Agatha H. and the Airship City (29 page)

A pair of copper rods drove into the wasp’s eye. And a cascade of sparks erupted. The creature jerked frantically and then collapsed. The other wasps froze in surprise. Gil looked behind him.

There stood Agatha, a fierce grin on her face. In one hand she had the mysterious Heterodyne sphere. Connected to it was a supple cable, which ended at a bizarre-looking swordlike object, which crackled and continually threw off great arcing Jacobs ladders. “HA!” she cried. “It works!”

Gilgamesh scrambled to his feet. “You did it!”

“Sure did.” Agatha tossed him a large rubberized gauntlet, identical to the one she was wearing on her right hand. He quickly slid it on as she tossed him another sword, which was also attached to the glowing blue orb. “Here. You’re the fencer.”

Together they returned their attention to the again advancing bugs. Whenever they touched the wasps, the insects jerked and died instantly. “You used part of my lightning generator,” Gil observed.

“Yes, the Heterodyne device can recharge it instantly.”

“Good job. I never thought to test it as a power source, but I’d really thought there was more to it.” As he said this, both he and Agatha smacked the same bug at the same time. It jerked once, crackling, and when they swung their swords away, it clattered to the ground like a collection of scrap iron.

They pushed out into the hallway, effortlessly scything down wasps. Gil nodded approvingly as Agatha swept her sword in an arc that took out three wasps at one swipe. “I thought you didn’t fence,” he remarked.

“This isn’t fencing!” she retorted. “This is swinging wildly!” A frantic series of such swings on both of their parts brought them almost face to face, slightly tangled in the cords. Gil’s face was glistening with sweat and a small cut oozed on his cheek. Agatha was breathing heavily and grimly determined. Their eyes locked. They froze and swayed fractionally closer—and then whirled away as an attacking arm slashed through the place they’d been.

“Couldn’t you have used a longer cable?” Gil groused.

“It’s what was there,” Agatha snarled.

Gil shrugged. “Okay. So now what do we do?”

Agatha looked at him askance as she fried an unwary wasp. “Um… we should try to get out of here?”

“We could head for the exit,” Gil conceded, “but that won’t solve the problem.”

“You’re saying we have to stop them at the source. We’ve got to destroy the Hive Engine.”

“As long as we’re here.”

Agatha drove her sword up into a wasp’s mouth causing its head to explode. “Then we’d better get going.”

Around Castle Wulfenbach, the ever-present cloud of attendant airships began to shift. Ships carrying emergency crew and marines began to head towards loading docks, while shuttle and passenger ships removed non-essential personnel.

One such ship was carrying away the students and other children. On one of the observation decks, Theo had commandeered the largest of the great brass telescopes and was training it upon the laboratory decks. “Well,” he reported to the others, “there’s wasps all over the place. But I still don’t see any resistance.”

“Let me look,” said Sleipnir. Theo yielded the telescope.

“At least I couldn’t see any outside the lab area,” he said, “so I guess the doors—”

“Omigosh!” Sleipnir yelled. “It’s Gil and Agatha! They’re in the labs! They’re fighting wasps!”

“Let me see!”

Sleipnir defended her position with a deft kick to Theo’s knee. “They’re using swords and—wait. They just vanished!”

“What?”

“No—There they are. I must’ve—no, they’re gone—they’re back—” Sleipnir furiously knuckled her eyes. “What the heck is wrong with my eyes?”

Sun Ming pushed her aside and peered through the eyepiece. “No, I see it too. They’re vanishing,” she announced. “I wonder how they’re doing that?”

Theo scribbled a quick note and handed it to Von Tock, the boy with the clock in his head. “Have the message light send this to the Baron right away. He’s got to know.” The boy nodded and dashed off. “I hope the Baron can get to them in time.”

Sleipnir grinned. “Why wait?”

Theo’s eyebrows perked upwards. “Go rescue them ourselves? Intriguing…” His eyes slid over towards Zulenna. “But the life gliders will be guarded.”

Zulenna tossed her head. “Probably by a man.” With that she gave her torso a supple little twitch that caused Theo to blink and swallow. “And there’s no male guard on this ship that can resist a beautiful and oh-so-lonely princess.”

Theo nodded as he picked up a large spanner and cheerfully smacked it into his palm. “That’s the truth.”

