Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine

by Anthony Francis

  Another Frogman rose from the waters like a merman not two meters from her, raising his trident in challenge, and she pumped her fist twice, two fingers raised in the sign for safe return. He pumped his fist as well, passing the signal on—and twin lights glowed beneath the waves.

  As if pressed by the light, the water surged forward, heaving in a glistening swell more urgent than the surf, bursting into glittering pearls and white foam as the craggy metal head of the landing turtle broke the surface, gleaming water sluicing unending off the armored cages of its blazing arc headlights, its mouth falling open with a splash, disgorging a Frogman in a cloud of steam.

  “Found me a good approach, have you, ma’am?” asked Subcommander Stacey Herbert-Draper, lifting a side of the turtle’s vulcanized rubber pressure membrane while Jeremiah lifted the other so her Rangers could help their wounded in. “Or have you better news?”

  “Don’t break out the assault crabs just yet, Subcommander,” Jeremiah said, containing her smile; after missing the landing zone and losing their first sortie, it was best not to get cocky over one little victory. “I found air vents—and traced them back to the smugglers’ dock.”

  “Capital,” Herbert-Draper said, his eyes gleaming. The reserve the seasoned Subcommander had shown her was cracking, though he clearly wasn’t comfortable with a Willstone as a Commander yet. “My troops might still catch these blackguards unawares. What about our missing airship?”

  “We couldn’t confirm it was there,” Patrick said. “The structure’s lit, but fogged.”

  “Blast,” Herbert-Draper said, lowering the membrane. “I’ll call in the abort—”

  “You’ll do no such,” Jeremiah said, quiet but firm. “We shall strike directly.”

  “Ma’am,” Herbert-Draper said, reaching for her arm, but lowering his voice. “We’re on the shore of one of our allies—and quite possibly, on the shore of a diplomatic incident. Understand, I can’t authorize an assault on Newfoundland without confirming my target!”

  Jeremiah smiled tightly. Again “his” target, “his” troops, “his” authorization, always calling her “ma’am,” never mentioning her rank—intentionally or not, Herbert-Draper was undermining her command. Liberation might be a century on, the VDL might be staffed top to bottom with men and women—but the older hands, she still found resistance that made her work . . . difficult.

  They’d made her a Senior Expeditionary Commander for a reason—the highest non-Peerage rank an officer could hold, by definition outranking all other officers on a strikeforce, a post created for her grandmother, to give that first female Commander the authority to lead a mission very like this one: an armada quickly assembled from every service, staffed by officers of every rank.

  But staring into her soldier’s eyes, Jeremiah saw earnestness, not contempt: proving she deserved her rank was her issue, not his. She should be glad to have a man like Herbert-Draper serving under her, a true character struck from the submariner’s mold: meticulous but bold, disciplined but quirky—and even more experience fighting Foreign monsters than her.

  No, she’d read his file—and wagered the real issue wasn’t her age or gender, but his own history: a too-daring raid, in which Herbert-Draper had scuttled a freighter infested with Foreigners not realizing humans were still on board—a mistake which left him demoted, for as progressive as the Victoriana Defense League was, the one thing it did not do was reward failure.

  The man wasn’t trying to undermine her: he was simply gun-shy, and needed reassurance.

  “Fear not sir, this is on my head—and trust I won’t put you or your troops at risk without ample cause and a plan for success,” Jeremiah said, giving his arm a firm squeeze, even as she gauged the reaction of their soldiers to this conflict among commanders. Yes, this would have to be dealt with directly: she needed her men and women focused on believing she could lead them to success, not distracted by mutterings about who’s running the show, or, worse, about the failures of her mother—or uncle. “Put me on the dial, point-to-point, to the other turtles and launches.”

  “Aye,” Herbert-Draper said, motioning to his aerograph operator, who began rapping a key, sending, over the thin wires connecting their sea and undersea forces, a Morse signal to bring their spectroscope dials online. “But only them, Frogman. Don’t break Hertzian silence—”

  “No doubt the Baron could catch any signal we sent through the air,” Jeremiah said, striding before the glass eye of the lens, giving her tailcoat a sharp jerk to straighten it. “This is why I wanted our psychics on the mission,” she muttered, “rather than holed at base—”

  “Doubtful air support’s even in range yet,” Herbert-Draper grumbled.

