SOME GOLDEN HARBOR – snippet 80:
The operations and maintenance staff for the missile battery was quartered in six bunkers on the inner face of the berm to the right of the gateway. They were accommodation trailers which'd been sunk waist deep, covered with spoil from the battery pit, and sand-bagged across the portion of the front that was still above ground. So long as those within were lying flat, they had sufficient protection even if the missiles were launched.
Now soldiers inside were kneeling to shoot out from the doorways. The nearest was twenty yards from Adele, the farthest some thirty-five.
"Mistress!" Tovera shouted.
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1635: THE CANNON LAW – snippet 98:
Sharon watched them down the street, and out of sight as they turned on to the via Calabria to leave the city by the Porta Salaria. They had a rendezvous point at a village about ten miles away, which they should reach by sundown. The ten people left behind would make better time, of course, and in theory would overtake them on the road. If they didn't, Tom and Rita would have to take their best guess as to what to do. They had the radio crew with them, at least, so they would be able to consult with Magdeburg if they truly had to.
At least most of the people she was responsible for were out of harm's way. Adolf would be pleased that the final clear-up would be done with fifty or sixty fewer bodies underfoot. She was about to turn and go back inside and help when Ruy appeared, trotting his horse around the corner and coming back to the front door.
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SOME GOLDEN HARBOR – snippet 79:
Adele was furious with herself. If she'd captured the trailer intact, they wouldn't have to worry about the battery controls: she could simply have locked them out. By using the heavy pistol–
She turned, caught the strobe in the weapon's holographic sight, and squeezed off. The light exploded in a shower of sparks. The pistol's barrel, already glowing from the previous shots, shimmered yellow.
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1635: THE CANNON LAW – snippet 97:
Melissa's heavenward roll of the eyes was all the agreement anyone could want from that quarter. "Are things getting moving yet?" she asked.
"Soon." Sharon hadn't been the only one to remain awake all night. Adolf had kept watch too, and she'd found him just beginning to rouse his people to get the evacuees marshaled. "We'll be a couple of hours after dawn, I think. We have to get the horses loaded up again, breakfast for everyone, and then hit the road. Normally, that’s an hour, tops, but here…"
"But everything becomes simple, and the simple becomes difficult," Melissa said. "As an old warmonger once observed. I think it'll be midmorning before we finally get moving, myself."
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1635: THE CANNON LAW – snippet 96:
CHAPTER 36
Rome
The evacuation was rapidly turning into a small slice of hell for Sharon. It was beginning to look like just loading the carriages yesterday and getting while the getting was good would have been the best plan.
Right now, there was a small crowd of would-be evacuees catching a few hours sleep, wrapped in blankets in the embassy ballroom. The carriages and the three carts that the marines had managed to acquire—Sharon decided she really didn't need to know where or how, although they had spent money to get them—were standing idle. The plans to retain remounts for their cavalrymen had pretty much gone up in smoke. There was a pack made up for every horse that was not carrying an armed man. It would take more than a couple of hours to get everything moving again after Sharon had decided, shortly after midnight, that everyone that could should get some rest before they moved out.
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SOME GOLDEN HARBOR – snippet 78:
There was an immediate undulation in the crowd, enough that Adele could worm her way to the front with only a modicum of pushing. Her skin felt hot and prickly as though she were about to faint. She'd be all right when she started down the ramp, but the packed hold was working on her agoraphobia. It crushed her with the weight of so many people who weren't moving and couldn't move.
"Remember, we wait for Officer Mundy!" Vesey said. She had to raise her voice, because shuffling and the sound of excited breathing created a susurrus like the incoming tide.
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SOME GOLDEN HARBOR – snippet 77:
CHAPTER 21: Mandelfarne Island on Dunbar's World
The landing jounced Adele so hard against her terminal's simple lap belt that it broke her concentration on the message traffic swirling around the Pellegrinian base. She turned her head with a frown. Vesey was sitting rigidly at her console, hands poised over the controls.
Of course. Vesey had to follow Captain Cootzee's standard operating procedure, so she was letting the Rainha's computer land them instead of easing the ship in manually the way Daniel'd taught her to do. With an ordinary water landing it didn't make a great deal of difference, but the reflected thrust made a ship coming in over land quiver like a ball on a vibrating table. A skilled pilot could land much more smoothly by matching thruster output to the terrain.
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1635: THE CANNON LAW – snippet 95:
As he watched, he saw his men encircle the farmhouse, a little beyond effective musket range. That didn't stop the defenders from trying their luck, and there was soon a thin haze of gunsmoke around the place. It was too much to hope that the wadding would fire the woodpile, Don Vincente supposed, and then he was surprised by the sight of a lit torch being thrown over the stone wall. The sergeant had clearly spotted a covered route up to the house. Don Vincente made a note to commend Ezquerra and see he got a bonus. Small bags of powder followed the torch, loosely tied so they scattered over the woodpile. It was not long before there was a blaze, and loosely-tied bundles of green brush were coming over the wall. Don Vincente's eyes began to sting, and he realized he had taken position upwind of the farmhouse without thinking. Chiding himself, he moved around to where Quevedo was watching.
"A good man, that sergeant," Quevedo remarked.
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1635: THE CANNON LAW – snippet 94:
"They will escape," Quevedo said, but his tone made it a question.
Don Vincente silently thanked God and all his angels and saints for the minor miracle of a reasonable Cardinal’s agent. "I can put all forty muskets across this road in two ranks. Or I can charge six horse against twelve. Faster this way. More haste, less speed, yes?"
Quevedo nodded. "All possible speed, if you please," he said, and reined in as they came to a hundred yards.
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SOME GOLDEN HARBOR – snippet 76:
Daniel wasn't really concerned about the time it took to load in Ollarville. The real worry was how quickly the troops would disembark under hostile fire. There was no way to practice that.
"Not bad!" Quinn said with the artificial verve he'd shown before. "And a first drill! Now we'll see if the 3d and 4th battalions can better their time."
The troops had finally vanished into the ship, though Daniel was sure they'd still be packing the entry hold for another several minutes. Nonetheless, quickly enough.
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