The airship started to rise.
She tore herself from the railing and hurried back up the stairs, trying not to think of whether or not Braith would survive this battle, if he would survive her sabotage, survive the war. She slowed to a stop halfway up the metal steps and gripped the railing, her stomach roiling as her every effort to stop this war crumbled down around her ears. Rapid gunfire sounded far below, peppering the airship’s wooden hull with heavy thuds, the metal clank of her machines audible despite the distance of the warship from the battlefield.
How had it come to this?
Petra bowed her head, her hands shaking as she fought not to cry.
Even if the soldiers survived, even if the British forces somehow won this battle despite the quadrupeds’ inevitable failure and returned to England in one piece, her sabotage would still be known. Julian would know the truth about what she had done—the world would know—and despite her every effort to reverse the damage, there was no hope of surviving the aftermath to come.
She closed her eyes, holding steady to the railing. But even so, even if she was doomed to whatever dark fate Julian intended for her, she could not give up, not yet. As long as there was a chance—however slim—that she might find a way to stop his plans from going further, she had to try.
She could not leave the world at his mercy, not without a fight.
She sucked in a shaky breath, a deep calm settling over her—the kind of serene quiet that heralded the coming of a storm. Even though she had failed to stop the first battle, there might still be a way to stop the war.
There might still be a way to beat him.
Petra let her doubts and fears fall away, no time for them now, and she hurried up the rest of the stairs, renewed purpose pumping through her veins.
Rather than return to the bridge, she made for the lieutenant-general’s office on the opposite side of the hallway and tested the handle, finding the door mercifully unlocked. Once inside, she shut the door behind her and moved swiftly to the desk, the only furniture worth investigating in the sparse quarters. She sifted through drawer after drawer, digging through military briefings, missives, and official reports, searching for anything connecting the lieutenant-general to Julian’s conspiracy, anything that might give her a hint of his next move.
She stumbled across a telegram marked CONFIDENTIAL in the top drawer, addressed from the Guild to the airfield at London, dated just hours ago.
Proceed as planned. Keep her under guard and ensure she does nothing to subvert the mission. Imprison the officer until it is time to deploy. Make sure she is present during the battle. She needs to see how futile all her efforts against me have been. —J.G.
She paused, staring at the words on the page, reading the message again. Was that why she was here? To see the battle? To see just how badly she had failed to stop his war? A bitter taste filled her mouth, and she gritted her teeth. Bastard.
A door opened somewhere down the hall, and Petra quickly folded the telegram and stuffed it into her pocket, returning her attention to the desk. She searched the rest of the top drawer and found another letter mentioning her by name, warning the lieutenant-general that she might attempt to sabotage the mission if given the chance, and in another drawer, she found a missive detailing a rather large munitions shipment received by the lieutenant-general the day before, as well as a dated update on the progress of some unexplained project.
She stuck the letters in her pocket with the telegram and crouched low, digging through the bottom drawer last. There she found a logbook of updates, a record of the growing conflict between Great Britain and France. Several events had been underlined, including the attack on the airfield just a week ago. She flipped ahead a few pages to today’s date, and another telegram slipped from the logbook and fluttered to the floor.
She snatched it up, addressed from the Guild to the lieutenant-general at Hasguard:
Prototype complete. Prepare the ships.
Petra read the date, the message sent in the late hours of the previous evening according to the timestamp. So they had finished it. The last piece in Julian’s plan for war, finally completed.
For all the difference it made. The army already existed, ready to launch at a moment’s notice. Why wait until the prototype was complete?
As she stood there with the telegram in hand, trying to puzzle it out, the lieutenant-general’s voice blared over the ship’s loudspeaker, crackling with authority.
“Approaching French lines. All hands prepare to engage.”
Petra hastily placed the telegram back in the event log, knowing she needed to return to the bridge before anyone came looking for her, when she noticed the lieutenant-general’s entry for today’s date: Attack at Amiens. Quadruped army destroyed by French aerial assault. Sabotage suspected. Aerial counterattack successful. Significant losses. British deaths estimated at _____.
The last of the note was left blank, waiting to be written.
She read the words again to make sure she hadn’t misread. Then her hands started to shake.
The attack on the French had only just begun, and the lieutenant-general had already written how the battle would end . . . but none of this had happened yet. The quadrupeds still stood. They hadn’t yet lost.
Heart pounding, she closed the journal and tucked the thin book into her pocket with the rest of the evidence she had gathered from the desk.
What on earth were they planning?
Petra slipped into the hallway from the lieutenant-general’s office and carefully latched the door behind her, no plan except to keep moving forward. It was only a matter of time before the quadrupeds failed, and she needed to find out what Julian and the lieutenant-general were planning. The evidence in her pocket was useless otherwise. She needed to know, needed to see it for herself. And then? Maybe she’d live long enough to escape the ship and find Braith . . . if he survived.
