Worldshaker 01; Worldshaker

by Richard Harland

  Seeing Col, they came to life. The rifles swung instantly in his direction and a volley of shots rang out. As Col ducked down, he heard the smack-smack-smack of bullets tearing into the dead boy’s flesh. Then a scream and a curse on his right. Dunga had had part of her ear shot away and was bleeding like a pig.

  Everyone slid and scampered back down the staircase. No sounds of pursuit from above.

  Riff quizzed the girl with the hole in her leg, who was still sitting on the bottom steps. “How can we get to their store of guns?”

  “Not past them.” The girl hooked a thumb. “They’re spreadin’ out wider and wider across the deck.”

  “She’s right,” said Shiv. “We’ll be wiped out in a head-on attack.”

  “Perhaps there’s a way to sneak up behind their lines,” Fossie suggested.

  “A weak spot,” Shiv agreed. “Somewhere unguarded.”

  Riff nodded. “Worth a try. Okay, I’ll take a scouting party, see what I can find.”

  There were now seventy or eighty Filthies in the army gathered at the bottom of the staircase. Riff selected ten volunteers, including Col and Fossie.

  “What’s the signal if you break through?” asked Shiv.

  Riff put two fingers to her lips and gave a soundless demonstration of a whistle.

  “Right.”

  The scouting party set off at once. On Seventh Deck, they could walk right underneath the officers who had just shot at them. But they still had to find a staircase to go up – and one not guarded by officers with guns.

  Col strode beside Riff at the head of the party. “Do you know where the staircases are?” he asked.

  “Of course. Don’t you?”

  Col didn’t answer. He was from the Upper Decks but he’d never explored these levels. Riff obviously knew the overall layout of the juggernaut far better than he did.

  Then they passed a short dead-end passage with green curtains at the back, and he found he had something to contribute after all.

  “Wait!”

  “What?”

  He darted into the passage to take a look behind the curtains. Yes! The wooden swing doors of yet another steam elevator!

  Riff had followed and was peering over his shoulder. He opened the doors for her to see.

  “Like the one we came down on!” Her eyes lit up with excitement.

  While Col clicked the switch to summon the platform, she explained the plan to the others. “We can ride this thing to the deck above. If we’re lucky, it won’t be guarded.”

  Col thought they might indeed be lucky. Lower-ranking officers never used the elevators, so they wouldn’t expect Filthies to use them either.

  When the platform arrived, the whole party crowded on, nearly overloading the machinery. The engine wheezed and hissed and struggled to move. At last, with voluminous clouds of steam, they began to ascend.

  One floor up, Col brought the platform to a halt. He stepped off, opened the doors and peeped out through the curtains.

  The passage outside was identical to the one below. Deserted!

  By unspoken agreement, Col was now in the lead with Riff. The two of them went on ahead to the corridor at the end of the passage. Also deserted. Riff beckoned the other Filthies forward.

  A continuous murmur of sound came from somewhere nearby: shuffling feet, voices, the chink and clank of metal. Around the next corner, they looked out on a foyer where many corridors converged.

  “This is the place,” whispered Riff.

  A shutter had been raised in the back wall to reveal a kind of serving counter. Red letters on the wall spelled out the word Armoury, and a line of officers queued for weapons. Behind the counter, other officers moved back and forth, laying out guns and clips of bullets. As each man collected his gun, he loaded a clip into the magazine and stowed spare clips in his pockets. A Master Lieutenant sent the armed men off along another corridor.

  There was something else as well. In the centre of the foyer, two men sat beside a special type of gun: larger, heavier, mounted on a tripod. A belt of bullets fed into it from the side.

  Riff directed Col’s attention with a nudge. “What does it do?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Hmm. Only one way to find out.” She beckoned the rest of the scouting party forward. “Okay. We charge the counter and break into the gun room. I’ll go first.”

  Col frowned. “Why first?”

  “To deal with that.” She pointed to the gun in the centre of the foyer. “Everyone ready?”

  She tensed herself to launch forward. Col never knew what made him do it. He pulled her back by the elbow and launched forward in her place.

  Sprinting into the foyer, he ran for the special gun. The men behind it saw him and swung the barrel. His vision was a telescope focused on the trigger, on the finger starting to squeeze. He jinked sideways to avoid the first shot.

  Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

  It wasn’t just one shot, but shot after shot after shot! Spurts of fire flickered non-stop from the barrel’s end. The first man kept his finger pressed on the trigger, the second fed the belt in at the side. The murderous swathe of fire angled towards Col.

  He flung himself fiat to the floor and the bullets skimmed over his head. He was still sliding forward, but losing momentum. With outstretched fingers, he just managed to grip one leg of the tripod.

  The man behind the gun snarled and tried to change his aim downwards. Col jerked the leg and shook the gun. A slew of bullets ploughed across the floor.

  The second man struggled to wrestle the tripod away from him. Col scrambled to his feet and seized hold of the barrel. So hot, it made him scream. Still he ripped the gun from its operators’ hands, whirled and flung it away across the floor.

  “Yay-ay-ay!-ay-ay!”

