THE STEAMCHILD CHRONICLES PRESENTS: CHILDREN OF THE CLOCKWORK SKY

CHAPTER 2: PRIZE OF THE DAY

　

　

The hauler was a steam engine, an antique found amongst the ruins of the old era before the war. It had been modified to function without tracks, as well as tow men and materials within its hollowed-out cars across relatively rough terrain. Usually strapped to the belly of the walker, launching it required the host machine to gently squat down until its underside was adequately low enough to the ground.

However, Ella knew that there would be no time to properly deploy it in a manner consistent with the chief’s conservative recommendations. She would just have to hope that the vehicle was sturdy enough to take a slightly rougher fall. She braced herself in the cabin as Dodger shuffled along the top of one of the cars towards the release lever.

“Pull it now,” she commanded.

The automoton spun his head around until his faintly glowing eyes met his owner‘s. He hesitated, regarding her with what seemed like doubt.

“Pull it,” she repeated.

The lever replied with a sharp, grinding, squealing sound as it was yanked from its locked position. Half-a-breath later, the chains and clamps came loose, and the locomotive, released from its bonds, fell freely to the ground below. The much improved and heavily reinforced suspension did its job surprisingly well during its abrupt, and terribly uncomfortable landing as it absorbed most of the impact.

Still, Ella was grossly unprepared for the experience, and she quickly found herself thrown about the cabin despite her best efforts to secure herself. She cried out as her head struck one of the metal plates and her left arm near the shoulder thrashed against something sharp, leaving behind a bleeding gash. Dodger hardly fared better as his bulky, metal body fell through the roof of the rear car and left a rather undesirable dent in the floor below.

Dazed, and smarting from the painful bruise forming on her forehead, she managed, with great effort, to regain her composure and tie off the wound on her arm with a rag from her pocket.

Not only was she surprised to be alive, but she was equally impressed at the fact that the hauler had somehow remained upright throughout the course of its landing.

The walker continued on its course, moving on at a brisk pace as the Royalists continued their pursuit about a kilometer or so away, firing their cannons with little regard for anything else. She’d hoped that the Royalists would assume that the hauler was just a piece of debris, chipped off by one of their shells, and as far as she knew, that was exactly what they were thinking.

The hauler hissed to life as the large, cylindrical, rust-stained canisters that lined its hull, fed their stores of compressed vapor into the industrious clockwork mechanisms that turned the vehicle’s wheels. Typically, the unwieldy machine demanded a slow, but deliberately safe accelerating start, but Ella was in no mood to victimize herself by becoming a slow-moving target, so she quickly drew open every valve available. The sudden escalation of pressure warped and dented the pipes, but like spurs to a horse, the hauler responded and bucked forward at a dangerously brisk pace. Darting like a bullet, the hauler tore through the sand, leaving behind a cone-shaped cloud of dirt and dust in its wake.

“Dodger, get your fat butt up here,” Ella commanded.

The automaton emerged from its bowl-shaped crater in the floor of one of the cars and clanked steadily towards the engine.

Peering over her shoulder, Ella said, “get yourself up top. I need you to keep this bucket balanced when we start making our turns.”

Dodger gave a complying groan and proceeded to climb over the engine’s cabin and steady itself on the roof. With a hard tug to the steerage lever, the hauler made its sudden, yet undignified turn towards the awaiting salvage. The sudden jerk of the machine’s movements leered its heavy mass to one side, causing it to teeter on a single row of wheels. Dodger reacted quickly as he leaned to the opposite side and provided some measure of counterbalance.