Drakas! Read online

  One torpedo hit Suvorov right forward. She started to slow, which reduced her rate of turn, but with her forward compartments flooding no doubt the bridge officers had decided to reduce the water pressure somehow. That left the ship in the path of two more torpedoes, one striking under the first funnel, the other under the after turret.

  Smoke trickled, then gushed, out of the after turret, and the deck and hull around it. Then the smoke turned to flame, steel plates bulged and erupted outward, and the after magazine went up in a single cataclysmic blast of a hundred or more tons of ammunition.

  Suvorov's stern was gone—blown into the air or toward the bottom. Her bow continued for a moment, already listing, like some great maimed animal too stupid to understand that it was dead. Then boilers and a magazine for one of the midships turrets both exploded, and Suvorov and her eight hundred men were gone.

  Jahn looked across Auxiliary Control, to see that the starboard gun blister was gone and so was the gunner. The loader was firing the gun sharply downward—with gravity to help the bullets, he might hit something—but his left leg was a mangled ruin and he would bleed to death if nobody—

  The junior elevator man started across the deck to help the loader. Then a giant claw seemed to rip open the deck of Auxiliary Control. Somebody down there still had an anti-dirigible gun in action, and it had just punched a shell into Satsuma.

  Fortunately the first hit was a dud. It bounced off the overhead and tumbled, sweeping the starboard loader overboard like an old-fashioned solid shot. The hole it left in the deck was large enough to swallow the junior elevator man.

  Then a second shell hit, farther aft, and this one exploded. Bulkheads bulged and vomited smoke and fragments. One fragment scored Jahn's thigh. Between that and the dying senior elevator man reeling against him, Jahn fell to the deck.

  As he scrabbled for a handhold on the blood-slick aluminum, he heard the port machine gun firing. Next was the sound of metal twisted agonizingly far beyond its limits, and finally a human scream.

  Jahn told himself three times that it was not a woman's scream.

  He did not bother telling himself that Satsuma wasn't going down. Somehow the loudspeaker connection to the bridge was still alive, and someone was shrieking "All hands to crash landing stations! Long live the Emperor!" over and over again.

  Jahn thought that he was already at his station—if the Auxiliary elevator controls still worked, at least; Satsuma was far beyond help by damage control. And while he wished the Emperor Meiji no harm at all, he could not see what prolonging the Emperor Meiji's life could do for his loyal subjects who were rapidly approaching Yasukuni Shrine.

  Are worshippers of Christ or the Old Norse gods allowed in there?

  Smoke billowed from aft, then Julia Pope staggered out of it. She was covered with blood, and staggered in a way that sent Jahn's bowels twisting like a disturbed nest of mambas.

  They do have a point, saying men will panic over a wounded woman.

  Except that Julia was where she'd wanted to be, with battle comrades and even a lover close by. If you had to die, that was always one of the better places.

  She gripped a stanchion, then shifted her grip as a jagged end scored her palm. "Radio's—dead. Chiba—gone too."

  Jahn realized that his own shallow cut had almost stopped bleeding, and decided that Julia needed his battle dressing worse than he did. He started to unwrap it.

  "Never mind," she said. "Most of the blood—it's Chiba's. He'd do to ride the river with, as mah father will say when—ah tell him."

  Jahn felt even worse gut twistings. Julia's father was dead.

  Then Satsuma gave her most violent lurch yet. The port gunner fired off a last burst and shouted, "We've hit a Russian ship!"

  Jahn wondered at the idea of Russian ships flying, then realized that Satsuma must have lost considerable altitude from her damage. No fire, so far, but they would be down in the sea in minutes. Thank God both Julia and I are in shape to swim.

  "Last message, before they hit us," Pope said, sitting down abruptly. "The torpedo squadrons are coming in to finish off the Russians—even towing the coastal boats. The rest of the battle line's going north to surprise Vlad—Vlad—"

  She coughed, and rested her head against the metal, as if it cooled a fever. Jahn's fingers flew through the rest of opening the dressing. He looked up, to see blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. In one hand she held out her Thorshammer.

  "Take it—take it to a shrine. Or—or Ran's."

  Then she twisted the fingers of her free hand, and only let go when he took the amulet. Or when life left her, which was about at the same time.

