by Leo Champion
As soon as the guard was out of sight, Rafferty glanced at the directory and marched past his station into the hall. Nice place, officer country.
Oh, this was good. This was fucking good. He giggled to himself. A part of him wished he hadn't chugged down that flask on the train back from Dodge.
Was there any left? He fished it out of the big pocket of the overalls to check. Yeah, a good-sized stub. He raised it to his mouth and drank the harsh whisky – and there, that was 211, the suite the directory said the Vice lived in at Hugoton. He pounded on the door.
Several hard thumps later, there was a voice.
“What is it?”
“It's me, Vice! Got news! Important news!”
From down the hall, Rafferty could hear that young lance and a more mature voice:
“Where’d he go?”
“There.”
“What the hell is it?” Perry appeared, wearing blue pajamas and a sheepskin dressing gown. “Specialist Rafferty? You're drunk. And in civvies.”
“I'm sorry, Vice-Commodore.” A strong hand grabbed Rafferty's arm. A middle-aged sergeant, and he did not look happy. Rafferty gave him a shit-eating grin in the hope it'd appease him. It didn't seem to. He turned back to the Vice while he still could.
“I found the bird! I found your lost bird, Vice!”
“Hold on,” Perry said to the sergeant. “Rafferty, you're drunk.”
“Damn right I'm drunk. But I found the 4-106.”
“Sergeant,” said Perry, “go back to your station. No. How many men do you have ready right now?”
“Just the regular patrols, sir. And the incident response companies, of course.”
“Go to the front and be ready to call the duty officer. I'm going to talk with this man.”
The sergeant let go of Rafferty's arm, but didn't lower his glare. One pissed-off NCO, Rafferty thought. Well, he was used to the breed.
“Got my thanks, sir,” he said. “Listen, boss. I found that pirate, and word is that she's got 4-106 still. They were celebrating, she and her top buddies.”
“In Dodge City.”
“Right in the Boot District, sir.”
“Boot District's off-limits. As you well know.”
“It is, sir? I never heard of that.”
“The list is on your pass. You know damn well it and the surrounding areas are off limits. Everything north of Kliesen Street.”
“My mistake, sir. Probably won't happen again. Not too soon. Sir.”
“Do you know where 4-106 itself is?”
“No, sir. But that pirate would! Airship park in Dodge, not many places you can hide a bird big as that. It's probably in Dodge since all her crew is, and all!”
“And you've got a confirmed location on Captain Karen Ahle.”
“Celebrating at the Foster Arms, weren't they? Two and a half hours ago. In Dodge, I know that much, I does. And the place. The Foster Arms. You got any more drinks in your house?”
“No. Stay here for a moment.”
Perry went inside, to where a phone stood on a desk.
“Officers’ mess? Yes. This is Vice Perry. I want you to make something for an enlisted man named Rafferty who'll be showing up shortly. Fat and calories, whatever best absorbs alcohol. Serve him within five minutes and have him eat it fast. Thank you.”
“You want me un-drunk, sir?”
“Go to the officers’ mess. They'll let you in. I'll meet you out there in ten minutes. You armed, Rafferty?”
“Wouldn't go into the Boot if I weren't equipped for it, sir.”
“Were you with anyone?”
“Yessir. Senior Airshipman Duckworth. Second rigger on the Shuffler.”
“Where is he now?”
“Off the corner behind the bar. Keeping an eye on things. Sort of figured you'd assemble some men and go for her. That right, sir?”
“That's damned right, Rafferty. Good job. Now go to the mess and sober the hell up, fast.”
“Yessir. And you'll straighten me out with that sergeant, will you?”
“I'm going to talk with his commanding officer. We're going into Dodge right now.”
Perry was reaching for uniform pants when he realized: The Boot District was off limits, and any Imperial officer would draw immediate attention long before he and the group reached wherever the Foster Arms was.
