The Diamond Conspiracy: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel

by Philippa Ballantine

  “Sophia,” Eliza called, her heart racing, “the attendant currently flanking the Queen, is that . . .”

  “That’s him!” Sophia cried out, losing all of her cool assassin demeanour. “That’s Jekyll!”

  “My people!” They must have pushed the loudspeaker to its absolute limit, because the Queen’s voice rose over the screams, the firing of guns in the distance, and even the racket of the mechanical legs getting closer. Perhaps it was the informality of the Queen that wrenched their attention from the Mechamen. The people of London stopped and turned to their queen. It was truly a demonstration of the power of monarchy.

  “I don’t believe it,” Eliza whispered. As she watched through her rifle scope, the Queen pulled aside heavy lace shrouds to reveal herself. The satisfaction in Victoria’s face was frighteningly overwhelming as the black fabric gathered at her feet in folds like a bride’s dress on her wedding night.

  It was the Queen of England—but as no one had seen her for decades. The Victoria known to be a plump, old woman with an almost erotic fixation with the colour black was stricken from memory now, reduced to nothing more than a lie or propaganda. The monarch standing before her people was the Victoria that had ascended the throne, her smooth milky complexion of youth casting an angelic glow in harmony with her new raiment. She was clad in some kind of highly polished battle armour that threatened to blind Eliza in its brilliance. From its colour, Eliza guessed the steel had been mixed or at least decorated with gold plating as well. Victoria held aloft a sword and a shield as her ancestors might have worn on the field of battle.

  “My people!” she called again. “I prayed, and God has seen fit to make me young and strong again, to repel our enemies and take back what was ours.” Victoria held out her arms in their gleaming armour, the sword’s tip catching the sunlight. “I am now Regina Victoria in aeternum. Queen Victoria the Eternal!”

  The crowds were torn as to where to look—from the Thames loomed imminent death while before them was a queen known only from portraits.

  Stepping free of similar black fabric was the Queen’s second, the Maestro. Also clad in his steam-armour with helm firmly locked down, he stood beside the Queen for all the world like some mechanised knight answering the call of his monarch.

  “God save the Queen!” his grating, artificial voice cried, amplified by the Queen’s podium.

  “God save the Queen!” thundered the East End.

  It was quite the statement and Eliza, despite everything, was impressed. She’d not seen a show like it in her life—far outstripping the ringmaster in the circus she’d been so gobsmacked with when she was eight. The unfortunate truth was, the masses who rallied with their queen had no idea they were lamb for the slaughter. Jekyll’s circus promised only death and destruction . . .

  “I’ve got the doctor in my crosshairs,” Eliza stated, her finger around the trigger.

  “He is a secondary target,” Sophia reminded her, not that the reminder was needed. “The Queen is our primary.”

  Wellington chimed in. “Eliza, the window of opportunity is closing.”

  Eliza’s jaw twitched. Both of them were right. She returned to the scope. “Target acquired. I’m taking the shot.”

  The two Mechamen closest to the East End extended their Gatling guns forwards once more, but before they unleashed their special brand of hell on their own countrymen, a single, solitary shot cut through the chaos.

  Jekyll doubled over in Eliza’s scope. Now mass panic erupted in and around the dais, both the Queen and Sussex looking for any sign of who would dare strike down Doctor Henry Jekyll. Screams of horror filled the air for only scant heartbeats before the thunder returned from the iron giants, laying to waste the darker corners of London. Jets of flame arced against the brilliance of the blue sky while from the ground, pieces of the street and surrounding buildings were tossed high into the air.

  “Secondary target is down,” Sophia stated flatly.

  “Snap decision. We had nothing to hold against the Queen, and I had to make the shot count,” Eliza returned, feeling her hackles rise. “Now it’s your turn. Assemble the grapplers.” She then began breaking down the Mark IV. “Wellington, you’re up.”

