by Leo Champion
The Vice-Commodore explained what it was. Jones’ grin became a massive one.
“Any questions?”
“No sir.”
“Dismissed. You’ll be ready to drop in five minutes. Any problem with that?”
“Gung ho, sir!”
“Deputy Rig Officer Brown’s dead, ma’am,” came the damage report to Captain Meier. “And they’ve closed to within half a mile.”
Something shook; the Pith and Vinegar began to slowly turn to port. The bridge damage officer turned, shouted something into his radio.
Meier didn’t need to hear the response; it was obvious they’d just taken a bad hit on the steering.
Fleeing wasn’t going to work any more. At least they were away from the flames, getting over the eastern Dodge cattle districts. Below them were pens and abbatoirs, not refineries.
And the Imperials had just made her decision for her, forcing her to cross their T. Really, there were worse positions to be in.
“Port-side missileers load and engage. They caught us; let’s see if they can swallow us.”
“They’re turning to fight,” Martindale reported. “I estimate them at eleven hundred yards.”
That was close, for the huge airships. Definite pistol range, if not the sword range you often got. Of course, leapfrogging the Five Speed had been point-blank.
“Turn to starboard ourselves,” Perry said after a moment. The port side had taken more damage. “Let’s take them down.”
“Oh, and sir? We’re about to be over the cattle yards. Release the Marines?”
“Tell Jones they can jump any time.”
Missiles lanced from 4-106, blasting out at the enemy airship as Jones jumped, his men behind him - free fall in light kit, just a combat load augmented by some electrical guns from the ship armory they’d been told would come in handy for this mission.
The wind was coming from the south, not the west; only some of the massive smoke from the burning oil district was around here, but the fires were clearly spreading and there was more of a wood smell to the smoke than there had been.
Jones had goggles, didn’t care.
Freefall, loving every moment of it. A glance up showed missiles blasting across the enemy ship, who’d had the class to turn and fight like a real airshipman did - and Jones had been there, only as a passenger but still - he’d have a tale to tell his mates in the O-Club about that leapfrogging maneuver the Vice had pulled on the other ship.
Focused down again, on the cattleyards that filled the eastern part of Dodge. Sheds, pens and slaughterhouses, and the cattle seemed agitated; they could smell the wind.
At two thousand feet he hit the ripcord, his parachute opening. His other lads had done so earlier, as they were supposed to; he wanted more precision himself.
He selected a rooftop himself, corrugated iron above what might have been a cowboy bar or something. Brought up his legs as it drew closer, closer - flat square rooftop, then a three-storey drop, but if the other side of the building was anything like the one he was on, there’d be a balcony to break his fall.
Impact! He curled into a roll across the cool iron of the rooftop, turning vertical motion into horizontal. Knife came out of its sheath like he’d practiced a thousand times; cutting the cords, rolling, spreading his leg out, stopped the roll with a good two and a half feet to spare on the balcony.
And the muzzle of a gun less than a foot from his face, was the next thing Jones noted.
Carefully he raised his hands, looking past the muzzle of the gun to see that it was a revolver held by a hard-faced man in a cowboy hat who’d come up a ladder from the balcony.
“You’re trespassing,” the cowboy said.
“Terribly sorry,” said Jones.
“Keep one of your hands where I can see it. Have the other one drop that battle kit with your rifle. We got a dozen armed men in here, including Deputy Colson. He’ll take you into custody un-til such time as the Imperials can exercise their pre-rog-a-tive and take you fuckers in for trial.”
“Hold up a moment. You think I’m one of those fuckin’ mercs?”
The cowboy grinned.
“Imperials look to be winning that fight up there, don’t they? Don’t see them jumping.”
Jones glanced up at the battle, which had moved northeast a bit with the wind. As he watched, 4-106 took another couple of hits, pieces of something flying off. But the purple merc - that one was definitely taking the worst of it, burning in a couple of places - another geyser of flame bloomed as he watched, ant-like riggers running to take care of it.