Behind them Sleipnir rolled her eyes. “I cannot believe that works every time.”

Hezekiah shrugged. “It always works on me.”

Leaving the younger children in the care of the governesses, the students slipped out into the main hallway. Moving through the ship proved to be almost disappointingly easy, as things were so confused that their passage went unnoticed. The bay they had chosen for their departure was indeed guarded by a lone soldier. He was young and good looking, and was lounging against the entrance, quietly eating an apple while gazing at the panorama of ships spread out before him.

Zulenna looked him over, gave Theo a silent thumbs up, and then wandered into the bay.

Instantly the apple disappeared and the soldier snapped to attention. “This area is off limits, Miss.”

Zulenna appeared startled. “Oh, I’m sorry, I was just…” She shuddered. “It’s all so horrible. I was just looking for something… someone to take my mind off what’s happening.” She looked up at him with large luminous eyes, which blinked in surprise as she saw the guard’s weapon pointing at her chest.

“It
is
very horrible, Miss. I remember when wasps wiped out my village. It started with people acting all odd.”

Zulenna faltered, then gamely rallied with a shy smile. “Really?”

The guard’s weapon didn’t move a millimeter. “Oh yes. For instance, if a snooty little princess who had, just last week, upbraided a hard-working member of the ship’s guard because he’d neglected to do up a collar button even though he was off duty, suddenly came slinking in like a Parisian streetwalker, just waiting for the proper moment to burst into soppy crocodile tears—why that’d be suspicious enough that any experienced soldier’d haul her off to the brig.” He prodded the now scarlet-faced Zulenna in the stomach with the end of his rifle. “Now let’s move along, eh?”

Mechanically Zulenna wheeled about and strode off, causing her captor to hurry after her, which helped explain why he didn’t see Theo step out from behind a duct and smack him smartly across the back of the head. He collapsed forward onto the deck.

Zulenna saw Sleipnir valiantly trying to keep from laughing. “Very well, I will concede that there’s one who
can
resist.”

Sleipnir shrugged. “Personally, I’m rather glad the Baron’s troops are so well trained. I feel so much safer, don’t you?” Zulenna deigned to reply, but carefully placed the soldier comfortably against a bulkhead, and then delicately arranged his arms so that one thumb was in his mouth while the forefinger of the other hand was lodged deeply within his nose.

“Now you’re just being petty,” Sleipnir observed.

Zulenna rose and dusted her hands together before smiling beatifically. “Quite.”

Meanwhile the others had found the personal flyers. These were small dirigible shaped balloons attached to harnesses, fitted with large bat-like wings, which the user could control with long rods. For emergency use only, the flyers were capable of slowing a person’s fall enough that they would have an excellent chance of surviving should they have to abandon one of the great airships in mid-flight. The students had long ago discovered that the flyers also be used to glide from ship to ship, providing that the ship you started from was sufficiently higher than your destination. This was, of course, strictly forbidden, and it had been weeks since they’d done it last.

Zulenna and Sleipnir entered just as Theo finished circumventing the tripwire alarm. Nicodeamus was using the gas tanks to inflate a pair of flyers for the girls. “You know, this is really stupid,” he cheerfully informed them.

Sleipnir buckled herself into her rig while Zulenna checked her connections. “Oh. You just noticed?”

Zulenna patted his shoulder, then began to pull her own flyer on. “You can stay here.”

Nicodeamus waved. “Nah. Just making conversation.” He snuck a quick look at Zulenna, who pretended not to notice, but once Sleipnir had patted her shoulder and turned away, she leaned in and placed a quick kiss on his cheek.

They joined the others lined up at the opening. Before them was the crenellated wall that was Castle Wulfenbach, stretching away in all directions. Scale was provided by the support ships that were moving to and fro between them. Theo pointed out the nearest windsock, and then to a landing deck several hundred feet below them on the Castle. “We’ll aim for Docking Bay 451. That’s closest to an armory.” Nicodeamus tossed out a scrap of paper. With an aeronaut’s experienced eye, they all watched it flutter away in the wind and plotted their trajectories accordingly.

Theo moved up to the lip and grinned. “Okay, you brats, let’s go!” Without pause, he launched himself over the edge, and with a whoop, the others followed.

