by Dan Willis
“Who?”
John wondered too.
“Ben Franklin. I mean he’s the one who … who …”
“Put my brain in a jar,” Sylvia finished. “He was amazing.” There was a burst of static that sounded remarkably like a sigh. “I met him near the end of the war for independence. He was one-hundred and seventeen then, but he didn’t look a day over ninety. Flirted with me something fierce, with my husband standing right there and all.”
“You were married,” Robi gasped. “Then why did you … you know.”
Sylvia paused for a long moment and John didn’t think she was going to answer.
“I was dying,” she said. “Consumption. Most of us who became brainboxes were dying.”
“I’m sorry,” Robi said. “I shouldn’t have—”
Before she could finish, the airship suddenly lurched violently, and John was thrown into the side of the narrow passageway. Bright colored stars exploded before his eyes and he slid down to the floor of the passage as it jerked and shifted around him. It took a minute for his eyes to focus again. When they did, he found the passage had stopped jerking about. He could hear the chugging of the steam engine much louder now, beating almost twice as fast as before.
Something had caused them to change course and put on speed.
“What are you doing down there?” Hickok’s voice washed over him from the darkness of the corridor.
“I hit my head when we changed course,” he said, lurching unsteadily to his feet. “What’s going on?”
“Trouble,” Hickok said, pushing past him. “Go get dressed, then meet me up in the galley. That’s behind you,” he added, before moving off down the hall.
John went back to his cabin and, after fumbling about in the dark for a few minutes, found the valve for the glowlamp and opened it. As the flux flowed through the open valve and dripped on the crystal, a ruddy light began to permeate the little space. His possessions amounted to the clothes he’d had on his back when Hickok had deputized him, and even those weren’t his. Robi had stolen them. After a few minutes of struggling in the cramped cabin, he managed to dress himself. He looked in the mirror and ran his hand through his hair with no visible effect. Satisfied that he was as presentable as he’d ever be, John turned off the glowlamp valve and made his way to the galley.
Crankshaft was already there, standing by the central table in a long, coal-stained nightshirt and muck boots. A soft cloth had been thrown over the table and the gun locker stood open on the wall. Five rifles were laid out in a neat row on the velvet cloth along with two shatter guns, and several boxes of ammunition.
“You do know how to load a rifle, Johnny,” he said by way of greeting. It wasn’t a question.
“Uh, yeah. The Thurger I was apprenticed to showed me.”
“Good,” Crankshaft said, tossing him a box of cartridges. “Come help me make sure these are all ready to go.”
John moved to obey, picking up one of the rifles.
“What’s going on?” he asked as he pulled the spring rod out of the magazine.
“Sylvia picked up a distress call,” Hickok’s voice suddenly filled the galley. He rose up out of the stairwell carrying several gun belts over his shoulder. He was dressed but had replaced his usual sword-and-gun belt with one that boasted two pistols. “I just talked to the Doc,” he said, tossing the belts on the table beside the rifles. “The Homestead’s under attack.”
“Who’d be fool enough to attack the Doc?” Crankshaft said. The note of open disbelief in the engineer’s voice made John wonder just who this Doctor was.
“Don’t know,” Hickok said, picking up one of the gun belts and settling it over his shoulder so it ran diagonally across his body. “Doc’s on his way here so I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
As Hickok picked up a second belt, John noticed that they weren’t traditional gun belts at all, but bandoliers. Each one settled over one shoulder and ran to the opposite hip, with a holster just under the rib cage. The second one held the enforcer’s short sword in a scabbard, attached, hilt down, on his back. As John watched, Hickok wound a long black thread around the lip of the scabbard then tied it off around the hilt of his sword. The thread was strong enough to keep his sword from falling out, but weak enough to break the moment Hickok pulled on it.
With the sword secured, the enforcer threw the bandolier over his shoulder. He wore his regular guns backwards and high on his waist, cavalry style. One by one he drew them, checking their loads with a precision born of practice, then returned them to their respective holsters. Then he checked the ones in the bandoliers. The entire operation took less than twenty seconds.
