by Blaze Ward
“It’s your battle, with one exception, Burdge,” she said carefully. “I want Cydelmynster and his forces to come through as intact as possible. That man might be the key to winning the whole planet, and I don’t want him dead.”
Even if Fraser demanded to become a martyr, dying for the cause of liberty. Enough people were going to die today, and more when the Imperial Fleet finally arrived. Very few of them had the possibility to turn the tide of history like Fraser Cydelmynster might.
Chapter XLVII
Date of the Republic July 18, 396 Ramsey Starport, Thuringwell
It were almost beautiful, for all that it were a big, ugly, black–iron–looking log on rails. Still, it did the job. And did it with big, mean stuff.
And nobody were gonna touch her high score for docking rail cars on the flat ground of the new starport. Moirrey were sure of that. Oz and his silk scarf be damned.
Moirrey stood inside her little watch tower office and enjoyed the view out her big, second–story, picture window of the whole yard beneath her. It had finally stopped that damned drizzling a bit ago, just about the time the sun had gone down, and now it were kinda just wet and miserable, but the sun promised to boil every’tin’ clean’n’dry in the morning.
The tea were almost gone, and her tummy was all warm and happy. Maybe another fifteen or twenty minutes and she’d be all good to slip into her bunk with all the blackout curtains pulled down and go to bed.
Below, the big, black monster were resting. Yonin/Ramsey Engine Number One, colloquially named City of Brani, fer the capital of Ladaux, ’cause it were bad luck not to give an engine a personal name.
Numbers were fer inventory. They dinna convey souls.
Tonight, she needed some soul. Moirrey couldna put her finger on it, but things was amiss. Bad ju–ju kinda strange. More than just staying up late killing more trees for the Gods of Bureaucracy.
Sumtin’.
Tea had only kept the beasts at bay fer a bit. They hadna slain ’em.
So she were at the window in her already–dark office, enjoyin’ the view o’ the yard. City of Ithome and City of Saxilby in their spots out across the way. City of Brani close below her, waitin’ the morning when they would finally be ready to join up to the main line and blowed this planet’s economy sideways.
Maybe that were it. Tamarrows, when they would test the last link in the spur and she could drive City of Brani out to Mine #14 direct–like. Then nobody would have to go all the way in to that cramped, little yard attached to the starport to unload ore. They could bring it here and unload. A third of the time, and ya didn’t have to answer to bankers in town.
See? That were the problem. Nobody done gived the mines names like places got. Even if they was stupid names. At least that gave them souls.
Moirrey smiled. She had already invested a goodly chunk o’ her retirement money in a company that were all set to build a smelter here, just down the creek from the brand, spanking new starport she were about done building. Then folks could ship out big metal bar stock instead of hauling off megatonnes of rock to be broken down somewhere else.
Stupid, stupid idea. Stooooooopid, even. Wasteful. Unless you were a lazy git of a Duke and owned a smelter on some other planet and it were easier to pay yer friends to haul stuff for you.
Moirrey smiled fit to light the morning.
Next, we make Digger build me a passenger rail line to Yonin so folks can live there and ride to work in the morning, and head home in the evening, just in time fer the starport to opens. Yonin were a boring place today. Weren’t always gonna be. Not if the Republic needed to build ’emselves a great big base here to push the frontier back.
Lotsa money to be made. More when the locals got in on the act and invested sweat and soul for a slice of the pie, like whats Lady Keller and Doctor–Governor Wakely were plannin’.
And maybe, just maybe, make a little lady from Ramsey rich in the process. Weren’t always gonna be fleet. One o’ these days, I’ll have to go get a real job and everything, instead of just playing around in the engineering labs.
Movement caught her eye. Where weren’t supposed to be none.
Peeples. Too close to wire. Alarms shoulda been hootin’ and stuff. They did that when the fool deer wandered too close.
And lotsa people. Way too many. Couple of rugby scrums o’folks out there, doing something that dinna make any sense.
