1889: Journey To The Moon (The Far Journey Chronicles) (9 page)

Fire raced everywhere in the compound and some of the blue coats screamed in agony when the Petrol Gel fell on them and they couldn’t wipe off the flames. Billy dismounted and slapped his gelding on the rump to send it to safety, then hopped into the cargo hold beside Ekka.

Other robots came in, and even more lay among the fire and debris, unmoving, broken. Ekka said, “It is time we left.”

“Agreed,” Billy said.

When they turned to enter the hatch, Custer rose from the ground behind them and slashed with his saber.

Ekka heard something at the last instant and turned with her kinzhal in her hand. She partially blocked the blow, but the blade rode over her knife handle and cut a deep gash in her wrist. She dropped the kinzhal as Custer drew back for another blow.

Billy jumped between Ekka and Custer just as the end of a long wooden staff as thick as a man’s wrist whistled through the air. The end of the staff scorched across Billy’s temple under his hat and it felt to Billy like someone ignited a gallon of kerosene on the side of his head. The staff continued its arc and landed, hard, into the forehead of George Armstrong Custer, who flipped backward so hard his shoulders and neck hit before his butt and heels.

Another explosion shook the entire compound and walls crumbled. Horses screamed and ran away, men moaned, and clanging fire bells and the angry yells of townspeople sounded in the night.

The
Arcadia
shivered and began a dragging motion along the ground, then the front lifted off the earth. Two Hats came at a staggering run to grab the edge of the cargo door where Billy and Ekka stood guard.

Billy rubbed his temple as he looked at the Lakota and said, “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

As the
Arcadia
lurched clear of the ground and Two Hats’ feet dangled over open air, he said the only thing that came to mind. “I good cook.”

Billy reached down and grasped Two Hats’ hand. “That’s good enough for me, pard.”

PART II:

TEST

[ 17 ]

From a distance the
Arcadia
shimmered with the heat of the surrounding fires and the coruscating lights of the enveloping electromagnetic field. When it was a hundred feet above the inferno, the massive ship paused as adjustments were made inside, then began to drift slowly to the south.

A cold wind blew from the north, and with it, the black hulks of a hundred skypirate dirigibles converged on the spaceship.

Inside the lead dirigible, Edward Teach IV, known infamously as “Blackbeard”, looked up from his
Harper’s Bazaar
magazine over a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. The
Arcadia
appeared at first to be afire, but it separated from the fire and began moving in a line that would intersect his own. If it gained in speed by very much, the strange craft would outrun both flanks of his armada.

“Prepare grappling hooks,” Teach said quietly, as if he were making conversation. “Ahead full. When in range, fire ballistas. After that, swarm her. Bring her down.”

“Aye, sorr!” Percy LeJeune snapped. Percy was Edward’s second in command. Teach had saved LeJeune eight years before from an appointment with the yardarm of Her Britannic Majesty’s Steam Ship
Enforcer
off the coast of Bermuda. LeJeune had been sentenced to a hanging death by his captain, Lord Anthony Pembroke, for the murder of a yeoman who had beaten LeJeune fair and square in a game of faro. While gambling of any kind was strictly outlawed aboard any Admiralty vessel, enforcement of this rule was never a priority. Men had gambled, drank, and gotten into fights since time out of mind aboard sea ships. But taking revenge by cutting the winner’s throat during his sleep had never been excused. That LeJeune was the direct issue of Teach’s great-grandfather’s quartermaster was enough justification for an attack, rescue and hasty withdrawal, but not before spiking the
Enforcer’s
complement of cannon and retrieving the contents of her paymaster’s safe.

LeJeune moved his lips over the petals of a speaking tube. “Fleet ahead full! Prepare grappling hooks! When in range, discretion to fire ballistae! Bring her down!”

If he didn’t know better, Teach would have sworn the
Arcadia
was drifting with the wind—but the large, blunt object had no sails. Neither did it emit any perceptible steam. Its motive technology was a closely-guarded secret, yet its weird shimmer could not be solely the product of the fire below it. It was almost as if it were infested with St. Elmo’s Fire. Teach shivered at the thought. Whatever the eerie craft’s secrets, the two men he sent to intercept the mail delivery to the Russian woman failed in their tasks. LeJeune’s spies picked them up on the trail west of Pike’s Peak and killed the two on the spot. Their bodies would never be found.

He knew there would be fire. He had been following Custer’s column for weeks. The Freighter Wagon was not difficult to follow, and the existence of the four TerraCycles were well-known. With such technology in the van, he’d known there would be hot fire and lots of it in the Battle of Colorado Springs. The plan had been that if Custer was successful, Teach would take to the sky toward Washington.  Teach’s eastern squadron of forty-eight skyboats would capture them. If Custer failed to get the
Arcadia
into the air, then he would attack the compound with both flotillas of skyboats and settle it between himself and Custer within the walls of the Merkam compound. If, however, the
Arcadia
lifted into the air and went any direction but east, he would know who had won the day, and both wings of his sky armada would still attack and win the prize.

Below him his largest hulk, the
Angelina
, sped forward and downward. Dangling at the end of a dozen ropes were the black silhouettes of his most battle-hardened cutthroats. Behind the
Angelina
the entire wing dove after the drifting and unaware
Arcadia
.

“Bring us down, Mister LeJeune. I want on that ship. Personally.”

LeJuene looked forward and glanced at the markings along the struts of the cabin. “Zee minus fifteen degrees!” he shouted.

[ 18 ]

“Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness gracious!” Koothrappally swore to himself.

