by J. T. Wilson
He rose and climbed the last turn of the ramp. He emerged onto the bright light of the open-topped gun platform and saw a wounded Drobate—probably Jones’s handiwork―struggling to raise a rifle of baroque and exotic design. Bedford had no idea what its function might be and had no intention of finding out. He shot the gunner three times with his revolver. The rifle was so bizarrely attractive and at the same time sinister in appearance that Bedford holstered his own revolver and pulled the rifle free from the dead man’s hands, then slung its strap over his head and shoulder. He heard more pistol fire from the other tower and then saw Booth emerge. Bedford took off his hat and waved it over his head to Jones, the signal to cease firing. Then he set about examining the gun for the best place for his charges.
Gun indeed! It looked more like a miniature version of the aether propeller machinery on Sovereign. Whatever it was, it had precision sights, a nasty-looking business end, and the clear look of lethality about it. Bedford found several cable bundles leading to a wiring trunk set into the centre of the tower floor. He stuffed the explosive bags under the wiring and against the gun mount, took out one of the phosphorous matches he’d passed out to each of the storming party, struck it, and as the fuse flared to life he turned and dashed for the rampwell.
He half-ran and half leaped back down the circular ramp. He grabbed O’Hara’s jacket collar as he passed him and dragged his body behind him down the ramp, finding it no burden at all once he got it moving. Half way down, the tower shook from the explosion up above and a metal panel in the spine of the tower blew off with a loud clang, spewing giant sparks into the rampwell. Bedford ran through them and within moments emerged from the ground level doorway just as the other gun mount exploded.
Already the streets were filling with Drobates although he heard no shouted words of alarm. The crowd showed clear signs of panic, and its silence rendered the scene all the more surreal. A bizarre wheeled motor vehicle sped through the crowd, actually ran one of the locals over, and made speed toward the gate. Bedford leaned O’Hara’s body against the tower wall, drew his own pistol with his right hand, and raised both revolvers. As the vehicle drew close he fired both pistols until their hammers clicked on empty chambers. At least one of his bullets found its mark, as the car swerved to one side, then wildly to the other, and then tipped over and rolled repeatedly until it crashed into a building side and exploded in flames. Oddly, the building it collided with seemed none the worse for wear.
The door to the other tower swung open and Booth and Charles appeared. Both men gaped at the burning mechanical wreckage.
“Having fun, are you, Bedford?” Booth asked with a grin but then saw the bloody body of O’Hara crumpled by the doorway and his smile vanished
“We’re done here; back to the cove,” Bedford answered.
“I’ll bring along Paddy,” Chief Charles said and he lifted his shipmate’s body over his shoulder.
8.
“HURRY, STEVENSON!” Nathanial shouted the encouragement to his friend, although they made good enough time as it was. The Russians were in a poorer state. The Drobates had left most of them chained together in two groups of six or seven men each and arranged them as two long human conveyor belts, passing stone from hand to hand. Why the British and a few Russians had had been left to work on their own was, like so much about the Drobates, unclear. As Nathanial looked back at the struggling mass of men, tripping and falling on their chains as they tried to flee, he saw Folkard suddenly appear among them. The captain gave orders in Russian in the calm and confident voice Nathanial remembered, then gave an order, and repeated it as the group fell into line and began marching in step.
Closer to the wall, however, most of the Selenites still milled about aimlessly. Nathanial stopped.
“Stevenson, you go on and stay close to Phillips.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back to get those poor beasts. I’ll be along presently.”
9.
BEDFORD FOUND Moore and his Marines spread in a skirmish line, withdrawing slowly and firing the occasional round toward the city. Bedford noticed the men leaned well forward when taking aim, fell into a half-crouch, and braced their right foot against whatever rock outcropping they could find—another necessity in the low lunar gravity to keep their rifle recoil from bowling them over.
Behind the skirmish line one Marine carried the body of another over his shoulder and Professor Stone and two naval ratings encouraged a gaggle of Selenites toward the stony hill and the cove beyond. Stone stood in the centre, spreading his arms wide and then bringing his hands in together toward his chest, and the two ratings did likewise. As he thought about it, it was a gesture Bedford remembered K’chuk using to summon workers.
