Eric Flint's Blog, page 204

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 05

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 05

Chapter 3

Magdeburg, capital of the United States of Europe

The large room in Rebecca’s town house in Magdeburg — she much preferred that term to “mansion” — was fuller than she’d ever seen it, even at the height of the recent crisis that was often described as a semi-civil war. The room had been designed as a salon, but over the past six months it had wound up being pressed into service as the unofficial meeting place of the top leadership of the Fourth of July Party — the members of Ed Piazza’s “shadow cabinet” along with whatever FoJP provincial leaders happened to be in the capital. At least one or two prominent Committee of Correspondence figures usually attended also, including Gunther Achterhof, the central figure in Magdeburg’s CoC.

Every seat at the large conference table in the center was occupied except the one reserved for her at the south end. There were also people standing against all the walls except the eastern one, which had a row of windows. The windows didn’t provide much of a view, since the town house was located toward the northern end of the Aldstadt, away from the river. But Rebecca still enjoyed the daylight the windows provided.

The edifice hadn’t been chosen for the view, in any event. It had been chosen for much more cold-blooded reasons. The big building would be easy to defend against possible attack. Given the disastrous outcome of Oxenstierna’s attempted coup d’etat, such an assault in the middle of the capital was now extremely unlikely. But, happily, the sunlight flooding the room remained.

“I apologize for my tardiness,” she said, after entering the room and closing the door behind her.

“Pressing matters of state, no doubt!” said Constantin Ableidinger, grinning. As always, his voice bore a fair resemblance to a fog horn.

“Insofar as the term is defined by a three-and-a-half-year-old girl incensed by her brother’s encroachment on what she considers her rightful territory, yes.” Rebecca took her seat and folded her hands together on the table. “I am pleased to report that I was able to forestall the outbreak of actual hostilities.”

That was good for a laugh around the table, echoed by the standing-room-only participants.

“Why was this meeting called on such short notice?” asked one of the men standing against the wall facing Rebecca. That was Anselm Keller, an MP from the Province of the Main. His tone wasn’t hostile, just brusque, as was the nature of the man.

Ed Piazza, seated about midway down the table and facing the windows, provided the answer. “Wilhelm Wettin has just called for elections to be held toward the end of July. They will begin on Friday the 18th and conclude on Sunday the 27th. Ten days in all.”

“It should be two weeks,” complained another man standing against a wall. This was the wall to Rebecca’s left, right next to the door she’d come in. The speaker was Werner von Dalberg, the central leader of the Fourth of July Party in the Oberpfalz — or Upper Palatinate, as it was also called. He held no position in government but that was, hopefully, about to change. Von Dalberg would be the FoJ Party’s candidate for governor of the province.

Like the State of Thuringia-Franconia and Magdeburg Province, the Oberpfalz now had a republican structure. Those three were, so far, the only provinces of the United States of Europe of which that was true. All the other provinces had one or another type of hereditary executive or were still under direct imperial administration.

The Oberpfalz had also been under direct imperial administration until very recently. As part of the informal negotiations between Gustav II Adolf and Michael Stearns after the end of what was now being called either the Dresden Crisis or — by the Committees of Correspondence — the Oxenstierna Plot, the emperor had agreed to relinquish imperial administration of the Oberpfalz and accept a republican structure for the province.

Stearns had no formal standing in those negotiations. Technically speaking, he was just one of the divisional commanders in the USE army and subordinate to General Lennart Torstensson, not someone who had any business negotiating much of anything with the USE’s head of state.

But formalities were one thing, realities another. After the emperor’s months-long incapacitation and Stearns’ defeat of the Swedish general Báner at the Battle of Ostra, which had effectively ended the Dresden Crisis, there was no way Gustav Adolf could have re-established his authority without making a wide-ranging series of agreements with Stearns — and doing so quite openly and visibly. If the emperor didn’t cut a deal with Stearns he knew he’d eventually wind up having to negotiate with the Committees of Correspondence, which he’d much rather avoid altogether.

The emperor’s decision to give the Upper Palatinate a republican structure would probably cause trouble for him in the future with sections of the nobility, who were not pleased by the decision, to put it mildly. The “Upper” part of the Upper Palatinate referred to the fact that it had been traditionally part of the Palatinate, just separated geographically. The Palatinate as a whole had been ruled by Frederick V, the Elector Palatine — the very same man who accepted the Bohemian offer to make him their king and thereby triggered off the Thirty Years War.

Having been driven out of Bohemia by the Austrians after the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620, Frederick — now often known as “the Winter King” — soon lost the Palatinate as well when it was conquered by Spanish forces under the command of Tilly. He spent the last ten years of his life in exile in the Netherlands, trying without success to get his lands restored.

In the universe the Americans came from, Frederick V would die of disease — something diagnosed as “a pestilential fever” — on November 29, 1632. In one of the many ironies produced by the Ring of Fire, he would die in his new universe at almost exactly the same time, on December 5, 1632. Again, the cause was disease, but the diagnosis was less imprecise. He slipped on the ice one morning and broke his collarbone. In and of itself the injury was not at all life-threatening, but he made the mistake of taking the medical advice of his doctor. This Dutch worthy was aware of the new medical theories coming out of Grantville but was a stout fellow who’d have no truck with such nonsense. So he prescribed bed rest — nonstop, and weeks of it. Soon enough, the Winter King contracted pneumonia and died.

His passing left the inheritance of his lands something of a mess. His widow, Elizabeth Stuart, was the sister of King Charles of England. She could not rule in her own right but only as regent for their children. The oldest son, Frederick Henry, had died in a boating accident in 1629. In the Americans’ universe the second son, Karl Ludwig, would eventually be restored as the Elector Palatine by the terms of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 that finally ended the Thirty Years War — but only the Lower Palatinate. The Oberpfalz, the Upper Palatinate, would remain in the hands of the Bavarians.

In the new universe, however, even that partial restoration seemed unlikely because Karl Ludwig had converted to Catholicism in the course of his exile at the court of King Fernando of the reunited Netherlands. The Palatinate was now a Calvinist region and that seemed to preclude any possibility that Karl Ludwig could ever regain the territory — barring, at least, some now-highly-unlikely conquest of the area by a Catholic power.

The next two oldest sons, Rupert and Moritz, were both teenagers and seemed more interested in the affairs of their mother’s homeland than those of the Palatinate. In the universe the Americans came from, the older of the two would gain much fame as “Prince Rupert of the Rhine,” the royalist partisan who figured so prominently in the English Civil War. In this universe the young man had come under the influence of the exiled Thomas Wentworth and was more inclined toward the parliamentary side in the coming conflict. In any event, he seemed to have no interest at all in regaining his ancestral lands in the Germanies.

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 49

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 49

Chapter 26

Mallu watched over the shoulder of the weapons officer as the Khûrûshil ship broke into two pieces. Kaln’s angles went to satisfaction-at-distress-of-foes. The weapons officer began to set up the orders for the next attack.

“Wait,” Kaln said as the workstation view screen showed the broken ship still launching missiles from the manned portion of the ship. She studied the diagram of the ship for a moment, then touched the screen again. “Two short medium strikes, here and here to close the missile ports.” She moved her finger on the screen. “Then a longer medium strike here to open the main storage tank and bleed out the hydrogen.

Kaln stood tall again, angles shifting to satisfaction-at-task-well-done. “That will prevent them from blowing anything up when Ban Chao approaches. The only weapons they will have will be what hand weapons they carried aboard.”

Mallu’s own posture shifted to a fairly clean form of gratified-respect. It was perhaps a bit more than was warranted, he thought, but he had been hanging around with a bunch of upper-class Jao the last year or so. Maybe some of their affectations were beginning to “rub off on him,” as Wrot might say with one of his interminable human quotations.

His whiskers quirked in humor when he realized that Jalta had assumed the same posture.

The weapons officer ordered the next strikes, and they landed precisely where Kaln had said they should. That portion of the ship ceased spitting missiles, and began rolling even more than before.

“Weaponless,” Kaln said in a smug tone.

Mallu could only nod to her.

****

Caitlin grew furious as she watched the attack on the Khûrûshil ship. “I said disable the ship, dammit, not destroy it!”

Flue Vaughan looked up from his workstation. “That is exactly what they did, Director. For all its smallness when compared to Lexington or even Ban Chao, that was in essence a space-going nuclear bomb. And a weapons-grade x-ray laser is not exactly a surgeon’s scalpel. To be certain to nullify the threat, they had to take out the nuclear rocket.” He touched a pad on his workstation and checked a readout. “Actually, I’m surprised they did it with as little damage as they did. That ship isn’t much more than a cockleshell by our standards, and enough energy to quickly take out the rocket section could very easily have shattered the entire ship. Someone’s got a good hand and a good eye over on Pool Buntyam.”

“Probably Kaln krinnu ava Krant, if I know Krant-Captain Mallu,” Wrot said as he moved up beside Caitlin. “A most resourceful Jao. And Director,” he added, stressing Caitlin’s title, “Lieutenant Vaughan is absolutely correct. You must remember that, for whatever reason, these people attacked us. We may have our reasons for avoiding their destruction, but we can only carry that so far. If it comes down to them or us, there is no choice.”

That was a thought that Caitlin had been avoiding, but now that Wrot had brought it to the forefront of her mind, there was no question where her responsibility lay. She could not throw away the lives of her friends, crews, or troops simply because she was reluctant to order weapons live. She at last accepted that.

“Very well.” Caitlin sighed. But there was something else she could do. She moved to stand beside Fleet Commander Dannet; Wrot following behind her. “Once Ban Chao reports that they have the crew of the Khûrûshil ship secured, order the ships to return to the one million kilometer point. We will remove the temptation for the Khûrûsh to attack while we interrogate our guests.”

Dannet’s angles were neutral. Her sole response was, “As you direct, Director.”

****

“Colonel Tully,” Vanta-Captain Ginta’s voice sounded in his ear.

“Here, Captain.” Tully linked in his officers and First Sergeant Luff.

“I assume you have been receiving the signal feed of the disabling of the target craft.”

“We have.”

“The last strike opened the fuel tank to space. The venting of the hydrogen has imparted spin to the portion of the ship you will be boarding.”

Tully looked at the feed. Yep, no question that the remnant of the broken ship was moving faster than before. “That’s not good,” he said. He could see Luff’s head nodding vigorously in agreement.

“The Fleet Commander is adamant that this operation be concluded as quickly as possible,” Ginta said. “Therefore we will move Ban Chao into place to intercept the spin of the craft with the armored ram portion of the hull.”

“Ouch!” Tully heard one of the officers mutter.

“Order your people to their shock frames, Colonel. This will be not very different from the impact of ramming the Ekhat ship. Wait.”

Ginta’s signal cut off.

“Top, you heard the Captain, get the men moving,” Tully ordered. “Charlie Company first, then Alpha, then Baker.”

“Tully.” Ginta was back on.

“Yes?”

“I see no way to identify hatches to break through, and given the beating that hull will have taken by the time we bring it under control, I doubt they would open anyway. Take that into account in your plans.”

Tully looked to where Lieutenant Boatright was holding a thumb up. “I believe we have that under control, Captain.”

“Good.”

