Eric Flint's Blog, page 310

Trial By Fire – Snippet 06

Trial By Fire – Snippet 06

Chapter Four

Off-base sector, Barnard’s Star 2 C

The last station’s collision klaxon began hooting as Trevor reached the outer gate area. The emergency access portal dilated and spat out a torrent of panicked humanity. Fighting against the outflow of bodies, the stink of panicked sweat and the choking fumes of smoldering plastic, he pushed his way toward the station’s long, narrow platform–

–and entered a tableau of chaos. He smelled smoking metal and saw the rapidly thinning crowd clustered around the main exit, with a few of the rearmost changing direction toward the portal Trevor had just used. No sign of the Shore Patrol–the wireless comm channels had not reactivated yet–and only a handful of people were still on the platform itself, most of those wounded or just rising from where they had taken cover–

Caine swayed up into Trevor’s field of view at the far end of the station, just a few meters away from the mauled remains of the two maglev cars. As he reached down to help a young woman back to her feet, Trevor saw movement a few meters farther down the platform.

From the shadows near a bank of ticket dispensers lining station’s far wall, a tall, lean, knot-muscled man emerged with a knife in his right hand, drawn back for an overhand slash. Trevor took a long leap down to the platform level, yelling “Caine, behind you!”

But Caine was already changing his direction of movement. In the same instant that he released the arm of the young woman he had helped up, his turn accelerated into a fast pivot, spinning him fully around. His right arm cocked back even as his left arm rose swiftly–

–and caught his attacker’s descending forearm. Caine’s imperfect but serviceable rising block pushed the down-slashing knife-hand up and out of the way. Without any break in motion, Riordan closed the distance with a quick step and his already-cocked right hand came forward like a pile driver. The heel of his palm rammed into his assailant’s face, just beneath the nose. Blood spurted, the knife wobbled, the man staggered back a step–

Caine’s momentum carried him through a sideways stance and into a fast, left-foot forward-shuffle. As he did so, he drew his right knee up high and, in a blur, shot that leg out straight as his torso leaned back.

Caine’s step-through side kick caught the reeling attacker in the sternum. The man crashed backward into the ticket machines and then down to the ground, groaning faintly. By the time Trevor reached Riordan two seconds later, the platform was empty except for the two of them and the corpse of one protester whose chest had been transfixed by two lengths of blackened metal.

Trevor put out an arm to steady the suddenly swaying Caine, looked down at his would-be murderer. “I guess Opal was a pretty good karate teacher.”

Caine rose, glanced at Trevor. “Oh. You knew about her giving me lessons back on Mars, then?”

“Damn it, Caine.” Corcoran sighed. “Everyone knew.” He gestured toward the prone attacker. “What the hell is going on here?”

“Based on prior experience,” muttered Caine, straightening up, “I’d say that was an assassination attempt. Two of them, actually.”

“Yeah, but how–?”

“Trevor, ‘how’ doesn’t much apply to the attacks we’ve been dealing with since Alexandria. Nor do the words ‘impossible’ or ‘unimaginable.’ Because whoever is behind them has trump cards that we didn’t even know were in the deck.”

Trevor heard movement behind them. The first members of the Shore Patrol trotted through the emergency portal, weapons out. Trevor waved them over, pointed down at the feebly moving attacker, then leaned closer to Caine. “Guess you’ve got eyes in the back of your head, seeing him coming at you.”

“The reporter I helped up saved me, I think. She saw him over my shoulder, and I saw her eyes move. But also, I had this feeling–” Caine stopped.

Trevor waited while the Shore Patrol hauled the attacker to his feet and dragged him toward the exit. “What do you mean, ‘I had a feeling’?” he muttered.

Riordan shook his head. “I don’t know how to say it. Just before he got to me, it felt as though the whole universe was no longer fluid; like I was a small cog in the middle of a very fast, but very stiff and very big machine.”

“And that–feeling–warned you that some guy was about to carve you up from behind?”

“No, just that something nearby was–was, well, wrong somehow. So I defended the place I was most vulnerable: behind me, where I couldn’t see.”

Trevor grabbed Caine’s arm and started moving him toward the exit. “Man, I know twenty-year veterans who don’t have reflexes like that. Didn’t think you had them, either.”

“That’s because I don’t have them. I wasn’t following a fighting instinct, Trevor. It was more like a–a premonition.”

“Well, whatever it is, it sure as hell saved your bacon. And we sure as hell have to get back to the Pearl.”

Caine nodded. “Absolutely. Because there’s one additional thing that needs to be reported, and quickly.”

“What’s that?”

“The guy who attacked me was on the first platform, too. He threw a bottle at me, then ran like hell.”

“What? But how could he know you were going to stop here or–?”

“I don’t know, Trevor. And I don’t know how he managed to sprint through four kilometers of tight tunnels to get here before my maglev. Or how he went from religious zealot to…” Caine’s voice trailed off.

Trevor watched the S.P.s shackling the attacker to a restraint bar. “How he went from being a zealot to–what?”

Caine swallowed. “A madman. No, that’s not right: a killing machine. He was a wild-eyed screamer when I saw him at the first station. But here–” Caine turned to look over his shoulder. Trevor followed his gaze.

The hollow eyes of Caine’s would-be assassin had been following them steadily, calmly, empty of reason but full of a lethal, insatiable hunger.

Off-base sector, Barnard’s Star 2 C

The CoDevCo special services liaison who oversaw corporate operations on Barnard’s Star Two C stared at the last, frozen image that had been pirated from the maglev security system: Riordan and Corcoran hurrying away from the crash site. The liaison’s jaw worked unevenly; his face grew steadily more red.

His mounting fury was defused by a slow, steady voice from behind, which ordered as much as intoned, “Calm yourself.”

The liaison turned toward the man whom he served, at the behest of his superior CoDevCo Vice President R. J. Astor-Smath. Although having worked under this tall, sunglass-wearing man for almost three months, he still knew almost nothing about him, other than that he had a profound penchant for olives. “I do not know how you can be so calm. Two failed attempts in the course of a single minute? This is preposterous.”

“Riordan is not as easy to kill as he might seem to an unprofessional observer. He may lack training, but he reasons quickly and has almost infallible instincts in a crisis.”

“So you consider today’s outcome less than disastrous?”

The tall, sun-glassed man leaned back in his seat with a sigh. “I find it interesting how many of you, when watching a plan go awry, are so blinded by your frustration that you are unable to learn from what you have witnessed.”

The liaison mastered his annoyance at the man’s customary, languid arrogance, in part because it was his job to do so, and in part because the man was usually–and infuriatingly–accurate in his observations. “And what was to be learned from what we witnessed today?”

“Why, that it was good fortune that today’s attempts were failures. Your superior’s ill-advised machinations to encumber Riordan by focusing the interest of the press upon him has produced troublesome results–precisely as I warned. Riordan is now an item of journalistic attention and scrutiny. Kill him, and inquiry will follow. And that inquiry would result in closer investigation of a variety of phenomena which you–and I–wish to remain merely puzzling anomalies in the minds of our adversaries.”

“Such as Tarasenko’s and Corcoran’s heart attacks?”

“Those too, yes, but the failed attempt to assassinate Riordan in Alexandria is of greater concern to me. There, we left them with too many unsolvable puzzles. If your news services, or intelligence communities, are repeatedly agitated by such mysteries and ‘baffling coincidences,’ they will eventually begin to consider explanations that they now dismiss as not merely improbable, but impossible. This would be a grave development for us. We wish our opponents to remain complacent, content to follow the forensic pathways to which they are accustomed, which their science deems ‘rational.’”

“If Riordan were to die because of a very conventional knife in his chest, that would not raise any such suspicions.”

The tall man shook his head, took a green olive from a small bowl located at arm’s length. “All of you think too linearly. To you, the universe is comprised of infinite rows of dominoes, each ready to be tapped and set in motion. Yet you assume that each row is almost entirely independent from the others.” He chewed into the olive as if he had never tasted one before, and sighed. “But a few of you do see the truth of it: that the dominoes are arranged in sweeping curves that intersect, spread, double back, terminate each other, or engender new vectors, new events. So, if you eliminate Riordan in a place where the press is present or has ready access, there is an excellent chance that you may set other, deleterious events in motion.”

The tall man evidently noticed the uncertainty creasing his liaison’s brow. He deigned to explicate. “A society’s entrenched attitudes and predilections are balanced upon a broad cultural fulcrum: they are robust and stable, but if pushed and stressed far enough, they tip and change–often becoming the opposite of what they just were. If you kill Riordan in an inexplicable accident–the kind you persistently pressure me to create through my Reifications of quantum entanglement and uncertainty–our adversaries are likely to detect that pattern. Their present tolerance for unconnected coincidences could convert into a fierce resolve to get answers, no matter the cost, and no matter how strange those answers might be.

“And they just might succeed. Not all of our opponents see the universe in the simplistic one-cause, one-effect paradigm that most of you are trapped within.” The man nodded at the frozen image of Caine, fleeing the platform, looking over his shoulder. “He is one who sees more expansively, more completely. Nolan Corcoran, his companion’s father, was another.”

The liaison folded his arms. “Let us presume all you have said is true. It is also true that you yourself have asserted that Riordan may now be able detect the onset of your Reifications–which must be why he detected today’s attacker. He felt you ‘push’ our man. Add all this to your observations that Riordan is particularly hard to predict, and that now, he is likely to depart for Earth before we do. Taken together, these things put us on the brink of failure. Riordan might soon slip beyond our collective grasp.”

The tall man stopped chewing an olive and smiled–an expression which reminded his assistant of a tiger baring its teeth. “Riordan might slip beyond your grasp. But not mine.”

 

Trial By Fire – Snippet 05

Trial By Fire – Snippet 05

Off-base sector, Barnard’s Star 2 C

Heather reclined again. “So, Caine, about these secrets of yours–”

Riordan looked out the windows, saw three amber lights pass in quick sequence. “Stop the car. Now.”

“I don’t take orders from you, Caine, and I–”

“Stop the car now or you won’t hear another word from me.”

Heather frowned, modulated a control on her palmcomp’s screen. The car began to slow. “And I won’t hear another word if I let you out, either.”

“I’m not getting out. Ensign Brahen is. Those yellow lights we just passed mean we’re within a few hundred meters of a maintenance siding. She’s getting out there.”

“Not exactly the safest place to leave an innocent child, Caine.”

“Any place is safer than here with you,” Riordan snapped back, waving down the ensign’s inarticulate sputtering.

“Sir!” Brahen finally shouted, “I’m not going to leave you with this–”

“Ensign, there’s only one thing you’re going to do, and that is to follow my orders.”

“But, sir–”

“Don’t argue with him, little princess,” cooed Heather, who smiled broadly when Ensign Brahen’s fists balled up. “The grown-ups are going to talk about secrets, now. Secrets that would complicate your poor little life if they entered your poor little ears at this early stage of your poor little career.”

Some combination of the taunting tone and probable truths coming out of Heather’s mouth caused Marilyn Brahen to turn very red. “Ma’am, when I get back to the Pearl, I am going to make it my personal quest to find anything–anything–irregular or illegal in your actions while on Barnard’s Star Two C. And if I find something, heaven help me, I’ll–”

Heather brought the car to an abrupt stop. The ensign almost fell face down on the floor of the car. “Oops! So sorry! You were saying? Oh, but wait–you have to leave!” She pushed another control on her palmcomp; the maglev’s door hissed open. A grimy, half-meter-wide access shelf, lit by a single blue-white LED lamp, was revealed. “Out you go, sweetie!” Brahen did so, fists still clenched, eyes hard. Heather pushed the control. The door shut and the car began moving again. She tossed her bangs, surveyed Caine for a long moment. “Well, well, alone at last. Time to spill your secrets.”

Caine shook his head. “I promised to keep talking, Heather. Nothing more.”

“Oh! A challenge! But not a very hard one. Because if you don’t give me the leads I want, I will locate your old friends, ask them what they know.”

“Which is less than nothing.”

