Her Majesty's Western Service

by Leo Champion

  “I don’t think I made myself understood, Thirty-First Squadron. I am specifically prohibiting speculative discussion regarding your former squadron commander. Is that understood?”

  Much louder: “Yes, ma’am. Understood, ma’am.”

  “Specific prohibitions my ass,” Rafferty said to Duckworth at lunch in the enlisted mess. The two were off by themselves in a booth, half-eaten corned beef sandwiches in front of them.

  Duckworth took another bite of his and thoughtfully chewed it.

  “Men crack, Raff.”

  “Not that one. I was with him on that pirate ship. He’s a spy, I’m a fuckin’ Lud bomber. Don’t have the skills to. May be a fine airship commander, but he just don’t have the jack skills to do what they say he is.”

  “Hush up, Raff,” said Duckworth. “You heard what the hag lady told the officers this morning. Offence even to discuss it.”

  “And how about that for a sign? Don’t tell you it’s a crime to discuss a regular bust-up, do they?”

  “Rafferty,” said Vidkowski, sitting down with a plate, “shut up. You don’t know the hag lady. I’ve been in her division for years. Don’t fuck with her. Don’t even think about fucking with her. Shut up.”

  “Bullshit,” said Rafferty.

  “Rafferty.” Vidkowski’s voice was raised. “Shut. Up. And that’s an order.”

  Rafferty’s mouth curled in a snarl.

  “Yes sir, Admiral fucking Vidkowski. Since when did you become such a straight-edger?”

  “I don’t want to see you on the third floor,” Vidkowski said. He lowered his voice. “Of course something’s fucking going on. Do you think the rest of us don’t know it, too? We don’t talk about it. We pretend that what the hag lady wants us to believe is true. Fake it and keep your fuckin’ yap shut when drunk. Understand?”

  “Yes sir,” said Rafferty with a bit less malice. Thinking.

  “He’s what?” Annabelle Perry asked the MP lieutenant at around the same time. He’d come into her firm’s offices with a submachinegun-armed squad of Air Marines, throwing the entire operation – outside a couple of executives who’d come up from field mining operations and were taking the entire thing in full stride – into complete disruption. ‘Duke’ Marion, the CEO, was standing by impassively.

  “Yes, ma’am. Your husband has taken off with a pirate and is now a wanted fugitive. On orders from the Governor of Hugoton Lease, you and your children are being taken into protective custody.”

  “You can’t just take my second-ranking financial away like that,” Marion objected. He was a big man of fifty-five, a self-made company founder who’d started as a prospector and then a miner, and wasn’t ready to take shit from any kid lieutenant. “In case you haven’t been informed, Lieutenant, the city of Denver – the State of Colorado – is not the Hugoton Lease. You have no jurisdiction here.”

  “Staff Sergeant Kawa?” the lieutenant said.

  A man with stripes on his arms produced a document from a folder.

  “The Colorado State Rangers do have jurisdiction here,” the lieutenant said. “This warrant authorizes the operation. Would you like me to put you on the line to the man who signed this, Mr. Morrison?”

  Marion looked at the warrant and snarled.

  “I know Colonel Taylor.”

  “You can’t just – what happened? It doesn’t make any sense!”

  “Ma’am, my orders come directly from the Governor,” said the lieutenant. “Your children are presently being taken from school. Now, if you’d come with us to Stapleton?”

  This is insane. Marcus can’t have done this. Can’t have.

  Not hurt. Too shocked and confused to be hurt. Yet. Maybe there’d be pain later. For now, Annabelle told herself, just go with it. Do what the nice man says.

  “You can’t give me any explanation at all?”

  “I could use an explanation, too,” said Marion.

  “I don’t know any more than what I’ve told your associate CFO, Mr. Morrison,” said the MP lieutenant. “Now, Ms. Perry, the ship is waiting for us.”

  At Stapleton, Annabelle met the two children, who’d been taken straight out of school. They weren’t upset; they were military children, used to the uniform and to obeying orders. For them it was an exciting adventure with an airship ride.

