The Game Called Revolution - - (free ebook reader for iphone txt) 📗

The question remained as to who was keeping him here. However, the sound of approaching footsteps and the turning of a lock somewhere in front of him suggested he may have been about to find the answer.

The door opened and he was greeted by a blinding light. It wasn’t actually intense, but days spent in total darkness had rendered his eyes totally unprepared for ordinary light. He winced as it assaulted his eyes.

“Finally awake, are we, dummkopf?” said a female voice. Jean-Paul cautiously opened his eyes. A shapely silhouette stood in the doorway. He couldn’t make out any features because of the light in the room behind her. What was causing it? No lamp could produce illumination that bright.

“I think I need a little more rest,” he said. “My memory’s a bit hazy, but I seem to recall somebody working me over pretty good recently.”

“You should have thought about that before you invaded our country, French worm.” Her voice was tinged with malice.

“Heh. Blame the Assembly. They sent us.”

“Oh, they’ll pay dearly for this. We were looking for an excuse to invade France, and now you’ve given it to us.”

Jean-Paul spit out a bloody tooth (at least, he though it was a tooth). “I aim to please.”

“Make all the jokes you want, worm. I will get meine schwester back, and then we’ll see what kind of mood you’re in after you’ve been subjected to our legendary Austrian torture techniques. We haven’t even gotten started yet.”

“Fair enough. But if my sister comes here, you’ll be the one getting tortured.”

There was a dark blur, and Jean-Paul felt something collide with his face so hard that he fell backwards in his chair. The last thing he remembered was his head crashing against the wall behind him.

***

The Tuileries, September 15, 1789 (Infini Calendar), 1:00 p.m.

Jeanne approached the Minuit Solaire on the docking platform behind the Tuileries palace. The sun was shining and the weather was just perfect that day. A slight breeze ran through her hair. As far as nature was concerned, all was as it should be.

Too bad the same could not be said of the current state of her beloved France. With her brother currently a prisoner of war, and the country heading closer to complete destruction with each passing day, she had definitely seen better days in her life. Hopefully, this operation would bring some much-needed stability to her homeland.

She walked over to the petite engineer in a brown jumpsuit who was supervising maintenance on the airship. The engineer noticed her approach and turned around. “Milady! I haven’t seen you in ages!”

Jeanne nodded. “Hello, Celeste. I trust you have been doing well since our last mission?”

The bespectacled engineer gushed at Jeanne’s friendly greeting. Celeste’s admiration for the commander of the Ordre de la Tradition was the worst-kept secret in France. “The Assembly has mostly kept the crew busy maintaining the ship. It hasn’t been difficult; we only suffered minor damage in that last skirmish. I wish I could say the same for the royal airship the Majesté Divine; it still hasn’t been repaired since crashing in the village of Varennes.”

Celeste’s words, while factual, caused Jeanne to remember the regret she felt upon the completion of the previous mission. Jeanne was only still alive because the charismatic forger Jacques du Chard had sacrificed himself to save her from the Count of Saint-Germaine, who had transformed his body into a deadly weapon with the use of alchemy. There had been nothing ‘minor’ about Jacques’ heroic loss of life, although Jeanne did not expect Celeste to understand that; the Minuit Solaire’s engineer was primarily concerned with airships, which she viewed as more like people than most actual people.

“So, the ship will be operating at one hundred percent when we depart tomorrow?” Jeanne asked her.

“Oh, yes, ma’am. For this mission they ordered us to install a steam cannon onboard. One is all we can manage because they’re so much heavier than regular cannons. We’d never get off the docking platform with a full complement of them.”

“No, we wouldn’t,” Jeanne replied. “And the recoil from all those steam cannons could tear the ship apart.” Normally, the Minuit Solaire was armed with ordinary cannons, along with the set of harpoons located on the bow below the bridge. But in the face of their new enemy, the Assembly had authorized one steam model to be loaded on the airship.

Celeste said, “Although, it sounds as if this black airship has found a way around that. Whatever kind of weaponry it uses, it seems to be on par with steam cannons.”

“The survivors of the attack said it shot out strange blue energy which was extremely hot.”

“Blue energy…very hot…I wonder…”

“Do you have some idea of what it could be?”

“Well…I’m not sure, but within the past few years the Americans have been working on a new source of energy. They call it electricity.”

Jeanne had never heard of it. “‘Electricity’? What is it?”

Celeste cautioned, “It hasn’t been in development very long, but supposedly it allows you to generate energy via the movement of particles such as electrons and protons. Anyway, I don’t have nearly enough information to confirm if this is the work of electricity.”

Jeanne shook her head. “This is far outside my realm of experience. I don’t know nearly as much about these things as you do.”

“Oh, there’s no need to be ashamed, milady. As I said, the technology of electricity is still in its infancy. There are only a handful of people in the world who have even heard of it. Just think of it as lightning.”

“Lightning?”

“Yes, lightning. It’s blue energy and it’s extremely hot. Essentially what the Americans are trying to do is harness the power of lightning so they don’t have to rely on coal, steam or any other conventional power source.”

