“Sheida.” He sighed. He looked at his former lover and shook his head. “If this is power, it’s for the birds. You look like you’ve aged twenty years in the last four.”
“So do you, Edmund,” Sheida said with a grimace. “And isn’t it a bit late?”
“Needs must,” he said, waving at the table. “This place is a zoo.”
“A very expensive zoo,” Sheida said. “The legislature is balking at your request for increased funding.”
“No surprise that.” Edmund frowned, rubbing his head. “But we have to gain control of the sea and that means more men and more ships. And those men and ships are going to suffer, be lost, which will mean more men and ships. We have to have the funds, Sheida.” He gestured at the paperwork before him and shook his head. “Half of this crap is people screaming at me over money. ‘Out of budget construction,’ ‘invalid materials use,’ these people wouldn’t know a battle if it bit them in the ass and they’re asking me to account for every damned nail that goes in a ship. And why it has to go in a ship. Well, the reason is, the more of the bastards we kill at sea, the fewer will be around to kill us on land. Think you can get that through their heads?”
“Politics,” Sheida said with a bitter chuckle. “All that money running from one area to another. The Kent wants to form a legion. The Kent of all places.” The Kentian plains had been famous, before the Fall, for their horse herds and after the Fall the fame had just increased.
“That’s going to be a moot point,” Edmund said.
“Oh?”
“I submitted a study to the Ministry calling for federal cavalry brigades. As far as I can tell, they’re sitting on it. So I sent Kane down to the Kent to get the ball rolling, oh, six months ago or so. Either the local representative is dealing with information lag, or he’s unaware that a cavalry brigade is going to mean more money to the area than a legion.”
“How’s it going?” Sheida asked.
“Last I heard, pretty good,” Edmund admitted. “Most of them aren’t as good of horsemen as they have to be for cavalry, but Kane and I worked out a pretty intensive basic training for them. They won’t be elite by any stretch of the imagination and no horse bowmen, but they’re going to be all right. And disciplined, damnit. When I call in cavalry I want it to go where I tell it, not haring off any old way it pleases.”
“And then there’s the Fleet,” Sheida pointed out. “Everyone is balking at that, but mostly the people on the coast. All the money is going to Newfell, which has damned little representation in the House.”
“I’ve got a fix for that one, too,” Edmund frowned. “There’s no reason that all the ships have to be built here and plenty of reason for them not to be. The smoldering remains of our shipyards speak for themselves. I’ll send a memo to Admiral Houser recommending the establishment of at least two more bases. One of them probably at Balmoran and the other at… well, wherever you think best. Politically. Just has to be a good harbor. And we’ll farm out the ship construction to shipyards all along the coast; spread that money around at least. Better?”
“I can work with that.” Sheida nodded. “Of course, Admiral Houser has to approve it.”
“Of course,” Edmund chuckled. “Isn’t that what chain-of-command is for?”
Chapter Fourteen
When Edmund woke up it was bright daylight. He started to roll to his feet, angry that no one had awoken him before dawn, and noticed that he was not alone in bed. From the red hair and the shape of the shoulder either his wife or his daughter had crawled in next to him sometime in the night. He really, really hoped it was Daneh. Rachel had gotten far too old to share a bed with daddy.
“Good morning,” Daneh said, rolling over sleepily.
“Late morning,” Edmund said, trying not to snarl.
“I know,” Daneh replied, leaning over to kiss him. “And you’ve got morning breath. Don’t flay Destrang alive; I told him that you weren’t to be wakened. You’ve been driving yourself into the ground and as your doctor I ordered some additional bed rest. Not to mention as your wife.”
“Destrang’s supposed to take orders from me,” Edmund growled, rolling to the edge of the bed and getting his feet out of the covers. But he had to admit that the extra sleep had done him some good.
“And he trusted that I’d keep you from coming down on him like a ton of bricks,” Daneh said, sliding across the not particularly large bed and grabbing him by his hair. “And you’re not going to. As a matter of fact, you don’t have another appointment for…” She glanced at the clock across the room and smiled. “Two hours. Now that I’ve rearranged your schedule. So if you think you’re leaping out of bed this minute, you’d better have another think coming.” She pulled his head back until he was lying down again, looking up at her upside down.
“You did mention morning breath,” Edmund replied.
“Have an apple.”
“Good morning, seaman,” Edmund said, striding down to the docks. “Have an apple,” he added, tossing one to the surprised messenger. “They’re good for you.”
“Morning, sir,” Ensign Destrang said, nervously.
“Morning, Destrang,” Edmund replied, smiling at him. “What’ve you got?”
“Lieutenant Asfaw asked to talk to you, sir,” Destrang replied, gesturing at the mer.
“Did you get a chair or something, Asfaw?” Edmund asked.
“Yes, sir, thank you,” the mer replied. There were also more mer in the basin, swimming around below. “The engineers poured a sort of underwater pier for us. Very handy. As are the additional listeners.”
“And what was it you wanted to talk about?” Edmund asked, snagging a chair.
“Well…” Asfaw looked around nervously but then shrugged. “We, the mer that is, aren’t doing much good in this war, sir.”
“I think your reconnaissance, not to mention your weather monitoring and communications uses, are invaluable,” Edmund said, frowning. “Don’t get the idea we don’t need you.”
“No, sir, not that,” Asfaw said. “It’s just… we can’t attack anything. Except the orca and ixchitl. And even then we kept getting told that recon is more important than fighting orca. But with the orca around, we can’t recon. We want to help. Or, I guess, help more.”
“There were some experiments with boring,” Edmund said. “Didn’t work very well. And mines are out for all the same damned reasons.”
“I was wondering,” Asfaw said. “Well, I mean, sometimes the message traffic is light and all I can do is sit in the water and watch the occasional fish, sir. So I have a lot of time to wonder. Maybe if the queen could permit a bit of power we could make some sort of biological? A fast wood-worm or something that dissolves hulls?”
“If it got loose it would be the death of maritime traffic,” Edmund said, rubbing his jaw. “No, protocols would prevent it reproducing if it was that dangerous. But maybe…” Edmund glanced at the sun and sneezed. “I’m going to be talking to Evan in a couple of hours. I’ll bring it up with him. Maybe he or one of his engineer buddies can come up with something.”
“What about the orcas?” the lieutenant asked.
“You’ll have to run that one by me again,” Edmund said. “I’ll admit I’m a bit tired. Why can’t you attack the orcas?”
“Our orders are to avoid contact. We’re supposed to be recon forces is what they keep saying. But we can’t always avoid contact and Jason thinks we can get rid of some of the damned orca and ixchitl, if we can just get the support.”