They approached Pearl, gradually passing through the deep blue of interstellar space into the sunrise blue region where the system's star illuminated the immediate area. This was a water world, manifesting itself in Flatland as a large, aqua tinted mass with indistinct streaks of green land and white clouds.
Pearl's Pier protruded from the horizon as they sailed into this aqua-colored realm. As they approached it, the Pier grew into a white mass that was bigger than a ship, with cannon barrels protruding out in all directions. Pearl was a frontier world and their Pier was the equivalent of a frontier fort, suspended from the world below on multiple, Moss covered pilings.
A sailboat came in to circle their ship. The Stolsh crew consisted of handsome, tall, brown males and females, calling out to them happily, apparently amazed by their royals, studding sails and spritsail-topsail. The Stolsh sailed their slender, elaborately carved white craft, with its single yellowed sail, around the Fang. They were all naked except for short kilts, their females freely exposing an extra set of sharp, pointed breasts, placed down the ribcage like a dog's teats. All of them had webbed feet and hands, as well as faint blue gills under their chins.
The Ur-civilization that seeded so much of the galaxy made only minor modification to a basic stock. Human, Sylvan and Dwarrowdelf were minor variations for gravity differences. The Stolsh were a slightly greater variation, with the addition of gills and webbed hands and feet.
"Mr. Archer!"
"Sir!"
"You may commence the salute."
"Aye, sir!"
The forward cannon on the upper green side roared out the first of Fang's compliment, and the fort began its reply. They were close enough that the Pier's cloud of atmosphere had merged with Fang's, and the sound of their salutes rolled back and forth between them, nation extending its respect to nation in all courtesy.
In very short order Fang was tied up amidst a small orchard of masts. There was no Westerness or Sylvan consulate on this frontier world, so Melville immediately reported to the port admiral and passed on his message: The Guldur were coming, like the host of Mordor on his tail.
The tall Stolsh admiral nodded sadly, breathing in deeply through his thin, aquiline nose. He looked like some tall, dignified, deeply tanned human except for the blue gills in his throat that pulsed faintly. "Welll," he began in his deep, resonant voice. "We haave expected this, loong and loong."
The typical, slow Stolsh accent always sounded to Melville like the woebegone complaints of some deeply depressed old man, but he knew that they were a fierce, proud race. "This muust be their western force," the admiral continued. "If the projections are riight, thaat means thaat Ambergris is proobably aalready besieged by the force cuutting northwest. Thaat would explain why the mail paacket waas late. We will mobilize, aand we caannoot thaank yoou enough for warning us. Loong will your claan be hoonoored heere. Where do yoou go noow?"
"We carry Sylvan crew members with us," replied Melville. "Ours is the first joint Westerness and Sylvan expedition. Our orders are to report to the nearest senior officer on Ambergris upon accomplishing our mission or upon encountering serious trouble."
The Stolsh port admiral nodded gloomily, politely not asking what that mission was. "The neearest seenior Sylvan authoority is in chaarge of their expeditionary foorce at Aambergris, aand the nearest Westerness embassy is aalso there. The commander there is proobaably desperaate to waarn us. Yoou woould doo us a greaat boon to let them know thaat we aare waarned. I need every ship I haave right here."
"Aye, sir, I can do that. I guess I'm actually following my orders by moving in that direction. Technically the Guldur should respect the neutrality of our flag."
"Hooo, hooo, hooo!" laughed the old Stolsh admiral, leaning his head back and pulsing his gills. "Even if yoou weren't in one of their ships, I doon't think they would let yoou go. If yoou go yoou might haave to break thruu their blockade."
"Aye, sir. My orders didn't anticipate this kind of situation. I really don't have much option but to go to Ambergris, and frankly I'm honored to be of further assistance in your hour of need. But I'll need a massive resupply, and fast."
"Aaye, yoou'll haave it. Aaye."