“Oh, I’m aware of that. But I also know that you’d probably do just about anything to protect them. And according to what you’ve said, a well-publicized research visit from me could be almost as unhealthy for them as if you had contacted them yourself.”

Caine made himself remain calm. “I always knew you were a hard-nosed investigator, Heather. But when did you add extortion to your bag of tricks?”

“One has to be ready to use any leverage available. Particularly when it comes to you, Caine. You don’t leave many loose ends.” She paused, became sly, but no less serious. “And I’m sure that’s why you were recruited to begin with.”

“‘Recruited’?”

“Don’t play innocent with me, Caine. It’s more than just an aversion to publicity that still had you sitting on the full story of what happened at Dee Pee Three and dishing out ‘no comments’ like they were party favors. After which you and a bunch of world-class movers and shakers disappeared into thin interstellar air for about a month. And now here you are on Barney Deucy, but not a hint of your high-profile pals. So I’ve got to wonder, what were you all doing, light-years away from where you belong?”

Caine didn’t change his expression, couldn’t afford to. She may not have been told about the Convocation, but she’s on the scent. Careful, now.

Heather leaned forward. “I know you’re not alone in this, Caine, that you’re not an independent actor. You’re covering for someone. But I’ll disappear–right now, forever–if you just tell me who they are.”

Damn, she was a manipulative monster, but she was good. Caine raised one eyebrow, “‘They’?” he echoed. “There is no ‘they.’ I’m just a researcher doing my job.”

“And I’m the Tsarina of all the Russias. Look, even if you can’t tell me what’s really going on, don’t insult me with that ‘I’m just a researcher’ bullshit.” Heather seemed genuinely frustrated, now. Her Northern New Jersey accent and diction was starting to bleed through. “Honey, they yanked you out of an icebox that you never agreed to enter, sent you on a top-secret research assignment almost twenty light-years from Earth, and then put you up as the main attraction at the Parthenon Dialogues–all achieved despite numerous attempts to kill you. And you want me to believe that you’re still just a ‘researcher,’ no permanent strings attached? Horseshit.”

Caine smiled. “You were ever the charmer, Heather.”

“And you, Caine, still don’t know who your real friends are.”

His smiled widened. “You mean, ‘friends’ like you?”

“You could at least show me a little gratitude. I did rescue you from those underemployed hacks back at the maglev station.”

“Rescue me? From those ambulance chasers who you fed an ‘anonymous tip’ so that they’d accost me as soon as I emerged from The Pearl? So that I’d feel some subconscious gratitude, and be more pliable, when you serendipitously ‘came to my rescue’? Nice try. Better luck next time.”

“Knowing you, probably not.” Heather leaned forward. “But I’m not depending on luck. I have facts. For instance, fact: you had twenty-four/seven access to both Nolan Corcoran and Arvid Tarasenko.”

“So, having a close professional association with those two men automatically makes me–what? Their devoted servitor?”

“I’m not sure what it makes you, Caine. But you’re more than just a researcher when your employers start hiding your work behind some pretty dark curtains of secrecy.”

“Well, that’s hardly surprising, Heather. After what I discovered on Delta Pavonis, they had to give me pretty high security clearances. At least until Parthenon was over.”

Heather smiled. “No, that’s what you’d like me to believe. But you’re telling the tale a little bit backward, aren’t you, Caine?” She leaned forward. “They had to give you those clearances and bring you into their shadowy world before sending you to Dee Pee Three. You needed access to classified files, rank equivalents, and actual authority to get the job done there. All of which indicates that you were some kind of operative for them. And you’re still working for whoever is in charge now.” Heather frowned, thinking. “I’d bet a week’s salary that Tarasenko’s primary successor is Richard Downing. Some say he was the one who summoned that group of VIPs to Mars, where he just happened to be attending Nolan Corcoran’s memorial service. Coincidence?”

“Why don’t you ask Downing?”

“I would have, except, by the time I arrived, he’d been on a preaccelerating Earth-bound shift-carrier for two weeks, the one that finally shifted out a few days ago. But here’s what I don’t understand, Caine. Why should you be so loyal to them–to Downing, Corcoran, Tarasenko, whoever–given what they’ve done to you? And taken from you?”

A faint vibration started ascending through Caine’s feet, buttocks, abdomen as a gentle down-spinning hum arose and the arrival tone chimed. Saved by the bell. He smiled at Heather. “Our stop? So soon?”

Heather was frowning down at her palmcomp’s control screen. “Faster than I intended, actually.”

Caine’s smile did not change. “Thanks for the ride, Heather.” He rose, noticed a sudden bloom of red light beyond the window at the rear of the car. The track warning light had flashed for a moment, then died suddenly. The green light–signaling a clear track–did not replace it.

“If you leave now, Caine, you leave me no choice but to contact your friends.”

“Heather,” said Caine, watching for the green–or red–light to reappear, “the track signals are malfunctioning and we’re at the dead-end of this spur. You need to get out of this car. Now.”

“I think you’ve got the situation reversed, Caine. I don’t have to leave, you have to stay. Assuming you want your friends to remain safe.”

Neither track status light had reilluminated, and Caine felt a faint, growing tremor rising up through the center of the floor, where the car had settled on the rail.

One quick look at Heather’s stubbornly rigid jaw told him she wouldn’t listen to reason in time. He turned toward the door, spotted the emergency exit panel. He smashed it with his elbow and hit the red panic-release button.

As the door was rammed back into its recess by the sudden discharge of a compressed-air cell, Heather reared up. “What the hell are you doing, Caine?”

“We have to go, Heather,” he shouted, grabbing toward her. “Right now!”

Heather’s reflexes were extremely swift but perfectly wrong. As Caine closed with her, she swung back, bringing up her legs and kicking, hard.

With his focus entirely upon getting her out of the car, Caine didn’t realize what Heather was doing until her spiked heels jabbed sharply into his abdomen like a double-barreled nail-gun. With a grunt, he found himself stumbling backward, falling as his heel caught on the rim of the exit. He landed half in the car, half out the open door–

–and discovered a palmcom shoved into his face, red recording light on, a bizarre tableau around him. He had fallen out at the feet of yet another crowd of shouting protestors. Each brandished a placard emblazoned with a crucifix being menaced by “little-green-man” aliens, who had also sprouted satanic red horns and black tails.

The girlish reporter who was leaning over him stuck her palmcom down so energetically that it bumped his lips. As she began her oblivious mantra–”Mr. Riordan, Mr. Riordan. Janel Bisacquino, Reuters Interstellar”–Caine scrambled to get his legs back under him, to get back into the car, to get Heather out–

But the reporter grabbed his shoulder as he rose, causing him to stumble farther away from the maglev car as she chattered into his ear, “Is it true that you were abducted by aliens on Delta Pavonis Three?”

“Heretic!” one of the protesters yowled over her shoulder from the lee of a long kiosk that paralleled the platform.

Caine shook off the reporter’s hand, spun toward the open doorway of the car–beyond which Heather stood, her features softening into uncertainty–

With an up-dopplering screech, another maglev car shot out of the transport tube and rammed into Heather’s half-size rental–just as Caine grabbed the reporter and dove for the ground.

The metallic shriek of the impact seemed to propel debris savagely outward, heat-hissing shards of metal and plastic corkscrewing over the two of them even as they fell. Screams arose from the protesters. One had gone down, hands clutched to a face shredded by a wave of shattered glass from the kiosk. Others, panicked, fled wildly. One journalist who had evidently been hidden behind the placards was fleeing with the mob. Another was already getting footage of the crash, as well as the blood gushing from the face of the wounded protester. Ms. Bisacquino looked at the smoking ruin of the two cars–a pair of crushed tin cans forever fused and frozen in some savage mating frenzy–her mouth open, mute, and motionless.

“Come on,” said Caine, as the flash-heated synthetics in the cars began to smolder. “We’ve got to get off this platform.”

 

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 33

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 33

Eddie smiled. “In a manner of speaking, rating. In a manner of speaking. Svantner?”

“Yes sir?”        

“Tell me when that Spaniard starts to come around to port. As soon as he does, we’ll crowd him from the south with the Crown.”

Eddie checked his watch. And in about ten minutes, we’ll end the chase. For good.

*     *     *

Nine minutes later, Commander Eddie Cantrell called for the range.

After a moment’s delay, the intraship communications officer piped up, “Seven hundred yards, sir.”

“Mount One, acquire the target.”

The intraship piped up so quickly that Eddie suspected he was in constant conversation with the mount’s commanding officer. “Acquiring, sir!”

“Send word to load with solid shot.”

“Aye, sir.” A pause. “Gunnery officer requests confirmation on that last order: solid shot?”

“Solid shot. Tell him we’re not going to waste an explosive shell until we have a proven targeting solution.”

“Solid shot, aye, sir. And Mount One reports a firing solution. Range now six-hundred fifty yards.”

Perfect. “Fire one round and continue tracking. Svantner, reef sails.”

The wire-wound eight-inch naval rifle roared, flew back into its recoil carriage, smoke gouting out its barrel in a long, sustained plume. A moment later, a geyser of water shot up about thirty yards off the Spaniard’s port quarter.

Eddie raised his glasses. He could see arms waving frantically on the deck of the carrack. While they had no idea exactly what kind of gun was shooting at them, it was a certainty that they knew it was like no gun they’d ever encountered before. And that it was also far more deadly.

“Reload,” Eddie ordered as he felt the Intrepid‘s forward progress diminish, its sails retracting upward, “and adjust. Watch the inclinometer.”

From where he stood, Eddie could watch the gun’s crew go into its routine like one well-oiled machine in service of another. The handle on the back of the gun was given a hard half turn and the interrupted-screw breech swung open, vapors coiling out and around the crew. The cry of “swab out!” brought forward a man holding what looked like, at this range, a gargantuan Q-tip. He ran it into and around the interior, ensuring no embers or sparks remained to pre-detonate the next charge. Meanwhile, a half-hoist brought up the next shell — akin to a short, somewhat pointed bullet eight inches at the base and sixteen inches long — and the loaders swung it out of the cradle and into the breech, where another man promptly pushed it in until it was snug. Powder bags were loaded in next and then the breech was sealed while the second gunner inserted a primer in the weapon’s percussion lock.

“Loaded!”

“Primed! Hammer cocked and locked.”

“New firing solution,” called out the chief gunner. “Right two, up one!”

The second gunner hunkered down, made a slight adjustment to a small vertical wheel on the side of the mount, and another to a small horizontal wheel. “Acquired!”

The intraship pipe at Eddie’s elbow announced, “Mount One reports ready, Commander.”

“At the discretion of the gunnery officer,” — watch the inclinometer more closely! — “fire.”

There was a pause, the gunnery officer studying the levels that indicated roll, pitch, and yaw, and then he shouted, “Fire!”

The second gunner pulled the lanyard, and the long black tube roared again.

Eddie saw the shot go into the water only ten yards in front of the carrack’s bow. And he also realized why the gunnery officer was always a fraction off on measuring the roll: because from his position on the deck, he could not watch the sea close to the Intrepid. Standing only seven feet higher, Eddie had a much better view. He could keep an eye on the inclinometer even as he read the proximal swells and troughs.

One of which was coming. The Intrepid came off the crest of a two foot riser, slid down into a long trough — and Eddie knew the inclinometer was going to be perfectly level the moment before it was.

“Fire!” he yelled forward over the weather deck at the same moment that the inclinometer showed level.

The eight-inch rifle spoke a third time as Eddie jerked the binoculars back up to his eyes –

– Just in time to see the shell tear into the carrack, just aft of its bow on the starboard side. Planks and dusty smoke flew up and outward — and, puzzlingly, from the portside bow as well. Which, Eddie realized an instant later, had been caused by the round exiting the hull on the other side.

The Spanish ship reeled, first to port, then tottered back to starboard, the bow digging into the swells heavily. She wasn’t taking water, but it was possible that her stem — the extension of the keel up into the curve of the prow — had been damaged and her forecastle was starting to collapse, riven by the tremendous force of the shell. As the smoke began to clear and the human damage was revealed — bodies scattered around the impact point, others hobbling away, several bobbing motionless in the cold northern waters — Eddie barked out his next order through a tightening throat. “Load explosive shell. Maintain tracking.”