“Lightning,” Jeanne said. “Yes, it does fit the description. But I’ve never heard of anyone being able to control it.”

“If the black airship really does possess the power of lightning, it means the study of electricity is much farther along than anyone is willing to admit.”

Jeanne frowned. “I suppose tomorrow we’ll find out one way or another.”

4

The Austrian Netherlands, September 16, 1789 (Infini Calendar), 3:00 p.m.

The Minuit Solaire touched down fifty feet from the Austrian fort where Jean-Paul de Fleur was supposedly being held prisoner. There was no sign of the black airship around.

True to Celeste’s word, the Ordre’s airship had taken them from Paris to the Austrian Netherlands without any problems. It was a very smooth ride.

Jeanne stepped onto the deck of the airship, fully armored and accompanied by Pierre and Victor. She tightly gripped the arm of the prisoner who was to be exchanged for her brother. The prisoner wore a lavish red dress worthy of Marie Antoinette. However, they had placed a burlap sack over her head to make sure things went as smoothly as possible; the Austrians probably believed their native daughter had been horribly mistreated, and while that was not too far from the truth, the knights had decided to indulge this slight misconception. After all, if the Austrians believed the French knights capable of harming Marie Antoinette, that would make them more reluctant to do anything reckless here.

Pierre and Victor lowered the wooden ramp mounted to the Minuit Solaire’s deck to the ground and they proceeded to follow Jeanne down it. Jeanne kept her hand around the prisoner’s arm to keep her from falling off the ramp, as she could not see where she was going with that sack over her head.

“What do you see?” the prisoner asked softly so as not to be heard by any unintended listeners.

“A dozen guards, and what appears to be their leader, are standing in front of the fort,” Jeanne said.

“Their leader?”

“A young woman with short black hair—which has dual cowlicks almost resembling horns—and a bladed gauntlet on her right arm. About five-foot-five, seems to be in her early to mid twenties. She’s wearing a white corset, under an open brown jacket, with navy blue leggings.”

“Hmmm.”

“Do you know her?”

“Perhaps, but I can’t be sure without seeing her. What are the guards armed with?”

“Each of them has a windbüchse pointed at us.”

The windbüchse, or “wind rifle,” was a weapon employed by the Austrian Army. Rather than gunpowder, it utilized condensed air to propel projectiles. Naturally quiet, the rifle gives off no smoke or muzzle flash, which made it especially useful for sniping. The weapon was known to strike fear in the heart of many an enemy of Austria.

When they were within twenty feet of the Austrians, the leader motioned for them to stop. “That is far enough, French worms. So, you have brought meine schwester?”

Jeanne was taken aback. The enemy leader had used the Austrian word for sister. “Schwester? Who are you?”

The Austrian woman stomped her foot angrily. “Do you dummkopfs know nothing? I am Farahilde Johanna, youngest sister to Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna, whom you call Marie Antoinette—your queen.”

“The ‘Absolute Darkness of Austria,’” the female prisoner said quietly. “This young woman is a general who answers only to the emperor. She’s a member of the Austrian royal family.”

Jeanne was unfamiliar with her, so she simply said, “I apologize. Her Majesty has many siblings, and I am unable to remember them all.”

Farahilde held up her hand—which was in a black gauntlet with two razor-sharp blades extending outwards—towards the knights in a threatening gesture. “If you worms double-cross me, it will be the last name you ever hear.”

“Where is my brother?” Jeanne asked in an acidic tone. Her diplomatic attitude was eroding quickly.

“Your bruder?” Farahilde looked surprised. “Ah, now I see what he meant when he spoke of the arrival of his schwester.” She laughed heartily. “He said you would torture me! What a sense of humor that dummkopf has.”

Jeanne clenched her fist. This girl who looked to be at least five years younger than Jeanne herself was getting on her last nerve with her haughty attitude. “Enough of this. Bring him here or we leave.”

“Hmph. Very well, then.” Farahilde motioned to one of her guards, who stood aside to reveal a prisoner the same height and build as Jean-Paul de Fleur, and who was wearing a French Army uniform which signified that he was a colonel. He, too, had a sack over his head. “March, worm.”

The male prisoner began walking forward. Jeanne said to her prisoner, “Walk.” The female prisoner began moving forward as well. Both prisoners moved slowly and cautiously, hands bound behind their back, clearly unsure of their position and wondering if they would find themselves betrayed by one side or another. At least, that was how it must have looked to the other side, Jeanne thought.

When both prisoners passed each other in the middle, Jeanne yelled, “Now!” With one fluid motion the female prisoner brought her hands forward (revealing that they had not actually been bound), removed the sack from her head and shuffled the male prisoner over to the knights.

“Tötet sie!” Farahilde commanded her troops.

Jeanne, Pierre and Victor huddled over the prisoners as the Austrians fired on them with their air-powered rifles. Although the knights’ irodium armor took the brunt of the assault, it wasn’t a pleasant experience; Jeanne gritted her teeth as the enemy bullets pounded her body. No doubt she would be bruised tomorrow (assuming they survived whatever else the Austrians threw at them).

When the firing ceased, Jeanne said to the female prisoner, “Mademoiselle Roland, are you all