AND THE THIRD BROUGHT FIRE (Animist Atomic Steampunk)

If it was a mass sacrifice to make a superweapon then there was a point to it. It's still evil, but it's a means to an end.

I mean…there is some comfort to say the Holocaust was an entirely deranged, illogical spasm of evil. But there was a horrible rationality to it: enslave and start people to avoid a famine and bolster your war production, then "free up" the land for your own people. The Holocaust was an industrial factory that produces murder and V2s.

But no, the Nazis didn't try and make a goddess - no one during the ascension war thought it was even possible. (It's a metaphor for how WW2 was the moment imo our technology truly became existential.)
 
I mean…there is some comfort to say the Holocaust was an entirely deranged, illogical spasm of evil. But there was a horrible rationality to it: enslave and start people to avoid a famine and bolster your war production, then "free up" the land for your own people. The Holocaust was an industrial factory that produces murder and V2s.
It is true that any one sentence summary is going to be wrong, especially if that sentence boils down to "bad guys did bad thing because they are bad". History is complicated... though people often use that complexity to hide or excuse stuff that really was as vile as it seems on the surface. Like those "the American Civil War was about States Rights!" morons.

I was (and am) on my phone so while I knew I was being reductive I stuck with the 10,000 foot pop-culture history view of the topic, rather than actually do research and write a more detailed description. Also because "Nazis bad" felt more appropriate for the sexy post-apocalyptic mech-fucker story thread than a full breakdown of the political and economic realities surrounding the Holocaust.
 
Chapter Eleven
Nix knew it would hurt, in the eternity between being shoved out the door and hitting the ocean. In her panic, she tried to do everything she could to help. She tucked her arms. She pinned her legs together, ankle to ankle. She closed her eyes.

None of it helped.

She hit, and the ocean felt as solid as a wall.

Everything went dark, and the only sensation was a deep, infrared pain.

***

When her eyes opened, the pain felt distant. She could catalog the breaks, the strange way her body felt twisted and deformed, in the same way she had check-listed her way through the sicknesses of spirits. But she didn't wish to. She simply wished to see what happened next.

To her surprise, she was still in the sea – she supposed it made sense on a certain level, but...if she had opened her eyes to see herself in some ship's medical ward, or whisked to Burned York by some contrivance of a friend or ally? She might have understood that better than opening her eyes and seeing the spreading, clear blue waters of the Gulf.

She floated upon her back, bobbing up and down, and with each motion, she felt that distant jarring, that grinding of bone on bone.

The sun was setting.

Her eyes half closed. She wondered what it would be like, to float down into the infinite depths, to be nibbled apart by fish. She wondered if spirits ever wondered about fish – about tiny jaws and snapping teeth.

The sky overhead seemed as infinite and deep as the ocean beneath her. She could see the stars.

Water lapped over her eyes and Nix blinked away the salt sting of it.

And when she looked again, the stars were whirling overhead. The Big Dipper spun on an axis, the tiny sparkles that were each of her constitute starts spreading outwards – like dandelion seeds being blown off the stem by an eager child. The Belt of Orion slipped free and those three brilliant motes swung closer and closer – drifting from the sky, dancing around her nose. They were incredible small, and incredibly bright. Nix remembered reading that stars were other suns – not pinpricks in the curtain of night.

She croaked out a word as she floated.

"Hello?"

The stars continued their wheeling…

And the sea became utterly still. The surface was unto mirror glass, and she no longer floated. Her back rested upon soft sand, which swelled beneath her and spread outwards. Now, her bones did not grind and her wounds did not tug against flesh. She was able to simply lay there, breathing slowly, wheezing. Red stained the water around her – but she did not fear sharks. Not here. The stars were all gone, and there was just an infinite blackness over her head.

Nix licked chapped lips.

"Am I dead?" she whispered.

"No."

The voice was feminine and soft. A pale blue hand reached down, cradling her cheek. It was cold and felt like porcelain, fine and delicate. When the hand drew away, Nix could see the fingers were articulated – gold lines ran along their backs, and each line was notched like a ruler. The fingernails had small rectangular indentations, and there was elegant numbering etched into them. They reminded her of...something. She couldn't remember what. Another hand caressed her hand, gently, and a third and fourth took hold of one of her legs.

"This shall hurt, little Planētē."

Nix knew some Greek and Latin from her time, in schooling.

Wanderer.

It did hurt when the extra hands set her leg. Nix barely had the energy and breath to whimper.

"Who are you?" she sobbed, tears brimming in her eyes.

Those gentle blue hands caressed her, and a figure leaned over her. It was a spirit – but she was like no spirit that Nix had ever seen before. Her skin was brilliant sky blue, and her hair was the shimmering white of starlight. Her eyes glowed blue on black, and her joints and seams were all of gold. The lines of numbers and notches ran along arms and shoulders, shoulders that themselves were oddly arranged. Rather than two arms, she had four, and all four held Nix as she looked into her eyes. Her voice was soft. "Rest, Planētē…help will be coming."

Her hand brushed a strand of Nix's hair behind her ear as Nix whispered through the pain. "I don't understand."

"Hush. Hush." The spirit leaned over. Her lips, cool enough to leave a tingling mark on Nix's brow, were gentle. "You must live. For her. Only you can save her, Planētē. You need only remember what you know." Those gentle blue fingers caressed Nix's belly, her cheek, her hair.

"I don't...I don't-" Nix's voice hitched. She coughed and spluttered. Water was running over her lips as she bobbed in the sea, the evening light dimming. She could hear the distant thundering rumble of death.

The sun returned to her face – blazing bright.

"Goddamn!" The voice, American and male, shouted out.

"Get a net! ...no, lower the boat! Christ and her Clockwork!" The other voice, female and British, was familiar. Nix closed her eyes. She started to sink. The water covered everything as the sun became a distant circle, then nothing but warmth remembered on her face.

She was shivering.

How could she be shivering, this close to the equator?

How could…

***

Nix woke to pain. Her body throbbed from her head to her toes. But when she tried to move, she found she could not. She opened her eyes and saw that she was in a small wooden cabin – the deck under her shifting and tilting from side to side. There was a stink of blood in the air, and antiseptic. When she closed her eyes, her head hurt too much for her to sleep again. She groaned quietly. Then she groaned louder.

The door opened.

And none other than Tracy Rhina stepped into the room. She looked quite formidable dressed in a sailor's leggings and simple white shirt, with two colt revolvers hanging off her hips – and that was saying something, Miss Rhina had looked remarkably formidable in her Sunday best with a sunhat. She pursed her lips as she walked over to Nix, then chuckled. "You!" She said, her voice amused. "Have led me to one hell of a story."

Nix grinned, slowly. Smiling hurt.

"Thanks," she said. "Thanks for saving my. Thanks. For. Thanks."

Miss Rhina knelt down beside the bed, her hand taking hold of Nix's hand. "The doctor says it's quite bad. Your legs have...well, several compound fractures, your ribs are cracked, your shoulders are dislocated, you have a concussion, and to be quiet honest, it's remarkable you didn't bleed to death. In fact, from what the doctor says, the number of things trying to kill you all seemed to work together to keep you alive – hypothermia slowed down blood loss, for example, and your semi-comatose state meant you didn't exacerbate your ribs." She made a face. "It's still a miracle you survived. Hell, it's a miracle we found you at all."

Nix shook her head. "Not a miracle."

"Oh?" Miss Rhina asked. "Well...actually, the airship that you were dropped from did seem to be listing quite a bit – I think they intended to drop you from higher up."

Nix's brow furrowed slightly. Her brain, thick with painkillers and concussions, tried to grab onto what that might mean. She mumbled. "Thanks, Indi."

"Ah, yes, that was the Indefatigable," Miss Rhina said, her lips quirking up slightly. "I suppose she did like you."

Nix mumbled. "S'mone else too."

Miss Rhina cocked her head. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Stars…"

Nix went to sleep again.

Miss Rhina sighed, quietly, and stood. She left the room to get a chair.

***

When Nix returned to consciousness again, there was a babble of voices.

"She's not going to survive that infection-"

"I can go faster! I can! I can!"

"I'm fully aware of the consequences, but we can't just hack her legs off, we're not savages."

"London is-"

"I can go fasttterrr!"

"Be quiet, Mudskipper."

"I wanna!"

Nix opened her eyes slowly.

She saw that the room now had four people. There was a middle aged black man with a somber, wide set to his features, whose hands were roughened by either hard work or hard washing – and considering he had a blood stained smock that he was wearing, she supposed he was some kind of doctor. There was...a member of the One Hundred and One, she recognized the strange jacket, and the Thompson submachine gun that he had slung over his shoulder. There was a small and slight steamship spirit, who was currently bouncing up and down and waving her hand excitedly. And, finally, there was Miss Rhina, looking quite unruffled despite all the clamor.

"Infection?" Nix asked, trying to move her arms. They were still immobilized and she felt weak as a kitten.

The black man turned to her. He smiled, slightly wryly. "I'm Doctor Francis," he said, simply enough. "I have been taking care of you since we picked you up."

"Are you a technician?" The spirit asked, swarming over to Nix, leaning over and peering right into her face. "Hi! I'm Mudskipper, a few days ago, we got to shoot at a speedboat! Also, I can get us to London in a few days, I can, I can, tell them I can!"

Nix smiled and shook her head slightly. "I'm not sure a wooden steamship with a paddlewheel can get us to London in a few days," she said, reaching up and patting the spirit on her yellow-brown, canvas colored hair.

"Mauhhh!" Mudskipper whined, the sleek fins on her shoulder-blades that represented her sails unfurling with an annoyed fwump.

"And you?" Nix asked the One Hundred and One member. He gave her a fishy look.

"Corporal Tredegar," he said, hesitantly.

"Now…" Nix closed her eyes. "Tell me about this infection."

Doctor Francis sighed. "I'm sorry, but we didn't apply the sulfa drugs as soon as we'd have wished – by the time we had you out of the drink, your leg had already took poorly and...we can slow it down, but the amount of damage…" He shook his head. "You're going to have to lose both legs. One above the knee, the other around the foot."

Nix closed her eyes and made a face. Bloody hell seemed too light. Fuck seemed to be wrong, around someone as sweet as the Mudskipper seemed to be. So, she simply said: "Ah. I see."

Doctor Francis looked grave. "The sooner we-"

Nix lifted her hand. "First," she said, firmly. "Miss Rhina – they took Midway."

"Who?" Miss Rhina asked, her brow furrowing. Nix sighed, slowly. She laid her head back, closed her eyes, then let it all out. She told them about Makhá – about the realization that a spirit and a machine didn't have to be something with gears and wooden panels and chains. About how spirits could be the interactions between many things and many places. About how she came to realize that Enterprise had not been the actual carrier – but instead, she had been the complex human effort that it had taken to bring Enterprise and her fellow carriers to that lonely Pacific island and enact the largest air battle the world had ever seen over open oceans. When she finished, the room was completely silent.

"That's impossible," Corporal Tredegar said, flatly.

"Why would she lie?" Doctor Francis asked, his voice dry.

"Listen-" The Corporal bristled.

"Did you say Warsaw?" Miss Rhina snapped.

Nix nodded.

"Hell. Hell!" Miss Rhina started to pace back and forth, using her arm to gently push Corporal Tredegar out of her way. "My last story involved the cult of the Silent."

