by L D Inman
“Ten to fifteen days, to be more exact,” Speir said.
“We’ll never make it,” whispered the sergeant.
“We don’t have to,” Speir answered him. And there it was, the instant of fusion, when her fear became fuel for the lightness of combat. She hadn’t found it in the midst of all this rock and machinery until now. “They can’t keep up this intensity for that long. They’ll have to do it in waves. All we have to do is get through the next pass, and then the next one. Make ‘em spend all their scudders on us, and then glaze them over.”
She didn’t have a clear read on Ansett and the sergeant, but she could see Ell breathe easier at her words. “Sergeant,” Speir went on, “before you go up, give me a rundown of your supply lines and how you move them.”
“Aye, Captain.” The sergeant jerked a nod—not full trust yet, but not bleak skepticism clear through, good—and finished his tea at a gulp.
“Looks like they’re coming for another pass,” Ell remarked. He was still at the viewfinder. Even as he spoke, a series of shrill buzzers burst the air, and a rumbling shook the watch-deck and echoed down the shaft.
Speir turned and saw Ansett’s intelligent gaze fixed on her. Their eyes met for the first time. A tiny, reserved quirk appeared at the corner of Ansett’s lips. “Cup of tea yourself, Captain?” she said.
“I’d love one,” Speir said, just as the guns of Great Hadley opened thunder above them.
~*~
Douglas reached for his teacup, tipped the last tepid swallows down his throat, and got up from his desk. Through the windows, a clutch of cadets and junior officers could be seen on ladders and cord-rigs, kitting out the tower. Good. He strode out the door, past the new comm stations, and found Stevens in the main hall. “What’s the word from Benel Station?”
“Took a while to get them on a secure code, but they’re briefed now. And I’ve got the emergency signal patterns in a list.” Stevens tapped his tablet.
“Put it in the next council briefing,” Douglas said.
“Aye, sir. Anything from Selkirk?”
“He’s not back at HQ yet, but his aide gave me new codes and a time to call back. I took the opportunity to have him put me through to Records and get Orla set up to pull directives before she goes off duty. If the rota captains haven’t got their section’s records updated yet, they better do it now.”
“Aye, sir.”
Douglas quickened his pace toward the cloister doors. “And have Beathas pull all her maps and set up a display at the conference table for the briefing. You stay on call in the comms office.”
“Aye, sir. And where are you going to be?”
Douglas walked backward two paces to look at him. “Chapel. I won’t be long.”
He cut swiftly across the arena quad; the raindrops were fat but slow, and the air felt ominously balmy. If the system rolled in too soon, icefall would be delayed up north. Let a swift eastern front be in accordance with reality. Please. It wasn’t really a prayer, except for the please at the end.
A cadet was stooping out of the chapel doorway as he approached; delayed straightening to give Douglas a brief bow. Douglas returned the courtesy and then entered himself. But his velocity fell away when he rose up in the sheltering gloom.
An unusual number of lights were glimmering in the room beyond the vestibule. Many Ryswyckians had come to make a prayer in recent hours. And why should they not? Douglas thought. Baulked of an arena to give themselves over in, what could they do with their fears but kindle a light? A brief taut feeling passed through him, like the moment before the start of tears, or before the rise of a keen intent.
He unfastened his boots for the second time that day and set them together in the alcove. Sock feet; empty epaulets. I am simply demonstrating from where my authority comes. Selkirk had not been wholly wrong: Douglas’s words had been bravado, and here in the light he knew he stood dispossessed. I’m merely leavening your natural nobility, Speir had said. Speir’s kindness was unfailing. He was here to do justice to her, and to Inslee.
Just stand up and tell the truth. It’ll probably hurt like hell, but you could do worse. Douglas’s feet were noiseless on the polished floor. He approached the lamp, staring into the flame as it stroked the quiet air.
There were no more tapers in the box, but some kind soul had donated their private store of small prayer-lights, and there were a handful left. Douglas took one and held it to the lantern’s flame until it caught.
