Chapter 6

Max Schultz wandered the beach alone. His home was a natural bay formed by a meandering river that serviced the distant Coastal Range as it petered out towards the Southern Desert lands. Not far, tied to a pier he and his crew had constructed themselves, was the sailing vessel he kept and maintained for the Skarsgard. It was brigantine rigged but the yards on the foremast were empty of sails. Similarly, there was no display of canvas on the mainmast or anywhere else. Max was despondent as no amount of coaxing had persuaded his fellow 'entrangeren, ' to go to the assistance of Eden.

His ears still rung with the mealy-mouthed, wimpy excuses; 'uh, we have to live here, Max. Those Russians shoulda given the Nordvolk what they wanted and none of this wouldn't have happened, ' 'what good would it serve to go up against the entire Landsvaar, anyhow? What are we to fight them with?' They were all valid reasons for inaction, but it still rankled.

They all knew something was brewing when General Firebird took over the Landsvaar as General. Max thought him an 'idiot, ' but he was also a man of great ambition.

He'd had little complaint about his treatment since fetching up on this strange shore. The Nordvolk had been generous, understanding, and given them an ideal location with which to build a new life. They'd offered him and his boys women, too, perhaps knowing that once relationships had been formed they'd be less likely to move on.

It was easy to ignore the Nordvolk's pseudo-religious, self righteousness in their dealings with their neighbours. Max had thought the whole set up was quaint, even the self-delusion of the these weird people that brought them to the belief they'd been here thousands of years. But that 'quaintness' had been replaced by something deeply unsettling. The Nordvolk, he believed, had been programmed as thoroughly as any computer. They really did believe they'd been here for generations, not thirty-odd years.

Not that he'd figured that out himself, of course. It was the young Russian, Valentin Gavriel, who'd reported what his friends, the Bedowan, had explained. These Bedowan, the 'Svartsmanni' to the Nordvolk, had been driven from their homes by a people who believed they had a divine right to it. The Nordvolk then convinced themselves they'd a Moses, this Hronvar, who gave them the Book, Law, and Language, the three pedestals of this little culture.

'Dumb fucks like Firebird sucked it all up like a Hoover, ' he thought. But the man was a white supremicist anyhow. Other etrangeren, Rifters, and all Caucasian, happily accepted this pseudo history, this bunk about chosen people, divine right, manifest destiny. It was like the nineteenth century, but without the leavening of Humanitarianism. The English Pale, perhaps, but an expanding one to accommodate the Nordvolk's ambitions. Maybe even Jordan's West Bank with its ever increasing Israeli colonies?

Now Ben Roscoe and his buddies were in trouble, with practically the whole Landsvaar descending on them, and his fellow Rifters had refused to help. It gnawed at his guts. There was no more than a couple of dozen men there and they'd few guns and little ammunition. That's why Firebird attacked, of course. He'd wanted glorious victory, not a long drawn out siege; a parade of triumph, not casualty lists. Max couldn't do much with just one ship and a dozen of his crew. Their trawler, the 'Seabounty Defender, ' had no diesel or he could've used it to ram the wooden vessels of the Skarsgard. The Brigantine had no cannon and, being wooden, had no advantage over the Skarsgarderbatarna.

From down the beach waddled his woman, Branna, pregnant again and carrying their youngest at her hip. She called out to him in the language of the Nordvolk. Branna could understand English, of course, as well as he. But it was forbidden, or 'verbot, ' to speak any but the chosen language.

She'd been young, pretty and 'fuckable, ' when they'd been introduced five years ago. Fecund, she'd been almost constantly pregnant from the time she'd first screwed him. She was his dream furfilled; a woman who was willing to take his prick whenever he felt the urge and gave him no trouble whatsoever.

Yet there was so much that was whacky about this world. Wooden sailing ships, like his brigantine, sailing out into the salt laden oceans, under a harsh and dangerous sun, and what did they do? Why, bring in scores of time stranded people. 'People, ' thought Max. Actually all males, since any women were taken by the Farnow. What a set up; the women to the Farnow's breeding program and the men to enhance the technology of the Nordvolk. Oh, yes, and men alone, stranded with no hope of returning to wherever they came from, were then offered women, for what purpose? Well, they weren't in a hurry to scramble out of their nuptial beds, that's for sure.

