“Get your head out of your sheep, Heallstede,” Lillee Bocook shouted, “and remember the shearer comes back a second time and more! Give in now and we’ll see them again for more once we’ve rebuilt!”
Denholm winced as well at her tone. Bocook was a strong woman, and Denholm respected her, but she seemed to have no middle in her. A man was either a genius or a fool to Lillee Bocook, and which usually depended on whether he agreed with her in any given moment.
“She’s the right of it,” Lynelle said quietly from the other side of the kitchen table.
“She does.” Denholm shook his head. “But he won’t take kindly to her tone.”
“Better sheared than dead!” Kinder was yelling back.
“I say we fight!” Bocook yelled.
“There’s too bloody many of them, you daft woman! And anywhere on the planet they can strike next! How’re we to even know where to —”
Denholm sighed with relief as the moderator of the discussion muted both Bocook and Kinder. He could see both their points. On the one hand it galled him to give in and pay what the pirates demanded. The sum was large, and it would take the whole colony to assemble that much in coin or equivalent goods, but it wouldn’t break them — not the larger holders, at least. On the other hand, even if they could bring together enough of a force, there was no way to know where to strike at the pirates. The bastards could sit up there in their ship and attack at will anywhere on the planet, while the settlers had only a single craft capable of flight.
“I’ll have no truck with name-calling and fighting amongst ourselves,” Wickam Doakes said into the silence. As he’d used his share in the colony to purchase a lease on the chandlery concession and appointment as Crown agent, he was moderating the discussion. “It’s one thing for you lot to go on and on when we’re in conclave at Landing, but not like this. Not now. I say Mister Kinder’s said his piece and we’ll move on … Mister Coalson’s next in the queue, so speak your piece, Mister Coalson.”
“Och, but he’ll hae a fix fer things, sure,” Lynelle muttered.
Denholm nodded absently, eyes fixed on his tablet as Coalson spoke.
“While I tend to agree with Mistress Bocook that these men will likely return for more if we pay them, Mister Kinder does have the right of it that we’re in no position to fight, either. We haven’t the slightest idea where they’ll land next and we certainly can’t attack their ship in orbit.” Coalson shrugged. “I think, perhaps, we must consider a third option, distasteful as it may be — do nothing and wait them out.”
There was a flurry of pings as others in the conference demanded attention. Coalson waited, then nodded.
“Yes, I’m certain you all dislike the option as much as I do, but what choice do we really have? Beggar ourselves paying tribute and then wait to be fleeced again? Assemble some force and hope to catch these men by sheer luck, all the while leaving our own holdings undefended?”
Denholm sighed and tapped his screen to indicate he had something to say in response. He’d honestly hoped things between him and Rashae Coalson would come to an end after that ridiculous duel, or, at least, after they’d each gone off to their own holdings with thousands of kilometers between them, but Coalson’s positions were so opposed to his own that Denholm found himself unable to not speak up.
He expected Coalson to ignore him and choose someone else to speak, but to his surprise the man selected him.
“Yes, Carew, you have something to say?”
“Only that I’m wondering,” Denholm said, “how it is we’re to sit and do nothing while our neighbors are slaughtered and their holdings looted and burned. Seems a hard, cold thing.”
“Indeed,” Coalson said, “but that’s not at all what I’m suggesting, and I’m shocked you’d think it of me.”
“What are you suggesting, then, if we’re not to fight or pay these men?”
“I suggest, Carew, that we examine their targets and learn from them. The Brogdon, Tooley, and Penning holdings are all of a type. Mid-sized holdings, and isolated — they had, what, a dozen or two dozen indentures each? Not nearly enough to fight off an attack, and therefore vulnerable.”
Denholm frowned. Coalson sounded calm and reasonable, which was so unlike the man that it made Denholm suspicious.
“Wha’s tha mon up to?” Lynelle asked, echoing Denholm’s thoughts.
