Against the Tide of Years (63 page)

“How could they get this close undetected? ” someone complained.

The Republic’s military commander looked up, and the councilor flinched. “ Because it’s a very big ocean and we have only about forty deep-ocean ships and they’re all over the world,” she said. “And because the Meeting rejected my request that we keep a standing air patrol.”

Fuel was scarce and hideously expensive, granted—so were spare parts.
But not as expensive as a surprise attack.

“ We don’t have time for bickering,” Jared Cofflin said.

Marian nodded.
Though from now on maybe we’ll get less whining about how militia drill is a waste of time,
she thought coldly.

“ From the reports, they may have something on the order of five or six thousand men,” she said. “ I’m ordering aircraft up, but I don’t expect to find another fleet. At a guess, they slipped the ships out a few at a time to avoid attention from our people in Tartessos, and then picked up the troops in Morocco.” What would have become Morocco; it was barbarian country in this milieu, and the Tartessians had overrun it. “ Then they cut along the northern edge of the Trades, sacrificing speed for secrecy. Bold.”

Swindapa came in; Marian returned her salute. “Commodore, the militia’s assembling—we caught most people before they’d left for work.”

Marian nodded; she could hear the noise in the streets, voices, wheels, hooves, teenagers on bicycles shouting
Turn out! Turn out!
as they pedalled. The Church bells had stopped their rythmic pulsing call some time ago. By law all adult citizens and resident aliens were in the militia, with arms and equipment kept ready at hand in their homes; and they’d just had a monthly muster-and-drill day last week.

“First Battalion is about ready to move out,” Swindapa went on. “Less than an hour.” Marian nodded with chill satisfaction; that was good time.

“ What do we do? ” Cofflin asked. “Meet them on the beach? ”

Marian shook her head. “Not enough time,” she said. “And they’ll have the cover of their ship’s guns on the landing zone. We can’t get enough troops or cannon there in time, and they’re going to outnumber us badly as it is.”

There were about twelve thousand people on the Island these days, but a large proportion of those were children or old people. They would all do what they could, from oldsters manning the aid stations and minding infants to Junior Militia carrying messages by bicycle. But of actual troops, the Island had barely three thousand.

“ We have to keep Fort Brandt manned,” she said, tapping the map.

That was the fortress on the site of the old Coast Guard station, near the lighthouse and the mouth of the harbor. Ron Leaton’s best rifled cannon were there; nobody was going to take a ship in past
those,
and it was safe against any ground assault as well. That meant nobody was going to sail into the harbor and assault the docks; the noncombatants would gather there.

“That’s a hundred and fifty people down,” she said. “We have to crew the warships in harbor and get them to sea for our counterattack.” Three frigates, the new steam ram
Farragut,
and some smaller craft. “Say two thousand troops available all up to meet their landing force, and they’ll be ashore before we’re completely mobilized . . . how’s the evacuation going? ”

“Everyone’s out of Sconset and halfway back to town,” Jared said. “I checked myself. We used the mothballed school buses, most of them worked. The farmers and such are all coming in too; say another two hours for the last ones.” A wintry smile. “Had some complaints ’bout leaving livestock and such. Dealt with it.”

That was a massive relief; she needed the roads clear, and herds of cows and sheep blocking movement would be a nightmare.

“Captain Trudeau? The
Farragut
? ”

The slender young man gulped air. “Ma’am, we’re still fitting out. The guns aren’t on board, we haven’t shipped the masts . . .”

Alston’s eyes speared him. “Your engines are installed?” A nod. “ You have the protective plating for the paddle wheels in place? ” Another. “Then my single question is, Captain Trudeau,
can you make steam
? ”

He straightened. “ Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Then go do it. Fast.” He went out at a brisk walk.

Okay. We have three of the frigates, the
Farragut
, and a bunch of smaller stuff. First we have to get them fully committed onshore.
Packed with soldiers, even the Tartessian transports would be dangerous.

“ Thank God for the
Eagle’s Eye
and good weather,” she said. Her finger traced a line out from Nantucket Town, heading east along Milestone Road. “Out here south of Gibbs Pond, where there’s room for the Cherokee Brigade to make themselves useful. We’ll stop them there.”