  “Very well, Miss Braun.” The excitement in his voice was absolutely endearing. A child on Christmas morning, he was. “Time to fight the Maestro’s monsters with one of our very own.”

  EIGHTEEN

  In Which a Clash of Titans Occurs

  Wellington could still recall when he first saw the Mark II Mechamen; he had been horrified by them. Yet when he’d had a chance to inspect them more closely, he’d thought they were machines of incredible design and ingenuity. They were still machines serving only one purpose, but the skill in their creation had to be admired.

  These newborn Mark IIs emerging from the Thames bearing the stars and stripes of the United States achieved the unimaginable for him: doubt. Wellington had applied many of the engineering advancements—albeit, on a smaller scale—to the development of the Ares, so he knew the designs of the Mark II intimately. At a glance, though, he could tell the Maestro had made modifications of his own. He could only guess what that would mean in battle.

  “Right then,” Wellington said, lowering the dark-lensed goggles over his eyes, “it’s time.”

  He felt Eliza’s lips touch his, her kiss lingering for a length of time he deemed inappropriate for such a public place. Even more so as they were on a mission at present. “I’ll be right here. Don’t worry,” she whispered to him.

  When you are close, I never worry, he thought. I love you, Eliza.

  Cold metal pressed against his temples and then, moments later, the pulse points of his wrists assured him that Eliza had made the connections as per his instructions. Soon, according to what Captain Carter had told him, he would no longer “be” on the rooftop with Eliza.

  “Ready, Welly?”

  “Onwards into the great abyss.” He let out a long breath.

  He heard Eliza flip the switch—a switch he remembered was a bright shade of red—and then his vision filled with a blinding light. If he did not know any better, he would have thought he had been snatched up by the electroporter; but even with finding himself comfortably settled in the modified pilot’s seat, Wellington knew that somehow he hadn’t moved one inch. Surrounded by all this amazing technology from another world, Wellington could not forget the fact he was still on the rooftop with Eliza watching over him—just as she had always done in their time together, whether officially or unofficially for the Ministry. What he now saw all around him was merely a projection.

  Granted, a very vivid projection—but a projection nevertheless.

  Wellington looked out through the viewport stretching all around him, and saw only a murky darkness, but then light flickered from above and below his field of view, illuminating the blue-green waters of the Thames a few feet ahead of him. The controls, their gauges, and various indicator lights flickered to life, and Wellington understood each component’s use, each readout’s meaning. Just relax and do what you do best: accept the fantastic, Captain Carter had told him. The rest will come naturally.

  But of course it will, Wellington thought, trying to ignore the insane pounding of his heart.

  When he wrapped his hand around the knob he knew was the main power coupling, it struck him as fascinating how cool to the touch it was.

  “Flourish,” Wellington heard himself say out loud. “Enter Henry.” He turned the knob to the right. “An entrance that would make Shakespeare envious.”

  He felt the machine around him lurch. The deep blue-green haze outside the viewport grew lighter and lighter in colour, until finally he saw the sun through thin curtains of water running down the front of his machine. Higher and higher he rose in the air until he felt his ascent stop.

  Wellington felt that as a lurch, and yet he was still, in real
ity, next to Eliza, wearing the intricate goggles and bizarre gauntlets. Absolutely fascinating.

  The sounds of distant screams and rapid gunfire interrupted his reverie.

  Beneath his Martian Lander, water rushed around and between its legs as he closed in on the Mechamen. They were moving inland, tearing into the East End, so Wellington’s advance went unnoticed. At least, for a time. The two lumbering leviathans still in the Thames came to a halt; and within the span of time it would have taken to send a wireless of some fashion, the lead Mark IIs quieted their Gatlings and slowly came around to face him.

  Five Mechamen. One Martian Lander.

  “Once more unto the breach,” he muttered to himself as he brought levers up to a neutral position and pulled back a pressure regulator overhead.