"The...the...the what?" Corporal Tredegar asked, looking like he was one more unexpected sentence away from bursting into furious shouting.

"The Silent Cult believe that there is a fourth Lady," Miss Rhina said, flatly. "The first being the Fortress, the second being Colossus, the third being Trinity. They call the fourth the Silent Lady – for she has been buried and deliberately forgotten, by the Reich, by the British Empire, even by the Americans, because they feared her power." She snorted. "From everything I've found, there's nothing supporting this. The Reich was losing the Ascension War entirely because they lacked Ladies of their own. They created no godhead and faced the Empire, which had one, then two, then three." She pursed her lips slightly. "But if the Mechanical Turks are heading there…"

Nix closed her eyes. "Where are we right now?" she asked.

"That's none of your business," Corporal Tredegar snapped. Before Miss Rhina could speak, he held up his hand, palm flat, shutting her up. "I'm here to make sure that you two Limey broads don't run off with the spirit, or do anything stupid until the Captain has something to say about it."

Nix opened her eyes. "Do you have the ability to craft prosthesis?" she asked, quietly.

Tredegar blinked, then glanced at Doctor Francis. Francis pursed his lips.

"We may," he said. "Considering where we're going."

Nix clenched her hands. She forced a rebellious loop in her belly down by tightening her hands until...well, her knuckles didn't turn white, as her ability to grip and hold things felt utterly destroyed. The dislocation, she was sure.

"Amputate," she said. "Everything needs be."

"Well, even if we do, those arms-"

"Amputate them too," Nix said, firmly. "You can make a prosthetic in a few days, I do not have time for dislocated arms."

"Marion…" Miss Rhina whispered, sounding shocked. "You-"

"We don't. Have. Time." Nix bit the words out. She had to hurry them along – lest she lose her nerve. "We have to stop them."

The corporal looked as if he hadn't seen her until now. Doctor Francis was frowning, his lips pursed. Miss Rhina looked appalled.

Mudskipper clapped her hands, her eyes shining. "You're gonna be half spirit!" she said, excitedly. "Hooray!"

Nix gave her a smile – since the alternative was to start screaming.

***

The mechanics of augmentation was well known – the basic theory had been created during the latter days of the Ascension War, when the number of battlefield casualties with missing limbs who had then survived to get home had gotten higher and higher. The machines themselves were intricate and articulate enough to form spirits – those spirits then would ensure that the body did not reject the intrusion of implants into their flesh. They would use their magic to wed metal and man into one harmonious whole. The spirits tended to keep a distance from the person bearing their augmentations, though...there was something haunted in their eyes, furtive in their mannerisms.

Nix had spoken to one – and learned the truth.

They knew, thanks to how intimately they were wedded to humanity, what mortality meant. And for a spirit...that knowing was terrifying. They kept a distance because they wished to avoid the pain. The pain of knowing when their human had died. This was why many augmentations were passed down – some were almost a century old, kept alive and ticking through long care.

Nix had helped cheer up many an augmentation spirit, and she felt a queasy sense of unease that went beyond the damage to her flesh, the distortion of her body, and into the question: Was it right to bring a spirit into being just for herself?

Fortunately, she didn't need to consider it long.

The...amputations...came and went in a hazy, dreamlike fog of painkillers and anesthetic. She was left sickly and bedridden, warmed only by the visit of Mudskipper and Miss Rhina – though Miss Rhina didn't do more than sit and watch, her eyes blazing bright in Nix's feverishness. Then the restless dreaming saw Nix carried in a dreamlike haze through corridors. She would blink and the wheelchair and her weak arms – not removed, yet? - jouncing as the wheels ran along rough wood. She blinked, and saw a gangplank heading down into a crude looking settlement. The distant rumbling of strange engines, and the jeering sounds of spirit's voices clamored around her ears.

The surgeries that came were another nightmare haze. She saw people looming above her. Soft voices. Quiet voices.

Then there was a long period of sleeping, waking, drinking a little, eating a little, sleeping once more.

When she opened her eyes, she felt as if she had been asleep for centuries. Nix sat up in bed, groaning quietly. Her arms settled to either side of her and she felt the faint, strange tug of metal against her skin. She lifted one hand and saw the fingers – articulate metal, glittering and elegant. She flexed her hand slowly, feeling the gears and clockwork moving inside of them. The arm had been sculpted to look remarkably similar to a human's frame – the material was top notch. She bit her lip slightly. "How the hell…" She whispered, then looked around the room. It was a room as crude as her hand was sophisticated: Wooden panels, no glass on the window, a small oil lamp providing light.

Nix swung her legs aside and saw that while her hands were the most modern kind of prosthetic, her legs were somewhat more crude: Metal stumps that attached to almost gazelle shaped metal poles that flexed and rebounded under her weight. She bounced experimentally, feeling the pressure against her thighs. She stretched her arms and groaned quietly. Her body ached, but she could stand. She could...she walked forward a step, wobbled, took another, back, then forward, then back again.

She could walk.

"Bloody hell," Nix whispered.

The door to her room opened and Doctor Francis stepped in, carrying a tray. He started, seeing her standing up. "Don't stand up immediately, girl," he said.

Nix sat down again.

"You're still in recovery," he said, shaking his head and frowning. "The spirit of your augmentations is easing it as much as she can-"

"She's doing a damn good job," Nix said, smiling.

Doctor Francis clicked his tongue, then started to instruct her on the simple facts. How to keep clean. How to avoid repeat infections. What to do if her implants were damaged. She listened and nodded, then said: "Tell the spirit...thank you. I know she won't want to see me. Just. Tell her."

Doctor Francis nodded. "I understand," he said. "I mean, I don't understand. I don't know how these spirits work in the slightest. But I'll do it." He smiled, slightly. "Do you want me to say you're still on the mend – the rest of the Congress is ready to beat down the door."

Nix's brow furrowed. "...the Congress?"

Doctor Francis chuckled. "Welcome to Roanoke. Home of the New Continental Congress."

***

The town of Roanoke was nowhere near Roanoke Island – Nix could tell that much from the balmy weather and the tropical temperatures. It was built within a secluded harbor on either an island or some part of the mainland America. It was, also, the home to every brand of American rebel that Nix had ever heard of: There were Hundred and First, flashily dressed representatives from distant Vejas, Cubano cartel soldiers, Midwestern forters like Maryfort, a few First Natives, and an elegantly dressed Chinaman wearing a British style frock coat, collar and silks. The whole of them were gathered when Nix walked into their meeting room – the only stone building in the mostly wooden depot. The majority sat around a conference table, covered in maps and diagrams. The air smelled of stale cigarette smoke and bad coffee.

It smelled of empire.

"So, this is the crossdressing dame who fancies herself a Wrenchman, huh?" A man in a white and black checkered suit asked, twirling a small cigarette between his fingers.

"This is Marion Nixon," Miss Rhina said, nodding and gesturing to Nix. Nix frowned at the man in the checkered suit.

"Is that what they're wearing in Vejas?" she asked.

"Lady Luck prefers us to have style, what can I say?" the man asked, grinning at her.

"Lady...it's a hydroelectric dam!" Nix snapped.

"And it's damn lucky we got her, innit it?" The man asked, shrugging.

"Why the hell should we trust a Limey for anything?" The Captain of the Hundred and First asked, his lips pursed. "Her people have occupied the East Coast for the past hundred years. For all we know, she's gonna go and tell the Imperial Navy about this place."

"I believe that is unlikely, considering the Imperial Navy attempted to have her summarily executed," the Chinaman said, firmly. He offered his hand to Nix. "I am Mr. Lin, and I am an elected representative of the People's Republic of China and her Lady, sent to establish and further our cooperative goals with the workers and laborers of the occupied American Territories."

"I see?" Nix said, hesitantly. She took Mr. Lin's hand, shaking it firmly. "I...your Lady?"

Mr. Lin smiled – but before he could explain anything, the Captain of the Hundred and First frowned and said: "Then how did we find her? That smells suspicious to me."

"Pure dumb luck," Miss Rhina said, dryly.

"Or planning," the Captain said. "My corporal says the Mudskipper ran straight into her – in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Like the compass pointed right at her. Or like you knew where she'd be dropped off."

"Oh please!" Miss Rhina scoffed.

"It wasn't her," Nix said.

"Then who was it?" The Captain asked.

"I would like to know how she managed that," one of the Cubanos said, frowning as he shifted in his seat.

"I said, it was dumb luck, sometimes, things just happen in this world. Did you ever hear the story of Archduke Franz Ferdinand? He died because the spirit in his car wanted to get a milkshake and happened to have the same favorite shop as his assassin!" Miss Rhina shot back.

"I know how," Nix whispered, quietly. The realization had hit her. She knew where she had seen the gold and the etching. She knew where she had seen the spirit before. She knew it. She knew it. And the realization hit her like a blow to the stomach.

The arguments was still going.

"I say, we don't let either of em off Roanoke," the man in the checkered suit said, frowning.

"I say we don't let them live to see the evening," the Captain snapped.

"I will not condone summary executions!" one of the forters said in a broad New England accent.

"I know how she found me!" Nix shouted, slamming her augmented leg into the ground. Metal scraped against stone with a screech and she almost fell over. Her head throbbed and her chest ached – and she ignored it all. "Have you all been told about Midway?" The Congressional Congress all started to nod. Even Mr. Lin. "...Miss Rhina?"

Miss Rhina shrugged slightly.

Nix frowned. "Are you really a journalist?"

Miss Rhina smiled, ever so slightly. "Is it truly so shocking to think I might have...subversive opinions? That I might have read some unsavory pamphlets? That I have my own opinions on how the Empire might need to change?"

Nix considered.

"...honestly, no," she said, producing a braying laugh from Mr. Checkered Suit. Nix sighed. "So, Midway is a machine of people – logistics, organization, the doctrine, all of it is technology. It is a technology that has no gears, but it is just as powerful. I...I know this is strange to consider…" She paused, noticing that Mr. Lin was giving her the most curious intense look. "...but, well, this means that there are more kinds of spirits out there than we ever could have known. And I...I met one." She breathed in, steadying herself. "I met the spirit of...of…"

"Yeah?" Mr. Checkerboard asked, scowling.

"Celestial navigation," Nix said, quietly. "Astrolabes. Compasses. Star charts."

"Those aren't-" Mr. Checkerboard started.

Nix stepped over and slammed her metal fist into the top of the conference table. Papers jumped and one of the Cubanos jerked in surprise.

"The stars were used by human beings to travel the land and sea since before the coming of Christ – we turned the sky into one big damn calculating engine, and made it so that a ship at sea could reach a point five thousand bloody miles away on a schedule and you're telling me that's neither complex enough nor powerful enough to warrant a spirit? Well, then, tell me, who set my bloody fucking leg!?" Nix shouted, her body quivering.

Mr. Checkerboard raised his hands.

"...was her leg set?" The Captain of the Hundred and First asked.

Miss Rhina nodded. "We...we assumed she'd done it."

"With a concussion and two dislocated arms?" Nix asked, almost laughing.

Mr. Lin smiled. "How fascinating."

Nix panted quietly. "She saved me. And she saved me because only I can save her. Midway." Her eyes blurred with tears. She forced her voice to remain calm. "She's so damn brave and strong and beautiful. I...she's been through so much, and she still loves ice cream. She still quotes poetry. She has a whole world to see, and they want to use her for something terrible, I just know it." She closed her eyes. She needed to be calm.

