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