  Wellington flipped three switches on his tactical control panel, and in the centre of his window, a single crosshair appeared. Look at the lead Mechaman, he thought to himself, and decide where you want to target. It unsettled him how he suddenly knew what he needed to do, but Wellington merely took a deep breath, put his faith in God and Martian technology, and focused on the lead enemy’s lower torso. The crosshair on his display blinked, then split to a second crosshair that remained connected to the first by—what he knew in that moment to be—a firing solution continuing to the second Mechaman. This crosshair blinked at a connection between the second Mechaman’s waist and right leg, then split off to connect another crosshair at the third lead Mechaman’s knee joint.

  Odd symbols he recognised as the Martian language flared across the top of his viewpoint. Wellington read the letters as fluently as his native tongue and switched his attention to the controls in his grasp. His thumb flipped up a single amber switch on the top of the lever in his right hand, and from above his head he could hear generators spin up, their soft whine joined by a second low, thrumming cadence that resembled a heartbeat. Like his own, the heartbeat was running faster and faster until Wellington saw another Martian notification flash in the top of his viewport. Wellington squeezed the trigger in his hand, and heard a hard, sharp crack of thunder followed by an angry crackle of electricity, although what he saw leap from the top of his lander was nothing like electricity. This was death from another world.

  The firestorm, a concentrated plume of heat and power, shot out from above Wellington’s Lander and struck at the point of the first crosshair. The Mechaman lurched back, struggling to remain upright as the beam worked like a welder’s torch. The beam sliced into the Mark II’s central hull, and continuing downwards, liquefied the joint in the second Mechaman and the knee of the third. Targets two and three collapsed into waterfront warehouses, a great plume of flame and debris blossoming there as a grotesque flower threatening to consume anything in its path. The lead refused to fall, its drive to move, though, tore and strained at the now-weakened metal. With a metallic moan Wellington suspected came from somewhere deep within the inner workings, the Mechaman’s torso sagged against itself, then swayed forwards and back. Something inside the monster—possibly a boiler—exploded, opening the tear further and throwing its balance completely off. As it fell, the remaining pair of Mechamen fired their weapons. Wellington’s eyes jumped from one side of the control panel to the other. Lights flickered between green and yellow, while two gauges showed their respective needles drop slightly. The Lander’s invisible shields would keep the Mechamen’s bullets at bay, although he was far from indestructible. With enough bullets, this alien armour would be weakened, leaving only the Lander’s external hull for protection.

  The strange language flickered in the viewport’s lower right corner, granting him a touch of hope. He targeted both Mechamen’s heads, and waited for the signal to fire.

  Without any warning, a blinding light filled his viewport. This sudden attack had to be one of the Maestro’s modifications, courtesy of Thomas Edison.

  Shields were now flickering between green, yellow, and red, but Wellington shoved the controller in his left hand forwards while his right reached for a small crank wheel above his head. He turned this crank clockwise purely on instinct. This was the “trust” Carter told him to never question that told Wellington to lean the Lander directly into the Mechaman’s death ray’s blast. The craft shuddered while needles bounced madly underneath their lenses. Wellington pushed hard against the left handle that protested against his effort. He glanced up at the blinding white viewport and read the notification blinking there.

  So long as his shields could withstand . . .

  Everything went still in the Lander suddenly. Wellington righted the Lander with one hand while flipping a row of switches above his head and turning a knob to “Full” with the other. The bouncing needles steadied but only for a moment as pressure gauges and power distribution bobbed in the red when the Lander stepped back to the left of the remaining Mechamen. His stomach lurched as he dipped low out of the lead Mark II’s aim, its electric death ray crackling over his Lander and striking what Wellington could only guess was somewhere in or around the Old Bailey.

  At least he possessed better mobility than the Mechamen. Caught by their death ray again, though, neither the shields nor he would last long. Just a few more seconds, he thought quickly.