  Jahn didn't have time even to close Pope's staring eyes, before Satsuma started breaking in two fifty meters aft. The port gunner and loader were peering out past their empty gun and must have seen something they didn't like, because they both flung themselves through a hole in their blister.

  Then Jahn saw it too—an orange glow from aft, where the collision must have ignited escaping hydrogen.

  He thought of staying with Julia for only a moment, but that was almost too long. A blast of superheated air flung him out the port blister, and for a moment he thought he was going to come down on the Russian's deck.

  But he missed, dove deep, and came up just in time to see Satsuma's—and Julia's—hydrogen-fed pyre cremate everything above decks aboard the Russian ship—a freighter, he thought.

  But the Russian must have been carrying fuel or ammunition, and the hydrogen flames had reached it. Explosions sprayed the sea with flames and wreckage, as well as all the Russian crew who hadn't already been reduced to ashes on their own deck.

  Bodies and parts of bodies rained down around Horace Jahn. One landed almost on top of him, and he was obscurely relieved to see that it was a man. The explosions continued, as he swam away from the burning Russian ship. . . .

  IV

  China Sea, 1950, August 18, 1905

  Commander Goto had double lookouts posted and a machine gun mounted on the bridge, as Number 36 cruised through the graveyard of the Russian Pacific Fleet. The Combined Fleet's torpedo squadrons were still patrolling the area, to sink or capture any surviving enemy ships that hadn't beached themselves on the Chinese coast, and they would have quick hands on the gun lanyards.

  So, for that matter, would Sub-Lieutenant Yamamoto, even he would be firing the machine gun with his right hand only. Morphine controlled his pain, and he was determined to end the most glorious day in the history of the Imperial Japanese Navy on his feet, at his post, ready to deal with any Russians not yet out of the fight.

  None of the living Russians they'd found so far had any fight left in them. In fact, several had begged to be rescued. Number 36 had no space for prisoners, so the radio operator had just given the torpedo-gunboat Furutsuki the position of the latest boatload, when a lookout called out a lone swimmer dead ahead.

  One man we can take, and perhaps his gratitude will make him talkative.

  In the fading light, the man was certainly a European, and fair-haired like so many of the Russians. But he was wearing Imperial Navy airship coveralls, and Goto remembered that seven of the nineteen airships who had delivered the first and deadliest stroke were lost or missing.

  As Number 36 slowed, the man released his grip on half of a wooden deck grating and swam over to the submarine. Gripping the port bow plane, he hauled himself aboard even before the deck party could reach him. It was only when he stood up that Goto recognized Lieutenant Commander Jahn, last heard of aboard the missing Satsuma.

  "We may have other survivors in the area," he said. He seemed afraid to let out more than a few words at a time, and Goto did not bother asking about the fate of Lieutenant Pope. The big Draka seemed smaller than before, as though his body had shrunk to fold itself protectively around his wounded spirit. Goto thanked the gods for his brother's survival and asked them to give peace to Julia Pope along with all the other warriors who had died for the Emperor this da
y.

  He was about to urge Jahn below, when the man held out something in his hand. It was a sea-tarnished, smoke-blackened silver amulet in the shape of a hammer. Goto recalled seeing Julia Pope wearing it at his farewell party—a religious emblem, like the Christian cross.

  Jahn looked at the amulet for a long moment. Then he thrust it into a hip pocket and saluted Goto.

  "Lieutenant Commander Horace Jahn, Navy of the Dominion of the Draka, reporting aboard. Do you know if there is a shrine to Thor or Ran in the Empire?"

  THE TRADESMEN

  David Drake

  Dave Drake is an ex-lawyer, ex-soldier, and present writer from Iowa who currently resides in the woods of North Carolina. He has many praiseworthy attributes—for instance, he preferred driving a bus to practicing law. He's also a classical scholar who's as much at home with the meditations of Marcus Aurelius as with motorcycles and pistols.

  Most of the SF field is familiar with his Hammer's Slammers series, perhaps the defining example of future war fiction. He's also written fine stories set in places as far apart as the Roman Mediterranean and the Congo Free State, and once had the honor of having a horror story censored in England . . . because it was too horrible.

