by Leo Champion
“I'm sure he deserved it.”
“At the family estate. They leveled it. Butchered his wife and family along with him. As I said, brutal even by Federal-mercenary standards, killing women and children. Their eldest daughter – our Captain Ahle – was off at a technical academy. When she heard the news, she fled to Sonora and somehow got hold of money her father had put in an account for that sort of emergency.”
“So she’s got a grudge against the Feds. And against the Imperials. And the mercenaries.”
“We have every reason to think so,” said Fleming. “She finished her schooling in Sonora, was accepted into what they call their Aerospace Academy, graduated two years later, fourth in a class of a hundred and ninety. Six years in their Navy; served under Goldwater in their Californian war. Honorable discharge with the rank of captain. Equates to your rank of lieutenant-commander, fourth on their pay scale. Then got out and went pirate.”
“Only for so long,” Perry said coldly.
Fleming sighed.
“I have more important things to worry about than pirates, right now. I have a war to fight and this is only a diversion. Your commanding officer called in a favor. Talk with Connery tomorrow morning; he'll advise you. I suppose you should go to the Black Hills; Connery's been up there. My assistant, Senior Agent Moore, also has; you'll talk with him. You can have money to hire a crew; I can give you money. What I can't spare is men.”
“I understand. Thank you for the information and resources, sir. Deputy Director Fleming, I don't care what it takes. Captain Ahle humiliated me and stole an Imperial ship. I am getting my ship back.”
Fleming took a long sip from his drink, then sighed.
“I suppose it never occurred to you, Vice-Commodore, to wonder why a pirate might want a line-class warship?”
“To commit further crimes.”
“That would be overkill. Pirates are in it for the money; they don't begin to need the level of firepower that your 4-106 has, or to want the level of operating cost. You might not care why, but at some level I'm aware that my job consists of more than just wiping out Russian stations and seeing my own men die. It also consists of gathering information - and, in particular, investigating anomalies that might potentially threaten our security on the North American continent.”
Fleming drained the last of his martini.
“While you're busy restoring the honor of your Service and whatnot? Find that out for us, will you?”
Chapter Seven
‘The Hugoton Lease, in southwest Kansas and the northern part of pre-independence Texas, is an area of approximately 2000 square miles, granted to the British Empire on a five-hundred year lease in 1933. Alongside substantial oil and natural gas deposits – both of which have found to be of use in powering steam engines – Hugoton contains 93% of the world's known helium reserves. Helium being an inert, non-flammable gas critical to the survivability of military airships, this gives the lease immense strategic value to the Empire.’
A Report On Imperial Leases And Bases, Parliamentary News Service, 1953.
“So this is Dodge City,” Joe Ferrer said, looking out the window of the slowing passenger car. Not the place of pulp-novel legend; it looked like a cheap industrial town. Shabby two- and three-storey buildings, the occasional four-storey. Higher ones downtown. Ugly hydrogen-cracking plants and slaughterhouses. A huge airship park in the northern distance.
“Welcome to Dodge,” said Pratt Cannon.
Clicks, as the train was switched onto a different line, and then they passed through a respectably-sized yard; twelve or fourteen tracks. There were long lines of freighters, of tankers, refrigeration and cattle cars.
“Line continues to Hugoton,” said Marko. “Eighty-five miles.”
“Need a pass to get there,” said Cannon.
“Careful about it, too,” said McIlhan. “They shoot to kill past the second line. Whole fuckin’ area is Imperials Only, Keep Out.”
“Always a way. Just got to find it.”
The train began to pull into a station.
“Disguise ourselves somehow,” Marko went on. “We got to scope out Hugoton. Ferrer, you go in back and unload the kinematoscopes. McIlhan, rent us a steam truck. No, buy one. Harder to trace. Rienzi?”
The smirking kid looked up.
“Keep an eye on Ferrer. You're a gunman, he's not. Rough place, eh?”
Rienzi nodded enthusiastically.
“Rough men. I'll show `em.”
