Her Majesty's Western Service

by Leo Champion

  “Hold on,” said Richardson. “Texas may attack the United States. They’re not going to attack us. Russian backing or not, they’re not going to risk open war with the Empire.”

  “No, Flight Admiral,” said Fleming. “They are not. A Germanic mercenary unit called the Special Squadrons, which would have been hired or confirmed by the Russians quite recently, is going to do the dirty work of wiping out Hugoton itself. Or taking it; I imagine Russia’s motive behind this play is to take this Lease for themselves, and with it most of the world’s helium.”

  “Special Squadrons,” muttered Brigadier Henry. “I know of them. Light division-strength. They would – they would pose a threat. Except that Richardson’s squadrons should chop them to shreds.”

  “Richardson’s squadrons would have their own problems,” said Fleming. “The Russians would have hired air support; mercenaries, possibly even the Armadillos – those guys switched contract to someone unspecified about a month ago, and this is big enough for Trotsky to have hired the best. The Squadrons will be covered when they attack us, I can assure you.”

  “You’re serious,” said the Governor. Slowly he tapped tobacco into his pipe, lit it. Nobody objected to the pungent smell. Nobody spoke as Governor Lloyd slowly inhaled, then exhaled a cloud of smoke in Fleming’s direction.

  “You have evidence that can back this theory,” he said finally.

  “Yes sir,” said Fleming patiently. “This is the conclusion I’ve drawn from that evidence.”

  “That the Russians have forged an alliance with Texas, that Texas is gearing up – as we speak, you say – for an invasion of the Plains that will give them everything between Deseret and the Mississippi, as far north as Canada. And Hugoton, through this mercenary unit you’ve mentioned. These units.”

  “Their biggest power play in a generation,” Fleming repeated.

  “Very well, Deputy Director. I trust you’ve notified Denver and Washington of this.”

  “Forty-five minutes ago, sir. I’ve also prepared messages to Edmonton, St. John’s and Nassau, urgently requesting reinforcements. Give the word and they’ll be on their way.”

  “Do it.”

  “I have an idea of our strengths in the Caribbean and Canada,” said Richardson. “And their readiness. Flight Admiral Lubbock and Vice-Marshal Henshaw are stretched thin as it is. It’ll be days before they can send meaningful reinforcements, and more days for those to arrive.”

  More long moments of silence.

  “I’m not sure which is worse,” said the Governor’s aide, Buff. “Losing Hugoton, or the Yanks losing their West. That would cripple them. Reduce them to a third-rate power, if they went on to lose the South. A few Northeastern and Midwestern states, an independent Confederacy that I’m sure the Russians would back…”

  Fleming nodded.

  “Leon Trotsky has his flaws, I’m sure. He’s never to my knowledge lacked ambition in his plans. And this one…”

  “This one seems foolproof,” said the Governor.

  Fleming slowly shook his head.

  “Sir, I have a solution to the invasion. Trotsky will still win, but a substantively lesser victory. We can save the Yanks, at least.”

  “Explain it.”

  “Texas is not under any circumstances prepared to engage Imperial troops directly,” Fleming said. “As it stands, they can accomplish this by simply avoiding Hugoton and letting the deniable mercenaries do their work. We have the time – we may have the time – to make the invasion impossible for them.”

  “How, Deputy Director?” asked Brigadier Henry.

  “You’re not going to like this, Brigadier.”

  “I don’t like any of this, Deputy Director. What are you proposing?”

  “Get to the point, Fleming,” ordered the Governor.

  “We have – the Yanks have – good and sufficient railways along the Texas border. We take the Hugoton garrison units and disperse them along the border. Visibly. Right now. A platoon here, a troop there, an airship over there. There will be no point along the United States border with Texas that the Texans will be able to breach without engaging Imperial troops. We inform the Texans of this, and make it clear that if they do engage, it will mean all-out war with the British Empire.”

  “We’d bury them and they know it, Russian logistics or not,” said the Governor.

