by Eric Flint
Table of Contents
Part One Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part Two Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Part Three Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Part Four Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Part Five Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Cast of Characters
Glossary of Terms
Afterword
1637
NO PEACE
BEYOND THE LINE
ERIC FLINT
CHARLES E. GANNON
Baen
1637: No Peace Beyond the Line
Eric Flint and Charles E. Gannon
THE BATTLE FOR THE NEW WORLD IS A FIGHT TO THE FINISH! A NEW RING OF FIRE NOVEL BY BEST-SELLING WRITING TEAM ERIC FLINT AND CHARLES E. GANNON
A New Day in the New World
It’s 1637 in the Caribbean. Commander Eddie Cantrell and his ally and friend Admiral Martin Tromp start it off with some nasty surprises for Spain, whose centuries-long exploitation and rapine of the New World has run unchecked. Until now.
Yet life goes on in the Caribbean. Relationships among the allied Dutch, Swedes, Germans, up-timers, and even Irish mercenaries continue to evolve and deepen. New friendships must be forged with the native peoples, who will not only shape the colonists’ future in the Caribbean, but will also decide whether they will be given access to a Louisiana oilfield that could change the balance of power.
But for now, the only oil Imperial Spain knows about is the crude pouring out of the Allies’ pumps on Trinidad—which threatens its interests in both the New and the Old Worlds. So, following in the footsteps of the conquistadors, the empire’s commanders are resolved to show that they do not take threats lightly or lying down. Indeed, their historical reaction is to respond with overwhelming—and often genocidal—force.
The battle for the New World has not merely begun; it is a fight to the finish.
THE RING OF FIRE SERIES
1632 by Eric Flint
1633 by Eric Flint & David Weber
1634: The Baltic War by Eric Flint & David Weber
1634: The Galileo Affair by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis
1634: The Bavarian Crisis by Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce
1634: The Ram Rebellion by Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce et al.
1635: The Cannon Law by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis
1635: The Dreeson Incident by Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce
1635: The Eastern Front by Eric Flint
1635: The Papal Stakes by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon
1636: The Saxon Uprising by Eric Flint
1636: The Kremlin Games by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett
1636: The Devil’s Opera by Eric Flint & David Carrico
1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies by
Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon
1636: The Viennese Waltz by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett
1636: The Cardinal Virtues by Eric Flint & Walter Hunt
1635: A Parcel of Rogues by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis
1636: The Ottoman Onslaught by Eric Flint
1636: Mission to the Mughals by Eric Flint & Griffin Barber
1636: The Vatican Sanction by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon
1637: The Volga Rules by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett
1637: The Polish Maelstrom by Eric Flint
1636: The China Venture by Eric Flint & Iver P. Cooper
1636: The Atlantic Encounter by Eric Flint & Walter H. Hunt
1637: No Peace Beyond the Line by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon
1635: The Tangled Web by Virginia DeMarce
1635: The Wars for the Rhine by Anette Pedersen
1636: Seas of Fortune by Iver P. Cooper
1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz by
Kerryn Offord & Rick Boatright
1636: Flight of the Nightingale by David Carrico
Time Spike by Eric Flint & Marilyn Kosmatka
The Alexander Inheritance by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett
Grantville Gazette volumes I-V, ed. by Eric Flint
Grantville Gazette VI-VII, ed. by Eric Flint & Paula Goodlett
Grantville Gazette VIII, ed. by Eric Flint & Walt Boyes
Ring of Fire I-IV, ed. by Eric Flint
1637: No Peace Beyond the Line
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN: 978-1-9821-2496-0
Cover art by Tom Kidd
Maps by Michael Knopp
"p5"
First Baen printing, November 2020
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Flint, Eric, author. | Gannon, Charles E., author.
Title: 1637: no peace beyond the line / Eric Flint and Charles E. Gannon.
Description: Riverdale, NY : Baen, [2020] | Series: Ring of fire ; [29]
Identifiers: LCCN 2020031321 | ISBN 9781982124960 (hardcover)
Subjects: GSAFD: Alternative histories (Fiction) | Science fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3556.L548 A618692 2020 | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020031321
Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Electronic version by Baen Books
www.baen.com
To My Wife, Andrea Trisciuzzi,
with love and deep, deep gratitude.
