Down to the Sea

FIFTEEN

“Now remember, you clear the deck and keep your nose down, let her drop. You’ve got over thirty feet to play with before leveling out. If anything goes wrong and you have time, push her to starboard. That way when you go in the drink you’ll be off to one side and not get plowed under by your ship.”

Adam Rosovich, with Theodor by his side, paced in front of the pilots and gunners gathered around him on the deck. A brisk wind was up, whipping his hair, and he turned into the breeze.

“We’ve got a good thirty-knot blow running between the ship and the wind. You shouldn’t have any problems.”

He looked around at the pilots. More than half of them were graduates of this year’s class from the academy. Most of the rest had come out a year or two ahead of him. One of them had been his senior cadet commander when he had been a first-year plebe. It felt strange to be giving advice and orders to them. The new captain’s bars pinned to his collar seemed ponderously heavy, and in a way he felt like a fraud. He had gained the rank simply because he had been available and done all this first. Granted, he would admit to himself that he was a damn good pilot. But the technical side of it had actually captivated him during his work with the Design Board, and besides, it was a hell of a lot less suicidal than the assignment he now had.

“Finally, we’re trying something different here than what you trained for on land. When you clear the aft deck for landing, if you don’t touch down and snag, we want you to give it full power and get the hell up again, then go around.”

“Full power?” one of the Goliath pilots asked incredulously. “What the hell are you talking about? You should cut throttle completely and if need be nose it in.”

“Sir,” Adam replied quietly, staring at the pilot who was five years his senior and commander of the squadron on Perryville.

There was a momentary pause as the pilot looked around at his comrades for support. Finally he showed a trace of a definite grin. “Yes, I’m waiting for a logical answer, Rosovich.”

“Look, O’Reilly. Let’s say you’re tenth in line coming back from the strike. We’re pushing the planes forward after they land. You miss your approach, go drifting down the deck, throttle off, nose down, but you keep missing the snag wires. Where the hell do you wind up? You plow into the next plane in line, maybe two or three of them. You chop open a fuel tank, that new benzene fuel goes spraying around, and suddenly the whole ship is on fire.

“Mr. O’Reilly, therefore, if you miss the approach, the landing officer is going to wave you off. You obey him, by God. You hit the throttle, bank to port, and get the hell out of the way.”

“All right, Adam. But another thing, that damn benzene. One bullet and it explodes. At least kerosene just bums. What the hell is the Design Board trying to do to us?”

Theodor stepped in front of Adam, ready to confront the anger that had been simmering ever since the new burners for the engines and the new fuel had been revealed.

“It’s a question of energy and weight,” Theodor said. “With benzene you get a lot more heat per pound of fuel. Weight is crucial, gentlemen. You might have to push this out to maximum range, and the benzene fuel will give you an extra fifty miles, which might make all the difference in this flight. I don’t like the risk any more than you do.”

“You’re not flying it,” someone whispered from the back of the group.

Theodor bristled, but it was Adam who stepped forward.

‘Any man here who dares to question Theodor’s bravery better step forward right now.”

No one moved.

, “You know what he did in the last war. Does anyone want to challenge that?”

There was no response.

“All right then. Everyone get ready for a go around.”

A groan went up. Theodor looked over at Adam, but said nothing.

“And remember, for the first time we’re all doing it with full loads.” He pointed at the lined-up aerosteamers. Each of them had a barrel strapped underneath filled with sand.

Actually, all the planes would be lighter than when they did it for real. The guns on the Falcons were empty, and the fuel load was just enough to take them around on the exercise. There simply wasn’t enough wind to get them off otherwise.

The group broke apart, the ten pilots who were flying headed for their aerosteamers, which were packed onto the deck. The pilots of the second group drifted off to stand along the side railing.

Adam looked up at the bridge, caught the attention of Admiral Petronius, saluted, then pointed a clenched fist forward. Petronius wearily shook his head, finally saluted back, and turned away.

Theodor laughed softly. “You know, there’s a lot of debate up on that bridge about who is actually in command on this ship.”

“I take orders from Petronius like everyone else, but when it comes to actual flight operations, I guess I’m in charge.”

“Heady job for someone barely out of the academy.”

“Wasn’t it the same in the last war? You were what, twenty?”

“Something like that.”

The lead aerosteamer, a Falcon, was rolled into position by its crew. The routine had been practiced for several days as the Shiloh cruised down from Suzdal to its first refueling stop at Cartha. That ancient city was fifty miles astern. The vast river, now named the Mississippi, was several miles wide. Straight ahead, Adam could make out the high ground that rose up like a bastion on the east bank-the Merki Narrows.

With the Falcon in place, the launch chief, a new position created by Theodor, and given to Quintus who had suggested the position, stood ready, holding the flapping red flag, a visual indicator of wind speed and any last-second variants.

Behind the lead Falcon the second and third machines were already revving up, running through the final check.

The launch chief waved the flag in a tight circle over his head, pointed it forward and ducked down.

As the lead pilot threw in full throttle, his support crew let go of the wingtips and ducked to either side. The Falcon lumbered down the deck and lifted off a good thirty feet before reaching the bow.

“Note it down,” Adam said, looking over at yet another new creation, the launch and landing observation mate. “Plane number one should keep his wheels down as long as possible. He pulled up too soon. He’ll argue he had the speed, but if the wind had suddenly dropped, he would have stalled and gone in.”

The second plane took off without mishap, followed by the other four Falcons of the first squadron. Now came the heart-stopping moment, the big two-engine Goliaths.

The four airships were lined up at the aft end, all of them set off center so that their port side wings extended half a dozen feet over the side of the ship, just barely giving them enough clearance to get their starboard wing past the bridge.

The first of them started up, slowly rolled down the deck, bounced, lifted a few feet, touched back down, then lifted again, and gained altitude. The other three followed without mishap, and Adam, who felt like he had been holding his breath through the entire operation, exhaled noisily.

“Time?” he asked, looking over at Theodor.

“Thirteen and a half minutes.”

Adam shook his head.

He looked aft. Once the launching had started, and the first four planes were cleared, there was enough room aft for the rear ramp to be lowered so that the planes of the second squadron could be brought up from below and prepared for launch.

As each plane cleared the ramp, launch crews struggled to swing the folded wings into place and lock them, then started up the engines, which would take nearly ten minutes to fully heat up.

Adam paced back and forth nervously, every few minutes looking over at Theodor, who was still holding his watch.

“Too long,” Adam snapped. “Damn, the lead squadron will burn an hour’s worth of fuel waiting for us.”

“I know.”

The six Falcons of the second squadron lifted off. The wind had picked up slightly, and all six were cleanly airborne by the time they reached the end of the launch deck.

