Captain Albion Clemens and The Future that Never Was: A Steampunk Novel! (Lands Beyond Book 1) (25 page)

“Would you look at that? Bloody brilliant, this Mordemere is,” Cid gaped, awestruck. Albion and everyone else managed to emerge from behind desks and under bunks.

Floating just above the open ball, overflowing with clear goop, were three tiny gems, like purest sapphires. Albion could not stop staring at them. They hung just above the goop, in perfect synchronization with each other like they were set into the firmament of the world by a cosmic jeweler. Each one was a long diamond shape, and the color of twilight.

“They’re gorgeous…” Rosa emitted. Suddenly, the gems spun in midair, orienting on Rosa.

“Careful. They’re rife with aeon, which means they react to emotions,” Cid reminded. “I’m surprised they’re not reacting more, with the
‘Berry’s
pipes so close. Best let me have them, I’ll stabilize them for you to use.”

Cid Tanner collected them into the ball again, using
a cloth from the bunk to wrap it. Albion gave him a long, meaningful look. Cid gave the barest nod, and then he was gone, leaving everyone else in the room with the hollowed-out Jonah Moore once more.

              “Here we consign the esteemed Jonah Moore to the flame. May he find peace in the skies,” Albion finished. Cockney Alex and Elric Blair grabbed the handles of the metal cot as respectfully as they could, and slid Moore’s covered body into the enormous maw. Moore’s pallbearers backed away, the grate was closed, and Cid turned up the furnace, spreading Moore’s ashes across Eastern Europe.

They did not worry about any of the s
trange components Mordemere placed into Moore’s body. Cid had carefully removed them beforehand, and they sat hidden somewhere in his crowded, well-organized engine room.

             
“Now is as good a time as any to have a caucus,” Albion said to the gathered crew aboard. “Please, any of you who would like to have a say in this, join me on the bridge.”

              As it turned out, everyone had a say, and they trooped through the guts of the
Berry
like a particularly good chili.

             
“All right, all right. Let’s not all jabber at once, let me have it,” Albion said, once they were comfortably seated all about the bridge. The
Berry
hadn’t been built for so many pilots, so the menfolk leaned on the bulkheads. “Auntie, you’re the senior member of Captain Sam’s crew, you first.”

             
“I ain’t a spring chicken, but the ‘s’ word could have you eating stale grits for a month, young man,” Auntie answered in her patented Jersey color.

             
Almost everyone was in favor of going. Captain Samuel’s old crew wanted to help him, out of loyalty, or a sense of missing out on the action. Albion wasn’t quite sure how to take this sudden display of affection. For one, they had known the Captain longer than Albion himself. For another…

             
“I am against it,” Inspector Hargreaves spoke up, in the middle of one of Cid’s recollections. This one was about how he and Captain Sam had evaded the Imperial Canton, smuggling half a ton of Dragonwell tea out of their military-controlled ports.

             
“Why?” Rosa Marija asked, bluntly. “It is in your interests to see this madman stopped. Mordemere did sell arms to the Ottomans.”

             
“Yes, of course,” Vanessa acknowledged. “But we could turn towards finding Captain Samuel, instead of diving into danger like buffoons.”

             
“And retrieve the guidance crystal for Queen and Country in the process,” Albion pointed out astutely.

             
“I make no claims to the contrary,” Hargreaves answered. Her lips were pressed into a line. “But I also believe it to be in the best interest of this crew. Reports of the
Nidhogg
show an incredible amount of firepower. Anything less than the Knights of the Round would stand little chance.”

             
“We’re not Balaenopteron-class, but that fact might give us an advantage,” Cid cut in. “The specs show the
Nidhogg
prepared for large-scale assault, and not a small raiding party. We could land on one of the captured landmarks, say, Westminster, and infiltrate through the supporting gantries.”

             
“It would be good to see Big Ben again,” Hargreaves admitted. “But my feelings do not factor in here. Please do not appeal to them again.”

             
“Good old Yard training,” Albion said now, turning everyone in his direction. “Listen, Hargreaves, we’re pirates. Feeling is most of who we are. We do what we think is right.”

             
“Be that as it may-!”

