The Alexander Inheritance

by Eric Flint

  Dag checked his bars. He had three now. The Queen was on its way, but was still probably a hundred miles out.

  He borrowed Roxane’s new phone and used the app to ask, “Where has the fuel ship gone?”

  “Rhodes. That idiot Metello has decided that he will take the island and all of the Rhodian ships.”

  Quickly, Dag pushed the button and called the Queen. He had enough bars. The call went through and he was talking to Adrian Scott. “Adrian. First, the Reliance is headed for Rhodes. Now I need you to get Marie Easley up to the bridge so that she can talk to Queen Roxane. Then I need you to come get us.”

  “You’re on your way to Rhodes?”

  “No, not us. When we got here, they dumped me and my work party off and took the Reliance, with her crew, off to conquer Rhodes. They have her packed to the deck heads with soldiers.”

  “That could be a problem, Dag,” Adrian said. “The passengers are pretty mad about the attack and the Reliance running off like that.”

  “Hey, Adrian. I didn’t run off. That was Kugan’s doing.”

  “I know that, and you know that, but the passengers don’t want to believe it. I’ll tell you, Dag, I’m starting to think we ought to dump the whole bunch of them off in Ashdod and let them stew in their own pot. Hold on, I have Professor Easley on the line. Patching her through now.”

  Dag handed the phone to Roxane, and was then left out of the conversation while Marie Easley talked to Roxane about what was known, and Roxane explained what she knew about the players involved. It was a few minutes later that Roxane looked up and said something in Greek. She listened to the phone again, then handed it to Dag.

  “Dag, this is Captain Floden. We need to get the Reliance back before it gets us involved in the political mess that Alexander’s successors are involved in.”

  Dag felt the color drain from his face. He understood. He wished he didn’t, but he did. Right now the Queen of the Sea was walking a political tightrope. She was virtually impregnable, but she needed food and supplies that she couldn’t force anyone to sell them. So she couldn’t afford to be banned from any port, especially not Alexandria. That was why the captain had decided to go after the Reliance before rescuing them.

  But it might be worse than that. It might be that they would have to leave Dag and his crew right here in Tyre rather than alienate Attalus. Dag could be here for months.

  ☆ ☆ ☆

  Dag Jakobsen was a nice guy, but he was neither an idiot nor a coward. He realized that they were liable to need some form of weapon and that his captors were unlikely to sell them swords. Not that Dag could use a sword if he had one. But Dag had known how to make black powder since he was a small boy. His family made their own fireworks. Besides, he was a fan of Nobel and had studied the arms manufacturer’s life in school. “Keith, I want you to do me a favor.”

  “What’s in it for me?” Keith asked resentfully. He wasn’t pleased that Dag got the lion’s share of the money for the phone and charger combination.

  “Get over it, Keith. We don’t have time for that crap.”

  Keith came to a parody of attention, snapped an open-handed British-style salute and said, “Sir, yes, sir. Anything the officer requires, sir.”

  “Sit down, Keith. We need to make some black powder.”

  Keith looked around sharply and Dag shook his head in disgust. He wished he had Romi Clarke with him. “Keith, how many people on this island know what the term black powder means?”

  “Seven. You, me, and the other members of the work crew.”

  “Right. So just don’t make a big deal of it. You want to make a poultice. For your aching backside, or your legs, or your forehead. I don’t give a crap. The poultice will contain…” Dag proceeded to give Keith the ingredients for black powder, along with some other stuff that was essentially useless, but would mask the purchase of the ingredients a little bit. “Any of the local apothecaries ought to have all of it, so we are going to have to be fairly careful. One thing about black powder is it needs to be ground moist, and then dried, then ground again. For that second grinding, you want a brass mortar and pestle to avoid sparks. We’re also going to need clay or iron pots, little ones. Hand grenade size. And nails or other bits of metal for shrapnel.”

  “What are you planning, sir?” Keith asked, serious now.

  “I don’t know, but we’re prisoners. I believe the captain is going to come for us, but what do you think these people are going to do when he does?”

