No one spoke, but they gave Uriah grudging respect. He turned his back on his team and jogged to the hole Stafford blasted in the back corner of the roof. He took a map from his pocket and studied it. This is where they would find out if the spying, threats, and torture paid off.
George and Edward dropped through the hole first, shotguns up and ready, covering the rest of the team as they dropped in. They stood in a quiet hallway lit by gaslight fixtures and lined with split timbers, the surfaces sanded smooth and rubbed with some kind of lacquer. Warm and welcoming, unlike the cold stone passages in Atomico’s mountain. Uriah checked his map and pointed. “This way. Horatio, cover the hallway long as we go.”
They stayed low while Horatio stood behind them, aiming over their heads with his rifle.
Near a T intersection at the end of the passage, Uriah heard voices. One in particular booming and deep, with a heavy German accent. “The gunners on the roof have stopped shooting. Get someone up there!”
Erlichman. He would have a heavy bodyguard contingent.
“And Gerhardt, prepare a mining charge near the front wall. We’ll lure them in.” Erlichman rounded the corner from the left with five heavily armed men in dark green uniforms.
The big German really meant nothing to Uriah. The little man with wispy white hair and thick glasses next to Erlichman was the real reason for all the bloodletting tonight. Josef Gerhardt, an explosives expert.
Uriah and his team hit the floor. “Horatio!”
Horatio’s repeating rifled boom-boomed and two guards went down. Erlichman ducked back around the corner. His remaining guards retreated with him, blazing cover fire.
Gerhardt jumped around the corner to the right and scampered away alone. Uriah looked back at Jezebel. “You take Herod and Tennyson and get Gerhardt. George, Edward, and I will take Erlichman and his boys.”
Jez smiled that nasty smile of hers. “Gotcha.”
“Hey.” She froze at the tone in Uriah’s voice. “Alive, Jez. We take him alive.”
“Right. Boss.” With a steely glare, she headed off with Herod and Tennyson in tow.
Uriah left Horatio to guard their rear and went after Erlichman with George and Edward backing him up. Someone slammed a fancy set of double doors at the end of the hall and Uriah sprinted ahead. He ran headlong into a guard coming out of a side passage.
The man had a short shotgun with a pistol grip. Uriah barely had time to push it away from his face. The shotgun boomed beside his head, blasting his eardrum and burning his cheek. Dizzy, he clung to the gun as the guard tried to pump another round into the chamber. Uriah’s free hand snatched his war hammer from his belt, spun the pointed end forward and swung hard. It hit the guard’s forehead with a meaty crunch and Uriah had control of the shotgun.
Uriah stepped over the dead guard and waved George and Edward against the wall. He readied the short shotgun and eased toward the double doors, reached out for the doorknob.
Gunfire splintered the door from inside. Uriah’s reflexes saved him, but barely. He made wide eyes at George and Edward and the three of them giggled at his near death, a reaction only hardened combat veterans would understand.
Uriah retrieved a grenade from his belt. Basically a tin can containing a charge of Atomico’s new explosive wrapped in barbed wire, with a timer on one end. He set the timer for two seconds. He motioned what he wanted from George and Edward. When they nodded understanding, he knelt to one side of the ornate double doors.
George and Edward leaped over and their shotguns blasted the center of the double doors. They dove back before the answering gunfire could catch them and Uriah pushed the plunger on his grenade. He tossed it through the hole George and Edward blasted and the three of them hit the floor.
A split-second of shouting and scrambling inside the room. A sharp, concussive bang. Smoke and dust billowed into the hallway, followed by an eerie silence.
Uriah and the boys entered cautiously, shotguns up and ready. They weren’t needed.
Men lay dead everywhere, heads and bodies opened up by flying barbed wire, internal organs scrambled by the blast. Uriah stopped in his tracks. Before the grenade, this place had been someone’s creative wonderland. Warm wood panels had exquisite German forest scenes carved into them; oak tables held technological wonders like Uriah hadn’t even seen in Professor Atomico’s mammoth laboratory.
