The Ghost Rebellion

by Pip Ballantine, Tee Morris

  Returning her attention to the saddle bags, she winced at the amount of generosity to Febe, but this was not the girl’s fault. Sophia still had enough money to keep her on the run, hopefully enough time to find her allies. When she found in the second saddle bag her assassin’s gear, her lips lifted in a surprised smile. Life certainly took some strange turns, but perhaps this one could still be interesting.

  Be careful what you wish for, Sophia thought with a wry grin.

  As she swung the bags over her shoulder, removed the cog from the door, and finally glanced around the small house that had been her home, Sophia let out a soft sigh. Ah well, she thought to herself, Bruges lost its charm awhile ago. Time to go find some friends, or at least allies.

  But first, a quick stop at the communications office. Considering the security in Bruges, it would be a brief detour.

  Chapter Four

  In Which Our Colonial Pepperpot Finds Herself in Most Comfortable Trappings

  “Get down!” Eliza screamed just at the moment the training yard around them went white. When her vision began to clear it was to see figures emerging out of the glare—worse still, armed figures.

  Wellington was going to be very cross, Eliza thought as she yanked at the edge of her wrap skirt, and buttons went flying. Yet she was now lighter, agile, and far more nimble in her tight leggings beneath. It also meant she could better access her pounamu pistols and a small baton holstered against her left thigh. Eliza slipped both pistols free and brought them to bear on the rebels now charging.

  Three men dropped in quick succession, but there were too many to dispatch quickly or efficiently. As she continued to fire, Wellington dragged her by the elbow towards a storage facility, while Vania followed.

  “Whomever they are,” Vania said, looking in the opposite direction of the attack, “they will easily flank us from the other side.”

  “Then we need to get back inside the office,” Eliza said, peering around the corner. She could see a small group of these invaders break away from the line, only to disappear from view. “Here they come.”

  Wellington drew from inside his coat the modest experimental, barely larger than a Remington-Elliot. Where there should have been a hammer, there was instead a clear cylindrical chamber lit with a faint glow.

  Eliza’s jaw twitched. “You really should stop with those clankertons’ toys, you know that?”

  “I’ll provide cover. You and Vania make for the door.”

  “With that?”

  “Just trust me, my darling. Oh, and don’t look in my direction once you start moving.” Wellington’s fingers splayed around the handle of the gun. “Ready?”

  Eliza glanced over her shoulder, and Vania gave a shrug. “As we will ever be.”

  Wellington gave his sun spectacles a quick adjustment, took a deep breath, and whispered, “Go.”

  Then, calm as you please, he stepped out into the firefight.

  Eliza and Vania sprinted back for the office, but the door felt like it was farther and farther off with each step. Then, everything around her disappeared in a brilliant white flash. Even the sandy ground underfoot vanished, leaving her and Vania running through a white void. Eliza tripped, her toe catching something in the ground. She toppled over, pulling her colleague on top of her. She placed a hand on Vania’s back and could make out the agent nodding. Get up, Eliza thought to herself. Slowly, texture and shape were returning.

  Steps. This was the stoop just in front of the barracks door.

  “Go on,” she shouted. “I’m right behind you.”

  Pulling herself back to her feet, Eliza could now make out a door handle and the dark cool interior of the command offices. Against the glare, she could see soldiers loading pistols and rifles. Those inside were calm, but visibly rattled by this surprise attack. She only took two steps before a pair of hands grabbed her from behind and shoved her through the threshold.

  “Close the door!” Wellington ordered as he released Eliza and dropped her on a bench against the wall. He plopped onto his backside on the floor at her feet.

  The dead giveaway was the slight sunburn on his face.

  “Welly, what was that?” Eliza demanded.

  He winced slightly. “Just an idea I had been bandying about for a spell. Something akin to the Mule’s Kick, only using light. Haven’t christened it yet.” He glanced at the small pistol in his hand. “Went rather well for a first field test.”

  Eliza scowled. “Remind me to have a serious talk with you about how ‘the field’ is not the optimal place to test your weapons. Especially during a firefight.”

  “Bloody wogs are everywhere,” grumbled a voice alongside them.

