Episode Twelve: What Fresh Hell

Behind them, a raging conflagration formerly known as their airship, the Gamut. Before them, a rather large man with a rather large gun.

“You with Pomeroy?” the man behind the double barrels inquired. Rainwater dribbled off the brim of his hat. A younger, smaller man stood behind him, equally armed. 

Feeling a prodding nudge from Colonel Pell, Amelia stepped forward, empty hands visible. “I am Amelia Br – er – Captain Amelia Brinkley, and these gentlemen are my crew. We’re Argonauts. We were on our way home when our airship was shot down, just back there. We mean no harm; we’re only trying to get home before someone succeeds in killing us.”

As fitting punctuation, a gush of smoke and fire bloomed through the forest canopy. The ground shivered as the last of the Gamut’s engines exploded.

“The queen is dead,” Monty intoned. “Long live the queen.”

The younger man lowered his weapon. “’Nauts, here?”

“You’re familiar with us then?” Amelia asked, grateful she needn’t bother with explanations, and gestured to the men around her. “My First Mate, Colonel Pell, Pilot Richard Eckhart, Defender Manuel Guerrero, Mechanic Jonny Monterrey, and Chronicler Gavin Graves.”

The elder man looked at the crew in drenched uniform, suspicious, and adjusted his aim. “Then you’re not with Pomeroy.”

Eckhart inched up beside Amelia. “If I may, Captain? Sir, we arrested Jackson Pomeroy and his men yesterday. He won’t bother you anymore.”

The man shook his head, but lowered the gun. “Not that dandy Jackson. I mean Silas.”

Eckhart cursed under his breath.

“Another cousin?” Colonel Pell asked.

“Someone needs to chop down your family tree,” Monty growled.

***

“Silas and his gang have driven out or killed every other freedman farmer in the area,” Mr. Douglas said. “Will and I are all that’s left.”

The shivering crew occupied every available sitting surface in front of the hearth in Mr. Douglas’s blessedly warm and dry home. Mr. Douglas stood on the porch clutching his triple-barrel shotgun, scanning the horizon while Will took similar position at the back of the house.

“I sent my wife and children away north about six months ago, to keep them safe,” Mr, Douglas continued. Will left his apprenticeship to help me defend my home.”

“You fought in the wars?” Guerrero asked, admiring a neatly brushed Pax uniform, complete with medals, arranged outside of a well-traveled steamer trunk tipped on end.

“I did,” Mr. Douglas said with a perceptible lift of the chin. “My battalion won our freedom even before Emperor Pax declared Liberation.”

“Not that it mattered,” Will grumbled. “People haven’t changed. They still call us n-”

“Will!” Mr. Douglas warned. Amelia startled a bit from the edge in his voice.

“Names,” Will shot back. “Even up by the lake where I’m from. People like Silas are everywhere. They’d rather see us dead than as equals.”

“And the burning wreckage of the Gamut is a beacon to your location,” Pell said. “I’m afraid we’ve brought our mutual adversary down upon your head, Mr. Douglas.”

“It was a matter of time, Colonel,” he said, turning back to the horizon. “I put everything Will and I know into building and defending these acres. But it may not be enough when Silas finds us.”

“Perhaps we can draw his attention away,” Gavin said. “He’ll be too busy chasing us to bother Mr. Douglas.”

Pell shook his head. “When he doesn’t find us his retaliation will fall here. We cannot allow our friends to suffer for our misfortune.”

“But - if you’ll forgive me, sir - we can’t raise a defense without weapons.”

“We have weapons,” Will said. “I salvaged a few from the war machines. Ammunition, too. And a few surprises I’ve almost got working. We aren’t defenseless.”

“A few salvaged guns from derelict war machines against someone who can shoot down aircraft from the ground? Let’s be reasonable. Strategy only goes so far. Am I right, Mr. Guerrero?”

Guerrero declined comment, instead leveling a look of caution to Gavin, which the younger man chose to ignore.

“I’m only suggesting we seize the opportunity to find our way home, where we have no end of resources at our disposal,” Gavin continued. “We can return with the Argo - the whole fleet for gods’ sake - and lay waste to the uprising in one swipe.”