“Imperials always win,” said Jones. “And you don’t recognize my uniform, do you?”
“Ain’t Imperial Army or Air Service.”
“Imperial Marines, cowboy. Gung ho Marines, and we got a job to do we could use a few cowboys to help us with…”
A couple of minutes later, Jones was in the common room of the cowboy bar whose roof he’d landed on, holding a glass of cold beer he had no intention of drinking, while three dozen cowboys - and a sheriff’s deputy - listened.
“Of course, we’ll find some way of compensating the owners for the cattle,” said Jones.
“All these ones are branded,” said an older cowboy. “So you want us to start a stampede?”
A couple of Jones’ men had found their way into the bar, were standing at the edge of the crowd with weapons ready.
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“These beef are spooked already, with all the fire happening. Getting `em going won’t be hard,” said the older cowboy. “The question is, why?”
“You,” Jones pointed at the cowboy who’d initially tried to arrest him. “When you were up on the roof, you see any smoke coming from the east? Dust, rather?”
“Some big cattle drive,” said the cowboy. Thinking for a moment. “Big one.”
“Not cattle,” said Jones. “That’s an armored division coming to finish the job those mercenaries started, and then go on to wreck Hugoton. That’s hundreds of armored vehicles on the way.”
The room exploded in shouting; they hadn’t heard? was Jones’ thought.
“So our job is to stop them. Vice Perry up there is getting ready to fight their air support, and word is that there might be some assistance coming from the ground, too.” Jones didn’t consider it wise to mention that the assistance would come from pirates, who were an ongoing cattle-rustling nuisance to the ranchers.
“Down here, we’re thinking that a few ten-thousand cattle stampeding into their faces might slow `em down a little as well,” Jones went on.
“And your Governor, he’ll pay market price for any we lose?” said the older cowboy. “Count the double-Bar L crew in!”
About half the men in the bar agreed and nodded.
“You know how to ride a horse, Lieutenant? Rounding the cattle and steering `em west is going to work a hell of a lot better if you do.”
“Played polo at Eton,” said Jones happily.
“Then we’ll saddle you up.” The double-Bar L rancher turned to the others in the common room. “Boys, let’s get this stampede started!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
…progress through a United Kingdom that had only bitterly been given up in the late 1880s was rapid, more so than expected once the initial hurdles had been overcome, as many of the impoverished residents of the former Communes happily re-pledged their allegiance to legitimate rule.
The Provisional Government of the Irish Free State declared its membership of the Restored Empire in early March of 1909, subject to full and equal treatment and an acknowledgement of Catholic legitimacy. This was confirmed by an overwhelming margin in a general plebescite a year later.
The last serious resistance to the Restoration ended on March 22nd, 1909, when the Allied Midlands Communal Council surrendered. Its chairman, revolutionary general and one-time technofiction writer Herbert George Wells, disappeared and is believed to have been killed in the last of the bitter fighting for t
he industrial cities…
But the forces of the Restored Empire always have excelled in tough fights, and continue to as of this day…
From A Young Person’s History of The World, Volume X.
Perry didn’t bother to watch the burning Pith and Vinegar crash; his scope was pointed across the plains to the east, and at the leading-element armored cars that were starting to become visible. Three airships, side by side, flew above them as the beaten and battered 4-106 slowly turned to face east. A smaller fourth one flew much higher above the center of it.
“Sir, we have time to land just briefly?” Martindale asked. “We could really stand to make some field repairs.”
“I don’t think we have time,” said Perry slowly. “In your opinion, Lieutenant-Commander - could we do much in ten minutes?”
Martindale thought for a moment.
“I doubt it, sir. Nothing the riggers aren’t already doing.”
“Then we’ll stay up. Helm, keep the eastern heading and accelerate us to half speed.”
“Aye,” said Ahle. A minute later: “We’ve definitely taken damage. Handling’s not bad, but it’s not what it was before the fight.”
