The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

FOURTY SIX M's Fortress

Under fire in the mezzanine, the Nautilus crewmen held their own, taking risky shots at his henchmen whenever they could. But they could not last here forever. The tumult continued below them on the factory floor. Workers shouted and ran; steam tanks exploded.

Nemo himself saw a way down into the laboratory. "Hold them here, Hyde. I will take care of what we came for."

The brutish man grunted his assent, still holding the heavy metal door as a barricade against the furious hail of bullets. Hyde's muscles bulged, and veins stood out on his hairy skin, but he didn't seem at all flustered. "Go ahead."

Hyde coughed a mouthful of phlegm and spewed it around the side of the metal shield. Moriarty's men scrambled out of the way, as if the bestial man's fuming spit might be as deadly as bullets. They weren't necessarily wrong.

Dante called curt orders to his men. "This takes too much time. Summon the fighter, so that we may finish them off."

The shower of bullets ricocheting off the thick metal shield in Hyde's grip diminished to an occasional patter. Nemos crewmen tensed, wondering what other bizarre secret weapons the evil mastermind might have in store. Hyde growled and let the immense iron sheet rest on the flagstoned floor with a thud. He breathed stentoriously. Waiting.

Then a clanking noise boomed out even louder than the continuing explosions from the factory floor. Something huge and heavy plodded up behind the massed ranks of enemy soldiers. Dante whistled, summoning the massive mechanical threat forward.

Hyde peered around his shelter, and his bulging, bloodshot eyes widened. An ironclad "tank man" thudded forward, twelve feet tall — a man in a colossal, rivet-studded gladiator suit, powered by an electrical motor that crackled with blue sparks along its pistons and joints. Each footstep sounded like a falling boulder.

The tank man paused at the front of Dante's cadre, and the beleaguered henchmen backed away in awe. The Fantom's lieutenant grinned in anticipation at the fate of his cornered prey.

The ironclad tank man raised a titanic steel-plated arm, showing a circular cluster of long tubes — heavy-caliber gun barrels that rotated around a central axis. Captain Nemo would have recognized the design as an extension of the horrifically destructive Gatling gun introduced decades before in the American Civil War. Edward Hyde knew only that it was dangerous.

With a blast of steam and a crackle of power from thrumming electrical motors, the rotating Gatling launcher locked into position. Explosive artillery shells thunked into launching tubes.

Hyde had just enough time to pick up the thick iron shield again before the tank man opened fire.

Nemo fought his way to the guarded laboratory where captive scientists were being forced to develop ever-more sophisticated weapons for M's war against the entire world. Though he had reached his destination, the Nautilus captains struggle was just beginning.

The Fantoms' guards shouted, and Nemo crouched, keeping his limbs loose in his blue-sleeved uniform, his hands extended as weapons. The scientists watched the strange turbaned man, not daring to hope. Outside the laboratory prison, they could hear the clamor of continuing battles.

Nemo moved farther into the room. Seeing only one opponent, the guards drew their thick Mongolian swords and strode toward him. He gave them a welcoming smile.

In a flash, Nemo waded into the group of armed men, kicked a guard squarely in the chin with his left foot, and used his right fist to crush the larynx of a second. The bellowing guards swung their swords, but he moved too fast. Their curved blades swept like threatening whispers through empty air; some struck sparks from the stone wall.

Surging into the laboratory, the captain grabbed up a stool vacated by a scrambling scientist and punched a charging guard in the stomach with the long hard legs, then swung the seat around in a smooth lightning strike to his head. The guard crumpled to the floor, his skull split open.

Seven guards remained, but at the moment Nemo wasn't counting.

To a certain extent, he let his body act and react on a subconscious level, flying in an ecstatic release of blows and moves. He had seen the wild gyrations of the true Sufi dervishes in India, enlightened ascetics who threw themselves into a state of complete abandon. It was more than just dancing, it was a possession — like the berserkers on Viking battlefields. Nemo had incorporated elements of this approach into his fighting.

But he also prized his sharp and insightful mind. Even as the captain flung himself into a whirlwind of battle, he remained aware of himself and his goal. All the Fantom's henchmen together could not possibly withstand the onslaught of this lone man.

Nemo used tools and laboratory instruments to deadly effect, proving that a long metal T square from a blueprint table could be as dangerous as a sword. He smashed beakers, threw boiling acid into another man's eyes. A blackboard full of equations crashed down onto a guards shoulders, and Nemo knocked him senseless with a sharp elbow blow to the temple.

Everything in his grasp became a weapon, and when he held nothing, his bare hands served him well enough. Before long, he had taken out every guard.

Catching his balance and his breath, Nemo turned to the stunned scientists who had watched him in awe. All around him the laboratory lay in ruins: tables splintered, chalk-scrawled blackboards shattered, notes and plans strewn on the floor.

The captive engineers and scientists stared, as speechless with fear of this stranger as they were of the masked Fantom — until he told them what they needed to hear.

"You are free."

Hyde struggled to hold the thick iron door steady against the coming attack. With a whistling cry in flight, the first of the large-caliber shells from the tank man's Gading gun slammed into the heavy shield. Hyde staggered backward. The sound of the impact was deafening.

"Get back!" he snarled to the Nautilus crewmen, who still held their weapons ready, still hoping to take shots at Dante's cadre, though the remaining henchmen had taken shelter, leaving the battle to the armored colossus. "Go!"

Another artillery shell struck the iron shield like a meteor, making it shudder in Hyde's grasp. Two impact craters now bent the barrier inward, but the shield held. The high-caliber projectile ricocheted off to the side, striking high on a wall. A stone arch crumbled.

Hyde got the glimmer of an idea. It was enough.

The ironclad tank man took two heavy steps forward. The Gatling cylinder rotated, bringing the next shell into position. He fired a third heavy projectile, then another, and another.

The shells flew at him in rapid succession, and each time Hyde used the heavy iron shield to deflect them. One shell struck the ceiling, bringing part of it down. He tilted the door in a crude attempt at aiming the ricocheting shells.

The second caromed off toward Dante's huddled henchmen, detonated, and sent screaming bodies flying.

Hyde's third attempt flew true, blasting the ironclad titan in the armored torso and exploding with spectacular results.

Shrapnel showered everywhere. The remains of the ironclad tank man toppled backward like a fallen Goliath. Armor plates, weapons, and jointed metal lay collapsed in a pile of wreckage.

When the smoke and dust cleared sufficiendy, Hyde surveyed the mess with pride and satisfaction.

The rest of Dante's cadre turned and fled.