Her Majesty's Western Service

by Leo Champion

  They were prepping for flight. He could see that now, as a man ran along the stanchions and disconnected one of the heavy cables, then toward another. Boiler going hot.

  At best, they had five minutes before the ship lifted.

  More pressure-gun fire came, smashing into the truck but missing the men on the ground. One heavy ball ricocheted off a piece of inset concrete and into the air.

  “Permission to return fire, sir?” Lieutenant Harrison asked, running over and throwing himself down.

  “Do what it takes. We're taking my airship back. Fire and movement. Assault. Whatever.”

  Harrison nodded harshly and started yelling orders.

  “With me, Vice. Leapfrog attack. We're gonna distract that fucking P-gun.”

  4-106 began to rock slightly, a sure sign that engines were powering. Yes. One of the propellers was spinning. No. All three of the starboard-side ones were.

  Some of the soldiers opened fire on the pressure-gun turret. The turret turned, fired back, the balls kicking up thick clouds of dust in the air as they hit dirt. Every third one was a tracer, its abrasive phosphorous surface ignited by progress through the barrel. Those blazed bright orange as they flew through the darkness.

  “Go!” Harrison yelled, and leapt up. Perry followed a second later, running forward at 4-106 as the other men fired.

  “Fifty yards and down!” Harrison said. He carefully aimed at the bridge, fired a burst. The other men from his section did the same. Perry considered helping with a pistol round but no, at a hundred and fifty yards that wouldn't even be a distraction.

  These pressure-gunners were not, Perry thought, very good. They didn't know to bounce the rounds, although in dirt that wouldn't have done very much. They were firing randomly and ineffectively; as far as suppressive fire went, it was terrible.

  One of the bridge windows opened, and a man with a rifle leaned out. He sighted on one of the other section, running, and fired.

  “Shit! Meval's down! Meval is fucking down!” cried one of the soldiers.

  “Run!” Harrison yelled.

  4-106's propellers were rotating fast now, and lights were on along the length of the ship. Perry leapt up, ran forwards. A pressure-gun ball hit the ground just in front of him, dust exploding up and choking his face. He ran, firing, as 4-106 started to lift.

  “Down, Vice,” Harrison screamed. “Get fucking down!”

  4-106 was lifting. The hell with that. He was not going to lose his ship a second time.

  “Follow me!” he shouted. “Retake the ship!”

  A few men did follow, as he ran for the airship. For the bridge, and the man with the rifle fired twice more, and someone screamed. Dust choked Perry's lungs, but he ran anyway as 4-106 lifted three, five, ten, fifteen feet off the ground, heavy ballast bags being pushed out.

  More pressure-gun balls pounded into the dirt around Perry. The fore turret was a pair of heavy guns, built to penetrate armor; even a glancing hit would take his arm or leg off. He'd seen it happen.

  He didn't care. He ran, as 4-106 lifted from the ground, ropes dangling, ballast harnesses trailing.

  They are not going to take my ship a second time! Those pirates are not going to escape!

  He fired up at the bridge as he approached under it, thirty-five feet high now and rising. Grabbed a rope, jumping to grab it, and felt himself pulled up.

  His right hand dropped the pistol to take a better hold of the rope. He had a knife in his belt; that would have to be enough.

  Gunfire around him, but the world consisted of the rope and the departing 4-106; he felt himself being pulled up above the dark dirt. His other hand pulled, and he began to climb.

  “There's one here!” A voice from above, the missileers’ catwalk behind the bridge. A man appeared, tall and thin and dressed in black. From thirty feet below, Perry could see that the man's teeth were broken, and that there was a large gold ring in his right ear.

  “You'll hang, pirate!” Perry yelled. “You'll all hang, you bastards!”

  “Of course. But not today!" The man on the catwalk reached down with a knife and cut at the rope. Perry climbed harder, forcing his strength into it, his ankles kicking and grasping for the tail end of the rope.

  “Nice try, my friend. Now scream!”

  The rope fell, Perry below it. He snarled a curse before the blackness hit.