Finally, the last four Goliaths came up.

“Don’t screw this up,” Theodor shouted. “You want them to follow you, you better do it right the first time.”

Adam nodded, heading to the aft ramp as his aerosteamer emerged. He squatted down, carefully examining the weapon strapped underneath. The other Goliaths were carrying sand, but he was carrying the real thing, the first live test of the new weapon.

He climbed up into the cockpit and revved the engines even as the launch crew walked the plane forward, rapidly ran through a final check of controls, looked over at Quintus, who waved his flag in a tight circle and then pointed forward.

He slammed the throttles up. The massive caloric engines hissed, fumes from the burning benzene washing over him. With the extra five hundred pounds on board the ship felt heavy, the launch deck impossibly short as he rolled forward, thankful for the extra fifteen knots of wind blowing up from the south, sweeping along the deck. The wings bit, controls felt lighter, and he lifted. The fact that the airship had only enough fuel on board for the demonstration flight was worrisome, and he wondered how it would handle when fully loaded.

The morning was slightly hazy, thin wisps of mist drifting across the Mississippi. He flew steadily forward for the first mile, watching his gauges, letting airspeed build up to sixty knots, then turned out of the wind. The other planes, which had been circling in their holding pattern to the starboard of the Shiloh at an altitude of a thousand feet, were waiting for him.

He wondered what they were thinking, how many were cursing him, how many thought him mad, how many might actually believe in what they were trying to do.

He wagged his wings, signaling for the group to follow, and all but one fell into line, flying in formation abreast, heading back up the river.

Several miles astern of Shiloh was Wilderness, and a mile behind her the third aerosteamer carrier Perryville. Wilderness had recovered all the planes from her practice, the deck was packed with them and Adam had a cold thought, wondering what would happen if a Kazan aerosteamer should ever catch them thus, planes loaded with benzene lining the deck. The last of the Perryville’s planes were coming in, and to his dismay he saw a burning slick on the water behind her, bits of wreckage floating. Someone had gone in. The light frigate tailing the group had come to a stop, sending a rescue boat over the side, but it was hard to tell if they had managed to pull anyone out.

The practice target for the day was clearly marked along the east shore of the river. It was the hulk of an old ironclad monitor from the last war, anchored in place. The once proud ship had been stripped of her two guns. Observers from the Design Board, who had been dropped off from the escorting frigate to observe the strike, lined the bank. Someone, not trusting the eyesight of the pilots, had splashed red paint on the side of the ship and hung a red flag from atop the rusted turret. Muddy splashes ringed the ship, and to his delight he could see where a barrel of sand had exploded directly atop the turret. Whoever had scored that one deserved a bottle of vodka once they reached Constantine.

The Falcons were practicing bombing today, but the board was still debating if the several hundred pounds might not be better spent on additional ammunition for their gunner in order to provide covering fire for the far more lethal load carried by the Goliaths.

Adam, leading the way, circled in over the monitor, holding at a thousand feet. He looked over at Captain Sugami, leader of the 1st Squadron, who was flying a Falcon just off his wingtip, pointed down, and saluted.

‘Sugami, grinning, saluted back, and led the way, nosing over, cutting into a broad circling turn to bring his unit around to the north for a run down on their target straight into the wind.

Adam realized that in a way the entire exercise was ridiculous. The target, anchored fore and aft, was stationary, no one was shooting back, there was no smoke, and most of all there was no fear, other than the usual knot in the stomach one had when flying a crate loaded with explosives.

The first squadron turned into their attack position, as discussed, three miles out from the target, flying line astern, Falcons first, followed by the Goliaths.

Sugami, in the lead plane, landed his barrel of sand almost square on the monitor’s turret. The next three planes did nearly as well, but the last two were abysmal, one missing by a good hundred yards, the other crabbing at the last second. His barrel hit fifty yards off the ship’s bow.

The four Goliaths followed with mixed results. One slammed his barrel directly across the bow of the ship. The other two hit within a couple of yards. The last was either a fool or his release mechanism was jammed, for the barrel didn’t fall until he was a good quarter mile beyond the target.

Adam motioned for the second squadron to go down while he continued to circle. The results were roughly the same, perhaps a little bit better, with two Goliaths making hits this time.

No maneuvering, no shooting, no smoke, he kept thinking throughout. His heart was beginning to pound. What would the real moment actually feel like?

Finally he was alone, the rest of his planes heading back to the Shiloh. He swung out over the target, skimming along the shore, looking down at the several dozen men and women from the design team.

As he nosed over, picking up speed rapidly, he could feel the five-hundred-pound weight of the weapon slung beneath his cockpit pulling the Goliath down. He leveled out a bit too early, eased down another fifty feet, and went into his banking turn. Coming out of the turn, he lined up on the ironclad.

From three miles out it looked absurdly small, almost difficult to spot except for the red paint and flag. He closed in, wondering what the range was for the Kazan guns, how much fire would be coming at him, what was their tactical deployment, whether they had armed escort ships ringing the targets.

Range was less than a mile. He dropped lower, down to fifty feet, eased back on the throttle, bringing airspeed down to fifty knots. A hint of turbulence buffeted a wing up, and he steadied it out. There seemed to be a slight surge with the engine, but he ignored it. Range was a half mile, and now the ironclad was looking bigger, but the real thing would be far bigger, a dozen times bigger, and shooting at him.

He leaned into the sight, nothing more than a piece of pipe with a crosshair set inside. He aimed straight amidships today, since the target wasn’t moving. When its real aim half a ship’s length ahead of the bow, a few seconds more…he pulled the release.

The Goliath surged up like a bird of prey that had just dropped a burden that had proven too heavy. He gave the plane full throttle, then banked over sharply, circling around, remembering to stay well clear of the monitor. Turning out and away, he caught sight of a foaming wake.

The damn thing was working! It was under its own power, cutting through the water, exhaust from the compressed air spinning the propeller!

He thought he actually caught a glimpse of the underwater, self-propelled mine moving through the water at fifteen knots. This time it was tracking straight in, closing on the side of the monitor.

And nothing happened.

A second later he caught a glimpse of it again…on the other side of the ship! It had gone right under the target.

Cursing, he winged over, following it. The underwater shell continued on its way, going another two hundred yards until finally its compressed air tank lost pressure. The weapon slowed, came to a stop…and finally there was a violent explosion. Water cascaded a hundred feet into the air as it struck the bottom of the river.

“Damn it all to hell.”

It had tracked too deep. Maybe the monitor didn’t draw enough water, but still, he knew how this would affect his men. They’figured the whole thing was a suicidal gesture anyhow. The fact that this, the fourth test, had been a failure as well wasn’t going to help.