“And what a fight!” said Swarovski. “Four of the Armadillos! We killed four of the Armadillos!”
Perry allowed himself a smile.
“Duty and service, Weapons. Honor and reason. They trump grasping arrogance any day.”
“You think we’ll have to take on the other three?”
“We’re going to kill the SS first,” said Ahle, grinning. “Only got to do that in dribs and drabs before. Now there’s all of them coming right to us.”
“Flashing us,” Nolan reported. Yes, flashes visible from the center of the airships above the SS. In the foreground, groups of shapes, three thousand feet below and only a couple of miles out, were sharpening into individual vehicles; armored cars and steam-trucks, throwing their own plumes of dust. Behind them fighting vehicles, tanks, self-propelled artillery, ordered in four loose formations across a front maybe four miles wide, a command battalion at the center of it. They were starting to split, the command battalion taking the northern course, to go around the burning center of Dodge City.
“What are they saying?”
“Don’t know - the Armadillos are using some code.”
Commodore of the Armadillos probably asking for a status report, then.
“Tell Cordova his people are dead or in custody,” Perry said. “Then flash the command group. Himmler has one chance to turn his division around and head into Texas. At this point they’re not culpable under Imperial law. If they come further, they will be.”
“Got it, sir,” said Nolan.
“They have one chance to turn around,” Perry repeated.
“What?” Judd asked his signalwoman. The Ruby Red Robber was the fourth ship, high above the SS as they made their approach toward the burning city. “You sure you got that right, Mary?”
“I been known to fuck up before?” Mary demanded. “That guy there says he’s an Imperial, he’s taken care of the other Armadillos and he’s got the balls to stand up in front of an entire armored division and tell `em he’s going to spank `em if they don’t go home like good little boys.”
“He didn’t say all of that, exactly,” put in McIlhan, grinning.
“Amounts to that.”
“That’s the airship we stole, too,” said Ferrer, putting the spyglass down. “4-106 - they must have found and retrieved it.”
“Discordia!” Marko said, and laughed. “We stole it and now Skorzeny’s jackbooters will kill it! And then we all get paid, and go home!”
Without his seeming to think about it, a knife appeared in Marko’s hand, danced across his knuckles, flew into the air and fell before he dropped it back into whatever wrist-sheath it came from.
Ferrer could imagine it drawn across his throat. Sickness, bile, anger.
“I’m going to take a rest,” he said. “Be in my cabin.”
“Engineer’s just queasy about more blood being shed!” Marko laughed.
The laughter followed Ferrer out of the bridge.
“Himmler here,” Nolan reported. The flashes had come from the vehicle at the center of the command group. “Fuck you, Imperial. Say your prayers.”
“Sir!” reported one of the bridge lookouts. Pointing north.
Airships appearing on the horizon some miles away - rising, drawing closer. Lots of airships.
Perry raised his scope, saw - everything, and dozens of it. Merchantmen with their self-defense weapons, purpose-built escort-class ships and the Vulk-class he’d heard was the Kennedy flagship, a current-build Russian line-class warship the Kennedys had acquired somewhere.
Alongside it were - the biggest swarm attack he’d ever seen. Spring-powered blimps, big captured merchant carriers, easily a hundred real ships and probably more.
Flashes came from the Vulk. Five very simple words:
“Don’t,” Nolan reported. “Fuck. With. The. Kennedys.”
Ahle turned to grin at him.
“Helm, take us down. We’re going to engage their lead elements.”
From below, a sound - a rumbling sound. Smoke, kicked up.
Cattle, stampeding east, cowboys riding among them. With his scope Perry could see a few of the riders wearing dusty Imperial uniform; a small man on a big horse turned to wave up at him; that had to be Lieutenant Jones.
Thousands - no, tens of thousands - of head of cattle from the Dodge yards, charging head-on into the SS.
“Or the cowboys,” Perry remarked.
