“You’re not supposed to be up here,” Kenzo said, eyeing the tall, blond-haired girl as she propped herself through the metal hatch on the floor.

“My apologies, oh mighty lord of the observation tower.” The girl grinned, lifting a set of over-sized brass goggles from her coal-stained face, which revealed a pair of anxious, bright green eyes. “Forgive this lowly serf, for I’ve traveled from the distant lands of the boiler rooms far below so that I might seek an audience with your highness.”

He responded to her typically snarky tone with only silence as he turned his attention back to the telescope.

“And there he goes,” she teased. “Just because the captain stuck you up here instead of down in the boilers or fixing the pipe works, doesn’t make you any better than me.”

He pushed the telescope along the railing that lined the edge of the small, circular room, then stopped on the other side, pressing his face into the eyepiece again as the telescope peered through the enormous dome-shaped glass canopy that made up the room’s walls and ceiling.

“I never said I was Ella.”

“Of course you didn’t.” Her thickly gloved hand ruffled his perfectly groomed black hair until the pony tail that hung over the back of his head came loose. “But I know you. You say more than you mean to, when you’re not saying anything at all.”

Utterly annoyed, the boy retreated a few paces in order to rebind his hair. Taking advantage of the opening, she claimed the telescope for her own and proceeded to scan the vast surrounding barren landscape, mostly for her own amusement.

“It’s too dark outside. And there’s no moonlight either, so how in blazes can you see anything out there?”

“Simple, my eyes are better than yours. Probably the reason why I’m up here and you’re down there. Now step away.”

“No.”

“Ella, I’m not in the mood.”

“Well I am.” Sensing his approach, she wheeled the telescope from his reach and continued to gaze out into the distance. “I’m bored, I’m tired, and I’ve had enough of greasing gears and shoveling coal for one day, and seeing as you’re so cozy up here, you owe me at least this much.”

“I’ll report you to the captain.”

“No you won’t. We’ve been friends long enough that I know you’d never do that.”

“Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell your uncle.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Telescope. Now.”

Ella swiveled the viewing device to another part of the horizon while Kenzo sighed, knowing full well that no amount of threatening would pry her away. Finally, he surrendered his duties to her, conceding to the fact that the only thing he could do now, was watch his friend and make sure she didn’t break anything of worth.

If Kenzo had been less of a serious man, he probably would have found Ella’s crude, patch-work attire rather amusing -thick leather overalls, several sizes too big, heavy work boots and a dirty cotton shirt with rolled-up sleeves that hung like drapes from her thin arms. Her shoulder-length hair had been haphazardly rolled into a bun and secured with what looked like a pair a long, thing pliers, evidence, he thought, that she’d been tinkering with the sensitive parts of the gear boxes that controlled the complex mechanisms of the engines again.

Compared to his significantly less extravagant, but certainly cleaner far-eastern style blue shirt and trousers, the casual eye would have easily mistaken her to be the more crass of the two, an assumption that probably would have been correct.

“I’ve got something,” she announced. “No, wait. It’s just a collection of campfires.”

“Probably just a caravan of merchants or maybe some desert raiders. Either way, they wouldn’t dare harm us.”

She twisted several dials and adjusted the lenses, then hesitantly, she said, “Kenzo, I think we’re both wrong.”

“You maybe, but I’m never wrong.”

“Well, if they’re raiders, then they’re probably a new breed of troublemakers, the kind that comes from the moon.”

“What sort of nonsense are you on about?” He shoved her aside and readjusted the lenses to suit his own unique eyesight. What came into focus left him so utterly stunned, he hadn’t realized that he’d propped both himself and the telescope too close to the glass wall. When he ran for the voice tube, he tripped on the railing and slammed his head on the glass. Before Ella could help him up, he bounded to his feet and lifted the cover from a hollow brass tube that jutted from the floor.

“Captain,” he yelled into the tube. “Air city debris on fire and falling just north of us.”

“On fire?” replied a distant, metallic echo. “What do you make of it?”

“It’s real big sir, and it’s going to hit the ground just a few kilometers from where we are.”

