The Machine (Blood and Destiny Book 1)

by E. C. Jarvis

  In the corner of her vision she noticed a crumpled letter sticking out of the Professor’s trouser pocket. She reached over and pulled it out, smoothing the paper with her shaking hands, and with a numb, detached interest she read the letter to Doctor Orother, signed by none other than the President himself.

  Piece by painful piece, realization dawned upon her. She had lost the Professor, lost herself, and to cap it all off, Holt was gone—all because of some far-reaching scheme by people far worse than Doctor Orother. She stuffed the note into her pocket, rocked back on her heels, and scrambled through the door, racing to reach the deck. Cid and Narry passed confused looks to each other and followed in her wake.

  On deck, the other men were surprised when she sprang into view, marching to the bow. The wind caught her matted hair, sending it flying in all directions as she strained to spot the smoke trail from the steam train. Larissa sucked in a deep breath as she saw the smoke dissipating away behind a rolling hill on the horizon.

  “You all right, girl?” Cid asked as he approached her with caution.

  “Cid?”

  “Yes?”

  “Fancy going on another fool’s errand?”

  “Not really, though I think I recall refusing to go on the last trip you planned, and here we are. Gods, Larissa, the Professor...”

  “Is dead. We are not.”

  “Yes, good point. What crazy scheme are you cooking up now?”

  “This is a pirate ship, we are pirates, I am a pirate Captain, and there is something on that train that I want.”

  “Something or someone?”

  Larissa glanced back at Cid and the corner of her mouth curled into a crooked smile.

  “Fuck sake,” Cid moaned with a sigh. “All right, as you wish, Cap’n.”

  The men aboard sprang to life, the furnace cracking and whistling as they stoked the fire hard for enough speed to catch the train. The sun burned brightly in the sky above, melting away the winter snow. Larissa calmly buried her grief and despair for the loss of her Professor and his damned Machine.

  EPILOGUE

  Colonel Gabriel Kerrigan marched along the cool white corridor of the Presidential Palace. His pace was noticeably quicker than usual. He smoothed his fingers through his short black hair and pulled his dark green dress-tunic straight. He reached the thick metal door at the end, which was flanked by a pair of heavily armed Elite soldiers in black uniforms. They turned to open the door without hesitation. The hinges groaned as the door opened inwards, revealing a large room without windows.

  The walls were decorated with ornate paintings of dead Emperors from the days before the Republic existed. The figures in the paintings all wore elaborate clothing and stood in striking, triumphant poses. Beneath the paintings, in the center of the room, sat a large oval table, surrounded by high-ranking military men, all turned-out in their best pressed uniforms. Only the Colonel’s seat at the table was empty.

  “Ah, Colonel Kerrigan,” the only man not wearing a uniform said, who sat at the head of the table. His bald head glistened in the yellow candlelight from the chandelier above, his eyes narrowing slightly as Kerrigan approached.

  “It is not like you to be late. I hope you have a very good reason.”

  “My apologies, Mr. President. I have an urgent matter to discuss with you.”

  “Is it urgent enough to disrupt the War Council meeting?”

  “I have important news from Meridina.”

  “Ah. Gentlemen, will you please excuse us for a few minutes? General Gott, please stay.”

  The men around the table, save for General Gott, who was the eldest of the group, stood up in unison, their movements almost precisely timed. One or two let out audible grunts of annoyance before exiting the room. As the heavy metal door slammed shut, the President waved toward an empty seat, beckoning Kerrigan to sit, and the Colonel did so.

  “Orother is dead,” Kerrigan said.

  “Oh?” The President’s bushy blonde eyebrows shot up, and the vein on his neck visibly pulsed. General Gott leaned forward in his chair and laced his fingers together on the tabletop.

  “There was some form of attack. Professor Watts has not been found.”

  The President slowly drummed his fingertips on the table and appeared grind his teeth together.

  “I must point out, Sir,” Kerrigan continued, “that if we’d have given the operation a military team as I originally suggested, we would not be in this situation.”

  “Orother refused to work under such circumstances, you know that, and he wasn’t the sort of man one could convince otherwise. Besides, he assured me there would be no loose ends. Who in all of Daltonia would have managed to infiltrate that town? The Professor had neither family nor close friends who would have risked so much to get him. You’re the head of intelligence, Kerrigan, so I presume you know what happened.”

  “Not exactly. A pirate airship was seen leaving the premises.”

  “Oh...well, I suppose that makes things a little simpler at the least. Find the pirate ship and secure the occupants by any means necessary.”

  “You’re sure, Sir? It could get messy. It could turn public.”

  “We’ll put a positive spin on it to keep the public happy—Government cracking down on illegal pirate villains. No one is going to shed a tear over the spilled blood of such scum. Even if the pirate ship is just some guise. This needs to be wrapped up swiftly. Make sure Orother’s property is wiped off Meridina’s map. We don’t want anyone poking around down in that dungeon.”

  “I’ve already issued the order. A team has been sent with instructions to clear everything out and blast the entrances shut,” Kerrigan said.