“I’ve studied what imagery and sensor readings we have of this ship,” Coalson went on, “and concluded that there can be no more than one hundred or, perhaps, one hundred fifty men aboard. Some of those must be left behind to man the ship during their raids, and they’ll obviously want to significantly outnumber their targets, being the cowards that they are. Landing and the other free towns are certainly safe from them, as are the larger holdings, and most of the very small holders are located near each other in their little bands and villages. They’ve barely enough in the way of portable wealth and goods to make it worth the pirates’ while in any case.”
Denholm glanced over at Lynelle to see her reaction, but her attention was focused on her tablet — brow furrowed and tapping rapidly. She’d always been irritated by Coalson’s easy dismissal of those settlers who’d had only enough colony shares for a bit of land. In his view, anyone who’d come to Dalthus simply to build a small home for themselves was a fool and should have stayed behind.
“No,” Coalson said, “it’s the mid-sized holdings, where there’s some wealth to plunder and fewer holders and indentures for them to fight, there’s where they’ll strike.” He shook his head and frowned. “Sadly, as Mister Kinder pointed out for us, we’ve still no way of knowing which exactly they’ll strike, so confronting them is out of the question.”
“So what is it you suggest, Mister Coalson?” Doakes asked.
Coalson shrugged. “I’d think it was obvious. We must remove these marauders’ targets until they seek prey and profit elsewhere. The mid-size holders, those at most risk from these attacks, should seek shelter at the larger holdings until the danger has passed.”
There was a new flurry of pings as others sought to be recognized and speak. Coalson chose one.
“And what’s to happen with our goods and livestock!” Bailie Arthur demanded.
“Well, you’d certainly have to leave most of that behind on your holdings,” Coalson said, his tone mild. “With just the one hauler we couldn’t move everything, after all.”
“So your suggestion is we leave all we have to these bastards for the taking? And then have nothing when they leave?”
“You’ll have your lives,” Coalson said, “and I’m told some feel that’s a great deal.” He shrugged. “And your lands, of course. These pirates can’t take the very land with them. I’m certain something could be worked out to assist you in rebuilding after they’ve left.”
Arthur’s jaw clenched. “At a price, no doubt.”
“Well —”
“That’s you to a T, Coalson! Ever after a bit of what someone else calls their own!”
“And what should I do, then?” Coalson asked, his temper showing now. “Who’ll bear the brunt of the tribute this pirate demands? We larger holders, that’s who — for we’ll hear nothing but whingeing about how little it leaves you if we demand others pay a fair share. If they take your stock and burn your holding, I’m to give you shelter and make you whole for nothing in return? Why exactly?”
“Some common bloody humanity!”
“No, Mister Arthur, you chose to come to Dalthus without a means to protect what’s yours, it’s not on me or mine to do it for you. I offer you and your kind a safe place to ride this out and —”
“My ‘kind’, is it? Why you insufferable, self —”
“Gentlemen!” Doakes broke in, cutting both men off. “This argument does neither of you any credit.” There was a muted ping as someone sought his attention. “Yes, perhaps a more reasonable voice —” He looked down at his tablet. “— or … well …” Doakes sighed. “Yes, Mistress Carew?”
“Much as it pains me tae say so aboot such a mon, it may be that Mister Coalson has stumbled all a’blind into tha right of it.”
Denholm blinked.
“Well, nae the schemin’, selfish, graspin’ fer profit in another man’s misery-pile part, ya ken, but tha bit aboot where they’ll strike, perhaps.”
“Lynelle!”
“Miss Carew — really!”
“If you ken where they’ve struck,” Lynelle went on, ignoring Denholm’s and Doakes’ protests, “you can see that Mister Coalson has stumbled close to it. But there’s the how, then, isn’t there? How’d they ken where ta strike? Which holdings tha’ have some wealth, but nae so many hands as to make a fight of it?”
