The Flux Engine

by Dan Willis

  “Ah, but can you make them yield? That’s the real question.”

  Kest dropped back into his chair.

  “Some will have to be made to see the light,” he admitted. “Others will follow my vision willingly. You saw Sira just now,” he went on. “There’s nothing she wouldn’t do if I commanded her.”

  “In that case, Raphael, I have a—request,” Carroway said. “That girl. When you come into your power, I want her.”

  “She’d kill you.”

  “Surely not if the great and exalted Shokhlar commanded it.” Carroway feigned shock.

  “Fine,” Kest said. “Whatever will make you happy, Carroway.”

  “I live to serve you.” Carroway smiled a sardonic, mocking smile and bowed.

  “Speaking of which,” Kest said sharply, standing up again to make his point, towering intimidatingly over the little man. “I believe you were on your way to the Captain—to inform him we’re getting underway. Have him assemble his senior officers in the crystal chamber, then meet me there.”

  Carroway turned back to the door, his self-satisfied smile still firmly in place.

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” Kest said. “Summon the high priests from the temple to the crystal chamber as well. I want this moment to be—memorable.”

  “I’ll see to it,” Carroway said, then slipped out into the hall beyond.

  Kest watched him go, keeping his eyes on the door long after Carroway had gone. The little man was irritating but he definitely had his uses. Without his intimate knowledge of the Mimbrae and their legends, Kest would never have been able to insert himself into their society. Carroway’s help made controlling the Mimbrae easy.

  Easy was good.

  Chapter 11

  Rise of the Flux Engine

  Kest put the bloodsand crystal in the pocket of his waistcoat, then stood and donned his bottle-green overcoat. Green was the official color of the Mimbrae priesthood. It reminded them of the green, growing things they had lost when the Lantians forced them to flee north.

  Kest rather liked it.

  He left his office and descended a long spiral stair to the main floor of the Temple, then out into the frigid air of Panor. The Temple was on the upper shelf, above the city proper, and the rail line ran along in front between the building and the skydocks.

  Before he got anywhere near the little station with its raised platform, the attendant initiate lit the signal lamp, a glowing red beacon on the end of the platform. A small pony engine pulling a passenger car and two flatcars pulled into the platform as he arrived.

  “I need you to take me to the shipyards,” he said to the engineer as he boarded.

  “At once, Shokhlar.” The man nodded, doffing his cap respectfully. He called a warning and the train shuddered, jerking forward into clattering motion. As it picked up speed, he tugged on the steam whistle, blowing two short blasts. At the corner, where the track turned to continue around the shelf above Panor, a switchman moved a lever that would divert the train toward the shipyards.

  A few moments later the train turned away from the city, and plunged into a tunnel of ice. Some light from the world above managed to filter down through the soot-stained walls of the glacial tunnel, giving the surroundings a bluish glow that was enough to see by. Intense cold washed over the open car and Kest pulled his coat tightly around him. Ice caves could be surprisingly warm if there was a heat source present, but there wasn’t anything in the empty darkness of the tunnel to keep the glacier’s power at bay. For a fleeting moment, Kest envied the engineer, standing over the locomotive’s firebox.

  The train raced on through the semidarkness while the bitter cold soaked into Kest’s bones. Finally light flared around the engine and the tunnel suddenly fell away. The steel wheels rattled over a trestle bridge, carrying the little train over a wide natural chasm hundreds of feet deep.

  The railroad bridge divided the shipyards roughly in half. On the left side, a dozen docks were working, assembling the polished ribs of new airships.

  Only one ship occupied the right side of the shipyard—but what a ship it was. Kest had named her the Vengeance, for she would be the means of restoring the Mimbrae people to their rightful place in the world.

  It had taken almost ten years to build her. Seven decks high and over three hundred yards long, it was bigger than anything that ever flew. His engineers told him it would never fly. A lift engine could only raise so much mass, they said, and it was impossible to synchronize multiple lifters at once. An airship could only have one lifter and the biggest lift engine ever built couldn’t raise a tenth of the weight of the Vengeance.