“Report, Colour Sergeant,” Bedford said as he got to Moore.
“Sir! All prisoners freed and on their way back. Captain Folkard is with the Russians. Two of the prisoners, Burroughs and McKittrick, were killed before we arrived. Also recovered Able Seaman Stevenson from the last mission.”
“Stevenson? Alive? Now that’s good news. Casualties?”
“One, sir: Corporal Johnson, dead. I see you lost a man as well.”
“Yes, O’Hara from Chief Charles’s party.”
“Don’t like losing anyone, sir, but two casualties—it could have been worse.”
“I suppose you’re right, Colour Sergeant, and it still might become so. Look out there!”
A dozen armed Drobates spilled out of the gate at the run, came to a halt and raised their rifles. Before they fired five Marine rifles barked and two of the Drobate soldiers pitched backward to the ground. The others fired and one of the Marines cried out in pain and fell. Another four rifle shots crackled and one more Drobate fell, the rest running back inside the gate for cover.
One of the Marines writhed and twitched on the ground for a moment and then began simply trembling and moaning. Another knelt by him, felt his heart, and looked up in surprise.
“He’s still alive, Colour Sergeant!”
“Those electric rifles must lose some punch at this range,” Moore said. “At seventy yards one of them killed Johnson in his tracks. Pick him up, man, and fall back as close to those Selenites as you can. With your permission, of course, sir.”
“I’ll carry that wounded man,” Bedford said. “You’ll need every rifle you’ve got firing. There’s movement along the rubble wall, as well. Booth, take command of the rearguard.”
“Right. Heighway, Jones, fire at anything moving along the wall,” Booth ordered. “Keep their heads down.” He stooped and picked up the injured Marine’s rifle
Rifles crackled again and as they did so a curious siren blared from the city. It was a dreadful sound, the sort that one might imagine a banshee to make. It wailed in the harsh manner of a particularly vicious alley cat, yet had a peculiar metallic quality to it as though two sharp pieces of steel were scraping together, a high note followed by a low note and then repeated. Bedford looked around and could tell the Marines found it unnerving as well.
“I don’t much like the sound of that, men. I’ll try to hurry Stone and the Selenites. The sooner as we’re out of here, the better. Chief Charles, come with me. Revolvers aren’t any good at this range.” Bedford put the wounded Marine over his shoulder and found him surprisingly light. In some ways the added weight made it easier to run, keeping Bedford closer to the ground and giving him more traction.
Electric rifles had Moore said? He must have learned that from the prisoners. Well, Bedford had one of them over his back and saw that one of the Marines had had the presence of mind to pick one up as well. The scientists back in London would want to have a look at one, provided they managed to get out of here alive.
“Good thinking, Stone,” Bedford called out as he and Chief Charles came abreast of the scientist, “and good to see you in one piece. Stevenson, welcome back aboard.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You up to carrying this injured man?” he a
sked the slender rating.
“He’s very weak, Bedford,” Stone put in. “The prisoners were…”
“Right, then. Gunner Gibbs, you take him. Chief Charles, get Gibbs, the wounded, and O’Hara’s body back to the tunnel and assume command there until I arrive. This is quite an army we have here so start them moving up the tunnel at once. Don’t want a mob scene at that doorway.”
“Aye-aye, sir.” Charles answered as Gibbs took the injured Marine from Bedford and they started back at a trot.
“Stone, anything you can do to speed up your flock would be much appreciated by Mister Booth and the rearguard, I am quite certain,” Bedford said.
Stone nodded and made his arm motions quicker and more insistent, and backed up more quickly. The Selenites, many of them clearly suffering from starvation and abuse, nevertheless shuffled along faster, sensing the mounting danger either from Stone’s urgency or the ululating screech of the city’s siren.
Bedford took the opportunity to reload both his revolvers as he walked back toward the hill, which took all but three of his remaining cartridges, and when he was done he handed O’Hara’s pistol to Stevenson. “You’ll need this before we’re done here, I’ll warrant.”
