"Boarders!" Alston roared through the smoke. "Boarders!"

The sides of the ships slammed together; grapnels flew, and crew-folk ran out along the spars to lash them together. Armed Guard crew were spilling out of the gun deck, and a column of Marines with their bayonets glittering.

"Boarders away!" Alston shouted. "Follow me!" Then she was on the rail, leaping, the slamming punch of impact through her boot soles as she came down on the lower deck of the Tartessian. A shambles, running with blood, dead and wounded everywhere, but more live ones coming at her. Another thud beside her-Swindapa, stumbling slightly on the slippery planks and going down to one knee. A Tartessian sailor lunged at her with a boarding pike, its long steel head a cold glitter in the rain.

Alston pulled the.40 Python from her right hip and shot him in the face at three pace's distance; he fell backward with a round red hole in the bridge of his nose, the back blown out of his skull. One man down, two, another, a miss, and the weapon clicked empty. She threw it into the face of the next and her hands went over her left shoulder and swept out her katana, cutting down with the same motion. Ruin flopped at her feet.

Swindapa had done likewise, lunging with a shriek. More Chamberlains were all around her, a tangled, tumbling melee for an instant, and then the enemy were down. She walked over to the shattered wheel, cut the line that held the Tartessian colors, and a crewman ran the Stars and Stripes up to the mizzen. A Tartessian lying with one hand pressed over a seeping redness on his stomach was holding out his sword to her in the other.

"Sur-r-ender," he gasped. "Not kill… any more… my people…"

Alston nodded; their eyes met, and for a moment she felt a kindred grief touch hers.

"Surrender!" she called, and the wounded man added his croak, calling loud enough to bring a grimace of pain.

Fighting died down and ceased. Middies and petty officers got the enemy rounded up and below, sent parties to secure the magazine. Alston looked westward, to where the sun was inclining behind the gray scudding wrack of cloud. The next Tartessian ship had struck as well, the flag of the Republic fluttering from the maintop and the Lincoln fast alongside. The one behind was rolling mastless as the Sheridan fired another broadside into her at point-blank range.

She took a deep breath. "Let's go finish this mess up," she said.

"In the name of the Council and People of the Republic of Nantucket, this Town Meeting will now come to order."

Jared Cofflin cleared his throat. Ian and Doreen had talked him into that one, then laughed every time they heard it. So had Martha, and so had Marian. Swindapa and I were the only ones left out of the joke. Eventually they'd looked it up. Senatus Populusquae Roma-SPQR, the letters on the standards of the Roman Republic, "the Senate and the People of Rome." Very funny.

The new Town Meeting hall was a lot bigger than the high school auditorium where they'd met for the first few years after the Event. It needed to be. Besides the increase in the population, attendance was way up. The issues decided here were a lot more important these days.

The new hall was out Madaket Road, west of town, not far from the old animal hospital, which given the occasionally zoo-like features of a Meeting, wasn't entirely out of place. It was a huge, timber-framed, barnlike structure, oak and white pine on a poured-slab foundation; the interior was unadorned save for the lovely curly maple of the bleacher-type seating that surrounded the semicircular stage on three sides.

Behind the speaker's podium were more benches, where councilors and their staffs sat; behind them, covering the wall and as large as a medium-sized topsail, was Old Glory. Martha was sitting beside him on the foremost bench, and Marian Alston on the other, stiffly, with her billed cap on her knees.

Sotto voce she muttered, "We could have had another frigate for the price of this place."

He nodded, more an acknowledgment of what she'd said than agreement. They'd needed a new place for the Town Meeting, too.

Especially today. There were going on three thousand crowded in here, jammed onto benches that normally seated around two-thirds that, and sitting in the aisles as well. The rustle and murmur filled the shadows under the great beams of the roof, and there was a faint tang of animal rage in their scent.

Prelate Gomez walked to the podium and said a brief prayer. That got them quiet, and he went on, "Now we will have a minute of silence for those who fell defending their homes, families, and children."

Silence absolute and complete, except for a quickly hushed baby or two. Ninety-seven people had died during the long day of invasion, heavy losses for a community their size. That over a thousand Tartessians and their mercenaries had also died was very little consolation.

"O Lord God, let Thy wisdom descend on this gathering today, as Your Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles. Let us deliberate with that wisdom, and with humility and loving kindness; banish fear and hatred from our hearts, that we may seek only what is best and pleasing in Thy sight. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen."

Amen, Cofflin thought, as the same murmur ran through the citizens packed on the benches. But I'd bet we're going to have a fair bit of hate and fear here today.

He gave the stout little Portuguese American cleric a nod as they passed. Even if he hadn't liked the man, he'd have made an effort to be polite. In theory the constitution mandated a strict separation of church and state. In practice, with about nine-tenths of the believers in a single denomination, its head necessarily had substantial influence. Believers in God, that was, and not counting followers of Moon Woman and Diawas Pithair.

"Citizens of the Republic," he began. "The first item on the Warrant is a declaration of war against the Kingdoms of Tartessos and Mycenae and any allies they may have. Is the wish of the Sovereign People that a state of war exist between those two kingdoms and the Republic of Nantucket?"

The answer was a storming wall of sound that made him wish he could flatten his ears like a horse, or at least take a step backward. He let it run its course, waiting until it was dying of its own accord before raising a hand.

"Passed by acclamation," he said.

And that'll make a number of things simpler, he thought. The constitution also gave the chief executive officer a good deal more authority in wartime; he could mobilize the militia, for instance; commandeer ships and other property for another.

"Next item: disposition of the enemy prisoners of war."

A low savage growl went through the Meeting. Cofflin stepped aside for a moment and made a gesture with his hand. Marian Alston walked up to the podium. There was a cheer for her, and Cofflin reflected again how lucky the Republic was that Alston had not an iota of political ambition. Now she stared balefully at the crowd until the noise died.

"All those enemy personnel guilty of violations of the laws of war have been punished," she said flatly. "All remaining prisoners of war will be treated according to the laws of war or I will resign my commission."

That stopped the mutters of "Hang 'em all!" dead in their tracks; Cofflin grinned behind the bony Yankee dolor of his usual expression. Marian went on:

"And morality aside, mistreating prisoners is very stupid. It discourages people from surrendering. Now. We came through this as well as we did because we took precautions."

There was an uneasy shifting on the benches; Cofflin knew that was memories of how he and Marian and the others had had to beg and plead and wheedle to get the necessary money and supplies voted.

"Those precautions were adequate-but only just adequate. If it hadn't rained"-Cofflin nodded; flintlocks didn't like rain-"it might have taken several days and substantially higher casualties to mop up the enemy forces. Now we're in a war, and it's a big, serious war, and I can tell you that half measures are a really bad idea. I suggest that we all reflect on that."