The Game Called Revolution, - [ebook reader 8 inch .txt] 📗

sure no harm came to them, no matter what. In order to do that, they had to first locate the Majesté Divine.

6

 

 

 

 

The skies above France, July 14, 1789 (Infini Calendar), 1:00 p.m.

The king and queen sat together on the luxurious bed in the royal family’s cabin aboard the Majesté Divine. The bed featured four tall posts supporting a silk canopy. Furthermore, like the Palace their cabin was decorated with priceless paintings and plush carpeting. Sunlight drifted in from the windows next to their bed while clouds sped by.

Their son, Louis-Charles, and daughter Marie-Thérèse, currently were asleep on separate beds on the opposite wall of the spacious cabin. It had been no trouble for them to lose themselves in unconsciousness after their harrowing escape from the Palace.

“Are you sure you can raise enough support in Montmédy?” Marie Antoinette asked softly, not wanting to wake the children.

“They have always been loyal to us. And with order breaking down across France, we cannot risk going anywhere else.”

“We can always go stay with my brother. He would protect us.” Her brother was Leopold II, emperor of Austria.

But Louis XVI said, “I will not abandon my homeland to those wolves of the Third Estate. You’ve seen what they do when left to their own devices. Don’t worry; we shall be safe once we reach Montmédy.”

There was a knock at the door, and the king bade the visitor to enter. It was the Duke of Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, who had escaped with them on the airship. “Your Majesties, how are you faring?”

“Well enough, all things considered,” the king said, though he was visibly lacking confidence in that statement.

The Duke noticed the children sleeping, and came over to the bed, speaking in a hushed tone. “We shall arrive in Montmédy shortly. From there you can rebuild your power base.”

The king’s voice began dripping with anger. “I swear upon our Lord and God that I will return to crush those barbaric commoners, along with their noble and clergy accomplices.”

Marie Antoinette rose off the bed and began walking over to the door.

“You should stay in your cabin until we reach Montmédy, Your Majesty,” the Duke said.

“I’m going to the toilettes. I’ll be back shortly.”

Oddly, the Duke seemed anxious about her leaving. “Wait, my queen. It’s not safe—”

He was too late, however. The queen stepped into the corridor and immediately shrieked.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Louis XVI said.

Marie Antoinette stepped back into the room, her face contorted in horror. With a violently shaking finger she pointed at something down the hall. “Th-The guards! They’re…!”

The king jumped off the bed and ran into the hallway. Half a dozen bodies lay slumped against the walls or splayed on the floor, blood soaking wherever they lay. In addition, each guard had a hole going all the way through his neck in the same spot. They must have all been killed before they could even cry out to alert others.

Louis XVI turned to the Duke. “What is this?”

The commotion woke up the children. Louis-Charles said, “Are we there yet?”

“Oh, bother,” the Duke said, looking over at them. “I was hoping to kill you while they slept, so they wouldn’t have to witness it. I was then going to end them in their sleep, painlessly.”

“Have you taken leave of your senses, François?” the king demanded to know.

The Duke actually laughed contemptuously. “I’m not your trustworthy duke. If you were to ever get back to the Palace—which you won’t—you would find the body of the real Duke of Rochefoucauld-Liancourt hidden in the cellar.”

“An imposter? Then who—”

The king forgot his words as the Duke’s entire flesh rippled like a body of water after a stone had been dropped in it. The Duke pulsated and the body underneath his clothes was re-molded as if it were clay.

When finished, he was no longer the Duke of Rochefoucauld-Liancourt. Instead, he was someone completely unexpected. Someone who should have been dead.

The king gasped. “You…!”

The imposter spoke again, and now even his voice was different. “I’m glad to see you still recognize me, even though I’m young again and not the old man you remember.”

Louis XVI shook with a combination of rage and terror. “The court was right; you are a monster!”

The children sat on their beds, too scared to even blink. They were transfixed entirely on the morphing villain in front of them.

“If you had heeded my warning fifteen years ago, none of this would be necessary. I told you what would happen to France if your policies remained as they were. I told you the country would be torn apart.”

The imposter took a step towards the king, who immediately removed a golden revolver from his robe and fired at him. The imposter fell backwards to the floor, a black ichor oozing from the wound in place of blood.

The report from the pistol shook the children out of their paralyzed state, and Louis XVI grabbed them off the beds.

Together they ran to the bridge to notify the ship’s captain of the assassin, the king and queen covering the children’s eyes as they stepped over the corpses.

Unfortunately, when they arrived they found the bridge crew slaughtered just like the guards in the hallway. The captain and operators were dead in their seats with holes punched through their necks.

“Children, please look away,” the queen said.

They quietly did as they were told. No doubt this whole experience had left them too shaken to do anything else.

