The Hopewell Conspiracy: A Darkstar Steam Novel

By Philip G. Morgan

Darkstar Steam: the magic of the Old World collides head-on with the science of the New Industry.
The gunslinger sets forth...

Judes Marlen is a man haunted by his past. He wanders the desert, solitude his only companion, a revolver at his hip. He is a scavenger, a drifter, making his way in the world selling junk to anyone who'll buy it – until he stumbles upon a relic of the Invaders, a race of star-faring creatures who set the world ablaze and left only the Poison standing in their deadly wake.

Enter Darus Hopewell, former industrialist, avid collector of Old World trinkets, and possibly the greatest threat the Emperium has ever known. With the Invaders' relic he plans to set fire to the world again, but is it for his own twisted ambition or part of a deadly conspiracy?

When the gunslinger and the man of science square off, will anyone survive?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip G. Morgan
• Release date: Dec 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781310710407

Philip G. Morgan

Philip Morgan has always had a big imagination; ever since he was a child he could be found drawing, writing and making up stories about anything. He is also an avid reader and fan of games and entertainment, drinking in everything as fuel for his own ideas. Morgan lives in New Mexico with his wife and cats.

Book preview

The Hopewell Conspiracy

By Philip Morgan

Copyright 2012 Philip Morgan

Smashwords Edition

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my editor Katie Ritcheske for her tireless efforts helping to make The Hopewell Conspiracy, my first novel of many in the Darkstar Steam setting, something great and in helping me make sure I was directed to and had the best resources available as a first-time author. Thanks for everything, Katie!

Dedication

This book is for my loving and supportive wife, Leigh, who believed in my vision at every turn and kept me buoyed in moments of darkness. My love, wherever would I be without you?

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Epilogue

About the Author

Prologue

Once and long ago, the world was awash with magic and strange creatures. Mighty armies clashed, and even mightier politicians ruled nations built on the sword, the arrow and the knife. Men and the Fey allied, betrayed, and simply existed.

Then the Invaders came, appearing in the heavens like gleaming birds of prey.

Like dark stars they burned, each flying ship a sun of violent energy no mortal magic could touch, each the size of a small city armed with weapons none could counter. They wiped armies, wizards and even dragons from the land and skies with contemptuous ease. Why had they come? Why did the city-ships birth and belch forth small ships that attacked all without mercy? It was clear when they began to crack mountains and boil lakes: resources. The Invaders had come not only as conquerors, but also as a force of the universe interested only in their own greed.

But when all seemed lost, they fell from the skies.

Those who died that day were the lucky ones.

As each ship fell, it unleashed a weapon none had seen before. The weapon flashed with the heat of a thousand suns and scorched everything within its blast. Life was wiped out instantly wherever the ships fell. Worse, each weapon unleashed the Poison in its wake. Neither magic nor mortal could blunt the effects of this deadly substance.

Time passed, turning from days to years to centuries.

When people began to reclaim the surface world after so long hidden, it was not a world they had heard of, or one the longer-lived races remembered: the land itself was new and often corrupt. Life was harsh, food and clean water scarce. The things that roamed the surface now were not the animals or smaller races that used to exist; the Poison had changed them as they adapted to it.

But the Invaders’ leavings had fueled a new age of Industry, changing how life was lived and how warfare was waged, as scientists and mages unraveled the secrets of discarded alien technology.

It is in this new, deadly age that our story begins.

Chapter 1

He rolled the dragon skull around in his hands, weighing its value.

It was a young drake, probably killed in battle with one of its kind. It was a valuable find in and of itself, but it would have net more chips if it had been larger. Something the weaponsmiths who specialized in the extremely tough dragon bone could turn into a blade or gun parts that would bring a small fortune.

The man puffed absently on a handrolled smoke; the winds that plagued the plains of Everash had thankfully died down, and he was able to pull down his scarf and enjoy a smoke. Most trail dust was merely annoying, but the dust of Everash carried with it a purple grit that cut the lungs like glass. So the man had to keep the dust out of his mouth somehow. The grit was powderized arcnus, the natural element that wizards and New Industrialists salivated over for powering devices and making magic potions and other gewgaws.

The plains of Everash were not the bleak, merciless desert most people imagined. They were sun-baked and harsh, true, but they sported a life all their own with tough plants that used little water, merciless critters and some of the most beautiful vistas this side of the artist’s easel. That is, life flourished in the places where the Poison had not twisted the land and its creatures into mockeries of what they once were. Hells, hardy homesteaders had even been able to coax the land into producing food in some places, and a few villages had sprung up along the noted trails.