  She whipped her head around to see Lieutenant General Southerby working his arms into a mechanised device Eliza suspected was a small backpack of ammunition. The strand of bullets fed to a small Gatling gun mounted on a chest plate covering his midsection. It was easily recognisable as a variation of what the Maestro’s Grey Ghosts wore in their assault on the Diamond Jubilee. Lord Featherstone, Eliza seethed. Must have worked with Jekyll in the scavenging and adapting of the departed Peter Lawson’s technology.

  Behind the backpack, O’Neil was engaging several locks that connected hoses and hydraulics. With a final look, he came round to face Southerby.

  “The Gatling Garrison is at the ready, sir,” O’Neil stated. “My men will provide cover fire from the left flank, as ordered.”

  “Good man, O’Neil. Fight the good fight,” Southerby replied with suitable relish.

  “Whomever these rebels answer to, they are using technology we are familiar with,” Eliza said to Southerby. “I speak with unwavering confidence that your boys have never seen the like of it.”

  “Young miss, as you can see,”—Southerby yanked back the bolt of the Gatlin’s custom safety, beginning the feed of bullets into the weapon’s chamber—”we are not ones to dismiss innovation. These savages can try to lay claim to Her Majesty’s base, but their efforts will all be for naught.”

  O’Neil pulled back a heavy lever, and just audible over the gunfire and explosions outside came a rush of steam, the click and clacks of gears, and the hum of hydraulics. The wall in front of them bumped outward slightly, split in two, and slid to either side, giving the Gatling Garrison a wide berth.

  “Follow me, my lads” Hefting the weapon on its swivel-mount, Southerby clomped over to a group of ten soldiers also wearing the portable arsenal. “Let’s give them what for!”

  With a hearty huzzah, the Gatling Garrison charged. Pistons, axels, and chassis granted the lumbering soldiers amazing speed as they pressed deep into the battle. Those that remained behind hoisted sidearms, both standard and enhanced, to provide covering fire. Eliza, Wellington, and Vania sank lower to the floor as bullets struck maps and framed pictures hanging from the far wall. Papers and bric-a-brac flew into the air while bullets shattered teacups that had been left idle on the odd desktop. Two soldiers lurched back as rebel fire found its mark.

  “Lieutenant O’Neil,” Wellington called out, “you have to send out a distress signal now. You’re going to need reinforcements.”

  “We are ordered to hold the line.” O’Neil looked at Eliza, and she could see the frustration in his eyes. “Standing orders from the Lieutenant General.” With a final check to his rifle, he looked to his regiment. “You know what to do, lads! For Queen, country, and the Empire!”

  O’Neil took a position at the barn doors’ threshold with a Lee-Metford-Tesla and fired off a quick blast, full charge, following the burst with several shots from the rifle while his soldiers sprinted across the motor pool. Once the last man was out, O’Neil slipped the rifle over his shoulder and began his own dash into the skirmish.

  Bullets tore through windowpanes, sending Eliza, Wellington, and Vania back to the floor. Bits of glass and wood rained over Eliza, each shard and splinter that pelted her making her angrier and angrier at the complete pomposity of this Lieutenant General Southerby.

>   “Welly,” Eliza shouted in the lull between gunfire, “I am rather sick of this all.”

  “Oh dear,” he said, craning his neck up to the tatters of the windows and wall overhead. “Makes me almost feel sorry for whomever is raising arms against Her Majesty.”

  From outside came the pop-pop-pop of rifles along with the throaty snarl of Gatlings, but it was the retort that make Eliza’s blood run cold. Every return volley grew louder, a dense thunderclap of defiance. With a quick jerk of her head to Vania, she crawled across the room to the still-open gun cabinet. Remaining were a pair of Webley-Maxims and a pair of Samson-Enfield Mark IIIs. She also found a crate of “Crimean Caterwaulers” much to her delight. Southerby might have been a prat, but at least he was a well-armed prat.

  “Right then,” Eliza began, grabbing an empty bandoleer from a peg in the cabinet, “we have a Webley-Maxim, a Samson-Enfield Mark III, and grenades. Pick your poison.”