  “What of the Cleric?” the other man at the table, General Gott, asked, his voice a deep rumble with calm, dry tone.

  “He has not been found, either,” Kerrigan answered.

  “A betrayal?” The President turned to face the General. “You know the man better than most. Could he have done this to defeat our plans? Might he and the other man have some plans of their own?”

  “Unlikely,” General Gott stated simply. He gave the President no airs or graces and made no effort to disguise the fact.

  “Well, we shall find out once we get that pirate ship, won’t we, Colonel? I want you to handle it personally.”

  Colonel Kerrigan nodded tersely and rose to leave. As he reached the door, he paused to look back.

  “Mr. President, is there anything I should know from the War Council?”

  “Only that you need to get this business with those pirates and the Professor wrapped up swiftly. The Eptorans are preparing for war and we have very few chances left to stop them.”

  “Understood.” Kerrigan marched out of the room and along the corridor. The Generals returned to their seats behind him. A long sigh escaped through his nostrils. He would much prefer to be in the War Council helping to make preparations for the difficult times to come, instead of chasing halfway across the country after some scummy rogue pirates.

  He reached the large foyer where he collected his weapons, then headed out toward his unit of men. If he was going to be forced to babysit the mission, he would make damned sure it would be over quickly and efficiently, and Gods help the bastards on that pirate ship who chose to put up a fight.

  COMING SOON

  THE PIRATE

  BOOK TWO

  THE BLOOD AND DESTINY SERIES

  Captain Larissa Markus stood at the bow of the pirate airship, chewing on her lower lip. She watched the distance between her ship and the steam train’s smoke plume ahead reduce by degrees. She wasn’t sure what the bigger challenge would be—to board the train, or to convince the reticent Captain William Holt that he should come back aboard the airship with her. Either way it was a challenge, and challenge enough to keep her mind from falling into despair over the death of the Professor. His body still lay in her cabin, cold and empty, spirit abandoned.

  Larissa blinked away the wetness that formed in her eyes, una
ble or unwilling to give into grief now that she had a new purpose.

  She glared at the dot of the train across the snowy flat landscape miles ahead, as if giving it a deathly stare might somehow bring it to a stop.

  “You want me to land the ship up the track a ways to get them to stop, or are you planning on doing some crazy jump on the train as it’s going along at a thousand miles per hour stunt?” the engineer-turned-pilot, Cid Mendle, called out to her from the wheel of the ship.

  “A thousand miles per hour?” Larissa asked, turning to face him with one eyebrow raised. “You seem to have developed a talent for the dramatic, Cid.”

  “You know what I mean, which is it to be?”

  Which indeed.

  Larissa poked her chin out, mulling over the options. The train had ten carriages; if she started at one end and worked her way through, it would take a considerable amount of time to find Holt. That was presuming he sat in plain sight and not hidden away. After that, she had no idea how long it would take to talk him into getting off the train. The airship might not be able to keep up with the speed of the steam train, especially if the train driver and fireman spotted the pirate ship following them. They’d likely expect an attack and double their speed. As much as it irked her to admit, getting the train to stop seemed the more practical option, if a little cavalier for her liking.

  “Land the ship on the tracks, please, Cid. Can you calculate how fast they’re going and how much distance they’re likely to cover after they pull the brakes? I’d rather not destroy a second airship and leave us stranded in the snowy wilderness with a train full of angry passengers.”

  Cid scanned the terrain for a moment, his eyes darting left and right as he appeared mull over complex mathematical calculations.

  “There,” he said, pointing to a spot far ahead on the landscape where the train track curved around a large copse of snow-covered trees. “They’ll slow for the bend. If we land up the track a mile away, when they come out they’ll spot us and pull the brake. They should stop before they hit.”

  “Should?”

  “Just remember, you’re the one who wants to chase down a bloody train to get to that knife-wielding lunatic. My calculations are sound, provided they pull the brake when I assume they will. I have no control over that portion of the plan.”

  “Hmm. Think you can drop me off on the train before you go land it over there?”

  “What? Why would you want to do that? Have you lost your bloody senses, girl?”

  “Captain,” she barked at him.

  “Apologies. Have you lost your bloody senses, Captain?”

  “Not at all. I shall enter the train and make sure they pull the brake. You and the others can look after the train driver while I find Holt. Let’s move it, Mr Mendle, before we run out of track.”

  As the airship closed the distance with speed, the crewmen Goodson, Grubbs, and Zeb shovelled coal in the engine room as fast as they could. Larissa latched a pair of pistols onto her belt and arranged a collection of knives alongside the pistols. The intention was not to fight or kill; she hoped a menacing appearance might be enough to convince the driver to pull the brake, just in case seeing the pirate ship hovering on the track ahead wasn’t convincing enough.

  The airship approached the last two carriages of the train. Larissa flung a rope over the side of the rail and climbed down, ignoring the nagging voice at the back of her brain that warned against such reckless abandon. As she worked her way along the rope, hand over hand, legs gripping on for dear life, a breeze swung her wide and she clung on desperately.

