Warbound (The Grimnoir Chronicles Book 3)

It is an odd affliction, this Cog magic. In most ways I am a man of average aptitude. Pertaining to most subjects I can reason as any educated man should, but when my intellect turns toward the topic of airships my mind simply ignites as if on fire. Thoughts pour in unbidden. Reason reaches new heights. The abstract becomes clear. Shortcomings are corrected. Weaknesses are exposed and turned into strengths. Years of scientific reasoning are completed in a matter of fevered days, and when the fire dies down I discover that I have once again revolutionized the whole world. I must wonder if I had not been born with this form of magic, would man be confined to forever using inferior forms of transportation such as aeroplanes?

—Ferdinand von Zeppelin,

personal correspondence, 1915

UBF Traveler

Buckminster Fuller was obviously not a happy Cog. “Mr. Sullivan! Mr. Sullivan! A moment of your time?”

Sadly, Sullivan had not been able to escape through the hatch in time to avoid their resident magical supergenius. It was like the Power picked the smartest human beings around to be Cogs. All Cogs were bright, even before the magic came over them, but for some folks the Cog magic arrived later in life, and they were an extra special sort of fun. “Yeah, Fuller?”

“I’ll have you know these working conditions are completely unsafe. I am dealing with potentially dangerous magic combined with lethal chemical mixtures in a laboratory the size of a closet, all of fifteen feet away from a bag filled with explosive hydrogen! My quarters are totally unsuitable for regenerative occupancy! My roommate is a pirate! A pirate! But that is not the worst. Oh no. The worst is that this is no scientific expedition. You have turned this vessel into a veritable warship! A device designed in the pursuit of killingry!”

“Killingry?” Jake Sullivan cocked his head to the side. “Is that a real word?”

“Of course it is! Killingry. Meaning such as weapons and implements which are in opposition to livingry, or that which is in support of spaceship Earth life! And do not try to obfuscate the subject, Mr. Sullivan.”

“I’d never dream of . . . obfuscating stuff . . . Ain’t Francis paying you a whole lot of money to come along?”

“I need the funding to maximize my life’s work, but please recall you promised me this trip would provide incredible opportunities to look into new forms of magical research.”

“Yep.”

“This is an engine of destruction, filled with violent, coarse, barbaric men!”

“Yep.”

Fuller was fuming. “I will have no part in any endeavor which intends to deprive life from—”

Sullivan held up one big hand to stop him. “Okay. Look. I’ll keep my word. You’re going to see magic that no westerner has ever seen before, and if we get . . . lucky, you’ll probably get to see magic that nobody has seen ever. We need you. We need your big old brain and your ability to see magic, or else maybe all the livingry or whatever the hell you call it on Spaceship Earth is gonna get eaten. Got it?”

The Cog nodded thoughtfully. “I can comprehend the necessity to protect a biological continuation of intelligent life, but I must demand to know where we’re—”

“Nope. Secret. You’ll hear it in the briefing, same as everybody else.” Sullivan patted Buckminster Fuller on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. All the famous scientific expeditions had lots of men with guns on board. Lewis and Clark had guns. Magellan had guns. Hell, Charles Darwin carried himself a Walker Colt on the Beagle.”

“He did?”

Sullivan had no idea. He’d just made that up. “Sure. You’re in good company. I’ve got to go talk to the captain.” And then Sullivan hurried down the ladder before Fuller had a chance to respond. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that their resident genius didn’t attempt to follow.

The Traveler was the most advanced airship to ever come out of Detroit. Originally designed as a new technology test bed and UBF’s attempt at breaking the world altitude record, its speed and maneuverability were shocking, and it was capable of ridiculously long voyages. The Traveler was the smoothest meshing of mechanical engineering and magical know-how in history. Their dirigible was a prototype, and according to United Blimp & Freight CEO Francis Stuyvesant, the future of air travel.

However, Fuller was right, the Traveler had not originally been intended to be a warship. John Browning and a crew of creatively malicious pirates had been given three months to turn the Traveler into a fighting vessel. Browning knew more about weapons than any man who had ever lived, so for its relatively small size, the Traveler now packed one hell of a punch. Fuller had been adamant against using his Power to create anything offensive, but he was a Cog genius when it came to designing defensive or life-saving magic systems. In theory, the Traveler could now go higher, faster, and farther in worse weather than any other airship in history.

Bob Southunder and his pirate crew had managed to harass the greatest navy in the world using nothing but a Great War-era zeppelin cobbled together out of spare parts and creativity. Given access to the actual UBF plant, Southunder had forced through a lot of changes on the Traveler, some of which the engineers had disagreed with. It was a case of craft theory versus real-world experience, but since Pirate Bob was the one who would be in charge should it go down in flames, Francis had backed the captain’s ideas more often than not.