  The Martian language blinked back across the top of the viewport. The analytical engine, it seemed, was compensating for his new altitude and angle, and his heat ray remained primed. Wellington pulled back on the lever next to Attitude Control, and the Lander stood upright once more. The crosshairs ceased blinking. Indicator lights flipped from yellow to green. Wellington fired.

  Both heads of the Mechamen incinerated on impact, leaving the metallic monsters without a central command. They were now decapitated statues standing within the Thames.

  Easing back into the chair, Wellington let out a long, slow sigh. He could only imagine what the multitudes of people, some of whom had come from the farthest reaches of the Empire, were thinking on seeing a three-legged metallic spider downing five iron monsters bearing the colours of the United States. It was something they all had wondered about before they had returned to Whiterock.

  That was exactly why this gift from Captain Carter came with a feature uncharacteristic of his Martian Landers.

  His eyes turned to the single blue switch in his armrest. Wellington flipped the switch to the middle position, illuminating a small amber light alongside it. Lowering a microphone suspended from above his head, Wellington remembered Eliza’s advice from the night before: Keep it simple. Keep it brief.

  And make sure to send the Queen into a fit.

  Another deep breath, and then Wellington flipped the switch to a “Transmit” position, turning the light from amber to red.

  “God save the Empire,” Wellington spoke into the microphone, then he returned the switch to standby.

  And waited.

  He could not tell if he was hearing the rumble of the crowd’s approval from where he remained with Eliza or from within his Lander, but the support from the people was clear.

  “NO!” roared a voice over the Jubilee’s loudspeakers that would not go ignored or questioned. The Queen, still amplified by the device meant to carry her words of encouragement to all corners of London, silenced her people’s rejoicing with words of wild fury. “NO! THIS IS NOT WHAT I WANTED!”

  It looks as if his words evoked the reaction Eliza, Doctor Sound, and the Ministry had desired.

  “Too long have I remained complacent while within the heart of the Empire a wound festers. Too long have I served those who believe we are doing ‘well enough.’ And for too long I have been silenced by politicians! It is your queen that should lead. I have been chosen by God, bred to rule, not like the simpletons who divide the monarchy amongst themselves. Those that you place in power in my stead. You, who continue to drag us to their depths, to their depravity. I will tolerate this no more!” Victoria spat.

  “KILL THEM!” Victoria demande
d, pointing in the direction of the East End. “KILL THEM ALL!!!”

  Alerts blared in Wellington’s cabin and the viewport flickered up a warning of something new closing on his position.

  These new targets, however, were not in the Thames but above it.

  Wellington remembered only glancing at the schematics of the Mark III when rejecting Doctor Havelock’s offer for employment. They were the next step in the evolution of Mechamen. The Mark I would serve as ground forces. The Mark II would serve both on the land and sea. The Mark III, at least on paper, would conquer the air.

  Through his viewport, Wellington could now see three of the V-shaped machines, their wings moving up and down in rhythm, flying between the spires of Tower Bridge and now heading for him.

  Wellington fired the Martian heat ray completely on instinct, connecting with one of the oncoming Mark IIIs, while the other two easily avoided the attack. Their evasion tactics were nothing less than exquisite, an aerial ballet that he would have loved to watch from the banks of the Thames as opposed to the cockpit of their target. He would have so loved to observe more of these technological terrors, but Wellington flinched as his viewport filled with repetitive flashes of light.

  This time, his Lander listed dangerously. He turned valves, threw levers forwards, and flipped switches, but could not adjust altitude or attitude quick enough. Against the Mark IIIs, he could only delay the inevitable.

  Something rushed past the Lander, circled around him, and then came another hard impact, this time from the left. Indicators around him flipped to scarlet; gauges were showing one system after another failing. It would all be over soon.

  As his last act of defiance, Wellington fired the heat ray. Something exploded. Whether it was the Lander or a Mark III, Wellington could not be certain as he felt the world teeter around him . . .

  Darkness.

  It was so quiet.

  Sadly, the silence didn’t last for long.