by Quincy Allen
Jake fired twice into the air with the Thumper and nodded to Cole who guided the wagon out of the riverbed and up the shallow bank, stopping about ten yards from the river. Jake stood another 20 yards further away so that he wouldn’t be hidden by the illusion. They watched the giant zeppelin—the biggest by far that Jake had ever seen—circle their position once and turn in toward them. The smaller, propeller-driven craft took up a wider pattern, obviously keeping watch and as an outer defense line.
Four envelopes, two forward and two aft, rose above its wide gondola, each slightly different in size and shape. Steel cables secured the envelopes together, and there appeared to be a fine mesh of copper wire enshrouding the whole thing. The zeppelin itself was considerably longer than the Jezebel, and each of the envelopes were wider. For all its haphazard construction, it had clearly been designed for the sole purpose of inflicting as much damage as possible upon its enemies. Jake figured the pieces and parts had been salvaged from the wreckage of at least some of the airships Captain Wordsworth mentioned as missing in action in the Free Territories.
Thirty circular rings of steel about three feet in diameter dotted all four envelopes in two rows from stem to stern, and each one had a Gatling pointing out of it. Near the tail, a thirty-foot tall Free Territories insignia adorned the side of each envelope, and Jake pitied anyone or anything that got in the path of what could only be described as a dirigible dreadnaught.
The gondola was nothing less than an armored block beneath the envelopes, its hull made up of layered steel, bronze, and copper welded and patched together like a quilt. The gondola was almost as long as the Jezebel’s, but twice as wide, and Jake counted twenty gun ports along the left side as well as a dozen large metal doors roughly six feet across spaced between the ports. Eight bubble turrets similar to El Diablo dotted the belly of the gondola, but each had a pair of longer, single-barreled cannons protruding from them on either side, rather than El Diablo’s quad setup.
Six large rotors protruded from the gondola on thick stanchions, two forward and two aft, and two more massive rotors stuck out on wide booms at the front of the envelopes, with another pair at the rear. Each rotor had an independent rudder system, and Jake suspected that the craft, despite its bulk, would be remarkably maneuverable in combat.
With an almost painful thrum of its motors, the zeppelin descended to about fifty feet, hovering there, its mass blotting out the sky. A large platform descended on cables not far from where Jake stood. Two dozen armed men and women stood alertly around the edge of the opening in the bottom of the gondola, and another dozen came into view as the platform lowered. Surprisingly, none of the weapons were aimed at Jake and his team, but Jake had no illusions.
These people were at war, and they had every right to be wary of strangers. When the platform was about halfway down, one of the men pointed to the wagon. The rest of the soldiers turned toward it, and then one pressed something at his collar. Jake could see his lips moving but didn’t hear him over the hum of the dreadnaught’s rotors.
Two thick-furred, black mastiffs, larger by far than any dog Jake had ever seen, sat near the edge of platform like thickly furred statues. The dogs, armored with thick green leather on their heads, backs, and chests, were nearly the size of mules, and he figured they’d be eye-to-eye with him. They had spiked collars and large leather satchels on either side of their bodies.
As the platform touched the ground, six soldiers ranged out a few yards, clearly wary but not threatening. All of them wore armor of some kind, mostly layered plates of brass and bronze that covered their arms, legs, and chest. No two sets were alike, as if they were custom made piece-meal for each person, and many had chosen to paint or decorate their armor in some fashion.
Some had chosen to adorn their armor with feathers and leather and even animal hides, like snakeskin, while others painted various colors and symbols over the metal. The clothing worn underneath was as varied as the armor itself, but most of it was standard garb found in any city outside of the Free Territories. Frocks, vests, and long coats were common enough, with many wearing variants of normal spats covering boots and shoes of every kind. One of the men wore a kilt, one woman had a dress with the front raised and secured at the thigh by two leather straps. Two other women wore full skirts. The rest wore trousers or leather breeches of some kind.
