Her Majesty's Western Service (51 page)

“You were party to it,” snarled
Ahle. “And you killed a bunch of
his
compatriots, anyway. Just give me the excuse…”

Perry leaned back
in his seat on the bridge of 4-106 –
mine again!
– and looked up at John Kennedy. Ahle was comfortable in the XO’s, Martindale’s seat, sipping from a canteen of rum. She’d offered Perry some, but he’d declined; the euphoria of finally,
finally
, after all this hell, having his ship back, was not something he needed alcohol to enhance.

His again. He had his ship back.

And there was work to do.

John Kennedy came back to the bridge. “
Red Wasp
coming in now,” he reported. “Your prize crew’s ready to take over. But I’ve a question for you.”

“I’m listening,” said Perry. The man had gotten his ship back; he’d listen to
any
proposal from him.

“You’re going into some action, Vice. Some of these men are trained in the operation of ship weapons.
Right now you only have enough crew to fly that ship and only barely that; you can’t fight her. You want to be able to fight her?”

They
were
heading into action, thought Perry. Whatever he was going to find in Hugoton when he got there, it was going to be bad.

But there was a certain lunacy to the idea of taking a line-class airship right into Hugoton, with all the weapons stations manned by pirates.

Hadn’t lunacy been the defining state of his existence for the last two weeks?

Yeah, but there were still precautions you could take.

“I’ll consider that,” he said. “But I’ll want them disarmed and stripped. Hideout weapons too; Ahle and Nolan’s men will see to that. They obey my orders and submit themselves, in advance, to Imperial custody.”

Kennedy opened his mouth to say something. Perry –
on the bridge of my ship again
! – waved him down.

“To my knowledge, none of these people has committed a criminal offence, and they’ve done the British Empire an invaluable service. They won’t be held for very long and the evidence doesn’t exist to try them
, let alone convict.”

“Very well,” said Kennedy. “I’ll ask for volunteers.
And now we go to Hugoton; it’s time to do your part of the deal. I’m meeting with Ian Fleming at the man’s earliest convenience, and Governor Henry at
his
.”

“
If we were in London,” said Perry, “I’d do my best to introduce you to Her Majesty herself.”

Nate
Nolan sat personally at – the late – Sub-Lieutenant Kent’s communications station. He’d made up a line of bullshit about how Perry could use any available crew and for the money…

Perry had handed the captain
a sheaf of hundreds on the spot. He’d already paid Nolan for the rest of the job, and given him more money – fighting wages, as originally promised – to distribute to the others.

“
Gina reports boilers hot, Mr. Vice,” reported the scavenger captain.

“We loose?”
Perry, now at the helm –
my beautiful new ship, again!
– of 4-106, asked Ahle.

“Loose as a Deadwood whore.”

“Then lift in three, two, one,” ordered Perry.

It actually took a few more moments than that; it was only a makeshift crew, after all. But a few seconds after Perry’s command, buoyancy reached positive and the warship began to lift.

“Next stop, Hugoton,” said Nolan happily.

“Next st
op, Hugoton,” repeated Perry as the canyon walls began to slide past them.

John Kennedy, at Swarovski’s Weapons station, grinned.

“Next stop, Ian Fleming,” he said.

Skorzeny’s command car drove through the night across the Kansas plains,
the speedometer holding down an even thirty-five miles an hour; the highest practical long-range speed of the Tiger IIs, IIas and IIbs in the division.

It was the second time since the Special Squadrons’ formation that the entire organization had been brought together in one place.
The sight – the lights of hundreds of tanks, armored cars, battalion command cars and fighting vehicles – was impressive. Three miles wide as they kicked dust through Kansas, the division-sized formation with its headlights, searchlights and spotlights dominated the night.

We’re
twelve hours from Hugoton
, the SS colonel thought.
And the Imperials have scattered their garrison across the border. There’s nothing there to stop us.

A pity. It looked like they were
going to do a painless wrecking job on the place, trashing facilities, wells and refineries without more than token resistance.

He’d have almost preferred a good fight.

Chapter Twenty-One

Part of the Imperially-guided reconstruction of North America involved Texan independence. Maps were redrawn to create the Hugoton Lease, essentially granting the Southwestern quarter of Kansas to Imperial control, for the sake of the helium reserves there…

From
A History of North America
, Winston Churchill.

Early in a clear-skied late-March morning, the
Ruby Red Robber
touched down at the military airship park of Amarillo, Texas. Coming in, Ferrer had seen seven brightly-painted airships, but the signature jet-black ship of Commodore Cordova was what really gave him the clue.

Cordova’s Armadillos
. Like anyone media-literate, he’d heard of those guys and their previous feats. The Russians had hired
them
? Oh, God was Minister Trotsky serious.

They’re killers like anyone else in this line of work
, he tried to tell himself.

Still, he was impressed.

“4-106 should be joining them within a few hours over Hugoton,” Marko told him, Judd, Rienzi and McIlhan on the bridge as they landed. “I’m about to make a final report. Then we’ll join the Commodore” – a gesture at the jet-black, four-hundred-yard fighting ship they were parked beside; at this distance Ferrer could clearly make out the florid lettering
Lone Star
on the nose of its gondola – “and the SS as they make their final approach. Any questions?”

