Gears of a Mad God: A Steampunk Lovecraft Adventure (6 page)

A man came
walking from behind a maze of pipes and stopped, staring at them in
astonishment. He was greasy and dirty, wearing stained coveralls
and carrying a wrench. Smith pointed his pistol at the man, and
Carter hustled forward, took the wrench from the man's hand, and
said softly, "Keep quiet if you want to live."

The team
members spread through the boiler room and found two more sailors,
dirty sullen men who might have been cultists or innocent
bystanders. Carter herded them into an empty coal bunker and jammed
the wrench through the wheel on the hatch, effectively locking
it.

It was David
Parker, the burly Bureau of Investigations agent, who spotted the
hatch in the back bulkhead of the boiler room. He cocked the
snub-nosed revolver in his fist, glanced at the others, and pulled
the hatch open.

There was a
gunshot and Parker fell back. Rick, the Mountie, dragged Parker
back as Carter and Smith fired through the hatch. When the bulk of
a boiler was between Parker and the hatch, Rick said to Colleen,
"Do what you can for him." Then he ran to join Carter and
Smith.

Colleen stared
down helplessly at the man. She knew how to fix machinery, not
people. She shut her eyes for a moment, made herself breathe
deeply, and murmured, "You can do this. You can."

She opened her
eyes. Parker was staring up at her, his face grey, his lips pressed
tightly together. She looked him over. The damage was easy to spot.
There was a hole in his left sleeve, just below the shoulder joint.
There was no blood on the fabric, but blood was pooling on the
floor beneath him. Well, that would be the first priority,
then.

In the corner
of her eye she saw the others charge through the hatch, going
deeper into the ship. She shrugged. She had her hands full for
now.

Her one attempt
to get Parker's jacket off left him gasping and white-faced with
pain. She balled her hands up, frustrated, looked around for
something she could use to cut the fabric away from the wound, and
finally asked him, "Do you have anything sharp?"

He nodded, and
pointed to his front pants pocket with a shaky right hand. Colleen
dipped her hand in the pocket and came up with a folding razor. She
cut apart the seam of his jacket where the sleeve met the shoulder,
tugging to tear the threads in the places her razor wouldn't reach.
Then she went to his wrist and drew the sleeve down and off.

His shirt was a
bloody mess. Colleen told herself that it was a repair job, nothing
more. A mechanical malfunction that happened to involve blood and
flesh. She sliced the shirt sleeve open, wielding the razor with
delicate precision, and eventually slid the sleeve from his
arm.

She could see
the bullet's entry hole, a small black circle oozing dark blood,
but not the exit. "You'll have to roll onto your side," she told
him. He nodded, used his right arm to stabilize his left wrist, and
she slid her hands under his back, lifting, helping him roll. He
grunted with pain but didn't cry out.

The exit wound
was a mess. A chunk of flesh was missing, leaving a gory, ragged
hole two inches across. Colleen cut a section of his shirt sleeve,
wadded it up, and pressed it into the hole. She wrapped the rest of
the sleeve around his arm and got him to hold it in place with his
free hand. She looked around for something to hold it all in place,
and finally used Parker's shoelaces.

By the time she
was done blood was soaking through the makeshift bandage, but
slowly. He wouldn't bleed to death, not soon. Now they just had to
get him off of the ship. She draped his jacket over him and got up
to take a look around.

There were four
boilers in all, three of them cold. The fourth boiler was lit, a
fair amount of pressure showing on the gauge, enough to run a few
onboard systems, she supposed. She moved past the lit boiler to the
hatch at the back of the room and peeked through the opening.

Carter, Smith,
and Rick hadn't advanced very far. Rick was no more than six feet
past the hatch, pressed into a gap between thick pipes on the wall
of the corridor. Carter was a few feet past him, on the other side
of the corridor, flattened into a hatchway. Smith was a short
distance beyond, crouching behind more pipe. Shadows moved deeper
in the corridor, a shot rang out, and all three men flinched. They
were pinned down.

Colleen drew
back. The longer they remained stuck, the longer the cultists had
to circle around, or to get rid of Jane. Clearly something had to
be done, but what?