There was a moment of silence, then Eanne’s voice was heard, “Yellow light at estimated one minute to impact, red light at estimated fifteen seconds, tether crews move at blue light, assault teams move at green light.”

“Yellow at one minute, red at fifteen, tether crews at blue, assault at green.” Tully looked to his helmet display, where he had acknowledgment lights from the officers and Sergeant Luff. He switched to the general troop frequency, and heard the announcement going out from Major Liang. He switched back to the command frequency. “Got it.”

“Good hunting, Colonel,” Tully was surprised to hear from the tech.

“Thanks.”

There was silence in Tully’s ear.

****

One of the humans, the one in jinau uniform, looked around at Lim. “Ma’am, you either need to strap in or return to your quarters.” She pointed at an empty seat next to her workstation. “It’s fixing to get pretty rough in a few minutes, and you could get hurt if you don’t strap in somewhere.”

Lim considered the young woman’s request, then nodded her head and took the directed seat. The last occupant of the seat had obviously been a human, and not a large one at that. It took Lim a few moments to get the straps resized and fastened across her torso correctly, especially since she did not lay the staff on the floor.

Task accomplished, holding the staff vertically in one hand, she looked to the human and said, “I am Lim. Can you tell me what is about to occur?”

The human smiled and said, “I’m Sergeant Lacey Marasco. All I know is Director Kralik told Fleet Commander Dannet that Pool Buntyam should take down one of the ships that are attacking us, and Ban Chao should capture the crew and bring them to Lexington for discussions and, if need be, interrogations.”

“Thank you.”

The human–Sergeant Marasco–smiled again and returned her attention to her workstation and the view out the window before her. Lim sat back in the seat, and thought.

She knew that Caitlin Kralik had oudh over the search effort to find other sentient civilizations. She knew that both Jao and human organizations tended to be very hierarchical; not that the Lleix weren’t, but the Lleix cultural need to have consensus for every decision was far outside the Jao/human/Terra taif norm.

 

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 04

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 04

“It’d have to hit us here in the gondola, too,” Tom added. “This is a hot air vessel, not hydrogen. There’s nothing that even incendiaries could blow up.”

At that, Franchetti visibly relaxed. He might not be familiar with enemy fire, but he did know airships. Unless an explosion tore a great rent in the envelope above them — which was not very likely — they wouldn’t lose altitude quickly. Just punching a bunch of holes in the fabric wouldn’t do much at all.

And while the gondola they were riding in wasn’t armored, as such, it was still pretty tough. A big wicker basket, basically. A cannon ball striking it head on would probably punch through, as would an up-time rifle bullet fired from a heavy caliber gun. Or, even if it didn’t, the impact would probably send splinters flying everywhere, which might cause even worse casualties if not structural damage. But a round musket ball probably wouldn’t penetrate, unless it was fired at point blank range — and how would anyone get that close in the first place?

There was no real chance that shrapnel could penetrate. The biggest danger would be from an explosion that sent shrapnel over the rim of the gondola and struck the crew directly. But that would take a very lucky shot indeed.

Another rocket volley came their way — defining “their way” very loosely — but Tom ignored it. He’d just spotted an odd-looking portion of the city’s walls and was now studying it through his binoculars.

“I will be good God — Gnu damned,” he said, remembering at the last instant to modify his unthinking blasphemy. People in the seventeenth century didn’t hesitate to swear like the proverbial trooper, but they avoided blasphemy.

“What is it, Major?” asked von Eichelberg.

“I do believe some Bavarian fellow has been using his noggin.”

“And a ‘noggin’ would be…”

“Sorry. American slang. It means using his head. Thinking.”

He leaned back from the railing and offered the binoculars to von Eichelberg. Then, pointed at something on the walls below.

“Look at that bastion,” he said. “At least, I’ll call it a bastion for lack of a better term. It’s new. It wasn’t there when we held Ingolstadt.”

Von Eichelberg spent a couple of minutes studying the structure in question through the binoculars.

“It looks like… some sort of pit? But what for?”

“You see the radial design?” Tom replied. “What looks like a bunch of rails leading up to those shrouded… whatever-they-ares at the top of the pit?”

“Yes,” said Bruno. He lowered the binoculars and frowned.

“I think those are gun carriages,” said Tom. “Slanted up at something like thirty degrees and covering at least one-sixth of the visible sky. And the shrouds would be covering the guns themselves. I’m willing to bet that if we got closer you’d see them stripping those shrouds — they’re probably canvas — right off.”

Von Eichelberg issued a grunt. The sound combined surprise with something close to admiration. “Shrewd!”

Tom shrugged. “Maybe. Then again, maybe not. I’m willing to bet that design’s brand new and never been tested.”

His subordinate grinned. “Well, then. What better time than now?”

Franchetti was looking alarmed again — very alarmed.

“Major Simpson, what are you thinking?”

Tom pointed down to the bastion. Down — and away. They were still the better part of a mile from the city walls.

“Head toward it, Stefano. I want to see what happens.”

“But — but –”

Tom clapped his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Re-lax, will you? Whatever that emplacement is, it’s got to be some sort of prototype. That’s a fancy up-time word that means ‘wild-ass idea that nobody’s tried out yet.’ Almost no prototype ever made worked the way it was supposed to the first time out.”

Little Boy and Fat Man did, he thought to himself. But he saw no reason to worry the youngster with hypotheticals. Besides, Oppenheimer and his team had spent a lot longer — not to mention a lot more money — developing the first atomic bombs than whatever Bavarian bright boys down there could have spent developing whatever this thingamajig was.

Franchetti’s expression made it clear he still had his doubts, but he steered the blimp in the direction Tom had indicated. He had the four lawnmower engines going full blast now, to give the vessel maximum speed. The things were unmuffled and made an incredible racket. Anyone who wanted to say anything now would have to shout — and do it almost in someone’s ear.

****

“How soon should we fire, Captain?” asked one of the gunners. “And shouldn’t we start taking off the covers?”

Von Haslang didn’t reply immediately. He was too intent on studying the oncoming airship.

“Captain?” the gunner repeated.

Von Haslang shook his head. “They’re still much too far away. And leave the covers on. Once we take them off, they’ll know exactly what they’re facing and they’ll turn aside.”

He didn’t add what he could have, which was that the airship wouldn’t be able to turn away quickly. He’d spent quite a bit of time studying the enemy vessels in the course of the four day pursuit of the USE artillery unit which had escaped from Ingolstadt three months earlier. True, he’d never gotten a close look at any of them, but he hadn’t needed to in order to determine that the airships had one great weakness. They were unwieldy. In that respect, nothing at all like the much smaller but also much faster enemy airplanes.

Those famous airplanes weren’t really much of a threat as weapons, though, certainly not to land forces. They simply couldn’t carry enough in the way of explosives. Their real utility in time of war was that they provided superb reconnaissance except in bad weather.

The airships, on the other hand, did have a significant capability to drop bombs. But… they were slow. Faster than infantry, certainly, and even faster than cavalry except when heading directly into a wind. But they could not change direction quickly at all. Even a man on foot below an airship could easily outmaneuver the thing.

Hence, the design of what von Haslang and the other officers and artificers who’d developed it called “the hedgehog.” It was somewhat akin to a stationary and very big volley gun or organ gun. They had two inch guns on rails slanted about thirty degrees into the air and a few degrees apart from each other. The guns fired explosive shells with timed fuses. Once an airship came within range one of them would begin to fire, and if the vessel veered aside it would come into the line of sight of the adjoining guns.

Once fired, the recoil would send the gun sliding down the rail into the pit, but it would be arrested in time by pulleys and counter-weights and brakes. It could then be reloaded and hoisted back up.

Not quickly, of course. But the airships weren’t that quick either.

That was the theory, at any rate. No one had any idea yet if the hedgehogs would work. They’d built two of them, so far.

“Steady,” von Haslang said. “Steady… Still too soon…”

But his plans were overthrown.

“What are you waiting for?” demanded a voice from behind him.

Von Haslang’s jaws tightened. He didn’t have to look to recognize the voice of the garrison’s commander, General Timon von Lintelo. Who was, in von Haslang’s now-well-considered opinion, an incompetent over-bearing ass — but also, sadly, highly regarded by Duke Maximilian of Bavaria.

“Answer me, von Haslang! Why haven’t you fired yet?”

Now turning, von Haslang saw that the general wasn’t even going to wait for a reply. Von Lintelo was already gesturing fiercely at the crew of the gun which was — or would have been in a couple of minutes, rather — in line of sight of the airship.

“Shoot at them!” he shouted. “Quickly, before they pass us by!”

The gun crew stripped the canvas covering from the gun. Seeing that, the other gun crews did likewise.

“Shoot! Shoot! They’ll get away!”

It was utterly exasperating. The USE airship was still well out of range. It wasn’t even in proper line of sight, although it had gotten close.

The gun fired. The recoil sent it racing down the rails toward the bottom of the pit. Before it could reach the bottom, however, the restraining apparatus brought it to a stop.

That much, at least, had gone according to plan.

The shell’s warhead exploded just about the proper time also.

Somewhere between two and three hundred meters short of the target.

The airship began to veer aside. Slowly, slowly.

Compounding his folly, von Lintelo ordered the next three guns to fire as the airship moved into line with them. None of those shots came within three hundred meters of the enemy when the warheads exploded — the last two, not within four hundred yards.

The general shook a finger under von Haslang’s nose. “If you’d been more alert, we might have had them!” The statement was ridiculous and on some level even von Lintelo had to know that. But among the general’s many unpleasant traits was his invariant habit of blaming his subordinates for his own errors.

All they’d accomplished was to give the enemy advance warning of what lay in store for them.

****

“Interesting,” said Tom.

Captain von Eichelberg was less impressed. “It seems quite ungainly.”

“Oh, yeah — but then, so are we. And unlike the rockets, those shells went where they were fired.”

He went back to beard-scratching. “It’s more like a mine field than a weapon system. As long as you know where it is, you can stay away from it. But I could see where it might make a decent area defense system.”

“I only saw one other pit like that,” said von Eichelberg.

“Me, too. But I wonder how many there’ll be at Munich, by the time we get there?”

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 48

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 48

Chapter 25

Tully was watching the feed of the combat on his helmet display when Vanta-Captain Ginta came back into the circuit to him. “Director Kralik has ordered only defense against the missiles. We are not to fire on the Khûrûshil craft themselves.”

Tully snorted. “No-brainer, man. It’s hard to make allies of anyone after you’ve wasted a bunch of their people.”

“Indeed.”

Tully thought he detected a tone of dry irony in the one-word response from the captain. “Any word from the fleet commander about taking over any of the ships?”

“No.” And with that, Ginta was gone again.

Damn.

****

Caitlin looked to Pyr and Garhet. “Any response from any of the Khûrûsh ships?”

“No, Director,” from Garhet, as Pyr continued sending out the message.

“The planet?”

“No, Director.”

Caitlin turned and stalked over to where her bodyguards were standing. There were four, including Caewithe and Tamt. She crossed her arms and frowned at the deck.

“What’s wrong?” Caewithe asked.

