by David Drake
Bassin du Sud opened beneath her; scattered houses here in the suburbs, clustering around the electric trolley lines; a tangle of taller stone buildings and tenements closer to the harbor. Pillars of smoke still rose from the city center and the harbor; she could hear the occasional popping of small-arms fire. Mopping up, or execution squads. There were Chosen ships in the harbor, merchantmen with the golden sunburst on their funnels, unloading into lighters. Gangs of laborers were transferring the cargo from the lighters to the docks, or working on clearing the obstacles and wreckage that prevented full-sized ships from coming up to the quays; she was low enough to see a guard smash his rifle butt into the head of one who worked too slowly, and then boot the body into the water.
The engines labored, and the Land aircraft gained another thousand feet of altitude. From this height she could see the big soccer stadium at the edge of town, and the huge crowd of prisoners squatting around it. Every few minutes another few hundred would be pushed in through the big entrance gates, and the machine guns would rattle. General Libert didn't believe in wasting time; anyone with a bruise on their shoulder from a rifle butt went straight to the stadium, plus anyone on their list of suspects, or who had a trade union membership card in his wallet. Anyone who still has one of those is too stupid to live, Gerta thought cheerfully, banking the plane north.
There were more columns of smoke from the rolling coastal plain, places where the wheat wasn't fully harvested and the fields had caught, or more concentrated where a farmhouse or village burned. Dust marked the main road, a long winding serpent of it from Libert's Legionnaires and Errife as they marched north. The wheeled transport was mostly animal-drawn, horses and mules, and strings of packmules too. That would change when the harbor was functional again; the Land ships waiting to unload included a fair number of steam trucks, and even some armored cars. The infantry was marching on either side of the road in ordered columns of fours; heads turned up to watch the aircraft swoop overhead, but thankfully, nobody shot at her.
The mountains ahead grew closer, jagged shapes of Prussian-blue looming higher than her three thousand feet. There was a godlike feeling to this soaring flight; to Gerta's way of thinking, it was utterly different from airship travel. On a dirigible you might as well be on a train running through the sky. This was more like driving a fast car, but with the added freedom of three dimensions and no road to follow; alone in the cockpit she allowed herself a chuckle of delight. You could go anywhere up here.
Right now she was supposed to go where the action was. A faint pop-pop-popping came from the north. Ah, some of the enemy are still putting up a fight. The resistance in Bassin du Sud and on the road north had been incompetently handled, but more determined than she'd have expected.
Gerta waggled her wings. The other two airplanes closed in; she waited until they were close enough to see her signals clearly, then slowly pointed left and right, swooped her hand, and circled it again before pointing back southward. Her flankers each banked away. Funny how fast you can lose sight of things up here, she thought. They dwindled to dots in a few seconds, almost invisible against the background of earth and sky. Then she put one wing over and dove.
Time to check things out, she thought as the falling-elevator sensation lifted her stomach into her ribs.
* * *
Somebody screamed and pointed upwards. John Hosten craned his neck to look through the narrow leaves of the cork-oak, squinting against the noon sun. The roar of the engine whined in his ears as the wings of the biplane drew a rectangle of shadow across the woods. It came low enough to almost brush the top branches of the scrubby trees, trailing a scent of burnt gasoline and hot oil strong enough to overpower the smells of hot dry earth and sunscorched vegetation. He could see the leather-helmeted head of the pilot turning back and forth, insectile behind its goggles.
Everyone in the grove had frozen like rabbits under a hawk while the airplane went by, doing the best possible thing for the worst possible reason.
"It's a new type of flying machine," John said. "They build them in Santander, too; that one was from the Land, working for Libert."
The chink of picks, knives, and sticks digging improvised rifle pits and sangars resumed; everyone still alive had acquired a healthy knowledge of how important it was to dig in. John still had an actual shovel. He worked the edge under a rock and strained it free, lifting the rough limestone to the edge of his hole.
"Sir," one of his ex-Marines said. "They're coming."
He tossed the shovel to another man and crawled forward, sheltering behind a knotted, twisted tree trunk, blushing pink since the cork had been stripped off, and trained his binoculars. Downslope were rocky fields of yellow stubble, with an occasional carob tree. In the middle distance was a farmstead, probably a landlord's from the size and blank whitewashed outer walls. A defiant black anarchist flag showed that the present occupants had different ideas, and mortar shells were falling on it. Beyond it, Errife infantry were advancing, small groups dashing forward while their comrades fired in support, then repeating the process. John shaped a silent whistle of reluctant admiration at their bounding agility, and the way they disappeared from his sight as soon as they went to earth, the brown-on-brown stripes of their kaftans vanishing against the stony earth.
Good fieldcraft, Raj said. Damned good. You'd better get this bunch of amateurs out of their way, son.
"Easier said than done," John muttered to himself.
"Ah, sir?" Barrjen said, lowering his voice. "You know, it might be a good idea to sort of move north?"
There were about three hundred people in the stretch of woodland, mostly men, all armed. There had been a couple of thousand yesterday, when he began back-pedaling from the ruins of Bassin du Sud. He was still alive, and so were most of the Santander citizens he'd brought with him, the crew of the Merchant Venture, and all the ex-Marines from the Ciano embassy guard. Not so surprising, they're the ones who know what the hell they're doing, he thought. He doubted he'd be alive without them.
