Orion and the Clockwork (The Carmsborough Vigilantes #2)

Chapter 27

As if his day hadn't already been busy enough, between fighting an army of Nazis and chasing down the homeless girl and the men following her, Orion received another call in the middle of the afternoon, when he'd just gotten back from helping with the cleanup process in the Engineering and Biomed Districts. He regretfully answered the buzzing.

"Are you over this all yet?" the Gearmaster asked.

"What is it this time?"

"A large Nazi ship is headed west from the Commerce District. Seems to be on track towards the capitol. And when I mean large, I'm talking about the biggest I've ever seen. Lots of news stations talking about this one."

"We need to work out a system where I'm not the last to know about these things."

"Yeah, probably. Carmsborough Air Force has already tried to take it on, but they couldn't get through its shield. Looks like this might be an infiltration job."

"This must be their last-ditch effort to take control. A barrage of ships didn't work and a ground army didn't work, so send in the mother of all airships."

"Something along those lines. See to it that it never makes it to the capitol."

"Will do."

Orion prepared to turn right back around when Rami came into the living room, already bundled up. "Headed out again already?"

"Big ship. Astronomically large, apparently. It's been a chaotic day."

"You can tell me on the way."

"No way. I can't have you coming with. This is going to be incredibly dangerous."

"I heard what the Gearmaster said. You could use a little backup in an enemy airship. Besides, what was the point of making me these if I can't use them?"

Rami flashed his own shield, which was beautiful and functional, something that Orion had done for his second work under the Gearmaster's wing. He also had his brass scythe, which in terms of functionality compared to the tool it was based on, it had none, but it made for a suitable weapon.

"Alright, but if things get bad, you have to get out of there."

"Trust me, I'm not looking to earn another gunshot wound. One was more than enough for me."

Together, they boarded the Clockwork, who, unlike Orion, didn't feel any exhaustion from the past twenty-four hours. They traveled at normal speed to the ship, reaching it in about ten minutes, after it had already done some minor damage to the buildings below it with some scattered attacks.

"He wasn't lying," Rami said, staring out at the enemy airship. "That is certainly a juggernaut."

The second the trio was spotted, a few attacks were sent their way, which the Clockwork easily dodged. If the Nazis had done any reading on how to counter the Clockwork, which they clearly hadn't, they would have known that missiles were the way to go. Orion doubted they didn't have missiles on that big of a ship.

Just to test, the Clockwork tried a shield buster on their hull, which fizzled a little but was overtaken by the purple pulse of the generator. This was a grade of shield unlike any he'd ever seen before, or even heard of. A ship this large must be worth protecting.

Too bad it was going to be going down.

Without slowing down, they approached the ship, still dodging attacks, and landed on its deck in the middle of a group of men all doing various battle prep. The few that were closest had no chance to respond, either getting clubbed by Orion or the Clockwork or slashed by Rami. The rest, however, were more prepared, but not nearly enough.