Hellsbaene

by Aeryn Leigh

  Merrion closed the door, and took charge of all the myriad minute details, that if left undone, became big worrying ones, as the moon travelled through the night sky.

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  No-One To Blame But Yourself

  Today the birds chirp. Today is the day I die.

  Laurie looked at his hand-writing, written in another time and place, and closed the red diary. What the hell did I do to deserve this? And a quieter part of his thoughts answered, the voice he drank to keep away: it started the day you walked off the farm, hitched a ride to the nearest town, lied about your age and enlisted. Fifteen and four months, and already nearly six-foot. Of course, you got in. All that pap about Queen and Country. Hook, line, and fucking sinker.

  You've got no-one to blame but yourself.

  "You'll not get away with this, Jefferson," shouted Detective Tracy. "No matter where you run, or where you hide, I'll hunt you down like the dogs you are."

  "You can't catch me, copper," said Jefferson, menacingly. "Neither you or your floozies. This town is mine."

  Jefferson mashed the gas pedal and roared towards them. His gangster friends issued more hot death from steaming print presses made of gun steel, early-morning editions rolling their obituaries."

  "Seriously, Amelia, who writes this stuff? Let alone, the bigger question — Who the hell reads it?" said Ella, putting the pulp book down on the bedside table.

  "Well we are." She snuggled up under the covers even tighter.

  "Ah, well, apart from us. It's research, isn't it?"

  "But we're no longer going to America, Mummy."

  "True," said Ella. "A good question. It's kind of addictive, isn't it?" Zia hopped up onto the foot of the bed and curled up on Amelia's feet.

  "That was a very wunderschön thing you did just before," she murmured. "Quite beautiful and thoughtful." Her melted-aluminium amulet clinked softly against the new brass jewellery.

  "Helena would be so proud. As Victoria would too."

  "What was Helena like?" said Amelia, winding a lock of her hair around her finger. The solitary candle flickered in the room, making weird shadows against the wall.

  "Helena was... well, the most loving, schön, gentle-hearted woman I ever met," said Ella. "She loved everybody, like everyone was a best friend she hadn't met yet. She adored you."

  She got off the chair, and awkwardly got her leg in position so she could lie on her back next to her daughter. "What can you remember of her?"

  "A couple of things. Like when she brought home the candy apples, and I ate so many I got sick."

  "Ja," said Ella, "that was a good day." She smiled, and stared at the rough-wooden ceiling. "You were four then."

  "Just before we left the city, so you could fly every day."

  Ella started to reply, but stopped. After a little while, she spoke. "Goodnight, I love you."

  "Goodnight Mummy, I love you too."

  Ella laid on the bed, and stared at the timbers.

  The thumping on the front door made her bolt upright. She tried to focus on the wrist-watch on her arm, and see the glowing green dials. 4:42am. She stumbled up, reaching for her crutches, when the door opened amongst a sea of bright lanterns. Merrion stood against the glare. "Amelia must leave now. It's started."

  Chapter Eighty-Six

  Live Bait

  "Begin."

  "Yes, Sir." Gunnery Officer Wright saluted, and left.

  Grieg swung his legs over the cot, and stretched. He made his way out of the Visitor's Cabin, ducking through the oval metal doorway and strode up to the Purity's bridge. The suns had not yet rose, but the moon gave enough light to see the dots on the horizon.

  "Morning, Captain," said Grieg. "What do we have?"

  "Morning, Inquisitor," said Captain McDonnell, lowering his binoculars. "The enemy fleet is forming lines of battle outside the bay. The string of islands on our left appear deserted. What are your orders?"

  Grieg lifted his own pair of binoculars. The forward batteries on the Purity fired, making the officers on the bridge start. "All engine-propelled ships and their tugs, follow us in at best speed. Are the chains holding?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Very well. Proceed." Grieg watched as the captain nodded to his first mate, and the ship's engines rose to full power under the load. The captain stepped outside the bridge and fired a signal flare up into the air. The Armada moved towards the Bay.

