Landquaker

by Dean F. Wilson

   “That was a nasty whack he got there,” the nurse said. “He's coming to now.”

   They expected to see Taberah jump across next, but they heard a commotion in the food carriage, and saw Azrion's soldiers diving on her, before he slammed the carriage door shut. There was gunfire, and shouts and screams, then hushed voices, followed by silence, as if sound was swiftly dying.

   “Oh no, what do we do now?” Whistler asked.

   “Keep to the mission,” Lorelai said.

   The door in the other carriage opened again, and they could see Taberah tied up. All things considered, that was not too bad. They expected to see her dead.

   Azrion jumped across and crouched down with the others.

   “How's he doing?”

   Jacob opened his eyes now. “Who's that? Is that you, dad?”

   “He's coming around,” Lorelai said. “Just give him a minute.” She rubbed her hand across his forehead.

   “Wish I had a nurse like you when I was in the trenches,” Azrion said with a grin.

   She forced a smile.

   “What's your name?” he asked her. “I think I might request you in my unit.”

   “Oh, I don't think the Commander would allow it.”

   “I'm going for a promotion soon,” he replied. “I just need a few more kills.”

   He looked about, as if he might make them then and there.

   “I asked you your name,” he said.

   Only Jacob and Taberah had prepared names, and had the credentials to back them up. The lower ranks did not carry identification, largely because they died quicker than the clerks could issue them. The team expected Jacob to do most of the talking. He could not do much of that in his current state.

   “Elizah,” Lorelai said in time. “Elizah Botherford.”

   Whistler made a squeak, and Azrion glared at him. “What is it?”

   “Oh, I, uh, I … what happened over there?” Whistler stuttered.

   “Don't you worry about that, cadet. We neutralised the threat. I think she might have been working with Tardo. The turncoat! I always suspected he had Resistance sympathies. He can sympathise with them for a long time in the Hold, providing I don't kill him first.”

   He looked back at the food carriage, where the other soldiers were hauling Taberah across. She struggled in her bonds, and she might have screamed and shouted too, were she not gagged. They dropped her with a thud on the ramp, and she rolled down a little, dangling dangerously close to the edge. From there she had the perfect vantage point to watch the food carriage's wheels rotate, before it moved sideways off the track, clearing the way for the Landquaker to advance forward.

   The soldiers dragged Taberah up and carried her through the corridor.

   “We'll find out what she knows,” Azrion said. He paused for a moment, rubbing his chin. “You know, she looks a little familiar. I wonder where I've seen her before.”

   On a Wanted poster, Jacob thought. He was fully awake now, and had come to his senses. It was a good thing that Whistler had tucked his hair into his military cap or Azrion might have noticed the resemblance. One scarlet strand slipped out behind his ear, a little turncoat of its own.

   They helped Jacob to his feet, and he placed his cap back on.

   “I want to know who hit me,” he said.

   “That'd be Turncoat Tardo,” Azrion said.

   “With a name like that, you'd think he'd be better watched,” Jacob quipped.

   “I'll get him for you, Commander, don't you worry. Maybe if I do, you can repay me by transferring Elizah over to my unit.” He winked at her, and she grimaced. He took out his revolver, span the barrel, and snapped it back into place. “Time to hunt some traitors.”

   He marched off, and Brooklyn and Whistler followed slowly. Taberah was already well out of sight. When they were all out of earshot, Jacob looked at Lorelai and asked, “Elizah?”

   “I improvised.”

   “You couldn't think of a better name?”

   “It's a nice name.”

   “Yeah,” Jacob said, “it's a nice name for the dead.”

  27 – ALL ABOARD

  Ollie helped clear away the cobwebs, but he could not clear away the rust. It looked very old, a hunk of junk to anyone else's eyes, but to Rommond it seemed like a treasure. Not a treasure that glints on the exterior, but shines in the heart.

   “It doesn't have a name or number,” Ollie called from behind the vehicle.