Dejected, he turned south, heading back toward the Shiloh. Suddenly there was a flash of fire. Even from six miles away he knew what had happened as he caught a glimpse of flame spreading out astern of the carrier. Someone had crashed and most likely died on landing.

And this is how we are supposed to stop the Kazan? he thought grimly.

Andrew hesitated before knocking on the door, and the mere fact that he did shocked him. The city was quiet this time of night, just after midnight, when he often enjoyed going for a walk. Ditching the guards was an old routine, and they went through the show of expressing their dismay when he returned. He suspected that as usual a couple of them were following at a discreet distance under orders from Kathleen.

He could see that lights were still on where Pat lived, which had been Andrew’s home until the presidency forced him to move back into the White House. Reaching the porch of his home, he felt a wave of nostalgia. It was where they had raised their children, and it was in that front parlor that they had held the wakes for the ones who had died. How many evenings, he thought with a smile, did we sit on this porch, the children playing in the New England-like town square? The few men left of the 35th Maine and 44th New York would often gather here in the evening, drinking lemonade spiked with a touch of vodka, laughing about the old days, remembering comrades lost. The tales kept growing, enlarging in memory through the years until it seemed that they had once lived and fought in a golden age.

The children would frolic in the front yard, sometimes stopping to listen, other times wandering off to play tag around the statue dedicated to the memory of the fallen, or dance around the bandstand where, on summer evenings, light waltzes and traditional Rus tunes would be played.

He turned back to the task at hand, lifted the heavy eagle brass knocker, and let it drop.

No answer. He rapped again, several times. Finally he heard a mumble from the parlor. Knowing what it meant, he opened the door and walked in.

Pat was sprawled out on a sofa. Andrew was glad Kathleen was not along. She’d had the sofa specially made, patterned after the designs popular back on Earth just before they had embarked on “their journey.” It was a beautiful piece made with dark walnut and upholstered with a light green silk. Pat, dusty boots still on, had his feet up over the side, an empty bottle of vodka on the floor next to an overturned spittoon and another bottle, which was lying on its side, half empty. The place stank.

Bleary-eyed, Pat looked up and frowned. “Get the hell out and leave me alone,” he growled.

Andrew, without saying a word, headed for the kitchen. A low fire still glowed in the wood stove. Picking up a handful of kindling, he tossed it in, found some tea in the pantry, and set a kettle to boiling.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He looked up. Pat stood in the kitchen doorway, leaning heavily against the frame.

“Getting you sobered up, damn it,” Andrew snapped.

“What for? Now leave me alone.”

“How long have you been on this drunk? Two days, three?”

Pat grinned foolishly. “I don’t know.”

“We’ve got things to go over.”

“Let it wait till morning. I’m tired.”

“A wire came up from Bullfinch an hour ago. There’s a report of smoke from ships being sighted inside our boundary. It might mean they’re coming a hell of a lot quicker than we expected. Bullfinch is sending up an aerosteamer now. It will be out there by dawn.”

“So?”

“Pat, if they’re inside our boundary, as defined by the treaty, that means Cromwell was right and we’re at war.”

“Cromwell. God damn his soul.” Pat turned, staggering back to the parlor. Andrew could hear a bottle clattering and followed.

Pat was standing by the parlor window, bottle up, ready to take another drink.

“Drop it, Pat.”

Pat looked over and smiled, but there was a light in his eyes that Andrew knew well.

“Drop it, Pat,” he said slowly.

“Are you going to make me, Andrew darlin’?”

“If I have to.”

Pat laughed, tilted his head back and started to drink.

Andrew strode across the room and struck the bottle away. It slammed against the window, shattering a pane.

Pat turned with a roar. Grabbing Andrew by his shirt, he slammed him up against the wall. “No one, not even you, stops me from a drink,” he cried.

Andrew remained motionless. “Let go of me, Pat,” he said softly, “I’ll fight you, by God, if you want, but let me take my jacket off first.”

Pat looked at him, wide-eyed. The front door out in the hallway was flung open, and two of Andrew’s bodyguards rushed in, one of them with pistol drawn.

“Get out!” Andrew shouted. “Get the hell out of here!”

“Sir?”

The two stared at them, obviously terrified, with their charge pinned to a wall by a drunk senator.

“I told you to get the hell out of this house!” Andrew yelled, his voice nearly breaking. “Wait out in the street until this is over.”

The two looked at each other, a few words were whispered, and they backed out the door, not bothering to close it, and waited on the porch.

“Are we going to fight, Pat?” Andrew asked.

Pat let go of him, and Andrew, without waiting for a reply, fumbled with the buttons of his Lincolnesque longtailed jacket. He let it fall to the floor and raised his one hand and balled it into a fist.

Pat stood stock still and then turned away, shoulders beginning to shake. Within seconds he had dissolved into sobs.

Andrew came up to his side, put an arm around his shoulders, and led him back into the kitchen, settling him down in a straight-back chair next to the stove. He found two mugs and poured out the boiling tea. Clumsily holding the mugs in his one hand, he kicked another chair over to Pat, sat down, and offered him one.

Pat, face covered with his hands, continued to sob. “Come on, old friend, drink some of this.”

Pat looked up, face red from crying and far too many years of drinking. “And you with one arm wanting to fight me, no less.”

“Because I’m your friend, Pat.”

That started the tears again.

“I’m ashamed of meself, Andrew darlin’, ashamed I am.” He slipped into such a heavy brogue, Andrew was not sure of what he said next.

Finally he looked up at Andrew and, surprisingly, made the sign of the cross. “May the saints damn me forever if I ever touch you again in anger.”

“Just drink the damned tea,” Andrew said wearily. He almost preferred Pat belligerent rather than sunk into a maudlin display of Irish drunkenness.

Pat did as ordered, half draining the scalding brew, then finishing the rest while Andrew sipped his own. He sat back and waited for the effect. A long minute passed. Pat stood up, staggered out onto the front porch, and got sick. After a long while he came back, features pale, and Andrew tossed him a towel. Wiping his face, he dropped the towel onto the floor and sat back down while Andrew found another cup and refilled it. This time Pat drank more slowly.

“It’s my son, you know,” Pat finally said. “The fact that he did what Cromwell said. I still can’t believe one of me blood would do such a thing.”

“Our children, Pat, sometimes one never knows.”

“Your own boy? I’m sorry. Any word?”

Andrew shook his head. “Hawthorne said he’s sending up a couple of extra aerosteamers to patrol out toward their last known location. I told him not to do anything special…” and his voice trailed off.

