Against the Tide tcw-3

by John Ringo

  * * *

  Herzer had just come up from the dragon deck when Shanea stepped onto the maindeck and he nodded at her.

  “How are you this morning Miss Shanea?” he asked, formally.

  “Oh, call me Shanea,” the little blonde grinned. “And I’m fine. How are the dragons?”

  “Doing well,” Herzer said. “And the councilwoman?”

  “The councilwoman has decided to hide in her room for the rest of the voyage,” Shanea said as Bast dropped from the rigging. “Hi, Bast!”

  “Heya, Shanea,” Bast said. “How’s tricks?”

  “Haven’t pulled any lately,” Shanea said, frowning. “Do you think I should?”

  “Maybe after we get to shore,” Herzer interjected, hurriedly. “Is Mistress Travante okay?”

  “She just doesn’t want to come up on deck,” Shanea said with a shrug. “She just plays with light sculptures all day.”

  “Light and more,” Bast noted. “I can feel the power wielding. I think she learns what she can do.”

  “Well, that’s to the good,” Herzer said.

  “Why don’t you go visit her?” Shanea asked. “I think she’d like that.”

  “I… don’t think so,” Herzer replied. “I… have to go talk to the captain. I hope to see you later.”

  “What time?” Shanea asked. “And shouldn’t you ask Bast?”

  “That wasn’t… I need to go see the captain,” Herzer said, giving her a two-fingered salute and retreating to the quarterdeck.

  “What did I say?” Shanea said, turning to Bast.

  “If I wasn’t such a good judge of humans,” Bast replied, “I’d think you were toying with the poor boy. As it is… I probably couldn’t explain it. How’s your head for heights?”

  “Fine?”

  “Good,” Bast said, grabbing her arm, “I’ve something to show you in the rigging.”

  “I have something to tell you,” Shanea said, as she mounted the ratlines.

  “Aye?”

  “I prefer boys for fun.”

  “Well, nobody would believe me but that wasn’t what I wanted to show you.”

  * * *

  “Captain,” Herzer said touching his forelock. “Permission to come on the bridge?”

  “Granted,” the captain said with a grin.

  “I heard there was a report of an orca pod,” Herzer continued, glancing over at the chart. The charts had come back out as soon as Edmund’s plans became apparent and he blanched when he looked at the updated positions. The Hazhir was sailing between the New Destiny combat fleet and the invasion fleet. They were apparently trying to slip through the gap and make it to Newfell Base. If either fleet noticed them the combined fleets could fall on them like wolves on a sheep.

  On the other hand, this sheep had teeth made for more than shearing grass.

  “Tricky, isn’t it?” Karcher said, giving one of her catlike grins. “The worst bit is that we’ve got a high-pressure system bearing down on us; we’re going to lose this wind in a bit. Then we’ll be becalmed between both fleets. That’s why I sent the mer and delphinos to check out the orcas; I didn’t want them to know that there were any dragons around. Out here they could only mean a carrier.”

  Herzer opened his mouth and then closed it again.

  “And, yes, I considered the possibility of an underwater attack,” Karcher said with a grin. “But we’re doing nearly forty klicks. A kraken would be hard pressed to keep up with us.”

  “If you don’t mind, ma’am, I’d like to put a wyvern up prepped for launch,” Herzer said. “Both a Powell and a Silverdrake. Just in case.”

  “No, it’s a good idea,” Karcher said. “See to it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  * * *

  “Come in,” Megan said at the light knock.

  “Heyo,” Bast said, striding in and flopping on the cot that was one of the few places to sit in the room. “Been in here a long time.”

  “I’m more comfortable in here,” Megan said, primly. “And I don’t interfere with the working of the ship.”

  “And don’t have to see the sky,” Bast said. “Don’t have to look at water stretching away on every side to the horizon, nearly infinite, what if something happen, what if ship sink, what happen then?”

  “Bast…”

  “People always say that, never work, even for council member,” Bast said, her face solemn. “You know what makes people people?”