Moirrey set her tea mug down and grabbed the big optical lenses from the cute, little decorated holder she had made pretty.
Something really weren’t right.
There was one guy seemed kinda in the middle of things. Small. Bantam cock looking kind of fella.
She brought them folks into focus and something in her head went click. Them fools was wearing gray, not green.
Little guy nodded to a big, ugly mog next to him. Big mog flipped a rocker switch open and pressed it.
Ten years in engineering saved her eyesight. Moirrey slammed her eyes shut as fast as she could and then lowered the lenses outta her face. She could always go back and watch tape later, if’n she rilly needed to. She dinna figure she would.
Through her eyelids, the night lighted up. Heartbeat later, the room went boom. Not bad enough to knock her tower over, but big. Shake the walls ’n’ rattle the windows kinda big. Broked glass she were any closer.
Moirrey opened her eyes in time to see a long section of fence fall in, along with the two big watchtowers on that side of the yard. It were on the wilderness side o’ th’ base, so they was the only two.
Tweren’t none now.
Gray men were pouring over the line that used to be the outer fence. They weren’t shooting much yet, but that wouldn’t take long. This weren’t no cheap mortar stunt.
These dorks were serious. Alarms finally started wailing fit to wake the dead here.
Moirrey got the lenses back up and found the bantam. Something about him screamed In Charge, in spite of him looking not much bigger than her. And he weren’t in that front surge of yahooligans coming over the wire.
Instead, he lifted up something big and flipped it over his shoulder, like a hunk of plumbing pipe. Moirrey couldn’t identify the thingee, until a missile flamed outs the near end, growing huge like it were coming right for her.
Before she could think, or duck, or nothing, the fire lance slammed into the side of City of Brani and lit the entire night on fire again.
Anti–tank missiles work just peachy on train engines. Good ta knows.
City of Brani, that humongous lump of black, bad–ass steel, rolled onto her side and died. Just like that. Weren’t no ammunition aboard her to make pretty secondary explosions, and no liquid fuel. Just a big, dead snake.
Son of a mud–dauber. Ya jes killed my train, you bastich.
Moirrey saw red.
Lady Keller had insisted that she have the cute little pistol in the custom–glittered holster on her at all times. Navin the Black and Vo Arlo had insisted she learn to use it. Apparently neither of them had read too closely about her and Lady Keller’s adventures on the surface of Ramsey. An’ Vo’d been too–near–deaded above Ballard when she started playin’ ninja games with the bomber wantin’ ta kills Suvi.
Moirrey pulled her petite pistol out now and checked the charge. Crazy Saxon cowgirls might be all about old–style six–gun revolvers, but Moirrey had herself a cute, little pulse pistol instead. Matte black with silver unicorns etched into either sides of the barrel.
’Cause, you know, unicorns.
She slid the pistol home, grabbed her dark green over–jacket, and slid into it as the bantam started to move forward.
You killed my train, buddy. Yer a dead man.
Chapter XLVIII
Imperial Founding: 174/07/18. Aquitaine’s New Starport On Thuringwell
The sun was just down. The rain had tapered off enough to make a difference.
Had the weather kept up, Dieter might have canceled the assault and come back another day. His force was
well equipped with pulse rifles, but he was beginning to appreciate the simple, slug–throwing weapons that the invaders wielded.
Rain would not hinder them. Only darkness.
Dieter filed the thought away and considered the almanac in his head. Spring was ending. Summer would see warmer, drier weather. The next attack would need to take that into account.
Beside him, Sgt. Stoltberg nodded. The last saboteur was in place. The charges were set.
Aquitaine might have brought an entire battle fleet and a Legion of Cossacks, but the security teams around this new starport were hardly up to that standard. Dieter had managed to sneak more than one hundred men into close proximity of the outer fence. There were almost two hundred more dug in on the ridges around them, all set to enfilade the responding forces when they came in. Better yet would be the commander of the Legion flying in more DropShips to deliver reinforcements.