“The stupid Khûrûsh won’t talk,” Caitlin snapped. “I don’t know if they’re isolationists or xenophobic, or what, but they won’t talk. We’re smashing everything their ridiculous excuse for a space navy can throw at us, and they won’t talk!”

She fumed in silence for a moment before Tamt said something that was covered by one of the techs calling something out behind her. “What did you say?”

“I said,” Tamt spoke louder, “you have an assault ship filled with jinau. Capture one of the Khûrûshil ships and ‘invite’ the crew to come speak with you.”

“An excellent idea,” Caitlin heard from behind her. She looked over her shoulder to see Wrot giving a Jao smile to Tamt. “An idea worthy of the one whose service you are in.” Aille, in other words. He shifted his focus to Caitlin. “From the mouths of babes, Caitlin. If they won’t listen to you, then bring them in and make them face you.” He shrugged. “Not very subtle or elegant, perhaps, but we’re Terra taif, not Pluthrak kochan, or even Narvo. We’re just one step above the hillbillies.” His muzzle wrinkled in a Jao smile. “Direct and blunt is good, in this case.”

Caitlin turned the thought over in her mind. It went against her grain, but even she could see that the big ships couldn’t keep playing keep-away from the Khûrûsh craft forever. She turned and faced back across the command deck.

“Fleet Commander Dannet!”

“Yes, Director?”

“Order Ban Chao to capture one of the Khûrûshil ships, take the crew captive, and bring them aboard Lexington.”

Dannet’s angles almost snapped into ready-compliance. That was an order she was obviously gratified to receive.

As Dannet gave the order, Caitlin muttered, “Come on, Tully, make this work.”

****

“Colonel Tully,” came the tech’s voice in his ear.

“Yes, Eanne.”

“Fleet Commander has ordered Ban Chao to capture a Khûrûsh ship. Vanta-Captain Ginta directs that you be prepared to board whatever target is chosen and take the crew into custody.”

“On it.”

Tully triggered the company com link. “XO, Top, company COs, link to me now.”

He waited for the pips to light up on his heads-up display to show they had linked to him on the company command frequency. “Okay, here’s the skinny. Ban Chao is to take one of these little ships and remove the crew. I assume they will eventually end up on Lexington, but that’s not our decision. So, have you guys worked out a plan for boarding one of these things?”

“Yes, sir,” Major Liang responded. “Lieutenant Vaughan on the Lex gave us a readout on their general size and estimated configuration, based the Lex’s sensor feeds.”

Tully’s display flickered as the imagery fed into his helmet display. “Damn,” he said, “that’s nice work. Remind me to do something nice for Vaughan when we get a chance.” He did a quick study of the ship. “Okay, call it fifteen meters in diameter, and roughly one hundred meters long. That’s not even a rowboat in comparison to Lexington or Ban Chao. What do we know about the inside?”

Colored outlines were superimposed over the ship outlines. “Red appears to be a nuclear reactor”–that was close to half of the ship–“yellow appears to be storage for liquid hydrogen fuel”–that took up over half the rest of the ship–“and green appears to be the crew compartment.”

Tully studied that. “Any clue at all on how many crew?”

“Best guess is between four and six, eight at the most,” the XO said. “That’s not much volume, and if they allow any radiation shielding at all between the crew and that nuclear engine, that’s going to take away some of that space.”

“Hmm. So who’s got the shortest fire team?” There was a moment of silence, with the ghost of a chuckle from First Sergeant Luff. “Come on guys, surely you thought of that. From what the Lleix pulled out of the broadcasts, the typical Khûrûsh-an is shorter than we are by a bunch. The interior of that ship is not going to be scaled to us, and I can’t see sending someone the size of Corporal Johnson or Sergeant Luff over there. So who’s got the shortest fire team? Top?”

Luff’s voice had a hint of a laugh. “That would be Charlie Company, First Platoon, Alpha team, Colonel–Sergeant Boyes and his mob.”

“Perfect.” Tully grinned. Boyes was short and slight, but was as hard as a carborundum drill bit. Anybody who served on his team had to be just as tough, because Boyes would have run them off if they weren’t. And coincidentally–or not–none of them were much taller than their sergeant.

“Okay,” Tully said. “Boatright, it’s your team, you brief them on what we know about the ship. Make sure they understand the plan is to capture the crew, not ventilate them. Top, you get with the armory and make sure that they’re loaded with close-quarter weapons, including some non-lethals.”

“Yes, sir!” from the lieutenant.

“On it, Colonel,” the first sergeant assured him.

“XO, have the rest of the troops stand by. Who knows what other fun this picnic might provide?”

****

In the event, it proved to be extremely frustrating. For a few moments, here and there, Tully almost chuckled. The elephantine Ban Chao was trying to corral and capture something on the order of a Jack Russell terrier, and every time it looked like it was going to happen, the Khûrûshil ship would skitter to one side and evade the much larger Terran ship.

After a couple of hours and several failed attempts, Tully took steps.

“Eanne.”

“Yes, Colonel?”

“Can you patch me through to Director Kralik?”

There was no response from the tech, but in a moment a pip of light showed up on his helmet display, and Caitlin’s voice was in his ear. “Yes?”

“Caitlin, I know you don’t want to trash the Khûrûshil ships, but you’re going to have to order one of them disabled by Pool Buntyam, or we’re never going to get this done.”

There was a moment of silence, then an “All right,” which sounded as if it had been dragged out of Caitlin.

The light pip went out, and Tully grinned for a moment. Then he sobered up, and hit the command frequency again. “Heads up, Boatright. Pool Buntyam is going to disable one of the ships. Have your team ready.”

****

Caitlin ended the com call from Tully. Her first reaction was to get angry at Tully for interfering. That didn’t last long, though, as she remembered something Ed had told her when the searching expedition was about to voyage out for the first time.

“I’m giving you Tully for your over-all jinau commander,” Ed had said. “Not because he’s a member of Aille’s service, and not because he’s become a good friend, although the first would be an acceptable reason and the second would be understandable. I’m giving you Tully because he’s good at what he does, because he’s got a good reputation among the troops, and because he’ll shoot straight with you. I’m especially giving you Tully because he’ll tell you what he thinks is right, even when you don’t want to hear it. If he tells you anything, especially if it has anything to do with combat, listen to him. Got it?”

“Got it, Ed,” Caitlin whispered in the here-and-now. She slipped the com pad back into a pocket, and looked around the command deck. “Fleet Commander,” she called out.

Dannet faced her direction with her angles sliding into attention-to-oudh. “Yes, Director?”

“Please have Pool Buntyam‘s laser crews disable one–and only one–of the Khûrûshil ships in front of Ban Chao. They are to make every effort to avoid damage to the crew compartment.”

Dannet’s angles moved to gratified-compliance. She looked to Terra-Captain Uldra. “As the Director has ordered. Advise Pool Buntyam and Ban Chao.”

Caitlin crossed her arms and leaned against Lieutenant Vaughan’s workstation as Uldra issued orders to her weapons officer. She looked over at Tamt. “That was a great idea. I guess I’ll keep you around a while longer.”

Caewithe snickered.

****

Krant-Captain Mallu krinnu ava Krant heard the orders from Fleet Commander Dannet. He looked across the command deck of Pool Buntyam to his officers.

“Kaln, give the target selection to weapons.”

As the senior tech moved to a console, Mallu’s pool-sib Jalta, who was also his Terniary-Commander on Pool Buntyam, moved closer and said quietly, his angles all neutral, “Why Kaln? Why not the weapons officer?”

Mallu knew Jalta very well, and knew that for his pool-sib to go to the trouble of mustering a formal posture, especially neutral, meant he had concerns about something. He moved his own angles to a definite confidence-in-orders, and said, “Kaln rides the time-sense better than anyone else we have. You remember what she did in the last battle. I will use anything that gives us an edge. If you ever take command of this or any other ship, you will too.”

They looked at each other, still for a moment. Then Mallu stepped past Jalta to stand behind Kaln as she leaned forward, put a finger on the workstation screen, and said, “That one. Put a high level blast here,” she tapped the screen, “and a medium level shot here.” The tech straightened and turned to stare Mallu in the eyes. “That will disable the craft.”

Mallu looked at his weapons officer.

“Do it.”

****

Tully saw the laser strike happen. He was watching his helmet display. Pool Buntyam‘s lasers didn’t emit light in the visible spectrum, of course, so his first clue that they’d been fired was when he started seeing pieces of the hull of one of the closest ships begin spalling and spinning away from the ship. It took him a moment to understand what he was seeing.

“Boatright!” he snapped.

“Sir!”

“Get ready. I think we’ll have our target right where we want it any moment now.”

Pool Buntyam‘s lasers continued to savage the Khûrûshil ship. Its thrust suddenly shut off, and Tully’s jaw started to drop as he saw the lasers literally cut through the body of the ship, so that the aft portion began spinning rapidly away.

The forward portion, with the crew compartment and the remnants of what was presumed to be the hydrogen fuel tank began a slow forward tumble.

Tully was really glad he wasn’t taking a ride on that ship. His stomach lurched in sympathy.

****

Lim watched as the jinau troops sorted themselves out, most standing to one side or another of the assault bay. A small group of human jinau–actually small jinau, as well, being dwarfed by most of the Jao and even some of the other humans–moved toward the other end of the bay, grouping behind one of their leaders.

A large jinau moved toward her, opening his helmet faceplate to reveal First Sergeant Luff’s smiling face. “You’ll need to leave the bay, ma’am,” he said. “We’re going to evacuate the atmosphere from it.” He pointed to a nearby opening. “You can go through that hatch, then up the stairs to the control room right there”–now he pointed to a window in the wall above her head–“if you want to see what happens. I doubt there will be much to see from here. All the excitement will happen outside the hull.”

Lim moved through the hatch, handling her staff with care, and heard the sergeant shut the hatch behind her. She found the stairs to the control room, in which she found one Jao and two human crewmen sitting at consoles. They glanced at Lim, but said nothing. She could stand behind them, though, and watch over their heads at the jinau in their places.

Why do they do it? Lim wondered, still mystified.

 

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 03

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 03

Chapter 2

Ingolstadt, Upper Palatinate

“And there they are,” murmured Major Tom Simpson. He lowered his binoculars and leaned back from the gondola railing. Above his head, the great swollen envelope of the Pelican blocked out the sun.

“All four of them?” asked his aide, Captain Bruno von Eichelberg. He was still leaning over the rail, peering down at Ingolstadt. Peering toward Ingolstadt, it might be better to say. They were at least a mile away from the city walls and only a thousand feet or so high.

“Yup, all four,” replied Tom. “They’ve got them positioned just the way I would, too. One facing each way on the river and the other two facing north.”

Von Eichelberg grunted. “Don’t see much point to the two facing north. Unless they’ve got much better carriages than I can imagine them building in the past three months, they can’t swivel them much. Those guns were designed to sink ships and destroy fortifications, not fire on cavalry and infantry.”

“True enough — although God help any poor bastards that do come into the line of fire. Those are ten-inch rifles. Load ’em with canister or grapeshot and they’ll cut down anyone in front of them.”

Von Eichelberg curled his lip. “And if General Schmidt has recently lost his mind — which didn’t seem to be the case the last time we spoke to him, two days ago — he’ll march his soldiers right into that line of fire. But assuming he’s still the same canny bastard I seem to recall, he’ll stay well away from those guns. So I still don’t see the point.”

