“Yes, though they retain considerable independence on the Texas frontier. Many become great Rangers.” If there was irony in his tone, Fred didn’t catch it. “But you asked why I’m telling you all this,” he continued when the Comanches were past, “and the answer’s very simple. The Doms will certainly try to stop us wherever we land but can no longer do anything to prevent our coming. What happens next is in God’s hands.” He finished his drink and drew heavily on his cigar. “I’ll soon be returning to the Ranger company I used to command. Once we land in New Granada, I’ll be back to the more traditional and straightforward scouting, screening, and skirmishing role I’ve missed so much. You two, however, have been ordered to report aboard Captain Garrett’s USS Donaghey once more, where you’ll perform the same duties as my Rangers, from the air, on behalf of the fleet. Your plane has already been hoisted aboard.”
He smiled a little sadly and glanced at his own watch. Looking surprised, he suddenly stood, dropping his cigar in his empty glass. Fred and Kari rose as well. “Wherever can the time have gone? I really must go as well,” he murmured absently, then regarded Fred intently. “Go to your young lady, Lieutenant Reynolds. Enjoy yourself. There’s little time left for that.” Meeting Kari’s gaze, he smiled. Extending his hand, he shook both of theirs. “Take care of each other. And if we never meet again, please know it’s been one of the greatest honors of my life to call you friends. God bless.”
* * *
* * *
“Cap-i-taan Aanson seem kinda low to you?” Kari asked as she and Fred threaded their way toward Government House. Fred was supposed to meet Tabitha Semmes there, and Kari meant to corral Captain Garrett and harangue him for messing with their plane without them around. And it was their plane. Garrett promised.
Fred looked thoughtful. “He never was a nonstop barrel of laughs, but yeah. Maybe more . . . serious than usual.”
“I wonder whaat for. Maybe he’s too used to runnin’ around on the loose.”
Fred shook his head. “I don’t think that’s it. He seemed happy to be back with his Rangers, back in the ‘real army’ again instead of sneaking around alone. I don’t see how anybody could like that much.”
Kari sighed. “We been on the loose enough ourselves to suit me,” she agreed. “I’ll be glaad to be baack in the Navy. Wish we waas baack aboard Waa-kur,” she added quieter.
“Yeah. Well, I bet he’s okay. Probably just worried about the operation because he doesn’t know any more about it than we do, for once.”
“Maybe,” Kari agreed as they finally reached the steps in front of the big building at the end of the street. Guards stood on either side of the door and the redheaded Tabitha, slim and pretty in a cream-colored dress with a red sash around her waist and a matching ribbon holding the straw hat on her head, was waiting. She smiled radiantly and waved.
“Ain’t naatural,” Kari growled lowly, her tail hanging low. “An’ red reminds me too much of Doms,” she confessed, blurting it out.
Fred looked at her scarred fingers, where clawlike nails once were, and shuddered. He could certainly understand that. He had his own scars. “Well,” he said lowly, “one thing Captain Anson, us, and everybody else knows: this next fight’s gonna be a bear, and once we get tangled up in it there won’t be any getting loose until it’s done. And him so much as saying so long . . . I don’t think he expects to make it, or doesn’t think we will.”
“Whaat do you think?” Kari asked. “Thaat’s a buncha lizard shit, right?”
Fred hesitated only an instant before grinning and thumping his best friend on the back. “Of course.” He snorted forcefully. “We’ve already been in worse jams than we’re ever liable to see again. It stands to reason.” He started to walk toward the waiting girl. “Wait for Captain Garrett, and don’t go wandering around on your own.” He waved at the mass of troops. “Who knows what some of them’ll think of you? Double-check our plane when you get back to the ship.”
“See you there later? When you’re done with your gurrl?” Kari teased.
Fred rolled his eyes. “Sure.” Then he took a step back toward her, suddenly anxious. “Hey. You’re not . . . jealous, are you?”
Kari looked genuinely shocked and her tail arched. “Jealous? Of her?” She laughed. “Even if you an’ her got hitched someday, aafter all we been through, she’ll never know you like I do. We’re paals.”