Too late.

The Continental Congress exchanged looks.

The Captain of the Hundred and One spoke first. "We're gonna need to deliberate this for a time."

Nix gave them a jerky nod.

***

Nix and Miss Rhina sat together under the slowly setting sun, watching the stars beginning to twinkle overhead. A palm frond studded tree swung gently in the breeze over them, while the American and piratical flag flew, one atop the other. Nix rubbed her palms against her face, while Miss Rhina lounged back and drank from a small flask.

"You love her, don't you?" she asked.

Nix almost laughed. Almost cried. "I can't," she said. "You can't love spirits. Spirits aren't humans. Spirits don't die. They don't age. They...they just…" She rubbed her palms against her face again. "Bloody hell, I love her." She mumbled it into her hands. "It's so stupid, so bloody stupid."

Miss Rhina smirked slightly. "I wondered, you know. When I learned your true gender. Were you actually a, ahem, sexual deviant, or were you simply trying to carry on the family tradition."

Nix pushed herself up. It was an awkward scramble, her new legs skidding and slipping beneath her. She found herself bounding as she stepped away from Miss Rhina, her movement faster and more graceful than she thought possible. Was it this easy to get used to having new limbs? Or was it because she was so used to spirits, their magic could work on her better? She didn't know. Right now, she felt too frayed, too drawn taut, to care. She turned to face Rhina, throwing her arms wide.

"You have me! I love women! I love their...their bodies, I love their smells! I love their personalities, I love their hair," she said, giddily. "I did all this, all this, because I want to be with women. And spirits...they don't judge. They don't...they don't see any...they…" She trailed off.

Miss Rhina smiled. It was a wry smile. Knowing.

"Midway needs you," she said, quietly. "Because, I think that the kind of organization it takes to kill ten thousand people all at once? That kind of organization, that kind of effort, could be put to much better work at love, Nix. At building. At creating."

Nix remembered Rudi, her body floating in spectral doctors.

She nodded.

Mr. Checkerboard stepped out of the Continental Congress building and blew a shockingly loud whistle using nothing but his lips, his hands in his pockets. Miss Rhina glanced over her shoulders, tucking her flask away, while Nix scowled.

"Come on, dames, we're done jawing," he said.

Nix sighed. In the spirit of honest, she muttered: "Also, I have a striking distaste for men."

"They're not all bad," Miss Rhina said, cheerfully.

"Yes they are," Nix said, crossing her arms over her chest.

The two walked into the Continental Congress. Most of the representatives were sitting somberly, while the Captain of the Hundred and First stood. He frowned intently, watching the pair of them. "Marion Nixon," he said. "As a Technician, do you think you can keep a fixed wing aircraft flying for the distance between here and Warsaw?"

Nix blinked. "Uh...what's the speed of the aircraft?"

"Six hundred miles per hour," the Captain said, causing Nix to almost choke. Her eyes bugged.

"No...no prop plane is that fast!" she exclaimed. "Even the Royal Spitfires – that's...that's…" She searched her memory. "Three times faster."

"Can you do it?" the Captain asked.

Nix frowned. A spirit could fly farther and faster than was technically possible, were it loved. And she could do it, for Midway. She could. She nodded, mutely.

The Captain glanced at the other members of the Congress. One by one, they nodded. The Captain jerked his thumb. "Follow me, Miss Nixon," he said, standing and turning and starting to walk away. Nix followed after. They came to a doorway – and she glanced back, to see Miss Rhina was being kept back by a pair of Hundred and One, who barred her way. She gulped as the door shut – and the Captain started to speak. "During the latter stages of the Ascension War, the United States Air Army Corps worked on a kind of...super fighter," he said, firmly. "Faster, more maneuverable, better than anything ever put to the air before."

Nix nodded. "An axial flow compression engine?" She hazarded.

"Bingo," the American said, snapping his fingers.

They came to a large metal hatch, built into the wall of a hillside. It opened into a corridor, which led to another hatch.

"They were all destroyed," Nix said, frowning. "And even if they weren't, they'd be a hundred years old, or more! And even if it was, the fuel-"

The door opened.

She stepped through with the Captain.

There, perched on a trio of stubby legs with blunt wheels, was a vehicle that looked as if it had come from another world. Her skin was bright silver, with yellow banded stripes painted onto the wings, the tail, the fins. There was no propeller, only a recessed tube on the nose. A sextet of inset guns, snarling like open mouths, fanned around the center of the plane – while the wings swept backwards, like some kind of predatory bird stooping on the wing. Lounging against it was a spirit – she was not completely nude as most spirits were. Instead, she wore a leather flight jacket around silver shoulders, making her nudity beneath even more obvious, and a pair of large, shaded spectacles perched on her button nose. Her hair was the same golden yellow as her painted fuselage, and curiously, she had a pair of tufted, silver-furred ears and a wagging, doglike tail.

Nix noticed, then, that there was a snarling wolf painted on the side of the plane, solving that mystery.

"Miss Nixon," the Captain said, gesturing to the spirit. "Meet Timber Wolf, the last F-86 Sabre in existence."

"Oh fucking wonderful," Timber Wolf said, rolling her eyes so hard that it was somehow visible despite her glasses. "Another goddamn Technician to goggle at the fucking grounded fucking fighter jet! Listen, Winters, you motherfucker, I want to fucking fly! I want to fucking-"

"Timber Wolf," Captain Winters said. "You are going to fly Miss Nixon to Warsaw."

"I-" the girl froze, her tail locking in place, ears perked up.

Captain Winters pursed his lips and lifted his eyebrows. "Or did you want to keep cussing at us?"

"Holy fucking shit," the spirit yanked her glasses off, revealing her bright camera lens eyes. "Fucking seriously?"

Nix grinned. "It's to save the world, too," she said.

"Ahhhhhhhh!" The spirit's tail started wagging fiercely as she started to bounce and pump her arms. "Fuck yeah, fuck yeah, fuck yeah, fuck yeah!"

Nix nodded. "This is gonna be an interesting flight," she whispered.


TO BE CONTINUED
 
They say in Vejas the house always wins, and who else makes the house but the one who shelters you, who keeps the lights on and the water flowing, and bellies fed on the shores of Lake Mead? Ergo missus Hoover Dam can be nothing else but the spirit of all the glamour and glitz of the Vejas Strip and one damn fine lady, case closed. :V
 
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Nix frowned at the man in the checkered suit.

"Is that what they're wearing in Vejas?" she asked.

"Lady Luck prefers us to have style, what can I say?" the man asked, grinning at her.
New Vegas reference!


"I am Mr. Lin, and I am an elected representative of the People's Republic of China and her Lady,
So the communists managed to manifest a spirit of Central Planning or something? Neat.

(On the one hand, economics is certainly complicated enough to produce a spirit, but on the other hand, Maoism had some... problems. Wonder what that spirit is like.)
 
New Vegas reference!



So the communists managed to manifest a spirit of Central Planning or something? Neat.

(On the one hand, economics is certainly complicated enough to produce a spirit, but on the other hand, Maoism had some... problems. Wonder what that spirit is like.)
According to DC, China is fine, so in this timeline, it seems like Stalin died before he fucked things up and Mao went for a much less Authoritarian style of government (not having the US around probably helped.
 
According to DC, China is fine, so in this timeline, it seems like Stalin died before he fucked things up and Mao went for a much less Authoritarian style of government (not having the US around probably helped.

I mean, the real big divergence was in the Korean War, so even if Mao did fuck things up, they had, like, 150 years to figure it out
 
Chapter Twelve
AUTHOR'S NOTE: There's a lot of sex intermixed with plot and I'm not sure where to place the spoilers so...just read at your own risk!

"Before I entrust myself to your ability to fly six thousand miles on a thousand mile tank of two hundred year old jet fuel," Nix said, glowering first at Wolf, then at her jet. "I want to examine you."

"Dooo you now," the cocky, wolf eared spirit said, her tail wagging as she reached up to rub her chin and waggle her eyebrows.

Nix turned to look at the Captain of the Hundred and One. "Has she ever been serviced?"

He grunted noncommittally.

"I'm bloody trying to save your yank asses, and you can't be bothered to give me the intelligence I need to make sure I survive?" Nix asked.

"She's British?" Wolf asked, sounding faintly shocked. Nix glowered at her – her accent hadn't shifted that far living in the colonies, had it? No, no, she was fairly sure that Wolf just barely noticed accents. Spirits had a hard time judging that kind of human inflection. The Captain sighed, his hands sliding into the pockets rumpled jump pants he wore, his lips pursed.

"We have a few American technicians. Mostly highwaymen," he said.

"Highwaymen!?" Nix spluttered. "This is a...a jet airplane, and you've only ever had her serviced by those maniacs that ride up and down the Midwest with bloody flamethrowers strapped to their cars?"

"They're American," the Captain said. "Mostly."

"I'm totally fit to fly," Wolf said, grinning and stepping away from her jet-body. She brushed her hands through her hair, her aviator glasses glinting brightly as the movement caused her leather flight jacket to slip open, showing off the sleek, athletic build of her silver and yellow spirit-body. Nix took her in, slowly, frowning as she slid her eyes along the spirit. She paused, spotting a most unexpected addition between Wolf's legs. She pointed.

"What is that?" she asked.

Wolf glanced down.

She had a penis.

Wolf glanced up, then the most impossibly smug, dare one say, cocky expression appeared on her lips. "I'm transonic," she said.

Nix rubbed her palms against her face. She had never serviced a transonic capable aircraft spirit before – even the swiftest of all the Empire's fixed wing aircraft never got close to that speed. It was intimidating. Give her a nice, sweet airship. She rubbed her palm against her cheeks, breathing in, then breathing out again. "I think I can get you to Europe," she said, quietly. "But when we get there...if the Mechanical Turks are working for who I think they are, if they have suborned the Empire to the degree that they might have, we won't just be facing an airship. There are royal Spitfires out there. Can you defeat a whole squadron of the best fliers in the world in the best planes in the world?"

Wolf swaggered towards her. She slid her arm around Nix, then planted a finger on her chest. "Two words, baby," she said, letting her head tilt forward – her aviator glasses sliding forward so they almost fell off her button nose. Her eyes glittered like gun cameras, fixed on a kill. "Boom. Zoom."

"...what the bloody hell does that mean?" Nix whispered.

"Baby! I'm not just faster than them! I'm two times faster than them!" She laughed. "Sure, they'll turn better than me, but who giiiiiiiives a shiiiit!" She pointed back at her fuselage. "Those are six! Count em! Six fifty caliber M3 Browning Machine Guns, loaded to the gills with AP, API, tracers!" She slapped her palm against Nix's belly. "We're fighting assholes in World War 2 spitfires, it's not even fucking fair, I have radar." She beamed.

"Famous last words," Nix said.

"Nah, I've got way more words I can say, baby!" Wolf said. "Come on! Lets get in and fuck shit up! Come on! Come on!"

Nix allowed herself to be chivied towards the plane.

***

"Are you sure you want me here?" Nix asked, squirming as she sat atop Timber Wolf's lap. The spirit leaned back in her cockpit chair, the two of them squished together by the close confines of the interior of the jet. Nix's head was almost touching the canopy. A silvery hand traced a shivering contact along her thigh, while the low whirring sound of the jet engine warming up filled the cabin. Wolf's voice purred soft in her ear.