The murdered crew was facing away from the entrance to the bridge, suggesting they had been taken by surprise. That wasn’t surprising, since they—like the royal family—must have believed him to be the real Duke of Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, up until the moment he decided to strike. But what weapon had he used? Neither Louis XVI nor Marie Antoinette had seen him carrying anything in his hands.

“No one’s piloting the ship,” the queen said.

She managed to refrain from voicing her new fears, but the king knew well enough that without operators the ship would soon crash. The idea of any of them taking the controls was out of the question; they were, after all, royalty and not trained to do the work of commoners.

“We’ll have to parachute,” Louis XVI said.

He ran over to the lockers on the right wall and rummaged through them until he found what he was looking for.

His spirits were raised as he removed four white bundles, but all hopes were shattered as he looked them over. “They’ve been shredded,” he said, deflated.

Indeed, the parachutes had been torn by someone or something, probably the assassin who had come to kill them. They’d never hold up if anyone tried to open them during a freefall.

However, he found a faint glimmer of hope in the form of a narrow white cylinder on one of the locker shelves. He took it and looked it over.

“Is that a smoke tube?” the queen asked.

“Yes. And it seems to be in one piece. If we can light it on the deck, maybe the Minuit Solaire will see it and come for us.”

“What are the chances that they are even in the area?”

“The Palace will have told them where we are heading. If I know Jeanne de Fleur, she will no doubt come after us with all due haste. It’s a slim hope, but it’s all we have.”

Suddenly the children began frantically tugging at their parents’ clothes. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette turned around to see a horrifying sight: The assassin was standing in the hallway outside the royal family’s cabin grinning at them. Furthermore, the wound in his chest was no longer bleeding.

“It’s useless,” he grinned. “Without a bridge crew this ship will soon crash. And I destroyed the parachutes, so there’s no escape.”

Louis XVI shot him again, this time in the stomach. The assassin fell to his knees, and the king quickly ushered his family up the stairs onto the top deck. Behind them the assassin shouted, “Shoot me all you want, my wounds won’t last long.”

7

 

 

 

 

The skies above France, July 14, 1789 (Infini Calendar), 1:10 p.m.

Jeanne stared intently through the canopy window on board the bridge of the Minuit Solaire. So far, they had yet to see any sign of the Majesté Divine, though they were flying the same heading given to them by the aide at the Palace. Fortunately, Celeste and her team of engineers had recently made upgrades to the Minuit Solaire’s engines, so the ship could fly at a greater top speed than the royal family’s vessel. This would hopefully allow them to catch up with the royal family before it was too late.

“We’ve got something,” Adolphe the left operator said.

Up ahead they could see a trail of orange smoke—a signal—ahead of them. At the head of the plume was an airship. Since there were only two airships in the world, it had to be the Majesté Divine!

“Take us in,” Jeanne said. She grabbed the communications tube hanging next to her chair. “Celeste, we’ve spotted the Majesté Divine, but it looks like they may be having problems. Have Harpoon Control ready some anchors.”

“Ma’am, if they lose thrust, we won’t be able to keep them afloat.”

“I’m aware of that. I’m going to take a team in to hopefully stabilize the ship. Just stay focused on keeping us afloat. When we get within range, fire the harpoons.”

“Understood!”

Jeanne went to go retrieve Pierre and Victor, who were on standby in their quarters in case they were needed. Both of them were trained to operate the Minuit Solaire in the event of an emergency, and since the Majesté Divine were of the same design, they should be able to operate it as well.

They proceeded up the stairs to the top deck. The wind battered them as they grabbed hold of the railing. Normally crew members were not authorized to go topside while the airship was in motion, but these were special circumstances.

When the Minuit Solaire got closer to the Majesté Divine, Jeanne could see that it was none other than the king holding the smoke tube. Louis XVI, along with his wife and children, were huddled together at the stern of their ship.

From the bow of the Minuit Solaire, two decks below the bridge, a paneled section of the hull was removed and two enormous metal spears appeared in the rectangular hole.

Jeanne motioned for the royal family to step away from the stern of the Majesté Divine. They complied, getting clear of what was obviously coming.

Without any further warning the spears exploded from the small bay they had been stationed in. In a rush of steam and cables the spears penetrated the deck of the Majesté Divine. Wood splintered as the two airships became locked together in the sky.

The Minuit Solaire shuddered as it struggled to adapt to being tethered to its younger sister hundreds of feet above France. It shuddered even more as a crank system in Harpoon Control tightened the cables attached to the spears and pulled the ships closer together.

Once she was satisfied the two airships wouldn’t be leaving each other’s company, Jeanne threw the rope ladder overboard and rode it down to the deck of the royal airship. Pierre and Victor followed suit.

When they were safely on deck the royal family rushed over to them. “Jeanne, thank God you are here!” the king said.

“Your Majesty, you and your family need to climb