Her eyes
drifted naturally to the lit boiler. They had the awesome power of
steam at their fingertips, if they could figure out how to tap it.
She examined the boiler and the surrounding equipment. The water
level was decently high, so she could crank up the heat without too
much danger. She examined the firebox. There was a coal hopper,
almost full, and a grate to allow coal to tumble into the fire. She
kicked the grate open, sent coal pouring into the firebox, and
opened the air vent. The needle on the pressure gauge twitched,
then crept upward.

This was steam
power on a larger scale than Colleen had ever worked with. She took
her time examining the pipes, hoses, and gears around her. She
found a pipe with a T-intersection on it, the base of the T ending
after six inches as if the pipe had been cut off. Above the cut-off
was mounted a red-painted handle. She tugged the handle gently, and
steam came hissing out of the pipe end. She shoved the handle back
and the steam stopped.

Her eyes
scanned the room and fell on coils of hose mounted in racks on one
bulkhead. She pulled down a coil. The hose was thicker than her
arm, stiff but moderately flexible. It felt like rubber wrapped in
canvas. She dragged the end of the hose over to the T-intersection.
There was a clamp on the hose end, and she found that the hose end
fit neatly over the base of the T. She used the clamp to lock the
end of the hose in place.

"What are you
doing?"

She looked down
at Parker. "Hooking up a steam hose. They would have used it to
power tools or to do steam-cleaning. I'm going to use it more
directly. Do you think you can stand up?"

"I'll try."

She helped him
to his feet and led him to the T-intersection. He leaned against
the pipes and she showed him the red handle.

"When I knock
twice, metal on metal, you pull this handle down, okay? When I
knock twice more, you push it back up. Then repeat, when I knock
again."

He looked
puzzled, but he nodded.

Colleen took
the free end of the hose and started toward the hatch where the men
were pinned down. On the way she picked up a wrench from a wall
rack. She peeked into the corridor.

Rick, Carter,
and Smith hadn't moved. Colleen took a deep breath, plunged into
the corridor, and banged her wrench hard, twice, on the pipe beside
Rick. Then she raced forward, passing Carter and reaching Smith.
She heard Carter say, "What the hell are you-"

A man moved in
the shadows ahead, she saw a gun barrel gleam in the darkness, and
then the hose squirmed in her hand and steam came blasting out. In
an instant the corridor was filled. She couldn’t see a foot in
front of her face. A shot rang out, she heard the bullet ricochet
on metal, and a man began to scream.

She charged
forward, and she felt shapes brush against her as Carter, Smith,
and Rick followed. The temperature rose as they ran into ever
hotter clouds of steam, and she swung her wrench blindly. It banged
on metal, the sound ringing out like the peal of a bell. She banged
again and the flow of steam ended.

They reached a
cross-corridor. The steam was dissipating quickly here, and they
could see for several feet. A man knelt in the corridor, a gun in
his hands, clutching his face. His skin was red and blistered, and
Smith stepped up behind him and slammed the butt of his pistol into
the top of the man's head. The man collapsed, Smith pocketed the
man's pistol, and the four of them looked around in the fading
mist.

A hatch swung
open ahead of them and a man leaned out, his face twisted with rage
and a pistol in his hand. Smith fired once and the man sagged into
the corridor. Smith moved forward, peeked through the hatch, then
looked back at the others and grinned. He dragged the body out of
the way and stepped through the hatch.

Colleen and the
others advanced. By the time they reached the hatch, Smith was
coming back out. Jane was with him, her arm over his shoulder, his
arm supporting her. She looked terrible, her face swollen and cut,
her head lolling on her shoulders. Colleen, torn between relief and
horror, dropped her steam hose, pushed through the men, and helped
support Jane.

The sound of a
pistol being cocked was the only warning they got. Colleen and
Smith ducked, Carter and Rick pressed themselves against the walls,
and the blast of a gunshot echoed through the corridor.

Rick and Carter
returned fire. Colleen wriggled out from under Jane's arm, grabbed
the dropped steam hose, and banged her wrench sharply on the floor.
On the second bang the hose thrashed under her hand. She was about
six feet from the end of the hose, and it flapped and writhed,
spraying steam in every direction. Rick sprang back, cursing, and
Colleen crawled forward, pinning more and more of the hose to the
floor.