“Cut that noise, Professor. Get to your station and get your mind on your numbers!” Jack Ross called from the Engine Room. The main hatchway to the Engine Room that had once been above him was at a challenging thirty-degree incline.

Koothrappally, who had been holding onto the brace bar inside the hatch, now began to pinwheel his legs for purchase on the rapidly inclining deck. “I am attempting to be...being most compliant...with the orders upon which...I shall be obeying.” The man’s foot found the outside of the hatch and he levered himself through. He had a long climb ahead of him to the bridge. “Goodbye Mister Engineer Jack Ross,” Koothrappally called, and was gone.

Jack Ross turned his attention back to the transmogrifier. The larger gears turned slowly. The far tinier gears were an almost invisible blurring of motion. According to Merkam, if the thing was ever brought to full power, the craft should become invisible to the naked eye. Something about magnetons changing in polarity and masking the ship from all gravities. Merkam had postulated that light was an effect of electromagnetism alone, and they would be immune to all electromagnetism if the engine was running at full throttle.

He turned his attention to the gear stick. The dial above his head had reached the green band.

“Powering to Level Two!” he shouted into the speaking tube close by, hoping someone—or
anyone
on the Bridge—would hear him. He pushed the huge lever forward a quarter of an inch. It clicked into place and the small whirring gears behind the glass covering the transmogrifier’s guts disengaged and slowly spun down while the larger gears picked up speed. The main gear, deep down inside the protective cast iron housing, began a slow, ponderous revolution. At Level Two it should take it nearly a minute to go around. Beneath the spokes of the main gear, the steel and copper ball that was the transmogrifier’s beating heart, picked up its pace. Sparks of blue electric fire danced around it.

“Good,” came Merkam’s hollow-sounding reply. “Stand by for Level Three. Where is Koothrappally?”

“On his way,” Ross replied, and then to himself, “I
hope.
”

“Good.”

Abigail poked her head down inside the main hatch. “Jack. Are you alright? Are you wounded?”

“I am unharmed,” he said, and thought,
Except for my heart. My wife is in love with another man
.

[ 19 ]

On the Bridge of the
Arcadia
, Judah Merkam looked over at Nikola Tesla to make certain he was fastened properly to his seat. The belts were western gun belts, top of the line, cut in half and saddle-stitched to the leather seats. The forward triple-paned and reinforced vulcanized glass showed them the southernmost portion of Colorado Springs and a fierce glow from directly below.

It was fortunate that he could start the transmogrifier from the Bridge and bring it to Level One without Jack Ross being at his post. That was a design challenge from the first, and it cost them several weeks of their already delayed schedule to get that one factor implemented, but it had worked. Merkam breathed a sigh of relief that his foresight may have saved them.

He could have brought the engines from Level One to Level Two on his own as well, but dials were not always reliable. For anything above Level One, the Engineer had to be at his post at the transmogrifier. Now the electromagnetic field around the ship produced a shimmer through the front glass. So far, it was working as anticipated.

“You know, Judah, I must say that trouble follows you everywhere you go,” Tesla said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Merkam replied. “By the way, old boy, what would you say that is?” Merkam pointed.

The stars above them were blotchy, shimmering things, but there were fewer of them than a moment before, and those they could see winked out one by one.

“Some...blackness,” Tesla replied. “Could be the weather, what with all the cold wind.”

“You know, Nik, have you ever had one of those...”

“What?”

“Uh. Feelings? That something...not good...is about to—”

The stars disappeared completely.

The ship shuddered with impact. The bulkhead to Tesla’s right dented inward. The interior of the ship rang like a bell.

“Oh my God,” Tesla swore. “What the hell?”

A face thumped into the forward window, illuminated only from within. Then another.

Judah Merkam ducked his face over to the petals of the speaking tube. “PIRATES!” he screamed.

[ 20 ]

Judah Merkam’s voice came over the loudspeaker with crystal clarity. It was the first time the apparatus had worked without a distant, tinny quality to it, as if from a gramophone. Merkam’s shout froze the blood. “PIRATES!”

Billy Gostman and Denys Jay-Patten exchanged glances. From the direction of the Bridge at the fore of the ship, Koothrappally called down at them. “Repel the invaders we must!”

“Get to the Bridge!” Ekka Gagarin shouted. “You are needed there. We’ll handle the pirates.”

Jay-Patten grinned.

The hull of the
Arcadia
became a sounding board for dozens of clanking irons. The noise was cacophonous.

From the deck below them, Abigail Ross’s voice called upwards. “I’ve got Conklin belted in. Do you need my help up there?”

“No,” Billy called down to her. “We’ve got them.” Billy’s hand whirled to get his pistols out of their holsters. He checked his load. “I’m loaded for bear.”

A pirate face regarded Ekka, Billy and Denys through the main window nearest the midship cargo hatch.

“Ropes,” Ekka said, and pointed to the cargo lashings close by. “We’ll have to tie ourselves off.”

“I’m coming up there to help,” Jack Ross hollered.

“No!” Ekka shouted. “Get us out of here! You can come up if they break into the ship.” Ekka grabbed the end of a rope and whipped it free from its stanchion and began tying it around Billy’s ankle. Jay-Patten broke his Nitro-Express open and inserted a round.

The Indian helped himself to his feet. “I fight,” he said.

“Good,” Billy replied. “Cook, fight. It’s all in a day’s work. Where’s that damned big robot when you need him?” Billy asked. No one responded or they simply couldn’t hear him. The clanging from outside had doubled in volume.

Billy turned back to the hatch in time to see the inner wheel spin.

“Oh shit,” he said. Then to himself he muttered, “So much for promises, Pat.”