by George Wier
The giant robot swept enormous arms back and forth like a scythe, scattering horses and soldiers like bowling pins. The TerraCycles circled like sharks, staying out of reach of the giant.
Custer yelled, “Freighters! Now!” He led his men in a charge toward the open gate and the looming shape beyond that was the great prize: The Arcadia.
The Studebaker Freight Wagons with the attached plows shot ahead of Custer, with one aiming for the fast-closing gates and the other intent on breaching the compound wall thirty yards from the entrance. Two Hats grasped the end of the first Freighter as it sped by and it jerked him off his feet, but he held on and pulled up higher to a better position. He peeked inside the wagon and saw boxes and barrels. Two Hats could not read, but he had learned what the inscriptions meant years ago while watching men build railroads across the plains. The boxes read: NOBEL’S DYNAMITE, and the barrels read: PETROL GEL. A dozen smaller boxes labeled Blasting Caps rode on the dynamite boxes. Two Hats leaned his head beyond the wagon’s side and saw they were seconds from colliding with the gates. He jumped and hit the ground rolling, losing his short lance, but coming to his feet as Custer and his men rode by. The General looked down at him wide-eyed. Two Hats leaped and grabbed a fistful of yellow locks.
Custer yelled, “My hair! My hair!”
Two Hats pulled himself on the horse’s rump, right behind the General. He drew his knife with his right hand while twisting the hair in his left.
George Custer was no pilgrim. He flipped his saber and caught the blade midway between hilt and point and jabbed under his arm at Two Hats. The first stab tore a long, red gash along the Lakota’s ribs and the second, as fast as a snake strike, went deep into the outside of Two Hats’ thigh.
Custer immediately twisted at the waist to attack from the other side and struck with the saber hilt at the Lakota’s head. Two Hats rolled with the blow or it would have caved in his temple. He released Custer’s hair and jumped sideways from the horse, landing on Billy as he raced to pass the General. Indian, gunman, and horse fell in a hard tangle of legs, arms and flailing hooves.
Billy scrambled away, dodging one hoof that almost took off his head, and looked for the crazy Indian dressed like someone living in the city. He saw the Indian chase after the General, who chased after the speeding Freighters. Billy calmed the horse enough to get it upright, then he remounted and gave chase to all of them.
The TerraCycles, as if on command, fired their harpoons at the giant robot. Nets opened in flight like the petals of gigantic flowers and wrapped the robot in a tangle of flexible metallic cables and ropes. The robot’s arms were pinned to its sides and the mechanical legs struggled to keep the robot upright. The TerraCycle engines blew hissing clouds of steam as they worked to topple the giant.
Ekka was almost to one of the cycles when the Freighter rammed the gates, tearing the twenty-foot tall barriers off their hinges and into splinters the size of small trees. The second Freighter hit the wall, and the impact shook the earth. The wall shuddered and collapsed inward, with the parapet falling on top of the wagon as it disappeared into the compound. Ekka abandoned the TerraCycle and ran through the gate.
Custer and his men poured into the compound through the two breaches. Merkam and Tesla stared out of the Arcadia’s large cargo hatch at the scene. “We are lost!” Tesla said.
[ 13 ]
Abigail watched in fear through the window beside the entrance hatch. She searched for Billy amid the dust and clamor, and spotted him outside the gates, riding his mount so fluidly it was as if he and the horse were one. Like a centaur, she thought. Billy attacked one of the TerraCycles and caused the driver to swerve, which loosened his lead ropes to one of the nets holding the giant robot.
Immediately, the robot jerked to free itself and gained a bit of slack in the ties that bound it. The TerraCycle wobbled on its two wheels and the driver worked to gain equilibrium, but Billy read his intentions. He jumped his gelding over the driver and thrust the kinzhal downward so hard he made a “Pah!” sound.
The blade went hilt-deep in the hollow of the man’s throat. He collapsed in a limp pile and the TerraCycle wobbled another thirty feet before falling on its side.
The giant pulled the net and ropes towards it to bring the TerraCycle closer. The three drivers worked hard to pull the giant backwards, away from the downed cycle. Billy started toward another one when he heard the deep Boom of Jay-Patten’s Nitro Express.
