Against the Tide of Years

by S. M. Stirling

  “ Portsmouth Base here. Commodore Alston is monitoring this frequency . . . coming in loud and clear.”

  “This is the Chief.” The familiar dry twang sounded in his ears. “Hear you had a bit of a dustup.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hollard replied. “I’ll be making a full report soonest. Bottom line, we ran into a force of Walker’s Achaeans. We won, but we didn’t break them, and they’re better equipped than we anticipated. We suffered thirty-two fatals, our local irregulars about three times that, and the First Kar-Duniash about twice.”

  He looked off to the northwest, where the enemy force was withdrawing, like a wounded lion into a thicket, sullen and hurt but not seriously weakened.

  “Preliminary prisoner interrogations indicate this was one regiment of a brigade that’s been operating in support of Kurunta of Tarhuntassa, out of Miletus, for the past couple of months.” He pulled a pad out of his thigh pocket. “Here are some specs on the equipment.”

  When he finished, Alston’s soft Sea Island accent came on the circuit. “Damn,” she said. “He found a way around the ammunition problem we thought he’d waste time on. We outsmaahted ourselves theah.”

  “Ayup,” Jared Cofflin said. “Not the first time—we’ll just try to make it the last. What’s your appraisal, son? ”

  “Sir, we’re in for a harder war than we thought. We’re going to need more of everything, and we’ll have to raise and equip more local troops. The First Kar-Duniash did very well . . . in fact, I think now that my sister’s, ah, Lieutenant Colonel Hollard’s—

  “ No need to get formal, son.”

  “—marriage was extremely fortunate. This was probably a probing attack to see if they could take over in Mitanni. But we need to link up with the Hittites, we need to raise the siege of Troy and get Councilor Arnstein out, and we need to field a substantial force here to counter the Achaeans.”

  “Marian? ” Cofflin’s steady voice asked.

  “Essentially correct,” she said. “Though I’d add that it’s a very high priority to break the Tartessian blockade in the Straits of Gibraltar, so we can get some sea power out there, cut Walker off from Anatolia.”

  Hollard felt himself nodding. “ That’s God’s truth, Chief.”

  Cofflin sighed. “ If only we’d killed Walker . . .”

  “ We will,” Alston said flatly. “ In the meantime, Brigadier Hollard, I suggest that you proceed as you outlined. I’m preparing for the naval wing of our strategy, but that’s going to take time, too. For one thing, if we do win in the Straits, we’ll need basing facilities—Alba’s too far away.”

  “Ma’am, yes ma’am.”

  “Consult with Councilor Arnstein and Ms. Arnstein on the political side,” Cofflin said. “We have to keep those alliances as tight as we can and build all the influence we can.”

  “Roger on that, sir. I’ll be getting the Mitannian situation organized over the next couple of weeks—it’s crucial.” He looked at his watch. “As a matter of fact, there’s a meeting with Ms. Raushapa’s supporters scheduled quite soon. I’ll have a full report to you and the commodore when I get back to Ur Base next week.”

  “Good work, son, and Godspeed. Tell your people that from me and all of us, as well—our thoughts are with them, the whole Republic’s are.”

  “ Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re doing reasonably well so far,” the commodore added. “Just don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees.”

  “ Thank you, ma’am.”

  And don’t screw up, he added to himself. Right, let’s get the little princess secure on her throne . . .

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said, relinquishing the comm seat to its usual owner. “ Let’s get me back on the ground.”

  “ Yessir.” In a commander’s tone, smooth and firm for someone so young: “Off superheat, valve the maneuvering cell.”

  A hissing in the background that he’d scarcely noticed went away, and hot air ceased to flow into the big central cell in the airship’s fuselage. The Emancipator’s circling began to take her downward, like running along a huge, smooth invisible ramp in the sky. The orderly layout of the expeditionary force camp below swelled.

  “Engines negative ninety.”

  Crewfolk heaved at the wheels; the dirigible’s motion changed as the engine pods swung to point their fans at the sky, and the descent accelerated as they pushed it downward.

  “Maintain. Altitude nine hundred . . . seven hundred . . . throttles back half. All right, sir, time for you to drop out on us.”