Exhaling a slow, steady breath, she faced the bridge door, curling her fingers around the handle. She had to believe he would. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing him now, not after everything they had been through together, after everything he had done for her. She had to believe she would find him again.
She turned the handle and pushed inside.
Lieutenant-General Stokes turned at her approach, his gaze sharp. “Miss Wade. Good of you to finally join us. I trust Private Cartwright left you well.”
“He’s down there fighting your war,” she spat. “If that’s what you mean.”
“As he should be.”
Petra bit back her anger, a hot fire prickling up her spine as she joined him at the front of the bridge cabin, the windows providing full view of the battlefield below. Praying for Braith’s safety, she gripped the railing and watched the battle unfold in morbid fascination, counting down the seconds until the quadrupeds failed. How many minutes had passed since the machines launched? How long until her sabotage revealed itself?
The quadrupeds showed no sign of slowing down. They scuttled forward ahead of the British ships and fanned out around the French camp, men and machines reduced to miniature at such a distance. The muffled crackle of the Gatling guns and heavy boom of the Agars turned Petra’s stomach, but the French machines easily deflected the quadrupeds’ rapid gunfire. The hail of bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the smooth metal armor as the French machines raised their weaponized arms against the quadrupeds to return fire. Guns whirled out of hidden chambers, their arms jolting backward with the recoil before rotating ninety degrees with a freshly loaded barrel, volley after volley hailing on the quadrupeds. But the British pressed on, even as a barrage of cannon fire rained down on the metal domes.
Petra watched, horrified at the wake of destruction these machines left behind, several tons of metal and artillery storming across the battlefield. The rapid volley of automatic weapons punctuated the n
ight with cracking gunfire and heavy blasts, the bullets pinging off reinforced hulls and ripping through weakened plating, rending the machines apart when they found their mark.
This was no longer a battle between men and nations; this was a battle of technology, the future of war—the future of the world if Julian wasn’t stopped—displayed in all its brutal glory.
Her knuckles whitened around the railing. Every quadruped that fell, every French machine that split apart with the well-aimed strike of an Agar . . . that was another man dead, another man who would not be returning home from battle.
And then it stopped.
The quadrupeds staggered, the sound of bullets dropping by half as one by one, the machines groaned to a halt. Petra leaned closer to the glass, her forehead pressing against the cool window as the French machines continued to advance, their heavy footfalls thundering across the earth as they rained bullets on the British. Hatches crashed opened as many of the British soldiers fled. They climbed out of their smoking quadrupeds, the glint of rifles and pistols in their hands as they fired on the advancing metal titans, but their bullets had no effect against the superior war machines.
“Sir . . . the quadrupeds have halted their advance. They’ve stopped.”
The lieutenant-general eyed the battlefield, his broad hands gripping tightly to the brass railing as he surveyed the mired army, a muscle twitching in his jaw.
Petra swallowed hard. “I told you not to send them to battle,” she whispered, her voice wavering slightly as she wondered if Braith was among those to flee, if he was even still alive. “I told you they would fail.”
The lieutenant-general stared out the window, the lingering silence in the cabin seeming to last an eternity. “It doesn’t matter,” he finally muttered. “It will all end the same way.”
Petra faltered. “What?”
“What are our orders, sir?” asked one of the bridge officers. “Do we proceed?”
Stokes turned from the window and faced the bridge officer. “Proceed as planned. Signal the other ships and tell them to initiate blackout,” he ordered. “This changes nothing.”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain turned the wheel and directed the flagship away from the quadrupeds, away from battle. Across the sky, the lights aboard the other ships flickered out as the warships sank into darkness and drifted away, dark blots against the starry evening sky.
Petra turned to the window. “What are you doing?” she demanded, watching as the quadrupeds shrank away beneath them. She faced the lieutenant-general. “You can still get them out of there! You can still save them!”
The lieutenant-general glared down her. “Those are not my orders.”
Petra balked at the sheer malevolence in his voice, backing away a few steps. “This was your plan?” she asked weakly. “Leave them to die?”
“All ships ready, sir,” reported the bridge officer. “On your command.”
“Hold,” he ordered, staring down at the distant battlefield.
Far below, the French machines approached the rows of quadrupeds, a host of foot soldiers creeping up behind, rifles at the ready. Then, all at once, the French machines stopped, halting just short of the British lines.
Not a single one moved.
“Sir, the French are not engaging,” reported one of the officers.
“Damn it, I can see that,” the lieutenant-general barked.
Petra pressed her forehead against the window and breathed a relieved sigh, her breath fogging the glass as every last bit of tension melted from of her body. Emmerich. This was his doing; she was sure of it. He had rebelled against his father’s war after all, fighting the only way he could: by sabotaging the French war machines—just as she had done.
“What are our orders, sir?”
The lieutenant-general peered out the window again, flexing his hands across the brass railing. “Signal the other ships,” he said at last. “We proceed.”
