Though Hell Should Bar the Way

by David Drake

  We landed more smoothly than if we’d been in a proper harbor; here the waves our thrusters raised could expand at will across the broad estuary. Surface vessels and other starships—if there’d been any; there weren’t at the moment, though I supposed the dart sloops would operate from here—would rock and pitch, but the Alfraz didn’t dance in her own violence reflected by the walls of a slip confining her.

  I shut down the thrusters. Lal went through the hatch to the hold—to drop our anchor, I supposed, though I’d have to send somebody else if I didn’t hear the rattle of the chain shortly.

  The Sunrays began opening the bridge hatches. I saw Wedell and Mixon start toward the hold and called, “Sunrays? Not yet. The police aren’t used to the fog and crap, and we’d none of us be here if it wasn’t for them helping.”

  I sneezed violently. I’d slitted my eyes, but they were watering anyway. Frankly, I’d have been just as happy if my crew hadn’t been so quick to prove how tough they were by letting in the steam and ions that would hang over the Alfraz for another ten minutes.

  The sparkling fog thinned as it cooled, so I switched my display to real-time visuals. I could see people waiting on the seawall which ran for a half mile along the river frontage, but I wondered why they’d brought us down here instead of closer to the grain docks. Then a barge and a second barge following pulled slowly between us and the seawall. Even before they dropped anchor, I saw teams on their decks readying walkways to link all of us in a chain to the shore.

  “Ship,” I called, “I’m opening the main hatch. Everybody remain aboard until I get direction from Harbor Control.”

  The hatch began to grind down, filling the ship with fog rather than steam with just a tang of ozone. Because our anchorage wasn’t enclosed, landing didn’t involve the usual stink of burned garbage.

  “Alfraz,” the console said. “You are free to disembark. Control out.”

  I’d decided not to bother with an anchor watch. I keyed the PA system and said, “All personnel! Saguntum is proud of you, and by heaven, so am I! You are all free to disembark. Captain out!”

  The Sunrays on the bridge with me paused for the police contingent—some pairs using couches as stretchers—to clear the boarding ramp; then they followed. I started after them, holding Monica closely.

  Maeve Grimaud, standing beside the hatch, said, “Mistress Foliot? You probably want to greet your father. Roy will be along in just a moment.”

  Monica looked at her, then smiled with her lips and said, “Yes, Dad’s probably been worried. Roy, I’ll see you soon.”

  She turned to me and lifted to give me a quick peck. “Don’t forget me, please,” she said as she slipped out the hatch.

  “Ah, Maeve,” I said, liking this situation only slightly more than I had finding her and Monica both waiting when I entered the Alfraz. “I plan to tell anybody who’ll listen that you’re the reason Saguntum owns its orbital space. And that you saved my life besides.”

  “I guessed you’d think that,” Maeve said, “and I’m sure nobody else will tell you different, so I will. The only reason those three sloops lifted to join you is that Monica Foliot gave a speech to the crews that made them ashamed to do anything else. Believe me, they’d planned to stay in barracks whether or not there were Alliance guards. Many of them aren’t even from Saguntum, remember?”

  She grinned in a fashion that I remembered. “They’re men, though,” she said. “And she made them believe they wouldn’t be if they didn’t go up to help you. And this ship”—she rapped her knuckles on the bulkhead—“wouldn’t have been much use if there was still a Karst destroyer in orbit.” Her face settled slightly. “Though we’d have tried. Your Sunrays were clear on that, and Monica and I were going to tag along.”

  I swallowed. “Thank you, Maeve,” I said. She was probably right that nobody else would’ve told me.

  “That’s all I had to say,” she said. She turned toward the hatch.

  “Maeve?” I said. “If I can ask? How did you get the roadblock to withdraw for the commando to enter?”

  “An order from the Alliance communications center directed the troops at Holywell Street to reinforce the roadblock on the next street to the east,” she said. “A signals lieutenant thought he was allowing my fiancé to escape. And if you wonder how he was bribed to do that”—Maeve’s smile was as hard and cold as a scimitar blade—“let’s just say that not every young officer is as iron-willed as you are, Lieutenant Olfetrie.”

