by Dan Willis
“Welcome back,” Kest greeted him when he reached the bridge. The Shokhlar stood at his navigation table poring over a stack of charts.
Morgan bowed and joined the Shokhlar at the table.
“I hear the flux is being loaded as we speak,” Kest said. “Excellent work, as always.”
“Are we still on schedule?” Morgan asked.
Kest nodded, tracing a line on the chart with his finger.
“Castle Rock has anti-bombardment guns,” he said, “Big ones. I don’t want them getting a shot at us before we deploy the weapon.” He tapped his finger on the mountains east of the city. “If we come through Immigration Canyon, instead of over the mountains, we won’t be visible to their guns until the last minute.”
“Sound strategy,” Morgan said.
“We’ll arrive just as the sun rises at our backs. That ought to hide us from the gunners for a minute or two.”
“We’ll have to shoot in that window or we’ll be sitting ducks,” Morgan said. Kest shrugged.
“It takes close to an hour to charge the weapon,” he said. “If we miss, we’ll have to retreat and try again later.” Morgan thought about that, then nodded.
“So what now?” he asked.
“Now we wait,” Kest said, straightening up. “I’m going to get some rest. You should do the same.”
He slapped Morgan affectionately on the shoulder, then turned to go. Morgan watched him leave, then mounted the stairs to the observation platform above the bridge. The metal shutters that protected the bridge during combat had been raised and thousands of stars gleamed through the glass. A soft chair had been placed at the far side of the platform, where the occupant could oversee the operation of the bridge and still enjoy the view. Morgan sank into the chair and let his eyes drift to the stars above.
O O O
How long he sat there, staring at the emptiness of space he couldn’t tell, but he was suddenly aware of someone moving along the platform to his side.
“Report,” he said, recognizing Sira’s diminutive form and soft tread.
“The Flux has been unloaded,” she said. “I searched the transport airship again and had every member of her crew identified by someone aboard the Vengeance.”
Irritation rose in Morgan’s chest.
“You found nothing?” he demanded. Sira shook her head, the faint ghost of a smile on her lips.
“No, your Eminence,” she said.
Morgan sighed.
It’s just nerves, your mind playing tricks. Let it go.
“Very well,” he said. “See to the refueling of the Flux Engine then get some rest.”
Sira bowed and withdrew.
“Yes, your Eminence.”
Morgan waited until her heard her retreating footsteps vanish before swearing. That girl wanted his job and she made no effort to conceal it. Worse, she had talent. The fact that Morgan was aware of her designs meant that she was nowhere near ready to challenge him, but there would come a day when he would have to deal with her.
In the meantime, he focused on the activity of the bridge below, pushing nagging thoughts of Sira and Professor Solomon out of his mind. Something still bothered him about his trip to Sharpsburg, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. Sooner or later, he was sure, whatever it was would pop up.
O O O
The lid on one of the drums of Flux popped up and Robi’s slender fingers emerged, easing it silently aside. She peeked over the rim of the barrel, her eyes sweeping the vast, open space of the hangar before ducking back down. The Tommy handler sat at a small desk against the far wall, the control crown glittering among the dark folds of her hair. She appeared to be reading and Robi guessed operating the Tommys in such a mundane, repetitive task didn’t require her full attention.
The drums of flux had been stacked neatly just outside the now still and silent transport airship. The Tommys were moving the drums to an area where a section of the floor had been pulled up and a metal grate put down as a floor. As she watched, the Tommys removed the lid of each drum and turned it upside down on the grate, allowing the thick flux to drain, presumably into a basin below.
Robi gave the handler a final check to make sure she was engrossed in her book, then stood up quickly, lifted herself out of the drum, and dropped back down beside it. The lid went back on with a small scraping sound that got lost in the noise of the moving Tommys.
Crouching so as not to be seen should the Tommy handler decide to look up, Robi moved among the barrels until she found one with a line of chalk drawn around its middle. She knocked softly on its side, twice, and was immediately answered. From the sleeve of her shirt, she produced a short length of flat metal and used it to gently pry the lid up. It released with a rumbling clang, like the crash of a cymbal, that was lost in the noise of the chugging Tommys. Being careful not to drop it, Robi slid the lid aside.
“Get me out of this thing,” Hickok gasped.
The metal drum had been plenty large enough for Robi, but she was small. The big enforcer was folded up like a sardine in a can. Robi didn’t want to risk attracting the Tommy handler’s attention but there was no helping it. After a quick check to ensure the coast was clear, she stood up and grabbed Hickok’s arms, pulling upward and giving him enough leverage to stand.
John’s barrel wasn’t much farther down the line, and in short order, she’d freed him as well, pushing the lid back on each of the barrels as hard as she could. It wouldn’t fool a human, but Tommys were simple machines; if she was lucky, they wouldn’t notice the barrels were empty. She didn’t worry too much. So far, her luck had been good, sneaking aboard the transport airship as one of the barrel moving crew, bringing empty barrels with them. When Morgan had searched the moving crew, she, Hickok, and John were already on board. All they had to do then was hide amongst the barrels and wait for the transport to land. When the Tommys started unloading, they each hid in an empty barrel, and waited to be carried out. Human cargo handlers would surly have noticed the difference in weight and balance between the barrels of flux and those with a person inside them, but Tommys weren’t smart enough to tell the difference. They simply picked up the barrels and carried them off with all the others.
