The Demi-Monde: Summer (29 page)

Although she had tried to shrug off Heii’s treachery, Trixie knew the war was going badly; just four hours in and she could sense the feeling of defeat in the air. The WarJunks had been betrayed and the rocket attack, though spectacular, hadn’t done more than delay things. Now the only shot she had left in her locker was Geek Fire.

The belief within the War Council of the Covenite Army was that Geek Fire should be used as a deterrent, that it should be ignited in advance of an amphibious landing to repel the
attackers, but Trixie had decided that this was hokum. It was better, in her opinion, to wait until the ForthRight army had landed, the fight had been engaged and
then
to ignite it. In this way the force already on Covenite soil would be cut off from reinforcements and the maximum number of landing barges would be caught in midstream by the conflagration. It was a strategy that required an iron nerve and exact timing.

Immediately the first of the ForthRight troop barges was ashore and the Covenite defenders had come to grips with the advancing StormTroopers, messages had flooded into the Command Post, begging, demanding, pleading that the fury of the Geek Fire be released. But still she refused to give the command.

Trixie glanced towards Jiao Yu: the NoN seemed tremendously bucked up after shooting the two recalcitrant signalFemmes. Killing people obviously agreed with him. ‘How many enemy barges have reached Rangoon?’

‘The best estimate we have is around fifty.’

Fifty barges meant that just ten thousand StormTroopers had made it to Rangoon; not enough to persuade her to spring her trap. ‘Hold the siphons closed until two hundred barges have made shore.’

A quizzical look from Jiao Yu. ‘With the deepest of respect, GeneralFemme Dashwood, we understand that the fighting around the Anichkov Bridge is severe. ColonelFemme Trung Nhi is already demanding reinforcements.’

‘She has five thousand fighters, more than enough to hold the bridge
and
to repel an attack from the SS who’ve landed. Tell her there will be no reinforcements and that she must stand firm.’

The NoN bowed and then disappeared in the direction of the signal room – now manned exclusively by NoNs – leaving Trixie alone to ponder whether she’d made the correct decision. A
somewhat breathless Jiao Yu returned barely a minute later. ‘We are advised, GeneralFemme Dashwood, that over two hundred enemy barges have now landed.’

‘Then open the siphons and flood the river.’

It was a simple enough order, but the consequences, she knew, would be horrific. Geek Fire was a treacherous mixture of bitumen, palm oil, resin, rubber and other secret ingredients that floated on water and when ignited erupted in a fury of fire and poisonous vapour. It was a devilish weapon. ‘Siphons open!’ came a shout from one of the SignalNoNs.

Now the five siphons positioned at equal distances along the bank of the Volga would be spewing the liquid held in the reservoirs – these, thankfully, housed in concrete bunkers near the Great Wall safe from the artillery shells raining down on Rangoon – into the river, where the tide would spread it along its course. Then an igniting rocket would be fired and the whole lot would go up in a ferment of fire, flames and fumes. Anything remotely flammable – like a ForthRight troop-transport barge and the SS bastards inside it – wouldn’t stand a chance.

Ten minutes passed and then Jiao Yu bustled back into the command room. ‘Everything is in order, GeneralFemme,’ he advised Trixie. ‘We are ready to fire the ignition rocket.’

‘Then do it, CommanderNon. Let’s fry up these bastard UnFunnies. Let’s give ‘em a foretaste of Hel.’

Wysochi had ignored his guards and with a couple of the other WFA officers had climbed up onto the roof of their barracks to get a better look at the Battle for Rangoon, but, much as he admired Trixie’s battle acumen, he had to admit that what he saw had him worried. That the ForthRight had already secured a couple of footholds along the Rangoon side of the river was bad enough, but what really concerned Wysochi was the lack
of Covenite artillery deployed to keep them from being reinforced. In fact there seemed to be nothing much being done to prevent the waves of ForthRight troop-transport barges reaching Rangoon and consolidating the gains the UnFunnies had already made.

Where were all the WarJunks he had heard the guards talking about?