The corridor
was completely filled with steam. She didn't see Carter, not even
when he bumped into her on his way past. She got a grip on the end
of the hose, then banged her wrench a couple of times. This time
she kept her grip on the hose as she retreated.

They spilled
into the boiler room, Colleen dragging the hose behind her, and
Carter slammed the hatch shut. He kept a hand on the wheel as the
group took stock.

Rick was
burned, not badly, but the side of his face was bright red. Colleen
said, "Oh, I'm so sorry," and he smiled.

"Better than a
bullet. Thanks, Colleen, I think you saved my life."

The wheel under
Carter's hand twitched, and he grabbed it, keeping it from turning.
Colleen wrapped her steam hose through the spokes of the wheel,
immobilizing it, and he let go.

"We need to get
out of here," Smith snapped. "They know the ship better than we do.
They'll be circling around and cutting us off soon."

They organized
themselves quickly. Carter helped Jane while Rick helped Parker.
Smith went first, gun in hand. Rick and Parker brought up the rear.
Rick supported Parker with one arm and held a pistol in his free
hand. Colleen found herself in the middle of the group, the wrench
clutched in her sweaty hand.

They hurried
down a long corridor, moving toward the bow of the ship. When they
came to a ladder Smith darted up while the rest of them waited.
Then Smith waved them up. Carter and Colleen boosted Jane upward
until Smith could reach her wrists and lift her. Parker was able to
climb, gripping the hand rail with his good hand, his face
tight.

On the next
level Colleen took over supporting Jane while Carter and his pistol
brought up the rear. A sailor came through a hatchway carrying an
oil can, gaped at them in astonishment as several pistols came to
bear on him, then dropped his oil can and stepped back through the
hatch. They heard the slap of his feet as he ran away.

At last they
reached the same ladder they had first come down. Smith went up
first, and swung open the hatch leading to the deck of the ship.
Almost immediately he flinched back. "Gun," he said. "At least one
man. He's got good cover."

Carter climbed
up beside him. "I'll cover you while you run for it?"

"I don't know.
There isn't much cover close by. And if they have someone up high,
I'm done for."

Colleen drew
back from the group. She helped Jane sit down and whispered, "Hold
on. We're almost clear."

Jane nodded,
tried a small smile, and flinched as a cut on her lower lip
opened.

Parker sat at
the base of the ladder, a pistol in his hand. Rick stood beside
him, ignoring the discussion above, eyes scanning the corridor.
Colleen hefted her wrench and set off down the corridor. She heard
him hiss a question, but she kept walking.

She came to
another ladder and went up. There was no hatch. Instead she found a
corridor with portholes on one side. She examined a porthole,
figured out how to swing the circle of glass open, and peered
out.

The hull of the
ship stretched below her, flat and smooth. She could see the wharf,
six or eight feet down. The men would never make it through an
opening this small, but she thought she might get through.

She craned her
neck around to look up. There was a railing just above her. She
looked carefully in every direction and didn't see a sign of life.
She listened intently, heard only the slap of water on the hull and
the creak of the boat as it moved in the water. Finally she tucked
her wrench into the belt of her dress, took a grip on the porthole,
and started working her way out.

She squirmed
around until she was sitting in the round hole, the wrench digging
into her stomach. She stretched her fingers upward and found a
precarious grip on a flat surface somewhere above. She pulled with
her hands, squirmed with her hips, and slid out, her backside
hanging over the wharf. She worked her hands up higher, got a
better grip on the surface above, and squirmed and wriggled until
she could draw a leg out and get a foot on the sill of the
porthole.

From there it
was almost easy. She stood, took the wrench out of her belt and set
it on the deck above her, grabbed the vertical bar of a railing
support, kicked off with her feet, and pulled with all her might.
She drew herself up, let go with one hand and scrambled frantically
for the railing above her. She caught it with her fingertips, then
scrambled frantically with her toes on the smooth hull. She got a
toe on the deck, and hung awkwardly by two hands and a foot, her
skirts riding up in a most unladylike way.