  Hollard nodded and walked back to the center of the gondola. Two of the crew helped him into a harness much like a parachute’s. Another dropped a long coil of rope toward the ground; it seemed to shrink as it fell away, turning from wrist-thick hemp to a gossamer thread by the time it raised a puff of dust below, at the edge of the airship’s shadow. Marines sprang to hold it.

  “Rope through here, sir”—a click as the mechanism engaged—“and you squeeze this to slow down. Squeeze to slow, let go to go faster, sir.”

  “Thank you, sailor,” he said, and stepped out over the hole. “Gung ho!”

  A long, swooping fall, exhilarating and frightening at the same time, like rock climbing or rappeling on an obstacle course. He squeezed at the handgrip as the faces below him swelled, then hit the quick-release catch in the center of his chest as the earth hit his boots. The Marines holding the line let go with a rush, and the dirigible climbed, turning for the southeast and accelerating as the engines pivoted down to the horizontal.

  “Magnificent!”

  Brigadier Kenneth Hollard turned and stepped into the chariot; Raupasha was driving herself now, and moving easily—it had been a graze, along her side.

  “Magnificent,” she said again. “I would love to do that myself someday, Kenn’et.”

  “That might be arranged,” he said, laughing and ruffling Sabala’s ears and then shoving the dog firmly away—the hound was a dedicated crotch-sniffer, like most of his breed. “ Your people are going to hail you here, then?’

  “Yes,” she said, her mood turning serious. “Today we shed our blood together, as the true mariannu of old did; today we—and you—won a victory over an ancient enemy.”

  The Mitannians were gathered in the lee of a low, smooth hill; it cast some shade, now that the sun was inclining toward the west. They had lit campfires, a surprisingly orderly array, and they rose with a crashing cheer as the chariot swept up the hill. His brow raised when some of them brandished flintlock shotguns as well as spears and looted Hittite weapons. Well, he thought, we were going to try and talk Kashtiliash into authorizing some Mitannian New Troops as well. Probably it could be done . . .

  Raupasha drew rein with a flourish and raised her free hand to silence the roaring waves of sound. She waited until the quiet was tense with expectation and then broke into impassioned speech. In Hurrian, of course, of which complex agglutinative language he spoke perhaps three phrases, including “princess,” “please,” and “thank you.”

  Spears thrust up into the growing dark as men leaped and danced with joy; another paroxysm of sound struck when she grabbed Hollard’s wrist and raised it high, then wrapped his hand around hers. The contact was very pleasant, and he beat down a touch of guilt as she let go again, giving his palm a squeeze.

  Then the heads of the war bands began to come forward, to kneel before Raupasha and place their hands between hers; he was a little uneasy as they took his right hand and pressed it to their foreheads afterward. That took most of an hour, and Raupasha spoke again, raising his hand with hers once more.

  “They seem really pleased,” he said to her. She nodded, raising shining eyes to his. “ What was that last part about? ”

  “ They were more than pleased, Lord Kenn’et,” she said solemnly, “when they heard that you would be my consort, to father a new line of kings for Mitanni, sons who would make us glorious as of old.”

  For a moment the world seemed to stop. Hollard clos
ed his eyes. Oh, sweet Jesus, and in public, how’m I going to get out of this, Kashtiliash will go ballistic, Kathryn will cut my testicles off, and Councilor Arnstein will flay me, and what the Chief and the commodore will say—

  There were no adequate words. But he had to try.

  “Oh, shit!”

  EPILOGUE

  August, Year 10 A.E.

  “Ma’am, she sails like a cast-iron pig,” Captain Trudeau said. “The Farragut’s my ship, she’s the most formidable thing on the World Ocean and I love her dearly, but she’s crank, she’s wet, she’s not fit to be let out on the Atlantic on a dark night.”

  Commodore Alston clasped her hands behind her back and rose slightly on her toes; she’d always done that when she needed to think. Right now the bright surface of the Southhampton Water was full of ships; her own Chamberlain, all six of the Republic’s frigates, and brigs, schooners, things less nameable, score upon score of them, with swarms of small craft crisscrossing the waters between the anchored ships and the docks. All the naval power of the Republic and its Alliance gathered to make an end to the Tartessian pest, with thousands of warriors ashore ready to embark on the troop ships along with the First Nantucket Militia and the Second Marines.