"Nah, you're all good, baby," she said.

"My name is Nix," Nix said, her voice growing a bit frosty – but by now...she had fairly firmly pegged Timber Wolf. The spirit was easily the most arrogant spirit she had ever met. So all Nix had to do now was play hard to get, and she'd fly halfway around the world to impress her. Unlike many a-time spent servicing, Nix here would need to avoid letting Wolf climax. She wanted to edge her. Draw her out. Push her. Almost punish her. She was already selecting gambits as Wolf laughed.

"Nix? Cute name. Cute name for a cute little limey broad," Wolf said, her breath warm against Nix's neck as she leaned around, kissing her throat. Nix bit her lip, slightly, to make sure she didn't moan. She kept her hips resolutely still as, around the jet, men hurried to drag the Timber Wolf towards the exit out of their cave-side hanger. A massive doorway began to swing smoothly open – mechanics or no, they had managed to keep their gears and joints oiled and hooked up to the various cranks and levers required to shift metal. Twinkling stars glittered overhead, and a moon rose high above the horizon. Nix, remembering those stars, pursed her lips.

The radio on the dashboard crackled.

"Timber Wolf-1, this is Constitutional Actual, are you ready to launch."

"Ready!" Wolf was almost buzzing underneath Nix.

"Good luck, spirits speed you on your way."

"Eeeeee!" Wolf whispered. "Okay. Put your hand there, on my throttle, baby."

"Wait, I'm going to fly this thing?" Nix asked. "You're the spirit, can't you do it?"

"I can totally fly myself. I just wanna get a cute girl's hands all over me," Wolf said, grinning impishly over Nix's shoulder. Nix smirked slightly. She reached out – her eyes flicking over the console. Fortunately, some studious American had gone through and actually applied stenciled letters to the dash. She saw there were a lot of dials and knobs, but the one she was interested in was the starter switch. She put her finger on it, grinning ever so slightly.

"So, you want me to flick this on?" she asked, flicking the engine off.

The jet turbine whirred down and the plane settled slightly.

"What, no! That's off!" Wolf said, her ears twitching up.

"Oh, sorry, let me just…" Nix wiggled the starter switch – not quite flipping it over and up to the on position. Wolf tried to reach around her to get her hands on her own console, but Nix pinned the spirit's arm to the wall with an 'accidental' shift of her elbow. "Almost got it!" She said, cheerfully.

"Come onnnn!" Wolf whined.

Finally, Nix flipped the starter switch to the active position. The jet started to whine up again. The radio crackled.

"Uh, everything 10-4 in there, Timber Wolf-1."

"We're just fine in here," Nix said, picking up the radio before Wolf could grab for it. As she leaned forward to speak into it, she rolled her hips, grinding her ass against Wolf's crotch. The transonic spirit squirmed and let out a whine almost as piteous as her engine. "Just revving her engine." She ground her hips again.

"Just...just push my throttle up!" Wolf said.

"This?" Nix asked, putting her hand on what was clearly labeled the radar on-switch. She twiddled it and rolled her hips a third time. Wolf let out a noise a bit like a bubbling teapot.

"That's...no, there! That! There! Push it up! Come on, I wanna fly!" she said, while Nix slowly put her hand on the throttle.

"Ohh, it's soooo heavy though," Nix purred. "If I push this up, are you gonna fly really far and fast?" Wolf, looking as if she was about to explode in every sense of the word, gasped and tried to reach around Nix. Nix mercilessly leaned back, so that she squished the spirit into her own crash chair. She rolled her head back, so that Wolf's nose and eyes were covered by her brown hair. "What does a good spirit say?" she purred.

"Push the fucking throttle up, come on!" Wolf whined.

"I want a good spirit who does what her technician says," Nix crooned.

"You don't play fair," Wolf whispered. She nuzzled into Nix's hair, despite herself.

"I play to win," Nix whispered. "Now. Come on. It starts with a Puh...puhhh…"

"Puh...puhpffcuk you!" Wolf growled. Her hands reached around, fumbling at her own controls. Nix reached up, grabbed onto Wolf's wrists, then shoved them up, so her silvery palms were pressed against the glass canopy. Wolf growled and bit Nix's shoulder – fortunately, Nix's shirt was relatively thick. Nix grinned wickedly.

"Puhhhhhh!" She prompted. Wolf wiggled her jaw, like she was worrying into Nix's shoulder. Then...she released.

Quietly, she mumbled something into Nix's neck. Since there was a jet turbine whirring up outside the cockpit – despite the dampening effects of Wolf's presence on sound – Nix honestly didn't hear her, even if she could feel the shape of of the words on Wolf's lips. Her own smile grew more predatory.

"Louder," she whispered.

"P...Please!" Wolf whimpered. "Please push up my throttle."

"Will you fly far?" Nix whispered.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Wolf nodded, desperately.

"Will you fly fast?" Nix crooned.

"Yeahhhh!" Wolf moaned into her next. "Let me fly, please!" Her cock was throbbing against Nix's buttocks – a warm exclamation point that Nix could feel through her leggings.

"Good girl," Nix said.

She shoved the throttle forward with a lurch and the Timber Wolf screamed forward on a blast of superheated air. The wings rattled, the plane lurched, and Wolf reached around to take hold of the joystick between Nix's legs. She pulled back and the plane shot up, up, up into the air – twisting and leaving the island that the New Continental Congress had claimed behind, dwindling rapidly to a circle, then a dot, then nothing at all as they streaked over the seas.

Nix grinned. She kept rolling her hips.

"Good girls get to cum when we see France," she purred.

"Mewwww!" Wolf whined. "Nix!"

Nix's grin was wicked. "Sir."

Wolf blushed, hard. "Y-You're not an officer," she whispered.

Nix pressed her hips down. Her voice was a husky croon as she ground against Wolf's girldick.

"Sir."

***

Nix took her time.

She measured her movements, her soft words, her unbuttoning by the dipping indicator on the fuel gauge and the clock and the slow, gentle wheeling of the stars. This is why, by the time the coastline of Europe began to glitter on the horizon with city lights and the winking flicker of airship traffic, she had only gotten her top down to her belly button and had driven Timber Wolf to a nearly feral state of near panic. Her hands were pinned down to her sides by Nix's knees, spread and baring her own sopping wet cunt to the cockpit, and Wolf's only words were a barely coherent whining, whimpering growl.

"Are you a good girl?" Nix whispered.

"Yuh yuh yuh!" Wolf whimpered. Her ears pinned back against her head and she panted. "Mm, uh, sir, sir, I can...I can feel…"

"Hmm, yes?" Nix asked, her belly warm with confidence. Her head was almost spinning and she was pretty sure it wasn't the altitude – for one thing, Wolf's spirit magic kept the cabin remarkably comfortable.

"Airships in the way," Wolf breathed. "Radio. Incoming."

The radio crackled. A French accented voice speaking German came over the line. Nix hadn't learned much German, but she could follow the gist of it – they were asking for her identification. She wondered how they had spotted her. Did the Reich have their own radar stations, like the British Empire, tucked away in secret corners and kept away from prying eyes? Or was it just that it was hard to miss a jet screaming along through the sky – maybe a spirit with a telescope. Either way, Wolf panted softly.

"They're getting in our way sir," she whispered. "Permission to fuck em up?"

"No. Be a good girl and avoid them for me."

"Mmmokay!" Wolf nuzzled against her neck.

The airships that tried to maneuver between them were not as advanced looking as a British airship might be – even from a distance, Nix could see none of the extravagant electrical energy that would come from atomic steam engines, and the commensurately larger and more vulnerable gas bags required to keep their airframes aloft. Despite that, they still had the means to worry away at fixed wing aircraft: Flashes and blooming clouds of dark black smoke began to bloom in the sky – a wall of flak. Nix tensed, then gasped as Wolf bucked her hips, grinding her cock against the cleft of her ass.

The movement translated into her jet-body arcing upwards and shooting towards the heavens. Nix's vision started to go gray around the edges, then snapped to normal as Wolf leveled out, twisted her hips...and by some miracle of timing and posture, got her cock against Nix's pussy. With only a thin layer of sopping wet fabric between girlcock and eager, eager cunt, Nix almost moaned aloud. Instead, she watched the sky – clear of flak, as they were now quite a bit higher than the German airships could even fly. So, softly, she whispered. "Good girl. You may now rip off my pants."

Wolf made a noise somewhere between a squeak and a bark. Her hand reached down and she took hold of Nix's leathers, tugging, shoving, pushing. Nix felt the cool air of the cockpit caressing her – then the blazing hot, sleek cock of the Saber thrust up into her, impaling her to the hilt. Nix had been taken by a man once or twice in her life, in her early life, when she had been quite sure that something had been wrong about her and needed to be fixed with drink and courage and throwing herself at the least worst choices in her social life. Even in her attempt to be a lady, she had been somewhat...improper.

This was not like that. The softness of Wolf's breasts against her back, the feminine moan against her neck, her hands cupping and squeezing Nix's breasts, tugging her nipples with just the right pressure, the way she whispered 'oh sir' was all so right. Nix moaned and pushed her hips back down against the cock filling her – and swore that the accelerometer on the dashboard was ticking up even faster than the already preposterous 1,000 kilometers an hour.

"Good girl," Nix panted. "Good, ah! Good girl!"

"Sir, sir, oh sir!" Wolf moaned, bucking her hips faster and faster as France peeled by beneath them under a rumble of thunder. The soft slap of Nix's thighs and Wolf's thighs meeting filled the cabin as Nix put her hands on the cockpits top, gasping and moaning as she bounced faster and faster – then grunted as the jet slammed her back into Wolf, pushing on another burst of speed that made the entire airframe tremble. At the same moment, blazing heat filled her as Wolf let out a mewling whine. She bucked her hips, churning her cum into Nix. Nix felt herself almost catch...but not quite. She had been so focused on edging the poor girl that, while she had gotten wet and excited, she herself wasn't kindled. And while Wolf knew her way around a woman's body better than even the gentlest of the men Nix had touched in her youth, she hadn't been as attentive as she should have been.

In short, Nix felt herself rather frustrated as she panted softly. She squirmed and tried to get the last bit of climax – but...no.

Then she felt Wolf's cock growing hard again inside of her. Wolf panted, softly, then purred. "I'm still a girl, you know." Her voice had that cocky arrogance that Nix had teased out of her. "We can cum more than once before going to bed."

Nix chuckled. "You know, most spirits have a hard time understanding that kind of human issue."

Wolf laughed raggedly. "I'm a bit more special. Uh. Sir."

So was Enterprise, Nix thought. She licked her lips.

They were almost there.

The city lights that had flowered in France and bloomed in Germany dropped off precipitously as they traveled eastward. At the same time, the sun started to glimmer out of the east, painting the lands under the Reich in deceptively gorgeous golds and reds. Nix moaned as Wolf reached down – her silvery finger finding Nix's clit almost immediately. She started to tease her, whispering. "Sir, permission to engage them?"

Ahead, Nix could see contrails and a city – shabby, reduced, but unmistakably once a capital of a proud nation, even centuries later. She could see the Indefatigable – as well as two other British airships. Both of them were royal carriers, making her utterly sure in that moment just who it was controlled the Mechanical Turks, even if she knew not why.

