Close to Kaman Sala

There was a deep darkness around Piers van Meert, a darkness full of the sounds of moving waters, the smells of unwashed humanity and adrenaline. The boat below him rocked with the movement of the waves and the action of the rowers that propelled his boat onwards. Before him were the few lights of the harbour and city at night. The ship he hailed from that was his backup was far behind him. He was taking an assault party into a city where every citizen hated his guts and where a high price was probably placed on each head.

Were the armed forces of Kaman Sala take note of him he would be in deep shit and happy if he could extract his party without too many losses. He wasn`t too worried though, he had faith in a higher power.

The Griffon's muscles moved under Freiherr von Herbst legs like a bunch of snakes while the laboured to keep the huge animal and its rider aloft. The Freiherr was used to this movement from before the time he had to shave. What was absolutely new to him was the monochrome vision provided by his Night Vision Googles. Watching the ground below was difficult as the device have a picture without any depth perception and the field of vision was restricted but he could trust his Griffon not to fly them into the ground.

"Party one, this is Usher. Patrol one has reached the far end of the bay and returns. Patrol two is still on course. If you speed up a little you will miss both."
"Acknowledged Usher. Keep it up."

The trip through the darkness had allowed Piers` eyes to adapt to the point where he could make out more details, especially now that the city`s lights were closer. He still used his NVG to get a better view and what he saw reassured him. To his front were the five galleons that had been captured from the Marienburgers, there was a bit of empty space, there was a gaggle of ships that were probably kept in port by the blockade and finally the Sultan`s warships. None showed too many sentries and more importantly none had rigged the nets that were the standard protecting when expecting nightly visitors.

Things should not be too difficult from here. This time "Altdorf`s" party was not restricted to cold steel, now they could use the best weapons the Empire had been able to acquire for them. He would decide if it were possible to take at least a galleon with them, the pinnacle easily had the power to tow one once he could switch the motor on. He would make sure that there was no guard left on board or even some of the crew and then burn the ships he had to leave behind.

If that would not get the bloody Sultan to sit up and take notice he did not know what would. The Galleons were moored against each other, quay space was at a premium here as anywhere else. There was a duo and a group of three so that two ships were moored to the quay itself. Given the absence of nets the ships closest to the city were the most likely to have guards in them.

"Ensign Mertens, you take the one to the starboard, I`ll tackle backboard."

Van Meert knew such operations were not so unusual but wondered how they could ever succeed without wireless and night vision. His first inkling of the problem was the smell. When he had cast off "Altdorf" there had been none except for the tang of salt in the air. When he closed to the shore his nose had picked up the rotting algae that landlubbers call the smell of the sea. The closer he got to the Araby city the worse the smell of too many humans in close proximity without a decent sanitary system had gotten. When he closed with the empty galleons that smell got a ton worse, why?

There was no way to find out without boarding the ship and that was what he did together with his crew. The richly detailed sailships offered more than enough handholds to pull himself up to the galleons railing. Every tinkling of metal, every slipped shoe, every indrawn breath rivalled the thunder in his ears that was his heartbeat. His every muscle was tense as he awaited the shrill cries of alarm and the hot pain of a spear that would pierce him until he reached the ships deck. He crawled a few meters in before resting. His ears found nothing but the creaking of wood and the small waves that broke on the ship`s sides. The longer he stayed here he was sure to hear a bit of breathing and maybe sobbing but it stayed so much at the edge of his perception that he could never be sure. He was about to go back to his NVG when the light started up. Like the others in his team he froze where he was before he found it hard to suppress a chuckle. A lone man had lifted the cover of his lamp to properly cram his pipe. He took his sweet time about it, destroying whatever night vision he might have had and at the same time illuminating his companion. Both were swarthy, had immense moustaches, dirty-white clothes to fight off the night chill and wore an assortment of blades.

When the lamp was finally doused again van Meert prodded the coxswain that was closest to him and felt him slithering off together with a few shadows he barely saw against the lesser darkness. There were a few "thunk" and a half-muffled cry that was cut off before it really took off. Everybody froze for a second and relaxed when nothing happened.

