Lifemaker: A Steampunk Dystopian Fantasy (The Great Iron War, Book 2)

by Dean F. Wilson

  “What’s going on?” he whispered.

  “I think we’re hiding,” Jacob whispered back.

  “From what?” Whistler asked.

  Jacob was wondering that too. He thought the Regime did not have submarines that could dive as deep as the Lifemaker. Rommond insisted the enemy’s vessels were powered purely by steam, while the Resistance’s monstrous underwater ship had a potent diesel engine. Jacob wondered then if the attacker was another of the marine wildlife. If that was the case, he thought, then maybe it did not need sight or sound to find them.

  Jacob could hear his breathing, and Whistler’s heavier pants. There was something about the silence, about not knowing, that was more unnerving than the chaos of the abyss. It could be anything out there. It could be anything inside as well.

  “I don’t like this,” Whistler said. “Can we find Rommond?”

  “Let’s just sit still for a moment and see what’s up.”

  Whistler crept over to Jacob and sat down on the bed beside him. He clutched the edge of the mattress with both hands, and he looked as though he was about to flee at any moment. Both of them glanced around the room at every creak, at every tiny ping. Each sound made Whistler flinch, but it was the silence made Jacob nervous.

  “You’ll be all right,” Jacob whispered, putting his arm around Whistler’s shoulder. He was not so sure he could say the same about himself.

  * * *

  The sonar beeped periodically in the command room, which was otherwise immersed in silence. There were no valves turned, no switches clicked, and no levers pulled. Everyone stared at the sonar screen, and everyone listened anxiously for its foreboding beeps.

  Ping. Each pulse had an unnerving echo. No one could quite breathe until the entire sound faded. But the long pause between each ping was just as unsettling. It was like knowing that Death was out there, and waiting for it to arrive.

  Ping. Rommond looked at Taberah and then at Alson, who looked to each other also with anxious faces. The sound came a little earlier. That meant the enemy was a little closer.

  Ping. The pace was quickening. The echoes had barely faded before a new one begun. Ping. Hearts beat in unison with the sonar, and now they were beating faster. Breaths were shallow. Pulses were quick.

  Ping. Not even a second in-between. Ping. No chance for breath. Ping. They had arrived.

  The sonar was muted, and Taberah put on her earphones to continue to listen to its haunting beeps. For the rest of the crew, they no long needed it. They could plainly hear the sound of the submarine above, its spinning propellers, its turning rudders.

  Rommond looked up, and everyone else looked up instinctively. They’re right above us, he thought. Several members of the crew looked to him anxiously, seeking some advice, some command. He gently pressed the index finger of his right hand against his lips. Silence was their only order. Be silent, or be dead.

  * * *

  In Jacob’s room, the silence was sandwiched between the noise of their minds and the sound of the submarine above. Whistler trembled periodically, and Jacob pulled him closer to calm him down. He was glad the boy was there. There was something about looking out for someone else that helped him suppress his own fear. When Whistler shook, he knew he could not tremble in return.

  “Can we go find Rommond?” Whistler whispered into his ear. He looked as eager as ever.

  Jacob nodded. It was probably better to move quietly about the ship, giving them a purpose, something to keep their minds off the silence inside the submarine, and the tremendous din outside. Something to keep them from screaming out.

  They crept out of the room, taking the smallest and gentlest of steps. Whistler was so light of foot he could have trudged around and made less noise than Jacob’s most laboured sneak. No matter how gently he placed his feet down on the floor, it always seemed like they made a bellowing noise.

  At the Hope factory light may have been an enemy, and in the abyss it may have been a friend, but beneath the ocean sound betrayed everyone.

  They found the head cook Karlsif wandering around the deck, making no effort at all to cushion his steps. He seemed lost, more than usual, and he clutched his hat in both hands as if it were his fleeing nerves.

  “There’s no one in the kitchen,” he said when he saw them.

