind of gathered that.”

   Rommond took out his pistol and held it up.

   “What if you miss?” Jacob asked.

   “We probably won't live long enough to regret it.”

   Jacob pursed his lips. “How many bullets have you got?”

   “It doesn't matter,” Rommond replied. “I only need one.”

   He went back to the doorway and leant against the edge.

   “There you are!” Cala shouted up. “Where's my tools?”

   He pointed the pistol at her and tried to steady his hands. The movement of the plane did not help, nor did her swaying from the wires. She rode the bomb like a swing. She looked up at him and smiled.

   “Go ahead,” she said. “Blow a hole in it.”

   He fired, and the bullet struck its mark, piercing her forehead. The look of shock on her face was frightening, and yet no more frightening than the manic expression she often had. There was a smile in that shock, like she somehow enjoyed it, like she found it all exciting. The blood ran down her face, and she collapsed.

   Her bloodied body slumped off the edge, and fell into the depths below. Yet even in her final descent, it almost seemed like she had a sliver of a smile. It had been fun while it lasted. Death was just another adventure. Jacob hoped she would not haunt him from the afterlife.

   “It's done,” Rommond said, patting Jacob on the shoulder. It was a reassuring pat, as if he recognised that part of Jacob felt a loss, that, as crazy as she was, the smuggler had had some sympathy for her.

   “Yeah,” Jacob said, with a sigh. “I guess it's really over.”

   They turned away from the open door, relaxing their shoulders, taking easier breaths than they had taken before, only to be startled by the sound of snapping wires as the Worldwaker loosened from its bonds.

  33 – THREAD

  Rommond charged back into the control room, barely stopping for breath.

   “Your copter,” he said, panting. “You need to fly it under the bomb.”

   “Under the bomb?” Porridge asked with incredulity.

   “It's breaking! It's falling!”

   The general dragged the trader from his seat, tripping over the bodies of the pilots.

   “You need to get under there,” he urged. “You need to support it.”

   Porridge
panicked, waving his hands about frantically. “Oh, Rommond, dearie, that's too much responsibility for me. What if I don't succeed?”

   Rommond cut even his own sigh short. “Never mind,” he said, as he belted up the ladder to the copter, shouting for Jacob as he went.

   Jacob entered the cockpit to find Porridge pointing up the ladder. “Oh, do be careful! That's my livelihood up there.”

   Jacob raised an eyebrow. “That's all our livelihoods below us.”

   He joined Rommond in the cockpit of the copter, and barely sat down before the general issued a bullet list of orders. “Get some coal in that engine. I need lift. You'll have to control the arm. I can barely fly this thing.”

   Jacob followed the commands as best he could, starting by shovelling several scoops of coal into the burner. He toiled away until his hands were black, and the flames spat at him, disrespecting the man that fed them.

   “That's enough,” Rommond barked. “Get those pistons going.” He pointed to the pumps near the burner, painted in different bright colours for what seemed like purely aesthetic reasons.

   “How?” Jacob asked.

   “The lever!”

   He noticed the lever on the side of the pumps, and pulled it down hard. It resisted his force, and sprang up again. The pistons rose and fell a few times, then slowed to a stop.

   “It's not working,” he said.

   “Keep at it! You need to crank it more than once.”

   Jacob tried again, pulling harshly, then letting the spring set it back into place, before tugging it down again. The pumps got faster, but it still did not seem like they could be left to their own accord. He cranked the lever several more times, getting a feel for the biting point when he had to crank it again before it returned fully to its neutral position. He heard the hum of the pistons, and saw the sizzle of steam, but most of all he felt the vessel raising up off the Dreamdevil beneath.

   Rommond flew the copter forward, and it was an unsteady movement. The propellers spun at phenomenal speeds, until the blades could no longer be seen. At the mere press of a button, a hatch would open somewhere on the vessel, and another, smaller propeller would pop out and start spinning, pushing the craft in the opposite direction. It took much trial and error—and there was a lot of error—for the general to figure out which button did what. One of the propellers ground off the windscreen of the Dreamdevil, and Jacob could see Porridge almost fainting inside.

   Another wire snapped, and the bomb swung forward, with just two more cables keeping it in place. The weight of the weapon swung towards the copter.

   “Watch out!” Jacob cried, as if Rommond could not see it.

   It was too late. The bomb struck the copter with a bang, and sent it spinning away. Rommond quickly regained control, though now several of the propeller blades were bent, and the copter had less thrust, and he had less control.

   Jacob shook his head. We're not going to make it, he thought, as he saw the bomb hanging by its two final threads. They might have been big threads, thick threads, but there were still just two of them. They were all that stood between the world and annihilation.

   As he grimaced at the groaning of the wires, he heard a sudden whoosh of air and thrum of an engine. He looked out and was glad to see a monoplane whiz by, and even gladder to see the number on its tail fin.

   “Whistler!” Jacob cried.

   “Get his frequency,” Rommond ordered, nudging the nearby radio. It was set to a different channel than what Trokus set up for them on the other planes.

   Jacob messed with the dials. “Damn it, I can't remember.”

   “Well, you better hope he's psychic then.”

  34 – BATTLE OF THE BIRTH-MASTERS

  The explosion ripped through the tunnels of Fort Landlock, and the barrier was broken. Taberah felt it coming down, and she knew the Magi felt it too.

