The Demi-Monde: Summer (28 page)

After interviewing the officers she’d inherited from Jeanne Dark it quickly became apparent that the most accomplished and the most aggressive of them all were the two Trung sisters,
Trac and Nhi. The problem, Trixie suspected, was that they might be just a touch
too
aggressive, and when fighting a defensive war, aggression had to be leavened with discipline. They were also the officers who had objected most strenuously to her appointment, the elder of the pair – Trung Trac – seeing herself as Jeanne Dark’s natural heir. And in Trixie’s experience, resentful subordinates were unreliable subordinates.

But resentful or no, Mao had insisted that they be appointed as Trixie’s joint second-in-command – he had flatly refused to allow her to employ Wysochi in that capacity – so she and they just had to make the best of it.

‘ColonelFemme Trung Trac, you have been given command of the Covenite army defending the shores of the Volga. It is your responsibility to destroy the first wave of enemy invaders and to prevent them breaking out of their beachheads.’

The woman bowed, but not quite as deeply as Li demanded.

Bitch
.

She was an ugly woman, the left side of her face deeply scarred where it had been burnt when a Zeppelin had crashed near her. She had escaped death by inches.

Shame
.

‘The Covenite Army will not fail Empress Wu or the Divine Faith that is HerEticalism,’ she answered in her piping voice. ‘Have no doubt, GeneralFemme Dashwood, that we will repel all attempts by the heterosexual defilers to pollute the haven of MoreBienism that is the Coven.’

Not just a bitch, Trixie decided, but a pompous bitch.

‘And you, ColonelFemme Trung Nhi, have command of the forces dedicated to defending the Anichkov Bridge. It is imperative that the bridge is held. If the ForthRight takes the bridge, then they will be able to reinforce their beachheads and we will be outflanked. The fate of the Coven lies in your hands and those of your fighters.’

‘The Fifth Legion of Amazons will hold the bridge,
GeneralFemme, on that you have my word as an Officer and a gentleFemme.’

Trixie stood silent for a moment. Then she addressed all those gathered in the bunker. ‘The ForthRight invasion of the Coven has begun. We are outgunned and outnumbered, but I have been outgunned and outnumbered before and I have been victorious. Remember that if you fail, then the evil that is UnFunDaMentalism will cast its long shadow over the Coven and everything you hold dear will be lost. May ABBA be with you.’

And with me
.

AdmiralNoN Zheng Heii used the TooZian breathing techniques he’d been taught as a boy to regulate his Qi, this ensuring that the meridians criss-crossing his body were clear and that the energy he drew from the Kosmos could flow more easily. Tonight he would journey to join his ancestors and he was
determined that he would make that journey as a Superior Man, with his soul suffused with
wu wei
.

Yes … tonight Zheng Heii would act in a Superior and an Honourable manner. Tonight he would act as a
Man
and not as a NoN.

Instinctively his fingers touched the medallion at his throat, the one that had belonged to his father and that had been passed to him by his beloved mother. It bore the Epigram
Tui
, denoting the Eldest Son, and it was the Eldest Son to whom the ancestors gave the responsibility of defending a family’s honour. The medallion was Zheng Heii’s most treasured possession, his mother having given it to him when she had informed him that his father had been killed defending the Forbidding City and the Emperor against the HerEtical forces of the Femme Liberation Movement. And then his mother had committed
jigai
– ritual suicide. It had been Zheng Heii who had found her body, her face beatific in death, the image of his father clasped in her hands and her legs tied together to ensure that even in death she remained a Superior Woman. As he had gazed down at her, so beautiful and so perfect, he had sworn that, one day, he would avenge both of his Most Honoured and Beloved Parents.

Wu in her arrogance had never suspected the hate that Zheng Heii had nurtured these ten years, the bitch confident that by gelding him she had made him biddable. But tonight she would understand that the fires of hate still burned bright in his soul, a hate that could only be doused by revenge. And tonight, ten years to the day after his mother passed across the Final Void to be with her ancestors, he would have that revenge.

