Eric Flint's Blog, page 309

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 38

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 38

Even rags, Tromp reflected, continuing the futile task of cleaning his hands with a towel already inundated with bilge water, even rags were rare enough commodities, here. What weaving the locals did was crude, and not suitable to all purposes.

“Shall I fetch you another towel, sir?” Willi asked as he peered into the evidently expectant mess.

“No use, Willi. Let’s not keep the cook waiting.”

The watch officers had taken advantage of the admiral’s inspection of Aemelia‘s orlop deck and stores to rouse the first watch out of hammocks and make for the galley, where the cook (one of the few that had all his limbs) had set about building his fires and preparing the food, all the while debating provisions with the purser, as usual. However, the moment the admiral entered, the men, regardless of rank or age, looked up expectantly, with the suppressed smiles of boys who’ve done their chores early and without being told to.

Tromp suppressed a smile himself, nodded to the cook. “Up early today, are we, Ewoud?”

Ewoud effected dour annoyance. “It is as the admiral says. These louts couldn’t wait to fill their bellies today. Can’t think why. Sir.”

“No, me either,” agreed Tromp, going along with the act. The men grinned. As had sailors from the dawn of time, they had a natural affinity for a quiet, firm commander who could enjoy and acknowledge a joke without becoming part of it himself. “What feast have you set on today?”

There was a quick exchange of glances — none too friendly — between the purser and the cook before the latter waved at the simmering pots with a hand that invited inspection. “Well sir, this morning I thought we’d depart from local fare, and –”

Tromp shook his head. “A nice gesture, Ewoud — and Mr. Brout,” he added with a glance at the purser who had no doubt pushed Ewoud to use the Old World supplies, “but there are to be no exceptions while we are in port. Local foodstuffs only.”

“But sir,” Brout explained, hands opening into an appeal, “soon, even the peas will spoil if we do not –”

“Mr. Brout,” Tromp let his voice go lower, less animated, and then turned to face the suddenly quiet purser, “I assure you, I have the spoilage dates of all our dry goods well in mind. And they do not worry me.” Particularly since, after today, we’ll be finishing them up quickly enough. “Do I make myself clear?”

Brout looked as though he might have soiled himself. “Yes, Admiral. Perfectly clear.”

Ewoud was trying hard not to smile, and, satisfied, sent his young assistant — barely thirteen, from the look of him — scurrying to swap around the bags and casks of waiting food. “Tapioca and mango, then. Smoked boar for a little flavor.” The mess-chiefs who’d come down from each group of mess-mates sighed. Tapioca and cassava crackers were the new staple of the Dutch navy. Such as it was.

Tromp looked over Ewoud’s broad, sweat-glistening shoulders deeper into the galley, saw familiar bags and barrels with Dutch markings. The last of the foodstuffs we sailed with, of the meals that we thought we’d eat until the day the sea swallowed us up instead. Whether on the Dutch ships that had sailed into disaster at Dunkirk or on those moored in safety at Recife, there was little variation in the bill of fare that had been loaded into their holds before leaving the United Provinces of the Netherlands.

Each day had begun with bread and groat-porridge, and lunch had been less of the same, but usually with strips of dried meat and also a sizeable part of the daily portion of cheese. Sunday dinner meant half a pound of ham or a pound of spiced lamb or salted meat with beans. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday fish with peas or beans were on the menu. On Thursday it was a pound of beef or three ounces of pork and on Friday and Saturday it was fish again. But long before the food ran out, the beer was gone. Since it spoiled comparatively quickly, it was an early-journey drink.

Even before the disaster at Dunkirk, the admiralties had also taken a page from the books of the up-timers, and citrus or other fruits had been part of the provisions on the way out, and then, were a high priority item to acquire as soon as landfall was made in the New World. Happily, that was easily accomplished. And if the transition from gin to rum had been strange, it was not unpleasant, and Tromp had to admit that it mixed with a wider variety of the local juices. Indeed, it turned a cup of soursop from a rather musky, acquired taste, into a delightful and reputedly healthful drink.

But what started as a few expedient replacements for Old World comestibles had now become a wholesale substitution of them, since the familiar foods of home had no way to reach them. It had been a month since Tromp had enjoyed bread made from anything other than cassava, and longer since he had any meat other than goat. But at least he had two full meals a day, which was more than could be said for the almost three thousand people who were his charges on Saint Eustatia. And now, he would have to dip deeply into already-scant stockpiles of durable food —

“Mr. Brout, you are to be given the first helping of breakfast.”

“Why — yes, Admiral. Thank you.”

“Do not thank me. It is so you may go ashore as soon as possible. You are to requisition as much salt fish, smoked goat, dried fruit, and hard-baked cassava loaves as you can find. Tapioca for porridge, and beans, too.”

“I am to ‘requisition’ it, sir?”

“Yes. We will settle accounts later.” If we’re alive to do it. “You are to return by noon. The supplies are to be loaded by nightfall.”

“Admiral, that leaves me little time to negotiate for a fair –”

“Mr. Brout, you do not have time to negotiate. You will see that the holds of our ships are provided with three months rations, at a minimum. You are to begin by calling upon Governor Corselles. He will have my message by now, and will accompany you to ensure the compliance of your suppliers.” And to watch out for your own profiteering proclivities, Brout.

Whose eyes were wide. “Yes, Admiral. If I may ask, are we soon to weigh anchor –?”

But Tromp was already out the door and into the narrow passageway. He was halfway up the ladder to the gun-deck before the raucous buzz of hushed gossip surged out of the galley below him.

Willibald, at Tromp’s heels, laughed softly.

“Something amusing, Mr. van der Zaan?”

“Yes, sir. Very much, sir.”

“And what is it?”

“How an admiral of so few words can work up so many men so very quickly.”

Tromp shrugged and turned that motion into an arm-boost that propelled him up onto the gun deck with satisfying suddenness. Men who were hunched in whispering clusters came to their feet quickly. Over his shoulder, he muttered, “A man who yells does so because he is unsure that he is in command. Remember that, Willi.”

“I will, sir.”

Tromp, walking with his hands behind his back, nodded acknowledgments to the respectful greetings he received from each knot of befuddled seamen. However, his primary attention was on the guns. The last of the culverins were gone, as he had ordered. In their place were cannon, although one of those was only a thirty-pounder, or ‘demi cannon.’ But each deck’s broadsides would be a great deal more uniform now: another up-timer optimization that tarrying at their Oranjestad anchorage had enabled. Gone was the mix of culverin and cannon of various throw-weights and the occasional nine pound saker, and with it, the variances of range and effectiveness that made naval gunnery even more of a gamble than it already was.

He popped a tompion out of a cannon’s muzzle, felt around within the mouth of the barrel. Sufficiently dry, and with a paucity of pitting that testified to the routine nature of its care. Salt water was a hard and corrosive taskmaster.

Admirably anticipating his next point of inspection, a gunner came forward at a nod from his battery chief and made to open a ready powder bag. Tromp nodded approval, turned to young van der Zaan. “Fetch Lieutenant Evertsen to find me here. He’ll need to complete the inspection. Then make for the accommodation ladder.”

“Why, sir? Are you expecting –?”

A single coronet announced a noteworthy arrival on the weather-deck.

“Yes,” Tromp answered, “I am expecting visitors. Now go.”

*     *     *

Tromp looked up when, without warning, the door to his great cabin opened and Jan van Walbeeck entered. “You’re late,” the admiral muttered.

 

Trial By Fire – Snippet 10

Trial By Fire – Snippet 10

Trevor leaned back. “So, twenty-eight shift signatures confirmed. But they’re not all headed our way. Only the probe ship and maybe half a dozen more are coming straight for us. At three gees.”

“Three gees? That means the leading ship will make intercept in–”

“–in just under thirty-one minutes. Although I don’t think that detachment is heading for us at all. Like the rest of the local traffic, we’re just a nuisance to be brushed aside in their race to get to The Pearl. The rest of the invaders’ fleet is moving to engage our already-deployed forces. There’s gonna be one hell of a big fight about twenty light-seconds farther out.”

Caine did some rapid math concerning the detachment that was heading for them. “If their lead ship has drones, and they’re no better than ours, that means that their first weapons platforms will be zipping past us in just under nineteen minutes. That means they’ll probably be able take us under fire in no more than twelve to thirteen minutes. Less, if their drones and weapons are better.”

“Which is probably the case.” Trevor activated his collarcom again. “Lieutenant Hazawa?”

It took Hazawa about ten seconds to respond. “Yes, Captain Corcoran?”

“Have you been given orders?”

“Just came through now, sir.”

“And?”

“And we are to commence stern-chasing the shift-carrier Prometheus immediately, sir. Silent running.”

Trevor checked his nav plots. “Lieutenant, have you looked at what that means?”

“I have, sir.”

“It’s going to have us paralleling the OpFor’s approach trajectory to the Pearl–and unless we move to four gee immediately, they’re going to overtake us. As it is, if they’ve got drones, their remote units will overtake us.”

“Big Lady’s direct orders, sir: to get you two gentlemen out of this system. So we need to make rendezvous with the Prometheus, and that trajectory is the only way to do it. But we’ll push the engines and burn to four gee.”

“What sort of countermeasures are loaded?”

The extended pause was not promising. “A Level Two ECM package and two point-defense fire pods.”

“Ship-to-ship ordnance?”

“None, sir. Sorry. We came to this party equipped to be a racecar, not a gunboat.”

“Then put the pedal to the metal and get us the hell out of here, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll be informing the other passengers in a moment, and give them four minutes to get into and flood their acceleration compensation tanks. Then we’ll–”

“Son, every minute you give your passengers to get comfy makes it that much more likely that you will not outrun the OpFor and that, in consequence, we will all die. Recommend you hit the accelerator in one minute and tell the biofreight they’ve got that long to strap in, wherever they can.”

A pause. It was a nonregulation procedure suggested to a twenty-five-year-old who’d never been in a shooting war. Then, “Aye, aye, sir. Strap in.”

The shipwide blared Hazawas’ warning overhead. Caine strapped in slowly, deliberately.

“You okay?” Trevor was looking over at him.

“Yeah–yeah, I guess I am.” Caine was suddenly more aware of the perverse calm he felt than any fear of personal harm. It was either a helpful precombat reflex or a pathological level of traumatic dissociation. Or maybe those were the same thing. He couldn’t believe that he was smiling, but the stretching pain in his injured lower lip confirmed it.

