The difference engines had been removed, and most auctioned off. Jon Spires had kept one for review. Understanding the strange technology of this Reality was taking time.
What was clear, was that his dead counterpart had build here something, accidentally or not, capable of interacting, with the aid of an angel, and opening a rift into his own Reality. Despite their generally lower level of technology, it left a defensive gap to the Empire, and it was something that could not be allowed. It had already cost them one angel, and possibly the weakened one that had powered his own airship.
His own airship. His command. The HMAS 2791, affectionately called “Vicky” by its crew, after its first engineer, had been a “Bellipotent” class coordinator ship. 30 guns, and the most advanced grid traps known. She was the product of 200 years of world conquest and nonstop war with the angellics. And he’d watched her flaming wreck fall from the deck of the silly looking “Magpie” balloon craft. Even a microbe could kill a far more advanced body. The way must be shut.
There may be no going back, but he could still serve the Empire. Noble Emperor Cleon II would never know of his work here, but it mattered not. The Empire here seemingly consisted of a drunken wreck of a man. Spires realized he might well owe the man his allegiance, but he wasn’t enthused about it.
He had these thoughts as high explosives set off the destruction of the slender steel broadcast tower, and the building itself. Soon, all that was left was rubble in the canalways.
Avariel Falcon watched the fall of the broadcast tower, pondering the retrograde nature of this action.
With a sigh she led the small group of assembled clockwork workers back to the power station.