Lightning Wolves

by David Lee Summers

  “I am fed up with the ways of war.” The professor turned so he faced the far shore. “Let’s go find our friends and then see if we can salvage a modicum of peace.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Peacekeepers

  Maravilla scanned San Francisco Bay with his telescope as Hoshi steered the boat across the Golden Gate. Debris from many destroyed boats floated in the water along with the airship’s wreckage. The American warships lowered boats to rescue the Russian survivors. The few Russian boats that had survived the encounter made their way back to the docks at Sausalito. The professor wasn’t keen on the idea of landing among disgruntled Russian soldiers who had just lost a battle. What’s more, he wasn’t sure whether those soldiers were still connected to Legion, whose influence tended to keep the soldiers civil.

  The professor collapsed the telescope and took a moment to rub his eyes. Legion had been with him for several months and he’d gained new insight into how to build things. He could never have built a machine as complex as the Javelina as quickly as he did without the alien’s insight. What he missed, though, was the alien’s simple companionship—the voices that spoke constantly in the back of his mind, like a household of children. He’d just reached the point where he could start to tune them out and talk to the voices when he wanted. He would have to get used to living without them, much like he had to get used to living without his wife and daughter. Unlike his wife and daughter though, he didn’t think Legion was dead. He hoped Legion would return for a visit one day.

  He lifted the telescope again and scanned the shoreline. A boat sat on the bank. Up the hillside, there was a clumping of brush. Within, he caught glimpses of blue cloth. The professor passed the telescope to Hoshi. The Japanese warrior looked and nodded. He made for the point. As they approached, the keel scraped a submerged sandbar. Hoshi steered northward a little bit and they were able to get a little closer to shore.

  Hoshi dropped an anchor over the side. “The tide is going out. No doubt we’ll find the boat grounded when we return.” Maravilla nodded as he helped the warrior lower and stow the mast. They climbed from the boat into waist-deep water. The professor gritted his teeth, worried that his pocket watch would get wet.

  Reaching the shore, they hiked to the grounded boat Maravilla had spotted with his telescope, then uphill to where they had seen the flashes of blue through the foliage. They discovered an army ornithopter. Maravilla made a quick examination. A wing was bent and a control cord had snapped. He could easily fix it with some rope and a few tools. It might not fly in combat again without more extensive repair, but he could get it back across the bay under its own power.

  “Do you think this is where your friends came ashore?” asked Hoshi.

  “It seems likely,” said the professor. “If so, they didn’t come back this way. They’re either still in Sausalito, or they found escape by another route. I think we have no choice but to see what is happening in the town in the wake of Legion’s departure.”

  <<>>

  Larissa entered the lobby of St. Mary’s Hospital. She wrung her hands, feeling more nervous in this place than any time in the last week, taking the untested lightning wolves into battle against the Javelina and a Russian airship. Numerous people bustled through the lobby. Several in uniform were bandaged. The hospital at the Presidio had suffered considerable damage in the bombing run and many of the wounded had to be transferred into the city. Larissa stepped up to a desk and a nurse looked up. “May I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Sergeant Michael Harris,” she said.

  The nurse consulted a clipboard. “He’s in room 237. Take the elevator and go to the left.” She pointed down the hall.

  Larissa walked to the elevator and pushed a button, sounding a buzzer. A couple of minutes later, the operator opened the door and an elderly couple stepped out. Larissa entered. “Second floor,” she told the operator.

  The woman, who wore a smart uniform with buttons down both sides of her jacket, waited a minute to see if anyone else wanted the elevator. She closed the door when the buzzer sounded from upstairs and moved the control lever. Larissa found herself wondering how the machine worked and what powered it. When she was told Harris had been taken to St. Mary’s, the person mentioned it was both the oldest and most technically advanced hospital in the city. The operator brought the elevator to a smooth stop and opened the door. Larissa tipped her hat and went to the left.