She made this career possible, and this book even more so.
If it was not for her and her sacrifices to ensure that I had the time to complete it when necessary, you would not have this in your hands now.
—Charles E. Gannon
To my grandchildren, Lucy and Zachary
—Eric Flint
Part One
April–May 1636
Pale ravener of horrible meat
—Herman Melville,
“The Maldive Shark”
Chapter 1
East of the island of Dominica
Commodore Eddie Cantrell looked past the bowsprit of the USE steam cruiser Intrepid into the nautical twilight brightening the eastern horizon. The stars above it were fading slowly, the predawn glow washing out what had been their laser-sharp brilliance of only a few minutes before. But on those days when his time on deck started along with the morning watch, he had learned that this was not just a time for novel sights.
Eddie closed his eyes and listened: wind, sails slapping lightly, the slow hobnail-on-wood tread of the closest of the four crew walking watch on the main deck. On a ship in the seventeenth century, that was as hushed and quiet a moment as one ever experienced.
He opened his eyes as he turned and looked west. The stars were still bright there, but an irregular dark hump of blackness blotted them out at the center of the horizon: Dominica. More or less at the center of the eastward bowing arc of the Lesser Antilles, the island was known for terrain and inhabitants that were equally unforgiving. No colony had ever been successfully planted upon it. And if Eddie and his bosses had their way, none ever would be.
A faint, lazy hiss of rubber on hemp, a sound out of place on most ships of this era, drew his attention upward. Rising from a vertical guide tube laid along the mainmast, a thin strand of blackness disappeared into the gloom overhead. At first glance, it was as if a solitary hair of a dark-maned goddess had sprung loose from her tresses and fallen to brush along the surface of the mortal earth.
But staring overhead dispelled the illusion: it was a tarred rope and a naturally black telegrapher’s wire, loosely twinned as they rose and disappeared into the night sky—or rather, into a small circle of absolute darkness that blotted out the stars behind it. That was the silhouette of Intrepid’s observation balloon, almost seven hundred and thirty feet above the deck. Although it had ascended to that new height while training for this operation, this was the highest ceiling it had ever made during an active mission.
Happily, there hadn’t been any surprises since they’d commenced filling the balloon’s envelope with hot air, just before six bells of the middle watch. But that was less a matter of luck than preparation. As Eddie’s commanding officer and stern (albeit increasingly paternal) mentor Admiral Simpson had taught him, training for actual operations is effective only so far as it is faithful to real conditions. And they had certainly applied that in regard to this ascent.
The challenge to increase the balloon’s maximum operating ceiling had required a consideration of diverse factors. Rate of fuel consumption determined the average temperature of the air in the envelope which also determined rate of ascent. But going higher meant more rope to tether the balloon to its platform (in this case, Intrepid), and more of the perpetually scarce telegraph cable. That additional weight meant it was necessary to generate more lift, lighten the operational weight of the vehicle, or both.
With considerable mental and physical effort, that had been achieved over the winter, but the solutions had consequences and complications of their own. Reduced duration required a more disciplined schedule of activities while aloft and greater attention to the meteorological signs of optimum flying weather. Those new demands combined to impose additional criteria upon the selection process for new observers: lighter physical bodies and greater educational prerequisites. Less operational time meant that more work had to be conducted with greater accuracy in fewer minutes, including swift and near-flawless signaling of observations back down to the wire.
But the difficulties and the costs had now proved their worth, as Eddie had insisted they would. Before, the balloons that served the naval amalgam of both United States of Europe and Dutch warships had been lucky to see a vessel at thirty-three nautical miles. Now, they had proven that they could spot a galleon’s topsails at better than thirty-eight miles. Practically speaking, even if an oncoming ship was making four knots, that gave an hour and fifteen minutes of additional warning. That much more time to slip away unseen, or to set a wide-ranging ambush from which the spotted ship would have no escape.