  “That’s a gamble,” said Richardson. “And you’re omitting a critical point here, aren’t you, Fleming?”

  “No, Flight Admiral, I am not,” said Fleming. “I’m perfectly aware that this response would by necessity strip Hugoton of almost all its defenses. We might otherwise have been able to defend the place. We’re going to have to sacrifice the Lease.”

  Fleming had actually expected the room to explode in shouting, at this point. The silence unnerved him for a moment and he stepped it into it himself.

  “Trotsky would have foreseen this response of ours,” he said. “Either way, he wins something big.”

  “Give the movement orders,” the Governor said. “I hate this. We’re sacrificing Hugoton; even if we keep the territory, it will take years to rebuild the wells and the facilities.”

  “Which the Russians are counting on, yes. Besides, Lord Governor?”

  “Yes?”

  “I have a few field agents left,” said Fleming. “Including” – a nod to Richardson – “your Vice-Commodore and his pirate. It’s distinctly possible – it’s happened before – that one of them might produce some kind of a miracle.”

  The Governor of the Hugoton Lease steepled his fingers.

  “Then let’s just bloody well hope one of them does, then.”

  Perry had slept uneasily and was having an early breakfast with Ahle and Rafferty, in Ahle’s apartment, when the knock came at the door. It was a two-feathered Lakota sergeant.

  “Yes?” Ahle asked.

  “Captain, Vice-Commodore? Joseph Kennedy, Jr. will see you. Right now.”

  The Red Ruby Robber touched down at Red Cloud early that morning, receiving a berth and paying the landing fees.

  “We’ve got another loose end to tie off,” Marko had explained on the way. “Wipe out a potential problem before it can arise.”

  “Someone we get to kill?” Rienzi asked eagerly.

  “Someone I get to kill. Judd don’t need to know about it. He’s got orders to lift fast and hard the moment I’m back. You three stay aboard the ship.”

  “You mind if I ask who?” McIlhan asked.

  “You three ain’t leaving the ship,” Marko repeated, “but you may as well know. But Judd and his crew don’t need to, clear? Ever heard of the Kennedys?”

  Grinning, Marko raised the sniper rifle.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ARMADILLOS RETURN TO ACTION

  The legendary mercenary unit Cordova’s Armadillos, who saved our skies over Alberquerque during the Second Sonoran War, are reportedly under new contract.

  “We found another employer who’ll pay a hell of a lot more for just one job,” said a crewman of the Vorpal, who refused to be named. “Maybe after that we’ll go back to Texan employ. Maybe not.”

  “Been too long since we’ve heard gunfire off of a sound stage,” corroborated an officer on the Dread Wyvern, who again refused to be named.

  While their departure is to be missed, the elite airship squadron’s action is only to be understood: units of their grade can’t be reasonably expected to endure peacetime conditions indefinitely.

  Without a doubt, when their adopted home needs them again, they will answer our call.

  For the time being, the identity of their new employer remains unknown… but we are sure the seven Armadillos will carve their name as much into that employer’s legend as they have ours…

  Editorial News section, Houston Chronicle. February, 1963.

  Marko had been to Red Cloud before and knew his way around. More to the point, Okhrana intelligence had apprised him of the Kennedys’ routines. The younger sons were less pred
ictable – John Francis, especially, as head of the family’s intelligence and covert operations, traveled around a lot and might have been anywhere at any time – but reliable intelligence, as relayed in the orders, gave him a good idea of the pirate king’s behavior.

  Joseph Kennedy and his crown prince, Joe Jr., rarely left the Black Hills these days; it was the administrative center of their operations and it wouldn’t do for the big bosses to be too far from it.

  For the most part, they ran things from the legendary underground fortress called the Black House, but they found it politically convenient to circulate every so-often, usually midday, usually around the Liberation Park area in the center of Red Cloud. There were taverns and an open fencing market there, and the Kennedy father and son seemed to spend an hour or so a day circulating there, shaking hands and slapping backs.