  I bowed to her. Maeve left the bridge, and a moment later I followed.

  * * *

  “Your alert saved us,” Colonel Foliot said as he grasped my hand on the pier. “I knew we couldn’t hold them in Jacquerie and I didn’t want the kind of bloodbath that’d mean anyway, but I was able to get most of my people and even some of the Jacquerie Regiment out of the city.”

  Borodin had looked like a tent camp as Alfraz thundered down for a landing. At sea level it wasn’t much different. The original buildings, mostly stabilized earth and structural plastic, were surrounded by and interspersed with structures whose walls were flattened cans and packing crates with tarpaulin roofs.

  Foliot followed my eyes. “Sanitation’s a problem,” he said, “and we’re bloody lucky they didn’t invade in fall when the rains start. We’re trucking in water from upstream but there’s no way to purify it besides boiling.”

  I could see that many of the barges drawn up along both banks were being converted into accommodations also. They couldn’t all have come from Jacquerie. I asked, “Do you have a government?”

  “I’m ruling in the name of President Perez,” Foliot said. “I tried to warn him, but I couldn’t get through his bloody staff. General Meyerberg, he’s the Alliance CO. He’s tried to get Perez to welcome Alliance help, but Israel’s got balls enough for two, so that isn’t going anywhere. What we’ve got for now is a stalemate.”

  He made a sweep of his arm. “Folks are coming in from all the farms,” he said. “There’s three thousand militia here or on the way. And I’ve got about a thousand with training, my Commando and army. What we don’t have is guns, but even if Meyerberg could get his people over the mountains there’s no way they can take Borodin. He’s got about twelve hundred troops, but there’s fifty armored personnel carriers with automatic impellers. I can’t push that out of Jacquerie with what I’ve got.”

  “Ah, sir?” I said. “How are we going to proceed?”

  “We’re going to sit on our hands,” the colonel said. “The future of Saguntum is going to be decided by whoever gets reinforced. If an Alliance squadron shows up, I’ll capitulate. It’s that simple. If it’s Cinnabar, then Meyerberg will if he’s got any sense.”

  Foliot gave me the sort of smile you might expect from a man on the gallows. “I’ve killed plenty of people in my time,” he said. “I don’t need to kill more, for no bloody reason. So we’ll hold what we’ve got and wait for the odds to change—one way or the other.”

  I took a deep breath. “Then with your approval, sir …” I said. “I’ll set up a training and patrol schedule for the sloops. After they come in, of course. There’s obviously nothing wrong with the courage of the crews, but we can work on more effective tactics. And I’ll integrate the Sunrays into the local personnel, just to have the experience available if needed.”

  Foliot smiled sadly. “I used to have energy,” he said. The man who’d just created a functioning state a matter of days after the old one was destroyed. “But given that the sloops are still in orbit, I suggest you take the rest of the day off.”

  He looked away, cleared his throat, and added, “And Olfetrie? Thank you for bringing my daughter back from ben Yusuf. And, well, thank you.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. Monica was waiting ten feet down the pier, seeming to view the landscape of transformed Borodin.

  It was good to have her in my life.

  * * *

  I expected arguments from my new command—at least from some of the Saguntine
spacers. Instead they acted like I’d been sent from the heavens to guide them. Part of it may have been Red, who made it sound like I’d put El Cano close enough to our target to reach out and touch it. We’d been close enough in all truth, but some of that was luck.

  And nobody seemed put off by the hammering El Cano had gotten. The wreckage was still drifting away from Saguntum; maybe out of sight really was out of mind.

  A portion of the Koellner near the stern continued to orbit: the Battle Direction Center and compartments immediately forward and below. Using that as a target, I demonstrated to each crew how to slip into the Matrix, then extract to launch attacks. Only Esterhazy of the Saguntine captains could really astrogate so cleanly, but it was good exercise for the others and they might get lucky.

