1633

"Looks to me," Eddie continued, "like our best bet is going to be to get inshore of them. We ought to have enough water, and we'll keep an eye on the fathometer." He tapped the digital depth display, and Larry nodded again. "The main thing though, is that if we come at them from the coastline, we'll have the choice of breaking left or right after we fire without having to worry about running into the coast, right?"

"Sounds reasonable to me," Larry agreed. His effort to project an air of nonchalance was not an outstanding success, but Eddie decided not to hold that against him under the circumstances.

"What I'd really like to do," he explained, "is to take out some of their warships. That's where their commanding officer's most likely to be, and I'll bet that most of those merchant ships would just as soon be somewhere else, anyway. If we can pick off a couple of their escorts, they may turn and run for it. And it looks to me like most of their regular navy units are concentrated toward the back of their formation." He pointed across the water. "That's probably so that they'll have the wind behind them if they have to run down to intercept us if we try to get at the transports."

Larry nodded again, and Eddie turned to the other member of their three-man crew. Bjorn Svedberg was a bit on the scrawny side for a proper Viking, but he certainly had the blond hair and beard for the role. More to the point, however, he'd been chosen for the Outlaw's crew because his English, although heavily accented, was excellent.

"I want to make at least two attack runs, Bjorn. You and I will let Lieutenant Wild manage the helm while we reload between shots. Right?"

"Right," Svedberg agreed, and nodded so enthusiastically that Eddie chuckled. Bjorn really wanted to see the rocket launcher in action. Well, so did Eddie, come to that. Although now that the moment was approaching, he seemed to be experiencing a small degree of difficulty where bladder control was concerned.

He drew a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out.

"All right, then, Larry," he said. "Cut around to get between them and the shore."

"Right. I mean, yessir."

The big speedboat swung to port as Larry eased the wheel over.

Hans concentrated conscientiously on his flying as he floated between the chasms of cloud, but it wasn't easy. The surface of the Baltic was a dark blue carpet below him, wrinkled by moving lines of white as waves marched across it. From up here, it was easy to imagine that all he saw below him were toys, but he knew better.

This wasn't like the day he had gone into battle the first time as a terrified young recruit whose only fragile chance of protecting his extended family had depended on "proving himself" in the eyes of the very men who'd murdered his father and gang raped his sister. Then he'd faced battle not because he'd wanted to, but because he'd had no choice. Because he'd had to fight as one of those he hated with all his heart and soul, for the sake of those he loved.

Today was different. Today he sat in the cockpit of this wondrous airplane because he'd chosen to. Because he'd found something he would never have believed might have existed just two years ago: a nation and a cause that was actually worth dying for. A world which would protect those he loved even if he was no longer in it, and which would extend that protection to everyone.

Hans Richter wasn't made of the same unflinching steel as his sister. He knew that, and he accepted it. After all, no one was as strong as Gretchen… or as ruthless where her loved ones were concerned. But he was her brother. Some of that same steel infused him, even if in lesser measure, and he felt it now at his core.

He had nothing personal against any of the Danes on those ships below him. More than that, he knew they were being used just as surely as he'd been used during his brief career as one of Tilly's mercenaries, and that the subtle mind which had truly chosen them as tools resided in Paris, not Copenhagen. But that didn't matter. However they came to be here, they were a mortal threat to everything in the universe that mattered to Hans, and he would remove that threat. He and his brothers from the future, he thought, gazing down at the white arrowhead of foam curving around to attack the enemy.

He watched the Outlaw circling around, and even as he kept his wary hand light upon the stick, a part of his mind was down on that arrowhead with Eddie and Larry, accompanying two more of those he loved into battle.