Iron Gray Sea: Destroyermen (21 page)

A whip cracked and the coach lurched forward, curving around a long oval drive toward the front of the Imperial Court of Directors. A moment later, the coach ground to a stop amid the rough, grating moan of wooden brakes on iron tires. Through the window Bradford could see a pair of Imperial Marine guards approaching.

“Can’t we just sneak in the back way?” Courtney asked, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief and running a final finger between the cravat and his neck.

“No, Your Excellency,” Krish replied, his voice harried, “but I will enter first. Aides come and go all the time. I’ll call you forward when it looks like your entrance will cause the least distraction.” Krish reached for the latch on the coach door.

With a brain-jolting crack of indescribable thunder and pressure, a roiling wall of opaque white smoke and dust swept over the Marines and flung the coach on its side like a child’s tiny toy. Bradford was slammed by one side of the coach, then hurled downward against the other. Dust and smoke invaded the interior through shattered windows, and it quickly grew too dark to see. Deafened by what could only have been a stupendous blast, the occupants of the overturned vehicle still felt the thing being slammed and battered by large, heavy objects. One particularly large fragment of one of the columns smashed down on the front of the coach, crushing open a new path for even more debris to enter. Smaller pieces pattered against the wooden shell for some time, but then there was only stillness and dark.

Courtney was stunned. He couldn’t breathe and felt something yanking at his neck. He tried to protest, but all he could do was cough, and his left side didn’t seem to be working. Suddenly, he felt something pressed against his face, and he lashed out with his right arm. His hand struck the pebbly rhino pig leather of the armor Koratin wore, and for an instant, he thought the strange Marine was trying to smother him. Then, through his panic, he realized he could breathe! Gratefully, he reached up and replaced the ’Cat’s hand with his own, holding what he now realized was the damned cravat over his mouth and nose. His eyes were full of grit and he kept them closed, but he sensed Koratin move away, probably trying to locate Krish in the gloom.

His hearing began to return. It was a dull thing at first, heralded by what sounded like a squealing belt inside his head, but he thought he could hear muffled voices as well. The squealing grew louder, but now it was
out
side, and he grimly recognized the sounds of agony. The loudest came from horses, he knew, but he’d also grown far too accustomed to the gut-wrenching wails of hopeless, terrified, dying men. He dared a peek through his gravelly, tear-soaked lids and saw the darkness had begun to fade. His left side was still numb, but he discovered he could move all his arms and legs and decided he must get up. He had no idea what had occurred; he was still too rattled to much consider it yet, but he had to get out of the shattered coach.

“Sergeant Koratin!” he croaked. The dust gagged him and he moved the cravat just in time to retch. He sucked in more dust and a coughing spasm threatened to overwhelm him. Finally, forcing deep breaths through the tightly woven cravat, he brought himself under control. “Koratin!” he called again more strongly, though his throat and lungs seemed on fire.

“Here,” came a clipped, strained voice, and a shadow reentered the coach through the shattered forward end. Courtney blinked repeatedly, letting the tears wash the worst of the grit from his eyes.

“Where’s Krish?”

“I don’t know. Maybe smushed.” Koratin rummaged through shattered timbers until he found his musket. The stock was broken right through the lock and the rear portion was missing. Swiftly, he slid the bands off the barrel and unscrewed the tang screw, letting the lock and triggerguard fall. Then he drew his bayonet and affixed it to the muzzle of the barrel, making a formidable, makeshift spear.

“What are you doing?” Courtney demanded. “Stop that foolishness at once! I need to get out of here and see what has happened!”

“I don’t know what I am doing,” Koratin growled in reply, helping Bradford to his feet. “When I do, I will know if I am foolish or not! Somebody has just killed many of the people here on our side. If we were not late, we would now be dead as well.”

Courtney suddenly realized the damned cravat had saved him twice! He let Koratin lead him through the shattered coachwork and into the open, chalky air. A dense fog of limestone, pumice, and powdered stucco still hung heavy, but there was also the unmistakable, acrid hint of gunsmoke. He looked in the direction of the building they’d been about to enter but couldn’t see anything. The haze was still too thick. Horses continued shrieking nearby, but their own team lay still, half-buried in debris. Of their driver there was no sign.

