Lifemaker: A Steampunk Dystopian Fantasy (The Great Iron War, Book 2)

by Dean F. Wilson

  “It looks like the worst is over,” Jacob said, as if to tempt fate.

  “Maybe we should find Rommond,” Whistler suggested.

  “He’s probably outside,” Jacob said, “bare-knuckle boxing with the beast.”

  As amusing as this thought was to Jacob, it did little to cheer Whistler. “I think there’s still something out there.”

  They found their way into one of the armouries, which was loaded with pistols and rifles, useful only for a battle inside the submarine. They looked through the supplies, but there were no torpedoes or harpoons, and no real way to fire them.

  Then they heard a series of creaking and grinding noises, and they saw the hull begin to buckle. It was not from the pressure of the ocean depths, but from the monstrous serpent that wound its way around the submarine, constricting the metal, choking the steel.

  Jacob and Whistler backed away from the crinkling metal walls, but there was nowhere truly to run, for everywhere they went, the walls warped around them. They knew that if the hull did not breach, where death would wash in upon them all, it was only a matter of time before everyone was crushed inside.

  “Back to your stations,” Rommond called calmly over the intercom, as if being crushed inside a metal cylinder was an everyday occurrence. “All hands, turn on every light. Repeat, all hands, turn on every light.”

  Even from this vantage point, Jacob and Whistler could see the water outside illuminating from the powerful spotlights around the ship.

  “What is he doing?” Jacob said. He meant to just think it.

  Whistler raised his hand. “I think he’s trying to scare them away.”

  The light went on in Jacob’s mind. In a world of darkness, the only real weapon was the light.

  Jacob and Whistler ran from room to room, turning on or turning up every light they could find. They split up to gain speed, purpose conquering panic, duty quelling fear. It seemed that every gaslight and oil lamp was not quite bright enough, and many were bits of broken metal and glass on the floor, and some were completely starved of fuel. Others joined the frantic illumination of the vessel, finding battery-powered torches and shining them out the windows. In time, the submarine was a solitary lighthouse on the ocean floor.

  The sea serpent was not completely blind, but it took every light imaginable to penetrate its weak eyes. When they did, especially the powerful spotlights, which scattered many of the other ugly fishes that came close enough to their rays, the snake let go of the ship and issued a horrendous howl that rocked the ocean depths. It wriggled away, sending up silt and weeds in its wake, and leaving the Lifemaker for some other more daring predator.

  Nothing else attacked the submarine that day, or the days that followed, but every sound was heard as the battle cry of a beast, every creak the war song of the deep. Nerves were frayed, and many among the crew found it difficult to rest, and impossible to sleep. For those who fought their way into the realms of slumber, the battle raged on in their dreams.

  * * *

  Immediately after the attack, Alson insisted over the intercom that the worst was over, but it was clear to everyone that the submarine still was not rising. The light might have been scaring away the creatures of the dark, but that light could not hold out forever. Nor, indeed, could the ship’s oxygen supply.

  Rommond marched down to the lower levels, where Jacob and Whistler lurked in the shadows. The smuggler hid there from the prying light, and yet still felt like he was being watched. Whistler would have preferred to stay out of the darkness, but not if it meant staying out of it alone.

  “You,” Rommond said, almost seizing Jacob with the word, as if it were a spell. “Come with me.” The general walked off before awaiting a response. It seemed as if he did not even want a Yes, sir. He wanted action.

  Jacob was surprised at how quickly he sprang into motion, like a good little soldier. He was not sure if it was the urgency in Rommond’s voice that made him go, or if it was the fact that he felt safer in the general’s company. Whistler trotted along behind them.

  “Not you, Brogan,” the general said, without stopping or turning.

  “But I—”

  “Not you.”

  Whistler halted and shrunk his shoulders. Jacob turned to him and shrugged, trying to convey What can I do? It was not exactly like he had much sway with the general. He also had a feeling that Rommond was going somewhere he deemed dangerous, which was why he did not want the boy along. Jacob, on the other hand, was expendable. All smugglers were.