One of Southunder’s demands had been to use hydrogen instead of helium, Imperium style. Helium was safer, but it provided less lift and it was a scarce commodity in most of the places their mission might take them. He’d argued that the crew’s Cracklers could use their magic to power machinery capable of processing water into hydrogen to fill the bags and for fuel. Worst case scenario, in case of a catastrophic failure, that’s what their Torches were for.

It took a while to maneuver through the narrow corridors. The Traveler had two separate, lightly armored, compartmentalized bags, each one nearly three hundred feet long, with a superstructure that filled the space between them and an armored command deck at the very front. To Sullivan’s untrained eye the Traveler looked like a bigger version of the Tempest, which had struck him as a mighty fine dirigible for the few brief moments he had been able to ride on it before it had corkscrewed into the ground in central California. It reminded him of two footballs, side by side, only with wings, and several great big engines on the back.

And the engines . . . They were like something out of the science-fiction magazines; their engines were awe-inspiring and completely terrifying at the same time. Sullivan had never seen, or more importantly, heard anything like them before. The roar was incredible. Francis called the new designs turbo-jets. They were an invention of one of the Cogs, a Brit by the name of Whittle, from the R&D department at UBF. Sullivan had never known that the British called their Cogs Boffins before. It was a pretty innocuous name for a wizard who could come up with an engine that could suck a man in and spit out confetti, an unfortunate event which had happened to one poor UBF engineer during initial testing. Captain Southunder had called the Boffin-designed turbo-jets a tool of the devil, at least until he’d taken the Traveler out for its first test flight, and then he’d done nothing but sing their praises ever since. The Traveler was just that damn fast. During the test run from Michigan to California they had broken the world airship speed record by going just over a hundred miles per hour. The UBF Cogs estimated that the Traveler was capable of a hundred and twenty. Since Southunder’s magical power was manipulating the weather, up to and including hurricane-force winds, he was already betting on a hundred and fifty with the right tail wind.

Sure, there were airplanes that could easily do three times that, but none of them had the range or could carry the amount of men and cargo Sullivan thought they might need. With the Traveler, Sullivan had a hybrid airship with firepower just shy of a Great War heavy cruiser, which could fly most of the way around the world without stopping, and was loaded with every nifty device UBF could stuff onboard, including a teleradar powerful enough to let them detect aircraft miles away. Cog superscience sure was something. Popular Mechanics could get a year’s worth of articles just out of one ride on the Traveler.

Francis had made him promise to bring the Traveler back in one piece. The young head of UBF had fought an uphill battle against his board of directors in order to fund the Pathfinder expedition. As far as the board was concerned, the name Pathfinder was because this was a scientific expedition to test the boundaries of what an airship was capable of. They were unaware that the Pathfinder was simply the name the Chairman had assigned to an outer-space monster. That might have caused a few problems for the shareholders. If they’d known that their multi-million dollar experiment was being crewed by a gang of pirates and a magical secret society, they’d probably have tossed Francis out on his ear.

Well, they could certainly try, but the last few years had changed Francis Stuyvesant. He was no longer just the mouthy young punk Sullivan had kneecapped with a .32 the first time they’d met. Francis was proving to be as ruthless and capable at running a business as his grandfather had been. Their recent hardships had molded Francis into an actual leader of men. Sullivan approved. So Francis had put his foot down and gotten Sullivan a fancy airship.

It sure was nice having rich friends.

Sullivan found Captain Southunder on the bridge, readying the Traveler to leave the airfield. Before meeting Southunder, he had sort of assumed that a pirate captain would have been loud, barking orders, wrangling a group of rowdy privateers, that sort of thing, but Pirate Bob, as he was affectionately known by his crew, was a quiet and understated man. There was no drama with Pirate Bob, he simply had no tolerance for the stupid or lazy, so every man on his crew learned his job and how to do it without him having to babysit them, or they got tossed over the side.

Southunder had been easy enough to convince about the threat of the Enemy. This was a man who had spent a big chunk of his life protecting part of the Geo-Tel from the Imperium, so the concept of a world-ending event wasn’t that farfetched for the good captain. “Welcome back, Sullivan,” Southunder said without turning away from the window. “We lift off in thirty minutes.”

“How’s it shaking out?”

“It? Ships are she. Not it. Don’t hurt her feelings, Mr. Sullivan.”

Sullivan chuckled. “Aye aye, Captain.”

“Any problem picking up your psychopath?”

“Sociopath,” he corrected.

