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Hate to think what all this cost, she thought, peering out through the narrow horizontal opening ahead. The sea was a deep living blue, with an occasional whitecap impossibly pure against it. Sweat wasted, acres of land not cleared, plows and harrows not made, factories not built, kids who didn't get an extra pair of shoes. With any luck they wouldn't have to build anything like this again for a generation or two.
"Not exactly like old times, eh, Skipper?" Thomas Hiller said.
"Not exactly," she replied.
The Eagle's old sailing master had lost his frigate in the Battle of the Pillars, as they were calling it now; that had given him a leg up over the other contestants for the XO's position. And it's some compensation, I suppose, she thought. Hiller had loved the brand-new clipper-frigate, almost as much as Eagle. He'd missed seagoing command, too, enough to leave his family on Nantucket. Scratch crew all 'round… or picked, depending.
Even the Black Gang were mostly volunteers under the direction of petty officers from Farragut, and she'd had to talk Victor Ortiz out of volunteering for that, with his burns barely healed.
Men, she thought. Then from a little ironic devil who lurked at the back of her consciousness: Well, you're here, aren't you?
"You should have delegated this, ma'am," Miller said.
"You certainly should have," Swindapa said, looking up from the navigator's table.
"If I'm indispensable, I haven't been doing my job these ten years past," she said dryly. So much for the awestruck obedience due the high commander. "Helm-rudder amidships."
Swindapa gave an involuntary yawn. And I'd forgotten how much trouble midnight feedings can be, she thought. Her partner caught her eye and winked.
"She's still answering nicely," Hiller said.
They both made the instinctive begi
Hiller gri
"How does she steer?" Marian asked the two sailors at the helm.
"Still just a touch heavy, ma'am," the CPO said. "Got to be careful to remember the lag and not overcorrect. This lady's heavyset."
Marian took a deep breath. "All right," she said. "Three days' shakedown and nothing new to fix is enough. This campaign has gone on far too long as it is. Let's go."
Ranger Sue Chau waited tensely; the smell of her own sweat came acrid as it soaked into the leather of her hunting shirt, mixed with the sour scent of old burned things on the gun deck of the ship whose crew had died. Jaditwara came rattling down the companionway, swearing in Fiernan, English, the Sun People language, and bits of the Cloud Shadow tongue picked up over the past year.
"They're all looking dead. The sails are still drawing and will if the wind doesn't change. Moon Woman receive our souls!"
"I sympathize," Sue said.
Jaditwara had some sailing experience; the Indians didn't know a bowline from a buttonhook. They'd towed the ship most of the way with the canoes, but the last approach had to look more natural. Sue squinted out through the gunport at the approaching dock and the enemy fort-town standing on its mound.
The jetty wasn't meant for seagoing ships; this river wasn't meant for seagoing ships. There were two of the flat-bottomed barges already at it, no place for the captured Tartessian vessel.
Oh, Jesus, Pete, don't get yourself killed, will you? Or you either, Eddie, even if you are a prick a lot of the time. Spring Indigo, where the hell are you hiding, and can we get you out without anything hurting you or little Jared?
Bright spring sunlight outside, incongruously cheerful and full of birdsong. The gates swinging open, people pouring down- brightly clad civilians, children…
"Kakwa," Jaditwara murmured.
Their eyes met, and they went down the line of ca
They backed off again; at least they knew enough not to stand behind the guns now. Sue swallowed something acid at the back of her throat. No way to tell now what would happen; she had to play it by ear with entirely too much that could go wrong at any moment. Was Pete's crazy plan too complicated, did it depend on too many things going right?
The crowd got near enough to notice the bodies in Tartessian uniform or sailor's slops draped about the deck or hanging limp over the rails. The ship drifted in…
Oh, thank You, Lord Jesus, Sue thought. The captured vessel was nudging in on the north side of the pier, its bow catching and stern swing 'round to ground hard on the mud-broadside still mostly trained on the fort. There was another frantic scramble as the two women ran down the line of guns, heaving at handspikes together; the locals were strong and willing, but they couldn't even talk to the Islanders, much less take directions.
The cries of alarm grew stronger; several Tartessians went pelting back up to the fort-town. And…
"Yes!" The gates swung open, and troops appeared there.
"Now, how long before they twig?" Sue muttered.
The civilians were milling around-scared of whatever had "killed" the crew, terrified by memories of the brief smallpox outbreak, a few of the bolder ones coming out onto the boards of the wharf. Troops forming up in the gates-
"Now!" Jaditwara cried and pulled the lanyard on her own gun; the hammer came down, flint sparked, and the twelve-pounder bellowed and leaped backward. At the other end of the line Sue repeated the action. Within a few seconds the Indians on the other four guns had done the same.
The crowd of civilians screamed and recoiled as the side of the ship shot out its long blades of flame and smoke. Many sensibly threw themselves flat as half a dozen ca
The two Islander women waited an instant, as the south wind blew the gun smoke upriver. The broadside had struck on or around the gate, smashing lethal clouds of splinters out of the timbers of gate and towers, some of them falling short and going bounding and skipping up the roadway like monstrous lethal bowling balls, a couple whirring right through the packed soldiers at knee height. Sue swore softly at the results, then grabbed up her rifle as the other ranger dashed past.
The road up to the fort gates was a solid mass of people; surviving soldiers, fleeing farmers and artisans and their families, and the crowd of howling tribesfolk who outnumbered both. Sue hurdled a Tartessian woman curled protectively around a screaming toddler, shoved, cursed, and pushed; she and her companion were about halfway between the vanguard of their Indian allies and the last of them.
About the safest place to be, she thought, feeling her skin roughen at the thought of the ca