The soldier nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Suddenly, out of the dark sky, the other airships flared to life, but for the ships on the south side of the battlefield, gone were the red and gold flags of the British Empire and the Royal Forces. The French Tricolore fluttered across the sky, banners of blue, white, and red dancing in the wind.
“Signal fire,” ordered the lieutenant-general.
Weapon discharges rocked through the airship in a discordant rhythm, the metallic boom and clank of heavy guns firing and reloading overhead.
Petra gaped at him. “What are you doing?”
“Engaging the enemy, Miss Wade.”
Far across the open sky, the ships flying the French flag returned the assault with a vengeance, their cannons flaring like match-lights in the dark. Petra braced against the railing, preparing for impact, but the shots went wide, bullets and cannonballs firing uselessly into the night. Empty cartridges rained down on the battlefield, falling past the bridge windows in a hail of smoking brass as black smoke clouded the sky in a gray haze, but if either side of the British fleet took any damage from the onslaught, the ships showed no signs of ruin. Far below, however, the soldiers fighting on the ground exchanged rifle shots and pistol fire, the battle between the two mechanical armies suddenly devolving into a desperate gunfight while the airships mimicked return fire overhead.
After a few minutes, the lieutenant-general turned toward his communications officer. “Tell all ships to prepare mortar shells for drop,” he ordered. “And stand by for my command.”
“Yes, sir.”
Petra blanched. “Mortars?” She stared out the window at the battlefield, her heart pounding as she realized what he was planning to do. “You’re going to bomb them.”
“A necessary measure,” said the lieutenant-general, his voice flat. “We cannot allow the French to gain the upper hand.”
“But they’re not—” She cut herself short, gasping as she realized what was happening. “This was his plan all along,” she whispered, her mind racing. “He never intended to let them live.”
“All ships ready to launch the attack,” reported one of the officers.
“You would murder them? Your own men?” she asked. “Why?”
The lieutenant-general inhaled a deep breath and raised his chin. “This is war, Miss Wade. Sacrifices must be made.” He nodded sharply to one of the men standing nearby. “Do it.”
“No!”
She started toward the communications officer. If she could stop him from sending the order, maybe she could save them. Maybe she could save Braith.
“Restrain her.”
Two soldiers grabbed her by the arms, reining her back before she could reach the communications officer. She struggled against them as he reached forward and pressed the switch.
“No . . .” she whispered, wilting in her captors’ arms. “You can’t.”
“It is already done, Miss Wade.”
The warship lurched upward, and she felt, more than heard, the explosions that followed. The sound ripped through the bones of the airship, and her heart withered inside of her as fire and smoke lit up the night sky.
And then there was nothing. No sound. Only silence.
Only death.
Braith . . .
She collapsed to her knees, her body shaking with rage and fear and grief, blinded by her own tears.
“Bring her here.”
Her captors forced her to stand, dragging her toward the window. She shook her head, feebly attempting to free herself from their grip, but her strength had left her.
Lieutenant-General Stokes lifted a hand to her chin. She recoiled at his touch, but he dug his fingers into her jaw and forced her toward the window. “See the power of the British Empire,” he said, turning her face toward the ground below. “See the power of the Guild and the Royal Forces combined.”
> Petra inhaled a shaking breath.
The world burned.
The battlefield was aflame, a crater of fire and blood marring the once idyllic landscape, the corpses of quadrupeds and French machines rent asunder by the barrage from above. Tears slid down her cheeks and she pressed her shaking hands to the glass, searching for some sign of life below, any sign of movement on the ground . . . But there was nothing. Only deathly silence.
They were dead, and it was all her fault.
“You cannot stop this war, Miss Wade,” said the lieutenant-general, jerking his hand away from her face. “You were a fool to try.”
“Why?” she whispered, her voice strained. “Why would you do this?”
“For a better world.”
She tore herself away from the window, breathing hard as she leveled a glare at the officer. She had no words, only anger—and grief. The pain of it raged through her like a storm, fire and lightning crackling through her bones. She curled her fingers into fists, pressing her nails into her palms until her hands ached.
“You’re mad,” she spat. “Both of you.”
The lieutenant-general regarded her coldly. “All a matter of perspective. Such a tragedy that the British soldiers could not retreat from the onslaught of French artillery, stalling midbattle due to a fault in the machine’s system. Perhaps if the designing engineer had not tried so hard to sabotage the war effort, those men might still be alive.”
Petra shook her head and backed away. “No . . .” she whispered. “I didn’t do this. I didn’t—”
Her breath fell short as she realized the truth: Julian meant to pin this massacre on her. The French flags, the bombing of the airfield, the timing of the quadrupeds’ failure . . . She staggered away, shaking her head. How could she have ever believed she was capable of stopping him, of stopping this war?
The Guild Conspiracy Page 26