by David Drake
He looked her firmly in the eyes.
“Then I will decapitate it,” he said without special emphasis as if stating a simple fact.
Trina visibly relaxed.
“I knew I could rely on you, Jem. I believe I will take that tea now.”
Hawthorn called in an orderly and gave the order. They made small talk while they waited for their tea to brew. Trina finally raised something that was clearly on her mind.
“You haven’t told Allen that it was me who sent you away all those years ago,” she said, somewhat diffidently. “Why is that?”
“It would upset him,” Hawthorn replied.
He grinned.
“Beside you didn’t send me away. You merely pointed out to me how much damage I was causing my friends and suggested a solution. As it happened I agreed once the matter had been explained to me. Sometimes I overlook how people react. So you see, I sent myself away.”
“I’m glad you don’t hold a grudge.”
“I make my own decisions about what I do or not do, Trina, and I blame no one but myself for the consequences.”
At that point the orderly came back and the conversation shifted to safer ground.
Allenson was not quite as naïve as his nearest and dearest assumed but in this case he was far too busy to notice that Trina and Hawthorn were unusually close. An urgent message summoned him to the control room in his headquarters. He erupted from his office pulling on his jacket as warning sirens sounded all over the camp.
He burst into the control room to find Todd and Ling already present. Ling stood behind the main hologram conferring with the operators. Allenson didn’t want to distract his chief of staff so he grabbed Todd and pulled him to one side.
“What’s happening? An attack?”
“It could be, Uncle. Our instruments have detected significant wash in the Continuum from a sizable inbound tonnage.”
A new hologram opened in the room showing a visual of the air above Oxford Bay. It shimmered and distorted, then three large structures appeared. The picture sharpened and they clarified into ovoids with shimmering pylons that slid from red to blue as the ships turned and descended onto the Port’s hardstands.
“That’s precision navigation,” an operator said. “To dephase in formation like that right above the target is bloody impressive.”
“Brasilian Navy pilots,” said another operator. “Flying like that means they have to be regular navy.”
“Surely Port Oxford hard stands aren’t big enough or strong enough for ships of that size,” Todd said, shaking his head.
The ovoids deployed dozens of ground skids under their hulls and settled down. The hard stands weren’t nearly big enough but the ovoids landed mostly on the grass surrounds. The ships rocked gently as the skids took the weight and self-levelled when their pads pushed deep into the soil.
“Those are specialized assault ships,” Allenson said. “They can land regiments damn near anywhere reasonably flat and cost as much as a battleship. I doubt if there are more than a dozen in the whole Brasilian Navy. Why the hell are they using them here?”
“How do we fight that?” Todd asked in wonder.
“We don’t,” Allenson said bleakly.
CHAPTER 18
Commandos
A small disorganized flotilla of tramp ships followed one at a time after the assault ships. They landed wherever they could find a space. The navy ships fired warning shots from their defense lasers at any tramp venturing too close. One tramp captain panicked and set his frame down on a soft spot. It promptly overturned and broke its back.
Landing ramps lowered from the ovoid hulls as soon as the frame fields were completely switched off. A few security ratings debussed and set up heavy weapon points around the ships but apart from that they were quiescent.
“That’s odd,” Ling said.
“What?” asked Allenson.
“They’ve offloaded nothing, no troops or equipment.”
“Maybe they’re not ready,” Todd hazarded.
“Those ships are designed to come in on hot landing grounds and dump a regiment in minutes” Allenson said.
He had an idea.
“Colonel Ling, could your operators focus on the city and the bridge?”
The hologram blurred and shifted. Allenson felt a surge of seasickness as his eyes and ears sent contradictory messages to his brain. He shut his eyes until the vertigo disappeared. Cautiously he waited a few more moments for the hologram to stabilize before looking at it again.
The city looked like an ant hill poked with a stick. It heaved and spat vehicles and pedestrians out over the bridge.
“What the hell?” Todd asked.
“Those ships haven’t landed to reinforce the garrison but to evacuate it,” Allenson said flatly.
“But that means . . .” Ling’s voice trailed off.
“That we’ve won,” Todd said quietly, then repeated himself more loudly. “Victory, Uncle, your stratagem has given us victory.”
Operators began to cheer and clap.
“Silence, silence,” an NCO said but gave up when he was ignored.
Allenson had to fight off an attempt to lift him shoulder high. Apart from the embarrassment he was in a room with a low ceiling. He excused himself and slipped away followed by Todd.
The air outside was clean or at least it was until Todd lit up a cigarette.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Allenson said.
“My mother thinks the habit coarse, so I’ve given up,” Todd replied with a grin. “But I don’t think she would mind under the circumstances.”
“Well, she isn’t here to complain,” Allenson said, ever practical.
A rumble sounded from the camp, swelling into a tidal wave of sound.
“Good news travels almost as fast as bad,” Todd observed. “You may yet be marched around shoulder high.”
Allenson managed to avoid the circus by calling an immediate council of war of his senior officers and staff.
Buller opened the discussion without being invited to speak.
“I’ve got my people organizing assault groups to hit the Brasilian rearguard. An army is always vulnerable in retreat.”