“My God,” Courtney murmured. “It had to be a bomb!”

“A very big bomb,” Koratin agreed.

There was shouting and dark shapes started running past them, toward the court building. There were just a few at first, but then the trickle became a torrent. Koratin tensed, but no one paid them any heed. All were running toward what was slowly resolving itself into a tremendous heap of rubble.

“My God,” Courtney repeated. “The Governor-Emperor—both their majesties were inside!”

“What remained of the entire Imperial government was inside!” Koratin snapped.

“Your Excellency!” came a cry, and they turned toward the voice. A man emerged from the thinning haze on the other side of the overturned coach. He was covered in dust and looked like a ghost except for the reddened eyes and the tears streaking the dust on his face.

“Why, there you are, Lieutenant Krish!” Courtney exclaimed. “I wondered what became of you!”

“I don’t really know, sir, but thank God you’re all right.” Krish turned his own gaze toward the court building. They could all now see that it had been completely destroyed. Only the far northeast corner still stood, and men were crawling all over the debris, shouting and calling for survivors. With an anguished sound, Krish started to run and join the rescuers.

“Wait!” Koratin demanded.

“But . . . the Governor-Emperor!”

At that moment there was another explosion far away, a dull boom they would have taken for thunder if the sky hadn’t been perfectly clear above the billowing dust. Even so, it sounded like it came from high in the air, and the report rolled down the flanks of the mountains that stood northeast of the city.

“That was the wireless station!” Krish exclaimed. “They’ve . . . whoever has done this has destroyed it as well!”

“To isolate us!” Koratin guessed immediately. “To prevent word or warning of this reaching . . . who?”

Courtney’s eyes grew wide and flashed at the men passing by. Most were civilians from the nearby shops, but he suddenly bolted toward one, a Naval officer, and caught him by the arm. “Wait, sir!” he cried. “Have you a ship? Equipped with wireless?”

The man tried to shake him loose. “Release me! I must . . .”

“What you
must
do is help us send word of this, and pass a warning to New Scotland!”

The man paused and glared. “And just who are you to command me?” he demanded.

Krish rushed forward. “Captain, this is His Excellency Sir Courtney Bradford, the ambassador for the western allies to the Imperial throne, and a particular friend of His Majesty!”

The man stopped straining to escape, and Courtney let go. “So?” he said. “That gives him no authority over me, but I will hear the reason for his request.”

“Um . . . Captain, is it?”

The man nodded.

“You may not have noticed, but we heard another explosion that likely took down the wireless aerial above the capital. With the preponderance of naval and newly arrived air power in the vicinity, I highly doubt this attack is a precursor to another Dom invasion, so destroying the wireless station must have been done to prevent us from sending a timely warning!”

“To whom?”

Courtney was growing agitated. “I pray His Majesty has survived, but clearly he must have been the target of this attack! Assuming that, who is the
next-
most-likely target?”

The officer’s face was not yet white with dust, but it suddenly drained of color. “Good Lord! The princess Rebecca!”

“Precisely! She remained on New Scotland while her parents came here to make this address today. She must be warned!”

With a final glance at the ruins of the Imperial Court of Directors and the small army now combing the rubble, the man grasped Courtney’s arm in turn. “Very well. My ship has no wireless set, but the instruments at the harbor master’s office have been completed, and I’m told they can signal Scapa Flow directly! The harbor master there can dispatch a warning
and
marshals to Government House within minutes! Come, I will take you there—and across to Scapa Flow myself, if I must!”

CHAPTER
13

////// New Scotland Island

Empire of the New Britain Isles

A
shimmering, brightly feathered shape made a trilling,
flupp
ing sound as it exploded from the dense highland scrub and took to the air. Princess Rebecca Anne McDonald, barely thirteen years old and heir to the Empire of the New Britain Isles, immediately snatched the fine double-barrel fowling piece to her right shoulder, planted her left foot, put the bead on the nose of the rising creature, and fired. The target staggered in midair but didn’t fall. Without thinking, her finger found the rear trigger and she fired again. It was just windy enough to carry the smoke from her shots away and she saw the creature, now perfectly lifeless, drop like a stone.