  Drake can show the dark side of the world without for a moment slipping into the pornography of violence. He knows it's real, not a slasher flick. He's been there, and he can show what it does to the human soul better than any of us.

  In the Draka universe, there's an analogue to World War Two, which the inhabitants of that timeline call the Eurasian War. It's worse than World War Two, which is saying something. Drake shows why.

  AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'M INDEBTED TO WILKESON O'CONNELL, WHOSE WORK SHOWED ME THE WAY TO SOLVE A PROBLEM THAT HAD BEEN EXERCISING ME FOR SOME TIME. —D.A.D.

  Colonel Evertsen heard voices in the outer room of his office in the Tactical Operations Center. An outbound convoy—a convoy headed from the interior to the front—had reached Fort Burket a half hour before; District Administrator Kuyper, Evertsen's civilian counterpart, would be coming to discuss the latest dispatch from Capetown.

  Evertsen turned, closing the maintenance log he'd been studying in a vain attempt to change the numbers into something Capetown would find more acceptable. The roads in this Slavic hinterland had been a joke before they were made to bear the weight of mechanized armies. Now they'd been reduced to dust, mud, or ice. Take your choice according to the season, and expect your engines and drive trains to wear out in a fraction of the time that seemed reasonable in an air-conditioned office in Capetown.

  Instead of the rumpled Kuyper, a tall, slim officer turned sideways to enter the narrow doorway and threw a salute that crackled. He was wearing battledress in contrast to Evertsen's second-class uniform, but the clean, pressed garments proved he was a newcomer to the war zone.

  "Janni!" said Evertsen in pleasure. He rose to his feet, stumbling as he always did when he tried to move quickly and his right knee betrayed him.

  "Lieutenant Jan Dierks reporting to the base commander, sir," the newcomer said. He broke into a grin and reached across the desk to clasp Evertsen by the arm. "You live in a maze here, Uncle Jan. Is the danger so great this far from the front lines?"

  Evertsen bit back the retort—because Dierks was his nephew, and because anyway Evertsen should be used to the attitude by now. He got it every time he went home on leave, after all. I see, colonel, you're not in the fighting army any more . . .

  "Not so dangerous, not now," Evertsen said, gesturing Dierks to a chair. The room's only window was a firing slit covering the east gate. There were electric lights, but Evertsen normally didn't bother with them until he'd shuttered the window for the night. "The fort was laid out two years ago, after all. But although the danger has receded, one gets used to narrow doorways and grenade baffles more easily than one might to a sapper in one's bedroom."

  "Oh, I didn't mean to imply . . " Dierks said in sudden confusion. He was a good boy; the sort of son Evertsen would have wanted if things had worked out differently.

  "No offense taken, Janni," he said easily. "Though in fact the constant advance causes its own problems. The point elements always bypass hostiles, and some of those are going to decide that a logistics base guarded by cripples and transients is a better choice for resupply than trying to get back to their own lines."

  Evertsen tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice when he said, "cripple," but he knew he hadn't been completely successful.

  Dierks looked through the firing slit, perhaps for an excuse to take his eyes off his uncle, and said, "There's a convoy from the front arriving. Do they usually come in at the same time as an outbound one?"

  "Not usually," Evertsen said in a dry voice, "though they're supposed to. We won't be able to send your trucks forward without the additional escort that accompanies the inbound convoy."

  He rotated his chair to view the east gate. There were about forty vehicles, meaning a score or more were deadlined at one of the forward bases. That was par for the course, but Christ! why couldn't Capetown see the Russian Front needed mechanics worse than it did more riflemen? Around and beyond the convoy, the plains rolled on forever.

  The leading truck was a standard 6x6, empty except for the load of sandbags that would detonate any pressure-fuzed mine. The duty of driving that vehicle changed every fifteen minutes.

  Two armored cars followed. There should be four more at the middle and end of the line, but Evertsen saw only two. The four guntrucks, each with quad-mounted heavy machine guns behind walls of mortar boxes filled with gravel, were spaced evenly among the non-combat vehicles.

  "I suppose returning convoys are to reposition the trucks?" Dierks said.

  "That," Evertsen said. He turned from the window. "And for casualties and leave-men. Mostly casualties."