But he was far from noted trails, which was why no one had looted what they could from this dragon corpse before now. He decided that some money was better than none, so he returned to his horse and packed the trophy away in a well-used saddlebag. He hadn’t gotten around to naming the animal and probably wouldn’t; he’d bought it cheap from a shady horse dealer in the last town where he’d stayed the night. The beast was mostly healthy, with only one nerveless vestigial leg protruding from its side; the Poison must be working its way out of this breed, the man mused. But he’d used too many beasts of burden to death in the last few years to bother getting attached to any of them.

He took one more look at his surroundings: he was in the highlands of Everash, which was still a few days south of Rarghect’s Wall, an impassable mountain range that blocked off access to lands farther east. He was in the shadow of tall rock formations, random spikes of rock that had been carved ages ago by the forces of nature. They were strangely thin toward the bottom but heavy with rock near the top, so they appeared they might topple in a strong wind. There were dangers even this far away from people, but in places like this, he felt most at peace with, well, everything.

He leapt up into the saddle and started off toward his makeshift camp when the winds began to pick up. He cursed quietly and quickly tossed away the handrolled, blew the last of the smoke and pulled up his scarf. But a small sound on the wind drew his attention to the skies, and he knew it was no normal wind. A swarm of small shapes harried a larger shadow in the sky that was coming quickly in his direction. At they got closer he could hear the sounds of cannon fire, discharges from smaller arms and blazing spells. He shielded his eyes from the sun and the gritty sands upon the wind with his left hand, his right resting on the gun at his hip. The gun was a New Industry model, a revolver they called it, holding eight bullets in a rotating chamber. But this one was etched with eldrich runes, the product of a wizard meddling with new sciences. And he was stuck with the damned thing like the chains he wore as a younger man. His name was Judes Marlen, although few knew it or bothered to ask. He was handsome in a general sort of way, but nothing particularly stood out. If anything, his face betrayed a world-weariness that was impossible for him to hide; he’d been a lot of things over the course of his young life, mostly as a fighter or a drifter, but he’d finally settled into the role of desert scavenger and found it...just another job. The perpetual squint of his eyes was only partially from the blinding sun and savage dust. He was the type of man who wore the label of had potential, but... like an entire flock of albatross. He also had a habit of shaving only every other day, so that he had a constant scrub of beard about his chin and cheeks. He cocked his head slightly at the dark blots, curious but wary.

The dark shapes came into sharp focus: air pirates—flying those small and dangerous infernal devices that belched steam and smoke from uncertain motors and stayed aloft on wings of rough-hewn cloth—dodged and darted around a dirigible that was now smoking and listing badly to the left as it tried desperately to fight back. Like wasps, the small crafts stung the beastly airship, which answered with cannon shot and the shipborne mages’ flaring magic. A lucky shot from an air pirate finally punctured the balloon of the blimp. Deadly, flammable gases roared forth, sounding the death knell for the titanic ship. He realized with utter horror that the ship was going down quickly…and was headed straight for him! He spurred his horse into action, and the beast surged across the rocky sand as fast as its healthy legs could carry it. Two of the air pirates saw his fleeing form, broke off from the main force and gave him chase.

The pirates opened up their hand-cranked repeating guns on him, churning up the dirt with small bullets. He drew his horse this way and that to confuse the pirates and violently yanked his revolver from its holster, firing before thinking and trusting his aim on the cumbersome small crafts. Two shots hit the first ship, tearing a hole in a patched cloth wing and chipping the rotating blade that kept the thing aloft. The third shot found its mark, burying deep in the forehead of the craft’s pilot. As the pilot slumped forward, the craft spun wildly out of control and fell from the sky like a stone, crashing into a fiery heap on the earth below. The second pirate continued the chase, unconcerned with his companion’s fate. The gun aboard his craft roared again, sending a hail of small lead pellets into the hindquarters of the man’s still-fleeing horse. The poor animal’s legs gave out as it was lethally stung by a dozen projectiles, sending its rider tumbling into the dirt end over end. Darkness threatened to envelop his consciousness. For a moment he thought he couldn’t feel his legs, but sensation soon returned to him in painful waves of nettles as he choked for breath through his simple mask. He wobbled into a crouch, pointing his revolver toward the sky, but his target was already winging back to join its companions. He thought briefly about using his revolver’s special magic in a fit of rash vengeance, but reason asserted itself and he put the weapon away. He knew that using the power made him sick and weak for hours afterward, assuming he was in a rested, healthy state to begin with. Taking a battering after being pitched from his horse could cause him to black out for hours and leave him prey for the things that came out after dark in this land.

