by Mark C. King
The nearest hatch was on the same level at the far end of the starboard cannon area. He continued through the halls, bag in hand, ignoring anyone he came across – they were no help to him now. The last hatch he went through led into the cannon room and complete chaos. It was filled with smoke, fire, screams, and the occasional boom of explosion. He turned right and ran towards the end of the room needing to get through a final door and into a hallway with the parachute packs. As he neared the door, he noticed several men down although their area didn’t look particularly damaged. Concussion waves, he thought until a man stepped in front of him with a gun raised.
It was Sigmund Shaw.
* * *
The cannon room was a disaster. Sigmund had incapacitated several cannon teams and many of the other teams were destroyed from the RAF attack. Sigmund had taken a bullet to the chest – not to mention some shrapnel too – and his armor once again saved his life. It still hurt. He had thought briefly about going to the other side and take on some of those cannon teams but that idea was ruined when his ether concoction ran out. The way the ship had been reverberating, he imagined that it was not faring well. Deciding that he had done all he could, he scanned the area looking for the nearest exit, and couldn’t believe what he saw – Christoph Grimkraken running straight for him.
Stepping forward and into Grimkraken’s path, Sigmund raised his empty gun and waited for Grimkraken to recognize him. It only took a moment and Sigmund enjoyed watching Grimkraken’s eyes go wide.
“Sigmund Shaw,” Grimkraken yelled to be heard over the battle going on around them, “You are a determined fellow. I take it that it was you who destroyed my cannon?”
Sigmund nodded and then said, “What’s in the bag?”
“The future, Mr. Shaw. My future, your future, your niece’s future…”
Sigmund hated the man for speaking of his niece. He had no right mentioning any good or decent person. Grimkraken continued talking, “Sigmund, come with me. We can change things. We can heal your niece. We can heal the world!” An explosion shook the ship.
“You are delusional!” Sigmund yelled. “The world doesn’t need your kind of healing. Now hand over the bag.”
Ignoring the command, Grimkraken continued, “Can’t you see? Sigmund, we are the same. You have done remarkable things to be here. So have I! We are unique. We are a better class of person. Our ends justify any means!”
Sigmund started to feel an anger hotter than any he had ever felt. “We are nothing alike! Tell me, if you could accomplish your goals by sacrificing your life, would you do it?”
Grimkraken laughed derisively, “What good would be accomplishing one’s goals without being around to enjoy it?”
“That is why we are different. I would give my life to help! Those men flying around us, they are giving their lives to help, even the men that are following you are giving their lives to accomplish their ends.” Sigmund couldn’t take his rage anymore and rushed at Grimkraken, throwing his empty gun aside. He drove Grimkraken into the air and slammed him down on his back, landing on top of him. Sigmund raised his fist to mash it into Grimkraken’s face when the outside hull near them exploded. The explosion sent Sigmund flying into the metal interior wall and rocked his senses.
He tried to stand, not knowing what happened to Grimkraken, and found that he had to support himself with his hand on the wall. A moment later he saw a dark figure and then a fist smashed into his face. He immediately fell, still dazed by the explosion – made worse by the punch. His gut exploded in pain next, evidently a kick. Sigmund rolled to his side and looked up to try and see the next attack. He saw Grimkraken standing over him with a piece of shrapnel in his hands – a long piece of twisted metal with a tip like a spear.
“You should have joined me, Sigmund! You could have made a difference!” Grimkraken raised his hands for the strike and another explosion made him pause. This explosion was not from cannon fire, Sigmund wasn’t sure what it was. Grimkraken staggered, then fell to the ground. Sigmund turned his head and slowly made out a man with a large six-barreled gun – Jeremiah Maxwell!
Jeremiah walked over and gave Sigmund help to stand up, “I knew your staying was a bad idea. Look at you, you’re a mess.”
“I thought you were leaving.”
