The Venusian Gambit (6 page)

“Tom!” a voice called from behind. “What is it?”

Weatherby turned and saw Anne, half-covered in silver-black soot, her gown a perfect wreck, her hair a tangle absently drawn back. She looked worried, and rightly so—she had not been upon Elizabeth Mercuris for many, many years, and likely had dismal memories of what such an alarm might bring. Then again, her memories of the place were dismal no matter the condition.

“I cannot say, my lady,” he replied quickly, not breaking stride, though Anne quickly took her place beside him and matched his pace neatly. “How goes your Mercurium refinements?”

“We are close, very close, but then your fleet’s alchemists rushed to their ships, leaving things in a complete state of arrest. I should wish them back post-haste.”

Weatherby smiled slightly; she knew the request to be absurd, and a glance at her showed as much in her smirk. “I shall, of course, send the lot of them back to you as soon as I’m able. But there is the slight matter of their duty to their ship, first and foremost.”

“Very well. I shall carry on until you’ve taken care of this terrible business,” Anne said with an airy breeze, but then quickly reached over and gripped Weatherby’s arm slightly. “Do be careful,” she added with evident concern.

“As always, my love,” he smiled. “Now go secure your stores. I shan’t be long.”

Anne turned quickly for her makeshift laboratory, stored in the hold of a decrepit merchantman lashed to the outpost, and made for where his flagship was moored.

And he was quite pleased to see that HMS
Victory
was well and ready to make sail, waiting solely upon her admiral. She was truly a magnificent ship—three decks and 104 guns, one of the largest in His Majesty’s service—and informally considered to be the flagship of England itself, though this was due in no small part to Nelson’s heroic passing upon her quarterdeck nearly three years ago.

And
Victory
had been extensively refurbished since Trafalgar, so much so that it was hard to believe her keel was laid in 1759. She was old, certainly, but a fierce lioness if there ever was one.

Her captain, John Clarke Searle, waited for Weatherby on the maindeck as he boarded. “We are prepared to set sail, my Lord Admiral,” Searle said. “Shall I give the order?”

Weatherby nodded curtly as he took up his hat and handed his satchel of papers to his long-serving, long-suffering valet Gar’uk; the three-foot tall Venusian lizard-creature had been with him for nearly 15 years. Nobody knew for certain what the life-span of the Venusian people might be, but Weatherby could attest that Gar’uk did not seem to allow advancing age to slow him overmuch, despite a noticeably leathery look upon the scales around his beak, a droop under his eyes and a touch of hobble in his step. Of course, Weatherby could say the same of himself—except for the scales, of course.

“Any word on the cause of the alarm, Captain?” Weatherby said as he and Searle made for the quarterdeck.

“No, sir,” the captain replied. “All we know is the lookouts caught a signal rocket from one of our pickets. The governor sounded the general alarm at once.”

Weatherby frowned slightly; the governor of Elizabeth Mercuris was one Roger Worthington, a man who achieved his role and title simply by being the son of his late predecessor, and was wholly unlikely to rise to even his father’s meager level of competence. “At least there was a signal, then, and the governor wasn’t simply suffering under a case of nervous delusion,” he quipped. “Make sail for the direction of the signal rocket. Signal the fleet to form up behind us.”

“No need for signals, Admiral Weatherby!”

Weatherby wheeled about to find his fleet alchemist, Dr. Andrew Finch, rushing up toward him. And it was hard to determine what surprised the admiral more—the sudden, loud and undisciplined approach, or the general look of unkempt exhaustion and wide-eyed fervor upon his old friend’s face.

“My God, Finch, do try to be a better example for the men,” Weatherby chided softly. “You look like a perfect wreck.”

Finch smiled, and his eyes grew wider. “What if, Tom…what if you could communicate with Paddy O’Brian right now, with but a thought, rather than use signal flags and telescopes to try to divine his messages?” he asked. “What if you could quickly, clearly express your commands to your captains as if they were standing right next to you?”

Weatherby saw two seamen walk up behind Finch. One carried a small table, while the other held a oval mirror ringed with occult and alchemical etchings. “Finch…I must ask, have you returned to your old habits of late? Are you addled even now?”