He waited through the thirty seconds of reloading. The Intrepid was now moving slowly, so her position was barely changing. And the carrack, which had already lost a great deal of her headway by being forced to tack back and forth in response to the harrying ships to either side, had been moving at barely one and a half knots before she was hit. And now, with her bow damaged and her crew panicking —

“Mount One reports ready.”

Eddie kept his eyes just far enough from the binoculars to watch the inclinometer. “Fire,” he ordered calmly.

Perhaps he had become so used to the sound and buffeting of the big guns that he didn’t notice it. Or perhaps he was simply too fixated on the fate of the ship that he was about to kill. Either way, he could not afterwards remember hearing the report of his own gun. Instead, burned into his memory, in slow motion, was the impact of the shell upon the carrack.

There was a split-second precursor: a light puff of what looked like dust. That was the shell, slicing through the starboard corner of the stern so swiftly that it was inside the vessel’s poop before the shock waves sent rail, transom, and deck planks flying in a wide, wild sphere of destruction.

But in the next blink of an eye, that was all wiped away by the titanic explosion that blasted out from the guts of the ship itself. The poop deck literally went up in a single piece, discorporating as it rose, bodies shooting toward the heaven that Eddie hoped was there to receive them. The mainmast, the rearmost on the two-masted carrack, went crashing forward, tearing the rigging down with her and stripping the yard clean off the foremast. Black smoke and flames spun up out of the jagged hole that had been the ship’s stern, and the men on her decks were a moving arabesque of confused action. Some were trying to fight the fires, others were making for the rail, others were trying to give orders, several were trying to get her dinghy over to the port side. None of them were achieving their objective.

“Check fire,” Eddie croaked. “Crowd sails and move to assist.”

Ove Gjedde, as still and silent as a forgotten statue, now reanimated. Suddenly at Eddie’s elbow, he asked, “Commander, you are planning to assist?”

Eddie stared at the men who were now in the water. Their cries were audible even at this distance. He nodded. “We have to.”

Gjedde made a strangely constricted noise deep in his throat. “Commander, I do not wish to intrude upon your prerogatives –”

The radioman looked up. “Commander, message from Resolve. Coded urgent, sir.”

“Read it, please.”

“Aye, sir. Message begins. Captain Mund of Resolve to Commander Cantrell of Intrepid. Stop. Balloon at three hundred feet has spotted three, possibly four ships fifteen miles south of Gob a Ghaill headland. Stop. Heading is due north. Stop. Currently making slightly less than three knots. Stop. Awaiting instructions. Stop. Message ends.’”

Eddie could sense Gjedde standing uncommonly close to him. He wants me to break off, but that isn’t right. We can save those men. “Send this reply, my command line. Message starts: to Captain Mund, Resolve. Stop. Lead flotilla north by northwest on heading parallel to Crown of Waves and Courser. Stop. Intrepid will effect rescue operations and follow all haste. Stop. Secure balloon immediately to minimize possibility of enemy sighting it. Stop. Message ends.”

Gjedde was frowning. For some reason, Eddie imagined himself as Bilbo Baggins at one of those moments when he had pissed off Gandalf mightily. Avuncular Gjedde continued to stare at him, seemed to be weighing his next choice of words very carefully.

Finally he began, “Commander, this is not wise. I must point out –”

“Commander Cantrell,” the radioman muttered, “another message from Resolve. Again, coded urgent.”

Eddie held up a hand to pause Gjedde, nodded at the radioman. “Go ahead.”

“Message starts. CO Resolve to acting CO Intrepid. Stop. First action is concluded. Stop. Command changes are now terminated. Stop. Secure from general quarters. Stop. Captain Gjedde resumes direct command immediately. Stop. Rescue operations hereby countermanded. Stop. Flotilla X-Ray immediately heads north by northwest true, at best speed of slowest ship. Stop. Compliments to Commander Cantrell for successful first engagement. Stop. Message ends.”

Eddie was still watching the men struggling in the chill grey waters, saw that some of them seemed to be weakening already. Those who had been clustered around the dinghy got it into the water, where it promptly foundered. Probably some splinter or shrapnel had punched a hole in it and they had not noticed that damage in their frenzied attempt to escape their ship. Which was a prudent course of action: the carrack, her stern savaged as if some kraken of the deep had taken a vicious bite out of it, was settling back upon her rudder, and listing slightly to starboard. At the rate she was going down, her decks would be awash within the hour. And her crew —

Gjedde put a hand on Eddie’s arm, drew it and the binoculars it held down slowly. “There is nothing to be done, Commander. If we stayed to rescue those men, the Spanish would see us before we could get away again. We must break off now, at best speed, to remain undetected. You must know this.”

Eddie didn’t want to know it, but he did. “Perhaps they’ll be picked up by the Spanish then.”

Gjedde didn’t blink. “You know better than that, too, Commander. They may see the smoke or they may not. If they do not, it is unlikely they would come close enough to see wreckage or hear cries for help. And even if they do, it will be fifteen hours from now. There will be no one for them to rescue and few enough bodies to see, should they chance to come so close to the site of our engagement.”

Eddie looked over the bow. Only three hundred yards away, now, the Spanish were struggling in the water, and the first were already losing the battle to stay above the cold grey swells of the North Sea. He nodded. “Aye, aye, sir. You’re the captain.”

Gjedde’s eyes fell from Eddie’s. Suddenly, he looked even older. Then he turned on his heel and began giving orders. “Mr. Bjelke, secure from general quarters and give orders to unload battery and personal weapons. I want no unnecessary or accidental discharges as we run from the Spanish. Pilot, set us north by northwest true. Mr. Svantner, pass it along to crowd all sail. There will be no rescue operations.”

As the crew of the Intrepid scrambled to set about their duties, Eddie noticed that the Tropic Speculator, which had been traveling under full sail the whole time, was drawing abreast of them. Lining the starboard gunwales were more of the Irish mercenaries, who peered ahead at the wreckage and the ruined carrack.

The Spanish, seeing the ships approach, called out for quarter, for aid, for mercy for the love of god.

Passing them at two hundred yards off the portside, their cries were half swallowed by the sound of the wavelets against the Intrepid’s hull.

But the Tropic Speculator passed them at a distance of only one hundred yards to her starboard side. The Spanish cried out to the men lining her rail, perhaps seeing the facial features and even the tartans and equipage they associated with their traditional Irish allies.

But the Irish made no sound, and watched, without expression or, apparently, any pity, as more of the Spanish began to sink down deeper into the low rolling swells of the North Sea.

 

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 32

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 32

Chapter 16

St. Kilda archipelago, North Atlantic

Eddie transferred Anne Cathrine’s hands from him to the rail — “Hold on, Anne Cathrine, and be ready to take the ladies below” — and made for the stairs to the observation deck atop the pilot house. “Orderly?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Glasses topside, please. And call Mr. Bjelke back on deck. Smartly.”

“Yes, sir!” The response was dwindling aft already.

As Eddie made his way up the stairs — damnit, can’t this leg go any faster? — he heard Gjedde’s voice behind him. “No point in breaking your neck, Commander. Things do not happen quite so quickly in this century.”

As Eddie thumped his prosthetic down upon the observation deck — another change from the Hartford — he turned to offer a smile to the older captain, whose mouth looked a little less rigid than usual. It might have even had a faint upward curl at one side. If he hadn’t spent so much time with Simpson, he might have completely missed that hint of a smile. So, Gjedde doesn’t hate me. Either that, or he’s hoping I’ll get offed in the next hour or so…

Eddie went straight to the speaking tubes, popped back the covers, and toggled the telegraphic command circuit. “Circuit test,” he shouted.

“Tests clear,” came the muffled shout from under his feet where the intraship telegrapher was stationed.

The orderly bounded up the stairs, passing a new-pattern spyglass to Gjedde, and holding a case out toward Eddie, who snapped it open and lifted out the precious up-time binoculars. The signalman hustled past with a hastily muttered “Verlot!” and was immediately ready, pad to his right, left index finger poised on the telegrapher’s key. “Comms manned, Captain Gjedde.”

Who shook his head. “You will make your reports to, and take your orders from, Commander Cantrell. He will direct this ship through her first combat.”

Eddie turned, stunned, “What?”

Gjedde bowed. “Your command, Mr. Cantrell. Compliments of your father in law, Christian IV.”

Why that old son-of-a — “Then Captain Gjedde, I say three times: I have the bridge. What’s the word from the foretop crow’s nest? What manner of ship, flying what colors?”

After a pause, the report came back. “A carrack sir. Old design. Spanish colors.”

Spanish colors? Up here? What the hell were they –?

Apparently, telepathy was a strong trait in the Danish; now it was Gjedde who seemed to read his mind. “Not so unusual. They supply the Irish with guns and powder, from time to time. Sometimes the Scots, too. There is no shortage of rebels against English occupiers up here, and Spain is only too happy to provide them with assistance.”

Eddie nodded. “I understand, but why ever they happen to be here, it seems that they’ve seen us. They ran between Crown of Waves and Courser like they were waiting for that opening. I suspect they saw our smoke, peeked around the northwestern point of Hirta — at Gob a Ghaill — saw our flotilla, measured the breeze, and realized their only way to avoid us was to run before the wind after our advance picket had passed them, but before our main van drew too close.”

Gjedde nodded, the visible slivers of his eyes sharp. “Ja, that is how I see it, also.”

“Very well. Signalman, relay this to intership telegrapher for immediate send. ‘To Captain Mund aboard Resolve. Message starts: Have spotted –”

“Sir,” said the radioman, “incoming message from Captain Mund.”

Well, speak of the devil — “Read it as you get it, Rating.”

“Captain Mund commanding Resolve to Commander Cantrell, presumed to be in temporary command of Intrepid. Message begins: By joint order of Emperor Gustav Adolf and His Royal Highness Christian IV, I relinquish operational command of Reconnaissance Flotilla X-Ray to you for duration of first engagement. Stop. Awaiting instructions. Stop.”

Oh, so all the heads of state are seeing if I have the goods when the shit starts flying. Well, no reason not to give them a good show — “Radioman, send the following under my command line. To Captain Mund, on Resolve: message received and acknowledged. Stop. To all ships: general quarters. Stop.” He turned to see Bjelke pound up the stairs to the observation deck. He nodded at, and gave him an order, in the same instant: “Sound general quarters, Mr. Bjelke. Orderly, make sure our passengers understand that ‘general quarters’ means ‘battle stations.’ Only duty personnel on deck.”

“And if they don’t understand that, sir?”

“Then correct their misunderstanding. With main force, if necessary. No exceptions. Including my wife. Especially my wife. Is that clear, mister?”

“Very clear, ja, sir!” And again the young orderly was off, with a rising tide of coronets and drums carrying him on his way.

Bjelke returned to his side. Gjedde watched from the rear rail of the observation deck. Eddie thought for a moment, turned to the signalman, “Forward mount, get me range, bearing, and speed of the Spaniard. Then send to Crown of Waves and Courser: I need their precise heading and speed.”

“What are you thinking, Commander?” asked Bjelke.

“That whatever the Spanish do or do not understand from having seen us, we can’t let them escape and report. Just knowing that a flotilla of USE ships is on a course that would suggest a New World destination is bad enough. Anything else could be disastrous. They might have seen the smoke and presumed that one of our ships was on fire, or that we have whalers with us who were putting blubber through some of the new shipboard try-works. But someone with better information on the USE’s activities is likely to figure that this carrack spotted our steam warships. Word of this encounter can not — not — reach people with that kind of knowledge.”

The radioman called out. “All messages acknowledged, except Crown of the Waves. I think something is wrong with her radio-set, sir. Lots of lost characters. And they seem to be losing some of ours, too.”