“There’s a difference?”

“Well . . .” Despite his addiction to reading scholarly texts, psychology wasn’t one of the fields Sullivan had ever bothered to study. If it hadn’t been for Bradford Carr’s morbid fascination over Wells’ supposed effectiveness, he wouldn’t have bothered with an alienist at all. “I actually don’t know.”

Southunder turned from the window. “With the bunch you’ve put together, one more crazy shouldn’t hurt.”

The captain’s tone suggested that there had been trouble. “Toru again?”

“Your Jap is a popular fella, but no. He’s been quiet, probably trying to avoid ticking my men off enough so that they won’t put a knife in his back.”

“Good luck,” Sullivan said. “Stabbing Toru’s likely to upset him some.”

“I’ve warned them . . . Still can’t believe I’m on a ship with an Imperium Iron Guard.” Southunder moved closer to Sullivan and pretended to check the navigation chart. Some other members of the crew were coming up the ladder, so the captain lowered his voice so only Sullivan would hear. “You’d be hard pressed to find one of my marauders that hasn’t lost family to those cold-blooded bastards. If somebody doesn’t try to do him in by the time we get to Canada, I’ll have vastly underestimated their restraint. ”

Having a former Iron Guard on the crew wasn’t good for morale, but Toru Tokugawa was the expert on the Pathfinder, and for that fight at least, he was theoretically on their side. “Keep them focused, Captain. That’s all I ask.”

“I’ll do my best, Sullivan, but I’d recommend you learn everything you can from that Imperial sooner rather than later . . . You know, just in case he has an accident. The sky is a dangerous place.”

“More dangerous with us in it, I imagine,” Sullivan said. “You get us there in one piece. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Speaking of there. Most of these men don’t know your plan. They know bits and pieces, so they’re filling in the blanks with bad guesses and rumors, even your fellow knights. They need to know. This one ship is going to declare war on the entire Imperium soon. Once we cross that line, there’s no going back.”

“They’ll be all in. There’s too much at stake not to be.”

“When are you planning on briefing the whole crew?”

“Right after dinner. It’s harder to mutiny on a full stomach.”

Southunder smiled. “I’ll have the cook prepare something hearty.”

The Traveler’s crew was made up of one hundred men. Correction, men and one woman. It might be offensive to some or scandalous to others, but Sullivan was too pragmatic to dwell on it. The idea of having women in what was fundamentally a military unit was completely foreign to him. Sullivan was of the mindset that the fairer sex should be protected, kept from harm whenever possible, but the lone woman aboard the Traveler was here for a damn good reason. Hell, Francis had even named the ship in honor of one of the most dangerous Actives anyone had ever known, and she’d been a girl. Not to mention Sullivan’s last girlfriend could pick up and toss an automobile, so he wasn’t one to underestimate the fairer sex.

Nonetheless, having men and women serving on the same boat was an odd concept to somebody old-fashioned, but Pirate Bob’s marauders had a woman onboard for years without any problems. Though, it probably helped that Lady Origami had been their only Torch and had kept the Bulldog Marauder from being engulfed in flames and crashing into the ocean on several occasions. Plus, nobody was going to get fresh with a girl who could set you on fire with her mind.

There were a few women he knew who he would’ve loved to have along on the expedition. Jane was about the best damn Healer there was, but was one of the backbone members of the American knights, and she and her husband Dan were now stuck serving as something akin to ambassadors for their kind, dealing with all of the liars and rats in Washington. Sullivan didn’t envy them and would much rather go battle Iron Guard any day.

The other woman he’d thought about asking had been Pemberly Hammer. As a Justice, her magic was rare and powerful, but she was a BI agent now, and answered to J. Edgar Hoover. Even though Hoover was technically almost an ally, maybe on a good day, all the Grimnoir knew he’d turn on them the instant the winds blew wrong . . . Or maybe that was just what Sullivan had told himself, so as to justify not dragging Hammer along on a mission this dangerous. He knew damn good and well that if he’d asked her, she would’ve volunteered. Hammer was as tough as anyone, had a Power that was half polygraph and half perfect compass, yet he hadn’t asked for her help. That said a lot more about what he thought their odds of surviving were than any commentary on Hammer’s abilities. It was difficult for a man like him to admit that he might be soft on someone.

Sullivan leaned against the wall and took the opportunity to enjoy a cigarette while he waited for the crew to finish their chow. Because of the fire danger on board the Traveler, and considering that their Torches were still only human, smoking was only allowed in certain areas, the galley being one of them. Because of that, the air was thick with smoke.