With or without his Night Vision van Meert could not find any more guards and a suspicion began to form in his mind. Pushing, prodding and whispered orders brought a group of sailors to both sides of the door that led to the quarterdeck. The snores told the story already and when the door closed Van Meert dared to switch on his flash-light. The nights in the desert can be remarkably cold and these guards had obviously taken to guard the officer`s quarters and promptly fallen asleep there. They were now getting awake, tangling in their clothes or the hammocks they had appropriated. Before he could give any command rifle butt crashed on skulls and knives went for throats. Ten seconds of competent violence gave five incapacitated guards and left van Meert thankful that he had a competent crew. No pressgangs had rounded up these, the navy had been in the position to choose for a change.

"Berger, take your group below. Won`t leave anybody burning alive, even not these."
"Aye aye, Sir."
The Coxswain was barely gone when his wireless crackled again.
"Party one, this is party two. Sir, we`ve got us a huge problem."
Van Meert was still thinking about whether to reprimand the ensign for bad reporting or let it slide when his coxswain came back and his eyes told a similar story.

Henrik Gerber walked from one edge of Altdorf`s bridge to the other one and had done so for the last two hours. He knew that he was driving his bridge crew mad and was patently unable to do anything else. He had sent a significant portion of his crew on a mission that his former comrades-in-arms would have called foolhardy if they were in a fellow mood. Yet something had to be done and this was one of the better ideas they had come up with. Well, the worst thing that could happen was that the party was discovered prematurely and he was quite positive that they could fight their way out of the harbour of needs be.
He was besides the commo station when the wireless came to life and needed all his restraint not to rip the handle from the operator`s hands. He still grabbed it with less than grace when it was finally offered.

"Home one, this is party one. Sir, we have a situation here. We have found most of the Marienburgers still on their ships. It seems that the local bleeders do not have enough slave pens at the moment as we blockade them. Then ones we already spoke to said that the rest is probably in a few barracks close by. Sir, we cannot burn the ships and we cannot take them out even with their former crews, not at night and we would need time to make the ships ready for cast off ayway."

"Party one, this is Home one. Put as many of the Marienburgers on you boats and get the hell back here. The Sultan wins this round."
"Sir is there anything more we can do? Leaving the Marienburgers here would expose them to whatever revenge fantasy the fuckers here come up with."
"You said yourself that you need too much time to make the ships ready for disembarking. Sooner or later you will be discovered and I doubt that you can hold the locals off long enough. I`ll certainly not take "Altdorf" into this harbour at night."
"Yes Sir, we will..."
That was when the screaming started, the shooting could be heard even on "Altdorf".

Lieutenant van Meert watched with horror as the horde of soldiers ran down the way from the Sultan`s fortress towards the harbour. Even since the screams had started from the slave pens various lights had gone on all through the dense city of Kaman Sala. A gate in the fortress had opened a couple of minutes ago and ever since then a mess of white-clad soldiers were yelling in pitched voices, screamed, brandished their weapons and made for his position.
He did not have any idea what had caused the alarm but with so many freed slaves it wasn`t hard to imagine one of them had done something stupid like going for hos chums or relatives.

His thoughts were stopped by the wireless again.
"Party one, this is Usher. Both patrol boats have reversed course and are making for your position."
"Acknowledged Usher."
He fumbled with the brick-sized wireless till he hit the next channel.
"Ensign Brand, there are two boats approaching. You need to take care."
"On it Sir."

Van Meert heard the diesel that started below when the pinnacle manoeuvred from "his" galleon" to gain space. At the same time the first shots could be heard from the forecastle, the sharp cracks of the rifles and the deeper boom of the shotguns that many of his men had.

He turned towards the man that had been brought up from below. He had obviously lost weight during the last weeks, reacted badly to even the little light that was in the room and sported several ugly bruises. The irons that had fastened him to the ship below were still on his arms, his men could not open the riveted fetters so fast.

"How fast can you get your people into the galleon closest to the water Heer Visser? We can tow that one out of the water."
"Heer van Meert, two hours at least, my people are chained down and many are very weak you have to understand.."
"Heer Visser, we do not have two hours, we are lucky if we have 20 minutes, you have to be faster or we have to leave some of yours behind."
"We cannot do that, you have to..."

