Secrets of the New World (Infini Calendar) (Volume 2)

by Scott Kinkade

  Jeanne turned around and said to Washington and smiled. “For what it’s worth, I was proud to be an American.

  “Do not forsake the ideals we stand for,” he said.

  “I won’t.”

  “And when I return with your stones, you’re going to release my brother,” Farahilde promised.

  The four of them climbed up the metal pole the Minuit Solaire II was anchored to, and soon dropped onto the airship’s deck.

  They headed over to the hatch. Before they could open it, however, someone else did. Abdul Jabbar burst from it, followed by Deschanel and her lackeys. Abdul Jabbar pivoted and turn to slash at his pursuers with his scimitar. The large man called Emil parried the attack with his broadsword.

  “Good,” Farahilde said. “They’ve saved us the trouble of coming to get them.”

  Abdul Jabbar and the three French knights all turned their attention to the intruders. Abdul Jabbar’s eyes went wide as he realized he was surrounded by enemies.

  “What the hell are they doing here?” Emil asked to no one in particular.

  “You are on French soil,” Deschanel said to them. She was wielding her own rapier. “Leave here at once or risk a war.”

  Farahilde grinned. “You really think I fear a war with France? Who do you think you’re talking to?”

  Deschanel gritted her teeth as she realized the utter stupidity of the threat she had just made. But her scowl suddenly turned into a smile as her gaze went past Farahilde—to Jeanne. “Perhaps this is my lucky day after all.” She then said to Abdul Jabbar, “Stand aside.”

  He was either desperate or confused, because he complied with her order. He got out of her way and was momentarily forgotten.

  Emil and the country bumpkin lackey moved to flank their Commander. “What’s the plan?” Emil asked her.

  “Jeanne de Fleur is mine. You two—” Without warning, Abdul Jabbar dove into the hatch. “After him!”

  The two subordinates went into the airship in pursuit of the renegade Arab.

  “Come on!” Farahilde shouted to Frederick and Pierre.

  ***

  The three of them charged forward. Deschanel casually sidestepped them, allowing them to go into the airship. She never took her eyes off Jeanne.

  “You’re not going to stop…?” Jeanne started to ask. “Déjà vu.”

  “My men will take care of them. Right now I’m more concerned with killing you.”

  Jeanne said, “Hmph. So you’re just Napoleon’s chienne. I expected more from someone calling herself Jeanne de Fleur.”

  “Shut up!” Deschanel roared. “You have no idea how much I hate you!”

  As far as Jeanne could remember, she had never even met Deschanel until this week. It didn’t make sense for the other woman to have such venomous loathing for her. “What did I ever do to you?”

  Deschanel charged at her. “Everything!”

  Jeanne parried her strike, but the imposter kept striking at her with unrestrained fury. Jeanne found herself on the defensive, struggling to survive the other woman’s relentless assault.

  ***

  The Minuit Solaire II’s operator leapt to his feet as Abdul Jabbar re-entered the bridge followed by Vice-Commander Emil and Lieutenant Jean-Louis, and then by Farahilde, Frederick and Pierre. The operator backed up against the wall to avoid being targeted by the mad Arab and his scimitar.

  Abdul Jabbar evidently intended to hijack the airship, though it was doubtful he had any idea how to operate it.

  “Halt!” Emil ordered Abdul Jabbar.

  The Arab whirled around, a mad look in his eyes. He blade hovered menacingly in front of him. “After you threatened my life? I think not.”

  “There ain’t nowhere for you to run,” Jean-Louis said.

  “None for you fools, either,” Farahilde added.

  The two French knights looked back and forth between Abdul Jabbar and the intruders. They were outnumbered and outflanked. After brief hesitation, Emil said to Abdul Jabbar, “I propose a truce. The three of us should put aside our differences to fight the three of them,” he said, indicating Farahilde and company.

  “Why should I trust you?” the Arab said, skeptical of the offer. “You’ve already tried to kill me once.”

  Jean-Louis said to him, “You think they’ll be any nicer to you? You already tried to kill them once, remember?”