  She found room 237 a few doors down the hall. Harris sat up in bed. Bandages wrapped his otherwise bare chest and hands. His blue uniform coat was draped over his shoulders.

  “How are you doing?” Larissa took off her hat and wrung it between her hands.

  “I’m doing fine,” he said with a forced smile that looked a little like a grimace. “I just got burned and cut by some shrapnel when that damned lightning gun exploded.”

  Larissa sat down in a chair next to the bed. “We did it. We brought down the airship.”

  “I saw.” Harris beamed proudly. “It made the whole trip through Arizona looking for Maravilla worth the effort.”

  “Do you still want to be part of the Lightning Wolf Corps?” she asked.

  “I like the way that sounds.” He smiled for a moment, then turned serious. “But I’ll only do it if you find a way to make the lightning guns more stable.”

  Larissa laughed nervously. She had no problem understanding the mechanics of machines, but electricity—that would take more study. She might even have to go to college. She wondered if the army would pay enough to make that a reality.

  “So, speaking of my sojourn through the desert, have you heard anything from the professor?”

  Larissa shook her head. “No. There’s been no word. The captain I spoke to at the Presidio says he doesn’t have enough men to spare to look for them. The place was hit pretty hard. Lots of buildings were destroyed. Others were damaged.”

  There was a knock at the door. “Sorry to interrupt.” A man wearing a blue uniform with corporal’s stripes looked at Larissa. “Are you Miss Crimson?”

  “Yes, Corporal?” She put the cap back on her head.

  “General Sheridan sent me. He wants to see you right away.”

  Larissa swallowed. “I see.” She stood up and put her hand on Harris’s shoulder, but withdrew it when he winced. “Get better, soon. You hear me?”

  He saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Larissa followed the corporal out of the hospital room. He escorted her nearly two miles to the Presidio grounds.

  At the Presidio, soldiers cleared away the remains of tents, scattered about like rags and broken matchsticks. Several buildings lay in ruins, either all or part of them reduced to smoldering piles of rubble. A steam shovel dug chunks of granite and concrete while men peered into the depths looking for survivors from the buildings. Larissa looked back at San Francisco. She realized the damage caused by the airship could have been far worse if the Russians had started dropping bombs on the city itself.

  The corporal led Larissa to a house. Before that, she hadn’t realized the officers at the Presidio had nicer quarters than those at Fort Bliss. A man carrying a sheaf of papers cut in front of them, knocked on the door, and entered. The corporal followed and led Larissa to a sitting room where a man with short hair and a drooping mustache sat, surrounded by stacks of paper. The corporal stood ramrod straight and saluted. Larissa still wasn’t sure what she was expected to do in front of officers, so she took off her hat.

  The general looked up. “Ah, Miss Crimson.” He cast a glance at the corporal. “Thank you very much. Dismissed.” He raised a hand in salute. When he lowered his hand, the corporal made a crisp swivel, brought his heels together and then marched off. The precise move seemed at odds with the surrounding chaos.

  The general held out a hand toward a chair across the way. “Please be seated. Sorry to have to meet you in my house, but my office was destroyed in the bomb run.”

  “I understand,” said Larissa. She made her way aro
und a stack of singed papers and sat on a divan.

  “My men have been trying to recover what they can from the wreckage. Damned lot of paperwork.” He barked out a laugh. “I almost wish the Russians had done a better job of destroying it.”

  Larissa snorted.

  The general leaned forward and clasped his hands together. “I asked you here because the president was very impressed with the report about you and the lightning wolves I telegraphed to Washington.”

  Larissa blinked, digesting what he’d just told her. “The president, sir? Of the United States?”

  “Yes, President Hayes.” The general stood and looked around at tabletops for something. “We’d like you to keep working for the army. The only problem is that the War Department doesn’t have a provision for women in its ranks aside from nurses and secretaries.”