  “Fear not, Sublieutenant, Lord Birmingham will have our backs soon enough,” Jeremiah said, though in truth she’d expected him here already. “Don’t let on that we’re talking only to ground-and-sea, Frogman, we want our troops thinking our force is united from the start.”

  The operator nodded, then threw the shunt to CAPTURE. The dial of a spectroscope lit up, its grainy image showing Jeremiah she was still presentable after their first encounter. Right, here we go. She nodded, and the aerograph operator flicked the shunt to TRANSMIT.

  The faces of Frogmen, Frogwomen, and Rangers in the hold lit up green as Jeremiah’s image appeared on the spectroscope dial overhanging their benches—then those same soldiers appeared before Jeremiah as the return dial next to her camera snapped on with a little metallic ping. More dials flicked on, dink, dink, dink, each glowing disc showing troupes of men and women from stealth launches, sea turtles and behemoths all across the assault force.

  Jeremiah smiled when the four main returns went up—but felt her eyes widen when auxiliary dials lit up around them, five, six, seven, eyes of a spider, then more—God! A dozen troupes stared back at her through a constellation of dials, comprising the largest force she’d ever commanded, the full force of her new title Senior Expeditionary Commander hitting home at last.

  And this was merely a third of what she’d asked for! She’d never even seen them all at once like this; the assault force had been assembled en route. Still, Jeremiah kept looking straight ahead at the central camera lens, so the men and women on the other end of the links would see her looking them straight in the eyes—and, with some irony, she felt herself adopt the grim, determined smile that had inspired her . . . when the Baron led his ill-fated troops into Iceland.

  “Expeditionaries, ho!” she cried.

  “Ho!” the Expeditionaries in the hold shouted back, and the tinny screens responded too.

  “This is Commander Willstone,” Jeremiah said, smile growing wry as she calculated the best way to blunt the bad news. “With this assault already an hour past our op order, I’ll wager you’re wondering if you’re back at Academy, led by trainees struggling to find their own behinds!”

  Laughter rippled out over the hold, and through the dials, and Jeremiah winked.

  “Fear not, we’ve not been searching for our own arses, but for the best way to stick it to the blackguards who stole Her Majesty’s airship,” she said. “We’ve confirmed the enemy has infiltrated this compound, and I personally scouted an approach that will let us take them unawares!”

  Jeremiah smiled more broadly as her soldiers leaned towards their dials, eager to hear more. She reviewed the new plan of attack, then said, “Recall my words back in Boston: our primary aim is not to recover a stolen airship, but capture the blackguard who stole it—and thwart his plans for its cargo. Our psychics have warned us that it’s of primary importance to nip this in the bud—”

  On a tiny spectroscope dial, a Frogwoman raised her hand, and Jeremiah hit its call button. Back when she was in Academy, information had flowed from top to bottom, but after Iceland—especially after Iceland—she wanted her soldiers speaking up. “Question, Frogwoman?”

  “
What are we nipping, Commander?” called the scratchy voice, voicing a question she knew had to be on the minds of all her men and women—and the answer to which her superiors in the Peerage were keeping a secret. “How will we know it? What, precisely, did the Baron steal?”

  “Lord Christopherson stole something so dangerous it put a boot up the whole Peerage’s arse,” Jeremiah joked, casting a side nod at one Frogman who offered his own take on the arses in the Peerage. “But I’d never send a crew in blind—so before we departed, I ran a mission myself to find out! Our target was stolen from the Arsenal of Madness, crated in a box a little more than a meter a side—and shipped through the very smuggling network whose tunnels we shall storm!”

  Jeremiah smiled as her men and women leaned forward, ready for action. She’d dispelled whatever fears they’d had over the first botched landing, she’d made them forget the bickering and the soured first sortie, she’d let their concerns be heard—and shown she’d already dealt with them.