Nobody had any.

You bastard
, thought Ferrer.
I was doing a good job for you. Why did you stiff me?

You’re as bad as
Federal Electric.

“There’ll be b
urning and fire and explosions!” Marko exalted. “The South’s already going up, and soon Imperial power will do the same!”

And replace it with people like you?
Ferrer thought.

Bile returned to his throat, but he kept his mouth shut.

“Detach and lift!” came over the wire. A crewman on Paula Handley’s ship relayed the command to her. It was ten thirty in the morning.

“Detach and lift,” Handley ordered.

The usual slithering noises.
The
Vorpal
, and Rick Evans’
Dread Wyvern
half a mile away, began to ascend.

“To Hugoton,”
she ordered her XO – and husband – Brad, at the helm. “To kill everything that lifts.”

Damn, was it going to be good to be back in a fight again.

Although from all she’d heard, it was going to be more of a turkey shoot.

Damn
, she corrected herself,
will it be good to earn combat pay again. Instead of just appearance fees and media revenue.

“Adjusting course,” Brad Handley reported, turning the wheel. A moment later: “On course.”

The
Dread Wyvern
fell in next to her as they headed for the Hugoton Lease.

Fleming stood in Governor
Lloyd’s all-but-empty office.

“Governor of Mississippi assassinated,” he reported. “
Federal airship base in Biloxi, Louisiana under rocket fire. Georgia statehouse bombed. Two dozen lesser incidents; the Southern States are exploding. Reports were still coming in when we lost communication.”

“We lost communication?” demanded the Governor. Although he’d been anticipating this.

“SS must have finally cut the wire. We’re still in communication with Dodge, but that’s it.”

“So they’re coming, Ian.”

“We know they’re coming,” said the spy. “Sir, if I may respectfully suggest you get yourself the
hell
out of here?”

“You may not,” Governor
Lloyd snapped. He’d had this damn conversation enough times, hadn’t he? “Although you may entreat my aide again, if you wish.”

“I’m not leaving,”
Warren Buff said. He was dressed as for an evening in Mayfair, as always, and Lloyd respected the young man’s spirit. And his style. If not his intelligence. “Not unless the boss goes.”

“Your Lordship’s family
will be deeply upset if you’re killed,” Fleming said. “
When
you are. The SS aren’t known for their mercy.”

“I signed up for a Colonial assignment,” said
Buff. “I accepted the risk, sir. I will live with it,
sir
.”

Lloyd
smiled thinly.

“Why are
you
remaining, Mr. Fleming?”

“Duty as long as practicable,” Fleming snapped. “Besides, who says I don’t have a way out?”

Governor Lloyd decided not to ask. He didn’t want to know, and the man would probably conceal it anyway.
Of course
Fleming would find a way to survive.

Fleming’s injured aide, Connery, pushed his way into the once-
well-appointed office.

“Deputy Director?” he called from across the large room.

“I’m here,” said Fleming.

“Lookouts reported. Just now,” said Connery. “They’ve been spotted. Incoming airships.”

“It’s starting,” said Fleming.

The two line-class mercenary ships, one bright red and the other a
striking lime green, flew over Hugoton two and a half hours before the Special Squadrons – given their known capabilities and anticipated speeds – had been scheduled to arrive.

Flight Admiral
Janet Richardson watched dispassionately as the lime-green ship shredded, with a single missile broadside, her personal transport. Its cannon began to work on the other two civilian ships, which had been hired in Dodge for the purpose of getting the remaining Air Service personnel out of Hugoton.

The bright red ship
– Richardson could not be remotely bothered with a scope, and could have cared less for the names of the supposedly-celebrity enemy – fired a wave of missiles into the first civilian airship and then, as it lifted and desperately attempted to turn, the other.

Bo
th went down in bright flames, amplified all the more by the darkly-overcast day, as storm clouds gathered above them.

That’s it
, Richardson thought, as the junior officers and enlisteds who’d expected to leave aboard those ships, went to pieces around her.
I suppose we die here.

To Richardson,
who as a twenty-year-old ensign had seen four of her classmates – and best friends – die over Berlin, it was a mere detail. Her present rank and the famous action in which she’d won it, her present rank and the offer of a knighthood that she’d refused –
Charles, Marie, Jennifer and Gordon had never lived to earn those –
had been a later byproduct.

Janet Richardson had cons
idered herself dead since 1939. The remaining details were just that, as her adjutant cried out: “What do we do now?”

“We die here,” Richardson
responded reflexively with the obvious.

Just details.

“We’re dead,” Senior Airshipwoman Hayden was saying. “Our ticket out just went boom. We’re gone.”

“Not necessarily,” Vidkowski said. “There’s horses left. And a few steam-cars. And the railway. Maybe we can do something.”

“If you have to” – Lieutenant-Commander Martindale appeared, his own sidearm drawn – “you’ll die fighting. With those crazy Army sons of bitches.”

About
a hundred volunteers from the Army garrison – Vidkowski had heard something about bonus pensions being granted by executive order from the Governor – had stayed. A mishmash of various units, but their job was to put up a fight. To not let Hugoton go down without some kind of resistance.