One of the reasons the whole damn hydrogen-filled ship wasn’t a complete death trap walked past him carrying a tray of food. He could tell that the diminutive Japanese girl had to resist the urge to bow when she saw him. Old habits die hard, but Pirate Bob’s Marauders weren’t big on any habits born in the Imperium. “Hello, Mr. Sullivan.”

Sullivan tipped his fedora. “Lady Origami.” He didn’t know her real name, doubted anybody did actually. “Good to see you.”

“And good to see you, Mr. Sullivan,” she answered. “Captain speaks highly of you. Our journey is very important. I look forward to this journey.”

Either she was lying, or she was a lot harder than she looked, which would be easy, since she looked like a porcelain doll. But rumor was she’d escaped an Imperium school, and she’d certainly spent the last few years keeping a gang of rowdy pirates alive, so looks could be deceiving. “Your English has gotten a lot better.”

“Thank you. I have been practicing a lot.” The marauders didn’t have any sort of official uniform, though most of them wound up wearing coveralls and tough work clothes. Lady Origami was the same, grease-stained and with her hair covered in a bandana, only she’d decorated her uniform with bits of silk, surely looted from Imperium vessels. She reached into a sash and pulled something out. “I made this for you for our journey. It is for good fortune.”

“For me?” He held out one hand and she placed the tiny object in the center of his palm. It was made out of paper, but the paper had been folded hundreds and hundreds of times, until it had been perfectly and intricately shaped into a tiny three-dimensional animal. “That sure is something.”

“It is a frog.”

“Yeah. I can tell. It even has toes. You’re really good.”

“Paper burns the fastest of all. That is why I like it most. The frog means we will return. I do not know how to say this correctly.” She looked down, embarrassed by the gift. “I must go.”

“It’s okay. I understand. And thank you.”

And then she hurried off. It was a little awkward, but that was to be expected, since the first time they’d met she’d tried to seduce him for some unfathomable reason. Except that had been right after Delilah . . . Never mind. He needed to focus on the present, not live in the past. Sullivan carefully placed the paper frog into his shirt pocket. Their female crew member was an odd one.

The floor rocked beneath his feet, a reminder that they were actually moving. The Traveler was so smooth that sometimes it was easy to forget they were in the air, and after a time you even began to tune out the unearthly howl of the engines. Heinrich Koenig walked through the wall and appeared next to him. Sullivan was now used to the Fade doing that, so it didn’t startle him nearly as much as it used to. “Heinrich,” Sullivan greeted.

“Everything is ready,” Heinrich said, keeping his voice low.

“Good.” The young German was one of the most paranoid of the Grimnoir, and that was saying something. Heinrich had a Fade’s natural mistrust but his upbringing in the treacherous environment of Dead City had taken it to new heights. Regardless Sullivan was glad to have Heinrich onboard. “Let me know what you find out.”

“This should prove enlightening.”

“Try not to kill anybody until after we interrogate them.”

Heinrich grinned. “I cannot promise this, my friend.” He clapped Sullivan on the shoulder, and then went to join the other Grimnoir.

Word had spread through the ship that Sullivan was going to brief them on their next move. Since they were still in the US, and the winds were mild, only a handful of the crew weren’t in the galley. Normally they would have eaten in shifts, so the narrow room was far too crowded, almost standing room only. Captain Southunder had the bridge. Sullivan suspected it was because he wanted to see how Sullivan would handle the marauders without Southunder’s calming influence present.

It was expected, but still disappointing, to see that the crew had segregated themselves into a few distinct groups. The biggest crowd was made up of members of the Grimnoir society. Sullivan knew many of them, and had fought alongside several. Lance Talon was the senior member, Heinrich was his second in command, but since this expedition was Sullivan’s idea, they were both deferring to him. The knights as a whole were oath-bound to do their duty. Every single one of them was an Active with fighting experience against the Imperium, the Soviets, or, more recently, his own government’s OCI. Since many members of the Grimnoir society still thought the Enemy was a figment of Sullivan’s imagination, these knights were volunteers. The society as a whole was torn about the Pathfinder mission. They were few in number as it was, and their threats were numerous. To have forty of their best leave on what could be a wild-goose chase inspired by one girl’s crazed ramblings and the word of their greatest foe’s ghost was seen as a fool’s errand by many of the elders.

The next corner of the room was filled with the surviving crew of the F.S. Bulldog Marauder and the soldiers of fortune who had worked with Southunder in the Free Cities. These were more of an unknown quantity, originally united by nothing more than their hatred of the Imperium. They were made up of every race, creed, and color, but then again, the Imperium didn’t discriminate when it came to invading countries and ruining lives. The marauders were dangerous and crafty, and knew how to wring the most out of an airship. Sullivan figured they were mostly in it for the money, a few for the adventure, and the rest because they’d follow Bob Southunder into hell if their captain thought it was a good idea. A handful of them were magical, and only a couple of those were strong enough to qualify as Actives, but every last one of them knew how to fight, and nobody could run an airship like the marauders.

