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

class="block_25">Jeanne nodded. “All right—let’s go. Everyone else, stay here and hold off Lefebvre and his men.” They lowered the deck’s ramp to the ground and the two women bounded down it and up the street towards the Tuileries.

9

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peeking out from the corner of a building down the street from the Ordre and their downed airship, Lefebre watched as Jeanne de Fleur and a woman he didn’t recognize ran off in the direction of the Tuileries. Dammit! Robespierre may take my head if he finds out I let the commander of the Ordre make it all the way to the palace. If only the other regiments hadn’t been stupid enough to obey his orders, running off to chase ghosts while the real enemy was always headed here.

Knowing he had to move quickly, he raised his hands to signal his troops (most of whom had ducked inside the buildings on this street). But a movement from the corner of his eye alerted him to another explosive ball being lobbed in his direction from the Ordre’s giant. He instinctively jumped back around the corner and the bomb hit the wall, scorching it with searing flames.

“Where’s that damn steam cannon?” he yelled.

His lieutenant, who had been standing behind him, replied, “It’s on its way, sir. But we had to divert it from across the city. It’ll take time.”

Lefebvre balled his hand into a fist. As soon as it gets here, we’re going to blow those Ordre miscreants off the face of the earth. He had no doubt about that. As long as he wiped out the bulk of the enemies, he could salvage the situation and earn Robespierre’s forgiveness for allowing two of them to get away.

In the mean time, he would divide up his men and move around to outflank the invaders. He was already deciding upon the routes they would take to accomplish that.

***

 

Jeanne and Farahilde continued to run up the street towards the Tuileries. They had passed the Louvre and were now only a few blocks away from the palace. Various people looked at them from behind windows in the buildings they passed. The Paris citizens looked like they were afraid to come outside and Jeanne couldn’t blame them. They probably had no idea what was going on.

“I can see the boxes, fräulein.” The Tuileries was basically a series of buildings which together formed the shape of three squares with a large space inside each, hence Farahilde’s “boxes” analogy. In the center box was the central tower. The space used to be occupied by an outdoor garden, but clearly Robespierre had seen fit to put it to “better” use.

“As soon as we make it past the Place du Carrousel, we’ll be at the palace,” Jeanne said.

Suddenly, though, another army regiment appeared a few blocks up ahead. Jeanne quickly ushered Farahilde south into an alley. Together they peered out from behind the wall at the enemy troops. “It doesn’t look like they’ve seen us,” Jeanne said.

“So, Robespierre actually was smart enough to keep a few worms to protect him. They’ll slow us down too much if we stop to fight them.”

Jeanne surveyed the alley and said, “Let’s see if we can find a way around them.”

They began walking south through the alley…

…and the ground abruptly collapsed beneath their feet.

They fell into darkness, both of them landing hard on the rocky, uneven surface below. Farahilde grunted in pain. “Are you all right, fräulein?”

“I will be once you get off me.”

“Oh,” Farahilde laughed. “Sorry about that. Thank you for breaking meine fall.” She rolled off Jeanne and stood up.

“You should be thanking my irodium armor. It protected both of us from these chunks of concrete that used to be the street above.”

Jeanne got to her feet and looked around them. They appeared to be in some sort of tunnel fifteen feet below the alley, based on what she could see from the light that shone down from above.

“What is this place? Reminds me of meine fort in the Netherlands. Smells a lot worse, though.”

Jeanne shrugged. “It looks like an old sewer network. Seeing how dry it is, though, I’d say it’s no longer in use.” She picked up a piece of concrete. “The construction may have weakened the ground, allowing us to fall through it.”

“It doesn’t look like we can climb up out of here. Dammit—what are we doing screwing around here? Robespierre could attack meine Austria at any time.”

“Calm down. Let’s go through this tunnel and see if we can find another way out of here.”

 

***

 

The Ordre’s volunteers took aim at Lefebvre’s troops when the latter utilized alleys and side streets to get around the Minuit Solaire II and come at them from both the northwest and the southeast.

Despite the threat of Hubert and his long-range bombs, Lefebvre managed to cajole his men to charge in from both sides. While a few of them were hit by the explosive spheres, there weren’t nearly enough to hit them all. It wasn’t long before the French Army troops had gotten to within a hundred feet of the airship.

Pierre ran back and forth on the deck from the bow to the stern, positioning the volunteers as needed, making sure too many of them weren’t focused on too few of Lefebvre’s men, and vice-versa. A few enemy bullets found Pierre’s irodium armor, but they were little more than bee stings to the big man.

Most of the volunteers remained prostrate on the deck so as to present as small a target as possible. Pierre thought it was fortunate they had the high ground.