Lynelle tapped her tablet and a list holdings appeared on his. Denholm studied it, as he was certain the other holders would be, but didn’t understand. True, the Brogdon, Tooley, and Penning holdings were on it, but in the third, seventh, and eleventh positions. The intervening spaces were filled with both larger holdings and groups of smaller holders who’d formed close associations. The Carew’s own holding topped the list.
Denholm glanced across the table.
“What —”
“The holders who had a bit of a fair day last month,” Lynelle said. “That bloody Saint and his fuzzy-toothed nephew scouting aboot and seein’ who had what goods and how many hands.” She scowled. “They made a bloody list, an’ now they’re back and working their way down it.”
Denholm looked back to the list. Brogdon, Tooley, and Penning — in order, if one skipped over those holdings and groups too large for a single ship’s crew to attack. In order, which meant …
“Aye,” Lynelle said, highlighting the next mid-size holding on the list. “And if we know who’s next —” She gave a nod toward Bailie Arthur’s image on her tablet. His holding was just after the Pennings on the list, with only a single large holding between them. “— we can set the buggers a stalking horse.”
Seventeen
The air inside the barn on the Arthurs’ holding was hot and dense with the scent of animals and the men packed inside.
Denholm closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the rough-hewn wood of the wall. At least there was a bit of fresh, predawn breeze coming through a gap in the boards next to him. After a full day and night packed into the barn, waiting for the expected attack, he was heartily sick of it and ready for a change.
Lynelle’s realization that the pirates were, in fact, the same men as the traveling fair and had used those fairs as a way to scout the Dalthus holdings for likely targets had altered the course of the debate. Even Rashae Coalson, once he’d seen the inevitable result of the vote, Denholm assumed, had joined in the consensus to establish a force at the Arthurs’ holding and fight.
Coalson and his men were even now packed tightly in the Arthurs’ indenture barracks along with volunteers from several other holdings, much as Denholm was packed into the barn. Others, all hurriedly flown to the Arthurs’ by the colony’s lone antigrav hauler under cover of darkness, were in the farmhouse itself and the other outbuildings.
Altogether, they’d assembled a force of over two hundred from around the planet. Some, like Denholm, were armed with modern laser rifles they’d brought from the Core, but most held more primitive chemical propellant arms, some hurriedly printed by the limited manufactury in Landing.
The pirates, if the assumption of a single ship was correct, would have less men than that, though would be better armed. The sites of the three other attacks had shown damage from mostly laser weapons and the occasional flechette.
A trickle of dust and hay fell from above and Denholm stifled a sneeze. He also stifled his concerns for Lynelle who was in the hayloft above him armed with another laser rifle. She’d refused to stay behind, insisting that, “If the clan’s to battle go, I’ll nae be left behind.”
He had to admit she was the better shot, and sniping from the hayloft should keep her safe, but he was worried nonetheless.
Early the day before, in the back of the hauler on the way here, she’d been pale and short of breath. She claimed it was from the close-packed quarters of the hauler and its motion, but the inertial compensators made a hauler’s motion barely detectable. Then they arrived and she rushed from the hauler’s ramp to lean one hand on a landing strut and vomit. Denholm rushed to her side, but she waved his concerns off and grasped her rifle, rushing to the barn to get under cover as quickly as possible.
After that there’d been little time to speak as they’d settled into the crowded barn to wait.
Denholm opened his eyes. The Arthurs and their hands were stirring outside, leaving the house and barracks in a semblance of their normal morning routines. That each of them had a sidearm concealed on their person and that there were more rifles concealed about the holding wasn’t visible to the casual observer. They might be in for another long, hot day of waiting — the pirates had struck other holdings in the dead of night when everyone was sleeping. They might hold to that, or they might change that routine, if they suspected holdings would now be more watchful in the dark.
Or we could be entirely wrong about where they’ll strike next.
That was what Denholm feared now more than the possibility of a fight here.
If the pirates struck elsewhere, the consensus to fight which had brought this force together might dissolve back into squabbling over whether to appease them or not.
