Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine Read online

  Jeremiah Willstone

  Jeremiah Willstone

  and the

  Clockwork

  Time Machine

  A Story of Love, Corsets, Rayguns

  and the

  Conquest of the Galactic Habitable Zone

  by

  Anthony Francis

  Bell Bridge Books

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Bell Bridge Books

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  Ebook ISBN : 978-1-61194-742-7

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-760-1

  Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright © 2017 by Anthony G. Francis, Jr.

  Published in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

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  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover design: Debra Dixon

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Frontispiece: Anthony Francis

  Photo/Art credits:

  Airship (manipulated) © Ateliersommerland | Dreamstime.com

  Girl (manipulated) © Unholyvault | Dreamstime.com

  Background Elements (manipulated) © Andreas Meyer | Dreamstime.com

  :Ectm:01:

  Dedication

  To the steampunk community:

  Keep making things wonderful.

  1.

  The Mystery in the Crystal Hangar

  Maddox Cove, Newfoundland

  2:21am November 4, 1908

  THE VAST CRYSTAL HANGAR of the Newfoundland Airship Conservatory glittered in the distance like a bar of faery gold. Mist cloaked it like a shroud, and around it, the abandoned buildings of Sir John Jeffries’ Airship City lay scattered over the valleys of Maddox’s Cove like skulls, their windows gouged black as eye sockets and their roofs fissured and trepanned by a quarter century of disuse—but the glass walls of the hangar still glittered, and its interior glowed with warm gas light.

  “Abandoned in the 1880s, my arse,” Lieutenant Patrick Harbinger said, flat on his stomach on the chilly edge of the ridge, spying through the trees the mammoth hangar and reconstructed mansion over a kilometer distant. “That base is active. Looks like the Commander was right.”

  “When is she not, sir?” asked the youngest of Patrick’s Rangers, a Maori recruit who blew into her shivering free hand as she peered with her farlenses. “But is our missing airship at port? Yon crystal hangar’s big enough for the Zeppelin-Rogers 101, but my lenses aren’t penetrating.”

  “Nor mine,” Patrick said, flicking the polarizer of his spectracle down, the powerful lens cutting through distance and vapor alike, revealing in crystal detail the smooth, sloped walls of the glass hangar and the spiky scaffolding holding together the aging Queen Anne Revival mansion attached to it—but inside those windows was nothing but fog. “Too much condensation—”

  Blue light flared within the glass hangar, near the end pointing away from them. Patrick adjusted his spectracles, catching a quick glimpse of flickering lightning behind fogged panes, a lightshow which soon curdled into a lump of darkness lurking at the far end of the hangar.

  “They’re . . . testing the weapon,” Patrick muttered.

  “Sir?” the Maori asked. “Ah! Yon darkness near the far end, could be the ZR-101’s nose.”

  “I see that too,” said one of Patrick’s older Rangers, a seasoned Egyptian peering through custom farlenses crafted by her personal artisans. She grimaced, pocketing her farlenses, her hands trembling in the cold. “I’ll wager they had to wedge the ZR-101 end to end to get it to fit—”

  “Enough of those warm-weather gloves,” chided their Canadian Ranger, as his Egyptian counterpart slipped her hands into her pockets. The Canadian wore a light Expeditionary tailcoat that made Patrick shiver just looking at it. “You’ll never harden your hands by hiding them—”

  “Be that as it may,” Patrick said, adjusting his spectracles towards the foreground, “keep your hands warm and your weapons ready, however you have to. Unless air support comes through, or the Commander finds the sea approach, it looks like we’re in for a pitched battle by land.”

  For, beyond the brutal cold—which, Patrick freely admitted, neither his African heritage nor his college years spent in the warmer latitudes of the Confederacy had prepared him for—their foes had done everything in their power to make this historic building a hard target.