He changed it for a pair of workman's trousers, glad he did have that set of civvies. A ruffed white shirt and, well, his uniform boots were plain-looking and as good as any. One of Fleming's aides had given him an automatic .40 in a shoulder-holster, telling him to get used to wearing it. He strapped that on, practiced drawing, threw on a black coat over that, and a cowboy hat he'd bought a while ago as a souvenir and never gotten around to taking to the apartment in Denver.
The phone rang again.
“Vice Perry.”
“Sir, this is Captain Adrian. Response company, sir. You had an emergency in Dodge?”
“Yes. Two things. One, I need transport there. Now.”
“Checked that, sir. Oil train leaving in about ten minutes. Told them to hold for your party. And you'll want some of my men, I trust.”
“Give me a platoon. Have them change into civilian clothes, and I need them now.”
“Armed, sir?”
“Of course I want them armed!” Perry thought for a minute. The Army captain was correct: rifles would get in the way and be overly visible.
“You're mechanized infantry, correct?”
“Dragoons, sir, yes. First of the Forty-third. Charlie Company.”
“The vehicle crews have submachineguns. Your line infantry know how to handle `em?”
“Cross-train all the time, sir. I'll have the platoon draw them from the arsenal and bring personal backpacks, satchels, whatever conceals them best.”
“Good job, captain. Meet my men at the station in ten minutes. I'll explain the objective to your officer.”
“Heard your squadron lost an airship, sir. Figure you got a lead on getting it back, from what Sergeant Golding said.”
“Correct. Get those men ready. Remember, they're to look like civilians. We're going into the Boot District to make an arrest and recover the airship, not to start a brawl.”
“On it, sir.”
Rafferty seemed at least a little more sober when Perry met him inside the officers’ mess; he was chewing on a fried chicken leg. With him was Vescard, dressed in yellow roughnecks' overalls and a cowboy hat.
“Heard from the Specialist here that 4-106’s been found, sir,” said Vescard. “We're coming along to get it back. With you. If you don't mind.”
“We?”
Swarovski came out of the men's room, buttoning a horrendously-bright lime-green shirt.
“Swav and I, sir.”
“You armed?”
“Just our service pistols,” said Swarovski.
“Speak for yourself, Swav,” said Vescard, pulling a massive – eighteen inches long, and solid – wrench from a leg-pocket of the coveralls.
“Oh, I've got a knife.” Swarovski pulled his issue multitool, which included a five-inch blade.
“That ain't a knife, sir,” said Rafferty, taking a Bowie from his coveralls. “This is a knife.”
“When you gentlemen are finished arguing over the specific definition of ‘knife’,” Perry said, “we do have an airship to recover.”
“Right, sir,” said Rafferty. "But just so the lieutenant knows, my knife's better than his. Sir."
“Another drink for the road?” The mess bartender produced two beers, pushing them in the direction of Swarovski and Vescard.
“Don't mind if I do,” said Rafferty, taking one of the beers and pouring it into his mouth.
Swarovski and Vescard looked at each other.
“Yes,” Swarovski told the bartender, and gestured for Vescard to take the other beer.
“How drunk are the two of you?” Perry asked.
“Not very,” said Swarovski.
�
�Less than he is,” said Vescard.
“Then you don't need another one. We've got a train. Come on.”
Vescard put the empty beer-glass down. Swarovski took his glass and drank as he walked, putting it down on a table in the mess anteroom.
Halvorsen was waiting outside the mess with Vidkowski. Both were dressed in civvies.
“You're coming along too,” Perry said resignedly. At least these two looked sober.
“Ran into Raff on his way here, sir,” said Vidkowski.
“Very well.” Perry sighed, glanced at his watch. “We're holding up a train. Let's go.”
The supply train was a line of about twenty tanker cars, loaded with oil and natural gas from the Hugoton fields. Near the railyard was a plant where the all-important helium was separated from the oilfields’ other products: natural gas and crude oil. Another plant – working three shifts, alongside the oil wells – turned the crude oil into heating oil, which would power engines and heat buildings. More crude was shipped straight to Dodge, where it would be refined at plants there into other products.
Attached to the end, just fore of the caboose, was a third-class passenger car. About thirty-five men in a mix of civilian clothing and carrying a mess of bags – but almost all in their twenties and early thirties, all of them Army – sat or stood inside of it.