“But not before Silas kills Mr. Douglas and Will and levels this home,” Eckhart added. “They need our protection now.”

Pell raised a hand for silence and looked to Amelia. “Captain Brinkley, we await your orders.”

Gavin huffed in derision, earning himself a sharp glare of rebuke from Pell and an equally venomous one from Amelia. New she may have been to her role as captain, but inexperience in no way made her incompetent.

“I believe, under the circumstances, it’s best to defer to Mr. Douglas for direction. We are at your disposal, sir. Put us to good use.” She could feel Colonel Pell’s approving gaze, which eased the knot in her stomach, somewhat.

Mr. Douglas hesitated. “This isn’t your fight. Like my nephew said, we can take care of ourselves. You can go home if you need to. The train water stop isn’t two miles from here, you can jump on while it refills.”

Amelia needn’t look at Pell to know escape wasn’t an option. Even as initiates they had a responsibility to uphold the Society’s values of honor and integrity, even if - especially if - doing so jeopardized their lives. Besides, she didn’t want to give Gavin the pleasure of including a coward’s leave in the first entry of The Chronicle of Captain Amelia Brinkley.

“Silas destroyed our ship and almost killed us in the process,” Amelia said. “We will have satisfaction in some manner; if we happen to assist you in the process, all the better. We’ve already established drawing his attention away will provide no significant benefit to you, so I’m afraid we must draw swords together.”

“Will could use your mechanic,” Mr. Douglas said with a smile.

“Glad to help,” Monty said, rising from his seat. “All this sitting around doesn’t suit me, anyway.”

Will fairly beamed. “You won’t believe what I found,” he said as the two gearheads plunged into the rain toward the barn.

“In the meantime, you should know a few things,” Mr. Douglas continued, pulling a map out of a hidden space and unrolling it on the table. “For one, goods aren’t all smugglers bring through here.”

“People?” Eckhart asked. Mr. Douglas nodded.

“Before Liberation, I was smuggling slaves out. Now, it’s freedmen and their families on the run from men like Silas Pomeroy. I’m the last outpost of this territory. The westernmost boundary lies about 10 miles from here, through some rough terrain.” He traced a jagged line on the map. “The smugglers bring them to me, and another guide will take them the rest of the way. So I can’t leave my home, and I can’t let Silas take it.” 

***

A mechanical roar burst the silence, then sputtered, replaced by Monty’s colorful metaphors punctuated by violent metal clangs. Will and Monty would allow no entrance to their sanctum, and Amelia couldn’t imagine  what great beast they struggled to resurrect within the barn’s wood and stone walls. Various noises and expletives had often emanated from the building during the general hubbub of preparations. Monty occasionally emerged from the barn with the grim countenance of a field surgeon, but never made the feared pronouncement.

Guerrero, however, quickly dismissed the machine as useless as he paced the compound’s central path, picturing the battle to come, anticipating problems. Amelia wondered how one could devise a plan against an unknown threat.

“Every threat is unknown,” he explained. “But our mind, our resolve, our fortitude, those we know.”

“But will they be enough?” Amelia asked. She doubted her reserves of all three. “Silas bests us in men and machines. All we can boast is high ground and dwindling daylight.

“Perhaps,” Guerrero replied, “or perhaps not. We prepare ourselves for every eventuality.”

“Did the Sphinx teach you to speak?”

A hiss and clamor in the distance, deep in the woods. Gavin shouted and beckoned toward the tree line from the lookout atop the squat silo. A pack of treaders and motorbikes broke from the forest, headed for the compound. One spotted Amelia and Guerrero and veered off toward them and the open iron gate. The others followed, shooting. Guerrero grabbed a handful of Amelia’s jacket arm and tugged her after him as he ran toward the cabin. The treaders and bikes raced through the opening behind them.

Mr. Douglas stepped out of the cabin, a gun in each fist. He fired at the driver of a closing treader with one hand and tossed the other shotgun to Guerrero, who took out the treader’s other passenger. The machine peeled off toward the stone storehouse, and sputtered to a halt. The machine behind it, then, bore the brunt of the steel spikes that jutted out of the ground at an angle, lancing the treads and sending driver and passenger hurling into the ground. Two more shots by Pell from the cabin’s loft window ended their threat.