  “Keep your voice down,” Jacob whispered harshly.

  Karlsif pointed his hat towards the direction of the kitchen. “There’s no one there, but I can hear them!” His hand trembled, and his whole body followed suit. Panic emerged from the abyss of his mind, which it had conquered, and his heart, which it had corrupted.

  Just as it seemed like the cook was about to scream out, Jacob seized him and held him against the wall, cupping his hand over Karlsif’s mouth. He could feel the cook’s moist breath against his palm as he tried to scream and shout, as he tried to let the panic out, where it could find other minds and hearts to conquer and corrupt.

  Whistler pressed his own body against the cook to stop him from fleeing, though his contribution did not make much of a difference. What it did do, however, was distract him from his own fears. Karlsif had terror enough for them all.

  They stayed like this for what felt like eternity, fighting against the prospect of sound, which promised them the prospect of death. Throughout the ship the crew held their breath, hoping not even to let out a tiny hiss of air that might announce their whereabouts. The submarines above continued to grind by, creating all of the sounds that some aboard the Lifemaker desperately wanted to make.

  Yet Karlsif wanted more than any other to be heard. He mumbled through Jacob’s hand, and Jacob tried to clench tighter, to crush the sounds between his fingers. He felt the hot breath and saliva on his hand, and Karlsif’s struggling lips, but he knew that the discomfort he felt would be nothing compared to that if they were caught.

  But Karlsif fought for the freedom of his tongue, and fear gave him strength. He turned his head this way and that, shifting Jacob’s grip upon his face. His eyes bulged, threatening any who looked upon them, and Jacob tried not to look, but he had to see where he needed to place his hand to smother the sounds.

  Yet silence is a vacuum; it begs to be filled. Karlsif bit Jacob’s fingers, and in that bite there was the promise that he would make a meal out of them if he could not speak. Jacob recoiled for a second, but it was enough to trumpet out some words.

  “I did it,” Karlsif said, half a whisper, half a cry for help.

  Jacob questioned him with his confusion.

  “I blew the tank,” the cook confessed. “We have to get out! I have to get back up there! I can’t breathe down here. I’m suffocating, soldier! Don’t you see? We’re all suffocating in this death trap, this cooking pot. We’re all going to boil in the ocean!”

  Jacob muffled his ramblings once more, but it was harder than ever to fight against them. Fragments of words escaped the cage of his hand, calling out for rescue by the Regime.

  The rescuers must have heard, because the sounds of the propellers and rudders suddenly stopped. A new silence emerged, announcing something different, something coming.

  * * *

  In the control room the tension was more palpable than ever.

  “They’ve spotted us,” Alson said. “They’re turning ‘round.”

  Rommond sighed and pulled a lever down aggressively, setting off a deafening alarm. The sound contrasted starkly with the quiet flashing lights that began their agonising moment of silence.

  “All hands,” Rommond called out over the intercom. “Battle stations.”

  21 – WAR BENEATH THE WAVES

  There was a frenzy aboard the Lifemaker, with people racing to their stations, and preparing and arming the torpedoes.

  “Number one armed and ready,” one of the torpedo loaders called out over the intercom.

  “Have we got a lock?” Rommond asked in the control room.

  “We have a lock,” Taberah said. “Twelve metres ahead.”

  “Fire one
,” Rommond ordered.

  “Firing one,” was the response, followed by a slight shudder in the ship as the torpedo left its bay and went straight for the submarine directly ahead of the Lifemaker. The missile carved a path through the water, which any sonar would have picked up, but it was too late for the other vessel to turn or move. It exploded beneath the sea, a marriage of fire and water.

  “We’ve got another on our tail,” Taberah said. “Closing fast.”

  “Aft torpedo team,” Rommond called into his microphone. “Status?”

  “Three and four, armed and rearing to go.”

  Taberah sent the co-ordinates of the enemy vessel over the submarine’s telegraph line, allowing the crew in the aft of the ship to align the torpedo properly. “We have a lock,” she said, when the signal was acknowledged as received and acted upon.