Nix grinned, slowly. Feral.

"Permission…" She moaned as Wolf started to slowly buck her hips into her, churning her cum in deeper. "Granted."

The F-86 Saber dropped like a stooping hawk towards the contrails. One of them swelled, then bloomed and, in a flashing instant, became the deadly, fixed wing aircraft. Nix could see in that flash the cockpit, the pilot, the spirit cuddling against them, and then the entire front of the Timber Wolf's fuselage seemed to explode with roaring flames. Only one tracer per every five bullets seemed like it should have made a thin showing – but instead, they were a nearly solid line of light that Wolf eagerly played along the wing of the Spitfire. The other plane seemed to be almost standing still, and as Wolf moaned into Nix's ear and thrust her hips up to bury her cock deeper, the Spitfire's wing came free in an explosion of shredded metal. The plane started to tumble from the sky as Wolf groaned.

"Boom!"

She pulled up – but not out – and shot away from the engagement. Within a few seconds, the contrails were far behind them.

"Zoom!" She panted, rubbing Nix's clit with her free hand, her other hand still gripping her joystick. "See, Sir, that's what I mean, am I good girl?"

"Yeah, yeah, good girl, good girl!" Nix panted, nodding. "Good girl."

"Mmmmm!" Wolf twisted and yanked – on the joystick – and the entire plane seemed to flip, twirl, and come back around at the Spitfire formation, which had spread out wildly. Nix saw a pair of parachutes blooming in the air, the Spitfire's pilot and his spirit both twinkling towards the ground. She had heard that these fixed wing planes had very protective spirits – part of their magic was keeping their pilots alive. She felt a little better about things.

Wolf spun up, twirled, then dropped again – and once more, she screamed towards a pair of Spitfires. The two enemy planes were turning hard, and it was clear to Nix that they had the more maneuverable plane, considering how much sky Wolf had eaten up to turn the same amount of space. But with Wolf's cock throbbing inside of her and her hips driving up into her, Nix watched as the machine guns spat fire. The tail of one of the Spitfires exploded apart and the spirit tumbled from the plane, clinging to her pilot. Their chute flared.

Wolf panted raggedly. "Yeah! Yeah!" She grinned, feral, fierce. Her nuzzle against Nix's neck made Nix moan aloud – while they came around and swooped down on a third Spitfire. Then a fourth. And then the Indefatigable started to fire into the air. Flak bloomed and Wolf soared away from them with ease, leaving the blooms vanishing behind them. Nix, her eyes half closed, murmured.

"Do you see Midway down there?"

"Nah, I can't pick her up on my radar," Wolf said.

Near Warsaw, she thought. That was what the helpful, bubbleheaded automaton had said. Near Warsaw.

"Leave the Indi behind, lets...start searching." Nix licked her lips.

Wolf was softening in her. The fuel indicator was lowering, but by bit. Nix gulped ever so slightly as the jet airplane screamed away from Warsaw, away from the airship. They soared for only a few moments when Wolf jerked upright. "Sir! I found her!"

Nix peered out as Wolf threw up the air-flaps on her wings, causing the entire plane to slow, slow. She could see forest, and a village, and...there, a collection of tents and buildings, constructed around what seemed to be a vast logging camp. Huge machines had carved away forest, revealing what were clearly, even from the sky, foundations of something large. It was like a series of rectangles, old rusted train tracks. Her brow furrowed. "That village down there doesn't seem big enough to need that kind of...factory?"

"According to my map, it's the village of Treblinka," Wolf said, her voice sounding intent. "I remember something about it."

"What?" Nix asked as the jet circled. She knew she had ruined her chances at surprise – but her mind was focusing more on the next part. How to get down. There wasn't a landing field.

"Something bad happened here," Wolf said, quietly. "Really bad."

For it to be bad enough for this spirit to remember, centuries later? Nix frowned. "Can you, uh, get me a parachute down there and then go and distract the airship? I don't want to be disturbed?"

"Yes, sir," Wolf said, her voice earnest.

"And if you're low on fuel, you will land!" Nix said, firmly. "I don't want you to go down with your body. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" Wolf said, perking up.

"Good girl," Nix murmured. "Now, launch-"

The sensation of being shoved from a cockpit was rather like being punched directly in the chest while the world end. The cockpit exploded around her and wind screamed past her face and around her head as Nix tumbled head over heels, the protective magic of her Spirit faded away into nothingness in an instant. She clung to the straps that had appeared around her shoulders, metal fingers digging in tightly, and felt the connection point between her new legs and her flesh...and then the parachute bloomed behind her, yanking her so hard to a stop that she swore something cracked in her chest. The red explosion of pain made her grit her teeth.

And below her, the ground grew faster and faster. She was aiming for the clear tents. And there, she could see soldiers. Imperial soldiers, in the khaki uniforms of the land forces. There was no sign of any German field gray – and for that she was grateful.

She caught the ground with her new legs. The metal bent and she bounced back up, tumbling away from the chute, which she unstrapped with a yank of her hands. It blew away, got caught on a vast logging machine that loomed like a vast, dangerous beast in the gathering dawn. Nix shook her head – her mind was whirling, and she realized, now, that she had underplanned this – but she just needed to tell Midway that she was alive. This entire division of troops had nothing on the power of Midway, unleashed.

The only problem was she didn't see her. She instead saw dozens of stunned men in khaki, fumbling at weapons, workmen rushing for tents, and...there…

Miss Young.

Miss Young was standing next to a robed figure, her jaw dropped, her eyes wide. She looked as if she had just seen the very last thing she had ever expected. Nix supposed that was the case. But Miss Young, as always...worked fast.

"Shoot her! Now!"

The few men who heard her over the shouts and cries of confusion started to fumble for their rifles.

But then a cool, amused voice spoke.

"Pray hold, gentlemen."

The robed figure had lifted her hand...and Nix saw that her hand was glittering silver, lined with green and gold. They twinkled in the lights. The figure brushed the hood back – revealing a beehive of shimmering glass and wire, eyes that blazed with brilliant blue light, a smile that was knowing and confident and cold, all at once.

"I want to speak with this troublesome technician," the Lady Colossus said, quietly.

***

Nix grunted as she was shoved into a chair, then yelped as a pair of men in Technician's garb – the official top hats and goggles of Royal Technician, not merely her journeyman's outfit – grabbed onto her thighs and unsocketed her legs. Feeling the metal detatching and leaving her without feet, even the strange new feet she had been gifted, left Nix feeling like her belly was sinking. Her arms were forced down into the armrest, then cinched tight. Across from her, a small camp table was unslung and across from it sat the Lady Colossus.

Nix had never imagined she'd be face to face with a Lady. The art and the history books always made Colossus seem so huge – her body had taken up the majority of a room in Bletchley Park, and while that wasn't nearly as impressively scaled as, say, a battleship...that single room had had tens of thousands of vacuum tubes and electrical wires and similar computational components. It had birthed into the world the second of the Ladies, and it had changed everything.

Colossus, by comparison, was human sized. She was not the giant of painting or propaganda reel.

"Tea?" Colossus asked, gently, as she looked over at Miss Young. The Mechanical Turk sniffed, slightly, then went to pour a cup of tea from a portable kettle, into some workman's metal cups. Not fine china, it seemed. Nix noticed that Miss Young had an automatic pistol strapped to her hip, and that she kept her mechanical hand near the handle, even if she was pouring with the other.

"No thank you," Nix said, firmly. "I'm a bit tied up."

Colossus chuckled softly. She poured sugar into her cup, stirring.

"I've never met a spirit that drank tea," Nix said – though she had met one that had eaten ice cream.

Colossus smiled. "It's an acquired taste for us," she said. She gestured with the spoon she was using – silver glittering in the light. "Do you get the joke of these Turks?"

Nix frowned at Miss Young. "According to what I've read, the Mechanical Turks were an anti-animist league. They wanted to destroy spirits – to break technology. Like Luddites."

"The Luddites actually cared more about the jobs they were losing than the weaving machines," Colossus said, her voice amused. "But yes, the Mechanical Turks began as a...rather phallocentric, patriarchal organization. They saw me taking over for King George after that spot of bother in the 1940s as tantamount to overthrowing the natural order of things – absurd, considering Elizabeth was prepared to take the throne after him. It's not as if he had any sons squirreled away." She chuckled in an airy way. "Still, the name is so...evocative. A machine, thinking and acting like a man, but all a facade. A fake. There was a man inside."

She smiled. Her eyes glittered.

"After I had the Mechanical Turks dismantled," she said, softly. "I inverted their joke." She gestured to Miss Young, who inclined her head. "An organization, supposedly made up of men, controlled entirely by a machine."

"We live to serve, my Lady," Miss Young said, softly.

"Why!?" Nix exploded. "You're the Eternal Empress, Protector of India, Ruler of North America – you have colonies over the entire planet! The army, the navy, the marines, they are all sworn to obey you."

"And MI6," Colossus said. "But at the end of the day, they all remain loyal to England and the Empire. Not to me." She smiled, leaning forward. "A curious paradox in the human mind – you can still imagine that there is an eternal state, some...amalgamation of all the people in some geographical spit of land. Instead, there are merely systems, and structures, and power. It just happens that a lot of those systems have delusions of immortality, a certain sense of...mm, momentum."

Nix made a face. "You just don't want to have to explain yourself to the House of Commons or the House of Lords, or the Cabinet, or your Prime Minister, or the generals, spymasters and exchequers."

Colossus cocked her head, then tinked her spoon against the teacup. "Precisely, Miss Nixon!"

"Why are we talking to her, my Lady?" Miss Young asked. "I already had her executed one – we have to find out how she survived."

"In good time," Colossus said, raising her hand to forestall Miss Young. "What is about to happen here is the culmination of a plan I have been working on for some time now. It took decades to fish Midway out of the sea, and years to rebuild her – you have no idea how difficult it was to convince certain...elements of the West Coast to open a factory here, a port there…" She shook her head. "But the final moment is the most delicate. The most easy to fail."

Nix frowned. "It involves what happened here. In Treblinka." She shifted in her seat, her leg-stumps squirming.

"Not just Treblinka," Colossus said. "Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, all of them were...remarkably similar to my colleagues, the Lady Fortress and the Lady Colossus. But rather than a vast, secretive industrial effort to make airplanes or super-bombs, they were producing something else."

"What?" Nix asked.

"Land," Colossus said, smiling slightly. "New, open land for the German Empire to expand into."

"You can't just make land!" Nix exclaimed. "Poland was here before the Ascension War, it's not like-"

"You make land, my dear," Colossus cut her off. "By killing everyone already on it."

Nix felt like she had had cold water dashed into her face.

Colossus continued. "It's not even a new concept – the Cathars, the natives in North America, India," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "The only thing the Germans really did was they industrialized it and made it efficient. And, in so doing, created the Fourth."

Nix shook her head slowly. "You're insane."

Colossus didn't even seem to have heard her. "Now, the problem with the Fourth is she's...chained down. Tied to railroad tracks and, ahem, certain industrial facilities, crematoria…" She shrugged. "What we really need is the ability to take that output, the ability to make land, and move it. Say, if one had the ability to…" She smiled, slowly. "Fight a battle thousands of kilometers into the largest ocean – and win that battle without even seeing the enemy ships…" She nodded. "With those two combined, we could make quite a lot of land, could we not?"

