Drowning Utopia

Chapter 31: Here There be Monsters

"Miss Copperfield. Wake up." The woman's emerald eyes flitted open to find Gray standing above her. "It's time to go," he said, offering her a hand up off the floor.

Begrudgingly accepting the help, she crawled to her feet. Everyone else in the lab was in the process of doing last-minute preparations to their gear and the boats. They had been able to finish modifying the first steamer and the rowboat in record time, at which point Diana suggested that Tessa rest for a while as she and the others finished up on the second armored boat. Tessa had gratefully taken up the offer but now regretted it. She was pulled from a restless sleep full of terrible dreams of black water, skulls, and snakes enveloping her.

Observing the armed steamers and rowboat, Tessa was unsure whether their plan was brilliant or a terrible disaster waiting to happen. It was a bit of a project getting the armored transports down to the water. Using rollers, the scientists and engineers quietly pushed them to the water's edge, but they managed to secure them to the shore with few problems.

"Do we have everything?" Tessa asked, crawling into the first boat under cover of the sentry guns just above them on the shore. The Black Coats had intentionally doused the lights on that side of the labs to cover their launching of the boats in the dark. They had checked for Boomers spying in the surrounding area, but there was no sign of any.

Someone muttered, "What are they waiting for? Why haven't they attacked?"

Tessa had heard such on more than one occasion. They had the mansion virtually surrounded, and yet the Boomers kept their distance to the central part of the city. Even the airships had backed off and lowered themselves down behind the cityscape.

"I can't stand all this waiting around. Why don't they just hurry up and get it over with?" the quartermaster Gregor asked his commanding officer.

Vain shook her head as she whispered back, "Could be there still dealing with the other survivors, or maybe they feel as though they do not have to rush." She set a box of ammo on the floor of the first boat.

"You're all making this way too complicated," Captain Brine said with his southern drawl, "I think it's a lot simpler than you're giving it credit for. It's night, and we have a fortified position. Trust me when I say it's extremely difficult to attack a dug-in enemy at any given time, but especially at night. Not to mention, they've lost the element of surprise. No, the reason they haven't committed to a full-scale attack is simple. They're holding out until morning when they can better coordinate their numerical advantage."

"Are they are waiting for us to try something like this to ambush us?" Diana supposed as she grabbed the last of the boxes of tools and slid onto the boat herself.

Vain glared off into the dark distance of the city. "No, I think they're planning something. Otherwise, they would have tried again."

Captain Brine chuckled as he pulled out a cigarette from his uniform. "Right. And Old Tom is my uncle. Since when does a horn-head or a coal-face know anything about tactics?" he pulled out a lighter and was about to ignite it.

But Vain stopped him, cupping her hand over the metal cylinder. "I'm tactful enough to know that the embers from your cigarette would give away our position."

"Heh?" Brine sounded a bit humiliated, as he stuck the lighter back into his vest and proceeded to chew on the end of the smoke.

Diana shot a dirty look back at the Loyalist, but Gray beat her to it as he grabbed him by the shoulder, "Look, friend, please refrain from further slurs. We have to work together after all, whether you like it or not."

The uniformed man looked offended. "I didn't mean nothing by it. It was a genuine question."

"One that came off wrong. Please refer to Dev Le-Ren and Miss Fisk by their proper names for the duration of our mission. I know that your Royalist code of honor would allow you at least that much common decency for an ally, or at the very least, a lady."