             
“Besides,” the Captain spoke over her. He waited a moment, until the Inspector gave a little nod of assent. “Besides, going after the crystal won’t stop Mordemere’s ship or return Westminster. It might take too long to capture Captain Sam. He’s hidden from us for long enough. Here we know where he’s going to be. Mordemere is hot for his hindquarters. Now, if I were the Captain, I wouldn’t be happy sitting around, waiting for the gator to bite off my legs. No, I would go on the offensive. I bet you anything the Captain will want to sneak on the
Nidhogg
somewhere, waiting with a bullet for Mordemere’s back.”

             
“The best chance is to wait on the last landmark, and ride it aboard when Mordemere steals it,” Rosa agreed.

             
“So that is what we should do. We take the crystal shards and as much hardware as we can bring, and ride the landmark aboard. The
Berry
can keep close, as backup and escape plan. So long as we don’t fire at the
Nidhogg
, she should escape notice,” Albion finished. He looked towards the Inspector. “That sound like a plan to you?”

             
“If only we knew where he was off to…” Blair mumbled.

             
“We have a direction. It’s good enough,” Auntie said, to Albion’s slightly stunned expression. Her gray locks crowned a smooth, confident face that cowed the little journalist’s qualms.

Vanessa Hargreaves had a mixture of feelings on her
own visage, primarily frustration. It was a shaky plan at best, nothing like the Yard’s meticulous raids. Yet, it was better than what she, a lone agent cut off from England by a continent, could do on her own. How could they know where to strike? Was she expected to rely on an old man’s intuition alone? Then again, her assignment was to investigate and act on the landmark burglar, not Captain Samuel himself. In the end, she gave a little harrumph, and nodded.

             
“Of course, you are welcome to steal the guidance crystal,” Clemens added. “If you’re pirate enough.”

11: Moscow

             
At military bases all over Russia, prime ministers, lords, princes and other persons of import were assembling beneath concrete bunkers studded with Howitzers, their perimeters flanked by Balaenopteron-class carriers flying all the colors of Europe. Fast, deadly corsairs zipped past overhead, armed with steamthrowers, mortar, and pressurized anchors. Fleets stationed at the borders of the Ottomans had been recalled. All stops had been pulled.

             
“Are we sure it’s the Kremlin?” The Tsar of Russia asked. He was clean-shaven, and dressed to the nines in the latest Parisian fashions. He had just come from the opera, at news of the Cataclysm’s movements. “We know it was a British alchemist responsible for this calamity- we cannot ignore the possibility of an attempt by the Britons to invade the Motherland.”

             
There was a moment while technicians in brown boiler suits and rubber gloves, identical despite being in separate bases hundreds of miles away from each other, decoded the telegraphed wobble of lines into audible sound. Unwilling to stress the equipment, the Tsar had been reduced to the bare bones of his message, without any of the careful politic that had been the hallmark of his reign.

By military necessity, agreed upon in a joint meeting of five nations’ military, each nation’s leaders were segregated into their own protected locations. The Swiss Guard was also in attendance, receiving their messages aboard a Revenant-class airship hovering somewhere over neutral Poland.

The Tsar’s aristocratic voice boomed out, nearly simultaneously through grilles in all six of these sparking machines.

             
“Based on the information provided by my Minister of Sciences,” Queen Victoria III’s reply thundered into the Tsar’s telegraph chamber a moment later. It was no less imposing than the Tsar, given the young Queen’s rather sonorous voice. “The Cataclysm’s path crosses over Moscow. My agents in the field inform me it will try to collect another major symbol of Europe. The Kremlin lies in nearly the center of Moscow, and if he follows the same modus operandi, it is an irresistible target. Valima Mordemere is a traitor to the Pax Britania, and will be summarily executed upon his capture. We have proof his current leverage was procured through the sale of arms to our mutual enemies.”

             
The Tsar thought there was rather a lot Victoria III was not telling them, but such was par the course. International politics were essentially anarchy in the best of times. It was refreshing to have a common, obvious course of action.

             
“Are we coordinated in the air and ground, Tsar Nikolai?” The French Premier, a repulsive man named Des Flandres, asked out of turn. The telegraph operators had to separate his signal from Victoria III’s, a tedious process. In a moment, the rest of the British Queen’s message was played, but it was only an echo of the Premier’s sentiment.

             
“Yes, we are prepared,” the Tsar answered. “I regret only four of The Knights of the Round are available, but they have been incorporated into the formation with our four Balaenopteron-class. I will be aboard the
Vasillisa,
and will command the theater myself.”