Tiny little clockwork fairies perched on clamps under work lamps, their wing panels made of quartz sliced impossibly thin. The blast had derailed a shining gold miniature steam train running through a German town recreated in painstaking detail.
There were many more things, none of them practical, all of them frivolous, useless, and wonderful. Uriah felt a stab of regret he had destroyed so much of it.
A gasp from behind a desk snapped him back to reality. Uriah motioned and George hung back to cover. Uriah and Edward eased around a desk made of heavy timber.
Dietrich Erlichman lay flat on his back. Blood ran from both nostrils, but his upper body seemed relatively unscathed. The damage had been to the parts not covered by the desk. His legs were bleeding badly, a welling steady stream indicating arteries had been severed.
Erlichman’s eyes rolled open as Uriah knelt next to him. The old German struggled to breathe and Uriah laid a hand on his chest. “It’ll be over soon.”
The dying man smiled at Uriah. “Only for me. But the world will suffer. You all will suffer. I know what your master has under that mountain.”
Uriah nodded at George and Edward. “Watch the hall.”
George and Edward moved into the hallway, giving Uriah suspicious looks. He’d deal with it later.
Uriah whispered to Erlichman. “What do you mean?”
“You think only Professor Atomico has spies?”
Erlichman pulled Uriah so close he could smell the iron of blood on the German’s breath. “Pitchblende. The Curies know. It is dangerous, powerful. Atomico calls it ‘radium,’ Peligot calls it ‘uranium.’ You know it, yes?”
“I think so. Does it make people sick? Make their hair fall out?”
“Yes!” Erlichman’s eyes bulged. It took great effort to speak. The pool of blood around his legs grew larger by the second. “It will do more... if Atomico can harness it. It will... destroy the world.”
“What? How?” Uriah said.
Erlichman didn’t answer. In fact, he never said anything again. The human light faded from his eyes, he let loose his last exhale. When Uriah stood, he felt tired. Not physically. His spirit was exhausted, spent, used up in Atomico’s pursuit of war. The table with the clockwork fairies caught his eye. He saw a lone survivor undamaged by the blast.
His clumsy fingers turned the tiny gold key on her back, just a click or two. Fine musical notes came from the fairy’s mouth, and everything stood still. He couldn’t place the song, but it brought Delilah to mind. On impulse, he shoved the fairy into a cargo pocket on his thigh.
He joined George and Edward in the hallway and they ran back the way they’d come. When they reached the original point of entry, Horatio was nowhere to be seen. George and Edward looked uneasy. They covered both directions with their shotguns.
They all flinched when Jezebel’s head poked through the hole in the roof. “What took so damn long?”
Uriah, George, and Edward wasted no time shimmying up the rope dropped to them.
The battle for the front of the fort still raged. Britannia passed in front of the moon, smoke pouring from her gondola. Her steam engine had been shot to pieces and she drifted on the wind, but her gun crews still pounded the front of the fort with repeating cannon fire.
Jezebel said, “We already put up a flare, Mariah’s circling around. Pickup should be less than two minutes. We got our prize.”
The burning fort allowed Uriah to see Gerhardt quite well. The slight little German had a swollen eye and held one hand with the other. It looked like his pinkie finger had been hacked off with a knife.
Uriah glared at Jez
ebel. “What the hell is this?”
“Hey, he’s alive. Little sauerkraut-eating sonnuvabitch blew the top of Tennyson’s head off with a shotgun. Or hadn’t you noticed he wasn’t here?”
Truthfully, Uriah hadn’t noticed. His cheek burned and his ear still rang from the shotgun blast and he felt a bit off balance, both emotionally and physically. He clung to the only thing he knew for sure. Orders.
“The Professor wants him healthy. He has to be able to work.”
Herod shook Gerhardt by the collar and grinned at Uriah. “Oh, he’ll work just fine. And we caught him. We’re the heroes this time.”
“Whatever you say, Herod. I’m not in this to be anyone’s hero,” Uriah said.
Jez brayed her annoying laugh and got in Uriah’s face. “Ha! You’re just worried Daddy is gonna give us that fancy little room of yours on top of the mountain. Maybe make us some clockwork friends, too.”