But at this particular point in the Atlantic Ocean, just six and a half nautical miles due east of Baraisiri Pointe on Dominica’s wave-whitened windward side, those five extra miles of range became ten extra miles of observational diameter. Consequently, the observer in the balloon would not only detect ships approaching directly, but also, any that made for either of the channels that bracketed the island behind them: the Dominica Passage, which separated it from Guadeloupe to the north; and the Martinique Passage, which separated it from the island of the same name to the south. In short, Intrepid’s airborne eyes covered a seventy-six-mile-wide expanse that no sizeable ship could cross without her being aware. Which was the entire strategic and tactical reason for Intrepid to be waiting at this precise latitude and longitude.
Eddie stifled a yawn. If only they had had equally precise data for determining the day that they had to begin waiting there. And in point of fact, they had not been one hundred percent certain that their current position was casting a wide enough net to catch the fish . . . well, the whale . . . they were after. All the intel from the USE and its closest allies pointed toward the week Intrepid should be on station, but even that was only an estimate.
Boots behind; a slower tread, not hobnailed. “Report as you requested, Commodore Cantrell.”
Eddie turned, nodded at his tall, lanky executive officer. “A smile, Svantner? Some unusually good news to report?”
The Swede shook his head. “No, sir. Frankly, I don’t know how the news could get any better than it already is. This is just a confirmation that their formation is still on the same heading. That’s almost an hour now. Unlikely they would adjust course before clapping eyes on Dominica, sir.”
“Very good, Svantner, but still: why the grin?”
“Well, damned if they aren’t right where you said they would be, Commodore.” He aimed his prominent nose forward, as if to compete with the prow. “Radios and telegraphs and steamships don’t answer to all of it. Nor even luck.” He shook his head. “Seems to me that God loves each of you up-timers so much that he doesn’t just put a sage’s library between your ears. He whispers into them about time, tides, and fortunes, too.”
Eddie merely nodded. Months ago, his first impulse would have been to attempt to explain that while fortune was certainly not working against them, this morning’s success owed little to chance. But time and acquaintance had taught him that Svantner’s mind, while quick to learn and well ordered, was of neither a figurative nor philosophical bent. If anything, it was too well ordered, inclined to perceive the world as an improbably tidy and well-defined place. For the tall Swede, whatever contemporary knowledge did not explain was attributable to the works of a just yet unknowable God. That he also implicitly believed that the same God possessed an innate preference for Western perspectives, values, and outcomes evidently did not strike him as being inconsistent with a deity characterized by mysteries of both intent and method.
Svantner’s voice was like a vocal jog at the elbow of Eddie’s awareness. “Orders, sir?”
Eddie nodded. “Radio check. And summon the flight master to the winches. We’ll soon need his gang up here for reeling her in. Also, pass this word along to the comms master’s mate: send code Delta Five Charlie.”
The Swede frowned
. “Sir? I do not believe I have been apprised of an internal communication with that designation—”
Eddie waved a stilling hand at Svantner. “Last-minute change, Arne. That code is for relay to the observer in the balloon. No way to know we’d spot the bad guys this far off, but it’s dark and they’re running stern lights.” Because why should they anticipate that anyone could spot them at this hour and so far out? “So they won’t see anything when our observer uses the Aldis lamp at cherubs five.”
“So: descent to five hundred and hold to signal. Very good, Commodore. Will you be wanting to raise steam?”
Eddie met Svantner’s frank, dutiful eyes for a moment before smiling and shaking his head. “No, XO. If the wind holds, we can save the fuel and move to Objective Bravo by canvas alone. Send the word.”
A crisp “Aye, sir!” accompanied Arne’s equally crisp salute, which was followed by a sharp step toward the speaking tube down to the intraship comms cubby, just beneath Intrepid’s flying bridge.
Eddie watched and listened to Svantner pass the orders smoothly, efficiently, smartly down to the master’s mate, then respond to an unheard question from the comms master in the radio room. Svantner was a solid officer, a good sailor, enjoyed the respect of the crew, knew Intrepid in all her particulars. He even understood how they functioned in relation to each other: no small feat, given the complexities of a ship which incorporated steam, a new hull type with new sailing characteristics, and several electronic systems. He was an eminently capable tactical XO, and had even displayed good-natured flexibility when that designation officially replaced the title that he, like his colleagues, had grown to manhood coveting: first mate. He might even make a fine post captain one day, but he would never truly grasp that the new technologies did not merely improve performance statistics, but signified a complete transformation in the calculus of how war at sea would now be conducted.