"De Vifjf Provence`s" Master was interrupted by the crackling of more gunfire that came from various sources.

"We will do our best Heer van Meert, we will."
"Party one this is Usher. Your ensign may be a bit busy right now but he has just dispatched the two patrol boats. Sharp young man that one."
"Acknowledged Usher and thanks."

Van Meert stepped to the quarterdeck to get an idea of what was happening. He did not like it at all. There were people brought from the ships moored to the quay to the ones closer to the sea but at the same time more came from the barracks next to them. Some of his men were on land and tried to hold back the Sultan`s warriors. They had stopped the vanguard but from the sounds their leaders got their blood up for a hard push. Given how few meters were between his men and the next bend in the alleyway he could hardly imagine the few soldiers holding back the tide.

"Ensign Brand where..."

There was a roar in the waters next to him and a flickering flame added its light to a massacre.
The bullet was nothing special, ten grams of lead, copper and steel moving at 800 meters per second. It never got a second to slow down, instead it hit flesh and bone after less than a tenth of that. The projectile entered a torso, smashing a rib inwards so it pierced the lung behind it and starting to jaw a bit. Its rapid passage left a shockwave that compressed the tissues to its side to the point where it resembled mush before the bullet stroke the same rib it had touched on the way in, ripping it off. The chest of its first victim had yet to fill with blood from the many torn blood vessels when the projectile punched into a shoulder that was presented to it, pulverising the joint beyond any possibility of healing. Turning wildly now hit impacted on a stone and ricocheted upwards and to the right. It flew through a window where it smashed an oil lamp to tiny pieces, spreading the fuel wide and far. The owners of the house were far too terrified to douse the flames while it was still possible.

When the house dropped down half an hour later the bullet was still in one of the adobe walls.
By that time it had companions, 199 of them from the belt that Ensign Brand had ordered to fire into the mass of soldiers that assaulted "Aldorf`s" position. Firing the machine gun from a stable mount allowed the rating to keep most of the long salvo on target despite being shot within 10 seconds. The survivors gazed at the carnage for a second before beating it.

Piers van Meert had watched that with satisfaction, he rated slavers and those who supported them as unworthy of life. Anything else about the situation was a clusterfuck. He had allowed this operation to exceed its bounds by far. He had no idea where half of his command was, he had no clear strategy to accomplish the limited goals that he had been given and no real strategy for an exit. Bad, bad and bad.

He grabbed his wireless and the NVG to get a grip on what was happening.

"Party two, this is one. What is your situation."
"Could be better Sir. We have moved all crew from the first ship but there are still some people coming from the quay. We can cut the lines in the next ten minutes or so and the tide will move us into the bay but it will take longer to get us moving from there."
"Party two, about same here, we will take a bit longer as we have a ship more. Get the crews organised and be ready to pull back your men in time."
"Will do Sir"
"Good man, keep at it."
"We will not leave these Marienburgers here Sir, not with these slavers."
"No we will not."

"I hate to break your conversation gentlemen, but you have a problem."
"What gives Usher."
"I see people on the warships and they seem to work on both the oars and the guns. You might have company soon."
"Home one, this is party one, did you hear that Sir."
"Seems like you overstayed your welcome Party one. How soon can you move?"
"One hour earliest, we have to do something about the galleys. Can we take them under indirect fore with us or Usher as observers."
"We are working on it. Contact you as soon as we are ready."
"Godspeed Sir."

There were two deep booms that rattled the few intact windows on the galleon Van Meert was standing on and two sprouts of water actually not too far from the pinnacle was. Tít answered with a machine gun salvo that looked feeble. There was shouting on board of the galleys, sparks and splinter were flying and the guns were still back and fired again. There was more shouting from the many alleys that went to the harbour and he had to pull his men back right now if he did not want to loose them.

He was still shouting orders when he saw the first galley move. It seemed to freeze his heart for a moment. Even of "Altdorf" finally sunk that galley it would block the only way he had to escape. Maybe if he could get the pinnacle close enough to drop some of his incendiaries into it?
And that was when things ended in a flash.