  “Wow,” said ten-year-old Ernest, looking at the ship they were about to board. MPs had come by their apartment as well, packed clothing. “That’s a warship! An escort-class warship! Is Daddy on it?”

  Annabelle thought for a moment. How much to reveal to them? The MPs apparently hadn’t said anything.

  “Daddy’s going to be away for a while,” she said.

  “We’re not going to see him at Hugoton?” Ernest asked.

  And why are we being taken to Hugoton in the first place? Protective custody just doesn’t make sense.

  But the highest-ranking officer they’d seen so far was the lieutenant XO’ing the ship, which – Annabelle had been around her husband’s service long enough to know – was a streamlined escort-class, built for speed and not fighting capability. She had the feeling it was a very high-level taxi. With the exception of a pair of scout-classes being refueled, it was the only Service ship at Stapleton,which was unusual as well; escort-classes normally operated in two-ship flights.

  What is going on?

  She didn’t believe the story about Marcus falling in love with a pirate and running off with her, not for a moment. They’d been married twelve years, known each other for fifteen, and Perry simply wasn’t that type. It didn’t make the slightest bit of sense, which meant that something else had to be going on.

  The lieutenant clearly didn’t know; he was your typical Army MP who saw his job as being to obey orders, not think about them too much. Maybe they’d find out at Hugoton.

  She hoped.

  “If you’ll come along and board, ma’am,” said the lieutenant. “We’ll be at Hugoton by six.”

  The train had been going all night and all day, and on into the next night, stopping only briefly to onload more coal and water, perhaps to change crews. They crossed sparse Kansas plains, occasionally seeing airships, once a flight of Service vessels and, another time, a low-flying Federal escort-class, the whole of it painted a bright Union blue, prominent stripes and stars so big he could count all thirty-four of them.

  Egotistical, aren’t we?, he thought, not for the first time, as the boxcar trembled along. They were maintaining a steady pace that amounted to about thirty miles an hour, through territory that had been slowly growing more developed and civilized. Of course, this was the Texas border, most definitely a hostile border, and the railway line to Hugoton was under Imperial protection.

  Thirty-four stars, of which Texas was most definitely not one. Neither were the seven Western states of Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado, although the Federals had enough of a presence in that last one.

  Sonora and Deseret were respectable countries but not especially hostile; Sonora was dynamic and ambitious, but her ambitions lay more to her north than her east; she’d gobbled up southern California a few years ago – Ahle had been involved in that, hadn’t she? – and everyone expected her to move north when she’d finished assimilating that, probably war with the Free City of San Francisco before long. Deseret had military strength and was no friend of Sonora, but the Mormons were insular to the point of paranoia, not even trading very much with outsiders.

  Still, Federal authority maintained a claim over the entire state of Colorado, and in practice that claim was respected only so far as the Department of the West had the troops to enforce it. Nobody but pirates contested the rest of the West.

  More troops here, down along the Texas border. Texas had successfully seceded during the Collapse; there’d been a short war over it in the early `20s, which the Empire had negotiated an end to in what Parliament had called the Southern Compromise. Washington could stomp on the rest of the South all it wanted �
�� at best a very limited respect for the absolute-right-of-self-determination Curzon Doctrine, for diplomatic reasons – but Texas would go free.

  Washington had eventually come to accept the deal – the same negotiations had given the Empire the Hugoton Lease, and Washington a huge stack of money with which to fund its Reconstruction of the South – but the results had included a steady stream of disaffected, pissed-off Southerners emigrating to Texas.

  In theory, that was supposed to be an outlet. But London hadn’t considered how strongly these people would still consider themselves to be Southern. Texas didn’t have the military strength to be a real threat to the United States, but they certainly had the motivation to be a prickly-bad neighbor.

  Not my problem, Perry thought, as the train rumbled on through the darkness. He’d eaten earlier – Fleming had included a couple days’ worth of ration tins – and now he lay back on a pile of the cardboard boxes and attempted to sleep.

  I broke the law. God knows what the squadron’s going to think.

  God knows what Annabelle is going to think. Dear God.

  The sleep didn’t come easily.

  Ferrer woke from an uneasy sleep to a bad feeling. Marko was standing over him in the darkness, a knife in his hand.