“The whole frontier’s exploded. Fifth cavalry was completely wiped out, their fort overrun. Fourth and Seventh are in a running fight, retreating. The only thing that saved them was two aerosteamers. The Bantag got one of them, but the gatling fire kept them back long enough so the regiments could ford a river and get the hell out.

“There’s going to be an uproar in Congress when it opens in another eight hours. The Chin are talking about forming up their own militia, going out, and massacring any Bantag they find. One of the Qarths, old Kubazin, is staying put, says he’s keeping his land. I want him left alone; he’s staying within the treaty agreement, but the Chin want to go and kill him and everyone else.

“Pat, it’s chaos out there and it starts up here come morning. A fair number of senators are claiming the whole thing is a mad mistake and are looking for someone i. blame.”

“You,” Pat croaked, looking down glumly at his tea.

“I can stand that. If the Kazan are indeed coming, in another day or two that song will change. But then it will be a different tune-how we weren’t prepared, how we somehow provoked the attack, how the Republic is finished and will never work.” His voice trailed off as he looked at Pat, realizing that while he had been pouring out his woes, his friend was still dead drunk and consumed with his own anguish.

“Our boys, Andrew,” Pat sighed.

Andrew felt a sudden welling up of tears, and he struggled not to break, not now. All he could do was nod. “I thought our war would have finished it. That it would never touch our own.”

Pat looked up and smiled weakly. “I just wish I’d set mine on a different path, when I still had the chance.” He took another sip of tea and lowered his head again.

“You’re a dreamer, Andrew me friend, if you thought our war was the last of it. Our parents dreamed it. Mine did when they sent me away from Ireland, saying America would be safe, and look at the right fine slaughter you and I found ourselves in there.”

He hesitated.

“If your boy survives, and I pray to the saints he does, his boys after him will fight as well.”

Andrew said nothing, realizing with a profound sadness that his friend had not included his son in that prayer as well.

Lieutenant Abraham Keane froze. Something was ahead, something had moved.

He could sense Sergeant Togo beside him, crouched low, knife out. As the seconds passed, the high wispy clouds that had obscured Baka, the greater of the two moons, parted.

Togo relaxed. A rabbit, nearly under their feet, leapt up and bounded away.

Andrew exhaled noisily. Togo held his hand out, motioning for him to remain still. Off to his right, he could see the glow of a fire flickering in a ravine, a gruff voice, silence for a moment, then barking laughter. The next wave of high-drifting clouds covered the moon.

Togo crept forward, Abraham and the rest of his men following. Every step kicked up tiny plumes of dust, ash, and the smell of charred grass. Another smell drifted on the breeze as well, and he suppressed a gag.

Again the moonlight appeared, and all of them froze, crouching low. Abe looked back to the east. The butte stood out clearly in the moonlight. A flash, seconds later the report of a rifle.

Darkness again, they pushed forward. Togo slowed again, touched Abe on the shoulder, pointed. The ground ahead dropped away to reveal a broken wheel sticking up out of the shallow ravine. Togo got down on his hands and knees, crawling the last dozen paces, Abe at his side.

Three days in the sun had made the stench all but unbearable. He caught a glimpse of what was left of the horses. The Bantag had butchered them for the meat, but not the offal. Abe was startled when a buzzard, which had been resting next to the remains, tried to fly off, squawking, belly so distended that it could barely get into the air.

Abe pressed his face to the ground, gasping, trying to deaden the sound of his vomiting.

Togo, ignoring his misery, pulled him over the lip of the ravine and down into the awful mess, then hissed for the others to follow.

“You men with the canteens,” Togo whispered, “get up the ravine, fifty yards at least from this filth, scoop up an embankment to block the water and start filling the canteens.”

“Lieutenant, some cartridges might have spilled out of this wagon. Feel the ground.”

The clouds parted again, and in the moonlight he caught a glimpse of one of the drivers-what little was left of him after the butchering.

“Still think Jurak’s your friend?” Togo whispered fiercely.

Abe started to retch yet again.

“Damn you, Lieutenant, there is no time for that now,” Togo hissed.

Startled, Abe looked over at him.

“Look, damn it. Look.”

Abe crawled across the muddy bottom of the ravine. A wagon had upended, its torn canvas top rippling in the breeze. Inside the wreckage he caught a glimpse of the second driver and turned away.

“In here,” Togo whispered.

Abe, startled, saw that the sergeant had come into the wagon from the other side and was kneeling alongside the stinking smear of what had once been a man.

Abe hesitated, took a deep breath, and then slipped up to the sergeant.

“The bastards looted it clean, but here’s a broken ammunition box. Help me.”

Abe heard the rattle of shells as Togo swept them up from the floor of the wagon and started to dump them into his haversack.

“Come on, Lieutenant. If they saw that buzzard fly off and not come back, they might get suspicious.”

The stench was all around him. He felt as if it was seeping into his clothes, his hair, penetrating his skin. He tried not to breathe as he swept his hands across the bottom of the wagon. Then he felt something rolling underneath. He scooped up several carbine shells.

The discovery made him forget his anguish. Half the men back up on the butte were completely out of ammunition, and the rest had only two or three rounds apiece. He rejoiced as if he had stumbled into a cave filled with jewels.

“Why didn’t they take these?” Abe whispered.

“You might not believe it, but those hairy bastards have sensitive noses,” Togo whispered. “Our old comrade here scared them off if they came back looking for more later. Now shut up and get these shells.”

Abe slowly crawled about in the dark, feeling the wooden boards, recoiling for a second when he touched something soft and yielding. Then, realizing that more shells were underneath the noisome mass, he closed his eyes, pushed it aside, and grabbed more of the precious cartridges.

The haversack draped from his shoulder grew heavy as the minutes passed, and then he became aware that Togo had stopped working. He was crouched half up, tensed, hand out, motioning to Abe.

All his instincts seemed to flare at once. He felt the hair at the nape of his neck stiffen, his heart thump. Ever so slowly he backed out of the wagon, Togo by his side, neither saying a word.

A cascade of crumbling dirt trickled down from the top of the ravine. He started to draw his revolver before he saw the glint of Togo’s knife in the moonlight.

He slipped his revolver back into its holster, reached around to his other hip, and slipped out a bayonet. He followed Togo to the side of the ravine, pressed up against the wall, and waited.

In the silence, Abe heard something breathing. Again the shadows parted, moonlight flooding the ravine, and on the far wall of the gully he saw a shadow moving.

Togo pointed at the shadow, then held his knife up.

Abe took a deep breath and nodded.

The two went up the side at the same instant.