“Yes, so did I. I guess the guilt of leaving you behind was too much. Confound this conscience of mine! I thought I had gotten rid of that obstacle long before. Now come on! We need to go, this ship is not going to make it. The RAF doesn’t look like it will stop until there is nothing left. People are abandoning the ship all over. Let’s hope we can find a couple of parachute packs for us.”
Jeremiah started to pull Sigmund towards the door when Sigmund said, “Wait! Grimkraken’s bag, it contains the designs for the cube.”
They both looked back at the fallen Grimkraken and the bag that lay near him. Jeremiah walked over picked it up and looked inside of it. When he looked back up at Sigmund he said, “These are the designs!”
“I know! What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”
Without answering, Jeremiah rushed over to where a crate was in flames, pulled all the papers out of the bag and tossed them in the flames.
“No! What are you doing!” Sigmund rushed towards the box but Jeremiah easily overpowered the injured man. Sigmund reached out towards the now burning bag, “It can’t end like this. I’ve been through too much!”
“It’s gone, Sigmund. I’m putting London back to the way it was. Back to normal.”
“Nooo! Sarah!”
“You saw these cubes as a way to remove the limitations of coal. But what if they were not limitations but protections? From the moment that the cubes became known, nothing but death and destruction has followed. They are evil Sigmund!”
Sigmund fell to his knees – defeated. There was an evil side to the cubes but so much good could have come from them. Was all of this for nothing? Wait, there must be dozens, maybe more across the whole ship. His mind started racing with these ideas, distracting him from Jeremiah pulling at his arms.
“We have to go, Sigmund. We only have another six minutes.”
Sigmund continued to not move. He needed to stop the attack. He needed to contact the fleet. He needed to land this ship. Jeremiah continued to pull at him, now more urgently. “Sigmund, listen to me! We need to go. I didn’t turn off the timer!”
Sigmund quickly pulled out his watch, somehow still working, and saw that they had more than thirty minutes left. “What are you talking about, we have half an hour.”
“No, we don’t. When I told you that I set it for ninety minutes, I lied. I set it for sixty.”
The ramifications of this crushed Sigmund all over again. Hope, despair, hope, despair. Jeremiah was still pulling on him but he didn’t notice. Sigmund wasn’t looking to die but wasn’t ready to face his failure. The numbness that was enveloping him was welcoming.
“Sigmund, don’t make me carry you.” Jeremiah pulled even harder, making the numbness go away. Sigmund stood up and somewhat mindlessly followed Jeremiah. They passed through the near door and into the hallway beyond. The outside hatch was already open and debris blew about the hallway from the wind. Along the wall were compartments, all of them open as well.
Jeremiah rummaged through one of the compartments and then turned to Sigmund, a horrified look on his face, “There is only one pack!”
Sigmund just stared back at a loss for words. Sure, everything else was going wrong at this point, why not this too.
“Just joking with you, there’s plenty.” Jeremiah threw him a pack. “Put this on.”
If Sigmund wasn’t in as much pain as he was, he wasn’t sure what he would have done to Jeremiah at that moment. Instead, he put on the pack while glaring menacingly.
“Whoa, if looks could kill. Now listen to me, Sigmund, this is important. On the left shoulder strap is a metal handle. After we jump out of the ship, you pull the handle, hard. That will release the parachute. Understood?”
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Sigmund examined the strap and metal handle. Seemed simple enough, although jumping out of an airship seemed like the hard part. “Understood.”
“I’ll see you on the ground. Try not to land on any spires.” Jeremiah then ran and jumped out of the open hatch into the London night.
It seemed wrong. Having a hot air balloon gently pull you into the air was one thing but jumping out of a ship with the hope of a working parachute pack? Stop thinking! Sigmund ran towards the hatch and then stopped himself before going through. He could see London far below – far, far below. Then, through the darkness, Sigmund could make out a parachute opening. Then he noticed several others. He gained a little confidence – the packs seemed to be working.