“Very well.” The captain’s voice grew less audible as he turned his attention to someone else. “Helmsman, bring us about. You there, alert the salvage crews and tell the chief to start the walker.”

“Ella, they’re going to need you.” Kenzo turned his attention to the girl, but she was already halfway down the hatch.

“Way ahead of you.”

Like an enormous steel snake, the land ship plowed through the desert wastes, its various compartments welded and latched together on massive joints, like a train strung up by a hastily-built patchwork of gargantuan cars. As long as several sea-going tankers from the old age and with a rugged, cylindrical girth just as wide, the rumbling beast crawled along on sprawling, rusted tracks and coiled suspensions while stacks as tall as buildings spewed billows of smoke and coal dust into the empty night air. Rattling struts and shaking girders creaked and moaned as its entire mass turned slowly, but steadily towards its new course.

Ella emerged from a hatch a few compartments behind the lead engine car and shimmied along a narrow platform to the next car. She climbed a ladder into a cavernous, open-air bay surrounded by walls that were certainly tall by human standards, but considered merely a humble fence when compared to the giant four-legged steam walker slumbering in its constrictive pen.

“Ella, you’re staying put this time.” A stout, potbelly beast of a man clambered down one of the metal creature’s crab-like legs via the footholds welded all along its body. Though just as dirty and caked with soot and blackened dust as the girl, his well-groomed oil-greased mustache remained gleaming and without a sign of a single fray.

“Don’t raz me chief. You know me better than that.” She peeled off her old, worn gloves and tossed them carelessly to the side before popping open a footlocker in a corner of the bay. “Who took my new gloves, the ones that Mrs. Peterson patched together for me? I saw her put them here this morning.”

“Chief, the boiler’s hot, but the pressure’s not up yet. We should be ready to go in about twenty minutes.” The young, unfamiliar voice caught her by surprise.

She’d known everyone worth knowing among the engineering crew, from the spry, energetic bucket boys that ferried water, tools and spare parts from compartment to compartment , to the heavy-set chief who seemed all-too willing to provide any sort of excuse that would keep her out of harm’s way. But this new voice tugged at both her suspicion and her curiosity.

Half-hanging like a worm from an apple out of the walker’s torso, from one of the narrow portholes that dotted its hull was a dark-haired teenage boy that seemed barely older than her. And adorning his hands were a pair of thick, freshly washed, expertly stitched gloves.

“You there. The jerk with the gloves. Those are mine.”

She proceeded with every intent to claim them by force, but was instantly kept still by a brawny, stern hand as it clasped her shoulder.

“He’s going in your place,” the chief said with a certain measure of finality in his tone.

“No he’s not, and especially not with my gloves.”

“Ella, you don’t need to do this.”

She grinned. “And you don’t need to pretend to be my father.”

Shrugging his hand aside, she darted up the behemoth contraption like a cat, familiar with every handhold, bolt and plate that was both reachable and could withstand her weight. She spun the wheel lock and threw open the main entrance hatch at the back of the torso, and without a moment’s hesitation, pounced the unsuspecting boy inside, claimed her gloves and rasped the back of her hand on his forehead.

“These are mine.” She stood up and left the boy sprawled against the main water pipe next to the boiler.

He groaned as he lifted himself to his feet, his light brown eyes cautiously tracking the ruffian girl that had so callously bullied him.

With some effort, he managed to muster up a cheery tone and said, “I’m Calvin by the way.”

“And I’m honestly surprised,” she replied, inspecting the manner of adjustments and modifications the boy had done to the boiler with his unapprovedly invasive hands.

“Well Miss Surprised, I suppose everything meets with your approval then. The Chief already checked my handy work and he says-”

“The chief doesn’t know these machines like I do.” She shook her head at a red lever, bolted to a nearby pipe that had been recently pulled, a lever, she thought, should never have even existed. She gave it a good grip and threw her weight against it until she managed to shimmy it to its original upright position. After giving a heaving sigh she said, “don’t ever open the safety valve. Leave it closed. Oh. And if you’re going to be so formal about last names, it’s Marshall. Otherwise, just Ella is fine.”

