Humanity’s Dirty Laundry

The Iron Mountain

173rd SUMMER – The First Year of the Regency. (Earth Date 21st JANUARY 2017)

Xavier

I staggered through the Gateway just behind the bear. The poor creature didn’t even stop to look around but shot out the cave as if a hungry dragon were after it.

The cave smelt, not unpleasantly, of bear and cold stone. I couldn’t see any evidence of booby traps and I doubted any IED would have survived very long with a bear in residence but it never hurt to be careful.

The entrance to the cave was an opening of about three metres high by about five wide. It was a cloudless night, and I took off my glasses to admire the view. Whereas Earth was stuck on the unexciting outskirts of a rather boring Galaxy, Amur was far closer to its Galaxy’s centre and the night sky was quite spectacular, more than making up for the lack of a moon.

It was pleasantly cool here and nowhere near as humid as Florida. And quieter, any insect life here didn’t feel the need to inform the world of their presence.

I stood, taking in the beauty of the night sky until I caught movement at the back of the cave. Mode, Blue and Tommy had followed me through the Gateway. I made a motion for them to stay where they were and put my smart glasses back on.

Directly in front of the entrance, leaving just enough space to drive a large truck past was a long unused pill box overgrown with vegetation. I moved slowly out the cave, checking everything. The cave was in a depression, and I checked my immediate surroundings first. The only living things were insects, small lizards, and the odd snake. There were no suspicious straight lines or unusual hot spots, the land around the Gateway was scrubland, almost desert, reminding me a bit of the more boring bits of Afghanistan and I got the impression no humans had been here since Father Callis had died.

In the distance I could see the Iron Mountain doing its best to loom menacingly. I took another step out the cave, looked up and jumped out of my skin.

“Ahh… holy fucking crap,” I swore. A metre above my head was the car sized head of a dragon grinning a draconic grin at a prank successfully played. I pulled my glasses off and took a step back to take in the massive creature, black featherscales glittering in the starlight.

“Dragons are not supposed to be nocturnal.” I told him. The dragon lifted his forearm and tapped something out on his TV sized tablet he wore like a watch.

“Nor are humans, yet here we both are.” a synthesised male voice said in a public-school English accent that sounded vaguely familiar and I took a moment to appreciate the massive achievement of the Dragon to English speech synthesiser.

A year ago, when Natalie had first dragged me through the Gateway in Wales for the first time, steam power and muzzle loading cannons were considered state of the art, and although electricity was not unknown, the Guild of Sparks kept the knowledge of how it worked highly secret.

One of my first tasks after securing Trafalgar had been to set up a phone and data network. This, so far, hadn’t really had much of an impact on the human population, certainly not as much as the radio station was having, although this was changing slowly as the network expanded.

The dragons however had taken one look at fledgeling internet, seen what it could do for them and offered to do some heavy lifting in exchange for whatever technology I was willing to let them have. Trafalgar had been rebuilt, almost every dragon now had a tablet strapped to their forearm and the phone network, with draconic help, was due to reach Selamu Alu any day now.

It was becoming increasingly obvious that the dragons weren’t all about heavy lifting. They’d reprogrammed the tablets to work in their own language, and now it looked like they had a translator that appeared to exceed the best efforts the richest companies on Earth could manage. Admittedly it was all done on Earth made technology, but it was still humbling especially when most of the human population on Amur had never seen a lightbulb.

“Is that Warrk?” Blue asked from inside the cave. The dragon craned his head down so he could investigate the voice.

“Bllooo.” The dragon rumbled quietly in his own voice. The guys exited the cave and fist bumped the dragon’s left foretalon in greeting. Warrk was one of the Dragon Matriach’s Grahh’s twenty-two children, the only living double yoker, as close to being royalty as a Dragon was possible to be, even if he was barely an adult and much smaller than his mother. Currently he was working as a courier. He was also meant to be a long way away from here

“What are you doing here anyway, Warrk? You were meant to drop a package off and leave. This place is about to become a war zone.” The dragon looked at his tablet as draconic writing scrolled across the screen then tapped his reply.

“No war is necessary. They are running out of water.”

“I know, but the people in charge may not be amenable to seeing reason, at least, not while they have water.”

“I am here as an observer.” Warrk’s tablet said. I sighed. It had been my suggestion that both dragons and humans were allowed to witness potentially historical events as a neutral observer, but I’d rather not have had the dragons here going through more of humanity’s dirty laundry before I’d had a chance to go through it first.