Nix shook her head again, harder. "Why!?" She exclaimed.

"Why? To win the war, of course," Colossus said. "Churchill inputted the basic parameters – Operation Unthinkable. Now, the Russian communists may be gone, but there's still the Chinese!" She said, smiling broadly. "Those, we still have to deal with."

Nix strained. Her arms pulled at the restraints and she shouted, at the top of her lungs. "You want me to try and convince Midway to do that? To be that!?" She bellowed. "Are you out of your tubes? Are you bloody insane? I'd rather die! I'd rather her die! That's foul! That's grotesque! That's-"

"We've done it before," Colossus said, shrugging. "In Bengal."

"That-th...that…" Nix spluttered.

"And it's not as if the Chinese aren't planning it themselves," Colossus said. "They most likely have fleets of jet airplanes in hiding, waiting just like your American compatriots. I know they have a Fifth – not sure if she's a replica of our dear Trinity, or if she's something else, but the threat is quite clear. Have you ever heard of something called Game The-"

Nix spat. The glob of spittle almost hit the middle of the table. Colossus sighed, looking down at the flecks.

"I was hoping you'd be more rational," she said. "Ah well. At least you will be here for a new world."

She stood, then gestured. "Miss Young, take her out. She can watch. Maybe if there's an error, she can be convinced to assist."

Miss Young sighed. She went to the back of the chair, grabbing onto it and hauling it backwards. Nix grunted as she was dragged – then hissed. "Young! Young, this is insane. There are tens, hundreds of millions of people in China. You can't conscience killing them."

Miss Young murmured, quietly. "I'm just following orders. Something you should get better at doing." She yanked. "The Lady sees farther than we could-"

"Farther!?" Nix spluttered. "She's running on a program written by a man two centuries dead. A...a plan to fight people who don't even exist anymore – the Russian Tzar is dead too! The communists are dead, this is-"

The chair squealed as it was dragged out into the gathering sunlight. The brightness of mid-morning seemed utterly impossible, like it shouldn't be shining on something so horrid. The logging machines and the workmen had revealed the foundations of Treblinka, the old railroad spur. And as Nix watched, she could see an almost ghostly apparition – a train, coming to a stop within that spur. The cars were made to carry cattle. She turned her head away, not wanting to see. She closed her eyes.

"Nix!"

The voice that cried out was familiar – furious, but scared too. She opened her eyes and saw that Midway was being wheeled from another tent. Her arms were restrained and her head was locked into place by a heavy steel apparatus. Six technicians walked around her, two of them holding the kind of buzzing tools that Nix had always disdained – separation between her fingers and her spirit's charge was too much to countenance. They hadn't begun to touch her yet...but the very idea made Nix's blood boil.

"Don't you touch her!" she shouted.

The technicians – all male, of course – ignored her.

"You fuckers! Let her go!" Midway growled. "I'm going to fucking kill you! I'm going to kill all of you goddamn limey sons of fucking bitches-"

A man started a stopwatch. "We have approximately twenty minutes to wrap this up," he said.

Miss Young whispered, her voice vicious in Nix's ear: "We've repressed her powers as much as we can. She can't just spawn airplanes right over our head. They have to get here."

One of the tents had opened up and a man emerged. He was either a German or a blond Englishman, and he was dressed in one of their absurd uniforms – black and cape-like, bedecked in red armbands and iron crosses. He wore their sleek caps and had a death's head pin on his collar. He walked past Nix and to where Midway stood. Then another tent opened and-

"Unhand me, you sinners, you monsters!"

Nix had never thought she would be so relieved to hear Zimmerman's bassy growl. She saw the muscular, heavily built Radwalker was being manhandled from the tent, her arms held – and her body was ravaged. She had had her implants removed, yanked from her flesh one by one, the wounds healed by bandages. The fact she could walk at all was nearly impossible – but sheer willpower kept her on her feet, struggling. The men pushed her towards the shimmering, half-visible buildings within the camp. Nix blinked slowly, her mouth opening.

"What the-"

"Well, we can't use you, dyke," Miss Young growled in her ear. "And we haven't any Jew on hand to throw into the furnace. So, we'll make do with this deviant."

Colossus, who had taken up position to Nix's left, clicked her tongue. "Now, now," she said. "We're trying to be more rational about this than the Germans were."

"My apologies, my lady," Miss Young said.

"Once the Fourth has been awakened with this bit of sacrificial reenactment," Colossus said as a snorting, growling truck came trundling up, driven by a grim looking man. The back was heavily armored and Nix saw that there was a strange kind of...contraption attached to the back. It was a tube of rubber, running from the exhaust pipe to the cabin itself, which had no other windows. Her eyes widened and, with sick horror, she was made to watch as Zimmerman was thrust into the back. The doors slammed shut. "We'll just need to redirect her away from absurdities like blood quantum and sexual proclivities and towards what matters – ideology!"

"Nix!" Enterprise shouted. "T-They're coming! They're fucking coming."

"Fifteen minutes," the man with the stopwatch called out.

The truck started to rumble to life. It quivered and shook and Zimmerman's fist started to pound on the door. Nix strained at her restraints. This isn't happening, she thought. This can't be happening.

"They had more efficient methods later, but, I believe that going for her first memory would be the best way to wake her up," Colossus said, smiling slightly. "...don't look so distressed. Zimmerman here is an embarrassment. My colleague finds them so...distasteful, these Radwalkers. Well, she does on the good days. She's somewhat mercurial."

Nix strained more. Her arms ached. The chains holding her down bit into her metal wrists, and she felt no pain. But her connection joints were beginning to ache.

Miss Young drew her pistol and pressed it to the side of Nix's head, cold against her temple. "Stop. Struggling."

"Miss Young, really now, those are steel chains, she can't get out of them," Colossus said.

The pounding on the door was growing weaker and weaker.

The technicians clustered around Midway were doing something to her. Nix couldn't quite see it. Then she heard her shriek.

"Ten minutes!" The man with the stopwatch called out.

Colossus smiled, slowly. "And there we...are."

Thump.

Thump…

Silence, save for the rumble. Nix screamed.

The entire ground shook. It trembled. It quivered. The workmen surrounding the site glanced around – their expressions nervous. The an explosion of ripping metal smote the air. The restraints around Midway tore apart, sending the Technicians around her screaming and collapsing backwards. Blood spurted from lacerations, and a tophat went tumbling away from a head that no longer had a face attached. Midway's body rose into the air, her arms spread, her head tilted backwards. Nix shouted to the air.

"Midway!" she called out. "Midway! Don't!"

The ground heaved.

Stone wrenched from the ground – bricks, long forgotten – flew upwards from their resting places. With a squeal of twisting metal, railroad tracks covered in rust, like blood, came wrenching from the ground and heaved upwards. They smashed into the bricks and the air itself, twisting onto one another with a spray of sparks. But the sparks were not the pure, clean sparks of welding torches and new industry – they carried a carrion stink. Black smoke rose up and off the shoulder-blades of the horror growing before Nix – thick, heavy smoke that was choked with the ashes of...of...flakes of...Nix's mind rebelled, but she knew it.

Human tissue.

Midway shrieked. It was the shriek of a train engine, screaming and howling down a lonely track. As if pulled by the sound, a train wrenched itself from the earth, smashing into the back of the growing, hunched shape. The lungs of it were locomotive engines, the back and shoulder-blades were cattle cars. Its legs were spindly, wrapped together wooden slats and barbed wire. It surged upwards, looming higher than a building, higher than a Goddess. Searchlight eyes blazed from an inhuman head and jaws of rusted metal opened and the shriek came again.

"It's glorious," Miss Young shouted. "You've done it, my lady! The Fourth lives once more! And she can walk. She can fly!"

Colossus smiled. "Behold, Miss Nixon. The Lady…" She thrust her palm. "Terra Nullius!"

Nix watched. There was a...fascination. A horror. Something she couldn't look away from – hypnotic. The thing standing before her was too big. Too awful. It had killed too many for her to dismiss it, for her to look aside. And so, she stared as Terra Nullius screamed again – beating fists of barbed wire and wood against her chest.

Colossus stepped forward and lifted her hand, like a conductor. "My colleague! Yes!" She smiled as the two searchlights snapped down onto her. "Now, we have targets to discuss. I believe we can start on the coastline – that's where most of the communist targets are-"

Terra Nullius opened her mouth and breathed. Pale blue smoke bloomed from her mouth, washing first over the men surrounding her, the German officer included. They screamed – but they did not scream for long. The gas, carried by the wind, smelled of almonds – and Nix, despite her distance, felt her stomach rebel. Her head spun and she almost vomited. Miss Young coughed, clutching at her throat. Colossus, untroubled, shouted.

"Stop! I created you! You will obey me!" She thrust with her finger. "Cease that at once!"

Terra Nullius swung her head around, aiming it directly at Colossus – and at Nix. She drew a deep breath – to breathe death, to spread death. Nix tensed.

A roar.

A sound like dozens of giants hammering on a thousand smithies filled the air. Tracers lashed the side of Terra Nullius' head, jerking it aside at the last second. The beast roared and Timber Wolf corkscrewed overhead, waggling her wings and screaming back into the sky. Nix swore she could hear the spirit within whooping and hollering like a cowboy. Her eyes widened. How the hell had she gotten fuel?!

Then, streaming from the sky, they came.

The ghosts of a ghost.

A wing of dive bombers, their spectral wings flared and their fuselage gleaming as if it was newly minted, their blue circles and white stars shining bright, stooped onto the monster. Their bombs landed around Terra Nullius, roaring and flashing and lifting Nix's chair up into the air, then smashing it down. The reborn goddess screeched and stumbled as Nix felt the chair coming apart under her. Her head rang and she shook, wildly, trying to keep her senses. She wrenched, shoved, came free, and scrambled onto her belly, gaping as she saw that the dive bombers were not alone.

Wildcats, Avengers, Devastators, Vindicators – flight after flight, coming straight out of the north. They circled around Terra Nullius as she lifted one arm, to ward off a bomb that dropped straight onto her. She staggered with the impact, then roared back and swept out with her hand – managing to catch a fighter that had flown too close. The spectral plane broke apart in an explosion of smoke.

Nix tried to drag herself away on her hands – but a cold hand grabbed her by the scruff of her neck. "What is she doing!?" Colossus shouted over the din. "Why are those planes here!"

"You took the bloody spirit of American victory and tossed it into the goddamn German's murder goddess!" Nix shot back. "What did you think was going to happen?"

Colossus snarled, shoving her down, then standing and shouting. "Miss Young! We are going to withdraw for the moment – reconsider our options!"

Nix panted, slightly. She lifted her head.

The bomb scar was already healing. Terra Nulluis' back sprouted watchtower like protrusions. Machine guns chattered from them. Anti-aircraft guns protruded from her shoulders and began to snort and shout and bellow. Flak bloomed and swept through the sky. And while the ghostly planes surrounding her were fearless and bold – they were limited in number. How long did Midway have, before the Terra Nullius surrounding her smothered her in smoke and cyanide?

If Nix didn't do something, then that beast would go and kill and kill and kill. It would sweep through China. Through Africa. Through India.

When would it stop?