A man in neater civilian clothing, aged about twenty-five, saluted the group as they approached.
“Vice-Commodore Perry, sir?” he said to Halvorsen.
“I'm Perry,” said Perry.
“Sorry, sir. Lieutenant Harrison, sir. Third Platoon, Second Response. Here to help secure your airship, sir.”
“Staff Sergeant MacGreg,” said an older man. “Military police.” He – and three others – were dressed in dull dark-blue slacks and black shirts. They were all in their late twenties and thirties. “My people here, too. Captain Adrian detailed us alongside Lieutenant Harrison's platoon. Sir.”
“Good of him to,” said Perry. “That train's waiting on us?”
“Yessir, it is. Should have left a couple minutes ago.”
Perry boarded, followed by the others from his squadron.
“This is Specialist Third Rafferty,” Perry said to MacGreg and Harrison. MacGreg eyed Rafferty unaffectionately; Rafferty gave the MP a broad grin.
Natural enemies, the two of them, thought Perry.
“Rafferty was in the Boot District with a friend of his, when he heard about the pirate who'd stolen my airship.”
“Boot District’s off-limits,” said MacGreg.
“I've spoken to him about it,” Perry said. He raised his voice. “This woman is named Karen Ahle. For those of you who haven't heard the story, a line-class airship designated 4-106 was hijacked Tuesday. The pirate has been identified and I was assigned this afternoon to apprehend her and bring the ship back. This is a stroke of luck.”
“We're gonna bust a pirate?” an Army man asked excitedly.
“Damned right we are,” said Rafferty. “And hang the thieving bitch! With a rope!”
“We're going to apprehend her according to the tip Specialist Rafferty gave us,” said Perry. “We are then going to find the location of the airship and secure her until a flight crew can arrive to bring her back.”
“Fly her back ourselves, perhaps,” said Swarovski.
“Probably not,” said Perry. Although that was a thought.
“You want me to send one section to secure the airship while the other goes with you for the pirates?” asked Harrison.
The train was picking up speed, moving fast. They passed a trio of oil derricks, big and floodlit as their pumps swung up and down. A roughneck on a platform waved, and the train tooted its horn in reply.
“No,” said Perry. “One team can accompany - Lieutenant Vescard and Warrant Halvorsen, I think. To identify 4-106 at the airship park. I expect Ahle to offer more resistance. She and her crew may be drunk; they're also pirates and we can expect them all to be well-armed. Piracy is a capital crime, to make this clear. If resistance is offered, shoot to kill immediately.”
He lowered his voice.
“Lieutenant Harrison, your platoon has been doing patrols. I understand the protocol is to arrest any civilians trying to get through?”
“Usually just some lost cowboy,” said Harrison. “But there's two fence lines, and it doesn't happen often. We've never had serious trouble.”
“Very well. Sergeant MacGreg, please have your men give the Army soldiers basic instruction, in what time we have, in making arrests.”
“Wish we had time to get a full MP platoon together,” MacGreg muttered.
“We don't,” Perry said.
He was impressed it was happening this fast. Twenty minutes ago he'd been asleep in bed. Now he was in a train, speeding across the Kansas plains to Dodge City, where - hopefully - he and this platoon would accomplish what he'd expected to take weeks of tricky and unfamiliar spy-work.
This is a godsend, he thought. Rafferty's discovery.
I did not think it would actually be this easy!
“We've got a crew,” Cannon reported.
“And I found us some roughs. Couple of them have engine experience,” said Marko. He was trailed by six of them; industrial ne'er-do-wells, the sort of men he found most useful. He'd have identified with them more if they were actually any good at what they did, but each man served Discordia in his own way. Knowingly or unknowingly.
These ones just wanted a quick buck without too much hard work. He hadn't bothered to tell them that they were going to do a reconnaisance flight over one of the best-guarded military bases on the continent. They'd learn that when they got there; if they were unhappy with the fact, hopefully they'd brought parachutes.