Trevor was staring at him. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Well, I’m not about to start drooling or run around shrieking, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean. Okay, then. Any second n–”

Trevor didn’t complete the word “now” because four gees of force suddenly crushed them in their couches as irresistibly as a trash compactor. Jesus Christ. How the hell do the regular crews take it?

The force abruptly shifted to the side, like a hammer had hit the starboard side of the cutter. The lights flashed off and came back on in an environment that was once again weightless. A shuddering rumble tremored through the deck, then another two in quick succession. “What the–?”

“I think that was combustive venting of some tankage baffles.”

“And the first big slam?”

“Well, either we had one hell of a malfunction or their capital ships have a hell of a lot more range than we do. And if their main weapons can disable us at their current rang–” he checked “–which is about one hundred thirty kiloklicks, then whatever they just hit us with would tear apart our biggest cruisers at normal engagement ranges. Which means that if our fleet waits to get into optimal range–”

“–they’ll never get off a shot,” finished Caine. “They’ve got to concentrate long-range fire on a few select hulls and try to keep distance.”

“Hard if they’re already on course for direct engagement.”

“Yeah, but that’s for the admiral to decide. Either way, the whole fleet needs this information.”

Trevor nodded. “Bridge.”

Caine could hear the chaos clearly over Trevor’s collarcom. “Captain–Mr. Corcoran–please. Not now. We’ve lost the preignition torus and power to the starboard plasma thrusters. If we don’t–”

“Son, has anyone else been hit yet?”

“Erm–no; we’re the lucky first.”

“Then you have to break silence and send this tactical update out on general broadcast. Give our current range to the enemy’s capital ships and attach the damage report.”

“Sir, I don’t under–”

“Just do it, Lieutenant. The admiral and line captains will know what to make of it.”

Hazawa signed off. Trevor brought up a screen which duplicated the bridge’s engineering board. He shook his head. “Not good. The portside pulse fusion engine is completely gone. We still might get away if they fix the preignition torus for the plasma thrusters.”

“That’s a big ‘if.’”

“You bet,” agreed Trevor. “Half of everything else is fried. Countermeasures are gone. So’s one of the PDF defense pods. At this point, they could finish us off with a few thrown rocks and sharp insults.”

“Structural integrity?”

“Hard to say. No problem amidships or up at the bow, but to aft, most of the hull sensors in engineering are out.”

“Usually not a good sign.”

“No, not at all.”

“Sensors and commo?”

“Not much damage there. They’re all up front, near the bridge module.”

“One last question: how many friendlies are in scanning range, and how close are they?”

Trevor shifted to the close range plot. “Nothing big: an autonomous drone carrier deploying its complement, two tenders, a tanker, another cutter. And a missile frigate, coming up from The Pearl, probably trying to buy time for evacuation and for getting the carriers out of the slips.”

“Any pattern to the vectors of those ships?”

“They’re all over the place, although the frigate and the drone carrier are heading to engage.”

“Which means they’ll be coming right through our current position.”

“More or less. The others are maneuvering away, but every one of those ships is still going to be in the neighborhood when the party starts.”

Caine checked his chronometer. “Okay. If our first guesses about the enemy’s speed are correct, we’ve now got between five and six minutes before their drones can start pranging us. And let’s assume they’ve got better range, too.

“Okay, so that means we’ve got three or four minutes. What’s your point?”

“Right now, what do you think this ship should be doing?”

Trevor looked sideways. “Well, not standing toe to toe with drones, let alone battlewagons. We’ve got one remaining PDF system for knocking down missiles that come within five hundred klicks. It might put a few dents in a small craft, if one strays within a few kiloklicks of us. But that’s the extent of our offensive potential.”

“Do you think that’s how Hazawa is going to see it?”

Trevor looked down, considering. “Probably not. He’s young, true-blue, eager to prove he’s not scared–so he’ll have a tendency to try to fight his ship. And kill himself.”

“And us.”

Trevor nodded. “So I’ll have to talk him out of that, and also out of maneuvering. Because if Hazawa gets mobility back, his immediate reflex will be to run or hide. And they’re both suicide. Even if we get the preignition torus running, we still can’t pull ahead of their main hulls, even if we jettisoned all the modules. And their drones–at eight gee minimum–will be all over us long before then.”

Caine shrugged “So, with no place to hide, no way to fight, and not enough speed to run, we’ve got only one choice left.”

“You mean we should play dead? How’s that going to help?”

“Well…it might not. But it has this advantage over the other three alternatives: it might work.”

Caine nodded. “Remember, the Ktor categorized us and the Hkh’Rkh as warlike, but not the Arat Kur. So, given the superior tech we’ve observed, let’s assume we’re being invaded by the Arat Kur. Being busy and not innately savage, they might survey the wreckage, see no activity, no emissions, and then push straight on to their primary objectives at The Pearl.”

“And maybe we can still make the rendezvous and shift-out, if the Prometheus can slow down a little,” Caine added.

Trevor shook his head. “With an invasion under way, the Prometheus can’t slow down. Not enough, anyway. This attack, and our need to wait until the coast is clear again, are going to put us too far behind to catch her.”

“Okay, but if any of our military shift carriers make it to the outer system, we could plot an intercept course for them. They’re probably going to wait as long as they can for their combat complements to make it back to their berthing cradles, and that might give us enough time.” Caine shrugged, waited a moment. “So, what do you think?”

 

Eric Flint Newsletter – 26 MAY 2014

I’ve been feeling a little guilty because it dawned on me a while back that the photograph of myself that I’ve been using on this web page is pretty far out of date. How far? I’m not really sure, but I figure it was taken about a decade ago.

Given that I’ve been known to make sarcastic remarks about people who keep public photos of themselves that are ridiculously out of date, I figured I better take care of the problem. So I had the same professional photographer I used then, whose work I like, do a current set of portraits for me. One of them is now being used as my picture on the web site’s home page, and I added several others to the Photo Album section.



In other news of the day, I have a novella coming out next month in a volume published by Phoenix Pick titled The Aethers of Mars. Phoenix Pick is an imprint of Arc Manor, and is edited by Mike Resnick. Each volume matches an established writer with a newer writer telling stories set in the same universe. My story, “In the Matter of Savinkov,” is set in a steampunk universe developed by my partner in the project, Chuck Gannon.

Here’s the URL, for those interested.

In still other news of the day, Baen Books has scheduled a 1632 novel I co-authored with Paula Goodlett and Gorg Huff for publication in November of this year. Paula and Gorg were my partners in writing 1636: The Kremlin Games. The new novel, 1636: The Viennese Waltz, is set in (where else?) Vienna.

The new novel involves many of the characters developed by Paula and Gorg for a number of stories published in either the Grantville Gazette magazine or one of the Ring of Fire anthologies. It will also serve to some extent as one of the prequels to my next solo novel in the series. (The title of which I haven’t yet figured out, but my informal working titles run along of the lines of Mike Whups on Max and Mike Marches on Munich.)

– Eric

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 37

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 37

Chapter 19

St. Eustatia, Caribbean

With the dawn silhouetting the culverins that jutted out aggressively over the ramparts of Fort Orange behind them, Martin Tromp turned to look into St. Eustatia’ wide leeward anchorage. Almost thirty-five hulls lay invisible there, except for the spars that stuck upward from them. Like crosses in a water-covered graveyard, he thought, gloomily, Which is what this harbor will be, if we — if I — fail to dance every one of the next steps correctly.

Soft movement behind him meant the only other man in the skiff, besides the combination steersman and sail-handler, had approached. “Should we take you straight to the Aemelia, Admiral?” asked Jakob Schooneman, captain of the Dutch fluyt Koninck David. A merchant, an adventurer, and now, quite obviously, a confidential agent for the United Provinces, and possibly for the USE as well, Jakob Schooneman had been absent from the Caribbees for many months. He had made a northern passage back to the New World, touching at several places along the northern reaches of the Atlantic coastline, searching for other Dutch ships that could be spared for Tromp’s fleet: the last in this hemisphere flying Dutch colors, after the disastrous Battle of Dunkirk, not quite two years earlier. Jakob Schooneman’ success had been modest, at best.

Tromp nodded, not turning to face Jakob Schooneman, determined not to look him in the eyes until he could be sure of what the captain would be seen in his own. Tromp looked up at the sides of the hull now looming out of the charcoal-blue mists: the Aemelia, his fifty-four-gun flagship, and one of the few to survive the withdrawal from Dunkirk. He could still see her as she was during that perilous October flight across the Atlantic to Recife: her hull scarred and holed by cannonballs, most of her spars and rigging incongruously new because almost all of what they had sailed into battle with had been shot away or so badly savaged that they had to replace it as soon as they knew they were free of Spanish pursuit. Only the stout mainmast remained of the original spars, black with both age and grim resolve. Or so Tromp liked to think.

When he could discern the faint outlines of her closed gun-ports, he turned to the master of the Koninck David. “Thank you for coming to see me directly, Captain Jakob Schooneman. Your visit was most informative.”

“Glad to have been of service, Admiral.”

“Which we are happy to return. The lighters will be out with your provisions by noon. You are sure that none of your men wish shore liberty?”

Jakob Schooneman smiled crookedly. “‘Wish it?’ They most certainly do. I wish it myself. But circumstances dictate otherwise, wouldn’t you agree, Admiral Tromp?”

Tromp suppressed a sigh, looked into the purple-grey western horizon. “Yes, they do.” Now close abeam his flagship, Tromp called up to the anchor watch. The ship above him was silent for the moment it took for the watch officer to stick his head over the gunwale, squint down and determine that yes, it truly was the admiral arriving before the full rose of dawn was in the sky. Then the Aemelia‘s weather-deck exploded into a cacophony of coronets and drums which rapidly propagated into the lower decks as well.

“Nothing like an unannounced inspection to set the men on their toes, eh, Admiral?”

“Indeed. And it is a serviceable pretext, today.” An accommodation ladder was dropped down along the tumbledown of Aemelia‘s portside hull. In response, the skiff’s tiller-man lashed his handle fast and grabbed up a pole to bump against the fifty-four-gunner’s planking, keeping them off. Tromp put out his hand. “Fair weather and good fortune to you, Captain. You have need of both, it seems.”

Jakob Schooneman’s lopsided smile returned. “I shall not deny it. And you, Admiral, the same to you.”

Tromp nodded, prepared to ascend, thought Yes, I need fair weather and good fortune, too. For all our sakes.

*     *     *

Tromp was surprised to see lanky Willem van der Zaan waiting for him at the forward companionway. It was Tromp’s wont — indeed, most officers’ — to first make for their berth in the aft quarter. But here was Willi, waiting at the forecastle, his cuffs rolled up neatly and pinned, even.

