Her Majesty's Western Service

by Leo Champion

  “Go have fun, people,” Ahle said. “Ronalds, Hollis, Petersen, the rest of you, we'll go through the Adestria first.”

  Ronalds, her chief NCO, took her aside. He and Petersen had been off looking through Dodge's plentiful black market while Ahle and the other officers supervised the ship's disguise.

  “I found the ammunition,” he said. “We should be able to have this thing loaded back up to capacity – and a bit of a reserve besides – by Wednesday. Arranged for fuel, too. How long do you think it will take to get these people ready?”

  “I'd like two weeks for a comprehensive set of drills. We may not have as long. We may have longer, depending on what happens with those contract negotiations.”

  “Captain, you're crazy,” Ronalds grinned. “You know that, right, ma'am? Stealing a line-class Imperial warship, and hiding it this close to Hugoton?”

  “I do what I have to do,” Ahle said. Deadly serious, all of a sudden. “For justice, for my family. And for a South free of Federal mercenaries and their murdering jackboots.”

  “Hell yeah, ma’am,” said Ronalds, just as quiet and serious. “For a free South.”

  Chapter Six

  Professor: “The Curzon Doctrine was established in 1892 during the early period of Imperial post-collapse exile in Newfoundland. It essentially ended the old imperialism, on the grounds that exactly such behavior had led to the Great War. Instead, Imperial policy going forward was to be that nations, territories and peoples had the absolute right to self-determination, and – if they so chose to be a part of the Empire – fair representation within it.”

  Student: “That's a crock of crap, professor! Without the Imperials propping them up, the Feds couldn't run their garrisons or their mercenaries through here! What about our right to self-determination as free states? The Empire is a bunch of lying bastards!”

  Professor: “The Doctrine has been a guiding principle of Imperial governance and diplomacy. Only a principle. As I was going to say, expediency has caused the Imperials to allow certain exceptions to it…”

  From a Politics 110 lecture at George Mason University, September 1958.

  They arrived in Chicago, Perry and the two airships, at about ten o'clock the next day, to find the other three ships of the escort waiting. With them were three very scared spies.

  “Martindale, take the ship to an agent and process the prize business,” Perry said. He'd changed into a clean uniform, but there'd been no chance to shower. He felt every bit of his filth, his body covered in dust and blood. “Swarovski, the casualties, please.”

  “Already on it, sir,” said Swarovski.

  Nolan enthusiastically shook Perry's hand.

  “You've made me a spiff man, Cap’n Perry! Thank you for all you've done. If you ever need a ride again, you can find me in Dodge City, generally. Or here, Denver, maybe, or the Mississippi ports. Just ask around. I know a couple of agents who line up cargoes, sometimes. They can get a message to me.”

  “I should be fine,” said Perry. Nolan seemed like a nice enough fellow for his type, but that wasn't a type Imperial officers associated with.

  Nolan pressed a card into his hand. “No, really, captain. You did me, my wife and the crew a real good turn, sir. Anything I can do for you, keep the card. A man never knows.”

  Something occurred to him. Perry took out one of his own visiting cards, handed it to Nolan.

  “There's a telegraph contact number on that, and a mail router. If you know anyone shady, and you hear talk of a Captain Ahle? Pirate, probably from somewhere in the South. Don't push – I don't want her to know anyone's looking for her. But if you do hear anything about her, let me know immediately.”

  “I'll keep my eyes open in the skeazebars, sir. Your friends are here to see you, and I won't keep you any longer, but thank you again!”

  With both hands he took Perry's, and shook it. Perry pocketed Nolan's card, mainly out of politeness, and turned to face his ship captains. With them were two men and a woman in civilian dress.

  “Who are these people?” Perry asked.

  “Oh,” said Lieutenant-Commander Winston, a spare blond woman aged about forty. The senior of the captains with Perry. “Sir, these are Smith, Mathison, and” – the woman – “Raynham. The base commander put them under our protection. They're MI-7. This is Vice-Commodore Perry, our squadron commander.”

  “Thank you in advance for the ride,” Smith – in his forties with deep-set eyes – said. “We appreciate it.”