Tom made a little shrugging motion. “Where else are the Bavarians going to position them, Bruno? They don’t need more than one gun facing up and down the Danube. I grant you there’s only a limited value to where they have the other two placed, but the only alternative is to not use them at all.”

Von Eichelberg leaned back from the railing also. “Should we go closer? To see what else we might be able to.”

The young pilot of the Pelican, Stefano Franchetti, got a worried look on his face. “Ah… Major Simpson, by now the Bavarians almost certainly have some sort of anti-airship guns — or, well, something — in position.”

Tom scratched at his beard. Like most American men since the Ring of Fire, he’d abandoned the effort to remain clean-shaven and adopted the almost universal down-time custom of men maintaining facial hair. He wasn’t all that partial to beards, actually — and neither was his wife Rita. But he was even less partial to shaving regularly under seventeenth century conditions, that being the only practical alternative almost anywhere outside of Grantville or the few other places with a reliable supply of electricity. The safety razors which had come through the Ring of Fire were long gone by now, and while most electrical razors were still functioning, they were useless for a soldier on campaign.

There were now safety razors being made down-time by several companies, the best known of which was Burmashave. Of course, they were much more expensive than the ones which had been made up-time, but the price had come down far enough that they weren’t luxury items any more. Their use was still not widespread, however. Simply having safety razors wasn’t enough to make daily shaving a common practice, because there were so many other obstacles.

Up-time, everyone had had easy and effectively instant access to hot running water. Down-time, they didn’t — even in big cities, much less on military campaign. There was no premade shaving cream, no convenient cans of shaving foam or gel. You had to do it the old fashioned way with a shaving brush and soap. It could be done and some people did it. But most men didn’t think it was worth the time and trouble.

Besides, there was one definite advantage to being able to fiddle with a beard. It gave a man time to think. Cleanliness might or might not be next to godliness — Tom’s Episcopalian upbringing made him skeptical of simplistic Methodist saws — but he was quite sure that being clean-shaven was next to being a dumb-ass. How much silly trouble had men gotten into up-time because they hadn’t paused to scratch at their beards before saying something stupid?

Or, worse, doing something stupid. Witness the proverbial last words of the redneck: Hey, guys, watch this!

Ascribed to rednecks, anyway. Tom had known plenty of upstanding blue-blood wealthy young fellows back up-time who’d done things every bit as stupid as tease alligators or conduct drag races down city streets.

Still…

“Take us a little closer, Stefano.”

“But, Major –”

Tom raised a big hand in a calming gesture. “Relax. I don’t intend to fly over the city, I just want to get a better look.”

He saw no reason to add that what he specifically wanted to get a better look at was precisely the thing Stefano was afraid of — whatever anti-aircraft measures the Bavarians might have put in place since they seized Ingolstadt in January.

Anti-airship, rather. In the here and now, no one had yet come up with any effective way to shoot down airplanes unless the pilot did something reckless. The one and only instance in which ground fire had brought down an airplane was the killing of Hans Richter in the battle at Wismar during the Baltic War.

Hans had become a national hero as a result of that action — due in large part to Mike Stearns’ propaganda. But the truth was, Hans had screwed the pooch. He’d let his anger override his judgment in that battle. Even then, the shot that took him down was something of a “golden BB.”

Shooting down airships — or at least damaging them, or their crews — might be more feasible, though. The speed of airplanes, even the primitive ones being built in this era, was at least an order of magnitude greater than that of airships. As much as two orders of magnitude, for an airship moving slowly enough to be a good bombing platform, which meant no more than one or two miles per hour — just enough to keep steady in the wind. The Pelican and her two sister ships, the Petrel and the Albatross, had delivered a terrible blow to a Bavarian cavalry force when they dropped incendiary bombs on them. But they’d been completely stationary above the village where the cavalrymen were bivouacked and their victims had either been asleep or drunk — or both, most of them.

It remained to be seen what sober and alert defenders could do, especially now that they’d had three months to develop something. Ingolstadt was one of the centers of weapons-making in central Europe, so they would have had the resources to do so.

****

“Fire!” ordered Major von Eckersdörfer. A moment later, the first rocket in the barrage hissed its way into the sky. Within two or three seconds, eight others had followed suit. The tenth and last rocket in the planned barrage was a misfire.

And, as such, a source of considerable apprehension to the artillerymen handling the rockets. Most likely, the fuse had simply sputtered out and could be replaced. But there’d been one apparent misfire which had ignited just as an artilleryman had come up to it, taking most of the man’s face off along with his jaw. Perhaps thankfully, he’d died of the injuries within a day. Another rocket had exploded as the fuse was being withdrawn, killing another man instantly.

The standard procedure now with misfires was to wait a while, then toss a bucket of water over it — from as great a distance as possible — and wait a while longer before doing anything further. That “further” consisted of shoving it over an embankment with a long pole and waiting at least an hour before approaching the rocket.

And then… hope for the best.

Watching from a distance, Captain Johann Heinrich von Haslang thanked providence — again — that he was not assigned to the rocket unit. He was in command of a different sort of anti-airship effort, which was based on much more reliable weaponry.

He watched as the flight of rockets headed toward the still-distant airship. He thought von Eckersdörfer had given the order to fire too soon — much too soon, in fact. The rockets were of the new “Hale” design, copied from an American encyclopedia. The rockets were given a rotary motion in flight by the use of canted exhausts and small fins, which greatly improved their accuracy from the simple “Congreve” design.

But they still weren’t that accurate and the airship was at the very limit of their range. Von Haslang wasn’t surprised to see one, then two, then five rockets veer aside explode harmlessly in mid-air. Only the ninth rocket came anywhere close to the airship — and that was only “close” in relative terms. When its timed fuse set off the warhead it was much too far from the enemy craft to do any possible damage.

****

“They’re shooting at us, Major Simpson,” said Stefano, doing his best to control his anxiety and not succeeding particularly well.

Tom refrained from the obvious response: I am not blind, thank you. That would just hurt the youngster’s feelings. Push came to shove, Franchetti was a civilian, not a soldier. He’d volunteered for this mission — more likely, been volunteered by his employer, Estuban Miro — and had been reasonably cooperative. But he didn’t have much experience coming under enemy fire, so he had no good way to gauge how great the risk might be.

“Stop fretting, Stefano,” said Bruno von Eichelberg. “They fired much too soon.”

He pointed at the small smoke clouds left by the exploding rockets, which were rapidly being eddied away by the winds. “The nearest explosion — that one, see it? — is at least a quarter of a mile away and a hundred meters below us. Those warheads can’t weigh more than a few pounds. One of them would have to explode within twenty yards of us — no, more like ten yards — before it could do much damage.”

 

Through Fire – Snippet 47

The book should be available now, so this is the last snippet.

Through Fire – Snippet 47

“Only Good Man St. Cyr didn’t have many hereditary servitors. I think…” He was quiet a little while, then sighed, like a man reluctantly facing a necessity. “Do you know what– I mean, do you know what the job was that the man who would become Good Man St. Cyr was created for?”

“Yes. Spying, I think.”

Another long hesitation. “Sort of. Yes, spying was part of the job, but it was, mostly, general intelligence, assassination, covert war. Spying, yes, surely, but also targeted killing and…” He hissed air out between his teeth again, a disconcerting sound. “You see, I never knew the former Good Man. Not… closely. I knew him as a ruler, and I heard some things about him from Doctor Dufort. Doctor Dufort’s family, of course, had served the Good Man, but they weren’t exactly the same as palace servitors. Also, someone grossly enhanced and deviated from normal human genetics, if he’s at all smart, tries to keep alive the man who comes from the family which knows his make-up and how to treat any peculiar problems.”

“He didn’t keep other servitors alive? No hereditary servants?”

“I — No. I don’t know precise details, except when I became head of the secret police I discovered that the former Good Man was paranoid. More paranoid than is normal for a Good Man, that is,” he said. “He would trust someone or some family for a while and then decide they had abused his trust and confidence, and banish them and have them assassinated or executed. He was always afraid, I think, that anyone beyond Doctor Dufort might figure out what he was. I don’t know what the man saw during the Turmoils. Simon doesn’t seem to be… that way. And I wonder if it was acquired and if–” a sigh.

I took the opportunity to take another look around over the lip of the building. There was a couple walking down a street two streets away. I could see their heads, though nothing more. They were walking away from us.

“It can’t be helped,” Brisbois said. “If he’s going to crack with this, then he’s going to crack. And if he cracks, then… I don’t know what I’ll have to do. This is part of the reason I agreed with his plan to join the sans culottes and foment the revolution, so he could leave his post and go off and be a colonist in the newly recovered territories.” He chuckled. “Mind you, I can’t imagine Simon being a colonist anywhere even semi-wild, but that was his idea. Which, coming from a man who spent a substantial portion of yesterday trying to find his cat–”

“Mephistopheles?” I asked. Mephy was Simon’s cat, and sometimes I thought the only creature he really loved. A big black tom with an evil disposition, he shared Simon’s bed most nights, and always worried Simon when he disappeared. I felt guilty that I had totally forgotten Mephy’s existence in the middle of worry for his master.

“Yes. We haven’t found him, but at least there is no indication he died. He might not even have been near the palace. He’s a tomcat and he roams. But the Patrician worries for him. In the… in the original revolution there were episodes of cat killing, and the Patrician fears this might come to pass here as well. He fears it’s baked into the format. It’s not rational, but–

“No. But leaving aside the possibility that Simon will become paranoid due to the present difficulties, you meant to–that is I asked how Simon found out what his father’s plan was. You said it was before his father died.”

“He’s never explicitly told me, but I think his stepmother must have told him. How she found out, I don’t know. Good Man St. Cyr had her killed. She was not the woman who had borne Simon, who St. Cyr had had killed earlier. The same thing that affected all his close relationships affected the women he married, too. He’d start suspecting them, and… Well, Simon’s step mother gave birth to a little girl. In the ensuing … drama, I think she found out what the setup was and told Simon what his fate was to be, before she was killed with her daughter. Simon–” He stopped again, for a while.

“When I was fifteen, Doctor Dufort told me what I was and that my purpose was to serve Good Man St. Cyr. This was around the time when Simon was born, so I always had a great interest in the news of the heir and what he might be doing, because he was to be my future… boss is an inadequate word and Lord not quite right. Because the Good Man is fully autocratic, if you are one of his dedicated servants, either created on purpose or descended from the Mules servants, you can’t really change allegiance, and you are somewhere between an employ and a slave. The Good Man has full power of life and death over you. Anyway, the doctor told me so skillfully that I never thought that there was anything wrong with what I was and what I was meant to be. Not at least until I was nineteen and I fell in love.”

“With Madame Parr?”

“Yes. Rose… Back then her views on enhanced people and normal people were different. She thought we should rule them just by virtue of being enhanced. She thought it was disgusting that people were allowed to just be born naturally. She was supposed to be a secretary of the Good Man. No, that’s not exactly right. She was supposed to supervise the Good Man’s offices, his clerks, his archivists. Anyway, she saw just enough to think the Good Man was a fool, and the regime full of waste. She started a small revolutionary group. We called ourselves “The Just.””

