“Urk, urrk, urk,” Fielder replied with all the dignity he could muster as Broadax dropped him and stormed out in a cloud of smoke. “Did . . . anyone,” he gasped, “get the license number of that truck?”
In a small community such as a ship there are very few secrets. Only the captain remained unaware, for he didn’t cultivate tale-tellers or snitches, and he had no interest in nurturing such creatures. As their captain sat in a solitary splendor and blissful ignorance, the rest of the ship waited with bated breath for the next act in this drama.
But nothing happened. In essence, Fielder was a rotter, an old fashioned unvarnished cad, and he was now well and truly afraid of Broadax. He had absolutely no intention of challenging her to a duel. Like all the Dwarrowdelf she was a terrible shot, so Fielder would happily gun her down with impunity if she challenged him and he got to choose weapons. But the old NCO was too much of a pragmatist to do that. If he challenged her, then she got to choose the weapons, and Fielder shuddered to think how that would turn out.
So a duel wasn’t an option for either of them no matter how much they tormented each other. Fielder knew he was in the wrong and couldn’t press charges, so he chose to act as though the event never happened. In the wardroom the two of them simply ignored each other. Fielder always sat with his back to a bulkhead, and everyone walked a’tiptoe ’round them. The tension was broken when they finally arrived at the Stolsh frontier world that was their destination.
They approached Pearl, gradually passing through the deep blue of interstellar space into the sunrise blue region where the system’s star illuminated the immediate area. This was a water world, manifesting itself in Flatland as a large, aqua tinted mass with indistinct streaks of green land and white clouds.
Pearl’s Pier protruded from the horizon as they sailed into this aqua-colored realm. As they approached it, the Pier grew into a white mass that was bigger than a ship, with cannon barrels protruding out in all directions. Pearl was a frontier world and their Pier was the equivalent of a frontier fort, suspended from the world below on multiple, Moss covered pilings.
A sailboat came in to circle their ship. The Stolsh crew consisted of handsome, tall, brown males and females, calling out to them happily, apparently amazed by their royals, studding sails and spritsail-topsail. The Stolsh sailed their slender, elaborately carved white craft, with its single yellowed sail, around the Fang. They were all naked except for short kilts, their females freely exposing an extra set of sharp, pointed breasts, placed down the ribcage like a dog’s teats. All of them had webbed feet and hands, as well as faint blue gills under their chins.
The Ur-civilization that seeded so much of the galaxy made only minor modification to a basic stock. Human, Sylvan and Dwarrowdelf were minor variations for gravity differences. The Stolsh were a slightly greater variation, with the addition of gills and webbed hands and feet.
“Mr. Archer!”
“Sir!”
“You may commence the salute.”
“Aye, sir!”
The forward cannon on the upper green side roared out the first of Fang’s compliment, and the fort began its reply. They were close enough that the Pier’s cloud of atmosphere had merged with Fang’s, and the sound of their salutes rolled back and forth between them, nation extending its respect to nation in all courtesy.
In very short order Fang was tied up amidst a small orchard of masts. There was no Westerness or Sylvan consulate on this frontier world, so Melville immediately reported to the port admiral and passed on his message: The Guldur were coming, like the host of Mordor on his tail.
The tall Stolsh admiral nodded sadly, breathing in deeply through his thin, aquiline nose. He looked like some tall, dignified, deeply tanned human except for the blue gills in his throat that pulsed faintly. “Welll,” he began in his deep, resonant voice. “We haave expected this, loong and loong.”
The typical, slow Stolsh accent always sounded to Melville like the woebegone complaints of some deeply depressed old man, but he knew that they were a fierce, proud race. “This muust be their western force,” the admiral continued. “If the projections are riight, thaat means thaat Ambergris is proobably aalready besieged by the force cuutting northwest. Thaat would explain why the mail paacket waas late. We will mobilize, aand we caannoot thaank yoou enough for warning us. Loong will your claan be hoonoored heere. Where do yoou go noow?”
“We carry Sylvan crew members with us,” replied Melville. “Ours is the first joint Westerness and Sylvan expedition. Our orders are to report to the nearest senior officer on Ambergris upon accomplishing our mission or upon encountering serious trouble.”
