Against the Tide

Chapter Eighteen

“Admiral,” the messenger said after a tap on the door.

“Yes?” Shar and Edmund answered simultaneously, then grinned.

“It’s actually a message for Admiral Chang, Admiral.” The messenger gulped, nervously. “New Destiny fleet has sailed.”

“Which one?” Edmund asked.

“It was just that, sir, the fleet,” the messenger replied.

“Shar?” Edmund said.

“I’ll query for more information,” Chang said, getting to his feet. “But I suspect they mean it’s both.”

“How many of those devices of Evan’s do we have?” Edmund asked as the messenger shut the door.

“Only a half a dozen. More are being made on shore but getting them out to the area is going to be tricky, especially if the fleet is at sea. They’ll have to avoid them while moving into position. Tricky.”

“We’ll worry about that later,” Edmund said. “Let’s find out what’s going on.”

“Both fleets have sailed.” Major Steffani Viesseman was the fleet’s intelligence officer. Packing Shar’s staff onto the ship, especially with the addition of Edmund and his aides, had been a difficult proposition but they’d managed it.

Packing them into Edmund’s quarters was even harder.

“Right now the information is sketchy,” she continued, pointing to the large map on the wall. “But it looks like only one carrier is with the invasion fleet. The rest have separated and are headed south, between the Briton Isles and Ropasa.”

“What the hell are they playing at?” Chang asked.

“I don’t know, sir,” the G-2 admitted. “Converging columns comes to mind. They could stay to the south of the invasion force. That way if we attack the invasion force they catch us between two forces. Or they could be headed for another target.”

“Do we have anything on the composition of the attack force?” Edmund asked.

“Five carriers, anti-dragon ships, frigates and some clipper ships of a type we don’t recognize,” the G-2 said. “The mer that are shadowing them say they’re not rigged for gunnery, though.” She looked at her notes. “They say there’s an unusually large number of boats along the sides.”

“And they appear to be headed south?” Shar asked.

“At last word, sir,” the G-2 nodded.

“That’s a raid fleet.” Demetra Staffieri was the operations officer for the fleet, a petite brunette whose blue eyes turned almost black and cold when she was thinking hard, as she was now. “The clippers are carrying troops, five gets you ten, sir.”

“Blackbeard,” Edmund said, suddenly. “They’re going for Blackbeard.”

Mer children could not use their gills for the first two years of their lives. Thus they had to live an amphibian existence. Blackbeard Base had been built for the specific purpose of protecting the children and pregnant women of the mer. It was guarded by the largest force of Blood Lords outside of Raven’s Mill but there was no way that it was going to be able to hold out against the force being sent against it and everyone at the table knew it.

“That’s only a guess, sir,” the G-2 pointed out. “Probably a good guess, but only that.”

“If we sail to engage the combat fleet we’ll be playing catch-up with the invasion fleet,” Chang said, looking at the map. “And if we engage the invasion fleet and they are headed for Blackbeard we’re going to have a passel of dead mer-children on our conscience.”

“We don’t have the land forces to stop that level of assault,” Edmund said. “They can swarm anywhere that they choose to land. I’m not sure they can push far in from the beachhead, but they can take a beachhead.”

“Let me point out that we’re not sure we can destroy their combat forces as well,” the G-3 said, carefully. “What about evacuating Blackbeard? Let them take an empty base.”

“There were a lot of ships going down there carrying supplies and construction workers,” the G-4 interjected.

“Yes, and they’re all gone now,” Edmund said. “Maybe if we left the Blood Lords behind we could get enough ships down there in time to pull out the mer. They probably wouldn’t even mind a hopeless last stand. But I’m not going to countenance one.”

“Interesting question,” Shar said, smiling faintly. “Does this fall into your decision or mine?”

“Mine,” Edmund said, leaning back in his chair and looking at the overhead. Thank God he’d gotten over his seasickness so he could think clearly. “When did they sail? How old is this information?”

“Yesterday morning,” the G-2 said. “The delphinos had been pushed back from the harbor. They picked them up well outside.”

Edmund steepled his fingers and looked at them for a moment, then flexed his jaw.

“Head north,” he said harshly. “Shar, implement opsec plan orca.”

“We’re going for the invasion fleet, then,” the G-3 said, doubtfully. “You think the Blood Lords can hold out.”

“We’re sailing north,” Chang replied. “Northeast actually. Do that now. And I need all the carrier commanders and the dragon contingent commanders to fly on for a meeting. After that, I’ll need message packets taken to all the other ship commanders. That is all for now.”

The staff stood up shaking their heads and filed out of the room.