CHAPTER 7
////// Leopardo
Puerto del Cielo
Holy Dominion
Don Hernan is here?” Capitaine de Fregate Victor Gravois demanded incredulously as soon as he stepped into the pilothouse of the Italian Capitano Ciano’s Leone-class “Exploratori” destroyer, Leopardo. He’d been asleep and it showed as he stood in rumpled shirtsleeves, peering anxiously through puffy eyes out the pilothouse windows, searching for Don Hernan’s barge. His normally carefully combed hair stood up in a comical wedge.
Ciano smirked inwardly. He had a careful respect for the French Naval Intelligence officer and even tacitly supported his schemes to make a stronger, bolder League. He suspected he’d go far if they turned out well. Of course, they’d all be executed if they didn’t, and that’s why he hadn’t openly declared full agreement to some of the more outrageous things he suspected Gravois planned. Still, they had an . . . understanding, and many mutually acknowledged frustrations, so the secret smirk had nothing to do with contempt. It reflected only Ciano’s vague amusement at seeing the almost pathologically dapper French officer less than immaculately turned out for the very first time. He frowned with a quickening anger when he remembered it wasn’t the first. That had been when Leopardo collected Gravois after his short stay among the Allies—as Captain Reddy’s “guest”—on Madagascar. Ciano almost ached to meet Reddy and his dilapidated old Walker with Leopardo someday, but still thought Gravois had been lucky to get out of that alive and wondered why he had.
In any event, he couldn’t blame Gravois for his appearance. There was little to do but sleep away the long, hot days at anchor in the Dominion’s principal East Caribbean port of Puerto del Cielo, where that OVRA stronzo Oriani had effectively marooned Leopardo. They were officially there to show the flag and maintain a presence, reminding the Dominion of the League’s support—and, subliminally, the power and majesty of its modern ships and weapons. They were also there as a floating embassy and for Don Hernan’s communications convenience. But there was no liberty or any contact with the natives at all except for the daily bumboats bringing fresh supplies like meat, fruit, and a kind of tobacco.
Increasingly, they were also sneaking drugs aboard. Ciano banned that of course, but couldn’t have stopped everything if he inspected every boat himself. He could even sympathize with those of his crew who chewed the strange leaves that made them drowsy and remote, since most couldn’t bear to look at the city for long and avoided lingering on the landward side of the ship. Many slept belowdecks regardless of the heat, often in a drug-induced stupor, rather than risk seeing—or smelling—what went on ashore at night.
What started as a disgusting evening ritual of fiery crucifixions of a few “rebels” on the beach at the base of the city’s seawall had turned into a nightly orgy of dozens of blood sacrifices and apparently senseless, flaming murder. The effect on morale was obvious, as was the steep decline in combat readiness—while the crew practically craved combat. Anything to get away from here. They were in a kind of hell while Leopardo and her ever-present ancient oiler slowly rusted away, in more ways than one, under the brutal tropical sun.
“Don Hernan’s barge is approaching from astern, from upriver,” Ciano said. Gravois nodded as if to say “Of course,” and stepped out on the bridgewing to look aft toward the mouth of the River of Heaven. The Holy City of New Granada and the Templo de los Papas lay 320 kilometers up its broad, steamy course. An extraordinarily ornate bireme was churning toward them, its double ranks of oars flashing un
der the early-afternoon sun. Large red flags adorned with twisted golden crosses fluttered fitfully fore and aft, and people dressed in bright reds and yellows crowded the high poop under a broad awning.
“That’s his barge,” Gravois murmured irritably, “but why should he come all the way down here?” He stiffened. “And he’s coming directly to us, not steering for the city.” He managed a small, triumphant smile. “Perhaps we’ll discover his purpose quickly, for once, without having to await a propitious day for his visit.” Then his expression betrayed dismay. “I must refresh myself. Please do what you can to see he’s properly received.” Even Gravois was keenly aware of how Leopardo—and her crew’s—appearance had declined since Don Hernan’s last visit. He started for the hatch.
“One word, Capitaine,” Ciano urged.
“Yes?”