  Now was the time to seize their spirit and galvanize them to action.

  “Gentlemen and gentlewomen of the Victoriana Defense League,” Jeremiah said. “We defend the world—like no-one ever has! You’re the best trained army in the history of humanity, fighting for the best values, and our quarry was one of our own. But now, he’s fled to a haven for the kind of blackguards who want to depose the Queen and restore Parliament!”

  That last bit sent defiant mutters spreading through the dials—one could always count on a threat to the Queen to stir her troops. True, Jeremiah hadn’t quite proved that the Baron was backed by Restorationists—but if rumor was good enough to motivate her men and women, she’d use it.

  “And if that’s not enough of a kick in the teeth,” she cracked, “the Baron got the boot for trying to use the monsters’ technology against them. Every human being who lived on Iceland could tell you that never ends well—or would do, if they weren’t all dead!” She let that bit settle in, then said grimly, “Believe me, I know—I was on the last boat out of Iceland with him, and I can tell you from personal experience he never learns! So the Baron hasn’t just impugned the reputation of the League—our reputations, I remind you—he has a history of putting the whole world at risk. So, gentlemen and gentlewomen, I appreciate your cooperation in bringing him to heel!”

  “Ho!” shouted the array of dials, echoed by the men and women of the turtle.

  “Remember, all of humanity is in this together,” Jeremiah said, voice ringing out. “So treat no human being like a Foreign monster. Our enemies may be blackguards and traitors, they may be meddling in Foreign technology, but their Mechanicals follow the Protocols, so our first assumption is that our foes are civil—and even if they’re not, we are! Make me proud. Prevail, Victoriana!”

  “Prevail, Victoriana!”

  Rangers and Frogmen and Frogwomen sprang to action. Herbert-Draper ordered his turtles to submerge for action, the aerograph operator coordinated with the launches, Patrick gave her a tip of his bowler before briefing the assault force, and Jeremiah smiled—outwardly.

  But inwardly, Jeremiah found herself increasingly worried. She’d told the men and women under her command what they needed to know to succeed: that the Baron had been booted from the Victoriana Defense League for fighting fire with fire—trying to turn Foreign technology back against its masters, and failing badly—and might be trying it again.

  But she couldn’t help feeling that something far more foul was afoot.

  Their real target was a mere crate—a sealed crate, stolen from the Providence Museum of the Insane, known for good reason as the Arsenal of Madness for its cache of Foreign technology. To recover it the VDL was mounting an epic assault, bringing to bear one airship, two leviathans, three turtles, four launches, with an equally epic command, including Patrick, Herbert-Draper, and, if his airship ever arrived, the renowned Lord Birmingham. All were experienced soldiers known for fighting Foreigners, all led by her, a Commander known for repelling more Foreign Incursions than anyone else—her first, back when she was in Academy. In fact, this assault force didn’t look like the military police you’d want to bring a rogue general to heel, but instead like the dream team to counter a full-blown invasion from the stars.

  Even then, it wouldn’t be enough. From the start, Jeremiah had warned her masters in the Peerage that this large force was far too small, and now they faced the reality: they had neither the ground forces to quickly overwhelm the Conservatory before their quarry could take to the air, nor the air forces to pincer the ZR-101 before it could get away. More than just her reputation as a newly minted Senior Expeditionary Commander was at stake; the Baron was a real threat to the country, if not indeed to the world. She’d have to apply all her skill and strategy just to prevent the Baron’s escape, and if he was cooking up an Incursion—

  Why, she’d chase him to the ends of the earth personally.

  But as dangerous as the possibility was, Jeremiah was savvy enough to realize why her masters in the Peerage had been careful not to mention the I-word. If they had, by VDL rules they’d have been obligated to alert Queen Columbia II, and by the North Atlantic Defense Treaty the Queen would have been obligated to warn Newfoundland, and then . . . well, so much for keeping this quiet. If a stolen airship could lead an international incident, an allegation that a former VDL officer was calling down an invasion of Foreign monsters on sovereign soil could lead to war.