  “We're going to Hugoton next, orders say,” said Winston. “These people need a ride there to see Fleming. Someone wiped out the rest of their station here.”

  “Dropped a hydrogen blimp into the building,” said Smith. “And a car bomb outside the fire exit. Twenty civilian dead, too. Fucking Russians.”

  “We'll get them,” said Raynham. “But right now we need orders from Fleming. We're all that's left of the station, as your officer said.”

  “When do the orders say to depart?” Perry asked.

  “Originally, two yesterday. I was playing for time, sir. Oh, and the extra officers and men are here. Sir.” She looked sheepish. “For 4-106.”

  “Very well,” said Perry. Trying to be blase about it. “Are the remaining three ships prepared to lift at midday?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Any civilian escort?”

  “No, sir. Just get ourselves to Hugoton.”

  Which I'd have had to do anyway, to report the loss.

  Had attacking that pirate ship simply been a way to play for time, to delay the inevitable humiliation of reporting to Admiral Richardson? Of looking at the other squadron commanders in the group and saying, I was the one who lost a brand-new line-class to a pirate boarding?

  “My personal crew are going to want a shower and a quick meal,” Perry said firmly. “Assemble in the briefing room in an hour. We will lift at midday.”

  The trip back to Hugoton took about a day, an uneventful trip because nobody was going to attack a lone trio of Air Service dirigibles. They were crowded with crew; forty new people had joined the squadron in Chicago, mostly expecting to man the line-class that hadn't made it. They were split crowdedly across Primus Wing's three remaining dirigibles.

  Perry seethed as the ships flew south.

  Flight Admiral Richardson was a stern-faced, grey-haired woman in her mid-forties, although she looked a decade older. Her left hand was a prosthetic, as was much of her left arm, and scars on that side of her face indicated skin grafts. The ribbons on the right breast of her day uniform included the Distinguished Service Order, the second-highest Imperial decoration, and the Distinguished Flight Cross, the highest Air Service decoration. She was the second-ranking Service officer in continental North America.

  “At ease, Perry, and sit down.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Perry said stiffly, taking a chair. Her office was as sparse and ordered as she was; no glory photos, minimal decoration. Against a piece of oak on one wall behind her was a scorched piece of propeller, a remnant of the action in which she'd exchanged her hand for a DFC.

  “Have a drink, Perry.” She poured scotch into two glasses.

  “No, ma’am. Thank you.”

  Richardson poured another finger of scotch into one of the glasses and passed it across the smooth, dark wood of her desk.

  “Drink it, Vice-Commodore, and that's an order.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Perry sipped. It was good whisky, he did have to admit.

  “Finish it, please. And then tell me what happened. Here, I’ll say, has been chaotic. One of the larger Federal mercenary organizations has been threatening to quit; the Feds are concerned, and I've had to give them the reserve squadron. Just in case negotiations with the Special Squadrons do fall through.”

  “The Thirtieth?”

  “Yes; sent them across to Missouri just in case. And intelligence - I don't know if you've heard about the war?”

  “The war?” Perry asked in shock. He'd glanced at a newspa
per in Chicago, nothing of that kind!

  “I had dinner with Deputy Director Fleming the other night. He's aged five years in two weeks. In fact, didn't you carry three of his men here?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Perry sipped the scotch again. "I heard the Russians, or somebody, wiped out their headquarters. I didn't consider it appropriate to ask further.”

  “The Scotch is to relax you, Vice-Commodore. So is the small-talk, although it never hurts for you to be informed. No, this isn't classified. That is, of course it is, but we're both cleared. There was an attack in New York City about three weeks ago. The Yanks got some tip, didn't bother to consult us – beyond getting one of the local agents to come along - and wiped out the Russian station there.”

  “Isn't that a good thing?” Perry asked.

  “No, apparently the spies normally tolerate each other. Monitor each others' stations, don't attack them. The Russians considered this an unprovoked attack, thought it was at our bidding – anything the Yanks do in this regard normally is – and retaliated by sending a hit squad to our station in New Orleans. Killed everyone in the place. We responded to the deaths of nineteen agents by destroying their station in Houston. And so forth. Have another drink.”