  “Cover fire then?” Wellington asked.

  Eliza rummaged through the cabinet, eventually finding bullets suited for her own pistols. “I’m going to get behind one of those Enforcers before these blighters do so,” she said, slipping bullets into the bandolier across her chest.

  “I call grenades,” Vania spoke up, taking two of the Caterwaulers.

  Wellington and Eliza glanced at one another. “Are you sure?” Eliza asked.

  “Trust me,” Vania stated. “You want me to handle these.”

  “I’ll take the Brass Knuckles then,” Wellington said, taking the Webley-Maxim. He ejected the clip and felt the weight of both clip and weapon. “Ten shots and three shells.”

  “You lay down that suppressing fire, Books,” said Vania, crawling back to the barn door opening. Once there, she stood behind it. “I’ll make sure Miss Braun gets to the Enforcer.”

  Eliza turned back to Wellington and touched his cheek for a moment. Not today, darling, she thought, just before following Vania’s crawl to the barn doors. She waited for a lull in the gunfire before crossing to the other side of the opening.

  “Ready, are we?” she asked, slipping the baton free from her left leg holster.

  “On your word, Agent Braun,” replied Vania.

  “Very well.” Eliza fixed her feet underneath her, ready for a sprint to the Enforcer. She waited as Wellington released the safety on the Brass Knuckles’ compressor and gave her a nod. Her heartbeat sounded in her ears even over the sound of gunfire. “Darling, if you please?”

  Wellington popped up on one knee and began firing. Eliza cleared the threshold by the third shot, heard Vania scrambling behind her by the fifth, but she stopped counting as she continued her dead run for the massive machine only a few hundred yards away. She heard more pops and reports from Gatlings, but Eliza pressed onward towards the towering war machine. Was it getting any damn closer?

  The sudden explosion caused her to stumble a bit, but she kept her forward momentum. Her feet were back under her once more, and on the second grenade explosion, her pace never faltered.

  Bloody hell, Eliza thought on seeing the plume of smoke ballooning upward. Vania’s got a fantastic arm!

  The rebels emerged from the garage closest to the Enforcer. One of the group motioned for the youngest to make for the massive war machine while they charged at Eliza. Taking a deep breath, she pressed the green button on the cylinder in her grasp. The device released a thin wisp of steam as each end extended to the length of a quarterstaff. The taiaha, a gift from her mentor Aroha Murphy after the excitement in London, spun in Eliza’s hand before striking the ground. Eliza leapt upward and extended her right foot forward. Her boot connected with the rebel’s jaw. The momentum of her landing gave her follow-through with the staff extra power, causing the second man to spin like a top. That left the leader, who was now lifting his pistol up to her, his finger squeezing the trigger.

  She heard the gun fire, but she felt no shock against her corset or any sudden rush of pain in her exposed shoulders. Eliza brought her taiaha around for a strike and spun wildly off-balance. Meeting the ground unexpectedly winded her for an instant, and she heard the gun shot again.

  Or did she? It didn’t sound quite right.

  Eliza looked up at the rebel who had her without question, since he was standing over her at point blank range. He pulled the trigger again, and the gun...fired. But it didn’t fire. She saw the muzzle flash, but the concussive sound of gunfire did not sound like a standard Webley revolver. Nor did it sound like an experimental of Wellington’s. It was—

  Then she suddenly recalled she was in the middle of a firefight with a rebel keen on killing her.

  Eliza launched a roundhouse kick that should have taken the man off his feet, but instead she rolled on to her stomach. Without pausing, she thrust her taiaha outward, grasping it at one end to allow for maximum reach, and brought it around in a swift backhand attack.

  What Eliza saw should not have happened. It was impossible. She hadn’t missed. Her weapon had passed through him.

  The soldier had noticed it as well, stumbling back as he stared no longer at Eliza, but at her taiaha. He tightened his grip on the pistol and pulled the trigger once more. The gunshot sounded as if the weapon had fired underwater.