“No,” Allenson said firmly.
“A few decent blows and they’ll panic then we’ll slaughter the bastards. Teach them a lesson, what?”
“You will do no such thing.”
“But why,” Buller asked in astonishment.
“For a number of reasons, first, because I don’t believe Brasilian regulars will panic. They have their weaknesses, notably their inflexibility, but they don’t panic. On the contrary they’ll stand.”
Allenson paused to pour a glass of water from the jug at his side. He made the company wait while he took a sip. He wasn’t thirsty. This was just a cheap rhetorical trick to focus everyone’s attention. He hated himself for playing such games but it was necessary.
“If—when—they stand we’d have a serious urban fire-fight on our hands. I have no doubts at all that our troops would prevail . . .”
He lied, having many doubts about whether his citizen army could withstand professional soldiers in the bloody business of urban combat.
“. . . but casualties on both sides including civilians will be heavy. That is decidedly not in our long term interest.”
“You’re a bloody fool, Allenson,” Buller said. “You think you can win a war without destroying the enemy army? Ridiculous!”
Hawthorn’s eyes were like chips of glacial ice bathed in ultraviolet radiation. Allenson cut in before the situation escalated.
“Perhaps so, Colonel Buller, but I am your commanding officer and you will obey my orders. This’s not yet a total war. I don’t intend to escalate matters.”
“Have it your own way,” Buller said.
“Thank you, I will,” Allenson replied politely. “Gentlemen, Colonel Buller’s time has not been entirely wasted. I want sections of reliable men to enter the city close on the heels of
the departing Brasilians to maintain order. I intend to proclaim martial law until such time as civilian authority can be reinstated. If you will assist with this, Colonel Ling.”
“There’ll be looters,” Buller said sourly. “What do you want my men to do with them?”
“Take them alive if possible and hand them over to Special Projects.”
He turned to Hawthorn.
“Colonel, find somewhere to lock up minor transgressors. We’ll hand them over to the civilian government for punishment in due course. Then they’re SEP.”
Todd looked puzzled, “SEP?”
“Someone else’s problem,” Ling translated
“And the hard cases?” Hawthorn asked.
Allenson sighed.
“I suppose the criminal element is bound to try it on. We’ll need to make an example or two to show who’s in charge. Convene an immediate court-martial for people accused of serious violent disorder such as murder, rape or large-scale property destruction. Give them a fair trial and publically execute any found guilty. I doubt you’ll have to do it very often.”
“No problem,” Hawthorn said with a nod.
“Captain Morton, I want your men to shadow the Brasilian force after it leaves. I want to be reassured that they have really given up and this isn’t some sort of elaborate ruse. I am confident it’s not but it never hurts to make sure.”
“Any questions? Very well, gentlemen, you have your orders.”
Hawthorn walked down a long underground corridor inadequately lit by open emitters devoid of any light diffusion baffles. His face was bathed in harsh artificial light as he approached each emitter only to be draped in shadows as he passed. Somewhere water dripped with a steady slow rhythm. The air smelt of damp and musty boxes.
He reflected that interrogation rooms were traditionally located off passageways like this. People would no doubt argue that it was because the interrogators could work undisturbed without offending the sensibilities of more delicate souls. Hawthorn suspected that there was a much simpler explanation. It was all part of the softening up process.
The corridor would prey on even the mind of a perp dragged along it by a couple of goons. Even the meanest and most stolid imagination could picture the divers horrors that might await beyond the door at the far end.
He reached the aforesaid door, opened it and went inside. The drunken trooper had sobered up. It hadn’t noticeably improved his appearance. Blood and vomit stained clothes that had been none too clean to start with.
They’d tied him to a chair in the middle of the bare concrete room under the single emitter. Harsh white light illuminated him while everything else was in shadow. Two of Krenz’s larger and uglier men stood each side of the door.
The man looked up when Hawthorn entered the pool of light around the chair.
“Whadya want?” the man asked querulously in a pathetic attempt at bravado.
The display would have been more convincing if his lower lip stopped shaking and he hid the terror in his eyes. Not that Hawthorn felt any pity. He subscribed to the motto of the Streamer underworld: “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”
The little runt put himself in harm’s way when he accepted money to assassinate Hawthorn’s friend. It was his tough luck if he hadn’t grasped that point before taking the dosh. Hawthorn had few friends but the universe was full of little runts. The loss of one more was hardly of consequence.
Hawthorn removed his jacket and handed it back to one of Krenz’s men without taking his eyes off the prisoner. He slowly and carefully rolled up his sleeves into neat folds just above the elbow. Without comment Hawthorn held out a hand and Krenz’s other man handed him a large spiked knuckle-duster. Hawthorn carefully placed it on his right fist and adjusted it for fit.
It was all theater of course but only up to a point. It would be more convenient for everyone, not least the prisoner, if he could be convinced that Hawthorn was not bluffing.
“Let me make something clear,” Hawthorn said in an exaggerated upper-class drawl. “I don’t give a tinker’s fart about you, your name, your ancestry or your future. The only thing I care about is finding the name of the man that ordered the hit.”