The alchemist looked confused a moment, but then waved the question away with his hand. “Tom, I’m being quite serious here. I’ve come across a method by which we may be able to allow you to communicate and coordinate all the ships under your command simply through the power of thought and speech! Think of what a boon that would be! A strategic advantage like none other!”

Weatherby turned and walked slowly up the stairs toward the quarterdeck, knowing Finch would follow. “Has this been tested at all, Dr. Finch?” Weatherby asked.

“We’ve been able to engage in some limited tests, yes,” Finch said. “We’ve managed to cast our thoughts from one end of the ship to the other.”

“One end to the other? Do you know how far our ships sail in the Void? We may be ten miles away, maybe more!” Weatherby said.

“And what of the side effects?” asked Searle, who had little love and a great deal of mistrust when it came to matters of alchemy.

Finch suddenly looked away, as if he were distracted. “What are you doing here?” he muttered.

“Excuse me?” Searle said, with some force behind it.

“Oh, quite sorry,” Finch said, snapping back. “Something…just occurred to me. Anyway, there have been some cases of headaches, a bit of nausea, one very isolated case of vertigo and unconsciousness, but, I promise you. Admiral, these issues have been addressed. The days of signal flags and fog-of-war are over!”

It was very clear to Weatherby that Finch was intensely passionate about his discovery, and that he likely had spent many sleepless nights perfecting it, as was his wont when creativity struck. “I’m sorry, Finch,” Weatherby said gently. “We shall test your innovation at our very next opportunity—just one that does not involve actual combat. We cannot afford to have myself or my captains incapacitated.”

Finch nodded sullenly. “Of course, sir.” He then brightened up slightly. “I shall discuss this with Captain Searle when we return to the outpost, then?”

“As soon as we return,” Weatherby agreed, giving Searle a slightly apologetic look. For his part, the captain of
Victory
smiled tightly, and excused himself to see to Weatherby’s orders.

“It’ll work,” Finch said quietly.

“I know, old friend,” Weatherby said, equally
sotto voce
. “But the captains need to focus on the task at hand. It is not your working, but their lack of preparation for it, that has me worried.”

It was something of a fib for Finch’s benefit, and Weatherby felt badly for it, but it seemed to assuage him greatly, and the alchemist soon made his way below decks to begin preparing for battle. Not only was Finch responsible for all the alchemists aboard Weatherby’s ships, but in times of battle, Finch would use his knowledge of the Great Work to help treat wounded, repair the ship and fire back with the deadliest weapons alchemy could empower.

As the crew of
Victory
unfurled her sails and prepared to make for the Void, Weatherby paced slowly on the quarterdeck, his mind already among the stars, mentally reviewing where each of his ships would be. There were, of course, standing orders as to the positioning of the ships in the fleet, depending on what
Thunderer
and her squadron found as they scouted ahead. There were six other major warships at Weatherby’s disposal—all third-rate, 74-gun vessels—along with a host of smaller ships taking up picket positions around the outpost. The pickets would be the last line of defense—aside, of course, from the hundreds of guns on the outpost itself. These guns had never fired upon a French vessel while Weatherby was in command, and he would do much indeed to further such a record.

Weatherby started slightly as
Victory
pulled away from the outpost and sailed out toward the unknown. When he was a mere captain, his mind captured every small detail of his ship’s operation and could identify a slack line or misplaced ammunition with but a glance. But he’d been an admiral now far too long, it seemed. His mind was on every ship, not just the one upon which he personally sailed. Taking out his glass, Weatherby saw the other ships in his fleet form up, creating a kind of chevron in the void, with
Victory
herself at the point. Over years of engagements, Weatherby felt such a formation was ideal for most circumstances, allowing the ships to scatter and engage or form up into a single line with equal facility.

Returning his attention to where he stood,
Victory
herself seemed in fine form. He had never been her captain, and thus did not know every inch of plank and sail as Searle would, but Weatherby knew well enough her rhythms and ways. There were two sets of planesails upon each side of the massive, three-decked warship—a first rate, and England’s largest—and plenty more sailcloth upon her three masts. For such a large ship, she handled in the Void like one that was much smaller, though certainly not as fast as any would like. Thankfully, her guns were effective compensation for the lack of speed.