  “No?” Megan said surprised at the apparent non sequitur.

  “Interact with other people, mix in tumble of society,” the elf said, doffing her sword and obviously preparing to stay a while. “Hermit only thinks own thoughts. Most of time bad thoughts. Think about fear of outside, think about fear of power, fear of failure, think about fear all the time. Fear reinforces fear.”

  “I was courageous enough to kill Paul Bowman,” Megan said, hotly. “I just… don’t like the sea.”

  “Too big,” Bast said, nodding. “Swallow up as if never exist. Understand. More fear there, though. Fear of self, methinks.”

  Bast waited as Megan played with a sculpture of a flower, muttering under her breath. Then the sculpture turned black and collapsed.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Megan said with a shrug.

  “Need to, though,” Bast said, then waited again.

  “Do you think you can outwait me?” Megan replied, gesturing up another sculpture. This one started as a face and seemed to morph itself into a skull as if against her will. She waved it away as well.

  “Thousand years old,” Bast said. “Gonna outlive you much less outwait you.”

  Megan started to call up another structure then her hands dropped.

  “Sometimes…” she said after a long pause and then stopped.

  Bast pulled a stoppered flask from her belt and tossed it to Megan.

  “Have a drink,” Bast said. “Have two, then toss back. Going to need some myself.”

  “What is it?” Megan asked, sniffing at the opening. It was alcoholic, she could tell that much.

  “Would make mysterious noises if real elf,” Bast said. “Is Navy rum. Very high proof. Have big drink. Put hair on your chest.”

  “I don’t want hair on my chest,” Megan said, taking a swallow and coughing. “God that’s rough!”

  “Also burn hair off,” Bast admitted. “Useful as paint thinner. Have another drink. Then start at beginning. Where meet Paul?”

  So Megan started at the beginning. How Paul had found her washing clothes. She had been a general maid for a local couple. She had many skills that would have gotten her better jobs but not in the small Gallic town she had washed up in after the Fall. At the time she was glad enough to get the table scraps while she tried to figure a way out of the hole. She had clawed her way to relative power in the harem and stood it when her time came with Paul. But it was not so much the rape, or the constant strain of maintaining her position in the harem while planning to kill Bowman, that had shaken her. It was the feelings that arose in her as the months and years went by. As the words, halting at first, began to spill out of her it seemed as if the ship must have hit a storm for all the waves out the window looked the same. Her tosses to Bast were going all over the cabin and she couldn’t catch anymore. Finally she moved over to the cot and Bast sat at the end.

  “I didn’t want to love him,” Megan said, almost pleaded. “And in the end, I didn’t want to kill him either. I don’t trust myself. I have this… weakness I found for servility. It disgusts me.”

  “But if had not found, would have gone mad or ended up like Amado,” Bast pointed out, turning the flask upside down. “Blast, not a drop left.”

  “Mirta didn’t,” Megan pointed out.

  “Bet you a dollar,” Bast responded. “Could not fight and win. Could not lay out and succeed. Did the best you could, body and brain took over. Think you did very well, even ignoring killing Paul Bowman.”

  “Even ignoring falling in love with him?”
Megan said, bitterly. “I just feel… broken. I feel as if there’s no metal left in me.”

  “Yet held onto metal and killed Paul,” Bast said. “Plenty of metal there. Fine and hard, harder than before your test.”

  “But what about this… instinct to servility?” Megan said. “Everybody wants something and I find myself wanting to please. I never felt that way before… this. And I really loved Paul.” There were tears now to go with the cracked voice. “How do I trust myself? How do I trust my feelings about…”

  “Herzer,” Bast said with a grin. “Is okay, plain as day to everybody on ship with eyes. Herzer very easy man to love, trust me.”

  “But how do I know I didn’t just glom onto the first reasonably presentable guy to show up?” Megan asked, bitterly. “Herzer is the first person I’ve seen who is… presentable.”

  “Malcolm Innes?” Bast asked.