He had not realized how much his eyes had adapted to then darkness, had massaged the last bit of information from the few photons that hit the retinas. He gazed downwards in time to avoid the worst but for a moment he could hardly believe what he saw. The sky no longer displayed the rich field of stars as there was something burning so hot that it outshone it all. Descending under a parachute, flickering and sputtering a flare painted everything in a harsh white light.
There were green blobs in van Meerts eyes but none of them masked what just entered Kaman Sala`s harbour through the channel that should have been complicated to navigate by night and without a pilot.

"Altdorf" might be of middling size to the Germans that had built her but here she seemed like an avatar of naval warfare, a deity that had been roused to a dangerous wrath. The forward twin turret erupted with muzzle flame and the galley that had started to move vanished between two fireballs. When they ceased to be splintered wreckage had replaced a warship about to go into action. A flickering light above the turret managed to get van Meert`s attention despite the flare. One of "Altdorf`s" quadmounts shot a long salvo that ran along the battery that held Kaman Sala`s guns. He did not know if any enemy had taken their station in that battery yet but he was very sure that none would dare to do anything to gain the warships attention any time soon.

"Party one this is Home one. Do you need more artillery support."
"Thanks Sir you seem to have it in hand. Not that I am ungrateful or anything but In was under the impression getting Altdorf in here was too risky."
"To leave more sailors to become slaves like we just had-no, not in this life. And you had far too much fun not to join."
"Thanks Sir."

Van Meert had been wrong, it took more than an hour to get three of the galleons ready for towing and every body from the slave barracks into the ships. Henrik Gerber was no longer nervous to hear about success and losses, he was in the thick of things. Injured had to be treated, lines had to be run an enemy had to be observed and suppressed. He was busy as a one-armed wall-paper hanger and felt better than at any other time during this night.
The first indication something was off was the blue light that rose from far parts of the city. Something huge and amorphous rose to the sky and resolved itself into the likeness of a sword-armed man without legs and the size of the galley Altdorf had just sunk.

Henrik watched how two streams of tracers converged on it. They seemed to discomfort it but did not banish. It roared something, seemed to inhale deeply and then breathed in "Altdorf`s" general direction. Waves in the harbour bay and the moving masts of ships showed a mighty wind, but something stopped migitated it before it did more than rock the escort a bit.
"Altdorf`s" mage had just burned through a Roll of Warding, something he hated. By the same time Henrik Gerber was already on the wireless again.

"Usher, this is Home one. We have a strong signal on the magic indicator at 280 degree, can you see anything there."
"Home one, give me a minute."
By that time the apparition had tried another attack which unexplainablly broke off before it did much. Henrik was to ask Meister Keppel about it when half a human body dropped into the waters of the harbour.
His aerial element might lack radar, torpedoes or depth charges but claws and a fearsome beak.

Two hours later everybody was back out of Kaman Sala, minus two ratings who had not made it. The retreat was lit by the fires of two galleons and half of Kaman Sala`s waterfront. During the way back through the channel "Altdorf`s" captain sweated a ton of bricks and asked himself repeatedly how he could have been so crazy as to pass through these under nearly double the speed he currently towed a galleon at.

It was the day after the next one, the one when two galleons had left for Saratosa when the galley approached them under a flag of parley. Captain Halabi asked for negotiations and was taken on board of "Altdorf". Henrik Gerber was reasonably certain that Kaman Sala`s Sultan would have seen the light.

"My master the Sultan Mehmet IV, the magnanimous, the beautiful, the awesome of Kaman Sala is enraged at the cowardly attack on his fair city. He demands compensation for the damage done and blood money for the deaths of the heroic defenders. Sultan Mehmet IV, the magnanimous, the beautiful, the awesome will allow passage of infidel ships if these demands are met and tribute is paid."
"Tell Sultan Mehmet that we found his investigation lacking, that he has tried to enslave the victims of piracy. We have freed the people and some of the ships the pirates you protect kidnapped. Until the day when Kaman Sala is no longer open to pirates and the slave trade we will continue to blockade it."
"You think my master, the Sultan Mehmet weak of will. He has this gift for you so you might think about what you might achieve with your cowardly deeds.