  Larissa’s gut churned. She wondered if the general was trying to find a nice way to tell her thanks for all the work, but she wasn’t going to get paid. She imagined her dreams of a better future evaporating like the morning fog. After a moment, he found what he sought—a black box three inches square. “Instead, he thought the Department of Justice would be a better fit.” He handed her the box.

  She took it uncertainly, then opened the lid. Inside was a shiny badge. “Me? A U.S. Marshal?”

  “I think it suits you better than an army uniform.” The general returned to his chair. “The thing is, if you accept this job, your first mission is going to be especially difficult.”

  Larissa still gazed at the badge in disbelief. “What do you have in mind, sir?”

  “We apprehended four people on their way to Sausalito before the invasion. I believe you know them—Ramon Morales, Fatemeh Karimi, Billy McCarty, and Luther Duncan.”

  Larissa’s eyes snapped upward. “I know Ramon, Fatemeh, and Billy, yes—from the battle of Denver...and before.”

  “They were on their way to Sausalito, but the story they told us was incredible,” said the general. “Morales and McCarty escaped and made it across. We apprehended Duncan and Miss Karimi. She escaped the following night. Duncan had been shot, but not fatally.”

  “You still have this Luther Duncan in custody?”

  Sheridan shook his head. “He was in his room at the infirmary when the attack commenced. He was gone when the nurse went to check after the attack was over.”

  Larissa’s eyebrows came together. “Was the infirmary hit by the bombs?”

  “No,” said the general. “There was just minor damage from blasts nearby.”

  Larissa sat back. She had just been given a lot to take in. “Do you think Ramon, Fatemeh and Billy were somehow working as spies for the Russians?”

  Sheridan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “My gut tells me no. They told one of my men they were spying for us. If so, it’s the first I heard about it. They’re wanted fugitives. We need to clear this matter up one way or the other. Will you help?”

  Larissa swallowed hard. Although she first met Ramon as a bounty hunter hired to track him down, she eventually learned she had been on the wrong side. Would she be on the right side or the wrong side if she tracked them again? She considered what would happen if she turned down the job. They’d send another marshal after them—perhaps one who only saw them as potential spies. She could see that conflict going badly. “If I take this job, will I be able to continue work on the lightning wolves?”

  The general smiled. “Absolutely. Once you’ve tracked down these fugitives, we’d like to discuss the establishment of a laboratory. You can think about who you’d like to deputize to help you with this project.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Larissa removed the badge from the box and pinned it on her jacket. “Can I see where this Luther Duncan last was?”

  The general looked over his shoulder. “Captain Belvedere!” A moment later a captain entered the room and saluted. “Take Marshal Crimson over to the infirmary and show her where Luther Duncan was last seen.”

  “That’s Seaton, sir,” she said.

  “Huh? What?”

  “Marshal Larissa Seaton,” she said, using her real name.

  “Very well.” The general stood and shook her hand. “Good luck. I hope you can find them and help us learn what they were up to.”

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  With that, she followed Captain Belvedere out of the general’s quarters and over to the infirmary. He showed her the bed where he had been. The pillow was still dented where his head had lain. In the middle lay a feather. She picked it up.

  “Captain, do you know what kind of bird this is from?”

  He shrugged. “I’m hardly an expert, but it looks sort of like an owl feather to me.”

  <<>>

  As Sausalito’s clapboard houses came into view, Hoshi heard gunfire and shouts. He scanned the town with the telescope from his vantage point in the hills. A mob gathered on the docks. The Russian boats hung a little way out. Some turned and sailed further up into the bay. He hated to guess about the details without more evidence, but it looked to him like Sausalito’s residents had turned on the Russians, refusing to give them safe harbor.

  Hoshi and Maravilla made their way down the hillside into town. The main street wasn’t quite deserted, but it was quiet. A woman swept the boardwalk in front of her mercantile store. The professor approached and tipped his hat. “Good madam, we’ve just arrived in town and were looking for some friends of ours.”