  Someone was holding three fingers in front of Perry's face. He blinked a couple more times, shook his head, and looked up.

  “How many fingers, Vice?” Rafferty's voice.

  “Three. What the hell's going on?”

  The fingers became a fist.

  “How many now, sir?”

  “A fist. None.”

  “He's probably OK.”

  “Where's 4-106?” Perry sat up. They were just outside one of the half-underground shacks in the landing area. Bodies were stacked nearby, dead pirates by the look.

  Ahle was going down the stacks, still handcuffed, Vidkowski's pistol still pressed to her back. She seemed to be examining the corpses.

  Perry raised an eyebrow at Swarovski.

  “In shock, she is. That's all her crew. Her top ones were at the party. All the others were here. They’re dead now.”

  Pirate scum or not; he had to admit, he’d be in complete shock if all his crew had been killed. For a moment, Perry almost felt sympathy for the pirate.

  “You OK, sir?” asked a man in a civilian suit with a sheriff's star on the lapel.

  “I should be fine. How long was I out?”

  “About half an hour, sir,” said Swarovski.

  “They got away. They got away with 4-106. But they killed her crew?”

  An image of that broken-toothed man with the earring, cutting the rope.

  “All of them,” Ahle snarled, whirling. “You took the Adestria back and they destroyed the Aden and they killed all my operating crew. Murdered them. With knives.”

  “You said you didn't know who,” Perry asked, still dazed.

  Ahle's wrists strained against the handcuffs. “It's not as though I can do anything now, but no! I don't have the faintest idea!”

  Tall, broken-toothed man with an earring. Who stole 4-106.

  Perry got to his feet.

  “Sheriff?”

  “Undersheriff. Vice-Commodore?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your other pirates are in custody. One of your officers has ordered a car for your group on the next train.”

  “You're not unhappy about our coming into your jurisdiction and making arrests without advance notice? For which I apologize, but there was no time.”

  The undersheriff shrugged. “It's work off our hands, mister. Besides, Mayor Quentin does what your governor says; we know where our bread's buttered. Crimes out of our jurisdiction, caught inside our jurisdiction, we're not making a fight over it.”

  “Thank you, Undersheriff.”

  “We have transport at your disposal whenever you and your men would care to get moving. I also have an ambulance for your wounded. If you need it for yourself?”

  “God. How many did we lose?”

  “One killed,” said Vescard. “Two of them wounded, badly. Those pressure-guns aren't nice to a human body.”

  “Do you know who it was?” The tall man with the earring. “Someone killed her crew to get 4-106. Who? Where? Why?”

  “Now my crew has been murdered,” Ahle said acidly, “and your ship has been stolen by the same unknown third party? Vice-Commodore Perry, don't you think you've accomplished what you came here for?”

  Vidkowski jabbed the pirate in the back with his pistol.

  “Not a chance in hell, lady.”

  “I don't know who it was that massacred your crew,” said Perry, “although for what it's worth, I'm sorry. I don't begin to know why they stole 4-106. But I know one thing, Captain Ahle?”

  “What's that? Vice-Commodore Perry?”

  “I might not have my ship, but I have the bitch who stole it. And
she's going to hang.”

  “At least my men provided the accidental courtesy of giving my name,” Ahle hissed back. “Whoever stole your ship again never even gave that, did he?”

  They'd timed it perfectly: the sun was rising behind them, the airship designated 4-106 and painted Adestria, as they floated over the perimeter lines and into Hugoton at eight thousand feet.

  “Nose camera, check,” Ferrer said. The kinematograph had pride of place on the bridge, pointed down and recording their flight over the installations. Every so-often Ferrer stuck a precisely-calibrated watch in front of the lens for a second or two.

  “Starboard camera reports check,” said McIlhan from the communications board. “Port reports check.”

  “Keep them rolling,” said Marko. He stood at the front of the bridge, not bothering to give Captain Caine much room to see. He knew the course, that was enough. “We're getting some good reconnaissance here. All the lines are sharper at dawn.”

