by Phil Foglio
The speaker was a short, plump, elderly soldier, with a meticulously cut, snowy white beard, who was casually sitting, his feet dangling over the edge.
“They say you can judge a person by their enemies.” He pointed his pistol towards the still comatose Vrin. “So you two are lookin’ pretty good right now. But I’m sure you could change my mind by doin’ somethin’ stupid.”
Agatha dropped her broom with a clatter. The soldier smiled. “That’s a good start, Fraulein. I’m Sergeant Scorp, First Vespiary Squad. Second Division. Second Army of East Transylvania.”
One of the cloaked soldiers leaned in. “Sergeant, I believe that’s the Heterodyne girl!”
The Sergeant’s eyes flicked up towards the giant figure who’s words were still booming out through the town. He then looked back to Agatha. “Really? She looks shorter.”
“What? But of course she’s—”
“—Jokin,’” the Sergeant said gently.
The cloaked soldier looked at his superior for a moment and then nodded uncertainly. “Ah. Humor. Yes?”
Scorp rolled his eyes and sighed. “Yes, Dmitri, humor. Go check ’em out.”
“Yessir!” Without another word, the two cloaked soldiers leapt the four meters to the ground, effortlessly landed on their feet, and approached the three. From large, wicker baskets at their sides, they produced bizarre, six-legged creatures, which they held up to each of them in turn.
Agatha—“Clean.”
Tarvek—“Clean.”
Vrin—The weasels shrieked and thrashed about in their handler’s hands. “Revenant.”
Scorp pushed the brim of his hat back and considered this. “Mighty interestin’,” he declared. “Is that young fella ready to move out?”
The medic wrapping Tarvek’s chest frowned. “He won’t like it.”
Scorp chuckled. “Trick question, son. He ain’t really got a choice.”
Agatha stepped up. “We need to see Baron Wulfenbach as quickly as possible.”
The Sergeant nodded. “Oh, you will. Though he might not appreciate you accusin’ him of bein’ The Other and all.”
Agatha’s eyes bugged from their sockets. “What? That’s not what I said!”
One of the Sergeant’s eyebrows arced and he jerked a thumb upwards. “Oh, really? Ain’t you been listenin’?”
For the first time, Agatha actually absorbed the words booming out from the colossus above them. “—Zzzk—Baron Wulfenbach was...is The Other—”
“Tarvek—” she began.
“Thought you said that boy shouldn’t move,” Scorp said.
“I didn’t think he could!” the corpsman said in amazement.
“Live and learn,” Scorp said cheerfully as he aimed his pistol.
A few minutes later, the squad was again on the move. The medic strode along, wiping his hands on a rag. “Did you have to shoot him in the leg?”
Scorp shrugged. “Figure I did him a favor. Iffin’ she’d got to him first—”
In the arms of one of the large brass clanks, Tarvek writhed in agony. Partly from the pain in his leg.
“It’s your own fault,” a furious Agatha informed him for the twenty-eighth time, “And better than you deserve! Why did you alter my message?”
The effort of keeping his stories straight caused the sweat to pour from Tarvek’s brow. “I didn’t do it! Lucrezia did. She wanted it found after we left Sturmhalten. That way, even if you broke free of her, it would keep you and the Baron from talking.”
“If you’re innocent then why did you run?”
Any number of reasons, as well as convoluted definitions of the word ‘innocent,’ ran through Tarvek’s increasingly chaotic brain. I’m going into shock, he realized. Oh, that’s just perfect.
What he said was the simple truth; “You look very scary!”
Agatha opened her mouth, and then checked herself. If she looked anything at all like she felt—“I feel scary. In fact like I’m about to ignite! Why aren’t I exhausted?”
Realization jolted through Tarvek, snapping him closer to coherence. “Oh dear,” he muttered.
“Now what?” Agatha demanded.
Tarvek took a deep breath. “Listen—you’re drugged. With a massive load of stimulants. Lucrezia insisted that her priestesses see her moving on her own.”
“You’re joking! She wanted to feel like this?”
