“You almost sound happy about that,” Frederick said apprehensively.
“For glorified carrion, they are turning out to be challenging foes.”
“Don’t you care about the mission?”
“Not really. This is my brother’s mission. I really couldn’t care less if we get to America or not. In fact, I’d rather not.”
They tried to get back to their feet when the sound of rifles rang out. The pirates off their bow were shooting at them with whatever guns they had on hand. No one was likely to get at that range, but many of the Pride’s crew members were lying low regardless.
“Cowards! You insult the name of this ship!” Farahilde yelled.
Within moments the first pirates boarded the ship, and Farahilde wasted no time greeting them. She gutted the first one she met with her bladed gauntlet, while Frederick ran through another one with his saber.
The pirate vessel off their bow fired another volley of steel shells at them. The attack was wide, hitting the water instead, but it still distracted the Pride’s defenders enough to allow more of the enemy to board.
“Stay strong, men!” Frederick shouted while in the midst of combat with a couple of brigands. “If they take this ship, rest assured your fates will not be pleasant!” He quickly maneuvered behind a pirate whose compatriot was pulling out a pistol. The rogue tried to shoot Frederick, but ended up hitting the young Prussian’s impromptu shield. Frederick then proceeded to cut down the scoundrel.
Farahilde couldn’t deny being impressed. “Not bad! Keep it up and I might consider changing my opinion of you.”
“Will do!”
She cried out to the rest of the defenders (while parrying a pirate’s sword with her gauntlet), “Everyone, listen up! These bastards dare to threaten the royal family of Austria. This is an attack upon our very souls! To steal a quote from an old acquaintance: I am commanding you to rage as demons! Destroy the enemy! Crush them! Make them curse their mothers for birthing them!”
The speech had the desired effect, as a singular battle cry rang out across the deck. The ship’s crew, as well as the soldiers present, ceased being a disorganized band, and a new energy began flowing through them. They rose up as one and fought with united fury.
By this point the deck of the Hapsburg Pride was swarming with pirates, a fact Farahilde viewed favorably for two reasons. The first, as has already been established, was her desire for battle. The second—and less obvious—reason was the high probability that the ship off their bow would cease firing in order to avoid hitting their brethren. Pirates may have been cutthroat renegades, but even they knew better than to risk angering one another needlessly with friendly fire. A simple misunderstanding among such men could turn into a bloodbath very quickly.
Frederick expertly wielded his saber, making it clear to Farahilde he had considerable experience with the weapon. She had honestly expected him to be of little help in this fight, but she wasn’t mad to be proven wrong this time.
For her part, Farahilde used the weapon she had always used: Her bladed gauntlet. She tore into pirate after pirate, spilling gallons of blood and turning the deck of the ship into a gore-stained mess. These brigands were fierce warriors, but they were used to chasing easy prey, while she had spent years honing her deadly craft. Besides, none of them had the speed or skill of Marie Tussaud, that brutally insane woman she had fought in the Tuileries Palace in Paris. Farahilde would never forget the ferocity with which Tussaud had tried to take her life for the sole purpose of creating a death mask from her corpse.
Soon the pirates were thoroughly routed, and the ones still standing attempted to return to their respective ships. However, during the battle the soldiers of Leopold’s royal guard had managed to disengage their ropes from the Hapsburg Pride’s deck. This meant the seagoing bandits’ only means of escape was to jump overboard. Some of them chose to do so, while others decided to stay and fight to the death (a last wish Farahilde gladly granted).
When there were no more pirates left alive aboard ship, the vessel off their bow turned to flee. By this time, though, Leopold had ordered the Hapsburg Pride turned via its sails and old-fashioned wind power so that their cannons were facing the enemy.
“Fire!” the captain ordered.
The Austrian vessel unleashed a full barrage of shells which smashed the pirate ship’s hull. Their engine must have been hit, because the ship’s stern exploded in a blaze of fire and wooden debris. It sank within a few minutes.
Chapter V: My Name is Jeanne
The Istanbul Strait, November 11, 1792 (Infini Calendar), 1:06 p.m.
Farahilde and Frederick helped throw the pirate corpses overboard. Other crew members were wrapping up the bodies of their comrades and mopping the copious amount of blood off the deck. Leopold and the captain, meanwhile, were conversing with the Hapsburg Pride’s head engineer about the state of the engine.
At that moment, Farahilde had a dead pirate’s arms, and Frederick was holding the legs. They tossed him overboard and Farahilde wiped her brow. “This has certainly been an eventful day, hasn’t it?” she said.
Frederick looked around at the carnage that had been caused by the battle. “Did you really enjoy that?” he asked. His voice was tired.
She replied casually, “It was a good workout. I hadn’t had one in a while.
“But…I saw your face as you were fighting. You were smiling, enjoying yourself.”
“So?”
“Battles shouldn’t be enjoyed. You kill when you have to, but you should always regret it. My father taught me that every life has weight, and when you take life you take on its weight. Right now I feel heavier than I did an hour ago.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s called fatigue. Of course you would feel tired after a battle.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s not that. It’s—”
She cut him off. “Wait! Do you hear that? I think it’s coming from the north.” She scanned the skies. “Look!” She pointed off the starboard side.