  “Fire three,” Rommond said.

  The torpedo launched straight into the advancing Regime submarine, knocking out its engines, but it failed to destroy it.

  “Shall we fire four?”

  “No,” Rommond said. “Save it for the next one.”

  But there was little time to save anything, for the Regime sent submarines by the dozen, and though they were tiny compared to the Lifemaker, they were so numerous that they were almost certain to overwhelm the larger ship.

  “We’ve got locks on bow and stern,” Taberah said.

  “Fire two and four,” Rommond said, “and get those bays loaded again quickly.”

  But the swarm kept coming, and it kept growing. Even as the Lifemaker depleted its supply of torpedoes, and submarine after submarine exploded beneath the waves, the Regime continued to replenish its forces. They came from all angles, like a pack of vultures for a wounded prey.

  “God, Rommond, they’re everywhere!” Taberah cried. “We’ve got some on port and starboard.”

  The sides of the submarine were particularly vulnerable, because the torpedoes only fired from the front and back. Several vessels on either side opened fire, aiming much smaller torpedoes at the Lifemaker. Most of these simply bounced off the hull, for it was reinforced to withstand a battering, and a few of them missed entirely.

  “They can’t get through!” Taberah cheered.

  “Don’t get too hopeful yet,” Rommond cautioned. “The sting of the bee is worst in a swarm.”

  The Regime continued its unending onslaught. That was how they came into power. Sheer numbers. And as the human population dwindled, the demon ranks grew and grew. Those born in Altadas were still young—mere children—but they would soon replenish the fallen who assailed the Lifemaker as if not a single one among them mattered, bar the illustrious Iron Emperor.

  “There’s too many,” Alson said. “I can’t navigate through them. They’re like mines!”

  “We could ram them,” Taberah suggested. “The hull can take the stress, right?”

  Rommond paused for a moment while he contemplated the idea, but he did not have long to think. The victors in war were often those who made the quick decisions. He knew well, however, that some of the losers in war lost because they did not think things through.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Knock them out of the way.”

  Alson advanced the Lifemaker at medium speed, grazing off many of the smaller vessels, and pushing several of them away. They crashed into one another, and a few of them tried to turn, and a few barely managed to get out of the way in time.

  But still they came.

  “Fire all noisemakers,” Rommond ordered. The noisemakers were small devices that mimicked the sounds of the Lifemaker, helping draw enemy attention, and enemy fire. Though to all appearances they were nothing like the vessel they launched from, in the sound-dominated world beneath the sea, they showed up on the Regime’s sonar as dozens of doppelgangers, confounding their captains, and confusing their torpedoes.

  Alson launched the noisemakers, which caused a flurry of fire outside. Submarines turned to face their new phantom foes, and torpedoes were wasted like bullets on ghosts. The Lifemaker advanced through the horde, leaving behind many of them in the frenzy, but not all were fooled by the decoys. They might have made all the right sounds, but the Lifemaker made the same ones too.

  “Drop mines,” Rommond commanded.

  The hatches opened on small tubes at the back of the Lifemaker, from which fell dozens of small floating mines. These were much smaller than the ones the Regime used, and while this made them easier to navigate, it also made them harder to detect. Many submarines that pursued the Lifemaker exploded as they came into contact with the mines, and this might have caused some hesitation in the other captains, were it not for the fact that the Iron Emperor would not permit such a thing. As their comrades died around them, the Regime soldiers pushed on for the death of their enemies, or for the glory of their own demise.

  The Lifemaker thundered through the waters at its fastest speeds, knocking aside reinforcements that seemed to emerge from all directions. In time the entire supply of torpedoes was depleted, the noisemakers had ceased making noise, and the mines were left behind with the debris and bodies of the dozens of submarines they claimed.

  And still they came.

