Against the Tide tcw-3

by John Ringo

  “Mirta!” she screamed.

  * * *

  Herzer shook his head as Bast yelled a name and bounded past him, picking up a woman who wasn’t much taller than she.

  “Apparently Bast has found a friend,” he said, huskily, getting up off the slimy jetty. He turned to McClure, trying to remember his mission. “Laird McClure? In addition to picking up the women you have been sheltering we have supplies for you and your people. There are weapons, cloth and tools in the ships. If you have some people that can help them unload I’d appreciate it.”

  “Not as much as I appreciate the supplies,” the laird said. “We’ll get started at once.”

  “Herzer!” Bast said, dragging the woman forward. “You need to meet Mirta!”

  “Good day, mistress,” he said, casting a quick glance at the council member, Megan. He ran the name around in his head for a moment, trying not to append “Herrick” to it, and then took the small hand of Bast’s friend. “Any friend of Bast’s, et cetera. Nice to meet you.”

  “Not as nice as it is to meet you,” Mirta replied, looking up at him with bright eyes. “I’m ready to get out of this gloomy land.” She looked over at the laird in distress. “Not that I’m not grateful…”

  “It’s all right,” McClure said. “Some take to the Highlands and some don’t.”

  “If you don’t mind,” the bird-woman said, stepping forward. “I’d prefer to fly out to the ship. I don’t like small boats and…” She shrugged, rustling her wings. “I don’t fit well in them; I tend to reach for balance and…”

  “That’s fine,” Herzer said. He looked up until he spotted a rider that was watching the group and signaled that the bird-woman was going to fly out. “Go ahead,” he continued. “Mistress Travante…”

  “Call me Megan, please,” she said in a quiet tone.

  “Megan, then,” he continued, trying not to look her in the eye. “If you’d care to board the boat?” he asked, holding out his hand. As she took it he felt an electric shock pass through his body and he lowered her carefully into the waiting launch. The short man, obviously a bodyguard, followed her into the craft and Herzer held up his hand as others scrambled forward. “We can only take five. Bast…”

  “I’ll stay here with Mirta,” Bast said, grinning. She winked at him and grinned wider. “Why don’t you take Megan back and show her her quarters?”

  “I’d like Shanea and Amber,” Megan said, pointing at two of the other women.

  “Bast, sort out the embark, will you?” Herzer said as he scrambled into the boat. “Make way. Head for the Hazhir.”

  * * *

  Megan tried to sort out her feelings as they headed for the ship. She didn’t believe in love at first sight, but her reaction couldn’t be anything else. Well, maybe lust. Herzer was the most… masculine man she could remember ever meeting. It had taken her a long time to even notice that his left hand was missing, replaced by some sort of complex prosthetic. His face was also heavily scarred, one scar running from his ear to chin with another on the opposite cheek. And at some point his nose had been broken; it was slightly squashed. Despite that, he was handsome, very handsome. Too handsome. She had to get this under control.

  “Major… Herrick was it?” Megan asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Herzer answered, then cleared his throat.

  “I’ve heard the name before,” Megan said, suddenly. “Paul hated you almost as much as he hated Duke Talbot.”

  Herzer suddenly grinned and she realized that he was far younger than he at first appeared, maybe her own age. She had taken him for nearly a hundred.

  “You don’t know how much that pleases me, ma’am,” Herzer said, still grinning. “And may I congratulate you on your accomplishment?”

  “It was… ugly,” Megan said, shuddering at more than the wind off the water.

  “Killing is,” Herzer said gently, taking off his cloak and wrapping it around her. It was still warm from his body and was filled with his smell. She wrapped it more tightly around herself as much from the pure sensation as against the cold. For some reason she was no longer really feeling it. In fact, she felt like she was running a fever. God this was bad.

  “I’d never killed anyone before,” Megan said, leaning against him suddenly.