Well, now it’s a real military engagement: we’ve got commo snafus. So without the radio — “Send to Courser: Radio on Crown of Waves inoperable. Stop. Your position gives best line of sight and shortest range. Stop. Relay command signals to Crown of Waves via semaphore and aldriss lamp. Stop. End of Message. New message to Resolve starts. Drop to rear of formation. Stop. Remain at one mile distance. Stop. Deploy balloon ASAP. Stop. Maintain close rear watch. Stop. Message ends.”

Bjelke’s left eyebrow raised. “Rear watch, sir? A trap? Up here?”

“Traps are most effective where they’re least expected, wouldn’t you agree, Lieutenant Bjelke?”

“Aye, sir.”

“So we eliminate that admittedly slim possibility first, then take the next steps.”

Gjedde folded his arms. “And what steps are those?”

“To box the Spaniard in. Radioman?”

“Just received acknowledgment from Courser now. Captain Haraldsen passes along word that Major Lawrence Quinn sends his compliments and will oversee technical coordination on that hull.”

Eddie felt his heart rate diminish slightly. It was good to know the other — the only other — military up-timer in the flotilla was out there, lending a hand. The down-timers were competent, eager, and obedient, but sometimes, they just didn’t get how all the parts of a steam-and-sail navy worked together. In all probability, the most important test during this shakedown cruise would not be of Simpson’s new ships, but of the crews of his new navy. “Send Major Quinn my greetings and thanks. And have him relay this to the Crown of Waves: set course north by northwest, paralleling the Spaniard. Course for the Courser, the same.”

“Speed, sir?”

“What God and sail-handlers will allow, radioman. We are not raising steam.”

Bjelke made a sound of surprise. Eddie turned to look at him. “You can speak freely, Rik.”

“Sir, I thought combat was exactly the time when you would order steam. Is that not one of the main purposes of this cruise, to see how the steam ships fare in actual combat, under power?”

“Normally, yes, but this time, I’m worried about detection. If this ship is not alone then, trap or no trap, raising steam means sending a message to any and all of the rest of an enemy formation about where and what we are.”

The radioman cleared his throat politely. “Message from Resolve, Commander.”

“What does Captain Mund have to say?”

“Sir, he points out that in order to deploy the balloon, he will have to clear his stern of canvas. And if he does so, if he slacks the sails on the mizzen and swings wide the yard to clear the deck for air operations, he will slow down and fall further behind.”

“Send that this is not an operational concern. He’ll still have better speed than either Patentia or Serendipity, whom he must remain behind and protect. More importantly, please remind him that decreasing his ship’s speed makes it a better platform for the balloon. When you’re done sending that, send to the Serendipity and Patentia that they are to crowd sail. I don’t want them lagging behind too far, and stretching out our formation. And have the Tropic Surveyor close on us as she is able, crossing our wake when we clear Gob a Ghiall.”

“Aye, sir. Sending now.”

Bjelke frowned. “You want the bark to the south of us, closer to the island?”

“Absolutely, Lieutenant. Because if the enemy has more ships behind that headland, I want to give them something to deal with while we bring round our rifles and teach them just how long our reach is.”

Gjedde may have nodded. “And so, what will Intrepid be doing?”

Eddie smiled and, by way of answer, waved Svantner over. “Lieutenant, do we have solutions for range, bearing, and speed of the Spaniard?”

“Yes, sir. Mount One has rechecked first findings and confirms the following with highest confidence: the Spaniard is now just under a mile off, making two and a half knots and heading north by northwest true.”

“Crown of Waves and Courser?”

“Now on parallel courses with the Spaniard, sir. Crown is making three knots and a bit, Courser is almost at six.”

Eddie made a mental map plot. The Spanish carrack was in a tight spot. If she turned to either port or starboard, she’d be turning into the paths of faster, better-armed ships, and losing the wind in doing so. And since the ships boxing her in — Crown of Waves to the south, Courser to the north — could sail closer hauled and faster, their speed and maneuverability would be even less affected if they made a matching course change. He had the Spaniard straitjacketed. Now to shorten the chase —

“And our speed, Mr. Svantner?

“Five knots, sir. We can make a bit more if we steer a half point to port, and put the wind just abaft the starboard beam.”

“Do so, but keep me out of a direct stern chase. I don’t want to shrink the target profile.”

“Sir?”

“I don’t want to have to shoot straight up that Spaniard’s narrow ass; I want a little more of his side to aim at.”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Mr. Bjelke, send the word to Mount One: stand ready.”

“At once, Commander!”

Gjedde unfolded his arms as Bjelke hurried down the stairs. “About fifteen minutes then.”

Eddie turned. “I beg your pardon, Captain?”

“Fifteen minutes before you start firing. The range will have dropped to under half a mile, by then.”

Eddie smiled. “Less.”

Gjedde narrowed his eyes. “How?”

Eddie felt his smile widen. “I would be delighted to demonstrate, sir.”

Gjedde crossed his arms again and frowned. “Please do.”

Eddie gave a partial salute and turned to his First Mate. “Mr. Svantner, has the Spaniard reacted to our course change yet?”

“A bit, sir. She shifted course slightly to the north, keeping us at distance.”

“But closing on the Courser, yes?”

“A bit sir, yes.”

“Then send to Courser: change heading one point to port. Full sheets on the spencer masts. Give that Spaniard a reason to run the other way.”

“Aye, sir.”

Eddie turned — and caught Gjedde smiling. His face became stony in an instant. “So. You’ll scare him into tacking. Each turn of which costs him time and momentum.”

Eddie shrugged. “It’s what you taught me, second day on ship. Seems like the right plan, here.”

Gjedde nodded. “Seems so.”

The radioman uttered a confused grunt, checked an incoming message a second time. “Sir, signal from the Courser. But it doesn’t make sense.”

“Read it, radioman.”

“From Major Quinn, technical advisor aboard Courser, to Commander Cantrell on Intrepid. Stop. Regarding course change. Stop. Aye, aye, Commander . . . Hornblower?” The radioman’s voice had raised to an almost adolescent squeak. “Stop. Message ends. Sir, is Commander ‘Hornblower’ code, sir?”

 

Trial By Fire – Snippet 04

Trial By Fire – Snippet 04

“The Pearl,” Barnard’s Star 2 C

Martina Perduro turned away from her commplex with a sigh. “Damn it. I didn’t even know we had half that many reporters in the civilian sector. And of course we just happened to send Riordan right out into the midst of them.”

Trevor watched the monitors, tracking the progress of the blip that denoted the private maglev car which had whisked Caine away from the journalists and protesters. “Don’t worry, Admiral. Riordan can handle the press.”

“Handle them? He was one of them, wasn’t he?”

“No, ma’am, not really.” Trevor tapped the monitor as the interactive maglev-system diagram flickered uncertainly, then reasserted. “He just took some freelance reporting gigs to make ends meet in lean times.”

“What did he do for a living?”

“Different things. Worked for Jane’s Defense Weekly as an analyst for a while, then wrote books. Consulted, too. Defense and intelligence: all the major three-letter agencies. A few others, besides.”

Perduro made a huffing noise. “I know those consultancies and their fees. How ‘lean’ could the times have been?”

“Pretty lean, because Caine has a serious flaw when it comes to working for the government.”

“Which is?”

“Well, he has this real bad habit of telling the truth.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. So he had an irregular career because he was always willing to wonder out loud about the so-called experts’–and his own–methods of analysis, and about the conclusions derived from them.”

“So he got in trouble for doing his job properly?”

“Yep, particularly when his observations ran afoul of Ancient Agency Traditions. One time, he pointed out that age stratification in the intelligence organizations was crippling their counterintelligence analysis. Specifically, the generation gap had senior experts unaware that contemporary ciphers were incorporating pop-culture memes and semiology–which the under-thirty junior analysts could have recognized and decoded in their sleep. Caine wound up getting two supreme recognitions for that discovery.”

“Which were?”

“Well, first he got a huge consultancy bonus.”

“And the second?”

“They let him go. Never hired him back. Buried the files and findings.”

“So he was the proverbial prophet, unwelcome in his own land.”

“Well, there’s that–but frankly, he’s also not your typical beltway type.”

“How so?”

“Admiral, have you ever worked with a polymath? A real polymath?”

Perduro smiled. “I served under Nolan Corcoran–remember?”

“Touché. But Dad–well, he liked managing people. Not Caine.”

“Strange. He doesn’t seem antisocial.”

“He’s not, Admiral, but, well, you know how artists don’t work best in groups?”

“Sure.”

“Yeah, well, that’s kind of how Caine works, too. He’s a team player, but he often does his best work independently. Probably because he doesn’t think like most of the team.”

Perduro picked up a hardcopy report printed on the light blue letterhead of the Med-Psych section. “‘Subject Riordan evinces unusual balance between right and left lobe thought; demonstrates real-time syncretic problem-solving. Does not alternate between data intake and revision of situational contexts, but engages in both processes simultaneously.’”

Trevor raised an eyebrow. “Ma’am, if you had all that psych-eval data on Caine already, why ask me for my extremely inexpert assessment?”

“For the reason I indicated before, Captain: to get a human perspective that isn’t all numbers and graphs and psychobabble. Thankfully, what you just shared confirms most of what the so-called experts have observed.”

Trevor shrugged, turned to check the real-time rail system diagram for the progress of the private maglev car that was carrying Caine–and jerked forward to scrutinize the screen. “Admiral–” he started.

“I see it, Captain. Where the hell did that other car come from? Where’s its transponder code? And what in blazes is it doing on the same track?”

And then the screen went dead. A moment later the security monitor feed blacked out also–followed by every light in the room.

Perduro punched the button to call the Duty Officer just as he came through the door and the red emergency lighting began to glow. “Admiral, we’ve got a widespread blackout on all–”

The power came back up, the lights flickering sharply before their luminance stabilized.

Perduro rounded on the hapless D.O. “Mr. Canetti, what the hell is happening on my base?”

“Ma’am, I don’t know.”

“Admiral,” murmured Trevor. As Perduro turned toward him, he pointed to the security monitors and the maglev tracking screen. They, alone of all the electronic devices, were still dark.

“Son of a bitch,” Perduro breathed.

“Came in to tell you about those systems in particular,” Ensign Canetti blurted into the silence after her profanity. “Those systems went down first. And they went down hard.”

“Okay, so get the techs on it. What went wrong, and where?”

“That’s just it, Admiral. We don’t know. The whole maglev tracking system–and the station and platform monitors–just seem to have, well, disconnected.”

Trevor looked up sharply at the young ensign. The system had just “disconnected?” Where had he heard that before? Trevor jumped out of his chair, made for the doorway in the long, gliding leaps made possible by Barney Deucy’s low-gee environment.

“Trevor, where the hell are you going?”

“Admiral, we don’t have a lot of time. That kind of ‘disconnection’ is exactly what happened when the airlock on Convocation Station failed and almost sent Caine and one of the friendlier exosapients into hard vacuum. Similar electronic failures enabled a number of the other assassination attempts made against Caine, like the one at Alexandria.”

“So where are you going?”

“To the last station stop on the maglev line.” He looked at the D.O. “Do you have the main comms back yet?”

“Only the hard-wired system, sir.”

“As soon as you can, get a message to the Shore Patrol to meet me at the last station on the civilian branch of the maglev line.”

Perduro stood, frowning. “Why there?”

“Admiral Perduro, correct me if I’m wrong, but the track into the civilian section only extends a dozen meters or so beyond the final station. And they use that extension as a kind of shunting track: they leave cars there, or send them back the other way.”

Perduro’s frown deepened. “That’s true.”

“Then it’s also like a dead-end canyon. Once there, the only way out is to come back along the stretch of track that the rogue car has already entered.”

Perduro swallowed. “Putting Riordan between a speeding rock–”

“–and the very hard place at the end of the tunnel, Admiral. So with your leave–”

“Get the hell out of here, Captain. I’ll have the SPs meet you at the last station if I have to find them and drag them there myself.”

