Blood In the Water (2 page)

Lt. Bachman
—Forester's aide.

Surgeon Cmdr. Karen Theimer Letts
—Assistant Minister of Medicine.

“Pepper” (L)
—Black-and-white Lemurian keeper of the “Castaway Cook” (Busted Screw).

Leading Seaman Henry Stokes, HMAS
Perth
—Director of Office of Strategic Intelligence (OSI).

“King” Tony Scott

Brevet Major I'joorka
—Respected warrior and Scott's friend, commanding the 1st North Borno Regiment.

Lieutenant (jg) Abel Cook
—Liaison Officer.

Imperial Midshipman Stuart Brassey

Sergeant Moe the Hunter

Pokey
—“Pet” Grik brass-picker.

High Admiral Harvey Jenks (CINCEAST)

Sir Thomas Humphries
—Imperial Governor at Albermarl.

Colonel Alexander
—Garrison Commander.

Admiral Lelaa-Tal-Cleraan (L)
—Commanding.

Lieutenant Tex Sheider (Sparks)
—Exec.

Gilbert Yeager
—Engineer, one of the “original” Mice.

The wing is normally composed of upward of eighty aircraft, but is currently badly understrength.

2nd Lt. Orrin Reddy
—COFO.

Sgt. Kuaar-Ran-Taak, “Seepy” (L)
—Reddy's “backseater.”

Imperial Admiral E. B. Hibbs
—Commander.

USS
Destroyer
(Former
Dom Deoses Destructor
)

Cmdr. Ruik-Sor-Raa (L)
—One-armed former commander of USS
Simms
, commanding
.

Lt. Parr
—Former commander of HIMS
Icarus
. XO.

HIMSs
Mars
*,
Centurion
*,
Mithra

HIMS
Ulysses
,
Euripides
,
Tacitus

HIMS
Achilles
(DD)

Lt. Grimsley
—Commanding.

USS
Pinaa-Tubo
(Ammunition Ship)

Lt. Radaa-Nin (L)
—Commanding.

USS
Pecos
—Fleet Oiler

USS
Pucot
—Fleet Oiler

“
A
RMY OF THE
S
ISTERS”

General Tomatsu Shinya
—Commanding.

Colonel James Blair
—Exec.

Governor-Empress Rebecca Anne McDonald

Governor-Empress Saan-Kakja (L)
—High Chief of Ma-ni-laa and all the Filpin Lands.

Lt. Ezekial Krish
—Aide-de-Camp to Governor-Empress Saan-Kakja

Sister Audry
—Benedictine nun.

Colonel Arano Garcia
—Commanding El Vengadores de Dios, a regiment raised from penitent Dominion POWs on New Ireland.

Combined Force
—4 regiments Lemurian Army and Marines, 2 regiments “Frontier” troops, 5 regiments Imperial Marines—(3 Divisions) w/artillery train.

General Ansik-Talaa (L)
—Former Commander of Saan-Kakja's Filpin Scouts; is organizing XI Corps from reinforcements nearly equal in numbers to those that constitute X Corps.

Major Dao Iverson
—Commanding 6th Imperial Marines.

Nurse Cmdr. Selass-Fris-Ar, “Doc'selass” (L)
—Daughter of Keje-Fris-Ar.

Capt. Blas-Ma-Ar, “Blossom” (L)
—Commanding 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines.

Spon-Ar-Aak, “Spook” (L)
—Gunner's Mate, and 1st Sgt. of “A” Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines.

Lt. Anaar-Taar (L)
—“C” Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Maa-ni-laa (Finny's replacement).

Lt. Faal-Pel, “Stumpy” (L)
—“A” Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Maa-ni-la. Former ordnance striker.

Lt. (jg) Fred Reynolds
—Formerly Special Air Division, USS
Walker
.

Ensign Kari-Faask (L)
—Reynolds's friend and “backseater.”

General of the Sea Hisashi Kurokawa
—Formerly of Japanese Imperial Navy battle cruiser
Amagi
. Self-proclaimed “Regent” and “Sire” of all India, but currently confined to Zanzibar.

General Orochi Niwa
—Friend and advisor to General Halik.

General of the Sky Hideki Muriname

Lieutenant of the Sky Iguri
—Muriname's Exec.

Signal Lt. Fukui

Cmdr. Riku
—Ordnance.

Celestial Mother
—Absolute, godlike ruler of all the Grik, regardless of the relationships among the various Regencies.

