"Roger on that, sir. I'll be getting the Mitannian situation organized over the next couple of weeks-it's crucial." He looked at his watch. "As a matter of fact, there's a meeting with Ms. Raushapa's supporters scheduled quite soon. I'll have a full report to you and the commodore when I get back to Ur Base next week."
"Good work, son, and Godspeed. Tell your people that from me and all of us, as well-our thoughts are with them, the whole Republic's are."
"Thank you, sir."
"You're doing reasonably well so far," the commodore added. "Just don't lose sight of the forest for the trees."
"Thank you, ma'am."
And don't screw up, he added to himself. Right, let's get the little princess secure on her throne…
"Thank you, Lieutenant," he said, relinquishing the comm seat to its usual owner. "Let's get me back on the ground."
"Yessir." In a commander's tone, smooth and firm for someone so young: "Off superheat, valve the maneuvering cell."
A hissing in the background that he'd scarcely noticed went away, and hot air ceased to flow into the big central cell in the airship's fuselage. The Emancipator's circling began to take her downward, like running along a huge, smooth invisible ramp in the sky. The orderly layout of the expeditionary force camp below swelled.
"Engines negative ninety."
Crewfolk heaved at the wheels; the dirigible's motion changed as the engine pods swung to point their fans at the sky, and the descent accelerated as they pushed it downward.
"Maintain. Altitude nine hundred… seven hundred… throttles back half. All right, sir, time for you to drop out on us."
Hollard nodded and walked back to the center of the gondola. Two of the crew helped him into a harness much like a parachute's. Another dropped a long coil of rope toward the ground; it seemed to shrink as it fell away, turning from wrist-thick hemp to a gossamer thread by the time it raised a puff of dust below, at the edge of the airship's shadow. Marines sprang to hold it.
"Rope through here, sir"-a click as the mechanism engaged- "and you squeeze this to slow down. Squeeze to slow, let go to go faster, sir."
"Thank you, sailor," he said, and stepped out over the hole. "Gungho!"
A long, swooping fall, exhilarating and frightening at the same time, like rock climbing or rappelling on an obstacle course. He squeezed at the handgrip as the faces below him swelled, then hit the quick-release catch in the center of his chest as the earth hit his boots. The Marines holding the line let go with a rush, and the dirigible climbed, turning for the southeast and accelerating as the engines pivoted down to the horizontal.
"Magnificent!"
Brigadier Kenneth Hollard turned and stepped into the chariot; Raupasha was driving herself now, and moving easily-it had been a graze, along her side.
"Magnificent," she said again. "I would love to do that myself someday, Kenn'et."
"That might be arranged," he said, laughing and ruffling Sabala's ears and then shoving the dog firmly away-the hound was a dedicated crotch-sniffer, like most of his breed. "Your people are going to hail you here, then?'
"Yes," she said, her mood turning serious. "Today we shed our blood together, as the true mariannu of old did; today we-and you- won a victory over an ancient enemy."
The Mitannians were gathered in the lee of a low, smooth hill; it cast some shade, now that the sun was inclining toward the west. They had lit campfires, a surprisingly orderly array, and they rose with a crashing cheer as the chariot swept up the hill. His brow raised when some of them brandished flintlock shotguns as well as spears and looted Hittite weapons. Well, he thought, we were going to try and talk Kashtiliash into authorizing some Mitannian New Troops as well. Probably it could be done…
Raupasha drew rein with a flourish and raised her free hand to silence the roaring waves of sound. She waited until the quiet was tense with expectation and then broke into impassioned speech. In Hurrian, of course, of which complex agglutinative language he spoke perhaps three phrases, including "princess."
"please," and "thank you."
Spears thrust up into the growing dark as men leaped and danced with joy; another paroxysm of sound struck when she grabbed Hollard's wrist and raised it high, then wrapped his hand around hers. The contact was very pleasant, and he beat down a touch of guilt as she let go again, giving his palm a squeeze.
Then the heads of the war bands began to come forward, to kneel before Raupasha and place their hands between hers; he was a little uneasy as they took his right hand and pressed it to their foreheads afterward. That took most of an hour, and Raupasha spoke again, raising his hand with hers once more.
"They seem really pleased," he said to her. She nodded, raising shining eyes to his. "What was that last part about?"
"They were more than pleased, Lord Kenn'et," she said solemnly, "when they heard that you would be my consort, to father a new line of kings for Mitanni, sons who would make us glorious as of old."
For a moment the world seemed to stop. Hollard closed his eyes. Oh, sweet Jesus, and in public, how 'm I going to get out of this, Kashtiliash will go ballistic, Kathryn will cut my testicles off, and Councilor Arnstein will flay me, and what the Chief and the commodore will say-
There were no adequate words. But he had to try.
"Oh, shit!"
EPILOGUE
August, Year 10 A.E.
"Ma'am, she sails like a cast-iron pig," Captain Trudeau said.
"The Farragut's my ship, she's the most formidable thing on the World Ocean and I love her dearly, but she's crank, she's wet, she's not fit to be let out on the Atlantic on a dark night."
Commodore Alston clasped her hands behind her back and rose slightly on her toes; she'd always done that when she needed to think. Right now the bright surface of the Southhampton Water was full of ships; her own Chamberlain, all six of the Republic's frigates, and brigs, schooners, things less nameable, score upon score of them, with swarms of small craft crisscrossing the waters between the anchored ships and the docks. All the naval power of the Republic and its Alliance gathered to make an end to the Tartessian pest, with thousands of warriors ashore ready to embark on the troop ships along with the First Nantucket Militia and the Second Marines.
Not far away, the Eagle lay at a single anchor, waiting to unfurl her wings and take the string westward for home, with a light cargo and returning passengers; even when most of an expeditionary force was going one way, some duty or necessity always called in the other.
It was a bright August day, the sort that pre-Event travel posters of England always showed and nature rarely did, with a breeze out of the north that ruffled the intensely blue water into a rippled skin ridged with white, pitching the ships at their anchors and bringing a smell of salt, silt, and woodsmoke from the great volunteer camp around Portsmouth Base. Southbound wings made the sky overhead clamorous, almost enough to mask the noise of the encampment.
She narrowed her eyes against the brightness and considered the Farragut. With her masts shipped and without the protective plating she looked more normal; and still menacing, with the two four-inch rifled guns on fo'c'sle and quarterdeck on their track mountings and the canvas-shrouded Gatlings clamped to her rails, and the high bridge across her paddle boxes.
"That's even without the ram plating fitted?" she asked.
"That helps, but not all that much," Trudeau said, his eyes bright blue in a swarthy face. "Nothing short of ripping out her engines and completely rebuilding the bow would help, as far as her deep-water performance is concerned. She ships water over the bow like a submarine if there's any sort of sea, even under steam-God only knows what she'd do in a real blow."