"All right, we've got to break contact with them," he said aloud. "The only way to do that is to move out quickly while they're occupied with that hamlet."
Most of the Unionaise stood. About a third continued to dig themselves in. One of them looked up at John:
"Va. We will hold them."
"You'll die."
The man shrugged. "My family is dead, my friends are dead-I think some of those merdechiennes should follow them."
John closed his mouth. Nothing to say to that, he thought. "Leave all your spare ammunition," he said to the others. Men began rummaging in pockets, knapsacks and improvised bandoliers. "Come on. Let's make it worthwhile."
* * *
"Damn, but I'm glad to see you."
Jeffrey was a little shocked at how John looked; almost as bad has he had when he got back from the Empire. Thinner, limping-limping more badly than Smith beside him-and with a look around the eyes that Jeffrey recognized. He'd seen it in a mirror lately. There was a bandage on his arm soaked in old dried blood, too, and a feverish glitter in his eyes.
"You, too, brother," Jeffrey said.
He glanced around. The commandeered farmhouse was full of recently appointed, elected, or self-selected officers (or coordinateurs, to use their own slang) of the anarchist militia down from Unionvil and the industrial towns around it. Most of them were grouped around the map tables; thanks to John and Center, the counters marking the enemy forces were quite accurate. He was much less certain of his own. It wasn't only lack of cooperation; although there was enough of that, despite the ever-present threat of the Committee of Public Safety. Most of the coordinateurs didn't have much idea of the size or location of their forces either.
"C'mon over here," he said, putting a hand under John's arm. "Things as bad as you've been saying?"
"Worse. Those aeroplanes they've got, they caught us crossing open country yesterday."
observe, Center said.
— and John's eyes showe
d uprushing ground as he clawed himself into the dirt. It was thin pastureland scattered with sheep dung and showing limestone rock here and there.
"Sod this for a game of soldiers," someone muttered not far away.
A buzzing drone grew louder. John rolled on his back; being facedown would be only psychological comfort. Two of the Land aircraft were slanting down towards the Bassin du Sud refugees and the Santander party. They swelled as he watched, the translucent circle of the propeller before the angular circle of pistons, and wings like some great flying predator. Then the machine gun over the upper wing began to wink, and the tat-tat-tat-tat of a Koegelman punctuated the engine roar. A line of dust-spurting craters flicked towards him. . and then past, leaving him shaking and sweating. A dot fell from one of the planes, exploding with a sharp crack fifty feet up.
Grenade, he realized. Not a very efficient way of dropping explosives, but they'd do better soon. Voices were screaming; in panic, or in pain. A few of the refugees stood and shot at the vanishing aircraft with their rifles, also a form of psychological comfort, not to feel totally helpless like a bug under a boot. The aircraft banked to the north and came back for another run. Most of the riflemen dove for cover. Barrjen stood, firing slowly and carefully, as the lines of machine-gun bullets traversed the refugees' position. Both swerved towards him, moving in a scissors that would meet in his body.
"Get down, you fool!" John shouted. Dammit, I need you! Loyal men of his ability weren't that common.
Then one of the machines wavered in the air, heeled, banked towards the earth. John started to cheer, then felt it trail off as the airplane steadied and began to climb. He was still grinning broadly as he rose and slapped Barrjen on the shoulder; both the Land planes were heading south, one wavering in the air, the other anxiously flying beside it like a mother goose beside a chick.
"Good shooting," he said.
Barrjen pulled the bolt of his rifle back and carefully thumbed in three loose rounds. "Just have t'estimate the speed, sir," he said.
Smith used his rifle to lever himself erect. "Here," he said, tossing over three stripper clips of ammunition. "You'll use 'em better than me."
— and John shook his head. "There I was, thinking how fucking ironic it would be if I got killed by something designed to plans I'd shipped to the Chosen," he said.
Jeffrey closed his eyes for an instant to look at a still close-up of Centers record of the attack. "Nope, they've made some improvements. That was moving faster than anything we've got so far."
correct, Center said to them both. a somewhat more powerful engine, and improvements in the chord of the wing.
"I still sent them the basics," John said.
"Considering that your companies have been doing the work on 'em, and they know they have, it would look damned odd if their prize double agent didn't send them the specs, wouldn't it?" Jeffrey said. "You know how it is. If disinformation is going to be credible, you have to send a lot of good stuff along with it."
John nodded reluctantly. "I'm getting sick of disastrous retreats," he said.
Jeffrey smiled crookedly. "Well, this isn't as bad as the Imperial War," he said. "We're not fighting the Land directly, for one thing."
He looked over his shoulder and called names. "Come on, you need a doctor and some food and sleep. The food's pretty bad, but we've got some decent doctors. Barrjen, Smith, take care of him."
"Do our best, sir," Smith said. "But you might tell him not to get shot at so often."
The two Santanders helped John away. Jeffrey turned back to the map, looking down at the narrow line of hilly lowland that snaked through the mountains.