  He knew better. The only thing he needed to make the Vengeance fly was the crystal that now resided in his waistcoat pocket.

  The train shuddered as the engineer throttled back and a minute later it lurched to a stop at the shipyard station. Kest disembarked and strode to the gantry that descended from an open hatch in the airship’s side. A guard in a green coat stood at the base of the ramp and he saluted as Kest passed.

  At the top of the ramp stood a short, solidly built man in a white military uniform. He had a thin, angular face with a long jaw and pointed chin. A piercing blue eye looked out from beneath a bushy, graying eyebrow, the other eye being covered by a black patch. His hair and trimmed beard had gone salt-and-pepper, showing both the vitality of youth and the cunning of age.

  “Carroway sent word you were coming, my lord,” he said. “Welcome aboard.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Kest said, stepping off the ramp and clasping the man by the hand.

  “He suggested that I should stoke the boilers since we are about to launch,” the Captain said with a raised eyebrow.

  Captain Wesley Raff had earned his sky legs running cargo for the Mimbrae. He’d mastered every kind of airship that flew, from civilian transports to freight haulers to warships. Wesley Raff had forgotten more about sailing the skies than most men would ever know, and Captain Wesley Raff knew for a fact that nothing as big as the Vengeance could fly.

  “Just so, Captain,” Kest said, pulling the red crystal from his waistcoat. “With this crystal, the output of the Flux Engine will be increased tenfold. That’s not just lifting capacity, that’s its range as well.”

  Raff looked unconvinced.

  “If you say so, my lord,” he said. “Where shall we set course?”

  “The grazing plains of northern Larado,” Kest said as he led the captain along the hall. “We need to demonstrate our power, to show the Colonials that we mean business.”

  “Won’t that just give the Colonials time to mobilize against us?”

  “The war with Britannia was costly,” Kest said in answer. “The Alliance was forced to move their entire population to the west to survive. They still haven’t recovered fully. On top of that, they’ve been exploiting their territories the same way Britannia did to them, bleeding them of resources to build up their infrastructure at home. There’s open talk of civil war in some of the more remote places.”

  “How does that help us?”

  “Simply put, the Colonial Alliance cannot afford a war right now. Oh, they’ll fight one if they have to, but they’ll do whatever they need to do in order to avoid one. Once they understand the power of this airship, they’ll be more than happy to give away an insignificant piece of barren desert in exchange for peace.”

  Captain Raff stopped suddenly, forcing Kest to step around him. He turned to regard Kest, ramrod straight in his crisp uniform.

  “I spoke out against the building of this airship,” he said. “I felt we’d be better served with a fleet of smaller ships and I made no attempt to be subtle with my opinions. Now we stand on the verge of accomplishing our goals. I should never have doubted you, sir.”

  Kest clapped the man on the shoulder, knocking his epaulette askew.

  “Keep right on doubting, Captain,” he said. “I need grounded men of sense to keep me on course.”

  They conti
nued down the corridor, Raff trying to straighten his epaulette, until they reached a large door. A brass plate mounted on the wall read Crystal Chamber.

  The door opened into the central engine room. The Vengeance had three engine rooms, one on each side of the ship to drive the great propellers, and this one amidships. The other rooms were littered with boilers, steam lines, coal belts and drive pistons as big around as a man and four times as tall. Only one machine occupied the central engine room, but what a machine it was. It held thousands of crystals of every shape and size, each positioned so their harmonic fields could interact with the others. The bigger crystals were mounted on gears or rotating rods so they could move through the machine as it turned. Smaller crystals adorned pedestals, gears, cogs, and wheels, mounted and synchronized to move in unison, blending their harmonies into one massive chord of incredible power.

  It was a masterwork device, possibly the most complex crystal device ever built.

