"THE WARLADY OF DULARN"
2567 A.D.!
By Jerome Bigge
Chapter Thirty Eight
"Back home, I always used to `dream' about leading a life of `adventure'," I said to Carol as we lent a hand in tautening the rigging. The North Star smashing through the waves with everyone looking nervously at Maris standing there at the wheel. She was driving the ship "hard". Putting far more "strain" on it than any reasonable captain would do save in the most dire emergency. The Swiftstar had once been Maris' own flagship before pirates working for Princess Tara took it with the help of the late Darl Jord. It was "fast", "handy", perhaps even "superior" to ours although we would "outgun" it some due to our superior armaments! It also had under the command of Princess Tara managed to keep ahead of the Corsica under the command of Lorraine herself for a period of about three and half days, finally eluding the Warlady in a great storm that resulted in the loss of Corsica's main mast due to Lorraine's eagerness to "close" with her own arch-enemy...
"And?" Carol asked, twisting the belaying pin, her foot braced against the railing. A bit of spray shooting up to wet us both. I wondered if the North Star was the "match" of Swiftstar? The Swiftstar was the fastest, "handiest" ship that Dularn could build. Smaller than the North Star, it might still be the faster even with the changes that Maris had made in her own ship's rig.
"I'd love to be sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and watching you peeling vegetables in one of those buckskin bi- kinis of yours," I smiled back. Carol usually wearing very lit- tle around the house, more to "tease" than anything else, I might note here. The sort of a woman who never left one any "doubts". I was getting "tired" of war, of fighting for a cause that seemed "hopeless"! Of fighting against a woman I had once much admired! That was before I had learned just what my wife was really like!!
"I wonder if Tais could send us back home after all this is over," Carol answered softly, glancing at Maris standing there as I secured things. The taut rigging singing in the breeze now as the North Star smashed through the waves towards the Swiftstar.
"She'd have to erase our memories," I pointed out to Carol.
"I wouldn't `want' that," my wife answered. I "understood". Carol was no longer the "playmate" she'd been back in our time. We had once stood together back to back in the arena at Trella. I could still hear the "roar" of the crowd, feel the heat of the hot summer sun on my naked shoulders, the sand beneath my feet...
"You've `proved' yourself in a way no woman `could' back in our own time," I said, seeing Carol nod back in the affirmative. That, I think, had been a "flaw" in our "Western Civilization".
"I'm `more' than just a `housewife' here," she replied.
"And `more' than just a `playmate'," I smiled back.
"What sort of `armament' does that clipper carry?" I asked, joining the Queen of Dularn there on the quarterdeck, Carol at my side. Closer to it now one could see how "big" the ship was. I guessed it at around a hundred and fifty feet in length, the masts perhaps a hundred feet or more. It carried top-gallants, sails no schooner carried, and the way that it tore through the water left no doubts that it probably could outrun us with ease!
"A dozen small ballistae a side," Maris smiled back at me. While it was not a "match" for the handier North Star in a fight, it could defend itself against most pirate vessels if it had to.
"Why do you build schooners when you could have something like that?" Carol asked. My wife is not "nautical" as such. She is a good Warlady. An excellent fighting woman. But no sailor!
"The North Star could sail circles around it in a fight," I pointed out to my wife. The Queen of Dularn nodding to affirm.
"They used square riggers back in the past," Carol replied.
"The cannon of that era considerably `outranged' the weapons of today," I pointed out. "Such battles were fought broadside to broadside as their ships had but limited abilities to maneuver."* * One reads here of ship to ship battles fought at distances so close you could almost reach out and touch the other ship. While the maximum range of the largest cannon of that era was about three miles in theory, the "effective range" was probably little more than half a mile due to the inaccuracy of the weapon. (J.B.)
"Now `seamanship' counts for more," Maris smiled at my wife, the two ships only a couple miles off now. I wondered what the captain of the clipper thought of all this. The "identity" of the North Star was not hard to determine due to its rig. He could run, but only if forced would he fight. Even the Swiftstar probably outgunned him, and there could no doubts about the big- ger North Star doing so! I should perhaps mention here that both the Swiftstar and the North Star (the same is true of the North Wind and also of the late North Land destroyed in 2566) are of a "design" that Maris herself worked on. She is "blonde", "beauti- ful", but she also has a "head" on her shoulders, I should note. *****************************************************************
"Signal from the clipper, your majesty," captain Valerie Dunn spoke, the azure eyes of her Imperial Highness meeting hers. Darlanis had "baited a trap". Now they had to find the "mouse"! Two days before the Swiftstar had been "trapped" in a small cove south of Sarn by an Imperial galley and had surrendered without a fight, the crew fleeing into the forest to escape the noose! With Valerie Dunn at her side and Sharon as co-pilot to fly the plane back, the Empress had taken command of the captured pirate, it being her intention to capture the North Star herself and thus avenge the blow to her injured pride by the loss of Sarnian Lady! Lorraine's new system of "telegraph" stations along the coast now allowing such messages to travel the length of the Empire in less than a day. It was, Darlanis mused, at least something that the "enemy" didn't know about, or if they did, could do much about! A bit of "technology" the Priestesses of Lys had not objected to.