  With his spectracles, he inspected the fortification ringed round the complex: a quick-hedge, a vicious latticework of tumbled brasslite spikes designed to repel Foreigners. Behind it, dark forms patrolled, taller and thinner than any man or woman . . . and shining with glints of copper.

  “Sir, I must confess I’m uncomfortable, and not from the damn near polar chill,” the Maori said, tightening the belt on her heavy-weather Expeditionary tailcoat. “Yon building there. It stands—we stand—on foreign soil—”

  “Oi!” snapped their Canadian, flipping back his own fargoggles. “Watch your language, there are humans inside those walls. Nearest inhuman territory I know of is Iceland, a thousand kilometers northeast, so if this is a Foreign shore either I or our navigators are far off the mark—”

  “I’m sure the Ranger meant sovereign, not Foreign,” Patrick said calmly, “but point taken: the walls of our world have been breached, and if we don’t stand together, we’ll all fall separately. No human being is a Foreigner, even if they fly a different flag—”

  “But they do fly a different flag, sir—and I’ll wager there was a time the Newfoundland Airship Conservatory raised it with pride every day,” the Maori pressed. “With respect, sir, couldn’t assaulting a military airship hangar of a sovereign power be considered an act of war?”

  “Couldn’t receiving a stolen military airship of a sovereign power also be considered an act of war?” the Canadian snapped back. “The Liberated Territories of Victoriana can’t just afford to let its best airship fall into the hands of Newfoundland—”

  “Especially not for free, since we planned to sell it to them,” Patrick said, giving back a wry nod to his man’s surprised glance. “If their airships engage one of our airships, even a stolen one, it’s an international incident. But if we retrieve it”—and he let his voice go all stuffy and Peerage—“simply a self-policing action, Mister Ambassador, shall we sweep it under this rug?”

  His men and women laughed, and Patrick smiled tightly. Both his Canadian and his Maori were right: global diplomacy must have been much easier when it had been called foreign policy—and when the word Foreigner still meant human.

  The Canadian shook his head. “Still, I can’t shake the feeling it’s dangerous, having our most important airship routes, the backbone of the empire, controlled by another power—”

  “The point of the Liberated Territories is that we are not an empire,” Patrick said, redirecting the conversation. �
��We incorporate only territories that want to join—Ranger! Hang back, we’re already too far forward.”

  “Sorry, sir,” the Maori said; she’d stepped slightly up the ridge, and from behind the cover of a tree was scoping out the valley, even as she drew her blaster and checked its gas canister. “But if we’re in for a land assault, I recommend that we try the approach near yon—”

  But whatever strategic point of advantage the Maori Ranger had spied, she never got to mention, for rising over the ridge, moving smoothly with silent metal strides, loomed a tall, bulbous-headed form with glowing eyes—and crackling electric tongs at the end of its long copper arm.

  “Bollocks!” the Maori cried, stumbling back, swinging her blaster up as the metal man bore down on her. “Mechanicals! Mechanicals—”

  But the Mechanical was faster, two crackling fingers lancing out with a stunning jolt to her heart. The Maori flew backwards, blaster spinning out of her hand as Harbinger unslung his blunderblast and discharged a round of aetheric lightning square on the machine’s chest.

  Staggered, the spindly copper man fell to its knees, green crackling foxfire rippling over it, arms waving blindly as the aetheric discharge scrambled its Analogue vision tubes. But unlike a human, who could be felled to unconsciousness with a single shot, a Mechanical had a clockwork controller to fall back on—and as the first metal soldier struggled to rise, a second one stomped up the path, electric tongs crackling—and the transmitter on its helmet flickering to life.

  “Don’t let it send the alarm!” the Egyptian said, blasting their new foe’s antenna.