Fang was a busy, busy ship. Melville had been given carte blanche, and he worked constantly, using every ounce of authority and prestige granted to him by the port admiral to pry resources and maintenance crews from the dockyard facilities. The sailing master, carpenter and gunner worked closely with their captain in this endeavor, rummaging through the vast resources of the dockyard for anything that would or could be of value to their ship and its mission. Then they supervised their divisions and the Stolsh dockyard maties who would stow these supplies. Meanwhile Lady Elphinstone and her mates were given free run of the hospital to replenish their greatly depleted medical supplies.
Lieutenant Fielder, as first officer, stayed with the ship, working with great competence and zeal to supervise the loading and stowing of the vast quantity of supplies. Melville watched Fielder, and he saw an enigma, a paradox. His first officer was heavy, dark-faced, rude, and domineering, but never, ever inefficient or incompetent. Coming steadily on board were 12-pound shot, canister and grape; biscuit, beer, rum, salt beef, and salt pork; linear miles of various ropes and cordage; square miles of sailcloth; bosun's stores, carpenter's stores, and medical stores to include several casks of common rhubarb purgative.
Their water casks were currently coming aboard, rising up from the Pier and swayed into the hold with many a cry, as ancient as the sea, "All together now, handsomely there, damn your eyes! Half an inch, half an inch, mate," and then vanishing into the hatchway to be stowed below with muffled but equally passionate cries. Meanwhile, Gunny Von Rito was carefully stowing deadly little copper-ringed, wooden barrels of gunpowder and percussion caps, inert in two-space but vital to survival on land.
Broadax was worn to a frazzle as she and her marines protected the crew and the ship from the ravaging hordes of Stolsh dockside idlers who would steal incoming supplies. Given half a chance, the Stolsh would also sneak on board. Sometimes these boarders would be Stolsh prostitutes who would happily couple with anything faintly humanoid, and whose presence was constantly aided and abetted by sailors. Sometimes they were simple and blatant thieves who would sneak back off the ship with anything that wasn't nailed down. Often they were both. As old Hans put it, "They'll git ya comin' and goin'."
Their purser's first task was to clear customs.
"Doo yoou haave any boooks of licentioous oor lewd naature, any haallucinoogenic substaances, oor any laarge quaantities of aalcoohoolic beveraages intended foor resaale?" asked the customs inspector.
"No," replied Petreckski.
"Aare yoou suure?"
"Yes."
"Woold yoou like soome?"
Sigh.
The customs formalities satisfied, the purser's detail then gathered all available "trade goods." This consisted mostly of bizarre items they'd scrounged from the hold of the Guldur ship. These were taken to the ubiquitous bazaar that always waited just outside the Pier. Like every Westerness ship, the crew made a side income from trading. The Queen, the Admiralty, and the crew shared from whatever they earned from the goods transported in their hold. They'd lost their cargo with Kestrel and were starting over from scratch, trying to establish the bones of a grubstake with miscellaneous Guldur weapons and equipment.
Their sad assortment of trade goods barely rated them a spot in a side alley that was, as Broadax put it, "If'n not a dead end, it's at least mortally wounded." Their primary trade goods were kept in barrels, with sailors and marines sitting on them, guarding them from the teeming Stolshanity that swept around them. The bartering was carried out first by Petreckski, who set the initial rate for each item. (Guldur muskets seemed to bring a particularly good price.) Then that price was used as a basis for trade by the more experienced crew members.
Although he wasn't entrusted to barter, Corporal Kobbsven was assigned by Lieutenant Broada
x to be in charge of security. A duty which he accomplished primarily by looking huge and intimidating in his red jacket with a pistol tucked into his belt and the hilt of his huge two-handed sword sticking out over his shoulder.
A light, warm rain was coming down, and off in the distance between the low mud buildings they could catch a glimpse of the sea, for the amphibious Stolsh were never far from water. In the opposite direction, the Moss-coated pilings of the Pier could be seen. From here on the ground the bulk of the Pier was invisible, but its pilings looked like an orchard of white telegraph poles, each with attendant ladders and stairways, all ending abruptly like Aladdin's magic rope as they entered two-space. Periodically people and cargo appeared and disappeared, as they came in and out of two-space.