  “They won’t turn us over. They’ll try to ransom us.”

  “Right. How much are you worth?” Dag asked. “How much will Wiley and his people think you’re worth? I can hear him now, being noble. ‘We will not negotiate with terrorists or kidnappers.’”

  “Yeah. Me too. Funny thing is, I sort of agree with him in principle.”

  “As do I. However, it feels a bit different when you’re the one being sacrificed for his principles.”

  “Don’t it just?” Keith agreed.

  “The day we arrived, Kleitos asked me if the Queen would ransom us or not. If not, we will be sold as slaves. I figure they can get a really good price for us on the auction block, considering we’re such unique items. I’d rather avoid that, Keith. So I think that we might want to be in a position to get out on our own. Or at least close enough to out that the captain will be able to come get us.”

  “You think there’ll be enough time to make black powder grenades before the Queen gets back from Rhodes?”

  “Again, I don’t know. I do believe it’s better to try than not.”

  Keith saluted again, but this time it was casual and real. “I’ll get right on it, Mr. Jakobsen.” He coughed experimentally. “I think I’m developing a chest cold.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Queen of the Sea

  October 20

  Captain Lars Floden felt like a coward and a traitor as he turned the Queen to go after the Reliance. But he had a responsibility to the passengers and crew of the Queen. They needed that fuel. They couldn’t afford the chance that some accident in the battle at Rhodes would leave the Reliance aflame and all her fuel up in smoke.

  So he did what he had to, hating himself all the while. The Reliance had left on the route to Rhodes almost twenty-four hours ago, which put the Queen well behind. It was going to be close, even with the Queen’s higher speed.

  Reliance

  October 21

  Rhodes was in sight and the Reliance had clearly been seen. In the dawn’s early light, the Rhodians were putting to sea. Three triremes were heading out to meet them and Joe Kugan wondered where the rest were. Metello was sure there would be a bunch here.

  “Run them down, Captain,” Metello said. “Steer straight for them. My men will deal with any of the crew that manage to board.”

  Joe did as he was told. The Reliance, with Barge 14 attached, wasn’t exactly spry. She had powerful engines and controlled thrust, but a barge full of fuel wasn’t easy to shift. She was close to as fast as the triremes, but she couldn’t maneuver like they could.

  So what followed was a slow-motion game of tag. The Reliance would head for a trireme, and the trireme would turn and race away, then try to come at the Reliance from the side or rear. One unfortunate trireme managed to close on the Reliance and found out what the backwash from eleven thousand horses did to the local currents. It survived but lost about half its oars, and was out of the fight for a while.

  “Reliance, this is the Queen of the Sea. What are you doing?”

  It blared over the speakers in the pilot house, and Metello went a little white. He had no idea what was said, but he had to know what it meant. Joe checked the radar and there it was, big as a mountain rising out of the southwestern sea. Still half an hour out, but coming on.

  Joe still didn’t have much Greek and he wasn’t of a mind to try just now. He turned to Metello and said in English, “You’re toast, sucker!” Then he grinned like an idiot through his busted lip and missing teeth.
<
br />   “Go there!” Metello pointed at the harbor, where until just a few years ago the Colossus of Rhodes had stood.

  Joe started to comply. He was cowed by this bastard, as much as he hated to admit it. But an ATB the size of the Reliance doesn’t do anything fast. There was time for Joe to consider the consequences. He realized that if the Reliance grounded Barge 14, there would be no escape. In desperation, he hit the emergency stop, and the engines came to a stuttering halt.

  Metello looked at Joe, and Joe looked back. Metello reached for his sword, and Joe lunged. He was desperate, but Metello was just that much faster, with reflexes honed by years of combat. Joe never laid a hand on him as Metello sidestepped and brought his kopis down on the back of Joe’s neck.

  With the ship stopped, the Rhodians saw their chance and pulled alongside to board. But they didn’t have it all their own way. There were two thousand troops camped on Barge 14, and by now they were at least fairly familiar with the hardware that dotted the hull, making defensive works.