That was an obvious jibe to the Queen, yet Nikolai Kosh
chey was only commander in name. His general Karelin would handle the actual battle.

“The infantry and engine corps will be stationed according to the accompanying document, which your technicians should be receiving now.”

              It was a delicate situation. There was a tactical element to consider, a difficult one, as dirigible combat was largely a field with no precedent. More importantly, the distribution of troops from all five countries had to be roughly equal. Russia was too close to the Ottomans for Nikolai to botch this operation, politically or militarily. He had to be perceived as a fair, unbiased field commander, a title granted only because the battle was to be over his own country. Technically, with pieces of sovereign land conceivably hanging over the Kremlin, his partner nations had every right to assert themselves. If he had it his way, Moscow would handle the entire affair.

To make matters worse, the Cataclysm was no ordinary enemy.

              The Queen seemed not to notice, or more likely, ignored the jibe. Her answer was immediate and shocking.

             
“I will also be in attendance aboard the
Gwain
,” Queen Victoria III said. “I have every confidence in our alliance’s victory.” In a moment, every other nation was agreeing. They would all send representatives, and in the French Premier’s case, he would be coming as well.

             
Pizdets!
The Tsar could hardly back out of this one, could he?

             
“Acknowledged. We welcome you to Russia.”

“All right. There’s the
Gwain
, over the southwest there, the one with the maiden figurehead. Mordemere doesn’t look like he’s about to give up, does he?” said Inspector Hargreaves, breaking the silence hanging over everyone like arclight.

Her practical voice was
a spark, setting off ball lightning. Everyone suddenly had something to say, from pointing out the imposing walls of the Kremlin below, to admiration of the impregnable Russian Balaenopterons circling the city. They were impressive, at that, certainly appearing to glower brutally at the dark blot of the
Nidhogg
on the southeast part of the sky. Hargreaves admired the dense, square profiles, built to last.

             
“Shut up, all of you. Their ships carry ear scopes. Even with all the chatter from five different navies in the sky, a keen midshipman can still catch a pirate boat.” Albion said.

They were hiding out over the Khoroshevkiy
raion
, or district, just below the
Baba Yaga
, one of the Kremlin’s Balaenopterons. She was a dense battle-axe of a bird, easily covering the
Berry
in the shade of her wings. By keeping the
Berry
in her shadow, Captain Clemens was hoping to stay out of sight as long as possible, to both the gathered navies and Mordemere himself.

             
Hargreaves could have told him to keep under one of the Knights. She had of course informed the Queen of their plan to infiltrate the
Nidhogg.
              “All right, this is close enough. It looks like the Balaenopterons are securing the perimeter, and we’re past the military cordon on the ground. We should be able to sneak in from here,” Clemens was saying.

             
“Agreed,” Blair answered

             
“Roger,” Hargreaves weighed in. She was getting the sort of antsy tension she got just before a mission. She remembered why she had agreed to become the Queen’s hands and legs, now. When all the detecting was done, there had never been any closure until she could kick down a couple of doors, or put a bullet in a criminal kneecap.

             
“Hold on a moment there,” Cid Tanner interrupted. The old codger had suddenly appeared on the bridge, startling everyone there.

             
“Cid, what the bloody-“ Clemens’ profanity was interrupted soundly, by a canvas-wrapped package hitting him square in the chest.

             
“Forgot something, have you? Just remember, you’ve only got three of those. In a pinch, it’ll take a nine-millimeter, but the fit isn’t perfect and I won’t guarantee it’ll shoot straight. Best of luck to you now,” and Cid disappeared once more, back into whatever grease-coated hole he usually dwelt.

             
“What was that?” Rosa Marija gaped.

             
“Old man doesn’t like to say goodbyes,” Captain Clemens said shortly. “Superstitious. Brilliant!” This last was directed at Cid’s parting gift.

In Clemens’ hands, unwrapped and gleaming, there lay a small, wooden box, and inside, a gigantic burgundy weapon.

It was most definitely a firearm- there was an enameled grip, a hammer, and a heavy-duty trigger, but everything else was alien. Hargreaves thought her experiences in the Yard had familiarized herself with every type of pistol, but this was something absolutely bollocks.