  So it was clear why the Peerage was worked up into a tizzy to catch Lord Christopherson as quickly but quietly as possible—especially given dire warnings from their psychics that the VDL simply must stop the arrival of a Messenger of the Baron’s new allies, the mysterious Order of the Burning Scarab. Not much was known about them, other than they were a highly secretive order of highly placed persons whose obsession was studying the life cycle of Foreigners.

  Why had Lord Christopherson turned coat? Jeremiah had no idea; in fact, in over nine years as an Expeditionary, fighting the Foreign monsters trying to gain a beachhead on the Earth, she’d never puzzled out why humans became so desperate that they turned to the monsters for aid.

  But you needn’t have thwarted a Foreign Incursion in Academy to puzzle this mission out.

  

  Their target, that unearthly thing in the crate, wasn’t a Foreign weapon, but a Foreigner itself.

  3.

  The Assault on Smuggler’s Cove

  TWIN AIRGUNS PUFFED in the troughs of the waves. Two smugglers toppled, aetheric fire rippling out over their chests as twin incapacitator capsules burst into flowers of electroplated glass. Two more guards lurking in the cavern darted forward to their aid—then were blasted back by the sparking tines of twin electric tridents, held by a Frogman and a Frogwoman, climbing stealthily up onto the hidden dock, even as the head of the assault turtle breached the surface in an unavoidable bray of steam, disgorging Jeremiah and her men and women in a brazen underground assault.

  Rayguns screamed, felling half a dozen enemy men—all men, Jeremiah noted—arrayed about the cavern. Perhaps it was simply a quirk of statistics, or of the Secret Post, the smuggling ring that operated these docks, but it was peculiar in a world where two of five soldiers were women.

  Or perhaps a sign, as their computer projected, that the Baron had Restorationist support.

  Jeremiah ran up on the dock, knelt, felt the pulse of one smuggler felled by the incapacitator capsules—those were more likely to induce arrhythmia than a proper blaster. She saw Herbert-Draper do the same—then squinted and aimed her Kathodenstrahl down a side tunnel.

  “Harbinger, your blunderblast,” she said, taking careful aim. “Fire after me, would you?”

  “Certainly, Commander,” Harbinger said, following her lead.

  Jeremiah fired, striking a boot protruding from behind one of the supports of the tunnel; a guard—not a smuggler, but a uniformed f
ootman, one of the Baron’s—stumbled out, cursing, then flew back from a blast from Harbinger’s bell-mouthed electric rifle square on his chest.

  “Capital shot, Harbinger,” she said.

  “Thank you, Commander,” he replied, blowing sparks off the blunderblast’s discharge rod.

  “Well guarded—barricaded—I’ll wager that’s the tunnel that leads to the Conservatory,” Jeremiah said, drawing her second Kathodenstrahl and bolting forward, firing two-handed at the endless stream of men who appeared in the tunnel. “Expeditionaries, forward! Forward!”

  Ambidexterity wasn’t all it was cracked up to be; not easy to train both hands to fire passably, and not profitable to try to fire from both at the same time—unless you switched to a matched pair of Kathodenstrahls, of course, and then, firing one-two, one-two, getting a rhythm that loosed a blast from one while the other’s chamber efficiently charged, one could easily exceed the rate of fire of a normal blaster, while expending far less gas from the canisters. Her compatriots occasionally laughed at the glass-chambered weapons, but Jeremiah gladly traded a little fragility and a slight drop in accuracy for the ability to more rapidly fire ten times as many shots.

  Today, she needed it, because her compatriots were falling behind while she charged ahead. “Expeditionaries, forward!” she cried again, but her encouragement made her an enemy target. A hail of blasts rained towards her, and she tried to dodge from support to support, but found no cover, and was forced to run forward, dodging left-right, left-right, firing one-two, one-two—

  Then Jeremiah was upon the enemy’s makeshift barricade, an overturned table flanked by tumbled crates that left her with nowhere to go, fully exposed as two scruffy smugglers on either side swung towards her and two natty footmen took aim. Cursing, she leapt, somersaulting over the fallen table, firing backward at the smugglers as her heels struck the overhead light.