   “Oh, it does,” the general replied. “The name plate is back in Blackout. I have it hanging on my wall. This, my friend, is the first, the prototype, the quintessential. This is Brooklyn.”

  They climbed in, and Rommond oiled up the controls, while Ollie dragged several bags of coal aboard. The tunnels might have been abandoned, but there were still plenty of supplies there. Ollie just wished it included newer landships.

   When the engine roared to life, the vessel hummed, and the noise made it sound more than a little frightening. Ollie imagined what it must have been like those early years in the trenches, when this surprise monster rolled across them, announcing the dawn of machine warfare. As Rommond grabbed the steering sticks, it seemed the world was about to relive those terrifying days.

   The general drove the landship forward slowly, turning it even slower, until he faced one of the ramps leading to the boarded-up ceiling. Ollie had not thought much of those ramps, but it was their ticket to freedom. They had to get out quick, because the train was leaving. There was no last call of “all aboard.”

   The landship burst through the ceiling of the tunnels, emerging into the onslaught of the sun. The land around was burnt by more than just its sniper rays. Smoke rose in pillars from all the metal wounds, and where there was not metal, there was black sand smothering the yellows and smouldering the reds.

   Rommond saw the Landquaker heading north, where everyone was converging, the meeting place of many guns. He followed it, racing across the track, wishing his landship was the Hopebreaker, wishing it ran on diesel instead of steam. He knew that if the Landquaker sped ahead, he could not match its speed, but he also knew that it had to slow down some time, that when the tracks ran out, it had to stop completely. He just hoped it would not take that long, because by then the team upon the railway gun might be dead.

   “I can't shovel this coal fast enough,” Ollie said.

   “Do you want to drive instead?” Rommond called back, irritated.

   “I don't think I can drive this thing as fast as you.”

   “Then feed that furnace as if it were the mouth of Hell,” the general said.

   The heat inside the landship grew by the minute. Everything was burning in its own way. While the fires lapped at Ollie's hands, Rommond was burning rubber, trying to get that little extra speed.

   Out of the view-port, the general saw a large bend in the rails up ahead, the turn in the track, the corner of the Iron Wall. Instead of following it directly, as the Landquaker had to, slowing down to take that turn, he drove off the tracks and cut across the gravel. Rommond was not the guy to cut corners in most other areas of life, but here it was a lifesaver. He just hoped it was as much a lifesaver for the others as it was for him.

   Yet the Regime had more than the Landquaker on those rails. A small steam-pod chugged along the tracks, spotting Rommond's rust bucket. The crew fired token shots towards the landship, less of an attempt to pierce the hull and more of an announcement that they were there, that they would be as dogged in the hunt as he was in his pursuit of the railway gun. Together they formed a train of a different kind, of mismatching carriages, separated from each other, and yet united in the chase.

   The pods were a nuisance, a distraction, riling up Rommond's own nuisance and distraction: Ollie. He frequently abandoned his shovelling to glance out of the viewports, yelling about their pursuers. “They're gaining on us!” he cried.

   “No
t for long,” the general called back, before halting the landship and turning it sharply. A rattle of gunfire pierced the spot where it had been, but Rommond was already driving it back in an arc.

   “That's the wrong direction!” Ollie shouted.

   “Not for this,” Rommond said. “Hold on tight.”

   Ollie glanced out again, just in time to see the side of the steam-pod before Rommond crashed the landship into it, knocking it off the track, where it landed on its side in a plume of sand.

   “Now,” the general said. “Get back to shovelling.”

   Ollie picked himself up and resumed his duties, while Rommond returned to the chase, following the track again, glad that his head-on collision had just dented the front of the landship, and bent the turret. He was not going to use it anyway. He needed speed, not shells.

   In time he saw the Landquaker ahead, thundering down the track. He was catching up. He could already smell the smoke the railway gun spewed. It smelled fouler than it was when in Resistance hands, almost as if it had been contaminated with the Iron Plague.