  Insulated steam lines ran from the boilers on either side of the crystal chamber, feeding the main drive piston of the crystal device as well as a dozen smaller pistons mounted throughout the Flux Engine’s superstructure.

  A thousand-gallon tank of iridescent blue flux hung, suspended, over the array. Dozens of brass tubes ran from the tank to nozzles, positioned to spray the crystals with flux to keep them energized as they moved.

  The Flux Engine was an engineering marvel and Kest loved the sight of it. Not even the vanished Lantians had attempted such a device. Only he had the vision and the daring to accomplish it.

  Two dozen figures were gathered around the inert engine, gazing in wonder at its beauty and complexity. Half of the crowd was dressed in military uniforms, the other half wore the green robes of the Temple. Kest could see Sira among them, plainly evident by her diminutive stature.

  As Kest and the Captain entered the room, the buzz of conversation died down. A man in a greasy boiler suit hurried over to greet them. He took Kest’s hand with his dirty one and shook it vigorously. Despite his disheveled appearance, Kest had personally selected him for the task of Chief Engineer aboard the Vengeance. Bertram Greene was quite simply the best crystal engine mechanic the Mimbrae had produced in a generation.

  “Shokhlar,” Bertram said. “You honor my engine room.”

  “It’s you who honor me, Chief,” Kest said, wiping the grease from his hand with a handkerchief from his coat pocket. “Your engine room is in perfect order. Are we ready?”

  The Chief nodded, his head bobbing like a cork on the ocean. Kest held up the crystal so the greasy man could see it.

  “Open her up, Chief.”

  Bertram turned to a nearby panel on which was a lock. He spun the combination with practiced ease, then pulled open a maintenance panel on the wall, revealing a short lever attached to a steam valve. Donning a heavy leather glove from his pocket, Chief Greene grasped the iron lever and pulled hard. The valve hissed as blistering steam rushed through it, filling the line beyond and pushing against a series of pistons. The Flux Engine shuddered and broke apart as the pistons pulled its various components away from the center, opening the crystal lattice like a flower.

  A round mounting plate stood at the heart of the Flux Engine, held off the floor by a crooked pipe that bent and twisted to avoid the spinning crystals when the engine moved. Without waiting for the pistons to stop moving, Kest strode into the machine, ducking under a still-shifting rod arm on his way to the pedestal. The bloodsand crystal dropped neatly into a hollowed-out depression in the mounting plate. A brass clamp went around the crystal’s middle like a belt, held in place by a wingnut that Kest tightened gently.

  His hands trembled.

  The design of the Flux Engine had come to him years ago. He’d gone over his figures hundreds of times, checked his schematics over and over till every detail was perfect. Despite all that, however, it all came down to this. This one moment. It would work, he knew it would, but he could feel his stomach churning nonetheless.

  Taking a breath to steady his nerves, Kest exited the device and stood between Sira and the Captain as the crystal device moved back into place. He gazed at the collage of crystals for a long moment, knowing there was nothing more he could do. When he turned back to the crowd, he found the assembled officers and priests waiting patiently, all eyes on him.

  “My friends,” he began. “This is an historic moment, one that will be remembered by our people throughout all time. This is not the first step on our journey to reclaim our birthright; we took that step ten years ago when the keel of this great airship was laid. No, today we take the final steps that will lead us to our destiny.”

  He spoke to them familiarly, as friends rather than subordinates.

  “A thousand years ago, the Lantians destroyed our people,” he said. “They attacked us without provocation and hunted us without mercy. We were the Jaguar priests then, keepers of the culture of the Aztecs. When we fled, we were refugees. Now we are survivors.

  “We have done our duty, and kept the fires of tradition alive. We didn’t just survive here, we thrived.

  “The Builder has made us strong. He has given us the strength to regain our homeland and now the time has at long last come.”

  Cheers went up from the crowd.

  “The Builder has made us strong,” Kest repeated. “But he has also made us wise. We do not set forth to conquer. We only want what is ours, and with the aid of the Builder and the Vengeance, we will have it.