A dark silhouette towered above him. It was turning, swinging something. He ducked under the blow. After a grunt of pain, the silhouette doubled over, dropping a rifle, which fell with a clatter that sounded like a tree crashing in the stillness.

The shadow lashed out with a clubbed fist, and Togo spun backwards. The mass of darkness leapt on top of the sergeant.

Abe stood there, transfixed as the two struggled, rolling on the ground.

“Kill him!” Togo hissed, “kill him!”

Time stretched out. He wondered who this was. Could it be one of the cubs that Jurak had pointed out to him only days ago? He didn’t seem full-grown for a Bantag.

“Keane!”

Abe saw an arm go up, heavy blade shiny in the moonlight.

He leapt upon the back of the Bantag. Grabbing the arm, he pulled it back, jerking the arm with such force that he heard the bone snap.

There was a howl of pain.

Terror drove him. He let go of the broken arm and grabbed the Bantag’s head with his left hand, and then slashed down with his right, driving the blade into his victim’s throat.

He felt something hot splashing out. The howl disintegrated into a gasping, bubbly groan.

He cut again, feeling the blade hit bone.

Togo kicked his way out from under the Bantag.

“Damn, Lieutenant, don’t hesitate next time!”

Abe, barely hearing him, continued to slash, feeling the life slipping out of the Bantag. He begged for him to die quickly, to end it.

Togo pulled him back. “Enough, Lieutenant, he’s finished! Now by all the gods let’s get out of here!”

Togo rolled back down into the ravine, but Abe stood up, still holding the blade.

A gutteral challenge echoed from the next ravine, where they had spotted the fire.

“Lieutenant!”

He saw a shadow standing up, then another.

“Lieutenant!”

Abe looked back down at the body, which was still kicking spasmodically.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped, and leapt back down into the gully.

“What the hell is going on?”

It was one of the men from the watering party.

“We’re on the move,” Togo hissed.

Togo led the way, running up the ravine, Abe and the returning soldier following. They met the men still filling canteens.

“We’ve only got half of them full,” one of them cried.

“No time,” Togo snapped, and he sprinted on.

Abe waited as one of the men plunged another canteen into the muddy pool. Drawing his revolver, he turned, looking for Bantag. The seconds dragged out.

“Finished!”

The soldier began to stand up. There was a blinding flash, the roar of a rifle shot shattering the stillness. The man with the canteen seemed to lift into the air and was flung backward.

A Bantag stood atop the ravine. Flash-blinded, Abe turned, crouched and fired, then fired again. He caught a glimpse of the Bantag crumbling, clutching his stomach.

The man whom he had been guarding was dead, arms spread wide, half a dozen canteens flung out on the ground beside him.

The water, the precious water.

He snatched up the straps of the canteens and started to run.

As soon as he had turned his back on the dead man, a mad panic took hold, and he ran blindly, weaving his way up the ravine. He heard another rifle shot, this one directly above. He blindly raised his revolver, fired again, and kept on running, slipping on the muddy ground.

He came around the next turn in the gully and almost screamed with fright. In the moonlight he saw the glint from a gun barrel.

It was Sergeant Togo, weapon leveled straight at him.

Togo lowered the gun, then a split second later raised it and fired.

Abe turned and saw a Bantag directly behind him. He hadn’t even heard his pursuer closing in. The Bantag spun around, clutching his shoulder.

“Come on, sir!”

Togo sprinted off and this time Abe followed, keeping close. Ahead he could hear his men running. They were reaching the top. Above the lip he could see the butte, the Great Wheel overhead.

Strange, the night was so crystal clear. The fact that he had time to recognize that struck him as curious.

The gully where they had been began to curve away from their mountain fortress. The quarter mile of open prairie that they had crept across before now separated them from safety.

The men ahead had slowed, not sure what to do.

Togo didn’t hesitate. He turned to look back, crouching low. “Full out now, boys. Don’t stop for anything. If a man goes down, grab his water, but he’s on his own. Now run for it!”

The group started off.

Abe looked back, saw flashes of torchlight in the ravine, deep voices calling. He started to run. Togo was in the lead, but something compelled Abe to keep to the rear, following his men. He heard the clatter of hooves, and from his left saw several Bantag coming up out of a deep gully, urging their mounts forward.

At the sight of them everyone redoubled their efforts, the men gasping, canteens slung over their shoulders, banging on their hips. For a second Abe was tempted to let his own canteens drop, to cut them loose, but he hung on to the precious load and to the haversack brimming with cartridges.

At first it seemed that the riders had not seen their prey. Then they turned and started straight for them.

From atop the butte he saw a flash. A second later the sharp crack of a rifle shot echoed. A waste of a precious round.

The riders closed in, one of them standing in his stirrups, and though he could not see, Abe knew the man had a bow and was drawing it.

One of his men went down, clutching his leg, canteens clattering.

There was a flash of a pistol. Togo was firing, and though he missed the rider the horse reared and turned away. The other two continued to follow them. An arrow slashed past Abe, the rider pressing in, both hands off the reins, tossing aside his bow and drawing a scimitar.

Abe crouched, both hands on his revolver. He cocked it and waited. As the Bantag closed in, he emptied his cylinder. Horse and rider crashed to the ground in front of him He turned, but the third rider was gone, where he could not tell.

Holstering his empty revolver, Abe ran up to the downed trooper, who was clutching his thigh and gasping.

“Can you run?”

The man looked up at him wide-eyed.

“Take the water!”

His English was broken, thick with the brogue of the Gaelic.

Ignoring Togo’s orders, Abe put an arm under the man’s shoulder and helped him up.

“Run!” Abe hissed.

The two set off, staggering and weaving. He was tempted to throw off their canteens, but the butte looked so close, so damnably close, and he pushed on.

He could no longer see Togo and the others.

He heard hoofbeats, looked over his shoulder, and saw four more riders coming in at the gallop.

“Run, damn it, run!” Abe cried. The wounded trooper gasped, cursing in Gaelic, staggered alongside him, hopping on his one good leg.

The pursuit came closer, thundering. He could hear their wild shouts and sensed they were filled with a mad joy, the joy of the hunt and the kill.

The wounded trooper started to push him away, shouting for Abe to run. Abe turned, pulled his revolver back out, raised it at the lead rider and then remembered that it was empty.

He stood there, stunned. The rider filled his world, a darker shadow in the darkness of night.

The rider tumbled backward, falling, illuminated by a brilliant flash.

A volley crackled around him. Half a dozen troopers came up at a run, crouching low, carbines raised. One of the men grabbed Abe, pushing him forward. Another scooped up the Irish soldier, the two of them shouting at each other in their native tongue.