The smallest group was the UBF employees, mostly made up of engineers and technical experts. Francis had picked out his best and brightest, given them the pitch, and then paid them large amounts of money to come along. This was the part of the crew that Sullivan was the least familiar with, but Francis swore up and down that they were all extremely good at their jobs.

The Traveler was outfitted with every high-technology device produced by Cog science short of a peace ray, and that was only because John Browning hadn’t been able to figure out a way to attach one to a ship this size. Cog science could be tricky. Browning was too busy keeping America from falling apart to come on this journey, and for that Sullivan was thankful because he thought John was getting too dang old for this sort of business. The UBF men knew enough to keep their magical alterations working, and one of the Grimnoir was supposed to be a very talented Fixer.

The UBF would keep them in the air, the marauders would get them there in one piece, and the knights would take care of business. Simple.

The fourth and smallest group wasn’t really a group at all, but rather the individuals who had either been forced on him or thoset he felt he needed who didn’t fit in with anybody else. Wells was the newest addition to that list, and the alienist had picked a spot in back where he could observe unnoticed. Cleaned up and with a fresh set of clothing, Wells looked even more unremarkable. Toru was another one that fit in that category, but their former Iron Guard didn’t eat in the galley with the others. It was probably safer for everyone that way. Sullivan checked his watch. Toru was supposed to attend the briefing, but he hadn’t arrived yet. He probably wouldn’t even show, just to prove some point.

Unofficially, Sullivan had no doubt that the newly reformed OCI had a snitch onboard. With all of the controversy about the Active Registration Act going on, this many powerful Actives doing who knew what with a private warship? Hell, the Traveler’s armament alone was violating several of Roosevelt’s new federal laws, but he’d like to see the Treasury agent dumb enough to try and enforce them. Even though OCI was under new, supposedly noncorrupt management, it would have been surprising if the secret police didn’t have somebody on the inside. You couldn’t put together an expedition of this magnitude without word getting out. However, Sullivan wasn’t currently worried about the OCI sort of spy. Let them report back. Then maybe the fools in Washington would realize what they were really dealing with and pull their heads out of their collective behinds. Luckily the Traveler would be leaving the OCI’s jurisdiction, and frankly, Sullivan was a lot more worried about the Enemy than he was about a bunch of bureaucrats meddling in his affairs. Not that he wouldn’t deal with them when—or if—he got back. After Mason Island, Sullivan was done playing games, but first things first, he had to save magic before the petty bureaucrats could try and control it.

No, the spies he was worried about where the Imperium kind. When this many people knew about the mission, it was inevitable the Imperium would find out, and those bastards would sabotage everything, but Lance and Heinrich had come up with a plan for them.

Chowtime was over. The conversations had died down. All eyes were on him. Sullivan finished his smoke, ground it out in an ashtray, and walked to where a world map had been stuck to the wall. The Grimnoir knights who had been leaning on it quickly got out of his way. They were as curious as everyone else.

It was pointless to ask for everyone’s attention. They were eager to begin the hunt. “Let’s get to it.” When he’d led men into battle, he’d preferred to just lead by example, from the front. The words had always come hard, but since he’d wound up in charge of this expedition, it felt like he should say something motivational. “Most of you don’t know much about what we’re after, or where we’re going, just that it’s dangerous as hell, but you were all man enough to volunteer to do what has to be done . . . So thanks.”

And that was as good as the motivation was going to get. “You all had a chance to back out. You’re still here, which means you’re stuck. Captain Southunder runs this ship. I run this operation. You all know who you answer to and you know the chain of command. You got a problem, I’ll listen, but if you don’t like my decision, too bad. Questions? No? Good. So let me tell you what we’re up against.”

Toru had silently entered the galley while Sullivan’s back had been turned. The Iron Guard was big for a Japanese, all solid muscle, and the other members of the crew automatically parted around him like fish with a shark in the water. There were a lot of uneasy or hostile glances sent Toru’s way. He simply stared back, daring them to try something. Sullivan gave him a small nod in greeting. “Our expert’s arrived.”

The Grimnoir’s normal strategy for taking on Iron Guards was to try and outnumber them five to one. That usually made for a fair fight. There were a handful of Grimnoir, like Sullivan himself, or Faye before she’d gotten killed, who could beat those odds, but they normally held true. Toru was outnumbered ninety-nine to one on this ship, and he still didn’t seem to give a shit. Toru nodded his way. “Please, do not stop on my account.”