“We?”

“I was …. I’d fallen in love with her, and I would do whatever she wanted. When we came of age, we got married secretly, because our position was complicated. We were technically just orphans rescued by the state, and as such free to marry like anyone else. On the other hand, we were what we knew ourselves to be, and our whole lives had been controlled from birth, so the idea that we were free to marry seemed like a joke. We weren’t free to do much of anything. So we got married, and I visited her in her rooms in the palace, as she visited me in mine. For ten years, we had this revolutionary group, but we never did much more than distribute pamphlets, and try to divulge some of the worst things the Good Man was doing. Like when he arrested someone secretly.

“Honestly, I don’t know how we weren’t caught. Then again, I should say I’m not sure that’s all we did. That’s all I did and all I knew about. I have no idea, though, if Rose’s activities were as restricted as my own.”

I looked over and surveyed the street. It was very quiet. From somewhere far off came the sound of raucous singing.

“I learned a lot of what I would call everyday deception and agitation,” he said. “Had to, since even distributing pamphlets or meeting with other malcontents was illegal and we needed to evade arrest. I know how to disguise myself, and how to pass unnoticed in a crowd.”

There was a sound of an explosion in the distance and I looked over to verify, but the street was still deserted.

“The thing is,” Brisbois said, like a man speaking out of a dream, “that when Simon found out about the … about what his father meant to do with him, he got in touch with Rose. And Rose took the specifications for what we were to do to the Good Man. There was a bomb planted in his flyer, but that was a ruse. A diversion. He wasn’t in his flyer at the time. The flyer was remote-controlled.

“You see, we needed an explanation for his having suffered brain damage, but the damage needed to be very specific, the sort of thing that would damage his brain, but not so that he would die, and which would give hope that he might be able to come back to full functioning. Simon figured that this was the one way that the other Good Men would not take over. St. Cyr had friends and allies among them, who would not encourage an attack on Simon and Liberte as long as there was a chance St. Cyr would come back. I’m not quite sure why, to be fair, but I think there were secrets held over people’s heads, and things that would come out one way or another. So, while I was instructed to put a bomb in the Good Man’s flyer, and I was told that it was meant to kill him, Jean Dechausse and Madame — I think by then he was already her lover and this was part of an elaborate plan to rid herself of me — applied the damage very carefully. He was then transported to the site of the crash and it was all staged.

“But I was traced as the planter of the bomb, and Simon had to, of course, throw me in jail.” There was a long silence. “Simon St. Cyr is not his father. It bothered him that the hit he’d ordered resulted in what was objectively an innocent man being condemned to death. As soon as he’d gotten full control of the reins of power in the seacity, he made it his business to seek me out in my jail cell. He refused to sign my warrant. He brought me out. He gave me a new identity.

“At first I trusted him no more than his father trusted anyone. How could I? After all, I’d just been set up to die by my wife, the person I trusted most in the world, the person I’d have followed into the jaws of hell. And I knew what his father had been. But we talked, and I realized that Simon was not his father. I realized that he truly had not meant for anyone to die, not even to save himself from death. He thought he was hiring a hit from experienced revolutionaries that would keep everyone safe from harm. He couldn’t understand how I’d got captured, and he didn’t want me to die for it. So, new position, new face, new name.”

“New face?”

He snorted. “Actually, most of it was done while in jail. There were… interrogation sessions, before I was convicted. This was before Simon had taken over. Before they gave up hope of bringing his father back. My features were permanently rearranged which, with a very little work from a skilled surgeon, became just a rather unremarkable face.”

“Ah,” I said. I’d wondered why someone enhanced would look like he did. It wasn’t that all enhanced people were beautiful, but most weren’t actually homely. He was. Something had been bothering me, in the back of my mind. “The double… Am I right to understand that the man to be executed in Simon’s place was a clone double? Or was he just some person whose features had been rearranged by plastic surgeons?”

“No. It was what we call a blank double. Yes, a clone. Not really acephalous but with no more brain development than it takes to keep it alive and in more or less decent health. There is no thinking, no personality there. Not even walking. We spread the word that he’d had a stroke, in fear at the invasion of the palace. They believed it.”

The idea made me squirm. Even without a brain, it seemed evil to create persons who… weren’t. And then to dispose of them.

“They were created as backups for Simon’s father,” he said. “As doubles of Simon, the same age he is. In case something happened to Simon that prevented the transplant, so his father didn’t have to die, if his transplant had to happen as an emergency.” An odd snort, hiccup, chuckle. “I understand most Good Men create these backups. Well, maybe not Good Man Sinistra. Creating a female once, and having her not die or be sterile, was enough of a miracle.”

“But,” I said. “I’d thought of that, but it makes no sense.”

“How not?” he asked.

“If they can have these blanks, why take the risk of creating a fake son, with his own independent life, one who might, you know, find out as Simon did? Why the whole elaborate charade?”

“Because they aren’t doing this in the open. They’re doing it in secret and behind everyone’s back. People aren’t supposed to know the Good Men are the Mules or, as they called themselves, the bio-lords, climbed to the top of the pile again. They have to pretend to be normal people with a normal family and have a normal, visible heir who will take over after them when they die. I mean, Mules can live twice or three times the normal span. They wouldn’t need cloning if both Mules and cloning weren’t illegal. As it is, they need fake sons, and an entire architecture of normal succession. There are other reasons — I understand — there are failings to these all but acephalous clones. They don’t have the right muscle mass, and there are problems with the attachment sites for the nerve endings. In fact, if anyone were forced to use one — and there’s rumors one or two of the Good Men have done so over the centuries, though I can’t, of course, verify anything — it would be the same as recovering from a near-fatal stroke or a brain injury. It would be neither easy nor simple. Certainly not guaranteed. So, a “real son” with a real history is vastly preferable. And this is why the doubles were Simon’s age. Were, because most of them were in Doctor Dufort’s lab, which had been blown up.”

I was about to ask him if that was indeed so, and if a son couldn’t be faked with public appearances by these clones, when he suddenly said something in that tongue I didn’t understand. Another voice answered with an incomprehensible word, and Brisbois said, “Merde.” He was moving, turning around, on his belly. I did too, to face him, just as he opened the trapdoor in the ceiling of the bathroom, and said, “We’re still safe, but they are on their way. Our moles in the sans culottes have passed word to Jonny. Madame knows the Patrician is here. She knows they beheaded a fake. She couldn’t care less about us, or where we are, but she cares about him, and she wants to eliminate him. We must clear out.”

“The brooms?” I said.

He shook his head. I figured he had a plan, but I said, “Simon is drugged into sleep.”

“Yes. And he’s had a couple of hours. I have the antidote.”

I wondered how he was going to deal with a combative Simon who would rightly feel betrayed at having been drugged into sleep against his will. I shouldn’t have worried. Brisbois had that covered.

The antidote left Simon oddly sleepy and compliant, blinking his eyes in confusion, and easily led, as we climbed back up to the roof — Brisbois pulled Simon up by main force — and then Brisbois produced a very light and compact rope ladder — it looked like it was made of transparent, very strong filaments — from some inner pocket.

I said, “A rope ladder?” as he was securing the thing to one of the cut outs on the edge of the roof.

“The well-equipped revolutionary is always prepared for a quick getaway,” he said. “Seriously, even though I see no one and you see no one, Jonny says the door to the motel is watched, so we must escape through the back, without being noticed. If we’re lucky.”

Brisbois went down the ladder first which made me wonder about both his loyalty and his chivalry, until I realized that climbing down a rope ladder might be a slightly too complex task for someone in Simon’s drugged state to execute. He stumbled from step to step, with Alexis’ very careful instructions, and when he fell the last few rungs. Brisbois caught him and set him on the ground, as I scrambled down.

We had no more than stepped on the filthy ground of the alley than I heard the sound of boots — heavy boots — running. Several alleys away, but headed for the door of the motel.

I looked at Brisbois. He nodded, once, and did something — some sort of special tug to his rope ladder that removed it from its attachment. He shoved it in a big mass into his clothes and then, without exchanging a word, both of us knowing exactly what needed to be done, we each grabbed Simon by the arm and ran.

I was very grateful that both them were enhanced, and that we could run very fast.

 

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 62

This book should be available now so this is the last snippet.

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 62

“Because he’s the guy with the camera and the dark room. Until someone starts making more photographic supplies, Fred’s the best we have.”

****

Jonathan was feeling ill. He’d just killed a man, and now he was sitting in an interview room at the police station opposite Officer Estes Frost describing what had happened. He looked up when the door opened. An attractive American woman in her late twenties entered.

Estes looked up. “Hi, Dita. I’m just about finished with Jonathan.” He turned back to Jonathan. “This is Dita Petrini, licensed professional counselor.”

“A shrink?” Jonathan asked. He felt able to smile, even if only slightly. Surely they wouldn’t be calling in a counselor if they were going to arrest him.

“You’ve just experienced something very traumatic Jonathan, and Chief Frost asked me to have a little talk with you before you were released.”

“I’m free to go?” Jonathan asked.

“Sure,” Estes said, “just as soon as you sign your statement.” He smiled at Jonathan. “Hey, you’re a hero, and we don’t arrest heroes.”

Jonathan knew he was going to be sick. He held a hand over his mouth, shot to his feet, and made for the door.

“To your left, three doors down,” Estes called out as Jonathan passed through the door.

Dita turned to Estes. “What’s to the left three doors down?” she asked.

“The men’s toilets.”

Dita nodded. “I guess Jonathan’s going to be otherwise engaged for a while, so I might as well drop into the other interview room and check on Richelle.”

“You do that. I’ll let you know when Jonathan comes back.”

****

Richelle had both arms around Lenya, who was still wrapped in Jonathan’s jacket while she still had Lenya’s blanket draped around her, as she sat at the desk in the interview room. Across the table from her sat Officer Erika Fleischer, whom she’d met when she first arrived in Grantville, and one of the female dispatchers, who’d been called in to record the interview.

While Officer Fleisher and Frau Carson conferred over the interview notes Richelle mentally reviewed the fight. In her mind’s eyes she could see Jonathan perform the knife counter she’d first seen Tommy Karickhoff demonstrate at the self-defense course, and she remembered Herr Karickhoff saying that it wasn’t easy to stick a knife into someone with that move. In her mind the action slowed down until she could see the deliberate effort Jonathan made, driving his knee into the pommel of the knife to drive it home. She’d seen the look in Jonathan’s eyes, and she knew he’d been trying to kill her step-father’s brother. “Is Jonathan in trouble?”

Erika looked up from the interview transcript. “From what you’ve said, and the evidence at the scene, it appears to be a clear case of self defense.”

Mimi Carson nodded in agreement. “Jonathan was protecting a young mother attacked by a knife welding man. He could have emptied a gun into him and there still wouldn’t be a jury that would convict him.”

Richelle relaxed. Jonathan wasn’t going to get into trouble for saving her.

The door to the interview room opened and Dita stepped in. “How are you holding up, Richelle?” she asked as she stepped into the room.

“Okay,” Richelle said. She’d had a number of counseling sessions with Frau Petrini, and knew her reasonably well.