  Abdul Jabbar was silent as he nervously mulled it over.

  Suddenly Pierre stepped forward and addressed the two knights. “I have my own proposition.”

  Emil looked confused, yet intrigued. “Go on?”

  Pierre pointed at Abdul Jabbar. “I’m only interested in him. Let me fight him and you two can fight the people behind me.”

  Farahilde watched as Emil weighed his options. It wasn’t a hard decision, really; if he refused, he and Jean-Louis would be caught in the middle of this fight and massacred.

  “Very well,” he said. “But take it into the corridor. I won’t leave the bridge unguarded.”

  Pierre smiled, turned around to leave and motioned for Abdul Jabbar to follow him. It wasn’t a hard decision for the Arab, either; going into the hallway would put him much closer to an exit off the airship, and he would have less people trying to kill him that way.

  “Uh…can I go, too?” the operator asked. They had barely noticed him.

  “Go,” Emil said impatiently. The operator left.

  Farahilde readied her bladed gauntlet, and Frederick unsheathed his sword. The knights did the same.

  “For the glory of the Emperor,” Emil said.

  “Save that shit for someone who cares,” she shot back.

  Chapter XIV: Killer’s Fate

  The Minuit Solaire II, Washington, December 13, 1792 (Infini Calendar), 1:40 a.m.

  In the hallway of the airship, Pierre and Abdul Jabbar began their battle.

  Pierre swung his broadsword at the vile Arab. However, there wasn’t much room in the corridor and so he couldn’t swing as fast as he wanted. As a result, Abdul Jabbar was able to duck the attack. He tried to take advantage of this by slashing at Pierre with his scimitar, but it was caught harmlessly in Pierre’s armored hand. The Arab was caught off-guard, and Pierre capitalized with a punch to the nose. Abdul Jabbar fell backwards to the floor.

  “You threatened me, and you threatened the woman I love,” Pierre said. “The former I can forgive. The latter…not so much.”

  But Abdul Jabbar suddenly leaped to his feet. Pierre hadn’t been expecting such agility. “I neither need nor desire your forgiveness, insolent one.”

  He flew at Pierre, tackling him and bringing them both to the floor. Pierre’s broadsword fell out of his reach, and now Abdul Jabbar was on top of him with his scimitar. He brought it down upon Pierre’s head—his most vulnerable spot—but Pierre managed to get his arm up to block the attack.

  Abdul Jabbar kept raining down blows with his blade. Pierre’s irodium armor was incredibly durable, but his arm still felt the fury of his enemy’s attacks. It wouldn’t be long before it was too battered to use.

  ***

  Farahilde swiped at Emil with her bladed gauntlet. Unfortunately, he was wearing the same armor as Pierre, so it, too, was ineffectual.

  She aimed for his head but he had clearly been anticipating that. He grabbed her wrist and twisted it. She winced in pain, but he was just getting started. He took hold of her shoulder and threw her into the wall next to the operator’s console. She was able to throw up her hands and protect her head—somewhat—from the impact.

  “Farahilde!” Frederick shouted. He was busy with Jean-Louis, but had obviously noticed her predicament.

  “Stay focused, you fool!” she yelled back. “I’ve got things under control here.”

  Emil gave a derisive chuckle. “Oh? Was it your plan to get embarrassed here? If so—well done.”

  She wiped a trickle of blood from her mouth. “Like I said: save it for someone who cares.”

  Emil’s smirk vanished. His
patience was clearly running out. He strode forward with the obvious intention of shutting her up.

  A drop kick to his knee, though, quickly changed things. He fell forward onto the operator’s console. He reached to grab hold of something that could stabilize him, but that something just happened to be the lever that activated the Minuit Solaire II’s Emergency Ascension System—a feature that Farahilde herself had personally insisted on for this model of airships.

  The deck shook as the vessel’s batteries quickly unloaded their charge into the engines. When this was completed, the airship shot into the air, breaking free of its moorings, and the four combatants dropped to the floor—the laws of physics kicking in.