  “Our time has come, my brothers and sisters. The restoration of our birthright is at hand. Let everyone among you do their duty, and we shall prevail.”

  As the crowd erupted into cheers and applause, Kest pointed at Bertram Greene. The Chief Engineer pulled a waist-high lever and the steam engines that drove the crystal device began to turn, driving the main piston back and forth. The gears and cogs in the crystal lattice jerked and began to turn and whirl, faster and faster as the piston gathered speed. When the Chief was satisfied that the piston was going fast enough, he pulled a lever on the panel, releasing the flux from the suspended tank.

  Kest watched as the thick liquid made its way down the tubes, eventually reaching the brass nozzles and spraying out in a fine mist. As soon as the mist hit the whirling crystals they erupted with light, pulsing brighter and brighter.

  The light washed over Kest like a wave, forcing him to shield his eyes with his hand. A fire erupted in his chest, resonating with the pulsing light from the crystals. The power of the flux engine was overwhelming, the force of pure creation, of the Builder’s infinite energy.

  A moment later the deck shook violently, sending some of the onlookers to their knees. All around them the massive airship creaked and groaned as it tore free from the bonds of gravity, rising slowly off the mounts that had been home since its birth.

  Kest turned from the light to face the crowd, raising his arms in triumph.

  “Brothers and sisters,” he yelled over the sound of the engine. “I give you … the Flux Engine.”

  Chapter 12

  The Brainbox

  Wild Bill Hickok walked right up Main Street in Sprocketville as if he owned the place. His long strides ate up the ground in chunks but his pace was easy and unhurried. John was grateful for this as he quickened his pace to keep up. He’d seen how fast Hickok could move when he had a mind to.

  That anyone could move so fast was unnatural. John had heard of elixirs that would give a man temporary strength or speed, but those were supposed to be dangerous or addictive … or both. They were called Jekylls after the infamous doctor. John couldn’t imagine that the Enforcer Corps would risk their men with such things, but his mind flashed back to the fight in Fixer’s secret room. Both Hickok and Morgan had moved so fast that his eye could barely follow it. It stood to reason that they both had been Jekylled somehow.

  “Keep up, Deputy Porter.”

  John realized he had fallen several paces behind the big enforcer and hurried to catch up.

  “Whe
re are we going?”

  Hickok didn’t answer, merely pointing forward at a sturdy-looking, three-story building. It was surrounded by a wooden porch and the front doors were open; above them hung large gold letters proclaiming it to be the Evening Star Hotel. The adobe bricks of the Evening Star’s walls had been whitewashed and the entire structure shone in the afternoon sun. A wooden platform extended from the uppermost story, running from one side, around the back, to the other.

  As John followed Hickok’s pointing finger, his eyes came to rest on the wooden platform. It was a skydock, built to accommodate personal airships. Currently, there was only one docked at the Evening Star.

  “Is that your airship?” John gasped. Hickok nodded and a smile crossed his lips.

  “The Desert Rose,” he said.

  The Desert Rose was bigger than any personal airship John had ever seen. Most were just launches with a cabin and galley below and the boiler and lifter on deck. This airship had to be fifty feet long if it was an inch. Its nose pointed down, like the beak of a bird of prey, and John could see two round windows, like eyes, for the pilot’s viewing ability. About halfway along its deck, a second level rose up and continued all the way aft, broken only by an enormous round window. There were two sets of propellers, mounted on long outriggers that were raised up like masts so the ship could dock. Once the Desert Rose departed dock, John knew those arms would drop down even with the deck and the massive propellers would begin pushing it through the air. The forward props were what pushed the airship along, while the smaller, aft propellers helped with maneuvering.

  John knew all about airships, of course; every boy his age did. Most dreamt of flying aboard one their entire lives. John’s heart suddenly raced at the thought that he would soon be among the rare few who took to the skies.

  “Do you have anything you need to get before we go?” Hickok asked, still not breaking his stride.