He chuckled sarcastically, hoping he wasn’t making the moment seem too awkward. “Well then, a pleasure to meet you Ella. About that lever, I think the chief was pretty adamant about having it-”

“We need more heat,” she interrupted. “You and Dodger get to the coal bins and start shoveling.”

Calvin paused, giving his bewildered mind some additional time to comprehend who exactly this girl was. “Who’s Dodger?”

“He’s. . .” she peered around the surprisingly spacious confines of the steel and pipe-riddled room, and down through the porous metal grates at her feet which hinted at a ladder leading down to the furnace and the coal bins below the boiler. To her dismay, Dodger was nowhere to be found. “Oh for crying out loud.” She pulled a switch that flung open a pair of hinged panels in the ceiling. Lifting half her body through the opening she called out over the side to the burly man below still standing in the middle of the bay. “Chief, where’s Dodger.”

“You’d best watch your head girl,” he said. “He’s right above you.”

Slung to a cable just overhead and lowered by crane, was a barely human-shaped contraption of bronze, brass and iron. It’s bulbous torso, fat, stubby limbs and short, neckless protrusion that hardly passed for a head, made the mechanical creature seem all the more like a madly deformed seven foot tall teapot than a wonder of automoton engineering.

Ella quickly dropped herself back down into the boiler room and watched as the crane carefully lowered the humanoid machine through the opening in the ceiling. As soon as its flat, leaf-shaped feet contacted with the grated floor, the automoton released the cables and swiveled its dome-shaped head in the girl’s direction, allowing its two, blue-tinted, thickly lensed eyes to register the presence of its owner. It gave a metallic groan and greeted the girl with a wave of one of its three fingered hands.

“Calvin, Dodger, Dodger, Calvin,” Ella hastily introduced the two.

“Is that. . .?” Calvin inquired.

“Yes it is.”

“But that can’t possibly. . . I mean, there’s no way they exist.”

“You’re new to this ship aren’t you?”

He chuckled again, feeling all the more awkward. “You could say that. This thing is incredible.”

She quirked an eyebrow and rasped him on the forehead with the back of her hand again, hoping to jolt some sense into him. “He’s not a thing. His name is Dodger, and I won’t have you insult him by referring to him as some sort of lifeless object.”

He blinked, still coming to grips with what he was seeing. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I’ve never seen one of these things. . . I mean, I’ve never met anyone like Dodger before.”

“And chances are, he’s never met anyone as fresh-faced as you before either.” She playfully rubbed her palm against the mechanical marvel’s scratched and dented bronze chest plate. “Who’s a good boy? Now don’t be too hard on the new kid okay?” Peering over her shoulder to Calvin she said, “the both of you play nice. Calvin, join Dodger below and start shoveling. The faster we get the furnace up, the better.”

“But we‘ve already got enough heat. And about that safety valve, I think we should leave it open.”

He wouldn’t have done any worse than if he had directly insulted her. She was use to being second-guessed by the chief, but would have none of it from a boy she hardly knew. Her expression dimmed slightly as she said, “you have an English name, but your accent does not match.”

He raised an expectant eyebrow as if anticipating the inquiry.

Casually he said, “my family name is Santos. I’m half Hispanian.” Then, with all the flourish of a Royalist, he topped off his words with a glorified bow.

She was intrigued, as Hispanians were rare, and was all the more surprised by his sudden formality, but pretended instead, that his gesture was a just a sign of brash sarcasm.

“Well Calvin Santos, would you say you know a lot about the mechanics of steam engines?”

“I know enough that piling more coals and adding heat to an already dangerously hot boiler and turning off the safety valves is-”

“Exactly what we need,” she finished. “Don’t worry your little head. I know exactly what this machine is capable of. And if we’re going to lay claim to that salvage before anyone else, we need to be powered up and steaming as quickly as possible. Safety valves bleed steam and waste too much valuable time. The chief insisted on installing them so there’s not much I can do about that, but he didn’t say anything about requiring them to be used. Now you can be an idiot and tell me how to run things, which may eventually force me to have Dodger toss you out, or you can be the smart sort of idiot and get to work shoveling coal. Which shall it be?”