“Kid,” Cannon said quietly. “You're an OK shot. Not too slow, either. In this town there are at least a hundred men who are better at both, and who love to notch their fucking gun just as much as you do. Hear me?”
“Don't start nothing. Yeah, yeah.”
“And shoot `em in the back,” Cannon grinned. “They'd do it to you.”
So this is Dodge, Ferrer thought, as he headed out toward the freight cars at the back of the train. It's a good thing I'm wearing a gun.
Forty minutes later, Marko and his crew had arranged a vehicle - a large, brass-heavy steam truck with the two crated kinematographs inside - and a garage, and rented the whole second floor, six rooms, of a flophouse in the Boot District of northwest Dodge.
Dodge was a violent industrial cowtown, a trading and industrial place where cowboys, airshipmen and oil workers drunkenly blew off steam, but some areas were safer than others. The Boot District was right down at the bottom of the list.
“You keep a gun handy,” Cannon warned McIlhan. “Ain't a safe place for a woman. You're gonna get shit.”
“I can handle myself,” McIlhan said. “Been here before, cattle-rustler.”
Cannon grinned. He liked McIlhan; she was a spunky bitch. “No doubt. Boss and I are gonna go sniffing around. See about Hugoton.”
“I told you, you ain’t getting close without a pass. We ain’t driving that steam-truck right through without it getting blown to scrap.”
“Trail boss says we find a way. Freaky son of a bitch, that guy. But sneaky. I'm gonna bet you he finds one.”
“I'll help,” said Rienzi. “Always wanted to see a place like Dodge. Where a man can be a man.”
“You can be a man later,” Cannon told him. Stupid kid. “Right now, you help that engineer man set up those kinny machines.”
“He's doing fine on his own,” said Rienzi.
“You help Ferrer,” said Marko, coming in. “Or you can argue with me.”
How long was he outside the door listening? Cannon wondered. Scary son-of-a, that one.
“Got it, boss,” said Rienzi.
“Other three of us are gonna ask around and see what we can find. Maybe there’s a supply convoy we can get in on. Someone with passes we can buy. Could happen any time. Could be we move out at a dot's note. We're gonna have a problem if you ain’t ready with the scopes. It's your fault, you and I are gonna have a problem.”
“Right away,” Rienzi said. He picked up a toolkit and headed out.
Maybe the young punk isn't quite so dumb as he looks, Cannon thought.
“We're also gonna be hiring men. Just in case. See who's in town, who knows what. This clear?”
Four or five hundred yards away, in a middling-upscale hotel on the edge of the Boot District, Captain Ahle and her inner circle were celebrating. There were twelve of them, as much Ahle's close cadre as her senior officers, and they'd rented a private suite with its own bar. For security, although that had been effectively ignored after the first couple of hours. Trail bosses, pirates, fences and various friends of the officers could come in and out, with their friends, just nodding casually to the guards at the door.
Ahle sprawled on a leather arrmchair, her boots over one of the arms and a crystal glass of port in her hand. Leaning against a wall near her was first officer Jeff Hollis, a lean, tanned, grey-haired engineer who'd emigrated from the South five years before Ahle’d fled as a teen. He threw back his whisky – a good single-malt, they were finally celebrating – and gestured to one of the w
aitresses for another.
“Never figured on this when we left Sonora, did you?” Ahle asked, taking another sip and smiling broadly. Hollis had been a Support Corps major for the Sonoran War Department when they'd met.
“An Imperial ship. I still say you're crazy!”
“We got it. And we're going to use it. Finish the refit, maybe sortie through East Texas for a bit. Little more money wouldn't hurt.”
“Oh, we've got enough money, boss-lady,” said Maria Sciapella, a native Sonoran who handled the crew’s finances. “Stocks, bonds, you name it, as well as liquid cash. The Hermosillo stock market’s booming, and we've got nine thousand US dollars handy in Fed banks if we should need it.”
“Little more money never hurts,” Ahle repeated. “Take down a Texie oil freighter or something? They could use oil in the Black Hills.”