These women were uncommonly and uncannily beautiful and compliant. Few men Max knew hadn't had some fantasy about such a situation. If Branna had been his stroke of luck, then all his crew had the same good fortune. They'd each found women, at least as gorgeous as Branna. And each was squeezing out babies as fast as his boys could put them there.

Non Caucasians? Well, of course, they weren't wanted by the Nordvolk, no matter how skilled they were. Max knew of the secret voyages down to the desert lands were non white male Rifters were left for the likes of the Bedowan.

The Retvizan had badly screwed up this state of affairs, and maybe that's why Firebird was now attacking them? They arrived with their own women, that, Max was sure, wasn't 'supposed' to happen. The nuclear sub was a genuine shock to the Nordvolk; it's immense destructive power making the Russians invulnerable, it's artificial environment needing no outside assistance, its almost limitless endurance allowed them complete freedom of movement. But now that sub had been gone a year...

Branna insinuated herself under his arm. Max bent and was rewarded with one of her expert, and far too experienced, kisses. He felt her little butt with his big hand and she flashed him a grin full of promise. She didn't make it easy with her cute, mock innocent eyes, but he knew what he had to do. He smiled back, took her hand, then towed her towards the little dun he called home.

"Boys? he shouted. His engineer, 'Flyweight, ' a big man with a generous spirit, was working at his portable lathe. He looked up as he approached, nodding knowingly. Max had no need to ask the big man, he knew already.

"Made up your mind?" he said. Max nodded. "Let's saddle up?"

The other guys wandered out in ones and twos, certain, too, of Max's answer.

"We're going to the Alamo, boys," he told them.

Max'd always had a taste for the amateur dramatics, the cornier the better. While the women looked on with growing, and wide eyed understanding, the crew of the Seabounty Defender assembled and trooped down towards the anchored Brigantine.

Two shotguns were all the weapons they had. It was going to be a short war, Max thought, but a glorious one. He'd no need to explain to the boys. Even if they could ignore the issue of injustice, the fact that Fedyunsky and his boys weren't 'their folks, ' Ben Roscoe was as American as mom's apple pie and he was their friend.

Ben, himself, watched from on top of the ridge as the single masthead light of the Diana began to glide towards the narrow channel. The stench from whatever they were feeding into her burners intruded into the crisp, pure mountain air. The moonlight shone on a veritable fog of smoke, with the dirty, sulferous, lignite pall from the Schturmvogel by far the heaviest.

He knew the Landsvaar of Siguerd Gunnerson were rowing ashore. Ben could hear the clanking of weapons and the chattering of the men. Below him, Heichiro, their little camp so labouriously constructed by Valentin Gavriel and his friends, lay abandoned for their occupation.

The way down the East side of the ridge was narrow and hazardous in the dark. Shapalaev and Shteyn were to form the rearguard while he was going to guide the rest down the goat track to the valley below. Shap borrowed Ben's rifle with the scope. From there he could happily pin down half an army.

'CRACK, CRACK... ' Again, there was an answering roar and rumble from the mountains as if they, themselves, were expressing their own displeasure.

Ben looked back at Shap and Michael Shteyn's position, saw them slap each other on the back and high five. He grinned, and wished the Diana 'God's speed.'

The channel wasn't hard to find. All Angelique needed was to keep the Diana off the cliffs for that stark, forbidding rock fell straight down for fathoms below. Along the rock, puffins fluttered their annoyance at the noise and smoke.

There was a bright flash and a boom a split second later. Schturmvogel was making its own farewell gesture. Angelique heard the iron ball thump off the cliff, disturbing the sleeping puffins, and rattle down to hit the water with a splash.

She was from Tahiti, that little piece of France and vestige of the Age of Empires. Everyone in Papeete owned at least one boat and Angelique had learned to sail before she could stand upright. But the Diana was no fibreglass sloop. Humming below in this remnant from the Cold War, her 1950s CIA owners had retro-fitted her with turbines to allow her to duck in and out of the territorial waters of her enemies. She was part of the secret war that didn't appear in the papers but sometimes ended in as much grief as any 'hot' war.