  “How do you know about him?” Megan said, thinking back. She’d mentioned him in passing but not described.

  “Could write book,” Bast chuckled. “Good looking fellow. Older than looks. Quite ‘presentable.’ ”

  “I couldn’t live among the Gael,” Megan shuddered. “I admire them. I even, sort of, understand why they live the way they do, the necessity of it that is. But I couldn’t live there. Even as queen of the Gael or whatever. I’d end up ripping half their heads off.”

  “Not bad looking, though,” Bast pointed out. “Feel the same way about him as you do Herzer?”

  “No,” Megan said in a small voice. “Besides, he was nuts.”

  “Wants to be king of Briton,” Bast said, shrugging. “Lots of others in history with same madness. All Gael mad. Should have met Boadicea, now there was a woman with a problem with servitude.”

  “Boadicea?” Megan said then frowned. “She was a Celtic queen in the time of the Romans. I’m sorry, Bast, but pull the other one, that was way before your time.”

  “Tell me if I lie,” Bast said, her face straight, holding up two fingers as if in an oath. “Where you think legend of elves comes from? Point is, Malcolm may be crazy but it’s regal madness. Plenty of women have fallen for it over the years. Eight wives of Henry for example, poor girls. Went to the slaughter like so many charging infantrymen in Somme and that’s sort of the point. Women work one way, men another. Men charge the walls for the women, once more unto the breach and all that, women charge the men for the gene. If didn’t fall for Malcolm, pretty, pretty Malcolm with as much power as anyone has these days, then aren’t addicted to men, aren’t addicted to servitude. So, feelings for Herzer are real feelings. Feelings to trust. Hell, not the first to fall for Herzer, I could tell some stories. But first that Herzer has fallen for.”

  “What about you?” Megan asked.

  “I charge the walls and the gene,” Bast replied with a merry chuckle.

  “No feelings like you’re inadequate?” Megan asked. “That, maybe it would be better if you just let the menfolk take charge?”

  “Ain’t human,” Bast said, grinning. “Thousand years get tired of saying it. Elves are not humans. Don’t have same wiring. Can play submissive game but not submissive at all. Humans talk about ‘fight-flight.’ Isn’t binary, quaternary: fight, flight, bluff, submit. Every human is different pattern for different conditions, but all humans have all four to an extent. Elves don’t. We have fight, flight and bluff. NO submit. All human interaction works on those four responses, including what you went through. You used bluff as much as anything with girls. With Paul you used submit. Had to. Now you fear it. Don’t. Don’t have to use it, most of the time, but is part of you. Watch it, don’t fear it, know it. Going to be interesting with Herzer, though.”

  “Why?” Megan said, blearily. The rum had really started to kick in.

  “Most prototypical heterosexual dominant you’ll ever meet,” Bast said with a wicked grin. “Knows it, now, controls it. Understands it and accepts it, now. But under ‘heterosexual dominant’ in the Net has picture of Herzer in armor.”

  “But what…” Megan gulped and wished there was more rum. “What if that’s… okay?”

  “Hmmm…” Bast said, nodding. “Bed and office two different things. For you has been the same and that’s hard to handle. But with Herzer… you in position of authority and order him, off he goes like good little soldier. In bed… that’s different. Just know that that’s you and not Paul. Understand?”

  “Understand,” Megan said, yawning.

  “Here,” Bast said, handing her another flask. “Water. Otherwise gonna have spectacular hangover.”

  “Thank you,” Megan said, taking a big drink and then lying back on the cot. “I’ll think about what you said. When I wake up.”

  “And I’ll see you out on deck,” Bast said, buckling on her sword. “Tomorrow.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Megan giggled.

  “Good dreams,” Bast said, covering her with the sheet.

  And they were good dreams. Megan couldn’t remember them the next day but she did remember who was in them. And it hadn’t been Paul Bowman for once.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “There’s orcas out there,” Tarree pulsed.

  “Yeah, making a hell of a lot of noise, too,” Elayna replied.

