by David Drake
* * *
Heinrich Hosten blinked. "He has said what?"
"Sir. Libert has announced that the Union is, ah, affirmatively neutral, as of one hundred hours today. Unionaise forces will not attempt to engage either Santander or Land forces except in direct self-defense. Sir, a number of our posts report that the Unionaise here in the Sierra are laagering and refusing contact. Shall I order activation of Plan Coat, sir?"
Heinrich stood stock-still for a full forty seconds. Sweat broke out on his expressionless face. "Not at the moment," he said very quietly. Plan Coat was the standing emergency option for the takeover of the Union.
Well, it looks like you were wrong for once, Gerta, he thought. Leaving Libert alive had been a mistake. . although justified at the time.
"No, I don't think we'll distract ourselves just yet. Libert has two hundred and fifty thousand men. The Santies first, I'm afraid, tempting as it is. Attention, please."
His chief of staff bent forward. Heinrich looked down at the map. "Pending clarification from central HQ, the forces on the Confrontation Line are to stand in place." Selling their lives as dearly as they could. "All other forces in the Union are to retreat northward, destroying communications links behind them as far as possible, and catch us if they can."
"Catch us, sir?"
Heinrich tapped one thick finger on the center of the Sierra. "We're the only concentrated force the Land has left on the mainland. It's obvious what the Santies are doing: they've taken Corona, they're shipping their First Corps there as fast as they can, and they're going for our Home Fleet in the Passage."
His hand moved to the western shores of the Republic, and then swept up towards the Chosen homeland.
"Bold. Daring. It all turns on us, and on the Navy. If we can break their fleet and destroy their First Corps, then even losing the Union and the Sierra will be meaningless. We can retake them at our leisure and crush Santander next year."
And if we lose, or the Navy loses, the Chosen are doomed, he knew. By their faces, so did everyone else in the room.
"Sir, the communications grid is in very poor shape," the logistics chief warned.
Heinrich nodded. "Which means trains moving north are likely to go just as fast as the handcarts traveling ahead of the locomotives," he said. "That's still faster than oxcarts," he said. "Priorities: all light- and medium-armored fighting vehicles, then fuel, then artillery and artillery ammunition, and other supplies directly in tandem."
"What about the heavy armor?"
"Blow it in place."
"Sir!"
Heinrich tapped the map again. "Those monsters would be priceless if we could get them there. We can't. They take up too much space and effort. Better to have what we can in the right spot rather than what we can't halfway there at the crucial moment. Blow them."
"Zum behfel, Herr General."
"Aircraft, sir?"
"Coenraad, you and your staff get me an appreciation of how many we can shuttle back into the New Territories and refuel on the way. Blow the rest in place and assign the personnel to infantry units short of their quota of Chosen." Of which there were quite a few.
"Now, get me New Territories HQ."
"Sir. . they haven't responded to signals, for the past half hour. Last report was that insurgents had. . emerged somehow. . from Fourth Bureau headquarters and were attacking the administrative compound from within in conjunction with a general uprising of the animals."
Heinrich closed his eyes for a second, then shrugged. "All right, then let's do what we can with what we have. Next-"
The planning session went on. It was still going on when the vanguard of the last Chosen army moved north less than two hours later.
* * *
The last of her wingmates vanished in an orange globe of fire. Erika Hosten held the twin-engine biplane bomber straight and level until the last instant, then jerked on the stick. Wings screaming protest, the plane rose over the destroyer, clearing the stacks by less than six feet. Smoke and rising air buffeted at her for an instant, and then she was back on the surface, wheels almost touching the water.
A shape ahead of her. A long, flat, island superstructure to one side. Planes above it, a swarm of them-planes over the whole bowl of fire and smoke and ships that stretched to the horizon on either side, the others from the Land aircraft carriers, hundreds more on one-way trips from the Land itself. Pom-poms in gun tubs all the way along the edge of the carrier, and firing at her from behind, from the destroyer screen. Her gunner was slumped in the rear seat, and blood ran along the bottom of the cockpit and sloshed over the edges of her boots. Fabric was peeling off the wings.