“She was worried about Jonathan being in trouble,” Mimi said.

Dita turned and smiled at Richelle. “Chief Frost is treating it as a straight case of self defense.”

“Can I see him?” Richelle asked.

“He’s not feeling very well at the moment,” Dita warned. “Last I saw of him, he was making a mad dash for the men’s toilet.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Richelle demanded as she shot to her feet.

“I think it’s started to hit him that he’s just killed a man,” Dita said. “I’ll be scheduling some counseling sessions with him when he’s feeling more himself.”

Most of what Dita said was said to Richelle’s back as she ran out of the interview room.

She found Jonathan kneeling in front of a toilet, crying and shaking. She adjusted Lenya’s blanket until it covered both of them and held Jonathan tightly. “You saved me, Jonathan. You did what you had to do to save me.”

****

Erika, Mimi, and Dita were still looking at the door when Tracy Kubiak turned up.

“Where’s Richelle? How is she?” she demanded.

“Richelle’s okay,” Erika said. “She’s a little shaken, but basically unharmed.”

Tracy slumped and swayed. She had to plant her hands on the interview table to maintain her balance until Dita could maneuver her into the chair Richelle had recently vacated. “Where is she?”

Erika, Mimi and Dita exchanged looks. “I think she went looking for Jonathan,” Mimi said.

“That’s good,” Tracy said, a smug smile appearing on her face.

“I hope you aren’t imagining a romance, Tracy,” Dita said.

“Of course not. Jonathan’s six years older than Richelle, but that doesn’t mean she can’t have a crush on him.” Tracy said.

Dita pursed her lips and shook her head. “He’s still a guy, Tracy, and Richelle still has issues.”

“I thought she was getting better,” Tracy said. “Under the circumstances, you’d expect her to hate Lenya, but she absolutely loves her daughter.”

“She does,” Dita agreed, “and for a very good reason. Her step-father’s abuse stopped when the community discovered that Richelle was pregnant. Then, her pregnancy kept her alive when they executed her abuser. In Richelle’s mind, Lenya saved her.”

“Oh!” Tracy mumbled.

“Yes, oh,” Dita agreed. “Richelle’s got a long way to go before she recovers from what happened to her, if she ever does.”

July 4, Grantville

Richelle stood beside Jonathan watching the Fourth of July parade march past. Perched on Jonathan’s shoulders a happy Lenya followed the beat with her hands on his head.

Suddenly Jonathan hunched his shoulders and reached up for Lenya. “Someone, who shall remain nameless,” he told Richelle, “needs her diapers changed.”

Richelle glanced at the back of Jonathan’s T-shirt as he lifted Lenya. Yes, there was a damp patch around the neck. She felt a grin coming and tried desperately to smother it as she reached out to take Lenya. Then she saw the look on Jonathan’s face and lost it. She pulled Lenya close before turning and running, laughter ringing out as she ran.

Jonathan caught up with her a short distance down Market Street from Main Street. “It’s not that funny,” he said as he caught up.

Richelle struggled to stop laughing. “You should have seen your face.”

“It’s a bit awkward to see your own face,” Jonathan said.

Richelle wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes and smiled at Jonathan. Surprisingly enough she’d enjoyed the day in town with him. He was fun to be with, and he was safe. A movement to the side attracted her attention and she stopped laughing as she recognized a couple of the boys who’d been pestering her. They stared at her for a while before bolting.

“Who were they?” Jonathan asked.

A quick glance confirmed that Jonathan had seen the boys, which probably explained their hasty departure. They didn’t want to mess with Killer Fortney. “I don’t think I need to worry about any of the boys at school pestering me again.”

“Were they a couple of the guys who’d been pestering you?’

“Yes.”

“Then it looks like your mother’s plan worked.”

“Yes, but I’ve really enjoyed today. Thanks for agreeing to walk out with me.”

“Hey, no trouble,” Jonathan said. “I’ve enjoyed today too.”

They fell into step as they headed towards Trelli’s GoodCare pharmacy, where they’d stashed Lenya’s baby buggy rather than struggle with it in the crowd. “I still want a gun,” Richelle said.

“You can’t have one. The law’s pretty clear on that. You’re what, sixteen?” Jonathan asked.

“In September.”

“Right, and the legal minimum age to openly carry a gun is eighteen.”

Richelle skipped around in front of Jonathan and looked imploringly at him. “You’re twenty-one. We could get married.”

“What?” Jonathan roared. “People don’t get married just so they can carry a gun.”

Laughter rippled from Richelle as she stepped up beside Jonathan again. “And you call yourself a West Virginian.”

“Yes I do, and I can just imagine your Mama Tracy’s reaction if we told her we wanted to get married.”

Richelle grinned back. “The explosion would be impressive.”

“Which is why it’s not going to happen.”

“Of course it isn’t,” Richelle agreed, although she would have preferred that Jonathan not be quite so empathic about it not happening.

They walked in companionable silence towards Trelli’s GoodCare pharmacy. Richelle noticed the signs advertising the new Dr. Gribbleflotz alchemy sets in the window. “Why are they pushing the alchemy sets now? I would have thought they’d wait for Christmas, or at least until Halloween.”

“They couldn’t possibly miss the fourth of July,” Jonathan said.

“What’s so special about the fourth of July?” Richelle asked. “I know it’s your independence day, but what does that have to do with selling alchemy sets?”

“This is your first Fourth of July, isn’t it?”

Richelle nodded.

“Thought so,” Jonathan said. “Well, they end the day with a fireworks display.”

Richelle nodded. “So Mama said. We’re supposed to be going to the Fair Grounds to watch the fireworks tonight.” She looked up at him. “Will you be there?”

“I hadn’t planned on it.”

“Oh.” Richelle wasn’t aware of how disappointed she must have sounded until a hand landed lightly on her shoulder. She just barely managed not to try and shrug it off.

“I’ll call and arrange a time and place to meet you.”

She smiled at Jonathan, and stepped away just enough that his hand slipped from her shoulder. “That’d be nice.” Both of them stared at each other as Jonathan shoved his hands into his pockets. She was happy to see that he hadn’t taken offense at her maneuver. Maybe he understood that she hadn’t felt comfortable with him touching her. “You were explaining why Herr Trelli is pushing the alchemy sets.”

“Fireworks use gunpowder, and the alchemy sets all have the ingredients needed to make your own fireworks. There are going to be a lot of kids making their own fireworks for their own fireworks displays this evening.”

Richelle stopped to stare at Jonathan. “Are you telling me those alchemy sets give instructions on how to make gunpowder?”

“In excruciating detail,” Jonathan confirmed.

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Sure, but it’s a lot safer than leaving the kids to make gunpowder based on what they can find from sources like The Anarchist Cookbook. At least Dr. Gribbleflotz’ instructions contain safety warnings.”

Inside Trelli’s GoodCare pharmacy

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to buy Troy a chemistry set for his birthday,”‘ Phebe Morton said. “He’ll only be twelve.”

“Elisabeth Hockenjoss got a Dr. Gribbleflotz Junior Alchemist set for her birthday, and she’s only ten,” Tracy Morton said.

Phebe glared at her ten year old daughter. “But she’s a down-timer,” she said.

Tracy looked questioningly at her mother. “Why does Elisabeth being a down-timer mean she can have a junior alchemist set for her birthday and Troy can’t?”

“Can I help you?” Susan Little asked.

Phebe grasped the lifeline she’d just been thrown. “It’s Troy’s birthday soon, and he’s got his heart set on a Dr. Gribbleflotz Junior Alchemist set, and I’m worried that it might be dangerous.”

Susan nodded her head. “That is a reasonable fear. Of course there is an element of danger. That’s why the boxes are marked ‘parental supervision recommended’. However, the instructions for all of the experiments have all been carefully written by Herr Dr. Gribbleflotz himself. They explain in great detail how to perform each experiment, and come with warnings of what to look out for.”

“But I’ve heard that it is possible to make gunpowder and other explosives from the chemicals in the chemistry sets.”

“You’re right about the gunpowder. There’s not much we can do about not including charcoal, sulphur, and potassium nitrate. However, that’s the only ‘explosive’ you can make from the chemicals in the Junior Alchemist set. You need the intermediate set for the triiodide, and the advanced set for fulminates and guncotton.’

“You can make triiodide from an Intermediate Alchemist set?” Truman Morton asked.

“Truman, you’re not helping,” Phebe said.

“Sorry dear.”

Phebe glared at her husband, who she could see was reading the advertising for the Dr. Gribbleflotz Advanced Alchemist set. “We are not buying one of those for Troy.”

Morton grinned at Phebe. “I was thinking of getting an advanced set for me. Come on, Phebe. You know Troy’s got his heart set on a Dr. Gribbleflotz Junior Alchemist set.”

Phebe released a heavy sigh. “Okay, but you better supervise him when he’s using it.”

“Of course, dear.”

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 47

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 47

****

Tully was stripping off his workout top as he hurtled into the bay where his combat suit was waiting. His orderly, Corporal Enrico Toro, handed him the communication bud, and he shoved it into his ear while the orderly took his boots off.

“Tully here,” he almost shouted. “Talk to me!”

“Colonel, the aliens are attacking the Lexington,” a command deck tech relayed.

“Which aliens? Ekhat?” His mind immediately jumped to the worst-case scenario.

“No, Colonel,” the tech responded. “This system’s aliens, the . . . Khûrûsh.”

“Give me Vanta-Captain Ginta,” Tully ordered as he started pulling on the combat suit.

“Ginta,” came through the communication bud.

“What’s the situation?”

“A number of small spacecraft have taken off from the moon and the planet and are shaping fast-path assault vectors on Lexington. Dannet ordered Arjuna, Pool Buntyam and Ban Chao to move forward.”

“Any overt hostilities yet?” Tully’s mind was racing. This was why Ed Kralik had put him here, dammit, and he was on the wrong ship!

“Not yet,” Ginta said. “Ah, wait . . .” Tully froze with one arm in the suit and the other waiting to plunge into the sleeve Swift was holding. “Missile launches. Lexington is deploying lasers in anti-missile mode.”

“Okay, Ginta, I’ll get out of your fur so you can fight your ship. I’ll only break in if I see something critical.” Ginta dropped out of the loop without another word, and Tully finished his motion. “Tech?”

“Yes, Colonel?”

“What’s your name?”

“Eanne.”

A Jao name, so a Jao tech. Tully pulled his helmet on and checked the com connection while Corporal Toro checked to make sure the join and seals were good. “Give me a captain’s feed on my suit,” he ordered. A moment later the heads-up display flickered and he got a small size view of Ginta’s main view screen display. “Thanks. Keep me linked in to that, and keep an ear open for me to shout in if I need to.”

“As you direct, Colonel.”

Tully watched the feed while Swift helped him fit his gloves. Once they were on and sealed to the corporal’s satisfaction, Tully made alternate fists and pounded them into other palm just to make sure he was set. He gave a thumbs’ up to Swift, and headed out into the main assault bay.

Quite a few troops were already fitted out and grouping in the main bay, with more arriving every few seconds from the smaller bays scattered around the edges. Tully kept one eye on the feed while he looked around.

“Top? XO?”

“Sir,” the sergeant responded.

