S. Stirling - Against the Tide of Years

"Up two," the Marine said. "Ranging round, fire!"

There was a whump from the Citadel, a long droning whistle, and then a slamming crump from the beach. Dirt and sand gouted skyward.

Ian Arnstein raised his glasses. The cannon were still being towed shoreward on rafts from the Achaean ships anchored offshore. Not many black hulls pulled up on the beach, he thought, watching the doll-tiny men straining at their oars. The ships Walker had built were too big to do that; many of them were three-masters. There were a few of the traditional long, low penteconters, and he saw one that looked like a late-medieval Venetian galley, huge oars pulled by four men each and a brace of big guns pointing forward. That chilled him a little; it was just like Walker to commission a vessel of the sort that had made galley slaves common. Before then rowers were almost always free men.

"The ships are just out of reach," Chong said. "Three rounds, for effect!" And then "Cease fire!" regretfully, as the boats towing the rafts turned around and began thrashing the water toward the ships they'd just disembarked from.

"Then they can't get their guns close to the walls?" Ian said hopefully.

"I didn't say that, sir," Chong said. "They just can't land them here. We're on the highest ground around, so we can hammer them as they come ashore. They'll have to take them out of range and then bring them within range of the walls by night one at a time. It'll cost them heavily, but I've got only four tubes and my ammunition is limited. Eventually they'll get the guns in protected positions close enough to hit us."

"What then?" Arnstein asked, licking dry lips.

The Chinese-born officer buckled his binocular case with a snap. "Then they pound us into dust," he said quietly.

Arnstein nodded. But we're buying time, he thought. It was a little comfort; not much, but a little. Walker doesn't deal with frustration well. If we stand him off, he'll get mad and stay longer than he should. Probably he just showed up to get things started.

The bulk of the renegade's troops were obviously elsewhere, judging by the numbers he could see. Doing what? he wondered-and then wished he hadn't.

You wanted adventure and travel, Mandy Kayle thought, licking lips dried by the airstream. All right, Ms. Hotshot Pilot, you've got it. Endless deserts full of homicidal locals.

The tawny landscape rolled away beneath her, with here and there a line of greener vegetation to mark a watercourse or arroyo. The wind blew past at forty-five miles an hour, barely a crawl up here at two thousand feet. She could see the dust plumes now.

"Eagle Eye II here," she said; it was a pilot's privilege to pick her own call sign. "Eagle Eye II. I have the enemy under observation."

"You're coming through loud and clear, Two."

"Enemy are three miles to your northwest, proceeding in two columns of unequal size. Estimate the larger column to consist of"- she juggled control stick and binoculars, tipping the Eye to the right to improve her view-"local troops, chariots one-fifty, repeat one-fifty, infantry three thousand, archers and spearmen, with oxcarts and pack donkeys to match. Over."

"Excellent work, Eye. Over."

Details sprang out at her: a charioteer's long black hair spilling from under his helmet, ax flashing as he gestured with it; the plodding pace of infantry, breathing their own dust; a ripple of light on spearheads through the dust. The other column…

"Proceeding to close on second column."

She pushed the stick forward and to the side, working the pedals with her feet. There was the familiar lovely swooping sensation, the rattle and hum of air through the rigging, the snap of her scarf behind her. More grit at this level, but she kept the goggles up for a better view.

"Second column is troops with firearms! Repeat, troops with firearms!"

Men marching in order, in a column of fours behind a standard-bearer; mounted officers in modern saddles. Big wagons pulled by horses as well. And… one, two… six cannon. Something else too, something she couldn't quite identify.

And they'd seen her, right enough, men pointing, their mouths moving silently through the lenses of her binoculars. Moving to order, their packs thrown down, blocks throwing up their rifles in unison. Muzzle flashes winked up at her…

Her mouth went drier, and she could feel her stomach trying to crawl up into her lungs for safety. There were an almighty lot of bullets coming her way; she sucked the stick back and reached up to push the throttles all the way to their not-very-powerful maximum.

"Sir, they've got breechloaders. Awful damned good ones, too."

She banked sharply, jinked, threw the responsive little craft around the sky. She was standing it nearly on edge when the enemy pulled a tarpaulin off a wagon bed and swung a thick-barreled something on a yoke mount that let them point it rapidly to any portion of the sky. As she hung at the top of the curve, she was miserably certain that it was pointing directly at the part of the sky she occupied right then and there. It fired; she was expecting some sort of shell, but instead there was a muzzle flash like a rifle's, only many times repeated, and a torrent of smoke, enough for a whole company volley.

"What is that-"

Her speculation was cut short by the arrival of the malignant lead bee swarm. Rounds went ptunk! through the taut fabric of EEH's wings, and cracked into the plywood of the fuselage like nails driven by a mad carpenter. Her skin went cold for a second; any one of those could hit her and go through her the long way. Then her heart stuttered as a bullet pinged off metal; let one of them hit the wrong part of the engine, and she'd have no choice but a gliding landing-and saving the last bullet in the Python at her waist for herself.

"Automatic weapon, I say again, the enemy have-"

The dead tone in her earphones when she pressed the switch alerted her. She joggled the switch, and nothing happened but a faint frying sound. Must have been hit. There went another of their precious pre-Event radios; more important, she'd have to deliver the news herself. That provided a perfect and honorable excuse to stop flying this very unfriendly patch of sky.

The EEII was at extreme rifle range now; she turned the nose back to the southeast, aiming the point at the distant column of dust that meant home and the Republic's protecting arm.

Wizt-wizt-wizt-wizt…

This time she felt the little craft shudder as it was hit. The engine coughed and stuttered, and then took up its buzzing with a ragged edge, like her heartbeat. Something struck like fire and ice in her lower back, and her foot fell off the rudder bar. She reached behind her and felt a warm wetness.

And, she realized, sensation in her foot and toes as well. A wave of irrational thankfulness hit her. Not a spinal injury. And a lot of good that does me if I bleed to death!

Marines were running past outside the aid tent as Justin Clemens reached behind his back to tie on his surgical gown. He glanced up; the ultralight was returning… but wobbling in the air and trailing smoke.

"Business in the shop, people!" he said and felt hands touch his; Azzu-ena finishing the ties with neat bowknots.

He turned to do hers as well, his mask still down around his neck. Everything looked ready, the doctors and assistants were running in and scrubbing down, and the little kerosene burners under the autoclaves were hissing. God damn this heat and all this grit, he thought. We'll need plenty of gauze coverings to keep it out of the working areas.

"I should have stayed in Babylon," he grumbled.

"Why?" Azzu-ena said, checking instruments on a tray beside their table, her fingers flicking rapidly. "The epidemic is over, and you are a figure of fear. King Kashtiliash is building the water towers you requested, but you would do him no favor by staying there. Let memories cool."