 

Trial By Fire – Snippet 03

Trial By Fire – Snippet 03

Chapter Three

Off-base sector, Barnard’s Star 2 C

The doors of the private maglev car closed abruptly, terminating the outraged cries of the reporters. Once Caine and Ensign Brahen had found seats as far from their rescuer as politeness allowed, Heather Kirkwood tapped her outsized palmcomp. A gentle hum arose, as did the car, floating up an inch or so before they felt the smooth acceleration that would carry them toward the end of the civilian sector’s rail spur.

Brahen eyed Heather again, and then Caine. “She’s your ex-wife?”

“No, no. Ex-girlfriend.” Caine managed to suppress a shudder at the notion that he might ever have married Heather Kirkwood.

Who had turned toward Caine. “So, it seems there was a nice reception waiting for you, now that you’ve decided to stop playing soldier. Surprised?”

Caine leaned back. “Not really. It was just a matter of time before the local stringers and hack-journalists found me.” Which was only a partial truth. That they knew Caine was on Barney Deucy was only mildly surprising. Knowing when and where he would emerge from the naval base was somewhat disturbing. What was alarmingly suspicious, however, was the sheer number of reporters on the platform: way too many. Barney Deucy was an infamously dull news post. The entire system typically had one-fifth the number of correspondents that had accosted the two of them.

“Okay. But that doesn’t explain why she“–Ensign Brahen gestured at Heather without looking at her–”came all the way from her high-profile job on Earth. Just following a deductive hunch?”

“Oh, it wasn’t guesswork for Heather. She knew she’d find me here.”

“How?”

Heather twirled a golden lock with a desultory middle finger. “Yes, how did I know to find you here, darling?”

“You picked up my trail on Mars just a day or two after I left. Easily done, since I was seen by quite a few people at Nolan Corcoran’s memorial. And I’ll bet you learned that I’d been attacked in my room by a pair of Russian servicemen–despite attempts by both the Commonwealth and Confederation officials to hush it up.”

“So far, so good.”

“But all your leads came to a dead end: you found I’d been shipped off planet. No word where, no reason why. So you checked to see if any other persons of interest had been on Mars at the same time as me, and then left the same time as I did.”

Heather smiled. “And what a crowd of luminaries I turned up. Two World Confederation consuls, two Nobel prize-nominated scientists, India’s top computer whiz, the late Admiral Corcoran’s kids–commando son Trevor and brainy daughter Elena–and, last but not least, Richard Downing, affiliate of America’s two recently deceased heroes, Corcoran and Senator Tarasenko. Who were old Annapolis chums. Who both employed Downing at different times to do–what, exactly?” Heather’s smile was wide and bright. Her eyes were every bit as predatory as the ambulance-chasers they’d just eluded.

Caine ignored the all-too-accurate intimation that Downing was up to his neck in clandestine activities. “Now here’s the tricky part,” he resumed, picking up the explanation to the wide-eyed Brahen. “Having traced all these people to Mars, Heather knows she’s on the trail of something interesting. She finds indications that all of us have shifted out-system, but the transit logs indicate that there were no shift carriers outbound from Earth at the right time. But at some point, she makes–or is helped to make–the incredible intuitive leap which tells her I have left the system by other means.”

“I didn’t need any help coming to that conclusion, thank you very much,” Heather retorted, chin elevating slightly. “Ever since you announced the existence of exosapients at the Parthenon Dialogs, some of us in the press have speculated that maybe not all of the exosapients are primitive. That maybe the focus on the aborigines of Dee Pee Three is just a stalking horse to take our attention away from contact with much more advanced exos.”

Her concluding sentence did not end on as firm a note as it had begun. She doesn’t have any facts, just hunches. She hasn’t been told about our group’s travel to the Convocation. Caine continued narrating Heather’s journalistic adventures to Brahen. “Of course, Heather’s right. A special shift carrier was, in fact, waiting to take us out-system,” A half-lie, since the shift carrier had been “special” because it belonged to an alien species. “But where had we gone, and why? Alpha Centauri is the most developed system, and would be a logical first stop for all the missing VIPs, no matter their ultimate destination. But instead, Heather somehow deduced that we would wind up at the most closely controlled piece of real estate in human space: The Pearl, here on Barney Deucy.” Seeing the slightly theatrical nature of Heather’s smug answering smile, Caine knew she was trying to act knowing, confident, but had not reasoned it out this way at all. “Or,” he added, “a helpful informant aimed her inexplicably but confidently at the base here. She never learned how the informant knew, but that didn’t stop Ms. Kirkwood from booking herself on the first out-bound shift-carrier.” Heather’s smiled faltered as Caine asked her, “Is that about right?”

Heather recovered quickly, though. She shook her head; long gold tresses swept from side to side. Her extraordinary–and, Caine knew, artificially–lavender eyes engaged him for a full second before she spoke. “I heard rumors that the coldsleep had damaged your memories, Caine. But evidently it didn’t affect your intellect, or your ability to be aggravating, to push my buttons. Occasionally.” She leaned back; on the surface, it was simply a shift to a more relaxed posture. Somehow, Heather made it the inviting recline of a courtesan. “So–have you missed me?”

“Haven’t had the time to miss much of anything, Heather.”

“My, my, you never used to wake up this testy. But I suppose sleeping through fourteen years could make one a little more arch than usual.”

“Or maybe I just woke up with a decreased tolerance for reporters.”

Heather remained quiet for a second. “Such a semicivilized insult. But I suppose we’ve both grown old and boring. Which reminds me, are you in touch with any of your friends from the Independent Interplanetary News Network?”

Caine managed not to roll his eyes. “Oh, yeah, all my IINN ‘colleagues’ who loved me so much.”

He felt Brahen’s eyes move sideways to study him. “Actually, sir, ward-room scuttlebutt says you were a pretty successful–”

Heather tossed a bang aside. “Oh, he was very successful, Ensign. A bit too successful, actually. You see, he didn’t go to the news networks: they went to him. On bended knee.”

Caine made himself laugh. “You still don’t mind a bit of exaggeration if it makes for a more evocative story, do you, Heather?”

“And I never will. You see, Ensign Brahen”–her sudden inward lean and facetiously intimate tone were Heather’s most antagonistic provocations yet–”when I was at IINN, the senior editors were big fans of Caine’s first book, and his way with words. And then they discovered he was good on camera, even though he was shy about being in front of one.”

“That wasn’t shyness. That was aversion.”

“See? He is good with words. So there he was, on an open-ended contract, free to come and go as he pleased, allowed to snatch up the choicest research projects involving the Pentagon or the cloak-and-dagger types a few miles away in Langley.

“But of course, not all of us girls and boys who had worked and sweated and lied and slept our way up the ladder were happy when Caine became the darling of the aging news chiefs who rediscovered, in their near-senility, that journalism was still about informing the public. As if it ever had been. But Caine Riordan was the perfect salve for their pangs of career-end guilt: a bona fide public intellectual who was self-effacing, honest, energetic, eloquent, even charming. And the rest of us could only look on in envy.”

“Or hatred,” added Brahen, fixing Heather with her own assessing gaze. “Sounds like you still haven’t figured out exactly how you feel about your old boyfriend, Ms. Kirkwood.”

Heather leaned back with a clap of her hands. “Bravo! Rising to the bait at last, are you, Ensign?”

Judging from Marilyn Brahen’s lowering brows, Caine suspected he’d better steer the conversation back to the original topic. “Heather, you already know I’m not in touch with anyone in the media. That’s the first place you’d try to pick up my trail.”

“One of the first. I tried tracking down your family, but no contact there, either.”

“Never had much to be in contact with. Less now.” As in “zero.”

“What about your college friends? You had a pretty close circle of them from your undergrad years. If I remember correctly.”

“You do–and you’ll leave them out of this. As I have. I keep a low profile so that people who knew me can’t contact me. It might not be–healthy–for them.”

Heather leaned back with a frown. “So the rumors are true.”

“What rumors?”

“That what you know is worth killing for.”

 

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 31

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 31

“Eddie, you keep mistaking what loving parents of your time consider wise actions, and what loving parents of my time consider wise actions. I am a king’s daughter, and so almost a princess in stature within my own country. But much less so elsewhere, because in marrying me, a foreign throne will not have gained any formal influence — or potential of inheritance — in the lands of my family.

“And so I was not to be married off to a crown prince of one of the other courts of Europe, but wedded to a Danish nobleman. And who among those men had enough wealth and influence to be a de facto dowry for my hand?” Her face hardened. “Old, ambitious men, most of whom spent their whole lives counting their money, counting their estates, counting the ways in which they might move one step higher in the nasty little games of social climbing that are their favorite sport.” Eddie thought she was going to spit over the side in disgust.

But instead she rounded on him, her eyes bright and unwavering. “So you see, my darling Eddie, it is you who saved me, not the other way around.” Her eyes searched his and he could almost feel heat coming out of them, and off of her. Her face and body was rigid with the intensity of passion that he loved to see, to feel, in her. When she got this way, she was just one moment away from grabbing and holding him fiercely, and what usually happened next — oh, what usually happened next! —

Didn’t happen this time. Anne Cathrine seemed to remember her surroundings, looked away, readjusted her kerchief — that damned kerchief! what the hell? — and stared out to sea. She pointed at the Courser, now nearly two miles ahead of the Intrepid and widening the gap rapidly. “That is the smaller of your steamships, yes?”

Huh? She knows perfectly well that it is. But all he said was, “Yes, Anne Cathrine. That’s our destroyer.”

“A fierce name,” she said with a tight, approving nod. “And that one gun in the middle of its deck, sitting in its own little castle, is the most dangerous of them all?”

He smiled. “That little castle is what we call a ‘tub mount’. The round, rib-high wall protects the gun crew from enemy fire, shrapnel, fragments. As does the sloped gun shield. The rifle can bear through two hundred seventy degrees and fire several different kinds of shells to very great ranges.”

“It is the same as these guns on your ship?” She pointed to the two naval rifles on the centerline of the Intrepid’s weather deck.

“Yes, but, umm…this isn’t my ship, sweetheart. It’s — “

“Yes, I know. It’s Gjeddes’. But he has let you run it, with the exception of the sail-handling, since we left the dock.”

Eddie shrugged. There was no arguing with the truth.

Anne Cathrine was pointing over the bow. “And that sail up ahead, that is the Dutch-built yacht?”

“Yes, the Crown of Waves. A good ship. She’s out ahead of us as a picket.”

“I thought you have provided us with balloons to look far ahead, so that pickets were no longer needed?”

He smiled. “Pickets are always needed, Anne Cathrine. Besides, we don’t want to use the balloons if we don’t need them, and if the winds get any stronger, an observer could get pretty roughed up, to say nothing of damage to the balloon itself.”

“I see. And the other ship like your Intrepid — the Resolve — that’s her, falling to the rear?”

“Yes.”

She was silent for a long time. “Your ships are so big compared to ours. Even compared to the Patentia, the Resolve is easily half again as long and half again as high, except at the very rear. And still –”

“Yes?”

“Eddie, should your warships have so few guns? I know up-time designed weapons are terribly powerful, but if they should fail to operate, or the enemy gets lucky shots into the gun-deck –” She stopped, seeing his small smile.

“Trust me, Anne Cathrine, we have enough guns. More than enough. It’s more important that our magazine is big enough to carry plenty of excellent ammunition to keep our excellent guns well supplied. Which is the case.”

She nodded, turned her eyes to the ship lumbering along beside the Patentia. “Not a very handsome ship, the Serendipity.”

Eddie let a little laugh slip out. “No, she’s not much to look at.” The Serendipity was a pot-bellied bulk hauler, with the lines of a bloated pink or fluyt. “But she’s steady in a storm, and seven hundred fifty tons burthen. And we need that cargo capacity. So ugly or not, we’re lucky to have her.”

“Not as lucky as to have the Tropic Surveyor,” countered Anne Cathrine with an appreciative smile and a chin raised in the direction of the last ship of the flotilla.

And Eddie had to admit that Tropic Surveyor was a handsome ship, her square-rigged fore- and mainmasts running with their sheets full. The large, three-masted bark had a fore-and-aft rigged mizzen and twelve almost uniform guns in each broadside battery. Her lines were unusually clean, reflecting the first influence of frigate-built designs upon traditional barks. Her master, a Swede by the name of Stiernsköld, was known to be a highly capable captain who, if he had any failing, tended toward quiet but determined boldness.