“So what now?” John whispered as they crouched behind the barrels. They’d removed their heavy boiler suits for the barrel ride, but aboard the enemy’s airship they’d stand out in their regular clothes. She’d brought the suits in her barrel and passed them out after retrieving them. Once they were all dressed, Hickok led them through the maze of barrels to the wall farthest from the distracted handler.
“Once we find John’s crystal, we need to get it quick and get out,” Hickok said, moving along the wall to a door.
“How?” John asked.
Hickok jerked his thumb up toward the ceiling where a dozen small boats were secured to a catwalk.
“We come right back here and steal a ride,” he said. “Now can you find your crystal?”
John looked sullen, almost angry for a second, but then closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. Several long moments passed while Robi and Hickok waited expectantly. Finally John shook his head.
“There’s too much noise,” he said. “I can’t hear it.”
“We’ll have to get you closer,” Hickok said. “The Flux tank must be beneath us, and it’s bound to be close to the engine room. We’ll start there.”
He opened the door a crack and scanned the hall beyond.
“Follow me,” he said and stepped through.
O O O
The hallway ran along for a short distance, then turned right at the entrance to a stairway that went up and down. Without pausing, Hickok led them down to the floor below. An identical passage ran to a door, roughly beneath the one they’d used to exit the hanger.
Hickok put his hand on the latch, but Robi stopped him. Motioning for him to step aside, she placed her ear to the door. The thrumming sound of engines that was always a background noise aboard an airship was amplified in her
ear, but she could hear nothing else. She wondered if that was what was preventing John from finding his crystal.
Dropping to the ground to look under the door would look suspicious if anyone appeared in the corridor, so she decided on the direct approach. Opening the door, she stepped inside as if she belonged there. If there was someone in the room, she could simply feign that she forgot something and leave. As it turned out, none of it was necessary; the room was empty. It was large and open with an enormous steel tank hanging from the ceiling in its center. A section of glass was set into the tank from bottom to top, making it easy to read the level of the glowing blue Flux inside. A dozen pipes emerged from the bottom of the tank, carrying Flux away to other parts of the airship. One of the pipes was larger by far than the others.
“That one must go to the Flux Engine,” John said.
“Why put it up here?” Hickok asked. “Wouldn’t it be better to have it right next to the engine?”
John pointed to the other pipes.
“No pumps,” he said. “They’re feeding whatever else uses Flux with gravity, so they put the main tank up here. There’s probably a backup tank in the engine room.”
“Which is down below us somewhere,” Robi surmised.
“Well, come on then,” Hickok said. “We aren’t going to find it standing here and the sooner we do, the better. Our luck’s bound to run out.”
Robi moved to the big pipe that disappeared into the floor. It went through a square opening that was much larger than the pipe itself. Down a few feet the pipe made a ninety-degree turn and joined some other pipes.
“I think I can get down there,” she said. She unzipped her boiler suit and slipped out of it.
“What are you doing?” John demanded, grabbing her arm.
She’d expected Hickok to object, not John.
“We know the pipe is going to the engine,” she said. “They build pipeways with extra room in case one of the pipes break; that way they can send someone small in to fix it. Like me.”
“What if you get stuck,” John demanded, “or lost?”
“Once we get John’s crystal back, things could go bad,” Hickok said. “This whole airship might fall right out of the sky.”
“I know,” she said, reaching up and removing John’s hand from her arm. It was cute of him to get all protective of her, but she was more than capable of taking care of herself. “You guys will have to search for the engine room,” she said. “This pipe goes straight there. I’ll probably beat you.
“Besides,” she went on. “If you guys run into trouble, I can still get the crystal.”
There was a long silence while they thought that over, then John looked at Hickok and the enforcer shrugged.
“Be careful,” John said, letting go of Robi’s hand. She hadn’t realized that she still held it and jerked away a little too quickly.
“You too,” she said, then lowered herself down the shaft and into the bowels of the airship.
O O O
To Derek Morgan it felt as if no time had passed. The actions of the bridge crew and the slow movement of the stars above had a hypnotic effect that transformed the hours into an indistinct blur. As it was, no sooner had Sira gone than she was suddenly back at his side.
“What is it?” he asked, struggling to bring his mind up to speed.
“Master, I found something,” her voice was low and urgent.
Morgan sat up straight, all trace of the torpor that had overtaken him gone. Sira looked as she had when he’d dismissed her earlier, so she hadn’t been to bed either. She looked tired and a bit disheveled, but her face beamed with intensity.
“Three of the Flux drums were empty,” she declared.
Morgan’s mind raced. The crews that loaded the barrels would have known instantly if a drum was empty, unless Solomon was trying to cheat him. Solomon was a fool, but Morgan didn’t think he was crazy.
Someone had used them to sneak aboard the Vengeance. Three someones, likely. And he suspected he knew all three.
“Go to the crystal chamber,” he commanded her. “Whoever they are, that’s their most likely target.”