Like a gargantuan insect after its prey, the crawler steamed ahead, pounding its four sweeping legs into the dusty earth and leaving behind a trail of depressed and cracked craters in its wake.

Elevated above the torso and towards the front of the metal creature was a round, glass protrusion reinforced by iron frameworks, and sitting comfortably inside, the chief methodically pushed and pulled at the dozen or so levers that commanded its seemingly complex locomotion. Accustomed to navigating rougher, more unforgiving mountainous terrain, otherwise impassible by land ship, the chief welcomed the significantly less challenging boulder and rock-littered desolate hills spread out before him. Floodlights, powered by a series of large, oil lanterns, mirrors and broad, magnifying lenses blazed the way ahead.

“I’ve got a good feeling about this one,” the chief commented jubilantly into a nearby voice tube.

“Do you now?” Ella’s skeptical voice echoed back.

“You know me girl. When I have a gut feeling about something, I’m never wrong.”

“So it’s your gut is it? If that’s the case, then I’m guessing there’s something edible in that salvage.”

His heavy mustache bobbed as he chuckled, then said, “I betcha a day’s worth of rations that we’ll find food in that heaping mess.”

“And I’ll betcha a day’s worth of rations that a heaping mess is all it’ll be.”

“Cynicism is hardly becoming of you girl.”

She laughed in a way that was every bit as vibrant as his chuckle. “Just capitalizing on the moment chief. After all, it’s the new kid’s rations I’m betting.”

Even against the roar of the furnace Calvin made out every word from the conversation above him. He thought about protesting, but the blue-lensed eyes of the humanoid machine next to him watched him coldly, as if asking why he’d stopped shoveling coal from the bin. After an eerie pause, Calvin gulped and went about his business, with Dodger quickly following suit with his own shovel implement attached to his arm.

“Hey Cal,” Ella beckoned.

Her voice was a welcome reprieve from the uneasy company he shared with his mechanical co-worker, but he was still annoyed. “It’s Calvin. My name’s Calvin.”

“How about you call me El to keep things squared? Besides, Cal is a much easier name to throw around in pinch wouldn’t you say?”

He sighed.

“Fine. I don’t suppose this metal beast here has a nickname too?”

“Nope. Just Dodger. He hates it when strangers call him anything else. So for you’re sake, you’d best refer to him by his proper name.”

The machine paused again and glanced in his direction.

Calvin cautiously directed his attention to Ella. “That’s good to know. So, El. What did you need?”

“Come up here and watch the gauges for me. I’m going up top to scout out our surroundings.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, he put his shovel aside and climbed the ladder until about half his body lingered onto the next platform, then said, “by the way, I’m keeping my rations.”

She laughed. “Tell that to the chief. If you can somehow pry food from that fat belly of his, then you may just have my respect.”

She drew her oversized goggles over her eyes and climbed through the panels in the ceiling, then strolled along the outside top of the bobbing and swaying walker, following the steel-cabled railings along the edge until she came to a small observation tower. She held the ladder tightly against the cold, howling winds that tugged at the loose ends of her clothing, pulling herself along, one rung at a time until she reached the crow’s nest at the top.

Taking hold of a brass telescope affixed to a rail, she scanned the dark horizon from one end to the other, then affixed her sights at the burning wreckage that lay ahead.

“The wind’s kicking up too much dust,” she reported into the voice tube. “We have decent moonlight but I can’t hardly see a thing, except for the fire from that salvage.”

“No matter,” the chief replied, “the Barrens ain’t much to look at anyways. Should be easy going until we get there. In the meantime, I don’t feel too comfortable having you up there. The winds are stirring a bit beyond my liking. Do what observing that needs to be done then hurry back inside.”

“Chief, you know very well that I can handle myself-”

“And no sass,” he said so suddenly, that it almost sounded like a bark. “I mean it. Get back inside as soon as you‘re done.”

“If you say so.”