The WarJunk
Wu
, the flagship of his little flotilla, rolled as she was buffeted by the ebb tide of a river swollen by the monsoon rains, but Zheng paid little heed, his mind concentrated on the orders he would be giving in the next few minutes, orders that would determine whether all his planning and
connivance – and the falsification of the war game scores at the Beijing Naval College – had been in vain. By skilful manoeuvring he had managed to appoint NoNs loyal to him and to the creed of Confusionism to the command of three of the five WarJunks. They might have been reduced to the status of NoNs but this did not detract from their being good and resolute Men. He just hoped three would be enough.

Zheng Heii turned to his captain. ‘CaptainNoN Weng, signal the other WarJunks that they are to assume Battle Formation Alpha, the Wolf Pack.’

CaptainFemme Andrews commanding the WarJunk CSS
Dark
gave the signal to acknowledge that the message from Heii had been received, but though she was willing to admit to receiving it, whether she understood it was quite another matter. Whilst she would concede that AdmiralNoN Zheng Heii was a genius – his lectures at the Beijing Naval College were the ones she never missed – and that the tactics to be adopted tonight had been simulated many times in war games, she had never been convinced of their
appropriateness
.

To her way of thinking, when a force such as theirs was to be deployed against an enemy that outnumbered them but that was encumbered by the need to tow and protect sluggish troop barges, then the Wolf Pack was not the best battle formation. To use the five WarJunks the Coven possessed en masse – as the Wolf Pack demanded – was, in her opinion, a mistake. It made the WarJunks vulnerable to fire from shore batteries and susceptible to being surrounded by enemy warships. It also negated the effective use of what Andrews believed was their most potent weapon: the huge ram that the WarJunks had on their prows. It was Andrews’s belief that there wasn’t a ship on the river that would be able to resist being rammed by a WarJunk.

Better, she had proposed, that the WarJunks operate Lone Wolf-style, each of them being given an area of the Volga to patrol. Such tactics, she believed, would create the maximum confusion in the enemy fleet and lead to the maximum number of sinkings. But though this seemed eminently logical to her, whenever her Lone Wolf tactics had been played out in the war games conducted at the Naval College, the tonnage sunk was always less than that achieved by Zheng Heii’s Wolf Packs. It was as though the dice had been weighted against her. And so, reluctantly, she had had to concede, and tonight the five WarJunks would operate as a single unit.

‘Steer towards the centre of the Volga,’ she ordered. ‘Bring the
Dark
between the
Borgia
and the
Ptah
.’

Battle Formation Alpha demanded that the WarJunks proceed up the Volga in line abreast, sweeping all enemy vessels before them, then, just two hundred metres from the Anichkov Bridge, the WarJunks in positions two and four – the
Dark
and the
MostBien
, commanded by Andrews’s friend CaptainFemme Hôjô Masako – would drop back to create the W pattern demanded by the formation. This would allow the WarJunks to bring the maximum number of their guns to bear on the enemy without fear of hitting a friendly ship.

‘HelmsFemme reports we are now alongside
Borgia
and
Ptah
.’

With a nod of acknowledgement Andrews used her telescope to study the dark, brooding shape sailing to port, the low, triangular superstructure of the WarJunk cunningly designed to deflect enemy shells.

‘Lookout reports that the
Ptah
has veered off course, CaptainFemme. It is now only a cable-length from us.’

‘Send a signal to the
Ptah
asking it to be more diligent in keeping station.’

Andrews shook her head in mock-despair. Typically fucking useless NoN riverFemmeship: the dickless bastard, CaptainNoN
Matsei Iwane, commanding the
Ptah
, couldn’t even keep his ship pointed in the right direction. ABBA only knew how he had graduated ahead of her in the class of ‘01.

But there was more to her dislike of the
Ptah’s
commander than his poor riverFemmeship: there was something about the way Matsei Iwane looked at Femmes that told her he had never truly accepted the teachings of HerEticalism. There was something disturbingly heterosexual about the NoN.

