Shadows Against the Empire (Folkestone & Hand Interplanetary Steampunk Adventures Book 1)

by Ralph Vaughan

  Krios nodded, and Folkestone turned away, leaving the young space-mariner to his own personal Argonautica to the stars.

  “Feeling all right?” he asked as he sat across from Hand.

  “Please don’t ask, sir,” Hand replied. “I promised myself I was going to introduce my fist to the face of the next person to ask me that.” He paused. “For the sake of my career and our friendship, I would just as soon it not be you.”

  “Consider it un-asked, Sergeant.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Daraph-Kor, and the thing inside him, is on the run and heading back to Mars,” Folkestone mused. “Any thoughts on where he might go, assuming he gets past the entire Royal Navy, and all the others after his head?”

  “We know when he left Syrtis Major he went due south,” Hand replied. “There are several ruined cities, old from the times of the Dark Gods, and even pre-dating them, in the southern polar regions, but…” He shook his head. “All that is off limits. Only relic hunters go down there – most get their ears pinned back by our patrols, and the rest come to bad ends.”

  “Daraph-Kor made it.”

  “One man, alone, a speck upon the ice…yes, he would not likely be seen,” Hand allowed. “His goal would have had to have been Misr, last citadel of the Dark Gods.”

  “And where he likely came into contact with the Black Mirror,” Folkestone said.

  Hand asked: “Could he return to Misr to make a last stand?”

  “From what I heard, I don’t think Daraph-Kor plans to make any kind of a last stand,” Folkestone said. “This last blow crushed it for him, the deaths of all his people, confiscation of their documents and everything now so revealed even the most sceptical must own to the nature of his plans. No conspiracy, no matter how deep and convoluted, can survive open scrutiny.”

  “He plans to start over?” Hand asked.

  “According to what Slaughter said.”

  Hand frowned. “How much can you hold to what he said?”

  “He said Daraph-Kor had been inside his mind, that he had been inside Daraph-Kor’s,” Folkestone replied.

  “That’s a black hole if there ever was one,” Hand snapped. “It may have driven the poor bloke completely mental.”

  Folkestone leaned back and interlaced his fingers behind his head. He let his eyes half close and tried to recall all Slaughter had said in the aftermath of his rescue. It had come in a rush, disjointed, most of the words lacking a context that would have helped it make sense in the heat of the moment.

  “We know he’s bound for Mars,” Folkestone mused.

  “Surprised he’s not having Black Ray hie him to Venus,” Hand snorted. “Those Nagas are a gullible lot.”

  “They are surely a force to be reckoned with on Venus, if you can get the beggars organised,” Folkestone said, “but they are worthless off the planet – cannot operate in civilised society, could not recruit a fish to Daraph-Kor’s cause. No place on Earth is safe for him anymore, not even Egypt after the bombardment that all but levelled Alexandria after the outbreak there. Mercury, the Belt, the Outer Planets and Moons – no, if he hopes to sow dragon’s teeth he has no place to go but Mars.”

  “Well, it will bloody hard for the blighter to grab a toe-hold there now,” Hand claimed. “What he did before, he did in secret, and even if he avoids the mistake of recruiting another bonehead like Thoza-Joran, he have a hard climb of it. Where can he go that we and the other powers won’t be watching carefully? Where Baphor-Ta, or someone like him, will not be tracking everyone and everything?”

  “Hand, what do you know about the City of the Maze?” the Captain asked suddenly.

  Hand looked up in surprise. “I know it don’t exist!”

  “You’ve heard of it then?” Folkestone asked. “Another old story from that geezer in your village?”

  “No, nothing like that, sir, not even the status of a legend or a myth,” Hand explained. “It’s just an old saying, never much of a widespread one outside the Martian highlands, not the sort of thing city-dwellers would say for fear of being thought bumpkins, and it really hasn’t been current for generations. An archaic turn of phrase, you might say.”

  “Tell me what you know,” Folkestone prompted. Noting his Sergeant’s discomfiture, he added: “Please.”