“Colonel,” from Major Liang.

“On me. Now.”

He toggled the ID control under his left armpit so it would appear on their screens. Within a few seconds he could see two combat suits going against the flow as they headed in his direction. They had their face-shields open, and he followed suit as they arrived in front of him.

“Okay, not much data available yet. Lexington is being attacked by a flotilla of small ships, a bit smaller than our shuttles. Dannet has ordered Arjuna, Ban Chao and Pool Buntyam forward to support Lexington. I don’t know if there will be any call for us, but we will stand ready. From the size of these ships, there won’t be any all-out assault opportunities like with the Ekhat ship. They don’t even look big enough to need a company assault. Major, get with the company commanders and dust off the plans for platoon and fire-team assaults. I can’t tell you what to expect, because I don’t know myself, but if Dannet does call on us, I want something available right then, not after an hour of discussion.”

“Got it, Colonel.” Liang turned away, calling the company officers.

Tully looked at the first sergeant. “Keep an eye on things, Top. I’ve got to pay attention to the situation.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tully closed his face-plate again and focused on the heads-up display. It looked like life was getting interesting for Lexington and her laser crews.

****

Lim stood against the back wall of the main assault bay, holding the staff with one hand. The mob of jinau troopers, both Jao and human, held her eyes while she listened in on an all-frequencies com bud that Gabe Tully had given her. It was fascinating to her to see the jinau sorting themselves out and forming up in their groups as she simultaneously heard Major Liang and the company officers discussing ways and means of committing mayhem in unknown ships, with muttered comments from Tully overlaying it all.

These humans . . . these Jao . . . they were prepared to fight–to wreak violence on other intelligent beings–for a purpose. Lim was straining to understand why, in the hopes that if she could fathom that, she would be able to better understand her own self, which was growing increasingly un-Lleix, she was afraid.

****

“Do not attack those ships!” Caitlin ordered. She could hear Pyr speaking passionately into a microphone, putting her message out.

Dannet stiffened and turned to face her, but before she could speak one of the sensor techs spoke up.

“More ships coming around from the opposite face of the planet. Looks like . . . at least another twelve ships.”

“Orders to Arjuna,” the fleet commander snapped, not looking away from Caitlin. “Move to intercept and interdict those ships. Orders to Pool Buntyam and Ban Chao: maneuver to the flank of the ships from the moon, and prepare to fire.”

“Do not attack those ships!” Caitlin said again firmly, her body positioned in the angles of adamant-purpose.

Dannet’s body shifted to ultimate-responsibility. “They are enemy. They are attacking us. We must defeat them to be safe.”

Caitlin let her body’s posture shift to pure adamant. “They are not Ekhat, Fleet Commander. They are no threat to us. Their missiles are too small to be anything much more than smart rockets, and they are too slow to be mass-heavy projectiles that could punch through us. Your lasers will take care of them, and if anything slips through, that’s why the ship designers put armor on these ships.”

Dannet’s angles slipped for a moment, and Caitlin laughed in reply; laughed with an edge, but laughed. “I read the reports, Fleet Commander. I know something of what we’re facing here. They’re not that much farther ahead of Earth than you think.”

Caitlin let her angles move to command-from-superior. “I have oudh over this search, and I say you will not destroy the only chance we’ve had to find new allies because of a lack of restraint. You will not repeat the mistake that was made with the Lleix!” She stared at Dannet, daring her to cross that line.

****

Vaughan flinched at that last statement from the director. He watched the confrontation from the corner of his eye as he continued to monitor his readouts and mutter an occasional note into his recorders.

Slowly–very slowly–Dannet’s angles morphed to acceptance-of-instruction. At the last, she said, “As you direct.”

The fleet commander turned away from Director Kralik. “Orders to all ships: defensive fire only.”

 

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 02

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 02

“You — you miserable cruds.” Angrily, the young lieutenant pointed at the wagon’s undercarriage. “What in the name of — of — whatever — is wrong with you? Can’t you see that the axle is broken? If you keep forcing the horses you’ll lame one of them. You have to lift the dam — blasted thing out of the ditch.”

The lieutenant was being a bit unfair — and certainly too harsh. It was true that the crew of the volley gun which was the focus of his displeasure had somehow managed to run their gun carriage into a ditch and had then broken the axle while trying to get it out. But they were almost brand new recruits, not one of Engler’s experienced crews. Judging from the way they were handling the poor horses, all of them were town youngsters to boot.

Thorsten’s rank was brand spanking new and he was still trying to adjust to his new status and position. General Stearns had only informed him three days before the march began that he’d succeeded in persuading the Powers-That-Be in the army’s headquarters in Magdeburg — translation: he’d done an end run around the brass and gotten the emperor’s ear directly — to assign the newest flying artillery company — just graduated from training camp, oh joy — to Stearns’ Third Division instead of sending it to Torstensson’s forces outside Poznań. (What possible use is flying artillery in a siege, after all?)

In his wisdom, Stearns had then decided to detach Engler’s flying artillery company from the Hangman Regiment and put Engler in charge of all the Third Division’s flying artillery units. That being one very experienced veteran company — his — and the newly arrived pack of mewling infants who seemed to have trouble telling one end of a volley gun from the other and one end of a horse from the other.

Where had they trained them? At sea? On fishing boats?

There was one — minor — positive note. Thorsten had given all the new officers a lecture on the subject of avoiding undue coarseness in dealing with enlisted men. He was pleased to see that the lieutenant was doing his best to follow the guidelines.

“Yes, you heard me, you — you — soldiers and I use the term broadly. Lift the carriage out of the ditch. No, no, no — after you unload the volley gun, you — you –”

The words trailed off, partly from exhaustion — not physical but mental. Spiritual, almost.

To make things perfect, Stearns had decided to call the new formation a “squadron” — the only squadron in the USE Army — and had promoted Engler to the rank of lieutenant colonel. The promotion was itself problematic. In part because he’d been leapfrogged over a number of majors at least some of whom were bound to be resentful. More importantly — Thorsten didn’t really care what envious thoughts might be infecting the odd officer here and there — because the rank of lieutenant colonel did not officially exist in the USE Army.

True, Jeff Higgins, the commanding officer of the Hangman Regiment, held the rank as well.

That made two of them. In the entire army. Marvelous. Should the military hierarchy — translation: pack of wretched bureaucrats who’d put the most hidebound theologian to shame when it came to dogmatic enforcement of regulations — eventually decide to disqualify Thorsten’s service on the grounds that he held no recognized rank, then should he be discharged due to injuries received he’d have neither a pension nor a valid disability claim.

Fine for Higgins to face such a plight. He was now a rich man thanks to the vagaries of the new stock market. Engler, on the other hand, was just a farmer with no farm whose betrothed had the income of a social worker — which was almost as mediocre in this universe as the one she’d come from.

One of the members of the gun crew slipped as they struggled to lift the carriage out of the ditch. Not surprising, really — it had rained the day before and the soil was still rather muddy. Thorsten was inclined to be charitable about the matter even if one of the wheels hadn’t broken as a result. The carriage was now effectively ruined.

The lieutenant was not so inclined.

“You — you — you — ”

****

Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Higgins, on the other hand, was in a fairly good mood. A bit to his surprise — certainly to his pleasure — his new adjutant Manfred Blecher was proving to be every bit as competent as Eric Krenz, who’d formerly held the post.

Not as much fun, true — not nearly as much fun, being honest. Blecher wasn’t exactly a dour fellow but no one would ever mistake him for the life of the party. But Jeff would gladly settle for competence. He was by now accustomed to running an entire regiment, but it was still a task that was made much easier by having an energetic and intelligent staff, even if it was only a staff of three people: Blecher, who served as what the navy would call an executive officer, and Rudi Bayer and Ulrich Leitner. They were, respectively, in charge of personnel and logistics.

The weather was nice, too. There weren’t but a few clouds in the sky and almost no wind. That probably meant there wouldn’t be any rain today, which would give the soil a chance to dry out from the rains of the past week. Thankfully, those hadn’t been particularly heavy.

Jeff could remember a time — a bit vaguely now, almost five years after the Ring of Fire — when he’d had accurate weather forecasts readily available on what amounted to a moment’s notice. But he didn’t really think much about that, any more. The seventeenth century was what it was, and all things considered he wasn’t a bit sorry to be in the here and now. His wife Gretchen was enough to make up for everything he’d left behind — and then some.

He would admit to occasionally missing Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. They did have ice cream now, true. But it was a long way short of Cherry Garcia.

Best of all, on this first day of what was shaping up to be a fairly brutal campaign — nobody took Bavarian armies lightly in the here and now — Jeff finally had a cavalry force he had a lot of confidence in.

Cavalry had always been the biggest weakness of the new USE Army, and of the Third Division in particular. A very high percentage of cavalrymen came from the nobility and most noblemen weren’t any too fond of the new political dispensation. Not in general — and certainly not when it came to the person of Mike Stearns, whom they blamed more than anyone.

So, they’d had to make do with what they could scrape up. But here again, as with the beefed-up flying artillery, Stearns’ stature with Gustav II Adolf since the Saxon and Polish campaigns the year before and the Battle of Ostra in February had paid dividends. He’d been able to persuade the emperor to free up some of the cavalry assigned to Torstensson’s two divisions at Poznań and send them to join the Third Division in the Bavarian campaign.

Jeff would have been glad to get any experienced cavalry force. But to put the cherry on the cake, the emperor had sent them Alex Mackay and his unit of Scots horsemen. After Mackay had recovered from the wound he’d gotten in Scotland from would-be assassins, he’d rejoined the Swedish army and participated in the invasion of Poland the year before.

Now, he and his men had swapped uniforms and were part of the USE army’s Third Division. They were out there patrolling ahead, making sure there weren’t any Bavarians lurking about intending to commit mischief. Jeff figured they’d all be able to sleep easy for a few nights.

Not many, of course. War was what it was also.

 

Through Fire – Snippet 46

Through Fire – Snippet 46

Search the Sky

Brisbois reached out and grabbed at Simon’s arm. “Not yet,” he said.

Simon looked up at him and scowled. “If it’s true,” he said, “that we’re about to be invaded and if you add that to the bloodbath taking place more or less continuously, people like us hunted down and killed both here and in the territories, certainly you can’t mean we should delay. Delay why? Delay how?”

“Delay,” Alexis said, “because you’re dropping on your feet, Simon. When is the last time you slept?”

“I?” Simon seemed surprised at the enquiry. He ran his hand across his face, again. “Couple of days ago, I think. I can’t risk being caught. And I was looking–”

“You have both of us to watch over you,” Brisbois said. “No one is going to surprise you. And with you being officially dead, you have some protection. Unless I’m very wrong, I know how to watch over the entire area.” He went into the bathroom and we heard him banging on something. He returned and announced, “Yep. We can go up on the roof and watch the whole neighborhood. There’s roof access in the bathroom. I thought there might be.”

“Why?” I said.

He shrugged. “Because these motels aren’t dimatough. They’re ceramite. If one of them catches fire, the entire motel will be an inferno, and your only chance at survival is a broom from the roof.”

“Is a broom provided?” Simon asked, sounding as curious as I felt.