The runt opened his mouth but closed it again when Hawthorn held up his left hand in negation.
“I don’t suppose he gave you his real name and credit account details but you had more than one meeting. Money changed hands so there is a chain. You are going to help me climb that chain before you leave this room. One way or the other you will cooperate.”
There is honor amongst denizens of the underworld but it runs monomolecular thin and was never intended to withstand the sort of pressures that Hawthorn was applying.
“I’ll squeal, gov,” the runt said. “To start with this geezer had a Nortanian accent . . .”
In the event, Special Projects only had to shoot one criminal. It seemed that Hawthorn’s name was not entirely unknown to the Oxford underworld. The well-publicized news that he would be enforcing law and order had a salutary effect. Somehow they had already taken the measure of Jem Hawthorn and considered it unnecessary to test his resolve further. How or why this had happened was something of a mystery to Allenson but he was nonetheless grateful.
The perp they were obliged to execute was the sort of messianic nutter who wouldn’t be dissuaded by anyone’s reputation. He raped and killed a child in the confusion surrounding the handover of power. Easily detected by a DNA trail he hadn’t attempted to conceal, his trial lasted ten minutes. Allenson attended the punishment but this was one death that would not disturb his conscience.
Hawthorn’s security people had to be present to keep order. Allenson didn’t want the perp lynched before he could be properly killed according to military law. Utterly irrational of course but human beings were irrational on some matters. Order, law, and a respect for civilized behavior must be maintained or they were all lost.
“By the way, I intend to put in a request for leave,” Hawthorn said at the execution.
“Really, what for?” Allenson asked.
“I thought now that matters have quietened down that I might take a short holiday break.”
“A holiday break?” Allenson echoed, wondering if he had fallen down the rabbit hole.
“Quite, a week chillaxing in the sun with an improving book and a cold drink will do me the power of good. Maybe you should try it yourself, Allenson. We are none of us getting any younger, you know,” Hawthorn said piously.
“I see,” said Allenson, who didn’t see at all.
Realizing that he was gaping at Hawthorn as if he had announced an intention to take holy vows and join a monastery of castrates, Allenson searched for something to say.
“Where will you go?”
“Mogadosh on Nortania sounds charming. I hear they have astonishing cultural centers with an exciting line in experimental theater.”
“Indeed,” Allenson replied, checking around surreptitiously for a white rabbit.
It was such a strange conversation that it preyed on his mind. He raised it with Trina that night.
“It’s not that I begrudge him some leave, Lord knows he’s earned it. I’m just a bit surprised, that’s all. Hawthorn was never the holidaying type let alone a devotee of experimental theater.”
“People change,” Trina replied, “and as you’ve said he’s earned a break. I think it’s an excellent idea. He will return to his duties refreshed and reenergized; good for Hawthorn. You should take notice and emulate his example sometimes.”
Allenson looked at his wife as if she’d expressed an interest in boll weevil soup.
“Forgive me, my dear, but I have always had the impression that you and my friend were not exactly soul mates.”
“He’s been growing on me lately,” Trina replied.
Allenson sat in his office a few days later struggling with endless correspondence from people needing his authority to do things. Todd had sorted the files into those that he could “r
ubber stamp”—did people once really stamp things with rubber?—and those that actually needed his attention.
A third group consisted of demands that Todd thought could be rejected out of hand. Allenson’s sense of duty forced him to at least skim through this category before canning them. He would be extremely pleased when the civilian administration finished decamping back from Cambridge. For some reason this simple task was absorbing more time and resources than the siege itself.
His door burst open and Reese Morton exploded into the room.
“General, we’ve found the Brasilians!”
Todd followed him in.
“Captain Morton would like to see you when it is convenient,” Todd said pointedly.
“So I see,” Allenson said, trying to keep a straight face.
“Haven’t got time for all that protocol malarkey,” Morton said. “The general’ll want to hear this.”
Allenson gratefully closed the file.
“Perhaps you’d better sit down and compose yourself, captain. See we’re not disturbed, Todd.”
“Yes, sir,” Todd said, closing the door.
“He only calls me sir when he disapproves,” Allenson said.
“Oh he’s a good lad, your nephew, just a bit Brasilian, that’s all. We’ll soon knock the stuffed shirt out of him in the Stream. You see if we don’t, General,” Reese said, taking a seat.
“So you’ve found the Brasilian army. I hadn’t known you’d lost them.”
Reese colored.
“Ah well, it didn’t seem necessary to worry you with every detail, sir. We sort of mislaid them, temporarily. They fooled us by doubling back.”
A cold chill went up Allenson’s spine.
“Doubling back to where?”
“Here, General, they’ve landed back on Trent.”
“Where?”
“Insubran.”
The name meant nothing to Allenson so he called up a map. Insubran was a small continent, large island really, to the north and east of Trent; both the world and its main continent had the same name. He flicked through a brief description of the place. Desolate, was the word most used in the briefings. A small community on the east coast serviced a harvesting fleet and scattered farming communities operating at little more than subsistence level. Barren soil and water shortages prevented profitable exploitation.