  “You look like a man on a mission,” Jacob said, trying hard to keep up with Rommond’s long and even strides.

  “I am.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To solve a mystery.”

  “I love a good mystery,” Jacob said with a smile.

  “I don’t.”

  They continued on until they came to the aft ballast room, which was darker than most other places on the submarine. Jacob mused that perhaps that was why Rommond wanted him to accompany him. Perhaps he thought that he could see better in the dark.

  “Help me with these,” Rommond said, handing rubber tubing to Jacob.

  “What do I attach this with?”

  “You’re standing on them.”

  Jacob stepped aside to find several hexagon nuts on the floor. He picked them up and began fastening them into place.

  “You sure we want to use these if they came loose before?” Jacob asked.

  Rommond stared at him in the darkness. “They didn’t come loose.”

  They reconnected the cannisters of compressed air to the ballast tanks and sealed them tight.

  “We’re good at the stern,” Rommond called over the intercom.

  “A few minutes more at the bow,” Boulder panted back. Jacob imagined the head mechanic rolling back and forth at the forward ballast tanks, causing more damage.

  “Bring us up quick,” Rommond called to Alson over the intercom.

  He did not need to, as the submarine already began to rise. It shuddered as more of the smaller sea creatures attacked it, and it sank a little as barnacle beasts attached themselves to the hull like leaden weights. As soon as Boulder’s work was complete, however, it rose swiftly, leaving the black abyss, and its blind inhabitants, for the slightly paler black of the level above.

  “Well, that was fun,” Jacob said.

  Rommond scoffed. “You have a strange idea of fun.”

  “I knew a girl who would have loved all this excitement.”

  “I’m jolly glad she isn’t with you still,” Rommond said. He began to carefully patrol between the tanks, as if one of them might suddenly come alive.

  “What are we looking for?” Jacob asked as he strolled along behind him.

  Again Rommond did not respond. He stopped when he bumped his foot against a wrench on the floor. He picked it up and held it to the light.

  “Boulder is not this sloppy,” Rommond said.

  He could have fooled me, Jacob thought. He almost said it too.

  Rommond continued on, clutching the wrench tightly in his hand. For a moment he almost looked like a murderer, stalking his prey. The shadow he cast on the wall was sinister. Jacob trailed a little further behind than before.

  “We could do with better lights in here,” Rommond said.

  “We could do with better lights everywhere,” Jacob suggested.

  He banged his elbow against one of the tanks, as if to prove the point. He grimaced, and Rommond turned to him sharply, wrench at the ready, before resuming his careful patrol. Jacob followed slowly, nursing the wound.

  Rommond grabbed the oil lamp in the centre of the room and held it before him. The light attacked the darkness, sending it fleeing into the corners. It also attacked their eyes, and it made the shadows look a little bit like attackers of their own.

  Where’s my wrench? Jacob thought. He noticed his hands were clenched into fists. He was not sure if he was trying to steady the tremors or prepare for a fight.

/>   They reached one of the furthest corners of the room, where the shadows conspired. A darker shape was there in the gloom, lying still. Jacob squinted in the darkness. He thought it almost looked like a boot.

  Rommond shone the lamp at the shape, and the shadows fled from the body it revealed. Even in the darkness, Jacob could see the pool of blood around it.

  Rommond reached down and turned the body over, revealing the Resistance uniform. There was no doubt who it was. Tradam was dead, and his gun was missing.

  “Hell,” Jacob said. He hoped he was not condemning the man.

  Rommond took out his pistol. “We have a saboteur on board.”

  14 – INTERROGATION

  Rommond convened a hasty meeting between his top advisers, and it was a great surprise to Jacob to find himself invited. He was less surprised when he found himself the focus of many of the questions. It was not long before it started to look like an interrogation.