“Ma’am!”

She looked up; the communications tech was scribbling. “It’s the
Eagle’s Eye.
Large numbers of small boats landing, and several Tartessian ships have beached themselves and are disembarking troops over the side . . . troops and artillery, ma’am.”

The room drew a long breath with her. “All right, people, let’s do it,” she said. “Sandy, you’ve got the deck here.”

 

“ There go the air corps,” Mandy Kayle said.

She’d watched the pilots arrive, by steam-hauler and bicycle, horse carriage and a single unprecedented school bus. Now the ultralights were lifting off in waves from the runways, ten and then ten more and then four.
Only two down for repairs,
she thought.
Good maintenance.

The little plywood teardrops on their tricycle carriages hopped into the air almost immediately; they needed only thirty feet or so of rolling room even with their load of rockets and bombs. The motorized hang gliders circled like birds in a flock, building altitude until she could see the eagle wings painted onto the fabric of the arrowhead wings, the beaks and claws on the fuselages. One buzzed close enough that she could see a gloved hand come up to give her a thumbs-up signal, and then the little craft banked away and joined its comrades as they plodded at forty miles an hour toward the eastern end of the Island.

“ Luck go with them,” Taunarsson said. “Grant them victory!”

“ Yeah,” Mandy Kayle said.

Because if they aren’t lucky, we’re going to be needing luck ourselves pretty damn soon.
Her family’s land was right in the path of the invasion.

 

“All right,” Marian Alston said, looking down from the steps of the Pacific Bank.

It was the traditional—post-Event traditional, at least—place for public speaking in Nantucket. From here she could see the bulk of the Ready Force and the First Battalion, Republic of Nantucket Militia—eight hundred of them, all standing by their bicycles. Many of the faces turned up toward hers were still pale with shock . . .
but they’re ready.
Rifles slung over their backs, extra ammunition and basic supplies on the carrying racks over the rear wheels, and heavy weapons on two-person tricycles.

She felt a moment’s somber pride; building up the reserve force had been her work as much as anyone’s.

“ We’re in a hurry, so I’ll keep it simple,” she said. “ We’re fighting for our homes, our families, our lives, and our freedom—in the most literal sense of the word.” A low murmuring snarl ran through them, and she held up a hand. “Remember your training! We’re going to win this as an organized force, not a mob. Trading your life one-for-one with a Tartessian is a bad bargain for the Republic. Listen to your officers and do your best; we all will, and that’s how we’ll come through this.”

A short, barking cheer, and the long column began to move out, mounting up and pedaling up Main Street. They’d turn left on Orange and then out to Milestone Road; that ran all the way to Sconset. She turned to their commander, a Marine regular usually in the training cadre out at Fort Grant. He was a middle-aged man, from North Carolina originally, a sergeant in the corps before the Event, short and barrel-chested, with skin the color of old oiled teak. His vehicle would be one of the hoarded motor scooters, to give him mobility enough to oversee the operation.

“Major McClintock, push straight up Milestone and then fix them in place,” she said, her finger tracing the folded map in his hand. “ The rest of the militia will mass here and then move out in support.” That would be the second through fourth classes, older and less fit. “You’ve got air reconnaissance and they don’t, but they’re going to outnumber you badly.”

Unfortunately, Nantucket got wider as you went east; it was shaped like a lopsided triangle pointing westward . . . which was undoubtedly why the Tartessians had landed there. It gave them the maximum possible freedom of maneuver.

“They may try to flank you either north”—through the former moorland around Gibbs Pond, containing the vital powder mill—“or south, toward the airport. If you have to choose, hold on the north; it’s hillier and easier to defend, but we need to keep them away from the
Eagle Eye
’s anchor rope if at all possible. Any questions? ”

“No, ma’am,” he said stolidly. A smile and a salute. “See you later.”

“ Take care.”

The man hopped onto his scooter and his staff onto theirs; the
put-put-put
of their motors echoed as they sped away. The sun shone cruelly bright, scudding formations of white cloud from north to south above them. Alston looked up.

