David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

"I agree," he said. Under the Union of Arcana's joint forces doctrine, he and Carthos were currently in a sort of gray zone. Air-mobile operations technically came under Air Force control, but only until the ground forces were landed. At that point, control reverted to the senior Army officer present.

Technically, that was Two Thousand Harshu as the expeditionary force's commanding officer, but Carthos was the designated tactical officer in command for the ground component. Which meant that Toralk was in a rather delicate position if he said anything that sounded like Air Force criticism of Army personnel.

"Part of it may be that we've … over impressed our junior officers with the need to conserve manpower," he observed.

"Maybe," Harshu said. "But it's a hells of a lot more likely that the fact that they can't detect the bloody things is giving them the willies!"

The two thousand stood for a moment, clearly thinking hard, then shrugged.

"Narshu obviously pulled off his primary mission," he said. "If he hadn't, these people would have been a lot readier for us. So, he most likely has control at Fallen Timbers. We still need to get someone up there to link up with him and confirm that he and Master Skirvon have the situation in hand, but it's more critical that we take the Class Eight and take out their portal fort. And any 'Voices' they have stationed there."

"Yes, Sir."

"All right, then." The two thousand turned to Carthos. "We'll leave one of your light cav companies and your engineer battalion here. As soon as the engineers manage to clear enough of these booby traps of theirs, we'll put the cavalry through and send it up the trail to Fallen Timbers. In the meantime," he glanced back at Toralk, "we'll push ahead to the Class Eight with the dragons and the rest of the airmobile forces. We can't be positive they didn't have patrols or fatigue parties out somewhere, but if we close the Class Eight behind them, they aren't going anywhere, anyway."

"Yes, Sir," Toralk said, and Carthos nodded.

"Understood, Two Thousand," he said.

There wasn't much else he could have said, under the circumstances, but Toralk listened carefully to how he said. If this entire operation was going to succeed, it would be solely because of the mobility and reach his dragons afforded. Which meant it wouldn't happen if interservice rivalry got in the way. He wouldn't say that Carthos sounded happy about the reminder that the Air Force had to be the senior service for this particular mission, but he didn't detect any overt resentment in the other thousand's tone or expression.

"Then let's get your dragons back in the air as soon as you can, Thousand," Harshu said, and slapped Toralk on the shoulder. "And remember this, Klayrman. The lessons you've learned here this morning may have been painful, but they still give you the advantage, because whoever's in command of that portal fort hasn't had any lessons at all yet. Now go change that."

"Excuse me, Sir."

Company-Captain Grafin Halifu, commanding officer of the portal fort which had been named in memory of the murdered Voice Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr, looked up from the paperwork on his desk with an undeniable expression of relief as Junior-Armsman Farzak Partha rapped on the frame of his office door. Halifu had never been one of those officers who was particularly good with paperwork. He was conscientious about it, but he managed to get through it only by sheer, dogged persistence. In fact, it was the one part of his chosen profession that he genuinely hated. And the situation had gotten significantly worse after those Arcanan lunatics massacred Ghartoun chan Hagrahyl's survey party.

There was more of it, for one thing, and Halifu was prepared to swear it was getting increasingly trivial, as well. This morning's chore, for example, included trying to track down three cavalry mounts which appeared to have evaporated into thin air.

Not that the air's particularly thin around here, Halifu thought grumpily as he glanced out his office window. At least nothing was actively falling out of the sky at the moment. In fact, they'd had the better part of thirty-six hours without any ran at all, but from the look of the low, dark clouds, their record wasn't going to get a lot longer.

"What is it, Farzak?" he asked, resolutely turning his back on the charcoal sky.

"Petty-Captain Baulwan would like to see you for a moment if, of course-" Partha had been Halifu's senior clerk for almost a year now, and his eyes gleamed as he allowed them to drop for a moment to the sheafs of paper spread across the company-captain's desk "-you can spare the time away from your paperwork, Sir."

"Away from my paperwork, is it?" Halifu tipped back his chair and grinned at Partha. "I'll 'paperwork'

you in a minute, Farzak! In fact," his eyes narrowed and his grin grew broader, "I've got a little chore for you. It seems that three of our horses have mysteriously disappeared. Why don't you go ahead and show Petty-Captain Baulwan in, and then take this report-" he picked up the offending sheets of paper and handed them over "-and trot right over to the stables and find out where these three miserable nags are."

"Of course, Sir," Partha replied, and somehow he managed to simultaneously maintain proper military decorum, radiate an air of martyrdom, and make it perfectly obvious that such a routine task was well within the limits of his capabilities, whatever might have been the case for his superior.

Halifu snorted in amusement and handed over the report, then watched Partha depart. The door opened again, a moment later, and Shansair Baulwan stepped through it.

"Good morning, Sir." The petty-captain came to attention and saluted.

"Good morning, Shansair," Halifu replied, returning the salute just a bit less crisply.

Baulwan had only been on-post for a bit over three weeks, and it was clear to Halifu that the Voice still didn't feel totally comfortable with him. In fact, he suspected Baulwan was taking refuge in military formalities precisely because he wasn't comfortable with Halifu. It was, unfortunately, an attitude to which Halifu had become unhappily accustomed when dealing with officers from Eastern Arpathia.

Halifu himself was a Uromathian, and Uromathia-especially, Halifu was forced to admit, under its current Emperor-hadn't proved a particularly friendly neighbor for Arpathia in general.

Halifu didn't like it when he ran into an Arpathian who was prepared to dislike him simply because of where he'd been born. He couldn't really blame them, though, and he had to admit that when he finally got through to one of them and convinced them to separate him from the Uromathian stereotype, he felt an undeniable glow of pleasure.

It's too bad Hulmok is forward-deployed, the company-captain thought. He'd probably be a big help getting Baulwan over the hump.

"What can I do for you this morning, Shansair?" he asked aloud.

"I'm just a little concerned, Sir," the Arpathian Voice said. "I haven't heard anything from Petty-Captain Traygan this morning."

"Well, it's fairly early yet," Halifu pointed out. In fact, it wasn't quite ten a.m.

"Yes, Sir, it is. But it's not that early at Fallen Timbers," Baulwan pointed out in return, and Halifu nodded. In fact, Fallen Timbers was three hours east of Fort Shaylar (and, of course, in a totally different universe), which meant it was almost one in the afternoon there. "They should have broken for lunch by now, Sir," the Voice continued, "and that's when Rokam-I mean, Petty-Captain Traygan-usually sends me a synopsis of the morning's negotiations."

"Maybe they're just running a little later than usual," Halifu suggested.

"That certainly possible, Sir. But when that's happened before, he's at least dropped me a short Voice transmission to let me know about the delay. After all, he knows I'm camped out on the Hell's Gate side of the portal, waiting, whenever I expect to hear from him and he's usually careful about not leaving me hanging around when there's not going to be any Voice traffic to receive after all."