“Please tell me you brought my package?” I asked. Warrk passed me a heavy sports bag. I rummaged inside pulling out the two massive brass and wood inlaid revolvers that made the security guard’s Desert Eagle look like a child’s toy, the legendary sword of the Governors of Trafalgar, Caledfwlch, and finally my jacket. I put it on and searched the pockets until I found my usual phone and turned it on.

“Tommy, go get the pickup, and get Nat to bring the Rolls, through.” I ordered as I waited for the phone to go through its startup procedure.

“Yes, boss.” Tommy replied with enthusiasm.

“And don’t forget to unplug it before you move it.”

“Yes boss.”

“Quietly… and no lights.”

“Yes boss.” Tommy whispered dramatically.

“Blue, go get the water and the rat packs, bring it all through and stack it over there.” I said, pointing to a weed strewn area that I guessed had once been used for a similar purpose. Blue nodded and followed Tommy back through the Gateway. I waited for the phone to finish its startup routine, then made a phone call.

“You’ve got a signal here?” Mode asked, surprised. I nodded as I waited for the person on the other end to pick up, after about ten rings it was answered.

“What?” A sleepy voice answered.

“Good morning, Major.” I said cheerily. There was a pause as the commander of my armed forces realised who was calling and no doubt had a good swear to himself. I smiled to myself. I’d been a Sergeant for too long in my previous life not to enjoy waking senior officers up.

“Governor, this better be good.”

“Oh it is. Is everyone in position?”

“Of course. We are just awaiting your orders.”

“Good, it’s time. Initiate plan C.”

“Plan C?” There was the sound of shuffling paper, the sound of a sealed envelope being opened, then silence as the Major read his orders.

“Any questions?” I asked.

“You want me to do this now?” He asked.

“Yes, ring everyone on that list and tell them to implement plan C. You will co-ordinate as agreed.”

“Yes, yes I understand, it’s just…”

“They are expecting your call. Oh, let them know we already have a draconic observer.” I said and hung up, smiling to myself. I doubted if any of the people the Major was calling would appreciate the late-night call any more than he did but they all knew what they had to do. It had taken many weeks of planning to get to this point.

“It’s finally happening then?” Mode asked.

“It is.” I replied as the pickup and the Rolls drove silently out the cave. The comically small forklift followed with the water barrels, lit up in a red glow of the vehicles brake lights, its motors whining in protest at the load.

“Bugger, I forgot about the brake lights.” It was a matter of seconds to disconnect the rear lights of both cars, put the Roll’s roof down, then we all piled aboard both vehicles. Nat hopping in the back of the Rolls with Tommy, I took the driving seat and Ren sat next to me and navigated. In the Ranger, Mode drove, Juan navigated, and Blue stood in the back machine gun at the ready. Warrk stayed where he was. I suspected dragons’ night sight was pretty bad, certainly worse than us humans.

“Okay Ren, which way?” I asked, as the track split in two.

“Left, that’ll take us through the docks, it’s longer but the track’s better and there’s less chance of us being spotted from the town.” I turned and headed down the better made of the two tracks, the quiet rumble of the Rolls’ engine and the crack of stones under the tyres sounding loud in the night air. Even the Rolls’ clock sounded like it was making an effort to be extra loud.

“Are there any guards?” Tommy asked.

“There were only ever guards on the ships and you’ve sunk all those.”

“I’ve been told there’s one vessel, she’s not exactly River worthy though.” I said.

“Oh, I thought they’d all been destroyed. Which one?” Ren asked.

“The Iron Spike, it was one of the two rear-guard vessels in your invasion fleet that ran into Sorgi. He captured the other one, but the ‘Spike escaped. Tell me when we’re close to the docks, and we’ll go and have a look.”

“Who exactly do you mean by we?” Tommy asked. I grinned back at him.

“You and me. It’ll be like old times. Don’t forget your rifle this time.”

“You are never going to let me forget that are you?”

“Never.”

We sat in silence as the scrubland became more regular and more… scrubby with regular looking pools of water at the low points. Old open caste mine workings I guessed. Given Natalie’s horrified reaction at the environment impact of open caste mining back on Earth and the stunted vegetation here, the Druids hadn’t had much of a say in what went on around here for a very long time.