A motley crowd of Stolsh moved around them, leavened by Guldur, Goblan, and other creatures from throughout the frontier region. One cute Stolsh girl squatted in the muddy street directly in front of them, wearing only a short kilt. She was giggling and jiggling, making a great show of prodding at a small frog as her four breasts did interesting things and other intriguing things winked from beneath her single garment. All the guards were intently watching her.
Kobbsven was far, far from the sharpest knife in the drawer. (Indeed, by that classification standard he was more in the fork or even the spoon family.) But he had the virtue of single-minded dedication to an assigned task, combined with a deep veneration and even deeper fear of Lieutenant Broadax. It slowly dawned on him that his men were neglecting their duties, and suspicious hooded characters seemed to be sidling in from several directions. Furrowing his brows in the painful process that passed for deep thought (making his one eyebrow beetle up like a cockroach conference), he snatched up a jug of the cheap local wine that they'd been drinking. Then he strode over, scooped up the frog, and swallowed it in one gulp with a swig from the bottle.
The Stolsh girl's eyes went wide and she began to jabber to all who would listen, while Kobbsven ignored her. A few of the cloaked figures who were shuffling in toward them began to advance on him. He drew his two-handed sword from over his shoulder in one smooth motion, looked nonchalantly at them, and they thought better of it. He went back to scowling at all passersby. His sword was still out, but he wasn't "flourishing" it. Men who truly know what to do with weapons never bother with flourishing them. In the end it was more intimidating that way.
"Corporal," said Petreckski, distracted from his bartering, "this girl says you ate her frog. Did you swallow her frog?"
"Aye, sir. Her and that damn'd frog was distractin' da troops. One uf them had to go." Furrowing his brow in concentration he looked down at the monk, "Ya reckon I made a bad call, sir? Ya suppose I shoulda et her instead?"
The purser blinked distractedly. " . . . No, Corporal. No, she seems to have lost interest, and all's well that ends well." Then he left them to begin purchasing food.
They had brought their strongbox across from Kestrel, and there was a small supply of gold from the captured Guldur strongbox as well, so some funds were available. The grateful Stolsh admiral had already freely contributed water, ships provisions and miscellaneous cordage, spars and lumber. Their purser's primary goal was to purchase greenstuffs for the ship, as well as livestock for the wardroom and for their captain. With him were "Ducks" and "Butcher." These were individuals who, like "Chips" and "Guns," took their names from their position. Ducks was responsible for their poultry, and Butcher had authority over the four-legged food stock, which consisted mostly of pigs and a few goats kept for milk.
After a short and intense period of bartering, a menagerie of huge white geese on leashes; coops full of gray pigeons and small brown hens; low, hairy brown swine; and tall, slender black nanny goats were all herded to the Pier alongside carts full of greenstuffs. The pigs and goats were hooded and swayed up into Flatland one by one, where they loudly communicated their distress at the process and their strange new surroundings. The livestock was penned up in the lower forecastle until quarters below could be prepared for them.
Once the food was purchased, the harried purser set out to find a cargo that would be of value in Ambergris, which was their next stop. Ambergris would probably be under siege. (As would this world, but the general population didn't know that yet.) And Ambergris was a world low in phosphates. Thus a load of saltpeter was the purser's goal, and he was pleased with the deal he cut. He used the last of their gold to lock in the deal, quickly moved to the alley where the last of their trade goods were being sold, took that money and the security detail to get the saltpeter, and completed one of the most exhausting and satisfying trading days in his life. There was something special about starting from the ground up, and having inside knowledge about the pending invasion gave him an advantage that he savored.
"Well, Captain," he asked as they were pulling away from the Pier, "are you satisfied with our stop?"
"Aye," said Melville. The two of them were standing with their hands on the quarterdeck railing, looking at the far horizon. "We even picked up a few stray hands to fill in some of the holes in our crew. How did it go on your end?"
