by Wol-vriey
Alice and Jackson were startled. The rustler moved impossibly fast for something so big. While Crank fought to spin the airship round behind it (out of range of its guns), the rustler raised its hand and fired a salvo right into their flank.
The airship had no side shields.
“Move this thing, Crank!” Alice screamed as cannonballs smashed into the gondola. With each deafening explosion, another chunk of airship broke away and fell to the ground.
The airship’s envelope had also been hit. Looking up, Alice could see the jagged hole through which its rearmost gasbag was losing helium. Motivated by revenge as much as pure survival, she and Jackson both spun their turrets to launch another fusillade of rockets at the mechanical man.
Once again, the blasts hit the robot square in its chest. Alice glowed with satisfaction as great quantities of water, fire, oil, and smoke began pouring from the huge holes they’d torn in its armored shell.
The rustler wasn’t done for just yet, however. Before its failing hydraulic systems ground to a halt, its pilots managed to get off one last barrage at the airship. Two cannonballs smashed into the bow of the gondola, while two more ripped through the envelope’s central gasbags. The fifth whistled through the gap between the gondola and their descended turret, narrowly missing the mechanism preventing Alice and Jackson from falling to their deaths.
Crank appeared above them a moment later. “
Prince Jackson looked up at the robot and shrugged. “Well, it was fun while it lasted.”
Alice shot him a cutting look. “This was fun to you?”
He nodded back, unbuckling himself from his seat. “You did say this was a bad idea. I agree with you now.”
Alice stared disgustedly at her former ‘nephew’ as she freed herself from her own gunnery harness. Behind her, white rabbits in Stetsons continued to stream forth from the disabled mech. Many of them couldn’t help but pull six-shooters from holsters, taking symbolic, ineffectual potshots at their victorious vessel.
Jackson and Alice climbed out of the gun turret, using its roof as a floor. The dirigible wobbled unsteadily as they joined Crank to enter its burning central corridor.
The stern of the gondola had been completely destroyed. At its back end, the corridor abutted directly on the evening sky. A good part of the gondola had been reduced to twisted metal, nearly unrecognizable after the beating they’d taken at the hands of the mech rustlers. Both of the airship’s propellers had somehow remained intact, although the shank of the starboard propeller had been bent slightly, turning at a rate slightly slower than its port companion.
Three of the vessel’s eight gas cells had been completely destroyed in the engagement, fluttering in the air now like ragged flags. Crank explained that the other four were losing gas as well.
“
Alice put the fact that they were even still afloat down to a miracle.
Below them, the sole surviving rustler was topping itself off with the last of the cattle, unconcerned with the foundering ship above. The Texan crew had clearly decided that whatever threat their vessel once posed was long since past. The white rabbits that had disembarked from the other two mechs were busily streaming up its ladders, securing themselves in its caged compartments along with the stolen cows.
“How much time before we crash?” Alice asked Crank.
“
“Better than dying, I suppose . . .” Prince Jackson muttered under his breath, frowning. “Just how far is it to Texas from here, anyway?”
“
“Too far to walk,” Jackson said. “And we’re unlikely to find horses this close to a rail line.”
Alice looked over at the rustler, which had by now finished loading itself with the stolen livestock. “That thing’s heading to Texas, just like we are,” she said. “How about hitching a ride on it?”
Prince Jackson looked at the rustler, then smiled broadly at Alice. “I’m beginning to really like you,” he said. “You remind me so much of my Aunt Marie . . .”
***
“Where’s Cheshire?” Alice suddenly asked. She’d not seen the cat since it delivered its message from Lord Busybody.
“Cheshire!” Jackson yelled. “Cheshire!”
Hearing no response, he went off to look for it.
“
“And the Texans won’t be expecting us to arrive in one of their own machines,” she added.
Prince Jackson suddenly reappeared in the smoking corridor, dragging the lifeless body of Cheshire Cat behind him. The feline was clearly dead, its bloody, furry form mangled by shrapnel. Metal and cat flesh seemed to morph into a whole new creature. Prince Jackson held it by its tail, its ruptured intestines trailing the shit of half-digested rats in its wake.
“Our communications are dead,” he said, hefting the carcass over the edge of the gondola. “We’re totally cut off from New York, now . . .”
“Doesn’t really matter,” Alice said. “We’re pressing on regardless.” She pointed to the retreating Texan machine, then looked back at Crank. “Land us on that thing, post-haste!”
Finding the cockpit still reasonably intact, Crank resumed control of the aircraft’s navigational systems. Alice and Prince Jackson went off to arm themselves.
***
The white rabbits riding in the cow pens opened fire on the dirigible as Crank brought it up alongside the huge robot.
Alice and Prince Jackson both unslung their Winchester rifles and returned fire. While hitting the odd cow between targets, their marksmanship was sufficient enough that soon the cages were filled with dead rabbits, their broad Stetson hats covering them like shrouds.