Tromp managed not to smile at the fresh-faced youngster’s quick nod and winning smile. “You are up early, Mr. van der Zaan. And more mysterious still, you knew to wait for me here, at the other end of the ship from my quarters. Have you been consorting with sorcerers?”

“No, Admiral. Just watchful.”

“You saw me coming?”

“No, sir…but I was standing the last leg of the middle watch and saw the fluyt that came in slow and quiet from the north. At night. Passing other ships at anchorage without a hail.”

Tromp stared at Willem. “Little Willi” — what a misnomer, now! — had not just grown in mind and body, but subtlety. A year ago, he might not have come to such a quick and certain surmise that the incoming ship’s quiet approach signified an ally wishing to make a brief, surreptitious visit. Instead, he would have reflexively sounded an alarm signifying that pirates were upon them under cover of night. “You are very observant, Willi.”

“I am the admiral’s eager pupil, sir. If I’m not mistaken, that was the Koninck David, sir, wasn’t it?”

“Mmm. And how did you know?”

“Captain Jakob Schooneman’ rigging, sir. He’s always ready to run as near to the wind as he can.”

Because he’s often working in dangerous waters, gathering, or carrying, confidential information. Tromp felt his smile slacken even as his pride in van der Zaan grew. All of which you know, don’t you, Willi? Knowledge is what brings childhood’s end, and you are indeed Little Willi no longer. Which means that now, you will face the same duties — and dangers — as the rest of us. May God watch over you, dear boy, for from here on, my ability to do so will be greatly reduced.

They passed the galley. Urgent sounds of hurry that bordered on chaos spilled out.

“Early to be serving breakfast,” observed Tromp.

“Turning out for the admiral,” was the respectful correction offered by van der Zaan, as they passed. “I suspect the cook will be putting an extra few rashers of bacon on, today. Do you not wish to inspect?”

Tromp nodded. “Yes, but they are doing well to be about their business so smartly. I shall give them time to make good their special preparations.” He turned to his young assistant. “Letting men succeed, particularly in a special task which they have taken up on their own initiative, builds their pride. Which builds their morale.”

“Yes, Admiral,” said Willi with a smile which also said, As you have well and often taught me, and as I have well and fully learned. After a moment, he added, almost cautiously, “You seem distracted, sir.”

If you only knew. “Not at all, Mr. van der Zaan. I am simply quiet when I am most attentive.”

“Ah. Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

Is that a way of saying, “Of course I will agree to your obvious lie, sir”? Well, no matter.

Willi followed Tromp to the next ladder down. “Where are we headed, sir?”

Tromp stopped, hands on either side of the almost vertical between-deck stairs that seamen called ‘ladders.’ He looked at the young man gravely, knew that the moment he uttered their first inspection site, Willi would know what was in store, what kind of news had come in from the Koninck David in the small hours of the morning. “The bilges, young Willem. We are going to the bilges.”

Willem van der Zaan’s eyes widened. Because he had not forgotten — how could he? — Martin Tromp’s weekly litany about preparing for battle: “You check the ship from keel to foretop. You do it yourself. Meaning you start in the bilges.”

“The bilges?” van der Zaan almost whispered, looking very much like Little Willi again.

Tromp just nodded and headed below.

*     *     *

Tromp was still trying to wipe the stink of the bilge water off his hands when he returned to the galley. The ship was in readiness — he had expected no less — and despite the long wait for action, she was well-caulked and her gear made fast with tight lashings and adequate dunnage. But the inescapable fact was that there was simply less gear than there should have been. Dry goods were low, as was cordage and canvas. They had managed to procure some through the intercession of Sir Thomas Warner, the English — well, now state-less — governor of nearby St. Christopher. But sails came at quite a price, since Warner got the canvas via the occasional traffic from Bermuda. Wherever possible, Tromp and his fleet of almost forty ships had adopted local expedients in place of Old World manufactures, but good, reliable chandlery — to say nothing of nails, tools, and metal fixtures of all kinds — was not being produced in the Caribbees, or anywhere in the New World, outside the greatest of the Spanish ports.

 

Trial By Fire – Snippet 09

Trial By Fire – Snippet 09

Trevor was already activating various systems, bringing up monitors, screens, relays. “From here we can tap into bridge comms, sensor data and–”

“–and run the ship if something happens to the bridge crew.”

Trevor glanced at Caine, who was watching his actions closely. “I guess you were paying attention in some of those classes.”

“Well, yeah.” Caine dogged the hatch, which doubled as an outer-airlock door when the module was in free space. “But I wasn’t thinking about access to auxiliary’s redundant controls.”

Trevor spun open the inner airlock hatchway. “No? So what were you thinking about?”

“Er…I was thinking that it’s the only module really capable of autonomous operations.”

Trevor stopped in the hatchway. His look of surprise quickly became one of grim affirmation. “You’re right. Auxiliary command is the best lifeboat on this barge. Certainly the only one with any sustained maneuver capabilities.” Trevor moved to the command console, powered it up, moved his hand toward the fusion plant’s initiation switch.

Caine caught Trevor’s hand before he could light it up. “Not a good idea.”

Trevor looked at Caine’s hand restraining his own, then up into his face. “Have a good reason.”

“Survival.”

“What do you mean?”

“Trevor, if we’re at general quarters because some of our interstellar neighbors have decided to come calling with their equivalent of shotguns and machetes, then I think we might not want to be sending out radiant emissions–of any kind–from this module.”

Trevor’s frown subsided slowly. “Christ, you’re probably right. But let’s not guess, let’s find out.” Trevor tapped his collarcom. “Bridge.”

A delay, then a babble of background voices–too many of which were rapid and high-pitched–before they got a direct response: “Clear this channel and stay off–”

“Son, this is Mr. Corcoran. Status?”

A pause. “Oh–Captain. Sorry, sir. I–”

“No need to be sorry. I’m just asking for a courtesy sitrep.”

“Yes, sir. We don’t have all the info, sir. We’re pretty far down the intel food chain from CINCBARCOMCENT. But it looks like something shifted into system. Not running a transponder signal.”

“You mean, not running an Earth transponder signal?”

“No, sir. I mean whatever it is, is dark. Completely dark, except for neutrino emissions.”

“You mean, its shift signature?”

“No sir, I mean its pumping out neutrinos and–well, subparticulate garbage.”

“In a beam?”

Caine got Trevor’s attention, shook his head.

“Stand by.” He turned toward Caine. “What?”

“Trevor, that doesn’t sound like a weapon signature. Sounds more like a field effect of some sort.”

“Yeah, like a shift signature.”

“But since it’s done shifting, and the signature is never more than a brief pulse, it’s got to be something else.”

“Like what?”

“Some kind of engine or power plant. What else would create neutrinos?”

“I don’t know; let’s find out.” Trevor called up the feed from the bridge sensors. Nothing except a red blinking cursor which marked the mystery ship’s real-time location within the star field.

“What’s its range?” Caine asked.

“Tell you in a second.” Trevor reconfigured the screens slightly. “Lying out at one hundred kiloklicks, doing nothing.”

“Yeah, sure. Ten to one it’s running passive sensors and making a list of the active systems we’ve lit up to assess it: what kind of emissions, where from, phased or single arrays.”

Trevor nodded. “Essentially, they’re building a target list. And testing our response, maybe hoping to draw some fire.”

“Which would also be invaluable intel.”

“But it’s too goddamned small to be a shift-carrier.”

“Trevor, who says the Arat Kur–if that’s who’s come calling–have to work on our scale of shift carriers? You saw how small the Dornaani hull was that carried us to the Convocation. What if the Arat Kur can make something that’s only two or three times larger?”

“And so they send it ahead to gather intel. But how do they go home to report? Say ‘pretty please’ and then go tank up at one of the outer gas giants?”

“No. They’re not going back home.”

“What do you mean?”

“Trevor, this is not a ‘scout and withdraw’ mission. This is a probing force that’s also playing Judas goat. It has to be, because in the next few minutes, they must either use, or lose, their tactical surprise.”

“Which means that a follow-up force–”

“Can’t be far behind, particularly if they want to make good use out of the target list they’re compiling. And since their first ship might get a powerfully unfriendly reception–”

“–they had to assume that it might not survive too long if left on its own. And that means–” Trevor tapped his collarcom again. “Bridge.”

A different voice. “Sir, this is Lieutenant Hazawa. I don’t mean to be rude, but–”

“Lieutenant, shoot this message up the chain using my name and reserve rank, marked for Admiral Perduro. Message begins: urgent that we presume enemy fleet inbound–”

And then it was bedlam on the other end of the channel: contact klaxons; shouted orders; a loud, steady recitation of a long string of bearing and range marks. Sensor ops cut in. “Skipper, we’re getting direct feed from The Pearl’s arrays and remote platforms. Major gravitic distortions above the ecliptic, registering at regular intervals, accompanied by bursts of cosmic and gamma rays. High confidence these are multiple shift signatures. Estimating fourteen and still counting–”

Caine felt a fast flush of panic. Fourteen? Good god–

“Mass scanners and high-end EM emission sensors confirm presence of large spacecraft, apparently in two groups. Range to first group is approximately two hundred kiloklicks. Range to second group is approximately four hundred kiloklicks. Awaiting definitive range estimates from active arrays.”

Trevor frowned. “Two waves.”

“Or the fleet’s direct engagement elements are out in front, screening its supporting auxiliaries and landing forces. How are we responding?”

Trevor spent a moment more listening to the comm chatter. “Sounds like we’re moving seventy to eighty percent of our heaviest and fastest hulls to a direct intercept. Probably most of our drones and control sloops as well.”

“The others? In reserve?”

“I don’t think so. The chatter makes me think that they’re a trailing escort for the shift carriers.”

“Which are where?”

“Well, four were in far orbit after refit and upgrades. My guess is that they’re moving at best possible speed toward the shift points and have activated the automated tankers for rendezvous during preacceleration.”

“Do you think they can make it?”

“They’ve got a better chance than the two older carriers that were in the slips. They’ll be lucky to cast off before the hammer comes down.”

“If they can cast off at all; I heard some scuttlebutt that the work crews hadn’t even received the new drives, yet.”

Trevor nodded sourly. “It figures, if it’s true. The repair and retrofitting work has been so extensive that it’s been getting backlogged–and you never want to have that many ships tied up in one place at the same time.”

“So, given The Pearl’s current traffic jam, a worst-case scenario today means–”

“It means we lose six military shift carriers and most of their fighting-ship complements: the majority of the Commonwealth and Federation fleets, combined.”