The Chooser
—Highest member of his “order” at the Court of the Celestial Mother. Prior to current policy, “choosers”
selected those destined for life—or the cook pots, as well as those eligible for “elevation” to “Hij” status.

General Esshk
—First General of all the Grik, and acting Champion Consort to the new Celestial Mother.

General Ign
—Commander of Esshk's “new” warriors.

General Halik
—Elevated Uul sport fighter.

General Ugla, General Shlook
—“Promising” Grik leaders under Halik's command.

His Supreme Holiness, Messiah of Mexico, and by the Grace of God, Emperor of the World
—“Dom Pope” and absolute ruler.

Don Hernan DeDivino Dicha
—“Blood Cardinal” and commander of the “Army of God.”

(French) Capitaine de Fregate Victor Gravois

Aspirant Gilles Babin

(Spanish) Commandante Fidel Morrillo

(Italian) Maggiore Antonio Rizzo

Teniente Francisco de Luca

(German) Oberleutnant Walbert Fiedler

Contre Amiral Rauol Laborde

Capitaine Dupont

Lieutenant Jean
Morrisette

I've never been such a slave to the “proper” definitions of words that I'm afraid to tweak them slightly to fit my own purposes from time to time, at least in my own mind. Perhaps that's a common peculiarity among thoughtful but absentminded persons, or perhaps it's a sign of laziness. Either way, I've never carried a dictionary all about, and at least I don't constantly distort or entirely invent new words—and their definitions—on the fly, as that most interesting being Dennis Silva was always so fond of doing. But correct or not, my definition of the word “theory” is, essentially, that it is an assumption that has been tortured to death.

Unlike many, I don't then consider the resulting theory to be a true, incontrovertible fact; it merely remains a very good, thoroughly examined assumption, more likely to be true than not. Sadly, however, in real life, divorced from the benign chrysalis of the laboratory, one rarely has the opportunity to clearly differentiate between an assumption and a theory, and neither has much of a chance to be properly determined “fact” before one must quickly apply it and simply forge ahead—for good or ill. Even so, one would imagine that reasonably intelligent beings would have a better than even chance of having their “assumptive theories” proven right. Unfortunately, I'm always amazed by how stunningly often that is not the case, at least on this magnificent, malevolent world.

It happens to me more often than most, I'm sure, and I hope I manage to display a sufficient measure of contrition when it does. I blame it on my exuberance, my near-instinctive predisposition to spring upon the closest, most convenient conclusion and grasp it with both hands. How often has this trait led me far astray, with embarrassing, even calamitous results? I can't begin to guess. I won't even try to count the times, for example, that while fishing the waters off Western Australia as a lad, I was utterly positive I'd hooked one particular species of fish, only to discover it was something else entirely. My belief was based on where I was,
the time of year, what type of bait I'd used, and other fish already caught. Sometimes I fancied I had the experience to judge by the way it struck and fought the hook, or the glimpses it revealed when it thrashed the surface. All surely sufficient information to transform an assumption into a theory, at least, I should think. More often than not, however, despite my conviction, I was mistaken.

As an engineer in later life I was often called upon to sort out some problem or other that, based upon the information at hand, should've been quite simple to resolve—only to find that it ran much deeper, or was caused by some other obscure, never-considered factor that required a wholly different solution than I'd envisioned. And even after we came to this world, an occurrence that should've cured me of relying on mere assumptions ever again, my predisposition went completely rampant and I immediately began spewing assumptions as theories, taken as facts, about all manner of things. This may possibly be forgivable when one considers the fantastic circumstances we found ourselves in, but we were most emphatically not in any laboratory, and the consequences of false assumptive theories were often far more catastrophic than I first imagined possible because the stakes were so much more profound. Lives, cultures, entire species were at risk, not just the meager reputation of the author of a flawed treatise.

And tragically, on occasion, I was not the only one to assume far too much, and the cost in blood remains enough to make me weep even now. The sorry fact of the matter was that regardless how sound our reasoning, how firmly rooted in evidence, experience, or common sense, it seemed there was always a better than even chance that any theory constructed about the nature of this world—or our enemies across it—would be wildly, horrifically wrong. I'm again compelled to roughly quote (to the best of my memory) a comment once made, quite offhand, by the enigmatic Dennis Silva: “‘Ass-ume' is just a big word for ‘ass.' There's way too many ‘ass-umes' runnin' around this joint, an' they all smell like shit.”

Courtney Bradford,
The Worlds I've Wondered

University of New Glasgow Press, 1956