Other vehicles whined around the compound, lobbing torches into the buildings. Some of Will’s surprises erupted beneath the unsuspecting, launching men and machines several meters through the air.

Amelia claimed a rifle from within and checked for her own small handgun concealed under the tails of her uniform coat before sneaking out the back of the cabin and heading toward the barn. She crept against the silo in the shadows, where Guerrero had showed her, to target the machines that wandered too close to the barn.

She didn’t have to wait long. A treader tore through the chaos on a collision course with the barn’s doors. The passenger sprayed fire in all directions from the nozzle of a makeshift flamethrower. Amelia took aim, but pulled high. Gavin managed only to wound from his silo vantage point as well. Undaunted, Amelia targeted the passenger’s fuel tank strapped to his back, exhaled, pulled the trigger.

Did she miss again? I’m useless with a gun!

Yipping and cheering, the man spurted a shower of flame around, then shrieked as the leaking fuel from his pack ignited, engulfing him, the driver and the treader.

Someone rammed into Amelia, forcing her down and dragging her behind the silo. She struggled, managed to plant the butt of the rifle into her attacker’s knee. Then the ground shuddered and chunks of  metal whizzed past where Amelia had stood not a few seconds before.

“Your stupidity will get someone killed,” Gavin hissed, yanking her to her feet, favoring his right leg. “Preferably yourself.”

Before she could apologize, a high-pitched blurt, like a burping train whistle, blasted over the motor whine. Treaders and bikes banked and sped away toward it.

What fresh hell…

****

A massive rolling cylindrical steel cage encased a maw of gnashing grinder plates, propelled by the altered steam and diesel tractor on treads behind it. The goliath creaked to a stop and gushed a billow of vapor into the air. At the top of the razor wire-wrapped cage, a man emerged from the cloud and gazed down at his prey from a platform as more treaders and motorbikes fanned out from behind the machine to surround their prey.

“Cousin Dick,” the man oozed from his great safe distance.

“That would be Silas, then,” Amelia said. Whatever Guerrero’s strategy, this gang and this machine defied it. 

“How tall is that cage, you think?” Eckhart asked.

“Big enough to run us over and chew up our bones,” Guerrero said. Not the kind of language a captain hopes to hear from her Defender.

“How do you like my Reaper?” Silas continued. “Oh, and Jackson and his men send their regards, safe at home. You’ll find we hold the majority opinion in these territories. None of us would let ‘em rot in jail.”

All of that for nothing. Amelia’s head and bandaged hand throbbed. Somehow, her mind dredged up the memory of  the lascivious insurgent’s foul breath as he pinned her body against the boulder. Her stomach lurched. Not for nothing, she remembered. At least Eva was safe.

“And Jonah Douglas,” Silas continued, “leader of a slave smuggling enterprise, and harboring wanted murderers.”

Amelia sucked in a breath to protest, but Pell nudged a warning. She settled instead for silent, indignant seething. It settled in her gut better than terror.

“I should have you all arrested, but that would alert your Argonaut associates,” Silas said. “So, we’re just going to engage in some backwoods justice, right boys?” His companions jeered, revved their engines and cocked their guns in agreement.

Douglas pointed his shot gun on handed at Silas. “I’m not leaving my home. And you won’t be leaving my land a whole man, Pomeroy. I swear it.”

“We have no intention of removing you from the land, boy,” Silas said, gripping the machine’s frame and gesturing. The machine lurched forward with a snarl of grinding metal. The Argonauts and Mr. Douglas took a few steps back as the cage rolled forward again. “Blood is good for the soil.”

The cage crept further, gears and grinding plates whining and clanging within, unfazed by the stones it chewed and spit. All of the traps within the compound had already sprung, and none of them would do much damage to that hulk of a machine anyway. Amelia couldn’t imagine anything that would match it.

“Mr. Guerrero,” Amelia asked as the team began backing away, stumbling over rocks. He didn’t answer.