  “Military headquarters is flashing us,” said McIlhan, looking through a scope.

  “What're they saying?”

  “Asking us to identify.”

  The first thing they'd done, once airborne, had been to get rid of the dummy vanes. The paint was still there, but – with the sun right behind them – that wouldn't even be too visible. 4-106's engineering was distinctive enough that it should have been identified easily. Probably had been.

  “Tell them 4-106,” said Marko. “That's us. Rienzi, take two men and man the aft pressure-guns.”

  “We can man the missiles, too,” said Captain Caine. “You gave us enough men, Mr. Marko.”

  “No. Our role is photography. Missiles only if required.”

  “You don't mind my asking, why you doing this detailed reconnaisance of the Hugoton Lease anyhow?” asked Caine.

  Marko glared at him. It was a frightening look, and the middle-aged captain withstood it for less than a second before turning away and apologizing.

  “Because I said to,” said Marko. “Now power us along, turn to port once we’re past the main installations and then cross those oil facilities. Then, into the Rockies. Understood?”

  There had been an exchange of signals – McIlhan saying that the airship had been recovered, claiming to be an Imperial crew, but damaged steering - but that had only lasted so long. After 4-106 had passed over the second large set of oil installations – the Hugoton Lease itself was vast, a two thousand square mile area that hopefully, at this mile-and-a-half of altitude they were getting most of the important parts of – they scrambled two scout-class airships to investigate.

  “Your behavior is not consistent with steering issues. Sure you are OK? Land immediately. Cut sacs if needed,” McIlhan reported.

  “Let them approach close. Very close,” Marko said. “Then blow them to hell.”

  The scout-class captains were careless, or perhaps their airships were just shoddy in the first place. Heavy fire from Rienzi at the pressure-guns – at four hundred yards’ range, where it could barely miss – destroyed the bridge of one and then the other, and more solid shot from the guns smashed the gondolas and wrecked the scout-classes' airworthiness. Four missiles finished the job, as more pressure-gun fire pounded into the scout-classes' engine rooms and gondolas.

  Within a minute of the engagement starting, without their getting a shot off themselves, the scout-class ships were on burning crash-courses toward the grass of central Hugoton.

  “Power us up, starboard and move,” Marko ordered the captain.

  “We got a destination?”

  “Happens that we have. For now, I want maximum speed. Those Imperial sons of bitches are going to scramble something serious next, and ready to take us. Do you want to be there when that happens?”

  “Fucking fuck,” said one of the hirelings. “We just fucking killed a pair of Imperials!”

  Marko waved a finger at Ferrer's kinematograph, which was still recording – in detailed color – everything visible from the nose of the airship, slowly panning back and forth across a ninety-degree arc.

  “Time they're done analyzing this into tacti-thingummy maps and using those,” Marko said, “whole fuck of a lot more Imperials are gonna die.”

  “You gonna kill someone, kill Feds,” said Captain Caine. “Imperials are just goons; Feds are the real jackbooters.”

  Marko giggled.

  “Oh, we're gonna kill us some Feds, too. Worse than kill `em; we're gonna beat `em!”

  Fleming straightened up in his chair as though he'd been hit by lightning.

  “Tall. Black dress. Broken teeth and a gold earring?” he repeated back to Perry. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, sir. You know this man?”

  “Long, flowing moustache? Although he may have shaved it off.”

  “I think he had one, sir. And he took 4-106 over Hugoton?”

  “We have photographic confirmation. Shot down the ready flight of Thirty-Second Squadron, too. They thought he was you.”

  “I know, sir. I heard the full account of it from Vice Begley. Nine killed. He wasn't happy with me, either. Somehow he was convinced I did it until he heard the affidavits.”

  Deputy Director Ian Fleming leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “Someone far more dangerous than you did it, Vice-Commodore. If you're correct. I thought he was dead!”

  “You know this man.”