“So you’re going for the combat fleet?” Shar asked.

“Not exactly,” Edmund said. “And I need an operational immediate message sent to all land forces: Plan Fell Deeds.”

Colonel Olin Rienzo thought, as he always did, that Sir Robert Kane, Baron Marshfield, looked like the cavalier’s cavalier.

They had known each other, distantly, before the Fall when Rienzo had been a breeder of thoroughbreds and Kane had been a noted eventer and breeder of Hanarahs. Eventing was the most rigorous of all the equestrian sports, a combination of cross-country riding, dressage and jumping, and Kane had been a world-class eventer. At the time Rienzo had found the cavalier’s affectation of wearing big floppy hats and period dress, even during events, to be humorous. It was only after the Fall that Rienzo found out that eventing was more of a sideline for Kane than anything; his real passion was recreation, specifically eighteenth-century cavalry.

When Kane had turned up, with no more authority than a handwritten note from Edmund Talbot, with the mission of raising what Talbot called a “cavalry legion,” Rienzo had initially been skeptical. It took years to train a cavalryman. Fighting from the back of a horse took more than just being able to hold on. For that matter, cavalry horses had to be intensively trained. Kane, however, for all that he looked and sometimes acted like the reincarnation of an eighteenth-century cavalier, was methodical about military training. He had gathered together a large group of riders, and an even larger group of horses, begged, borrowed and stolen equipment and set up a brutal training program for man and horse. It had produced a force of four thousand horsemen, and nearly sixteen thousand horses, that was about as good a cavalry force as any that had ever existed. It was also costing like fire, but they found the money somehow. Some of it had come from what should have been federal taxes, some of it had come from mysterious sources elsewhere, but they had managed it.

He trotted his horse up the hill to where Kane and Ensign Tao were watching the current exercise. The full regiment had formed on one side of a large valley facing a “notional” infantry formation. As one squadron menaced the front of the formation the other two squadrons, at the command of a set of flapping flags, broke left and galloped to the flank of the notional formation, a large number of stacks of hay in the middle of the field. As soon as they were in position all three squadrons wheeled and charged the “enemy formation,” the groups passing through the formation and each other like teeth in a wheel. As they approached the formation the long lances came down and skewered the bales of hay, then swords came out and slashed downward. In a few minutes the ground was covered with slashed-up hay.

“Not bad,” Kane said. “Bravo troop, First Squadron was slow.”

“Got it,” Tao said, making a note in his book. The ensign was a new addition. He had turned up out of nowhere on a knackered out post horse. Since he had apparently been one of Talbot’s aides, and the fleet had sailed with Talbot on board no more than two days before he turned up, he must have ridden like hell to get to Kent; it was the better part of two thousand kilometers from the coast. But the next day he had been up, limping a little but doing his duty. What his duties were weren’t quite clear. He mostly hung around Kane as some sort of supernumerary doing messenger and aide type duties.

“It’s looking good, Colonel,” Kane said, spinning his Hanarah in place and raising his wide floppy hat in greeting.

Kane was a tall man, somewhere around two hundred pounds, with long blond hair that was going almost entirely gray. He had a flowing mustache and a small goatee that on anyone else would look absurd but so fitted his personality it was unnoticeable. He was wearing leather pants with thigh and shin greaves and a black silk doublet that was open down the chest to expose a red silk undershirt. And since he hadn’t turned around the only way for him to know it was Rienzo was from the sound of the colonel’s horse.

“General Kane,” Rienzo said, saluting. “Yes, it is going well. Amazingly well.”

“I wasn’t sure, frankly, when Edmund laid out his training plan,” Kane said, spinning back to watch the squadrons reform. “And we’ll have to see how the lads do in combat. But I think they’ll do well. Yes, I do think, very well. I’d wish we had more training at managing the pursuit, but that’s as may be.”

“Yes, sir,” Rienzo said. “We’ll have to see. The reason I’m here, though, is that there’s a general operational immediate from Edmund Talbot. It’s addressed to ‘all land commands’ and was copied to us. I thought you should see it.”

“Oh,” Kane said, glancing at him for a message form.

“It was just two words: ‘Fell Deeds.’ ”

Kane’s normally gay face went somber at that and he nodded. “Tao.”

“Yes, sir,” the ensign said, reaching into a saddlebag and pulling out a sheaf of dispatches Rienzo didn’t even know he had. He sorted through them and pulled one out, handing it to Kane.

Kane drew a poignard and ripped through the heavy linen envelope, pulling out a sheaf of papers. He glanced at the opening paragraph and nodded.