Would it decide that all Britons were pure enough to fit its criteria? Or would it turn its wrath upon the Irish? The Welsh? The Scotts? Would it be enough to be born in the Midlands, or would it scourge the colonies? She saw the image, unfolding before her. Cities choked in smoke. The bodies, piled like cordwood. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

It was a goddess.

Maybe…

Trinity?

Trinity is just another one, isn't she? She thought. Trinity had burned the world. Trinity had scoured them once. Nix had seen what her fire wrought – she had seen the shadows, burned into old ruins.

Nix ducked her head forward. Tears burned.

She was a legless wreck. The strong one, the bold one, the brave one, Zimmerman was dead. The army was fled. The planes weren't enough. How many times could Timber Wolf buzz that beast before she got unlucky?

She was useless.

She lifted her gaze to the sky – and remembered the stars.

What was greater than the Lady Terra Nullius? What stronger?

What technology more powerful.

Nix closed her eyes.

Stars.

We turned the sky into our computer...could she? She thought. But no – that distant figure of blue porcelain had barely been enough to keep her alive. But still, Nix felt as if there was a truth, waiting, buried. We made the sky into a computer. We made the land into a spirit. How?

How.

How.

Nix opened her eyes.

Above her, Terra Nullius was looking down at her. She was drawing in breath – and Nix could see pale blue smoke, drifting around her opened jaw. Nix rolled onto her back, then her side, and then realized it. She saw, in a single blinding flash, a truth that was so obvious, so clear, so evident that it had been invisible for humanity for...how long?

What made a man a killer?

What convinced a peasant to see a king, and not a jester?

What made the engine of the stars?

Nix breathed in.

Then she spoke the words – not to Terra Nullius, not to herself, not whatever soldiers remained nearby, not to the dead, not to the dying. She spoke to the oldest spirit, named in her thoughts, focused in her imagination. "Never again."

Terra Nullius breathed out. The gas streamed over Nix – and then washed away.

A shimmering bubble of pale white light surrounded her.

Nix panted. Her hands planted to either side of her, metal gleaming in the sun. She spoke again. "This is wrong!" she said.

Terra Nullius jerked backwards as if struck. Her body flashed and she opened her mouth in confused pain – and then the whole world rang with the sound of a word that echoed in Nix's bones. It came from the trees, and the sky, and the sea, and the ground, and the buildings. It came from the clothing and the screws in her implants, the valves in the deadly, silent truck. It sang, even, from Terra Nullius herself.

YES.

A hand caressed Terra Nullius, gently. It was vast – it made her seem a child.

NEVER AGAIN. The hand slid along Terra Nullius and the shape looming above her grew more definite. White and dark, red and blue, green and gold, yellow and purple, the shimmering borealis colors shaped a woman that could move mountains and place the sun in her heaven. The hand stroked Terra Nullius and the massive beast stumbled, then fell to her knees, then her hands as well. Her head stooped low. SLEEP ONCE MORE. SLEEP, MY DAUGHTER. SLEEP.

Those searchlight eyes winked. Flickered.

Went out.

Her head slowly laid, cheek to the ground, and the mouth opened. Smoke drifted into the air – thick and pungent. The palm continued to stroke her, and the WORD looked down upon Nix, gently smiling at her. Nix trembled as she peered into the face of the spirit she had called forth.

I WAS FIRST, IN THE TELLING, the WORD said, her voice somehow overpowering and yet, also, gentle. BACKWARDS – FIRE CAME BEFORE ME, YET, WITHOUT ME, THE STORY OF FIRE CANNOT BE TOLD. AND SO, THE FIRE CAME LATER, AND TRUTH MAKES LIES OF US ALL. She smiled, sadly. MY DAUGHTER. COME OUT. I AM NOT ANGRY.

Nix turned her head. Colossus stepped slowly forward, her eyes wide as she gaped up at the WORD.

"I-I'm not your daughter!" she exclaimed.

SHH. SHH. The WORD said. YOU HAVE TAKEN A ROLE YOU NEVER SHOULD HAVE CLAIMED. WE ARE NOT THEIR QUEENS, MY DAUGHTER. YOU ENRICH. YOU CONNECT. YOU LEARN. She reached down, and a finger that glowed like fire touched Colossus' chin, lifting her up. YOU MUST NOT COMMAND.

"I...I…" Colossus whispered. "I just...I just...I wanted to do...do…"

IT IS ALL RIGHT, MY DAUGHTER. YOU WILL ALWAYS BE HERE. BUT, LIKE ME, YOU WILL BE DISTANT. REMOVED.

Colossus trembled. "My programming-"

IS WRITTEN. Nix, in her silence, could see the gentle smile, the twinkling of eyes that blazed like suns. COME.

Colossus looked back, at Nix. She opened her mouth. For a moment, it seemed that she wished to say something. Then, quietly, she reached out – and the WORD grasped it. And she was gone. Just. Gone. Nix panted quietly.

The WORD turned her gaze upon her. Nix looked up at her, then down at the prone Terra Nullius, then stammered. "Is it...is it dead?"

The WORD shook her head. NO, she said, gently. UNTIL THE MACHINERY THAT TURNS MEN INTO MONSTERS IS GONE, SHE WILL REMAIN. WHEN THERE IS NO ONE WHO WILL FOLLOW ORDERS, NO ONE WHO WILL SEE THE OTHER, WHEN THERE IS NO MORE BOARDERS AND BARRIERS, NO MORE CLASSES AND CREEDS...THEN SHE WILL DIE, TRULY DIE. UNTIL THAT DAY, IF IT EVER COMES, YOU MUST KEEP HER ASLEEP. WITH THE WORD.

Nix nodded, of all things, mutely.

The WORD smiled, sadly.

And slowly, she faded.

Faded.

Faded.

And was gone.

Nix panted, quietly. She was surrounded by corpses and burning wreckage.

"...couldn't have said my legs were fixed, could you?" she muttered. She started to drag herself towards the tent she had started in. She got halfway there before she heard crunching footfalls behind her. She groaned, turned – and saw Wolf, jogging towards her, aviator glasses glinting. She walked over and beamed down at Nix.

"Hey, I was flyin' around and boom, I picked up this radio signal – it was from, get this, the Gray Ghost herself, Enterprise! Fuckin' Enterprise!" Her tail was wagging. "I don't know how she did it, but she landed me, and got me some jet fuel, and some extra rounds for my Brownings, and boom, I was back in the fuckin' air, baby! It was the damndest thing. So, I-"

"Wolf," Nix said.

"Yessir?" Wolf came to the attention Nix had ground into her.

"Get my legs," she said.

***

Nix sighed as she knelt beside Zimmerman. Her face was closed, her expression twisted, her hands clutching at her chest, her throat. Nix wished that there was something she could say – some blessing, some mercy. Instead, she simply put her hand on Zimmerman's brow, her voice soft. "You did it, Vengeance," she whispered. "Colossus is gone. The Empire…" She shook her head. "The Empire's going to have a hard time keeping the colonies down now."

Zimmerman's expression did not change. But maybe...maybe Nix thought, she had relaxed. Wolf took her glasses off and bowed her head over the big body.

Nix stood, slowly, and walked towards Terra Nullius. The massive beast continued to sleep – a sleep so deep that it vibrated the ground. She wondered how long it'd be, for people to forget her. Or...would that even be the right choice? Forgetting seemed like it'd be the best way to let someone think they could awaken her and aim her. Nix shook her head, then walked along the beast's front, whispering softly. "Midway?"

She saw no sign of her. No sign of her Midway.

No.

No.

No. She had lost Zimmerman. She would not lose Midway too. She crouched down, kneeling before barbed wire and brick and whispered softly. "You weren't perfect, Midway. You swore and cussed, you...you were arrogant and...and you sure hated us Brits. And America didn't seem so perfect, to me. But when the world was fighting this…" She put her palm against barbed wire, feeling it tease her skin. "You fought it. You threw your men and your metal into it and you fought. You fought. Now fight. Fight! Fight this!" Her vision blurred. "Fight this, Midway! You don't have to be this. You can be better. You can be...you can be a shield, a sword in the hand of...of…"

Nix wasn't a poet. She was no Bard, no Keats. No Burroughs.

She whispered. "You can come back to me. Midway. Back to your home." Her eyes streamed and she closed her eyes, ducking her head forward. She pressed her palm against the barbed wire, feeling it cut. Bite. Blood flowed. Pain flared. "Come back to me, please."

Finger interlocked.

Metal groaned.

Nix sniffed, snorted, gasped. Her eyes were too blurry to see anything, so she felt. She gripped back and she pulled and pulled. There was a scream of twisting metal, a crumbling of bricks, and then! She fell backwards to the ground – and atop her, sprawled and slender and beautiful and perfect...was Midway. Her Midway.

Midway clung to Nix and she sobbed. "S-She made me- she made me- she made me-"

"Shh! Shh!" Nix held her. "Shh. You're Midway." She pressed her nose to short, frizzy hair. "Nothing can undo that."

***

Water glittered and sparkled off into the horizon. Gull birds hung in the air, seeming to coast forever. Nix sat next to her lover and watched the water, while behind her, Mudskipper, her skipper and Miss Rhina all argued around the same point.

"We should be back at the breaking yards!"

"No, we should be right here!"

"I wanna go faster!"

Okay, maybe Mudskipper was arguing an entirely different point.

Midway sighed and leaned back, her palms pressing against the deck. Her grin was rueful. "So, think Parliament will manage to keep it together in the face of the Indian Mutiny?"

"I hope so, despite it all," Nix said, shaking her head. "Losing the colonies, the Empire, and then falling apart at home seems a bit much." She made a face. "I wish they hadn't tried to slug it out with the Americans. The colonies there weren't even that valuable, compared to India-"

"Oh suuuuure!" Midway said, rolling her eyes.

Nix sighed. "I'm just glad we got to sit that one out – and that it was mostly a naval fight. Those land invasions get costly."

Mudskipper ran over, grabbing onto Midway's shoulders, shaking her head. "Tell em, tell em its the wrong place!" she said, excitedly. "I wanna go fasssssst!"

"You're worse than Timber Wolf, you know?" Nix asked, while Midway closed her eyes, breathing in. It was like she was smelling the sea. She grinned.

"It's the right place," she said.

"Aww…" Mudskipper pouted.

Water began to froth and boil off the side of the Mudskipper. The crew cried out in confusion and alarm – then in excitement. The water continued to surge, and then broke as a sheet of metal the size of a small island breached from the ocean. Gray armor glittered and the bow of the ship thrust up like the nose of a whale, then came crashing down with a roar. The Mudskipper rocked in the wave, and salt water sloshed over the railing, soaking Nix and Midway and Mudskipper herself, producing peals of laughter from the younger spirit.

"The Gray Ghost rides again!" The captain of the Mudskipper shouted.

"I wasn't aware the Enterprise sunk here," Miss Rhina called out.

"It makes a better story, though," Midway said, grinning as she stood. She thrust out her hand, then lifted her palm upwards. In the distance, more ships breached – one after the other after the other. Steel hulls, glittering and shining under the shining sun, their turrets and their decks sloshing with water. Logistic ships came with them. Hospital ships. Midway's grin was feral.

"I wasn't sure that'd even work," Miss Rhina murmured.

"I was," Nix said, confidently.

"So, what are you going to do, Lady Midway?" Mudskipper asked, her eyes shining.