The only thing he could think of was that Trixie had something really evil up her sleeve, but even he hadn’t imagined it would be as evil as it turned out to be. The combination of surprise and heat he experienced when the whole river exploded in a cauldron of twenty-foot-high flames was such that he was forced to take two shocked steps back and it was only by grabbing on to a chimney pot that he stopped himself tumbling off the roof.

‘What the fuck?’ he spluttered as he was blanketed by a cloud of sulphurous, choking black smoke.

‘Geek Fire!’ shouted one of his young lieutenants over the noise of the boiling river, the screams of dying men and the incessant artillery fire that was falling on Rangoon. ‘There’ve been a lot of rumours about it. Guess it had to be these sneaky Chinks who ended up perfecting it, seeing that they’ve always been devils when it came to alchemy. I feel sorry for the poor sods in those barges.’

Wysochi wasn’t sorry for them. ‘Fuck ‘em … fuck all UnFunnies, I hope they burn slow,’ he growled, though as far as he could see, there wasn’t much chance of that. The fire was so intense that any UnFunny barge caught in it would be barbecued in an instant. And there would be a lot of StormTroopers being barbecued tonight, the fire enveloping the river had engulfed a veritable fleet of barges and even through the black smoke Wysochi could see that several were already ablaze. He gave a grim smile, realising that Trixie had
really foxed them, and if the fire burned long enough those StormTroopers already ashore would be cut off and made easy meat for the Covenite army.

And then disaster struck.

The suspect valve at Pumping Station Number Three which serviced the largest Geek Fire reservoir malfunctioned. It was an important valve, the one intended to prevent blowback, to prevent the flames from the already burning Geek Fire retreating along the fuel lines and into the reservoir. The consensus later was that Leading EngineerNoN Li Chang was a confederate of Heii’s and deliberately sabotaged the valve, though as Li Chang died in the ensuing explosion, the truth of the matter would never be known. But whatever the cause of
the valve’s malfunction, the consequences were apparent to everybody in Rangoon: the huge fuel reservoir positioned opposite the Anichkov Bridge exploded with a blast that was heard and felt for a radius of five miles. Trixie had never seen anything like it. The Demi-Monde erupted in three-hundred-foot-high gouts of flame.

Even sheltered within her bunker, even with her arm thrown across her face, Trixie was still hurled backwards by the blast and the SAE of her right cheek scorched by the flames that engulfed the redoubt. Immediately the semaphore vanes – bent and twisted by the heat, but still operating – began to clatter and a moment later a somewhat charred Jiao Yu came scurrying into the Command Centre. ‘I must advise you, GeneralFemme, that the reservoir servicing Pumping Station Number Three has exploded.’

No kidding
, thought Trixie as she brushed cinders from her
jiangs
.

‘It seems that half of the buildings in Rangoon are now on fire. ColonelFemme Trung Nhi has also advised that her fighters were badly affected by the blast, the Amazon regiment defending the Anichkov Bridge being almost totally annihilated. The few who survived are unable to present any credible opposition to the SS. The ColonelFemme urgently requests reinforcements.’

It took Trixie only a moment to assess the situation. She knew that a commander as able as Archie Clement wouldn’t let an opportunity like this slip by him, and as soon as his men had recovered from the shock of the explosion, they would attack the Anichkov Bridge with a vengeance. And once the bridge was in enemy hands, the game would be well and truly up.

‘Bring up the reserves,’ she snapped to a rather glassy-eyed Jiao Yu.

‘We have no reserves, GeneralFemme Dashwood,’ he stammered. ‘ColonelFemme Trung Trac ordered them to the western
part of the city to defend against the ForthRight forces landing there.’

‘I gave no such command …’

The silent answer she received from Jiao Yu was eloquent: the officerFemmes, aggrieved that command of the army had been given to an outsider, had obviously decided to bypass her and by their disloyalty and disobedience had endangered the whole of the Coven. But this was no time for recrimination. Trixie needed reinforcements to hold the bridge and she needed them fast. ‘Send a message to the barracks where the WFA fighters are being held. I want them released and I want them armed.’ She began to furiously scribble a message on a page she’d torn from her notebook. ‘Have this given to Major Wysochi …’

Something made her look up. CommanderNoN Jiao Yu was staring at her as though she was mad. ‘That is unthinkable, GeneralFemme Dashwood … utterly unthinkable. It is a violation of all HerEtical dogma to have uncastrated nonFemmes fighting alongside Femmes. It would be an endorsement of their MALEvolence. I cannot obey such an order.’ He shook his head vehemently to emphasise the point.