“Don’t hit me!” Tarvek bleated, “I had to give her a quadruple dose. Your body’s been awake for days now. If you get excited, your brain could kind of short circuit. You’ve got to stay calm!”
“Calm?” She shouted, “I feel jittery and angry and... and I have a... a terrible pressure on my chest! Like I have a... a...” She paused, and then reached under her shirt and into her cleavage. She gave a start of surprise, and pulled out the miniature Hive Engine. “And what on earth is this?” she demanded.
Klaus had intended to join the troops in the initial foray into the town. If he was honest with himself, he’d been rather looking forward to it. I’ve been hanging around the Jägers too much, he thought.
But this plan had collapsed with the appearance of the giant apparition over Sturmhalten Castle. He trusted the even-headedness of his commanders, but many of the rank and file troops had lost friends and family to The Other.
A Lieutenant stomped into the Command center Klaus had established in the port hangar bay of DuPree’s ship and saluted. “The townspeople are attacking us, Herr Baron.”
Klaus drummed his fingers upon the desk. “That is to be expected when you invade them, Lieutenant.”
The man had the grace to look embarrassed. “Yessir, but these people are unusually determined, sir. They claim we’re...” he coughed. “Servants of The Other, begging your pardon, Sir.”
Klaus’ fist thumped on the desk, cracking it slightly. “Confound that girl!” He sighed. “Casualties?”
The Lieutenant consulted the notes he’d memorized. “Three of ours, fifteen of theirs, so far. They’re determined fighters, but they’re not very good at it,” he offered. “The biggest problem is that it’s tying up troops.”
“Pretty smart.” Bangladesh strolled in and casually leaned on the corner of the Baron’s desk. “She ‘asks’ everyone to fight you, and they do, because she’s The Other and they have to obey her, but since people aren’t used to the idea of this new type of revenant, to any outside observers, it’ll look like she’s leading a popular uprising.”
Klaus had been about to tell DuPree to remove herself from his desk, but instead he nodded. “Very astute.” He studied Bangladesh and stroked his jaw. “Aren’t you worried that I might actually be The Other, as she claims?”
Bangladesh snorted. “Nah.”
“Really?” Klaus leaned forward. “Why not?”
DuPree rolled her eyes. “Klaus, you’re always telling me—” Her voice grew deeper and she took on a rather pompous cadence—“Oh, DuPree, don’t torture people. Don’t burn their town down, it’s not nice.”
Her voice returned to normal. “Or whatever. So if you were The Other, I’d be a revenant, because there’s no way you’d let me run around uncontrolled, and I’d have to obey you, even if a town really needed burning, y’know? But I can still act on my own better judgment, so I know everything’s okay. It’s all about free will!”
Klaus stared at her for a second and then slowly pinched his nose between his fingers. “And here I was foolishly hoping for an argument that would reassure the troops,” he muttered faintly.
He straightened up and addressed the Lieutenant, along with the rest of the command staff.
“There will be no reprisals for attacks. No burning. No executions. As long as they continue to pose only a minor threat, our policy will be to contain them.”
Bangladesh frowned. “They’re revenants. Why can’t we just kill them?”
Ah, DuPree, thought Klaus gratefully, ever the easily-refuted, public voice of unreason. “Because,” Klaus said carefully, “This is something
new. These people aren’t shambling zombies. They aren’t monsters. Without The Other or their intermediaries giving them orders, they’re ordinary people. Perhaps they can still be saved.”
He allowed this concept to roll over those assembled in the room, and was gratified to see the expressions of hope that began to fill their faces.
He gestured towards the giant apparition visible outside the portholes. “We simply have to find the girl. Once she tells them to stop attacking us, they will.”
DuPree raised her hand. “And if she won’t?”
Klaus smiled at her. “Then I’ll let you make her change her mind.”
Bangladesh squealed like a schoolgirl and dashed back towards the bridge.
Agatha examined the small sphere and a finger accidentally pressed a rocker switch. A red light lit, and a small jet of vapor puffed out from the top. Several meters away, the weasels paused, and then screamed in unison, to the bafflement of their handlers. This however, did put the unit on alert, so that when a crowd of townspeople poured around the corner, they were ready for them.