All of the volunteers had been told about the true nature of magic before they’d signed up, so there was no need to waste their time. They wanted details. “You all know what we’re after. It is a little chunk of the thing that is chasing the Power. The Chairman called it the Pathfinder, so that name will do as good as any. We’ll have one chance to kill it before it calls home. Other Pathfinders have come here twice before. Toru here knows all about how the last ones worked.”

The former Iron Guard surveyed the crew menacingly. “Each one has been different, but they are all creatures of nightmares, so deadly that Okubo Tokugawa, the greatest warrior of all time, barely achieved victory. They eat magic and then use it against you, kill everything, and then turn the corpses into weapons. The strongest amongst you may have a small chance of survival.” The room was dead quiet except for the sound of the engines. “Most of you will surely perish.”

Sullivan sighed. He should have known better.

Lance Talon broke the silence. The burly Grimnoir wasn’t about to take attitude from an Iron Guard, former or not. “What the hell? You son of a—”

“I do not care if you take offense, Grimnoir.” Toru snapped. “I have vowed to defeat this threat to honor my father’s final command. Lying to you will only encourage overconfidence, which will lead to our defeat. Believe my words. The Order of Iron Guard were formed specifically to combat this Enemy.”

Lance stood up from behind the dinner table, revealing that he had a big revolver hanging from a gun belt. Sullivan remembered—a little too late to do any good—that Lance’s wife and children had been burned to death in an Iron Guard attack. “Easy, Lance.”

Lance’s hand was casually hovering over the butt of his Colt. “Except your precious Iron Guard are too busy raping and pillaging their way through a bunch of peasants to do their job, now ain’t they?”

“Yes.” Toru’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “The Iron Guard have become distracted from their true purpose. I will convince them of the error of their ways.” He slowly turned and addressed the entire room. “I will teach you everything I know before we engage the Pathfinder. It will devour your Power, rip the life from your bodies, and then twist your remains into weapons. Yet, as capable as it is, it can still be defeated. Hopefully your inevitable deaths will not bring shame upon our cause.”

“That’ll do, Toru.”

Toru gave Sullivan a small bow. As proud and stiff-necked as Toru was, he had still sworn that he would obey Sullivan’s orders. “I will be in my quarters until you need me.” Toru left the galley. He seemed to take the tension with him.

“Wait . . . How come he gets his own room?” Doctor Wells asked.

Sullivan was just close enough to hear someone’s whispered answer. “Because everyone is terrified of him.”

“Hmmm . . . So that’s all it takes?” Wells responded thoughtfully. “I see . . .”

Sullivan looked at Lance and shook his head. Lance returned grudgingly to his seat. “We can’t count on those Imperium bastards to fix this problem for us. The US government doesn’t believe us. So we’re gonna have to do it ourselves. All systems are go. Captain Southunder says that the Traveler is in top shape.” There was a chorus of cheers and hoots from the pirates and the UBF. Good. They had pride in their ship. “We’re ready to head out.”

“Head out where?” a young knight shouted.

And that was the big question everybody was so eager about. Sullivan went to the map and jabbed his finger into Montana. “We’re here. We’re going to cross into Canada, and once night falls, we’re going to kill the lights and head west, then up the coast, along the Aleutians, into Kamchatka.” Sullivan thumped the map. “Get your cold-weather clothing together, ‘cause I hear it’s not nice.”

“That’s deep Imperium territory,” said one of the marauders. Sullivan knew this one, Wesley Dalton, or Barns to his friends. He was Pirate Bob’s best pilot, and since he was an Active Lucky, he was the only reason any of them had survived the Tempest crash. “Sounds fun.”

“The Japanese have locked it up tight since the Siberian resistance surrendered. We’re not expecting them to have much there in the way of defenses. There’s a small Imperium garrison up in the mountains by the name of Koryak. Expect high winds and nasty cold. That’s where we think the Pathfinder is gonna land shortly.”

“How do you know?” asked one of the UBF men.

Sullivan looked around the room. Fuller wasn’t around, which made this convenient. “Have you met Buckminster Fuller?” Several of the UBF engineers had visible reactions, ranging from shaking their heads sadly to rolling their eyes. Fuller was squirrely as all get out, but the important part was, his stuff worked. Even while driving you nuts, you had to admire the brilliance of his magical creations. “Yeah, I know, but he’s the most brilliant Cog ever when it comes to reading magic. He came up with a spell for us. I saw it myself, clear as day.” Sullivan’s reputation for quality spellbinding preceded him. “Trust me. That’s the place. We’re taking our time, conserving fuel, but the weather looks good, so we should be there in forty-eight hours. The knights will go down with me. We’ll take the base while Captain Southunder covers us from the Traveler.”