  He cleared his throat. "A fit young man wouldn't be posted to Fort Burket, Janni. Where do your orders take you?"

  "The Fourth Independent Brigade, sir," Janni said with pardonable pride. The Four Eye was a crack unit whose neck-or-nothing panache made it a fast route to promotion . . . for the survivors. "I could choose my itinerary, and when I saw an officer was needed to escort specie to the District Administrator at Fort Burket, well, I volunteered."

  There was an angry mutter in the outer office. Administrator Kuyper squeezed through the doorway with a document in his hand and shouted, "Evertsen, do you know what those idiots in Capetown have done? They've—"

  Janni jumped to his feet. Kuyper noticed his presence and said more mildly, "Oh, good afternoon, lieutenant. I didn't realize. . ."

  "You've met the Lieutenant Dierks who brought the discretionary fund supplement, Kuyper," Evertsen said from his chair. "Allow me to present my nephew Janni, who's been posted to the Four Eye."

  "It's about the damned discretionary fund that I've come, Evertsen," Kuyper said. "They've reduced the bounty authorization from a hundred aurics to sixty, and they've made an immediate cut in the supplement to the discretionary fund."

  Evertsen's fist clenched. "Do they give a reason?" he asked, more so he had time to think about the implications than because any reason could justify Capetown's action in his mind. He wished Janni wasn't present for this, but he couldn't very well order the boy out.

  Kuyper waved the document, obviously the one Janni had brought with the paychest. " `At this crisis in national affairs,' " he quoted, " `the fighting fronts must take precedence for resources over the lines of communication.' By Christ, Evertsen! How much use do they think those greater resources will be if the convoys carrying them are looted by guerrillas?"

  Dierks looked from one man to the other, hearing without enough background to understand the words. The hefty administrator was between him and the doorway. Because he couldn't easily leave, Dierks said, "The specie I escorted was to pay the Slav irregulars, then, the Ralliers? Rather than your own troops?"

  "Yes," Kuyper said, "and there'll be hell to pay when they—"

  Kuyper's eyes
were drawn to the viewslit because it was the brightest thing in the room. "Oh, Christ!" he said, staring toward the gate. "It never rains but it pours. There's Bettina Crais, in with the convoy and coming toward the TOC. Three guesses what she's going to want!"

  "And how she's going to react," Evertsen agreed grimly. He'd rather have had a few weeks to figure a way out of the impasse; but if he'd been a lucky man, he wouldn't be commanding a line-of-communication base. "Well, we may as well get it over with."

  "Lieutenant, give me a hand with the paychest if you will," Kuyper said. "Even in its present anemic state, that much gold is a load for me. Besides, it won't hurt to have a fit young officer like you in the room when Crais gets the news."

  The two men started out. Evertsen said, "Kuyper, perhaps Lieutenant Dierks shouldn't be . . . ?"

  Janni stiffened in the doorway. "Sir," he said, "I'm cleared at Most Secret level. I'll obey any order from a superior officer, of course; but I remind you that to treat me as a child because of our relationship would dishonor the uniform I wear."

  He thinks I'm trying to protect him from violence by an angry Rallier, Evertsen thought. And he's young enough to worry about honor!

  "Yes, of course," Evertsen said with a curt nod. "You'll find the experience instructive, I'm sure."

  The colonel stared at his hands while he waited. Once he'd dreamed of commanding a unit like the Four Eye himself. He'd had a lot of dreams. Once.

  Janni and Kuyper returned from the latter's office with a metal chest which they set on the corner of Evertsen's desk. The administrator waited beside it; Janni stood at parade rest on the other side of the desk, facing the door.

  The maintenance log was still out. Evertsen sighed and slipped it into a bookcase behind him as voices murmured in the outer office.

  Bettina Crais entered.

  She was a petite woman; that was obvious even though a felt camouflage cape, worn dark-side out in this season, covered her from neck to ankles. She'd slung her long-barreled Moisin-Nagant rifle muzzle-down over her right shoulder; a swatch of rabbitskin, bound fur-side in, protected the bolt and receiver against the elements. Mounted on a stud in her left ear was half a gold coin the size of a thumbnail, so worn that the fractured portrait of George III was barely a shadow on the surface.