A troop of Jägers sloped down the hallway, looking like a parade sergeant’s personal vision of Hell. Sloping was a combination of loping and slouching developed by the Jägerkin. To the untrained eye, it looked like they were ambling along in a disorganized fashion. A closer look and you saw that they were traveling at a respectable clip, and prolonged observation revealed that they could do it for a very long time over a wide variety of terrain. As with many Jäger practices, it had been developed to annoy other people. Particularly Boris.

Despite the haste, great care was taken to keep their uniforms straight, and several were brushing their hats and buffing their braid even as they moved forward. There was a palatable excitement amongst them, and much boasting and declarations regarding the number of wasps that were about to be killed, stomped, and (possibly) eaten.

The other Castle personnel hastily hugged the side of the corridor as they approached, and only dared to breathe again when they had passed. With each yard they covered, they became more and more excited, until they poured around a corner into a large intersection and stopped dead, the ones in the back flowing forward until the entire corridor was a solid sea of Jägerkin.

Before them, in the center of the intersection, stood Von Pinn. Still as a statue. As soon as they stopped moving, she slowly moved with a leathery creak. Wordlessly she approached them and glided from one end of the crowd to the other. As her gaze swept them, each Jägermonster felt themselves snapping to attention, some of them for the first time in years. Without a word she spun away and headed off down the hallway ahead of them. Three meters away, she stopped, twisting about, gave them a toothy come-hither look over her shoulder, and whispered, “Well? What are you waiting for? Let’s go squash some bugs.”

With a roar that was heard throughout half of the Castle, the Jägers leapt forward and headed for battle.

The Baron’s squad moved into position. It moved slowly because of the constant stream of unicycle messengers that darted in and out with reports from other parts of the vast dirigible.

Boris scanned the latest missive. “The main troop of Jägermonsters have engaged the bugs in Docking Bay 422.” He waved the note. “They seem especially enthusiastic.”

Klaus nodded. “It’s been a while since they really fought.”

From the corridor behind, a young voice rang out. “Personal message for the Baron! Clear the way! Stand aside!” Noiselessly, a tall brass unicycle wove through the crowd and the rider slid from the seat in front of the Baron. From a large pouch on the front of her uniform, she pulled out a note, which the bright yellow paper identified as being from the Heliography Corps. Klaus unfolded it, scanned it quickly, and went pale.

Concerned, Boris leaned in. “Are you all right, Herr Baron?”

“Gilgamesh has been spotted within the laboratory section. He is fighting wasps.” Klaus’ voice was rock steady, but Boris noticed that the note had been crushed. Klaus took a deep breath, and continued. “He is my son. He will survive.” He looked around at the retainers gathered around him. “But he still needs a talking to. Let’s go get him, shall we?” With a shout of affirmation, the group broke into a trot and headed off down the hallway.

Agatha gasped and dropped to her knees. By a supreme effort of will she kept the point of her sword up, but nothing impacted upon it. She looked up. Gil stood over her, a light sweat covering his face. His left sleeve was in tatters from where an extremely agile wasp had managed to get a bit too close. Blood oozed from several lacerations, but he breathed easily, his head and sword gliding easily back and forth keeping the wasps that surrounded them at bay.

They had entered a larger room, Agatha noticed. It was filled with crates and large barrels. The wasps, while certainly visible, had pulled back, and were circling them warily. “But they’ve stopped attacking.”

Gil nodded. “Yes, of course. We’re already heading towards the Slaver Engine.”

“But I thought they were defending it.”

“To a degree, but once they’ve established a perimeter, they’ll begin to herd everyone inside it towards the Engine at the center. Once the actual Slavers hatch, then we’ll be taken over and it will be our job to defend the Engine.”

Agatha looked ill. Everyone knew what happened to people who were taken over by Slaver wasps. She looked up at Gil. “Kill me first,” she whispered.

Gil nodded slowly. “I will.” That said, he offered her his hand and helped her to her feet. As they moved deeper into the room, the wasps began to scuttle backwards, losing themselves within the dimly lit stacks. By the time they came to the next hallway, the bugs had all vanished.

The hallway was dark and low ceilinged. The few lighting fixtures they could see had been smashed. They turned a bend and the next room came into view. It was one of the experimental bays in the Baron’s section of the lab. The ceiling faded into the distance, and the metal walls were dimly lit by a collection of glowing machinery. Suddenly a massive form in the center shifted and Agatha realized that it was the activated Hive Engine.