Two men stepped off the platform. The first was a small American Indian with a short mohawk and a long braid wrapped around his neck. The other was a tall, dark-skinned man with a long, black moustache that dropped below his jaw and a narrow, pointed beard. He had a thick rolled sash wrapped around his head and another around his waist.
The two men walked toward Jake, with the dogs striding close behind the big man, whose every motion they followed closely. The Indian had a sawed-off, double-barrel shotgun strapped to his hip and a rifle slung across his back. The bigger man wore a long, curved sword across his back and a long knife with a wicked forward bend in it, tucked into the sash around his waist. They both had a tattoo of the Free Territories symbol on the right side of their necks.
“Jake Lasater?” It was the Indian that spoke, and he had a double-snake insignia on his collar. He also had an earpiece similar to the comms aboard the Jezebel, but it only covered one ear, with a copper wire connected to a metal plate over his throat. The plate had a small button in the middle.
“I’m Jake Lasater.” He nodded and a slight scowl crossed his face. “How the hell do you know my name?”
“We were informed,” the Indian said flatly. “I am Onawa, and this is Ganesh.” He motioned to the big man behind him. “Will you please have your people step away from the wagon?” The man asked it as a question, but his tone clearly made it a command. “We will do an inspection.”
Jake nodded, wondering how much the man knew but noting that he’d not been asked to hand over his weapons. His hope that they weren’t about to become prisoners rose a few notches.
“Why don’t y’all come on over here,” Jake called over his shoulder. Turning back to the Indian he asked, “Mind if I ask what it is you’re looking for?”
Cole, Skeeter, and Ghiss got off the wagon and walked toward the platform.
“We need to check for explosives,” Onawa explained. “The Texas Republic would love to blow the Dragun out of the sky if they could.”
Jake nodded. “I bet. She’s a hell of a ship.”
The Indian turned his head and nodded to the man with the dogs. “Ganesh.”
The dark man turned and whispered something to the dogs. Both mastiffs dashed silently toward the wagon. Lumpy eyed them both as they approached and gave one of his best Don’t-mess-with-me looks. Both dogs ignored the bull completely as they passed by. One of them leapt onto the tarp covering the reliquary, and the other circled around the wagon and then underneath. Both sniffed and huffed as they went. The one on top paused for a moment, sniffing along the edge of the reliquary. He growled briefly, a deep rumbling sound like distant thunder. The dog’s hackles and tail rose as its body went stiff.
Jake was worried for a moment that they might have a problem, but the dog suddenly calmed down, making a slight moaning sound. He relaxed and his tail wagged slightly.
Jake caught the Indian and the dog-handler glance at each other. The mastiff on the ground came trotting back to his master as the other sniffed through the other gear in the wagon, and then he too came trotting back.
“What’s in the box?” the Indian asked.
Jake hesitated. “I’d rather not talk about that, if it’s all right with you. I will say it ain’t nothing that’s gonna get your ship in trouble. It’s my cargo, and I’m getting paid to deliver it to Colorado.” Jake eyed the man before him, resolved to stand his ground on the matter. “I’m hoping that’s all you need to know. If not, me and my people will be on our way.”
It wasn’t a bluff. Jake had a job to do.
Both men grinned at Jake, which surprised him. “It’s alright. We were instructed not
to press you on the contents. I just wanted to see how you’d answer. They were right about you.”
“They?” Jake asked, a bit of frustration creeping into his voice. “Mind telling me who they are?”
“I’m sorry, but we all have our secrets, don’t we?” The Indian smiled politely but as resolved as Jake. “And that’s one of ours.” The Indian stepped aside and motioned toward the platform. “Now, if you and your people will move that wagon onto the platform, we can be on our way.”
“Why is it that every person I’ve run into on this job knows more than I do?” Jake grumbled.
The Indian chuckled. “Life is like that sometimes.” He turned and headed toward the platform. The bigger man stepped in beside him, the dogs taking up the rear.
Jake shook his head. “It sure as hell is,” he muttered and turned to his people. “Let’s get moving.”