  Her staff came around again, but this time, Eliza stopped her weapon inside the soldier. Her thumb slipped to the blue button on the baton. The rebel suddenly lurched as electricity shot out of her taiaha and into his body. What was unexpected, and assuredly more horrifying, was how the man flickered as if he were part of a strange phantasmagoria, blinking in and out of existence and lost in vapours. He finally screamed, a broken, shattered cry mimicking his corporeal appearance. Then in a burst of wind, ozone, and cascading light, the interrupted man vanished before her eyes.

  A succession of gunshots brought Eliza back to the chaos that was continuing around her. No time to try and nut out what had just happened. She had to get to the Enforcer.

  Rolling back to her feet, she continued her sprint. The fourth man was attempting to climb up the war machine, but his hands kept passing through the rungs built into the Enforcer’s leg. Eliza thrust the taiaha forward, driving it into the man’s back, but he didn’t react until her thumb pressed the blue button. Her baton’s final charge had the same effect: the rebel arched back, his entire body flickering in and out of existence, and then disappearing in a flash of silent fireworks.

  The baton retracted in Eliza’s hand as she took hold of the rungs along the Enforcer’s left leg. She swung herself into the central cradle and grabbed hold of the bar above her head. The cage secured shut with a hard ca-thunk, and gauges jumped to life as systems suddenly powered up.

  “I’ve got power. Splendid.” Her eyes jumped all around her as she secured herself in the command chair’s harness. By God there were a lot of buttons and levers. “Now how do you work exactly?”

  The control cage, she quickly assessed, established some kind of coupling between pilot and machine. The arms of her chair, she noted, had sleeves connected to an array of mechanisms—hinges, pistons, and hydraulics—reaching throughout the Enforcer. Eliza shoved her arms through the sleeves, and breathed easier seeing as she could still reach the control sticks with each hand. The stick mounted before her right had a small array of switches, two red, two yellow, one black, running along its outside. Her left stick had a single trigger set inside the grip.

  “If you are weapons,” Eliza muttered to herself, “then you must be what makes me go?”

  She took a quick look around her and noted above her head a small bar similar to the accelerator in Wellington’s car. It meant having to pull an arm free of its sleeve; but when she eased the bar away from her and pushed the stick in her right hand forward, the Enforcer lurched in that direction.

  “Very good,” Eliza said with a nod, “we have momentum. Now I just need weapons.”

  From the left, an explosion—that of a Caterwauler—caught her attention. Pulling back on the accelerator and shoving her arm through th
e sleeve once more, she turned her Enforcer in an awkward arc to loom over the invading army. She gave her right arm a slight tug and all around her pistons, gears, and cogs whined and rumbled with life as the machine’s massive right arm also lifted up, a huge Gatling gun coming to bear. Eliza glanced over to the left control stick and pulled the trigger.

  The left arm shuddered as its Gatling gun fired round after round into the ground in front of her.

  “Oh, bugger it!” She flipped the first red switch off, threw the second red switch, and then pulled the trigger once more.

  The right Gatling rained down a tempest of bullets on the hostile rebels. Her metal monster lumbered forward, the abundance of gunfire sending invaders scattering in all directions. Some were cut down in moments, but others were flickering in that strange manner she had seen up close.

  A red light suddenly buzzed next to a gauge tracking her ammunition. The right arm was about to be depleted.

  “Very well then,” she said, flipping the second switch off and turning the first yellow switch to the “On” position. “What exactly do you do?”

  The Enforcer’s left arm slowly rose, and from underneath its own Gatling, a plume of flame erupted. Eliza couldn’t help letting out a little yelp of delight as she engulfed a good portion of the motor pool in flames. Some rebels scrambled for cover, while others screamed out in agony under the elemental assault. It would have overcome Eliza to witness such grotesque deaths if not for the poor souls running through the flames unharmed. One moment they were there, and the next they were not. These men trapped between this world and the æther looked around themselves in confusion as flames passed through their bodies without harm.

  A sudden blast of hot air buffeted Eliza through the Enforcer’s control cage. From her vantage point she saw reinforcements pouring out from the æthergate. Her attention turned back to Southerby’s men now advancing on her position, attempting to finish the job she had started. They couldn’t see what she could: these sheer numbers would easily overwhelm Fort St. Paul.