The box he left was carefully checked my the mage and opened with tools. There was no bomb and no poison, there was the severed head of Pieter van Ries, master of the fleet that had been taken by the pirates.

Close to Kaman Sala

It was the perfect beach, white, fine sand, the blue sea, the sun already going down again and a few palm trees to give a bit of shade. Henrik Gerber would have loved to bring his wife Sabine and kids here for a couple of days under the sun. Instead he was about to meet up with a man he despised and hated. Sultan Mehmet IV was harbouring pirates, fenced their goods, kept and dealt with slaves. Especially after seeing the severed head in the box Gerber would have murdered the ruler without qualm. Yet he could not and he would not as such was his duty. In the end the whole goal of what his ship had been doing during the last weeks was to make Kaman Sala`s ruler behave.

If said worthy had come to that conclusion, and Captain Halabi had been long in describing the plight of the women in children in Kaman Sala who hungered because of his blockade, that might provide sufficient motivation. Given the fields surrounding the city "Altdorf`s" captain was sceptical about this but if a chance presented itself to end things on decent terms then he would take it. He was still careful and so he had rejected the invitation into the Sultan`s palace as had been the counteroffer to use his ship. His crew had observed the inoffensive piece of waterfront for hours and had detected nothing but a richly clothed fop with his retainers. The small speck in the sky that was "Altdorf`s" griffon would spot any force approaching the meeting in time. He had enough firepower in the pinnacle close to the beach that he would be able to evac before any treachery the Sultan might plan got a chance to succeed.

His right hand kept a tight grip on his sword`s handle, it would really not do to stumble and drop while wading through the surf. The locals were all the same, if you were an officer and did not carry a sword you were not worthy of attention. His was a gift from the Imperial Army when he had been discharged to join the navy. Very close to the longswords he had practised so much with it was of dwarven manufacture and was well-balanced, flexible enough not to break, hard enough to hold an edge which one could shave and utterly lethal in the right hands. It was also far too long to be worn and heavy to be easily carried as an officer`s sword and he had made a point not to wear it when on duty, his crew had enough funny ideas as things were. But the locals had these ideas and they would not take any officer seriously who did not have a long piece of sharp iron ready. It had gotten to the point where the Bundeswehr had an official sword again for liaison officers.

He went from the surf to the line where the many algae died, up to the point where the wind shaped the sand without the sea interfering too often and to the point where he stood face-to-face with Captain Halabi.

"Captain Halabi, my I introduce Coxswain Berger to you. He is my aide for today."
"Captain Gerber, you are now in the presence of Sultan Mehmet IV, the magnanimous, the beautiful, the awesome of Kaman Sala. You will kneel in his presence."
"No, we will certainly not."
"You are on the land the Sultan claims."
"I am not his subject nor will I ever be. If you want to negotiate we should start right now."
"Very well then."

Halabi stepped aside so that Altdorf`s captain found himself face to face with a whip-slender man clothed in fine loose clothes with a huge mustache and several rings that pierced different parts of his face.

"So you are the man who blockades my harbour, kills my subjects, steals my slaves, burns my ships and does not kneel before his betters. What gives you the right?"
"I have been on one one of the ships that was about to bring you more "merchandize" Sultan and we could not save all of them. I have seen mothers holding their dead children and I have seen what you did to the crews of the merchant ships that you allowed pirates to bring into your harbour. I have all the rights I need and more."
„I see. You do not know our laws, our customs, our history and why we do what we do. You are an ignorant fool who does not even know how the Sultan of Kaman Sala really looks like."

The pipe used by Captain Halabi was small but her tone so shrill, loud and dissonant that she was heard for quite a while. She might very well be Henrik Gerber`s funeral bell.
Sand erupted around then two Imperials when tarps were pushed aside and warriors emerged who had spent the last eight hours under them and a foot of soil. They spit out the reeds that had provided air and screeched a battle cry that was wordless and full of hate.
Halabi and the fake sultan drew their swords and led the charge that brought them far too close to Gerber and his coxswain for the crew of the pinnacle and their machine gun.

