by Blaze Ward
“Aquitaine?” a man’s voice called. “We’re coming in.”
Dash popped up from behind a nearby downed tree thick enough to stop most incoming fire.
“Arlo,” she quietly called. “You’re on.”
Either Cydelmynster had lied about his coordinates when they picked out this landing space, or those people had moved like deer through the trees.
He hadn’t been expecting them to rendezvous for another hour.
Still, time to earn his keep.
Digging into wet soil for protection was not second nature for Vo, any more than it was for the rest of Scout Patrol. But they hadn’t had that hammered into them by Navin the Black.
For all Vo’s size, he was still deeper than anybody else. One did not argue with The Viking about useful skills.
Vo levered himself upright and slung the carbine across his back. He had left the damned sword with the damned horse today. The pistol would be enough. If it wasn’t, five tanks and a whole squadron of maniacs better be. There were only supposed to be two score coming. And they were supposed to be friendly.
“Here,” he yelled back as he walked forward.
Conrad Penztler emerged first.
The man hadn’t changed much. Maybe a little more drawn. Preparing to walk into the shadow of death would do that to a man, he suspected.
The other man he knew from old pictures and recent descriptions.
Fraser Cydelmynster. Legate of a very small force of men and women who had decided to take on the entire Fribourg Empire. And smart enough to call for help from the Fleet Centurion when things got out of hand.
Vo liked him already.
“Centurion Arlo,” Penztler called as they got close. “It’s good to see you again.”
“You, too, Penztler,” Vo replied.
Up close, Fraser Cydelmynster was a bear of a man. Almost Vo’s height, and broader across the chest and shoulders. Vo could see him being a successful miner, a job that required compact strength.
“Captain Cydelmynster,” Vo continued, taking the man’s hand and sharing a firm grip.
He hadn’t lost anything in the years on the run. The man might give Navin the Black a challenge at arm–wrestling.
“Centurion,” Cydelmynster replied.
Vo could see something in the man’s eyes.
It took him a moment to place where he had seen that look.
She probably hadn’t realized anybody was paying that close of attention, but Vo had seen the Fleet Centurion with that amount of pain behind the eyes a few times. And he knew why, in both instances.
“Arlo,” the Captain continued. “Unless it’s an emergency, my folks would enjoy some down time right now for naps and breakfast. We’ve been moving all night to get here before Haussmann and his men could break contact.”
“That’s the purpose of this bivouac, sir,” Vo replied. “Plus, the Imperials have not withdrawn as fast as the Legate of Fourth Saxon expected. It’s almost been a fighting withdrawal from the starport.”
Cydelmynster studied him closely for a moment, as if he spoke in jest.
“That’s not Haussmann’s style,” the man pronounced.
“I’ll bow to your greater expertise with the man, Captain,” Vo shrugged.
More people were appearing now. Green and brown ghosts suddenly made flesh, weapons slung across backpacks.
The final count was thirty–seven men and four women, each of them just as hard and rugged as the men, maybe more so.
This was not a place that soft women survived.
Ξ
Vo was seated around a compact cooking stove with the inner core of the combined team. Dash, Rebekah, Alban holding the colors, Aoibhín with radio. Penztler and Cydelmynster had joined them this morning, after food and over coffee.
Vo didn’t figure he was getting to sleep anytime soon.
The Legate just made it worse.
“Digger and his team have confirmed the identity,” he drawled from the security of his headquarters tent, somewhere warm and comfy. It hadn’t been drizzling on him, tucked safe inside. “Colonel Dieter Haussmann was killed during the raid. Pretty early on. That’s probably why it fell apart when it did.”
It was interesting watching the reactions around the group. Penztler and Rebekah Kim seemed mad. Cydelmynster was phlegmatic. The rest were looking forward to the next set of orders.
“Do we know how he died?” Captain Cydelmynster asked.
The Legate smiled into the camera pickup.
“Apparently, he got on the wrong side of Centurion Kermode, according to the reports.”
Vo snickered before he could stop himself.
Yeah, Vo could see that. He had read the reports from Alexandria Station. And the Fleet Centurion had filled him in on some things that never made it to the report.
“Orders, sir?” Dash leaned into the pickup.
“We’re pushing out from the starport, Dash,” the Legate answered. “And encountering platoon–sized forces and rolling them up. Looks like Haussmann was expecting a rolling ambush walking backwards. Except they haven’t moved fast enough or with any coordination.”
He paused to take a sip of something from a mug as he stared at the group on his own display.
“Your orders are to move closer to that valley we expect is their base, and locate the forces defending it. Pin them down and keep whoever is in charge there from coming to the aid of the pieces we’re swallowing at this end. We do that and this campaign might be over. Questions?”
“How soon, Legate Burdge?” Cydelmynster spoke for the first time.
“DropShips are enroute, Captain,” he replied. “The sooner we can get this done, the sooner your folks can come home.”
Chapter LIX
Imperial Founding: 174/07/22. Yonin, Thuringwell
Governor Okafor’s office hadn’t changed. The tea was better this time. Perhaps Merryn returning from Kittras rated the better stuff.
She could only hope.