He turned around and followed her finger. A dark spot above the horizon was coming in fast. “Is that…an airship?” he asked, clearly stunned.
She gritted her teeth. “Only one country in Europe still has an airship.”
“You mean France?”
She nodded solemnly. “Yes. And I’m pretty sure I know this airship.”
He stared at her. “How do you know it?”
“I’ve ridden aboard it.”
“What?”
Within a minute the flying dirigible landed alongside the Hapsburg Pride. Both the hull and balloon attached to it were black. Furthermore, the name on the side read, “Minuit Solaire II”.
“No doubt about it,” Farahilde said. “It’s them.”
The crew of the Hapsburg Pride gathered along the starboard side. They soon had to make way for Leopold. “Sister,” he called out to Farahilde. “Isn’t this airship…?”
“It was one of ours, before it was stolen,” she confirmed. She walked over to the railing and joined him.
A hatch on the Minuit Solaire II opened and a single figure emerged. The person walked over and stood across from them on the airship’s deck.
“Well, well,” Farahilde said. “Look who it is.”
The figure in question was a woman in her early thirties with auburn hair going down her back in a single braid. She wore a suit of silver armor with a purple skirt covering a good portion of her legs. A purple eye patch covered her right eye, and a rapier was held in a scabbard at her left side.
The woman scanned the faces and soon landed on Leopold’s. “Are you Leopold II, emperor of Austria?” she said in German with a French accent.
“I am,” he said boldly. “Who are you?”
“My name is Jeanne de Fleur, commander of an elite unit of the French military called the Ordre de la Tradition.”
“Ah, yes. My sister has spoken of you on more than one occasion.”
Jeanne de Fleur looked at Farahilde, but her exp
ression betrayed no recognition or warmth of any kind; her face could very well have been carved from ice. She then returned her attention to Leopold. “I have been sent here on orders of our Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to give you a message.”
“What message?” Farahilde asked.
Without taking her eyes off Leopold, Jeanne said, “With our airship, we will reach America before you do. The alliance will be ours. Give up and go home.”
“What?” Farahilde yelled. “You think you can tell us what to do after the help I gave you in Paris? Hell, even before that; you would have died out there in the middle of nowhere if I hadn’t brought you back to your senses!”
“Calm down,” Leopold told her.
Even at Farahilde’s mention of her past assistance to Jeanne de Fleur, nothing but contempt showed on the face of the French woman. It was as if she didn’t even remember Farahilde. “Don’t tell me you’re still holding a grudge against me for torturing your brother?”
Still no change in Jeanne’s icy demeanor. Whatever was causing her to act this way, it wasn’t the past. “I have followed my orders, and will now leave you. Be grateful our Emperor has ordered us not to risk a war by attacking you.” She turned back towards the hatch she had emerged from.
“But you did attack us,” Leopold said. “Your spy sabotaged our engine. Do you deny it?”
She stopped and looked at him. “A spy? Where is he?”
He looked embarrassed. “He…jumped overboard about an hour ago. We haven’t seen him since.”
“Then you have no proof?”
“Well…no.”
“Then this conversation is finished.” Jeanne de Fleur re-entered the hatch and closed it behind her.
***
Leopold turned to address the captain. “I want that engine fixed immediately. We are now in a race with the French and I have no intention of losing.”
The captain shook his head. “The head engineer isn’t sure if it can be fixed at all. And even if it can, it could take a while.”
“Devote all your resources to the task. I won’t have the French beating us to America in an airship they stole from us. That would be the greatest insult.”
Frederick approached the emperor. “If I may make a suggestion, Your Eminence…”
“I told you, you don’t need to be so formal with me,” Leopold said.
“I apologize. As I was saying, I have an idea.”
“An idea?” the captain asked. “If it will help us, I’m all for it.”
“Well, perhaps we can salvage components from the engines of those pirate ships that are still floating over there.”
“Could that work?” Leopold asked the captain.
The captain seemed to ponder this for a moment. “Hmmm, it might. Those pirate vessels seemed to be made out of many different parts. It’s possible we’ll find something salvageable on one of them.”
“All right, it is as good a plan as any,” Leopold said. He turned to Frederick. “You and Farahilde can help out with that. Wait—where is she?”
They looked around the deck of the ship, but didn’t see her anywhere. “She was here a minute ago,” Frederick said.
“Blast! She’s up there!” the captain yelled.
They looked up to see Farahilde climbing the central mast.
***
“What on earth are you doing?” Leopold yelled from below. Farahilde didn’t bother to respond. He’d never understand; hell, she herself had only the most basic plan. She wanted to get back at that bitch for daring to treat members of the Austrian royal family that way.