Anne Cathrine’s attention had drifted back to the Patentia, however. “What are all those men doing on deck, and who are they?”

Eddie glanced over, saw a growing number of men at the portside gunwales of the Patentia, many pointing at the island peaks to the south, some nodding, some shaking their heads. Eddie smiled. “Those are the Irish soldiers who came up from the Infanta Isabella of the Lowlands.”

Anne Cathrine frowned. “I still do not understand how mercenaries who have been in Spanish service for generations –”

Eddie shook his head. “I don’t understand it either. Not entirely.” And what little I do understand I can’t share, honey. Sorry.

“Do you at least know why they are on deck there — and look, more of them are gathering at the rail of the Serendipity! What are they looking at?”

The voice that answered was gravel-filtered and deep. “They think they are seeing their homeland.”

Eddie and Anne Cathrine turned. Ove Gjedde was behind them, his eyes invisible in the squinting-folds of his weathered face. Neither had heard him approach.

“Their homeland?” Anne Cathrine repeated.

“Yes, my Lady. Because the last week’s wind has been fair, there has been some loose talk that we might sight the north Irish coast late today.” He sucked at yellowed teeth. “That will not happen until tomorrow, sometime. But I am told that the Irish got word of these rumors. And as you may know, most of them have never seen Ireland, but were born in the Lowlands. Their eagerness is understandable.” Gjedde made to move off once again.

Eddie offered a smart salute. “Thank you, Captain.”

Gjedde returned a slight nod that was the down-time equivalent of a salute between officers of comparable rank, made a slightly deeper nod in Anne Cathrine’s direction, and began slowly pacing forward along the starboard railing, hands behind his back.

Anne Cathrine stared after him. “He did not return the new naval salute, as per your Admiral’s regulations.”

“But he does follow the rest of the regs. To the letter.”

Anne Cathrine watched the spare man move away. “Captain Gjedde seems to grow more somber every time I meet him.”

Eddie shifted his eyes sideways to his wife. “While we’re on the topic of ‘more somber’…”

Anne Cathrine glanced at him quickly, fiddled with her kerchief, tucking a stray strand of gold-red hair back under it. “I do not know what you mean.”

“Sure you don’t.” If they had been alone, he would have put an arm around her waist, pulled her closer. “C’mon, Anne Cathrine, what gives? You’re acting . . . oddly.”

“I am not.” At that particular moment she did not sound like her usual sixteen going on thirty-six. She just sounded like she was six.

Eddie smiled. “Uh, yes, you are. And what’s with the head covering?”

Her hands flew up to her kerchief and she stepped away from him quickly. “Why? Has it come undone?” Satisfied that it was still firmly in place, she raised her chin, looked away. “There is nothing wrong. Nothing.”

Huh. So there was a connection between his wife’s hinky behavior and the kerchief. “Anne Cathrine, honey, don’t worry. Tell me what’s going on. Let me help.”

She looked at him, her eyes suddenly glassy and bright, then glanced away quickly.

What? Has she lost most of her hair? Fallen victim to some strange depilatory disease particular to the high seas of the northern latitudes? “Anne Cathrine, whatever it is, it’s going to be all right. Just tell me and — “

“Oh, Eddie — ” She turned back to him and, oblivious to on-lookers, cast herself into his arms. “I’m sorry — so sorry.”

“Sorry? About what?” He tried to ignore the fact that even through his deck coat and her garments, he could still feel his wife’s very voluptuous and strong body along the length of his own. And in accordance with the orders given by the supreme authority of his ancient mammalian hindbrain, certain parts of him were taking notice and coming to general quarters. Well, more like standing at attention…

“Oh, Eddie, my hair! I should have seen to my packing, my preparations, myself. But in the rush to get everything aboard, and with all the last minute changes — “

“What? Have you lost your hair? That’s okay; we can — “

She pulled away from him. “Lost my hair?” She pulled herself erect. She might not have the title of a full princess, but she could sure put on a convincing show of being one. “Certainly not. But I — I neglected to oversee my servant’s preparations. And now I, I . . . ” She looked down at the deck, then reached up, and tugged her kerchief sharply.

Eddie was prepared for anything: baldness, scrofulous patches, running sores, dandruff the size of postage stamps, medusan snakes — anything. Except for what was revealed.

Anne Cathrine’s red hair came uncoiling from the bulky kerchief in a long, silk-shining wave that came down to the middle of her back. Eddie couldn’t help himself: he gasped.

Seeing his expression, Anne Cathrine pouted. Her lower lip even quivered slightly. “I knew it.”

“Knew what?” Eddie heard himself say. He was still busy staring at his wife’s hair and trying to tell his lower jaw to raise and lock in place.

“Knew that you would be aghast to see my hair like this, without the curls. Oh, I tried, Eddie, I did. My servant forgot to pack the heating combs, and neither I nor Leonora — nor Sophie — know how to do our hair any other way. Commoners can make curls with wet rags, I’m told, so we tried that, but none of us did our own hair often.” Or at all, Eddie added silently, now quite familiar with coiffuring dependencies of noble ladies. “I have been trying since we left to keep some curl in it, or at least a wave, but this morning, we all agreed there was nothing left to try.”

“It’s beautiful,” Eddie croaked.

Her smile looked broken. “You are a wonderful husband, to say that. But you can barely speak the words. I know the expectations of fashion, Eddie. And here you see the truth at last: I have straight, plain hair. No tumbling curls, not even a tiny ripple of a wave. Plain, straight hair.”

He reached out and touched it. “Hair like fire and gold spun into silk,” he breathed. “And in my time, that kind of hair was very much in fashion. Hell, I didn’t think hair like this was ever out of fashion.”

She blinked. “So — you like it? You like my hair this way?”

Eddie gulped. “Oh, yes. I like it. Very much. Very, very much.” He roused himself out of his pre-carnal stupor. “But know this, Anne Cathrine, the hair is not important to me. What’s under it is.” He touched her cheek. “As important as the wide world.”

Anne Cathrine’s smile — shockingly white teeth — was sudden and wide. She caught his hand on her cheek and held it there. “Truly,” she said, “I am the luckiest woman in the world.”

“And a princess, to boot,” Eddie added with a grin.

“A king’s daughter,” she corrected, and moved toward him again —

“Sail, sail on the port bow! Rounding the rocks, sirs. She’s running before the wind!”

 

Trial By Fire – Snippet 02

Trial By Fire – Snippet 02

Chapter Two

“The Pearl,” Barnard’s Star 2 C

It was typical of Admiral Martina Perduro that she started talking as soon as Trevor Corcoran opened the door. “Well, Captain, ready to ship out?”

The admiral’s tone was jocular, so Trevor replied in kind. “Not at all, ma’am.” He attempted to conceal his slight limp with a bouncing stride. “Heck, I was just getting used to the luxury billets here at The Pearl.”

Perduro’s answering grin was crooked. “Glad you’ve liked the accommodations.”

“I’ve always been partial to the narrow bunks and dull steel fixtures, but it’s the weather and the scenery I like best. Poisonous atmosphere, lethally low atmospheric pressure, hard rads due to the lack of a magnetosphere, and not a living cell except for the ones we brought with us into this gray-walled rat warren.”

Perduro leaned back. “Okay, but smile when you say all that, Captain.”

“I was smiling, ma’am–wasn’t I?” Trevor glanced at a chair.

“Sit, sit already,” Perduro waved at it. Then, not looking at him: “How’s the leg?”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

“Captain Corcoran, do you really think I don’t get training updates on command grade personnel? Or that I don’t read them?”

Trevor felt a little less jocular, now. “My leg is fine, ma’am. Never better.”

“Hmph. Not what the base CMO said a few days ago. Fractured left tibia, if I recall.”

“Hairline stress fracture,” emended Trevor. “A small one.”

“Yes, but enough to warrant them going in and poking around, evidently.”

Trevor shrugged. “Which is, I suspect, the source of my discomfort, ma’am. I don’t know why the CMO felt the need to get busy with a knife. I talked to the medtech who took the scans. Hardly anything to see.”

“Hm. Is it the leg that’s dented–or that SEAL ego, Captain?”

“Technically, I’m no longer in the Teams, ma’am.” It annoyed Trevor that a chief petty officer had tagged him that hard during hand-to-hand drill.

Perduro was smiling at him with one raised eyebrow. “I’ll be sad to see you go, Trev. Your visit brought a bit of color to the navy-gray of Barney Deucy.”

Trevor stared at the files on her desk, at the screens that surrounded her. Caine Riordan’s name or image was on at least half of them. “Well, Admiral, to be frank, it wasn’t really me who brought the color, was it?”

Perduro’s smile was small but genuine. “Don’t sell yourself short, Trev. Besides, being with you is a bit like old times for me. Your father–God rest him–was the BELTCINC when I was a shave-tail HQ staffer during the Belt Wars.”

Trevor nodded, did the math, was surprised that Perduro was that old, considered her very well preserved indeed. “But still, ma’am, I’m not the novelty around here.” Trevor pointed at Caine’s face on one of the screens. “He is. Understandably.”

“You both met five species of exosapients at the Accord’s Convocation last month. That makes both of you celebrities in my eyes.”

“You’re very kind, ma’am. But I just went along to carry the figurative shotgun. Caine was the liaison, the communicator. And the guy who found the first exos on Dee Pee Three.”

“Yes, and who I’ve now had to make a naval officer to boot. As per Richard Downing’s orders.” She frowned. “About Downing: what intelligence agency is he with? And how the hell did he get the clearance and command-equivalency rating that he waved in front of my nose when he dropped you two off here a month ago?”

“Admiral Perduro,” Trevor sat up very straight and cleared his throat. “I regret to say I have no information pertinent to the assignment or disposition of Mr. Richard Downing, nor would I be officially disposed to share it if I did. Ma’am.”

Perduro’s other eyebrow rose to join the first. “Ah. The Holy Creed of Plausible Deniability.”

“Sorry, ma’am.”

“I’m sure you are.” She fiddled with a palmcomp stylus for a moment. “Downing is your godfather, isn’t he?”

“That is correct, ma’am.” And he’s the new chief of IRIS. And a direct advisor to President Liu. And the sonofabitch who turned my father’s body over to the same aliens who sneaked some kind of organism into his chest. Yes, that’s my friend-buggering, skull-duggering Uncle Richard.

Perduro nodded, might have detected the overly crisp tone in Trevor’s reply since she changed topics. “And what’s your take on our thirty-day wonder, Mr. Riordan? Will he cut it as an officer?”

“Ma’am, I’m sure you must have all of Caine’s scores.” I can see them right there, in front of you. “His lowest performance index is still a three sigma-shift above the center of the bell curve. Can’t ask for better than that.”

“Trevor, don’t be obtuse. You know what I’m asking. He looks fine on paper. I need a human perspective from someone who knows him but can be objective.”

Trevor frowned as if he was mulling over his response while his brain raced in a different direction. You think I can be objective about Caine Riordan? Gee, that might be a little hard, seeing as how he’s the guy who fell in love with my sister fourteen years ago, the guy my dad then mind-wiped, who is the father of my fatherless nephew, and who is now romantically involved–well, entangled–with one hell of a wonderful coldsleeper from the past, Opal Patrone. Who my late father all but stuck in Caine’s bed. Yeah, sure, I can be impartial about Caine Riordan, aka “Odysseus.” Not a problem.

“Captain Corcoran, are you uncomfortable giving your assessment of Riordan?” Perduro’s tone had grown slightly more formal. “Is there some failing not indicated on his OCS results?”

“Oh, no, ma’am, just trying to find the right words.”

“The right words for what? Either he’s going to be a good officer or he isn’t.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, I don’t think it’s that simple in his case.”

Perduro steepled her fingers, breathed out a slow sigh. “I’m probably going to regret asking this, but I am duty-bound to do so: please explain why the assessment of Riordan is not ‘simple.’”