It turned out that Sigmund didn’t need the courage to jump – a nearby explosion rocked the ship and he fell out the door. It took a moment to realize that he was falling and that it didn’t matter how he got there, he needed to do something. The disorientation of standing and then falling passed fairly quickly and he reached to his left shoulder and pulled hard on the handle. He continued to fall.
After a second – although it felt like much more – his body jerked as the parachute caught the air and opened. His speed decreased and Sigmund let out a long held breath. A northerly breeze pushed him gently as he floated towards the earth. He looked up over his left shoulder at Grimkraken’s ship. A few lights still emanated from it but they served little purpose other than to highlight the smoke and flames. Sigmund continued to watch as the ship received further punishment from Faulkner’s attack. His eyes went wide as the middle of the giant ship began to glow. The glowing expanded like a balloon getting ready to burst. Flames started escape and molten pieces of the ship slagged off. All of a sudden the ship exploded – whether from the cube or from the munitions igniting, Sigmund wasn’t sure. In any event, the ship was no more. It was now a fiery debris storm raining down on London.
Sigmund’s eyes took in all that was happening as a heat wave pushed him through the air. He hardly noticed as his mind focused on one thing. His niece would not walk. Despite all his efforts, he had failed her.
34.
London didn’t wake up Wednesday morning – they were awake all night fighting the numerous fires Grimkraken’s destroyed ship had caused when it crashed to the earth. The wreckage destroyed many homes and buildings and the resulting fires did even more damage. A little relief came in the afternoon as a light rain began to fall. It was two days before the last of the fires were finally extinguished.
It took much longer for the Empire to recover from the damage that Grimkraken’s ideals had done.
For the coming months, papers would report the continued capture of Grimkraken’s men. Grimkraken himself had become so synonymous with evil that even talk of his ideals became enough proof for arrest. A witch-hunt started that lasted the better part of three months. It was only thanks to the cool heads of Sir Edward Bradford and Chief Inspector Gabriel Holmes that it didn’t descend into complete chaos.
Knowledge of the amalgam cubes became widely knows. The papers routinely had articles about how the amalgam cubes could have been used if they survived. Some less reputable papers pushed that the cubes did survive and that one conspiracy was traded for another. People believed what they wanted but as time went by and no new machines showed up, most people gave up on the idea that the process had somehow survived.
Richard Sutton didn’t believe the conspiracy theorists. Quite the contrary, in his continued post as Chief Engineer at the Academy for Future Science, his one goal was to rediscover the process and recreate the cubes. No one would have been happier than him if the knowledge had survived, but he knew the process was gone. Still, knowing that the cubes were real gave him confidence. It wasn’t a question of ‘if’, it was a question of ‘how’. Unlike many goals, this one was completely possible, it had already been accomplished by the two German scientists, it was just the path that needed to be rediscovered.
Two days after the fall of Grimkraken, Sigmund found himself in the greatest place on earth – his sister’s home, visiting his family. Following the parachute escape from the ship and all the follow up questions and explanations, Sigmund slept for nearly sixteen hours straight. He might have continued his rest if his desire to see his sister and niece hadn’t been so strong. The thought of being with them, out of danger, not wanted by the police, almost felt foreign even though that had been his life for only a few weeks.
“Sigmund!” his sister cried out as she opened her door and immediately hugged him. “Is it really over?” she asked, not relenting on the embrace.
“It is.” He answered simply and returned her hug. Jamison stood behind Alexis and smiled at Sigmund – a somewhat melancholy look on his face. When the embrace ended, Sigmund gave Jamison a hearty handshake.
Jamison stammered, “Sigmund, I…”
“Jamison, there is no need to feel guilty.”
“But if it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have had to go through all of this. If there is any way I can make it up to you…”
Sigmund shook his head, “There is nothing to feel guilty for. I understand why things happened the way they did. I’m fairly certain that I would have done the same thing in your position. Even if there were something owed, your taking care of Alexis and Sarah is all I would ever want.”
Jamison nodded, appreciation in his eyes.