  “Capital shot,” Patrick said, sharply but quietly, unloading another aetheric discharge from his blunderblast’s bell into the flailing Mechanical’s chest, even as a third clockwork soldier crested the ridge. “But keep your voice down! Does us no good to stop the alarm if you are the alarm—”

  The three Rangers left standing fell back as the metal monsters advanced. Thermionic weapons performed admirably against living humans, physical structures, even wood—but against these well-shielded, well-grounded copper soldiers, the aetheric blasts were barely a hindrance.

  Only the strict rules governing these devices saved the humans from a swift death.

  “It’s deciding to run,” the Canadian said, pointing at the fallen Mechanical, struggling to rise, intact head rotating left and right in a calibration motion, even as its two compatriots, their antennae destroyed, corralled the humans with outstretched, sparkling tongs. “I’ve got a shot—gaah!”

  But leaning in to destroy the antenna had put him too close to the second Mechanical, which lanced out and nailed him on his gun arm with the electric tongs. He spun aside with a sharp cry, gun flying as he went tumbling—and the standing Mechanicals lunged for their prey.

  The fallen Mechanical rose—then was suddenly pulled off balance by a sharp jerk on its metal collar from a pale hand. A slim figure in a grey heat cloak effortlessly guided the stumbling Mechanical into a sapling—then, when the metal man reached back for its foe, the figure slid the pole of a tonfa club beneath its upraised shoulder blades, pinning it to the tree. While the machine struggled vainly, one pale hand snapped its antenna off—and the other pulled back the hood of the cloak to reveal the golden curls and night-vision goggles of Commander Jeremiah Willstone.

  “Care for an assist, gentlemen and gentlewomen?” Jeremiah asked, stabbing the antenna into one Mechanical’s neck, then ducking as the other Mechanical whirled in the direction of her voice. Jeremiah darted fluidly aside, blinding it with a fold of her heat cloak and driving the Mechanical’s lunging tongs into the ribs of its fellow—the short she’d created in its neck frying both its central motor and vision tubes in twin clouds of black oil and sparks. “Looks like you could use it—”

  “Much obliged, Commander,” Patrick said, tipping his bowler, with a slightly embarrassed air. “Sorry we’re past your recommended perimeter, ma’am, but there was too much brush on that ridge to scan the site. We’re lucky you like to run a final recce—”

  “I’m lucky you’re scouting our assault,” Jeremiah said, locking the joint of the remaining Mechanical’s arm, leading it blind and stumbling around her in a forced whirl until its head smashed into a tree. Harbinger’s team was fifty meters past her cordon, but she could immediately see why. “I can always count on you to find the best vantage point, and that’s how I found you—”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Patrick said, ramming the butt of his blunderblast into the spinal joint of the Mechanical, which flopped out, deactivated. “But a land assault may be dicey, the Conservatory appears to be quite well guarded—do you need help, ma’am?”

  “Thanks, but I believe I have it,” Jeremiah said, flashing Patrick a quick grin as she carefully slipped behind the pinioned Mechanical, still flailing against the sapling. Before it could break free, she reached beneath its head, felt, pressed, then popped its head off with a smooth motion. As the Mechanical sagged, she flipped its head over and lifted her goggles, inspecting the spinal socket joint. “Haven’t seen this make since Academy . . . whittled in 1882! Near as old as I am—”

  “Older, surely,” Harbinger said.

  “Flatterer,” Jeremiah said, giving him a wink. She peered past the joint into the casing. “Still, quite well maintained, a brand new dynamo—and, I note with relief, still fully compliant with the Mechanical Protocols. Our foes remain civil. Capital.”

  “Thank heaven for small favors,” Patrick said, sighting up the path. “Looks like the end of reinforcements. Civilized or no, they’re husbanding their funds well—three well-kept sentries are a far better defense than one brand new one, shined and ready for its outnumbering.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Jeremiah said, stepping towards the Canadian, who’d fallen on his arse by a tree. She knelt to check his pulse, just as Patrick knelt by the Maori to do the same, and she gave Patrick a warm smile. “Such a pleasure to be working with you again, Lieutenant.”