Caine looked at the nav screen, followed the pencil-thin orbit plots of the various human vessels against the black circular backdrop of the gas giant, saw them all spiraling out from the now golf-ball-sized orb that was The Pearl. The name had been a bad omen, after all–except this promised to be even worse than Pearl Harbor. There, the most important ships, the fleet carriers, had been out of port when the Japanese Zeros and Kates came out of the sky and put the rest of the Pacific Fleet at the bottom of the stretch of water known as Battleship Row.

And at least there had been something to do, in those days. You saw your enemy. You could pick up a rifle or a submachine gun and fire your own small counterattack–and expression of rage and retribution–into the sky, trying to gouge the red, rising-sun eyes that stared down from the bottom of each aircraft’s wings. But here, in space, the enemy appeared at a distance of almost one full light-second. And you waited and listened and did nothing. You sat in relative comfort, with access to reams of data that might means one’s own–or one’s species’–death and were absolutely unable to do anything about it except watch, reassess, and watch some more. And whereas Caine had been frustrated by that “sit on your hands” aspect of how events proceeded in space, Opal Patrone had been nearly driven to distraction by it.

Caine smiled. Opal was just about the most direct person he knew, often bordering on the impetuous. A trait she proved not only in the staff room but the bedroom. And yet, despite her forthright manner, her innermost feelings remained a mystery to him. Perhaps because they were still a mystery to her as well; Opal was all about action rather than reflection.

Caine’s felt his brow wrinkle, his smile sadden. His feelings for Elena notwithstanding, by the end of the Convocation he had already begun to realize that he and Opal were simply not the same kind of people, did not speak the same kind of language. Perhaps, by the time he saw her again on Earth, she would have realized it herself. But even if she hadn’t, and even if Elena had not reemerged into Caine’s memory and life, it was far better to let things end things now. The alternative was to have his and Opal’s fledgling relationship slowly erode into mutual misperception and the desperate approach-avoidance sine wave of two people whose genuine attachment and intimacy nonetheless refused to coalesce into a sustainable love.

Oddly, that was the moment that Trevor tapped the sine-wave dominated screens showing the long-range sensor results. “The energy signatures are starting to settle into discrete point sources. We’ll have final results soon.” Caine stared at the screens over Trevor’s shoulder, wished he had had more time to become familiar with the various crew stations and control systems of a modern spacecraft. But he was just a pretend-officer, given a rank so that he could give orders to people who had more training and skill than he did. It was no longer just a farce; it was a black comedy.

 

Trial By Fire – Snippet 08

Trial By Fire – Snippet 08

Chapter Five

Outbound from Barnard’s Star 2 C

Fifty minutes later, while settling into the accommodations on the modular cutter that was set to sternchase and catch the Prometheus before her shift, Caine finished folding the dress uniform he had worn precisely one time: yesterday, when he had been commissioned in the Space Force. He stared at the silver oak leaf on the jacket’s shoulder. God damn, how the hell did I get through four weeks of combined basic and OCS? And zero-gee ops and logistics? And combat simulators and live-fire range time whenever I wasn’t up to my eyeballs in refresher calculus and space physics? Between the trip-hammer pace and never more than five hours of sleep a night, it had become an absurdist comedy by week three. And then, with a salute and a step back, it was all over. Mustered out into the Reserves. As if it had never happened at all.

From the other side of the cramped cabin, Trevor’s voice was wry. “Thinking great thoughts?”

“Hell, just thinking. I forgot what that feels like.”

Trevor emitted a short laugh. “Yeah, they kept you busy. Kept shifting gears between brain-work and body-work, too. Although that can help.”

“Why?”

Trevor didn’t look up, kept entering security codes into their shared commplex. He was determined to finish changing the habmod’s registry from military to civilian/diplomatic before the cutter got underway. “When I went into the Teams, the hardest thing about hell-week was that it was almost all physical. They just kept hammering at you, at the same strengths or weaknesses. Half the battle for me was finding a way to cope with the monotony.” Trevor turned away from the commplex. Now when the module arrived at Earth, it would not indicate its passengers were military personnel. “Fortunately, I had a very colorful instructor.”

“Colorful?”

“Stosh Witkowski. Never cusses, but he has a rare talent for inventing the most elegant insults that I have ever heard. And of course, I got a particularly rich share of his attention.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Trevor looked at Caine as if he was yet another new species of exosapient. “I was an officer, an Annapolis legacy, and the child of a celebrity father.” The last word threatened to catch in his throat; Trevor rose and exited their stateroom briskly, waved for Caine to follow. “Let’s get something to eat before they make us strap in.”

Caine followed Trevor into the small galley that was opposite the module’s combination entry hatch/docking ring. The small observation port–still unsealed–offered a memorable view: framed by the top-and-bottom gridwork of the cutter’s module-laden trusses, the system’s second gas giant loomed as a great black arc, backlit by the dim red glow of the occulted Barnard’s Star. A blood-washed white dot winked near the shoulder of the dark planetary curve.

Trevor nodded at the speck. “Say goodbye to The Pearl. They’ll be shutting the viewport any minute now.”

“Why?”

“Meteorology detected a flare, just as we came on board. Nothing too rough, but in addition to the rads kicked off by the gas giant, you’ll want more than a layer of sunscreen between you and the Great Out There.”

“Has The Pearl changed much since the last time you were here?”

“Does a ‘Force base ever change?”

Caine snagged a cube of water, unfolded the integral straw. “You tell me. It seemed–well, almost deserted.”

Trevor nodded, perching on the countertop across from Caine in the excessively cozy space. “Yeah, and I had expected the opposite. Given all the traffic that’s been through here, and all the carriers and combat craft that the rosters say are in-system, I was sure the place would be overflowing, not a ghost town.”

Caine looked at him directly. “Galley scuttlebutt says that it’s because almost all the combat hulls are already deployed and double-crewed. Waiting.”

Trevor sipped his water, waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, yeah, the Defcon Three that no one mentions and everyone knows about. Great cover-up, too: lots of threadbare bullshit about ‘routine maneuvers.’ Meanwhile, it’s common knowledge that assets are being dispersed to undisclosed groupment points or are shifting out-system to the ‘training reserve’ at Ross 154. Some secret.”

“And all that precautionary activity wouldn’t clear the bleachers?”

“Not like this, no. It wasn’t just the lack of shipside ratings cycling through the base. It was the constant reduction of dirtside techs. Do you know that there were fifteen hundred cryocelled maintenance and construction personnel sent back on the last carrier that went out?”

“Are replacements on the way?”

Trevor shook his head. “I went down to the slips, asked around. Nada.”

“So what do you think the brass is up to, and why aren’t they telling us?”

“They’re not telling us because we’re not in the need-to-know loop.” Trevor grinned ruefully. “And since no one here is aware that we’re IRIS operatives, no one is aware that we have the clearance to hear the secrets they’re not going to tell us, anyway. On the up side, we also never had to use those goofy, Odyssey-based code names my father hung on us.”

“Admiral Perduro knows about our clearance levels.”

“Yeah, but I’m not so sure she’s fully in the loop herself. Look how she reacted to your commissioning orders: an official posting to Naval Intelligence but with a track for unrestricted line promotions. I don’t think she saw that coming, judging from the way she frowned when she read it out to you.”

Caine nodded. “I think you’re right. Downing cut the orders; she just cut the ribbon.”

“Thereby authorizing you to wreak havoc amongst genuine military personnel.”

“Smile when you say that, Captain.”

“I was.”

“Didn’t look like it.”

“I was smiling inside.”

“Uh huh.”

Trevor did smile now. “Look, nothing against you, Caine, but Uncle Richard seems to be making this stuff up as he goes along. My promotion, your commission and ‘training,’ our immediate conversion to reserve status: this is so nonregulation, that I’m past being surprised. For all I know, he might try to appoint someone as Grand Fez-Wearing Poo-Bah of the God-Emperor’s Armada. What he’s been doing with ranks and titles and clearances–hell, it’s just not done.”

“Well, maybe not, but Downing had sign-offs from the president and the Joint Chiefs.”

“Yeah, but just because it comes from so high up the chain of command that no one dares question it doesn’t mean that it’s in trim with the regs. And I’m telling you, based on eighteen years of first-hand experience, that it is all non-reg. Sooner or later, someone’s going to insist upon an explanation.”

Caine nodded, watched as the incandescent crimson edge of the planet’s terminator rotated into view. “Yeah, there are a whole lot of explanations that would be pretty welcome right now.”

Trevor glanced at Caine. “You mean, explanations for all the attacks on you?”

“Yeah, and on your dad and Tarasenko. And Elena’s abduction on Mars. Every time I try to make sense of the incidents, the unanswered questions come hammering down like I’m hatless in a hailstorm.”

Trevor smiled ruefully. “Judging from your tone of voice, you’re getting pelted by those questions right now.”

“Not all of them, but there’s one incident that has started to trouble me more than the others,” Caine admitted.

“Which one?”

“Remember those two Russians who broke into my room on Mars and tried to kill me? That attack just doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Trevor’s voice was mildly incredulous. “You mean, it makes less sense than the others?”

Caine nodded. “Yeah. Actually, almost all the others were conducted by faceless assassins, people who–like the guy today–don’t officially exist. But the Russian I killed on Mars not only had an identity, he was part of their consulate’s security force. And Russians, Trevor? Russians? That makes almost as little sense as my living through the attack.”

“You mean because the second guy left you alive when you were out cold?”

“Damned right. What the hell was that about? He had at least three minutes to kill me while I was senseless on the floor, before the police showed up. But all he does is cut my left arm?” Caine stared at the now almost-invisible four-inch scar, and shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yeah, well, at least you’ll be able to get some updates on the investigation, now that we’re heading back to Earth–”

Their habitation module’s main access portal rammed shut with a metallic slap. Blood-red emergency flashers strobed in syncopation with the alarm klaxon.

“–Or maybe not,” Trevor finished. “We’ve gotta move. That’s an automated call to general quarters.”

Caine rose to follow Trevor–and crashed into the right side of doorjamb face-first. The cutter had ceased acceleration, and without the thrust to hold Caine in place, the world had tilted out from under him in mid step. Drifting backward, Riordan struggled to remember his zero-gee training, flailed his arms, caught the left side of the jamb, steadied himself. From the hatchway coaming, Trevor’s voice was sharp. “Goddamnit, Caine: move! We’ve got to get out of this can.”

“Wha–?”

“Just shut up and follow me to the module access tube.”

“And then?”

“Just follow me for now.”