The Stolsh port admiral nodded gloomily, politely not asking what that mission was. “The neearest seenior Sylvan authoority is in chaarge of their expeditionary foorce at Aambergris, aand the nearest Westerness embassy is aalso there. The commander there is proobaably desperaate to waarn us. Yoou woould doo us a greaat boon to let them know thaat we aare waarned. I need every ship I haave right here.”
“Aye, sir, I can do that. I guess I’m actually following my orders by moving in that direction. Technically the Guldur should respect the neutrality of our flag.”
“Hooo, hooo, hooo!” laughed the old Stolsh admiral, leaning his head back and pulsing his gills. “Even if yoou weren’t in one of their ships, I doon’t think they would let yoou go. If yoou go yoou might haave to break thruu their blockade.”
“Aye, sir. My orders didn’t anticipate this kind of situation. I really don’t have much option but to go to Ambergris, and frankly I’m honored to be of further assistance in your hour of need. But I’ll need a massive resupply, and fast.”
“Aaye, yoou’ll haave it. Aaye.”
Fang was a busy, busy ship. Melville had been given carte blanche, and he worked constantly, using every ounce of authority and prestige granted to him by the port admiral to pry resources and maintenance crews from the dockyard facilities. The sailing master, carpenter and gunner worked closely with their captain in this endeavor, rummaging through the vast resources of the dockyard for anything that would or could be of value to their ship and its mission. Then they supervised their divisions and the Stolsh dockyard maties who would stow these supplies. Meanwhile Lady Elphinstone and her mates were given free run of the hospital to replenish their greatly depleted medical supplies.
Lieutenant Fielder, as first officer, stayed with the ship, working with great competence and zeal to supervise the loading and stowing of the vast quantity of supplies. Melville watched Fielder, and he saw an enigma, a paradox. His first officer was heavy, dark-faced, rude, and domineering, but never, ever inefficient or incompetent. Coming steadily on board were 12-pound shot, canister and grape; biscuit, beer, rum, salt beef, and salt pork; linear miles of various ropes and cordage; square miles of sailcloth; bosun’s stores, carpenter’s stores, and medical stores to include several casks of common rhubarb purgative.
Their water casks were currently coming aboard, rising up from the Pier and swayed into the hold with many a cry, as ancient as the sea, “All together now, handsomely there, damn your eyes! Half an inch, half an inch, mate,” and then vanishing into the hatchway to be stowed below with muffled but equally passionate cries. Meanwhile, Gunny Von Rito was carefully stowing deadly little copper-ringed, wooden barrels of gunpowder and percussion caps, inert in two-space but vital to survival on land.
Broadax was worn to a frazzle as she and her marines protected the crew and the ship from the ravaging hordes of Stolsh dockside idlers who would steal incoming supplies. Given half a chance, the Stolsh would also sneak on board. Sometimes these boarders would be Stolsh prostitutes who would happily couple with anything faintly humanoid, and whose presence was constantly aided and abetted by sailors. Sometimes they were simple and blatant thieves who would sneak back off the ship with anything that wasn’t nailed down. Often they were both. As old Hans put it, “They’ll git ya comin’ and goin’.”
Their purser’s first task was to clear customs.
“Doo yoou haave any boooks of licentioous oor lewd naature, any haallucinoogenic substaances, oor any laarge quaantities of aalcoohoolic beveraages intended foor resaale?” asked the customs inspector.
“No,” replied Petreckski.
“Aare yoou suure?”
“Yes.”
“Woold yoou like soome?”
Sigh.
The customs formalities satisfied, the purser’s detail then gathered all available “trade goods.” This consisted mostly of bizarre items they’d scrounged from the hold of the Guldur ship. These were taken to the ubiquitous bazaar that always waited just outside the Pier. Like every Westerness ship, the crew made a side income from trading. The Queen, the Admiralty, and the crew shared from whatever they earned from the goods transported in their hold. They’d lost their cargo with Kestrel and were starting over from scratch, trying to establish the bones of a grubstake with miscellaneous Guldur weapons and equipment.