Perdition

by Scott McKay

  He had a plan for doing it, too, and he was developing the influence necessary to carry it out.

  But first, Ardenia had to survive first contact with this fresh Udar assault. Dees was burning the candle at both ends attempting to save the republic.

  Much, but not all, of that history and strategy was making its way into a letter Dees was writing to a politician he had been considering forming an alliance with as he rode a locomotive from Dunnansport back to the capital at Principia. Louis Roth was a parliamentary Delegate from Port William, a large city just north of Dunnansport that he was about to pass through on his way to the capital, and he was going to send his adjutant to insure it was hand-delivered to Roth as the train made its stop at the station there. The letter was an invitation for Roth, who Dees knew was back in his constituency on this day, to join him for a private meeting in Principia upon his return to the capital., and a further invitation for Roth to board the next train to Principia for just that purpose.

  It would be more considerate for Dees to have simply stopped in Port William and held the meeting with Roth there. But that couldn’t be done, because Dees was due to make a presentation to a meeting of the Ardenian High Military Commission in the morning, and he had designs on benefiting from the results of that meeting.

  Dees wanted a spot on the Commission, or HiMiCom, as the government slang for it went, for the Office of Special Warfare, and he meant to get it.

  At the meeting would be President Greene, the Defense Minister, the heads of the Admiralty and the Army, the Chief of Marines and the Chief Delegate of the Parliament. He needed four votes out of the six to be added to the Commission, and he was pretty sure he had three: Greene, the Minister of Defense John Elmore, and Chief Delegate Paul Porter. He just had to get one of the service chiefs to come aboard. The most likely of those would be the Chief Admiral, Trenton Graves, whose chief of staff Victor Phelps was a friend Dees had cultivated for some time.

  Dees finished his letter to Roth as the locomotive pulled into Port William, and rang for his adjutant, Lieutenant Landon Mason, summoning him to the command car.

  “Yes, General,” Mason said, entering from the staff car adjoining Dees’ private berth.

  “Landon,” Dees barked. “This is a letter for Louis Roth. You know who he is and where he is. Get a courier at the station and have it delivered to him. His eyes only.”

  “Absolutely, General,” Mason said, as Dees gave him the unmarked envelope. “I’ll have it done.”

  A few minutes later, as the locomotive sat idle at the station, Mason returned.

  “Delivered?” Dees asked.

  “I have good news and bad news, General,” responded Mason. “The bad news is there is a leak in the water line, and they’re changing it out before we continue our journey to Principia.”

  “How long a delay?” Dees asked.

  “No more than an hour or two.”

  “That cuts us close for HiMiCom. Get a teletext to the Defense Minister about the delay. Let’s see if he can move the meeting to a little later in the day tomorrow. What’s the good news?”

  “I delivered the letter to Delegate Roth in person.”

  Dees looked at Mason, puzzled. “What, he was at the platform?”

  “That’s correct, General. Right in front of me as I departed from the staff car. I took the liberty of asking him if he would join you for a private meeting, and he agreed. He’ll be here as soon as he stows his baggage.”

  “Excellent. Well done, Landon. Send him in as soon as he shows.”

  A few minutes later Delegate Louis Roth, the leader of the Territorialist Caucus of the Ardenian Parliament, walked through the back door of Dees’ command car.

  “Delegate Roth,” Dees greeted him, coming from behind his desk and extending a hand. “Abraham Dees. We’ve not met but I’m an admirer.”

  Roth took it, giving Dees a firm shake. “Likewise, General. I’m certainly a follower of your philosophy on the Udar question and I think you know I’m committed to doing what I can to seeing it through to action.”

  “Very good,” Dees said. “Please sit. Can I interest you in a whisky?”

  “Indeed, sir,” said Roth. “I take it neat.”

  “As do I,” said Dees, though he didn’t as a matter of practice. The large bucket of ice procured in Dunnansport amid much scrambling by Lieutenant Mason would simply go to waste at this meeting, but Dees was nothing if not adaptable when it came to seeking commonality with those he wished to cultivate.