After a few minutes of cautious driving Ren told me to stop behind a hill sized pile of spoil. We got out, I motioned to the guys in the truck to stay hidden as Ren took us up the hill which was larger than I’d realised, and it took us a good few minutes to climb to the top where we hid under a wind blasted tree on the crest.

“Did we really have to come up here,” Tommy complained as we looked, down into the docks. We were on top of a massive earthworks designed to protect the docks and shipyard from artillery and, probably more importantly, get rid of a shit-load of overburden. Still it must have been an epic job to build the defences this high with only limited steam driven technology.

Even in the darkness it was obvious the docks were run down and barely used. Abandoned cranes loomed over the dark, still water like skeletal hands, there was enough space to have comfortably moored twenty or thirty large steamships. Now there was just the Iron Spike, and a couple of nondescript small trading vessels. To the left were a couple of dry docks, both with their gates open and full of water. To the right, a wide canal that would eventually lead to a navigable river and then downstream to the continent spanning River that, with the exception of the Iron Mountain, defined the limits of human occupation on this planet.

“I didn’t realise it would be that much of a climb,” Ren replied, taking Tommy’s constant background complaining as genuine criticism.

“Don’t pay any attention to Tommy, if he’s not complaining you know he’s asleep.” I said to Ren

“Sorry Ren,” Tommy apologised. I looked at Tommy in shock, he seemed genuinely contrite.

Do you see anyone?” I said, scanning the debris strewn docks for signs of life with my night vision binoculars and trying to ignore the tiredness that was creeping up on me.

“There’s a small fire, on the ship.” Ren said. Unlike Tommy and me, she hadn’t got any binoculars and had immediately picked up the glow of a fire. I zoomed in on the boat and instantly found the fire. It looked like a makeshift brasier sitting on the deck of the ship.

“One… no, two possible guards, sitting in what look like deck chairs. Looks like they’re asleep.”

“They’re still facing the road. If they’re not asleep they’ll see us go past, we’re gonna have to take em out.” Tommy said.

“You’re going to kill them?” Ren asked, eyes wide in the darkness.

“Neutralise them,” I corrected. “You go stay here and keep watch. We’ll flash a torch when it’s safe to proceed.” I replied and motioned for Tommy to follow me down the hill.

“We’re not gonna kill em?” Tommy murmured to me as we reached the foot of the hill and started around the far end of the docks.

“If there’s any danger of them warning the town we kill them, otherwise…” I shrugged.

The docks were more complicated to navigate than I realised, it took us much longer than I’d anticipated to silently thread our way through the debris and abandoned Earth made machinery that littered the docks giving the place a spooky post-apocalyptic feel. Some of the machinery left to rot here would be worth a fortune anywhere else on this planet for the value of the metal alone.

Whatever Tommy’s faults he was good at this this sort of stuff, and he followed me, silent as a ghost, until we were standing at the foot of the gangplank. From the deck of the ship that towered above came the unmistakable sound of snoring. Tommy and I exchanged glances, then we crept up the gangplank and surveyed the main deck, like the docks it was littered with debris.

There were two deckchairs under a sailcloth awning, placed with their back to us and facing a rather rickety looking brazier that earlier on in the evening would have destroyed anyone’s night sight. Now the fire was a dull red glow that revealed a couple of AK47s leaning up against the mainmast. I moved silently across the deck and grabbed the guns, checking the sleeping guards were actually sleeping.

The men were both middle aged, bearded and dressed in ragged Iron Brotherhood uniforms. I checked the rifles. They were well maintained but they each only had one bullet in them. I removed both bullets, put the rifles back, then flashed my torch at Ren’s tree.

A few minutes later we watched the two vehicles silently ghost past in the darkness, barely visible, even if you knew what you were looking for. Tommy and I started to creep back down the gangplank when there were footsteps from below decks. We spun around just in time to see two skinny men emerge on deck carrying a red tinted lantern.

“Look at them, sleeping like babies,”

“How the other half live, eh?” The two voices sounded amused and one of the men shook the louder of the snoring guards.

“Eh, whatsup? Is it time to pump again?”

“We don’t have to. The ship ain’t gonna sink if we miss one scheduled pump,” The shaker said.

“Yeah, okay, as long as you get it all pumped out before shift change.”

“Ere, boss, what’s that moving out there.” The second man asked looking to where the cars were, the three men ran over to the rail and looked out. I drew my sword, Tommy drew his knife and we silently made our way back up the gangplank.