  “Well, the first time I heard it was when Rodgo-Mevwa was found missing,” Hand said. “A bunch of us nippers had got a few coppers in our fists from helping in the hop harvest, and some of us wanted to invest a couple in a scary story, so we hied ourselves out to his hovel on the edge of the ruins. Wasn’t there, but what we saw sent us scurrying for the Court-appointed Constable.”

  Folkestone raised questioning eyebrows.

  “Blood, sir, great quantities of it, but none of it was scarlet like Martian blood, or even red like human blood, not that there were many humans around in those days, except for the Constable” Hand explained. “It was black blood. I know what you’re thinking, Captain, but it was not crude left as a joke. It had the smell of blood, and when samples were sent to the district capital it tested out as animal blood, but of an unknown kind.”

  “The phrase, Hand,” Folkestone reminded.

  “With the Constable came the Priestess of the Blue Mysteries…”

  “The Priestess of the…”

  “Please, sir, you don’t want to know about religious life in a tiny Martian village, and definitely not about that,” Hand said quickly. “Anyway, the Priestess, a crone who made Rodgo-Mevwa seem like a pup, took one look, screwed up her face, and said the old storyteller had sojourned to the City of the Maze.”

  Folkestone sighed impatiently.

  “I asked the Constable, and he said it was like being taken to the halls under the hills.” Seeing the look on Folkestone’s face, he added: “The Constable appointed by the Court of the Prince was a bog-trotter…he was Irish.”

  Understanding, of a sort, flooded Folkestone’s features.

  “Anytime a person vanished on a night, not saying a word to anyone, especially when the moons were high in the sky, people would say scoffingly he’d gone to the City of the Maze. Don’t mean anything more than he just took off for parts unknown.”

  “Off to fairyland,” Folkestone mused. “Taken down to the halls of the wee folk.”

  “Only, no leprechauns on Mars, sir.” Hand grinned with a fond remembrance. “There were plenty of Irish lads when I was with the Regiment, and didn’t but they fill my ears with those tall tales, especially when their snoots were full, which was often.”

  “So, if Daraph-Kor goes to the City of the Maze…”

  “Gone nowhere,” Hand said. “No more real than fairyland or castles in Spain. Slaughter’s a good man, but he was raving.”

  “I hope not, “Folkestone said, because then we have nothing to go on and he might end up…”

  “Captain Folkestone,” Krios called. “We are being followed by another aethership.”

  “What?”

  “Followed and overtaken,” Krios added as Folkestone walked up behind him.

  By now, they were far beyond Earth’s atmosphere, hurtling through the aether as swiftly as Folkestone had ever travelled, in a ship built for an impatient king. He gestured for the speaking-disc, and Krios nodded when the device had been activated.

  “Captain Robert Folkestone aboard the HHMS Agamemnon to following ship,” he said crisply. “Identify yourself and state the purpose of your pursuit.”

  “Good morning, Robert…Captain Folkestone!” greeted a cheerful, and familiar voice.

  Hand rose and joined them at the bow.

  “Lady Cynthia!” Folkestone cried with an equal mixture of delight and distress. “What the bloody hell are…” He coughed and cleared his throat. “What are you doing, Lady Cynthia?”

  “Joining you and Sergeant Hand, of course,” she replied, her tone implying that her answer was painfully obvious and he was silly for even asking. “I have important information from London.”

  �
��What is it?”

  “Not on an open aether-wave, Captain,” she said sternly. “We analyzed a transcript of Chief Inspector Slaughter’s report to you as well as documents which Commander Drummond facsimile-transmitted to Whitehall.”

  “I am sure you think your information is very important, and it may well be,” Folkestone said with forced calm, “but we cannot slow our pursuit of Daraph-Kor to take you and your flier aboard.”

  “You do not need to slow your ship, Captain Folkestone,” she replied patiently. “I am closing the distance between us, even as we speak.”

  “Break off pursuit and return to Earth,” he instructed.

  “I am coming aboard!”

  “I forbid it!”

  “You…what?”

  “I…” He paused a moment. “I strongly suggest you return to Earth and not attempt a rendezvous…for safety’s sake.”

  “Inform your pilot to hold a steady velocity.”