“Ma'am!” said Ronalds, coming past. There was a Cuban in his mouth rather than a straw – the straws were just something to chew on when you were sitting in a hydrogen-loaded airship with flames to be avoided - and a glass of heavy rum in his hand. “Hell of a ship, we got! A hell of a fucking ship! Even you!”
Ronalds slapped Sciapella on the back. The small woman flinched but smiled. Normally the two didn't get along; that was something Ahle had to work on, but for some reason the two never had. Lot of people didn't get along with Ronalds. A pity.
She downed the last of her port and gestured for more.
“We're gonna go kill some Germans,” Ronalds said. “We're gonna go kill some everyone! Kennedy wants to fuck with us, Joe and Joe? We'll take them!”
“Good luck trying,” said a handsome fortyish man with light brown hair, coming into the room with a drink in his hand. He wore a jacket lined with silver thread over a waistcoat that seemed to be woven from gold, and a half-dozen pistols were strapped to his waist, chest and thighs.
“Johnny Kennedy!” exclaimed Ronalds. “Good to fucking see you!” He slammed his glass into Kennedy's; somehow, neither of them broke.
“Didn't know you were in town,” said Ahle, looking up. “Thanks for coming.”
“Something we never did, snatching an Imperial line-class. You're crazy for thinking you can use it, but hell – our empire was built on crazy!”
“To the Kennedys!” said Ronalds. “Who can take any of us down, any time they feel like it! Joe and Joe Junior, who made the fuckin’ Code! And Jack!”
A waitress with several glasses came over, exchanged people's old glasses for new ones. Kennedy slapped her on the backside as he left.
“Still got an eye for the women, I see, Johnny,” said Ahle.
“Hey, I've got a room at the Berkshire. Ask for a Kenneth O'Donnell. Any time you want, Karen. Or how about you, money girl?”
Pete Augustin wandered back, another exiled Southerner. He'd detached from the conversation a little while ago to talk business with a fence he'd spotted. “Hear about Mack Damon, you lot?”
“Who?” asked Hollis.
“Please tell me someone killed that worthless piece of shit,” said Ahle.
“Worthless piece of shit,” Augustin told Hollis. “The kill-and-rape type. Sort of trash who'd mow down civilian crew for the fun of it, and would've sold `em as slaves into the Dakota mines before Johnny’s dad put a stop to that shit.”
He turned to Ahle.
“Someone killed the piece of slime. Him and his crew. Guess who.”
“Who?”
“Black guy, Imperial, Vice-Commodore whose ship had been taken down Monday evening…”
“The former owner of the Adestria?” Ahle asked.
“By all accounts. Riding a little tramp out of Kearney. Somehow baited the son of a bitch in, and boarded him with a full crew of Imperials.”
“Assholes like that deserve to hang. He hang?” asked Hollis.
“Not enough time, if it was Tuesday,” said Kennedy. “Imperials are very law-court about that stuff. No thirty-foot court-martials on their part.”
“Killed in the fight, I heard,” said Augustin. “Got his bags intact. Buddy of mine's agent, telegraph says; saw it come into Chicago with a tramp freighter whose captain was just as happy as happy can be.”
“Mack had a good ship, I'll give him. Fast freighter,” said Ahle. She only vaguely knew the man; there were a hundred of that type, and the scumbags didn't mix too much with the more civilized pirates. “Ought to fetch a sum on the market. Of which that Vice-Commodore, usual prize rules? One quarter, personally.”
“Sometimes I figure I oughta join the Imperials myself," said Augustin. "Do most of what we do, and sometimes there's real chingada dinero if you're an officer.”
“Quarter of a ship, in his own pocket,” Ahle said. Pirate distribution of loot wasn't nearly as hierarchical, although captains did well enough anyway. “Well, that ought to keep that guy and his officers happy enough to not care about losing their first ship!”
The officers' reorganization meeting had only taken about half an hour; 4-106's excess personnel had been split across the squadron's six remaining – six original – ships, essentially back where they had been. Secundus Wing would be based out of Denver as the squadron had been, and some of the extra crew would be there as a reserve; the rest would be around Hugoton.
