by S. D. Stuart
Taylor pulled Caleb’s hand off the rope and bumped him aside with his whole body. “Outta my way.”
Taylor climbed the rope faster than Caleb thought was humanly possible without the benefits of hybrid strength and dexterity. When Taylor reached the top, he was pulled through the window by helping hands.
Caleb held his hand out to Jasper. “After you.”
Jasper climbed just as quickly. The snakes, having reached to within an inch of the top of the table, were a great motivator.
Caleb didn’t wait for Jasper to reach the top before pulling himself up the rope. He lifted his foot at precisely the same moment the snakes overran the table.
Chapter 25
Caleb clung to the rope as it was lifted through the hole in the ceiling. He was dangled a foot above the roof next to the Tin Man. In fact, it was the Tin Man who had pulled him to safety.
It was just the two of them on the roof. Jasper was already halfway up the ramp of the airship that waited on the far side of the roof.
The Tin Man lowered his arm, setting Caleb gently down. “Nero is tracking the box. We have to go before they take it underground and we lose it again.”
Without a word, he followed the Tin Man up the ramp and into airship. As soon as he stepped off the ramp, two men pulled on the ropes to withdraw the ramp, and the airship throttled up into the air, gaining speed quickly.
As he turned the first corner, a strange sight greeted him. Two men were binding Taylor’s hands together with rope and stuffing a gag into his mouth to silence him. More soldiers were tied up and seated uncomfortably along one wall. Some of them looked like they had fallen down a flight of stairs, or had been in a huge fight and lost.
“What’s going on here?”
The Tin Man continued walking, ignoring the tied up soldiers. “We have regained control of the airship.”
Levi, bound in thick rope at the front of the line called out, “For now.”
The Tin Man brushed past him and into the control room. Caleb couldn’t help smiling at Levi as he passed by.
If they could keep control long enough to destroy the ancient hybrid weapon, they would successfully derail the Directors’ plans. But they had to get to the weapon first.
Inside the control room, Nero sat in the captain’s chair. It was more accurate to say he leaned heavily to one side of the chair. The armrests were the only thing keeping him from falling to the floor.
His face was purple and bruised. One eye had swollen shut and a trickle of dried blood formed a crimson trail that led from one ear down into the open collar of his shirt.
He collapsed to the floor when he saw Caleb.
Caleb rushed up to him and lifted him back up into the chair. “What have they done to you?”
Nero’s words came out mumbled and slurred. “Don’t worry about me. Finish the mission. You are in command now, son.”
Nero slumped into his arms.
The Tin Man immediately barked orders to those standing around in the command center. “Get Nero above deck and make sure he’s comfortable. Caleb is now your commander. You will do as he says.”
One of the command crew slipped his shoulder under Nero’s arm and helped him out of the room.
All eyes fell on Caleb, waiting for him to say something.
Anything.
He was suddenly in charge, and they were all waiting for him to make a decision. He’d never been in charge like this before, and had no idea what to do, or say. But he did know one thing, they had to get the weapon before the Directors arrived in a few days.
He cleared his throat and everyone snapped to attention.
“Where…”
His voice cracked and he coughed to fully clear his throat again.
“Where is the box now?”
A crew member glanced at a readout on his control board. “It is to the east, and getting further away.”
Jasper was at his side. “The northern entrance of Chambers is in that direction.”
Caleb’s brow furrowed. “Chambers reaches into the Northern Territories?”
Jasper nodded. “Chambers extends into all areas of OZ. If they take it in there, it could stay hidden underground forever. Or until they are ready to bring it back out.”
“Then we get it before they go inside.”
Jasper turned to the pilot.” You heard the commander. Full speed ahead!”
The pilot spun in his seat and started punching buttons on the control panel in front of him. “Yes, sir.”
The airship surged forward and pressed Caleb fully into the captain’s chair.
Jasper regarded him with a faint smile. “You look at home in the Captain’s chair. It suits you.”
He shifted uncomfortably in the chair. “I don’t know. I much prefer the silent stalking of my prey. I’m used to working alone and only relying on myself. I still don’t think I’m leadership material.”
Jasper shrugged. “I think you’ve got what it takes.”
The spotter, still tightly clutching the binoculars to his face and staring out the front window of the airship, called out. “Target in sight.”
Caleb’s hands gripped the armrests. “Can you see where they are headed?”
The spotter shifted his binoculars. “The entrance to Chambers is directly ahead of them.”
He asked the next question he didn’t really want to know the answer to. “How long?”
“At their current rate of speed, they will be at the gate in less than ten minutes.”
He took several breaths to calm his nerves. They couldn’t let the weapon disappear in to Chambers. They would never find it then. They would never be any closer to getting it than they were now. This was their one chance, and they had to take it.
Jasper touched his shoulder. “If you are going to do something, better do it now.”
Jasper was right. If he was going to do anything, now was the time.
“What can this airship do?”