“Into the breach!” Pell shouted, followed almost immediately by the others. Except Amelia, who felt foolish.

Douglas fired a double-barrel shot toward Silas that pinged off the tumbling metal maw instead. Crew and farmer whirled around and ran through the gate toward the barn. Eckhart closed the gate and sunk the iron  locking post deep in its casing embedded in the rock bedlayer. The first treader tried to crash through it but wrapped itself around the pole instead. The next tried to penetrate the perimeter wall through sheer momentum, but met a similar fate, its passengers flung headlong several meters to bounce off the unforgiving ground.

Another pair of vehicles crossed in front of the machine, lobbing dynamite at the wall. The blasts shot rock and scrap in all directions and opened a gap wide enough for the other vehicles to pass through, but not the cage. 

But the Reaper didn’t slow. With a groan and shriek, and the Reaper’s cage began to rise. In a matter of seconds, the rolling, gnashing cage nearly cleared the wall to either side, shooting stones out and backward. One stone cracked the skull of a nearby driver, sending the vehicle on a tangent as the other passengers tried to regain control.

“Phase Two,” Guerrero shouted. Amelia and Douglas split off toward the house. 

“Let’s hope they’re ready,” Amelia said, yanking the barn’s alarm bell cord a handful of times before  she helped Douglas roll the crankbow into position.

“Remember,” Douglas said, pointing back toward the Reaper, “only shoot that direction. Anywhere past the well, you’ll kill someone you shouldn’t.”

“I’d prefer not to kill anyone else today,” Amelia said. “If it can be helped.”

“When it’s you or them, you shoot first,” he said. “’Cause they won’t hesitate. And we both know they won’t stay in jail, whether they kill us or not.”

Amelia nodded and wished him luck. Douglas kicked the chuck off the crank and moved to his next station.

The first shot bucked, taking Amelia by surprise. The bolt sailed over the heads of the men on the passing treader. She wrenched the gun lower and fired off half a dozen rounds that also critically missed. Finally, one of the steel-tipped bolts pierced the pressure tank of another treader, producing a profoundly satisfying explosion.

The patio and front of the house, already aflame, disintegrated into fiery schrapnel as the ends of the Reaper’s cage ground into the structures. Amelia ducked behind the crankbow’s iron box for protection as spikes and shards whizzed overhead and pelted her shield. She looked up toward the crankbow shield’s small window as the Reaper lumbered past, slowed by the effort of grinding up stone and wood. Parts of the cage’s frame looked mangled from the repeated abuse, but didn’t slow its carnage. It chewed through what remained of the well housing, spitting stones in every direction.

Once the cage cleared the house, Amelia took a peek over the shield. Silas still stood in full view on top of the machine’s frame, directing the Reaper’s driver and the other vehicles from on high. She wrenched the crankbow down, hoping to target his legs, but the bolts lodged into the metal frame beneath his feet as he passed into the crossfire zone. Amelia cursed under her breath and hoped Pell or Gavin had better luck.

One of Guerrero’s traps warned her of coming trouble from behind the house. The wood shed burned, like most of the structures in the compound. She had nowhere to hide, but she was no safer from detection cowered behind the crankbow. Still crouched, she pulled her handgun and peered into the shadows where two looming shapes emerged.

“Shoot first,” she said to herself and pulled the trigger. No recoil, nothing but the gut voiding click of an empty chamber. Had she forgot to load it? Surely not! She muttered curses to herself for her foolishness as the men, emboldened by her imbecility, approached. In a panic, she cocked and fired again, this time feeling the recoil shiver up her arms. One man dropped, clutching his stomach. The other saw the error of his ways, lay down his gun and backed up, empty hands forward.

A nearby explosion caused Amelia to flinch and lower her gun. The man jerked his arm, and a small pistol concealed in his sleeve shot out. His bullet pinged of the crankbow shield. Without a thought, Amelia reached up and fired three more times one after the other. Two shots went wild, one found purchase in the man’s upper thigh. He stumbled, then collapsed, gripping his thigh, blood streaming between his fingers. Amelia stood, picked up the man’s double-barrel pistol, took aim.

Shoot first.