  Admiral McIntosh lowered his telescope. The breeze came straight onto them. "My that's a lot of ships," he said to the captain. He raised the telescope and took another look. He couldn't see the battleship, at least all of it. The galleon warships right next to it seemed to be moving at the same speed it was.

  Impossible.

  He saw the puffs of smoke from the centre. And moments later, the sounds of artillery reached them, rolling across the ocean waves like thunder.

  The first salvo punctured the water around the first line of Republic ships. Great sprouts of water welled up around the ships. "Steady," said McIntosh, "it's just meant to intimidate us."

  "They're firing at over three times our effective range, at least," said Captain Giorvano. The Furia bobbed a little more with the impact of the large shells.

  "Firing blindly. See Giorvano, nothing to concern yourself about." They watched the second sequence of puffs from the battleship. "Folly."

  The whistling of the shells filled the air, and grew louder and louder. The Indomitable to their immediate right, a ninety-gun first-rate Ship-Of-The-Line, built in the dockyards in Liverpool, England, in 1568, sucked through the vortex one-hundred years later, disintegrated with a direct hit.

  Giorvano blinked as one moment the ship bobbed next to them, and then no longer existed. Wooden splinters rained down onto the deck, as the Furia and the surrounding ships lurched with the massive explosion.

  "Hold," said Captain Giorvano to his men. "You will hold."

  Admiral McIntosh picked himself up off the deck from where the concussion knocked him down. A trickle of blood ran down his left temple, and he wiped it away. He looked back up at the Inquisition Armada, as a sun breached the horizon. Behind the Armada, the clouds of grey and white formed and roiled together, heading for Fairholm.

  "Excellent gunnery, Mister Wright. Pass on my congratulations to the crews. But tell your crews to cease fire, until we are much closer. Captain, the bridge is yours. I need to check on something." Grieg smiled, and left the conning tower, running his hands over his dagger again and again.

  A line of battle? My God, how old is that? This would be too easy.

  Captain McDonnell relaxed a fraction, and counted down the nautical miles.

  Of the fifty-four ships arranged in the Republic front-line, only forty-six still remained. Four now either rested on the ocean floor, or existed as little more than splinters of wood and flesh.

  Giorvano watched the other four ships break formation and sail back towards the bay, past the second line of sixty ships. "Let them go," said Steve Harris, his first-mate. "They'll be fighting soon enough, whether they like it or not, Admiral?"

  Admiral McIntosh still stood motionless, transfixed by the sight of the Armada and the gathering storm behind them.

  Giorvano tried again "Admiral?"

  "Such a thing I dared not think possible," said McIntosh. He looked down at his red jacket, and the brass buttons, and the gilded sabre on his waist. "Relics."

  He took a deep breath and exhaled. "Right. Let's see if that — Australian — captain knows what he's doing. Signal the line to break formation and split into two as arranged. The Second Line, back to the Bay."

  And to himself, he added, that bloody Viking king was right.

  "Captain, the enemy fleet is dispersing," said the first mate. "Cowards."

  Captain McDonnell watched the ships drop their sails and begin to move away. "It's a prudent move. Rats do not fight lions. Vermin the lot of them." They were only five miles away now.

  Grieg entered the conni
ng tower. "Run, run, fast as you can, you'll never catch me, I'm the gingerbread man." The men looked at him blankly. He laughed.

  A strong north-east wind came up, aiding the Republic ships as they broke away for home, and the relative safety of the Bay. Of course, mused Giorvano, the same wind helped the Inquisition. He looked up at the air, and thought about the Gods.

  Where ever you are, some help would be much appreciated right now. The Furia now had every sail down and tied, and the flagship creaked and rolled back to the Bay as fast as it could.

  The Bay's entrance loomed ahead, and Giorvano saw the signal fires on each peak's lighthouse begin flashing, faster and faster, and as the first ships reached the entrance, extinguish. He returned to the fore-deck, and joined the admiral.

  "Three miles, give or take," said McIntosh. "We'll only just make it, I believe."

