The Strange Fate of Capricious Jones by Robert C Roman

Capricious Fate Jones soared. The wind rushing past her face lifted her spirits and lifted her body ever higher into the air. Below her the countryside stretched for miles, every stream and hill brought close by the lenses in her goggles. To the west the horizon curved away over the Atlantic. In the distance a huge cargo airship bound for the States was at the edge of visibility. Banking to the left, she could just make out the Pyrenees. Leather creaked quietly. The sound of strained leather was barely audible over the roar of her Engines, the quieter rush of wind, and muffled further by the woolen insulation in her helmet.

Cap frowned; the leather gear connecting her to her wings was supple, not prone to creaking. Some of the leather in her flight cap was hard, but it wasn’t under stress. All of her leather, hard or soft, was properly oiled and cared for. The only hard leather under stress was in her wings, fashioned of cloth and leather and thin wood. Thinking on them, she smiled. Orville had been such a gentleman, providing her with the proper conformation for the wings. It was a pity he was so much younger than Cap; she might otherwise have dallied with him rather than David.

The rush of a sudden updraft washed away her melancholy. Soaring high in the sky, she was free as she never had been on the ground. In the sky, no one cared that she had been born a slave. Floating on the winds, no one cared that under the thick insulating linen she wore bloomers instead of breeches. Driven by her Engines and lofted by her wings, no one cared that she had not only borne a child out of wedlock, but done the unthinkable and acknowledged her openly.

Thoughts of Kay made Cap realize how long she had been up. The gauge on her right epaulet showed her tanks half full of a secret mixture of distilled naphtha and jellied alcohol. On this, her first flight, she had no intention of letting them drop lower. Her wings were too short for her to glide safely to the ground, and her parachute was as experimental as her Engines. She gave one last longing glance at the snow-capped Alps. With a wistful sigh, Capricious leaned to her right to bank back towards David’s manor.

Halfway back around, Pyrenees once more in sight, she heard the distinctive sound of stressed leather snapping free. Her wings began unraveling, and she knew without doubt that she was going to die before she saw little Kay again.

***

After exiting the mechanical carriage that had dropped her on the road outside Abrams manor, Leigh made her way through what once had been a lush, green lawn. She had vague memories of that lawn, but the grass was gone now, replaced by a vast mustering point pounded flat by the Mechanical Men of the American Expeditionary Force. They stood in orderly rows, guns ported in sheathes across their backs, various melee weapons clamped to their bodies. The image of military power should have made her feel safe.

As Leigh walked, she passed through alternating sun and shade; most Mechanicals in the camp were taller and broader than a man. Just before she reached the manor house proper, she paused under a huge Command Mechanical, the only one in this camp. Looking up from beneath it, she admired the way the articulation for each of the four legs had been armored to prevent sappers from flinging explosives into the joints. A single charge could kill off the entire crew if a sapper got lucky. If the officers commanding them were killed, the Mechanicals became unstable. They might go on fighting everyone, including each other, until only one remained, or they might just stop moving.

At least, that’s what her trainers told her.

Finally, Leigh stood a bare half dozen paces before the doors of the converted château that served the American Expeditionary Force as a headquarters. Enlisted bustled past her on both sides, their annoyance thinly concealed, their tongues stilled by the officer’s tabs on her epaulets. Those same tabs drew quick salutes, held until the rankers passed her. A few, thinking her engrossed in the orders she held clutched in her hands, stared surreptitiously at her in passing. With the massive losses of the last few years, Lady Officers in the States had become commonplace, but the Expeditionary Force hadn’t received many yet.

A few did more than glance, and she felt her skin begin to heat. Not for the first time she cursed whatever fate had overindulged when blessing her with feminine attributes. Self-consciously, she adjusted the thick leather belts that stretched across her midsection. On a man or a less well developed woman, they would be arrayed across the chest and waist, allowing easy access to sidearm, supplies, and tools. For Leigh, they formed an ersatz bit of corsetry, adding more support to the patently inadequate undergarments supplied by the Women’s Army Corp. The leather in place, she smoothed the rough linen of her uniform dress, marveling at the feel of it. On the one hand, it was the first new dress she’d ever owned. On the other, it was an ugly thing, all rough olive fabric made for durability rather than fashion.

A junior officer strode from the building, his purpose obvious in every step, his bearing military and correct. His hair was cropped too close to tell his natural color, showing him to be a recent graduate of one of the academies. His shoulders bore the single gold bar of a junior lieutenant and the mailed fist of Mechanical command.

The lieutenant’s eyes met hers, and he nodded with perfunctory respect. It was the greeting of a proper gentleman to a lady of unknown provenance but proper bearing. Silently, she thanked him for that small favor. A moment later, she saw his gaze drop away from her face, drawn like lodestone to a magnet. Leigh watched as he realized how disrespectful he was being and snapped his gaze back to hers. He realized she could tell he’d been staring and looked away, abashed. Then, as if against his will, his gaze crept back toward her.

The fact that he’d stopped walking entirely was a sign of his distraction. He thought of himself as a gentleman; when he realized he’d begun staring again, he locked his gaze on her eyes. Then his gaze wandered again. He had begun to show the look of disbelief so familiar to Leigh. Her dusky skin didn’t blush easily, but once it started, it was impossible to stop. She felt the warmth in the swell of her breast, knowing that within seconds it would crest her collar and rush across her face.

Desperate to distract him, she rustled the orders in her hands. Desperate for her distraction, the young would-be gentleman snapped his attention to the orders. Recognizing them instantly for what they were, he glanced at the tabs on her shoulders that mirrored his own, save hers bore the twin turreted castle of an Engineer.

“Ma’am? Are you lost?”

His voice matched the rest of him. Strong, confident, with just the faintest hint of affected ennui to give the impression that no matter what crisis lurked, he had seen worse. Her plight hadn’t moved him; he realized she had caught him staring, and was trying to find an excuse for his rudeness. Were she one of the Ladies she’d so often wished to be, his thin ruse would never have worked. Leigh, however, had no such claim to gentle heritage.

“No, Sir, I am not. I have been ordered to report directly to General March at noon today.”

His condescending chuckle sped the blush across her face. Between the blush, the heat of the day, and the constriction of her belts, she was rapidly becoming lightheaded.

“Miss, your promptness does you credit. It’s only half-past eleven. However, you’re quite obviously inexperienced with how these things work. When you’re ordered to report to the commander, you report to the headquarters, not the commander’s office.”

“Oh? Really? I’m so thankful you were here to correct me, Sir. Could I perhaps impose upon you for directions, then?”

The look of barely suppressed consternation on his face was worth the additional time spent in his company, Leigh decided.

“Lieutenant Sebastian Cole at your service, Miss?”

“Lieutenant Leigh Abrams, Sir. You do, I suspect, have me by date of rank. That’s how these things are done, am I right?”

Yes, his consternation might be her only compensation for the stares today, so she would enjoy it while it lasted.