  Typical fucking politicians, thought Marko, heading that way.

  I’ll enjoy killing them.

  “You’ll enjoy meeting them,” Ahle was saying, as she, Perry and – he’d insistently tagged along and the Lakota hadn’t stopped him yet – Rafferty rode in a well-escorted steam-car toward Liberation Park, at the center of the Red Cloud business district.

  As well as the Lakota sergeant who’d come to their front door, there was a lightly-armored combat vehicle that led the way, and six horsemen riding alongside and behind them. Perry couldn’t be sure whether the excessive security was respect or paranoia; are we especially honored guests, or not-yet-declared prisoners?

  Ahle didn’t seem worried. Rafferty was thrilled.

  “We’re actually going to see the fucking Kennedys!” he was saying. “In the Black Hills. Ducks and Vidkowski aren’t gonna believe me when I tell `em about this shit!”

  Perry couldn’t resist the snipe: “Vidkowski is a good airshipman who obeys orders, Specialist Third.”

  Rafferty grinned and shrugged.

  “Vidkowski never has any fun. His idea of it is attending a church service or something.”

  “While your idea of fun involves a splitting hangover the next morning, Specialist?” Ahle asked.

  Rafferty shrugged again. “Just part of the price. By the way, cap’n, get started early?” He offered a flask.

  “Don’t mind if I do, Specialist,” she said, taking a sip. “Not bad rum. Where’d you get it – thought you ran out last night.”

  “One of Nolan’s engineers. Turns out she couldn’t play poker worth a damn,” Rafferty grinned. “Vice, you up for something to take the edge off?”

  “I’d order you to stop drinking if I could,” Perry growled.

  “Fair enough, boss, but you know you can trust me not to get too impaired when there might be action imminent. How about you, two-feather?” – a gesture at the Lakota sergeant driving the steam-car.

  “Catch me in ten hours, Imperial,” the sergeant said without turning around.

  “Oh yeah? Where?”

  “Buckner’s. First three are on you.”

  “Holy shit,” Rafferty exalted. “First five if you insist. I’ll drink with Lakota pirate studs any day!”

  “Hold a sec,” said the driver coldly. “I’m no pirate. Let’s make that clear.”

  Rafferty spread his hands.

  “Sorry, man.”

  “I am a sergeant of the Lakota Nation. I am not a pirate. There is a distinction.”

  “Which they take seriously,” Ahle added. “Rafferty, apologize more seriously to the honorable sergeant of the sovereign Lakota Nation.”

  “Sorry for the misunderstanding, sergeant,” said Rafferty a little more seriously. “Honorable sergeant, if that’s what you like.”

  “Apology accepted, Imperial. The invitation’s still open if you’re interested and available, but I don’t drink on duty. Should you?”

  Rafferty moved to take another swig from the flask. Perry slapped it down.

  “Put that back where it came from, Specialist.”

  “And here we are,” said the driver, outside a single-storey building that looked like it might have been carved from obsidian. Perry guessed that much of it was underground, like so much of the rest of Red Cloud seemed to be. “Welcome to the Black House.”

  There were two layers of security, one at the entrance – where Perry, Ahle and, since nobody seemed to be stopping him, Rafferty, were frisked before being allowed onto a slow elevator with three rifle-toting guards in plain khaki and the same Lakota sergeant who’d knocked on Ahle’s door and driven them here.

  Perry couldn’t tell how far underground they were – it might have been twenty feet or a hundred – when the slow elevator opened. More well-armed men in khaki – uniforms, Perry supposed – stood waiting for them.

  “A more detailed search, Captain. Vice-Commodore. And” – to Rafferty – “who the hell are you?”

  “Specialist Third Rafferty, mate. Of the Imperial Air Service.”

  “My bodyguard,” Perry explained.

  “You’re under the security of the Kennedy organization here,” said the senior man, who was clean-shaven, heavily moustached and forty-ish. “Your bodyguard can wait outside.”

  “Mate-” Rafferty began.

