Ethershot

The gas refinery smelled worse than the chemical plant. Noxious vapors surrounded the towering steel tanks of Rig 27. They oozed along the ground between the evenly-placed structures and dripped from the catwalks snaking across the tops from tank to tank. Pipes, some as tall as a man, ran about the facility in knots – vital threads in the metallic tapestry of Tarsis. They arrived out of the tangle with only a serial code painted on the side to identify their contents, fixed themselves to the giant machinery of the refinery, then carried steam, gas, water and waste to parts unknown.

Seth and Roland made their cautious way down the center walkway of the refinery, checking side passages and stairwells for signs of unauthorized personnel. Technically there should only be Imperial workers on the rig, but the porous nature of the facility’s perimeter and the closeness of Ashworld made it impossible to prevent squatters or criminals from hiding out in the many alcoves of the structure. This was an old problem for the lieutenant’s forces.

Roland held a standard two-barrel cartridge pistol and officer’s saber as he crept along the steel canyon floor. “According to the foreman the platform near the sewer outlet is closed for repairs. Look for signs of squatters – equipment piles, stray boards or garbage. We get them in here all the time. What’s that you’ve got there?”

Seth had unhooked an odd looking pistol from his belt. It had a straight grip and large cartridge housing much bigger than normal. The barrel was stubby and wide, with a large bell shape to the end. The weapon was entirely grey and looked heavy in Seth’s hands.

“A prototype I’ve been working on,” said the Technologist. “Seemed a good opportunity to test it out.”

“Well, be careful what you shoot at. Pierce one of these tanks and that hairy stain back at the plant will look a Hell of a lot better than us. Here, you take that passage there and I’ll check the catwalk.”

Seth nodded his understanding and watched as Roland sheathed his sword and began climbing steps to the scaffold above. The Technologist turned and began making his way down the narrow walkway Roland had indicated. It was strewn with small piles of fallen snow and stacks of construction materials.

He quickly found that Roland had directed him into a frustrating maze of industrial corridors. Branching paths through the machinery forced him under overhead pipes or over stacks of wood or metal drums. Just when he though he had found a route back to the main walkway, the path would turn sharply or simply end in a wall of pipes and equipment.

As he explored, Seth wondered what kind of person would choose to scrounge in the depths of the Ashworld machinery. The concept of a squatter was alien, even offensive. All citizens of Tarsis were expected to serve the Empire with whatever resources they could bring to bear. For their service they would be rewarded. To think that societal leeches would affix themselves to the most rotten, filthy part of the city made no sense.

But, Seth reminded himself, these were not just squatters they were hunting, but criminals and terrorists allied with Tarsis’s enemies. For them, he imagined, a little discomfort was a small price to pay for the opportunity to wage war on the city.

Finally he found the sewer output trough – a foul trench of gurgling water that ran beneath a series of grates along the northern edge of the refinery. Across the sluice he found a series of ladders leading up to the many catwalks above. From here he could see Roland walking across the tanks. He signaled and Roland began moving toward him.

Towards the edge of the compound, Seth found a tight passage between storage containers. The snow around them was trampled down and marked with footprints. Behind the containers stood a creaky wall up upright planks – castoffs from construction. Slushy footprints littered the ground.

Seth kicked down the makeshift wall in a splintering mess and stepped out onto a wide stone platform. It was surrounded on all sides by a low brick wall and the towering frameworks of half-constructed buildings and empty vats. Arranged on the ground in a semicircle were a series of leaky tents and wooden crates. Seth approached carefully. The place had been deserted quickly. Some of the tents had collapsed and the crates split open. Rotten food lay in scraps around an oil drum in the center of the camp. Seth could smell the remains of a recently extinguished fire in the air, although the smoke had long since cleared.

He knelt next to a crate and inspected its contents – sacks of gunpowder, now soaked through by melting snow.

Roland stepped through the shattered entrance, pistol drawn. “What have you found?”

“This is where they were holed up, though they’re gone now. It must have been just after the bombing – they were in a hurry.”

Roland scanned the surrounding buildings. They were little more than metal skeletons with wooden planks for floors. Cloaked in shadows, their bulk allowed only dim, diffuse light to reach the clearing. Something about them bothered the lieutenant.

Roland looked at the building directly behind Seth and took a step forward. Piles of equipment and materials formed shadowy forms along the edge of the second floor. One of the shadows stood. It aimed a crossbow into the yard below.

“Get down!”

Roland caught Seth in a running tackle, driving him to the ground just as a heavy crossbow bolt crashed into the crate the Technologist had been inspecting. Wet gunpowder and pieces of wood scattered in all directions. Roland recovered and fired his pistol at the shadow above, but heard the slug ricochet off metal. Seth rolled out from under his friend, coming up on one knee. The shadow dashed along the second floor of the structure. Seth raised his pistol, took aim at the receding figure, and squeezed the trigger. The gun made a delayed click.

The explosion sounded like shrieking thunder – like tearing a hole in the world. Blue light flared from the barrel of the weapon, filling Seth’s entire vision, forcing him to close his eyes. A bone-jarring shockwave threw him backwards across the clearing, his back scraping the stone ground. Later, when asked to recall the event before his superiors, Seth would compare the blast to a lightning strike at close proximity, but that description could not do justice to the chilling force that seemed to rip through his body as if it were wind through parchment.

Seth waited a few moments before opening his eyes. His head swam and his ears rang as the echo of the blast faded in the distance. He blinked away the afterimage of flickering red streaks. Struggling to his feet, his bones ached, his muscles protested. Seth rubbed his eyes until vision slowly returned.

Two of the tents were gone. The low wall across the far side of the platform was gone. The first two stories of the steel framework were a tangled wreck for at least twenty meters back. The blaze of blue light had annihilated everything it stuck. A whiff of ozone filled the air.

“Roland?” Seth called out into the haze. Roland answered with a cough and a swear. Seth saw him rolling on the ground a few meters to his right. He stumbled over to him.

“Roland, are you all right?”

The lieutenant sat up. “No, I’m not bloody all right!” He coughed again. “Are you trying to kill me? What was that?”

Seth looked down to see that he still had the pistol in his hand. The barrel had split open in a black ragged mess. The housing was punched through with hundreds of tiny holes. It felt much lighter than it had before.

“I call… called it an Ethershot pistol.” Seth tried his best to look sheepish. “It needs work.”

Roland stared at him. “Oh does it?”

A low groan filled the air. The two looked up to see the building in front of them begin to sway. Supports buckled, floors collapsed. Rivets tore from their foundations in a screaming cacophony of metal, and the whole structure fell in upon itself in a spectacular wreck. The two men simply watched as a cloud of dust and soot swelled before them.

Just before the cloud overtook them, Roland leaned over to Seth, saying, “You understand I am not going to be the one explaining this to the Captain.”