“What about the space monster?” asked a pirate.

“For the next two days, Toru will be conducting training in the cargo hold.” He didn’t know that yet, so informing the Iron Guard would be amusing. “The Jap doesn’t think we can do this. Let’s prove him wrong.”

“The Chairman killed this thing before, and we killed the Chairman,” Lance said. “I like our odds.”

Traitor.

That was what they were calling him now. The word stung.

Toru was one of the thousand sons of Okubo Tokugawa. He had served with distinction in the elite Imperium Iron Guard and had once even been in contention for the vaunted position of First. He had served in several war zones, winning multiple commendations for his bravery and tactical prowess. He had then been assigned to the Imperium Diplomatic Corps and been a student of Ambassador Hattori, one of the original members of the legendary Dark Ocean. Toru’s integrity should have been above reproach.

He was following the final command of his father, a command so important that even death could not keep the Chairman from issuing it. He alone was honoring the wishes of the greatest man who had ever lived. It was the Imperium which had lost its way. They were the fools who were blindly following an imposter. Ambassador Hattori had given Toru his memories at the moment of his death. Toru knew the truth. Only Toru understood that the Enemy was coming. The vulture that was profiting from the real Chairman’s death was hiding that dreaded fact. Who were these dogs to question his honor? Who were they to call him traitor?

The Grimnoir had intercepted the Imperium communication in San Francisco and brought it to him for translation. It had been a test. He had no doubt that since the Grimnoir did not trust him, they would have his translation checked for accuracy. There were no Imperium secrets in the letter to protect, so he had given them the truth.

The message had been a warning to all of the cells working within the United States that Iron Guard Toru was a traitor to the Imperium, and that if that he was spotted, to alert their handlers at once. It had then gone on to list his many crimes, a few of which were even true. It had read that one of the thousand sons of Okubo Tokugawa had fallen in with the Grimnoir Society. This was an insult to the Imperium and a shame upon the Order of Iron Guard. He had murdered Ambassador Hattori and several of his own men. Since Toru had only murdered one of the men, that made him suspect that the assassins that had been sent by the false Chairman had removed the other embassy staff who had known too much.

Gold was promised to anyone who could provide information on Toru’s whereabouts, and anyone who managed to erase this shame from the world would be given a wealth beyond their dreams and a position of importance within the court bureaucracy.

Toru Tokugawa was now the most wanted man in the Imperium.

The worst part was that every espionage plan he’d been involved with, and there were many that had originated at the Washington embassy, were now compromised. Cells would be rearranged. Undercover agents would be pulled. The Chairman’s mission of conquest in America had been dealt a severe blow. The message implied that Toru had been a Grimnoir agent, and that he had been recruited years ago after losing face and shaming himself as a coward during the occupation of Manchuria. That was nothing but an insult. Toru truly loved the Imperium. He would never betray the Chairman’s mission of purification. He believed in the doctrine of strength above all else. His integrity would never allow him to give valuable Imperium secrets to the Grimnoir. He was only here because his father’s ghost had demanded it.

His attempt at meditation was a failure. Peace would not come. His mind would not clear. Toru’s bed consisted of a mat and a few blankets thrown down on the cold metal floor, and now, meditating only seemed to focus his discomforts. The small portion of the cargo hold which he had claimed for himself was permanently chilled. The constant thrum of the Traveler’s unearthly engines grated on his nerves. He had given up his position of status for this?

What he really wanted to do was take up his steel tetsubo and start smashing things, but a warrior did not disgrace himself with displays of emotion, especially when among his people’s enemies. He would not show weakness in front of the wretched Grimnoir . . . Also, the interior of a fragile dirigible was a terrible place to go mad with an eighty-pound club and superhuman strength.

How dare they bring up Manchuria? Yes, he had questioned his leaders, but it had not been because of cowardice . . . It had been . . . What? He had disobeyed those orders why? Compassion? No . . . That was not what had cost him his promotion and gotten him removed from the front and sent to serve with the Diplomatic Corps in America. That was not why he’d disobeyed.

It had been guilt. It had been conscience.

He crushed the letter in his fist and tried to go back to his meditations. After a few minutes of futile mental exercise, he decided to concentrate on physical exercise instead. The one thing the Traveler had in abundance was pipes sticking through the walls, and he’d already found a few solid enough to do chin-ups from.