"Just a little longer," she crooned to the aircraft. "Just a little."
Closer. Closer. Now.
She jerked the release toggle beside her seat. The biplane lurched as the torpedo released, and then again as something struck it. She yanked at the stick again, and-
Blackness.
* * *
"Welcome aboard, Admiral," the commander of the Empire of Liberty said. "We've notified the fleet you're transferring your flag."
Maurice Farr nodded as he moved to the front of the battleship's bridge. Forward, one of the eight-inch gun turrets was twisted wreckage. More twisted wreckage was being levered overside, the remains of a Land aircraft that had come aboard with its bombs still under the wings. That had caused surprisingly little damage, although the open-tub pom-poms on that side were silent, their barrels like surrealist sculpture.
"Status," he said crisply, despite the oil and water stains that soaked his uniform.
"Sir. Sixteen units of BatDivOne report full or nearly full operational status."
Two battleships lost last night to the torpedo attack and three cruisers. Three more this morning, running the gauntlet of Chosen air attacks from both sides of the Passage. That left him with an advantage of four, twice that in heavy cruisers, most of his destroyer screen still intact-less than a third of the enemy flotilla from Pillars had made it out-and with one crucial advantage. .
"Air?"
"Sir, we have the enemy main fleet under constant surveillance. The Saunderton is counterflooding to try and put out the fires, and the torpedo hit took out her rudder, but the Lammas and Miller's Crossing are still ready to retrieve aircraft."
They wouldn't be crowded. Most of the fighters were gone.
Maurice Farr looked at the horizon. All his life had been a preparation for this moment.
"Report movement."
"Sir, enemy destroyers are advancing at flank speed, followed by their battle line."
Which put them nose-on to his ships, which were advancing in exactly the same formation. There was one crucial difference: his heavy gun ships had aircraft to spot for them, and they'd honed the technique in years of practice. The Land fleet had excellent optical sights and good gunnery, but they couldn't use either until they came into sight. That was a long, long stretch of killing ground to run through, under the iron flail.
"The enemy carriers?"
"They've both broken off and are steaming northward at speed."
That puzzled him for an instant. Ah. No more planes. Without aircraft, they were as useless as merchantmen in a fleet engagement.
"Prepare to execute fleet turn; turn will be to port."
"Sir."
The Santander battleships were strung out like a line of sixteen beads, boiling forward at eighteen knots. The Land heavy ships were coming towards them at a knot or two better; some of his battlewagons had damage and weren't making their best speed.
"Turn."
The Empire of Liberty heeled, coming about to show her side to the enemy still beyond sight over the horizon. The turrets squealed as the long barrels of the twelve-inch guns came around. On either side her sisters did the same. Now the sixteen Santander battleships were moving west instead of north. . and presenting the combined fire of their broadsides to their Land equivalents. If the enemy fleet tried to charge, close the range, they
would be unable to reply with more than half their guns. . and they would be firing blind for a long, long time anyway. If they duplicated his maneuver, they never would get within range. And if they withdrew, they'd never have an opportunity for a fleet engagement on anything like as favorable terms again. He could sail into Corona and refit, blockading the mainland under cover of land-based aircraft.
"Commence firing," he said.
One hundred and twenty heavy guns fired, and the Santander fleet disappeared for an instant in flame and smoke. Every man on the bridge opened his mouth and put his hands over his ears. The Empire of Liberty heeled over on her side, her structure screaming and flexing with the strain of the massive muzzle-horsepower of her four twelve-inch and four eight-inch broadside guns; for a brief instant he could see the shapes of the 800-pound shells at the top of their trajectory, and then they were falling towards the decks of the Land battlewagons. Towards the thinner deck armor, not the massive belts that protected their flanks.
"Splash," the signals yeoman said. "Forward air reports overshot. Range, correction-"
CHAPTER THIRTY
"General," the officer in the staff car said.