She raised her glass to verify that the idiot was altering course. He wasn’t, and what was more he’d forgotten to batten down the hatches covering the
Ptah’s
gun ports. It was a surprise that – very briefly – turned to astonishment when the
Ptah
fired a point-blank broadside into the
Dark
.

‘Er, Comrade Captain, you ain’t gonna believe this but the lookouts report that the Coven’s WarJunks have started firing at each other.’

Worden snatched up his glass and trained it downstream. Sure enough, it appeared that three of the WarJunks sailing towards them were now pouring fire into the other two. Such was the ferocity of the bombardment that the ships under attack had already begun to list; they’d be gone in a matter of minutes.

‘What the devil?’

‘Lookout says that one of the WarJunks has run up a white flag. Seems like the Covenite Navy is intent on surrendering.’

Trixie thought CommanderNoN Jiao Yu was going to cry. His cheeks had gone scarlet and his bottom lip was trembling.

‘What’s the matter, CommanderNoN?’

Jiao Yu bowed. ‘GeneralFemme Dashwood … it is with the greatest grief that I must report to you an act of gross treachery performed by AdmiralNoN Zheng Heii. I have received a message
from Naval Observation Station Three stating that they have seen the WarJunk CSS
Wu
and two others loyal to Zheng Heii firing on WarJunks commanded by Femmes. The
Dark
and
MostBien
have been sunk.’ More lip-trembling: the NoN looked as though he was going to pass out. ‘The traitor Zheng Heii was then seen to surrender three WarJunks to the pig UnFunDaMentalists.’

Trixie took a deep, deep breath, trying to remain calm. It was at moments like these when real leaders showed their steel: it was easy to lead when things were going right, it was quite another thing to lead when everything around you was turning to shit. She nodded and then gave Jiao Yu a grim smile. ‘Okay, these things happen. Just be thankful that this treachery won’t materially affect the outcome of the war. The WarJunks are – were – an important part of our armoury, but not vital.’ She gave the NoN an encouraging smile. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll defeat the ForthRight without them.’

Jiao Yu was not in a mood to be reassured. ‘Again, with the deepest of respect, GeneralFemme, I fear that when this news is communicated to the Forbidding City, the retribution inflicted on NoNs will be terrible. The Empress Wu will undoubtedly take the actions of Zheng Heii as an indication that the loyalty of all NoNs is suspect.’ He paused. ‘The Empress Wu can be very … decisive when it comes to removing those she sees as threats to the HerEtical cause.’

‘I see.’ And what Trixie saw was that if Wu initiated a purge of NoNs, then any hope she had of defeating the UnFunnies was gone. NoN officers held a great many key positions in her army and without them the Coven’s military would be reduced to chaos.

‘Is Heii typical of all NoNs? Do I have to watch out for all of you?’

‘No, GeneralFemme; although Heii was revered as a great
military strategist there was always a suspicion amongst NoNs that his castration had not subdued the MALEvolence in his soul. And of course, though he was much respected, his influence was greatest in the navy, rather than the army.’

‘Okay. Then there is only one solution: we must not allow the message regarding Heii’s treachery to be transmitted to the Forbidding City. That way we’ll prevent the Empress doing anything precipitous.’

‘But to withhold intelligence from the Empress is treason.’

‘No, it’s war.’

‘But how?’

‘The Signalling Station is three rooms down from us. I suggest you take some GuardNoNs loyal to you and commandeer it.’

‘The signalFemmes will object.’

Trixie gave Jiao Yu an empty smile. ‘Stop that signal and you give your fellow NoNs a chance of living. Don’t and by evening you’ll all have been put up against a wall and shot. The choice is yours.’

For a long moment Jiao Yu was silent as he struggled, Trixie supposed, with the idea of doing something so unorthodox. Finally he unclipped the holster that held his sidearm and bowed to Trixie. ‘If you will excuse me for a moment, GeneralFemme.’