Small drops of his own blood swimming up past his eyes, Caine grabbed a handhold, propelled himself through the combination hatchway and docking ring–and stopped himself just before crashing into Trevor’s extremely broad back. “What gives?”

Trevor was squinting up the cutter’s spinal access corridor, to which all its modules were attached like ribs to a sternum. He shook his head and started pulling himself hand over hand in the opposite direction. “Follow me. Fast as you can go.”

Caine trailed Trevor inexpertly, but noticed that it became rapidly easier to use the handholds. Sort of like crossing monkey-bars underwater. But the arm-over-arm half-swim, half-climb rhythm was broken when Trevor turned ninety degrees “down,” plunging through a hole in what Caine was still thinking of as the “deck.” Caine followed awkwardly, looked around as he came through the docking-ring coaming and then the hatchway: the Auxiliary Command module. “Why are we here?” Caine asked.

 

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 36

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 36

Chapter 18

San Juan, Puerto Rico

Barto — the only name he ever gave out because it was the only one he had ever had — ate the third slice of papaya greedily, washed it down with a mix of rum and soursop. The musky taste of the latter mixed well with the local spirit’s strong cane flavor. Speaking around the mixture in his mouth, he addressed his host. “So you’ve business with me, eh? Can’t remember when a man in silk trousers had business with me. Now, silk-trousered ladies, on the other hand –” Had Barto’s senior “officers” been present, they would have no doubt laughed on cue.

But tonight, Barto had no audience. He was alone with his host, Don Eugenio de Covilla, who now seemed to be attempting to suppress a disgusted sneer, as he had throughout much of the meal. But Barto suspected that his host’s duty to Spain and Philip came before indulging in displays of repugnance. “Señor Barto, I most certainly do have business to conduct with a man of your — experience.”

Barto leaned back, belched, and studied the Spaniard. A minor functionary recently dispatched from Santo Domingo. A dandy who had probably been in fewer fights than Barto had warts (well, a lot fewer fights, by that count). But the Spaniard reeked of oils and silver, and while Barto had no need of the former, he had both a powerful need and lust for the latter.

Ironically, Barto’s increased need of silver was a direct consequence of his corresponding increase in good fortune. His “free company” had grown prodigiously in just the past month. Three weeks ago, while drawing near shore at Neckere Island to take on water and any fruits they could find (scurvy having made yet another general appearance), Barto had come upon a sloop-rigged English packet in the throes of repressing a mutiny. Drawn by gunfire as a shark is drawn by blood, Barto quieted his men and commenced to run close against the far side of the headland at which the packet was moored. After putting his best boarders into his smaller boat — a shallow-hulled pinnace — he swept around the headland, the wind full at his back. He was on them in three minutes; the fight lasted less than half that time. He put the lawful owner, stalwart captain, and loyal crew to the sword — the whole lot weren’t worth twenty reales in ransom — and put the mutineers to work cleaning the deck and transferring stores and cargoes between this new hull and Barto’s two others. With the mutineers added to his ranks, he finally had enough men to consider plundering a larger town, maybe one of the small English settlements just recently established in the Bahamas, or the Dutch enclave that was rumored to have returned to Saba. Such a raid would only swell his coffers slightly, but would at least quiet his crews. They were already restless and would soon make their displeasure known to him — in a most pointed fashion, if need be. So, since a full-scale raid would take more time to plan, a smaller intermediary action was required to tide them over and sate their appetites for both rum and blood. A nuisance, reflected Barto, but it was all part of a freebooter’s life.

He belched again. “You invited me to dinner that we might talk. So now I’ve eaten your dinner. What have we to talk about?”

De Covilla smoothed his moustache. “The matter is somewhat delicate, Señor Barto. Do I have your word . . . hmmm, allow me to rephrase: is it understood between us that sharing this information would attract the special disfavor of His Imperial Majesty Philip of Spain?”

Barto smiled. He had thought that, having seized four of Philip’s ships, he had already attracted quite as much of that imperial displeasure as anyone could hope for. But apparently he had been mistaken. “I understand. And I hope that His Majesty’s representatives will realize that any past, er, indiscretions on my part regarding his shipping were matters of mistaken identity. Night actions, you see.”

“Of course.” De Covilla’s smug smile indicated that he knew Barto never attacked ships after sundown. “Indeed, the representatives of my liege are not only willing to pay handsomely in silver, but to provide you with something else you might find of even more durable value.”

“Which is?”

“Which is a letter of marque.”

Despite his attempt at bored nonchalance, this so took Barto by surprise that he sat up. “A letter of marque, signed by –?”

“No less a personage than the Captain-General of Santo Domingo, Don Bitrian de Viamonte.”

Barto sneered. “Viamonte the Invalid? Really? He spent his years as Governor of Cuba limping through the underbrush, building towers and forts to fend off, er, ‘fortune-seekers’ like myself. And now he is interested in hiring the very same free-spirited adventurers whom he meant to kill?” Barto snorted as he laughed into the dregs of his drink. “Perhaps de Viamonte’s disabilities are not merely physical, hey?”

He had meant that insult to test De Covilla’s mettle, to see if the young Spaniard had enough temper in him to burst through his almost effete courtly exterior. Barto was not disappointed. The well-groomed hidalgo rose slowly, hand on his rapier. “You will mind your tongue, Señor. The Captain-General may suffer from infirmities that the Lord Himself saw fit to inflict upon his body, but perhaps that was to better stimulate the growth of his keen mind and indomitable will. He determined to reduce Cuba’s vulnerability to pirates. He achieved that, and evidently you are not so bold as to have personally tested the walls and militias he raised for that purpose. Now he is set upon hiring men for a special mission. He directed me to seek appropriate persons among the self-styled ‘brethren of the coast.’ I started with you. However, I am under no compulsion to confer the contract upon you, specifically, and so, if you continue your insolence, I will take my reales elsewhere. And depending upon the severity of your further slurs, I may ask for the satisfaction of honor that must be demanded in response to your impugning the character and person of the Captain-Governor. Am I clear?”

Barto smiled and lifted his cup. “Bravo. And I actually think you’d be foolish enough to play at swords with me, which you must know to be unwise. So you’ve a ready heart under that fine silken vest, I’ll give you that. And so, to business.”

Whatever De Covilla had been expecting, it hadn’t been that. “Do you — do you mock me, Señor?” His hand turned slowly on the pommel of his rapier.

Barto made his best sour face. “Mock you? I am simply speaking to you plainly and man-to-man, not like some lace-loaded grandee at court. Let me make my words plainer. You’d be a fool to fight me, but you know it, and are still quite ready to cross swords on a matter of honor. You’ve got cojones, and that’s what counts. Experience and age will furnish all the other necessary skills in good time. If you live that long. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about. So, I say again, to business.”

De Covilla frowned, fiddled with his sword’s hilt uncertainly, and then sat. “Very well, to business. I have offered silver and a letter of marque. Co-signed by the new governor of Cuba, no less: the Field-marshal Don Francisco Riano y Gamboa de Burgos. Whose name and martial reputation is known to you, I imagine.”

In fact, Riano y Gamboa’s name was barely known to Barto, who had no idea what military glories might lurk hidden behind it. But De Covilla uttered it with the utterly reliable conviction of youthful loyalty, and so there might be enough truth in it to warrant credence.

But it wasn’t the reputation of the governor or the money or the marque which commanded Barto’s attention. Rather, it was the attractiveness of the offer. Or rather, the excessive attractiveness of the offer, and the fact that the particulars were not presented up front.

Accordingly, the primary instinct of all successful pirates — wariness — arose in Barto, who frowned his mightiest frown. “Well, this is certainly a most intriguing offer. So far. But I have yet to learn what it is I must do for this handsome — eh, ‘reward.’ “

De Covilla sipped daintily at his glass of rioja. “It has come to our attention that a ship just recently arrived in the Caribbean will soon make landfall at Trinidad with the intent of taking, and holding, the land around Pitch Lake.”

“What the hell for?”

“Does it matter? This banditry is an affront to Philip of Spain’s exclusive dominion over the New World as per the Church’s own inter caetera, and so, it must be prevented.”

Barto rubbed his chin. “Very well, but if you know where this ship is bound, and you have Philip’s express orders to destroy it, then why not deal with it yourself?”

De Covilla pushed at his goat stew with his fork. “I did not say the orders came from Philip himself, nor that the intelligence came from Europe. Not directly.”

Barto leaned his large, hirsute forearms on the table. “Let us speak frankly. I stay alive in this business because I avoid jobs that stink like old fish, and this is starting to smell that way. Make clear the job, the information, and the sources, or I must decline.”

De Covilla seemed surprised, but also pleased. “Very well. Last year, a Dutch captain who has apparently started a colony in Suriname — Jakob Schooneman, by name — brought a young American to conduct a brief reconnaissance of the area around Trinidad’s Pitch Lake. After a variety of further trespassings and pillagings in His Imperial Majesty Philip’s colonies, they both returned to Europe. Some time ago, that same ship, the Koninck David, returned and touched on the coast nearby San Juan, probably smuggling. That didn’t stop some of her crew from wandering into town for a brief carouse, of course.

“When the Koninck David’ assistant purser was in his cups, he told one of our informants that he had overhead this same young American being closely interviewed in Bremen last winter by a good number of his countrymen and unprincipled adventurers. Whereupon a number of this group determined to send a warship to Trinidad to usurp the region around Pitch Lake in order to sell its petroleum riches to the USE. We learned roughly when the ship was due and also that it would not head directly to Trinidad, in order to avoid the heavily trafficked transatlantic route that leads directly into the Grenada Passage, just off Trinidad itself. But more than this we could not learn.”

Barto leaned back, folded his arms. So, he was already entering into an ongoing plot rife with treachery, secrets, and informers. However, those were supposed to be his area of special expertise. Accordingly, it made him nervous when the Spanish — or anyone — displayed equal facility with them. Largely because it meant that he might be the one surprised, rather than the one springing the surprise. But balanced against those risks were the incredible benefits to be derived from taking this job, and succeeding. He pushed down his misgivings, and breathed out slowly as he made his response. “So have any of your informers told you how this expedition intends to take, and hold, a position on Trinidad? A single ship, even the largest, could not carry enough soldiers and supplies for a quick and lasting conquest.”

“We have wondered this, also. But inasmuch as our forces are spread too thin to respond in a timely fashion, this may be precisely what these bandits are counting upon. They hope to have the time to fortify, consolidate, perhaps rally others to their banner while we collect the necessary forces, and authority, from Venezuela, Isla de Margarita and even our more distant colonial audiencias.”