"It is the North Star?" Darlanis asked, now standing up, the golden mesh of her attire giving her a "look" like none other as the light from the stern windows outlined her against its glare. The tall Empress a woman that anyone might admire, Valerie knew.
"A `North' class, anyway," Valerie smiled back. She "want- ed" the North Star as bad as Darlanis did, but for other reasons!
"Going to be a `nasty fight' too if it is," Darlanis smiled.
"I won't `fail' you," Valerie promised. She had shared much with the tall golden haired Empress since they'd left the estate. For a moment she thought of that little baby girl in Sarn. The one that the Nevada slave girl Pussycat had borne for this woman! A girl who someday Darlanis believed would be "Domino Tremaine", the last ruler of Earth before The War Between Earth and Mars.
"Maris Marn is `tricky', and that `Carol' is vicious," the Empress answered. "But we have a better ship, and a good crew."
"And you to `inspire' us all," Valerie spoke, drawing her sword, handing it hilt first to the Empress. Darlanis kissed it, and handed it back. Such is "meaningful" among the Warrioresses. *****************************************************************
"Something `funny' about that," Carol said, looking at the clipper and the Swiftstar apparently chasing it a mile or so back from the big square rigger. "That's just too heavily armed for a pirate to want to tackle." I glanced at Maris, saw her nod back!
"Battle Stations!" Maris snapped. "Wind up and load darts!"
"Look!" Carol breathed, the Swiftstar suddenly now turning! *****************************************************************
"I will trouble you, Valerie, to run up a proper flag," Dar- lanis said with a smile, lowering the telescope. "And it would be wise to ask Lys for her `blessing' as we are going to be in `harms way' very shortly now," the Empress added with a smile as Valerie stood beside her there on the glistening quarterdeck. A young midshipman there on the quarterdeck with them staring in awe at Darlanis until an order from his captain snapped him back out of his fantasy of what Darlanis might look like sans clothes! *****************************************************************
"That's not an Imperial flag!" I breathed, seeing it hoisted there, the Swiftstar now racing towards us, raising her battle flags. The memories flooding back, as suddenly I now remembered! The flag was the same one that had once flown over Sarnian Lady!
"Darlanis!" Maris spoke, almost in awe! Sharon's "She-Ra!"
"Like a bad penny!" Carol muttered in a low growl beside me.
"She's not likely to be in `command' this time," Maris said. We would be facing one of Lorraine's best captains. Perhaps Mark Berson of the Squala, or Valerie Dunn of the Corsica. I suspect- ed that it would be Valerie Dunn. Darlanis was from Dularn, as was Valerie in a way. The fighting women of this era tend to be a "clannish" bunch. Valerie had done well under Lorraine. How well she would do without Lorraine's guidance however was another question. From what we had learned earlier from Sanda Talen, Jon Richards had gone with Lorraine aboard the Athena. Maris had said that his skills at "command" were a "match" for hers. Maris had also told me once that she felt that Lorraine was more than a "match" for her, although I suspected myself that it was more Ma- ris' own lack of self confidence here at play than anything else.
"They are `handier'," Maris said to me. I nodded to Carol.
"You are Dularn's `best'," Carol spoke to her Queen then.
"I do have a `reputation' to live up to," Maris smiled. *****************************************************************
"It will be a battle of `wits', not `firepower'," Valerie Dunn said, standing beside the magnificent tall golden Darlanis. The Empress' long dark blue silken cape blowing in the breeze. The polished gold of her tiara glistening there in the sunlight.
"I have `trust' in you," Darlanis answered, touching her.
"Reef up those topsails!" Valerie yelled up at the men.
"It is a lovely day," Darlanis observed with a smile.
"If you say so, your majesty," Valerie answered back.
"`Steel is a Warrioress' best friend'," Darlanis said.
"`And the death-cry of a foeman is music in her ears'," Val- erie smiled back, recalling the many codes of her martial Caste. *****************************************************************
"You will stand at my side," Maris said to me. Carol would be in command of the ship's weaponry with Anis and Sandi helping her. Lars would command the bow and that very important jib that I had used earlier. I thought it a wise choice for battle. I had learned much from Maris of the command of a ship. The bal- ance of the wind up against the sails, the pressure of the waves. The "vector of forces" of which Lorraine has written elsewhere. A sailing ship is "alive" in a way no "powered" vessel ever is...
"The Swiftstar is taking in sail," I observed. That was part of my duties as first officer to keep Maris informed of such matters. To add my eyes to hers. To follow her orders, to take "command" if she fell in battle. I felt "confident" now of the ship, of what it could do. Of those who sailed her into battle.