Her Majesty's Western Service (20 page)

“
Dragoons, sir, yes. First of the Forty-third. Charlie Company.”

“
The vehicle crews have submachineguns. Your line infantry know how to handle `em?”

“
Cross-train all the time, sir. I'll have the platoon draw them from the arsenal and bring personal backpacks, satchels, whatever conceals them best.”

“
Good job, captain. Meet my men at the station in ten minutes. I'll explain the objective to your officer.”

“
Heard your squadron lost an airship, sir. Figure you got a lead on getting it back, from what Sergeant Golding said.”

“
Correct. Get those men ready. Remember, they're to look like civilians. We're going into the Boot District to make an arrest and recover the airship,
not
to start a brawl.”

“
On it, sir.”

Rafferty seemed at least a little more sober when P
erry met him inside the officers’ mess; he was chewing on a fried chicken leg. With him was Vescard, dressed in yellow roughnecks' overalls and a cowboy hat.

“
Heard from the Specialist here that 4-106’s been found, sir,” said Vescard. “We're coming along to get it back. With you. If you don't mind.”

“We?”

Swarovski came out of the men's room, buttoning a horrendously-bright lime-green shirt.

“Swav and I, sir.”

“You armed?”

“Just our service pistols,”
said Swarovski.

“Speak for yourself, Swav,”
said Vescard, pulling a massive – eighteen inches long, and
solid
– wrench from a leg-pocket of the coveralls.

“
Oh, I've got a knife.” Swarovski pulled his issue multitool, which included a five-inch blade.

“That ain't a knife, sir,”
said Rafferty, taking a Bowie from his coveralls. “
This
is a knife.”

“
When you gentlemen are finished arguing over the specific definition of ‘knife’,” Perry said, “we
do
have an airship to recover.”

“
Right, sir,” said Rafferty. "But just so the lieutenant knows, my knife's better than his. Sir."

“Another drink for the road?”
The mess bartender produced two beers, pushing them in the direction of Swarovski and Vescard.

“Don't mind if I do,”
said Rafferty, taking one of the beers and pouring it into his mouth.

Swarovski and Vescard looked at each other.

“Yes,” Swarovski told the bartender, and gestured for Vescard to take the other beer.

“
How
drunk are the two of you?” Perry asked.

“Not very,”
said Swarovski.

“
Less than he is,” said Vescard.

“
Then you don't need another one. We've got a train. Come
on
.”

Vescard put the empty beer-glass down. Swarovski took his glass and drank as he walked, putting it down on a table in the mess anteroom.

Halvorsen was waiting outside the mess with Vidkowski. Both were dressed in civvies.

“
You're coming along too,” Perry said resignedly. At least these two looked sober.

“
Ran into Raff on his way here, sir,” said Vidkowski.

“Very well.”
Perry sighed, glanced at his watch. “We're holding up a train. Let's
go
.”

The supply train was a line of about twenty tanker cars, loaded with oil and natural gas from the Hugoton fields. Near the railyard was a plant where the all-important helium was separated from the oilfie
lds’ other products: natural gas and crude oil. Another plant – working three shifts, alongside the oil wells – turned the crude oil into heating oil, which would power engines and heat buildings. More crude was shipped straight to Dodge, where it would be refined at plants there into other products.

Attached to the end, ju
st fore of the caboose, was a third-class passenger car. About thirty-five men in a mix of civilian clothing and carrying a mess of bags – but almost all in their twenties and early thirties, all of them Army – sat or stood inside of it.

A man in neater civilian clothing, aged about twenty-five, saluted the group as they approached.

“Vice-Commodore Perry, sir?” he said to Halvorsen.

“
I'm Perry,” said Perry.

“
Sorry, sir. Lieutenant Harrison, sir. Third Platoon, Second Response. Here to help secure your airship, sir.”

“
Staff Sergeant MacGreg,” said an older man. “Military police.” He – and three others – were dressed in dull dark-blue slacks and black shirts. They were all in their late twenties and thirties. “My people here, too. Captain Adrian detailed us alongside Lieutenant Harrison's platoon. Sir.”

“
Good of him to,” said Perry. “That train's waiting on us?”

“
Yessir, it is. Should have left a couple minutes ago.”

Perry boarded, followed by the others from his squadron.

“This is Specialist Third Rafferty,” Perry said to MacGreg and Harrison. MacGreg eyed Rafferty unaffectionately; Rafferty gave the MP a broad grin.

Natural enemies, the two of them
, thought Perry.

“
Rafferty was in the Boot District with a friend of his, when he heard about the pirate who'd stolen my airship.”

“
Boot District’s off-limits,” said MacGreg.

“
I've spoken to him about it,” Perry said. He raised his voice. “This woman is named Karen Ahle. For those of you who haven't heard the story, a line-class airship designated 4-106 was hijacked Tuesday. The pirate has been identified and I was assigned this afternoon to apprehend her and bring the ship back. This is a stroke of luck.”

“
We're gonna bust a pirate?” an Army man asked excitedly.

“
Damned right we are,” said Rafferty. “And
hang
the thieving bitch! With a rope!”

“
We're going to apprehend her according to the tip Specialist Rafferty gave us,” said Perry. “We are then going to find the location of the airship and secure her until a flight crew can arrive to bring her back.”