“Shouldn’t we sound the alarm?” she asked.
Morgan shook his head.
“If we do, they’ll just find a place to hide. I want them to think they’ve succeeded. We’ll catch them unawares.”
“But we must inform the Shokhlar,” she said.
Again Morgan shook his head.
“Wake him just so he can tell us to find the invaders?” he said. “No, he needs his rest. We will deal with this.”
“Do you want any of them alive,” Sira asked, “to question?”
They were too close to success to risk interference.
“No,” he said. “Nothing must stand in the way of our triumph in the morning.”
“As you command, your Eminence,” she said, bowing, then she turned and darted off toward the bridge ladder.
Morgan rose and left the observation platform, crossing the bridge to the lift. He’d sent Sira to the most likely place, so he pressed the button of the sixth floor. The invaders wouldn’t know where the engine room was so they’d have to look for it.
Outside the first golden tones of dawn were lighting the sky.
Time to go hunting.
Chapter 28
Prey
John followed Hickok down a level to a long hallway that ran off in either direction. It looked just like all the other halls they’d seen and John checked his memory to make sure they hadn’t been on this level before.
“Should we split up?” John asked.
“No,” Hickok said, pointing off to the left. “We’ll start down there. Tell me if you hear your crystal.”
Hickok moved off down the hall. John took a deep breath and followed. Several doors lined the corridor but none were labeled. The first turned out to be a fire closet, packed with buckets of sand and a small pressurized water tank with a short length of hose. The next was a lavatory and the third a small room with several rows of bunks. As Hickok opened the door, someone looked up sleepily from the nearest bunk.
“Sorry,” he said, quickly shutting the door.
Hickok had John listen at them before opening them after that. Not that it helped much. This close to his mother’s crystal, he should be able to hear it. When it had over-driven the Tommys in Sprocketville it rang out like an enormous bell. Aboard the gigantic airship he couldn’t hear it.
A cold shiver went down his spine despite the uncomfortable heat of the boiler suit.
Ever since he’d taken the Paragon Elixir he hadn’t heard any sounds of crystals. Hickok said the elixir would change him; maybe it took away whatever made him … different. To be fair, he couldn’t be sure he’d ever been near enough to a crystal to hear it since he recovered from whatever Solomon did to him.
Still, his crystal was on this ship, being used to lift it, to power its volcano weapon, and he couldn’t hear it.
What if Hickok saved his life at the cost of finding his mother? He’d never find her without the song of her crystal.
“’Scuse me,” a voice said and someone pushed by them in the narrow hall. John’s eyes darted to the figure now receding down the hall. It was a man in a soldier’s uniform with a rifle slung over his back. He looked tired and worn and he didn’t look back before passing through a door at the end of the corridor.
John breathed a sigh of relief and forced his body to relax. Just then a firm hand dropped onto his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Hickok whispered as John tried to force his heart back down out of his throat. “Stick close.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I got distracted.”
Hickok looked him square in the eye with his penetrating gaze.
“You all right?”
John nodded, careful to keep his expression blank. Whatever he’d gained or lost, he wasn’t ready to share it. He wished Robi was there. He always felt comfortable talking to her.
“Let’s try
the next level down,” Hickok was saying.
“How many levels are there?”
“Six or seven,” Hickok said with a shrug.
They continued down to the next level. As they stepped off the stairs onto the landing, Hickok nudged him and pointed to a brass plaque on the wall with the number six stamped on it.
Wordlessly, they moved off along the corridor. A line of men in boiler suits emerged from a door on the left side of the hall. They were dirty and soot-stained with tired, sweaty faces and weary, down-turned eyes. When the door was open, John could hear the noise of machinery and the rhythmic chug-chug of steam engines. This had to be it.
As the boiler-suited men passed by him, one looked up, seemingly startled by the appearance of two men in clean coveralls.
“Hey,” he said, recoiling in shock. “Who are you?”
Hickok didn’t bother to make up an answer. His fist lashed out and slammed the man square in the jaw. There was a moment of stunned silence while the boiler-suited man slumped to the floor, then chaos erupted. These men might be tired from a long day of work, but they weren’t the kind of men to back down from a fight. They rushed Hickok all at once, trying to bear him to the deck with the crush of numbers. The enforcer slammed his elbow into one man’s face while twisting his torso and sending another sprawling farther down the corridor.
Seeing that they were outclassed, the men broke and ran.
“I’ll take care of them,” Hickok said, racing after the fleeing men. “Find the crystal.”
With that, they were gone.
Heart pounding, John ran to the door the men had emerged from. It was larger and heavier-looking than the ones on the upper decks. Based on how much the engine noise had quieted once it shut, John guessed it was lined with cork to keep the sound in. A plaque mounted on the door read, Engine Room 2.
Taking a quick look around the hall to make sure he was alone, John reached for the door.
Then he froze.
Across the hall was a second door, also with a brass plate. This time the plate read, Crystal Chamber. He glanced back down the hall where Hickok had gone, but knew the enforcer wouldn’t be back for several minutes. Taking a breath to calm himself, John crossed the hall and opened the door.