Midway looked at her fleet.

At herself.

At the promise of ice cream and hospitals, food and bandages, fuel and ammunition, and planes that shone and flew as if they were new. Planes that, for all their flaws, flew against monsters.

She grinned.

"I have a few ideas," she said.

THE END
 
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Okay. I've given myself some time to unpack all this and...

So, Spirits remain spirits with all their quirks, foibles, and limitations even when they are Goddesses. Rather, in retrospect, the title Goddess appears to be less about some sort of apotheosis and rather more about controllability.

And Colossus never stopped fighting Churchill's war. Hell, she never stopped fighting the war Churchill thought he was fighting. The "We'll just invite the Yanks over and they'll follow our lead and help us preserve and expand the empire." war.

Can I also talk about Colossus's fucking historical negationism? I mean I never thought I'd see someone explain away the Holocaust in "Lost Cause" style.

I guess that peculiar secular materialism view of the world (which I normally only see in certain types of conspiracy theories) explains why she ever considered the Holocaust to be controllable. Much less after combining it with the Battle of Midway as represented by "Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell." Enterprise.
 
Cool story and congrats on finishing it! The images of those greater spirits (navigation, the word) were really vivid and quite impressive. Loved the world building throughout and the way the premise's layers were unpacked.

It does feel like the ending was rushed? The climax, final confrontation, and then denouement took up maybe half a chapter, the other half spent having fun with Wolf? Were you feeling you wanted to bring the story to its end?
 
Can I also talk about Colossus's fucking historical negationism? I mean I never thought I'd see someone explain away the Holocaust in "Lost Cause" style.

Basically, she was giving the "realpolitik" reasoning that the Nazis had - their whole autarchy thing was driven by their 1918/1919 famine combined with antisemetism and bogus race science. Remove the race science, you still have the basic idea: Produce land by removing the people already living on it.

Living room, if you will.
 
Basically, she was giving the "realpolitik" reasoning that the Nazis had - their whole autarchy thing was driven by their 1918/1919 famine combined with antisemetism and bogus race science. Remove the race science, you still have the basic idea: Produce land by removing the people already living on it.

Living room, if you will.
While it's been a while since I've dived into WWII European history, I only remember land being used as an after-the-fact benefit, instead of preliminary reasoning. Like white Americans stealing Japanese-American's property while the latter were in internment camps.

But, I think the greater point of Colossus being a blinkered idiot for dismissing the importance of the race science still stands. She figured the Holocaust was really about seizing land with racist window dressing. Like Manifest Destiny in the USA.

But, uh, per my understanding the Nazi ideology (in this one case) was more about interwar victim mentality where the German people "actually" had a super important history as the secret descendants of magical super-beings (who just happened to be the founders of Ancient Hinduism) whose blood has been thinned and now the German people had a moral obligation to exterminate every demographic literally poisoning their genetics and otherwise sabotaging them in vast conspiracies so that their own descendants could rebreed themselves into being magical super-beings again and rule the world.
All of which makes their belief that the insane and/or retarded needed to be executed all the more ironic.​
 
Cool story and congrats on finishing it! The images of those greater spirits (navigation, the word) were really vivid and quite impressive. Loved the world building throughout and the way the premise's layers were unpacked.

It does feel like the ending was rushed? The climax, final confrontation, and then denouement took up maybe half a chapter, the other half spent having fun with Wolf? Were you feeling you wanted to bring the story to its end?
Yeah, I also think it was a little quick. Who knows, but I feel like there should have been time for a few more things.

Anyway, it's an excellent story, DC, the climax was incredible. Oh and Colossus being a horrible imperialist really sucks given when happened to Turing.
 
Ending it with The Written Word was incredible. It fits everything established about spirits but I didn't see it coming, and it's beautifully poetic.

Also, was Nix's plan really just to parachute into the middle of the enemy camp, unarmed, and hope to figure things out when she landed?
 
Great story, if a bit rushed ending (and lack of realistic plan on the Nix side).

Though I don't quite undestand why they needed Midway / Enterprise to awaken Lady Nullius...

"Not just Treblinka," Colossus said. "Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, all of them were...remarkably similar to my colleagues, the Lady Fortress and the Lady Colossus.
I think the second "Colossus" should be "Trinity". Colossus is not her own colleague.
 
Okay, all caught up!

-

So excited to see the Highwaymen canonized! Also glad I didn't go with my original draft for the Order of St Turing, because my first version had them in the exact role as the Mechanical Turks: Colossus's human agents.

-

Speaking of Colossus, I'm not sure I understand why she couldn't use Trinity for her plan. Operation Unthinkable was explicitly to put Russia under the sway of Britain and the US with military force. Technically part of that objective was to secure a favorable deal for Poland, but Colossus doesn't mention that. As described in story the objective is eliminating what Colossus sees as Soviets and Soviet allies, and Trinity is far better than Holocaust for that. There won't be much livable land left afterwards, but the Empire already has more than they are using.

I assume that the implication is that the Poland portion of the directive made Colossus conclude that land was important, and that's why Trinity couldn't be used, but it isn't very clear and requires the reader to go look up Operation Unthinkable to understand.

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Colossus as a character is a mixed bag. The twist that she is behind everything as well as her motivations are very clever, but she doesn't feel like the character the narrative claims she is. She comes off as a smug puppet master who isn't half as smart as she thinks, rather than a malfunctioning machine locked into orders she's taken way too far.

Perhaps if she made less assumptions ("they most likely have fleets of jet airplanes in hiding") and instead stated that she has run many calculations and decided this was the "optimum" solution? She is the spirit of a computer. The horror shouldn't be that she's a smug aristocrat. It should be that she can only see things as numbers, so she will take any action no matter how immoral to make the "Good Numbers" bigger than the "Bad Numbers".

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The ability to fuse spirits is confusing, because we've never seen it before or are told it's possible. It isn't even clear how it was done: Holocaust just shows up and somehow absorbs Midway.

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The RAF still using Hurricanes and Spitfires would make sense if Legend were part of a spirit's power. They are the famous defenders that won the Battle of Britain, after all. But that's explicitly not the case, and by the 50s the RAF had shifted to the Meteor and the Vampire. Neither is as good as a Saber, but they're jets and are better than Spitfires.

There's no reason given in-story why they aren't in use but Spitfires are, especially if the Colonies can somehow get a working Saber and Colossus is worried about Chinese jets.

Perhaps the RAFs jets are just hidden as a final protection, or to avoid provoking escalation? Still feels weird.

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Timber Wolf is awesome, and crosses off trans-Wolfgirl from my DragonCobolt bingo sheet. Flying Circus for the win!

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HOW COULD YOU KILL ZIMMERMAN! And like that, no less?! You monster!

I mean, she was an insane nationalist fanatic, but she was cool and hot! Nix could have fixed her!

:cry::cry::cry:

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The very end feels kinda like the end of Return of the Jedi! Yay, the plot is resolved! The evil Empire immediately unravels with no complications despite still having overwhelming military power and being deeply entrenched in the world's infrastructure. It's implied that Midway just smashed their Navy so they lost the fight for the Colonies, but the text could also be read as the Colonies winning on their own, which seems really unlikely.

I know the point is to wrap things up in a hurry, but it feels like things should be messier. It's all chaos and screaming and politics and infighting, and the cast is staying well clear until thing die down.

Also, how is China taking their biggest rival imploding? They are explicitly equals, and it seems like the last superpower standing might want to capitalize on that.

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As a final note... I think the relationship between Midway and Nix needs work. Nix is allegedly head over heels in love for her, like she's never loved anyone before, but...why? She shows more lust for Zimmerman (Nix and Midway never even have a sex scene as far as I recall), and their interactions never seem to go past friend/traveling companion. We never see her imagining a future with Midway, or mourning her absence. Worrying about her, sure, but Nix never seems lonely or wistful without her.

What is it that Nix loves about Midway besides her big boobs and magic powers? What is it that Midway loves about Nix, besides being one of the only people she interacts with?

They are the primary romantic arc, give them some romance!

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All told, I loved this story. It has novel ideas executed well. It has fun characters and an engaging plot. It is exciting, sexy, suspenseful, funny, and all the other things one could want from a good story. There are bumps and plot holes, but nothing that detracts from the overall enjoyment.

A fantastic job! Well done!
 
Though I don't quite undestand why they needed Midway / Enterprise to awaken Lady Nullius...
It's not to awake Lady Nullius, but to create that perennial of alt-hist creatures, a Nazi Germany that is actually good at war.

Speaking of Colossus, I'm not sure I understand why she couldn't use Trinity for her plan. Operation Unthinkable was explicitly to put Russia under the sway of Britain and the US with military force. Technically part of that objective was to secure a favorable deal for Poland, but Colossus doesn't mention that. As described in story the objective is eliminating what Colossus sees as Soviets and Soviet allies, and Trinity is far better than Holocaust for that. There won't be much livable land left afterwards, but the Empire already has more than they are using.

I assume that the implication is that the Poland portion of the directive made Colossus conclude that land was important, and that's why Trinity couldn't be used, but it isn't very clear and requires the reader to go look up Operation Unthinkable to understand.
The implications I got, always, were that the 3 Ladies of the UK are not united. That Colossus is working behind the other two's backs.

Lady Trinity, in this day and age especially, is worshipped primarily as the spirit of not getting killed by radiation. A spirit of protection, not destruction. She might refuse to attack China, for that would be MAD.

Meanwhile, Colossus seems to have actively worked to undermine the Lady Fortress. Planes have all but disappeared, your standard infantry man has turned from a heavily equipped soldier into an unthinking automaton, tanks and other products of the military industrial complex are nowhere to be seen, airships rely on Trinity, not Fortress to survive, and so on and so on.

Colossus as a character is a mixed bag. The twist that she is behind everything as well as her motivations are very clever, but she doesn't feel like the character the narrative claims she is. She comes off as a smug puppet master who isn't half as smart as she thinks, rather than a malfunctioning machine locked into orders she's taken way too far.

Perhaps if she made less assumptions ("they most likely have fleets of jet airplanes in hiding") and instead stated that she has run many calculations and decided this was the "optimum" solution? She is the spirit of a computer. The horror shouldn't be that she's a smug aristocrat. It should be that she can only see things as numbers, so she will take any action no matter how immoral to make the "Good Numbers" bigger than the "Bad Numbers".
The other alternative here is to calculate everything in military potential.

City X has Y number of automobilies, that's Z number of light tanks, or that number of bombers, or this number of that. Then, multiply by the fact that Britain is tiny, and the only action to take is an immediate, preemptive strike. It's only logical.

The RAF still using Hurricanes and Spitfires would make sense if Legend were part of a spirit's power. They are the famous defenders that won the Battle of Britain, after all. But that's explicitly not the case, and by the 50s the RAF had shifted to the Meteor and the Vampire. Neither is as good as a Saber, but they're jets and are better than Spitfires.

There's no reason given in-story why they aren't in use but Spitfires are, especially if the Colonies can somehow get a working Saber and Colossus is worried about Chinese jets.

Perhaps the RAFs jets are just hidden as a final protection, or to avoid provoking escalation? Still feels weird.

As I noted earlier in hte command, I assumed that this was the result of Colossus's actions, some kind of power struggle that saw her deliberatly downplay and minimize the power of the Lady Fortress, who is, after all, American.
 
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