The weapons officer spun in his chair to face him. “We have forward facing cannons. We could seal the entrance before they get to it.”
Jasper was shaking his head. “The people in Chambers are a bit defensive, for obvious reasons, but nobody has ever openly attacked them. There’s no telling how they will respond. I say it’s too risky.”
He remembered that while growing up, even Nero spoke about the people in Chambers only in private, and even then, in whispers.
Nero, the man who never feared anything, seemed to fear them.
The spotter broke the silence. “They are getting closer, sir.”
He looked from Jasper to the pilot. “Can we get ahead of them?”
“The best we could do is get there just as they enter,” the pilot replied.
He looked back at Jasper who was shaking his head vigorously.
Making enemies was not something he wanted to do within the first few minutes of being in charge, but he also couldn’t let the weapon slip from his grasp. Not when they were this close.
“I don’t have a choice,” he whispered to Jasper.
Jasper closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh.
When Jasper’s older, he would understand.
“Ready the forward guns. Fire on my mark.”
The weapons officer flipped several switches and positioned his hand above the launch button. “Ready on your mark, sir.”
“Fire.”
The weapons officer pushed down on the button.
Nothing happened.
The officer double checked his control panel and pushed the button again.
Still nothing happened.
“Two minutes to the entrance,” the spotter called out.
Caleb sprung from the captain’s chair and hovered over the weapons officer. “Why aren’t we firing?”
The officer was frantically flipping switches and turning knobs before pressing the launch button again. “I don’t know sir. The cannons aren’t responding.”
“One minute to the entrance.”
They were going to lose the weapon.
They were going to lose everything.
Unless, they risked everything.
He was at the pilot’s side. “How quickly can this ship be brought to full speed?”
“Within a matter of seconds, sir.”
“So we could get to the entrance before them?”
“No sir, it takes longer to slow down. They would be inside before we came to a full stop.”
“What if we didn’t slow down. Could we reach the entrance before them?”
“Yes, but then we would shoot right on past it.”
“Not if we were pointed directly at the entrance.”
The pilot’s eyes widened in understanding. That told him everything he needed to know.
“Do it.”
The pilot turned to his control panel, his hand trembled as he reached for the throttle. “Yes, sir.”
“There almost at the entrance, sir.”
He stood to his full height and said in his best commanding voice, “That’ll be enough spotter, I have a new job for you. Get above deck and tell everyone to throw anything out of the ship that might be combustible, then strap down and brace for impact. You have thirty seconds.”
“Yes, sir!”
As the spotter dashed out the door, Caleb was back in the captain’s chair.
Jasper was tying himself down into a chair to one side. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“I’ve seen my share of airship crashes. As long as we don’t explode, we should live through this.”
An alarm sounded followed by a calm prerecorded voice. “Warning. Collision detected.”
Caleb strapped himself in as best he could and gripped the armrests.
“Okay pilot. Full speed ahead.”
Chapter 26
Nelson cherished the days when his rotation schedule placed him guarding the entrance to Chambers in the Northern Territories. He spent so much time underground, his skin was pale and he found it difficult to adjust to the bright sun.
He wore dark goggles, so he could see in the daylight, and a full leather suit, complete with gloves, to protect his skin from the scorching rays of the sun.
Other than the threat of being burnt to a crisp by the fireball in the sky, guarding an entrance to Chambers was relatively simple. They had spread enough rumors topside to keep all but the most daring from even attempting to approach an entrance.
A typical day for Nelson was standing a few feet inside the cave entrance, away from the direct rays of the sun, and making up stories to tell young children around the dinner table about his exploits topside. As far as they were concerned, he was a valiant warrior who kept away all sorts of nasties so they could sleep safely each night.
Today, however, was not looking to be a typical day. For the last twenty minutes, he’d been tracking a small group headed for the entrance. The same entrance he was guarding. Today, his story around the dinner table might have a ring of truth.
They carried a large box that must have been heavy, because they slowed every couple of minutes to hand off the box to someone else in the group. The closer they got, the more often they alternated who was carrying the large box.
When he judged them to be less than a minute away, he pulled the double-barreled flintlock rifle from the gun cabinet. The cobwebs that clung to the barrel attested to how often he needed it. He blew off the cobwebs and dust and did his best to make it look like a serviceable weapon. The truth of the matter was, this gun hadn’t been fired since before he was born, and most likely wouldn’t work even if he tried.
In his experience, just telling someone he had it was enough to make someone think twice about forcing their way into Chambers. He’d never needed it before, and in fact, he had never removed it from the gun cabinet. Watching the group, as they made their way up the low hill, he was afraid that today would change all that.
Behind the group, a multitude of objects suddenly fell from the sky and hit the ground in plumes of raised dust. He glanced up to see the source of these objects and nearly wet himself.
An airship was headed straight for him.
And it was coming in fast.
Chapter 27
Caleb clenched his jaw as he pressed himself back in to the captain’s chair. The view through the front windows showed the widening cavern entrance to Chambers.