The one DropShip over Yonin had gotten lucky. Neither hit had gotten home through the armor, because both were fired by passive sensors and auto–homing lasers. Tonight, he had live gunners prepared to unleash hell.
Now he just needed to entice Her into overreacting.
It shouldn’t be hard. She was just a woman, after all. They were drastically under–equipped to handle something as complex and stressful as modern war, all silly Aquitaine propaganda to the contrary.
Everything was in place. Sgt. Stoltberg waited.
Dieter nodded and turned to the armorer on his other side. He opened his mouth to spare his sight and hearing from the coming blast.
A moment later, a whole series of torpedoes exploded, special shaped charges designed to clear barbed wire or mine fields, depending on which direction you laid them on deployment.
Both towers went over backwards, along with nearly three hundred meters of razor–topped fencing.
In chess, he had just cleared the entire wall of pawns and taken out both Rooks.
Now it just remained to goad her. Mayhem and devastation should do nicely.
The armorer handed him the launcher, already keyed live and set to yellow for standby.
Professional.
All his men were professionals. That was why Aquitaine would lose. They did not treat war like a vocation.
Dieter turned in place and lined up the shot in his mind. He and a handful of others were on a small rise. Not much, but enough that he could fire over the lead team’s heads as they charged, and the trees behind him would absorb the back–blast.
He took a deep breath and considered his role tonight as dragon–slayer. There were three of them down there to kill.
He could set back the invasion for a very long time by murdering them.
Dieter set the missile launcher on his shoulder and found the beast’s heart in the red cross–hairs. A tone sounded in his ear.
Joshua’s Trumpet calling perhaps, even if nobody else on the field today would understand what that meant.
The recoil was surprisingly light. That was yet another sign of rightness.
The beast died in an angry blaze of light and sound.
None would dare question his commitment after tonight. The rest had surrendered and let Her have the world. Only Dieter Haussmann had dared resist.
Perhaps the Emperor would finally admit Dieter had been right.
That conversation would have to wait.
Dieter handed the launcher to the armorer and reached back for his auto–carbine on the sling behind his hip. The man would wait here with the rest of the support force while Dieter showed these troopers what it meant to lead, as the first wave had just cleared the wire and begun to destroy Aquitaine’s base.
There was nothing that could stop him now.
Chapter XLIX
Date of the Republic July 18, 396 Ramsey Starport, Thuringwell
About the moment she were thinking some darkness would be nice, someone blowed up a transformer relay.
Moirrey’s world went from dimly lit to moonlight behind clouds in a heartbeat. With the flash boom of sometin’ overloading.
Imperial Security goons was right proper punks.
She watched pulse rifles strobe through the mist and yuckiness.
Imperial bolts left a redder aftertaste. Fleet rifles were more blue. Hers would be gold.
Glitter–kissed, as she had explained to the guy when she tuned it. Gots to be pretty. Nothing else worth havin’.
And now, ninja games.
Weren’t as bad as that rat bastard trying to blow up Suvi aboard her station, but there was a bunch more folk running around tonight. Only advantage a girl had were a dark green jacket and black pants, when the goobers was wearing slate gray. That woulda blended better if’n they was still lights ta be had. They becomes gray ghosts floatin’ ’round in this flavor o’ darkness.
Maybe it were one of the friendlies that dropped a blanket o’ dark on everytin’.
Worked in her favor.
Something needed to.
She reached out a hand in the dark and touched the metal of the train engine’s side.
Yup. She’d gotten good’n’dead.
Moirrey still had to check. City of Brani might have held on, but that bastich had put his bolt through her heart.
She were past mortal wounded now. LanderShip would need to run out the cranes and lift her upright after this. And maybe just fly her skyways so she could be rebuilt like an angel in heaven afore coming home.
That were job number one, tamarrows. Tonight, snipe huntin’.
