She raised her voice: “Listen up!
They were over the surface fleet now; hundreds of transports from ports all along the northern shore of the Gut, escorted by squadrons of cruisers and destroyers. The ships cut white arrowheads on the green-blue water six thousand feet below.
“Magnificent,” Johan Hosten whispered.
This time Gerta nodded. It was a magnificent accomplishment, throwing a hundred thousand troops and supporting arms into action, fully equipped and briefed, at such short notice.
But we were supposed to fight Santander in another five to eight years. With our new battleship fleet ready, and another fifty divisions and a thousand tanks. Now . . . we’re reacting, not initiating. The enemy should be responding to our moves, not us to theirs.
“Thirty minutes to drop!”
* * *
“This is a new one,” Jeffrey shouted over the explosions.
“Too damned familiar, if you ask me,” John said grimly, checking his rifle.
It was a Sierran-made copy of the Chosen weapon. They’d managed a few improvements, mostly because everything was expensively machined. No cost-cutting use of stampings here, by God—which meant that only about half of the Sierrans had them. The rest were making do with a tube-magazine black-powder weapon, also a fine example of its type.
“I’ve been caught in far too many goddamned Land invasions.”
“Yes, but it’s the first time we’ve been in one together,” Jeffrey pointed out. There was gray in his rust-colored hair, but the grin took years off him.
“Let’s go make ourselves useful.”
“Yup. No hiding in embassies this time.” Jeffrey sobered. “Damned bad news about Grisson. He was a good man; Dad thought a lot of him.”
“Going to be a lot of good men die before this one’s over,” John said.
“Hopefully not us. . . . Watch it!”
The room shook from a near-miss. Dust and bits of plaster fell around them. The Santander embassy was in coastal Barclon, where most of the business was done, rather than in inland Nueva Madrid, the ceremonial capital. Right now that meant it was within range of the eight-inch guns of the offshore Land cruisers, as well as the aircraft. The Sierran antiaircraft militia was putting a lot of metal into the air; too much for dirigibles to sail calmly overhead and drop their enormous bombloads, which was something to be thankful for.
An embassy staffer ran down the stairs. Her face was paler than the plaster dust that spattered her face and dress, and she waved a notepad.
“They’re dropping troops on Nueva Madrid,” she said, her voice rising a little. “And they’re attacking from north and south over the mountains, too. Sanlucar has fallen—the last message said shells were bursting inside the fortress.”
John’s eyebrows went up. That was the main fortress-city guarding the passes from the old Empire south into the Sierra.
The staffer went on: “And the Chosen Council has issued a statement, demanding that we declare ourselves strictly neutral in the Sierran-Land war, and ‘cease all hostile and unfriendly actions.'”
Ambassador Beemer nodded, checking the old-fashioned revolver in the shoulder holster beneath his formal morning coat.
“Not a chance,” he said. He looked up at John and Jeffrey. “Admiral Farr is never going to forgive me. I should have sent you home yesterday.”
“We both thought the Chosen would wait until the Sierrans voted,” John said.
“Why? It was obvious which way it was going to go.” He hesitated. “They’ll be landing troops here?”
“Sure as they grow corn in Pokips,” Jeffrey said. “Coordination is a strong point of theirs. In fact, I’d give you odds they’re landing on both sides of the city right now.”
Nobody was going to fall for the “merchantmen” full of soldiers, not after the attack on Corona. There wasn’t any way to prevent ships loitering offshore, though.
“Then I suppose . . . well, according to diplomatic practice, the Chosen should intern us and exchange us for their own embassy personnel in Santander City.”
Beemer didn’t sound very confident. John nodded. “Sir, I’d recommend suicide before falling into Chosen hands—and that’s assuming you get past the kill-crazy Protégés in the first wave. If the Chosen win, international law won’t exist anymore, because there will be only one nation. And if they lose, they don’t expect to be around to take the blame.”