   “I suppose we have no choice now,” Mudro said.

   Taberah hauled up her weapons bag. “No.”

   “You better hope we end this.”

   “One way or another, this ends for us.”

   They followed the winding path down until it opened into an immense chamber, a cavern leading out into many smaller caverns. It almost looked like the womb of the world. Across its surface were hundreds of Glass crystals, of all shapes and sizes, and different shades of white or blue, or completely translucent, or a mix of the two. They rose from the ground, and jutted out of the walls, and hung from the ceiling. If this was a womb, then they were the placenta, nourishing and protecting the chamber. Yet they almost looked like a set of teeth as well. It was less inspiring to think that they stood inside a mouth.

   The Birth-masters stood upon a dais in the darkness, taller than most marans, and illuminated only by the faint glimmer that came from the Glass. The cast great shadows on the orange walls, the kind of shadows that did not match up to their bodies. They looked a lot more demonic, bent out of shape, with large claws, and larger horns. The shadows continued to twist and contort, even when the men stood still, and even when the light did not shift.

   They wore long, hooded robes, each a different colour. The closest wore blue, while the two at the back wore red and yellow. All three carried long staffs of gnarled wood.

   They stood in a perfect triangle, in the centre of which was a large crystal egg. It looked like a similar type of material to the Glass of the amulets, but it was corrupted, like the bodies of human women had been corrupted. Thick red veins ran through the stone, shifting like the shadows.

   “The Ssscorpion crawlsss into our nessst,” the first Birth-master hissed.

   “What is that on her back?” the second boomed, his voice thundering through the chamber, shaking the crystal stalactites, causing scree to fall in its wake.

   “She brought two more animals with her,” the third whispered, and it sounded like it came from up close. Taberah almost felt the breath upon her ears.

   “The Worm,” the third Birth-master said, looking at Gouet. “And the Raven,” he added, looking at Mudro.

   “The Raven eats the Worm,” the second bellowed.

   The eyes of the first flashed, brightening up the chamber momentarily. “And the Ssscorpion ssstings them both.”

   “Enough word games,” Gouet croaked. “They don't have the same kind of power here as they do where we come from.”

   “But they do, Magus,” the second thundered, “to those who come from where we come from.”

   Taberah did not engage with the Birth-masters. She had been warned about them before. She stayed out of sight, rummaging through her bags for her supplies. She took out a machine gun and its stand, and started to set it up.

   “We found you,” Mudro taunted, playing the game of time. “You survived by hiding, but we found your hiding place. What does that make you? Cowards?”

   “We are Ssshadow,” the first wheezed.

   “And Rock,” the second uttered.

   “And Glass,” the third sighed.

   “You are demons,” Mudro said, “and we're the exorcists.”

   Taberah fired the machine gun, which spat bullets out at a tremendous speed. There was so much kickback that even the legs of the stand quivered, and she found it difficult to turn and aim. The bullets sliced through anything they touched, smashing through crystals and punching holes in the granite wall. Yet when they came to the Birth-masters, they bounced off another crystalline structure that formed around them, as if they stood inside shields of Glass.

   “Damn,” she said, diving away as a crystal shard fired towards her from the staff of one of the Birth-masters. It struck the machine gun, which exploded into many shards of its own, discarding shell casings in all directions.

   Taberah quickly crawled behind one of the larger rocks, joining Mudro there.

   “Well, that didn't work,” she said.

   Mudro looked like he desperately wanted to sm
oke. “I'm starting to think I might be lucky if I get to limp out of here.”

   “We need a little magic,” Taberah suggested. “Machines are not enough here.”

   “How about a compromise?” Mudro replied, handing her a silver grenade, etched with many strange symbols. “That'll penetrate their shields. The gunpowder will do the rest.”

   “Good. How many have you got?”

   “Just the one.”

   Taberah sighed. “Well, we better make the most of it then.”

   “You'll need to get close.”

   “How close?”

   “Too close.”

   “Can you distract them?”

   Mudro looked doubtful. “I can try.”

   Gouet must have had wonderful hearing for his age, because he started to make a great distraction of his own, rumbling out strange noises from the depths of his lungs, which seemed to grow as they left his mouth and echo throughout the chamber. A mighty wind blew with the sounds, crushing everything in its path, eroding rock and forcing the shields of the Birth-masters back a little.

   Taberah charged out from her cover, running low, ducking and diving, and crawling her way from rock to rock, and crystal to crystal, until she was very close to the Birth-master that stood at the head of the triangle, and yet still further away than she would have liked. There was more natural cover further ahead, but she knew she could not get to it without being seen.

   Then she smelled something familiar: the pungent aroma of the leaf. She turned and saw a stream of smoke wafting into the air from Mudro's position, like a smokey spotlight pinpointing where he was.

   She peeped out at the Birth-masters and saw them aiming their staffs at the rock Mudro hid behind. As they concentrated their astral fire upon it, she dashed out, and dived behind the formation closer to the enemy, barely escaping notice. She sat with her back to the rock, watching as Mudro's cover was whittled down to nothing.

   She bit her lip as she prepared to see her friend's noble sacrifice, but all that was left behind the stump of rock was his still-smoking pipe. She smiled. He was a pretty good illusionist after all.