“Ma’am, to start with, he was an impressed civilian. A draftee in an all-volunteer force. So he’s not wearing the blue because it’s the fulfillment of lifelong dream.”

“So he resents it?”

“No. In fact, he was preparing to volunteer. But only because he thinks it’s necessary.” Trevor wondered, despite Perduro having been briefed on the disastrous outcome of the Convocation, just how much he should reveal. “Riordan thinks that we could be at war pretty soon, and he wants to ‘do his part,’ as he put it.”

Perduro’s eyes grew harder behind the now-rigid pinnacle of her fingers. “So Riordan and Downing are on the same page about the disputes at the Convocation, that they could be precursors to war?”

“Ma’am, I think that’s how all of us who were at the Convocation felt. The superficial purpose for that all-species meet-and-greet was to talk, but some of the members came to pick a fight. And I’m pretty sure they’re going to get what they came for.”

Perduro folded her hands. “A sobering assessment, Captain. But back to Riordan: will he freeze in a fight?”

“No, ma’am. He’s already handled some pretty tough situations since being pulled out of cyrosleep. You’ve probably seen that in the reports of the assassination attempts he foiled on board the Tyne, then at Alexandria, then at Sounion, and then on Mars.”

“Hmmm. Yes. Although it looks like he had considerable help at Sounion. His fellow sleeper, Major Opal Patrone, seemed to be quite the one-woman reaping machine, there.”

Trevor made sure that neither his voice or his eyes changed. “Major Patrone was assigned as his close security, although he didn’t know it at the time. She’s a top-notch soldier. She has also been teaching him karate. Shotokan tradition.” But Martina Perduro had no need to know that poor, future-stranded Opal Patrone had also been assigned to become Caine’s paramour. Which will make for an interesting reunion, if Elena and Opal are both in the room when Caine reveals that he has remembered the one-hundred-hour romance he and Sis had on Luna. And that Connor is his child. I’m not quite sure how Opal will take that–

“So who’s trying to kill Riordan, do you think?”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am?” But with any luck, Caine will pick up where he left off with Elena fourteen years ago, and my sister will want to do the same. Which even makes sense on the chronological level, since his time in cold sleep has allowed her to catch up to his greater age. And then, once Opal has gotten over Caine, and started to move on, maybe then I’ll–

“Captain Corcoran, are you paying attention?” Perduro’s voice startled him. Trevor almost blinked as his awareness returned to the gray-walled office.

“Sorry, Admiral. I was thinking about your question.”

“Of course you were. But how about it, Captain? Who do you think is trying to kill Riordan? The megacorporations, maybe? He certainly ruined their attempt to dig up alien artifacts on Delta Pavonis Three.”

Trevor drummed his fingers slowly on the arm of his chair. “Admiral, the various assassination attempts on Riordan might not all originate from the same source. And not all of the sources might be–familiar–to us.”

“You don’t have to tiptoe around the topic, Trevor. Downing highlighted the possibility that exosapients have suborned our own people to carry out covert actions on Earth. I suppose it’s also implicit that some of the efforts could have involved both megacorporate and exosapient assets. But there’s been no clear motive for such collusion, and absolutely no hard evidence of it.”

“That is correct, Admiral, although–” And then, motion on one of Perduro’s monitors caught Trevor’s attention. He pointed. “Admiral, is that Caine, next to that maglev?”

Perduro waved a desultory hand behind her. “Yes. Part of the charade of his being an officer. A four-minute command. To conduct a security check in the civilian sector, with our youngest shavetail, Ensign Brahen, as his ‘unit.’”

“Well, Admiral, that little bit of theater might be veering towards hard-edged reality.” He pointed more forcefully.

Perduro turned–and her eyes widened. Riordan was ringed by a posse of reporters, backed by a mob waving placards and trying to decide just how ugly it wanted to become.

“Damn it! I should have been watching–”

“No one else is on real-time oversight?”

“For a joyride to the civilian sector?” snapped the admiral, but she turned red as she said it. Coming from the same service ethos, Trevor could read her mind: “My watch, my fault.” At that moment, a small maglev car–a private rental–pulled up, and after a moment’s time, Riordan and Ensign Brahen entered it.

“Was their escape in that little car part of the plan?” asked Trevor.

“No. Not part of my plan, at any rate.” Perduro punched a virtual stud on her desktop-screen. “Duty Officer, get me the Shore Patrol.”

 

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 30

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 30

Chapter 15

St. Kilda archipelago, North Atlantic

Once they arrived at the rail, Anne Cathrine looked up at Eddie, face serious, but her eyes seemed to twinkle. “Hi,” she said, not bothering to suppress the dimple that this use of Amideutsch quirked into being.

Commander Eddie Cantrell felt the protocol-induced queasiness in his stomach become a mid-air dance of happy butterflies. “Hi,” he said. Or maybe he gushed: he wasn’t really sure. He was never exactly sure of what came out of his mouth when he was around the singularly beautiful and stammer-worthy sex goddess that was his almost seventeen-year-old wife.

But instead of indulging in any more of the small signs of endearment that they had evolved over the past year to communicate in a playful (or, better yet, racy!) secret banter when in somber and dignified social settings, Anne Cathrine bit her lower lip slightly. She looked out to sea, tugging fitfully at her head scarf. What the hell is it with the head coverings, anyhow? It’s nice weather, not really too windy, and —

Anne Cathrine looked up at him again, smiling through a slight frown. “So, how did your find your first conversation with Henrik Bjelke?”

Eddie almost started at her tone: measured, serious, possibly concerned. “Um…fine.”

“I am glad, Eddie. Very glad.”

“You sound as if you were worried.”

“About Bjelke? No, not particularly. I very much doubt you have to worry about him. He is still an outsider at the Danish court, and too young to threaten you. Much.”

“‘Much?’” Eddie echoed. He hoped it hadn’t come out as a surprised squeak.

Anne Cathrine turned very serious now, her very blue eyes upon him. “Dear Eddie, although this is a USE mission, conceived by the leaders of Grantville and given royal imprimatur by Gustav of Sweden, the majority of your commanders are Danish.” She smiled. “Or hadn’t you noticed?”

He grinned back. “Nope. Completely slipped past me. Past Admiral Simpson, too.”

She lifted an eyebrow, curled a lip in a slow smile that Eddie associated with other places, other exchanges — down, Eddie! down, boy! Then she was looking out to sea, again. “Joking aside, Eddie, there are ambitious men in this flotilla, men whose personal interests may not be well-served if you are too successful.”

“Me — successful? Wait a minute, it’s not like I’m in charge of the flotilla. Heck, I’m something like the third rung down on the command ladder. Maybe less. It’s hard to know how rank would play against nobility in this kind of situation. So it’s not as if the success or failure of this mission is mine.”

“Now it is you who must ‘wait a minute,’ Eddie. You may not have the highest rank, but everyone in every ship — and back home — knows this mission to the New World was your idea. Yours. Admiral Simpson was intent on going to the New World, yes. Such plans were already afoot, yes. But it was you put forward the idea of making it a reconnaissance and a ruse all bound into one mission. If this stratagem works, you will receive credit as its architect. At the very least.”

Eddie scratched the back of his head, remembered that gesture probably didn’t radiate a dignified command presence, snatched his hand back down to his side. “Yeah. Well. Okay. So who are all these Danish guys with hidden agendas?”

“Firstly, my love, they might not have hidden agendas. That is the problem with hidden agendas: that they might or might not be there at all. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Well, sure.”

“Excellent. So now, who first? Well, the commander of the task force, for one.”

“Captain Mund? He seems, um, barely communicative.”

“And so he is, but that does not mean he is without ambition. He is a minor noble, although he does not flaunt his title. Which is probably just as well.”

“Why?”

“Because he was granted a tract on Iceland.” Anne Cathrine shivered. “It is not a very nice place to be a landholding noble.”

“You mean, sort of like the Faroes?”

“Hush, Eddie! You must know that father did not give you that land for any reason other than to furnish you with the highest title he might within the nobility of Denmark. And, I suspect, as an entré to greater things.”

“So I’ve suspected, also.” he crossed his fingers, offered silent thanks to John Chandler Simpson.

She looked at him. “Then you are indeed learning the ways of these times, Eddie. Which is necessary, I am afraid. Now, the person you must be most careful of is Hannibal Sehested.”

“You mean the guy who displaced the captain from his cabin on the Patentia? I met him at court, just this spring. Seems like a nice enough guy. Shrewd, though.”

“He always has been a nice enough fellow in his behavior toward me, too, Eddie. But he is also, as you observe, shrewd, and history showed that he was shrewd enough to advance his fortunes in your up-time history’s Danish government. Even though he made himself an enemy of the man who was to become its most influential member, Corfitz Ulfeldt.”

“The guy who was a traitor, up-time?”

“Yes, the man who was to betray my father. And who would have married my sister Leonora in just over a year.” Again, she looked over her shoulder at the shorter of her two ‘ladies’, but this time the glance was both protective and melancholy. “Corfitz was already betrothed to her, you know. Had been since 1630.”

“But…but she was only nine years old!”

Anne Cathrine nodded gravely. “Eight, actually. And here you see the fate of the daughters of kings who are not also full princesses. We are objects of exchange, no less than we are objects of his genuine love. He arranges marriages that ensure the nation of secure bonds between the king and his nobles, since familial ties to the throne are craved above all things by men of that class. And if, thanks to those ties between crown and Riksradet, we all live in a time of domestic harmony, prosperity, and peace, then would we king’s daughters not be ungrateful if we failed to consider ourselves ‘happy’?”

Eddie mulled that over. “That’s what I call taking one for the team. And doing so for the rest of your life.”

“If by that you mean it is a sacrifice, well — I think so, too. Although many thought me ungrateful for feeling that way.”

“Well, they can go straight to — okay, I know that look: I’ll calm down.” Hmmm: calming down — that reminds me. Eddie turned so his back was to Ove Gjedde. “So, while we’re dragging out the dirt on the Danish upper crust, tell me: what do you know about Captain Gjedde? He’s the one guy that the admiral and I couldn’t find anything useful about. Seems he led the expedition to set up your trade with India, but after that, not much.”

Anne Cathrine frowned. “I am sad to say that I do not know much more of him than that. I do know that father respects him, but — well, Captain Gjedde is not an exciting man. As you have remarked to me several times on our journey thus far. And he is still recovering from wounds he suffered in the Baltic War. From fighting against your Admiral Simpson’s timberclads, if I recall correctly.”

Oh. Well. He must really be a big fan of up-timers, then. Particularly the ones who had a direct hand in blasting his ship to matchsticks…

Evidently, Anne Cathrine could read the expression on his face or was displaying an increasing talent for honest-to-God telepathy. “No, I do not think his reticence is caused by your being an American. He is more mature than that, and has seen his share of war. Like many older military men, he does not confuse the actions of following a king’s order with the will of the men who must carry it out.”

“Yeah, he looks old enough to have achieved that kind of perspective. What is he? Sixty, sixty-five years old?”

Anne Cathrine looked somber. “Forty-one.”

“What?”

“He was always a somber, old-looking man, but his wounds from the Baltic — they drained him. He has not been at court since he suffered them, last year. But then again, he was never much at court. He doesn’t enjoy it. And while father respects his abilities, Captain Gjedde is not the kind of man that he takes a personal interest in. The captain excels at navigation and can predict the weather like a wizard from the old sagas. But he does it all quietly, calmly. Not the type of man to capture father’s often mercurial imagination.”

“Not like young Lord Bjelke.”

“No, indeed. And of course, father’s interest in Bjelke is also self-protective.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean that Henrik Bjelke was, historically, not always a supporter of my father or his policies. He could yet prove quite dangerous, I suppose.”

“Really? Jeez, Rik seems like a pretty good guy, actually.”

“Yes, father thinks that as well. He just wants to make sure that history does not repeat itself. And so he has involved Lord Bjelke in his plans for the New World.” She looked over her shapely, and surprisingly broad, shoulder to where Henrik was escorting the ladies on what promised to be a quick looping promenade to the taffrail and back to the companionway. “In fact, I think Father put him aboard for a very special purpose.”