He’d promised Speir he would do this. Not that he knew what he was doing. His mother was no contemplative, and his siblings had scarcely had time to teach him anything but the rudiments of keeping a household light burning. All offerings are acceptable, said the sage. Douglas hoped that was true. There was a saying that paired with that: Only offerings are acceptable. That left out displays for others, gifts secretly intended to be temporary, and counters for negotiation, Douglas supposed. His hands were empty, even of the means to negotiate. So it could be worse. Inslee was right. He usually was.
Douglas took his light to an empty cleft in the undressed rock. He tipped a few hot, clear drops onto the rock and the crusts of older prayers, and held his light in the cleft until it was anchored.
“He died as a soldier,” he said quietly to his flame. “But he wasn’t killed as a soldier. I’m bearing witness to that.” A crushing pressure, hardly an emotion, gripped him; he drew a breath against it.
“Their names are eternally spoken,” he finished. Then he bowed and left his offering of defiance before the burning lights.
~*~
As soon as Selkirk stepped onto the shuttle-pad at HQ, he was mobbed by a flock of high brass looking for orders, which was why he was still there when Barklay arrived some minutes later. Barklay waited patiently for Selkirk to feed them all and shake them off, which he did, moving into the building with his powerful stride, shedding officers as he went. They disappeared in various directions with looks of purpose on their faces, and Barklay continued in Selkirk’s wake, his two Ryswyckians in tow.
Then, “Get these soldiers a billet in the wing next door,” Selkirk said to an aide, gesturing at Barklay’s cadets. Barklay nodded them away, gave Boyd his own duffel to take with him, and kept after Selkirk, who had not slowed.
At last even Selkirk’s aides had split away to their own desks, and Barklay followed alone on Selkirk’s heels into his office. With a silent look from under his brows, Selkirk pointed Barklay at a side table and was coding into his com-deck even before he sat down at his desk.
Selkirk’s office was not large enough to compass a whole conference table, but it was an intensely dynamic room. There was scarcely a leaf of paper in the place; instead, a double projection generator hummed at one blank wall and a touch-map was fastened on another. Selkirk fanned up a thick sheaf of messages and tore through them, eyes scanning swiftly; then he dropped the projection and took out a tablet. A few brisk taps on the codepad later, he was handing the tablet across the desk to Barklay—again without a word. Barklay rose to take it, and went back to his seat to read quietly.
He could see why the mission had been scrapped. Schematics of the Bernhelm cistern network and its palace debouchements, plus regular contact with two of the designated heirs—that was the sort of intelligence that simply cried out to be used for something. But neither of the heirs was fool enough to carry out an assassination plot on their own, and the logistics of the Ilonians’ entry point would not admit a large strike force. So they had turned to sketching a plan for abducting Lord Bernhelm and holding him hostage. That plan had run aground on finding a way from the rendezvous location to the sub cruiser on the coast; both ends of that part of the operation were vulnerable to failure. That in itself had stopped them from gaming out the hostage play for Ilona’s advantage: and surely, taking du Rau off his home soil would be seen as a clear invitation for one of the southern nations to intervene on Berenia’s behalf. Barklay was pretty sure du Rau had not failed to secure himself an ally or two outside the region;
or if not an ally, at least an interested party hoping for leverage. No doubt that was why Ilona had been having trouble getting any protected trade convoys in.
No: if Berenia couldn’t take Ilona this year, and no treaty was secured, Barklay thought, an exploratory peacekeeping force was bound to show up on both their doorsteps. Du Rau wanted the trading nations interested enough to stand back and let him run this invasion, and had measured the risk that they would get impatient and reach in to take Ilona’s natural resources for themselves. And—
Selkirk would already have thought this through. Barklay called off his ranging thoughts and returned to the mission. Most of the problems could be solved by using the rendezvous location as the holding location. The escape point and the sub cruiser could be kept tenuous, in case some of the team did in fact escape. He did not plan on that for himself. He intended to get close to Emmerich du Rau and stick to him, till du Rau either killed him or ransomed him.
Barklay found a stylus and began making notes.