But fer the things getting boomed, and all the folks liked ta gettin’ killed in the stupid tonight, it were almost like those times she ’n’ Dina used ta sneak out and play games in the fields at night. Before boys, anyway. Different games after that. Still sneaking out. Not as much hiding, except from parents and watch geese.
She snickered under her breath.
Whoda thunk watch geese would be good training for Imperial dipshits with guns?
Moirrey peaked around the corner.
First run of losers were past her now, back on her right as she looked past Brani’s bow.
Where were that bantam cock hiding?
There.
Group of them moving with the second wave. Him pointing and sending folk thither and yon to do stuff.
More booms.
Big, ugly mog were still with him. Dumb hound trailing his footsteps, but this one were carryin’ another missile launcher, which meant Ithome or Ramsey were next in line for the chopping block.
Over my dead body, bucko.
Rain were mostly gone. Dark night, high humidity, clear field.
Moirrey kneeled and braced her left hand and the pulse pistol on Brani’s cowcatcher atop her right hand. ’Twere good to let the lady’s ghost help with the shot, dead if she mights be.
Sixty meters, give or take. Five goobers with guns facing the wrong way, kinda trotting in formations, left to right like they was on a mission from God, ’r sometin’.
Moirrey let the unicorns take charge, horns downrangin’ like a finger o’doom.
Deep breath, calm heart, just like Jackson Tawfeek had taught her.
Let them move and let the movement draw the eye.
Blow out, pull trigger.
Moirrey figured she should shoot the big mog first, on accounts him having the next missile launcher ’n’ all. Knock him down and throw stuff sideways fer the rest, fox in the henhouse kinda night, only backwards.
Chickens attacking the fox.
Click.
Nothing.
What?
Crap. Safety, dummy.
She flipped the little switch and found the dude downrange again.
There.
No time fer pretty. Seventy meters and about to get to cover between buildings.
Snap shot.
Pulse.
St. Andrew’s Unicorn riding to the rescue.
Except something went wrong.
The dude blowed up.
Moirrey were staring right at it, so
the after–flash carved channels in her night vision.
More usefulness. Pulse bolts do naughty things to solid rocket fuel weapons if you hit the missile insteads of the dudes carrying ’em. And he were kinda boomed all over the place. Like, red mist splatter.
But Ithome were safe now.
And they’s looking this way.
Bantam.
Hiya, bastich. You keep laying there and I’ll come over and kills you next.
Moirrey leaned out and popped off a couple more shots. She could barely see from the spots in her eyes, but she only needed to annoy them at this point.
Whoops. They gots guns too. Shootin’ back kind.
Moirrey let loose another quick barrage.
Gettin’ a mite hot around here.
Hide behind Brani.
Peek out.
Crap, they’re gone. Betcha they’s huntin’ me now.
More ninja games.
Ya thinks yer as good as a goose, princess?
Chapter L
Date of the Republic July 18, 396 CAX Shivaji. Above Thuringwell
“Squadron, this is Keller aboard Auberon,” the voice rang out of Alber’s comm and filled his nearly–bare personal cabin. “I have the Flag. All hands to battle stations for possible attack coinciding with the ground assault on Ramsey Starport.”
Alber’ nodded to himself and sipped the last of his iced tea. Shivaji had gone stealth at the first reports of gunfire, even as he had slid on his emergency suit. He imagined winning a great deal of money betting that he, Tomas Kigali, Denis Jež, and Robbie Aeliaes had all gotten there within thirty seconds of each other, if he could find a sucker willing to bet on the four of them merely waiting for orders from Jessica.
Keller might be a Goddess of War, but she was not the only one here today.
“Najafi,” Alber’ called into the comm.
“Aye, sir,” his Science Officer replied a beat later.
“We are a leopard seal, Science Officer,” he said. “Hunting penguins from beneath the pack ice. We’ll do it by smell and not sight today.”
“Exec’s already lined us up, Commander,” the woman replied. “Kigali has CR–264 in tight against the carriers like a sheep dog. We’ve got a reciprocal laser comm going with him until we need to unmask.”