A TerraCycle exploded in a cloud of hissing, white-hot vapor and mini-geysers of boiling water. The driver screamed as the super-heated water engulfed his body. The giant worked to free itself, gaining significantly on his bindings.
Denys reloaded again, for he fired both barrels each time. His shoulder was an aching, fiery coal, but he was in the throes of battle and the adrenaline minimized the pain—for now. He snicked the double closed and sighted on another TerraCycle when he felt the parapet shudder under his feet. He looked into the compound and saw one of the Freighters pushing against the Arcadia’s landing legs so that the ship leaned far over. Denys had a brief image in his mind of the Tower of Pisa, then he re-focused on the compound yard. The second Freighter, the one that crashed the wall, was backing up to disengage from the rubble. It stopped and turned toward the Arcadia. Denys heard Custer yelling, “Onward! Onward! Bring the Arcadia to ground!”
[ 14 ]
The first Freighter shoved the Arcadia’s landing legs with such force they bent, then partially collapsed. The big ship passed its center of gravity and toppled as slowly and majestically as a redwood, to crash hard on the compound grounds, throwing up a roiling cloud of dust visible even in the dark.
“Now, men!” Custer shouted, “Her hatches are at ground level! Board her!”
Merkam and Tesla fell hard in the crash, but both men rose quickly to face the coming onslaught of blue coats. As the first half-dozen men closed on the hatchway, Merkam tightened his hands into fists, ready to flail away at the armed soldiers. That is when a tall, slender figure with dark, flowing hair fell on the blue coats from behind like the Furies of Greek legend. Bodies fell like string-cut puppets. Ekka shouted, “Jude! Nikola! Start the Transmogrifier! We must lift into the air or we are doomed!”
Abigail and Jack struggled to their feet after the Arcadia crashed. Jack growled, “Those bastards broke my bottle!” He grabbed a two-foot long wrench with his mechanical arm and jumped out of the entry hatch to wield the tool like Thor’s Hammer. The clunk and thok of the wrench striking heads and torsos was loud to her, even though Abigail was inside the ship. She didn’t watch her husband but searched the grounds for any sign of Billy Gostman.
She caught sight of Ekka leaping into the cargo hatch as Merkam and Tesla departed for the engine compartment. Ekka stood there, tall and fierce and beautiful, denying entry like a tigress guarding her cubs at the den’s entrance.
Then Custer rode into the light, saber ready for battle. Abby thought he might be Ekka’s equal—handsome, brave, fearless even, and focused on his mission. He rode at the head of ten mounted cavalry officers, all armed with sabers. Ekka and Custer focused on each other to the exclusion of everyone else.
Custer said to Ekka, “You are too beautiful a woman to die for the wrong cause.”
“I’m not the one who will die.”
Custer had the hint of a sad smile cross his mouth, then he saluted her with his saber, “So be it.” He jabbed the spurs to his horse’s flanks and the gelding leaped forward.
Abigail saw another horse leap over rubble to bar the General’s way. Her heart swelled and her breath caught, “Billy!” She said.
Jack Ross heard Abby from outside the Arcadia and turned to follow her gaze. “Billy? No,” he said. He looked from his wife to Billy, and a tear slid from his eye, trailing down the shiny metal cheek of the mask covering half of his destroyed face.
At that same instant a figure in an odd stovepipe hat emerged from the shadows behind the officers and attacked them with a wooden staff, la
ying waste to those around him like they were children rather than seasoned men of war. Custer turned his head as the man reached him and said, “You!”
Two Hats punched the end of his staff at Custer’s face and felt the satisfying power of the blow all the way to his shoulder. George flew off his horse like someone pole-axed.
[ 15 ]
Denys watched the giant robot shrug off the last nets and chase down the remaining TerraCycles, throwing them in long arcs far into the darkness, much like a discus thrower he had seen perform in the 1888 Olympics. Thin, high-pitched screams faded into the night as the vehicles sailed into invisibility. The giant then picked up as many felled robots as it could hold in its arms and led the others able to walk through the broken gates into the compound.
