Slide On The Run

Episode Nine

Workers Of Mars Unite!

Across the span of the bridge, mob chaos confronted mounted geometry. As Slide watched from his vantage point on a high balcony of the Turquoise Tower, several thousand workers from the Morlock Foundry, a mixture of humans and red and green Martians, united and marching under black ba

snorted and pawed at the ground, but the plumed and turbaned riders seemed calm and impassive, as though they believed that the throng would, at the last moment, turn and retreat in the face of such an impressive show of force. This was the first time that Slide had seen Queen Mina's troops deployed for a confrontation. He had only previously observed them in ceremonial mode, parading for the colonial Victorians.

The workers were clearly in the motivating grip of a powerful and long suppressed anger, but all combat logic dictated that the strikers from Bolivar Morlock's hellish steel and munitions mills - even though some carried wrenches and spa

Slide knew, however, that uprisings didn't always play out the way they should on paper. He had seen the similar confrontations on the St. Petersburg timeline in 1917, and in New Damascus in 2209, when the Dionysian Bolsheviks had risen against the Tharg, and everyone knew the unexpected outcome in those conflicts.

Lupo the Vampire, who stood beside Slide on the balcony, must have read his mind. "That's always the question, isn't it? Will they open fire on their own kind, or will they mutiny in the final moment of truth?".

Slide didn't like his mind being read by a nosferatu just because the nosferatu could do it. He grunted with irritation. "The moment is pretty fucking close."

"Who was it who said that war is a bayonet with a worker on each end?"

"Damned if I remember, but you can be sure it wasn't one of them." He gestured to where Bolivar Morlock, Sir Richard Barton, Harriot Marwood, Prudence the Kitten, the elderly generals, plus a growing crowd of courtiers, both military and civilian, human and Martian, surrounded the Queen in this moment of emergency, babbling what could only be conflicting advice. Slide and Lupo had both decided that they wanted no part of this and stood off on their own.

Even the babbling ceased, though, as the distance separating the mob and the cavalry was progressively reduced until it was less than a hundred yards, and the mob showed no signs of turning back. A hundred yards became eighty yards, then eighty became sixty. A thoat reared, as though anticipating what was surely going to come, and a calot started barking hysterically and could not be quieted by its handler. The front ranks of the workers seemed to falter for a moment, but then they surged forward again, either having regained their courage, or simply pushed forward by those behind who weren't so precisely aware of the threat that faced them on the bridge. At the fifty yard mark, the cavalry drew their sabers and cruel curved blades flashed under the orange Martian sky. A roar went up from the mob and the leaders began to run forwards, as though impatient to meet either death or glory. An order was shouted, and the mounted troops also plunged ahead. The helmeted riders struck left and right with their swords, but did not achieve the instant rout that might have been expected. The strikers might have been sparsely armed, but, on the confining span of the bridge, their numbers were enough create a problem. Workers by the dozen reeled away with blood pouring from horrible wounds, and others were killed where they stood, but no matter how many times the sabers rose and fell, more pressed forward. Thoats were hemmed in by the press of the crowd, and hands reached for the riders, dragging them down in a mass of hobnail boots, iron tools, and pounding fists.

Urgent whistles blew, and now the civil police moved into the fray. The calots furiously attacked with bared fangs, and policemen with drawn sidearms opened fire. As the first reports of radium weapons were heard on the palace balcony, Lupo glanced at Slide. "Now the shooting starts."

Slide nodded grimly. "It sure does."

He wished he knew the name of the bridge. Whatever the outcome of the head-on confrontation, it would preserved in Extrosylvanian history for as long as Extrosylvania had a history. More workers were felled by the gunfire, but they were also arming themselves. Snarling calots were hacked to pieces. Policemen were effectively mobbed and their pistols taken from them. An eddy of mayhem could not be contained by the balustrade of the bridge. Steel and stone gave way, and two thoats and a dozen of more men and Martians plunged, arms and legs like windmills, to flagstones of the underpass roadway a hundred and some feet below.

"This is getting messy."

"Very messy."

Slide could see the eventual outcome all too easily. The cavalry and the police had failed to put the workers to flight, and were, in fact, barely holding their own. It could only be a matter of moments before the infantry square was brought into play, and orders were given for the redcoats to clear the bridge with withering volleys. As Slide figured it, the only thing holding back such a slaughter was the indecision of the officers at the scene, and the many police and cavalry in the line of fire. He suspected, however, that a reluctance to butcher their own would not remain a delay or consideration for very long.

Those on the bridge seemed to come to the same conclusion as Slide. In the center of the span, a lull had ensued in the hand to hand fighting. The pistols still barked, but both sides were falling back, regrouping as best they could, and using whatever cover the dead and the debris afforded. Orders were being shouted and the infantry were assuming formal firing positions, but then the loud voice of a Martian woman cut through the general din.

"Warriors of Mars! Warriors of Mars! Listen to me!

The pistol shots dwindled and heads turned.

"Warriors of Mars! Listen to me! When did you become the slayers of the defenseless?"

Consternation broke out around the Queen. General Cairngorm was demanding to know why the infantry had not commenced firing, but, down on the bridge, an eerie silence had fallen.

"Warriors of Mars! We are the workers! We are just like you. We labor in the foundries and the mills just as you serve in the ranks. Will you shoot us out of hand? Are we not tied by blood? The very blood that you are about to spill?"

An injured and bleeding cavalryman got painfully to his feet, started limping back towards where the infantry stood ready. The woman's voice gained strength. "Warriors of Mars, when did you murder your own people at the command of humans? When did you slay your own for no good reason? Are you no better than the calot that kills at the word of its master? Have you forgotten that your ancestors and our ancestors were the Great Jeddaks?"