“
The vessel soared aloft with the last of its helium, keeping behind the mechanical man so as to avoid its hand canons. The rustler was meanwhile retracing its steps southward, its long strides covering the distance like it was nothing.
Crank landed the dirigible on the mech’s right shoulder, on a platform of girders beneath a ladder leading up to a door in its head.
“Go go go go go!” Alice yelled, seeing the disadvantage of their landing point – i.e. the huge hand swiveling up to train its cannon fingers directly at them.
They disembarked from their doomed vessel in a hurry, sprinting across the metal platform as the rustler opened fire, blasting the airship clean off its shoulder.
“That was close . . .” Alice said, shielding her eyes as it exploded in midair, burning fiercely as it drifted down. hopeful
“
Alice noticed the flutter in his voice and quickly gave his handle a few good cranks.
“Don’t you dare go dead on us now!” she ordered.
Prince Jackson wound Crank up a bit more, just for good measure, and then handed the robot a pair of revolvers. “Uncle Dudley says you’re a fair shot, robo-man,” he said. “Let’s see what you can do.”
“Let’s go!” Alice told her assembled troops.
As a team, they climbed the ladder to the door in the rustler’s head.
***
Crank slid the unlocked door open a crack, allowing them to peek inside. The interior was a roomy, well-lit cockpit. At its center console, a Stetson-wearing rabbit stood before a large steering wheel. It was flanked on either side by eight white rabbits, each of them manning their own control panels of lever
s, dials, and knobs. Without exception, all of them wore matching brown cowboy hats.
Three of the rabbits on the right were busy manipulating switches and sliders, controlling the arm attached to the hand cannon. The rest of the rabbits on that side worked the five finger controls – one forepaw to fire, the other to reload.
“A little more to the left,” one of the rabbits on arm duty instructed. “That’s it ya’ll, now bring that arm down real nice and gentle like . . .”
“Left hand crew,” the pilot barked, “anything to report?”
The rabbits on the left were all facing the rustler’s rear, looking out through the long window that circled around the head’s cabin.
“Them varmints are long gone,” one of them drawled, pointing at the flaming airship as it continued its descent. “Damned New Yorkers!”
“Boss won’t be pleased we lost two mechs . . .” the pilot said.
“Maybe he’ll trade some of these here cows to the Mech-Sioux for two more,” a lady rabbit said.
“They won’t trade,” the pilot retorted. “Injuns’ is still mad at Boss and the Gracelands over that business where Big Chief Little John lost his Little John. Rumor is, Mech-Sioux plan to raid the ranch and scalp them all good.”
“Wasn’t Boss’s fault Big Chief slept with Metal Feather,” another lady rabbit interjected. “Was his pecker’s . . .”
“True,” the pilot conceded in turn, “But try explaining that to Big Chief Little John! He’d personally feed you to a mountain lion – says the Boss could’ve warned him.”
“And who’d have warned his penis?” the lady rabbit asked, to much laughter.
“Mech-Sioux just jealous Boss so connected. Damned commie traitors . . .”
***
Meanwhile, just outside the cabin, Alice and her crew were preparing for action.
“Let’s do this!” she yelled, opening the door with a swift black boot as Crank and Jackson stormed in ahead of her.
In the ensuing firefight, Alice and Jackson would discover that Lord Busybody hadn’t lied about Crank – the bot could really shoot! As it turned out, the old bucket of bolts was deadly accurate with every shot. Before any of the startled rabbits could even react, Crank single-handedly filled most of their heads with lead.
The right-hand rabbits flopped over their consoles like furry, limp penises, Alice thought. The left-hand ones dropped dead where they stood. The pilot’s brains mushroomed out of the myriad holes in his skull, blood dripping down from the wide brim of his hat.
Within fifteen seconds of storming the cabin, they’d shot all seventeen rabbits dead. Crank took over the mech rustler’s controls as if nothing had even happened.
Alice and Jackson cleared the dead rabbits to one side of the room and stacked them against a wall.
“
Chapter 3
Steering the rustler was easy; one simply turned the pilot’s wheel in the direction one wished to go. As long as the gears remained shifted in the ‘forward’ position, the mech would continue to walk whichever way it was directed. The control panels manipulating its arms and hand cannons were also relatively simple to understand – the knobs and buttons were all labeled. Alice and Jackson felt confident they could operate them well enough if the need arose.
The windows forming a circle around the mech’s head provided 360 degree vision for the entire crew.
In the center of the room was a trapdoor with a ladder leading down into the massive boiler occupying much of the rustler’s torso. In the adjoining engine rooms, large numbers of rabbit engineers bustled to and fro, keeping the machine running smoothly, completely oblivious to the fact that they’d been hijacked.
In addition to the surprisingly intuitive controls, the rustler’s head also contained an abundance of maps and compasses. Seeing the sheer amount of navigational aids available, Alice realized they’d have a hard time getting lost even if they tried.