Barto rubbed his chin. “I have sailed near Trinidad in the past, but not recently. What are the conditions there?”

“They are most unfortunate, since our investiture of that island is indifferent at best. The governor is Cristoval de Aranda, who has held that post without any noteworthy distinction for four years. Indeed, his tenure is somewhat of an embarrassment to the Crown. He has been unable to substantively increase the size of his small colony, which is primarily engaged in the growing of tobacco. Which, it is reported, he then sells illegally to English and Dutch ships, rather than reserving it for the merchants of Spain.”

Barto did not point out that it was well known throughout the Caribbean that Spanish ships almost never went to this all-but-forsaken possession of their empire, and that if Aranda didn’t sell the tobacco to someone, he would soon be the governor of a ghost-town. Or maybe a graveyard, given the testy native populations on the island. Most of whom preferred any other European settlers over the Spanish. But Barto only nodded sympathetically.

“I suppose Aranda should not be made to bear all the blame himself,” De Covilla temporized. “His fortifications are small, guns are few, and the size of his militia laughable. It may not total twenty men, all mustered. Indeed, when he was finally compelled to evict a pack of British interlopers from Punta de Galera on the northeast point of the island a few years ago, he had to appeal to the colony on Margarita Island to raise a sufficient force for the job. Pitiable. However,” — and here the young hidalgo fixed a surprisingly direct and forceful gaze upon his dinner guest — “I am told that you, Señor Barto, have a significant force at your disposal, that you are immediately available, and that you specialize in swift, direct, and — above all — final, action.”

“That I do, Don de Covilla, that I do.”

“Excellent, because that is precisely what will thwart the plans of this new group of interlopers. So, to the details: how many men can you bring with you to Trinidad?”

“It depends.”

“‘It depends?’  Upon what?”

Barto leaned far back in his chair. “It depends upon how many reales you have to spend.”

“I see. Well, how much would it cost to hire all of your men?”

Barto smiled. “All of your reales.”

 

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 35

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 35

*     *     *

Hugh watched McCarthy snug Tearlach into the heavy flight harness. It was fundamentally just an extension of the gondola, which was itself little more than a tall apple basket. McCarthy, Mulryan, and the ground crew went through all the “preflight checks” that Hugh himself had memorized, having now watched the process a dozen times. But just as he expected to see the final, confirmatory thumbs-up, Michael tugged an old back-pack out of the port quarter tackle locker. From that bag, he produced a heavily modified and retrofitted metal contraption that might have started out as some species of up-timer lantern or field stove, now capped by a home-built nozzle-and-cone fixture. The only identifying mark was no help in discerning the purpose of the device. Near the base of the dark green metal tube, a legend was stamped in bold white block letters: “Coleman.”

O’Rourke drew alongside Hugh and jutted his chin at the odd machine. “First time I’ve seen that tinker’s nightmare.”

“Me, too.”

“And I’ve been on hand for almost all the development of the balloon, y’ know.”

“I know.”

“And I don’t think McCarthy shared this little toy with the French, m’Lord.”

“I think you’re right,” Hugh said slowly, watching as McCarthy tutored Mulryan in the simple operation of this new “toy,” which, from McCarthy’s overheard explanation, seemed to be an up-time auxiliary burner which could be used to extend flight time or gain further altitude.

McCarthy backed away from Mulryan, gave his customary benediction, which was, he had explained, a tradition among balloonists from his century: “Soft winds and gentle landings.” And then he continued in a surprisingly fatherly tone. “Now don’t be in too much of a rush. First, make a full three-hundred-sixty degree observation just to detect ships and other objects of interest. Then, conduct a close inspection of each before you signal its bearing, approximate range, and heading if she’s under way. Then on to the next.”

Tearlach was smiling indulgently at McCarthy’s unaccustomed loquacity. “Yes, Don Michael, just the way you’ve told me. Twenty times, now.”

“You ready, then?”

Hugh had the impression that Mulryan might have done anything to get away from stoic Michael McCarthy’s unforeseen and unprecedented transmogrification into a nervous biddy. The former Louvain student nodded and smiled wider. The ground crew held tight the guidelines and then released their mooring locks with a sharp clack. Tearlach Mulryan started up gently, and then, with a whoop, surged aloft as the crew played out the lines.

Hugh stepped closer, craned his neck, and watched. “Well, Michael, in your parlance, the balloon is no longer in trials, but ‘fully operational.’  According to your history books, this is a historic first flight, is it not?”

Michael nodded. “First flight for an expressly military balloon, to my knowledge. Up-time or down-time.” Then he looked almost sternly at Hugh. “And while we’re on the topic of historic events, here’s another: this journey to Trinidad will be your last ‘flight’ as an exile — the last flight that any Irish earl will ever have to undertake.”

Hugh smiled at the optimistic resolve, but was a bit perplexed at the borderline ferocity with which Michael had uttered it. “From your lips to God’s ear, my friend.”

But Michael was looking at the balloon again. “First flight. And last flight. My word on it.” He must have felt Hugh’s curious stare, but he did not look over.

*     *     *

Hugh stood, arms folded, intentionally radiating avuncular pleasure and approval, as Tearlach Mulryan finished delivering his ground report. The details conformed to what he had relayed from his floating perch in the dit-dah-dit agglomeration of dots and dashes that the up-timers called Morse Code. The channel between St. Eustatia and St. Christopher was all but empty. One vessel, probably a Dutch fluyt, was in the straits but while Mulryan watched, she had weighed anchor and was now hugging the coast westward. She would soon have sailed around, and tucked safely behind, the leeward headland, probably on her way to the relatively new Dutch settlement of Oranjestad. This meant Morraine could begin his approach, and with a strong wind over the starboard quarter, make the windward mouth of the channel before sundown. If the breeze held, Morraine declared he’d stay close to the north side of the channel, running dark along the southern headland of sparsely-populated St. Eustatia in order to make an unseen night passage. Barring unforeseen encounters or tricks of the wind, he surmised that, by the middle watch, he’d be raising a glass of cognac to toast the dwindling lights of Basseterre as he looked out his stern-facing cabin windows. Pleased with the prospect of so undetected a passage and such an enjoyable celebration of it, Morraine nodded appreciatively to McCarthy, and disappeared down the companionway into the bowels of the quarterdeck, calling for the navigator and pilot to join him at the chart-table in the ward-room.

Mulryan watched the captain and his all-French entourage depart, and then sidled over toward Hugh and Michael. “My Lords,” he said with a quick look over his shoulder, “I may have broken our hosts’ trust.”

Hugh carefully kept his posture unchanged, casual. “In what way, Mulryan?”

“M’Lord, I, um, edited my report.”

“Did you, now?”

“Yes, m’Lord. There’s one ship I did not mention. She’s directly astern, maybe forty miles, due east. Not much smaller than us, judging from what little I could make of her masts.”

“Saw them against the brightening sky?”

“Aye, but not well. I checked her again when the sun came up.” He looked at the overcast skies. “So to speak.”

“And tell me, Tearlach, why did you choose to ‘forget’ this piece of information that I’m sure would have been of considerable interest to Captain Morraine?”

“Because sir, unless I am very much mistaken, she was putting up a balloon, too. A white one. Like ours used to be.”

Hugh kept himself from starting. “Was it the same design as ours?”

Mulryan grimaced. “M’Lord, that new spyglass is a wonder, and my eyes are as good as any in County Mayo, but forty miles is a long way by any measure.”

Hugh smiled. “True enough, Tearlach.”

“But — another ship with a balloon? What do you think it is, Lord O’Donnell?”

Hugh was considering how best to tactfully phrase his speculations when Michael shared his own — bluntly. “That, young Mulryan, is our master’s eye.”

“Lord Turenne? He sent a ship after us?”

“He, or Richelieu, almost certainly,” Hugh confirmed.

“It only makes sense that he’d want to keep an eye on what we do,” Michael conceded. Then, with a smile, “If he can, that is.”

Tearlach cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that ship can’t have seen us today. She was easy for us to spot, silhouetted against the dawn while putting up a white balloon. But, from her perspective, we were against the western pre-dawn darkness, putting up a blue-grey balloon. She didn’t see us.”

Hugh rubbed his chin. “So that’s why you had our balloon painted only after we left Dunkirk. You didn’t want Turenne to know you’d camouflaged it.”

“Right, and that’s why we were four days out before I started running test ascents over three hundred feet. As far as Turenne knows, one hundred yards is as high as we’re rated to go. He’ll have tried pushing that limit a bit himself, but not as aggressively as we have.”

“And he won’t have that little toy you gave Tearlach right before he went up.”

McCarthy nodded. “Yeah, the boost from the natural gas burner doesn’t last long, but it does give you a little extra height. Or time. Which are the edges we need. And by tonight, we’ll be so far off, that he won’t have any chance to catch sight of us again. Now, ‘scuse me. I’m gonna show Mulryan here how to take care of my ‘toy’.” And he took the natural gas burner from Tearlach’s hands and led the young aeronaut back to the poop deck.

As they left, O’Rourke sauntered over from the rail.

“Heard all that?” asked Hugh.

O’Rourke nodded. “Every word.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think McCarthy is shrewd. Maybe too shrewd.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know that look, Hugh O’Donnell. You’ve misgivings of your own.”

“But I’ll hear yours first, O’Rourke.”

“As you wish. So, the ship on our tail couldn’t see us today. Bravo. But hardly luck, eh?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that McCarthy has had every step of this game sussed out from the start. From before we left France, it seems.”

“And that’s bad?”

“Not in itself, no. But why didn’t he bring us into his confidence on all this earlier? Because rest assured, he’s been playing this game of chess five moves ahead of the opposition, he has.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that he obviously foresaw that Turenne would send a ship after us. And so he saves some special tricks for our balloon, to make it more than a match for the one Turenne has. But in order to have those tricks at hand, he must have anticipated needing them much earlier. So, from the time he started working in Amiens, he must have been expecting that Turenne would be crafting a secret duplicate balloon off-site, even as he and Haas were constructing the original model.”

“Strange, O’Rourke: having an ally with that kind of foresight sounds like a great advantage to me, not a source of worry.”

“Aye, but that ally is an advantage only if he shares what he’s seen from the peak of his lofty foresight, m’Lord. And Don Michael, whatever his reasons might be, did not do so.”

“So what are you saying? That he’s not to be trusted?”

O’Rourke rubbed his thick nose with a flat, meaty thumb. “I wouldn’t be saying so black a thing as that, m’Lord. But if Don McCarthy is clever enough to keep important secrets from someone like General Turenne, then isn’t it a possibility that he could be keeping important secrets from us, too?”