Satisfied that he was sufficiently armed, Hickok tossed one of the remaining belts to Crankshaft, then handed the last one to John.
“You know how to use one of those?” he said, nodding at the pistol sticking out from the holster.
“N-no, sir,” John said, unable to keep the quiver of anxiety from his voice.
“Well it ain’t a lifter engine,” he said, pressing the belt into John’s trembling hand. “Just point it at whatever you want to go away and pull the trigger.”
“Yes sir,” John said. He stood there for a second, feeling the weight of the flux pistol. It seemed bigger than he thought it should be, but having never actually held one, he had no real basis for comparison.
“Well, don’t just stand there, Deputy Porter, strap her on.”
John obeyed, threading the belt through the brass loop on its opposite end, then buckling it tight, before tying the thigh strap. The holster hung low on his leg, western style, unlike Hickok’s, but John was in no mood to complain.
“You’re going to need this, too,” Hickok said.
John looked up to find the big enforcer handing him a shiny silver badge. The sword and gear of the enforcer brigade was stamped on it over the word “‘Deputy.”.’ Quickly, John pinned it to the front of his waistcoat.
“Now Doc Terminus is a friend of mine,” Hickok said, inspecting the rifles. “He’s the one who patched you up,” he said to John. “I don’t know what the trouble is, but whatever it is, you let me handle it, understand?”
“Yes, sir,” John said.
“I want you with me up on the quarterdeck. Reload rifles as I shoot and keep your head down. Crankshaft will cover us from the bow with the shatter gun.”
A burst of static from the speaker mounted in the room announced Sylvia’s presence. “We’re almost there,” she said. “You should be able to see the Homestead in a few minutes.”
Hickok tucked two of the flux rifles under his arm, then retrieved a pair of field glasses from the gun locker.
“Let’s go,” he said.
The three of them stepped out into the pre-dawn light. Frigid wind whipped around him, making John wish Robi had stolen a coat to go with his vest. Hickok mounted the steps to the quarterdeck above, depositing his rifles by the rail. John hurried behind, placing the remaining rifles by the first two and stacking boxes of ammo near them.
“Over there,” Crankshaft said, moving beside Hickok and pointing.
John looked over the rail, his eyes following Crankshaft’s outstretched arm. Rolling hills of grass spread out below them, monotonous in their featureless regularity. As John looked, however, one of the hills moved, sliding sideways between two of its fellows. A moment later a puff of black soot issued from it, tracing a dark streak across the lightening sky. Something glinted in the light, above the moving hill, and John squinted hard, trying to bring it into focus.
“Here,” Hickok said, passing John the field glasses.
With the aid of the glasses, John could see the moving hill better. It wasn’t a hill at all, but a grass-roofed building sitting on a round platform with a yard and a garden surrounded by a picket fence. The sight was surreal since below the house and the fence were eight massive steel legs that moved everything above it like a giant spider. The gleam in the sky turned out to be an airship, hanging in the ai
r a fair distance from the spider-house.
Why weren’t they moving in? John wondered.
A second later John had the answer. As the spider-house turned to move around a stand of scrubby trees, a massive anti-airship gun came into view, jutting up from the platform behind the house. It flashed, firing with enough force to push the entire platform, and a black eruption of smoke appeared just short of the airship. Whoever they were, they were keeping just out of range of the massive gun.
“Looks like the Doc’s keeping them at bay,” Crankshaft said from the other side of Hickok.
“Look closer,” Hickok said. “Pour it on, Sylvia,” he yelled over his shoulder. “Bring us in right over top of the Homestead.”
The Desert Rose shuddered beneath their feet as Sylvia complied with Wild Bill’s orders. Trying to hold the glasses steady, John peered hard at the spider-house. Flying all around it, like gnats, were tiny flying vehicles. They were cigar-shaped, with barrel-like tops positioned over a long, thin steam engine. Two men sat on each of them, one facing forward, obviously the pilot, and a rear-facing man firing a Gatling gun. Two counter-rotating propellers in the aft drove the machines forward as they raced around the Homestead, raking the platform and the house with fire from their guns.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Crankshaft said. “Who are they?”