Usually the quiet one, George spoke up. “I don’t think he has to worry about that anytime soon. Uriah killed Erlichman.”
“No!” The scream from Gerhardt surprised them all. He twisted out of Herod’s grasp and went for Uriah with clawed hands, only to catch a rifle butt in the head from Jez.
The little German fell to the rooftop and rolled over with tears in his eyes. He held out empty hands, imploring Uriah. “Vat haff you done? You destroyed some-sing beautiful in the name of a thief.”
Gerhardt’s soul-wrenching cry stabbed Uriah’s heart deeper than any dagger could have. The beautiful workshop and its demolished treasures flashed into his mind.
The sound of the Mariah’s engines stopped any other conversation. This next part required concentration from everyone. The back quarter of the airship’s gondola detached and lowered on a steam-powered winch to become the “Atomico Combat Scoop.” The contraption swung about a foot above the rooftop and though Mariah was moving slowly by airship standards, the metal ramp would crush the shinbones of anyone who didn’t time their jump right.
Gerhardt’s words were still bouncing around in Uriah’s head. The ringing in his ear and the powder burn on the side of his face distracted him further and Uriah missed the subtle looks, the nods of agreement passing among his comrades.
The pickup scoop swooped toward them and Jez threw Gerhardt in and rolled in after him. Once they’d all made it in, the pilot applied the throttle and up they went, soaring away from the burning fort.
The huge gun atop the fort had somehow survived and had, until now, been concentrating on trying to bring down the crippled Britannia.
Even though she was a slim fighting machine, the Black Mariah still couldn’t be missed when she swooped down so low. Uriah saw the gun crew bringing the giant cannon to bear on them. He brought his rifle up, but the clockwork fairy in his pocket dug into his leg. He paused and patted it to make sure he hadn’t crushed it.
And so it was he didn’t have combat on his mind when the critical moment came. Too late, he felt the hands on his shirt, felt the lift and push. Uriah fell from the sky for the second time that night, twisting around to see Herod and Jezebel laughing down at him.
Wind rushed past, stars spun above him, the crack of branches as he reached the treetops. Snapping, poking, bouncing and bruising his body, the branches slowed Uriah just enough to leave him alive after his body thumped onto the forest floor.
The Black Mariah’s shape still blotted out stars above him, making Uriah feel as if he could reach out and touch her.
The big gun on the fort bellowed into the night sky.
The treetops above Uriah erupted in flames and flying shards of wood. Though the gunner’s aim was off, the explosion still rocked the rescue scoop on its winch lines.
A figure fell out of the rocking gondola, toward a rocky break in the trees. The high-pitched scream told him Jez had spent too long leaning out to gloat. At the crunch of her body hitting the rocks, Uriah’s eyes rolled and he welcomed the darkness.
• • •
Professor Atomico stood over the sandbox, staring down at the blast pattern. Bound data sheets and design books containing the works of every brilliant mind he could locate lined shelves on the cold rock walls of his office.
The sand box dominated the center of the room. A wide rectangle of oak planks contained tightly packed sand that could be shaped into various terrain models and with added scale pieces, could be made to represent any location he desired. Presently, it featured a tiny scale forest at the mouth of a mountain pass, along with little bits of the destroyed log and mud trading post.
Atomico’s engineers had carefully plotted the blast pattern and the correct numbers of scale model trees were down in a wide circle around the origin point. In the center of the damage stood a tiny torpedo man. A man-shaped walking machine with armored skin and a hollow torso, which held fifty pounds of the Professor’s new explosive.
In the kinetoscope of his mind, Atomico watched a platoon of these torpedo men march into the ranks of a Colonial Union army arrayed on the battlefield. The blast radiuses multiplied in his quick brain and he saw a single rank of torpedo men taking the first battlefield easily.
The door opened behind him but he didn’t turn. He knew no one would dare to actually enter and disturb him. Save one.
Delilah tiptoed in, though her delicate gears could never be truly silent.
He said nothing as she approached, just watched her as she circled the sandbox. Her musical voice asked, “Do you see trees or people?”