For night travel, a system of large mirrors could be activated, reflecting the furnace fires to illuminate the surrounding landscape. As darkness fell, the rustler’s innumerable cow cages lit up with coal gas lamps powered by boiler residue. The cockpit was equipped with similar lamps built into its walls.
After winding Crank as tight as his springs would allow (someone had to steer/stand guard), Alice and Prince Jackson both lay down and quickly fell asleep.
Piloted now by an indefatigable robot, the rustler mech – cattle-thief extraordinaire – tramped its way towards Texas, the clanking of its gears punctuated by the lowing of its stolen cargo.
***
Crank woke Alice and Prince Jackson early the next morning.
“
Both of them rose groggily to their feet, momentarily unsure of their surroundings. Outside it was still dark, the moon low in the eastern sky. Inside it was dark as well, their lamps having finally extinguished.
Crank pointed to a white rabbit head, smashed in the trapdoor leading down to the boiler, brains and bone seeping through the rips in its ten-gallon hat. The brains glowed a silvery gray in the moonlight filtering in through the windows.
“
Prince Jackson yawned. “How come we’ve stopped moving? And what happened to the lights?”
“
“How much further to Dallas, then?” Alice asked.
“
Alice shrugged. “Let’s go. We’d have to ditch this robot sooner or later anyway. It’s not as if we could ride it all the way to Dallas . . .”
“We need to hurry then,” Jackson said. “Before the rabbits force their way in.”
***
After bolting the trapdoor shut, the three of them exited the rustler’s head, Crank breaking off the exterior door handle as added insurance – just in case the rabbits broke through before they could flee.
Under cover of the fading night, they climbed down one of the many sets of iron rungs soldered to the rustler’s body, past the cages full of dozing cows and bulls, many of them containing bodies of rabbits killed yesterday as well.
The rustler was parked close to a hill, overlooking the countryside like a sentinel watching for enemy attack. They hadn’t made it very far down its frozen form before they heard the loud, metallic clanks of the rabbits attempting to break into the cockpit above.
“We got out just in time,” Alice said, looking up. “The rabbits are already close behind us.”
“We’d better keep moving . . .” Prince Jackson said, continuing their descent. “This is one tall machine – Uncle Dudley would be impressed!”
Alice said nothing. The gravity of her mission to kill Mech-Anna, the Clockwork Goddess, was beginning to weigh on her. With the Texans so technologically advanced, using mechs like these to steal cattle, she was beginning to doubt New York’s ability to win this war if it went on for much longer.
When they finally reached the rustler’s dusty, metal feet, they snuck off into the hills just as the new day broke over the horizon.
Chapter 4
By this point, Crank had noticed that Alice was starting to sweat from the heat. Jackson was too, but the robot was much more concerned about Alice for some reason.
“
She nodded, tapping her right breast. “Right here. I stuffed them in my bodice so as not to lose them.”
Crank nodded. “
She looked at him like he had a screw loose, then fumbled through her undergarments and handed over the letters. Whatever was wrong with him now?
Crank studied the condition of the poisoned envelope for a moment, then ripped it up and threw it away. He handed the safe letter back to Alice. “
She could only stare at him, speechless.
“What did you do that for?” Jackson asked.
“
“Thanks Crank,” Alice said, wiping the sweat from her brow. “I never would’ve thought of that . . .”
The trio trudged on.
***
By noontime they’d reached Oklahoma. The land was bare and dusty, its main flora being shriveled cacti and Joshua trees.
Alice called a halt. They sat down in the shade of a nearby shrub. “Now that we’ve lost the airship,” she began, “we need to find another route into Dallas – without getting killed by Texan troops.”
“Only way I can see,” Prince Jackson said, “is to kill them first.”
“Or simply avoid those with an interest in killing us,” Alice added.
“
“Mixing somethings is sometimes a good idea,” a fourth voice added. “But it don’t work for everything, see. Beer and barroom brawls? Yeah. Women and money? Hell yeah! But violence and peace? No siree!”
“Now, don’t y’all dare reach for them guns – we got y’all covered,” a fifth voice chimed in.
“You think these the ones Boss been expecting, Aron?” a sixth voice asked.
Alice, Crank, and Prince Jackson stood up and slowly turned around to face the mystery speakers. They found three ‘bullyboys’ standing before them, i.e. male cowpeople –human/cow hybrids with bull heads topping human bodies.
Minotaurs for the modern age.
All three bullyboys were taller than both Crank and Prince Jackson by a foot at least. Their bodies were heavily muscular, though their bellies bulged and sagged. Foot-long horns poked through the sides of their ten-gallon hats. They wore heavy leather jackets and pants, and carried (in addition to six-shooters and bandoliers full of ammunition) massive rifles that sizzled with heat and gave off spurts of steam intermittently.