  “Connery,” Fleming said to the aide, hovering in the background. “Three martinis, please. Stirred–”

  “Softly, sir. Yessir,” said Connery. Going over to the liquor cabinet. “Not shaken. Understood, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  Fleming was silent until the drinks had been prepared. When they were, he sipped his.

  “Yes, Vice-Commodore. I know Theron Marko.”

  “Theron who?”

  “Theron Marko,” Fleming said slowly. “I thought he'd been killed in `58. It was on record that he'd been killed in `58.”

  “You sound as though you know the man personally.” A double-heartbeat. “Sir.”

  “Years ago. In the `40s. An episode on the Caspian. He has… appeared in our files since then. And before. He's suspected, not confirmed, of being involved with the murder of Her Majesty's first son. Not proven. If he's active, here…”

  “You're implying a dangerous man.” As though any other type could have stolen 4-106 from under his nose.

  Again.

  “Tell me about him,” Perry said. “You have files. Give me his. I'm going to find him. Dangerous or not. He stole my airship. And murdered two of Thirty-Second’s.”

  “I'll give you more than his file,” said Fleming. “I'll give you a partner.”

  Fleming pushed the phone buzzer on his desk.

  Captain Ahle, her hands cuffed in front of her now, came in, prodded by the aide named Moore, who held a sawn-off shotgun to the back of her neck.

  “Take a seat, Captain.”

  “Deputy Director Fleming,” said Ahle. “I've always wondered what your office looked like.”

  “Captain Ahle. Please, take a drink. You can hold a drink when handcuffed; I know from personal experience.”

  Ahle reached forward, picked the glass up with her handcuffed wrists, and took a long sip.

  “Captain Ahle, I'm going to dismiss my aides. May I first point out two things?” said Fleming. “One, there is nothing within two seconds’ reach of you that you might conceivably use as a weapon given your handcuffed state. Given that you are not a professional, I would say that there is nothing within four seconds’ reach of you.”

  “And the other thing?”

  “There is a loaded .45 within half a second’s reach of me. Connery, Moore, you may leave.”

  “So what do you want?” Ahle asked. Bitterly. “My crew is dead. My officers are in captivity. My presence isn't necessary for your gloating.”

  “Your presence is necessary,” said Fleming, “if you wish to earn your offi
cers’ lives. They are in our custody on charges of piracy. The evidence is compelling. We will find them guilty and they will hang. Unless.”

  Ahle was silent.

  “Whoever murdered your crew also took photographic reconnaisance of the Hugoton Lease,” said Fleming. “Our observers saw at least one kinematoscope. This was presumably the purpose of the flyover, and may have been the purpose of 4-106's theft. I also understand the theft may have been conducted by a high-level Russian field operative named Marko. Him, or someone actively trying to resemble him. The report of the knifework done on your crew implies it was him.”

  “Enemy of my enemy,” said Ahle.

  “Exactly. I have here a vice-commodore who does not know the scene, who had intended to go underground to hunt you. He is a first-rate line officer but not much else. I have a situation where I do not have men available, because I have been using intelligence assets as killers, and even then just barely holding even with the Russians. I have” – Fleming sipped his drink – “a pirate captain whose top confederates we could find guilty and hang. If we so chose. Should I so choose?”

  “I cooperate, and you don't hang my people,” Ahle said slowly. “That's not good enough. They're not going to rot in prison for the rest of their lives; that's as bad. I'll cooperate within limits if you give them pardons. And me.”

  “Agreed,” said Fleming.

  “You can't do it that easily.”

  Fleming pushed a sheaf of papers across the desk at Ahle. Perry glanced at them; they were carte-blanche pardons, ‘all crimes until this date’, signed by Governor Lloyd but no countersignature.

  What? They're going to pardon her?

  “I've done it,” said Fleming. “You're a two-bit pirate. With respect to Vice-Commodore Perry here and his personal irritation, you don't matter a damn relative to the man who killed your crew.”

  “You know the man who murdered my crew? Who is he?” Ahle demanded. “Let me loose and I'll rip his throat out." She paused for a moment. “And pardons for my officers, too, of course. And myself.”