The chief Vespiary Soldier was astonished. “Amazing! They sensed those revenants all they way over there! They’ve never been able to do that before.”
Tarvek, on the other hand was frantically whispering, “Agatha! Push the red button! The red button!”
Agatha saw his desperate face and made a decision. With a snap, she pressed the red button, and the device in her hands went inert.
“Form a firing line!” the Sergeant roared.
“No!” Tarvek screamed. “Don’t drop me!” as the trooper clank dropped him onto the pavement.
“They’re going to shoot them?” Agatha asked aghast.
This was obviously the case, as the crowd was surging forward. The soldiers coolly formed a line. The two clanks unshipped their massive machine cannons, and their motors began to whine as the barrels began to rotate up to speed.
“Fix bayonets!” Scorp ordered from the side. Smoothly the troops affixed the long steel blades to their rifles.
“But those people aren’t armed!” Agatha cried. “Some of them are children! They can’t—”
Tarvek grabbed her leg. “Stop them!” he said urgently. “You can control them. Tell them to stop! If they’re not attacking, the soldiers won’t shoot them!”
Agatha whirled towards the onrushing crowd and filled her lungs. “LISTEN TO ME!” she shouted.
“I think I found it, Captain.”
DuPree took her hands off of her ears. “About time! The noise is killing me!”
The command ship had luffed over Sturmhalten castle, and the ship’s observers had been told to find whatever was generating the colossal lightshow. They had been examining the grounds below ever since. One of them had thought to train her scopes within the shattered keep.
The image on the scope showed an odd machine, clearly operating, and throwing intense beams of light into the sky. The directional microphone also registered a significant uptick in decibels when the ship cleared the keep’s walls.
“Yeah, that’s gotta be it,” Bangladesh declared.
“Orders, Ma’am?”
Bangladesh stroked her chin. “We should assemble a device team. It may be rigged to prevent tampering, so we’ll want a gadgetman on a quick-pull return system. Once we shut it down, Klaus could study it or something.”
Everyone within earshot stared at the Captain in astonishment. Finally Bangladesh couldn’t contain herself any more and burst out laughing as she hit a lever. “Or we could just blow it up!”
The other crewmen relaxed. The scope operator wiped her brow. “You had me going there, Captain.”
On the keel of the airship, a bomb-bay door fell open and a small dropedo screamed earthwards, landing within two meters of Agatha’s projector. There was a satisfying explosion, and the giant image disappeared.
On the firing line, everyone blinked at the sudden cessation of sound. Even the crowd paused for a second, before continuing their advance.
“Eyes front!” Scorp roared. “The enemy is still advancing!”
Tarvek stared upwards at the smoldering keep. Suddenly, the ramifications of the silence hit him. The background music had stopped. Which meant—
He whipped around in time to see Lucrezia assess the situation. He shouted to the soldiers. “Ignore the crowd! The Heterodyne Girl! You’ve got to grab—”
The gunshot echoed from the stone walls and froze everyone. Tarvek dropped to the ground as Lucrezia tossed the revolver away. “Such a waste,” she sighed. Then she shouted. “KILL THE SOLDIERS! KILL THEM ALL!” And with a laugh, she vaulted over the nearest railing and darted off.
“Where’n the hell did she get a gun?” Scorp yelled.
The medic paled. “This... this is my gun, Sergeant.”
“You and you!” the Sergeant pointed to two troopers. “Get after her! Take her down!” To the rest he roared, “Firing positions!”
He then faced the onrushing mob of unarmed civilians and grit his teeth. “FIRE!”
Lucrezia heard the boom of rifles, followed by the roar of the machine cannons from behind her and smirked. “That will keep them busy.” She turned a corner and almost tripped over a wounded and shackled Vrin.
“Lady?” The Geisterdamen roused herself and smiled out from under the bruises. “I knew you would return!”
Lucrezia frowned. “You look terrible. I doubt you can run—” she examined the staple driven into the stone wall[73], “—even if I could release you.”