Some time later he looked up: Taronas was standing before Selkirk’s desk, his tall shoulders stooped, listening to a string of instructions and nodding. Selkirk caught Barklay’s eye as he dismissed him, and said, “Also, Taronas: when Admiral Douglas calls in, take his status report. Alert me if there’s anything urgent; otherwise, I’ll speak to him at his next two-hour report.” Taronas nodded again, a brief glance at Barklay the only break in his impassive manner, and ducked out.
Selkirk turned to Barklay. “Right. What have you got?”
Barklay outlined his plan. Selkirk listened, with the same hard thoughtfulness he’d shown back at Ryswyck in their first discussion. Then, without hesitation, he called up two senior officers and explained what he wanted: a team of ten, with the particular skills needed for the mission, willing to participate in a high-mortality special operation. They would meet in two hours and ship out in four. Then he called a third officer to give the Go signal to their agents over the strait.
With that done, Selkirk went back to triaging his messages while listening to Barklay’s further thoughts on the mission’s logistics. “I told you I do not want to dedicate a sub cruiser to hanging around the drop,” he said, predictably, and they were still wrangling about it ten minutes later when an aide knocked at the door and put her head in.
“My lord,” she said, “I have someone here who wants to speak with General Barklay.”
“Tell them to come back when I’ve finished with him.”
“He wants to speak to you, too. He says it’s urgent.”
Selkirk’s brows lowered. He looked over at Barklay, who, empty of insight, gave him a blank facial shrug. Selkirk sighed, and gave the aide a beckoning wave. She withdrew, and the door opened to admit Captain Ahrens, dressed in fatigues. He stopped in the middle of the room and saluted, boots planted as if the floor might flap away without his weight. Then he fixed Barklay with a direct look and got right to the point.
“I want to be added to your mission, General Barklay, sir.”
Barklay’s consternated glance crossed Selkirk’s. “Who told you there was a mission, Captain?” Selkirk said, severely.
“Cadet Boyd did, my lord,” said Ahrens.
Selkirk glared at Barklay; his color rose and he opened his mouth to reply, but Barklay got there first.
“What exactly did Cadet Boyd say, Ahrens?”
Ahrens’s eyelids lowered briefly; Barklay inferred that Boyd had said quite a bit. “He said that you had asked Ryswyck for two volunteers for a risky special mission that was likely to be high mortality. That’s all he could tell me without speculating, sir.”
“Which, no doubt, the cadet did not hesitate to do.” Selkirk had got his voice back. “Barklay, is there no discipline among your students?”
Barklay ignored this. “So then, with so little to go upon, why do you want to be added to the mission, Captain?”
“If it’s going to disrupt the invasion operation,” Ahrens said steadily, “I want to be a part of it.”
The intensity of his expression told Barklay just what impotent fury was raging among the rank and file at this invasion. Something like compassion rose in Barklay as he searched for a response.
Selkirk had seen it, too. “Captain,” he said gently, “the operational security is not good enough for you to go on a mission across the strait.”
Well, Barklay thought, it certainly wouldn’t be if Selkirk himself was willing to leak details of the plan. But the look that passed between Ahrens and Selkirk made Barklay pause; and the insight came a second later. It wasn’t Barklay’s operation Selkirk was concerned about. It was Ahrens’s.
“It is, though, my lord,” Ahrens argued. “The operation’s past my phase, and you won’t need me for anything else.” Selkirk pinched the bridge of his nose, and Ahrens plowed on. “I’m no use in the capital at this point, my lord. I can run point on a small team, I can improvise tactics, and I’m a dead shot. Put me on the mission.”
“Ahrens,” Barklay said, as Selkirk looked up wearily, “I was not exaggerating when I said to Ryswyck that in the best case we still wouldn’t come back home. The likelihood of getting back to the drop during a pickup window is—”
“I want there to be a home to not come back to,” Ahrens said.
It was hard to argue with that. Still. “You have a lot more to offer than running point on a high-mortality special mission, Ahrens,” Barklay said.