“We gonna kill someone?” Rienzi asked. “Hard bunch we got here. Yeah, and we found a third kinnyscope. Fence let us have it for a couple hundred bucks; loot from some ship someone took.”
“We're gonna wipe out a pirate crew,” said Marko. “Hang back and let me go in first. We kill them all to avoid pursuit, blow their ship just in case they got friends elsewhere. Jack the other ship and go.”
“How long you think it'll take to fully inflate?” Cannon asked. “No park's gonna allow a ship to sit parked, gassed-up. Too much of a fire risk. They'll check for these things.”
“Helium bird,” said McIlhan. “Remember? Imperial warship. No trouble with inflation, just got to get the buoyancy even.” She smirked. “Fuck it’s gonna be good to go back to Hugoton.”
“You know how to operate a flasher?” Marko asked.
“Had signals training. Not airships, but ground signaling's the same. I can handle it.”
“And read them?”
“Adequately, boss. When do we go out?”
“Men right now are packing and arming,” said Cannon. “Everyone's gonna be go in about twenty minutes.”
“An Imperial ship,” Marko giggled. “Fitting.”
Chapter Eight
“Dodge City was a messy cattle town and a violent hellhole as far back as 1870. Just goes to show that nothing ever changes. We've got oil and natural gas as well as cattle, now - and we've also got roughnecks as well as cowboys, pirates as well as outlaws. Our department doesn’t have a retirement fund, we have a tontine.”
Dodge County Undersheriff Pete MacNamara, 1961.
Perry's train didn't stop at a platform. It was a regularly-scheduled freight run to Kansas City, and the engineer simply halted for a minute at a convenient point along the line and allowed the men to pile out. They crossed a couple of tracks and found themselves on a bitumen road in a street of shabby industrial terrace-houses.
The soldiers of Third Platoon spread out, instinctively forming a perimeter around Perry's men and the MPs.
“So one of my fire-teams goes with two of your men to locate the airship?” Harrison asked.
“Locate and identify,” Perry directed. “If there are crew aboard or nearby, do not engage unless she looks like she�
��s going to lift. The priority is to take the captain and prevent the airship from departing. Do what it takes to achieve that. Take cabs.”
“I know where the port is. I think I know where we are,” said Vescard.
“I know both,” said Halvorsen. “I'll take the lead, sir?”
Vescard gave a curt nod.
“Bravo section, Team One. Lance Innis,” said Lieutenant Harrison.
“With him, sir,” said a blond man. “You heard the flying officer, boys. Follow those two. Permission to depart, sir?”
“Move,” Perry gestured. He turned to Rafferty.
“Where's this place?”
“If I got us right, about half a mile from here. It's gonna be dives and shit, and forty of us are gonna attract notice.”
Perry looked at MacGreg.
“He's got a point, sir.”
“Very well. Rafferty, you and I will go ahead, with one of the lieutenant's teams. A section will follow at about forty yards with the lieutenant. The last team will go with the MPs forty yards behind that.”
“Understood, sir,” said MacGreg.
“Bravo second, go with the Vice-Commodore,” Harrison said. “Alpha section is with me. Sergeant Charkin, please take Bravo third and accompany the MPs. You heard the lieutenant about pacing yourselves.”
“And, Army boys,” Rafferty said, “try not to march? I know you lot make a big deal about that, but walk casually. Like you've had a few drinks, right? You boys can't hold your booze, so that shouldn't be too hard to pretend.”
Sergeant MacGreg glared at Rafferty. So did Perry.
“Let's get moving,” Perry said. “I hope your friend's still there.”
It was late, about four thirty, but Dodge was the kind of place that never completely shut down. Cowboys returning from long drives, and the constant shift workers, men who worked from six in the evening until two in the morning and, consequently, were only about a couple of hours into their after-work drunk.
They walked past sleazy flophouses, a concrete fortress of a sheriff's department building, bars of noisy patrons. For most of Dodge City, it was relatively late at night, and the general tone of the drunkenness had gone from the jovial noise of a few hours earlier, to a glassy-eyed sullenness.