As if to slap that thought across the face, the voice of Lefebvre rang out to his troops from down the street. “Shoot the balloon!” Fresh shots erupted from the rifles of the French Army soldiers. The envelope hovering above the airship—which had come through the rough landing intact—was pierced, multiple holes appearing along its surface. As air left the increasingly lethargic inflatable, Pierre knew they probably less than a minute before it came down on top of them.

“Stay focused on the enemy!” he called out to the volunteers who were getting distracted by the spectacle playing out above their heads. He then removed his broadsword from its sheath at his waist. “Victor!”

“Right!” Victor pulled out his sword and the two of them got ready. A few volunteers, who had brought sabers instead of rifles, saw what the two knights were doing and spread out to assist.

Within moments the envelope came down on their heads, and the men with swords proceeded to slash ferociously at it. This resulted in it being greatly shredded, but that wasn’t enough to stop it. They were all engulfed, as if by a hungry monster.

 

***

 

“Ha! Look at those fools!” Lefebvre rejoiced as he watched the envelope come down upon the hapless invaders. His plan had worked perfectly; now his men could rush the downed airship with little difficulty.

He was about to give the order when a monstrous hump rose up on the vessel’s deck from beneath the deflated envelope. That can only be…! The hump rose to its full height and arms stretched out from it. The envelope was unceremoniously ripped apart to reveal the gargantuan man from earlier. The giant then gave a triumphant roar.

Perhaps in response to the battle cry, more shapes—albeit smaller—rose up from the deck. From each of these a sword emerged, cutting its master out of the envelope. The previously trapped men slashed their way out of the dark fabric as if the whole thing was an unholy birthing ceremony.

Not to be outdone, the giant grabbed the bulk of the destroyed envelope with his bare hands, and, with a mighty swing, tossed it to the ground below. That monster’s not human!

Lefebvre took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. Even if his men ended up being unable to overrun the airship, his steam cannon would soon arrive. When it did, there would be nothing those malcontents could do to win against him.

 

***

 

“You pulled us out of the fire again, Hubert!” Victor said, patting the giant on the back for the second time that hour.

Hubert grinned sheepishly and said in his deep voice, “It was nothing. You would have done the same for Hubert.”

Victor laughed. “If I had your strength, maybe. There are a lot of things I would do if I had your strength.”

“They won’t give up that easily,” Pierre said as he kicked some remaining cloth off the deck. “Everyone, stay sharp!”

Celeste suddenly poked her head out of the hatch. “Sir,” she said, addressing Pierre, “I think I can restore enough energy to the ship to fire off one burst of electricity. You know, the kind that hit us back in the Austrian Netherlands.”

Pierre considered this for a moment. “Which of these metal spikes along the hull would it fire out of?”

“I believe the ship would be able to discharge voltage from the spikes on either the bow or the stern. If we fired from the port or starboard sides, it would hit the buildings on either side of us, and the people hiding inside would likely be killed.”

“All right. How soon can you get it ready?”

She rubbed her chin as she thought about it. “I would say about ten to fifteen minutes. However, if it starts raining, I would strongly advise against it. It might kill us all.”

He thought about what she was saying. It would certainly be dangerous to fire off a barrage of lightning if it began to rain. If the clouds did open up and release a downpour on them, though, he decided they simply wouldn’t use it. It was still a good idea to have it ready just in case. “Do it.”

“Yes, sir!” With that, she disappeared back down the hatch.

 

***

 

Using her armored gauntlet, Jeanne punched through the boarded-up exit at the top of the ladder.

She and Farahilde had groped their way through the darkness of the cramped tunnel underneath the streets of Paris. To Jeanne, it was just like the last time she had blindly traversed an underground passage—namely, her adventure in the Bastille with Pierre and Victor. Fortunately, this time the tunnel wasn’t threatening to collapse on top of her.

After walking for a while, they ran into a series of metal rungs which Jeanne realized was a ladder. Wanting to get out of this dark place as soon as possible, they opted to climb up it, which they did…until Jeanne hit her head on something at the top. Whatever it was, she wasn’t about to let it halt their progress, and she punched through it.

They emerged in some sort of storage room filled with boxes. There was a light on the floor at the end of the room.

A door.

“It’s locked,” Jeanne said, trying the handle.

“Then there’s only one thing for us to do, fräulein. One…two…three!”

They both kicked the door open, and a flood of light greeted them. Jeanne put her hand over her eyes. “After all that time in the dark…”

“I know what you mean.” Once their eyes adjusted to the illumination, they were able to see where they were. “What is this place?”

“I don’t believe it. This is the ball room at the Tuileries!” Jeanne said. The large room was exquisitely decorated with expensive paintings on the walls and magnificent crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling; it had definitely been furnished for royalty.

In addition, dozens of candles lined the walls, although none of them were lit. The room was instead being lit up by