“Now,” said Sigmund, “Where is my favorite niece?”
“I’m here, uncle!” her voice called out from the sitting area near the front window.
Sigmund looked past Jamison and saw Sarah sitting on a wing chair, a smile from ear to ear. He walked over and dropped to his knees in front of her. Taking her hand in his, he said, “I don’t want you to become conceited or get a big ego, but I missed you greatly.”
“Oh! You haven’t been around?” she smiled. “I thought something was different. I just assumed it was the change in the weather.” Her smile grew bigger, enjoying their verbal sparring, and he smiled back. Then, they both leaned forward and hugged. “Uncle, I’ve been so worried. I’m so glad that you are alright!”
“Me too.” He wanted to say more, he wanted to apologize, to let her know how sorry he was for not delivering the amalgam cubes. To tell her about how if he had perhaps done things a little different she might be walking. But he kept it in. He didn’t actually know how much Alexis and Jamison had told her about Richard Sutton and his inventions. He hoped they told her nothing – no expectations, therefore no let down. Regardless, he couldn’t verbalize his pain to her.
Releasing him, Sarah said, “I’ve still been following everything in the papers. You are being called a hero now!”
“Well, perhaps now I can get you to treat me with a little respect…”
“Perhaps…” another smile.
“Alright you two,” Alexis said as she and Jamison sat near them, “I think it is time for Sigmund to tell us his adventure.”
“Oh yes, uncle! Tell us all about your heroism!” She smiled with a perfectly sarcastic sweet smile.
Sigmund gave Sarah a sideways glance and commented, “So that would be a ‘no’ to the respect, then?”
Later that night, after the story had been told, dinner eaten, and tea served, they all found themselves again in the sitting room, a silence having fallen over them. It was an unspoken time of reflection, a time to appreciate being together. Sigmund, in particular, had thought many times during the previous weeks that he may never have this pleasure again. Just being near those he loved was completely satisfying. His one dark spot in all this glorious light was that he was so close to delivering the cubes, but in the end fell short. He wasn’t sure if his regret and guilt were fair, but they were certainly real.
The night wore on, more talking and laughing, until it was quite late. Far past all of their usual bedtimes, much farther past Sarah’s who had fallen asleep in her chair. Sigmund picked her up, she stirred a little, and he carried her to her room while Alexis
followed. Sigmund stood outside the door while Alexis helped Sarah into her sleeping garments. When Alexis stepped out, Sigmund walked in the room and knelt next to Sarah. Her eyes were heavy with sleep but she managed a tired smile. He whispered, “Sleep well, I will see you soon.”
“Thank you, uncle.” She said in a tiny voice. “I love you, goodnight, goodnight, I love you.”
Sigmund whispered back, “Goodnight, I love you, I love you, Goodnight.”
Before leaving his sister’s home he expressed to both her and Jamison how much they meant to him and if it wasn’t too intrusive, he would try to come by even more often. They readily welcomed his suggestion. As Sigmund traveled home he felt an overwhelming satisfaction. A warmth that radiated from within and enveloped him in pure contentment. His life may not be glamourous, all the hero talk aside, but it was good.
A few days after the visit with his family, Sigmund was once again in Richard Sutton’s office. When Sigmund received the invitation he figured it to be no more than a social visit but it was that and more. “Sigmund, I know myself. I know that this amalgam cube will absorb much of my time. The culmination of my life’s work is nearly in my grasp. In many ways, I feel that I owe all I can give to accomplishing this – my gift, my legacy to mankind. With credit to Steinhauser and Koehler as being the first. But this will leave me in a bit of a bind. You see, Zachary would likely be neglected.” Sigmund looked up at the monkey who stopped eating an apple slice and looked down at them at the mention of his name. “I want you to have Zachary. He likes you and you are good with him. I don’t want you to feel obligated, I have several people here who would be glad to take him in if you are unable to. But you two seem to hit it off, as they say.”