  At worst, it was better than lining up in normal space the way they’d done with the Meduse. If they’d been facing the Koellner instead, she’d have knocked all three of them down before they got into dart range.

  I kept one sloop in space at all times, trading off every four hours. I took a tour daily, moving from one sloop to the next. I got to know the crews better that way and showed myself to them besides. They were a good bunch, a lot better than I’d given them credit for being when I first met them.

  I’d gone up in Magellanes with Gadient added to the Saguntine crew and Smith as captain. Smith had made the insertion on the command screen while I was shadowing him from the striker’s seat. My calculations showed that Smith’s course would put us about a hundred thousand miles out from the drifting target, too far for effective use of a dart, but I’d go over it with him in private after we landed.

  In fact we were within fifty thousand miles—still too far, but ten times better than Smith could have managed at the start—but I wasn’t paying attention to the exercise. We’d extracted to find a fleet orbiting Saguntum.

  “Saguntine ship Magellanes,” announced my console. “Lay to and prepare to be boarded. Do not make any hostile move by orders of Commodore Leary, commanding Combined Force Harbinger. Over.”

  I’m good on voices. Despite being distorted by transmission, I recognized Lady Mundy speaking.

  “Sir!” Captain Smith said through the link. “Has Cinnabar rescued us then?”

  “A lot of the ships are from the 7th Destroyer Flotilla,” I said. “The Ariadne’s an Alliance cruiser, though, and there’s at least two Fleet destroyers besides.”

  But we had more important business than figuring out what was going on. “Magellanes to Rotherham,” I said. “We understand your instructions and are obeying. Our dart firing circuits are locked at the console.”

  “Sir, what’s happening?” Gadient asked, leaning toward me. He didn’t sound worried, exactly, but spacers don’t like surprises.

  “Ship, we’re waiting for Captain Leary to send somebody to board us,” I said. “That’s all I know, but”—I smiled around the cabin—“I’m happier now than I was a little bit ago!”

  * * *

  A pinnace pulled away from the Rotherham. That was a bit of a surprise because it was larger than I’d thought any RCN destroyer carried—even destroyer leaders like the Rotherham and Quilliam in the 7th Flotilla. Because we had time, I queried the pinnace’s embedded data—and learned it was assigned to the light cruiser Ariadne.

  “Ship,” I said, because I thought it was a good idea that everybody on El Cano was aware of the situation before people came aboard. “The boat arriving to search us is from the Alliance. This isn’t a problem. Captain Leary sent it to us. Captain out.”

  I certainly hoped it wasn’t a problem.

  “Smith,” I said, linking with the Saguntine captain, “I’ll take over now, if I may.”

  Smith didn’t just agree, he thanked me.

  “Ship, cutting power,” I said. Then I set the sails to furl; Gadient took the riggers out to guide the process. When the sticks were bare, I retracted and clamped the rig. I didn’t know what Captain Leary had in mind for us, but I didn’t think it would involve maneuvering through the Matrix. Lowering the rig would make it easier to come aboard.

  The pinnace came alongside expertly. The boat had steam jets for extremely low-impulse movements, but this coxswain didn’t need them. They joined faster than I thought was safe, but it braked alongside with precise enthusiasm. The airlock rotated open and two spacers in rigging suits came out on the hull. One cast a magnetic grapnel toward our hull; Gadient caught it and manually slapped it down.

  The next surprise was that three more figures got out wearing air suits. The riggers actually walked them to the line and crossed before and behind what must be a group of laymen.

  I’d hoped—it didn’t make any sense, but I had—that Six himself would be boarding us. I wanted somebody to take over so that I could stop thinking.

  Our airlock opened. The man who entered first with his helmet off was unfamiliar to me. He said, “I’m Colonel Grozhinski of the Forces.” The Alliance military. “Captain Leary suggested that the safest way to get me down to Borodin would be for you to take me, Captain Olfetrie. We realized you that you might have doubts”—that was putting it mildly!—“but Lady Mundy is here to vouch for what I’ve told you.”