“Colonel, the regiment will prepare for movement. Three days rations, combat gear, two remounts for every rider. Leave all the horses that aren’t entirely up to par.”

“May I ask where we are going?” Rienzo said, his brow wrinkling.

“No, you may not,” Kane answered, folding the papers and stuffing them in his doublet. “But you can assure yourself that fell deeds await.”

The Blood Lord came to attention and rapped on the door, twice.

“Come.”

At the word the soldier marched into the room and took the position of parade rest, looking two decimeters above the head of the NCO at the desk.

“Gunnery Sergeant, Captain Jackson has received a warning order of a possible heavy attack. The majority of the Destiny fleet appears to be headed this way along with a sizeable landing contingent.”

The man behind the desk was old, his close-cut hair gray and his skin lined from time in the sun. But his back was straight and the hand that lifted the stogie to his mouth was firm.

“Estimated time of arrival?” the gunnery sergeant grunted, getting to his feet and walking to the window. The view out the window was bright, revealing a blue-green harbor and a fortress under construction. It was only half built, though, despite a few hundred workers swarming over it like ants. In the water a group of mer-women were playing with their children, watched by a group of soldiers in armor that seemed far too heavy for the heat. Despite that, the platoon of Blood Lords were as rigid as so many iron bars. As he watched, three members of the platoon marched to the water butt, drank heavily, then marched back to their positions.

“At least three weeks, Gunnery Sergeant.”

“Dragon-carriers?”

“Five, Gunnery Sergeant.”

The gunny grunted and then chuckled.

“Good. What’s the weather report?”

“I’ll go check with the mer.”

Elayna rolled over on her back and uncapped the barometer, setting it between her breasts and then holding up the wind gauge.

All of the mer teams, in addition to their other duties like killing orcas and finding enemy fleets, took weather readings. They could only get measurements at the water’s surface, although their support ships had weather balloons, but the measurements were put together to form a remarkably complete picture of the movement of air masses.

It was a nice day, breezy mind you, the weather gauge showed right on twenty klicks, but clear and mild. She lay back and let her eyes close, ducking her head back and under from time to time for a breath of water. Sitting at the surface was always a pain, you had to decide whether to duck under for water or blast the lungs clean for air. But it was as nice a day as she could hope. She lay there and wished she was back at Blackbeard Base. Sort of. Whenever she thought of the name she thought of Granddad and that made her sad. There had been so much death since that day. The world really did suck.

She called up an image of the reefs and imagined herself riding the currents past, just floating. No cares, no weight of command, no fears of attack by orca or ixchitl, no barometer readings that take for fricking ever! She rolled up and looked through slitted eyes at the barometer but it was still showing an unstablized reading.

She ducked her head back down and looked at her second in command. “Any sign of orca?”

“No,” he pulsed back. “Skimmers report open ocean all around.”

“We hope,” she said, looking at the barometer again. It finally showed clear and she cased it back up and put away the wind-gauge.

“Signal fleet met,” she said. “Location point 109, wind speed twenty-two klicks, barometer thirty point one five and rising.”

“Nice day,” Katarin said.

“Yeah. Storm a comin’, though.”

“Message coming in,” Katarin said. “New Destiny fleet is at sea.”

“Let’s hope they get becalmed,” Elayna said, rolling over and kicking for the depths.

Paul rolled over so that Megan was on top of him and stroked her back, lightly.

“You seem pretty happy,” Megan said, leaning down to kiss him on his forehead and, not coincidentally, dangling her breasts in his face.

“I am,” he said, reaching back around to stroke the soft flesh. “The fleet has sailed. All of it. Chansa has sent the main combat fleet to attack Blackbeard Base. Edmund’s going to have to choose which fleet to engage; he doesn’t have enough forces to attack both.”

“Which do you think he’ll go for?” Megan asked.

“It doesn’t really matter,” Paul answered. “If he moves for the northern fleet it can turn around. The southern fleet will take out Blackbeard, kill or capture the mer-women and children and that takes the mer out of the equation; they’ll do anything to get their children back. If he attacks that fleet, the main fleet will land in Norau and we can set up portals to support them. Even if he, by some miracle, destroys the fleet, it won’t matter anymore.”

“And the target’s still Balmoran?” Megan asked, leaning into the stroking. It was actually pleasant; Paul had good hands when he bothered to use them.

“Uhm…” Paul said. “And more good news. Chansa has an agent on the Bonhomme Richard, one of the stewards. He has orders to poison Talbot and the fleet admiral, Chang. Edmund never discusses his plans, so the fleet will be dropped into chaos. Then there’s a two-edged sword: Celine tells me she finally has a way to overcome the personal protection fields.”