  Perry had finished his.

  “No, ma’am. Thank you.”

  “Another glass.” She took his, poured two fingers into each of theirs, gave his back.

  “Very good Scotch, ma'am. And thank you.”

  “Fleming and his counterpart would have negotiated a peace, but his counterpart – the head of operations in North America, one Lavrentiy Beria – had been killed in the New York City attack. Everything has to go through St. Petersburg, which means it has to go to London first. And meanwhile, our agents and the Russians are busy butchering each other. Fleming's drained dry.”

  “Those guys in Chicago looked unhappy, ma’am.”

  “They knew what was happening. All too well. An eye for an eye until Official Diplomatic Things happen, or both sides are blind. They're not going to stop killing us and we're not going to let them. Fleming's pulling his hair out and drinking more than he usually does.”

  “A very unfortunate situation,” Perry said. “There are times I'm glad I'm Air Service, not Secret Service.”

  “A justly-decorated Vice-Commodore of the Air Service,” said Richardson. “Now, Marcus, have another Scotch if you like and tell me, exactly what happened. I have the written reports. I want to know what did happen.”

  When Perry was done, Richardson steepled her fingers and was silent for almost a minute.

  “This is going to look bad, Perry,” she eventually said.

  “Ma'am. I know. Ma'am.”

  “Not to me. I understand these realities. You were steeply under-crewed and actively engaged. The pirates seemed to know exactly what they were doing, and you – and your bridge officers' reports confirm this – made all reasonable resistance. But Whitehall won't think about that. Whitehall will see a brand-new line-class lost to pirates without a shot fired or a casualty inflicted.”

  “Yes. Ma'am.”

  Richardson sighed deeply. “A shame. Now, I have new orders myself. One of your wings – I think Secundus, transfer one of the Primus ships over - is to go out on convoy duty. The other two ships, I need here. Lord Charles” – that was Lieutenant-General (retired) Charles Lloyd, Governor of the Hugoton Lease – “wants to enlarge the permanent security presence. Fleming's all but blind, and two more ships here would allay the Governor's fears a bit.”

  The Squadron's being broken up.

  Richardson saw the look in Perry's eyes.

  “No, Vice-Commodore, this is not a punishment. This would have happened anyway; it’s why you were called back from Chicago post haste, without a convoy to guard. Besides, I can read. Implications and body language. Vice-Commodore, you are free to take over Secundus Wing if you so desire, and ordinarily you would either do so or run the squadron's elements from an office here. But if you had complete freedom of action right now, how would you pursue your duty?”

  “I'd hunt that pirate down,” Perry said, the alcohol making his mouth act before his brain. “I'd hunt her down, retrieve 4-106, and restore the honor of my Service.”

  “I thought so. Your desire came through clearly in the report, and I'm glad I shared my Glenlivet. Very well. I'm granting you detached duty. You have an appointment with Deputy Director Fleming at one o'clock.”

  Deputy Director Sir Ian Fleming leaned back in his chair and reached for his glass. It was empty. Sighing – an old bullet wound, a Frenchman's gift from Jamaica in `43, was acting up again – he reached again for the bottle. He didn't feel like getting up.

  There was a knock on the door of his office.

  “Come in,” he said. It was Agent Connery, a tall, handsome, thirtyish Scotsman on recovery duty after a nasty little incident on the Sonoran-Mexican border. He walked with a crutch.

  “Dispatch from M, boss. Marked urgent. Just came out of decryption.”

  “‘M’ has a name, Connery,” said Fleming coldly. He was exhausted and pissed off; one by one his stations and reaction teams were being destroyed.

  “Dispatch from Director-General Lord Mountbatten, sir,” said Connery.

  “Thank you. Have a drink.” Fleming pushed over the bottle and an empty glass.

  Fleming took the telegraph, printed on yellow paper. It was only a few lines, and it said that the Foreign Service was making trouble, wanting to know why they weren't being consulted. Mountbatten himself was unhappy, and thought it was a Foreign Service territory game at the expense of – more than a hundred and thirty, so far – MI-7 lives. Bureaucratic stupidity.