There was only one chamber,
an oversized muzzle, probably fifty-caliber at the outside. Bits and bobs clung to the barrel and the handle, including what looked to be a vacuum tube, a cat’s cradle of guitar string, and a little jade carving hanging off a chain at the grip.

“It’s not quite finished,” Clemens was explaining, He passed off the weapon to Rosa, who thumbed the chamber open and started to test the weight. The Captain himself opened the little box to show three metal cylinders nestled in velvet, tipped with twilight-blue points.

“This, my cohorts, is the Red Special. It’s a gas-powered launcher, recharging off the ship’s pressure ports. We’ve been working on it for quite some time. Cid rushed through an assembly so we could use Moore’s crystals.”

“It’s non-lethal…” Hargreaves said, realization dawning.

“That was the intention. With Moore’s crystals as ammunition, we don’t actually know. Even on Moore’s schematics, the Core is a black box. Anything could happen. This way, we can deliver the crystals from a distance.”

“Despite your obvious compensation disorder, I agree. It is most definitely a way to deliver the crystals into the Core,” Rosa Marija said approvingly, flipping the chamber closed on its heavy-duty hinge and handing it back to the Captain, grip-first. She had changed into her battle-ready attire once more,
though the effect was softened by a tiny bunch of ribbons intended as a small bustle.

“All right, all right. However we’re doing this, let’s do this alrea
dy!” Hargreaves finally gasped.

She
turned her back on the whole thing before she lost her nerve. These pirates seemed to think saving the world was one huge pub crawl!

              Hargreaves had been a little apprehensive when Captain Clemens suggested they drop in on the anchors. In the forests of Romania, and during their several dubious hijackings, the Inspector had glimpsed through her disapproving frown the violence of the anchors launched from the
Berry
like so many Cockney slurs. She was duly surprised when Clemens kicked at a lever on deck, loosing an anchor silently on oiled steel wire. It hung suspended about woman-height from the ground.

So, the Captain could be subtle when he wished, Hargreaves thought.

              The deserted streets of Moscow were still frosted, despite the coming spring. This was the country that had once seen winters freeze the lungs with a single unprotected breath. Hargreaves realized with a jolt- it was already April. Her birthday was in May. It suddenly occurred to her, nestled there between the latest Parisian boutiques and the slightly Asiatic, upturned eaves, she might not make it to her birthday.

             
Inspector Vanessa Hargreaves was not only pragmatic to fault, she had long ago come to terms with her own mortality. She could never see the point of living if life had no point. Even as the thought occurred to her, she realized they were within sight of one of the most famous cathedrals in Europe, St. Basil’s.

She had never willfully stepped foot in a church, though she was not so extreme as to assert atheism.

Glimpsed between the frozen arches, the festive swirling colors of its onion domes glared defiantly over the serious functionality of the rest of Moscow.

             
“Look there,” Elric Blair whispered. The four halted in the shade of a gargoyle. Blair’s finger was pointing through an alley on the opposite side of the street, where a glimpse of metal peeked through. A Russian soldier in gray furs passed across view, toting a rifle.

             
“Six-meter black powder cannon. Inches-thick barrel, fortified with cinder blocks. Nigh indestructible by air,” Captain Clemens remarked. He was using his pocket-glass, which he passed in turn to each of them. “Good old Russian utility. If it works, they use it, screw these newfangled steam works. Mordemere will have trouble with those.”

             
“The schematic shows the
Nidhogg
lies surrounded by the stolen landmarks. Will the cannons even work?”  Blair asked, dumbfounded by the scale of the weapon.

Mordemere’s cloud hung ominously over the southeast part of the sky, still holding stalemate.

              “The Muscovites don’t know about the landmarks,” Clemens said. “Mordemere loves architecture, according to Moore. He wouldn’t approach if the cannons might harm his precious booty.”

             
Ah, but Her Majesty Queen Victoria III knows it, Hargreaves thought. She had carefully telegraphed the information at one of the way stations, somewhere over a Germany in uproar.

             
Hargreaves could not guess what hand the young Queen wished to play, but with the Ottomans at their doorstep, Her Majesty could not afford to be surprised.

             
“We should avoid them if we can,” cautioned Rosa Marija. “The Ruskies don’t play the seduction game. They’ll shoot us without a second thought.”