The Silent Explosion Read online

  The Silent Explosion

  A Short Story in The World Apart Series

  Robin D. Mahle

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  About the Authors

  Also by Robin D. Mahle

  1

  GUNTHER

  Throughout my life there were times I had found myself grateful to be deaf, but none more so than when my brothers were fighting.

  It had been seven years since General Killian Noble had found me and given me a real family and another chance at life. For the first year I was with my new brothers, they had taken care not to be contentious in front of me. I had been broken, physically and mentally, and they had steadfastly brought me back from the brink. They never seemed to have any patience left over for each other, however.

  At first, I had been happy when they behaved more normally around me. Somewhere around fight number four hundred and fifty-seven, I missed their pretense of getting along. And that was just the first week. My brothers and I would gladly die for each other if we had to, but that didn’t keep the two of them from trying to kill each other the rest of the time.

  From the corner of my eye, I was doing my best to ignore the hand waving and physical signs of an argument while I worked on a compact rappeler I thought might come in handy. My desk was littered with its usual array of projects and experiments, though it had more space since Father had insisted I move my more volatile experiments to the barn. I had only blown a tiny hole in the ceiling when my go at making a smoke bomb had gone awry. Honestly, the month without eyebrows had felt like punishment enough.

  My desk was positioned near the window, theoretically to let sunlight in. As it turned out, sunshine was a rare commodity on Central Island. Even in the house, I could taste the rain in the air. If the clouds ever did clear, the security and news zeppelins cast frequent shadows over the earth below.

  So, I settled for wearing my magnifying work goggles and crouching low over my intricate project by the wavering light of my lamp. My grease covered gloves had seen better days, but there was little point in replacing them. A new pair would be in this same state in a matter of weeks.

  Clark reached over and snapped one of Xavier’s pristine brown suspenders. Xavier lunged for him to retaliate. I sighed. Just as they were coming to blows, a distinct vibration in the walls told me Father was home. Unfortunately, my brothers were less accustomed to using their other four senses and more distracted by the sound of their own battling voices. They were thus unaware of his approach.

  “Guys!” I tried to get their attention to no avail.

  I could feel each steady footstep resound through the house as our father approached the bedroom I shared with Clark and Xav. Every few seconds there was the smaller vibration of distant thunder, the backdrop to our lives here.

  “Clark! Xavier!” I was louder this time, but they didn’t seem to hear my warning.

  The door to our room was already open. There wasn’t so much as a moment for my older brothers to pretend they were doing anything but brawling like children before Father’s broad form filled the doorway. He looked every inch a General in his fixed-collared, calf-length dark green military jacket, split down the sides and back. Rows of centered black leather straps fastened the front, and the insignia of his rank graced his chest.

  As though they were no heavier than the straw dummies we used for target practice, he grabbed each of them by the scruff of the neck and threw them away from each other.

  This was particularly impressive since Xavier, at fifteen, towered over most grown men. Clark was two years younger and still a head shorter, but no one would call him small. I was the runt of the family, skinnier and paler than either of them. Though, to be fair, a large part of that was because I spent half as much time on physical training as either of them, doing only what Father considered mandatory and using my free time to engineer weapons and tools for our trade.

  “What is it this time?” Father asked with a deceptively calm expression. Lip reading isn’t an exact science; it requires as much puzzle solving and filling in the blanks as it does observation. It was easier when I knew a person well. Not only was I familiar with the way their lips formed words, but their speech patterns and word usage were more predictable. My father and brothers also had years of making sure they faced me when they talked so as not to leave me out of conversation. “Did one of you eat the last pastry or have you disagreed on the relative attractiveness of a picture show star?”

  I winced in sympathy. His examples weren’t unlikely for the two of them, but eliciting his disappointment was never fun. They both turned red with shame as they rose from the floor, although on Xavier’s dark skin, the color was more cinnamon.

  “If you’re too embarrassed to talk about it, does it seem worth fighting over?” Father continued without waiting for an answer. “If you’re so desperate to spar, you can do it against the soldiers. We’re going to the barracks.” He headed back out the way he had come, assuming, rightfully, that we would be on his heels.

  I held in a groan, barely, giving my half-finished project a last rueful glance before following my brothers to the car. Years of physical training had failed to instill me with any love for the art, but obedience was the least I could offer our father after everything he had given us.

  Clark and Xavier raced to the long-hooded, chrome automobile, competing for the front seat. Father caught my eye from the front seat and grinned as he watched me overtake them both. I may not have enjoyed training the way they did, but that was not to say I couldn’t hold my own. I was faster than either of them by a long shot. Besides, by procuring the front seat for myself, I had given them one less thing to fight about on the way there.

  “You should know better than to race against your younger brother, even when you’ve got a head start.” Father shook his head.

  I glanced back from where I was settling into the immaculate leather seat to see my brothers laughing in agreement. They never begrudged me the win the way they did each other.