  “Killing is a bit like sex,” Herzer said, gently. “You always remember your first. After that it tends to blur a bit.” He stopped and shook his head. “I’m sorry if…”

  “I hope I never get to the point that it blurs,” Megan said, leaning back and looking up at him. “But I’m glad that there are good people that can do the job when necessary.”

  “Good is a relative term, ma’am,” he said with a shrug.

  “I told you to call me Megan,” Megan said watching his face. He was half turned away from her, watching the approaching ship.

  “Good is a relative term… Megan,” he repeated, working his jaw. “Most soldiers that are good at what they do are stone bastards. And I’ll happily add myself, and Duke Edmund, to that category.”

  “Then for the time being you’re my stone bastard,” Megan said, suddenly laughing. “Thank you for coming to pick us up. What’s with the dragons?”

  “There are New Destiny forces nearby, ma… Megan,” Herzer said, gesturing to the coxswain. “If it came to blows I wanted my dragons up. By the way, we should have loaded you last. That way you would be first to disembark. As it is, we’re going to have to do some shuffling around.”

  “Your dragons?” Megan asked.

  “Commander Gramlich’s, actually,” Herzer said, frowning at the bodies in the way of getting her to the front of the boat. “I’m the XO of the dragon contingent.”

  “I thought you were a Blood Lord?” Megan said as the boat pulled up alongside a floating platform. There was a short set of stairs up to the ship’s maindeck and she could see a group of seamen formed up in a double line.

  “Oh, I am,” Herzer said, frowning. “But Blood Lord is a state of mind rather than a job description. Right now I’m the XO of the dragon contingent. Ma’am, would you mind if I got somewhat personal and just lifted you over the side? That’s going to be the easiest way to do this.”

  “That’s fine,” Megan said, standing up carefully in the rocking boat. Now that she had time to notice it at least part of her internal distress was nausea. She really hoped she wasn’t going to throw up in front of everyone.

  Herzer put his hand and prosthetic around her waist and lifted her as if she was a feather over the side of the boat and onto the small platform. As he did the bodyguard scrambled past some seamen and took up station behind her.

  “Ladies, if you could exit at the front,” Herzer said, gesturing to the dock.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Bast boarded the last boat out with Mirta and one of the other women. She slapped the seamstress on the arm and shook her head.

  “I can’t believe Paul Bowman would be stupid enough to take you for some sweet young thing,” Bast said, grinning.

  “I can play the game as well as you, ancient one,” Mirta grinned back. “By the way, did you see Megan? She looked as if someone hit her between the eyes with an oar.”

  “Herzer was just as bad,” Bast said, shaking her head. “It’s like the first time Edmund saw Daneh. Sheida had just been killing time, but her sister, wooo-hoo! Going to have to break in new boy-toy.”

  “They’re both trying so hard to play like nobody notices,” the other girl said.

  “Bast, this is Ashly,” Mirta said, her mouth working. “We’ve had our times, but right now we’re in a state of armed truce.”

  “Mirta,” Ashly said, shaking her head.

  “Oh, can see this is going to be a lovely voyage,” Bast said, chuckling. “If it comes down to cat-fights, though, putting money on Mirta.”

  “I’ve spent a lot of time building up a reputation for harmlessness,” Mirta said, frowning. “I’m not sure I’m up to changing that now. So are we going straight to Norau?” sh
e continued, looking over at Bast and ignoring Ashly.

  “Don’t know,” Bast admitted. “Think not. Large battle going on. Invasion force reaches Norau… today, maybe tomorrow. Will need the carrier.”

  “So we’re going from captivity to a battle?” Ashly snapped. “That’s insane.”

  “Whole world insane,” Bast said with a grin. “Did you not know?”

  * * *

  “This is just insane,” Rachel muttered tiredly.

  She still was the only doctor in the hospital and as the enemy fleet approached, the injury rate had just gone up. She had taken to sleeping on the ward rather than in the rather nice suite that had been set aside for her quarters; since she knew she was going to be called in just about every night it wasn’t worth the fifty-meter walk.