  “You as well, Commander,” Patrick replied.

  “I wish I could say the same, ma’am; can’t feel anything but pins and needles,” the Canadian said, cradling his injured arm gingerly with his opposite hand. “Sorry, ma’am, you always did recommend Rangers cultivate skill with their non-dominant hands—”

  “Simply a precaution; ambidexterity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Jeremiah said, touching his throat. He winced, and her fingers tingled; he’d absorbed far more aetheric charge than at first she’d thought—but she hated to see her soldiers blame themselves for their injuries. “No need to bruise yourself, Ranger; the enemy will do that for you.”

  “Still,” he grimaced, “my active participation in this mission may be at an end.”

  “Your pulse is regular; you’re in no immediate danger,” Jeremiah said, gently feeling his arm: it was limp, and she could see he’d picked up post-blast shivers. “Buck up, Ranger, you’re alive and conscious, and you’ll live to fight another day! Can you get to your feet and help carry our compatriot back to the landing turtle? Yes? Capital. Let’s move.”

  The Egyptian and Canadian lifted their unconscious Maori counterpart and slung her arms over their shoulders as Jeremiah and Patrick pulled the Mechanicals off the path and out of sight; thank God the trees had shaded the snow enough so a quick brushing could hide their scuffle. Then Jeremiah had the wounded lead the way back while she and Patrick guarded their retreat.

  “The Baron’s using our full playbook,” she muttered, drawing one of her Kathodenstrahls. “Quick-hedges, gates reinforced with brasslite tubing, walls reinforced with spun-mesh barbwire—and at an historic building, so we can’t blast it without getting Newfoundland’s boot up our arse!”

  “We need to move quickly,” Patrick said. “They may have been testing the weapon.”

  “If it’s a weapon,” she said. “Stirred them up like an anthill, it did
. Still, I do not, do not, do not like even the idea of a Foreign weapon falling into the hands of a traitor with an airship—much less one sitting in the hangar of a well-armed and suspiciously tolerant sovereign power that’s the closest strike point to our capitol this side of the Atlantic! We need to move in.”

  “Assault crabs are out,” Patrick said, “given that thorough perimeter of caltrop hedges.”

  “Monitored by an equally thorough perimeter of roving Mechanicals, within and without.”

  “So no direct assault,” he said. “Hang on, how do you know what’s inside their perimeter?”

  Jeremiah smiled over her shoulder at him. “Now, that would be telling,” she said; truth be told, eluding the eyes of that perimeter had taxed even her abilities. But, as usual, moving with speed had paid off. “Fortunately, I found the actual entrance to the smugglers’ tunnels.”

  “Capital,” Patrick said. “It is a pleasure to be working with you again, Commander.”

  At a steep, exposed ridge, Jeremiah held her hand up, listening carefully; then darted forward to a covering position while Harbinger helped the wounded quickly cross the gap. For a moment, she could again see the Conservatory, that glowing mountain behind its spiky hedge.

  The enemy was there. Her enemy was there: the Baron—the man who’d taught her mistrust. The man who’d sabotaged her dreams. The man who’d nearly got her drummed out of Academy. The man who’d gambled Iceland on one of his mad schemes—and lost it to Foreigners!

  Now the madman was trying again! And so close! She hissed, then turned away, drawing calming breaths to compose herself before rejoining her troops. Grudges were a weakness, anger was a short route to error, and revenge was most decidedly unprofessional.

  ———

  But bringing this blackguard to heel would feel so good.

  2.

  The Last Boat out of Iceland

  JEREMIAH’S EXPEDITIONARIES regained, without further incident, the landing zone, that cozy tree-shaded bay they’d first mistaken for the smugglers’ cove. As they skulked in, two sleek, masked figures rose from the water without a sound, and even Jeremiah was impressed at how cunningly the Frogman and Frogwoman’s patterned black rubber armor blended with the rocks and surf.