“That’s impossible!” Megan said.

“That’s what I said,” Paul smiled. “But she proved it. She uses some sort of special nannite. They generate a destabilizing field that interferes with the physics of the PPFs. Unfortunately, they do the same to teleport fields so they can’t be transported by teleports. She’s made little devices to produce them. The devices can be teleported. I’m considering a way to get some of the devices, and assassins, to Sheida’s location. Take her out and it will destabilize the whole of the UFS.”

“That should do it,” Megan admitted. How do I get this information out? I know that Paul has got to be monitoring my meetings with the damned vendor! “Now, why are we talking?” she added, rubbing her breasts in his face. “Aren’t there better things to be doing?”

“You might be wondering what we are doing,” Shar Chang said to the assembled skippers and their dragon commanders. “Well, the answer is, I’m not going to tell you. You all know that we’ve been leaking information to New Destiny, even at sea. Some of you may be the leaks. I doubt it, but I couldn’t believe it of Owen Mbeki. So you’re going to get orders and you’re going to obey them. I’ll be giving you each written instructions. Most of them will be to detach yourself from the main body along with your battle group. The fleet is breaking up.”

He looked around at the assembled skippers and then at the dragon commanders.

“You may be thinking: Why be so sneaky; the orcas and ixchitl will know where we are. Well, not if we can help it. From here on out I want continuous dragon coverage. But not the usual coverage. I want continuous dragon coverage on each of your task forces. What you’re going to train in is anti-orca patrols. Any orcas will be engaged by the wyverns. The wyverns have proven that they can take on orca in the water. When a pod is spotted the carrier will be signaled and a flight of dragons will engage the orca. The water is cold so the riders will have to stay out of the attack. But many of the dragons have fought orca before and when they see them it’s hard to keep them from attacking. Don’t. Lead them to the pod and let them go. Recover them out of the water. Obviously, if the pod is too far from the ship for the dragons to swim back, don’t engage. If they’re that far out, they’re not a threat. But if they close, kill them. Natural or Changed; we can’t tell the difference until we’re on them.”

“Question, Admiral,” Joanna said, raising a talon.

“Yes, Commander Gramlich?”

“Do we get to eat them?”

The question elicited chuckles, some of them hysterical. Even Shar grinned.

“Feel free,” he said. “The supplementary orders to the other skippers are as follows; the only officer who will take navigational bearings is the skipper. No other officer had better have a sextant in his or her hand. The penalty for such will be immediate and unquestioned confinement to quarters with court-martial to follow. Skippers will take one reading per day. The exception to this will be the fleet command ship. Follow the command ship; they know where they are going. In the event that you are separated by storm you can open your second orders, which will give you a rendezvous. The second orders are to be kept under marine guard and the skipper, XO and navigational officer must all be present and in agreement for them to be opened. Is this clear?”

“Clear,” the group said.

“There will be supplementary orders sent to all ships by the end of the day. These orders will be kept under the same conditions. Held by the marine commander in a box to which only the skipper has the key. There will be three such packets: Stonewall, Genghis and Belisarius. They will be opened only upon my signal.

“Maps are to be kept in the same manner; nobody has access to them but the skipper. You skippers will know where you are and in the event of the carrier commanders where you are going. Mer will transmit when you have arrived. If you are delayed by storm or bad winds, that will be relayed as well. For your information, the mer are implementing a deception plan that will indicate that we are not where we’re going to be. Admiral Talbot?”

Edmund looked around at the group and nodded.

“In war you always want to know what your enemy is doing,” he said, looking at the skippers one by one. “And they, in turn, want the same information. This naval war has been fought, to this point, with both sides knowing that information. To the greatest extent possible we wish to end that condition. As to what we are going to do, or how we are going to do it, you will get that information at your rendezvous. Admiral Chang?”

“That’s it,” Shar said, looking around at them again. “Good luck, and good sailing.”

“Those are some damned strange orders,” Karcher said as they flew back to the ship.

“They are,” Joanna replied. “But I can guess the reason.”

“So can I,” Karcher mewed distastefully. “They’re right about us bleeding information.”

“Oh, it’s more than that,” the dragon replied. “You haven’t known Edmund as long as I have. His mind is as deep and black as a bog. He never tells anyone what he plans, or if he tells them, half the time it’s not what he actually does. Part of it, a big part of it, is to deny the information to the enemy. But the other part is that if he changes his mind, or the plan doesn’t go as well as he planned, nobody knows it.”

“That part I understand,” Karcher said unhappily as they turned on final.