  “I will not compromise this opportunity to run Daraph-Kor to ground simply because…”

  But he was speaking to unresponsive static. He stared at the speaking-disc mounted on its ornate brass handle as if it were a deadly serpent. He looked up and saw Hand’s lopsided grin; he looked the other way and saw Krios’ smiling olive features.

  “You heard the lady!” he snapped as he tossed the speaking-disc back to the pilot. “Maintain your bloody speed!”

  “We Greeks have a saying: A strong woman is…”

  “Shut up and fly!” Folkestone snarled. He turned on his heel and stormed away, though his stride was limited by the confines of the ship.

  Krios, still smiling, looked to Hand. “Sergeant, the Captain and the Lady, are they…heh?”

  “Aye, you might say that, mate,” he replied, “but don’t say it to those two.”

  “That is one fast ship the lady she is piloting,” Krios said. He observed the proximity monitor. ”I will keep the Agamemnon steady and true, but she must to slow her speed to match ours.” He spoke into the aether: “Lieutenant Krios, Royal Hellenic Navy, aboard the HHMS Agamemnon, to approaching aethership. Estimate contact just under two minutes. I am opening hanger bay doors now. Please approach centre-aft, match velocity, then use minimal repulsors for vertical lift; please inform me when ready to initiate docking sequence.”

  “Thank you so very much, Lieutenant Krios,” came the light and melodious reply.

  Now that they were deep in space and not tossing about like a prancing pony, Sergeant Hand did not mind the view from the bow. It was really rather restful, actually, though he did maintain a discreet distance from Krios’ throne-like command chair. It was more than a little disquieting to see the Greek pilot apparently suspended in the void.

  He turned toward the saloon at a series of sharp metallic sounds from below.

  “Lieutenant Krios, this is Lady Cynthia Barrington-Welles,” she announced. “Please initiate docking sequence.”

  “Initiating docking sequence, closing bay doors, and starting pressurization.” He put his palm over the speaking-disc and said to Hand: “Is she as pretty as her voice?”

  “More,” Hand mouthed silently.

  “Tethers engaged,” Lady Cynthia said. “The experimental flier Dasher is secure in your hanger bay.”

  “Air pressure established,” Krios reported. “You may exit your aethership at any time, Lady Cynthia.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Lady Cynthia said. “It is nice to know there is one gentleman aboard the Agamemnon.” Hand’s jaw gaped in distress; almost as if she could read his mind, she added: “I, of course, mean two gentlemen – it slipped my mind Sergeant Hand was also aboard.”

  Hand felt less relieved that she had remembered him than distressed that had she forgotten him in the first place. He rushed toward the rear of the saloon where a brass hatch in the deck was opening.

  He joined Folkestone, who had changed his annoyed expression to one quite bland, bordering on faintly amused. Sergeant Hand, who ever wore his emotions emblazoned on his sleeve, continually marvelled at the Captain’s ability to repress his feelings at key moments, allowing him to avoid the troubles that Hand always seemed to meet head-on and at full tilt.

  The hatch opened fully, and Hand kept it from clanging.

  “Permission to come aboard, Lieutenant!” she called as she climbed the brass ladder from below.

  “Welcome aboard, Lady Cynthia!” He allowed himself a brief glance back at their unexpected passenger before forcing himself, reluctantly, to attend the controls. He grinned widely. Who would have ever thought, he reflected, that an eyepatch could seem to add to perfection rather than detract from it? “Welcome aboard, indeed!”

  Lady Cynthia was attired in severely tailored travelling suit, with tan jodhpurs, a fitted leather jacket over a white blouse, and brown knee-high buckle-boots. Hanging loosely around her neck were a pair of brass-rimmed goggles. She carried a battered leather valise fitted with a formidable lock.

  “What was so blasted important, that you had to hare us down, Cynthia?” Folkestone demanded, smiling.

  “It’s good to see you, Lady Cynthia!” Hand said.

  “Always a pleasure to… Oh my!” She gasped at the wounds he had sustained in Constantinople. “What in the world did you…”

  “We have no time for that,” Folkestone interrupted.