“Air pirates,” Hickok said.
John knew about airship pirates who raided homes, airships, and towns on the southern fringe of Alliance territory. It was strange to find them so far north.
“Damn hillbillies,” Hickok muttered. He turned from the rail and picked up a rifle, feeling its weight and checking the sights and the flux valve.
“They’ve seen us,” Crankshaft said.
“Won’t they run away now?” John asked, squinting through the glasses.
“Not likely,” Hickok said. “Get down behind the rail.”
John handed back the field glasses and did as he was told. Crankshaft passed him one of the shatter guns, then picked up the other and headed to the bow. Hickok moved back to the rail and braced his hip against it, raising the flux rifle to his shoulder.
“When I say Gun, you pass me a rifle and take the one I have,” he said. “Keep reloading unless we’re boarded; if that happens, defend yourself with the shatter gun.”
“Y-yes sir,” John stammered. He raised his head to peer through the stiles of the rail. A group of the cigar-shaped flyers had broken off their attack on the Homestead and were heading straight for them. With their guns facing the rear, no bullets raked the Desert Rose, but if one overflew them, all that would change.
Hickok’s rifle boomed as the crystal hammer hit the flux charged cartridge. The weapon kicked and John could hear the ring of the crystal slug buried beneath the crack of the weapon. Out over the rail, the air pirates kept coming. Hickok swore and adjusted his sights before firing again.
This time an air pirate slumped over the controls of his flyer and it dropped rapidly out of sight. The enforcer fired three more times, scoring only one more hit before the cigar-shaped craft overflew them.
“Down!” he yelled, ducking behind the central smokestack that rose up from the middle of the deck.
The gunners on the back of the flyers cranked their guns, raking the deck of the Desert Rose with a hail of bullets. A thunderous boom from the bow heralded Crankshaft’s entry into the fight. A second later there was a second boom and a cloud of steam as the boiler tank of one of the flyers exploded, pierced by the shatter gun’s shot. Screaming from the burning steam, the doomed craft’s gunner leapt free of it as it disappeared over the side. The slightly scalded man landed on the deck and rolled, coming up with a pistol in his hand.
A pistol that was no match for Crankshaft’s shatter gun.
A second blast caught the air pirate full in the chest, sending him backward over the rail through a cloud of red mist.
“Gun,” Hickok shouted. John had been so mesmerized by what was happening in the bow, he’d forgotten his job.
He grabbed a loaded rifle from the deck and handed it to Hickok, accepting the empty one in return. John fumbled with the ammo box, fishing out the glowing cartridges and feeding them into the rifle’s magazine.
“Gun,” Hickok said before John had the rifle even half loaded.
He passed the enforcer a second rifle and went back to loading the first. Bullets raked the deck again, one of them hitting the rail and showering John with splinters. Trying to maintain his focus, John slipped the spring rod back into the rifle’s magazine and clipped it in place. He was just in time.
“Gun.”
John passed the weapon up only to have it torn away when a burst of Gatling fire caught it in the stock and sent it spinning across the deck.
“Gun,” Hickok said without missing a beat.
“Behind you,” Crankshaft called.
John and Hickok turned to see three of the flyers, loaded with men, rising up behind the stern rail. As they crested the stern, they scrambled aboard, drawing weapons.
John froze. Before he could even think to ask Hickok what to do, however, the enforcer was in motion. His pistols seemed to just appear in his hands, barking out thunderous rebukes at those who invaded his airship. Three of the invaders went down before any of them managed to shoot back. John heard four shots in quick succession and bullets slammed into the smokestack, ricocheting loudly. Hickok moved with his unnatural speed, firing half a dozen shots in return before John heard the pistols click empty.