  "Live bait," said Giorvano. They looked at the five-hundred plus ships giving chase. He raised his binoculars. "Wait. Are they towing ships?"

  "Look to the west," said McIntosh, pointing. "There. By the Mother of God."

  Chapter Eighty-Seven

  Armoured Snouts

  On the Purity's bridge, the air hummed with anticipation and excitement. Grieg studied the Armada on the railing behind the bridge. The fleet of over five-hundred ships more or less kept in formation, a large diamond shape, with the Purity leading the point, and the motorised vessels down the sides of the inverted-V, towing landing barges and tall-masted warships behind them. In the middle of the diamond, lay the meat of the Armada, the troopships, logistical supply ships and their war engines.

  A cry issued from the port side of the battleship. Grieg swivelled and swung his binoculars around to that direction. There was nothing there.

  No, wait.

  There on the western horizon, closing rapidly. A dozen or so pairs of black huge fins came through the water, moving up and down, slicing through the water at speed right for the middle of the diamond.

  Grieg ran around to the conning tower. "Fire at those things," he yelled, pointing at them. "All ships, open fire."

  The black shapes propelled themselves even faster now, as if they heard him. They had to be doing at least thirty-knots, if not more, a part of his brain rationalised as a spark of fear ran through him. The first cannons opened fire from the perimeter's edge, and the shots way overshot the incoming creatures. The Purity opened up, and its gunners too missed.

  "Deflection," he said, "deflection — aim in front," Grieg said, shouting to the Gunnery Officer. The guns creaked as they lowered, and the full battery of the battleship fired. Spouts of water erupted all around the creatures, and the pack separated into its own wide V, a full-ship's-length between them. The black shapes now dived below the water, five-hundred yards away from the furthest ship, and the angle became too great for the Purity to fire upon, without hitting their own ships.

  Grieg's heart pounded, each beat a tattoo upon his chest. Thump. Thump.

  The sailors around him cheered, the gigantic creatures no longer visible.

  Thump. Thump. The waves slapped against the sides, nothing but the roar of the engines at full throttle. And then a tearing sound of wood smashing as the first armoured-snout drove straight through the side of the outermost ship-hull, at the rudder section.

  The pod of armoured creatures surfaced, and each fin dove once more, bisecting straight through the middle of the Armada, as men and horses and wood screamed and broke as they died, ripping the rear sections out of each ship as they swam, cleaving the fleet in two.

  Ships stopped dead as their prows lifted skyward, sinking backward into the ocean's depths, as men jumped overboard, and cargo loads broke free, squashing anything unlucky behind.

  In over a minute, the killer pod speared the fleet as efficiently as sharks through a minnow school, and disappeared under the waves, back to wherever they'd come from, leaving nothing but flotsam and jetsam, carnage made manifest.

  Grieg gripped the handrail tight, and forced himself to swallow. What had been his Armada of five-hundred fifty, only three-hundred now — or two fifty — maybe less — sailed intact.

  You verdammt bastards.

  The ships behind the stricken vessels changed course to avoid hitting the sinking ships. None stopped, although ropes thrown overboard saved a few by the look of it.

  He returned to the Purity's bridge, and looked ahead. Captain McDonnell turned his head.

  "All ships that can," said Grieg, "may fire at will."

  Giorvano stepped back, clutching the back of his head. He squeezed. "If only General Versetti could have seen that," he said.

  Admiral McIntosh gave the faintest smile. "Let's live long enough to tell her." The air around the retreating fleet erupted in shell-fire, as the Inquisition Armada returned the favour of slaughter.

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  And So It Begins

  King Hffylson observed the lighthouse's signal lights go dark, standing on the prow of Hellsbaene. His fleet of long ships, waited behind the Bay's east entrance, tucked around the corner alcove. Snorri commanded the other fleet, behind the west entrance. Beowulf held the gift that Snorri gave him hours earlier, a present from the child, and turned it over in his palm.