  Is he going to kill me? was Ferrer’s thought. His role was almost done, wasn’t it, and it would save the Russians the price of a nice farm if Marko simply cut his throat. Perhaps he knew too much anyway. Fear slipped through him.

  “They’re coming,” said Marko. “Get the speelies ready.”

  Ferrer got to his feet, pulled his boots on. They’d been waiting all night – did Marko ever sleep? – but now a small dirigible was coming into sight; a sleek, streamlined vessel that couldn’t have been more than a hundred yards long, flying very low up the narrow canyon. Just the shape of it; no headlights, no running lights, navigating by moonlight. Double fins; maneuverable as well as sleek.

  It slowed as it approached the small campsite, and for a moment a blazing searchlight stabbed out from the bridge, covering the three men. Rienzi moved his hand across his pistol menacingly, feeling threatened, and Marko backslapped him hard across the face.

  A rope dropped, and three men rappelled the fifteen or so feet down to the ground. They approached the campsite, one of them carrying a briefcase. They wore civilian clothing, but Ferrer could tell from their bearings that at least two of them were military.

  “Mr. Skorzeny,” said Marko to one of the military types. “I’ve heard about you.”

  “I’ve heard about you, too, Marko,” said that man in a Germanic accent. He was sixtyish, with a prominent scar dividing the right side of his face. “Do you have the tactical information?”

  “We have it. Maps and scopes. And a little bonus.”

  “Hugoton,” mused the other man with a military bearing. Lean and rangy, and his accent was clear Texas. “Skorzeny’s coming back to Houston with me.” A head-gesture at the third man, who held the briefcase. “The Third Department could use copies as well. Just for general reference.”

  The Third Department. Ferrer had heard whispers of those guys; an intelligence service that rivaled the Okhrana, reporting directly to Count Leon and the Tsar. Smaller than the Okhrana, but feared more.

  “The Third Department,” said Marko. Thinking. Musing. He smiled. “Very good. Tell the Count well played.”

  “I’ll tell him directly,” said the agent. “He’s in Houston for the final negotiations. He sends his regards, by the way.”

  Marko turned to Ferrer. “The recordings.”

  “Yessir.” Ferrer stepped forward with the case.

  The man from the Third Department stepped forward, and they exchanged briefcases. Skorzeny and the Texan watched coldly. The case Ferrer took was smaller and much lighter than the one containing the kinematograph tapes of the Hugoton reconnaissance.

  “Your orders are in there,” the Third Department man told Marko. “As well as more money, should you need it.”

  “You should know that I have an Imperial line-class,” said Marko. “The Denny-Neuvoldt type. Crewed by a bunch of trash, and the Imperials know it’s in unfriendly hands. The specifications as I’ve been able to gather are in there, too.”

  “Specifications for the Denny-Neuvoldt. I don’t think we have those,” said the man from the Third Department.

  “We heard about your little overflight,” said the Texan. “Killed a couple of them, didn’t you?”

  Hugoton bordered Texas, and there was a respectably-sized Texan garrison in Fort Guymon, on the Texan border just to the south of the Lease.

  “Only a couple,” said Marko. “Plenty of fun left for you guys.”

  “Plenty of fun for you to have, too,” said the Third Department man. “See the new orders. We’re scheduled to move into final execution two weeks from now. You’re going to be busy.”

  Behind them, the dark, streamlined scout-class lowered. The Texan, the man from the Third Department and the Germanic named Skorzeny turned their backs and headed back to the gondola, from which a staircase had dropped.

  There was excited fire in Marko’s eyes, and a new vibrancy to his movement, when he turned to look at Ferrer.

  “The Third Department,” he said. A wicked smile on his face. “It was the Third Department. You know, I really didn’t think the Count was that ruthless.”

  “What do you mean?” Ferrer asked.

  Marko’s eyes glinted in a way that Ferrer had found exciting before, but that was before the killing, before he’d personally seen Marko cut the throats of fifty sleeping men with the enthusiasm of a young child. Now a shiver of fear went down him.

  “Oh, you probably don’t want to know. Not if you want to retire and enjoy your ten thousand pounds. But there are some clever men afoot here, engineer.”