  By the time the Queen of the Sea actually got there, the Rhodians had been pushed back to their ships, with considerable losses on both sides.

  Queen of the Sea

  October 21

  “Are there any of our people in view?” Captain Floden asked Staff Captain Dahl.

  “Not that I can see, Captain.”

  “Fine, then. Clear that deck, but keep the muzzle velocity low. We don’t want any of our shells poking holes in the Reliance.” One of the nice things about a steam cannon is that, to an extent, it has a modifiable muzzle velocity, and therefore adjustable penetrating power. The power a one-pound lead bullet needed to pulp a human chest, even an armored human chest, is considerably less than the muzzle velocity necessary for that same shell to punch through a one-eighth-inch steel plate.

  The crew of the Queen had made lots of bullets for the steam guns.

  Two thousand armed and armored soldiers crowded onto the Reliance. They couldn’t have spread out if they wanted to and they didn’t know enough to want to. They clumped together to provide mutual protection and support and the one-pound rounds of the steam cannon went through two or three men to finally lodge in a fourth.

  It didn’t take long for the deadly rain of lead bullets to have their effect. People started screaming that they surrendered. These were tough men who would readily face other men in battle with sword and shield, but invisible death that ripped a man in two and sounded like Zeus on a rampage…? That they weren’t willing to face.

  ☆ ☆ ☆

  They surrendered, but could that surrender be trusted? Could Lars send people across to the Reliance without knowing that?

  “We’re ready, Captain,” came Daniel Lang’s voice over the speakers.

  “All right. Pull us alongside.” Then, into the mike, “Dan, don’t take any chances. If any of them give you any trouble at all, just shoot them.”

  “Right, Captain. Police brutality coming right up.”

  The Queen came up alongside the Reliance and a massive porthole opened to reveal men in glowing white uniforms with little metal things in their hands. The little metal things looked harmless, and the only ship people these men had contact with till now were the unarmed crew of the Reliance and the equally unarmed work crew. They didn’t know. Still, the rain of death from above kept most of them in check.

  Most of them.

  Daniel Lang would never know whether the Macedonian soldier who charged him was desperate or just saw an opportunity. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Dan had done twenty years as an MP and another ten as a cruise ship cop, and never even drawn his gun in anger.

  Didn’t mean he didn’t know how.

  The gun came up, he hollered half in Greek and half in English. He’d been practicing. The man didn’t halt.

  Dan fired. Blam, blam, blam! Three in the chest. They punched right through the guy’s bronze armor. That halted him and more. He went down on his back. It was close enough to what had been raining on them, louder even. Now they knew.

  The order to drop their weapons was given again. Those who hadn’t already done so dropped their weapons.

  ☆ ☆ ☆

  Goran looked at the men. Wait! Is that a woman? Yes, it was. Dark-skinned, long black hair tied back, wearing the same whiter-than-white clothing as the rest. And holding death in her right hand, just like the men. But she had tits. Nice ones too, best he could tell. And no man had a waist and hips like that.

  His observations nearly got him killed. Not because the woman was offended, but just because he was so busy staring that he almost missed the order to get on his knees. Fortunately, they were repeating the orders twice before they killed people over them.

  Goran got to live. He went to his knees on the decking wet with blood and waited. He put his hands behind his head and interlaced his fingers just as the voice from nowhere told him to, and as he did he realized that it was an effective method of restraint. Not because you couldn’t unlace your fingers, but because it took time and was pretty obvious. These people must be great slavers, they were so practiced at restraining captives.

  He looked over at the woman. By now he had seen other women among their captors, but he thought of her as the woman. She had a set of bindings and was going along behind the kneeling men, taking one hand and binding it behind their back to the other hand, while a man with death in his right hand held death pointed at the captive.

  Goran let his hands be bound. She wasn’t gentle about it, but neither was she vicious. She was just efficient.

  There was a shout in their tongue, and then what sounded like orders. About half the white suits went off to do something. Goran considered. Probably they had found the crew. Goran had come on at Tyre, so he hadn’t had much to do with the crew of the little boat that pushed the big boat.