  Two tumblers of Beacon Point’s Finest having been poured, Dees sat on the couch opposite the Delegate. He sized up the man, whom he had only seen as a spectator at the parliamentary proceedings at the Societam. What he knew of Roth was that he was a passionate, brilliant orator and a man of strong conviction, but he didn’t have a detailed knowledge of the man behind that public persona.

  Dees’ efforts to build a file on Roth had come up with little if any probative value. Roth came from modest roots; his father ran a stable in Port William and his mother was a tutor, and Roth had enlisted in the Navy at seventeen, serving his five years directly amid Dunnan’s War. He’d seen combat action at sea, though never rising above the rank of midshipman. But following his service, Roth enrolled at the law school at Rose Hollow, finishing atop his class, and then returned home to set up shop as a solicitor. That was almost twenty years ago, and Roth had paired success in the legal profession with a political career that saw him begin on the Port William city council, then move to the Provincial Assembly, and finally to Parliament.

  Roth had ascended despite the utter collapse of his political party. A member of the Party of Enterprise, he opted to go with the Territorialists over the Prosperitans when that party split eleven years earlier, and after his election to Parliament four years earlier he’d risen quickly to his current status.

  That rapid rise wasn’t a surprise to Dees as he looked Roth over. He was a wiry man of about six-foot-one, with scholarly-looking spectacles lending an air of authenticity to his gray pinstripe suit. Roth wore a pair of expensive-looking black eelskin boots, which Dees deduced were his one concession to vanity, and carried a pleasant, though intense, expression on his angular face.

  Dees decided he would gamble a bit and carry his designs for Roth forward at full speed.

  “I’m going to take you into my confidence, Mr. Roth,” he said, “and so I’ll be quite direct if you’re amenable to it.”

  “By all means,” Roth said. “And please call me Louis.”

  “I go by Abraham,” Dees said. Roth nodded politely, sipping at his tumbler.

  “All right then. As you may know, tomorrow morning I’m to address HiMiCom on the current troubles, and I have the intention of appending my office to that body.”

  “As you should,” Roth said. “HiMiCom is a morass of passive thinking and corruption bordering on treason. It needs a breath of fresh air.”

  “Quite so,” said Dees, “though I have spent much energy cultivating a majority vote there.”

  Roth nodded.

  “There will be more to come,” Dees said. “We’re doing what we can to facilitate a defense of the Tweade, but the enemy is coming in numbers we can’t withstand. The effect of what’s to come will reverberate all the way to the Societam.”

  “Change,” Roth agreed. “This status quo is a rotten corpse. It can’t continue.”

  “We are in accord,” said Dees. “The Greene administration will fall when Trenory falls.”

  “You believe the Udar will take Trenory?” asked Roth.

  “Don’t you?” Dees answered with a question.

  “Yes,” Roth said. “Rosedale is too old, and his methods are insufficient.”

  General Jason Rosedale commanded the three divisions deployed to protect the city of two hundred thousand, and at sixty-five had never commanded a combat unit. He was a logistics officer whose appointment to defend Trenory had occasioned grumbling in Army circles, and his plan for the defense of Treno
ry was even less inspiring. There was little detailed intelligence on Udar troop strength headed to that city, but it was expected that the force attacking there would number at least two hundred thousand.

  “When Trenory falls,” said Dees, “yours will not be the only voice calling for President Greene’s resignation.”

  “It isn’t the only one now,” said Roth. “We have the entirety of the Territorialists and Prosperitans in Parliament, plus at latest count fourteen Peace Party delegates, having made public calls for her resignation.”

  “But she won’t resign,” said Dees. “You’re going to have to force her out.”

  “A vote of no confidence,” Roth said. “That takes two hundred four delegates. We’re at one hundred forty-nine. We’ll need a great deal of movement.”

  “You’ll need a leader. That’s what you’ll need.”

