more immediate problem.” He shook his head. “Like we don’t have oneevery time we turn around these days. Like every single oink doesn’t come from the same pig’s house.”
“Ah, our friends in Federation Command?”
“A full line Commander is aboard for the flight with two of his flunkies. Observation purposes, he tells me. Reconnaissance. A day in the skies. Shades! I nod and smile like a sailor’s wife at news of his plans to give up sailing.”
Redden Alt Mer nodded absently. “Best thing to do with these people, Hawk.”
They had reached
Black Moclips
, and he swung onto the rope ladder and climbed to the bridge where the Federation Commander and his adjutants were waiting.
“Commander,” he greeted pleasantly. “Welcome aboard.”
“My compliments, Captain Alt Mer,” the other replied. He did not offer his own name, which told the Rover something right away about how he viewed their relationship. He was a thin, pinch-faced man with sallow skin. If he’d spent a day on the line in the last twelve months, it would come as a surprise to the Rover. “Are we ready to go?”
“Ready and able, Commander.”
“Your First Officer?”
“Indisposed.” Or she would wish as much once he got his hands on her. “Mr. Hawken can take up the slack. Gentlemen, is this your first time in the air?”
The look that passed between the adjutants gave him his answer.
“It is our first,” the Commander confirmed with a dismissive shrug. “Your job is to make the experience educational. Ours is to learn whatever it is you have to teach.”
“Run ’em up, Hawk.” He gestured his Second Officer forward to oversee lofting the sails. “We’ll be seeing action today, Commander,” he cautioned. “It could get a little rough.”
The Commander smiled condescendingly. “We’re soldiers, Captain. We’ll be fine.”
Pompous fathead, Alt Mer thought. You’ll be fine if I keep you that way and not otherwise.
He watched his Rover crew scramble up the masts, lofting the sails and fastening the radian draws in place. Airships were marvelous things, but operating them required a mindset that was sorely lacking in most Federation soldiers. The Southlanders were fine on solid ground executing infantry tactics. They were comfortable with throwing bodies into breaches, like sandbags, and relying on the sheer weight of their numbers to crush an enemy. But put them in the air and they couldn’t seem to decide what to do next. Their intuition vanished. Everything they knew about warfare dried up and blew away with the first breath of wind to fill the sails.
Rovers, on the other hand, were born to the life. It was in their blood, in their history, and in the way they had lived their lives for two thousand years. Rovers did not respond well to regimentation and drill. They responded to freedom. Flying the big airships gave them that. Migratory by nature and tradition, they were always on the move anyway. Staying put was unthinkable. The Federation was still trying to figure that out, and they were constantly sending observers aloft with the Rover crews to discover what it was their mercenaries knew that they didn’t.
Trouble was, it wasn’t something that could be taught. The Bordermen who fought for the Free-born weren’t any better. Or the Dwarves. Only the Elves seemed to have mastered sailing the wind currents with the same ease as the Rovers.
One day, that would change. Airships were still new to the Four Lands. The first had been built and flown barely two dozen years earlier. They had been in service as fighting vessels for less than five years. Only a handful of shipwrights understood the mechanics of ambient-light sails, radian draws, and diapson crystals well enough to build the vessels that could utilize them. Using light as energy was an old dream, only occasionally realized, as in the case of airships. It was one thing to build them, another to make them fly. It took skill and intelligence and
“Ah, our friends in Federation Command?”
“A full line Commander is aboard for the flight with two of his flunkies. Observation purposes, he tells me. Reconnaissance. A day in the skies. Shades! I nod and smile like a sailor’s wife at news of his plans to give up sailing.”
Redden Alt Mer nodded absently. “Best thing to do with these people, Hawk.”
They had reached
Black Moclips
, and he swung onto the rope ladder and climbed to the bridge where the Federation Commander and his adjutants were waiting.
“Commander,” he greeted pleasantly. “Welcome aboard.”
“My compliments, Captain Alt Mer,” the other replied. He did not offer his own name, which told the Rover something right away about how he viewed their relationship. He was a thin, pinch-faced man with sallow skin. If he’d spent a day on the line in the last twelve months, it would come as a surprise to the Rover. “Are we ready to go?”
“Ready and able, Commander.”
“Your First Officer?”
“Indisposed.” Or she would wish as much once he got his hands on her. “Mr. Hawken can take up the slack. Gentlemen, is this your first time in the air?”
The look that passed between the adjutants gave him his answer.
“It is our first,” the Commander confirmed with a dismissive shrug. “Your job is to make the experience educational. Ours is to learn whatever it is you have to teach.”
“Run ’em up, Hawk.” He gestured his Second Officer forward to oversee lofting the sails. “We’ll be seeing action today, Commander,” he cautioned. “It could get a little rough.”
The Commander smiled condescendingly. “We’re soldiers, Captain. We’ll be fine.”
Pompous fathead, Alt Mer thought. You’ll be fine if I keep you that way and not otherwise.
He watched his Rover crew scramble up the masts, lofting the sails and fastening the radian draws in place. Airships were marvelous things, but operating them required a mindset that was sorely lacking in most Federation soldiers. The Southlanders were fine on solid ground executing infantry tactics. They were comfortable with throwing bodies into breaches, like sandbags, and relying on the sheer weight of their numbers to crush an enemy. But put them in the air and they couldn’t seem to decide what to do next. Their intuition vanished. Everything they knew about warfare dried up and blew away with the first breath of wind to fill the sails.
Rovers, on the other hand, were born to the life. It was in their blood, in their history, and in the way they had lived their lives for two thousand years. Rovers did not respond well to regimentation and drill. They responded to freedom. Flying the big airships gave them that. Migratory by nature and tradition, they were always on the move anyway. Staying put was unthinkable. The Federation was still trying to figure that out, and they were constantly sending observers aloft with the Rover crews to discover what it was their mercenaries knew that they didn’t.
Trouble was, it wasn’t something that could be taught. The Bordermen who fought for the Free-born weren’t any better. Or the Dwarves. Only the Elves seemed to have mastered sailing the wind currents with the same ease as the Rovers.
One day, that would change. Airships were still new to the Four Lands. The first had been built and flown barely two dozen years earlier. They had been in service as fighting vessels for less than five years. Only a handful of shipwrights understood the mechanics of ambient-light sails, radian draws, and diapson crystals well enough to build the vessels that could utilize them. Using light as energy was an old dream, only occasionally realized, as in the case of airships. It was one thing to build them, another to make them fly. It took skill and intelligence and
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