  ☆ ☆ ☆

  “Captain, we have a ship. A galley, but only two rows of oars. It’s heading for us and there is some guy in the front waving some branches at us. I don’t know if he’s suing for peace or trying to drive off evil spirits.”

  “I’m not entirely sure, either, Captain,” Marie Easley put in. “I would guess suing for peace. I think those are olive branches.”

  “Talk to them, Professor Easley,” Captain Floden said. “Tell them to stand off while we deal with the Reliance. Tell them we’ll send a boat to talk to them after we’re done.”

  Marie waited for the comm officer to cue her, then spoke. The ship stopped, but the guy with the branches started yelling. It was too far and the accent was weird enough that she wasn’t sure what the guy was yelling about, but it seemed urgent. Or at least, he seemed to think it was urgent.

  “I think I’d better go have a talk with them, Captain Floden,” Marie said. “The Rhodians were the England of the eastern Med at this time. As in ‘Rhodes rules the waves.’ They probably have more in common with our modern form of government than the Athenians do.”

  “Fine, Marie. After Mr. Lang has secured the prisoners on the Reliance, I will have him provide you with an escort and one of the converted life boats to go chat with the Roadies.”

  It took time. There were a lot of troops on the decks of the Reliance, nearly two thousand before the shooting started and nearly fifteen hundred after it was all over. After twenty-five percent casualties, there was no organized resistance, but Daniel Lang was taking no chances on people going there. And rightly so. There were two more shooting incidents when individual mercenaries from Tyre went berserk.

  It was just on three hours later and approaching noon, when Marie Easley, Daniel Lang, and Officer Arti Young boarded the converted lifeboat for the trip to the Rhodian ship. It was fancy and sleek, if smaller than the warships, a ship of diplomacy.

  “We will need to go aboard,” Marie told Daniel. This was less from her reading than from discussions with Atum, Ptolemy, Dinocrates and other merchants and military officers after they arrived in Egypt. Refusing to board was both an admission that you were afraid and an insult t
o the integrity of the other ship or people. That was why Atum had been willing to board the Queen in the first place. On the other hand, taking guards was just prudence.

  ☆ ☆ ☆

  Once they boarded, they were met by Nauarch Demaratos, who informed them that the ship—he pointed at the Reliance—had been involved in an act of piracy in the very harbor of Rhodes and was therefore the property of Rhodes. And, while Rhodes and its people were thankful for the aid, that didn’t entitle them to seize the property of Rhodes.

  “We have a prior claim. The ship was taken by an act of piracy a few days ago and we have been following it to get it back. Many of the crew are still alive and were taken prisoner by the pirates and the captain of the ship was killed only a short time before we arrived.”

  “So you claim. But there is no evidence, and even were it true, it doesn’t change the fact that the ship was part of an invasion attempt, and someone has to pay for the deaths of our people killed in that attack.”

  Marie was not just a scholar anymore. She had been, of necessity, involved in the negotiations in Alexandria everyday, ever since their arrival…and she had learned. This was a starting position of negotiation, but the negotiations were going to take some time.

  ☆ ☆ ☆

  Anders Dahl looked out the bridge windows, down at the Reliance and its still blood-soaked deck. “With Joe Kugan dead, the Reliance is going to need a new captain.”

  “You want it, Anders?”

  “No, I do not, Captain. With all due respect to the Reliance and even considering the new circumstances, captain of an articulated tug barge is a demotion from staff captain on the Queen. I was thinking Elise.” Elise Beaulieu was the first officer navigation, which was the senior navigation watch stander. While not next in rank after the staff captain, it was the next in line of ship’s command. And with the loss of navigational satellites, her training in navigation was even more vital. Both ships had radar and sonar, so with care were unlikely to run up on the rocks. They had radio communications and shared observations and could sometimes get directional fixes. But both ships would be using clocks, sextants and star sightings to determine their locations, along with inertial and magnetic compasses.