  Not far away, the Eagle lay at a single anchor, waiting to unfurl her wings and take the string westward for home, with a light cargo and returning passengers; even when most of an expeditionary force was going one way, some duty or necessity always called in the other.

  It was a bright August day, the sort that pre-Event travel posters of England always showed and nature rarely did, with a breeze out of the north that ruffled the intensely blue water into a rippled skin ridged with white, pitching the ships at their anchors and bringing a smell of salt, silt, and woodsmoke from the great volunteer camp around Portsmouth Base. Southbound wings made the sky overhead clamorous, almost enough to mask the noise of the encampment.

  She narrowed her eyes against the brightness and considered the Farragut. With her masts shipped and without the protective plating she looked more normal; and still menacing, with the two four-inch rifled guns on fo’c’sle and quarterdeck on their track mountings and the canvas-shrouded Gatlings clamped to her rails, and the high bridge across her paddle boxes.

  “ That’s even without the ram plating fitted? ” she asked.

  “That helps, but not all that much,” Trudeau said, his eyes bright blue in a swarthy face. “ Nothing short of ripping out her engines and completely rebuilding the bow would help, as far as her deep-water performance is concerned. She ships water over the bow like a submarine if there’s any sort of sea, even under steam—God only knows what she’d do in a real blow.”

  “And She’s not talking,” Alston said. “Hmmm. Reserve buoyancy’s low, too—hard to recover from being pooped.”

  Trudeau came to the defense of his ship. “Apart from shipping water over the bow, she’s a honey with her paddles going. Very maneuverable.”

  Alston nodded. Unfortunately, that didn’t solve their problem. Even burning coal, which could be gotten here in Alba, her engines were and would remain fuel hogs—reliable, and they gave her a good twelve knots, but useless for oceanic voyages. There was little point in having a steam ram-gunboat that arrived at the scene of action with her fuel bunkers dry, particularly when, for all her three masts and ship-rig, she wasn’t too handy under sail.

  “ Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to nurse her along,” Alston said. The design had to be a compromise; the characteristics of a ram and a blue-water sailor just aren’t all that compatible. “You got her heah across the North Atlantic. I’ve every confidence you’ll be able to get her down the Bay of Biscay and to Gibraltar with us, God, Moon Woman, and the weather willing.”

  The two American-born touched wood; Swindapa made the Fiernan triple-touch gesture of reverence.

  “And the dockyard’s ready to help with the installation of the bow plating, Captain Trudeau,” Alston went on.

  Trudeau saluted. “Yes, ma’am—although that makes her even worse.”

  Swindapa sighed as he departed, then said, “ It’s time, love.”

  They went below, through the twitter of pipes and the ritual calls of an officer leaving the ship, into the great stern cabin. Dhinwarn sat on the big bunk, her daughter’s adopted children on either side, looking up as she told a story with an arm around either shoulder. They looked slightly incongruous in sailor suits next to her Fiernan string skirt, which was what they’d been wearing for the past couple of months at the Great Wisdom—or less. The girls bounced to their feet as their mothers came in.

  “Mom . . .”

  “Mom . . .”

  Heather and Lucy looked at each other, and visibly decided to give it one more try.

  “Do we have to go? ”

  “Yes, you do,” Marian said, forcing a gentle smile. Come on, woman, you’re a commodore. You’re not allowed to bawl. It’d scare the troops. It’ll only be for a few months.

  “Come on, now, you don’t want to miss the tide,” she said.

  “ Yes we do! We want to go with you!”

  “ We could stay below if there’s trouble!”

  “ We could carry powder up from the magazine!”

  Swindapa crouched and hugged Heather as the child ran to her, stroking the red head and its braids. “ We want you safe,” she said.

  Marian nodded, cupping a hand under Lucy’s chin. “We’re going into action,” she said. “You wouldn’t want us worrying about you, now, would you? ”

  “Can’t we stay with Grandma, then?” Lucy said, her great brown eyes filling with tears. “ We’d be closer to you.”

  Dhinwarn laughed. “ That would be dancing-rightly with me,” she said in Fiernan; she understood English a lot better than she spoke it.