  In addition to the injury cases, the legion had been sending over their post-op patients. On one level it made sense; the hospital was far better quarters than a leaky tent. But, on the other hand, she didn’t have the staff to handle the soldiers as well.

  During the day, between one crisis and another, she had been training her staff, most of the time, unfortunately, in practical exercises. The two PAs were barely adequate as nurses and the nursing staff was only up to simple instructions. She had finally had to open up the internal injury patient but by the time she did it was too late and the experience was nauseating. The nurses didn’t even know the instruments or internal structure; expecting them to assist in a difficult operation was clearly a bad idea. But even with the best nursing staff there was no way she could have saved the patient. His spleen had been ruptured and there was damage to the liver. He’d survived the operation but he’d just… gone during recovery.

  She’d set the two best of them to memorizing internal diagrams and had them assist on two “easier” operations, putting together comminuted fractures.

  On a larger level she felt totally out of her depth. She was far superior in training and knowledge to the rest of the staff but she knew she was still a rank tyro. Every time before when she had a major question she had been able to fall back on her mother’s enormous level of knowledge. Here it was only her.

  Furthermore, she wasn’t getting nearly enough sleep and neither was the staff. And now, with the invasion force only a day or so away, half the staff, including both PAs and one of her “trained” surgical nurses, had disappeared. It was just insane. There was no way to provide decent, or any, care under these conditions.

  “None of them are in their quarters,” Zahar said, shaking his head. “The whole town is evacuating; I don’t see where I can blame them.”

  “I can,” Rachel said, bitterly. “You don’t just leave patients!”

  “The word is that the legion won’t be able to hold them,” Zahar said, unhappily. “They’re outnumbered almost four to one and there’s too long of a line to hold. And who knows where the fleet is?”

  “The fleet, which is under my father,” Rachel noted, “is doing what it has to. I think you can be sure that Balmoran is in the forefront of his mind. And that, whatever it is doing, it is effective.”

  “Doctor Ghorbani,” Keith said, sticking his head in the door to her office, “there’s a patient from the legion on the way. Severe head injury. The legion physicians say they aren’t qualified to handle it, so they sent him to you.”

  “This is just insane! What next?”

  * * *

  “What’s going to happen next?” Edmund said, unhappily. The fleet was pitching through a heavy storm, groping northward for the remaining New Destiny carriers and hoping that the UFS fleet would find New Destiny before New Destiny found the Hazhir.

  “Unfortunately, what is going to happen next is even worse winds,” Shar said. “Reports from the back side of the storm are high winds from the northeast then a large high-pressure system.”

  “Which means no winds,” Edmund said.

  “Correct.”

  “Word on the Hazhir?”

  “They’re to the north of the storm, sailing eastward. Also to the north of the New Destiny fleet. They’re trying to run the gap between the combat fleet and the invasion fleet. The dreadnoughts are to the east of the main storm and making decent time north to Balmoran. All we can do is ride it out and then get back in the game.”

  “Is there some way to work the edges of this?” Edmund asked. “Come around it and avoid the high pressure behind it?”

  “We can sail inshore and follow the dreadnoughts,” Shar mused.

  “That would catch us between the land and the New Destiny fleet,” Edmund pointed out. “With limited maneuvering room.”

  “True,” Shar said. “To the east the storm apparently extends all the way to Briton; no getting around it that way.”

  “Head west,” Edmund said. “We can’t afford to be becalmed for two days. Especially those two days. We’ll take the chance on getting caught in the vise.”

  * * *

  “The legionnaire doesn’t look very good, Doctor,” Keith said from the door of Rachel’s office. The orderly had been hanging around a good bit, she wasn’t sure if it was because she wasn’t panicking from the invasion or because he found her attractive and at the moment she didn’t really care. She just wished he’d leave.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Rachel replied, not looking up from the medical text she was reviewing.