“Well, so do you, if it comes to that, sir. But one way and another, we’re all spending ourselves pretty extravagantly to stay alive, now.” Ahrens exchanged a level look with Selkirk, and a small silence fell.
Barklay realized, with a sink of horror, that Ahrens had precisely calculated that retort for Selkirk’s benefit. Boyd hadn’t only told him about Barklay’s mission. Ahrens knew that Selkirk had tried to torpedo Ryswyck on account of Barklay’s faults. He knew Selkirk considered Barklay’s partisans to be all but traitors. And he knew Selkirk would not hesitate over making use of Ryswyckians who volunteered for danger. Extravagant, indeed.
Selkirk stared up at Ahrens, eyes narrowed, thinking. Then his cool look moved to Barklay. “Well, then, General Barklay,” he said, “can you use a weapons systems engineer on this mission of yours?”
Ahrens turned to Barklay, sturdy and square even in his appeal. Barklay had to admit, it would be a great shot of strength to have Ahrens along, with his adroit steadiness and intelligence. Who would grasp at once what he was trying to do. Their eyes met.
“I would have preferred to shield you from the worst,” Barklay said softly. He held Ahrens’s eyes, but his words were for him and Selkirk both. “But I am very clear how far outside my limits that is.”
“What he means,” Selkirk said dryly, “is: welcome to Ryswyck Division, Captain Ahrens.”
~*~
“It looks like they’re preparing for a southern defense, my lord,” said Lord General Herval.
Emmerich du Rau answered only with a soft hmmm, two thoughtful fingers tapping on the table, gaze absorbed in the projection’s glow. The map showed the current disposition of his forces, both staged and active, at both ends of the strait.
“Have we had a report from the spearhead at Colm’s Island?” Lord General Guiscard, querying Lord Admiral Wernhier across the table.
Wernhier shook his head. “Not yet. They’re working to get the airstrip usable, but we haven’t been able to land any scudders yet.”
Du Rau noted this exchange without responding to it. It would have been too much to expect that the Verlakers would be caught so off guard as to overcorrect the disposition of the Boundary Fleet. But it would not do to give them too much time to anticipate.
“My lord,” Herval said urgently, “if they’re not going to respond to the feint, we have to strike them hard before they can get ready.”
Du Rau did not move his gaze, but he could see the covert glances at Herval’s impatience. Herval was adept at keeping himself contained, but no one on the general st
aff was unaware of his ambition. Least of all du Rau himself, who had risen in the ranks with just that desire to see things done properly and a near-kin belief that he was the one to do it. Du Rau’s ambition, however, was not a legacy of highborn breeding: Herval’s opinion of his own competence rankled with his social peers. Du Rau had already proved his professional competence; he didn’t need to do it again.
“Quite,” du Rau answered Herval. “If you’re going to assume someone is a fool, you’d better be right.” That effectively brought the whole table up short. “I make no such assumption about Lord Commander Selkirk. He will shore up his southern flank as soon as may be. We’ll want to catch any Boundary assets while they’re still in transit. Get another surveillance pass on the southern coast. And while you’re doing that, intensify the bombardment to the north for a couple more hours. Selkirk will want his defensive array in place by nightfall, so as soon as that surveillance data comes back, launch the southern offensive. If we can cripple the stronghold at Colmhaven today, it’ll serve us even if we don’t land forces there right away.”
“Yes, my lord.” They knew well by now that orders like this were immediate, so du Rau’s wave of dismissal was merely a formality. As they were getting up, du Rau said: “Wernhier, I want you on executive duty for the first night watch—” Herval’s lips primmed, biting back protest— “and Herval on the second. I’ll take hourly reports until then.”
Du Rau went back to his office. He worked steadily, reading intelligence digests and field reports, issuing the occasional order, though his commanders needed little guidance. He had seen to it that they all understood the operation thoroughly. He brushed off an offer of supper on a tray, then later wished vaguely that he hadn’t. He looked up.
It was late, and the palace had quieted. The lights outside his office had dimmed so that the glass panels picked up glints from Lady Wisdom’s lantern in the atrium below. Nearly time for first watch; he had better take his rest while he could.