  Filthies poured forward, yelling and waving weapons, rushing for the armoury. The officers who’d been handing out guns stood frozen in disbelief.

  Riff was first to vault the counter. The other Filthies were right behind her.

  The officers inside had no chance to defend themselves. Still laden with clips of bullets and rifles, they were chopped to the ground or thrown bodily out into the foyer.

  Col joined the rush. He was the last to vault the counter, even as Riff reached up for the shutter. With a thunderous clatter, she pulled it down.

  Other Filthies grasped what she was doing. They slid home the bolts at either end and locked the shutter in place. Now the armoury was sealed off from the world outside.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Sixty-Eight

  Racks of guns filled the room from floor to ceiling. Polished metal parts glinted under the light of bare electric bulbs. The guns that had been handed out so far were a mere fraction of the total still in store.

  The Filthies were already helping themselves to guns from the racks and clips of bullets from the shelves. Col did the same. The wooden stock of his rifle was engraved with the word Worldshaker and the Imperial coat of arms. But how to load the bullets?

  “Like this!” cried Fossie.

  She must have been watching how the officers did it before. She fitted a clip above the magazine, pushed the bullets down inside, then flicked away the clip holder. Everyone copied the action.

  Then fists started hammering on the shutter outside. The corrugated metal shook and rattled.

  “Take aim!” yelled Riff.

  They raised guns to shoulders, rested fingers on triggers.

  A shot smashed through the shutter from outside. Col felt the wind of it ruffle his hair. The bullet ricocheted from the racks at the far end of the room and went zinging through the air. He aimed towards the bullet hole and fired back.

  Except he didn’t. Nothing happened. He squeezed the trigger again and again.

  The others were also aiming and shooting – in vain.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “These things don’t work!”

  They were forced to duck down behind the counter as
more shots were fired from outside. They shook their guns, banged them on the floor, swore at them. Useless! Col tried loading another gun, but the result was the same.

  Then a new sound started up outside: Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

  Bullet holes blossomed in the metal of the shutter. The racket was deafening. One Filthy girl yelped as a ricocheting bullet struck her on the arm.

  “It’s that special gun!” someone shouted.

  Col gritted his teeth. He should have done something to disable it when he had the chance. Bullet holes merged in continuous lines, carving the metal apart.

  And still they couldn’t make their own guns work.

  In slow motion, a large part of the shutter fell away. It toppled back onto the counter, bounced over their shoulders and crashed to the floor.

  For a moment, the gunfire ceased. Col popped up his head to take a quick look. There were more and more officers flooding into the foyer all the time. They knelt or stood in a half-circle with rifles raised.

  “Advance!” roared the Master Lieutenant.

  The officers surged forward, firing at random as they ran. Col dropped down just in time to avoid a hail of bullets.

  They didn’t climb in when they reached the armoury, but stuck their rifles over the counter. Col saw the tips of barrels appear over his head, still firing. He swung his own useless gun like a club and knocked one away.

  “Fall back!” yelled Riff.

  The Filthies sprang up and darted towards the back of the room. There were shouts and screams and a fusillade of shots. They took temporary shelter among the racks of guns.

  If there had been injuries, no one was left lying on the ground. But one person hadn’t fallen back at all.

  “Fossie!” Col called out in horror.

  There she was, the woman with the red headband, still crouched under the counter. She was still fiddling and experimenting with her gun!

  The officers remained outside. Two men ran forward with the special non-stop gun and set it up on the counter, facing towards the back of the armoury.

  It was the end. The racks would be no protection when thousands of bullets began ricocheting around.

  Then a single shot from Fossie’s gun changed everything. She shrieked in triumph as the bullet smacked into the ceiling.

  “Like this! Watch me!”

  She held up her rifle to show a small catch on top. She slid it back, then forward.

  “This bit has to be forward!” she cried.

  She stood up, took aim at one of the men behind the nonstop gun and shot him through the chest. He toppled backwards, dragging the gun off the counter as he fell.

  Col was already working the catch on his own rifle. He squeezed the trigger and – Crackl

  All around, the Filthies were doing the same. They came out from behind the gun racks, firing from the hip.

  Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

  The officers hadn’t expected anyone to shoot at them. They wavered and started to panic.

  Riff put her fingers to her lips and whistled. It was like the two-tone whistle she’d once used to signal to Col, but a hundred times louder and more piercing.

  “Hold your positions!” the Master Lieutenant bellowed at his men.

  But they were no longer listening to orders. As the Filthies came up on one side of the counter, they dropped back on the other. Retreat turned into rout.

  Riff vaulted out into the foyer with the Filthies behind her. The officers fled, blundering into one another, making for the safety of the corridors.

  But one corridor seemed to be blocked. The officers who ran into it were forced slowly back into the foyer.

  It was the army of the other Filthies, now advancing in response to Riffs whistle. They raised a mighty cheer as they came.

  Dozens of officers were trapped. Pleading for mercy, they threw down their guns and lifted their hands in surrender.