“Signal from
Thunderer
!” came the call from the lookouts above, more than 150 feet above the maindeck. “Enemy sighted! Ten ships!”

Weatherby nodded at this, though Searle seemed less pleased. “Ten! That’s a full fleet, then. Orders, sir?”

“Another signal to the fleet, then. We shall scatter and engage as soon as
Victory
fires. Let’s hope they’re as hidebound as the last ones,” Weatherby said.

“You’d think they’d learn,” Searle commented after passing Weatherby’s commands to his officers. “Nelson’s tactic at Trafalgar should’ve been a clear enough warning.”

Weatherby simply shrugged. “Understand, Captain, that so many of their finest sailors, their career officers, were purged during the revolution. And then again in the Terror. And again after Napoleon came to power. They may build ships well enough, and they can sail, but tactics…that’s experience. That’s why we’ve maintained supremacy at sea and Void, and I’m quite unwilling to give it up today. Now, let’s run out. Where’s
Thunderer
?”

As
Victory
ran out dozens of guns from her flanks, the lookouts spotted
Thunderer
heading back toward Weatherby’s fleet in something of a chaotic trajectory—likely because she was being followed. O’Brian did not wish to provide a clean shot upon his stern, the least defensible portion of any ship, and the wide, swooping turns and spirals in the Void allowed him to fire upon the two ships following.

One of which, as the ships came into clearer view, was a Xan ovoid.

“Damn it!” Weatherby cursed, snapping his glass shut. “We keep telling Vellusk there are partisans aiding the French, and yet he does nothing!”

The Xan, natives of the rings of Saturn, were nominally a pacifist race, but for the better part of the past decade, a small but growing faction had sought more warlike ways—and allied themselves with the French, no less. England had, of course, sought alliance with the main body of Xan, led by Representative Vellusk, but these worthies remained committed to their precepts of peace, unlike their fellows, and would offer naught but verbal support against the partisans, and the aforementioned promises of attention to their increasingly strident faction.

And yet there was an ovoid—the queer, egg-shaped vessels half the size of a frigate and three times the speed of the fastest brig—and it was quite a problem. Their strange electrical-alchemical armaments could cripple a 74-gun ship with but four or five well-placed shots.

Searle paled. “Change in orders, sir?”

“Aye. Signal
Swiftsure
to come up alongside, and
Thunderer
to come sail toward us. Let us see if we may crack this egg before it hatches.”

As the signal flags flew, Weatherby spied ahead with his glass. The ovoid was among the ships counted by the lookout, which was good news. The rest were closing fast and, aside from
Thunderer
’s pursuers, were hewing to older naval tactics by forming a column of ships, bow to stern. At sea, this would be most prudent, as battles were fought in two dimensions. Out in the Void, however, vessels could take advantage of the third dimension through canny use of their planesails. Likewise, the speeds at which engagements took place were significantly faster, thanks to the alchemical working upon ships’ sails that harnessed the very Solar Wind itself.

“
Swiftsure
is in position, my Lord Admiral,” Searle reported. “
Thunderer
acknowledges her orders as well, though she’s taken some damage amidships.”

“Then let us be on our way, Captain,” Weatherby responded. “Off toward the ovoid. The rest of the fleet may engage at will.”

Weatherby watched as, one by one, the ships in his fleet peeled off and, with royals and studding sails unfurled, swooped toward the French line in a hodge-podge of directions. The French could continue to hew to old tactics if they wished, but Weatherby would not oblige them such a stodgy battle.

Meanwhile,
Thunderer
grew ever closer as
Victory
and
Swiftsure
, the latter a “74” of fine lines and good form, spread out further apart on either side of the incoming ships in their fleet. For a moment, Weatherby wondered just how effective Finch’s working might be in communicating with O’Brian and his other captains. It hadn’t occurred to the admiral that the system of lookouts and signal flags might be improved, yet in this moment, and despite his extensive experience in battle, Weatherby wondered whether they should test Finch’s innovation sooner rather than later.