"Well enough, sir, well enough," his purser replied. "It's a miserable backwater port. No one will ever make their fortune here. Even their plagues are half-hearted. The best they could muster was a Plague of Frog, but the redoubtable Corporal Kobbsven was able to dispatch it for us. All things considered, I am satisfied."
And so they left Pearl, the sails sheeted home one by one, placing the strain slowly upon the masts and rigging, until Fang again gained her splendid speed of almost thirteen knots. Properly supplied and equipped, they sailed toward Ambergris and the likelihood of combat against the forces that were probably besieging or invading that world.
Melville had done as much as he could to prepare his ship. His men had faith in him, based on his victory on Broadax's World and his cunning scheme that gained them their current ship. In their eyes he was responsible for not just snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, but actually yanking a Fang from the slavering jaws of defeat. He knew that his men expected more miracles from him, and he felt unworthy of their trust. He tried to explain his philosophy one day while most of his officers were his guests at dinner.
"It's called maneuver warfare. It was first developed by the Germans in the early and mid-twentieth centuries, then picked up by the United States military late in that century. There were many pioneers in the field, but one of the greatest was Robert Leonhard. In his book, The Art of Maneuver, he put it this way, 'Maneuver warfare is, to put it simply, a kick in the groin, a poke in the eye, a stab in the back . . . Maneuver warfare puts a premium on being sneaky rather than courageous, and it is not at all glorious, because it typically flees from an enemy's strength. It takes its name from its most common practical application: outmaneuvering the enemy.'"
"Aye, Captain," said Hans, admiringly, " 'Ats wot ye did ta the curs all right! Poke 'em in the eye an' kick 'em in the balls! Is 'at wot ya plan ta do at Ambergris, too?"
"I'm not sure, Hans," Melville replied scowling thoughtfully. "I hope to use surprise and our superior accuracy. We'll take down all the new sails and cruise in looking like one of their ships. We bluff our way through if we can. Westerness policy is to remain absolutely neutral. We can only attack them if we are attacked, so we will have to wait for them to fire first. When they do, we'll run up the Westerness colors, set all sail, and let them know that Westerness is here. And a world of hurt is coming with us."
With the exception of Fielder, who was his usual cynical self, most of the officers at the table nodded, looking at him with cautious admiration. "Aye, sir," said Mr. Barlet. The gunner was thinking happily about what his guns would do to the enemy. "If they try to mess with us we'll show them what those 24-pounders can really do!"
Melville looked with pleasure upon his officers. He possessed something that few other officers in the Westerness Navy could claim. Military victory. In their heart of hearts the navy sometimes feared that they might
just be Hokas, playing games with their traditions drawn from the old British Royal Navy. The long centuries of Westerness history included many ground actions on frontier worlds, and a few brushes with pirates, but no real frigate actions like the one they'd just survived.
Now, after centuries of preparation, their first true naval engagement had ended in victory against overwhelming odds, and Melville had won the loyalty of these veterans by demonstrating his competence in combat. They were willing to spend their lives for a cause, but they desperately did not want their lives to be wasted. A leader who had proven his worth in battle was the most precious of all assets. A man to be truly cherished by his men. Melville had accomplished that now, but it was far harder than anyone who hadn't been there could ever understand. First, the opportunities to gain such credibility were so very rare. Second, once it was gained, it was a fragile substance, since one "dammit" could delete a lifetime of "attaboys" in the bank balance of battle.
Starting in the late twentieth century, combat simulators began to make it possible to develop "pre-battle veterans" and leaders who could demonstrate their ability to their men, at least in the simulators. When the military used these they were combat simulators, which honed battle skills. When that same technology was put in the hands of children, the games they played became "mass murder simulators," and like Ender in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, the games the kids played became horrifyingly real, resulting in unprecedented mass murders as the children turned their sad games and conditioned reflexes into dark tragic reality. Melville and most of his crew had trained long and hard on such simulators on Old Earth.
Two Space War Page 23