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At dawn the following day, the cargo ships raised anchor to complete the rest of the journey by themselves. Vigilance would spend the day anchored near the sunk imperial corvette offshore from where New Aden once stood before heading for Mazaber as well.
Within a few hours, the Q ship sat near a broken stretch of land that bled into the shallow waters, shattered by orbital strikes. They’d left nothing behind but ruins blending so well into the surrounding landscape that the city might as well never have existed.
DeCarde, leaning against the railing on the port-side bridge wing, studied the shore, wondering why he experienced such a deep sense of unease. Were the souls of those murdered by the Mad Empress’ Retribution Fleet still lingering here? Or was he sensing a distant echo of that horrific day when Hatshepsut, presumed to be in revolt against the empire, became a mass grave? A sudden urge to walk the land where New Aden once stood seized him.
“Captain, could I beg you for a boat? I’d like to go ashore?”
Fenrir, sitting in the captain’s chair, turned a stern look on DeCarde.
“This is a cursed place, Ambassador.”
“Nonetheless, I would do so. Lyonesse Marines can handle the boat if your crew isn’t inclined to confront the ghosts of the past.”
“Oh, my crew will take you ashore, Ambassador. I’m more concerned with what will happen to you after they do so.”
“I’ll bring a few Marines with me, Captain. Something demands I pay my respects to the souls who perished here while Sergeant Virtanen’s divers examine the imperial starship sunk beneath us.”
Fenrir gave DeCarde a fatalistic shrug.
“Very well. I’ll have a boat readied.”
The moment DeCarde’s foot touched the raw, blasted stone beach, a faint but unmistakable jolt ran through his body. New Aden had been the second-largest city on Hatshepsut, with over a million people calling it home. And they died in a fraction of a second. Yet an echo of that mass murder still lingered in the soil. No wonder the Hatshepsut natives thought it cursed and refused to go ashore.
A pair of Lyonesse Marines climbed out of the boat with him while the other two remained aboard, and DeCarde wondered whether they sensed anything — sorrow, eeriness, a faint jab at the subconscious — or if he was alone in that respect. He’d encountered no one outside the Order of the Void who had the family sensitivity, but a few places still left a mark on even the least sensitive people, provided they had a soul. Those who didn’t wouldn’t feel a thing, not by walking over this ground, nor while murdering innocents in job lots like the Mad Empress’ admirals.
He and his escort walked up a slope covered in struggling bushes, sea grass, and other hardy native species where New Aden’s harbor once cut a half-moon into the jagged coast. The rain of destruction from above had obliterated it just as it turned the city into a ravaged landscape where little grew atop the ruins even over two hundred years later. It was indeed a place forgotten by the Almighty.
DeCarde stood at the top of the slope and let his eyes roam, looking for anything recognizable, a trace that this had once been a major imperial city. But in vain. Unwilling to spend hours walking around under the increasingly harsh sun for reasons he couldn’t even define, DeCarde turned around and headed back toward the boat.
Once Lyonesse controlled Hatshepsut, maybe he or his successor could place a monument to the dead here, but New Aden would never be rebuilt. It was now hallowed ground.
As the boat pushed away from shore, DeCarde glanced at its twin, designated as dive tender, now moored several hundred meters ahead of where Vigilance sat at anchor.
“Let’s see what’s happening over there, Corporal.”
The Marine at the controls nodded once. “Yes, sir.”
Too young to have been in the Third of the Twenty-First in DeCarde’s day, he nonetheless must have heard stories because he behaved as if the latter was a bona fide serving colonel in the Lyonesse Marines rather than a civilian who was more bureaucrat than diplomat.
They tied to the diving tender where a pair of Marines monitoring field sensors sat, attention focused on the heads-up displays inside their helmet visors.
“How’s it going?” DeCarde asked.
“They’re checking the underside of the wreck right now, sir. From what we can tell, she’s the River class imperial corvette Sanne.” The Marine rattled off a hull number. “She’s still pressurized, though we can’t pick up any residual energy traces. No clear sign of damage, so there’s no knowing how she ended up in the water unscathed this close to the spaceport.”
DeCarde stared at the massive shape beneath the boats for a few moments.
“Tell the divers they’re not to try any of the airlocks, just in case. That’s a war grave down there, and we can’t disturb it.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
Word of his former Marine status had definitely made the rounds, and the troopers likely saw him as one of their own, albeit a senior officer. DeCarde didn’t correct the lance corporal.
“Thank you.”
DeCarde watched as silver fishes shaped like men flitted around the wreck beneath them, shimmering in the refracted rays of the sun, until they finally surfaced. The first to hook his arms over the dive tender’s gunwales removed his rebreather mask and grinned.
“Heck of a nice dive, sir. You should try. I figure it wouldn’t be too hard raising Sanne to the surface by mechanical means. She strikes me as being close to neutrally buoyant. Once her upper hull is exposed to fresh air, tractor beams from a few synchronized lifters can haul her out and put her onshore.”
“And then what?”
“Sir?”
“Never mind me, Sergeant. I visited where New Aden used to be and got a nose full of grim history. How about we leave Sanne where she is, declare her a war grave, and put a memorial marker on shore?”
Virtanen hauled himself over the gunwales. “Sounds like a good plan, sir. Let’s let whoever died inside her rest in peace.”
***
Vigilance pulled into Mazaber harbor only a few hours after the three cargo ships dropped anchor offshore, thanks to her powerful steam engine and twin propellers. In DeCarde’s eyes, the town — for it didn’t merit the title city — was just as decrepit, noxious, and filled with idlers as reports said.
“Captain.”
“Ambassador?” Fenrir turned away from overseeing his officer of the watch nose the Q ship along the harbor front to a mooring that let her cover the merchantmen.
“I understand the individual running this place has his own palace. Can we see it from here?”
“You mean whoever sits at the head of the table? None of them own the place. They just rent it with tax money until a stronger pretender shows up.” Fenrir pointed at a clump of gray stone buildings on a rise that barely poked above Mazaber’s rooftops a kilometer inland. “If that’s who you want, he lives over there — the place with the multiple red roofs and a curtain wall to keep out unwanted peasants looking for their share of the take.”
“Then please anchor us so they can clearly see one of our batteries from the chieftain’s palace once it’s unmasked.”
“You plan on intimidating the current incumbent?”
DeCarde shook his head.
“No. I’ll merely point out the advantages of submitting to Theban rule, first among which would be a continuance of the current state of affairs in Mazaber under a new planetary administration, one enforced at the point of modern automatic weapons.”
Fenrir gave DeCarde a strange look.
“Isn’t that a little undiplomatic?”
“Think of it as a bit of gunboat diplomacy, an ancient art enjoying something of a revival. I figured while I’m here, I should introduce myself and start the process of establishing a Theban foothold on Aksum.”
The mariner appeared skeptical but merely grunted.
“I suppose we must start somewhere if we want to regain the stars.”
DeCarde gave Fenrir an amused grin. “That’s the spirit, Captain.”
“Colonel?” Sergeant Virtanen appeared in the bridge doorway. “We just received a message from Starbase Hatshepsut over the Lyonesse network. A starship, tentatively identified as a cruiser, with Wyvern Hegemony markings, came out of Wormhole Two a short while ago. She went FTL on an inward-bound course.”