Several minutes passed; probably as long as the hard-nosed chief was willing to allow, but she wasn’t ready to go back inside just yet. There was an eeriness in the air she couldn’t shake.

Salvage fallen from the sky always carried the prospect of rare metals and gadgets from the old age; in rare cases, even food in the form of some strange, yet edible organic matter. Where it came from, no one could really tell. Although, the very possibility and enormity of the idea of cities floating in the sky, built before the war seemed so enchantingly outrageous, that many judged it had to be true. Where else could such exotic things possibly have come from?

As speculative as its origin was, there was at least one true certainty: it’s value. It wouldn’t be long before others would stake their claim, and Ella was determined to be the first.

Visibility was still frustratingly poor, as she could hardly make out anything beyond what the lanterns could illuminate ahead.

Any moment, she expected the chief’s impatient voice to bellow through the pipes and demand she come inside. But she had a curious feeling that the dust-filled air was hiding something.

At that moment, she thought she heard something in the wind. She waited another minute, but there was nothing, and she was prepared to shrug it off and blame it on her tired, yet overactive imagination. Then, in an instant, she heard it again, like a distant banshee serenading in the distance.

It was almost a whisper against the steady rumble of the wind, but she was sure that not only was it real, but it was also getting louder, a sign that whatever it was, it must be getting closer.

“I think there’s something out there.”

“Are you still up there girl? Get back inside, now.”

She gripped the voice tube with both hands as if she were strangling it. “Are you listening? There’s something out there.”

The tube rang with a hollow, metallic groan, then he said, “what is it?”

Her body craned against the railing as she tipped her ear towards the possible source of the sound.

“It’s. . . got a pattern to it, like music.”

“Music?”

“Yeah, it’s. . . it’s some sort of trumpet or horn.”

A thunderous crack snarled from beyond the wind.

“Royalists!” the chief shouted. “Ella, hurry inside.”

Before she could react, a fiery shell tore into the ground a hundred paces beyond the walker, followed by an explosion that rocked her back from the railing. Her goggles half-ripped from her face, she took the railing and pulled herself back up, readjusting the lenses over her eyes and aiming the telescope past the newly formed smoking crater and towards the direction of the cannon fire. Both she and the chief knew that it was a deliberate miss.

As the hobbling walker plodded cautiously along, the salvage -the prize of the evening- came into better view, along with the vaguely illuminated silhouette of a similar, opposing mechanical creature of larger size and much larger, striding legs. It was certainly another walker, but the long narrow shadows -witnessed through the telescope- jutting from its body, clued menacingly as to the extent of its armaments.

As if the warning shot wasn't enough, the metal creature announced its arrival once again with the sound of trumpets playing a haughty tune of the old Kingsland courts, and the raising of a battle standard blazing with royal colors from its aft.

“What’s going on? Did I just hear cannon fire?” The desperation of Calvin’s words through the voice tube went completely ignored as the chief interjected.

“Ella.” That was all he needed to say.

“Got it.”

She turned to an instrument board that was attached to the railing, littered with levers and buttons. A knob was turned and a fist-sized button was determinedly pressed.

In quick succession, a spring-loaded panel snapped open several paces from the crow’s nest, followed by a series of clicks as rusty gears elevated a vertical, tube-shaped device. As it locked into place, it wasted little time before firing its rockets into the dreary night air.

Kenzo witnessed the air bursts from the land ship’s observation tower and immediately called his report to the bridge.

“Three signal flares sited,” he said into the voice tube. “Red. Red. White. Someone’s already claimed the salvage.”

“Does it say who it is?” the captain replied.

Kenzo waited, then saw two more flares.

“Blue. Red. Kingsland Royalists. And it seems they‘re armed and quite hostile.”

“Blast! Those cursed Royalists. Summon the salvagers back. We‘re leaving.”

“Aye.”

Kenzo retreated to the other side of the glass dome and pulled a series of small levers, which ignited the ship’s own banks of rockets.

“Please Ella,” Kenzo muttered under his breath. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Signal from the Atlantica,” Ella said, reading the land ship’s flares. “White. White. Green. We’re to pull back.”