  Roth’s eyes lit up in recognition. “A wartime leader who understands the enemy we’re fighting, who predicted the conflict and prepared for it when no one else did. I agree.”

  Dees gave him a quizzical look.

  “You, General,” said Roth.

  “No, no,” Dees said, with a chuckle. “I was talking about you.”

  “I can’t get the votes,” Roth said. “We’re in discussions with the Prosperitans and we’re going to restore the Party of Enterprise by year’s end. But even then, we’re at one hundred thirty-five out of four hundred six, and I can’t see sixty-nine Peacies crossing the aisle.”

  “I can,” said Dees. “With the evidence of corruption that we have against Greene and with the war effort in collapse after Trenory falls, they’ll be running from her like she’s on fire.”

  “I’ll lead the New Enterprise Party,” said Roth. “I might rise as high as Chief Delegate if there’s a major realignment. But I can’t see it going higher than that. The Peacies are going to run Cole next year, and they’ll want to do so from a position of incumbency. They won’t give up the presidency.”

  Roth then looked at Dees intensely. “It has to be you, Abraham.”

  “This was not my intention,” Dees said. “I was hoping to meet with you to crown you king of the revolution, not enlist your support for a bid of my own.”

  “You’re Peace Party,” Roth pressed. “It isn’t required to be a member of Parliament to be president. In the case of a vote of no confidence Parliament can appoint an interim president with a majority vote. If we throw New Enterprise behind you, you’re the overwhelming choice.”

  “And what would you want in return for that support?” Dees asked. “Not that I’m saying yes at this time. I haven’t thought it through yet.”

  Roth shot him a look which said he didn’t believe a word of what Dees had just told him.

  “We want you to win this war, General. Go and win it.”

  TWELVE

  Fort Stuart, Tenthmonth Fourteenth, 1843rd Year Supernal

  Sebastian began the trip to Fort Stuart, finally, just after noon. He noticed that the ferry system across the Tweade from Barley Point was improving. A new sidewheeler, The Miracle, had just come into service from its previous duty along the Sornan River where it had been making the Aldingham-to-Port William circuit. What Sebastian noticed was that The Miracle could carry a half-dozen lorries at a time across the river, and that was a good thing; there were lorries lining up all the way down River Street in order to cross the Tweade with supplies, materials and equipment for the fort, which he knew was in the Udar crosshairs.

  He pulled rank and drove his roadster up to the front of the line at the riverside dock, with his new friend Boyd Irving, the captain commanding the Marines in charge of the river at Barley Point, waving him past the lead lorry onto the ferry. He drove to the back of the motorcar bay that ran down the prow of the boat, then got out and walked back close to the dock for a quick conversation with Irving before they shoved off.

  “Hey there, Major Cross,” Irving said. “Going off to see some Udar from the ground floor today, I see.”

  “I’m in the car today,” Sebastian said. “The airships can spare me. They’re on the attack nonstop, three missions a day.”

  “We’re watchin’ ‘em come and go,” Irving said. “Amazing. Wish I could fly one.”

  “Maybe someday the Marines will have a few,” Sebastian said.

  “Not much chance of that.”

  “How’s Helen doing?” Helen, his friend Hank’s girl, was Boyd’s sister. “Give her my best. We’re supposed to be neighbors, but if I can get to the house for more than a nap and a shower, I’m giving it a bloody good show.”

  “She’s fine but she’s lonely,” Boyd answered. “Get Hank to take some time off and go see her. They’ve spent all of one hour together since you all came back here. All she’s got is letters.”

  “Soon, I imagine,” Sebastian said. “Assuming the Udar don’t cut off Fort Stuart.”

  “Hell, if they do, just fly him out in one of them airships you have. He’s too valuable to lose.”

  Sebastian laughed. “Maybe I’ll just bring him back with me this afternoon.”