  “And some more killing yet to be done, I hope,” said Rienzi. “Only got to notch it three times so far this operation.”

  Punk, thought Ferrer. A third-rate engineer and a bloodthirsty goddamned punk to boot. Marko was fear and respect, but Rienzi was nothing but disdain and contempt. How the kid had ever gotten into MIT to begin with...

  “Oh, there’ll be a lot more killing before we’re all done.” Marko’s broken-toothed mouth spread in a wide, wide smile. “We’ll see what the orders say next, but I can assure you they’ll involve a lot more killing. Now, shall we get back to that beautiful ship we’ve borrowed?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Name: Special Squadrons

  Founder: Heinrich Himmler, 1933

  Type: Armor/mechanized

  Present station: Western Missouri (since 1959)

  Strength: 14,000, including 230 tanks and approximately 600 other combat vehicles. Quasi-independent logistically.

  Notable accomplishments: Successful suppression of Raleigh-Wake Forest area in 1944 secessionist insurgency. Continuous operations suppressing insurgencies in Missouri since 1949.

  Overview: The Special Squadrons, an almost entirely Germanic unit, is one of the larger mercenary units on longstanding contract in the Southern States. They have a record of zealous accomplishment; some, including more liberal New England and Midwestern Congressmen, have in fact accused them of being overzealous.

  It has been the consistent position of successive Administrations, however, that there is no such thing as over-zealous when it comes to retaining our hard-won victory in the Civil War, and the Squadrons are considered a valued addition to our strength there.

  From the Federal Registry of Foreign Auxiliaries, Washington DC, 1962.

  In the first half-hour of the morning, clear light and a chill, the train rumbled slowly into a railyard that Ahle identified as St. Louis.

  “You know the place on sight?” Perry asked.

  “Hardly the first time I’ve been on a train. But I don’t know the city. We’re going to have to ask directions to your place. Come on, and be careful. Rolling stock can kill you without noticing.”

  The train hadn’t
stopped moving – maybe it wasn’t going to, just slowing down – when Ahle bailed out, landing on her feet between two sets of tracks. Perry was an experienced airshipman and therefore agile, but he stumbled a bit on the hard rocks.

  “This way. When we get there, keep your mouth shut and be polite. We need these people.”

  “What people?”

  “Just come on.”

  Ahle led Perry across one set of tracks then another, until their way was blocked by a stationary train, a long line of oilers that might or might not have come out of Hugoton. She paused for a moment and then climbed over the back of one, Perry following. That led to a couple more lines of tracks. Perry froze as they saw a yard worker signaling with a pair of flags to someone further up the line, but the yard worker – who clearly saw them – didn’t appear to give a damn. Around another line of flatcars, and over to a chain-link fence. On the other side was scrubby light forest.

  “Always a hole in these things somewhere,” Ahle explained, turning right along the fence. “It’ll lead to a jungle.”

  “Why’d that guy ignore us?”

  “Line workers are just grunts. Don’t care either way about the hobos.”

  Indiscipline, thought Perry. No wonder that man was still a grunt at the bottom of the food chain. But he was a part of this world now, at least temporarily.

  Get 4-106 back. Redeem myself. Everything else had to be secondary to that. Including trusting this damn pirate.

  Still. She was behaving herself, and Perry had to figure she had her own code of ethics. The Code might have been PR-driven malarkey or a power play on the part of the legendary, apparently-invulnerable Joseph Kennedy, but it was also a code of ethics of sorts, that he supposed some people might adhere to. She had reason to be trusted; from her perspective, she was avenging the death of her crew and saving her officers. He’d have done the same.

  Except that I work for the law. I live by the law.

  Yeah, which made present circumstances all the more difficult. He’d told the Service that he was prepared to give his life, but his honor? If he failed, if he lost, he’d be remembered not as a man doing his duty, manipulated by a bastard spymaster into risking it all, but as a fugitive and a traitor. Annabelle would know the truth, but who else would? What would his parents, retired in Bournemouth, think? What would his friends from the Academy think? The officers and warrants of the squadron he hoped would still somehow be his when he returned?