“Typical,” the chief grunted. “Wasted a precious bin of coals on a useless trip.”

Another crack in the distance heralded more cannon fire, peppering the area with a hail of fiery shell bursts. The concussion from the explosions sent Ella reeling back yet again, but this time she held firm to the railing and managed to keep to her station.

Shaken and dazed, it took a full two minutes before the ringing in her ears subsided well enough to catch the sound of a proud young, female voice bellowing through the opposing walker’s megaphones.

“I am Baroness Alianora Estfeld, sovereign ruler of the southern provinces. In the name of William Estfeld IV, High King of Kingsland, I hereby claim the resources presented by these air city relics as property of our country. Challenge us, and you shall face judgment by fire from our cannons.”

Ella had it. Warning shots or not, the pummeling she’d received from the shell bursts left her duly annoyed, and the all-too self-gratifying manner of the baroness’s snobbish threats had driven her well beyond the edge.

She yanked a long, thin lever at her side, which extended another voice tube through the floor and connected the other end to a large, cone-shaped powered megaphone towards the far front next to the cockpit.

Wasting no time, she made her own announcement, shamelessly mimicking the Baroness’s overbearing tone.

“Well I am Ella Marshall, apprentice engineer and citizen of the Western Republic and I hereby claim this salvage as property of my people. Now you may think that your ability to threaten others entitles you to whatever whims fancies you, but know that you aren’t the only one so armed with instruments of war.”

The chief’s voice bellowed from the other tube, startling her.

“Ella, what in blazes are you on about now?! Are you daft? Challenging a Royalist when you very well know that we don‘t carry weapons. We‘re salvagers, not fighters. Now get yourself inside before I climb up there and throw you down the hatch myself.”

“That’s our salvage,” she protested. “We saw it first, we have every right to its claim. We can‘t go back empty handed. The people back at the ship are counting on us.”

“You’re testing my patience girl. It doesn’t matter who saw it first. They have guns. We don’t.”

“So you’re just going to let them bully us, is that it?”

The baroness’s blaring voice interrupted their argument, obviously unamused by Ella’s verbal prodding.

“Apprentice Engineer Ella Marshall of the Western Republic, a pity that nomads such as yourselves still see yourselves as a nation, when you are hardly more than shadows of what you once were generations ago. Heed me Ella Marshall and understand this well. A single refugee land ship does not make a country and neither do empty, boastful statements. Fire upon us with whatever imaginary cannons you have and we shall see how determined you are to face a fool’s death.”

“I’m turning us around,” the chief declared.

The walker weaved and bobbed about as it began pivoting its enormous mass in the opposite direction. Ella slapped the telescope in anger, jarring it suddenly on its mount at an odd angle. She grunted as she gripped the railing, then glanced over her shoulder at the Royalist’s war machine. There was a pause -not one of hesitation, but rather, one of complete meditation- as she proceeded to drain her mind of every rational thought and manner of morality that dared to contradict what she was about to do.

Reaching for the voice tube she said, “Chief, it’s just one walker. Keep it distracted for me and move it away from the salvage. I’m taking the hauler.”

“Curse you girl don’t you dare do this-”

She replaced the cover on the tube before he could finish his sentence.

With a quick turn and pull of a few dials and levers, she managed to angle a half-dozen rocket tubes in the opposing walker’s direction. Shortly after, a spectacular volley of signal rockets were released, showering the air with a constant stream of multicolored fire and light.

Back at the Atlantica, Kenzo watched the fiery display with marked confusion.

“Observation, report,” the captain demanded.

“I don’t know sir. They must be experiencing some sort of malfunction.”

He sighed, knowing full well what the flares translated to.

He whispered, “Ella, I told you not to do anything stupid.”

In the distance, several of the flares landed harmlessly near the Royalist’s menacing machine. Like an idle beast taunted by its prey, the metal creature responded in kind by letting loose its own terrible volleys. Its barrels spat fire and shells as it turned to pursue and vengefully smash to pieces, its newly acquired victim.