  The ferry shoved off, and a few minutes later Sebastian rolled up the ramp on the south bank of the Tweade and down Fort Stuart Road, heading for the large construction site about ten miles south. The motorcar was fast and the road empty other than a small convoy of lorries he was able to pass on the shoulder, and he was soon at the gates of an enormous wooden fort that wasn’t there the last time he’d been here just yesterday morning.

  At least, three walls of the fort were up. The north wall still had to be laid in, but Sebastian saw that the crew was working on that.

  He drove to just outside the west gate, and then parked the roadster where it wouldn’t be in the way. Sebastian then walked through to the construction tent where he knew Hank Latham would be.

  “Place is growin’ like a weed, Hank,” he said, pulling back on the flap of the tent.

  “Yeah, not terrible,” Latham said. “I don’t know if we’ll finish in time for the battle, but we’re doing the best we can. You going to get us some more air support down south?”

  “We’re doing the best we can,” Sebastian said. “Should be a mission down there in the next few minutes, and we’ll see what that does.

  “By the way, Boyd says I’ve got to drag you back to Barley Point so you can see your girlfriend,” Sebastian told him. “He says Helen’s lonely.”

  Hank, looking at his plans, passed Sebastian an envelope. “I’m not going anywhere, unfortunately, but I would appreciate it if you gave her this for me.”

  “Well, that’s mighty sweet of you, Hank! Romantic letters back and forth. I’m going to have to write a Valledge theater play out of this.”

  “Love in a Time of Desolation,” Latham said. “Sounds like a hit.”

  “Seriously, Hank,” Sebastian said, “I know you’re swamped, and I know we were going to have a conversation today about the air base. I can’t justify it with the Udar coming, though. I think we need to shelve it for now.”

  “I have the plans,” Latham said, looking up at him. “Let me show you what we’re going to do when we do it.”

  “All right.”

  Latham pulled out a broadsheet roll and unfurled it on the table.

  “This is the palisade fort you’re standing in,” he said. “You’ll notice we’re using a barbed-wire perimeter for your air base along here, here and here,” pointing to lines to the west, north and east. “Here is your aerodrome, which is a wooden structure fifty feet high. It has six bays, enough for that number of airships. And you’ve got a steel-scaffold command tower on the south end of your air base forty feet high. And here,” he pointed to a drawing north of the aerodrome, “is fuel storage. It’s dug into the ground a bit to mitigate danger of fire or explosion.”

  “I think that’s a nice compromise between our two visions, Hank,” Sebastian said. “How long a construction time are you thinking?”

  “Two weeks for the whole thing,” Latham responded.
“Three days for the aerodrome, and the control tower could be up in a day.”

  “Do me the tower,” Sebastian said. “If nothing else the fort can use it. You might have time for that, right?”

  “I would think,” Hank said. “The fort will be complete, at least more or less, by tomorrow morning. We’ll still be building some sort of shelter for the troops, but the walls, gates, doors and gun emplacements are going to be done. I have enough materials for your control tower, so we’ll start work on it tomorrow.”

  “He doesn’t need a control tower,” said Will, who had entered the tent while they were talking. “He’s one of those big-city boys who does what he does over there in town.”

  “Hey, Will,” Sebastian said. “How’s it going?”

  “Like hell,” came the response. “There’s too many of them, and too few of us. And I do not enjoy the idea of holing up behind four walls and letting myself get surrounded. Which, no offense to Hank, is what this dumb idea is.”

  “You guys sending out patrols?”

  “We are,” Will said. “Five miles out, in three directions. And we have a platoon on top of Sutton Hill, and they’re signaling us with what they see. So far we think the Udar are still two or three days out at the speed they’re moving.”

  “Plenty of time to get ready!” Sebastian teased him.

  “If it was me, I’d ride out to meet these bastards,” Will said, “and take as many of them with me as I could. Maybe that’s why I’m not in charge of this outfit and General Terhune is.

  “Sebastian,” he continued, “get me more airstrikes. We need them.”

  “Got one coming pretty soon,” Sebastian said.