  “No, sweetlin’, because you’ll have to be at school again soon,” Marian said. “You’ll be staying with Uncle Jared and Aunt Martha until we get home. That won’t be too long, surely; perhaps we can be back for Christmas.”

  “ Promise? ” Heather said.

  Marian kissed her brow. “No, because I can’t be sure. Now come on, honey, sugar. Make us proud.”

  They took the girls’ hands; both bravely stifled tears as they led them back to the quarterdeck. Their sea chests were there—sources of immense pride, with their names neatly stenciled on the sides, Guard-fashion: HEATHER ALSTON-KURLELO and LUCY ALSTON-KURLELO, and GUARD HOUSE, NANTUCKET TOWN underneath. So was the other luggage, souvenirs, boxed presents from their Kurlelo relatives, their favorite stuffed animals.

  Captain Nguyen of the Eagle was there as well, saluting and then repeating the gesture smartly down at the two nine-year-olds. “Ready to go aboard? ” he said.

  The Alston-Kurlelo daughters looked at each other and shed a little of their solemnness. Uh-oh, Marian thought. It just occurred to them that they get a voyage without their mothers to squash the things they really like to do as too dangerous—and they think they can pull their charmer act on Nguyen.

  “You might want to keep them in irons below until you make the Brandt Point Light,” she said. “They’re as mischievous as apes, the both of them, and what one doesn’t think of to get into trouble the other will.”

  “Mom!” A wail of indignation.

  Grinning sailors hoisted the luggage and went over the side and down the rope ladder to the Eagle’s captain’s gig. After a final exchange of hugs and kisses, so did Heather and Lucy. Nguyen shook their mothers’ hands after his salute.

  “Don’t worry, Commodore, Ms. Swindapa. I’ll see them and Eagle both home safely.”

  “ I’m sure you will, Mr. Nguyen,” Alston said.

  Swindapa nodded silently, a single tear track running down the honey-tan of her cheek. It took more than rings on the cuffs to convince a Fiernan that they shouldn’t cry when they were sad. The bosun’s pipe twittered Nguyen over the side, and Marian stood with a hand shading her eyes. She smiled crookedly as her daughters swarmed up the side—they
were agile as apes, and a summer spent rambling the countryside with their Fiernan cousins hadn’t hurt a bit—and stood by the rail, waving again and again.

  Orders echoed over the water, crisp and precise:

  “Up and down!”

  “Avast heaving!”

  “Anchor at short stay!” There was a clatter of steel on steel, and the capstan crew paused.

  Then: “Break out the anchor!” and they heaved again, slowly at first, and then suddenly no longer straining against the flukes’ hold on the bottom.

  “Anchors aweigh!”

  Sail broke out from the bottom of the masts toward the top, and the ebbing tide and freshening offshore breeze took Eagle and heeled her slightly, a wave appearing at her bow.

  “Shift colors!” came faint but clear, and the jack and ensign came on smartly; then the steaming ensign broke out on the gaff.

  “Mr. Jenkins,” Marian said.

  He saluted, smiling, and turned to bark orders. The bosun’s pipe twittered, and a team bent to the quarterdeck carronade.

  Boom!, softer and deeper than a long gun, and the puff of smoke blew away to the south and leeward. The two girls jumped up and down as the signal gun saluted their departure, waving both arms from Eagle’s fantail railing until all sight was lost.

  “ Fair voyaging,” Swindapa said softly. “Always fair voyaging, and a fortunate star, and may partings never hurt them worse than this. And may they never have to sail to war.”

  “Amen,” Marian Alston said, and settled her billed cap firmly on her head. She wished that with all her heart, but she suspected it wasn’t very likely. “Final dining-in for the fleet captains tonight,” she said.

  Swindapa nodded. The Republic’s fleet would sail to war as soon as the Farragut’s final killing tool was installed, and there was a moa pit-roasting ashore for the last gathering of the commanders.

  “So much has happened here,” she said, looking ashore to where she’d been roped from her collar to a stake, naked and filthy and shivering, when the Eagle first arrived in these waters.

  “ We’ll be back,” Marian said. “And we’ll be home, and this will be memories, too.”