Careful not to tap into his own Power or any of the eight magical kanji branded onto his skin, for that would have been cheating, Toru began doing repetitions. The stronger his own body was, the harder he could push his Power without damage. Since it was discovered that he was a Brute, the Imperium schools had made sure he’d spent hours a day doing physical training, every day, for a decade. Toru was no stranger to exercise. Besides, it helped him think.

The Imperium had wanted him to read this message. Diplomatic Corps training had taught him that a message such as this would have been encrypted. This message had not been. Surely, as soon as they discovered that he had faked his own death, the code key would have been changed. He should not have been able to read a real, current message.

They were trying to shake him. They were trying to insult him, make him angry, to cause him to do something foolish. If that was the case, they had underestimated his resolve. It would not work. Okubo Tokugawa’s final command had been to Jake Sullivan, ergo, Toru was honor-bound to see Sullivan’s mission completed, no matter what.

If the imposter wanted a fight, so be it. He might look and sound just like the Chairman, but it was doubtful that he would be nearly as invincible.

“Toru.”

Distracted and purposefully limiting his magical senses, he had not heard Sullivan approach. The Heavy was quiet for his size. Toru let go of the pipe and dropped to the floor. “How long have you been there?”

“About thirty chin-ups.”

Toru had counted forty-two and hadn’t yet begun to sweat, but with so many men who hated him on this vessel, allowing someone to sneak up on him was unacceptable. He would have to pay better attention in the future. “What do you want?”

Sullivan wandered into the storage room, idly inspecting the pile of weapons stacked on the floor. The broken remains of Toru’s Iron Guard katana were on top of the stack. Thankfully, Sullivan did not remark on the broken sword. He’d been there when Toru had smashed it to demonstrate his resolve. “It’s about the crew.”

“If they cannot comprehend the enormity of the task, then they will fail.”

“Fighting in the Great War taught me a few things. I’ve seen what happens when you kill a unit’s morale. You might as well kill their bodies, ‘cause next time they go into combat, they’re either useless or good as dead.”

“Irrelevant.” Toru snorted. “It should not matter. Imperium men do not have this problem. Superior warriors embrace death in order to fulfill their missions. The greatest honor a warrior can achieve is dying in his lord’s service.”

“These ain’t Imperium men. The Chairman’s bullshit won’t fly here.”

Toru returned to his uncomfortable patch of floor and took a seat. “One of our nations has conquered a tenth of the planet over the last two generations while the other has grown fat, complacent, and apathetic. Please, share more of your opinion on which of our differing methods is the superior.”

Sullivan frowned. Toru knew he had him there. Sullivan, despite being a product of a weak culture, was still a true warrior. Trying in vain to convince the American authorities of the danger of the Pathfinder had left Sullivan infuriated and baffled. Toru had just won the argument before it had even begun, and Sullivan didn’t even know it yet. The Imperium school’s education hadn’t all been physical.

“Only the fools in charge are like that. Don’t underestimate a regular American’s backbone.”

“Yet here we are. One lonely ship . . . Did you really come here simply to debate philosophy?”

Sullivan pretended to take in the room. “Riding around on a blimp named after the little girl that killed your father . . . That’s got to stick in your craw.”

It was a rather astute observation. Despite appearing to be an oaf, the Heavy could have made a passable diplomat. “Is there a point to this visit, Sullivan?”

“Yeah. Take your head out of your ass so you can see the sunshine. Whether you like them or not, these men are our only hope of beating the Pathfinder. You best start acting like it.”

“That is an order?”

“It is.”

The things that I do to fulfill my father’s commands . . . Toru nodded. “So be it.”

“Good. You’ll get them up to speed then. These ain’t Imperium. They’re free men, and they’ll fight better if they know they can win. Convince them they can.”

“You wish me to lie?”

“You won’t have to. I intend to win.”

“Optimism is such an American trait. Optimism is a lie.”

“And pessimism lowers morale.”

“Not pessimism. Pessimism is another weak western concept. I speak of fatalism. A warrior accepts his fate. He willingly does whatever must be done to complete his task and accepts whatever consequences that entails. That is the only true way to assure victory . . . Yet, I will do as you order.”

“You’re a real piece of work.” Sullivan moved to leave, and then paused in the doorway. “Listen . . . This thing with your own country out to get you . . . I heard about the letter. I know how you feel.”

Indeed, Jake Sullivan had once been declared a traitor to his country, a scapegoat for a conspiracy of ambitious fools, but Sullivan had a child’s understanding of honor, and though he was a powerful combatant, he had no comprehension of the true warrior’s code. Sullivan’s country was corrupt and weak; he should have expected to be betrayed by it.

“You know nothing.”

Art to come

Traveler