“Well struck, Yer Highness!” boomed Sean “O’Casey” Bates, the Imperial Factor and Chief of Staff to Gerald McDonald. The big, one-armed man was behind and slightly to the right of her.

“Indeed!” complimented Lieutenant Ruik-Sor-Raa, the almost-blond-furred Lemurian commander of USS
Simms
, a Fil-pin-built steam frigate undergoing major repairs at Scapa Flow. The ship had followed
Walker
in after the naval battle off Saint Francis. She’d been the only American frigate able to make the long trip, and her consorts had been forced to seek repairs at the hard-pressed facilities at the continental colony where San Francisco would have been. “It rose so fast, I never had a chance!” Ruik continued. He carried a Fil-pin Armory version of a nineteenth-century smoothbore Springfield, and it was a heavy weapon for wing shooting. Its percussion-ignition system was more advanced than its Imperial counterpart, but even it was already obsolete compared to the newer weapons being made by the Alliance.
Rifled breechloaders
were in the pipeline now, but the Dom Front was at the end of a very long supply line, and the more pressing Grik Front had priority when it came to modern weapons.

Four men—Bigelow the gamekeeper, and some beaters he’d hired to flush game—politely applauded the shot, and the princess smiled at them. “Thank you, Mr. Bates. Lieutenant.” She looked at Sean. “I believe my shooting has benefitted much from your advice.”

“That may be, but poor Ruik’s at a disadvantage. No Marine musket’s the equal o’ a fine fowler—fer fowlin’! Leslie’s makes arms ta fit a body, not pile bodies on the ground.” He nodded at Ruik’s gleaming weapon. “An’ that one, with a fine, wicked bayonet, an’ a lively sort behind it, is a wee bit better fer that!”

Sean Bates appreciated good weapons for whatever they were designed to do. He couldn’t carry a common musket or fowler of any sort, but he did have an extremely long-barreled pistol—long enough, almost, for a cane—with a light, tapered barrel. Currently, the barrel rested on his right shoulder, but he was perfectly capable of hitting a bird or hare when the unusual weapon was loaded with small shot—or anything else within a reasonable range with a load of buck and ball. The only truly dangerous large animals on the island were other descendants of the passage that brought humans there—feral hogs—and the strange pistol worked well on all but the largest of those.

A peculiar creature, little bigger than the fallen prey and with many similar features, suddenly dashed ahead, leaping into the air and coasting over the shin-high scrub. It violently pounced on the dead lizard fowl.

“Now, Petey,” Rebecca scolded kindly after it, “be a dear and do take it to the gamekeeper.”

“Eat?” the creature pleaded, clutching the prize that so resembled him. He couldn’t fly, but the feathery membrane that joined his arms and legs allowed him to glide amazingly. He was obviously related to the lizard fowl in many not-so-subtle ways, but there were profound differences as well. For example, the game was omnivorous and Petey was most emphatically a carnivore.

“You will eat quite enough later,” Rebecca said sternly. “Perhaps if you are a good boy, Mr. Bigelow will give you the head to chew upon.” Reluctantly, and with a great show of sullen obedience, Petey did indeed drag the lizard fowl to the gamekeeper and solemnly left it in his charge with a warning hiss. Bigelow took the animal, careful of his fingers, and put it in the bag with several others. He was the only other armed man in the group, but his devotion to the princess kept him from murdering the obnoxious reptilian rodent she so doted on.

“Ye don’t think that ridiculous creature understands ye, Yer Highness!” Sean said. It wasn’t a question as much as an incredulous statement. Ruik chittered respectful amusement.