Rain,
she thought. Flintlocks wouldn’t shoot if they were wet, and the new weapons the Islanders were using would.
Please, God, send me some rain.

A growl of engines came from lower down on Main Street, as the Cherokee Brigade approached; she smelled the not-unpleasant scent of burned alcohol, and crossed mental fingers.

All these cars have to do is work today,
she thought.
And tomorrow if we’re unlucky.

Not all of them were Jeep Cherokees, in fact, although most were—that had been the most popular pre-Event model. All
had
been modified, usually with sheet-metal armor besides weapons. Swindapa’s blond head showed beside the Gatling mounted on one. She saluted smartly, and Alston returned the gesture, silently thanking a God she didn’t believe in that they were together.
And that Heather and Lucy are out with the other kids at Fort Brandt.

She walked down the steps, checked to see that the strap on her Python revolver was secure, and swung herself down into the body of the car. The front held the driver and radio operator; she handed the second headset up to Alston, who settled it on beneath her helmet. Which reminded her . . .

“Helmet, ’dapa.” Then into the microphone: “Alston to Rapezewicz.”

“ Loud and clear, Commodore.”

“Status report, Sandy.”

“Tartessians are still disembarking, but they’ve moved a holding force up to the top of the bluffs overlooking the beach.”

Alston nodded. That was exactly as she expected, and—she looked at her watch—far too early for any Islander forces of note to have arrived there.

“ Trudeau reports that he’s jury-rigging some valving and warming his boilers; he’ll be ready for sea in not less than two hours forty-five minutes. All the other ships will be by that time, too.”

“Good.” Alston nodded grimly to herself. About the best you could expect, from a cold start.

“
Eagle’s Eye
has the First Battalion under observation; they’re making good time. McClintock reports no contact as yet. And the air corps are beginning their attack run on the enemy ships.”

Alston drew a deep breath. “All right, Sandy, keep me informed. Driver, move out!”

 

Private (First Battalion, Republic of Nantucket Militia Reserve) Garrett Hopkins chopped frantically at the oats and the sandy dirt beneath them with his entrenching tool. To either side of him the rest of his section were doing likewise, and dirt flew into the air as if a pack of giant gophers had moved onto this farm. He felt himself sweating, but it wasn’t the exertion. He worked harder than this every day, on a loading team at the Bessemer works.

It was the knowledge that pretty soon people would be coming up through the fields ahead, trying to
kill
him. Kill
him.
This morning’s toast and ham and eggs and porridge lay like a lump in his stomach, belching back up in gusts of gas, eaten in another world.

Trying to kill us all, or make us slaves,
he thought, baring his teeth. His elder brother was a seaman, and he’d told the family about what he’d seen far foreign, in Tartessos and elsewhere. How the locals treated people there.

Enemy ahead of me, family behind me,
the young man thought; his parents, his younger sisters, his brother’s kids.

The oats were spring-planted and had a sweetish scent as his spade cut them, turning them to green mush on the steel; it was stronger than his own rank fear-sweat. The soil beneath was dark for four inches, then lighter sand. He jumped in when he couldn’t reach down far enough, turning awkwardly as he dug beneath his feet; he stopped when the hole was chest-deep and tossed the spade up onto the piled earth in front of him. The blade and his hands packed it down; he checked as he’d been taught, making sure that he could see clearly in all directions but had room to duck down as well.

A glance over his shoulder—a board fence, then downslope their bicycles, and the road far behind and to the right, with a strip of scrub and trees along it. Ahead was the rest of this field of oats. More fences eastward toward the enemy, but he could see over them, and it struck him how pretty this part of the Island looked. The steel plant where he worked was useful, good honest work, but nobody could call it good-looking.

The sergeant—foreman at the Bessemer works—and a corporal went by, dropping board cartons of fifty rounds by each rifle pit. As he stopped by Hopkins’s, he left a canvas bandolier of grenades as well, the new kind with spoon-and-ring detonators. Hopkins felt an instant’s gratitude; the older type with friction primers gave him the willies.