  She gave them a suspicious stare. Hoshi had grown used to Americans eyeing his robes and takuhatsugasa warily, but suspected that water-wrinkled trousers and a tailcoat made Maravilla almost a stranger sight. “Three friends, you say?” She shook her head. “I don’t know about three, but there were two strangers staying down at Chandler’s boarding house just a couple days ago.” She pointed to a house a few doors down across the street.

  “Thank you, madam,” said Maravilla with another tip of his hat.

  They walked over to the boarding house and let themselves in the front door. They found a bald man wearing an apron and a bow tie sitting on a divan. He looked as troubled as Maravilla.

  “May I help you...gentlemen?”

  “We’re looking for three friends of ours,” said Maravilla. “Their names were Morales, McCarty and they might have been joined by a Miss Karimi.”

  Mr. Chandler scowled. “Them? They brought me nothing but trouble. The Russians brought them here as prisoners. They escaped yesterday morning. They stole three horses.” His eyes brightened a little. “One of them was the colonel’s own horse! You should have seen the look in his eyes when he found it missing.” Chandler shook his head. “Don’t ask me why I was so willing to help the Russians. It just felt better than fighting them.”

  Hoshi knelt down and looked into Chandler’s eyes. “That’s all right,” he said. “Do you know which way they went?”

  Chandler pointed behind him. “Hoof prints went north, out of town.”

  Maravilla shrugged. “We’re on a peninsula. That’s the only direction to go on horseback.”

  Hoshi sighed and turned toward the professor. “They would be miles ahead of us by now. I could track them.”

  Maravilla tipped his hat and led Hoshi outside. “I’m not sure I see the point. The battle is over and Legion is silent. Whatever they do at this point is their business. I think the best thing we can do to help them is return the mechanical owl. One of them must have stolen it to escape the Presidio. Perhaps if the army has it back in working order, they won’t have as many charges to press against them.”

  Hoshi nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, and I’ll return the boat to the man who sold it to me. It will save finding more silver coins.”

  Maravilla walked across the street to the mercantile store. Inside, he found a few tools and a coil of rope. He had just enough left in his pouch to cover the supplies along with some dried meat and day-old bread for lunch.

  As they stepped outside, Hoshi said, “I still don’t understand what your friends
hoped to accomplish.”

  “The part of Legion with the Russians—the majority of the swarm, really—wanted to unite Russia and the United States under one government. The part with me had learned things from its experiences in Denver. It was weak. It came to another person and me to heal.”

  “Who was the other person?”

  “An engineer-turned-pirate named Onofre Cisneros,” said Maravilla. “It had learned hard lessons in Denver.” The professor shook his head. “I had hoped the part of Legion that was with me—that I shared with Ramon—would convey those lessons to the part of Legion with the Russians.”

  “Do you think it worked?”

  The professor handed a piece of meat to Hoshi and then took out a piece for himself. He chewed on it for a while without answering. As they reached the edge of town, they saw the mob at the docks had dispersed. The Russian boats grew distant as they sailed northward. Hoshi and Maravilla decided to skirt the hills, rather than go up and over.

  “Whatever happened when the two parts of Legion came together, they decided to leave,” said Maravilla as they worked their way along the rocky shoreline. “I don’t know why, but I do know that it will give the Russians and Americans a chance to work out their differences without interference. That’s probably what Fatemeh and Ramon would have wanted.”

  “So they did achieve their goal,” said Hoshi.

  “It would seem so.”

  They reached the ornithopter by the middle of the afternoon. Hoshi helped Maravilla uncover it. The professor repaired the broken control line and hammered out some dents. He held his finger up and tested the wind’s direction. Grabbing the ornithopter by the tail, he turned it so it faced the direction he wanted. Hoshi stood back as the professor made some adjustments to the mechanism under the seat.

  The professor stood upright and clasped Hoshi’s hand in his own. “Thank you for your help, my friend. I hope to see you soon.”

  “Safe travels,” said Hoshi.