Jeffrey leaned down from the side of his armored car. Something went CRACK through the space he'd just vacated, far too loud for a bullet. He grabbed frantically for the railing at the side as the car lurched backwards.
That put them hull-down. "That was a tank gun, or I'm a snail-eater," the driver muttered.
Several Santander armored vehicles were advancing to either side of the road Jeffrey had been using. Four tanks, Whippet mediums with a 2.5-inch gun in their turrets; three troop carriers, Whippets with the turrets removed; a pom-pom Whippet, freed from its original tasking of antiaircraft work by the virtual absence of Land aircraft and doing fire support, instead. The Republic's armor clattered forward, halting with only the tank turrets showing over the hill and their guns at maximum depression. One fired, and a few seconds later there was a gout of smoke and fire in the middle distance, visible even over the ridge.
All across the rolling cropland to the west the Expeditionary Corps was advancing, infantry spread out in preparation for the engagement that seemed inevitable. A brace of ground-attack fighters flew by, their wheels less than fifty feet overhead, heading east for targets of opportunity.
"General," the breathless staff officer in the car said.
Jeffrey leaned down again. He grinned as he read the dispatches.
"Sir?" Henri said, his hands on the grips of the vehicle's machine gun. He didn't believe in taking unnecessary chances, and there still might be a few Chosen aircraft around. A couple of obvious command vehicles bunched right behind the front made a very tempting target.
"Message from Dad. Admiral Farr. We have met the enemy and they are ours."
The Unionaise gave a soft whistle. "We hold the Passage, then?"
Jeffrey nodded. As long as the Expeditionary Force didn't get thrown back into the sea. . which was looking increasingly unlikely.
He flipped to the other message and prevented his mouth falling open with an effort.
"Son of a bitch."
Henri looked at him; that hadn't really been a curse.
"Libert. Libert has offered all the Chosen and Proteges remaining on Union or Sierran territory asylum. Union citizenship, land grants. . the bastard's trying to get himself enough of an army so we won't feel like getting rid of him when this is all over."
Henri's face went white with rage around the nostrils and mouth. The Santander public hated Libert and his collaborationist regime almost as much as the Loyalist refugees did. The question of whether they hated him enough to fight another war was an entirely different one.
"Cheer up," Jeffrey said. "I haven't seen many of the Chosen surrendering yet."
He looked down at the map table. "All we have to do is hold them. They're out of supplies, out of fuel, out of hope."
The remnants of the force that had marched north out of the Sierra to meet him was strung out along the upper Pada River east of Ciano, fighting its way through swarms of guerillas. The few Chosen left alive in the Empire were laagered in the forts and towns that hadn't been overrun at the beginning of the uprising. There was nothing behind the last army of the Land but death.
"General message," he said to the signals technician. "All we have to do is hold their first attack. Hold them. The Proteges have already started to turn on their masters. If we can hold this attack, they'll disintegrate."
* * *
Heinrich Hosten looked around the position. There were six of them left, all of his remaining staff. Probably thousands left alive elsewhere, scattered pockets isolated where the fury of their attack had left them deep in the Santander positions. He checked the magazine of his automatic.
The Santies were ahead, in among the trees that lined the road. Probably a platoon of them, and certainly an armored car.
Heinrich estimated distances. At least I don't have to make any more decisions, he thought. He laughed, feeling the weight on his shoulders lighten. Nothing good had come of that. Just one more. He laughed again, feeling young. Young as he had been at the beginning of the war, young and confident and happy.
"Sturm!" he shouted. "Charge!"
Knife in one hand, pistol in the other, he went forward at a pounding run with the others at his heels. Muzzle flashes winked through the twilight at him, rifles from among the trees. Then a continuous blinking flicker from the half-seen shape of the armored car.
Something hit him, spinning him around. He staggered and came on, squeezing off the last three rounds in the pistol. Had he hit someone? No way of telling. On. Another impact, somewhere in a body that felt far away. He fell, crawled forward, digging his free hand into the dirt and holding the knife tighter as his fingers went numb. Boots ahead of him, and the tip of a bayonet. Heinrich scrabbled half-erect, lunging forward, swinging the long curved knife where he knew a body must be. Something struck him between the shoulderblades, and he was floating.