  “Maybe fighting on the bridge wasn’t such a great idea,” she said.

  ***

  (A few minutes earlier)

  Jeanne had been rusty. It had been too long since her last real battle that at the beginning of her fight against Deschanel she was at a serious disadvantage.

  However, she had weathered Deschanel’s early onslaught, and her years of combat experience were now returned to her. She pressed back against her doppelganger, parrying Deschanel’s strikes and adding her own. Furthermore, Jeanne was now able to take the measure of her enemy. Deschanel was proficient with a rapier, but far from master of it. She also wore the eye patch Jeanne de Fleur was known for, which seriously hindered her fighting ability. Her determination to stick to her assigned role would be her undoing; Jeanne now held the advantage and was close to defeating her nemesis.

  Until the deck beneath them came alive with a familiar humming.

  They both looked down. “Please tell me that’s not what I think it is,” Jeanne said.

  Deschanel’s expression told her: it was.

  Instinctively, they both jumped to the deck’s railing as the entire airship flew up into the air. They then held on for dear life.

  ***

  The force of the Minuit Solaire II suddenly lifting into the air nearly crushed Abdul Jabbar onto Pierre. However, as soon as the airship stabilized Pierre was able to get the other man off of him.

  Pierre rose to his feet. He had experienced the rise and fall of an airship on more than one occasion, so he wasn’t nauseous like Abdul Jabbar seemed to be. The renegade Arab vomited onto the deck as Pierre picked up his broadsword.

  “Don’t worry; the nausea will pass,” Pierre said.

  Abdul Jabbar was hunched over. It didn’t appear as if he was entirely conscious of where he was. “When?”

  Pierre brought his sword down upon the man’s neck, severing his head from his body. “Now.”

  Suddenly the deck tilted as the airship lurched sideways. Pierre lost his balance and fell into the bulkhead, which now seemed to be the floor. What on earth is happening on the bridge? He wondered.

  ***

  Once the Minuit Solaire II stabilized, Celeste’s distorted voice came through the speaking tube which hung from the ceiling above the captain’s chair. “This is Engineering. Why has the Emergency Ascension System been activated?”

  Emil grabbed the tube. “It was an accident, Engineering. Disregard it.”

  “But—”

  “No buts! Whatever happens up here, ignore—”

  He was cut off by a flying kick from Farahilde which sent him headfirst into the wall beside the bridge’s entrance. It was appropriate payback, she thought.

  She took the speaking tube. “Listen to me, engineer. You’ve got to keep this airship steady.”

  “Farahilde Johanna?” Celeste’s said, surprised.

  “That’s right. Look—‘Milady’ is fighting on the top deck. Keep us steady or she might fall off.”

  “Oh, no! That’s going to be a problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Emergency Ascension System was implemented by your people, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well…I don’t want to be rude, but…they didn’t do a very good job of it.”

  “Get to the point!”

  “All the voltage that just got dumped into the engines is overloading the circuits. There’s no telling what will happen. We’ve got to land immediately!”

  As if on cue, an explosion rocked the bridge. The airship began spinning wildly. Farahilde gripped the captain’s chair to maintain some semblance of balance. “What was that?”

  “We just lost an engine!”

  Farahilde turned to Frederick, who—along with Jean-Louis—was holding on to the operator’s console. “I take back what I said about missing airships,” she said.

  ***

  Jeanne and Deschanel clung to the railing on the port side of the top deck, swinging their rapiers at each other as the Minuit Solaire II spun around and around in the skies above Washington.

  Jeanne would have been content to hang on with both hands, but her enemy was intent on continuing her homicidal grudge to the point of insanity. Jeanne wanted to yell at her, to tell her to stop this madness, but she couldn’t be heard over the roar of the wind and the airship’s engines. All she could do was hold on and exchange futile attacks with her nemesis (neither of them could swing with much force or accuracy under these conditions, and rapiers weren’t made for swinging anyway).

  Jeanne soon gave up trying to hit Deschanel and sheathed her blade. The other woman was obviously never going to land a serious hit on her. Jeanne now gripped the railing with both hands and held on as tight as she could.