On the bridge of the Vulk, John Kennedy watched dispassionately as more missiles fired down into the SS. Cattle were running amuck - clever trick, that Imperial Vice was uptight but no moron - among the SS, disrupting their vehicles’ maneuvers; the eighty-ton Tiger IIs and seventy-five ton IIas and IIbs, with their rocket variant, weren’t going to plow straight through thousand-pound,fifteen-hundred pound beef.
Disrupting them and making them easier targets.
They’d rounded up everyone in the West who owed the Kennedys a favor or could be asked for one, at short notice. That meant almost everyone - there were sheriff’s aircraft here, and militia. One company of Nebraskan State were deploying now in a ranch hamlet to the north, some men setting up anti-tank weapons while the others dug defenses, filled sandbags.
The plan was to attack around the edges, picking away. Leave the south open, let them run south into Texas if they wanted to; the objective was save Hugoton, not destroy the SS. At a certain level of casualties the mercenaries would run away, and that was fine.
“Flasher message coming in from the south,” Nolan reported. “Imperials, the Admiral’s there personally.”
“What is it?”
4-106 was angled slightly to port, the damaged ship firing at will on the SS vehicles below. They were reacting themselves to something their scouts had encountered south of Dodge City.
An explosion caught Perry’s eye below, as one of 4-106’s rockets hit an already-damaged tank, blew its turrets in the air.
“Another one down!” Ahle exalted from the helm, pumping one fist in the air. “Fuck you, Heinrich!”
“Admiral says she’s got the rest of the garrison and about two thousand locals from Dodge. Forting up to make it harder for them to pass south. Digging and building a line of forts with makeshift anti-tank guns and rockets.”
Heinrich Himmler, in his command tank - a monstrous Tiger IIb with its huge airship-grade rocket launcher taken out to provide some planning space - got the report at about the same time.
“Imperials and locals digging in south of the city,” his senior comms officer reported. “Chain of little forts we’ll have a hard time busting individually. Close enough together that we can’t go between them, extending south.”
“South’s out, then. What do you think, Dietrich?”
The SS’ burly second-in-command nodded.
“We go through. We fuck thes
e pirates, punch through and complete the job.”
Except that the pirates were on all sides now, slowly chewing up his personal army, and a collection of Plains locals - that problem was supposed to have been tied off! - were digging in to the north, too, building a firebase that would make it impossible to pass through those suburbs.
“We go through,” Himmler confirmed. “Fuck them. We go through.”
He turned to the comms officer.
“And tell them I’ll personally execute any soldier who fails in his duty to me at this time.”
Sheriff’s Deputy Sergeant Joe Danhauer sighted his rifle over the makeshift barricade. Since they’d dropped in, courtesy of a Kennedy-run airship, twenty minutes ago, he and the half-dozen Kearney deputies that consituted their town’s part of the Nebraska State Militia ready reserve had been alternately digging and shooting; sharp anti-tank trenches, the dirt packed hard into collapsible boxes that were a wall against incoming fire. When packed three-deep the solid two-foot cubes were supposedly able to withstand a direct hit from anything short of the tanks’ main gun, and three were packed in front of him now as he - fired!
The Tiger II’s commander, standing in his hatch and gesturing possibly to subordinates - probably not just commander of his own tank - fell forwards onto his machine-gun.
Another burst of machine-gun fire stitched the impromptu barricade. An armored car running past, fully buttoned-up except for the gunner behind a shield that bullets sparked off of.
Norris, next to him, was loading an anti-tank rocket launcher.
No time to think about how the hell Nebraska’s Adjutant-General had been in bed with the Kennedys all along, had some kind of deal. But it did explain why none of the organized pirates had ever raided towns like his, something he was thankful for - a you-don’t-try-too-hard-to-pursue-us-and-we’ll-leave-your-own-residents-alone kind of a deal that apparently translated to active support in a shooting war, now the Kennedys had called in everything to support some kind of deal they’d made with the Feds and the Imperials.