A strange calmness descended on Trixie. Like the good commander she was, she didn’t see the confusion and the chaos of war, instead she saw with great clarity what needed to be done to salvage the situation. She unclasped her holster.

‘CommanderNoN Jiao Yu, I command this army. My orders have been betrayed twice today but, believe me, I will not allow them to be betrayed a third time. If you want the Coven to survive, that bridge must be held, and to do this I need fighters. Thanks to Trung’s treachery, the only fighters I have to reinforce the bridge are those belonging to the WFA. So I’m giving you a direct order to free and arm these men and women so that we might save the Coven from the ForthRight.’ She stared
directly into the NoN’s eyes. ‘Are you still telling me that you refuse to obey my order?’

The NoN swallowed and looked around the room for support. There was none, every other soldier suddenly very busy doing something that avoided them having to look in Jiao Yu’s direction. He glanced nervously at Trixie and then at the pistol she had drawn from her holster. Finally he bowed. ‘I will obey.’

From his perch atop the roof Wysochi saw the express rider galloping towards the barracks and knew instinctively what would be the contents of the message the man was carrying.

‘Captain, get the fighters together and lined up in ranks on the parade ground ready to march.’

The young captain gawped at Wysochi. ‘March where, Major?’

‘To war, Captain. The WFA is back in the business of killing UnFunnies.’

It took them half an hour to deploy and another thirty minutes to get to the arsenal where their weapons had been stored, so it was an hour after he had received the message that Wysochi and three thousand of his WFA fighters approached the Anichkov Bridge. Just a single look told him that the situation was desperate. As best he could judge in the confusion, whilst the bridge was still clear of the enemy, the defenders were in danger of being flanked on both sides by StormTroopers who had landed after the Geek Fire had faltered.

‘Captain,’ he bellowed, ‘take one thousand men and secure our right flank and you, Lieutenant, take the same number and secure our left flank.’ Wysochi did his best to sound confident but his assessment was that the position was untenable. He could see the ForthRight’s armoured steamers already massing on the St Petersburg side of the river ready to force the bridge and it was only a matter of time before the sheer weight of the
SS would overwhelm his small army. But it was equally obvious that if the bridge was lost, there would be little hope of saving Rangoon.

He turned to the knot of Covenite officers standing, looking dazed and confused, a little way from him. ‘Who’s in command here?’

A small woman dressed in a filthy and tattered boiler suit peeled away and walked unsteadily over to Wysochi. As she got closer, he could see that the arm that hung limply at her left side was badly burnt and her eyes had the glazed expression of someone in shock. This, he knew, would be difficult.

‘I am ColonelFemme Trung Nhi, Commander of the Second Covenite Army. And may I ask who has given you – a nonFemme – authority regarding the defence of this bridge?’

‘I am Major Feliks Wysochi of the WFA and I and my fighters are here by order of GeneralFemme Dashwood.’ Wysochi handed the woman the piece of paper delivered by the express rider.

Trung Nhi read the order. ‘This is wholly improper. It is an insult to HerEticalism that an uncastrated nonFemme be given command of Femmes.’

Wysochi felt his temper flare. ‘Look, ColonelFemme Trung, in ten minutes about a hundred armoured steamers are going to come trundling over that bridge and unless we get ourselves organised, they ain’t gonna stop trundling until they’ve flattened the whole fucking Coven. So what I want is for you to deploy your fighters—’

‘I will not take orders from a nonFemme!’ Trung snarled. ‘You and your kind are not needed here, Major Wysochi. We in the Coven have struggled long and hard to rid our Sector of the vile, patriarchal contamination you represent, so we do not need your offer of help now.’