  She awaited the day when airship technology would be perfected. Frankly, she was beginning to lose track of all the times she had nearly been killed in an airship crash.

  She looked up—or was it down?—and saw the ground coming closer to meet them. They were going to crash—surprise, surprise—and quickly.

  But before they did, the airship slowed its spin (Celeste must have regained some control over the blasted thing) and the vessel glanced off the side of a building rather than smashing through as it was going to do.

  The port side of the Minuit Solaire II hit the ground and came skidding to a stop in the middle of a town square. Deschanel fell off the railing and landed hard on the cement earth. She would probably be all right, Jeanne thought; her armor would most likely protect her from the worst of it.

  Jeanne carefully climbed down from the fallen airship and made her way to where Deschanel lay. Jeanne removed her rapier, and when the other woman began to stir, she pointed the sword at her head.

  Deschanel looked up at her, and after a moment, said, “Finish it.”

  “You sound like Robespierre,” Jeanne replied.

  “You have to kill your enemies,” Deschanel said, her voice breaking. “You have to kill them.” To Jeanne’s surprise, she began sobbing uncontrollably.

  Jeanne felt pity for her defeated foe. “Why do you hate me so much?”

  “Because…” Deschanel started to say, but she was having trouble fighting back the lump in her throat. “Because you did what I couldn’t: You defied fate! You overcame every obstacle and managed to live your own life.”

  Jeanne pondered her imposter’s situation momentarily. “I think I understand now.”

  “I’ve always been a killer. I was born to destroy. I wasn’t strong enough to take my life into my own hands. In the end, I’m nothing more than poor caricature of you.”

  Jeanne shook her head. “It’s not too late.”

  “What?”

  “You have a lot more strength than you give yourself credit for. It’s just been…misdirected.”

  Deschanel wasn’t so easily convinced. “You couldn’t be more wrong, Jeanne de Fleur. I’m not strong. I’m weak. I transferred my hatred for myself to you.”

  “I don’t know what happened that made you the way you are,” Jeanne said. “But it’s time to stop being ruled by the past.”

  Jeanne held out her hand. Deschanel looked away, ashamed. However, Jeanne insisted, and the other woman eventually took her hand and was helped to her feet.

  “I will return the stones,”
Deschanel said.

  A contingent of soldiers came running over and pointed their rifles at Jeanne and Deschanel. Within moments, George Washington arrived. “Quite a mess you all have made,” he noted.

  “I surrender,” Deschanel said. “I, Gabrielle Deschanel, admit my I stole your stones, murdered your man and framed the Austrian contingent for the crimes.”

  Washington looked relieved, yet saddened. “I appreciate your honesty, yet it does not bring back the life you took. Had you just taken the stones, I would simply send you back to France. But you have committed a grave crime, and you must be punished according to American law.”

  Deschanel nodded grimly. “I understand. It is what I deserve. I ask, however, that my subordinates be allowed to return home. They had no part in this.”

  “I find that hard to believe, but as you are responsible for them, you bear the most guilt. Your men may return to France, but you must stand trial here.”

  Jeanne was satisfied with this, but she had a question of her own. “What about me?” she asked Washington. “I lied to you, committed assault and resisted arrest.”

  Washington said, “I’ll admit I was wounded by that. But I now know you had sufficient cause.” He smiled, a rare occurrence considering his uncomfortable wooden dentures. “I believe I shall exercise my presidential authority to pardon you.”

  “I do not deserve such kindness, Mr. President.”

  “I disagree, Miss Rose.”

  She shook her head. “You know that’s not my real name.”

  “To me, it always will be. I would like you to continue being Mary Rose.”

  Jeanne was taken aback. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Very much so.”

  ***

  They thought it was over. They couldn’t have been more wrong. The theft of the stones was an unexpected wrinkle in the plan, but now things would be getting back on course. And when all the stones are put in place, my mission will be complete. I can’t wait to see the look on Washington’s face when he finds out the truth.