Abe felt his legs turn to liquid, and for a second he was frightened that he had wet himself in terror, but then realized he was soaked with sweat.

Barely able to walk, he accepted the helping hand of a trooper for the last fifty yards to the butte, the ring of skirmishers closing in around him.

Scrambling onto the base of the mountain, he collapsed behind a barrier of rocks piled up over the last three days as a rough stockade covering the west side trail of the mountain.

In the shadows he looked around at his companions. Men were gasping, bent over. The wounded man was sprawled out, cursing while his companion pulled out a knife and slashed the trouser leg open to examine the wound.

“I told you to leave the wounded behind, sir.”

Abe, knees raised and head between his legs, looked up. Togo was holding a precious canteen, and he offered it. More than a day had passed since his last sip of water, and he eagerly took the canteen, the canvas cover slippery with mud. It was uncorked and Abe tilted his head back. The muddy drink seemed like the finest he had ever tasted. He took a long gulp, then remembering how precious the liquid was, he stopped and offered the canteen back.

Togo squatted at his side. “Go ahead, Lieutenant, take another drink, you need it.”

Abe struggled to refuse but gave in, but this time allowing himself only a sip before recorking it.

“Damn it, sir, that was rather stupid if you don’t mind my saying so.”

Abe took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Sergeant Togo, if I remember the way things work in this army, I’m supposed to be in command, not you. I wasn’t going to leave a man out there to be butchered.”

Togo leaned back and a soft chuckle greeted Abe’s words. A gentle hand clapped him on the shoulder.

“For a Westerner, you did good out there, sir, real good.”

Abe shook his head, suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry I froze on you.”

“What?”

“With the Bantag, back at the wagon.”

“Your first kill with a knife, wasn’t it?”

Abe slowly nodded.

“You’ll get used to it.”

“I hope not,” he whispered, remembering the bubbling gasp, what the Bantag was saying. He had heard it before in Jurak’s camp, the ritual prayer to the Ancestors, calling upon them to witness.

The companion of the wounded soldier came over, knelt down, and started to speak in Gaelic.

Abe shook his head.

“English. Speak English, trooper.”

“Oh. Me baby brother, sir. Thank you, sir.” The man fell silent, embarrassed, then withdrew.

Togo leaned closer to Abe. “You did the right thing, Keane. The men here will follow you to hell after this.” Abe laughed softly. “Sergeant, we’ve been trapped here now for nearly four days. I thought we were in hell.”

“It’s only started.”

“Lieutenant Keane, is the lieutenant all right?”

Keane looked up. It was Sergeant Major Mutaka.

He slipped down behind the rock wall just as a rifle shot zipped in, kicking up a shower of splinters. One of the men cursed and peeked up over the side.

“Damn, there’s a whole parcel of them out there.”

The sergeant major sat down with Abe. “You hurt, sir?”

“No, I’m fine, just winded.”

Before he could say more, Togo quickly related what had happened.

“I figure we got around half a quart of water per man, not much, but it will keep us going another day. The lieutenant and I got lucky. We found four or five hundred rounds of carbine ammunition as well.”

Abe, remembering the haversack slung around his neck, reached down and opened it up. A sickening stench wafted up, and he quickly closed it.

“If we do this again tomorrow night,” the sergeant major announced, “sir, you stay behind. I know why you volunteered to lead the first one, but you’ve proven your point with the men. So do us all a favor and let one of the other lieutenants go.”

Abe would not admit it, but he was more than glad to nod in agreement.

“And, sir. The major started coming around while you were gone. Started saying he was in command again.”

“Oh, damn. What did you do, Sergeant? For God’s sake I hope you didn’t hit him again.”

Mutaka chuckled softly. “No, sir. It’s twice now I’ve whacked him. Any more, and I think it’d kill him.”

He paused, and Abe wondered if the sergeant was quietly waiting for some sign to simply go and finish the job. “Sergeant, don’t even think about it.”

“What, sir?”

“We both know, so let’s drop it.”

“Anyhow, one of the boys finally admitted he had a quart of vodka still stashed away in his saddlebag. How he’d hung on to it without drinking it is beyond me. The captain drank it all and passed out, so we don’t have to deal with it for a while yet.”

“Thank God.”

Two men had rigged up a stretcher from a blanket and two Bantag rifles. They started back up the steep slope carrying the wounded soldier, his brother walking beside him.

“There, I see another one,” a watching soldier whispered, pointing over the rock wall. He started to raise his carbine.

Abe crawled up beside him and peered over. He could see several of them, crouching low, weaving their way across the flat open plain. On impulse he touched the trooper beside him on the shoulder and shook his head.

He looked back at the stretcher team heading up the slope, keeping low, quickly moving from the cover of one boulder to another. He was suddenly aware that it was getting lighter. On the other side of the butte the first dim glow of dawn must already be visible.

He knelt and cupped his hands.

“No shooting!” he cried, struggling to remember the Bantag words. “Your wounded and dead we honor. Take them back to their yurts.”

The men around him shifted uncomfortably. Togo cursed softly under his breath.

One of the Bantags slowly stood up, then held his rifle over his head with both hands, the sign that he would not shoot. Others stood up, and Abe was surprised to see not two or three but a dozen or more, one of them less than fifty yards away. He wondered if the closest had seen the stretcher party going up the slope and had been waiting for a kill.

Wounded and dead out on the ground in front of the butte were picked up and carried off.

The lone warrior, rifle over his head, remained still until the last of the bodies had been retrieved. Finally he lowered his gun and turned away, walking upright.

“Not even a thank-you, damn them,” Mutaka hissed.

“I didn’t expect one,” Abe replied softly.

He started up the slope, Togo falling in by his side.

“This isn’t no gentleman’s war, sir,” Togo whispered.

“I know that, Sergeant.”

“But, sir, maybe you were right,” Togo finally conceded.

Abe thought of the warrior he had cut apart with the knife and then what was left of the two troopers in the wrecked wagon. What the hell is right out here? he wondered. Was this what my father saw? Is this what he felt?

They gained the crest of the butte, the horizon before him shifting from deep indigo to a pale glowing red. The troopers who had gone on the expedition spread out, passing out canteens. Desperate men eagerly took the precious loads, gulping down a drink, but Abe could see that in almost every case a man would drink but briefly, then pause and pass it on to a comrade waiting beside him.

He could see the men who had been with him returning to their friends, squatting down, whispering, and gradually heads would lift, turn and gaze in his direction. Under a roughly made shelter, rigged from blankets and ground clothes, was the hospital. The surgeon was a lone surviving medical orderly who had worked without rest for three days on the forty odd men who had been wounded and dragged to the top of the butte. The orderly was already at work, the men who had gathered around to watch were turning as well, looking at Abe.

