They could now lift in the full assault team, or a partial team with the heavy weapons. Not both. Which, and how?
Meanwhile, the fish-factory crews had been pulling nets (camouflage and fishing varieties) over the deck load of freighters. They would still look peculiar, nearly filling the decks of both Nautilus and Sir Patrick Spens, but they would not signal "commando raid" to anyone not coming alongside.
The turtlebacks had transferred their Sea Fencibles to the two ships, and all the officers to Sir Patrick. Then flags, lights, and loud voices harried all of them into a loose formation that looked almost as if it belonged in these waters, around these two ships. Nobody who wasn't already paranoid would suspect the fleet of intending harm to anybody except fish.
Of course, if they're short of paranoia over to the east, I can always loan them some of mine. Ryder shook herself out of that mood, saw on the chart display that the fleet was on an innocuous course to the south, and got ready to listen or speak as necessary.
Captain Biddle of Nautilus, the older of the two factory ships, saved everybody a great deal of time—once they took him seriously.
"Now look, good people," he said. "I've an old ship not safe for more than another season at most. I can think of a better end for her than tied up to rot at a pier, smelling of fish guts until the beggars complain!
"Put your confounded mortars and rockets aboard Nautilus. We'll cover them with tarps, then run in at night. About the time you hit Buwayjon, we can be in range. If you can leave the gunners aboard too, we'll not stint—"
The leader of the heavy weapons platoon let out a howl of protest. Three glares—Chung, Biddle, and Ryder—reduced him to muttering things probably not approved of by the Kirk. He sounded no happier than before at the prospect of missing the fight ashore.
"As I said," Biddle went on, "we can steam through the night and be within range about the time you're keeping the fellows ashore too busy to notice us. Then tell your gunners where to shoot, and we'll put them where they can."
It wasn't wholly lunatic; just nearly so. The 120-mm mortars and the 150-cm rockets could reach out twenty thousand meters, although with reduced accuracy beyond twelve thousand. The supply of precision-guided rounds was less than half of what they'd hoped for, but the Sea Fencibles or at least their Marine advisers did have a reasonable quota of terminal-guidance lasers.
"We'd have to strike the vehicles below deck to dismount the heavy weapons, or else wait and dismount them after the ground assault flies off," Chung said. This time the weapons platoon leader said nothing, because he was obviously trying to think of an intelligent answer. It was Ryder's turn to want to glare or mutter curses.
Was agreeing so fast smart?
If we don't have time to spare and don't intend to abort, yes.
That had been a short mental debate, but long enough for the weapons platoon officer to answer. The vehicles would have to be struck below to avoid crowding the deck unacceptably, so once below, they might as well be worked on.
Further calculations showed that Nautilus was strong enough to stand the recoil. Built in an archaic style called "composite," with heavy wooden planks on a steel frame, she was nearly a century old and originally built for two steam reciprocating engines instead of her current diesels. If she had survived a century of storms, stresses, and heavy loads, and could still support the weight of loaded freighters on her handling deck, she could undoubtedly survive a few hundred rounds' worth of recoiling mortars and rocket tail-flares.
Still more calculations declared that reducing the airlift requirements by the weight of the heavy weapons and their ammunition would let the ground assault take all the ammunition they still had for their own weapons. Except that a couple of those were staying behind, too—a light machine gun and the one Erewhonese pulser the raiders had brought along.
"Otherwise," Ryder said, "the Peeps could fly out in a tourist air bus and drop grenades on your deck. If they hit the ammunition, it could ruin your taste for whiskey forever."
Everybody was carefully not mentioning the pinnace, although with Peep-quality piloting it might not be much good at low altitude. Ryder carefully did mention one non-trivial problem, which was the legal status of Nautilus and her crew.
"I don't think I can commission you in the Canmore Republic Navy," Ryder began. "But if you don't have some military status, the Peeps could shoot you, and King Bira might let them. Never risk being the victim of an atrocity you can't live to laugh over."
"Any positive suggestions?" Chung said. Captain Biddle looked as if he would rather say something stronger.
"Would and your crew—and Sir Patrick's people—like to volunteer for the Sea Fencibles? We do have our Personnel Officer with us, believe it or not. She leads the Boat Maintenance gang in her spare time. I think she can print up enough certificates to cover everybody."
"Like a tarpaulin," Chung said. This time he got Captain Biddle's dirty look.
* * *
Testaniere peered out into a night completely opaque with fog. If the port finally had been blacked out, it could hardly have been any darker. All that told Citizen Commissioner Testaniere that he wasn't looking into the depths of the Central Sea was a dim glow from the tank workshop.
Citizen Sergeant Pescu coughed behind the commissioner, then went on coughing. Testaniere reached for the teapot and poured two cups.
"Warm your throat, please. That's not an order. But you are the last person I want catching a cold from this soggy soup."
"Thank you." Pescu drank, then put the half-empty cup down. "A girl has disappeared."
"We are not an Office of Missing Persons," Testaniere said. "Is there anything particular about her?" He picked up his cup and drank.
"She was—ah, friendly—with several of the Navy ratings. Not any of our SS, to my knowledge, but they wouldn't be telling on themselves."
Since "lack of revolutionary virtue" could mean a labor camp or worse, Pescu was probably right. "Are you implying that one of them killed her?
"Maybe. Or maybe one of the local gangs didn't like her going with off-worlders. Or—"
"She could have been spying?" Testaniere filled in.
Pescu nodded.
"Not impossible. But impossible to tell for whom. We can't terminate agents from the Royal Army's Counter-Intelligence Office, let alone from Euvinophan's staff."
He did not like the timing, though, in spite of the fog. "I suggest that we propose a stand-to for dawn tomorrow. Tank crews, security, Field Police, and our Navy friends. I'll sweeten Weldon if you can work on everybody else."
"I can alert the dawn duty watch, and be there myself. Everybody else may be a bit busy then. The first of the infantry are coming in. Five hundred of them, by truck."
Testaniere nearly choked on his tea. "You might have told me this first."
"I'm sorry, Citizen Commissioner. But after so long, it's hard to believe that it's actually happening."
* * *
The raiders' reprieve from disaster lasted until Claymore Flight entered both darkness and fog. Maintaining electronic silence meant dubious navigation, worse station-keeping, and eventually total loss of contact with Claymore Three. At that point Ryder and Chung risked IR signals to bring the remaining four freighters down on the first convenient island that offered enough flat surface.
Fortunately, Claymore Three contained only forty people and a single light scout car. The raiders still had more than a hundred and fifty Sea Fencibles, thirty assorted advisers, three scout cars, and an adequate load of everything else needed for light infantry combat and heavy demolitions work.