“Please, for the ship’s sake and our own, bear in mind our position. And the fact that Don Hernan could’ve easily sent word to summon us back to him.” They knew the Dominion used what even Gravois considered flying Grik to carry important messages. “And he wouldn’t have come ‘all the way down here’ without some urgency,” Ciano finished. Gravois pursed his lips beneath his thin mustache and nodded.
* * *
* * *
“I’m astonished, Your Holiness, utterly astonished to see you here,” Gravois said earnestly, leaning forward in his chair in Leopardo’s wardroom. The setting was exactly as when they last met, except this time Gravois and Don Hernan were entirely alone. The Blood Cardinal hadn’t even brought his beautiful naked slave girls to pour his wine, and disconcert Gravois, of course. Other than that, the same electric fan labored to move the stifling air, and they were dressed the same as before: Don Hernan in his brilliant gold-trimmed red robes and ridiculous white hat, and Gravois in his meticulously brushed uniform and polished boots. They even had what probably really was Ciano’s final bottle of Salice Salentino standing on the table between them. All this led to a sense that this was merely a continuation of their last conversation. In various ways, it was, but Gravois also sensed a carefully veiled new urgency in his visitor. “Pleased as well, of course,” he continued, “and deeply honored. But surely there was some other essential purpose for you to make such an arduous trek? The voyage downriver must have taken days.”
Gravois immediately regretted his sarcasm and admonished himself to swallow his resentment. Whatever Don Hernan was, Gravois—an atheist, who still wasn’t exactly certain his visitor wasn’t the devil himself—knew he was no fool.
Don Hernan merely smiled benignly and waved it away. “There are . . . incidental matters I must attend to in Puerto del Cielo, but my primary purpose was to visit you, my friend.”
“I’m privileged indeed to be numbered among your friends.”
For a moment, Don Hernan’s face betrayed an uncharacteristically bleak expression. “Yes,” he said, “I have very few.” He snorted. “Precisely none, other than you. Particularly with whom I can share my passion for the vision of the future we discussed. The future we can build.”
Gravois was more repelled than flattered by that admission, for what it was worth, but understood it implied vulnerability for the first time, and perhaps a willingness to engage in a truly frank discussion. “Your, ah, ‘incidental’ business . . . Might it involve the accelerated executions we’ve witnessed of late?” he tentatively pressed.
Don Hernan sighed. “I fear so. As you know, the heretic and demon hordes are poised to strike our final bastion on the west side of El Paso del Fuego, at El Corazon. They will fail,” he stated flatly. “Unfortunately, though, word of their previous successes can’t be entirely suppressed and has spread quite far”—he motioned vaguely off to port—“even here. The ungodly are encouraged to suppose the demons will aid them, and rise up against our benevolent rule. Those who do so must be cleansed!” he said forcefully.
Gravois pictured the nightly “cleansing” ashore in his mind and cleared his throat, dreading what further abomination Don Hernan might unleash. If things got too far out of hand he’d never be able to use the alliance with the Dominion to pursue his aims. Even the League, with plenty of blood on its own hands, could countenance only so much. “With respect, Your Holiness,” he ventured, “we have some experience at suppressing uprisings in territory we’ve acquired. Reprisals are useful, but must be conducted with care. Most especially it should be seen that they specifically target individuals, groups, or acts they’re designed to discipline. I might even go so far as to say that . . . chastening the family and associates of traitors, even their entire village, has merit on occasion, but the punishment is still targeted, don’t you see? Once reprisals are perceived as utterly arbitrary and even the obviously innocent are punished, inducement to proper behavior is lost. Even more rebel who otherwise wouldn’t, and opposition merely grows.” He took a sip of wine. “Trying too hard to stamp out treason may only feed it in the end.”
Don Hernan regarded him with wide, gentle eyes. “Indeed? What an interesting thought.” He held up a finger and waved it back and forth. “There’s a plant like that, a prickly, flowering, creeping vine that can choke a farmer’s field in a single season. The harder the farmer hacks at it, the more insidious seeds it spreads.” His expression turned hard. “That’s why it must be cleansed with fire.”
Gravois was close to despair, already picturing hundreds of barbaric executions, day and night, in full view of Leopardo.