  “And he’s not breathing very well,” the orderly added.

  “No, he wouldn’t,” Rachel said.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Keith asked, not deterred. “Besides having the side of his head stove in?”

  “Subdural cerebral hematoma,” Rachel said, sighing. The legionnaire had been struck, rather hard, by a post that was being set up in the Balmoran defenses. She knew she was going to have to do a trepan operation, basically open up his skull to relieve the pressure on the brain before it swelled to the point of necrosis. She’d assisted in a trepanning operation before, but she’d never actually done one and after losing her first major surgical patient she was not feeling particularly lucky.

  “Subd… sub… what?”

  “Call it ‘brain bruise,’ ” Rachel snapped. “Look, Keith, I’m rather busy here…”

  “Sorry, Doctor,” the orderly said. “Who is going to assist you?”

  “Ms. Katherine,” Rachel replied.

  “Uhmmm…”

  “Don’t tell me she’s gone as well!”

  “Doctor, I think it’s just you, me and the administrator,” the boy said, looking unhappy.

  “Wh…” Rachel stopped and then looked at him and shook her head. “Why are you still here?”

  “Nowhere else to go, miss,” the orderly replied.

  “Well, in that case, go scrub up,” Rachel said. “You’ve just been promoted to nurse.”

  * * *

  “Are we just going to sit in the cabin the whole trip?” Shanea asked.

  Megan looked up from the light sculpture she was working on. She had been examining the extent of the power available to her, now that she actually had some free time. There wasn’t much; enough for one teleport a day, assuming there was anywhere to teleport that didn’t have a block, and a very few other programs. Not enough to ken or create anything worthwhile. But enough for some slight telekinesis and to create light sculptures. She was experimenting with them. If she could create a real enough illusion it might be worthwhile.

  “I’m going to stay in here most of the time,” Megan admitted. She looked over at the girl and shrugged. “I think I sort of got used to being mired in a room. Frankly, the great outdoors has gotten a bit too great.”

  The ship was sailing westward under easy winds, but she’d gone up on deck once and been surprised, and displeased, with how uncomfortable even the light breeze felt. It was cold, for one thing, and the vast expanse of the ocean had actively frightened her.

  For that matter, the attitude of the crew had bothered her; they treated her like some sort of goddess. Even Shanea and the other girls had been treating
her differently. Some of that, she knew, was because of the brutal way that she had removed Paul Bowman; apparently while she was picking up the pregnant women some of the girls had looked in and seen what happened to him. But, beyond that, she was surrounded with the mystique of a council member. The crew treated her as if she might make them disappear, or be Changed into a toad, if they bothered her in the slightest. The girls, either for the same reasons or picking it up from the crew, were beginning to treat her the same way. As if she’d turn them into a toad or pour acid all over them.

  There were only a few people who didn’t seem uncomfortable around her: Bast, Amber, Shanea and Major Herrick. Bast was generally skylarking up in the rigging, Shanea and Amber generally visited her in the cabin and Major Herrick… She didn’t really want to think about Major Herrick. And he seemed to feel the same way. At least he seemed to be actively avoiding her. Every time she had the officers to dinner in her cabin he had “other duties.”

  And, of course, there was Baradur. He was, as ever, sitting by the door to the cabin. As if the marine on the other side wasn’t enough of a guard.

  “You ought to at least go talk to Major Herrick,” Shanea said. “I know you like him.”

  “Shanea…” Megan said, then sighed. “I do like him. But I think I’ve had enough men in my life lately.”

  “Only Paul,” Shanea said, honestly perplexed. “I don’t think Herzer would be like that. From what I’ve heard he’s a pretty good guy in bed.”

  “Shanea!” Megan said then paused. “I really don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

  “Well, I’m going to go for a walk,” Shanea said. “If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t,” Megan replied with a grin. “Just because I’m playing hermit, it doesn’t mean you have to as well.”