The look, he realized, they are giving me “the look.” He had seen it wherever his father went, the gaze, the flicker of a smile, the slight straightening of the shoulders. Always he had associated it with his father, and for a second he wondered if somehow his father had come into their midst and was standing behind him.

But then he knew that it was him they were looking at. These were now his men.

Embarrassed, he lowered his head, slumped down behind a boulder, and within minutes was asleep, untroubled by the nightmare he had just survived.

And when he awoke an hour later with dawn, he found that someone had put a blanket over his shoulders and left a cup of water by his side.

Dawn was obscured by banks of clouds marching along the eastern horizon, their interiors glowing with flashes of lightning.

It had been a hard night of flying. The summer heat was at its height, the ocean below heavy with warmth that, during the night, would continue to evaporate, the warm air rising, changing it to clouds and then towering thunder-heads. To drift into one was almost certain death. The wind shears were capable of ripping the wings off a steamer in a single, cruel slash. It was the perfect brew for the beginning of the cyclone season.

Richard had weaved and darted around the storms, going down so low at times that salt spray coated his windscreen, then rising up again through canyons of open air. The stars twinkling overhead guided him as they had guided all navigators who sailed or flew at night.

In the dawning light he looked out across the massive wings of his four-engine aerosteamer, one of the new Ilya Murometz models, capable of ranging outward a thousand miles. He had run with all four engines through most of the night, wanting to get as far out to sea as possible, pushing the range. His fuel was nearly half gone. For the journey back he’d cut two of the engines off, add buoyancy by releasing additional hydrogen into the aft gasbag, which was tucked into the huge, hundred foot tail boom, then lift to the thin air of fourteen thousand feet.

His forward and aft observers had been violently sick through most of the night flight as they bobbed up and down in the warm thermals, and it was hard to keep them at their tasks. Both of the men kept groaning, their agony echoing through the speaking tubes.

Richard tried to block out the sounds. He was just as susceptible as they were and had leaned out the port side window more than once.

His copilot and navigator, a hearty Rus flight sergeant, had taken the entire ride as an immense joke, laughing at the agony of his three companions. Propped above and behind Richard in the top gunner position, he kept shouting ribald songs to the wind…and then fell silent.

“Cromwell, off to starboard!”

Richard looked to the right, but saw nothing.

“Igor, what the hell is it? You are supposed to tell me what you see,” he cried, turning to look up past the feet of the man behind him.

“Smoke. I see smoke.”

Richard called to his forward observer, who came back with a negative. Banking the huge aerosteamer slightly to port so that the windscreen to his right rose, he tried to see what Igor was shouting about, but saw nothing.

“Igor, get down here, damn it!”

Igor slipped back down into the cabin and sat in the chair beside Richard. He could see that Igor’s face was beet red from the wind as he pulled up his goggles and grinned.

“I saw it. Smoke, lots of smoke.” As Igor spoke, he pointed off to starboard, roughly twenty degrees from their heading. Igor then reached around behind the seat and pulled out the plot board, their map tacked to it. Igor’s estimates of their speed and heading had been checked off every fifteen minutes. According to the chart, they were fifty miles northwest of the previous day’s sighting of smoke.

Richard knew it was all guess work. Without the sun it was impossible to shoot a sighting, and even when it was out, most of the time the navigator would calculate that they were two hundred miles north of Suzdal and in the Great Northern Forest. Shooting an angle might work on a boat, but in a plane, surging and falling with the wind, it was a waste of time.

So everything had to be based on airspeed, and estimated winds, and in ten hours they could be a hundred, even two hundred miles off from where they were supposed to be this morning. For that matter, the pilot of this aircraft from the previous day could be two hundred miles off from where he claimed he was.

They had not sighted any known landmark so far, not the Tortuga Shoals, the Caldonian Isles, or the Archipelago of the Malacca Pirates. Their only fix had been on the Mi-noan Shoals, ninety miles due south of Constantine, and that had been less than two hours into their flight. It was all guesswork, and he wondered if Igor, given his reputation on land, had been secretly sipping vodka during the night.

“You take the controls, Igor, and aim us toward where you think you’re seeing things. I’m going topside for a better look.”

“You’ll see, Commander,” Igor said with a grin, “and we’ll get the credit.”

“Great, just what I wanted,” he replied glumly. Unbuckling from his seat, he scrambled up through the circular opening just aft of the pilot’s seat and popped out, bracing himself against the breech of the topside gatling. He remembered to clip the harness around his waist to the safety ring and then stood up into the wind, pulling down his goggles, then clipped on the speaking tube and earplugs.

Bracing his hands on the top wings, he felt a momentary thrill. The great wings of the Ilya Murometz, more than a hundred feet across, spread out to either side. Clouds whisked by overhead, stretching to the hazy glow of the all-encompassing horizon. The plane banked, Igor, demonstrating a good touch on the controls, gently bringing them around and then leveling out.

“I think I’m flying straight toward it!” Igor shouted, and Richard winced. In the earplugs the man’s voice was far too loud.

Leaning against the wind, Richard looked straight ahead, but saw absolutely nothing but the milky haze of the horizon. “I don’t see a damn thing.”

“Look careful. It’s coal smoke. Darker. I know, I’ve seen it from our ships many times.”

Richard squinted, tried to use his field glasses, and gave up after a few seconds. The plane was bouncing too much.

He squatted back down a bit and leaned forward, as if the extra few inches might somehow clear the view. He carefully scanned ahead, not even quite sure where the horizon ended and the ocean began…and then he saw it, a dark smudge.

It gave him a chill, and he had a sudden flash of memory, of the indistinct smudge on the horizon at sunset the night the Gettysburg went to her doom. It was a barely distinguishable difference in light, a darker shadow against a light gray sky and sea.

“About five degrees to port!” Richard shouted. “Ask Xing up forward if he sees it yet.”

The plane slipped ever so slightly, then leveled out again.

“Xing is blind,” Igor cried, “he sees nothing. You see it, though.”

He still wasn’t sure. Had he thought he’d seen something simply because he was looking so hard for it? But then it reappeared, a dark greasy smudge.

“Yes! Hold us steady on this bearing. You’re almost straight on it.”

Igor laughed.

Long minutes passed, and gradually the darkness began to spread out.

“I can see it from in here,” Igor announced. “That Xing is blind. Throw him off now. It will lighten the load so we get home.”

Richard said nothing, trying again with the field glasses, momentarily catching it, then losing it as the plane surged yet again.

Finally he saw something more, a dark spot, looking like the blade of a knife turned almost edgewise, two small dark pins rising from it. The pagodas of a battleship?

