The Chosen

'Ah.' Libert's face was expressionless. 'But in the meantime, the Union would need considerable support in order to undertake a foreign war so soon after our civil conflict.'

'Could you be more specific?' Gerta said wearily.

'As a matter of fact, Brigadier. .'

He slid a folder across the table to her, frictionless on the polished mahogany. She opened it and fought not to choke. Oil, wheat, beef, steel, chemicals, machine tools, trucks, weapons-including tanks and aircraft.

'I'm. .' Gerta ground her teeth and fought to keep her voice normal. 'I'm sure something can be arranged. But as you must appreciate, General, we need to strike now.'

'That would indeed be the optimum military course,' Libert said. And so you must give me what I ask, or risk unacceptable delay, followed unspoken.

'I will consult with my superiors,' she said. 'We must, however, have a definite answer by dawn.'

Or we'll kill you and take this place over ourselves, equally unspoken and equally well understood.

Gerta rose, saluted, and walked out.

'Why do we tolerate this animal's insolence?' young Johan Hosten hissed to her as their boot heels echoed in step through the rococo elegance of the palace's halls.

'Because with Libert cooperating, we gain an additional two hundred thousand troops,' she said. 'Most of them are fit only for line-of-communication work, but that's still nine divisional equivalents we don't have to detach for garrison work. Plus another hundred thousand that we don't have to use to hold down the Union in our rear while we fight the Santies.'

Her aide subsided into disciplined silence-disciplined, but sullen.

I'm going to enjoy our final reckoning with Libert myself, she thought. Aloud: 'I'd rather have three teeth drilled than go through another negotiating session with him, that's true,' she said.

'Sir. .'

Gerta looked aside. 'Speak. You can't learn if you don't ask.'

'Sir, you were against opening our war with Santander this early. Have you changed your mind?'

'That's irrelevant,' she said. 'We're committed now. Conquer or die.' She sighed. 'At least my next job is a straightforward combat assignment.'

* * *

Air assault was no longer a radical new idea. Most of the troops filing into the dirigibles nestled in the landing cradles of the base were ordinary Protege infantry, moving with stolid patience in the cool predawn air. A few of the most important targets still rated a visit from the General Staff Commando, and she'd ended up on overall command. Gerta looked around at the faces of the officers; they seemed obscenely young. No younger than she'd been at Corona, mostly.

It's deja vu all over again, she thought to herself.

'That concludes the briefing. Are there any questions?'

'Sir, no sir!' they chorused.

Confident. That was good, as long as you didn't overdo it. Most of them had more experience than she'd had, her first trip to see the elephant. Policy had been to rotate officers through the war in the Union, as many as possible without doing too much damage to unit cohesion.

'One final thing. The Sierrans have much the same line of bluster that the animals did here, before we conquered the Empire. They have a word for it in their language. . machismo, I think it is. There's one crucial difference between the two, though.'

She looked around, meeting their eyes. 'The Sierrans actually mean it. They couldn't organize an orgy in a whorehouse, but they're not going to roll over at the first tap of the whip either. Don't fuck up because you expect them to run.'

'Sir, yes Sir!'

As they scattered to their units she wondered briefly if they'd take the warning seriously. Probably. Most of them had enough experience not to take the legends about Chosen invincibility too literally.

'All over again,' she murmured aloud.

'Sir?' her aide said.

Fairly formal considering that they were alone and that Johan Hosten was her eldest son, but they were in a military situation, not a social one. And Johan was still stiffly conscious of being an adult, just past the Test of Life. She remembered that feeling, too.

'It reminds me of the drop on Corona,' she said.

Half my lifetime ago. Why do I get this feeling that I keep doing the same things over and over again, only every time it's more difficult and the results are less? All the same, down to the smell of burnt diesel oil. The tension was worse; now she knew what they were heading into. She buckled on her helmet, slung the machine- carbine and began drawing on thin, black leather gloves as they walked through the loading zone. Wood boomed under their boots as they climbed the mobile ramp to a side-door of the gondola built into the hull beneath the great gasbags. Crew dodged around them as she walked back to the main cargo bay; Horst Raske wasn't in charge this time, he was with the new aircraft carrier working-up with the Home Fleet based out of Oathtaking.

What a ratfuck, she thought. The Santies build aircraft carriers, and we waste six months in a pissing match over who gets to build ours. The Councils had finally decided, in truly Solomonic wisdom-she'd read the Christian Bible as part of her Intelligence training-to split the whole operation. Building the hull was to be Navy; the airplanes and the personnel, plus logistics, training and operations, were done by the Air Council. The Navy would command when the fleet was at sea. How truly good that's going to be for operational efficiency, she thought. At least she'd managed to persuade Father to appoint Raske, who didn't confuse territorial spats and service loyalties with duty to the Chosen.

There were a company of the General Staff Commando in the cargo bay, plus a light armored car on a padded cradle that rested on a specially strengthened section of hull. It was one of the new internal-combustion models, and someone had the starter's crank ready in its socket at the front, below the slotted louvers of the armored radiator. Somehow it looked out of place in the hold of an airship, a brutal block of steel in a craft at once massive and gossamer-fragile. They were tasked with taking out the Sierran central command, such as it was. Although she frankly doubted whether that would help or hinder the resistance.

'Make safe,' she said. 'Lift in five minutes.'

They squatted, resting by the packsacks and gripping brackets in the walls and floor. Gerta's station was by an emergency exit; that gave her a view out a narrow slit window. Booming and popping sounds came from above, as hot air from the engine exhausts was vented into the ballonets in the gasbags. More rumbling from below as water poured out of the ballast tanks. The long teardrop shape of the airship quivered and shook, then bounced upwards as the grapnels in the loading cradles released.

The dirigibles were out in force this time; she could see them rising in ordered flocks, one after another turning and rising into the lighter upper sky. The air was calm, giving the airship the motion of a boat on millpond- still water, no more than a slight heeling as it circled for altitude. Down below the airbase was a pattern of harsh arc lights across the flat coastal plain on the Gut's northern shore. The surface fleet with the main army wasn't in sight. They'd left port nearly a day before, to synchronize the attacks. There were biplane fighters and twin-engine support aircraft escorting the airships; as she peered through the small square window in the side of the hull she could see a flight of them dropping back to refuel from the tankers at the rear of the fleet.

You put on a safety line and climbed out on the upper wing with the wind trying to pitch you off-sometimes you did, and had to haul yourself back on. In a single-seater, someone from the airship had to slide on a body-hoop down the flexing, whipping hose. Then you had to fasten the valves, dog them tight, and keep the tiny airplane and huge airship at precisely matching speeds, because if you didn't the hose broke, or the valve tore out of the wing by the roots. If that happened the entire aircraft was likely to be drenched in half-vaporized gasoline and turn into an exploding fireball when it hit the red-hot metal surfaces of the engine. .

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