Henrik had one chance and that was that the assailants were clumsy after their long immobile waiting and nearly blind from the sun that was so bright in their eyes adapted to darkness. Henrik drew his pistol that seemed to cling to its holster. The fake sultan was far too close when a deep boom announced that his aide had brought his shotgun to bear. At this close range the projectiles had no chance to spread much and so they removed most of the attacker`s heart. By that time Henrik had his pistol out and shot at the fake sultan. He missed, even at this distance which was not so unusual given the surprise. The age-old P1 managed to clip a shoulder with the second round and ripped off the biceps with the third. The shotgun boomed again and the next attacker tried to breathe through a very large hole where a windpipe used to be.

By now adrenaline had flooded Henrik Gerber`s brain and things slowed down. Now he had all the time in the world to bring his pistol about and to shoot twice into the chest of a man who still stumbled towards him. He changed target and placed a shot into an ugly face as he had missed the center of mass. Two more shots stopped the man behind that one and then the pistol itself became a projectile when he threw it in the general direction of the next attackers.

He even had the time to remember the old joke of "Eight misses and one well-aimed throw" while he drew his sword from his scabbard. The next man came so much closer. He could see the missing teeth, the silver earrings and smell the bad breath when his sword came down from above his shoulder. His teachers had called that the Meisterhau, the master stroke. The sword`s blade met a sabre on the way down. Maybe one day a sword wielded single-handedly by somebody weighting about 60 kilogram would stop a longsword used by somebody twice the weight with a serious dose of hate but today was not that day. The stroke managed to hew through half the neck and all of the spine showing Altdorf`s captain in bright blood. Henrik half turned and his outstretched leg hit the chest of the next warrior who was so impolite to attack while he still pulled the weapon from the wound. Both hands guided his sword above his shoulder and then punched it forward like a spear that went into the face that was closest to him.

The shotgun`s report reminded Gerber that he was not the only participant in this fight and his coxswain had killed another attacker. He half tuned his head for a second to see that Berger reversed his gun to use the butt. And there were far too many warriors left for this to end well which did not mean he was going to take his on his knees. The next warrior discovered that the longsword was indeed longer than his weapon and that having no knuckle-bow would have allowed him to retain these fingers. The sabre dropped amidst more blood and shrieking, a shrieking that immediately stopped when a follow-up thrust pierced the throat that was used to make it. Gerber brought the sword around just in time to intercept the next weapon that went his way. Guiding the sword above his shoulder he changed hand positions, locked his sword behind the enemy`s neck and pulled. The warrior dropped when he hit the leg that was in his way. He was trying to get up from the prone position he was in when 120 kilogram of muscles and bone propelled the longsword right through him. And that was the moment the weapon became struck, the moment when Henrik Gerber knew he was about to die and the moment the battle stopped for a moment.

This was no conscious decision on the part of any participant, they had no choice. There was the scream which was unlike anything they had heard. It was a steam kettle`s shriek at the volume of a heavy metal concert, it stopped any thought and action, it was the challenge of an apex predator. It was accompanied by a meaty impact, by a grunt and the sound of tearing flesh.

Freiherr von Herbst had brought his Griffon down from the sky and had landed on one unfortunate. The griffon was an impressive beast, more than a ton of long beak, with talons the size of a dagger, of iron-hard muscles, lightweight bones and aggression. Its forearms pulled in two more warriors and shredded them before they met a beak that removed the head of one. The Freiherr`s spear was suddenly less of an ornament and more of a menace when he used it to skewer a warrior who tried his luck from behind. Henrik Gerber found his wits again to jump forward, placing him before his fallen coxswain. He had to move at the very limits of his capabilities to fend off the efforts of two more warriors and could just hope to hold until his air support came to his rescue. This was very difficult as the two spilt up to attack from both sides. Henrik was about to jump back when one of them stumbled and allowed him to remove the sword of the other one together with a substantial portion of the hand that held it. Turning back he found that Berger had grabbed the warrior anckle and held fast despite the pummelling the warrior gave him. Using the hilt of his sword Gerber punched against the neck just below the warriors turban. Something crunched and the lifeless body dropped besides his crewman.