Back at the port, Redyert was furiously sending more trucks and people over. Seventh Son had never hauled this much material from the sector capital, former sector capital, whatever it was now.
That place.
And she would be done and gone shortly.
And Hao had been right.
The story about a sudden, cash–only investment opportunity had caught someone’s ears at the bank as they converted her savings to negotiable bond instruments.
More money had shown up. An entire second briefcase full, in the hands of a man whose suit screamed private banker to very wealthy individuals. Very few questions asked. Handed into her custody to hopefully make this man’s principal a great deal more money.
Merryn wondered if she was swindling the Duke of Kittras this time.
Governor Okafor shared her smile, as if she could read Merryn’s mind.
“So where is your next destination?” Okafor asked quietly.
Merryn put on her innocent face.
“You imply that I won’t make another run to Kittras?” she asked.
“Storm clouds are gathering, Captain Teke,” the governor replied. “But they aren’t ready yet, or they would have prevented you from returning. Too great of a risk, especially if they still view you as a loyal citizen.”
“I do not believe that Kittras or Thuringwell will be on my itinerary in the near future, Governor,” Merryn said closely.
“Oh?”
Merryn took a few moments to tell this woman about the spies on Kittras. About the faulty intelligence someone had gathered. About the man in the suit.
She wondered why she was telling so much until Madame Okafor began to laugh out loud.
Then she understood.
“Would you mind telling that story again?” Okafor asked after a moment. “I have someone who should hear it.”
“Please.”
Merryn waited for a moment as the Governor picked up her handset, activated her comm, and locked in a secure channel to somewhere. Sh
e put down the handset and brought up a small holographic projector.
“Captain Merryn Teke, of the freighter Seventh Son, late of Kittras, may I introduce you to Fleet Centurion Jessica Keller, the Margrave of this system.”
Merryn suddenly felt tiny and a little scared.
This was Jessica Keller. Evil incarnate. The devilish, demonic woman who was going to destroy the Fribourg Empire if she wasn’t stopped.
And then Merryn realized what had been missing in her life, all these years.
These two women were in charge, and assumed that they should be in charge, something no Imperial woman would dare conceive of, unless she were high–borne, and only then to handle her late husband’s affairs until a male relative could be brought in to take charge for her.
Or the daughter of a life–long shipping captain, who refused to settle down and pop out children for some man.
Merryn Teke was never, ever going back to the Imperial side of the border. Any border.
“Fleet Centurion,” Merryn said in a tiny voice, taking in the other woman’s image in the projection.
Jessica Keller wasn’t that much older than Merryn Teke. Perhaps a decade, at most. Just on the other side of that divide where her hair was starting to go gray, and she wasn’t going to do a damned thing about it. Sharp, penetrating green eyes that seemed to be weighing Merryn from the sky where she sat. The beginnings of crow’s feet around the eyes.
“Captain Teke?” Keller said. “How can I be of service today? I presume Wakely has a very good reason that I need to talk to you, considering the state of things.”
Wakely.
Not Governor Okafor. Or even Doctor Okafor.
Just Wakely.
What would it be like to live that free? If petticoats were no longer a fashion requirement these days, the thinking behind them hadn’t changed much. She had heard about such a place, talked about it, even dreamed about it. And here it was, right in front of her.
“The Fribourg Empire is coming, Admiral,” Merryn said flatly. “Here’s what they asked me at Kittras, and what I told them…”
Chapter LX
Date of the Republic July 19, 396 Somewhere, Thuringwell
Even the uniform was a little outside regulations, but by this point in his career, people put that down to eccentrism and not insubordination. Instead of having his last name on his collarbone, like the other pilots, his just read Gaucho.
After all, there were only three people in the galaxy who called him by his real name anymore. The Purser only did when he was drawing cash for planet–side needs. The Fleet Centurion when she wanted his undivided attention. And his sainted mother, when she wrote the occasional letter to update him about his ex–wife and daughters, Ahalya somehow inheriting his own kith and kin as well in the divorce.
He still wasn’t sure how that happened.
But that was acceptable. His real family was here anyway. Chief Takouhi Nazarian, his loadmaster, sitting next to him on the bridge. First Rate Spacer Murphy Alexandru manning the Ventral Tower Gun. All of Auberon’s Flight Deck in orbit above him. And now all of Fourth Saxon’s First Cohort Scout Patrol, still the only group never to bitch about his flying.
Good people.
Gaucho twirled both ends of his handlebar mustache first, and then lifted his cowboy hat and ran a hand over his shaved pate. Well, mostly shaved. Lot of bald up there these days. At least the mustache was still a nice dark ginger.
Nazarian just glanced over and grinned. His nervous habits probably kept her calm. She only got nervous when he became perfectly calm. And that only happened under fire.
“Status?” he queried.
“Last lance at the ramp now,” she growled back.
He nodded and popped all of his knuckles by turning his laced fingers outwards over his head. It sounded like popcorn ripening.
Three count, and his hands came to rest on the flight joysticks, fingers falling into their cradles and transmitting flight information in bumps and pressure so he never had to take his eyes off the sky to check something.