“Lieutenant Bedford, look!” Chief Charles shouted from up ahead and pointed toward the river. A long, black metallic shape, like an angular humpbacked whale, slide quickly through the water and toward the cove.
“A Drobate submersible!” Stone exclaimed.
“Whatever the devil it is, it’s cutting our line of retreat,” Bedford said.
Chapter Eight
“A Desperate Struggle”
1.
THE SUBMERSIBLE, dark grey and wicked-looking, cut through the waves toward the shoreline. The single glowing yellow window on the raised pilot house, the only substantial part of the vessel rising above the wave-washed curved upper hull, seemed a sinister and alien Polyphemian eye staring directly at Annabelle. To her right, six ragged and bearded men appeared on the crest of the stony hill, cast panicked looks at the approaching vessel, and then leaped and tumbled down the hill toward Annabelle and the others clustered by the entrance to the tunnel.
The vessel grounded near the bank, its nose rising slightly up and out of the water to reveal its prow as a long, flat slab extending toward the shore, a sort of built-in gangway. A hatch clanged open behind the pilot house and then Annabelle’s view was obstructed by the running ragged men, now shouting in panic in an unmistakably Slavic tongue.
Annabelle held the large lit torch in her left hand and several smaller unlit ones in her right. Now she lit the small ones and held them out to the men running toward her. “Here, take these and turn right in the tunnel,” she ordered.
Of course they could not understand her words, but her gestures could leave no doubt as to her intentions. Staples and Henry stood aside to let them pass and the Russian prisoner babbled something to them and pointed down the tunnel. The first two took the smaller torches and the third made to take the large one from her.
“No! We need that to light the others!” she cried out and pulled the torch back with both hands.
“Here now!” Seaman Henry shouted and grabbed the fellow’s shoulder. The other three Russians fell upon him, striking him and pushing him away from her.
Annabelle’s assailant pushed her back hard and as she had no balance or traction with only one real leg, his blow carried her back against the cavern wall and her head struck rock with sufficient force to leave her senseless.
She found herself seated on the ground, back against the stone wall, with no recollection of having fallen. The torch was gone but the melee still swirled around Seaman Henry. The Selenites held back, unsure what was happening or what to do, and George’s original Russian prisoner recoiled as well, his expression stricken. As Annabelle watched, a Russian stooped and picked up a fist-sized stone with a sharp point on one end and then sprang at Henry and lifted the stone above his head to brain the seaman. Before he could bring it down a shot rang out and the man stumbled away, the rock flying from his hand. For a moment the fight stopped and all eyes turned to Annabelle.
She herself was nearly as surprised as they to see the smoking derringer in her hand. George Bedford had slipped it to her on board Sovereign before their departure and she had carried it in her jacket pocket since, in case of emergency. Now, as she sat there still dazed from the blow to her head, the weapon seemed almost to have come to her hand and fired as if by its own volition. The wounded Russian, blood streaming from the side of his head, groaned and collapsed to the ground.
A Russian was the first to recover his senses. He tore the revolver from Henry’s grasp, cocked it, and turned it on Annabelle with a face twisted with fury, desperation, and loss all at once. Annabelle turned her head and closed her eyes, but heard and felt the swift passage of a body close by and then the scream of the Russian. She turned back to look and saw him lifted off the ground, revolver dropped and legs twitching, K’chuk’s mandibles locked solidly around his neck, blood coursing from the lethal wound and sheeting down his body. As if on command the other two Selenites fell on the two remaining Russians who cried out in terror and ran away from the tunnel. The original Russian prisoner ducked into the tunnel and disappeared, following his comrades.
The fight stopped as suddenly as it began, however, when Annabelle heard a strange buzzing snap and one of the fleeing Russians literally jumped in the air, arms and legs working in an uncontrollable muscular spasm, and then fell lifeless to the ground. Another snap and a Selenite fell.
“It’s the Drobates! Some kind of rifles!” Seaman Henry called and took cover behind the stack of fallen dripstones, first recovering his dropped revolver from the ground.