Alexis nodded but made a face “Four, which is the maximum occupancy for the room. But I don’t know if — if any of them will fly. Never mind. You and I are provisioned, and should it become needed to clear out, Madame Sienna can double up with one of us. However, in our situation, taking off flying from the roof might be more of a problem than roasting. It will attract attention from the Revolutionary Guard watching the air.”

“So,” Simon said. “Why delay in this flea-bag fire trap? Let’s go and–”

Brisbois shook his head. “Unless you are at your best, you’ll get killed and if the complete list of people like us isn’t in your head, I’d bet you know a lot more about where to find the right people, how to command their loyalty and where to find the vehicles and weapons needed for defense. I was your second in command, the master of your guard and your defense, and yet you often told me things I didn’t remember or had never known about. What’s more, you have their loyalty.” His voice changed from explaining to begging, “Simon, we can’t do this without you. That’s the whole point. If we could, we would go ahead without you, and I’d gladly take you to a place of safety as I took Doctor Dufort and his wife.”

“But I am fine. I don’t need to sleep,” Simon said. He tried to look alert but the tiredness was visible behind his eyes. “And besides, what if someone followed Zen here?”

“They would have shown up by now. I have been paying attention to every sound nearby,” Brisbois said. “There is no one in pursuit, or they didn’t make it this far. My guess is Jonny threw them a spectacular distraction, to keep them from finding her.

“Fine, so we’re safe,” Simon said. “And it’s time to work. How do we start? Whom do we contact?”

“We contact Jonathan LaForce,” Brisbois said. His eyes were narrow as though he were calculating something. “And we wait for his answer. And should he not answer, we try Mailys and then on down my list. When one of them answers, we arrange a meeting with everyone they can reach. Then we figure out the best way to start, by taking Madame out first, I think, but I would like their opinion. It’s not going to be done quickly.”

“But surely,” Simon said, “nothing can be gained by waiting.”

Brisbois suddenly made a sound somewhere between an exclamation of surprise and a shout, while looking behind me, at the door to the motel. He reached in his pocket.

I turned. There was nothing but motel door, locked and completely uninteresting.

I turned around again, and pulled my burner, pointing it between Brisbois’ eyes, as he was holding Simon, who had lost consciousness. Or at least I hoped that was it, and not that Brisbois had killed him. I shouldn’t have turned. Oldest trick in the book. Obviously, Simon had turned too.

“Soporific. Injector. Fast acting,” Brisbois said, ignoring me and the burner, as he half-carried, half-threw Simon onto the bed. “Stop glaring. He was not going to sleep any other way and we can’t risk having him blundering around sleep-deprived. Help me get the dresser in front of the door for double insurance, and then we’ll go up to the roof and keep watch while he sleeps. I’ll send coded messages out and see if either Mailys or Jonny answer. And in a few hours, we’ll see what is sane to do.”

I hesitated a moment before putting my burner away and lending him a hand moving the ceramite dresser — heavy, ungainly and poured by someone who didn’t mind if he left sharp protrusions in the furniture — in front of the door, solidly blocking it.

He led me into the bathroom, where he stepped up on the vanity which groaned and creaked under his weight, and reached up to pound his fist on a barely visible trapdoor in the ceiling. It was only visible because there were stains from its having leaked, all around the edges. It took a moment to open at his pounding, possibly because of the rain and some decay on the finish, sealing it shut.

When it opened with a bang, bringing an influx of night air into the room, he lifted himself up by the force of his arms, and pulled himself onto the roof.

Then he lay flat and extended a hand down to me, to help me up. I ignored his hand and instead clambered up on the vanity and reached both arms up. At which point he put both hands just about at my underarms and pulled me up, while I tried vainly to make it up on my own.

“I didn’t need help,” I said as I landed on the roof, and then I wanted to bite my tongue in two for making such a childish remark.

His eyes danced with amusement but he didn’t say anything, except, “Down.” He had settled on his belly.

The top of the unit was completely flat, covered in dust and debris, of course, from years in the elements, but mostly crusted with a white salt coat, like almost everything in this artificial seacity in the middle of the ocean. Around the edges was a little lip, probably not more than had been left by the extruder, but enough to hide us when we fell flat on our bellies. There were roughly cut holes on the edges of the lip, to let rainwater out.

“I will settle myself there,” Brisbois said, pointing to the hole across the way, which looked out to the back of the cabin. “And you can stay here,” He pointed to the nearest hole. “Do try to look through the hole and only to look above the lip now and then,” he said. “There is no use exposing your head to a casual shot. On the other hand, looking above the lip will give you a panoramic view. So it’s worth looking up through it sometimes. Just not always.”

He went and laid down across from me. We were over the little protrusion that was the bathroom of the unit, so our legs lay side by side, while we looked over opposite sides of the building. I had a pretty good view of the front door, and I assumed he had a good view of the alley behind, the one that ran between the cabins of the motel.

I settled myself down and took a cautious look above the lip of the roof. Everything was still, almost too still, in the near vicinity. There was no one out, no one on the streets. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Doesn’t this place do any business?”

Brisbois made a sound like a cough. “Oh, yes, but that’s because it’s just up from the port. Normally it rents its rooms by the hour. But the traffic in and out of the port has stopped, and I suspect any strangers caught here are lying low, not out looking for company.”

“Oh,” I said. “A whore motel? In Eden– I mean, where I come from–”

“Yes?”

“Well, I suppose there are some like this,” I said. “But the ones you hear about are the really nice ones. The better sort of courtesans tend to… you know… purchase permanent rooms in places with all the amenities so their clients feel pampered.”

There was a long silence and then he said, in a tone of hesitancy, “Prostitution is legal where you come from?”

“We don’t have laws,” I said.

“Oh, we do. And around here it’s illegal. I’m sure the better sort of prostitute has nicer places to take her clients, but this is pretty average for your normal, run-of-the-mill prostitute. And run-of-the-mill prostitutes aren’t doing much business just now, certainly not in the usual way.”

I looked again and everything around seemed peaceful. I doubted Brisbois had chosen this particular motel at random. The place was on a little rise, probably built on top of a set of warehouses or something else that was a half-level up, and therefore commanding a broader view of the neighborhood than any other place around.

In the distance there were shouts, and flares. It looked like something being set on fire, because the flares were too large for a burner, but it all seemed very far away, and nearby there was no sound at all, save a cricket chirping somewhere to the left of the building.

I heard Brisbois say a couple of words. At least I thought they were words, but they were in no language I knew. I turned around to see him doing something with a ring on his finger. He said another couple of words that were in no known language, then let go of his ring, picked up his burner and looked over the lip of the building, while he said, “Sending a message to Jonny and Mailys.”

“I figured,” I said.

There was a short silence, and then he said, “I thought while Simon is asleep, I might explain to you… anything that you don’t understand or don’t know about what is going on.”

My turn to cough, to disguise a laugh. “You’re just afraid of what I might do if I don’t know and run off my own.”

“Do you blame me?”

“Perhaps not, but answer me this first: you gave the Patrician some type of knockout injector?”

“Yes.”

“What if we do spot hostiles, and it’s someone we must run from in haste?”

He made a sound like a hiss. “Madame, I am not stupid. It is unlikely we’ll have to run in a hurry, or at least in that much of a hurry, but if we have to run, then I give the Patrician an antidote.”

“You’re carrying an awful lot of those around?”

He chuckled. “Half a dozen. Mostly with a view to disabling guards, if needed, but also, I’ve known the Patrician for a long time.”

“How long?”

“In a manner of speaking, his entire life,” he said.

“But he didn’t know about you,” I protested.

“Well, he did and he didn’t. I’m sure he’d seen me a few times. You see, I was raised in a crèche controlled by Doctor Dufort. And the Patrician was attended by the doctor as his physician, so I’m sure our paths crossed now and then, but–”

“But I doubt he paid me much attention. Or knew who lived in the crèche, or what he had in common with us. You see, for the rest of the world, and for us too, for most of our childhood we were just orphans, abandoned or surviving parents who had died, and being raised by the doctor out of charity. We called him father–”

“Did he know?” I asked.

“What that we were created in a lab? Yes, I believe so. Since he oversaw the process, how could he avoid knowing?”

“I’m not wholly stupid, you know. That was not what I was asking. I was asking if he knew about what the Good Men did, creating children clones of themselves and then having their brain transplanted into their putative son’s body, as a way to immortality.”

Brisbois hissed again, but this time it seemed like a sharp intake of breath between the teeth. “The doctor is not a monster,” he said.

“I didn’t think he was. Not in your opinion, at least, since you made a special trip to save him, and you still call him father, but I wondered if he knew. People–” I said, partly sincerely and partly trying to ease his qualms and get him to talk. I felt like I only had a partial picture of this strange place and the relationship between people, and if I was going to survive this very dangerous time, I needed to know more. “People do strange things when under restricted circumstances. Even good people can do… things under pressure of the circumstances, and if I understand the Good Man regime, no one was quite free.”

“Only those who chose not to play along with society or established norms,” he said. “Difficult for a medical man. But no, I don’t think he knew. I think he found out after the Good Man found out. Simon, I mean”

“Why? I mean, why do you think that?” I looked up and again everything was deserted, though it seemed to me I heard steps some streets off.

“Because I was there when Simon told him, and Father’s face…” He sighed. “He thought, you see, that since the Good Man was a Mule — yes, he knew that — and he couldn’t reproduce with a normal woman because of the stops built into his kind, he had to create a clone of the Good Man, and implant it under the guise of a routine exam, in the Good Man’s wife, and that way he’d assure succession and stability. He never knew… He had been Simon’s physician since Simon was very small, and he had looked after him. He considered Simon, like us, almost one of his children. I’ve never seen anyone so shocked as when he found out what the plans for Simon were. When Simon told him, I mean.”

“How did Simon find out? Or did he only find out when his father was incapacitated.”

Brisbois snorted. “I found out what I was at eleven. Father — Doctor Dufort, I mean, told me. He told us when he thought we were ready for it.”

“I didn’t–”

“Ask? No, but it’s the only way I know to answer what you did ask. Listen. He told me when I was eleven. He told Rose a little before that. What was explained to me, and probably to her, too, was that since the Patrician was enhanced, he needed servants who were enhanced too. Also, that other Good Men had enhanced servants, and so our Good Man needed to have them too, to defend himself from attempted takeovers. True as far as that goes, you know? Even if it were possible to completely ban bio-improving technology, no Good Man could ever trust any other Good Man to keep his word and not to create his own improved army to take the others out. There have been fewer wars recently, but in the early days many of the Good Men got taken out as others conquered their domains. I think about seventy of the Mules got left behind on Earth when the Je Reviens took off. This is not an accurate count, but the best guess we can make. They then took over the power structure, half of which was already… dictatorships by someone called a Good Man which ironically was supposed to have the connotation of non-genetically modified. But then they consolidated by killing each other and invading.

“When a Good Man takes over the domain of another, the normal procedure is to kill all the upper servants, precisely because they are assumed to be enhanced, or made stronger or smarter. Either that, or they are descended from people who were enhanced and stayed behind to serve the Good Man. In any case, they will be the most capable of the people on the seacity. To take them out is to decapitate the structure, which means it can then be replaced with the invader’s people.