“But people are not vines,” Don Hernan reluctantly granted, “and there may be something to what you say. There’ll be plenty of time to deal with all the traitors when the current crisis is behind us. For now I will experiment.” He beamed. “Ha-ha! I’ll burn the executioners for their impious and overzealous effusion of sacred, perhaps even innocent, blood!” His face turned sad. “Clearly they became intoxicated with blood—quite understandable—but inexcusable in those entrusted with its accumulation.”
Gravois nodded sagely, while the flesh crawled across his arms. He suspected Don Hernan and the Dominion was probably less maniacal than various known human societies throughout history, even on this very continent, but that didn’t make actually talking with someone who believed as he did any easier. He chose to change the subject back to the Pass of Fire. “You’re quite sure you need no direct assistance at El Paso del Fuego? Perhaps you might”—Gravois smiled—“request that Leopardo go there to help ensure nothing unforeseen occurs?”
Don Hernan frowned. “In light of the fact your League remains unprepared to make a full commitment in this hemisphere,” he began, already making Gravois fume. Whether he had any love for it or not, the League was trying to get ships sent out as quickly as it could. Things were difficult, however. The war to subjugate the Mediterranean had been long and taxing, and not only had many of the League’s heavier, long-range fleet elements fallen into disrepair, facilities they’d built or appropriated had been focused on keeping ships better suited to the Med in action. That was changing now, but transitions took time—as he’d explained. The League was coming, there could be no doubt, but perhaps not soon enough to save the Pass of Fire. On the other hand, that might suit Gravois’s plans even better. . . .
“I think we should leave El Paso in the capable hands of General Mayta,” Don Hernan continued, lips creasing modestly. “He has the aid of one of my favorite sons, along with everything else we’ve lavished upon him. I’m quite confident El Paso is secure—and our loyal people need to know it was us alone who kept it that way.”
He leaned toward Gravois, setting his wineglass aside. “Then again, I do have a request to make of you.”
Gravois raised his eyebrows attentively.
“Our spies tell us los diablos del Norte”—Don Hernan grimaced—“the heretics in the pitiful, self-styled New United States, mean to land a large force somewhere upon the holy soil of Nuevo Granada itself, in cooperation with the offensive by the demon horde in the west. We
aren’t exactly sure where it will come, and that presents a slight problem from a perspective of meeting it, but its ultimate goal is said to be the conquest of the Holy City and Templo de los Papas itself!” Don Hernan’s eyes widened once more in furious astonishment. “Just imagine the hubris!” he exploded.
Gravois shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He’d been told, and it had always been his personal preference, to avoid initiating open hostilities with any Allied power—and, particularly now, the NUS—as long as possible. There’d been hostilities, of course, brought on by both sides—that the League destroyer Atúnez had been destroyed by a meager Allied sailing frigate and her Dom prize still infuriated him—but the League had started the shooting in every other instance. So far, however, there’d been no deadly encounters with the NUS. Like the Imperials, their sailing steam warships were equal to anything the Dominion possessed, but Leopardo could probably destroy everything they had all by herself. They couldn’t possibly resist the exponentially greater resources the League was preparing to commit to the region. Yet avoiding confrontations and delaying large-scale active participation by the NUS in the war against the Doms had allowed everyone to focus on the greater threat from the west. Apparently that was all about to change.
Yet for diplomatic reasons, the League still needed to tread softly where the NUS was concerned. Taking Leopardo to the Pass of Fire was one thing. Her presence alone, implying a fait accompli, might continue to delay hostilities with the NUS and even stop them with the powers beyond. At least for a time. Attacking a NUS fleet was something else entirely. “Are you asking me to prevent their landing with Leopardo?”
Don Hernan shook his head. “No, my friend. Let them land. We’ve waited for the final confrontation with them for a century, and wouldn’t stop them even if our own ships weren’t already focused on the demon horde. Wherever they come ashore, we’ll find them and meet them with our multitudes. The very land they desecrate with their heretic feet will devour them. And again it will be seen that it was we alone who defeated them at last,” he stressed. “But our fleet being elsewhere, the favor I ask—the favor that will cement our bond forever, in this world and the next—is that you’ll use your ship to destroy their fleet after they’re in our embrace. Not only will that prevent the resupply of their troops, they won’t be able to escape.”
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