And that was it. The only living beings on the formerly perfect beach were not trying to kill Henrik Gerber and the pinnacles` crew was making their way. He found his coxswain breathing and barely able to answer so he pushed his back up and looked for any wounds to dress when the griffon approached.

"Thanks Freiherr, that was a last minute save. Never thought I would need your services this way."
"An airship could hardly have done that eh? No matter, all that ends well is well. And Captain, I have seen my share of swordplay during the years. Your`s was quite a good show."
"Better I had not been so stupid as to walk in this trap."
"As you said before when I warned you you had to give it a chance. I am not so happy top be right, believe me."

"I do, but Freiherr..."
"Yes Sir?"
"We are supposed to treat the enemy dead with some respect. I do not believe "Aufrecht" understands that."
"You have to understand Sir. This soy stuff you feed him is really not to his taste."
"I think we`ll amend his diet in future, he certainly earned it. Still, could you please stop him from doing...that."
"Will be a bit difficult but I`ll give it my best."

Airspace above Kaman Sala

The projectile was nothing special, 16 kilograms of steel, explosives and electronics. It had just been shot from the left gun in "Altdorf`s" forward turret and had been accelerated to nearly three times the speed of sound. If its flight would have lasted a minute, it would have turned several ten thousand times. The violence of the firing and the rapid spinning had broken two capsules which now provided a battery with electrolyte. The fuse used the shell`s revolutions to measure time and when the time was right a small transponder started to emit a strong if short-lived signal. Two seconds after the signal was emitted the shell received bits of backscatter from that signal and 15 milliseconds later the signal was strong enough to trigger the fuse. A small capsule of metal salts went first, triggering a larger charge that finally ignited 2.5 kilogram of TNT and Amatol. The detonation converted the shell into hundreds of sharp fragments and a shockwave at ten meters above ground, beating a circle of death below it. The shell had exploded before Kaman Sala`s gate as did two others before there was a small break that left Ensign Brand furiously using his wireless.

On top of the wall Mehmet IV, the magnanimous, the beautiful, the awesome had voided his bowels at the violence that had come without any warning. For a moment the sultan was rendered mute, unable to make sense of what just had happened and incapable of deciding what to do. The soldiers around him got a look at the soiled trousers and the look in their faces was what brought Mehmet to his senses.

"Stand fast, stand fast in the face of the invaders."

He tried to make the retreat to the shelter of the towers interior slow enough to keep some dignity and be away before the treacherous Imperials struck next. He was in sight of the heavy door when the next explosions ripped through the air, closer this time. Some fell into the city, some immediately in front of the wall and two exploded on top. That was when he started to run, that was when his beautiful shoes slipped from his feet and made him stumble. He dropped on his ample belly and suffered the humiliation of being stepped upon several guard who wanted to gain something close to safety as fast as possible. He screamed abuse at them and pushed himself up on his arms just to see the heavy door before him close. His mouth still hung open in disbelief when the next salvo landed where it needed to be. He would have died from most wounds the grenade produced but a small fragment managed to lodge in his brain stem, ending Mehmet`s life quickly and painlessly.

Kaman Sala Palace, five weeks later

Hassan III, the benevolent, looked much better than the first time Henrik Gerber had met him. Some weight had already returned, he wore clothes that were in best order and he had obviously been bathed pedicured and manicured. The goblet in his hand would probably pay the food for a small village for several years and the rings on his hand represented even more wealth. The party all around him was rather understated as his guests` sensibilities had to be respected. He also looked bone-weary which was hardly surprising after a week of long negotiations.

"Friend Gerber, to the treaty."
"To the treaty Friend Hassan."
"I really hope this works as your people promise Henrik. This place with no slaves? Who will do the work?"
"Those you pay for it. But a lot of it will be much easier soon when the GTZ arrives. They will help with better wells and will bring your farmers up to speed."
"So you say. And you really believe there is a market for oranges and lemons in this place of legends, this Germany?"
"Oh, for sure it is. But really Hassan, you have to learn to make do without slaves and stop doing business with the pirates. Or we will be back and bring some friends too."