  The smoke from the engine ahead chugged across her face and she quickly slipped a few feet further down to escape the clogging soot. As the roof of the carriages came back into view below, she realized she was not low enough. The airship raced too quickly across the path of the train to make for the simple, neat drop she’d imagined. She scooted a few feet further down the rope, almost dropping off completely when her feet lost the end of it, leaving her dangling by her arms. It was too late, now; her untrained arm muscles screamed out against the strain. There was no way she could pull herself back up.

  As another gust of wind swung her wide like a pendulum, she let go and crashed into the roof of the last carriage. The momentum sent her rolling to the side and her arms flailed to find a grip. She finally came to a stop, just as her legs fell off the opposite side of the black carriage roof. Larissa looked up through a head full of curly blond hair that whipped across her face in the wind, and saw the airship moving off ahead, flying over the trees in a straight line to head off the train.

  She let out a shaky breath, and with a grunt pulled herself up onto the carriage, crouching down as the speed of the train threatened to send her off balance if she dared to stand any taller. The wind blew the ruffles of her dress around her knees, flicking layers of material up in an immodest fashion.

  “You’d better make this worth my while, Holt,” she muttered through gritted teeth as she reached the edge of the first carriage. She looked down, wondering if it might be a better idea to go through the passenger cars rather than navigate across the top. A bespectacled elderly gentleman in a top hat glared at her through the rear window of the carriage, brandishing his cane in front of his face as a threat. As far down the carriage as Larissa could see, there appeared to be a combination of angry, scared, and mortally terrified faces, all looking over their seats at her. They’d obviously seen the airship and had probably witnessed her theatrical descent onto their train.

  The roof may be the safer route after all.

  Larissa straightened slightly, rocked back on her heels, and leapt across the gap onto the next carriage, slipping quite ungracefully onto her backside.

  After scrabbling to her feet and battling along the next nine carriages, she’d become adept at making the jump. All that remained between her and the engine was the coal car.

  Thick, hot plumes of smoke raced across just above her head. She looked toward where the train approached the bend around the large copse of trees and felt the speed drop off, just as Cid had predicted. She lined up to make the leap across to the coal car, not looking forward to the thought of getting covered head to toe in black muck.

  “I hope for both our sakes you have a very good reason for this.”

  Larissa stumbled as she spun around to see Holt on the roof behind her, crouching to avoid the smoke plume.

  “I...uuh...I do.”

  The train moved through the bend in the tracks as Larissa struggled to find the appropriate words to say in place of I’m doing this crazy stunt to get your attention and convince you to come back to the airship so we can go off and complete your mission together, because I think I’m falling in love with you. Instead, she opened and closed her mouth a few times and then resorted to chewing on her tongue.

  “Shit.”

  Holt filled the silence for her as the train completed the bend. Larissa turned to see the pirate airship descending from the sky in the distance ahead. Holt leapt forwards, snaking deftly across the coals on the coal car. Larissa scrambled to her feet and jumped to follow him, smacking face-first into the pile of coals, which left a great smear of black across her face. She clambered along and swung down to the train engine to find that Holt had shoved the terrified train driver and his colleagues into a corner. Holt grabbed the brake handle, and the wheels of the steam train screeched in protest, lurching everyone and everything not tied down forwards.

  Larissa braced herself against the doorway. The airship hovered ahead, the point of the curve touching the tracks. She would have doubtlessly commended Cid on his excellent landing if she weren’t busy regretting her rash course of action. There was little else anyone could do but wait, and hope, as the train slowed. Holt continued his sharp grip on the brake, the wheels screamed in protest, and the distance to the airship closed at an alarming rate. Larissa gritted her teeth and squeezed her knees together as she struggled to maintain bladder control.

  Finally, w
ith one great clunk, the entire train ground to a halt, bumping gently into the hull of the airship.

  Holt sunk his head onto his arm as he still gripped the brake.

  “Look, we don’t want any trouble,” the train driver began, his voice trembling. “Just take what you want and then let us get back to work. You don’t need to kill anyone, all right?”

  Larissa looked at Holt, who eyed her from just above his elbow.

  “Well, Miss Markus...” Holt began, his deep voice hoarse from the smoke inhalation. “What is it you want?”

  Larissa felt the familiar sensation of blood rushing to the edge of the skin across her shoulders, neck, and face as she blushed, an affliction she still could not hide.

  “Just you,” she replied sheepishly, wondering if perhaps she needed to take some time to mentally process everything that had led her to this point, lest she cause some complete disaster with her next crazy plan.

  “You couldn’t have just met me at the station?” Holt asked as he stood upright. Larissa felt the burning blush intensify.

  “On reflection, that may have been a wiser course of action.”

  Holt glanced at the men in the cab who stood dumbstruck by the exchange, and then he marched through the doorway, dropping down into the snow-covered grass. He offered his hand up to Larissa, who accepted his help to get down. Along the train, several people had hopped out of their carriages and stretched their necks to see what was going on.

  “If you people are quite finished holding us up, we have a schedule to keep to,” the train driver called down, waving his arm at the airship blocking his path.

  “My apologies, gentlemen,” Larissa called back to them, and she and Holt climbed back aboard the pirate ship.

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