Guides Association, who had stood by appalled while they watched their livelihoods destroyed, begged her to intervene before the factories refused to stay and the tourists refused to come.
The final straw was the news that the Loyalists had killed the ICC factor—in her view, an innocent bystander.
Such terrorism must not stand. She ordered her two companies to prep and drop and sent a swift-boat back to the Regimental Depot with the news of what had happened and with a call-up of the other two companies. “I will end this rebellion in a week,” she swore, perhaps forgetting that the Loyalists were not the ones who had rebelled.
So, she did.
What can you expect? The colonel had brought a gun to a knife fight. Her satellite recon could spot even small groups infiltrating through the Glens of Ardow and either orchestrate their capture or drop something on them from orbit. The latter, she did once, for demonstration, and never had to do it again. Afterward, something remarkable began to happen. People began to inform on the Ghost of Ardow.
And that set up the last act of the tragedy. Little Hugh had men and women about him now who loved him more than they loved the Vale, more than they had loved the old administration; men who would die for him, if only he would live and carry with him their hopes for “the Return of the O’Carrolls.” Red Sweeney. Maeve the Knife. Voldemar O’Rahilly. Names uttered with only a little less awe than that of Little Hugh Himself.
And die they did. Rear guard after rear guard perished to ensure his escape. Hugh moved like a fish through the water. Once as a tinker, another time as a priest, a third time as a woman. In the latter incident, he was exposed when an ICC corporal lifted his skirts with another objective entirely and received a great, and final, surprise. colonel Jumdar almost caught him in Fermoy Village, where he was disguised as a common laborer rebuilding Da Derga’s Hostel, but he slipped the net and vanished. There was a fight in the Mid-Vale where, remarkably, he was organizing the reconstruction of the burned-out farmhouses of the recalcitrant neighbors. He was using an assumed name, but it wasn’t much of an assumption, and the people he was organizing had fought long and hard for the Revolution until the Massacre of the Gardies had shocked them out of it. When the ICC squad swooped in by jet-copter, a trio of hardened Meathmen rushed them with swinging claymores and in the time it took the squad to shoot them down, the Ghost had disappeared. colonel Jumdar wondered what sort of man could command loyalty even from his enemies. When she asked Handsome Jack Garrity, the one-armed man thought for a long moment before he finally shook his head and told her, “You wouldn’t understand.”
Nor did she. Tips on Little Hugh’s whereabouts began to slow and, as often as not, began to prove false, running her squads up and down the length of New Eireann and once even to the tiny glade at the very head of the Vale below the crest of Ben Bulben.
Finally, after several days of hide-and-seek, union dockworkers at the spaceport packed Little Hugh into a crate equipped with amenities sufficient for nine weeks, addressed it and labeled it fragile, and sent it up by lighter to the transshipment station in High Orbit. There, it would await the next interstellar freighter passing through. They got all teary-eyed just before Little Hugh stepped into the crate and there were many embraces and kisses on the cheek and Sweeney the Red said, “Will ye no come back again?” And the Ghost of Ardow did something he should not have done. He swore on his father’s name that he would come back one day and redress the treachery that had been done New Eireann.
A week passed at Upabove Station and those who knew held their breath, wondering if the ruse would be discovered, and let it out only when a passing tramp freighter took the crate (and Little Hugh with it) on consignment.
Colonel
The final straw was the news that the Loyalists had killed the ICC factor—in her view, an innocent bystander.
Such terrorism must not stand. She ordered her two companies to prep and drop and sent a swift-boat back to the Regimental Depot with the news of what had happened and with a call-up of the other two companies. “I will end this rebellion in a week,” she swore, perhaps forgetting that the Loyalists were not the ones who had rebelled.
So, she did.
What can you expect? The colonel had brought a gun to a knife fight. Her satellite recon could spot even small groups infiltrating through the Glens of Ardow and either orchestrate their capture or drop something on them from orbit. The latter, she did once, for demonstration, and never had to do it again. Afterward, something remarkable began to happen. People began to inform on the Ghost of Ardow.
And that set up the last act of the tragedy. Little Hugh had men and women about him now who loved him more than they loved the Vale, more than they had loved the old administration; men who would die for him, if only he would live and carry with him their hopes for “the Return of the O’Carrolls.” Red Sweeney. Maeve the Knife. Voldemar O’Rahilly. Names uttered with only a little less awe than that of Little Hugh Himself.
And die they did. Rear guard after rear guard perished to ensure his escape. Hugh moved like a fish through the water. Once as a tinker, another time as a priest, a third time as a woman. In the latter incident, he was exposed when an ICC corporal lifted his skirts with another objective entirely and received a great, and final, surprise. colonel Jumdar almost caught him in Fermoy Village, where he was disguised as a common laborer rebuilding Da Derga’s Hostel, but he slipped the net and vanished. There was a fight in the Mid-Vale where, remarkably, he was organizing the reconstruction of the burned-out farmhouses of the recalcitrant neighbors. He was using an assumed name, but it wasn’t much of an assumption, and the people he was organizing had fought long and hard for the Revolution until the Massacre of the Gardies had shocked them out of it. When the ICC squad swooped in by jet-copter, a trio of hardened Meathmen rushed them with swinging claymores and in the time it took the squad to shoot them down, the Ghost had disappeared. colonel Jumdar wondered what sort of man could command loyalty even from his enemies. When she asked Handsome Jack Garrity, the one-armed man thought for a long moment before he finally shook his head and told her, “You wouldn’t understand.”
Nor did she. Tips on Little Hugh’s whereabouts began to slow and, as often as not, began to prove false, running her squads up and down the length of New Eireann and once even to the tiny glade at the very head of the Vale below the crest of Ben Bulben.
Finally, after several days of hide-and-seek, union dockworkers at the spaceport packed Little Hugh into a crate equipped with amenities sufficient for nine weeks, addressed it and labeled it fragile, and sent it up by lighter to the transshipment station in High Orbit. There, it would await the next interstellar freighter passing through. They got all teary-eyed just before Little Hugh stepped into the crate and there were many embraces and kisses on the cheek and Sweeney the Red said, “Will ye no come back again?” And the Ghost of Ardow did something he should not have done. He swore on his father’s name that he would come back one day and redress the treachery that had been done New Eireann.
A week passed at Upabove Station and those who knew held their breath, wondering if the ruse would be discovered, and let it out only when a passing tramp freighter took the crate (and Little Hugh with it) on consignment.
Colonel
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