Denys searched for other targets and saw the Freighters maneuvering for attack positions. He raised the .500 Nitro Express and aimed at the one nearest Merkam House. His finger steadily added pressure a quarter-ounce at a time. He felt the trigger break cleanly, felt the sledgehammer impact on his shoulder as the bullets ignited, and knew the rounds went true.
Then the world exploded.
[ 16 ]
The blasting caps caught both rounds of the .500 Nitro and detonated instantly, creating a chain reaction that ignited the other blasting caps in the wagon and the dynamite underneath them. The dynamite exploded with such fury Custer’s Freighter vaporized, and the Petrol Gel, used as a much more effective heating element than coal for the steam engines, ignited and splattered through the air to stick in a burning, dripping mass on whatever it touched, be it man, animal, or wood.
Merkam House instantly became a cauldron of hellfire The flaming Petrol Gel launched by the blast sailed over the compound wall to ignite hundreds of fires on buildings, liveries, and houses in the town. In less than two minutes, a third of Colorado Springs burned as bright as torches.
Fire engines clanged their bells, people screamed and cried, and the town burned with a hellish fury. Most eyes turned malevolent glares towards the area of Merkam House.
The giant robot pushed the felled robots into the cargo hatch and stooped to enter with them. The other robots walked into the hatchway as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Ekka shouted orders and they moved faster, but no more concerned.
Fire raced everywhere in the compound and some of the blue coats screamed in agony when the Petrol Gel fell on them and they couldn’t wipe off the flames. Billy dismounted and slapped his gelding on the rump to send it to safety, then hopped into the cargo hold beside Ekka.
Other robots came in, and even more lay among the fire and debris, unmoving, broken. Ekka said, “It is time we left.”
“Agreed,” Billy said.
When they turned to enter the hatch, Custer rose from the ground behind them and slashed with his saber.
Ekka heard something at the last instant and turned with her kinzhal in her hand. She partially blocked the blow, but the blade rode over her knife handle and cut a deep gash in her wrist. She dropped the kinzhal as Custer drew back for another blow.
Billy jumped between Ekka and Custer just as the end of a long wooden staff as thick as a man’s wrist whistled through the air. The end of the staff scorched across Billy’s temple under his hat and it felt to Billy like someone ignited a gallon of kerosene on the side of his head. The staff continued its arc and landed, hard, into the forehead of George Armstrong Custer, who flipped backward so hard his shoulders and neck hit before his butt and heels.
Another explosion shook the entire compound and walls crumbled. Horses screamed and ran away, men moaned, and clanging fire bells and the angry yells of townspeople sounded in the night.
The Arcadia shivered and began a dragging motion along the ground, then the front lifted off the earth. Two Hats came at a staggering run to grab the edge of the cargo door where Billy and Ekka stood guard.
Billy rubbed his temple as he looked at the Lakota and said, “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”
As the Arcadia lurched clear of the ground and Two Hats’ feet dangled over open air, he said the only thing that came to mind. “I good cook.”
Billy reached down and grasped Two Hats’ hand. “That’s good enough for me, pard.”
PART II:
TEST
[ 17 ]
From a distance the Arcadia shimmered with the heat of the surrounding fires and the coruscating lights of the enveloping electromagnetic field. When it was a hundred feet above the inferno, the massive ship paused as adjustments were made inside, then began to drift slowly to the south.
A cold wind blew from the north, and with it, the black hulks of a hundred skypirate dirigibles converged on the spaceship.
Inside the lead dirigible, Edward Teach IV, known infamously as “Blackbeard”, looked up from his Harper’s Bazaar magazine over a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. The Arcadia appeared at first to be afire, but it separated from the fire and began moving in a line that would intersect his own. If it gained in speed by very much, the strange craft would outrun both flanks of his armada.
“Prepare grappling hooks,” Teach said quietly, as if he were making conversation. “Ahead full. When in range, fire ballistas. After that, swarm her. Bring her down.”