   As he drove closer, the train grew larger, dwarfing the landship. It was not so much a game of cat and mouse, but mouse and cat. At any moment the tables could turn. That gigantic turret could turn. But there was a benefit in being small, in going unnoticed.

   But he did not go unnoticed. Several steam-pods were in pursuit, gaining on him even as he gained on the Landquaker. The tracks spat out sparks in protest as every driver pushed their vehicle beyond its limits, as if Death were chasing them. In many ways, he was. His name was Edward Rommond.

   Gunfire began to litter the hull of the landship. Ollie jumped and yelped, and he even blocked the rear viewport with his shovel. The bullets pierced the metal, letting in little beams of light, like spotlights for the snipers.

   “We won't make it!” Ollie screamed, cowering now behind the gunner's seat. More daylight streamed in, pointing its golden fingers at him.

   “The landship mightn't make it,” Rommond said, ducking from a bullet that ricocheted inside. He did not like the irony that he might die to a trademark trickshot. He would rather face his dying bullet, not take it in the back.

   “We'll have to surrender,” Ollie suggested.

   Rommond scoffed at the notion. It was not a word in his dictionary. But it did exist in his old book of tactics, where the white flag was offered just long enough to turn the enemy's one red. He knew it would not work now. They had grown wise to his ways. But he had many ways, and they were not wise to them all.

   The landship was slowing down, but the gap between it and the Landquaker was small.

   “Rommond, this piece of junk won't get us there!” Ollie cried.

   “We only need it to get us so far.”

   Rommond jammed the steering sticks forward, locking them in place, letting it chug along as if it had a mind of its own. He got up, dodging another bullet. The daylight continued to puncture the walls, highlighting the escape hatch at the bottom of the vehicle. Rommond kicked the hatch door open, hearing it clang on the metal tracks below.

   “What are you doing?” Ollie called.

   “Escaping.”

   “Are you mad? We're still moving.”

   “So are they.”

   “You'll never roll out of the way in time.”

   “I don't want to roll out of the way,” Rommond replied. “I want to roll under.”

   He lowered his feet out of the hatch, tucking them under the floor of the landship. There was not a lot of space there, so he had to tuck them in tight. He held onto the edge of the hatch with his elbows. He had to time his drop just right. If he did it too early, and did not duck in time, he could lose his head in the process, or be dragged across the tracks like a rag doll.

   The moment came, and he let go, straightening up as he fell onto the track. He felt the rush of air pass him, and he turned his head to the side, feeling the heat of the landship blowing by his ear. Then daylight assaulted his eyes, and he squinted against the glare. He had to time the next bit even better, and he would not have the benefit of sight to help him.

   He shimmied until he got his arms up tight against his chest. He knew there was a bar beneath the steam-pod, just like there was beneath most landships, there to help the engineers pull themselves under when doing repairs. It was close enough to the hatch. Close enough was all he needed.

   The sun blotted out, and Rommond knew that the steam-pod was passing overhead. He reached out, and his fingers felt the metal of the vessel's floor. Then they felt the bar, and he grabbed on tight. It did not take even a second to pull him violently across the track. The notches in the rails battered his back and legs. He tucked his head up to avoid them knocking him out as well. He groaned and cried as the track assailed him, but the pain only fuelled his strength. He used all of it to pull himself up close to the steam-pod's floor, away from that awful torture rack beneath. It was a struggle to hold on, and an even great struggle to hold his entire weight up like this. He felt some metal plating jutting out of the bottom of the vehicle near his feet, so he pressed his boots against it, which relieved some of the pressure, but then his boots slipped against the metal, and his leg struck the track again. His uniform was torn. His skin was torn. But his will was unbroken.