  "Brothers and sisters, my kin," he said, his voice full and clear. "Let us live the next hours well, as honourably and victorious as any Viking may be. And the Viking that takes the head of this SS 'Lightning’, will surely dine in the halls of Valhalla, with the rest of us, but at its head, taking first sip of the mead!"

  The first of the Republic ships came into view. He grabbed the bone horn and raised it to his lips, and blew long.

  "For Odin." His warriors cheered and Manx howled as Snorri returned the call from the other side of the bay.

  General Versetti, Merrion, and Laurie heard the Viking's horn blasts, louder than the cannon fire that rolled across the harbour, as they stood in the command bunker overlooking the Bay. People hurried all around. The wireless set from the Lancaster sat on a desk in the corner, with Bear sitting at it. From their vantage point, they saw the flash of gunfire from every ship in the Armada that could.

  Bear turned around in his chair. "General, Ella and Laurie report they are ready at the airfield, and awaiting your signal to launch."

  "Good. Tell them to proceed."

  Bear spoke into the microphone.

  Abe listened to Bear, from the B-17's radio set, and wrote the message down on the notepad, his notepad that came all the way from Illinois. He held it up, and Lucius read it. He thumped Abe on the back, and spun around.

  "We have the green light," said Lucius, to the group assembled outside the radio shack next to airfield's main hanger.

  "You heard the man," said Ella, standing on one crutch. She clapped her hands. "Bring them all out." The Junior Pilots all looked at each other, then jumped up and down. They ran off to the main hangar, and started giving commands to the ground crews. She stared at Lucius. "To be young again, hey?"

  "Speak for yourself," said Lucius. "Some of us are still under 25."

  "I'd chase you if I could," said Ella. "Maybe I'll just throw this crutch at you instead."

  Griffin starred at the ocean waves breaking upon the shore. He sighed, then addressed his squad leaders. "Remember your training," he said. "Short, controlled bursts. No heroics. If you begin to run out of ammo, or look like being overwhelmed, fall back to the secondary lines. Now good luck to ya all. Go." The leaders broke up and headed back to their respective bunkers and machine-gun nests.

  He grabbed one last breath of fresh air, then made his way down into his bunker, and sat behind Betty. "Ready?" he said to Sarah Henley, his assistant-loader. She nodded. He laid one hand on the four-foot long heavy-machine gun, and the other around the amulet.

  You're goin' to pay for every inch you Nazi-look-a-like fucks.

  Up at the lighthouses, the two small groups of men waited until the Armada entered firing range, then fired all the cannons they had from the tow
er's base. From up there, looking down at the still massive fleet of ships and landing craft, it seemed like a bee attacking a buffalo, inconsequential.

  But as they fired and re-loaded, now taking return shell-fire from the enemy, they remembered what General Versetti said. Attrition. One by one by one, just wear them down.

  Sergeant Mick Ward surveyed the field hospital and the team he’d helped put together the last months, about a mile up from the beach. He’d done what he could to ensure the wounded would be treated well, as modern as heavenly possible and not by doctor throwbacks harking from the bloody Napoleonic era. Still, Mick thought, picking up his Lee-Enfield .303 rifle, with no anti-biotics or plasma, anyone hit in a bad way would still be fucked. Just less so. He barked orders to a pair of medical orderlies, and led them towards the front line of bunkers, muttering.

  "Sir, the Republic fleet has retreated into the bay. Do we wait here as planned?" said Captain McDonnell. Grieg had not spoken since his command to fire at will. At least a dozen enemy ships sank under the waves behind them, as the battleship's terrible weapons swept everything in its path, and dozens more lay crippled or damaged in the harbour ahead.

  "Drive straight into the middle of the harbour," said Grieg, not moving his head. "Then lay anchor and destroy anything that resists. The Brimstone and others will engage the enemy fleet and provide cover for the landing forces."

  "Yes Sir," said McDonnell. The Purity signalled the Armada, and passed from the open ocean and into the mouth of the bay.

  Snorri gave a small shout as the first Inquisition ships moved into sight. "That's a lot of ships," he said. "Now all we need is the signal."