“Aye, sorr!” Percy LeJeune snapped. Percy was Edward’s second in command. Teach had saved LeJeune eight years before from an appointment with the yardarm of Her Britannic Majesty’s Steam Ship Enforcer off the coast of Bermuda. LeJeune had been sentenced to a hanging death by his captain, Lord Anthony Pembroke, for the murder of a yeoman who had beaten LeJeune fair and square in a game of faro. While gambling of any kind was strictly outlawed aboard any Admiralty vessel, enforcement of this rule was never a priority. Men had gambled, drank, and gotten into fights since time out of mind aboard sea ships. But taking revenge by cutting the winner’s throat during his sleep had never been excused. That LeJeune was the direct issue of Teach’s great-grandfather’s quartermaster was enough justification for an attack, rescue and hasty withdrawal, but not before spiking the Enforcer’s complement of cannon and retrieving the contents of her paymaster’s safe.
LeJeune moved his lips over the petals of a speaking tube. “Fleet ahead full! Prepare grappling hooks! When in range, discretion to fire ballistae! Bring her down!”
If he didn’t know better, Teach would have sworn the Arcadia was drifting with the wind—but the large, blunt object had no sails. Neither did it emit any perceptible steam. Its motive technology was a closely-guarded secret, yet its weird shimmer could not be solely the product of the fire below it. It was almost as if it were infested with St. Elmo’s Fire. Teach shivered at the thought. Whatever the eerie craft’s secrets, the two men he sent to intercept the mail delivery to the Russian woman failed in their tasks. LeJeune’s spies picked them up on the trail west of Pike’s Peak and killed the two on the spot. Their bodies would never be found.
He knew there would be fire. He had been following Custer’s column for weeks. The Freighter Wagon was not difficult to follow, and the existence of the four TerraCycles were well-known. With such technology in the van, he’d known there would be hot fire and lots of it in the Battle of Colorado Springs. The plan had been that if Custer was successful, Teach would take to the sky toward Washington. Teach’s eastern squadron of forty-eight skyboats would capture them. If Custer failed to get the Arcadia into the air, then he would attack the compound with both flotillas of skyboats and settle it between himself and Custer within the walls of the Merkam compound. If, however, the Arcadia lifted into the air and went any direction but east, he would know who had won the day, and both wings of his sky armada would still attack and win the prize.
Below him his largest hulk, the Angelina, sped forward and downward. Dangling at the end of a dozen ropes were the black silhouettes of his most battle-hardened cutthroats. Behind the Angelina the entire wing dove after the drifting and unaware Arcadia.
“Bring us down, Mister LeJeune. I want on that ship.
Personally.”
LeJuene looked forward and glanced at the markings along the struts of the cabin. “Zee minus fifteen degrees!” he shouted.
[ 18 ]
“Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness gracious!” Koothrappally swore to himself.
“Cut that noise, Professor. Get to your station and get your mind on your numbers!” Jack Ross called from the Engine Room. The main hatchway to the Engine Room that had once been above him was at a challenging thirty-degree incline.
Koothrappally, who had been holding onto the brace bar inside the hatch, now began to pinwheel his legs for purchase on the rapidly inclining deck. “I am attempting to be...being most compliant...with the orders upon which...I shall be obeying.” The man’s foot found the outside of the hatch and he levered himself through. He had a long climb ahead of him to the bridge. “Goodbye Mister Engineer Jack Ross,” Koothrappally called, and was gone.
Jack Ross turned his attention back to the transmogrifier. The larger gears turned slowly. The far tinier gears were an almost invisible blurring of motion. According to Merkam, if the thing was ever brought to full power, the craft should become invisible to the naked eye. Something about magnetons changing in polarity and masking the ship from all gravities. Merkam had postulated that light was an effect of electromagnetism alone, and they would be immune to all electromagnetism if the engine was running at full throttle.
He turned his attention to the gear stick. The dial above his head had reached the green band.
“Powering to Level Two!” he shouted into the speaking tube close by, hoping someone—or anyone on the Bridge—would hear him. He pushed the huge lever forward a quarter of an inch. It clicked into place and the small whirring gears behind the glass covering the transmogrifier’s guts disengaged and slowly spun down while the larger gears picked up speed. The main gear, deep down inside the protective cast iron housing, began a slow, ponderous revolution. At Level Two it should take it nearly a minute to go around. Beneath the spokes of the main gear, the steel and copper ball that was the transmogrifier’s beating heart, picked up its pace. Sparks of blue electric fire danced around it.