“It looks like we’re being invaded lads. They took their bloody time,” the man said from the deckchair, he sounded unsurprised and unbothered.

“Aren’t you meant to fire your gun to warn the town?” The man who’d first seen our vehicles asked, panic in his voice.

“Fuck no. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, they wouldn’t hear a gunshot on the walls anyway, they’re all fast asleep anyway, the lazy buggers.” The man settled down in his deckchair and stretched out his legs

“We might drive ‘em off if we warn ‘em now.” The spotter insisted. The man in the deckchair gave a snort of laughter making the other denizen of the deckchairs stir before resuming his snoring.

“Why would we want to drive em off? The cistern’s cracked, there’s barely any food put by for winter. We’re fucked. Do you seriously think you indentured citizens are gonna survive the winter?”

“What do we do?”

“You go back down below, find a nice comfortable bunk, and get some sleep. Enjoy your first night of freedom. We’ll wander back in the morning and surrender. Maybe they’ll have some water that doesn’t taste of old socks.”

Tommy grinned at me as he put his knife away, I sheathed my sword, and we snuck round the docks to where the others were waiting for us and endured their good-natured taunting for taking so long, then set off again towards the dark bulk of the Iron Mountain. I let Natalie drive, whatever drugs my captors had given me had now well and truly left my system, leaving me feeling bone tired and aching from the fall out the window.

We went up a small rise and Amur’s answer to El Dorado came into view. The settlement had been built in the shadow of the Iron Mountain, a walled town, built in a semi-circle around a sapphire blue pool, undrinkable due to the minerals that had leaked into it over thousands of years. Still, from what I’d heard it looked nice and kept the place nice and green.

In the starlight the settlement looked tranquil, almost idyllic, but every piece of intelligence I’d managed to dredge up pointed to the place being at the point of total infrastructure failure, mainly brought about by Bonner forcibly conscripting every person who knew how to fix stuff and sending them off to fight with barely any training. Most of them had died. None had returned.

The ones who remained were the lower-level administrators, merchants, extended families trying to make ends meet without the main breadwinners and a bunch of increasingly resentful slaves, or rather ‘indentured citizens’ as they appeared to be called. The populace amounted to several thousand people which still made the place the third largest settlement in the Empire.

We parked the vehicles in a hollow close to the walls and covered them with camo netting and started the trek up the hill, keeping in the shadow of the walls. There seemed to be some sort of path here, admittedly not one that had been used much recently, but it was definitely more than an animal track.

We went upwards, pushing through the scrubby undergrowth, Tommy complaining under his breath the whole time until Ren told him to shut up. To everyone’s surprise he did, bringing the total silence of the town the other side of the walls into focus, you’d expect some sound, someone coughing, a dog barking, but no, there was no perceptible evidence that several thousand people lived the other side of the wall.

The wall turned, the track dipped into a dry stream bed and the scrubby bushes became lusher. I pushed through them towards the wall and after a few worried seconds I found what I was looking for, hidden under a bush trained to hide the wide grating underneath it. Unusually the grating was made of steel, given the scarcity of metals here, normally something like this grate would have been made of wood or stone.

“Is that the way in?” Blue asked quietly.

“Yep,” I replied

“You seem to know more about this settlement’s secrets than I do, and I’ve lived here most of my life. Did Ren tell you about this?” Juan asked me.

“Not me, I didn’t know about this one,” Ren told him.

“Sebastian knew this place’s secrets. He designed half of them.” I told the group. Bonner had taken full advantage of his divinely inspired civil engineer prisoner for thirty Earth years and Sebastian had been more than helpful when it came to revealing his former prison’s secrets.

“So why didn’t Sebastian escape? It’s not that far to the Gateway.” Mode asked. I’d asked him the same thing.

“Father Callis wouldn’t leave, and Sebastian couldn’t leave him. He was Callis’ protector as I am Natalie’s protector. He could no more leave Callis in danger than I could leave Natalie.” I told the group.

“You mean Callis could just have left? But he was treated so badly, he was abused, he was beaten, and when Bonner decided he was more trouble than he was worth he was tortured to death in some strange ritual. Why did he stay for a second longer than he had to?” Juan asked, sounding genuinely upset. Despite being a former member of the Iron Mountain’s ruling elite, it sounded like Natalie’s predecessor had made an impression on the man.