A pensive look stole over Vrin’s face. “Lady, please—”
“I’m sorry, but I simply can’t leave you here for dear Klaus to interrogate.” She stepped close and fixed the trapped woman with her full gaze. “Vrin—DIE.”
The chained woman jerked and fell back, and with a look of agonized betrayal frozen upon her face, began choking and gasping as she thrashed upon the ground.
A pair of Wulfenbach troops pounded around the corner, saw Lucrezia, and raised their rifles.
She looked over her shoulder as she took off. “You wouldn’t dare—”
Two bullets whipped past. One perforating her sleeve, the other clipping a few strands of hair. “Stop!” she screamed, “I surrender!”
She turned, hands raised, and saw the two soldiers taking aim at her heart. “Good.” The left one said. “That’ll make you easier to hit.”
The unfairness of this statement so surprised her, that a Jägermonster dropping from above and slamming the soldiers’ guns from their hands with a gigantic halberd seemed almost anti-climactic.
In seconds, the two soldiers were overwhelmed by a small crowd of people that included two more Jägers, a woman Lucrezia was able to identify as a Skifandrian, and a tall, good-looking fellow with a great deal of well-placed muscles.
They must be friends of my daughter, she realized. They should be easy to fool.
“You okay?” The voice was a bit odd, which was only fair, as upon turning, Lucrezia saw that it came from a white cat in a uniform.
To her embarrassment, she shrieked in surprise. This caused the cat to leap in terror to the top of the tallest thing in the vicinity, which at the moment, was Lucrezia.
There followed a most undignified display of mutual screaming and thrashing that left the two even more entangled than when they’d started.
“What’s the matter with you?” The cat demanded, “You almost scared me to death!”
The Skifandrian looked at her with narrowed eyes, “Are you all right?”
Lucrezia realized that subterfuge was worse than useless, and went straight to bewilderment. She’d always been good at that one. “Actually, I’m not sure. I think I’ve been drugged. I don’t...” she took a deep breath. “Do I know you people?”
They all looked at each other. Apparently her being drugged wasn’t totally unexpected. The tall man stepped forward. “I’m Lars. I’m... we’re all your friends. We’re here to rescue you.”
Lucrezia looke
d up at the earnest young man and had to restrain herself from running her hands over him. From the look on his face, if her daughter hadn’t done so already, then she had missed an obvious opportunity. “What a shame I don’t remember you,” she said softly.
The startled look on his face told her to dial it down a bit. However it had been a pleasantly startled look. Yes, there was fun to be had here when things had settled down a bit.
“So... Lars... what now?”
Lars glanced up at the hovering airships. “First? We get out of Sturmhalten.”
The cat visibly drooped. “The sewers again.”
“Hy go find us a vay in,” Ognian volunteered, and shambled off.
Lars continued. “I’m afraid so. After that? I guess we get you to Mechanicsburg. It’s only about three days away from here by horse if we ride steady.”
Lucrezia froze. “Mechanicsburg?”
Lars looked at her. “Well, yes, of course.” He took her shoulders. “We know you’re a Heterodyne. We’ll do whatever we—”
“NO!” Lucrezia pulled away from him. “I don’t want to go there!” There were too many things that could hurt her there. “I can’t!”
The Jägers stirred. “Iz best place for hyu. Keep hyu safe—”
“No! I won’t go there!”
Lars looked at her helplessly. “But... but where will we go?”
Lucrezia desperately tried to think—
“ENGLAND!”
The firm voice came from above. They all stared upwards at the tall man in flying leathers who leapt down from the ledge overhead. He stood before Lucrezia and formally bowed. He appeared to have a large bruise upon his forehead.
“I am Ardsley Wooster, of Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The Lady Heterodyne should remember me.”
He glanced at Agatha and was perplexed to see the look of bewilderment upon her face.
Maxim stepped forward. “Right now she dun remember nobody, Brit.”
Zeetha nodded, “She’s been drugged.”
“It’s true.” Krosp stared up at Ardsley. “She smells like a chemical lab. Trust me.” He paused, “But I remember you from Castle Wulfenbach, you were pretending to be Gilgamesh Wulfenbach’s valet.”