   He bashed his fist against the hatch, slipping as he did so, and hauling himself back up just as quick. Nothing happened. He struck it again, with much more force, until it rattled on its hinges. He could hear the crew inside moving about, drawing closer, mumbling something to each other. It sounded like mumbles, but it smelt a lot like fear. The hatch opened, and there was the face of a very perplexed Regime soldier. Rommond grabbed his gun and fired quick, too quick for the soldier to jump away. His blood stained the general's uniform. It did not matter. He needed a new one anyway.

   The other guards did not appear at the opening. It was not wisdom that held them back. It was terror. The smell was more palpable now with the hatch open, but then the interior of all landships smelt just as bad. The enemy would not come to Rommond, so he had to send his bullets out looking for them. He fired three shots into the hatch at an angle, aimed in three different directions, all the while struggling to keep his grip, to keep his feet pressed against the metal ridge. He heard the shouts of the people inside, and then he heard the ricochet of the bullets, and then he heard nothing at all.

   His strength finally gave way. He could not haul himself inside. His feet slipped, and his hands followed. He struck the track with a thud, and the steam-pod rolled over him, revealing the waiting sun, with its vendetta against his eyes. The pain was worse now, a mix of sharp and stabbing, and gnawing aches. His muscles were strained, and his eyes were squinted, but he knew he had to get up and look around, and run, and fight, and not let the Landquaker get away.

   He hauled himself up, even as the pain tried desperately to pin him down. He gritted his teeth, roaring through the tiny gaps in them as he stumbled forward towards the slowing steam-pod with its skeleton crew. He pulled the door open and threw himself inside, grabbing his gun just in case. But they were all dead, or dying fast enough that they did not deserve another bullet. There were many more on the Landquaker more deserving.

   He fired the vehicle up, and set it to full speed. It had an automated system for filling the furnace that just needed a few cranks every now and then to keep it going. It was the kind of thing that Brooklyn might have invented, had he not lost his spirit connection. Cogs sent a series of pipes up and down, and coal rolled out. Rommond preferred the reliability of good old-fashioned manpower, but it was only reliable if it was there. Those three dead soldiers clearly were not reliable enough.

   As he sat in the driver's seat, watching the Landquaker from the viewport, and watching the battered landship in front of him, he felt the pain grow. He had the time now to focus on it, to look at his wounds. He could feel the warm wetness of the blood upon his back, and he could
feel it drop down his legs. He could also feel the deeper bruising where the tracks had riddled him with iron punches.

   In time the Landquaker halted, and Rommond was not sure why. The landship in front caught up, gently ramming the iron beast before it, and Rommond's steam-pod followed suit, ramming the landship in turn. He struggled out, kicking the arms of the Regime guards as he passed, growling through the pain.

   He stumbled over to the landship and banged on the hull. There were no response. He peered through one of the many bullet holes, and sighed as he saw Ollie's bloodied body curled up on the floor.

   Then he saw why the Landquaker had stopped. On the horizon there were many little figures, black against the sun. They were advancing quickly, like a stampeding herd, so quick that Rommond could soon make out what they were: a gang of men and women in black leather upon large diesel-powered bikes. Then he heard a series of loud clangs and clicks, and he knew just what they signalled. A large shadow passed over him. The railway gun was swivelling around to face the many tiny guns that now approached.

  28 – TRACKING TRAITORS

  Jacob and his team searched for Tardo, Azrion leading the charge, though really the smuggler was hoping to find Taberah instead. The plan was unravelling, yet she was tied up tight. He only hoped they were not torturing her, or worse.

   Many of the rooms they searched were empty, filled only with supplies. It was better than being filled with soldiers. Jacob did not need more demon troops under his command.

   “Wait till I find him,” Azrion said, raising a clenched fist. “Never trusted him. Never trusted comms in general.” He turned sharply, grabbing Jacob's shoulder. “It's just as well you broke his radio.”

   “Indeed,” Jacob said, glancing at Lorelai.

   It might have been the Hope, but Jacob found himself staring at the back of Azrion's frosted hair, and contemplating whacking him with his gun. That was not part of the plan either, but it sounded like a good addition.