  Father shifted the vehicle into gear and took off down the dirt road that led from our tucked away dwelling to Central’s main streets. Leather and diesel mingled into an almost overwhelming odor, but I had long since grown accustomed to the combination. The trees lining the country road were a blur through my drizzly window. His next words wiped the grins from all our faces.

  “I need you all focused and training even harder than usual. Something is –" His face was grave, and worry lines replaced the ones from laughter he had worn moments ago. I didn’t get the last word from behind his mustache, so I asked him to repeat it. It looked like ‘doing,’ but that didn’t make sense.

  “Like coffee,” he explained. “Brewing. Happening.”

  I nodded my understanding. I didn’t turn around in time to catch my brothers’ response, but one of them must have said something because father shook his head.

  “No, son, not another war, but there are things worse than war. The invaders were an enemy we could see and therefore fight. Whatever is going on here isn’t nearly so straightforward.” He turned the car onto a busier street on the Third Sector of our four-tiered island. The ride was smoother from here. The barracks were one of the few structures that shared First Sector with the Palace, so we still had a ways to go up the cliffsides.

  “What do you think it is, then?” I asked the General. He was silent for a long time, enough that we had reached Second Sector. Even if I hadn’t been able to see my surroundings, the fading scent of salt in the air let me know we were reaching higher ground. I had resigned myself to him not answering when his lips started moving again.

  “I don’t kn
ow, exactly. But I suspect it has something to do with Redshaw Corporation. That’s all I’m willing to say on the matter until I get more information.”

  This time, I turned back in time to catch Clark speaking.

  “Are you going to the Emperor with your suspicions, seeing as he just gave Redshaw authority in all of the Ceithren Empire?” He asked.

  It was a good question. The Empire’s coffers were running low after the war. Redshaw’s offer of its own military forces to police Ceithre had been too good to pass up. The Peace Keepers, as they were called, were taking over for the military forces in all land-based matters. The Red Sons, Redshaw’s most elite soldiers, were taking over the higher priority issues.

  The Ceithren Royal Armed Forces now operated only on the seas and was quickly becoming obsolete. Soldiers who had planned on taking their career to retirement weren’t being allowed to reenlist because the positions weren’t there, and the General hadn’t done more than oversee training and twiddle his thumbs in months.

  All of this had given our father good cause to dislike Redshaw Corporation. A small part of me wondered if this was fueling his distrust of them as well, but I cast the thought aside. Even our allying kingdoms in the war held Father’s military prowess in the highest esteem. If he was suspicious, it was likely with good reason.

  “I have mentioned the matter to him, but he has asked for further proof before I bring it to his attention again. I am pursuing that now.” He pulled up to the Palace gates now, and we were being waved through. “Let’s keep this between us for now, though. No need to incite a panic.” What he meant was, no need to make the soldiers more likely to rebel than they already were.

  All around us, from the palace guards to the soldiers patrolling the grounds, the men stopped whatever they were doing to salute my father as he drove at a crawling speed toward the barracks. Respect shone in their eyes. Every soldier was dressed perfectly to regulations. Even through the dreary window, that much was evident. They may have questioned the monarchy, but their admiration for the General never wavered. I sat up a little straighter in my seat. Though my father didn’t roll his window down this time, he nodded at each of them.

  We pulled up to the barracks and the group of soldiers sweating out front stood at attention. My father put the brakes on the car and shut the rumbling engine off, but he hesitated before exiting.

  “Remember your training and be on your guard. I may not have much to go on, but something big is coming.” Though he was a stoic man, my father had worn many expressions over the years. I had seen sorrow when not as many men came back to the ship as had left, pride when he looked at his sons and his soldiers, and disappointment when any of them went astray. But never in the seven years since he had brought me onto his military vessel had I seen fear grace his features.

  The expression looked wrong on his square, weathered face. It was gone as quickly as it had come, too fleeting for my brothers in the backseat to catch a glimpse of it. But I had seen it, and I knew one thing.

  If father was scared, then I was terrified.

  2

  AMELIE

  Thunder shook the walls of our expansive manor. This house was easily four times the size of our townhouse on Alpina Island. It made no difference to my sister and me. Addie wound up sleeping in my room most nights anyway.

  This morning was no different. She hadn’t woken up yet. This was unsurprising when one considered how restlessly she slept when it stormed, and it was always storming. I nudged her with my toe, hating to wake her up.

  “Addie, are you going with Mama and me to the soup kitchen today?” I asked. Mama had made me ask her, though I knew the answer. Her eyes opened blearily.

  “What?” She asked.

  I repeated myself.

  She laughed into her pillow, still not moving her head. “No. Why are you going? I thought we were going to the library today to research the Ever Falls.” We went once every couple of weeks to the Royal Library to look at maps and stories from travelers. Mostly, we read about the Ever Falls, the waterfall chasm that split the globe in two on one side, and any information we could get about The Other Side of the World. General Noble had destroyed the bridge between the two hemispheres after invaders had used it to conquer our outlying islands.