“You mean, to watch me.”

Anne Cathrine’s eyes went back up to Eddie’s and he felt wonder, appreciation, and perhaps the tiniest bit of sadness in them. “Ah, you are becoming adept at our down-timer machinations, Eddie — or at least, at perceiving them. Which, as I said, is a positive thing. But still, even so, I hope you will always be — I mean, I hope it won’t make you –”

“Jaded? Subtle? Snake-like in my new and sinister cunning?”

Anne Cathrine tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t. She laughed softly, swayed against his arm for the briefest of contacts. “You — how do you say it? — you ‘keep it real,’ Eddie. For which I am grateful. And which is one of the many reasons I love you so. But let us be serious for one moment more. Young Lord Bjelke’s history and eventual friendship with Corfitz Ulfeldt, in your world, caught my father’s attention. So I believe he wants Henrik indebted to him, and yes, hopes to gain a loyal observer in the fleet, as well. But I think Papa has another purpose, as well.”

“Which is?”

“Marriage.”

“Marriage? Of Bjelke? To whom?”

Anne Cathrine looked over her shoulder again. “To Sophie Rantzau. Or maybe my sister.” She frowned as she watched the two ladies in question finish their circuit of the stern. “I cannot tell.”

“Huh,” Eddie observed eloquently. “Huh. A military mission to the New World as a means of kindling a strategically shrewd shipboard romance? Your Dad sure sees some odd opportunities in some odd places. Why not just play matchmaker at court, where he can meddle with the young lovers personally? Which, let’s be honest, is one of his favorite pass-times.”

Anne Cathrine smiled and swatted him lightly. “For which you should be very grateful, husband. Otherwise, where would we be today, had he not played the part of Cupid?”

“Where would we be? Well, let’s see. I’d still be rotting in the dungeon with a crappy peg leg on my stump, and you’d be married to Lord Dinesen, or some other wealthy noble.”

“Yes, who would no doubt be three times my weight and four times my age. So, I’m not sure which of our two fates would be more grim.”

“Yeah, well, when you put it that way­ –”

“Trust me, dear husband, that would literally have been my fate. The marriage you helped me avoid when you were my father’s prisoner wasn’t simply a staged engagement. My wedding to Dinesen was a very real possibility.”

“No. You father would never have made you marry that –”

 

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 29

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 29

Eddie was surprised and reassured by the frankness of that admission. He doubted Christian would have been happy with Bjelke drawing such a straight line between his own presence and the Danish king’s desires. And while it was possible that this was disinformation meant to instill false confidence in Rik, a look at the younger man’s face and genuine blush-response told Eddie otherwise. Bjelke was simply a polished, well-educated young man who was likely to prove courageous and capable in the years to come, but right now, was a youngling out on his first great adventure. If there was any duplicity in him at all, it would be minor, and contrary to his nature. Eddie could live with that. Easily.

“Well, Rik, however you got here, you’re here. So, welcome aboard the Intrepid. First order of business is to make you at home.”

“Thank you, sir. My man Nils has seen to my berthing and I must say it is a welcome change from the Serendipity. Those accommodations were most…uncomfortable.”

“Well, I’m glad you like your stateroom” — more like a long closet, reflected Eddie — “but when I suggested we make you at home, I meant familiarization with the ship. Do you have any questions about the Intrepid that your briefers didn’t answer for you?”

Rik brightened immediately; if he’d been a puppy, his ears would probably have snapped straight up. “A great many questions, Commander. Although not for want of my asking. Frankly, my briefers, as you call them, knew fewer particulars about your new ships than I did. I had studied the classes of American vessels that were the foundations of your designs, which they had not. And they could answer only a few questions about how they differed, other than the guns and the steam plants. Seeing them, it is clear that you have made other significant modifications.”

Eddie nodded. “Yep, we had to. This class — the Quality I class — needs to be an even more stable firing platform than the original Hartford was.”

“Because of the increased range and capability of her eight-inch pivot guns?”

Eddie shrugged. “That’s a large part of it. But it gets more complicated. Firstly, the Hartford had its broad side armament on the weather deck. We put ours below.”

“Better performance in bad weather?”

“Well, that too, but it was actually the result of some complex design trade-offs. Firstly, we wanted maximum clear traverse for the pivot guns. So that meant ‘clearing the gun deck,’ as much as we could. There was already a lot that had to go on up there. We needed our anti-personnel weapons on the weather deck so they could bear freely upon all quarters. And although we have a steam engine, that’s for tactical use only. Strategically speaking, we’re just a very fast sailed ship. Meaning we’ve got a full complement of rigging and sail-handlers on the weather deck as well. So, the only way we could clear the deck was to put the guns underneath.

“What we got out of that was a more commanding elevation for our naval rifles. But it also allowed us to bring a lot of the weight that was high up in the Hartford down in our design, thereby lowering the center of gravity.”

“So, putting the broadside weapons on a lower deck also made the ship more stable.”

“Exactly. But then, we didn’t want to put our crew down in the bowels of the ship. So we had to put the crew quarters inboard on the gun-deck. The only reason we were even able to consider doing that was because our broadside weapons are carronades. They’re a lot shorter than cannons, and their carriages are wheeled so as to run back up inclined planes when they recoil.”

“But that still wasn’t enough, was it, sir?” Rik looked over the side at the noticeable slope that ran out from the rail down into the water. “So to get the rest of the room you needed for inboard crew berthing, you pushed your battery further outboard by widening the beam of the gun deck.”

Eddie nodded his approval. “Bravo Zulu, Mr. Bjelke.”

“‘Bravo Zulu?’”

Eddie smiled. “An up-time naval term. ‘Well done.’ Learned it from my mentor.”

“Ah. That would be Admiral Simpson.”

“The same. And so, yes, we widened the gun deck, which meant another change from the original Hartford. She had pretty much sheer sides, which is just what you’d want for a fast sloop. But when we designed the Quality I class, we realized that not only would adding that outward slope of the sides — or ‘tumble home’ — be a good thing to add in terms of deck width, but for stability in higher seas, thanks to how increased beam reduces roll.”

Bjelke leaned out over the rail. His eyes followed the waterline from stem to stern. “Yes, these are the structural differences I saw, and at which I wondered. Thank you for explaining them, Commander.” He pointed at the somewhat smaller steam ship pulling past them at a distance of four hundred yards, her funnel smokeless, her sails wide and white in the wind. “I see the same design changes in the smaller ship — the Speed I class, I think? — but less pronounced.”

Eddie nodded. “Yeah, we decided to keep her closer to the original lines of the sloop. So we put only one pivot gun on her, kept the tumble home shallower, and freeboard lower and the weather deck closer to the waterline. She sails sharper, faster, more responsively, and has three feet less draught.”

“So better for sailing in shallows, up rivers, near reefs.”

“Yes, and strategically speaking, our fastest ship. In a good breeze, she’ll make eight knots, and she’s rigged for a generous broad reach. Unless she’s fully becalmed, she can make reasonable forward progress with wind from almost three-quarters of the compass, assuming she has the room to tack sharply.”

“And yet you do not label her a steam-sloop, as was the ship that inspired her.”

“You mean the Kearsarge from the Civil War?” Eddie shrugged. “Well, as I understand the Civil War nomenclature, if a ship had a fully covered gun deck, she wasn’t a sloop. Even if she had a sloop’s lines, she’d still be called frigate-built. Although frigate-built doesn’t necessary imply a military ship.”

Rik smiled ruefully. “I grew up on farms. Even though many of them were close to the water, I confess I do not have a mariner’s vocabulary yet. I find these distinctions confusing. Because, if the reports I hear are true, you are not calling the other ship — the Courser, I believe? — a frigate, either.”

“No, we’re calling her class a ‘destroyer’ and the Intrepid‘s class a ‘cruiser’. As class names, they’re not great solutions. But at least they’re up-time terms that haven’t been used to describe ships, yet, so they’ll be distinctive and somewhat descriptive in terms of role. If you’re familiar with the up-time history of those classes of ships, that is. But anything else we tried to come up with ran afoul of the labeling confusion that already results from the current lack of international naming conventions.

“In fact, ‘frigate’ would have been the most confusing label we could have settled on. Ever since down-time naval architects started doing research in the Grantville library, most of the shipyards of Europe have started building new designs, the straight-sterned frigate chief among them. So if we called our new steam-ships frigates, they’d routinely get confused with the new sailed vessels currently under construction throughout Europe.”

Bjelke nodded attentively, but Eddie saw that his focus was now split between their conversation and something located aft of their current place at the rail. As soon as Eddie noticed Rik’s apparent distraction, the young Norwegian moved his eyes, ever so slightly, upward over his superior’s shoulder and toward the new item of interest.

Eddie turned and saw, back by the entrance to the companionway leading down to the officer’s quarters, that his wife — and her ‘ladies,’ as Bjelke styled them — had emerged to stand on the deck in a tight cluster. They were not an uncommon sight topside, but they usually reserved their appearances for fine weather, not overcast skies. However, despite the mild wind freshening from out of the southeast, they were all dressed for cold weather, apparently. Or were they? Eddie squinted, saw no coats or shawls, which made him only more confused. So why the hell do they have kerchiefs covering their heads? And all three of them, no less. Damn, I’ve never seen a lady of the aristocracy allow herself to look that, well, dowdy. And now they’ve all adopted the same frumpy look? What the heck is that abou — ?

“Commander, given the arrival of the ladies, perhaps it would be convenient for you if I were to take my leave?”

Eddie nodded. “Probably so. Tell my wife that she can” — and then a voice inside his head, the one that was partially schooled in the etiquette of this age, muttered, No, Eddie, that won’t do. Think how it will look, how it will seem.

Damn, ship protocol was tricky, and yet was still kind of free-form in this era when navies weren’t really navies just yet, and had protocols for some things, but not for others. For instance, take the simple desire to have his wife join him alone at the rail. He couldn’t very well wave her over. That would be an obvious blow to her stature, and mark him as an indecorous boor, which would work against his accrual of respect as well. But if he sent Bjelke over to summon her, that would be like making the young Norwegian nobleman his valet and also be entirely too formal, to say nothing of downright stupid-looking. Yet, if Eddie left the rail to go over to Anne Cathrine, then it could be difficult to extricate themselves from the presence of their respective attendants — Bjelke and the ladies — if they didn’t all know how to take a hint —

Eddie discovered that, for the first time since he had stepped on a deep water ship, he had a headache and an incipient sense of seasickness. Which he allowed, probably had nothing to do with the sea at all.

But Bjelke offered a slight bow to Eddie, and inquired, “Might I — with your compliments — inform the ladies and your wife that you are currently without any pressing duties? And that I would be happy to escort any and all of them wherever they might wish to go?”

And for the third time — wasn’t that some kind of spiritual sign, or something? — Eddie felt a quick outrush of gratitude toward the young Norwegian. Bjelke’s simple solution allowed the junior officer to decorously depart from his commander, greet the ladies, and inform them of the status of the ship’s captain. Then Anne Cathrine could approach or not — with Bjelke and her ladies in tow or not — and this idiotic etiquette dance would be over and Eddie would have thus achieved the hardest nautical task of his day thus far: finding a way to converse with his wife, on deck and in private, for a scant few minutes.

Eddie nodded gratefully — hopefully not desperately — at Bjelke, who smiled and with a more pronounced bow, left to carry out his plan.

Which worked like a charm. He arrived at the ladies’ group and presented himself. Cordial nods all around, a brief exchange, then he walked with Anne Cathrine halfway across the deck, and by some miracle of subtle body language, managed to successfully communicate to Eddie that he should meet them about half way. Which done, effected a serene and stately rendezvous between man and wife as the crew watched through carefully averted eyes.

Bjelke nodded to both spouses and retraced his steps to the two remaining ladies. Eddie smiled at Anne Cathrine and as they walked back to the rail, the young American breathed a sigh of relief. Another terrifying gauntlet had been run.