  “They’re pulling back towards their fleet,” Tarree added. “Dragons.” The New Destiny dragons had learned to attack the mer just as the UFS dragons went after orca.

  “I know,” Elayna said. “But why are they sounding? It’s like they want us to know they’re there.”

  “No sense,” Herman whistled. The delphino pod leader was one of the senior delphinos, Jason’s equivalent. And she knew him well enough to recognize that he was worried. “Trap feels.”

  “Agreed,” Elayna said. “But we’re not falling for it.”

  “Not for us trap,” Herman suddenly shrilled. “Ship go!”

  “Damn,” Elayna snarled. “That’s what feels wrong. They’re trying to pull us away from the ship.”

  “Try not,” Herman said, turning in his own body length and rapidly accelerating to the south. “Succeed did.”

  * * *

  “I hate this damned motion,” Joanna growled. The ship was becalmed, rocking in the waves.

  “You’d hate it more if you’d seen the charts,” Herzer replied.

  “I heard,” the commander replied. “But the combat fleet was still sailing south towards Edmund.”

  “Was,” Herzer pointed out. “Without the mer for communications, we don’t know what is happening.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know, me boyo,” the dragon said. “Nor do we know what’s happening under our keel.”

  “Yeah, we would lose the mer just when we got…” He paused as he felt a tingling feeling go down his spine. He got up and looked around but there was nothing to cause the sudden feeling of dread. But he stepped towards the aft of the ship, walking slowly between the wyvern and then starting to run. He was going to look a fool if…

  There was a sound of breaking glass and a shriek from the stern of the ship. From the captain’s cabin.

  * * *

  “Quit bloody screaming!” Megan said as Baradur chopped at another of the hands that were scrabbling at the broken window. The hands were webbed and covered with fine scales for all they had five fingers. Megan dreaded seeing what they were attached to.

  The marine guard plunged into the cabin, boarding pike to the fore, just as the first of the attackers made it past the wee-folk guard. The attackers were armored in scales with faces like frogs or fish but eyes alight with malevolent intelligence, they smelled of seaweed and rot. The first one over the broken out window sprang into the room on long, heavily muscled legs and tore the pike from the marine’s hands, turning it upon its wielder and pinning him to the starboard bulkhead.

  Baradur turned in a blur and chopped his kukri into the thing’s arm, nearly severing it, and followed it up with a blow to the neck that left the thing decapitated on the deck. But in the time he had taken,
two more had made it through the window.

  Megan turned to bolt out the door, only to find the corridor packed with struggling sailors and the strange fish-men that had risen from the deep. She closed the door and leaned against it, trying to think what to do. Shanea, thank God, had quit screaming and was now holding onto her skirt. No help there.

  Baradur was a blur, striking from side to side in the narrow quarters. The fish-men seemed to have only their long, hooked talons for weapons but they were using them well and the guard had taken many cuts. His foemen were piled at his feet but in a moment he was going to be overwhelmed.

  Megan spoke a few syllables and pointed at one of the fish-men, stilling his heart and dropping him to the deck. She turned to another then another but even that minor use of power was draining and she could see her power-bar dropping into amber and then red as more and more of the creatures piled over the lintel. She could hear scrabbling at the door and leaned into it, holding it shut with her weight and her foot as the things pounded upon it. There were guttural screams from beyond and a sound like melons being smashed as the door was struck with the heaviest weight yet. Her foot slid and a hand scrabbled around the door, pulling at her sleeve.

  Then Baradur, making a wild slash to the side, slipped in the pool of blood that had built up on the floor and fell, hard, slamming his head into the deck.

  There was nothing between the girls and the attackers but slippery deck.

  Megan pulled up a protection field and threw it over both of them but, as she did, another of the creatures pulled itself into the cabin. It was larger than the others and bore a jeweled harness. It took a small box from the harness and opened it, glaring at the slight haze that surrounded her. It pulled a pinch of dust from the box and with a guttural laugh tossed it into the field.

  Which blinked out of existence.

  * * *