Hugh nodded, turned his gaze slowly to where Michael McCarthy was tutoring Mulryan, back at the taffrail. “Yes, O’Rourke, there is that possibility. There is definitely that possibility.”

 

Trial By Fire – Snippet 07

Trial By Fire – Snippet 07

“The Pearl,” Barnard’s Star 2 C

The first thing Caine saw when the door to the secure debrief room opened was Admiral Martina Perduro sitting at the other end, her body as still as a graven idol’s, her face as pale and immobile as a slab of sun-weathered oak. Caine snapped his best salute a second after Trevor did.

Perduro waved them to chairs. As soon as they crossed the threshold, she touched her dataslate. The doors sealed and the breathy whirr of a white-noise generator rose up from the peripheries of the room. Then she indicated the screens around her. “I’ve got all the technical reports on today’s nonsense with the maglev cars. None of which can explain the failures in the system. But I’m guessing you two have heard similarly “impossible’ reports on prior occasions. You particularly, Commander Riordan.”

“Ma’am?”

“The assessments are very reminiscent of those Mr. Downing shared with me regarding the after-action reports from the assassination attempts you dodged at Alexandria and the Convocation Station: circuits uncoupling, polarities reversing, breakers tripping, computer controls being overridden without any evidence of hacking.” She tossed down her dataslate and passed a hand across her brow. “It doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.”

Caine shrugged. “It never does, ma’am. And we never even have leads as to who’s behind these incidents.”

Perduro arched forward. “Well, at least we’ve got a lead this time.”

“You mean, the attacker?”

The admiral scoffed, surprised. “No, Heather Kirkwood–who, if rumors hold any truth, may have had both personal and professional motives to set you up, Caine.”

Caine made sure that his differing opinion did not come out as a contradiction. “Admiral, I know it might seem that way, but I think Heather may have been a patsy as well.”

“Why? Because whoever she was working for was willing to kill her, too? Commander Riordan, after a mission, covert operators frequently prevent security leaks by eliminating any free-lancer they hired to carry it out. ‘Burning assets,’ it’s called.”

“Yes, ma’am, I am familiar with that concept.”

“And according to your report, Kirkwood was attempting to extort highly classified information.”

“Absolutely.”

“So how does that not add up to the following scenario: she tries to extort information from you, she fails, and her handlers kills both of you to cover up their identity and interest in those particular secrets?”

Caine nodded. “I agree it looks that way, Admiral, but I’ve got information that problematizes the hypothesis.”

“Which is?”

“Personal knowledge of Heather Kirkwood. Would she take a tip from a shady source in order to get what she wants? She wouldn’t bat a lash, doing that. Would she actually, or at least threaten to, endanger old friends of mine if she thought it might get me to cooperate? Sadly, yes. And would she selectively reveal the time and place I was going to emerge from the Pearl to ensure that the local press and activist groups would be there to generate a more provocative scenario and story? Unquestionably. But here’s where the hypothesis breaks down: Heather wasn’t a killer.”

Perduro shrugged. “So you say. I’m not convinced. And from what Ensign Brahen told me, you might have been at the top of Kirkwood’s death list, if she had one.”

Caine shook his head. “Heather Kirkwood was ambitious, vain, selfish, and couldn’t stop trying to outdo everyone at everything–particularly the people she was closest to. But she hadn’t the stomach for murder and frankly, had every reason not to be involved, directly or indirectly, in any attempt to kill me.”

Trevor glanced at him, frowning. “Why?”

“Because she did not stand to gain anything by my death. Quite the opposite. If she was in any way connected to an event in which I was killed, she’d come under investigation simply because of our prior contact. And here’s a cardinal rule in the journalism business: you can report news only so long as you don’t become news. So if she was ever implicated, even tangentially, in the murder of a politically significant former lover, that could have ended her career. Even if she was ultimately exonerated.”

“So again, we’ve got no leads,” sighed Trevor, “just another closed room mystery. Just like Alexandria.”

Perduro’s gestures became sharp, testy. “Yes, and it’s rife with the same kind of logical gaps. How did they know that either of you had gone to the still-secret Convocation? And, beyond that, how did they know that you had returned to human space? How did the assassin’s handlers know which maglev car Caine was in? How did they have Kirkwood’s private car ready to follow it into the first station? And how did they manage–on that short notice–to override our supposedly unhackable maglev traffic-control software to get another car to follow, and then ram Caine’s car?”

Trevor frowned. “Well, this time, at least you’ve got one survivor you can interrogate: the religious fanatic.”

“Except it turns out he’s not a religious fanatic,” Perduro snapped.

Caine stared. “What–ma’am?”

“The man who attacked you had no known affiliations with the local extremist sects. None of them know him. In fact, the ‘fanatic’ has no identity that we can determine.”

Now it was Trevor’s turn. “What?”

“He is a nonperson, as far as the ID system is concerned. And here at the Pearl, we maintain a very up-to-date registry.”

Trevor was frowning now. “Have you interrogated him, Admiral?”

“We wanted to.”

Caine heard the frustrated tone. “Admiral, what do you mean ‘we wanted to’?”

“I mean he was found dead in his cell fifteen minutes before you walked in here.”

“And let me guess. The probable cause of death was a heart attack?”

“No, Commander. This time, it was a stroke. Massive. He was dead within a minute. There was no response to either immediate CPR or more heroic methods.”

Trevor leaned back. “Ma’am, as you say, these are just the kinds of mysteries that seem to accumulate around the attempts on Commander Riordan’s life.”

Riordan shook his head. “Except that there’s an even larger mystery that hasn’t been mentioned yet.”

Perduro turned toward Caine. “And what mystery is that?”

Caine looked at Perduro uncertainly. Even though she was asking about a piece of data she’d overlooked, she still might resent having it “explained” to her. Riordan considered how best to ease into the topic–

However, Trevor’s patience was exhausted after two seconds. “Well, what are you waiting for, Caine? A drum roll?”

“I don’t need a drum, but it would sure be handy to have a crystal ball like the one the opposition is using. Because there’s no other way to explain how they got all the press here in time to meet me coming out of the Pearl.”

Perduro made a face. “The presence of the press can be explained by a simple intel leak. No one needed a crystal ball to predict your movements.”

Caine spread his hands. “Admiral, Trevor, I know enough about the journalism field to be familiar with its basic workings. And here are some facts about field reporters. They are not lurking everywhere, just waiting to pop up with a palmcom set to record. They are assigned to, or string as freelancers in, high-activity news zones. Which Barney Deucy is not. However, they can also be found in locales where an editor has sent them, on the hunch that a newsworthy situation is brewing there.”

“Like a special task force,” supplied Trevor.

“Exactly. Now here’s the hitch. I did some checking while we were waiting to outbrief you, Admiral, and it seems the journalists who mobbed me at the first monorail station only arrived here eight days ago. Now, doing the reverse math of how long it took them to travel to Barney Deucy after they shifted in, that means they left Earth about four days before that. Of course, before they could shift out from Earth, they had to preaccelerate for at least thirty-three days–”

Perduro’s face became even more pale than it had been when they entered: her eyes opened wide as the calendar implications drove in upon her. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, that means most of the surplus reporters here today got their marching orders to come to Barney Deucy at least forty-five days ago. At a minimum.”

“But–” started Trevor. And then he stopped, his own eyes widening.

Caine nodded. “We hadn’t even shifted out to get to the Convocation yet. In fact, their travel had to start just a few days after Nolan’s memorial, about fifty days ago, to be here for today’s freelancer feeding-frenzy. And fifty days ago, we had no idea how the Convocation would turn out, or that we’d only be there for a few days, or that Downing, Trevor, and I would detour here, instead of returning directly to Earth, as the rest of the delegates did.”

“So someone knew what we were planning before it was planned?” Trevor’s voice climbed to a surprisingly high pitch on the last word.

Caine shrugged. “That’s why I’m half-convinced they have a crystal ball, Trevor.”

“Either that,” muttered Perduro, “or whoever is behind all these closed room mysteries can send information faster than the speed of light.”

Caine nodded. “Or can shift between the stars much faster and much farther than we can, and slip that information to human collaborators.”

“What a reassuring set of alternatives,” grumbled Trevor.

“Isn’t it, though?” Perduro’s voice was almost as rough and deep as the ex-SEAL’s. “I’ll code this into a report and send it out to the Prometheus ahead of you. She–and your cutter–are due to get to her Earth-optimized shift point in about three weeks, but you never know what might happen between now and then.” She stood. “And I think I’d better run a general defense drill.”

“A drill, ma’am?” asked Caine.

“Yes, Commander. I believe Mr. Downing told you he put us on Defcon Three. We’ve kept it from the civilian sector, as per orders, but I wish we didn’t have to. People don’t react well to news of an unexpected threat if you spring it on them at the last second.”

Trevor’s grin was wry. “Must be darn hard to prepare people to deal with exosapient invaders you don’t have permission to talk about yet, Admiral.”

“Trevor, get out of here before you make my brain hurt any worse than it already does. Now, have both of you filled out your resignations from active duty?”

Caine and Trevor produced the carefully folded papers, handed them to Perduro.

Who scanned them with a scowl. “Damn idiotic charade, this. I hope Downing knows what he’s doing. I promote you yesterday, and pack you off into the Reserves today? Insane.”

Caine shrugged. “As I understand it, his primary reason is so that, coming back as civilians, we can slip in under the press’s radar. At least they won’t have any immediate knowledge that I’m part of the Navy, now.”

Perduro shook her head, put out her hand. “Commander, Captain. I hereby accept and duly record your departures from active service. It’s been a pleasure having you here, gentlemen.” Releasing Trevor’s hand, she suddenly looked her full age. “After today’s events, and what it implies about our undisclosed adversary’s ability to run rings around us on the calendar, I’m seriously considering moving this facility to Defcon Two on my own initiative. And I think you gentlemen should move up your departure time to catch the Prometheus, just in case she has to fuse a little extra deuterium to get out of town ahead of schedule.”

Caine nodded at the ominous implications of that precaution. “And when do you recommend we depart, Admiral?”

“Five minutes ago, Commander. Get the hell out of my sight, grab your gear, and god speed to you both.”

 

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 34

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 34

Chapter 17

East of St. Christopher, Caribbean

Through the salt spray and dusty rose of early dawn, Hugh Albert O’Donnell compared Michael McCarthy Jr.’s pinched, weather-seamed eyes with Aodh O’Rourke’s pale-lipped scowl. The latter, staring at the balloon as it swelled up and off the poop deck, muttered, “You’d not get me to swing ‘neath that bag o’ gas.” Then Hugh’s lieutenant of eight years nodded to the up-timer beside him. “No offense to your handiwork, Don Michael.”