  “What happened after the incident with Teller?” Rommond asked.

  “What do you mean?” Jacob asked in turn.

  “Was he killed?”

  “I don’t really—”

  “Did he die? Did he fall to tribal darts? Did you shoot him?”

  “I didn’t kill him. I was kind of trying to stop being killed myself. Me and Whistler just ran for it.”

  “Ran for what?”

  “For our lives.”

  “So Teller might still be alive.”

  “I suppose so, yeah.”

  Rommond turned to his fellow commanders with a grave expression. They looked to each other, as if they had discussed this possibility before.

  “What’s with the interrogation?” Jacob asked. “Why didn’t you ask me all this before?”

  “It wasn’t important before.”

  “Do you actually think Teller is on board? Wouldn’t we have encountered him by now?”

  “It’s a big ship,” Taberah said.

  “Hell, he’d leave a trail of slime,” Jacob said, “like a snail.”

  “A trail that no one seemed to notice before,” Rommond grumbled. He looked to Taberah. “I told you he couldn’t be trusted.”

  “You said that about a lot of people, people we now rely on,” Taberah replied. “Mudro. Boulder. Karlsif. All people you had doubts about at first. I can’t just discard people left, right and centre when we need them.”

  “What about when you don’t need them?” Jacob asked.

  Taberah looked at him, but did not reply.

  “We haven’t confirmed that Teller is eliminated,” Rommond said. “He wormed his way in once before, while we were looking, so who knows if he has wormed his way in again, when we weren’t looking.” He turned to Taberah. “Are you sure you weren’t followed when you rescued Jacob and the boy?”

  Taberah looked insulted. “It’s the Silver Ghost, Rommond.”

  “It’s not the Invisible Ghost. Silver can still be seen in the desert.”

  “I wasn’t followed.”

  “Did you take a winding way to Dustdelving after you picked them up?”

  Jacob watched Taberah closely as her agitation rose. Your turn to be interrogated. He was surprised when she did not answer the general’s question.

  “Did you take a winding path?” Rommond asked again, a little sterner.

  “I didn’t see the need,” Taberah said after another pause. She clearly would have preferred silence as her answer. To Jacob, and likely the general, that still would have said a lot.

  Rommond was livid. “You didn’t see the need?” he quizzed. He turned left and right, where his commanders pursed their lips, as if afraid to speak. Rommond leaned back in his chair and interlocked his fingers, as if to stop them grabbing his gun.

  “We were evacuating,” Taberah explained.

  “Because they had a good idea where we were,” Rommond said. “They didn’t know exactly where we were.”

  “What would it have mattered? We were getting out of there.”

  “They didn’t know we had the Lifemaker,” the general said. If it had been anyone else, they would have shouted it; instead, his pitch was slightly higher, and significantly sterner. “Anyone could have followed you. Anyone could have seen us packing up shop and setting sail.”

  “Anyone could have got on board,” Jacob interjected.

  Rommond gestured towards Jacob. “Anyone could have got on board.”

  “We would have seen them,” Taberah said.

  “Did you see everyone who came on board?” the general asked.

  “No,” she replied. “But I’m not the ship’s security.”

  “So you’re going to put this lapse on my men?”

  “Rommond, you’re making assumptions about Teller.”

  “You mean, like I made when you first introduced him to me?”

  “That he’s still alive,” she said, gritting her teeth.

  “I hope to all gods that he’s not,” Rommond said, “and if he is, I’ll kill him myself. But the big issue here is that you went against protocol. You didn’t follow instruction. I notice this is a habit of yours. A dangerous habit, Taberah.”

  “It was Resistance protocol,” Taberah said. “The Order has different rules.”

  “Like letting spies in.”

  “I seem to recall that Daniel was one of your men before he joined the Order,” Taberah said.

  “Don’t put Brogan’s capture on me, Taberah. You’re careless with your group. You can’t just run in to every situation guns blazing.”