Gerta. Wetness spilled out of his mouth. Nothing.
* * *
"Jesus," the Santander soldier said, looking down at the knife that had missed his crotch by inches. "Jesus. This bastid must've ten holes in him and he wouldn't fuckin' stop. I put a whole clip into him. Jesus."
Jeffrey Farr looked down at Heinrich's face. The lips were still twisted in a snarl, or perhaps a smile; it was difficult to tell, with the blood. He reached down and closed the staring blue eyes.
* * *
"Sir, this is fuckin' stupid."
John Hosten nodded. "Yes, it is, Barrjen," he said. "Smith, all of you, you've been with me a long time, but this is personal. He's my father, not yours."
Oathtaking was burning. The Santander gunboat had come in unopposed, unless the wild random fire of looters counted. The harbor was empty, but the great naval dockyards in the center of the drowned caldera were the scene of a battle-who against who was hard to tell, but the volume of fire was considerable. What was going on in the streets wasn't a battle; it was halfway between orgy and massacre, as the slave laborers and Protege rebels hunted down stray Chosen and anyone associated with them.
"I'm going," John said, hefting his machine pistol. "I can't stop you from coming too, but I wish you wouldn't."
They looked at him in silence; he smiled wryly and headed down the street. Stray bands of looters parted before their guns and obvious discipline; the smoke was thick enough to keep visibility down to twenty yards or less, and thick enough to make each breath painful. Fires were burning on both sides, licking tongues of flame out of the windows of the buildings.
"That's a barricade, sir. Careful," Smith said.
John shook his head. "I don't think anyone's alive behind it," he said.
There were plenty of dead before it, in the striped uniforms of the labor camps or drab Protege issue clothing. First a thick scattering, then piles two and three deep. Gray Land uniforms and weapons showed here and there among them,
soldiers or police turned against their masters. Before the line of furniture and upturned handcarts the dead lay in layers waist-high, the granite pavement running with viscous red; the Santander party had to climb over them, breathing through their mouths. Where the barrels of the machine guns had been covered by the curtain of falling dead, the smell was of cooked meat. Broiled by the red-hot metal, boiled by the steam escaping from the ruptured water jackets. Most of the dead behind the barricade were Chosen; mostly children, in the plain gray school uniforms of Probationers. The adults among them were white-haired, probably teachers. Most of the dead children looked to have died quickly, the mutilations done afterwards. Most.
"You bastard," Barrjen breathed at the bald man whose age-spotted hands were still locked around a dead Protege's throat. The knife in the Protege's hand was buried in the schoolmaster's gut. "You bastard."
"Keep moving," John said sharply.
The fires got worse as they moved through Old Town. A housemaid fled screaming past them, her naked body streaked with blood. Half a dozen Protege soldiers chased her at an easy lope, the insignia torn from their uniforms, bottles in their hands. One or two of them halted to stare at the Santander party; were was no mind in the shaven heads, but enough animal caution to send them reeling on again.
"Where'll he be, sir?" Barrjen asked.
John replied without turning or halting his steady trot. "I think I know."
They were elbowing their way through crowds now, turning south to Monument Point. The crackle of small-arms fire sounded. The downslope of an avenue let them see the square around the Founders' Monument, the bronze figures still raising their weapons in the Oath. A barricade of vehicles surrounded it, some of them tanks or armored cars.
"He'll be there, if he's alive at all," John said tonelessly. "There are bunkers under the monument, old ones, but they're always kept up, the magazines kept full, it's a ritual-"
A wave moved forward from the streets and buildings around the square, a wave that screamed and fired as it ran, ran over a carpet of bodies that covered the pavement too thickly for the stone to show. Bullets lashed out into the wave and it absorbed them, piling up as if on a breakwater. In a minute or less the edge of the wave was piled against the muzzles of the guns, stabbing and shooting and tearing flesh with its bare hands.