  And there she was when he stepped aside; and Tovera smirking beside her. “Yes,” Mundy said. “We will announce ourselves after we land, but it appeared to all parties—”

  She paused and I could almost see her mind revisiting to what she had just said.

  “—all the principals to the decision, that is, that it will be safest if we land as part of the existing order of business rather than arousing particular attention. Do you see any problem with that?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “As soon as the rest of the crew is aboard, we’ll do just that.”

  The airlock was cycling behind our passengers, bringing in Gadient and the remaining Saguntines. I manually keyed commo and said, “Borodin Control, this is sloop Magellanes. We’re coming in as scheduled.”

  * * *

  I’d tweaked the automatic landing system of the Lezo, much the way that I’d done with the Alfraz, but I hadn’t gotten around to Magellanes or Concha yet. Regardless, I let the console land us. The thrusters had a nasty lateral wobble in final approach, but it never became dangerous.

  Watching the pinnace match velocity with us had made me very well aware of how much I had to learn about shiphandling. I’d keep on training, but not while carrying Lady Mundy and an Alliance envoy—who didn’t want to be put down in Alliance-held Jacquerie.

  Though I’d said that we were making a scheduled landing, Control knew better and so did Colonel Foliot, judging from the fact that he and half a dozen aides were waiting on the pier for me to open up the Magellanes. I didn’t let the situation rush me.

  Well, rush me very much. Magellanes had only four thrusters and we were anchored on an estuary flushed by the river and by the regular winds up and down the channel. I shaved two minutes off our cooling time.

  “Ship, opening up!” I said and pressed Execute. “Crew, stay on board until our passengers have gotten off!”

  Mundy turned to me. “Officer Olfetrie,” she said. “I suggest you join us when we meet Director Foliot.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, same as I’d have done if she told me to jump into the harbor.

  * * *

  I followed Tovera, who in turn followed her mistress and the envoy, across the walkway. When they’d all reached the six steps to the pier, I turned and waved back to the Magellanes. My crew, waiting for release in the boarding hold, poured out.

  “Director Foliot,” Lady Mundy said as joined her, “this is Colonel Grozhinski. He’s here to end the fighting.”

  Foliot was in battledress and carried a pistol in a shoulder holster. Grozhinski had been wearing a dress uniform under his air suit and he’d brought a saucer hat as well. It must have been designed to compress, because he’d been holding nothing when he crossed from the pinnace.

  The two colonels shook hands. Foliot stra
ightened and said, “I don’t recognize your branch of service, Colonel?”

  “We wear the same ranks and uniforms as the Army,” Grozhinski said, tapping his lapel insignia. “But our chain of command in the 5th Bureau is separate.”

  “Ah,” said Foliot. “Shall we go into my office where we can discuss your terms in private?”

  “There are no terms, Director,” Grozhinski said. “A colleague—in a different diocese—exceeded his authority by committing the Alliance to warlike actions without clearing them with the Guarantor. I’m here to correct his mistake as quickly and completely as possible.”

  “Bloody hell,” Foliot said in a quiet voice. I hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until that moment; his flesh suddenly hung on the bones like a snapped elastic.

  “Lady Mundy said that you might have an aircar,” Grozhinski said. “If that’s true and you’re willing to lend it for this purpose, I believe we can take care of the business very quickly.”

  He smiled. “I thought we could inform General Meyerberg that you’re sending peace envoys,” he added. “Our first concern was that your forces not shoot us down when we landed, which is why we used one of your own ships. The second concern is the reverse of that, but we believe Meyerberg will take good care of anyone whom he believes can get him out of the hole into which he’s dug himself.”

  “The car and a driver are at your disposal,” Foliot said. Then he repeated, “Bloody hell.”

  Epilogue

  I’d planned that the Naval Strike Force would end the march with a jog for the last half mile back to barracks, but after the ninth mile I radioed Mixon, who was in the lead, and told him to bag the notion. As it was, two of the Saguntines were clinging to me as we staggered the last hundred yards and each of my Sunrays helped support another.