It was a large cave opening, but not as large as the airship’s rigid frame.
He yelled out to everyone, and no one in particular, “Hold on!”
The wrenching of metal grated at his ears as he was thrown forward against the straps of his chair. The front windows exploded inward, showering everyone with shards of razor-sharp glass.
It was over in the blink of an eye.
At least it felt like the blink of an eye.
He lifted his head and had no idea how much time had passed. Around him, the rest of the command crew all hung to one side of their seats, still strapped in. He knew they weren’t dead because he could see the slight rise and fall of their chests. There was still life in every one of them. Relief washed over him. His first major command decision hadn’t killed everyone.
The walls of the control room had buckled and pushed everyone closer together, but thankfully, nobody had been crushed to death. Moans coming from outside the command room reassured him that there were more survivors. It was quite possible that everyone had lived.
He sniffed the air, but found no indication that they were burning. The rigid frame of the airship had borne the brunt of the impact. The airship had stopped fast enough that only the front of the gondola was damaged. Everyone else inside was shaken, but safe.
He struggled against the straps, but the sudden impact had bent the lock mechanism and he was stuck. He raked his claws against the tightly woven fabric, shredding the strap in half to escape from the chair.
He fell sideways out of the chair and realized, a moment too late, the airship had come to a rest at a sharp angle to one side.
He stumbled and slammed into a side window that had somehow survived the initial crash, shattering it.
Stunned, and laying on his side, he saw leather boots stepping up into the broken gondola from outside the airship. He heard the click of a flintlock cocking lever lock into position and his eyes focused on the rifle barrel pointed directly at his face.
His view shifted down the long barrel and refocused on the dark goggles of the man aiming the rifle.
He sat up and the man instinctively took a step back while sighting down the barrel of his rifle. At this range, the man could not miss.
After a couple of attempts, Caleb finally found his voice. “Do not let the men with the box into Chambers.”
The man with the dark goggles held the rifle steady. “Ain’t nobody getting in or out of Chambers with what you just did.”
He let his head drop back on to the shattered glass. “Good.”
Goggles looked around at the destroyed airship. “Why did you do that?”
“Inside the box is a weapon. We have to get it away from the men who were carrying it. Can you help?”
Before Goggles could answer, the Tin Man smashed through the door of the command room, saw the rifle pointed at Caleb and swatted at Goggles with a metallic claw. The rifle flew from Goggles’ grip and went one way while he landed on his back in the other direction.
The Tin Man towered over Goggles, one claw raised, when Caleb yelled out. “Don’t!”
The Tin Man paused, his claw poised to come down at any moment and slice Goggles in half.
Caleb was back on his feet and shaking away the dizziness. “What are you doing Tin Man?”
The Tin Man stood stock-still, as only an automaton could. The only indication he was functioning was the crackle of his voice through his front speaker. “He shot down the airship.”
Caleb picked up the rifle and held his hand out to Goggles. “Nobody shot at us. It was my decision to crash the airship.”
He pull
ed Goggles to his feet and held out his rifle to him. Goggles looked from the rifle to the Tin Man, unsure of what would happen to him if he took the offered rifle.
Caleb smiled carefully, trying not to show too many of his sharp teeth in an effort to calm the man down. “Don’t worry; I won’t let him hurt you.”
The move was so sudden; Caleb almost blinked and missed it.
The Tin Man’s claw scissored right through Goggles’ neck.
The shock of surprise was frozen on Goggles face as his head dropped from his body and rolled away across the floor. His body, now headless, buckled and collapsed to the floor.
The Tin Man swung around and pinned Caleb to the wall by his neck, the sharp blades of the claw shearing off bits of fur. The color of the Tin Man’s single unblinking eye glowed a soft amber. “I do not take orders from anyone.”
Chapter 28
Caleb’s mouth went dry as he watched the blood from the decapitated guard drip down the edge of the Tin Man’s claw. The monstrous automaton leaned in close. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”
He struggled to come up with some form of answer, but another voice broke the silence.
“What’s going on?”
Still holding Caleb against the side of the airship hull, the Tin Man twisted his torso to see the new intruder.
Dorothy stood in the doorway with a puzzled expression on her face. “What are you doing to Caleb?”
It almost sounded like the Tin Man was amused at some private joke by the tone in his voice. “The question you should be asking yourself is, what was Caleb planning to do with us?”
If Dorothy’s expression looked puzzled before, it was even more so now. “What are you talking about?”
The Tin Man’s grip tightened on his neck as he spoke. “Who sent us on this expedition to locate and bring back the world’s most destructive weapon ever created?”
Dorothy still looked confused. “The Southern Marshal.”
“Wrong! Nero sent us out here. And who did he hand select to lead us?”
The Tin Man twisted back to stare at Caleb with that unblinking amber eye. “Nero is not to be trusted. You are not to be trusted.”