The men remaining at Hugoton, manning the two dirigibles left of Primus Wing, had been given three-day passes; so had the officers. In practice that meant Dodge City, although Hugoton had reasonable facilities. Perry had a token drink in the officers' mess and then went back to his quarters to write a letter to his wife.
I am going on special detached duty, the letter said. I’ve been briefed, but I don't begin to know what I'm going to be doing. The provisional plan is that I will go to the Black Hills posing as a less-than-reputable merchant who has acquired nine-inch rockets; that may lead me to 4-106, since the new owner of a ship with them will probably be interested in a resupply.
I have to admit, I'm rather in over my head. Friday and the weekend, one of the MI-7 people will give me an education in basic espionage. I still can't believe this was offered to me, although I can see how a squadron commander would be less than necessary with the squadron split up. And the recovery of 4-106 will be worth any risk to me.
He wrote for a couple of pages and then took an early night; by nine o'clock he was asleep in bed, dreaming of being at the helm of 4-106 again as it lifted from the Black Hills, Captain Karen Ahle a handcuffed prisoner.
Cannon found Marko in a workman’s dive on the edge of the industrial district, juggling a knife, a beer bottle and three shotglasses while he ferociously lectured a bunch of laborers about the evils of the state. He caught the boss’s eye and gestured with his head.
Urgent.
“And that, gentlemen, is why we must smash the state and its machinery!” Marko flipped the three glasses into the hands of the nearest workers, knifed the lid off the beer bottle – and in the same move, flung the steak knife into the center of a photo of President Agnew above the door – and then drained the bottle in a single long chug.
A couple of the workers applauded.
“Do not serve the machines, my friends! Destroy the machines! Destroy their masters and become free again!” Marko slipped through the crowd and went to Cannon.
“What?” he demanded in an undertone.
“I found it. Found our way into Hugoton.”
“Talk.”
“Imperials lost an airship. To pirates. Friend of a friend heard something about an Imperial ship being disguised. I know where it's parked.”
“An Imperial airship?” Marko laughed.
“Not going to shoot down their own bird being returned, are they?”
“Gonna try, once they realize it's not returning.”
“Fake some damage mid-air. Time they realize we were just overflying with the kinematographs running, we'll be out of their range, and we'll have the intelligence. Fast bird. Could use it later, too. Depending what you got in mind.”
“We're go,
” said Marko. “Airship needs crew. I know some. You know some.”
“Rounding up a full crew will take a few hours,” said Cannon. “Rienzi and McIlhan are on notice. Ready to start looking for people. Can Ferrer handle a boiler room?”
“Not that kind of an engineer. Besides, he'll be focused on the kinematographs. We'll need a full crew. Eighty miles; we'll have an hour and a half to get them up to speed. Time it so we pass over Hugoton at dawn. Round it up.”
“What about the previous owners?” Cannon asked. “Pirates aren't going to give up their prize without a fight.”
“I don't see the point in fighting,” said Marko. “We'll just kill them all. More questions?”
Cannon shrugged. “None I can think of. I'll get busy finding a crew. Place like this, always going to be bodies available.”
“Hire on long-term contract. We'll need them later.”
“I need to see Vice Perry,” the man said to the Air Marine guard outside Hugoton officers’ quarters. It was two thirty and nothing ever happened on officer shift; the guard had been half-asleep himself.
Confronted by this drunk man in greased coveralls, he was waking up fast.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Senior Airshipman – no, Specialist. Spec Third Rafferty, I am. Listen, mate, I got to see the Vice. Wake him the fuck up.”
“Rip the stripe right off me for waking a Vice-Commodore,” said the guard, a lance-corporal. “Bust you right down, too. You're drunk.”
“Damn right I'm drunk,” said Rafferty. “Get me the fucking Vice or it'll be the worse for you. He finds you've kept this from him tomorrow morning, you ain't gonna lose your stripe. You'll get a ten-forty dishonorable.”
“Let me get my sergeant,” the young lance said. “Stay right here.”