“Some,” Rebecca replied, a little huffy, beginning to reload her weapon. Mr. Bigelow’s offer to load for her had already been politely but firmly refused. Rebecca Anne McDonald had recently become
very
proficient with firelocks, and intended to stay in practice. “He obviously knows his name,” she continued, “and he did obey me. I’m sure he knows what ‘no’ means, and he is intelligent enough to sometimes
pretend
he doesn’t. . . . Apparently, he knows ‘take’ and ‘later’ and possibly other words.” She chuckled. “He knows Mr. Bigelow has our other birds, particularly the parrots—he does like parrots!—and there is no doubt whatsoever he understands the meaning of ‘eat.’”

“Aye ta that,” Sean agreed. “The beastie’s a famous eater, an’ no mistake.” He glanced ahead, surveying the gradual slope of the mountain that reared high above the naval port city of Scapa Flow. The princess was in his personal care while her parents were in New London, and there were still shadowy elements, either Dom agents or Company loyalists forced into hiding, who posed a very real threat to the child’s safety. Bored out of her mind in Government House, with nothing to do but read or visit some of her friends in the Allied delegation, she’d talked him into this outing. She had no friends near her own age now that Abel Cook and Stuart Brassey had steamed back west with
Walker
. Even Dennis Silva, whom she considered a demented older brother, and her beloved Lawrence had left her. She could no longer relate to the few children she’d considered friends before her departure and long exile. Her girlfriends had become young ladies, preparing for the hopefully long, possibly happy, but certainly dull (in comparison) domestic lives that were expected of them. Perhaps it was unseemly, but she couldn’t help but pine a little “for the boys,” in general, and maybe Abel Cook in particular. She’d seen and endured too much to be content with what was expected of
her
in Imperial society. Hopefully, those expectations were about to undergo some radical revisions, but even if she hadn’t been heir to the Imperial throne, and therefore subject to fewer restraints than other girls, she’d tasted too much of life to just stop and settle down and wait for it to
happen
to her anymore.

Sean had finally relented to her pleas to get out for a while, hoping this little excursion might give her a brief taste of adventure and self-sufficiency for however short a time. Maybe it would help. But Sean Bates had been her protector for a long time, through a variety of terrifying adventures, and wasn’t about to let anything happen to her now that she was home again at last.

“I think ye’ve shot us quite a supper, yer highness,” he said. “Best we get on back to Guv’ment House an’ turn them birds over ta missis Carr afore they spoil. It’s cool up here, but they’ll ripen quick enough once we return to the carriage yonder.” He gestured down slope a mile or so, but then paused suddenly, squinting.

“There are armed horsemen at the carriage,” Rebecca stated, shading her eyes. “Half a dozen? More?”

“I think eight,” Ruik said seriously, his long tail swishing behind his blue Navy kilt. “I can’t see their dress, but they . . . are not Marines.”

“They ain’t in Guard or marshal livery neither, Your Highness,” said the sharp-eyed gamekeeper with a hint of concern.

The Guard was a small, elite security force dedicated to the protection of the Imperial family. The marshals were the much more numerous Imperial Police. Otherwise, the Empire had always relied on its powerful navy and a small but competent corps of Marines. There was no army. Instead of building an army from scratch, however, the corps of Marines was swelling dramatically, borrowing heavily on the instruction, organization, and experience of their Lemurian-American allies. Until the recent battles on New Scotland and New Ireland, those Marines had never coordinated any large-scale operations however, and there’d been some severe growing pains. In any event, Imperial Marines, Guards, or marshals were the only ones with a legitimate reason to assemble such an armed party, particularly here in an Imperial preserve. That left only brigands, and everyone seemed to realize that fact at once. The reaction was . . . unexpected.

One of the beaters, a bearded man in a long, threadbare coat, suddenly dove at Mr. Bigelow, driving the gamekeeper to the ground with a startled cry. Another lunged at Sean, grabbing his pistol by its long barrel with a guttural shout. The third beater stood, just as stunned as everyone, his eyes wide in confused panic.