  “Besides, it looks worse than it really is, m’lady,” he assured her. “All I really need is some decent sticking plasters, an application of Lister’s Solution, and maybe a visit to a seamstress.”

  “Sergeant Hand, if you do not mind?” Folkestone snapped.

  “Yes, sir,” Hand grumbled.

  “Captain Folkestone, I believe there are more important tasks at hand than picking on poor Felix…”

  “Really, miss, he wasn’t…”

  “No need to defend Captain Folkestone, Sergeant,” she said. “I assume he can speak for himself.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but the Captain…”

  “It’s quite all right, Sergeant,” Folkestone snapped. “I can indeed speak for myself.”

  “But I…”

  “Sergeant Hand!” Folkestone and Lady Cynthia snapped.

  The frustrated Martian threw his hands in the air, spun on his heel and sped back to the company of Lieutenant Krios, who was grinning like a monkey with two coconuts and a banana.

  “I would not have sped across the aether to catch you in the Dasher had this not been deemed of the highest importance,” she said when they were alone.

  “Yes, you are correct, of course,” he admitted. “I should not have reacted the way…”

  “No, it’s all right, Robert, I understand,” she said. “I read the report sent on ahead by Commander Drummond.” She glanced to where Hand stood near Krios and smiled. “I must say, I was rather caught by surprise when I saw Sergeant Hand.”

  “When does Felix not throw himself wholeheartedly into a fight?” he said. “Besides, I am certain he had some…issues to work out with those people.”

  “Is he all right?” she asked softly.

  “Physically, yes,” he answered. “Otherwise…well, you know how he is as well as I do. A crab may be soft on the inside, but you have to get through the shell first.”

  “Nobody cracks a dead-sea crab unless he wants to be.”

  “That ship…”

  “The Dasher.”

  “Yes, did I hear correctly that it is experimental?”

  “The pride of Waltham Abbey,” she explained. “A joint project between the Admiralty Propulsion Laboratory and the Ministry of Air and Space. It is not yet fully vetted, but it was the only ship capable of overtaking you. A test flight was authorised.”

  “It sounds dangerous and you are not a test pilot.”

  “No, I am not,” she agreed, “but I fit the rather cramped confines of the cockpit.” She flexed her spine as she recalled the thankfully brief journey. “I suppose they will eventually make the design as efficient as the technology, but, until then
, only the small of bone and the lithe of limb need apply.”

  “Still, surely they could have…”

  She gently placed a finger to his lips. “They could have, but I would not allow it. Besides, you know that as a pilot I am fully qualified…” She smiled. “And then some.”

  He nodded reluctantly. “Very well, but what was so all-fired important that you could not impart on an open carrier wave?”

  She moved to an ornate table, opened her valise and pulled out a thick sheaf of papers.

  “The very few prisoners who survived the raid are not cooperating with Commander Drummond,” she said. They cannot. Whatever reached out and killed the others, or drove them to self-destruction, did not spare them – a few are in a vegetative state and the others caught in a coma, almost as if they are…”

  “Dreaming?”

  “Yes.” She sat down and arranged the papers before her. “It seems they also did some dreaming during their time in the House of Wands, and the notes and drawings produced by many of them are very suggestive, and they correspond with documents recovered from other cult centres where the Venusian dream-spice was heavily used. Robert, have you ever heard of the City of the Maze?”

  Folkestone’s brows shot up and he looked to the bow of the aethership. “Sergeant, you had better join us.”

  As the two men listened, Lady Cynthia explained about the documents confiscated from cult centres in various cities of the Empire and in cooperating powers, as well as those discovered in the aftermath of the Alexandria shelling.

  “The renegade Martian Daraph-Kor appears to be the sole figure looming large at the centre of the conspiracy,” she said.

  “And the Dark God wearing him like a suit,” Hand muttered.

  “Well, that would explain much of what has happened, much of what we found,” Lady Cynthia admitted. “However, most people find it difficult enough to believe in a conspiracy of shadows against the Empire, much less that those shadows loom from out of the mythic past, from a dimension where supernatural beings await a time when the stars are right, or line up, or some such nonsense. It is still a minority opinion. You understand of course.”