  Do what you can, the telegraph ended, with what resources you have. Pretend you're improvising in the field again. You have my full authorization to act as you see fit.

  Relevant, that. If unnecessary. Fleming had been a field agent for twenty-five years and, at least in his own opinion, had accomplished more than any other agent in MI-7's history. Most of that had been through improvisation.

  Fleming's telephone buzzed, the sharp two-tone that meant the front desk.

  “Yes?”

  “Your one o'clock. Vice-Commodore Marcus Perry of the Imperial Air Service.”

  “Give me a couple of minutes,” he said, and put the phone down. Perry. He knew the name vaguely, one of the squadron commanders based out of here.

  “Perry,” Connery said helpfully. He produced a couple of files. “Here's his, boss. Here's another relevant one.” The second one was labelled ‘Pirates, North America; Ahle, Karen.’

  Fleming opened them, scanned them both as he finished his drink. It only took a couple of minutes.

  “Bring him in, Connery.”

  Perry had been into MI-7's offices before, but only to pick up reports. He'd never been into Deputy-Director Fleming's personal office, which was the opposite of his group commander’s. While Richardson's was austere, Fleming's was luxurious. Windowless, the walls were covered with heavy, laden bookshelves. The furniture was plush leather and the floor was thickly-carpeted.

  Fleming was a thin, rectangular-faced man in his early fifties, wearing a well-tailored black suit that looked as though he'd slept in it. His eyes were lined with stress.

  “Take a seat, Vice-Commodore. It's a pleasure to see you again.”

  Again?, Perry thought, then remembered that they had met in passing at various functions.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Have a drink?”

  “I had four an hour ago with my commander, sir. But thank you.”

  “Only four? So what’ll you have?”

  “Really, sir. I'm quite fine.”

  “Connery, get me a dry martini. And this time, please don't shake it? Stir it. Carefully. I've told you that enough times.”

  “Yessir. And one for the Vice-Commodore?”

  “If he won't ask for anything else. No? Then it’s a martini, Perry.”

  When the aide had gone, Flemi
ng got straight down to business. He leaned across the table and said “You want Karen Ahle's head. Is that correct?”

  “You know her first name?”

  “Five foot eight, aged thirty-three, of North Carolina,” Fleming said. “Weighs about one thirty. One of those old families. Give us some credit, Vice-Commodore,” Fleming smiled thinly. “Spies do occasionally gather information. When we're not killing each other.”

  “I heard there was some trouble,” Perry said. “A shame, and my condolences for your men.”

  Fleming shrugged, reached for a bottle. “Part of why I gave you priority was that I could use some light relaxation. Pirates are so much easier to deal with than Russians. Let me give you a rundown on Karen Marie Ahle.”

  “I'm listening, sir. I'm very much listening.”

  “I'll give you a copy of the file when we're done. Here's the summary: Born in 1930; Wake Forest, North Carolina. One of those old Southern plantation families; one of her great-grandparents was a Confederate general. Family fortunes suffered when slavery ended, as all those people's did, but they held on through the Collapse.

  “Stayed more or less on top of things during the anarchy in the South - black guerillas in the countryside, workers’ militias in the big cities, renegade Union troops. You know it all. When reunification happens, the Ahles are still a wealthy Southern military family. Her father was an officer in the North Carolina State Militia.

  “In 1944. You know what happened in 1944.”

  “I'm afraid I really don't, sir. I was a first-year at Biggin Hill in `44.”

  Connery came crutch-walking back with the drinks. Fleming took his, made sure Perry accepted his, and dismissed the aide. Mostly out of politeness, Perry took a sip. Not a bad drink, although his own tastes ran more to the plain and straight.

  “Another of their rebellions. A big one. North Carolina went up in flames, and the Feds responded the way they usually do - no diplomacy, just heavy boots. A mercenary unit, the Special Squadrons, commanded by a nasty little Bavarian piece of work named Heinrich Himmler, went through the central part of the state. Federal orders were to execute Major-General Ahle. Himmler and his boys did just that.”