  Col was no longer watching. When the Filthies had vaulted out into the foyer, he had stayed in the armoury – with Fossie. He bent down over her. She lay on the ground beside the counter in the middle of a pool of blood.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Sixty-Nine

  The lower half of her face was a gaping mess and blood pumped out from her neck. Was she still breathing? There was a guggling, bubbling sound in her throat. The red of the blood matched the red of her headband.

  Col dropped his rifle and knelt beside her. He tried to press down on the artery to staunch the bleeding, as Riff had done for the cut in his scalp, but the blood only spurted out faster. Fossie swivelled her eyes towards him, but her gaze focused on something a long way beyond.

  “You’ll be right,” he said. “You’ll be right.”

  But she wasn’t. The look in her eyes was growing more distant all the time. Col was desperate. He raised her head and the flow of blood diminished – but only because there was no more blood to flow.

  “Don’t,” he muttered. “You mustn’t, you mustn’t.”

  The look in her eyes went out altogether. Something had departed, something had left.

  Dead.

  She had saved them all by working out how to fire the rifles…and now she had paid the price for them all too.

  Irredeemably dead.

  The laughter lines on her face were just lines without the laughter. He remembered her teasing…I never knew anyone could be so pale! And then making grimy handprints all over his skin. Much improved! I could almost fancy you myself! Her grey eyes would never twinkle with amusement over anything again.

  He lowered her head to the ground and folded her hands across her chest. He didn’t even know a prayer to say over her. Calling down blessings from Queen Victoria would have been a mockery.

  The tears were still streaming from his eyes when he rose and looked out across the foyer. The fighting was now over. Several sad, huddled bodies lay dead on the floor, which was wet with blood and littered with debris. Woodwork and plaster had been shot away from the walls. The officers who’d surrendered stood in a corner guarded by armed Filthies.

  Riff strode around examining bodies, rolling them over with her foot. She stopped when she saw the tears on Col’s face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Fossie. She’s dead.”

  There were no tears on Riff’s face. “So’s Trella.” She pointed to the body of one dead Filthy among the dead officers. “Another three hurt so bad, they could die too.” She pointed to three Filthies who lay stretched out on the far side of the foyer, while other Filthies tended to them. “It’s a miracle we didn’t lose more. The murdering bastards.”

  Col wanted to say something about Fossie, but couldn’t think of the words.

  “We’ll make ‘em pay.” The expression on Riff’s face was cold and clenched. “Oh yeah. Now we got the guns and they don’t.”

  The crack of a shot interrupted her. Col looked across and saw Shiv and Dunga standing over an officer on his knees. The officer crumpled slowly to the floor.

  “What…?”

  “They shot him,” said Riff.

  “Why him? He surrendered. You can’t shoot people who’ve surrendered!”

  Riff shrugged. “They deserve it.”

  The two Council members focused on another officer and dragged him out from the rest. Shiv shouted at him, swung the barrel of his rifle and knocked him to his knees.

  “You have to stop them!” Col protested. “They’re executing everyone. I won’t be part of this!”

  Dunga took aim and shot the officer through the back of the head.

  “They’ve tortured us for years,” said Riff. Her face was full of bitterness, though she sounded a little less certain than before. “You don’t know what it’s like, gettin’ burned by steam and crushed by machinery.”

  “But they’re just officers. They believed what they were told. Same as me. I accepted the way of Worldshaker. I was as blind and cruel as any of them. You know I was.”

  Shiv and Dunga had haule
d out their next victim. This time it was Dunga who knocked him to his knees, and Shiv who aimed with his rifle…

  “Stop!” Col vaulted over the counter and ran across the foyer.

  Shiv’s gun swung towards him. Col skidded to a halt beside the officer, letting the tip of the barrel touch his chest.

  “Shoot me too, then,” he bluffed. “If you want revenge. I’m Upper Decks too, so go ahead and shoot me.”

  Shiv might have done it. But he glanced first at Riff, who came striding across after Col.

  “No,” she said. “Enough of the shooting.”

  Shiv had an ugly look in his eyes. “You don’t make the decisions.”

  “Nor you. The Revolutionary Council never voted for executions.”

  “Never voted against it neither.”

  Col eased the gun barrel away from his chest. Riff continued to confront Shiv, glare against glare. Col had a momentary flashback to the way she’d faced off against Scarface.

  “No mercy.” Dunga joined in. “Revolution is war.”

  “How many are you planning to shoot?” Col demanded. “Do you want to wipe out the whole Upper Decks?”

  “Maybe. We don’t need your opinion.”

  “But you need mine,” said Riff. “There are thousands of people on the Upper Decks. We can’t kill them all.”

  “And you’ve already won the decisive battle,” added Col. “They couldn’t match you hand-to-hand and now they can’t match you with weapons. All you have to do is arm every Filthy with a gun.”

  “Right.” Riff snapped her fingers at Shiv. “Have you sent a message to Bottom Deck? Have you told everyone to come up and collect a gun?”

  “Not yet.” Shiv lowered his rifle.

  “You?” She swung to face Dunga.

  Dunga shook her head and looked uncomfortable.

  “We’re wastin’ time, then.” Riff was in full control now. She gave instructions to a Filthy girl who’d been guarding the officers. The girl nodded and hurried off with a message for Bottom Deck.