Also, there was something off about that French woman, and Farahilde wanted to find out what. In terms of appearance, that woman was unquestionably Jeanne de Fleur. Still, the way she treated Farahilde had been very different than Jeanne de Fleur had treated her in the past. She hadn’t even acknowledged the Austrian woman’s existence. During their previous encounters, Jeanne may have voiced her contempt for Farahilde, but there was never the level of outright disgust that had just been demonstrated. There had been mutual respect between them. Farahilde was determined to find out what was going on.
When she reached the top of the mast, she looked over at the Minuit Solaire II which was still sitting in the water beside the Hapsburg Pride. Maybe the French worms were relishing their perceived victory over the Austrians. She would bring them back down to earth, she decided.
She steeled herself, took a deep breath, and leapt onto the balloon above the Minuit Solaire II. She grabbed the leathery material to keep from falling. Once she was satisfied she wouldn’t plummet to her doom, she swiftly jabbed the envelope with the twin blades of her gauntlet, causing air to escape. It wasn’t escaping fast enough for her, though, so she moved her gauntleted arm in an arc, further shredding the envelope and making the hole much bigger.
Within a few minutes the deflated balloon fell to the deck of the airship with Farahilde still hanging on. She could hear Leopold on the Hapsburg Pride yelling at her, saying something about her actions starting a war with France or something along those lines. She wasn’t really paying attention. The important thing was the fact that without their balloon the French worms wouldn’t be able to take off again.
She was now buried under the balloon. She tore out of it and threw it aside. She then marched over to the entry hatch. It suddenly opened—probably in response to her impromptu sabotage—and a man in silver armor popped his head out. It was the armor of the Ordre de la Tradition, but Farahilde didn’t recognize him; it wasn’t the large tanned man or the joking idiot who fancied the male apparatus. Those were the two she remembered.
Even if he was one of them, it wouldn’t have stopped her from doing what she did next: Stomping on his head and sending him falling down the stairs. She followed him down to the bottom of the stairs where she knew the entrance to the bridge was.
And where that woman was waiting for her with her rapier drawn. Farahilde had no time to defend herself before the French woman’s blade found her chest. “It would seem the stories about you are true, Farahilde Johanna. You really are insane. Now, please surrender before I am forced to kill you.”
The armored man she had kicked down the stairs rose up and grabbed Farahilde’s arm, and another knight appeared behind her and took hold of the other one. He was another member of the Ordre she didn’t recognize.
She was now their prisoner. Oh, if only Leo could see me now.
***
They tossed Farahilde in the brig, promising to deal with her later. In truth, it was really just a cell with a door made out of iron bars. She already knew this, of course; she had been involved in the design of this model of airship.
One thing was new, however. On the wall of the cell, opposite the door, was a series of yellow words in French that seemed to have been burned into the bulkhead with some sort of acid:
Hello, Hello
My new friend
You’ve been taken prisoner
This may be the end
But take heart
I escaped and so can you
Can you figure out how?
Can you figure out what to do?
The Ordre thought they had me
They thought they were so smart
But it was all for naught
I disappeared, leaving only my fart
This had to be the most juvenile message she had ever read. Whoever had written it must have been pretty cocky, since they declared their escape before they had even achieved it. Then again, maybe it was that vagina-hating comedian’s idea of poetry. She wasn’t sure if that idiot—whose name was Victor, if she remembered correctly—would actually do such an infantile thing, but after her experiences with him, she wasn’t prepared to put it past him.
She shook her head. There were far more important things to think about. Like getting out of here. She turned to look at the bars on the door. For the first time, she was grateful the people who designed Austria’s airship fleet had ignored her suggestions for im
proved security in the brig.
She moved her hands along the bars, rapping on them as she went. Assuming the French worms hadn’t changed anything, there should have been a particular spot on the bar connecting the lock where, with the application of the right pressure, it would be possible to open the door.
She found the spot and hit if with her forearm. Nothing; the door remained closed. Maybe she had applied to much pressure—or not enough.
She hit it more lightly the second time. Still nothing happened. As a result, she got frustrated and hit it with her full strength.
The door opened. She looked into the corridor, and, confirming it was empty, left the brig, nursing her sore arm as she went. She walked past several other doors, each listing the titles of the personnel that occupied those quarters. There were titles such as Engineer Grade 1, Operators, etc.
However, she soon came to a door that caught her interest. It was labeled Head Engineer. Finding it carelessly unlocked, she cautiously poked her head inside. There was no one in the room, so she went in, shutting the door behind her.
Sunlight filtered in through the window, illuminating the room in its glow. She looked around the cabin, seeing if she could confirm the identity of its occupant. There was a table covered with what looked like engineering schematics and other mathematical formulas. On the dresser next to the bed was another paper detailing the inner workings of the airship’s electric engine.
Farahilde looked through the dresser itself. It was filled with female garments, but that didn’t do enough to narrow it down. The only conclusion she could come to was the rather obvious one that the Minuit Solaire II’s head engineer was still a woman. But was it that woman?
A muffled voice coming from the corridor hinted at the possibility that Farahilde was about to get her answer. Whoever it was seemed to be talking to someone. A female voice said “Goodbye” and she ran to get behind the door before it opened.
Secrets of the New World (Infini Calendar) (Volume 2) Page 4