  The Lifemaker darted through the ocean, but the other submarines were just as fast. They swarmed around the ship, matching its speed, as if the vessel was their hive. They gathered in close, until their hulls touched the hull of the greater ship, and no weapon could disperse them, and no tactic could evade them.

  “They’re breaking in!” Alson called.

  Taberah looked at Rommond, and though the glance was grim, she looked as determined as ever. She left the room to confront the enemy. If they could not win at sea, she would win on land.

  Metal clamps gripped the sides of the submarine, glass tubes formed airtight passages from the attacking submarines to the Lifemaker, and steel drills bored holes into the hull, giving free passage inside. Entrances appeared here and there across the ship, and even when Regime soldiers at one of these were repelled, they flooded into the vessel from another location, bringing the battle of the sea inside the ship.

  22 – BOARDING PARTY

  Though the Regime’s submarines were much smaller than the Lifemaker, they were teeming with soldiers, many of whom now boarded the Lifemaker, fighting their way through, firing at anyone and everyone in sight.

  Some of the Resistance soldiers were caught off guard, and were gunned down at their stations, and some were shot while racing to their posts. Others were more prepared, barricading themselves in rooms, or building makeshift fortifications for cover, or charging the advancing enemy, or firing fanatically into the openings that appeared.

  Jacob and Whistler bumped into Taberah as she charged down the corridor, her hair a fiery halo, as if the hordes of Hell were behind her. Jacob knew well, however, that she was not running from the demons; she was running towards them. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into a nearby room. Whistler ran in after them.

  “Where are you going?” Jacob asked.

  “To fight!” she growled, as if she might fight him too.

  “You haven’t got a weapon.”

  “I’ve got my fists.”

  “You’re not the Copper Matron.”

  “You’re a good few muscles short of her yourself.”

  “It’s too dangerous out there,” Jacob said. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  “I’m heading to the armoury.”

  The armoury that Jacob remembered visiting previously was some distance away, a route that would likely bring them under enemy fire.

  “That’s not exactly close by,” he said.

  “We can’t just sit here and do nothing!” Taberah roared.

  Jacob shook his head. “We’ll need to be quick,” he said. “And careful.” He knew the latter was not a word Taberah used often in her diaries.

  “Can we not just seal up this room?” Whistler asked. He was already shaking from the sounds outside.

  Taber
ah gave her answer by charging out the door, shouting as she went.

  “I guess not,” Jacob said, edging out behind her. Whistler followed quickly, and Jacob shielded him as best he could. In many ways, however, Taberah shielded them all, for she raced down the corridor and jumped on one of the Regime soldiers who was passing through. He yelped as she dug her nails into his face, and he clambered and struggled, and pushed back with her against the wall, casting her from him. As soon as she fell, she caught the man by the knees and pulled him to the ground. He collapsed and struck his head against the steel floor, turning it red.

  Jacob and Whistler caught up with her.

  Taberah rummaged through the body. “He doesn’t have a weapon.”

  “Cutbacks,” Jacob said. “They affect us all.”

  She rolled her eyes at him and continued to search the soldier. Jacob joined her, and Whistler crouched down beside them, but refused to touch the body. Taberah uncovered a series of drawings and design documents of the Lifemaker.

  “It seems they know more about us than we thought,” Jacob said.

  “Rommond will be furious,” Taberah replied.

  “Is he not already?”

  “I don’t think you’ve really seen him angry yet.”

  They searched more, finding an ID badge, which showed that the man she had killed was not, in fact, a soldier, but a surveyor, likely one of several brought to find weaknesses in the Lifemaker that the Regime could exploit.

  “He wasn’t going to kill us then,” Whistler said despondently.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Taberah said. “He was in the way, and he would have called for backup.”

  They stood up, and Taberah rubbed her back.

  “You know, I don’t think you should be throwing yourself at people while pregnant,” Jacob said.

  Taberah glared at him, as if he might be next. “Then get me a gun.”