It had a Radar, of sorts, an old centimetric set with a revolving cage antenna set high on her tripod foremast. The beam spun obediantly around the circular CRT in the wheel house, describing the firm, bright, outline of the cliffs, and hazy, uncertain, image of the Skarsgarderbatarna. All she needed to do was keep the Diana in the slot then ring up as many revolutions as she could for the run past the Landsvaar ships anchored off Eden.

She knew the Retvizan would be somewhere out there. Did she have enough oil in the bunkers, she wondered? What if they ran out of gas and stopped, drifting, for whatever bunch of crazies wanted to capture them? She knew the Farnow in their pirate fleets were somewhere out towards Hawaii. She knew they wanted women and left the men for the Nordvolk, of maybe left them to die without water or food. Angelique had often dreamed of running down one of their kaaks and grinding it under the bluff bow of the minesweeper. It would be adequate revenge for the indignities she suffered at their hands.

Not more than half an hour later she spotted the lights of the assembled fleet lying off Eden. Their home was still glowing with fire and a thick smoke hung over the pristine fjord. The rest of the Landsvaar fleet had come up from the landing place near the heads and were anchored, sprawled out all over the channel opposite Eden. Angelique picked a passage through the throng of sailing vessels, rang for full revolutions, and deliberately aimed to clip the stern of one of the largest of the wooden ships.

The crash was louder than she thought it would be. The stern of the Skarsgarderbatarna erupted in shower of wooden debris, the Diana's steel bows demolishing 3 metres of its length in an instant. The Diana shuddered momentarily then plowed on through the wreckage. Ropes, spars and the wounded mizzen of the sailing ship crashed into the water behind them. This particular ship wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Then it was to the open sea while a cannon boomed ineffectually somewhere behind them. Ahead, they stormed past the rocks that marked the entrance to the fjord at an insane 22 knots, their wash crashing into the shore like a mini tsunami. Seaspray leapt over the bows as the Diana plowed on through the first of the breakers.

The contrary currents made hard work for a vessel sailing North. The great sweep of South trending sea was against logic, as currents should flow from the warmer waters of the equator. But at least Max had a stiff breeze and his brigantine, the 'Schwalbe, ' responded with a fair degree of heel. He'd put on a full spread of canvas confident his stout masts would stand the strain. His foremast was covered in 'studding sails, ' that extra canvas lashed to the tips of the yards and usually reserved for light wind conditions. The masts groaned and creaked under the pressure as his boys adjusted the sheets a little more to the wind. The oncoming waters burst spectacularly over the bowsprit as she plowed into the troughs and lashed the foredeck to drain away through the scuppers.

The Seabounty Defender's stars and stripes flapped and snapped at the wind above them, high on the mainmast. Max was damned if he was going to go into battle under any other flag. The Schwalbe took another 5 degrees of list so that the sea was coming over the starboard rail. Max knew this ship would take it, he'd sailed her in worse seas.

Pelagia was coming up opposite. Their vessel, the Falke, was sure to be at Eden. The Pelagians were no great supporters of the majority Cheruschen of the Althing, but the Law demanded they contribute their share. Max had many friends among the Pelagians and he was sorry he had to take this stand.

Max watched one of his boys swing precariously from the fore ratlines, attempting to take in a studder that'd blown out. Down below, on the listing deck, another was fixing to hoist him outboard on a pulley. Max turned the head a few degrees to starboard to lessen the angle of heel. The man was way out over the sea and if he fell it'd be straight into the water and an instant death. He watched him grab the disobedient sail and pull it in.

Retvizan's radio burst into the wheel house of the Diana with alarming volume. The Russian accent was demanding, interrogative, and wanted a report.

"Retvizan?" Angelique answered, relieved, "can you turn down the power?" She then sent her coordinates and Retvizan responded with a suggested course for rendezvous. They were still a good day's steaming away and Angelique was surprised how slow they were sailing.

"We're towing some friends," came the puzzling reply.

The wounded below weren't enjoying the pitching of the ship. Their speed was burning up a lot of irreplaceble oil as well so Angelique ordered a cut in revolutions. Nothing much would be served by arriving a few hours earlier.

The mood on the Diana had changed from anxiety to bouyant expectations. The radio was kept busy as the Retvizan enquired after their friends. Angelique had to cut Amy short as she chatted with Chino. The two girls would've hogged the airwaves for days.