  Since the zeppelins couldn’t handle the turbulent winds of the journey, the only other way to get across the chasm was to cross the Tempest Sea. However, no one had ever survived the trek to tell us how to do that.

  “Believe me, that sounds infinitely more appealing than the morning ahead of me, but I promised Mama I’d go.”

  “Well, I didn’t promise her anything. I wish you wouldn’t go either, Ami. Papa says it isn’t safe down there,” she said, like that reason held any prominence over her desire to stay in bed. Papa did say that, but Mama ignored him. He had been working so much, he wouldn’t notice we were gone at all. He probably thought we were out shopping every other weekend.

  The move two years ago had been hard on everyone, going from a small, comfortable community to the hub of royalty and the elite. Central Island was veritable maze of doublespeak and unspoken rules.

  Though Addie had struggled the most with the adjustment, our mother hadn’t taken well to it either. She tried to find ways to fill her time now that her daughters were in school and her friends an island away. When it was volunteering at the library or sorting through donated clothes, Addie was more than willing to step up. When it involved being forced into conversation by all manner of strangers, I was left to pick up the slack.

  It wasn’t Addie’s fault she had such a hard time with people, and I never felt burdened by it. She was my most loyal friend, staunch defender, and the only person who truly knew me. I wondered sometimes if she realized I needed her as much as she did me. That said, though I might miss Addie’s running sardonic commentary at the soup kitchen this morning, a rare morning with my mother to myself would be nice.

  I dressed quietly in my closet when I realized Addie had fallen back asleep. My clothes were simple, and I took care not to wear any jewelry. Our shift was only until early lunch, so I would still have most of the day to while away at the Royal Library with Addie.

  A groan escaped my lips when I realized we would be going to the Palace. That was a whole other set of issues, this newfound knowledge that I was to be wed to the Crown Prince someday. My parents couldn’t force me, but they knew they didn’t have to, not when I was so committed to making everyone around me happy.

  But I wanted adventure with Addie. Not a suffocating life in the Palace with Prince Perry. Not that Perry was bad. He was great. If his marriage didn’t come with so many chains attached, I might have wanted to marry him someday for himself alone. But this was something else entirely.

  I sighed as I braided my golden hair down my back, tabling the issue. Mama always said Addie borrowed on my compassion and grace while I tapped into her logic and strength. That together, we were one whole, unstoppable being. So I could hash this out later when I had chocolate cake and my sister’s companionship. We would figure this out together.

  “Ready, Darling?” My mother called into my room.

  “Yes. I’m coming now,” I told her. I squeezed Addie’s hand as I left. “I’ll be back soon,” I said softly. She muttered something indiscernible in response, and I smiled.

  Even dressed down, my mother looked stunning. People would jokingly ask if we were twins, but I didn’t think I really held a candle to her. Where my limbs were still gangly and my eyes too big for my face, my mother was perfectly proportioned from her coifed golden hair down to her long legs. She never seemed to let it go to her head, though. She had preferred the down-to-earth company of the shop owners and seamen in Alpina Island to those she called the vipers of Central.

  Papa’s automobile drove around to the covered semi-circle drive to pick us up so we could avoid the rain. Mama had him drop us at the train station. The train wound down the tiered island from second to fourth sectors. Only the m
onarchy resided on the First Sector, so for security reasons, the train didn’t go that high.

  From the Fourth Sector, it headed out to the sea to connect with the Cardinal Islands. North, South, East, and West Islands were the closest islands of any size. Even East Island, the biggest of the four, was only a quarter the size of Central, but the other twenty or so islands that made up the Ceithren Empire weren’t even half that large.

  The train was built on a magnetic system that had been carefully laid over the years by divers. It was twice as fast as the speediest ship, but the onus of placing the magnets in the sea made it unfeasible to extend it beyond the four biggest islands.

  My mother and I got our tickets and boarded with minimal wait times. The train station wasn’t overly crowded on the summer morning. Soon, we were meandering down the incline. Though the train was engineered to travel up to two hundred and twenty-five kilometers per hour at sea, it crept at a snail’s pace down the cliffsides of the sectors. We held onto the railing while the train car tilted forward. Zeppelins floated over the churning sea in the distance, and I smiled at the familiar view.

  My mother also stared out the window, but she wasn’t smiling.

  “It’s pretty, isn’t it?” I opened the conversation, hoping for some insights on her thoughts.

  “In its way,” she responded. “It’s not snow-capped mountains bordered by the sea pretty, but I suppose Central has its merits.” She looked at me, and then she did smile, a brilliant sight that lit up her gorgeous features. “Do you like it?”

  I considered her question, sensing she wasn’t referring to the view. Did I like it here? I didn’t love the heat or the omnipresent drizzle, or the looming issue of marrying the prince. My future hadn’t been hanging over my head like an anvil waiting to drop back on Alpina Island. But, here on Central, there was access to an enormous library to plot my travels and…I fished around for something else. I hadn’t given it much thought before now, but the answer was no. I didn’t really like Central Island.