“
Fly her back ourselves, perhaps,” said Swarovski.

“
Probably not,” said Perry. Although that
was
a thought.

“
You want me to send one section to secure the airship while the other goes with you for the pirates?” asked Harrison.

The train was picking up speed, moving fast. They passed a trio of oil derricks, big and floodlit as their pumps swung up and down. A roughneck on a platform waved, and the train tooted its horn in reply.

“No,” said Perry. “One team can accompany - Lieutenant Vescard and Warrant Halvorsen, I think. To identify 4-106 at the airship park. I expect Ahle to offer more resistance. She and her crew may be drunk; they're also pirates and we can expect them all to be well-armed. Piracy is a capital crime, to make this clear. If resistance is offered, shoot to kill immediately.”

He lowered his voice.

“Lieutenant Harrison, your platoon has been doing patrols. I understand the protocol is to arrest any civilians trying to get through?”

“
Usually just some lost cowboy,” said Harrison. “But there's two fence lines, and it doesn't happen often. We've never had serious trouble.”

“
Very well. Sergeant MacGreg, please have your men give the Army soldiers basic instruction, in what time we have, in making arrests.”

“
Wish we had time to get a full MP platoon together,” MacGreg muttered.

“
We don't,” Perry said.

He was impressed it was happening this fast.
Twenty minutes ago
he'd been asleep in bed. Now he was in a train, speeding across the Kansas plains to Dodge City, where - hopefully - he and this platoon would accomplish what he'd expected to take weeks of tricky and unfamiliar spy-work.

This is a godsend
, he thought.
Rafferty's discovery.

I did
not
think it would actually be this easy!

“
We've got a crew,” Cannon reported.

“
And I found us some roughs. Couple of them have engine experience,” said Marko. He was trailed by six of them; industrial ne'er-do-wells, the sort of men he found most useful. He'd have identified with them more if they
were
actually any good at what they did, but each man served Discordia in his own way. Knowingly or unknowingly.

These ones just wanted a quick buck without too much hard work. He hadn't bothered to tell them that they were going to do a rec
onnaisance flight over one of the best-guarded military bases on the continent. They'd learn that when they got there; if they were unhappy with the fact, hopefully they'd brought parachutes.

“
We gonna kill someone?” Rienzi asked. “Hard bunch we got here. Yeah, and we found a third kinnyscope. Fence let us have it for a couple hundred bucks; loot from some ship someone took.”

“
We're gonna wipe out a pirate crew,” said Marko. “Hang back and let me go in first. We kill them all to avoid pursuit, blow their ship just in case they got friends elsewhere. Jack the other ship and go.”

“
How long you think it'll take to fully inflate?” Cannon asked. “No park's gonna allow a ship to sit parked, gassed-up. Too much of a fire risk. They'll check for these things.”

“
Helium bird,” said McIlhan. “Remember? Imperial warship. No trouble with inflation, just got to get the buoyancy even.” She smirked. “
Fuck
it’s gonna be good to go back to Hugoton.”

“
You know how to operate a flasher?” Marko asked.

“
Had signals training. Not airships, but ground signaling's the same. I can handle it.”

“
And read them?”

“
Adequately, boss. When do we go out?”

“
Men right now are packing and arming,” said Cannon. “Everyone's gonna be go in about twenty minutes.”

“
An
Imperial
ship,” Marko giggled. “Fitting.”

Chapter
Eight

“Dodge City was a messy cattle town and a violent hellhole as far back as 1870. Just goes to show that nothing ever changes. We've got oil and natural gas as well as cattle, now - and we've also got roughnecks as well as cowboys, pirates as well as outlaws. Our department doesn’t have a retirement fund, we have a tontine.”

Dodge County Undersheriff Pete MacNamara, 1961.

Perry's train didn't stop at a platform. It was a regularly-scheduled freight run to Kansas City, and the engineer simply
halted for a minute at a convenient point along the line and allowed the men to pile out. They crossed a couple of tracks and found themselves on a bitumen road in a street of shabby industrial terrace-houses.

The soldiers of
Third Platoon spread out, instinctively forming a perimeter around Perry's men and the MPs.

“
So one of my fire-teams goes with two of your men to locate the airship?” Harrison asked.

“
Locate and identify,” Perry directed. “If there are crew aboard or nearby, do
not
engage unless she looks like she’s going to lift. The priority is to take the captain and prevent the airship from departing. Do what it takes to achieve that. Take cabs.”

“
I know where the port is. I
think
I know where we are,” said Vescard.

“
I know both,” said Halvorsen. “I'll take the lead, sir?”

Vescard gave a curt nod.

“Bravo section, Team One. Lance Innis,” said Lieutenant Harrison.

“
With him, sir,” said a blond man. “You heard the flying officer, boys. Follow those two. Permission to depart, sir?”

“
Move,” Perry gestured. He turned to Rafferty.

“Where's this place?”

“If I got us right, about half a mile from here. It's gonna be dives and shit, and forty of us
are
gonna attract notice.”

Perry looked at MacGreg.

“He's got a point, sir.”

“
Very well. Rafferty, you and I will go ahead, with one of the lieutenant's teams. A section will follow at about forty yards with the lieutenant. The last team will go with the MPs forty yards behind that.”