‘Don’ Michael — who Hugh had convinced, at no small expense of effort, to accept the honorific — simply shrugged. “No offense taken. I’m not riding in it myself. That’s for young Mulryan, here.”

Mulryan, an apple-faced lad with an unruly shock of red hair, nodded. “An’ it’s not so bad, O’Rourke. After the fourth or fifth time, yeh forget the height. Seems natural’t does.”

“To you, maybe,” O’Rourke grumbled, and then moved aside as feet thumped up the stairs from the weather deck behind him.

Hugh swayed up from his easy seat on the taffrail as Captain Paul Morraine rose into view. He was followed by a taller, thinner man whose arrival resulted in an almost uniform hardening of expressions and veiling of eyes: Morraine’s immediate subordinate, First Mate Georges St. Georges, was not a favorite with the Irish, nor with his own crew. Only Michael’s expression remained unaltered. The two senior officers of the Fleur Sable joined the group just as McGillicuddy, chief of the balloon’s ground crew, set his legs firm and wide to help his men tug on the guidelines. Straining together, they drew more of the swelling envelop up toward them and away from the mizzenmast, the yard having been dropped to accommodate this process.

Morraine nodded at Hugh. “Lord O’Donnell.”

Hugh nodded back. “You wish to have your mizzen back as soon as possible, captain?”

The left corner of Morraine’s mouth quirked. For him, this was the equivalent of a broad grin. “It is so obvious?”

Hugh smiled. “Well, yes. And sensible as well. But at a height of six hundred feet, we will see what lies before us and enter the channel between St. Christopher and St. Eustatia as fast and unseen as the wind that’s rising behind us.”

“Which I do not wish to miss, sir. Monsieur McCarthy tells me this is a swift procedure, yes?”

McCarthy shrugged, inspecting the billowing envelope. “It’ll be aloft in fifteen minutes, up for ten, down in ten, deflated enough for you to remount your mizzenmast in another ten. So, forty-five minutes, barring mishaps.”

Morraine nodded, nose into the wind. “Just in time, I would say. I want to be see the lights of Basseterre behind us by midnight.”

St. Georges sniffed distastefully at the pitch-soaked combustibles already smoking in the hand burner that Tearlach Mulryan was readying. “I, for one, am worried that your observer will not see all the ships before us.”  

Mulryan raised a mildly contentious index finger. “Ah, but I will, sir. Six hundred feet altitude and this improved spyglass” — he tapped the brass tube in his rude ‘web gear’ — “will show us the horizon out to thirty-three miles or so, and we’ll see the top of most any masts at least ten miles further out.”

“So you have said.” St. Georges sniffed again, this time at Mulryan’s claim.

“And so we have seen in the trials we’ve conducted since leaving France,” Morraine followed with a calm, if impatient glance at his XO. “However, we will want to keep your men below decks much of the time, now, Lord O’Donnell. In the event our reconnaissance is incomplete, or Fate forces an encounter upon us, it would not do to have a passing ship see our complement to be markedly greater than the expected crew of this vessel.”

“Agreed, Captain. Point well taken. Besides, my men will be busy at their own tasks.”

“Which shall be?”

“Sharpening their swords and cleaning their pieces.”

Morraine’s left eyebrow arched. “Indeed. I took the liberty of inspecting the armorer’s locker after your men came aboard. All snaphaunces, even a few flintlocks. Expensive equipment, if I may say so.”

“Say away, for its true enough. But Lord Turenne agreed that it makes little sense to go to all the expense of mounting our expedition, and then arm the shore party with inferior firearms.”

“True enough. But almost half were pistols and the new-style musketoons. Most uncommon.”

“As uncommon as our task, Captain.” Hugh leaned back against the taffrail. “We’ll not spend much of our time at ranges greater than fifty yards, if my guess is right.  So while we’ll want the ability to pour in a few volleys, I expect we’ll have little time or reason for serried ranks and maneuver. As I hear it, Pitch Lake itself is the only ‘open field’ we’ll encounter. But there’s plenty of bush to worm through. So I suspect most of the fighting will be quick and close.”

Morraine nodded. “Reasonable. Let us hope you do not have much fighting to do, though. Sixty men is not many for such an enterprise, even on the sparsely populated islands of the New World.”

O’Donnell nodded. “I agree.” He smiled. “Perhaps you could convince Lord Turenne to send along a few more.”

Morraine’s lip almost quirked again. “Indeed. I shall mention it to him upon my return, perhaps over our first glass of wine.”

Hugh nodded, let his grin become rueful. It was out of the realm of possibility that Morraine would actually ever meet Turenne, much less have the position or opportunity to suggest anything to the French general about operations here in the Caribbean. In addition to Turenne’s being a phenomenally busy man, Morraine’s appointment as the commander of the Fleur Sable had been a somewhat delicate business, handled by faceless bureaucrats at the unspoken but clear promptings of Turenne’s immediate subordinates. To have gone about it more openly would have been seen as undermining the naval court which had been well-paid to dismiss Morraine as a scapegoat for a young and thoroughly incompetent executive officer who just happened to be the son of an unscrupulous duke. Consequently, it was necessary that Turenne should never have direct contact with Morraine, lest both of them come under the scrutiny of that same duke, who, like most powerful men guilty of suborning a court, would spare no effort to ensure that the lies he had paid to be called ‘the truth’ would not be revealed or revisited.

Morraine’s point about a scant sixty-man force was true enough. It left Hugh O’Donnell no margin for error, no extra resources with which to cope with surprises, reversals, or just plain bad luck. But the other Wild Geese who had been scheduled to follow him down from the Lowlands had never arrived. According to Turenne’s last message, Fernando of the Lowlands had personally forbidden their departure, pending a reconsideration of their contracts and oaths to Spain. It all sounded a little suspicious to Hugh, but that was several months, and several thousand miles, behind him now. He would have to make do with the men and resources he had, and hope for the others to come along in due course.

Morraine’s version of a smile had faded. He looked at the expanding balloon, then at the seas over the bow. “Well, Lord O’Donnell, I shall leave you and your, er, ‘ground crew’ to your business. The sooner you are done here, the sooner we can be under way and finish this dirty business.”

Hugh kept even the faintest hint of resentment out of his voice. “‘Dirty’ business?’ “

Morraine paused. “Lord O’Donnell, I mean no offense. As you, I am estranged from my country. And so I will not be happy until I may stand proud beneath French colors. I am no pirate.”

“Indeed, and so you are not flying one of their dread flags.”

“Nor am I flying the flag of France, Lord O’Donnell. And until I do, my loyalties and intentions must be considered suspect by all whom we encounter. So I leave you to your work, that we may both return to service beneath our nation’s banners with all possible haste.” He nodded a farewell.

As Hugh nodded in return, he considered Morraine’s tight, craggy, and mostly immobile features. The Breton had a good record operating in the open waters off Penzance and Wight, and was patriotically eager to end his estrangement from the pleasure of Louis XIII. He was also clearly thrilled to have a cromster’s deck under his feet. During her trials off Dunkirk, he had made eager use of her mizzen’s lateen-rig, getting a feel for the Fleur Sable‘s maneuverability. He had demonstrated a keen appreciation of her comparatively shallow draft, and enhanced (albeit not extreme) ability to tack against the wind — operational flexibilities he had not had much opportunity to enjoy while serving in His Majesty’s lumbering battlewagons. Hugh just hoped that, like uncounted thousands of commanders before him, Morraine did not over-indulge his new enthusiasms during combat. War was a messy business, best approached by leaving wide margins for error and the unexpected.

Morraine’s swift descent from the poop deck prompted St. Georges into a hurried attempt to follow, which was suddenly blocked by the balloon’s uncoiling guidelines. As he sought clear passage, further obstacles obtruded themselves. Spools of down-timer telegraph cable and McGillicuddy’s thick, powerful legs threatened to tumble him. Aggrieved, the third son of a wealthy merchant glared archly at the Irish earl. “I must pass, Monsieur O’Donnell.”

Who found the make-believe-officer too ridiculous to be a source of offense. St. Georges’ class paranoia was as thick about him as the smell of his abysmal teeth. Every time he addressed O’Donnell as ‘Monsieur’ instead of ‘Lord,’ he seemed poised to gloat over the slight. “I must pass,” St. Georges repeated.

Hugh smiled wider. “And you have my leave to do so.”

St. Georges stared down at the tangle of cables, grabbing ground-crew hands, and McGillicuddy’s tree-trunk legs. Pointing at the latter, St. Georges raised his chin. “I know nothing of your Irish military customs, but in our service, this man must make way for me when I approach. You:” — he addressed the word sharply to McGillicuddy — “move! At once!”

Hugh had just decided that St. Georges was able to annoy him after all, when the aeronaut of the hour — lean and lively Tearlach Mulryan — jumped between them. He made his appeal with a lopsided grin. “Lieutenant St. Georges, the chief of our ground crew, McGillicuddy, regrets being unable to move aside, but he is hard at his duties. The equipment for the balloon is rather cumbersome and hard to control during deployment.”

“Then he can at least show proper deference to his betters, and excuse himself.”

“Sir, he does not understand French, and his English is imperfect. He is from a remote area of Ireland, and speaks little but Gaelic.”

“Then use that tongue to acquaint him with my displeasure!”

Mulryan did so. McGillicuddy listened to young Tearlach’s fluent stream of Gaelic gravely. Toward the end, the big crew chief brightened, looked up at St. Georges and smiled. “Pog ma thoin,” he offered sincerely.

“What did he say?”

“‘A thousand pardons.’”

“That’s better.” St. Georges marched briskly off.

Hugh turned carefully astern, looked into the brightening east, and did not allow his expression to change.

Someone came to stand beside him: McCarthy. “Okay, what’s the joke?”

“Joke?”

“Don’t give me that. You’re wearing your best poker-face and the ground crew is about to split a gut. What gives?”

“Mulryan translated ‘pog ma thoin’ incorrectly.”

“So it’s not ‘a thousand pardons?’ “

“No. It’s ‘kiss my ass.’  And by the way, McGillicuddy speaks perfect English.”

Hugh glanced at Mike, saw the hint of a smile that matched his own. Then McCarthy shook his head and looked up at the dull blue-grey canvas swelling over their heads. “C’mon,” he said, “let’s go fly a balloon.”