Sean allowed his assailant to yank the barrel from his shoulder and grasp it with both hands, pulling and wrenching savagely. He had only the grip to hold on to, but in this circumstance, for the instant it took, that was enough. He heaved backward suddenly, straitening the other man’s arms, and squeezed the trigger. The pan flashed and a heavy load of small shot blasted out, and its tight pattern at that range struck the man full in the face with the diameter, if not the weight, of a four-pound shot. It didn’t decapitate him, but his head erupted bloody gore and brains back at Sean like an exploding melon and his corpse dropped to the ground without a twitch.

“Goddamn!” Petey squealed, and launched himself toward Rebecca.

Ruik recovered his wits while the first attacker fought with Bigelow to gain control of his fowler that had fallen about two yards away from them. He raced over and aimed his musket, but loaded with bird shot, he feared he couldn’t hit one without the other. Bigelow was crawling on the ground, toward his weapon, while simultaneously trying to hold on to the traitor and keep him from it. But the bigger, bearded man was raining blows upon him, trying to loosen his grip and drag himself over the gamekeeper. Immediately, Ruik reversed his musket. He was a Naval officer, not a Marine, but everyone had to train with the new weapons to some degree. With a trilling cry, backed by his literally inhuman strength, he delivered a creditable butt stroke to the head of Bigelow’s adversary, who went limp and rolled senselessly onto his back.

“Thankee, sir,” Bigelow managed through broken lips, and Ruik helped him to his feet.

“Swell,” Ruik said, pushing him aside to see Princess Rebecca grimly aiming her double at the still-motionless third beater. The man—more of a boy, really—was obviously terrified.

“And what about you, sir?” Sean snarled, stepping toward him. The long pistol was thrust in this belt, leaving his tunic smeared with bloody chunks, and his sword was in his hand.

“I . . . I . . . didn’t—couldn’t!”

“Quit jabberin’, boy, an’ speak up!”

“I don’t know those men!” the boy finally managed. “Before God! I never seen ’em before taday!” He looked beseechingly at Bigelow. “You used me before, sur! For His Majesty! I’m as loyal as can be!”

Bigelow nodded slowly, a strange expression on his face. “Aye, we’ve used him before,” he confirmed, “an’ he seemed a good lad.” He glanced at the faceless corpse. “Them others, they was . . . recommended.” He turned to look back at the man he’d fought, and his eyes went wide. The bearded beater, his hair matted with blood from Ruik’s blow, was sitting up now. In his hand was a pistol of a cheap, common sort that the Company had long traded in the colonies. The things were hopelessly inaccurate beyond a dozen paces, but they were reliable, and it was pointed at the princess just a few steps away.

“No!” Bigelow roared, and lunged forward just as the pan flashed and fire and smoke bloomed from the muzzle. At that same instant, Ruik, who’d been distracted by the interrogation, brought his musket all the way back up and fired. The long coat covering the assassin’s torso shivered like a sail that just took a broadside and the man fell back, screaming. Ruik didn’t have a bayonet, but he pounced on the man, prepared to smash his skull this time, but his eyes, like everyone’s, went to the princess.

She seemed bewildered, her hand pressing a bloody spray on her bright green hunting frock, just above the belt around her waist. Petey was staring at her, eyes bulging.

“Lass!” Bates yelled. He’d been halfway to the killer, his sword raised. Now he dropped the weapon and rushed to the girl, stripped off her belt, and eased her to the ground.

“It really doesn’t hurt much,” Princess Rebecca softly murmured.

“I must see yer wound, lass,” Sean told her apologetically but forcefully. Tears already streaked his face.

“Of course.”

Sean ripped the coat open, but paused in surprise. There was no blood on her blouse.

The Imperial gamekeeper suddenly coughed, swayed, and collapsed.

“Mr. Bigelow!” cried the boy, kneeling beside him. “It’s him that’s shot!”

Suddenly Sean knew what must have happened. The pistol ball had torn through Bigelow and sprayed the princess with a stream of his blood. The ball may have even been turned downward by a rib and struck her itself, thankfully spent. He quickly opened the blouse over her midriff to assure himself and saw there was indeed a ripening oval bruise, but that was all.