He walked slowly over to his stricken horse; the beast was already dead by the time he got to it. He was silently thankful: it had been a good animal, so he was glad its end was quick. He’d also saved a precious bullet should he need it later against something worse than a man-driven machine of the new age. He collected his saddlebags from the animal and said a quiet prayer for the horse to gods he didn’t have the heart to believe in. The smell of smoke was thick on the air, and with it the stench of burning meat. He had run the animal farther than he’d thought; the smoke was a black smudge against the rock pillar that had so recently cast a shadow over him. He coughed a few times, the sandy grit thick in his mouth, and he could feel the bruises starting to form. Being shot at by air pirates for no reason might make a clear-thinking man call it quits for the day, but now he was curious. Maybe it was from his training, or maybe he just didn’t like getting shot at. Maybe he felt the air pirates owed him a new horse. But he intended to find out just what had happened here. He’d seen air pirates before, but these types of ships were damn new to him. On second thought, he was on foot, armed with only his cursed revolver. He was far from any civilization, and nobody knew he was out here. If this went bad, his bones would end up bleaching under a merciless sun and freezing under the three moons.

He made up his mind.

He wanted some answers.

He picked up his broad-brimmed hat and pulled it low over his brow, dusted himself off as best he could and hefted his burden onto his broad shoulder. He trudged back over the ground, following the trail of his horse’s tracks and the pockmarked soil. The scene before him grew larger and sharper with each step: the giant airship was a black husk now, still burning here and there. There couldn’t have been any survivors, the poor sods. The air pirates had landed a large ship of their own, like an airborne barge. Men were loading a monstrous crate onto their air barge; he recognized the symbol painted upon the wooden slats of the crate: the feather and lance of the Emperial Dragoons! The best soldiers of the Emperium, directly responsible for the life of Queen Annbelle. What in the hells were they doing so far from the heart of the Emperium, and just what was in that crate that made this group willing to take down what must surely (now that he thought of it) be an Emperial frigate? Their wrath would be terrible, and the Queen would not sleep until each one of the pirates hung lifeless from Traitor’s Gate in Redchurch. Lost in thought, he realized that the orders and shouts had come to a halt. He quickly hid behind a nearby pile of weather-beaten stones, drawing his revolver just in case. The air barge took off toward the northwest, and the smaller ships followed it like young pups follow the bitch.

For now his answers were lost. Whatever this was had nothing to do with him, and it would be dark in a few hours. He considered approaching the wreckage and liberating what he could. No, let the dead keep their treasures, he thought. He was no ghoul. He started back toward his makeshift camp, weapon holstered and mind turning over the events he had just witnessed. He tried to dismiss the thoughts, reminding himself that those were the thoughts of a man long ago and forgotten. But still it troubled him. Even back at his camp in the hollows of a cave, the images of the evening stuck with him. He found little sleep that night.

Chapter 2

The dwarf was much like others of his race: surly, bleak and with a grim sense of humor. His white hair framed his head in an unkempt halo, and his beard was shaved into a simple goatee that was braided with six individual plaits. He smiled without warmth or friendliness, gold teeth winking in the light of his forge. His nearly midnight-black skin marked him as among the underclass of his kind, destined for either a short, violent life of crime beneath the land or a life of exile on the surface world. He chose the latter, deciding to settle as a blacksmith in this no-horse town Judes had wandered into earlier in the day.

The dwarf tapped the dragon skull with a hammer, sounding for weak points. Satisfied, he turned to the seller. Not much I can do with it, the dwarf smirked, a voice like gravel come to life. But I’ll take it off yer hands for some chips. Now, the gun at yer side, that I’ll offer a good price for... Greedy fat fingers unconsciously moved toward the weapon. In one smooth motion its owner drew the gun and rammed the barrel up the dwarf’s nostril, drawing a thin line of blood.

Not for sale, he said bluntly.

The dwarven smith backed away, blotting his nose with his grimy shirt sleeve. "Damned Emperials, the lot of