“He’d found his calling. He’d always lived in a world where he didn’t fit in, then he came here and found he could make a difference. I don’t think he even noticed the abuse; I don’t even think he paid much attention to the beatings. He just got up every day and tried to change people’s lives for the better.” Ren replied.

Ren had been here too, technically one of the indentured servants, but in reality, they had some sort of semi religious status that I’d never quite got to the bottom of.

I nodded, suddenly having a sudden insight that was characteristic of the voice in my head subtly telling me something. I realised the Spirit had always wanted Father Callis to come here. Bonner’s interference, however had not been planned for and I was essentially a divinely appointed cleaner to clear up his mess and felt a surge of anger that this was necessary. I felt Natalie’s comforting hand on my arm, and I realised it was time to move on. Bonner was dead. I’d dropped a burning airship on him.

I reached down and grabbed the grating, seeing if it would move. To my surprise the heavy grill swung up easily with barely any effort. I peered into the darkness, the grill had a bucket full of unbelievably valuable iron bars tied to it as a counterweight and the hidden hinges had been recently greased. I smiled. My messages had got through. We were expected.

The guys covered me as I lowered myself into the entrance A dark damp tunnel sloped steeply downwards ahead of me, to my right was a small alcove which if I hadn’t been looking for, I would have missed. I waited for the others to join me then reached up to the top of the alcove and found a rod. I pulled on it, there was a clonk and the whole alcove swung silently aside, opening into cylindrical chamber about two metres wide by about ten metres high. A metal ladder led upwards to a circular trap door. I climbed up to the trapdoor, cautiously opened it and looked around.

I was on a flat roof just below the level of the walls at almost the highest point of the settlement. I could see the whole town spread out beneath me. A couple of metres in front of me the roof ended, there was a gap of maybe four metres to another flat roof. I waved the team up looking for a way to get across. I had been told there would be something left to bridge the gap.

I moved to the edge, looked down and felt a wave of vertigo. I’d found where the slaves, sorry, ‘indentured citizens’, lived. Sebastian had told me about this, but the reality was shocking. Ten stories of apartments facing each other, squeezed between the outer and inner wall, the bottom few stories well below ground level, there were thousands of the tiny apartments, crammed together, hidden out of view of the ‘proper’ town. One or two of the apartments had washing strung between then, but these were few and far between despite almost every apartment having a washing line.

I backed away from the edge of the roof and had another look around, eventually spotting what I was looking for hidden in the shadows under the outer wall.

Blue appeared behind me, and I got him to help me pick it up. I’d expected a narrow pole or a tree trunk to assist us in getting across the gap, but this was an actual bridge, beautifully crafted with small wheels on the bottom to help us put it into place.

We manoeuvred it into position easily despite the bridge being far longer than it needed to be, then crossed, pulling it back after us. I order everyone to stay on the roof while Tommy and I climbed the inner wall, using blackened iron spikes that had been placed in exactly the right place for us to climb up.

From the walkway of the inner wall our target stood a short walk away. A large, square box of a building with glazed windows overlooking both sections of the town. Once we controlled this the town would effectively be ours. According to Sebastian anyway. First though, we find a way to get to the roof, then we would be able enter the building through a skylight. The second skylight on the left to be precise.

The wall facing the walkway was a well-maintained stone affair without a climbable downpipe, convenient ladder or bits missing masonry to be seen. We needed a ladder. I looked around to see if our mysterious helpers had left anything lying about and the bridge caught my eye. Turning it over I nearly laughed out loud. Whoever our helpers were really had thought of everything.

Natalie and Juan undid a few wooden clips, the ladder shaped reinforcing of the bridge came loose, and it only took us a matter of moments to get it into position. The ladder was, of course, the perfect height. I went up it and found the second skylight on the left. It wasn’t secured.

Tommy had followed me up the ladder.

“What if it’s a trap?” he whispered. I shrugged and prised open the skylight. Beneath me was a large room, full of old-style CRT security monitors. One person, a woman with a shock of dark hair was sitting in an old Earth style swivel chair, facing the monitors, with a large book propped up so it obscured one of the monitors completely.

I carefully dropped the three metres down into the room, landing almost silently, apart from in involuntary grunt as my body protested at the impact. The person in the chair carefully put a bookmark in his book then spun slowly round to face me. She was a tired looking woman in her twenties with Hispanic features. She gave me a tired smile.

“Governor, nice of you to drop in. I’ve been expecting you."