  “You can’t just sit back and wait for things to get better either,” she replied. “Things aren’t going to go back to the way they were. We’re not fighting for the past, Rommond. We’re fighting for the future.”

  “I know what we’re fighting for.”

  “Then stop criticising me for giving my all for it.”

  “It’s not your all that I’m worried about. It’s the fact that while you’re giving your all, you’re risking people’s lives.”

  “If I risk them by doing something, you risk them by doing nothing.”

  “Doing nothing? Do you think that all of this, this ship, all these plans, is doing nothing?”

  “You can plan to the ends of the universe. We need action.”

  “We need careful, planned action.”

  “Planning didn’t save Brooklyn, did it?”

  Rommond stood up sharply. “Get out.”

  Taberah waited for a moment, returning Rommond’s glare with her own. Then she left the room, and the meeting was quickly ended. Jacob heard many people condemning Taberah, some for her current words, and some for her past actions. Everyone had an opinion on her. Few were good.

  Rommond ordered small units of soldiers to search every level for an intruder, of which they found no sign, and he posted guards at the entrances and exits of every deck, and swapped them regularly. Whenever these were encountered, it reminded the workers that while the monsters of the abyss were no longer a threat, there might still be a monster on board.

  * * *

  “She’s got a big mouth,” Mudro said, drawing up beside Jacob as he left the room. “No wonder the boy can’t keep his closed either. Learned it from her, sure didn’t he?”

  “Sometimes it’s best to keep it bolted shut,” Jacob said. Not that I’ve been any good at that.

  “The pipe’s good for that. If you’re smoking, you’re not talking.”

  “Maybe I’ll take it up.”

  “The problem is the limited supply of leaf,” the doctor said.

  It’s limited because you keep using it all up, Jacob thought. “Best to keep it for the sick then,” he said. He thought of Whistler, who had not needed the pain-killing leaf for over a month, but who still needed bandages on the burns.

  “She had the audacity to name me,” Mudro grumbled. “It took a long time for Rommond to trust me, and longer to get into his inner circle. I don’t need her raising more doubts about me in his mind.”

  “Why did you join
the Order?” Jacob asked. “Did you not feel like you were betraying Rommond?”

  “I felt like it, sure, but he was in a bad state at the time. It was just after the whole Brooklyn disaster. He was a lot more daring with his tactics before. Then he didn’t want to risk anything that looked too dangerous on paper, anything that might get people killed. He blamed himself, of course. There isn’t any magic to make blame go away, that’s for sure. We all stuck with him for a time, but many of us became restless. The Regime was winning new ground, reclaiming land we’d taken with Rommond’s previous pushes. Taberah wanted to act, and there were a good few of us who felt the same.”

  “Is that when the coup happened?”

  Mudro chuckled. “It wasn’t a coup.”

  “You’re the second person who’s said that. It kind of sounds like a coup to me.”

  “We didn’t want Rommond out. We wanted a change in direction. Taberah started asking around for support for a leadership challenge. Word got back to Rommond quick, probably from the Copper Matron. She was always very protective of him. And boy did he act quick then. We all thought Taberah was done for. We didn’t exactly feel secure ourselves. But Rommond came up with a solution, a compromise for it all. He handed over the amulet side of the Resistance to Taberah, since it was an area she’d focused on so much before, and he let her take anyone who was willing to go with her. I’m not sure if he knew it, if he was just that confident, but not many of us left. Most of our crew are new recruits, and it was hard to get them. We’d take anyone.”

  “That’s where I come in,” Jacob said.

  “And Teller.”

  “And him.”

  “Really it’s just Taberah, Soasa, and myself left of the old guard. We had a few more from the Resistance in the early days, and a handful more that joined over time, but we lost most of them.”

  “From Taberah’s carelessness?”

  “A bit of that. But as Taberah would say, they knew what they signed up for. If they wanted the careful approach, they’d have stuck with Rommond.”