“Friend Annabelle into tunnel, quickly!” K’chuk said.
“Capital idea,” another voice added and she looked up to see Phillips slide to a halt beside her. “I’ll help her. You chaps hold them off.” As Henry began firing his revolver, Phillips grabbed her arms and half lifted, half dragged her down the ramp into the tunnel, and this simple movement brought on waves of dizziness and nausea.
“No,” she managed, although as she slipped into unconsciousness she could not say what it was she wanted instead of this.
2.
CHARLES RAN past the two lines of chained Russians, now again stumbling and tripping over each other in panic at the appearance of the submersible. He bounded up the rocky hill by the cove and as he crested the mound he saw the Drobates swarming off the deck of the submersible, the ones in the van firing their electric rifles toward the entrance to their escape tunnel. A pistol shot rang out and he saw one of the Drobates pitch into the water from the submersible’s deck, and for a moment electricity arced from the water toward the vessel and shore, and steam exploded upward from where the soldier’s weapon fell into the river, but it passed in a moment and the Drobates continued to jump to shore.
“Sorry, Paddy,” Charles said as he lowered the corpse of his shipmate to the ground. Then he fell prone on the hilltop, finding cover behind a fair-sized stone, and began firing into the crowd of Drobates below. In a moment Gunner Gibbs, having left the injured Marine on the lower slope, joined him.
The Drobates below reacted with alarm at the sudden fire from their flank, but then fired up at the two sailors. Electric bolts splashed the forward slopes and Charles felt occasional tingles transmitted either through the faint iron content of the stones or perhaps their dampness. One bolt passed close over his head and the static electricity from it made his hair stand on end and the revolver shocked his hand so that he almost dropped it in pain.
His sixth cartridge fired, Charles slid back down below the lip of the hill to reload. No sooner had he broke open the revolver and ejected the spent casings than Gibbs let out a blood-curdling screech and twitched, then fell limp against the rocks, his hair burning. With no fire from the crest Charles knew the Drobates would race to the top and, once they had a firm hold on it, all the Marines
and escapees behind him would be caught between two fires.
He raced to stuff cartridges in the revolver’s cylinder, his hands trembling, but before he could close the pistol he looked up and saw a Drobate climb to the crest, raise his electric rifle at him, and then tumble backwards as a pistol fired from behind Charles.
He turned and saw the slender rating who had been among the escapees, the man Charles didn’t recognise but whom Lieutenant Bedford had called Stevenson. No time to thank him now. He snapped the revolver shut and cocked it just as a second Drobate’s face appeared above the crest. He put a bullet between the fellow’s eyes and sent him pitching back. Charles scrabbled forward a foot or two and brought his head up for a quick look over the crest and brought it back just as fast, an electric rifle bolt again narrowly missing him and again raising the hair on his head.
“Two of them moving around the river side of the hill,” he shouted to Stevenson, “trying to flank us!”
“I’ll take them,” a different voice answered and Charles saw Lieutenant Bedford nearly up the hill and now moving to the right.
The pistol fire ended in the low ground by the cove—Henry must be dead or he was reloading. If the second was true, the Drobates would rush him. Charles rose up just enough to see the submersible, raised his pistol over his head, and sent two pistol shots down in the general direction of the enemy on the beach. That might keep their heads down; it was the best he could do for Henry right now.
More pistol shots from his right. That would be the lieutenant. Then three Drobates came over the crest at once, in a concerted dash. Charles fired and then rolled to the side as one of them aimed at him. Stevenson’s pistol barked as well and as Charles finished his roll he fired again, and again, and then his hammer fell on an empty chamber. He had the revolver broken open and the empty shell casings tinkled against the rocks before it registered on him that all three Drobates were down. He glanced to the right and saw Lieutenant Bedford still up; he looked to the left and saw Stevenson up as well. Six more rounds in the cylinder, snap it shut, full cock. He looked at his left hand and realised he’d burned it grabbing the barrel of his pistol to break it open. Odd. He hadn’t felt it at the time, and even now it didn’t really hurt; he just knew it was burned.