“Clear,” Takouhi continued.
He brought the engines hot quickly and settled on thrust alone as the last horses got far enough away that he wouldn’t singe their tails.
Probably.
Part of him was sad as he tilted the big, red DropShip’s nose into the sky and started to get clear. This might be the last time he ever got to hot–drop Fourth Saxon. A more pleasant group of folks would be hard to find.
One of these days, he would be back to the whiny marines that traveled aboard Auberon.
Although, now that she commanded a Star Controller, a whole fleet, Gaucho had no doubts that the Fleet Centurion would be in the thick of things frequently.
She was a sword with luck. You used that sort of thing as long as the luck held, like a magic talisman, and then hoped that you didn’t break it too bad when it was finally time.
Even before the little sound beeped, or the sensor tag under his left ring finger wiggled, Gaucho knew his own luck had just run out.
Nobody had ever proved psychic powers that were reliable and testable. And Gaucho never talked about those moments of improvisational inspiration that had kept him alive this long.
He still wasn’t going down without one hell of a fight.
Every imaginary hair on the back of his neck stood straight up. His angle was wrong, his engines laboring at lift instead of speed, he was completely out of position.
Anything he did right now and Cayenne might turn turtle.
At this elevation, he’d hit the ground before the planet even knew he was coming.
Time for crazy.
Gaucho slammed the engines to the wall and cut all output from the forward thrusters. Cayenne bucked like one of those wild horses he had just delivered to the valley below as her nose dropped.
The radar lock warning finally caught up with rest of the universe and beeped loud enough to get Takouhi’s attention, not that she could do anything at this point except fire off flares and chaff, but the machine was already doing that for her.
Movement at two o’clock resolved itself into a missile riding a cloud of gray smoke into the sky, like a crossbow bolt aimed at his heart.
Someone over there knew what he was doing. Any sooner on the shot and Gaucho could have landed hard but safe. Any later, and he might have been able to maneuver enough to dance around the first shot.
The second missile coming up was just icing right now. The first one was going to spike him like a bug hitting a windshield.
Gaucho counted three and cut everything off: engines, thrusters, the works. Everyone was buckled in tight, so nobody would bounce off the ceiling, and there was nobody back in the bay to fly.
Cayenne had all the flight characteristics of a brick right now. It was probably the last thing the guy on the controller for the missiles expected. Nobody in their right mind would try a stunt like this.
Cayenne started to fall out of the sky.
“Brace for impact,” he yelled, just in case Murph wasn’t paying attention down in his turret, looking down at the up–rushing ground. Hopefully this stunt wouldn’t squish him.
Explosion.
More like an earthquake than anything else.
Happily, the Imperial gunner had caught him with an empty bay instead of so many tonnes of horseflesh. Temperature sensors down in the bay went off the charts for a few seconds as the missile tore a hole in his side.
Gaucho slammed all the engines on his starboard side to the stops, and all the thrusters on the left wide open. Everything else was quiet. Cayenne was ringing like a bell right now.
It worked.
The second missile was far enough behind the first that Cayenne managed to pivot her ass around to it as it closed.
Instead of threading the needle into the hole the first one had punched, she took the explosion in the starboard engine well.
It blew everything to hell, but it also absorbed all the blast.
Power dropped to almost nothing in a heartbeat as secondary generators were unable to keep up with the demand. But that was fine. Cayenne was a flat rock right now, spinning ever so slightly counter–clockwise as she fell out of the sky, instead of flipped over and trying to drill a hole in the upcoming planet.
Two trees shattered first. Then the planet itself reached up and slapped him upside the head. Cayenne’s armored shoulder took the brunt of it, plowing into the ground and gouging a path through trees, rocks, and anything too slow or stupid to get out of the way.
Wagner couldn’t have done a better apocalypse with all the kettle drums available. Followed by silence, and then something metallic pinging that reminded him of nothing so much as the Entry of the Gods aria.
He looked over, but Chief Nazarian was fine. She was tougher than anybody he knew.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday,” Gaucho said rather laconically. “Cayenne has taken ground fire and is down. Repeat, Cayenne is down.”
Gaucho pushed a button on the dash and let Cayenne transmit her own cries for help with coordinates. At least Dash and Vo knew where he was.
“Murphy, what’s your status?”
“Needing a new pair of pants, old man,” the call came from below.
That was good. If something were really wrong, Murph wouldn’t be bitching.
Now, hopefully the good guys would get here first.
Chapter LXI
Date of the Republic July 19, 396 Somewhere, Thuringwell
Freefall had just settled into what would be the new laager while they organized for the next round. Tamarin had slipped away low and into the horizon, and Cayenne was about to follow.
Rebekah popped open the top hatch and stuck her head out as she waited for the horse troops to canter over.
Overhead, the scream of engines redoubled suddenly and Cayenne began maneuvering wildly. Rebekah dropped her seat and slammed the top hatch shut.
“All units,” she yelled into the comm. “Incoming. Stand by.”
She lit up every sensor Freefall had just in time to see the first missile wrap the stern of the DropShip in a wreath of flames. A second missile a moment later caused all sound overhead to stop.