Without pausing, Hickok dropped the guns to the deck, drawing the two additional pistols from his bandoliers. Gunfire erupted and Wild Bill staggered back as at least two bullets hit him. Whatever their effect, the enforcer didn’t slow down. Guns blazing, he charged the remaining men, cutting them down. A third flyer rose up with three more boarders clinging to it. Hickok shot two of the men off before his pistols ran out of bullets. Cursing, he shoved the empty pistol into the exposed gears underneath the flyer and drew his short sword from the back sheath.
Gears jammed, and the flyer lost its lift. Wide-eyed in horror, the pilot screamed as it dropped out of sight. His remaining passenger had more presence of mind and leapt over the rail as the flyer disappeared. Hickok met the man, running him through with the sword as he landed on the deck.
A noise above him drew John’s attention. He looked on as a loaded flyer disgorged its leering passengers onto the deck.
Mind racing, John seized the shatter gun. Before he could lift it, however, a bearded air pirate with a milky eye stepped on the barrel, pinning it to the deck. The man raised his pistol and John heard a crack, but the expected impact never came. The milky-eyed man’s back arched. Blood dribbled from his mouth as he crumpled to the deck. In the space where he had been, John could see Hickok holding the pistol of the air pirate he’d just impaled. He fired again and John heard cursing from the men on the flyer behind him.
Without thinking, John raised the shatter gun; rolling onto his back, he pointed it up at the flyer.
“NO!” the pilot yelled, terrified, as John let loose a blast of crystal shards square in the man’s face. The man pitched backward and rolled off the machine, disappearing over the side. As he went, his foot caught the flyer’s elevator handle and the machine shot upward with its remaining passengers scrambling to reach the controls.
John dropped the shatter gun.
His hands were trembling and he couldn’t stop them. The image of the flyer pilot seemed to linger on his eyeballs. The man was older than John but still young, with the stubble of a goatee on his chin and a pockmarked face. His eyes had been wide in terror seconds before they vanished in a blast of razor sharp shrapnel.
John had never killed anyone before. He’d never even thought about it. Even when Wild Bill had given him the deputy badge it hadn’t seemed real. Now he couldn’t stop shaking.
Shots went off behind him, making John jump.
“That’s right, you misbegotten hillbillies,” H
ickok yelled. “Run from Wild Bill Hickok. You be sure to tell all your inbred relatives that if they dare cross Wild Bill, I’ll send them straight to the Devil too!”
Hickok fired until his pistols were empty. John just stood there in shock.
“Take it easy, son,” Crankshaft’s voice came as if from a distance. “It’s over. You did good.”
“I killed that man,” John gasped, having to forcibly wring the words from his lungs.
“He was trying to kill you,” Hickok said. “That ain’t vicious, that’s self-defense.”
John knew he was right. If he hadn’t fired, the passengers on that flyer would have dropped right down on him. Logically there wasn’t anything else he could have done.
But none of that made it feel right.
As John let Hickok help him to his feet, he had a dark suspicion that nothing would ever feel quite right again.
Chapter 15
Terminus
Fat drops of blood splashed down on the deck of the Desert Rose. Each hit with a gooey-sounding splat that cut through John’s stunned consciousness like a pneumatic saw.
“You’re bleeding,” he said, surprised, his eyes following the trajectory up from the deck to a slowly spreading red stain on Hickok’s shirt.
“It’s nothing,” Hickok said. “I’ve had worse.”
“Maybe so,” Crankshaft said, pressing his handkerchief to Bill’s side. “But this one looks bad.”
Hickok did look pale.
“I’ve got the bottle of stabilizer you gave me,” John said, pulling the green glass bottle from the pocket of his waistcoat.
Hickok waved him off.
“That’s only for real emergencies, kid,” he said, leaning on Crankshaft. “Sylvia,” he yelled toward the smokestack.
While wondering what constituted a bona fide emergency, John noticed one of Sylvia’s mechanical eyes and speaker boxes mounted high on the stack.
“Send the Doc an etheriogram. Let him know that we’re docking and tell him to sterilize his sewing needle.”
“Already on it,” Sylvia’s voice squawked from the box.