Ah, how had a manmade machine come to be such a brilliant girl? Why couldn’t she be a flesh and blood daughter?
“Child, what I see is the future. And none of the fools on this continent yet grasp it.”
Delilah cocked her head to the side, considering this. “But they know of your machines. Surely they know they have to change their way of fighting.”
“They’ve purposely set up their government to be run by committee. When they see what is happening, they’ll fight each other, argue, make speeches, and take votes. Instead of a sharp rapier, their power is slow and ponderous, clumsy to wield.”
“A big cannon is slow and ponderous. But once it’s pointed your way, it can cause a lot of damage,” Delilah said.
His laughter surprised even him. So quick, so bright. He had known Uriah would fall for her sculpted features, but her “personality” had cemented her hold on the young man’s heart.
“That is a clever observation,” he said.
The scuff of feet in the doorway made Atomico look up. Normally, he’d ignore whoever it was when he was with Delilah. But he saw Dupuis in his dirty red lab coat and excitement seized him.
“Uh, Delilah dear, I’ve a bit of business to discuss with Monsieur Dupuis. Could we beg a moment of privacy?” Atomico said.
“Of course, Father.” She came close and bussed his cheeks, but as she turned to leave, she paused. “Father, may I ask...”
“Yes? What is it?”
“I have just over one hour left and Uriah hasn’t returned.”
The results of the impromptu test of his torpedo man and the fact that his fighting forces would bring him the final piece of the puzzle tonight had him giddy. “Of course, of course. You want to be awake when the conquering hero returns.”
Professor Atomico retrieved an ornate key on a chain around his neck. He moved the dust plug and inserted the key at the base of Delilah’s throat. As he turned the key, she looked at him with those brilliant green eyes.
“Perhaps one day I won’t need a key.”
The smile on his face died like a guttering candle in a cold breeze. Although his heart knew she was only a machine, he didn’t like it when she talked like this. Like a daughter who was growing old enough to leave home.
“Perhaps,” he said.
Atomico put the key away and Delilah left without a word. Now the mood felt soured, ruined. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why. Why the hell should he care about a machine?
Dupuis saw the look on Atomic
o’s face and dispensed with conversation. He merely handed over some sheets of paper and waited nervously while the Professor read them.
“If what I hear of Herr Gerhardt’s explosive design is true, do you think he’ll be able to pull this off?” Atomico said.
“If he ees cracking mountains as they say, then oui. I believe he will,” Dupuis said.
Atomico read through the calculations once more. “And if we used one of my radium power slugs as the base for this bomb?”
Dupuis looked horrified. “Monsieur, I would fear for ze world as we know it.”
Atomico offered him a cold smile. “Magnificent.”
• • •
“Uriah.”
The silver bells of Delilah’s voice called in the darkness. He heard her giggling nearby, her laughter more like a ringing chime than ever, tiny, delicate, halting occasionally, and then starting up again.
Uriah pried his eyes open, which was hard because dried blood sealed the left one shut. Stars shone through tree branches high above him and the loamy smell of the forest floor filled his nose. Delilah’s laughter came to him again.
His memory flooded back, causing a dull throbbing at the base of his skull. The raid, the burning fort, twisting and falling away from the Black Mariah.
He heard the tiny bells again and realized what they were. Erlichman’s dogs. Their handlers kept tiny bells on the dogs’ collars so they could keep track of them in the deep woods. The jingling sounds grew near, but stopped. Uriah heard the bell ringing furiously as the dog growled and tore at something on the ground. He hauled his aching body to a fallen log and peered over the top.
Men on horses followed Erlichman’s black German Shepherds, checking for survivors among the fallen soldiers surrounding the fort. Each time the dogs found a moaning man dressed in Atomico’s red and black, the men on horseback would laugh as the dogs tore into him. Once the dogs had their fun, the riders shot the wounded man and moved on.
Two horsemen separated from the rest and followed a dog into the woods near Uriah. He took a quick mental inventory to gauge his chances. Ribs aching, likely fractured, dried blood from some unknown head wound, but he felt fairly steady. His legs and arms seemed to be okay, but if he lived through this, he’d ache for the next six months.
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