"We'll continue to dig in along this line," he said, tracing it with his finger.
"Why here? Why not further south? Why do we have to give up ground to Libert and his hired killers?" De Villers wasn't even trying to hide his hostility anymore.
Jeffrey hid his sigh. "Because this is right behind a dogleg and the narrowest point around," he said. "That means he can't use his artillery as well-we have virtually none, you'll have noticed, gentle. . ah, Citizen Comrades. And the mountains make it difficult for him to flank us. Hopefully, he'll break his teeth advancing straight into our positions."
"We should attack. The enemy's mercenaries have no reason to fight, and our troops' political consciousness is high. The Legionnaires will run away, and the Errife will turn on their officers and join us to restore their independence."
A few of the others around the table were nodding.
"Citizen Comrades," Jeffrey said gently. "Have any of you seen the refugees coming through? Or listened to them?"
That stopped the chorus of agreement. "Well, do you get the impression that the Legion or the Errife refused to fight in Bassin du Sud? Is there any reason to believe that they'll be any weaker here? No? Good."
He traced lines on the map. "Their lead elements will be in contact by sunset, and I expect them to be able to put in a full attack by tomorrow. We need maximum alertness."
He went on, outlining his plan. In theory it ought to be effective enough; he had fewer men than Libert in total, but the terrain favored him, and holding a secure defensive position with no flanks was the easiest thing for green troops to do.
The problem was that Libert knew that too, and so did his Chosen advisors.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"What news from the academy?"
Libert's aide smiled. "The report from Commandant Soubirous is nothing to report, my general."
The pudgy little man nodded seriously and tapped his map. There was enough sunlight through the western entrance of the tent to show clearly what he meant; the Union Military Academy was located at Foret du Loup, out on the rolling plateau country, between the mountains and Unionvil.
"When we have cleared the passes through the Monts du Diable, we must send a column-a strong column-to the relief of the academy. The Reds must not be allowed to crush Commandant Soubirous and the gallant cadets."
Heinrich Hosten coughed discreetly. "My general," he said, in fluent but accented Fransay. "Surely we should be careful not to disperse our forces away from the main schwerepunkt? Ah, the point of primary effort, that is."
"I am familiar with the concept," Libert said.
He looked at the Chosen officer; the foreigner was discreetly dressed in the uniform of a Union Legion officer, without rank tabs but with a tiny gold-on-black sunburst pin on the collar of his tunic.
"Yes, my general," Heinrich said.
"However, this will probably be a long war-and it is perhaps better that way," Libert said. The Chosen in the room reacted with a uniform calm that hid identical surprise. The Unionaise commander smiled thinly.
"This is a political as well as a military struggle. A swift victory would leave us with all the elements that brought on the crisis intact. A steady, methodical advance means that we do not simply defeat but annihilate all the un-Unionist elements. And it gives us time and opportunity to thoroughly cleanse the zones behind our lines, in wartime conditions."
"As you say, sir," Heinrich said. "That presupposes, however, that we succeed in getting out of this damned valley to begin with."
"I have confidence in the plan you and my staff have worked out," Libert said, turning back to the map.
Heinrich ducked his head and left the tent. "Damned odd way of looking at it," he said to Gerta.
"Sensible, actually," Gerta said, smiling and shaking her head, "when you look at it from his point of view. We could stand being a little more methodical ourselves; this whole operation here has the flavor of an improvisation, to me."
They stopped for a moment to watch Protege workmen and Chosen engineers assembling armored cars from crated parts sent up by rail.
"It's an opportunity," Heinrich said after a while.
"Its a temptation," Gerta said. "We've had less than a decade to consolidate our hold on the Empire-"
"Nine years, six months, two days, counting from the attack on Corona," He
inrich said with a smile of fond reminiscence.
"Quibbler." She punched him lightly on his shoulder. "We should wait for a generation at least before taking on Santander. And this is probably going to mean war with the Republic eventually, if our little friend"-she jerked her head back at the tent-"wins."
"They're getting stronger, too," Heinrich pointed out. "You know the production problems we're having with labor from the New Territories."
"Yes, but we've got the staying power. We don't have an underlying need to believe the world is a warm, fuzzy-pink playground where everyone's nice down deep except for a few villains who'll be defeated at the end of the story. We can get the animals working well enough, given enough time-and the Santies will go to sleep and let down their guard if we don't make obvious threats."
"We're not threatening them, strictly speaking."
"Land forces on their border? Even a Santy can't convince himself that's not a threat. We're waking a sleeping giant, and stiffening his backbone."
Heinrich shrugged. "But if we beat the Santies, everything else is mopping up. Anyway, it's a matter for the Council, nein?"
"Jawohl. Orders are orders. Let's get this battle done."
Heinrich smiled more broadly. "Actually, you've got a different job."
"Oh?"
"Libert's pretty taken with this academy thing. He'd probably spend six months avenging the place and the gallant cadets if it fell, which would be an even worse diversion of effort than marching to relieve it. So we'd better make sure it doesn't fall. . "
"Shays."
* * *
"And how are you, sir?" the train steward asked. "Not so great," John mumbled. "Drink, please-water, something like that."