Jake walked up to the platform and stepped on. Cole got Lumpy moving, and they were all on the platform in short order.
As the wagon approached the platform, an electric crackle came from the Indian’s earpiece. A woman’s voice said, “We’ve lost sight of you, thirty feet from the platform.”
The Indian pressed the button at his throat. “It’s their illusion. Bring us on up.”
At least I know how wide the thing was, Jake thought. He lived every day with magic, his arms, legs, and the gun at his left hip a testament to how remarkable it could be. But sometimes magic still made him feel like a kid full of wonder at things he didn’t understand.
The platform rose quickly and sealed the deck beneath them as they entered the hold. The moment it closed, the rotors revved up and the great ship rose, moving forward with surprising acceleration. With the increase in altitude, the wagon had settled upon the deck, so it didn’t even shift.
The soldiers who had lined the opening were now gone, but there were others in the wide cargo hold. Two men and two women had quite obviously been assigned to guard the wagon and its passengers. A handful of people sorted through a set of crates along one side of the cargo bay, and several mechanics tinkered and fussed with one of six mechanical assault units parked against the far wall of the bay. Each machine stood nestled in a slot designed to house it. The metal monstrosities seemed similar in design to Qi’s diggers, but where Qi’s looked like Chinese gods of war these had a reptilian flair to them.
Onawa turned to Jake. “Wait here. We’re on our way to Roswell, but there are matters Ganesh and I must attend to. I’ll return as quickly as I can. Do not stray from this wagon.”
It was another order. Onawa nodded to several soldiers standing nearby, then he and Ganesh marched off, the dogs following them, and disappeared through a set of double doors at the far end of the cargo hold.
“So we just wait?” Skeeter said, her eyes pouring hungrily over the assault units around them.
Jake pulled a cigar from his vest. “Relax everyone. We’re guests of the military. That means we could be here a while.” He struck a match against the back of his metal hand, lit the cigar, and leaned against the wagon.
Cole lay down in the driver’s seat, putting his hat over his eyes while Ghiss hopped up onto the back of the wagon and reclined against the side. All three men were used to dealing with the military.
“At least they didn’t take our guns. That means somethin’, I suppose. And Skeeter,” Jake said over his shoulder, “don’t touch anything.”
He suspected she was either scowling or pouting at him, but he didn’t want her to get into any trouble aboard a Free Territories warship. There were way too many things that could go wrong.
About an hour—and four cigars—later Onawa and Ganesh reappeared through the same doors. The Indian stepped up to Jake. “Mr. Lasater, if you and Mr. McJunkins will leave your weapons here, I’ll escort you to the bridge. Captain Thibodeaux would like a brief word with you both before we arrive at Roswell.”
Jake raised his eyebrow but couldn’t argue. He nodded to Cole and laid his pistols on the seat of the wagon. Cole followed suit with his pistol and the Thumper. He shot an expectant look at Jake, twisting his right arm slightly. Jake nodded, so Cole twitched his wrist and the hideaway pistol popped into his hands. He laid it beside the others without a word.
Jake and Cole followed the Indian and the big man through the tight passageways and decks of the warship. The dogs stayed with them, padding silently behind like shadows. The ship had electric lighting like the Jezebel, but that’s where the similarities ended. The Jezebel had been all polished brass and fine wood, a posh interior designed for luxury. This vessel was bare pine and burnished metal bolted together in the most utilitarian style imaginable. The crew, however, was not utilitarian. Each and every one was armed and armored like the troops that brought the wagon on board.
Jake had seen troops before … Union and Confederate regulars, Confederate irregulars, and even the slipshod, backwoods militiamen who spent nearly a decade tearing his home state of Missouri apart in the name of nothing more than their hatred for each other.
He was used to soldiers of every shape and size, but he’d never seen troops like the men and women walking the decks and halls, or manning the many gun and rocket emplacements of the Dragun.