Denholm frowned and that concern disappeared as he noted a growing rumble. The sun was just enough over the horizon to make looking in its direction blinding, and that was the direction the pirates chose to attack from. The rumble grew to a roar and those outside the shelter of buildings ran for prearranged positions. The pirates’ boat slammed heavily to the ground in the farmyard and its ramps dropped, giving Denholm his first look at the enemy.
The boat looked familiar, though he couldn’t swear it was the same. Some of the men rushing down the ramps wore armor. Mismatched sets and pieces, he was relieved to see, with not a complete set anywhere, and none of it powered — if the pirates had modern combat armor, then things would go badly for the settlers.
The pirates began firing even as they rushed from their boat, striking down those exposed workers who’d hesitated or had too far to run to a place of shelter. Denholm ground his teeth at the need to hold fire as those men were hit, but if they opened fire while the pirates were close enough to retreat onto their boat, then the whole plan would be for naught. They had just this one chance to end it — if the pirates escaped here they’d have no way of telling where the next attack would come.
The attackers spread out from the boat, firing indiscriminately as they went. Denholm readied his rifle — they were almost far enough from the boat now, moving toward the barracks and farmhouse, which put the barn and Denholm’s men on their flank.
A shot rang out from the barracks.
Too soon, Denholm thought, even as he opened fire as well now that the attackers were alerted.
More shots, interspersed with the sharper crack of the few lasers.
The pirates hesitated, some fell as they were hit, others jerked and ducked. Then there were shouts and the attackers began falling back toward their boat.
Denholm fired again, ignoring the shouts and cheers around him in the barn. The men might think they were winning, but Denholm knew they, all of Dalthus, were in serious trouble if the pirates managed to reach their boat and take off. It wasn’t enough to drive them away from this one holding, they had to destroy their ability to attack again.
“Target the boat!” he yelled.
His stomach fell as he realized it wouldn’t be enough. His own shots, aimed at what he thought might be the boat’s more vulnerable areas, seemed to have no effect on the craft’s tough hull. The pirates took shelter amongst the boat’s landing struts and behind its ramps to give covering fire as their brethren
reboarded.
Bailie Arthur, firing from his farmhouse along with his family and workers, must have realized it as well. Realized that if the pirates managed to lift off his own holding might be safe, but others would be destroyed in retaliation. And the farmhouse was closest to the boat.
Denholm watched in horror as Arthur, his eldest son and daughter, and three of their hands poured from the house’s door and shattered windows to rush the pirates’ boat.
The pirates shifted their fire and the Arthurs were cut down before they’d even reached the boat’s shadow.
The last of the pirates rushed up the boat’s ramps and Denholm prepared to rush from the barn himself. Perhaps, once all the pirates were aboard and unable to fire, they might be able to get close enough to damage the boat. Or perhaps firing from underneath before it rose too far, they might strike some vulnerable site.
The rumble of the boat’s engines deepened and its ramps started to close. It began to rise off the ground. Denholm drew breath to shout encouragement to those around him, call for them to follow, when he heard a new, deeper rumble. It grew louder and the colony’s hauler dropped out of the sky toward the pirate boat.
The hauler, twice the size of the boat, settled over it, moving with it as the pirate’s pilot tried to reach a clear space to rise.
Denholm was sick at the risk the hauler’s pilot was taking with so valuable a resource. That hauler was the colony’s only transport. It would be years before they accumulated enough wealth from exports to purchase another. The pilot, Witcomb Hatridge, was risking his family’s future as well. He’d put his shares into the purchase of that hauler and a ninety-nine year lease on the transport concession. Even if it wasn’t destroyed, being out of service for too long would ruin him.
The pirate boat rose until it was so near Denholm thought it touched the hauler, the pirates playing chicken and trying to force Hatridge to avoid them. But Hatridge was having none of it. He played the massive craft as he had daily around the colony, piloting it into tiny forest clearings or through narrow clefts to reach mining sites.
Alexis Carew: Books 1, 2, and 3 Page 105