  “He’s with me,” something made Perry say. Assuming his old tone of command; I am a Vice-Commodore of the Imperial Air Service! “He comes with me.”

  The senior man paused for a moment.

  “He’s a good man,” said Ahle, to Perry’s surprise. “It won’t hurt anyone, and it’ll make the Vice more comfortable, if he comes in.”

  “You’re personally vouching for him, Cap’n Ahle?”

  Ahle nodded. “Yes. I will.”

  “Very well; you can come in. Imperial officer, you first.”

  “Just go with it,” Ahle hissed.

  Not that he’d ever met Her Majesty Victoria the Second himself, in person, but he’d heard stories about the security that even respected Imperial officers had to go through before doing so. From what he’d heard, this was worse.

  The serious men in khaki had him remove his coat, boots and – saying something about how it contained metal – belt. They took the .40 from his shoulder-holster with a noise about how they’d return it when he was done. The knife from his right boot. His wristwatch, his wallet and the locket with Annabelle’s portrait that he wore around his neck.

  Then they ran him through a magnetograph, a new piece of technology – only recently introduced to Buckingham Palace, and Perry was surprised they had one here in the Black Hills – just to make sure. It rang, a small bell.

  “Got any coins, Vice?” one of them asked.

  Perry checked his pockets and found about a dollar’s worth of small change in one of them. Meanwhile, another man was – intrusively! None of his business! – examining the contents of his wallet.

  “You’ll have them back with your weapons,” the man said, taking Perry’s coins. “Now, please step back through the machine and then put your hands above your head.”

  What followed was a comprehensive frisking, the pirate king’s men making absolutely certain Perry wasn’t carrying a – wooden or ceramic? – blade on him.

  Then, having inspected his boots and belt, those were returned to him.

  “You can go through,” said the man in charge. “Fly on; the boss is ready.”

  Jeez, thought Perry. Imagine a world in which people do have to go through this before they fly.

  At least Ahle and Rafferty had to go through the same indignity, Rafferty growling as the men confiscated not just an – illicit! – pistol from him, but three knives and two flasks. Ahle was carrying a pair of guns herself, plus a flask and more than one knife, but seemed to take the indignity in stride.

  “Very well. Ms. Lincoln will see you now,” said the chief guard.

  Not a Kennedy personally?

  The guard saw Perry’s look.

  “Their private secretary. You’ve been admitted. Now wait.”

  It was only a few minutes, sitting in a comfortable waiting room with mor
e of the Kennedys’ khaki-clad personal security watching them – but yesterday’s editions of the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe available for the reading.

  If that was a gesture of power, thought Perry, it was one. To get those would have required an airship to steam through the night, daily, just to bring those editions. But he resisted the urge to actually look at them; that might have implied weakness in front of the stern-faced, black-haired woman who was apparently the Kennedys’ personal secretary.

  Ahle seemed impassive, as though she’d been through this procedure a few times before. Perhaps – probably – she had. Rafferty couldn’t stop grinning, to the point where Perry saw fit to give him a sharp backhanded slap on the thigh.

  “Knock it off. This is serious.”

  “Yessir,” said Rafferty, and at least wiped the grin off his face.

  “You’re my bodyguard,” Perry snarled in a harsh whisper. “Act like it.”

  “Boss, there’s the guard you can see, and there’s another one in that slit up there; mirrors and magnification most likely.”

  What guy?, Perry wondered and looked up. There was a small slit in the ceiling, which he hadn’t noticed before. Could well have been magnified mirrors through it.

  OK, so the insolent fucker is smarter than I gave him credit for. Not that I thought he was dumb.

  “Keep that up,” Perry replied in the same low whisper, “and I may just allow you those drinks with the Lakota sergeant.”

  “Right now you’re payin’ for `em, sir.”

  Perry fought to control a smile. What could you do with cases like this man?

  “Maybe I will, if you get the chance.”

  Intelligence out of the Black Hills had to be worth something, right?

  The stern-faced woman looked up from her board.