Every race was represented amongst the crew—blacks, Hispanics, Asians, whites, Indians, and a few Jake didn’t recognize. What struck him as most impressive was that every person was armed, but not like a soldier in an army would be. There were no standard issue rifles, pistols, or swords. Each person carried weapons that seemed to personally suit him or her.
Jake identified pistols of every kind, many of them models he’d never seen before. Some were traditional revolvers like his, and there were even a few old muzzleloaders modified in various ways that mystified him. He also saw weapons that clearly operated on the same principles as the Thumper and Ghiss’ side arms, powered by aether to shoot energy blasts. There was a third group, however, that he just couldn’t place. Some didn’t even look like pistols, but they were obviously side arms. They had glass bubbles or gears or stacked cylinders. Some had pistol grips while some were strapped to forearms and shoulders. Jake was certain they would shoot something out of the business end, but he had no idea what or how.
The rifles some carried around were equally standard or bizarre, but what Jake found most peculiar was the assortment of edged weapons or combinations of firearms with blades and vice versa.
There wasn’t a man or woman on board who didn’t have a dagger, sword, or polearm of some kind. And every one of them carried themselves like they knew how to get into and back out of a fight in one piece. He’d seen plenty of fighters before, and the entire crew fit the description. Jake thought fondly of his old cavalry company. They had been such men, capable and resolved to do their duty. The crew looked similarly resolved, just with more flair than his uniformed troops had been.
There were plenty of grim faces, the faces of soldiers accustomed to combat, but they all had laugh-lines around their eyes, and he heard plenty of laughter and the easy banter between comrades as he moved through the ship. These people fought for something they believed in, which set them apart from many of the men he’d met in the army. He knew just by looking at them that there wasn’t a conscript among them. Each and every one was a volunteer fighting to protect his or her home.
One last turn put them inside an iron-clad room at the bottom of a short, spiral staircase that went up to the deck above. Jake spotted four gun barrels protruding from the ceiling, mounted on half-sphere metal turrets. He realized that anyone boarding the ship would have one hell of a time getting onto the bridge, and if those guns went off, the ricochets would tear a person to pieces in seconds. Ganesh held out his hand, stopping Jake and Cole while Onawa moved up the staircase.
Ganesh spoke up, startling Jake and Cole, and his accent was most unusual, reminding Jake of Chinese or Arabian, but in a way he couldn’t explain. “You may find the captain a little out of the ordinary. React as if you were talking to
any ship’s captain.”
Muffled voices came from above followed by a clanking sound.
“Send them up,” Onawa called out.
Ganesh motioned toward the stairs and waited for Jake and Cole to get to the top before heading back the way they came. The top of the stairs was little more than a metal box with about two feet to spare around the staircase. A heavy steel door opened outward from the bridge, and Onawa held the door open as Jake and Cole stepped in.
The bridge, surrounded by high glass windows on three sides, held as mixed an assortment of materiel as the rest of the ship, but everything looked well maintained and serviceable.
A dozen men and women stood or sat at various stations around the large, armored room. Four stood around large, brass shipman’s wheels that they independently steered as the zeppelin gained altitude and proceeded east. Each steering station had a variety of levers set into what Jake guessed used to be church pulpits of some kind.
Two black women stood at a large metal table in the middle of the bridge, the table was covered with a thick stack of charts. They stared down at one of the charts and spoke what Jake immediately recognized as Creole French. Jake had heard it once before on a trip taken a few years prior down the Mississippi. He’d spent several months in New Orleans and come to love the culture, but he despised the easy racism that was still prevalent there.
“Captain Thibodeaux,” Onawa called out. “Our passengers are here.”
Both women turned with stern looks on their faces. Jake realized they were identical twins … and wearing exactly the same clothing. They both wore red leather breeches and jerkins, with shiny silver metal scale-mail down their arms and over their thighs. Black boots came up above their knees, and they had black silk scarves covering their heads. Jake didn’t see any hair, the scarves apparently covered bald heads. They both had brass goggles on, and those had several gears and buttons on the sides, indicating they did more than just protect eyes.