“Give us a little more speed, Igor.”

“Cromwell, our fuel. A little reserve would be comforting.”

“Just edge us up another five knots. We’ve got plenty.”

“Not if we have to start running.”

“Just do it.”

He heard the slight change in tone of the engines.

He extended one hand, holding his fingers open before his face at arm’s length. The smoke extended far beyond either side of his fingertips. If they’re still twenty, thirty miles off, it was definitely not one ship. That much smoke had to be dozens of ships.

“A little lower, we’re brushing into the cloud base.”

The nose of the aerosteamer dropped slightly, and he could feel airspeed picking up. After several hundred feet they leveled out again, where the air was slightly clearer.

He saw not one ship, but dozens of ships. In the van was definitely one of the battleships that he had seen in the harbor, the distinctive twin pagodas almost lined up on each other. Forward, surrounding the huge vessel, were half a dozen smaller ships, tiny slivers of darkness against the gray sea. Plumes of smoke trailed out behind them, drifting into a cloud astern, obscuring what he was convinced were more ships yet farther back.

“Got it!” Richard cried, and finally he heard Xing up forward shouting as well.

The moment of exuberance gave way to a knot in his gut, a strange mixed emotion that was part that they’d made a sighting, but with it a realization that the nightmare was indeed true.

Now what?

He was tempted to order them to turn around and get the hell out of there. The Kazan had some catapult-launched scout planes and a small ship for carrying additional planes and launching them. If they catch us and we don’t get back, the fleet will never know. They were nearly six hundred miles out, two days sailing, more likely three. Go back now and we can get a better read as they come closer in.

Yet, on the other hand, in another ten minutes we’ll find out what they really have.

“Commander?”

It was the first time Igor had called him that, and he could not help but grin. Igor was nervous, and it showed in that one word.

“Straight in, Igor. Xing, I don’t care how blind you are, start keeping a watch for scout planes. Octavian, same with you in the tail. If they spot us, you know they’ll send something up, and I want to be long gone.”

The dark shadow began to rapidly spread out, an indication that they were closing in.

He now had two battleships in view, then three, and in another moment five, all of them riding in line astern, each a mile or so back from the other.

He firmly braced his elbows on the wing, leaned down, and raised his field glasses. This time he caught and held the target. The lead battleship had a smaller vessel to its windward side, connected to it by what appeared to be cables. Why? Transferring coal perhaps? That could be the explanation for how they could travel so far and hope to return.

He looked farther back, until the fourth battleship caught his eye. It was flying the red banner of the emperor, just below it the gray of the Order. It was the flagship, and both of them were on board.

Sweeping over him was the memory of Hazin, the curious strange mix of emotions, of loathing and yet of attraction, of outrage and, also, most disturbing, of admiration and even of awe. He wondered if poor Sean was with him.

He felt a prickling sensation that felt almost like a warning; that somehow Hazin had sensed him and was turning his attention on him.

“Ship off the portside wing.”

It was Octavian, his voice pitched high with excitement.

Richard turned, craning back to look, and then he saw the ship, half a dozen miles upwind almost directly abeam. How they had missed it was beyond him. It was a cruiser, obviously riding forward point, and he wondered if they had gone past any other ships.

“I see it,” Igor announced, “and if he hasn’t seen us he’s blind.”

The chill triggered by thoughts of Hazin deepened. Anxiously he scanned around, and then he spotted two Kazan scout planes, nearly forty-five degrees astern of the starboard beam of his own airships, noses high, climbing steadily. They were maneuvering to come around him from behind.

He unclipped, turned, and descended into the cab. Dropping into his seat, he immediately pitched the huge aerosteamer over into a sharp banking turn to port, feeding in full throttle and edging the nose back to head to the clouds.

“We’ve been spotted! Octavian, keep a watch as we come around. Xing, wake up. Igor, I want you to sketch the ships as you saw them, then get yourself topside!”

“Oh, I see them!” Octavian cried.

“Then watch them, damn it, and tell me if they’re closing.”

Igor sat hunched over the chart board, pencil flying as he wrote down numbers and quickly drew tiny figures across the bottom of the paper. After several minutes he pushed the board down into its rack, unclipped and scrambled up into the topside gunner’s position.

“They’re closing on us,” Octavian shouted. “I think they’re faster, can climb better.”

Cromwell eased the nose even higher, watching as the altimeter gauge slowly rose through eight thousand feet. Then they were into the clouds, the world going white. He added an extra two hundred feet, sweating out the two minutes it took to climb.

Now he was flying blind, watching the compass, the bank indicator, and airspeed. The plane bumped and surged, rising up, then dropping so that for a moment they popped out of the clouds, then back again.

Had they been spotted? Did the bastards now have a bead on them?

As the surging continued, he felt a cold lump in his gut.

If the enemy scout planes don’t get us, he realized, this weather will. Looking at the fuel gauges, he wondered if they could stretch it to get home. Going higher, climbing into the heart of the turbulence, was out of the question now.

He said nothing, flying straight on as best he could.

Igor slipped down beside him, picked up his chart, looked at the gauges, then over at Richard, and he was silent as well.

“So they’ve spotted us.”

Startled, Sean O’Donald looked over at Hazin, who had quietly come up behind him. All he could do was nod.

The entire fleet had sprung into action. All ships had gone to battle positions, smoke belching from stacks so that a thick haze swirled about them in the following wind. Scout planes from the lead battleship had been launched to join the pursuit, and two more had gone aloft from the second ship of the line to maintain a watch above the fleet.

The precision of the operation, the practiced ease of the crew, which went about its duties as if they were routine, only reinforced to Sean what seemed inevitable: in the forthcoming battle the empire would sweep the seas.

“Interesting that they had a patrol plane this far out,” Hazin said. “Tell me, is that normal?”

“Not really. I don’t know where we are, though, so I cannot judge.”

“One hundred and ninety leagues from the Constantine coast, according to our navigator. He’s the emperor’s best, but he has been known to be wrong.”

“Then we are inside the treaty line.”

Hazin nodded.

“So they know. They must have been looking for us.”

Sean turned to look back to the northwest. The plane had disappeared into the clouds. It had been barely more than a speck in the sky. He wondered who the pilot was.

“I would think it was Cromwell,” Hazin said.

Though he had tried to get used to these insights, nevertheless they continued to startle him. Never could he be sure if it was simply an uncanny ability to read subtle indicators, or was it truly the ability to step into another mind.

“The emperor, I can imagine, will be all astir. He had hoped to gain their coast and launch the first attack without their notice.” He laughed softly, turned, and walked away.